“Nine o’clock,” said Miss Picksley. “Surely nobody’ll be waiting in the schoolroom. I don’t think it’s much good going back.” “Nor do I,” said Mr. Sly. “In fact, we might go for a walk....” Miss Picksley did not object, so they strolled past the King’s Arms into the Forest and forgot all about Mr. Weston and his promised paper on William Shakespeare.... § 8 On Saturday morning at half-past nine the rent-man came to No. 24, Kitchener Road to collect his weekly seven-and-sixpence. His customary treble knock begat no reply. Simultaneously he noticed the milk-can on the step. It was full, and the conclusion was that Mr. Weston was still in bed. Never as long as the rent-man could remember (and that was a very long time) had the household at No. 24 been asleep at 9.30 on a Saturday morning. He went his rounds and returned to No. 24 on his way home about ten past one. The milk-can was still there on the step. Its solitude was now shared by a loaf of bread which the baker had left. Receiving no answer to his knocks, the rent-man went to No. 26. There the garrulous Mrs. Jopson recounted the visit of the two callers on the previous evening. “They knocked an’ knocked an’ _knocked_, but couldn’t git no anser ... an’ my ’usband swears ’e ’adn’t seen ’im go aout.” Eventually it was decided that the rent-man should climb over the fence in Jopson’s back garden and effect an entrance into No. 24 by the back way. Jopson, morbidly curious, was to go with him. You picture this strange couple standing in the tiny back scullery of No. 24, Jopson with his huge face-monstrosity all mottled and pink and shining with sweat, and the rent-man sleek and dapper, fountain-pen behind his ear, receipt-book stuffed in his side pocket. “Gow on strite through,” said Jopson thickly, “it leads inter the kitchin.” Slowly and almost apprehensively the rent-man turned the handle.... CHAPTER VIII POST-MORTEM § 1 IT seemed to Catherine the most curious thing in the world that she should be sitting with George Trant inside a taxi. There was no light inside, and only the distant glimmer of London came in through the window. All was dim and dark and shadowy. Yet somewhere amongst these shadows sat George Trant. Perhaps he was thinking that somewhere amongst those shadows sat she, Catherine Weston. A voice said out of the shadows: “We shan’t be long now.” Catherine said: “How far are we going?” “You’re going home ... to your lodgings, that is.... You fainted, I suppose you know....” “Did I?” And she thought: “He killed himself out of loneliness. He couldn’t live without me. I am the cause, I am the reason.” “Feeling all right now?” “Oh yes ... must have been the excitement.” “Probably.” His voice was cold, unsympathetic. She felt that he was deliberately looking away from where he thought she was. “You needn’t take me all the way, you know. I can walk from the Ridgeway corner.” “I shall take you all the way,” he said crisply.