Free Died in the Wool by Ngaio Marsh Page A

swear it wasn’t there when she was in the room.’
    â€˜How big was it?’ Fabian demanded.
    â€˜Quite small. Not a lock, really. Just a twist.’
    â€˜A teeny-weeny twist,’ said Ursula in a ridiculous voice, suddenly gay again. She had a chancy way with her, one moment nervously intent on her memories, the next full of mockery.
    â€˜I suppose,’ said Alleyn, ‘one might pick up a bit of wool in the shed and, being greasy, it might hang about on one’s clothes?’
    â€˜It might,’ said Fabian lightly.
    â€˜And being greasy,’ Douglas added, ‘it might also hang about in one’s room.’
    â€˜Not in Auntie Floss’s room,’ Ursula said. ‘I always did her room, Douglas, you shan’t dare to say I left greasy wool lying squalidly about for days on the carpet. Pig!’ she mocked at him.
    He turned his head lazily and looked at her. Alleyn saw his arm slip down the back of the sofa to Terence Lynne’s shoulders. Ursula laughed and pulled a face at him. ‘It’s all nonsense,’ she said, ‘this talk of locks of wool. Moonshine!’
    â€˜Personally,’ said Terence Lynne, ‘I can’t think it very amusing. For me, and I’d have thought for all of us, the idea of sheep’s wool in her room that morning is perfectly horrible.’
    â€˜You’re hateful, Terry,’ Ursula flashed at her. ‘It’s bad enough to have to talk about it. I mind more than any of you. You all know that. It’s because I mind so much that I can’t be too solemn. You know I’m the only one of us that loved her. You’re cold as ice, Terry, and I hate you.’
    â€˜Now then, Ursy,’ Fabian protested. He knelt up and put his hands over hers. ‘Behave!’ he said. ‘Be your age, woman. You astonish me.’
    â€˜She was a darling, and I loved her. If it hadn’t been for her—’
    â€˜All right, all right.’
    â€˜You would never even have seen me if it hadn’t been for her.’
    â€˜Who was it,’ Fabian murmured, ‘who held the grapes above Tantalus’s lips? Could it have been Aunt Florence?’
    â€˜All the same,’ said Ursula with that curious air, half-rueful, half-obstinate, that seemed to characterize her relationship with Fabian, ‘you’re beastly to me. I’m sorry, Terry.’
    â€˜May we go on?’ asked Douglas.
    Alleyn, in his chair beyond the firelight, stirred slightly and at once they were attentive and still.
    â€˜Captain Grace,’ Alleyn said, ‘during the hunt for the diamond brooch, you went up to the house for a torch, didn’t you?’
    â€˜For two torches, sir. I gave one to Uncle Arthur.’
    â€˜Did you see any one in the house?’
    â€˜No. There was only Markins. Markins says he was in his room. There’s no proof of that. The torches are kept on the hall table. The telephone rang while I was there and I answered it. But that only took a few seconds. Somebody wanting to know if Aunt Florence was going north in the morning.’
    â€˜From the terrace in front of the house you look down on the fenced paths, don’t you? Could you see the other searchers from there?’
    â€˜Not Uncle Arthur or Fabian, but I could just see the two girls. It was almost dark. I went straight to my uncle with the torch, he was there all right.’
    â€˜Were you with him when he found the brooch?’
    â€˜No. I simply gave him the torch and returned to my own beat with mine. I heard him call out a few moments later. He left the brooch where it was for me to see. It looked like a cluster of blue and red sparks in the torchlight. It was half-hidden by zinnia leaves. He said he’d looked there before. It wasn’t too good for him to stoop much and his sight wasn’t so marvellous. I supposed he’d just missed it.’
    â€˜Did you go into the end path, the one that runs