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Fullerton.
    “I thought,” said Bridget - and again he noted that curious flat tone in her voice - “that you might tell him something about Amy.”
    “Oh,” said Miss Waynflete. “About Amy? Yes. About Amy Gibbs.”
    He was conscious of a new factor in her expression. She seemed to be thoughtfully summing him up. Then, as though coming to a decision, she drew back into the hall.
    “Do come in,” she said. “I can go out later. No, no -” in answer to a protest from Luke - “I had really nothing important to do. Just a little unimportant shopping.”
    The small drawing room was exquisitely neat and smelled faintly of burnt lavender. Miss Waynflete offered her guests chairs, and then said apologetically, “I'm afraid I don't smoke myself, so I have no cigarettes, but do please smoke if you like.”
    Luke refused, but Bridget promptly lighted a cigarette.
    Sitting bolt upright in a chair with carved arms. Miss Waynflete studied her guest for a moment or two, and then, dropping her eyes as though satisfied, she said: “You want to know about that poor girl, Amy? The whole thing was very sad and caused me a great deal of distress. Such a tragic mistake.”
    “Wasn't there some question of - suicide?” asked Luke.
    Miss Waynflete shook her head. “No, no, that I cannot believe for a moment. Amy was not at all that type.”
    “What type was she?” asked Luke bluntly. “I'd like to hear your account of her.”
    Miss Waynflete said, “Well, of course, she wasn't at all a good servant. But nowadays, really, one is thankful to get anybody. She was very slipshod over her work and always wanting to go out. Well, of course, she was young and girls are like that nowadays. They don't seem to realize that their time is their employer's.”
    Luke looked properly sympathetic and Miss Waynflete proceeded to develop her theme. “She was fond of admiration,” went on Miss Waynflete, “and was inclined to think a lot of herself. Mr. Ellsworthy - he keeps the new antique shop, but he is actually a gentleman - he dabbles a little in water colors and he had done one or two sketches of the girl's head - and I think you know, that that rather gave her ideas. She was rather inclined to quarrel with the young man she was engaged to - Jim Harvey. He's a mechanic at the garage and very fond of her.”
    Miss Waynflete paused and then went on, “I shall never forget that dreadful night. Amy had been out of sorts; a nasty cough and one thing and another - those silly, cheap silk stockings they will wear, and shoes with paper soles, practically, of course, they catch chills - and she'd been to the doctor that afternoon.”
    Luke asked quickly, “Doctor Humbleby or Doctor Thomas?”
    “Doctor Thomas. And he gave her a bottle of cough mixture that she brought back with her. Something quite harmless - a stock mixture, I believe. She went to bed early, and it must have been about one in the morning when the noise began - an awful kind of choking scream. I got up and went to her door, but it was locked on the inside. I called to her, but couldn't get any answer. Cook was with me, and we were both terribly upset. And then we went to the front door and, luckily, there was Reed - our constable - just passing on his beat, and we called to him. He went round the back of the house and managed to climb up on the outhouse roof, and as her window was open, he got in quite easily that way and unlocked the door. Poor girl, it was terrible. They couldn't do anything for her, and she died in hospital a few hours later.”
    “And it was - what? - hat paint?”
    “Yes. Oxalic-acid poisoning is what they called it. The bottle was about the same size as the cough-unctus one. The latter was on her washstand and the hat paint was by her bed. She must have picked up the wrong bottle and put it by her in the dark, ready to take if she felt badly. That was the theory at the inquest.”
    Miss Waynflete stopped. Her intelligent goat's eyes looked at him, and he