Faith caught her breath on a strangled sob, and stared up into her face, terror in her dilated eyes. “Be quiet,” she repeated. “Yes, I must be quiet. I mustn’t say anything. This isn’t real. None of it happened. It couldn’t have happened. I’m not very well. I want Loveday.”
“All right.” Charmian spoke over her shoulder to Conrad: “We’d better get her up to her room. Give her your arm, will you?”
Faith allowed herself to be lifted to her feet. She staggered, and clung to Conrad, but she was able to walk to the door. Charmian, arming herself with the smelling salts and the brandy, prepared to follow, commanding Vivian, before she left the room, to find Loveday, tell her what had happened, and send her up to her mistress’s room.
“I could wish that Char hadn’t taken the brandy away,” said Aubrey, when the little cortege had withdrawn. “Really, I feel too dreadfully shaken myself! Because, if you want the truth, I never actually believed that Ray was the guilty one. And now I’m utterly dumbfounded at Faith’s wholly unexpected reaction to the news. I don’t want to be lewd, or even flippant, but is it possible that there was more between her and Ray than any of us guessed?”
“No, it isn’t!” snapped Vivian. “Though it’s just like you to suggest it! I could very easily start screaming myself. I suppose you think it’s merely funny!”
“Not in the least funny, sweet one. Definitely un-funny, in fact.”
“Just keep quiet, will you, Aubrey?” interposed Clifford. “Ingram, I think I’d better go down to the police-station at once. There will be various things — I take it you’d like me to act for you?”
“Damned good of you if you would, old man,” Ingram said. “You’ll know what ought to be done better than I should. Of course this puts the lid on the police investigation. Case is finished — and far better finished like this, than if — well, you know what I mean!”
“Did the Inspector tell you what Jimmy said, if he said anything?” asked Eugene.
“No, I didn’t ask him. I was so bowled over at the time I never even thought of it. It was only afterwards, when I was on my way up here, that I realised that that was what must have made Ray shoot himself. Knowing that Jimmy had been caught, and was going to spill the truth about his quarrel with Father, I mean. Well, I always thought that there was more to that than we were told.”