I had apparently succeeded in a very risky undertaking.
I left a card at Mrs. Goodsall’s with my deepest sympathy. The servant informed me she was quite prostrated, and I was made somewhat uncomfortable by hearing sounds of sobbing from the second storey of the tiny house.
At the Gascoynes’, where I was to dine, I found the household in the deepest gloom. The tragedy seemed to have brought back something of the bitterness of their own grief. It was too similar in its horror to the death of the two young Gascoynes to be much discussed. We avoided gloomy topics with an almost hysterical earnestness, but it is extraordinary how matters of that kind will obtrude themselves when they are desired not to do so. Left alone with Mr. Gascoyne, however, the constraint passed and we talked freely.
“Just one of those things that are quite inexplicable. The fire brigade authorities do not agree with the theory that a live coal must have dropped out of the grate. They think the fire originated at the other end of the room, and that it must have been a cigarette or something of the kind.”
“It doesn’t matter much what it was, does it?”
“Of course not; only one cannot help travelling round a case like that and looking at it from every point of view. I called there this afternoon.”
“And I was there this evening.”
“Did you see Lord Gascoyne?”
“No.”
“He was there when I called, and seemed terribly upset. He kept on saying, ‘Poor Uncle Ughtred!’ and ‘He was the life and soul of everything.’ ”