“Your sister?” exclaimed Tommy.
“Yes, Gilda’s my sister. Didn’t she tell you?”
Tommy stared at her open mouthed. The thing seemed fantastically impossible. Then he remembered that the angelic beauty of Gilda Glen had been in evidence for many years. He had been taken to see her act as quite a small boy. Yes, it was possible after all. But what a piquant contrast. So it was from this lower middle class respectability that Gilda Glen had sprung. How well she had guarded her secret!
“I am not yet quite clear,” he said. “Your sister is married?”
“Ran away to be married as a girl of seventeen,” said Miss Honeycott succinctly. “Some common fellow far below her in station. And our father a reverend. It was a disgrace. Then she left her husband and went on the stage. Play acting! I’ve never been inside a theatre in my life. I hold no truck with wickedness. Now, after all these years, she wants to divorce the man. Means to marry some big wig, I suppose. But her husband’s standing firm-not to be bullied and not to be bribed-I admire him for it.”
“What is his name?” asked Tommy suddenly.
“That’s an extraordinary thing now, but I can’t remember! It’s nearly twenty years ago, remember, since I heard it. My father forbade it to be mentioned. And I’ve refused to discuss the matter with Gilda. She knows what I think, and that’s enough for her.”
“It wasn’t Reilly, was it?”
“Might have been. I really can’t say. It’s gone clean out of my head.”
“The man I mean was here just now.”
“That man! I thought he was an escaped lunatic. I’d been in the kitchen giving orders to Ellen. I’d just got back into this room, and was wondering whether Gilda had come in yet (she has a latch key) when I heard her. She hesitated a minute or two in the hall and then went straight upstairs. About three minutes later, all this tremendous rat tatting began. I went out into the hall, and just saw a man rushing upstairs. Then there was a sort of cry upstairs and presently down he came again and rushed out like a madman. Pretty goings on.”
Tommy rose.
“Mrs. Honeycott, let us go upstairs at once. I am afraid-”
“What of?”
“Afraid that you have no red wet paint in the house.”
Mrs. Honeycott stared at him.
“Of course I haven’t.”
“That is what I feared,” said Tommy gravely. “Please let us go to your sister’s room at once.”
Momentarily silenced, Mrs. Honeycott led the way. They caught a glimpse of Ellen in the hall, backing hastily into one of the rooms.
Mrs. Honeycott opened the first door at the top of the stairs. Tommy and Tuppence entered close behind her.
Suddenly she gave a gasp and fell back.
A motionless figure in black and ermine lay stretched on the sofa. The face was untouched, a beautiful soulless face like a mature child asleep. The wound was on the side of the head, a heavy blow with some blunt instrument had crushed in the skull. Blood was dripping slowly onto the floor, but the wound itself had long since ceased to bleed. . .
Tommy examined the prostrate figure his face very white
“So,” he said at last, “he didn’t strangle her after all.”
“What do you mean? Who?” cried Mrs. Honeycott. “Is she dead?”
“Oh! yes, Mrs. Honeycott, she’s dead. Murdered. The question is-by whom? Not that it is much of a question. Funny-for all his ranting words, I didn’t think the fellow had got it in him.”
He paused a minute, then turned to Tuppence with decision.
“Will you go out and get a policeman, or ring up the police station from somewhere?”
Tuppence nodded. She, too, was very white. Tommy led Mrs. Honeycott downstairs again.
“I don’t want there to be any mistake about this,” he said. “Do you know exactly what time it was when your sister came in?”
“Yes, I do,” said Mrs. Honeycott. “Because I was just setting the clock on five minutes as I have to do every evening. It gains just five minutes a day. It was exactly eight minutes past six by my watch, and that never loses or gains a second.”