"I suppose you have come principally to see Mr. Henson?" she said. "But my sister—"
"No occasion to intrude upon your grief for a moment, Miss Henson," Walker said, quietly. "As I have told you before, there was very little hope for your sister from the first. It was a melancholy satisfaction to me to find my diagnosis confirmed in every detail by so eminent an authority as Dr. Hatherly Bell. I will give you a certificate with pleasure—at once."
"You would like to see my sister?" Enid suggested.
The quivering anxiety was in her eyes again, the strained look on her face. Walker was discreetly silent as to what he had heard about that bloodhound, but he had by no means forgotten it.
"Not the least occasion, I assure you," he said, fervently. "Your sister had practically passed away when I last saw her. There are times when—er—you see—but really there is no necessity."
"Mr. Henson is terribly fastidious about these things."
"Then he shall be satisfied. I shall tell him that I have—er—seen the body. And I have, you know. In these matters a medical man cannot be too careful. If you will provide me with pen and ink—"
"Thank you very much. Will you come this way, please?"
Walker followed into the drawing-room. Mrs. Henson, wearing something faded and dishevelled in the way of a mourning dress, was crooning some dirge at the piano. Her white hair was streaming loosely over her shoulders, there was a vacant stare in her eyes. The intruders might have been statues for all the heed she took of them. Presently the discordant music ceased, and she began to pace noiselessly up and down the room.
"Another one gone," she murmured; "the best-beloved. It is always the best-beloved that dies, and the one we hate that is left. Take all those coaches away, send the guests back home. Why do they come chattering and feasting here? She shall be drawn by four black horses to Churchfield in the dead of the night, and there laid in the family vault."