"Grumbling to you?"
"Well, not so much to me as to himself, if you take my meaning, sir. It was quite a habit with him to let off steam to me when any of the family had annoyed him."
"Seems to me all the family had annoyed him this time."
The valet hesitated. "Well, of course, Mr. Joseph had properly got under his skin, inviting a party down here for Christmas, and he took a regular dislike to Miss Dean, and he was angry with Miss Paula for making a fool of herself over a long-haired playwright - that's the way he put it, you understand - but it would not be fair to say that he was hot-up against Mr. Stephen. He used to hit it off very well with him."
"Are you telling me he hadn't quarrelled with Mr. Stephen?"
"No, I'm not. He was the kind who'd quarrel with his own mother. All I say is that he and Mr. Stephen understood one another and there wasn't a bit of ill-will between them."
"Oh!" said Hemingway, eyeing him strangely. "So you hadn't any reason to suppose that there was any kind of break between them on account of Miss Dean?"
"It would have blown over," Ford said, giving him back stare for stare.
"All right, that's all," said Hemingway curtly.
The Sergeant, who had listened silently to the whole of this interchange, said as soon as Ford had withdrawn: