There was, of course, a description of the hatpin, which was eight inches long, with a flat, circular head of silver about the size of a shilling and a three-sided or three-cornered blade of steel that tapered off to a very fine point—an unusual hatpin that more resembled a silver-headed skewer or stiletto. It had been driven into the body so that the head was close up to the white shirt-front—as far as it would go, in fact—but any bleeding had apparently been internal, since there was none discernible either on the exterior of the body or on the clothing.
I made a careful note of the times. Tulmin had last seen his master alive at about 11.30. It was 11.53 when the girl tapped at my window. When I had read the newspaper story I sent for Martha Helter, my housekeeper.
“Who is Lady Clevedon?” I asked her, “and what relation is Miss Kitty Clevedon to Sir Philip?”
“It is a little bit complicated, you see,” she said, seating herself on the extreme edge of a big arm-chair. “Lady Clevedon is the widow of the late baronet who died some years ago—before the war, anyway. She was Miss Ursula Hapforth before her marriage, and when her husband died she went back to Hapforth House, which had been left her by her father, whose only child she was. The Hapforths are older than the Clevedons in these parts.”
“But perhaps not so wealthy?”
“Oh, I don’t know for that. They have plenty of money.”
“And this Sir Philip—was he her son?”
But I recollected that her attitude had been anything but that of a bereaved mother when I saw her a short time before.
“No, she never had any children,” Martha told me.
“Oh, then—but go on, Martha.”