VI
　　Sergeant Jones adroitly¹ got rid of Nevile through the hall and then brought Kay in by the trench² window, so that husband and wife did not meet.
　　"All the better," said Battle. "It's only this one I want to deal with whilst she's still in the dark."The day was overcast³, with a sharp wind. Kay was dressed in a tweed skirt and a purple sweater, above which her hair looked like a burnished⁴ copper⁵ bowl. She looked half frightened, half excited. Her beauty and vitality⁶ bloomed against the dark Victorian background of books and saddleback chairs. Leach⁷ led her easily enough over her account of the previous evening.
　　She had had a headache and gone to bed early - about quarter-past nine, she thought. She had slept heavily and heard nothing until the next morning, when she was wakened by hearing someone screaming.
　　Battle took up the questioning.
　　"Your husband didn't come in to see how you were before he went off for the evening?""No."
　　"You didn't see him from the time you left the drawing-room until the following morning. Is that right?"Kay nodded.
　　Battle stroked his jaw⁸.
　　"Mrs. Strange, the door between your room and that of your husband was locked. Who locked it?"Kay said, shortly: "I did."
　　Battle said nothing - but he waited - waited like an elderly, fatherly cat - for a mouse to come out of the hole he was watching.
　　His silence did what questions might not have accomplished⁹. Kay burst out impetuously: "Oh, I suppose you've got to have it all! That old doddering Hurstall must have heard us before tea and he'll tell you if I don't. He's probably told you already. Nevile and I had had a row - a flaming row! I was furious with him! I went up to bed and locked the door, because I was still in a flaming rage with him!""I see -I see," said Battle, at his most sympathetic. "And what was the trouble all about?""Does it matter? Oh, I don't mind telling you. Nevile has been behaving like a perfect idiot. It's all that woman's fault, though.""What woman?"

分享到：