The red-headed constable went out and Fox stared at Alleyn. “We get some unexpected chaps in the force these days,” he said. “In your time, sir, you were a bit of a rarity. Now they go round splitting foreign tongues all over the place. Did you know he spoke French?”
“I did, as it happened, Br’er Fox.”
“I must get him to try some on me,” said Fox with his air of simplicity. “I don’t get on as fast as I’d like.”
“You’re getting on very nicely. Here she comes. Or rather, I fancy, here they come. I think I hear the voices of the medical gents.”
The door opened and the curious procession came in.
II
And now Alleyn faced the woman whom he had previously begun to think of as his principal witness. It was his practice to discourage in himself any imaginative speculation, but on seeing her he could not escape the feeling that with the belated appearance of Lady Wutherwood the case had darkened. She was, he thought, such a particularly odd-looking woman. She sat very still at the foot of the table and stared at him with remarkable fixedness. The presence of Dr. Kantripp, and of the nurse and the maid, lent an air of preposterous consequence to the scene. Lady Wutherwood might almost have been holding some sort of audience. There was no doubt that she was antagonistic, but she had asked to see Alleyn and he decided that he would wait for her to open the conversation; and so it fell out that Lady Wutherwood and Alleyn, for perhaps half a minute, contemplated each other in silence across the long table.
At last she spoke. Her deep voice was unemphatic, her enunciation so level as to suggest that English was not her native tongue.
“When,” asked Lady Wutherwood, “will my husband’s body be given to me? They have taken him away. He must return.”
“If you wish it,” said Alleyn, “certainly.”