Free Let Him Lie by Ianthe Jerrold

hand:
    â€œBy the way, what were you doing in the lower Tower room at the time Mr. Molyneux was shot?” 
    Tamsin looked startled, furious and secretive all in the space of a moment.
    â€˜â€˜Looking for Sarah. I said so.”
    â€œWhy?”
    Miss Wills laughed somewhat harshly.
    â€œI am her governess, you know!”
    â€œYes, but why the Tower?”
    â€œIt’s a good look-out place!” said Tamsin defensively. Her dark, pebbly eyes snapped at Jeanie behind their horn-rimmed glasses.
    â€œYou certainly get a good view of the orchard from there,” agreed Jeanie.
    â€œWhat does that mean, exactly?”
    Jeanie shrugged her shoulders. She remembered how Sarah had said: Uncle Robert says I’m getting beyond her. I don’t think she’ll be here much longer. She adores Aunt Agnes...  Suddenly, under the cold hostile look of those dark eyes, Jeanie felt a shiver pass over her. This was not an abstract thing that they were quarrelling about. Out there in the sunny orchard under the trees, Robert Molyneux had lain dead. Perhaps out of this window, perhaps out of another, the murderer had taken aim: perhaps with one of these very lethal weapons that stood in racks and cases around the room!
    Jeanie turned to go. But before she had reached the door, the other girl detained her.
    â€œDon’t go! One moment!” Tamsin cleared her throat, seemed to make a great effort to speak agreeably. “I’ll be frank with you, Miss Halliday! I wasn’t looking for Sarah.”
    â€œNo?”
    â€œNo. I was—I was curious.”
    â€œCurious? What do you mean?” 
    â€œMiss Dasent hadn’t been near Cleedons all the week-end. Mr. Molyneux went riding alone on Sunday. I knew she couldn’t keep away for long. I just wondered whether Diana would become Pomona for the occasion, you know!”
    â€œI see,” said Jeanie coldly.
    â€œI suppose you think it not very nice of me, Miss Halliday? But, after all, I am Agnes’s friend!”
    â€œShe is lucky, isn’t she?” commented Jeanie, and closed the door between herself and Tamsin.

Chapter Seven
UNDER SUSPICION
    An hour in Agnes’s company made Jeanie quite worn out. Pale and rouged, nervous as a strayed cat, she fidgeted about her bedroom, sitting down and getting up, staring in the mirror, shuddering aside from it, picking up and putting down letters of condolence, books, clothes that she seemed to be already sorting out to make room for a wardrobe of widow’s black. Mentally, she seemed equally at sea, jumping from one subject to another, nervous, inattentive, strained. Only once did Jeanie really succeed in catching her friend’s attention. That was when, remembering Mrs. Barchard’s gossip, she was suddenly inspired to ask:
    â€œBy the way, it was at Hunsley, wasn’t it, Agnes, that your father had his living?”
    Agnes, who was standing near the fire-place at the moment, doing something to her hair, a silver mirror in her hand, became suddenly still, one hand poised at her little neck, her eyes fixed on the glass.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œOnly by a strange coincidence, the former tenant of Yew Tree Cottage—”
    Jeanie got no further, for Agnes, whose nerves were evidently very much out of order, started violently and dropped her mirror with a shattering noise on the edge of the steel fender. The glass splintered, the fire-irons fell with a clatter. Agnes, with a sharp sobbing cry, clasped her hands to her head as if driven to despair. She cried shrilly:
    â€œThere’ve been other rectors at Hunsley, I suppose, beside my father!”
    Jeanie stared at her in amazement.
    â€œAgnes...”
    â€œWhat? What? ”
    â€œI didn’t say—anything! I didn’t finish what I was going to say! How did you know—”
    Agnes lowered her clasped hands. She looked oddly frightened. She moistened her lips and uttered defiantly and yet