Lady Barbara found herself repeating the words aloud, though no one listened to her. Now that disaster had come, she remembered her premonition; and it gave her a start over the others in recovering self-possession, so that she remained motionless instead of pathetically trying to charm the dead girl back to life. Only Webster and Summertown were making any show of keeping their heads. Madame Hilary had become hysterical; Lord Pennington, mottled and tremulous, was charging distractedly to and fro with a decanter of brandy; and Sonia Dainton, shrinking from the body, sobbed quietly to herself by the fire, while Sir Adolf towered over her, gesticulating with plump, white hands.
"Lock door," whispered Webster. "Tell 'em not s'much dam' row."
He felt the girl's pulse, hurried lumberingly into his bedroom and returned with a shaving-mirror, which he held before her lips. Then he closed the staring eyes and covered the face with a handkerchief.
"Heart failure," he pronounced. "Always had weak heart. Excitement. I tried stop her, you heard me try stop her!"
At the note of pleading in his voice, Madame Hilary's lamentations redoubled in vigour, this time in the unmistakable accent of Essex.
"Before get doctor, better decide story put up," Webster went on more collectedly. "Short and simple, I suggest. All having tea here——Said she was feeling tired——Went pale——Suddenly stopped middle sentence.... Less said about Madame Hilary, better. Best of all, send her away now. Know what coroners are."
At sound of the formidable word Lady Barbara clutched frantically at Summertown's elbow.
"Will there be an inquest?" she whispered.
"Can't help it. That's bad enough, but, if there's anything of a post mortem, we may find ourselves in the soup. 'Deceased died as result of sudden shock.' What shock? Why shock? I don't at all know that we can afford to let this woman go." He wrinkled his snub nose; and his cheerful, rather dissipated young face was grave. "Don't at all know," he repeated.
The ink-and-whitewash smell of the court came to life again in Lady Barbara's nostrils; and she heard the coroner once more urging the reporters like hounds on to their quarry. She would again appear side by side with Webster to explain away another gratuitous death. Twice in one year.... And it was not her fault.