I saw the colour drain from the housekeeper’s face, leaving it dead white. She leaned forward, her figure swaying.

“But Miss Ackroyd said⁠—Miss Ackroyd said⁠—”

“Miss Ackroyd has admitted that she was lying. She was never in the study at all that evening.”

“Then⁠—”

“Then it would seem that in this Charles Kent we have the man we are looking for. He came to Fernly, can give no account of what he was doing there⁠—”

“I can tell you what he was doing there. He never touched a hair of old Ackroyd’s head⁠—he never went near the study. He didn’t do it, I tell you.”

She was leaning forward. That iron self-control was broken through at last. Terror and desperation was in her face.