‘Stop! Don’t say that!’
Poirot murmured:
‘You said it, madame.’
She breathed softly:
‘I know…I remember…It was—so horrible.’
Then she went abruptly out of the room, her husband beside her.
IX
George Lee was solemn and correct.
‘A terrible business,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘A terrible, terrible business. I can only believe that it must—er—have been the work of a lunatic!’
Colonel Johnson said politely:
‘That is your theory?’
‘Yes. Yes, indeed. A homicidal maniac. Escaped, perhaps, from some mental home in the vicinity.’
Superintendent Sugden put in:
‘And how do you suggest this—er—lunatic gained admittance to the house, Mr Lee? And how did he leave it?’
George shook his head.
‘That,’ he said firmly, ‘is for the police to discover.’
Sugden said:
‘We made the round of the house at once. All windows were closed and barred. The side door was locked, so was the front door. Nobody could have left by the kitchen premises without being seen by the kitchen staff.’
George Lee cried:
‘But that’s absurd! You’ll be saying next that my father was never murdered at all!’
‘He was murdered all right,’ said Superintendent Sugden. ‘There’s no doubt about that.’
The chief constable cleared his throat and took up the questioning.
‘Just where were you, Mr Lee, at the time of the crime?’
‘I was in the dining-room. It was just after dinner. No, I was, I think, in this room. I had just finished telephoning.’
‘You had been telephoning?’
‘Yes. I had put a call through to the Conservative agent in Westeringham—my constituency. Some urgent matters.’
‘And it was after that that you heard the scream?’
George Lee gave a slight shiver.
‘Yes, very unpleasant. It—er—froze my marrow. It died away in a kind of choke or gurgle.’
He took out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead where the perspiration had broken out.