"Yes, I suppose I was," reflected Dinah. "Does that mean I'm not a suspect?" Even as she said the words she wished that she had not. She got up. "I'll take my coffee upstairs with me. I think this is all getting rather beastly I hadn't thought of that before. Not even when Halliday told us about being the last to see Arthur. I didn't seem to mean anything in particular, somehow. 1 suppose every one of us is more or less under suspicion.
"I shouldn't worry, if I were you," said Guest, opening the door. "Don't let Fay worry either. See?"
The afternoon was surely the most interminable ever spent at the Grange. It seemed to Dinah as though it would never end. The feeling of unreality grew. Fay remained shut in her room, and would admit no one; the Hallidays had also chosen to stay upstairs. Dawson was sobbing noisily as she went about her work. Geoflrey seemed unable to sit still; and Stephen, who sat perfectly quietly in the billiard-room and read the paper, seemed just as unnatural by reason of his very calm. Lola, after a protracted interview with the dazed but suspicioius Superintendent, had announced that it was important that she should rest between lunch and tea, and had gone upstairs for that purpose. Mrs. Twining remained in the drawing-room with Geoffrey, and Dr Raymond had been permitted to depart as soon as his statement had been carefully transcribed.
The Chief Constable, Major Grierson, arrived just before half past three in a large car with the Divisional Surgeon, a sergeant in plain clothes, and a photographer. He was a worried-looking man of about fifty, with a quick, fussy way of talking, and what appeared to be a chronic catarrh. He kept on dabbing at his thin nose with a ball of a handkerchief, and his conversation was punctuated by sniffs. He was met by the local Superintendent, and by Dinah, who happened to be in the hall when he arrived. He said: "This is a terrible business. Shocking, shocking! Knew the General quite — er — well. You're his sister-in-law? Quite. Now Superintendent, if you are ready… !"
He, and the doctor, the photographer, and the plainclothes man, who turned out to be the finger-print expert, all followed the Superintendent into the study, and remained there for a very long time.
At half past four Fay came downstairs. She had changed into a black frock, which had the effect of enhancing her pallor. Her eyes still had that strained, dilated look, as though they were haunted, but her manner was carefully controlled. She took her usual place behind the tea-tray, and said with an effort: "It was nice of you to stay, Julia. I'm afraid it has all been very — very horrid for you. I find I can't quite realise it yet. It doesn't seem to be possible, somehow. Have they — have they finished yet? Did they find anything to show — to give them any clue, do you know? I feel so certain myself that it must have been someone from outside. The windows were open, after all, and — Arthur made a great many enemies. Don't you think so, Julia? Don't you, Dinah?"
Geoffrey set down his cup and saucer with an unsteady hand. "I suppose you mean you think I did it?" he said. "Well, it may interest you to know that I wasn't anywhere near the house."
Fay looked distressed. "Oh no, no, I didn't mean that!" she said. "Of course I didn't mean that!" She looked up as Stephen Guest entered the room, and in that fleeting moment Dinah read the dread in her eyes. Then Fay said quietly: "Ah, here you are, Stephen. I was just going to ask Geoffrey to tell you tea was ready."
The Hallidays came in at that moment. Camilla had solved the problem of dress, apparently to her satisfaction, by putting on a brown frock instead of the pale blue one she had worn all the morning. She looked though she had been crying, and seemed rather subdued.
There was nothing subdued about Lola, who presently sailed into the room dressed in the deepest of mourning.