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occupying most of that wall, was a mullioned window of stained glass. The floor was tiled black and white and covered in the centre with wool matting; and about the perimeter stood antique carved chairs, a carved chest and a huge carved cupboard. Swords, daggers, pistols and a pair of round shields hung in brackets on the walls, along with one or two vast, gloomy oil-paintings by Landseer or his imitators. Because of the weather only a dull light was issuing through the stained glass, so that when the constable slammed shut the outer door the hall was reduced to tinted twilight.
    ‘You’re to wait here,’ he told them surlily, and went out through a varnished door by the foot of the stairs.
    They peered about them.
    ‘Gosh,’ Brenda murmured. ‘This is pretty lairdy, George. Just see those antlers hanging on the gallery – and that mossy bull leering out of the picture. Do they really have bulls like that somewhere, or is it a convention, like Chinese dragons?’
    ‘Probably a convention,’ Gently said. ‘Any real ones would be at stud in South America.’
    ‘Poor dears,’ Brenda said. ‘They’d so miss their peat-bogs, and those lovely little rocks for standing their front feet on. How he’s rolling his eyes, that big one. I wonder if he cut loose and chased the artist.’
    Gently wandered over to a bracket of weapons. They were kept beautifully clean and oiled, he noticed. They were in no way fastened to the bracket and you could pluck out a sword or dagger at a second’s notice. He lifted his hand to make the experiment, but then dropped it again with a grunt.
    ‘Naughty,’ Brenda said. ‘I saw you do that.’
    ‘Perhaps I’d better not put my dabs on them,’ Gently grinned. ‘But they’re a lovely collection of murder weapons. I wouldn’t want them around at Elphinstone Road.’
    ‘Would the pistols work?’
    ‘My guess is yes. At least, they’re fitted out with flints.’
    ‘Gawd. They’d make a fair old hole in you.’
    ‘They’d do the trick. At short range.’
    He passed on to another bracket, Brenda keeping close beside him. The hall had a quality of echoing silence that made one tread cautiously and speak low. In the darkest corner, a small recess in the same wall as the window, a helmet with chain cheek-guards stared emptily at them over a faintly gleaming cuirass.
    ‘Compulsory Sunday lairds’-wear,’ Brenda whispered.
    ‘Shh,’ Gently said. ‘Someone’s coming.’
    Brenda listened. ‘It’s someone upstairs.’
    ‘Yes, but they may have to cross over the gallery.’
    Brenda’s hand stole to his arm and they both stood quite still. Soft, regular, slouched footsteps were approaching the gallery from the left. There was little light at that level and details of the gallery were indistinct; against what might have been a panelled wall one saw only the silhouette of the balustrade and of gigantic antlers. The steps sounded nearer. A flickering glow began to shine on the gallery. Then a woman appeared, carrying a candle, and apparently muffled in a big dressing-gown.
    ‘God save us,’ Brenda breathed. ‘If she begins washing her hands, it’s Lady Macbeth.’
    ‘Quiet!’ Gently hissed.
    But the woman had heard them and, with a violent start, turned to look down.
    For a second she paused, her hand on the rail, the candle lighting her smooth, pale face; then she continued to the end of the gallery and took some steps down the stairs.
    ‘Who – who are you?’
    Her voice was low, with the precise accent of an educated Scot.
    ‘Just two visitors,’ Gently explained apologetically. ‘We’re waiting to talk to Inspector Blayne.’
    ‘Inspector Blayne. Then you know something—’
    ‘We think we may know something about the accident.’
    Her lips trembled. ‘But it wasn’t an accident.’
    ‘Then whatever it was.’
    ‘They murdered Donnie!’
    Her mouth crumpled and tears began to overflow from her swollen eyes. She was not a beautiful woman. Her nose was too thin