“Soames?”
“Right.”
“Well, you’ll find the rest of us in the conservatory, waiting for both tea and you. Since the tragedy outside the Hall, the venue of tea has been shifted.”
“I suppose they could wait fifteen minutes for their feeding, if I suffered with them?”
“We have been in training for martyrdom all week. But what on earth is this rigmarole you’re going to put us through?”
“I want you to rehearse a little drama you have already performed without rehearsal.”
It was just that.
“I’m sorry if this is painful to some of you,” he said later in the conservatory. “But it’s vital. I need to check some observations, and there’s no way else. I’m awfully sorry to trouble you; really I am, but it’s my living, you know.” He gave a sly smile. “It’s my living, and it will help you to escape from here to-morrow. Is it a bargain?”
From the time Cosgrove left the Hall until Miss Lebetwood found him dying outside may have been an hour. We were asked to re-enact as precisely as possible our movements during the last quarter of this period.
“You would be asleep, sir, over by the gate-house, if I’m not mistaken,” said Heatheringham to Oxford. “I’ll let you off the sleeping. Just be on hand, if you don’t mind. You,” addressing Belvoir, “would be coming toward the towers and meeting Miss Mertoun and Lord Herbert. Presently you’d commence monkeying with the winch.” He spoke to me. “You were returning from the Delambre cottage, weren’t you? Doctor Aire and Mr. Maryvale must see you from the summer-house. I think you’ll all work into it.”