I removed myself still further out of range, assuring her that in spite of my complexion I was in reality anaemic.

She pointed a finger at me.  “I know where those policemen are.  They’re in the garden digging for the body.”

“What body?” I gasped.

“Why, EINSTEIN’S, of course,” said Miss Brown.  “Edward murdered him last night for his theory.  Didn’t you suspect?”

I confessed that I had not.

“Oh, yes,” she said; “smothered him with a pen-wiper.  I saw him do it, but I said nothing for Angela’s sake, she’s so refined.”

She darted from me into the drawing-room.  I followed and found her standing before the fireplace waving the candle wildly in one hand, a poker in the other and sniffing loudly.

“We must save Edward,” she said; “we must find the body and hide it before they can bring in a writ of Habeas Corpus.  It is here.  I can smell blood.  Look under the sofa.”

She made a flourish at me with her weapon and I at once dived under the sofa.  I am a brave man, but I know better than to withstand people in Miss Brown’s state of mind.

“Is it there?” she inquired.

“No.”

“Then search under the carpet—­quickly!”

She swung the poker round her head and I searched quickly under the carpet.  During the next hour, at the dictates of her and her poker, I burrowed under a score of carpets, swarmed numerous book-cases, explored a host of cupboards, dived under a multitude of furniture and even climbed into the open chimney-place of the study, because Miss Brown’s nose imagined it smelt roasting flesh up there.  These people must be humoured.  When I came down (accompanied by a heavy fall of soot) the lady had vanished.  I rushed into the hall.  She was mounting the stairs.

“Where are you going now?” I demanded.

She leaned over the balustrade and nodded to me, yawning broadly:  “To Edward’s room.  He must have taken the corpse to bed with him.”

“Stop!  Hold on!  Come back,” I implored, panic-stricken.  Miss Brown held imperviously on.  I sped after her, but mercifully she had got the rooms mixed in her decomposed brain and, instead of turning into Edward’s, walked straight into her own and shut the door behind her.  I wedged a chair against the handle to prevent any further excursions for the night and crept softly away.

As I went I heard a soft chuckle from within, the senseless laughter, as I diagnosed it, of a raving maniac.

* * * * *

I got down to breakfast early next morning, determined to tell the whole sad story and have Miss Brown put under restraint without further ado.

Before I could get a word out, however, the lunatic herself appeared, looking, I thought, absolutely full of beans.  She and Aunt Angela exchanged salutations.

“I hope you slept better last night, Jane.”

“Splendidly, thank you, Angela, except for an hour or so; but I got up and walked it off.”