"What were you doing during that period?"
"Changing, in my room."
"Thank you, sir," said the Inspector, making a note.
"Done with me?" Stephen asked. "Dinner - probably spoilt by now, of course - is still before me, I would respectfully point out to you."
Cold-blooded devil! thought the Inspector. He said: "That will be all for the present."
Stephen walked out of the room. Joseph, who had been watching him with a good deal of anxiety, smiled at the Inspector, and said: "He doesn't mean the things he says, you know. The fact of the matter is he's very like my poor brother. Both of them hasty-tempered, and bitter tongued. A quick flare-up, and all over. Nothing sulky!"
The Inspector received this information politely if not very enthusiastically. He asked Joseph when he had last seen Nathaniel.
"Miss Clare and I must have been the last people to have seen him alive," Joseph answered. "Everyone else had gone upstairs. I was going up with him. I wanted to have a talk with him. Alas, that I did not!"
"How was that, sir?"
Joseph looked momentarily disconcerted, but apparently decided that since his tongue had betrayed him he must make the best of it. "To tell you the truth, Inspector, my brother was in a very bad temper, and I wanted to smooth him down! But he said he didn't want to talk. Well, I mustn't conceal anything, must I? I had stupidly left a step-ladder on the stairs, and my brother knocked it over, and - yes, he was very cross with me indeed! So I thought it wisest to let him cool off. Miss Clare and I went upstairs together a few minutes later."