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“I’m sorry,” Damaris said quickly, looking at Hester with wide, dark eyes. “Actually I don’t know. I was absorbed in my own thoughts. Some time. People were coming and going.” She smiled as if there were some punishing humor in that thought. “Maxim went off for something, and Louisa came back alone. Alex went off too, I suppose after Thaddeus, and she came back. Then Maxim went off again, this time into the front hall—I should have said they went up the back stairs to the wing where Valentine has his room, on the third floor. It is quicker that way.”

“You’ve been up?”

Damaris looked away. “Yes.”

“Maxim went into the front hall?” Hester prompted.

“Oh—yes. And he came back looking awful and saying there had been an accident. Thaddeus had fallen over the banister and been seriously hurt—he was unconscious. Of course we know now he was dead.” She was still looking at Hester, watching her face. Now she looked away again. “Charles Hargrave got up immediately and went to see. We all sat there in silence. Alex was as white as a ghost, but she had been most of the evening. Louisa was very quiet; she turned and went, saying she was fetching Sabella down, she ought to know her father had been hurt. I can’t really remember what else happened till Charles—Dr. Hargrave—came back to say Thaddeus was dead, and of course we would have to report it. No one should touch anything.”

“Just leave him there?” Edith said indignantly. “Lying on the floor in the hallway, tangled up with the suit of armor?”

“Yes…”

“They would have to.” Hester looked from one to the other of them. “And if he was dead it wouldn’t cause him any distress. It is only what we think …”

Edith pulled a face, but said nothing more, curling her legs up a little higher.

“It’s rather absurd, isn’t it?” Damaris said very quietly. “A cavalry general who fought all over the place being killed eventually by falling over the stairs onto a halberd held by an empty suit of armor. Poor Thaddeus—he never had any sense of humor. I doubt he would have seen the funny side of it.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t.” Edith’s voice broke for a moment, and she took a deep breath. “And neither would Papa. I wouldn’t mention it again, if I were you.”

“For heaven’s sake!” Damaris snapped. “I’m not a complete fool. Of course I won’t. But if I don’t laugh I think I shall not be able to stop crying. Death is often absurd. People are absurd. I am!” She sat up properly and swiveled around straight in the seat, facing Hester.

“Someone murdered Thaddeus, and it had to be one of us who were there that evening. That’s the awful thing about it all. The police say he couldn’t have fallen onto the point of the halberd like that. It would never have penetrated his body—it would just have gone over. He could have broken his neck, or his back, and died. But that was not what happened. He didn’t break any bones in the fall. He did knock his head, and almost certainly concuss himself, but it was the halberd through the chest that killed him—and that was driven in after he was lying on the ground.”

She shivered. “Which is pretty horrible—and has not the remotest sort of humor about any part of it. Isn’t it silly how we have this quite offensive desire to laugh at all the worst and most tragic things? The police have already been around asking all sorts of questions. It was dreadful—sort of unreal, like being inside a magic lantern show, except that of course they don’t have stories like that.”

“And they haven’t come to any conclusions?” Hester went on relentlessly, but how else could she be of any help? They did not need pity; anyone could give them that.

“No.” Damaris looked grim. “It seems several of us would have had the opportunity, and both Sabella and Alex had obviously quarreled with him recently. Others might have. I don’t know.” Then suddenly she stood up and smiled with forced gaiety.

“Let us go in to tea. Mama will be angry if we are late, and that would spoil it all.”

Hester obeyed willingly. Apart from the fact that she thought they had exhausted the subject