“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.”
Tommy nodded. That agreed perfectly with the policeman’s story. He had seen the woman with the white furs go in at the gate, probably three minutes had elapsed before he and Tuppence had reached the same spot. He had glanced at his own watch then and had noted that it was just one minute after the time of their appointment.
There was just the faint chance that someone might have been waiting for Gilda Glen in the room upstairs. But if so, he must still be hiding in the house. No one but James Reilly had left it.
He ran upstairs and made a quick but efficient search of the premises. But there was no one concealed anywhere.