THE CRYSTAL BEADS MURDER (Murder Mystery for Inspector Stoddart). Annie Haynes
remember the night of Thursday?"
Lady Medchester nodded and put her handkerchief up to her trembling lips.
"Of course I do. I--I wish I could forget it. But I can't. I never shall."
"You had a dinner-party that night, I understand?"
"Of course we had. You know that. Lord Medchester told you about it," Lady Medchester returned impatiently. She put down her handkerchief, on which two dabs of lipstick were plainly visible, and started twisting it about in her fingers.
"Could you tell us all you know about Mr. Saunderson?"
"Well, it wasn't so much really," she began, and Harbord wondered whether he was mistaken or whether there really was the shadow of a great fear in the big, pale eyes with their bistre-tinted eyelashes and eyebrows. "I met him in town this last season fairly often, and we stayed in the same house for Goodwood."
"He was an agreeable, pleasant sort of man, I understand?"
"Oh, very. I was quite pleased when my husband asked him to join our party for Doncaster."
Inspector Stoddart consulted his notebook.
"I take it that you found him quite an agreeable visitor? But that when he left you had no particular reason to expect to see him in the neighbourhood again?"
"No, not the least." Lady Medchester's tone was growing more assured now. "I simply could not believe it when I heard he had been found dead in the summer-house," she added.
"You have not the least idea what brought him to Holford?"
"I cannot imagine. The only thing I can think of is"--she stopped and swallowed something in her throat--"that he had some important news for my husband, something about the horses, perhaps, and came down to see him. Perhaps he knew of the short-cut from the village that brings you out by the rosery. Then perhaps some poacher met him and shot him."
"But why should Saunderson be in the village?" Stoddart questioned.
Lady Medchester shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know. I do not pretend to explain everything. That is the only thing I have been able to think of."
"I see." The inspector consulted his notes again. "Now, Lady Medchester, I am sure you will understand that this is merely a formality--can you tell me just what you were doing between nine and ten o'clock on the night of Thursday?"
Once more there was that odd trembling of the lips, the curious light eyes avoided his.
"I was with my visitors, of course. I don't know that I can tell you any more."
"Perhaps you played bridge?" Stoddart suggested.
"No, I didn't. As a matter of fact, I had rather a headache and I didn't feel quite up to cards. We had some music in the drawing-room and I was there most of the evening. But of course I went backwards and forwards to the card-room and the hall two or three times just to see how people were getting on."
"I wonder whether you could tell me if Mrs. Williamson and Miss Courtenay were playing cards?"
Lady Medchester hesitated.
"I--I think Mrs. Williamson was. Miss Courtenay I know was not. She said"--with a perceptible hesitation--"she had a headache and went up to her room immediately after dinner."
The inspector made an entry in his notebook.
"And Mr. Courtenay?"
Lady Medchester wrinkled her eyebrows as if trying to remember.
"I don't remember seeing much of him. He was playing bridge for some little time. But not, I think, all the time you mention. Probably he was in the billiard-room."
"In the billiard-room, I thank you," Stoddart said politely. He waited a minute, then he dived into his pocket and produced the crystal beads. "Have you ever seen this before, Lady Medchester?"
She leaned forward and looked at it, hiding her eyes.
"I don't think so," she said slowly, her mouth setting in a hard line. "I am not sure, though. It seems somehow familiar. But, then, so many people wear this sort of thing nowadays."
"It is not yours?"
"Certainly not!" Lady Medchester smiled with regained composure. "It is not at all valuable," she added with a certain contempt in her tone.
"So I imagined." The inspector dropped the beads in his pocket. "Thank you, and I shall be obliged if you will say nothing about the beads. That is all for this morning. I should like a few words with Miss Courtenay."
Lady Medchester got up. "I will send her to you. She is expecting the summons. Lord Medchester told us both you wanted us. But Miss Courtenay will not have much time to spare," she added as the inspector opened the door. "Her grandfather, whom you may have heard of, had a stroke, and the doctors do not give us much hope. He is not so well this morning."
"I am sorry to hear that," the inspector said politely. He waited until she had got out of hearing. "Rather a daisy, isn't she? I don't know that I envy Lord Medchester his wife."
"I don't, anyway," Harbord said bluntly. "I don't envy anybody his wife. Mostly a damned nuisance, it seems to me."
The inspector looked at him.
"What! Turning misanthrope? This business is enough to make one of any man. Some damn fool of a woman is always at the bottom of it."
Anne Courtenay did not keep them waiting. She looked a curious contrast to Lady Medchester in her plain, black frock, which just left her pretty, rounded throat bare. Yet a curious look came into Stoddart's eyes as he set a chair for her so that her face was well in the light, while he himself remained in the shadow nearer the fireplace.
"I am very sorry to trouble you in the circumstances, Miss Courtenay," the inspector began. "But I am sure you will understand that I have no choice in the matter. I will keep you only a few minutes."
Anne bent her head.
"It is no matter," she said quietly. "The nurses are with my grandfather. I am only allowed to see him for a few minutes at a time."
"Then I will begin at once by asking you to tell me how much you knew of Mr. Saunderson."
"Very little," Anne returned, raising her eyes to the inspector's face. "He was kind to my brother and they were very friendly, but I am very little in town and naturally did not see much of him."
"He never visited the General?" Stoddart hazarded.
Anne shook her head. "My grandfather receives very few visitors, only quite old friends."
"I take it that you and Mr. Saunderson were strangers when you met at the house-party here for the Doncaster races?"
"No, not quite that. I believe"--Anne hesitated a minute--"that I first met Mr. Saunderson when I was staying with Lady Medchester last spring, but I saw very little of him."
"And at the house-party here?"
"Well, naturally I saw more of him then." She paused and then went on more quickly. "I may as well say at once that it was as little as I could help, for I did not like Mr. Saunderson at all, though he was a friend of my brother's, and though perhaps I ought not to say so now he is dead."
"Oh, I quite understand," the inspector said sympathetically. "Mr. Saunderson does not seem to have been a general favourite. I suppose you did not expect to see him again when the party for the St. Leger broke up?"
"I hoped I should not," Anne said candidly. "I did not think Mr. Saunderson's influence did my brother any good."
"Will you tell me just what you were doing after dinner last Thursday night?" As he spoke the inspector produced his notebook and laid it on the table.
Anne considered a moment.
"I had a headache," she said slowly, "and it was hot downstairs, and all the talking at dinnertime made it worse. So I went up to my room and