Sir Chichester rang the bell, and in answer to his summons Jenny came down the stairs.  Her eyes were red with weeping and she was very pale.  But she bore herself steadily.

“You wanted me, sir?” she asked.  Her eyes travelled from one to the other of the three men in the hall.  They rested for a little moment longer upon Harry Luttrell than upon the rest; and it seemed to Hillyard that as they rested there they glittered strangely, and that the ghost of a smile flickered about her mouth.

“Yes,” said Sir Chichester, pompously.  “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.  “But it will save time if we get the facts concisely together.”

Jenny stepped forward, and stood at the end of the table opposite to the baronet.

“I am quite willing, sir,” she said respectfully, “to answer any question now or at any time”; and throughout the little interrogatory which followed she never once changed from her attitude of respect.

“Your name first.”

“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.  “Yes, now then, Jenny!” and again he came to a halt.

Whilst Jenny waited, her eyes once glittered strangely under their half-dropped lids; and Martin Hillyard followed the direction of their gaze to the door-key lying upon the table beside Sir Chichester’s hand.

“Jenny,” said Sir Chichester, who had at last formulated a question.  “You informed us that Mrs. Croyle instructed you last night not to call her until she rang.  That, no doubt, was an unusual order for her to give.”

“No, sir.”

Sir Chichester leaned back in his chair.

“Oh, it wasn’t?”

“No, sir.”

Sir Chichester looked a little blank.  He cast about for another line of examination.

“You are aware, of course, Jenny, that your mistress was in the habit of taking drugs—­chloroform especially.”

“Never, sir,” answered Jenny.

“You weren’t aware of it?” exclaimed Sir Chichester.

“She never took them.”

Harry Luttrell made a little movement.  He stared in perplexity at Jenny Prask, who did not once remove her calm and respectful eyes from Sir Chichester Splay.  She waited in absolute composure for the next question.  But the question took a long time to formulate.  Sir Chichester had framed no interrogatory in a sequence; whereas Jenny’s answers were pat, as though, sitting by the bed whereon her dead mistress lay, she had thought out the questions which might be asked of her and got her answers ready.  Sir Chichester began to get flurried.  At every conjecture which he expressed, Jenny Prask slammed a door in his face.