"Has the housekeeper come up, Hill?"
"No, madam. She will be up to-morrow with Miss Fewbanks."
"Well, is there nobody I can see?" asked Mrs. Holymead.
Police-Constable Flack was impressed by the spectacle of a beautiful fashionably-dressed lady in distress.
"The inspector in charge of the case is upstairs, madam," he suggested. "Perhaps you'd like to see him." It suddenly occurred to him that he had instructions not to allow any stranger into the house, and police instructions at such a time were of a nature which classed a friend of the family as a stranger. "Perhaps I'd better ask him first," he added, and he went upstairs with the feeling that he had laid himself open to severe official censure from Inspector Chippenfield.
He came downstairs with a smile on his face and the message that the inspector would be pleased to see Mrs. Holymead. In his brief interview with his superior he had contrived to convey the unofficial information that Mrs. Holymead was a fine-looking woman, and he had no doubt that Inspector Chippenfield's readiness to see her was due to the impression this information had made on his unofficial feelings.
Mrs. Holymead was conducted upstairs and announced by the butler. Inspector Chippenfield greeted her with a low bow of conscious inferiority, and anticipated Hill in placing a chair for her. His large red face went a deeper scarlet in colour as he looked at her.
"Flack tells me that you are a friend of the family, Mrs. Holymead. What is it that I can do for you? I need scarcely say, Mrs. Holymead, that your distinguished husband is well known to us all. I have had the pleasure of being cross-examined by him on several occasions. Anything you wish to know I'll be pleased to tell you, if it lies within my power."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Holymead.
She seemed to be slightly nervous in the presence of a member of the Scotland Yard police, in spite of his obvious humility in the company of a fashionable lady who belonged to a different social world from that in which police inspectors moved. It took Inspector Chippenfield some minutes to discover that the object of Mrs. Holymead's visit was to learn some of the details of the tragedy. As one who had known the murdered man for several years, and the wife of his intimate friend, she was overwhelmed by the awful tragedy. She endeavoured to explain that the crime was like a horrible dream which she could not get rid of. But in spite of the repugnance with which she contemplated the fact that a gentleman she had known so well had been shot down in his own house she felt a natural curiosity to know how the dreadful crime had been committed.