A bulldog ambled out onto the drive to greet him and a couple of terriers sniffed at his legs as he waited in the comfortable drawing-room into which the maid had shown him. The pale March sunlight filtered in through the long French windows, but the blinds had been drawn in the ante-room through which he had passed and he knew that probably all the other windows of the house were shrouded. An ominous quiet seemed to brood over the whole place and he found himself moved for the first time by the realization of Mrs. Draycott’s death. Until now he had been too occupied with the consequences of the murder to give much thought to the woman who had, after all, been his fellow-guest at Staveley for over a week. Now, in her sister’s house, the sense of tragedy deepened and, when Miss Allen found him standing by the window, staring with sombre eyes into the sunlit garden, she was struck by the weariness of his pose and the almost haggard pallor of his face. He, summing her up sharply in his turn, was surprised to see but little sign of the violent grief he had expected. Her plain, fresh-coloured features were grave and a little sad, but she was obviously not prostrated by the loss of her sister. She greeted him frankly and with a certain quiet dignity. “My maid said that you wished to see me?” she said simply. “I must apologize for intruding on you at such a time, but I have come from Lady Cynthia Bell. She tells me that you very kindly offered to see her and she asked me to express her gratitude and appreciation. I am afraid that I am responsible for her failure to take advantage of your suggestion. . . . It is difficult to explain my interference without encroaching on a subject which, I am afraid, must be very painful to you.” He broke off, his face alight with a very real sympathy. “You mean my sister’s death,” she said steadily. “I know your name well, Sir Edward, and if you have come on Cynthia’s behalf, there is one thing I should like to make quite clear before we go any further. You have guessed, probably, why I wanted to see her and I am very glad to have the opportunity of saying as much to you as I had intended to say to her. It is simply this: I have known John Leslie for some time and I’m not a bad judge of character. I am absolutely convinced that he had nothing to do with my poor sister’s death and, what’s more, am practically certain that he had never met her or had ever had anything to do with her.” Having said her say, she stood waiting, a dignified, sturdy figure of an English spinster, a look of quiet resolution on her well-cut, weather-beaten features. Kean summed her up as a good friend and a bad enemy.