"Don't ask me!" said Ermyntrude. "I don't trust him, that's all I know."
The Inspector said in a dry tone: "I see, madam. You have, I understand, a foreign gentleman staying in the house?"
Ermyntrude gave a start. "Alexis! If I hadn't forgotten him! That shows you the state my nerves are in!" Tears sprang to her eyes. "And I wanted everything to be so nice - a real glimpse of English country-house life! Oh dear, Mary, you know the trouble I took over Alexis's coming, and Wally being as disagreeable as he knew how! And as though it wasn't enough for him to carry on like he did, spoiling everything, but he must needs go and get himself murdered! Whatever will Alexis think?"
"Ah!" said the Inspector. "Mr. Carter, then, didn't like the foreign gentleman?"
"Oh, I don't know what he liked, but if you ask me he'd have liked him well enough if it hadn't been for all that silly fuss about the dog. It sort of put him against poor Alexis."
"Fuss about the dog?" repeated the Inspector, struggling to keep pace with Ermyntrude's erratic utterances.
Hugh, who had been listening entranced to these disclosures, met Mary's eye for a pregnant moment.
"Aunt Ermy, that can't possibly interest the Inspector," said Mary. "It has absolutely no bearing on the case!"
"I wouldn't be too sure of that, miss," said the Inspector darkly. "If there was some sort of a quarrel over the dog, foreign gentlemen not treating dumb animals the way we do, and Mr. Carter took exception to it, as well he might, it may have a very important bearing on the case, for we all know that foreigners are hasty-tempered, and take offence where none's intended. Mind you, I don't say.."
"The man's mad!" exclaimed Ermyntrude, her tears arrested by astonishment. "Whoever said there was a quarrell about the dog? The idea!"