“It’s quite possible, of course,” said Parker, genially.
“Cut up about his sister — dying like that, don’t you think? That’s what I said to Mrs. Mitcham. But she said a gentleman like General Fentiman wouldn’t make away with himself and leave his affairs in confusion like he did. So I said, ‘Was his affairs in confusion then?’ and she said, ‘They’re not your affairs, Nellie, so you needn’t be discussing them.’ What do you think yourself, sir?”
“I don’t think anything yet,” aid Parker, “but you have been very helpful. Now, would you kindly run and ask Miss Dorland if she could spare me a few minutes?”
Ann Dorland received him in the back drawing-room. He thought what an unattractive girl she was, with her sullen manner and gracelessness of form and movement. She sat huddled on one end of the sofa, in a black dress which made the worst of her sallow, blotched complexion. She had certainly been crying, Parker thought, and when she spoke to him, it was curtly, in a voice roughened and hoarse and curiously lifeless.
“I am sorry to trouble you again,” said Parker, politely.
“You can’t help yourself, I suppose.” She avoided his eye, and lit a fresh cigarette from the stump of the last.
“I just want to have any details you can give me about General Fentiman’s visit to his sister. Mrs. Mitcham brought him up to her bedroom, I understand.”
She gave a sulky nod.
“You were there?”
She made no answer.
“Were you with Lady Dormer?” he insisted, rather more sharply.
“Yes.”
“And the nurse was there too?”
“Yes.”
She would not help him at all.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I took him up to the bed and said, ‘Auntie, here’s General Fentiman.’”
“Lady Dormer was conscious, then?”
“Yes.”
“Very weak, of course?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say anything?”
“She said ‘Arthur!’ that’s all. And he said, ‘Felicity!’ And I said, ‘You’d like to be alone,’ and went out.”
“Leaving the nurse there?”
“I couldn’t dictate to the nurse. She’d to look after her patient.”
“Quite so. Did she stay there throughout the interview?”
“I haven’t the least idea.”
“Well,” said Parker, patiently, “you can tell me this. When you went in with the brandy, the nurse was in the bedroom then?”
“Yes, she was.”
“Now, about the brandy. Nellie brought that up to you in the studio, she tells me.”
“Yes.”
“Did she come into the studio?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Did she come right into the room, or did she knock at the door and did you come out to her on the landing?”
This roused the girl a little. “Decent servants don’t knock at doors,” she said, with a contemptuous rudeness; “she came in, of course.”
“I beg your pardon,” retorted Parker, stung. “I thought she might have knocked at the door of your private room.”
“No.”
“What did she say to you?”
“Can’t you ask her all these questions?”
“I have done so. But servants are not always accurate; I should like your corroboration.” Parker had himself in hand again now, and spoke pleasantly.
“She said that Nurse Armstrong had sent her for some brandy, because General Fentiman was feeling faint, and told her to call me. So I said she had better go and telephone Dr. Penberthy while I took the brandy.”
All this was muttered hurriedly, and in such a low tone that the detective could hardly catch the words.
“And then did you take the brandy straight upstairs?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Taking it straight out of Nellie’s hands? Or did she put it down on the table or anywhere?”
“How the hell should I remember?”
Parker disliked a swearing woman, but tried hard not to let this prejudice him.
“You can’t remember — at any rate, you know you went straight on up with it? You didn’t wait to do anything else?”
She seemed to pull herself together and make an effort to remember.