Anthony thought for a moment. "Yes, and no. When he got green about the gills, I said I hoped he hadn't had bad news. I don't mind telling you that he looked pretty tucked up. Well, he gave a sort of start and folded up the letter, and said in a forced kind of way that it wasn't exactly bad, but rather disturbing. It certainly disturbed him all right. And the funny thing, is…' He stopped, and a frown descended upon his cherubic countenance. He looked at Amberley, evidently considering something, and said abruptly: "Look here, I will tell you. I really don't much mind about the esprit de corps muck. He may be my blinking host, but the way he treats Joan gets me bang in the gizzard. The letter that shocked him so came from a private detective agency. I happen to know, because he sat with it in his hand, staring at it, and when I looked up, the heading across the top of the sheet caught my eye."
"I see," said Amberley slowly. "And it upset him. H'm!" "Don't tell us what you've thought of, will you?" said Felicity scathingly.
"No, my sweet, I won't."
"Well, you may think it helps towards solving the mystery," said Anthony, "but as far as I can see it merely adds to it. The thing is getting like pea-soup. If you're trying to implicate Brother Basil I admit it's a kindly thought, but it won't work. I should simply have to come forward and say he was in my company at the time the murder was committed."
"As a matter of fact," said Amberley, "I wasn't thinking of the murder."
Next morning he learned that Basil Fountain seemed to have more or less recovered from the shock of the news he had received, but that there had been some sort of row with Collins. For this piece of information Amberley was indebted to Joan Fountain, who walked over to Greythorne with Corkran partly to exercise a couple of terriers and partly to bring Felicity a book she had promised to lend her. Joan looked pale after the previous day's indisposition, and it seemed to Amberley that her smile was a little mechanical. Usually reserved, she had lowered her barriers slightly and made only a small attempt to check Felicity's freely expressed opinion of her stepbrother.
It was plain that she clung rather pathetically to Corkran's reassuring presence. For her, the root of all evil lay in the manor, nor did she disguise the fact that from the first she had had an uncontrollable aversion from it. It spelled discomfort, prying eyes, mystery, and her brother's worst moods. She did not try to explain what she felt, or to apologise for her unreason. She thought every house had an atmosphere peculiar, each one, to itself. At Greythorne, for instance, was only happiness and warm kindliness. But the manor brooded over past sins and past tragedies. It was secret, and so still that depression met one at its very door.
Into these psychic realms neither Corkran nor Amberley could follow her, yet each of them had felt the tension that preyed so much on her spirits. In Corkran's opinion it was not the house which was at fault, but its inmates, by which he meant the master and the valet. Joan shook her head; perhaps she and Basil had never had much in common, but until they came to the manor there had never been such friction as now existed. The manor had had its effect on him as well as on her. As for the valet… She gave a shiver and was silent.
Upon hearing the row in full swing in Fountain's study that morning Anthony had cherished hopes of the valet's departure. What had passed between them was not known, but Joan thought Collins was objecting to his extra duties. They had heard Fountain's voice raised angrily, and later they had seen Collins come out of the study with his mouth shut in a hard, thin line, but although Fountain had said that the valet was becoming insufferable, and by God, he had a good mind to sack him, nothing had been done. Instead, Fountain had gone up to town to interview a prospective butler.
It was proving as difficult as he had feared to fill Dawson's place. The only candidates who had so far applied for the post were quite ineligible, while the few suitable men whose names had been sent to Fountain by Finch's Registry Office did not care to come to a house which was situated seven miles from the nearest town and nearly two from the main road. However, the registry office had rung up at teatime the previous day to inform Fountain that a fresh applicant had appeared, who did not seem to mind the manor's out-of-the-way position. He had gone up to interview the man, and if he, like the rest, was no good, he was going to insert an advertisement in the Morning Post.