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"You understand that there will have to be an inquiry into the cause of Mrs. Croyle's death; and one wants for the sake of everybody, your dead mistress more than any one, that there should be as little talk as possible." Jenny's voice cut in like ice. "Mrs. Croyle had no reason that I know of to fear the fullest inquiry." "Quite so! Quite so!" returned Sir Chichester, shifting his ground.
Jenny Prask smiled. "You are Mr. Hillyard, I think?" "Yes." "I have heard my mistress speak of you." Hillyard knew enough of maids to understand that "mistress" was an unusual word with them. Here, it seemed, was a paragon of maids, who was quite content to be publicly Stella Croyle's maid, whose gentility suffered no offence by the recognition of a mistress. "If you wish, I will wake her."
Yet surely those words had been spoken, actually spoken by a human voice.... He took his telephone instrument in his hand and lifted the receiver. In a little while but a while too long for his impatience his call was acknowledged at the exchange. He gave Stella Croyle's number and waited. Whilst he waited he looked at his watch. The time was a quarter past seven.
"Jenny Prask," and Sir Chichester wrote it down. "You have been Mrs. Croyle's maid for some time." "For three and a half years, sir." "Good!" said Sir Chichester, with the air of one who by an artful question has elicited a most important piece of evidence. "Now!" But now he fumbled. He had come to the real examination, and was at a loss how to begin.
A motor-car took the news of Mrs. Croyle's death to London before it had occurred and took the news from Rackham Park. There was only one motor-car in the garage Mrs. Croyle's and Mrs. Croyle's chauffeur was engaged to Jenny Prask, Mrs. Croyle's maid. London then telephones to Rackham Park for corroboration of the news, and a woman's voice confirms it an hour before it was true.
"But we came home by daylight," Sir Chichester interposed. "They might argue that Joan might have slipped downstairs before she went to bed, with the key in her hand." "But she wouldn't have chosen that spot in front of the library window. She might have flung it from her window, she might conceivably have slipped round the house and laid it under Mrs. Croyle's window.
Miss Whitworth was at that moment in the supper-room at Harrel. She was seen there. The woman's voice which answered was either Mrs. Croyle's or yours." Nothing could have been quieter or gentler than Millie Splay's utterance. But it was like a searing iron to the shoulders of Jenny Prask. "Mine!" The word was launched in a cry of incredulous anger. "It wasn't mine.
"As you please, my lady." Jenny stopped and resumed her position. "The announcement of Mrs. Croyle's death appeared in the Harpoon this morning. The news was left at the Harpoon office by a chauffeur with a private car at midnight Mrs. Croyle's car." "It never left the garage last night," said Jenny fiercely. "You know that for certain?"
"There's Joan," said Millie Splay. "Jenny Prask hates her. She means to drag her into some scandal." "If she can," said Martin. He went out into the hall and returned with the key of Stella Croyle's room. He held it up before them all. "This key was found on the lawn outside the library window this morning by Luttrell.
She looked eagerly at the reflection of Jenny Prask. "Mr. Escobar is staying in an hotel at Midhurst?" "Yes, madam." "And Miss Whitworth wrote to him there this afternoon?" "It's gospel truth, madam. May it be my last dying word, if it isn't!" said Jenny Prask. The blood mounted into Stella Croyle's face.
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