“Miss Whitworth,” he began and got no further.  For the blood rushed up into the girl’s face and she exclaimed in a trembling voice: 

“Colonel Luttrell, I trust that you are not going to ask me any questions.”

“Why?” he asked, taken aback by the little touch of violence in her manner.

“Because, at twelve o’clock last night, I refused you the right to ask them.”

The words were not very generous.  They were meant to hurt and they did.  They were meant to put a sharp, quick end to any questioning; and in that, too, they succeeded.  Harry Luttrell bowed his head in assent and went out into the garden.  For a moment afterwards Martin Hillyard, Joan and Jenny Prask stood in silence; and in that silence once more Martin’s eyes fell upon the key of Stella’s room.  The earth had moved since the interrogatory had begun and the sunlight now played upon the key and transmuted it into a bright jewel.  Martin Hillyard stepped forward and lifted it up.  A faint, a very faint light, as from the far end of a long tunnel began to glimmer in his mind.

“I must think it out,” he whispered to himself; and at once the key filled all his thoughts.  He turned to Joan: 

“Will you watch, please?” He opened the drawer in the table and laid the key inside it.  Then he closed the drawer and locked it and took the key of the drawer out of the lock.

“You see, Joan, what I have done?  That key is locked in this drawer, and I hold the key of the drawer.  It may be important.”

Joan nodded.

“I see what you have done.  And now, will you please leave me with Jenny Prask?”

The smile was very easy to read now in Jenny’s face.  She could ask nothing better than to be left alone with Joan.

Martin hesitated.

“I think, Joan, that you ought to see Lady Splay before you talk to any one,” he counselled gently.

“Is everybody going to give me orders in this house?” Joan retorted with a quiet, dangerous calm.

Martin Hillyard turned and ran swiftly up the stairs.  There was but one thing to do.  Lady Splay must be fetched down.  But hurry as he might, he was not in time.  For a few seconds Joan and Jenny Prask were alone in the hall, and all Jenny’s composure left her on the instant.  She stepped quickly over to Joan, and in a voice vibrating with hatred and passion, she hissed: 

“But you’ll have to say why you came back.  You’ll have to say who you came back to see.  You’ll have to say it publicly too—­right there in court.  It’ll be in all the papers.  Won’t you like it, Miss Whitworth?  Just fancy!”

Joan was staggered by the attack.  The sheer hatred of Jenny bewildered her.

“In court?” she faltered.  “What do you mean?”

“That Mrs. Croyle died of poison last night in her room,” answered Jenny.

Joan stared at her.  “Last night, after we had talked—­she killed herself—­oh!” The truth reached her brain and laid a chill hand upon her heart.  She rocked backwards and forwards as she stood, and with a gasping moan fell headlong to the ground.  She had fainted.  For a little while Jenny surveyed her handiwork with triumph.  She bent down with a laugh.