“Yes, you. Sitting there, with them clustered round your great fat knees as if it were a bed-time story. Who do you think you are? Oie-Luk-Oie the Dream God, or what?”
“Well, sir,” said Fox placidly, “they asked me such awkward questions about this case that one way and the other I was quite glad to switch off onto some of the old ones. I said nothing but what was to your credit. They think you’re wonderful.”
“Like hell they do!” muttered Alleyn. “Where’s that doctor?”
“In with the dowager. I strolled along the passage but I couldn’t pick anything up. She seems to be shedding tears.”
“I wish to high heaven he’d give her a corpse-reviver and let her loose on us. I’ll go along and wait for him. I’ve told that P. C. to note down anything they said.”
“I hope he’ll keep his wits about him,” said Fox. “He’ll need ’em.
“He’s rather a bright young man,” said Alleyn. “I think he’ll be all right. I’ll tell you one thing about the Lampreys, Br’er Fox. They’re only mad nor’ nor’-west and then not so that you’d notice. They can tell a hawk from a handsaw, I promise you, or from a silver-plated meat skewer, if it comes to that. Get along to the dining-room. I’ll catch the doctor as he comes out and I’ll join you later.”
But as Alleyn crossed the landing he heard a muffled thump somewhere beneath him. He moved to the stairhead and looked down. Somebody was mounting the stairs, slowly, laboriously. He heard this person cross the landing of the flat beneath. He caught sight of a pancakelike hat, a pair of drooping shoulders, an uneven skirt. This new arrival assisted herself upstairs with her umbrella. That was the origin of the thumping sound. He heard breathing and another faint, sibilant noise. She appeared to be whispering to herself. A sentence of Henry’s came into Alleyn’s memory. He coughed. The toiling figure, now quite close, paid no attention. Alleyn coughed stertorously but to no effect. He moved so that his shadow fell across the stairs. The pancake hat tilted backwards, revealing a few strands of grey hair and a flushed elderly face wearing an expression of exhausted inquiry.
“Oh,” she whispered, “I didn’t see — The lift doesn’t seem to — Oh, I beg your pardon. I thought for a moment you were one of my nephews.”
Alleyn, remembering her name and praying no Lampreys would hear him and come out, said loudly “I’m so sorry if I startled you, Lady Katherine.”