“You look tired, child,” said her hostess. “Was it very dull at Miss Allen’s?”
“It wasn’t dull,” answered Lady Cynthia slowly. “Anything but.”
She stood by the fire warming her hands in silence; then, abruptly, as if she had come to a sudden decision, she drew herself up and faced the room.
“You’ll hear it to-morrow, so I may as well tell you now,” she cried with a ring of defiance in her voice. “Mrs. Draycott was killed this afternoon. She was found shot in John’s sitting-room at the farm.”
Chapter IV
Sir Edward Kean’s separation from his wife was to prove shorter than he had anticipated. On the local train which dawdled its lazy way to Whitbury he dozed fitfully, only to have the fumes of sleep drastically swept from his brain by the biting wind that met him as he stepped onto the platform at the Junction. The journey from Staveley was always a tedious one, with its change from the slow train to the London express at Whitbury and the long wait at Carlisle where the dining-car was picked up. This, however, was the only long stop and after a passable dinner Sir Edward was able to settle down to a long evening’s work, being one of those fortunate people who can concentrate their minds as easily in a crowded train as in the seclusion of their studies.
He alighted at Euston probably having slept less than any of his fellow travellers and looking infinitely less jaded. Also he had got through all the work he had intended to do on the journey and was ready for a strenuous morning at his Chambers. His wife had been right in saying that only a man with an iron constitution could have stood the pressure under which he lived.
He drove straight to his house in Westminster, where breakfast was awaiting him and then, after a bath and change of clothes, took a taxi to his Chambers.
“Farrer, ring up Mr. Carter and tell him I should like to see him before he goes into Court,” he called to his head clerk as he hurried to his room.
“You know the case is postponed, Sir Edward?” ventured the old man nervously. He had not expected Kean until late in the evening and was uncomfortably aware now that he should have wired instead of writing about the postponement of the case.