“She told me so.” Henry said nothing. “In plain words,” said Alleyn, “do you think Lady Wutherwood is insane and killed her husband?”
“I don’t see how one can possibly know,” said Henry slowly. “I think she’s mad.”
“That’s an honest speech,” said Alleyn unexpectedly. Henry looked up, quickly. “I think she’s mad, too,” Alleyn said, “but like you I don’t know if she killed her husband. I wonder if we hesitate for the same reason. It seems strange to me that a woman who murdered her husband should demand his body.”
“I know,” said Henry quickly, “but if she’s mad—”
“There’s always that, of course. But to me it doesn’t quite fit. Nor to you, I think?”
“To me,” said Henry impatiently, “nothing fits. The whole thing’s a nightmare. I know none of us did it and that’s all I do know. I can’t think either of their servants are murderers. Giggle’s been with them since he was a kid. He’s a mild, stupid man and plays trains with Mike. Tinkerton is objectionable on the general grounds that she’s got a face like a dead flounder and smells of hair combings. Perhaps she killed him.”
“We’d get on a good deal faster, of course,” Alleyn murmured, “if everybody spoke the flat truth.”
“Really? Don’t you think we’re telling the truth?”
“Hardly any of you except your brother Michael. Of course we have to be polite and make sympathetic, gullible noises but when all’s said and done it’s little but a hollow mockery. You’ll give yourselves away in time, and that’s the best we can hope for.”
“Do you often talk like this to your suspects? It seems very un-Yardlike to me,” said Henry lightly.