"She said that, did she? Do you know anything about the General's first wife, Dinah?"
"No, that was why I asked Mrs. Twining. Even Fay never dared mention her to Arthur. Skeleton in the cupboard, you know. There isn't even a snapshot of her that I've ever discovered."
"You don't by any chance know what her name was?"
"No, of course not. Arthur expunged her from the records, so to speak. Why do you want to know?"
Harding held up an admonitory finger. "I'm asking the questions, not you," he said.
"Ha!" said Miss Fawcett, kindling. "Well, make the most of this interview, Detective-Inspector Harding."
"You can take it out of me as soon as I'm through with this case," promised Harding. "Let's come back to Mrs. Twining. When she went to the General's study how long was she away?"
"I don't know exactly. Quite a few minutes — somewhere between five and ten, I should think, because when she came back and told us Arthur had been murdered, I wondered why on earth she hadn't come back at once. Though, when I came to think it over, I saw it was much more like her to pull herself together first. I wish I knew what you were driving at. Kindly note the way I've phrased that. Not by any means a question, you perceive. Just a remark thrown out at random."
"Was she wearing gloves?"
"Yes, frightfully expensive ones," replied Dinah. "People of her generation nearly always do, only hers aren't the fat-white-woman-whom-nobody-loves kind at all."