“This is Mr. Snell of Scotland Yard, Winnie,” George explained hurriedly. “He says Lady Rawson rang up our number—5339—just before she was murdered. They’ve got it down in the post office book, and she must have been speaking at the very moment——”
“Lady Rawson! Our number!” gasped Winnie, in utter surprise and perplexity.
“Did you expect to receive a message from her, Miss Winston?” Snell inquired.
“I? Certainly not; why, I’ve never spoken to her in my life, though I expected to meet her to-day at my friend’s wedding. You don’t know her either, do you, George?” she added, turning to her brother.
“I’ve been to her receptions once or twice, but I’ve never exchanged a dozen words with her,” George asserted truthfully. “And I can’t imagine why she should have rung us up. I doubt if she even knew that my sister and I were to be at the wedding to-day or that we’re old friends of Carling and Miss Armitage—Mrs. Carling I mean, of course.”
“Yet Mr. Carling has been on intimate terms—like a member of the family—with Sir Robert and Lady Rawson,” Snell remarked.
“With Sir Robert,” Winston corrected. “Lady Rawson was always quite kind, I believe; and I know she asked Miss Armitage to her house once or twice; but she never showed any real interest in either of them—no personal friendship, don’t you know! At least so I’ve gathered from Carling,” he added, wondering the while what the detective was driving at.
“Then you think it unlikely that, assuming that she wished to speak to Mr. Carling on the telephone, she would expect to find him here?”
“I’m quite sure she wouldn’t,” said George, and Winnie, nodding a confirmatory assent, added:
“Besides, she wouldn’t expect him to be anywhere just then except at the church or on his way there. Not if the time is given rightly in the paper. It said she went into the office about half-past one.”