A Man Lay Dead by Ngaio Marsh Page B

Handesley emphatically. “Rosamund is a young woman of character; she is most unlikely to give in to her nerves. The sooner the Inspector gets through his job, the better for all of us.”
    “I wish everyone else felt the same way about it,” said Alleyn. “I won’t be ten minutes, Doctor Young.” And he went upstairs without waiting for the little doctor to answer him.
    In response to his knock at her door, Rosamund Grant called out in her usual strong, rather deep voice. He went in and found her lying in bed. Her face was terribly white, and all the colour seemed to have been drained out of her lips. But she was cool enough when she saw who her visitor was, and invited him to sit down.
    “Thank you,” said Alleyn. He drew up a small armchair, and seated himself between the bed and the window.
    “I’m sorry you are laid up, Miss Grant,” he said in his matter-of-fact way, “and sorrier still to disturb you. I have often wondered which is the more indecently preposterous job — a detective’s or a journalist’s.”
    “You should compare notes with Nigel Bathgate,” rejoined Rosamund Grant. “Not,” she added wearily, “that he has been trying to get stories out of us. I suppose even the keenest journalist does not try to make copy out of his cousin’s murder, especially when he happens to be his cousin’s heir.”
    “Mr. Bathgate is the only member of this household from whom I have definitely withdrawn suspicion,” said Alleyn.
    “Indeed,” she answered harshly. “And do I head the list of suspects, Inspector Alleyn?”
    Alleyn recrossed his legs and appeared to deliberate. Had a third person been there at Rosamund Grant’s bedside, he might have thought to himself how strangely secret are the thoughts of human beings. Impossible to read what mental agonies tormented the mind of this pale and harsh woman. Impossible to see behind the shadowy face of the detective into the pigeon-holes of his brain.
    “I think,” he said at last, “I think you were ill-advised to mislead me at the mock trial this morning. That sort of thing creates a very bad impression. Far better to tell me where you went after your bath last night. You did not go to your room. Florence saw you returning to it from somewhere along the corridor. Miss Grant — where had you been?”
    “Has it not occurred to you that — that there might be a perfectly natural and obvious explanation that it would have embarrassed me to give at our mock trial?” said Rosamund.
    “Oh, nonsense,” answered Alleyn crisply. “You are not the type to recoil upon Victorian gentility with a charge of this sort under discussion. That I don’t believe. Tell me where you went, Miss Grant. I cannot force you to answer, but I do earnestly advise you to do so.”
    Silence.
    “Then tell me,” said Alleyn, “with whom you went walking in the woods, wearing your red cap, and weeping so bitterly.”
    “I can’t tell you,” said Rosamund fiercely. “I can’t— I can’t.”
    “As you please.” Alleyn appeared to be suddenly indifferent. “Perhaps before I go you will let me have a few more details about yourself.” He produced his note-book. “How long have you known Mr. Rankin?”
    “Six years.”
    “Quite a long friendship — you could have scarcely been grown up when you first met.”
    “I was at Newnham; Charles was nearly twenty years older than I.”
    “At Newnham?” said Alleyn, politely interested. “You must have been up with a cousin of mine — Christina Alleyn.”
    Rosamund Grant waited for some seconds before she answered him.
    “Yes,” she said at last, “yes — I remember her, I think.”
    “She is a fully fledged chemist now,” he told her, “and lives in an ultra-modern flat in Knightsbridge. Well, I shall be flayed alive by Doctor Young if I stay here any longer.” He got up and stood over the bed. “Miss Grant,” he said, “be advised by me. Think it over. I shall come here to-morrow. Make up your mind to