The Viaduct Murder by Ronald A. Knox — Read

Morning, as might have been expected, brought division of counsel. Mordaunt Reeves could now find no difference between the photograph as he saw it at the moment and the photograph as he had seen it at dinner the previous night. Carmichael agreed with him, though he still talked a good deal about collective hallucinations. Gordon could not make up his mind one way or the other; only Marryatt was certain that there had been a change. Anyhow, change or no change, Reeves put the once dreaded object in his pocket, and set out after breakfast in Gordon's sidecar. Gordon volunteered to drive him over, though firmly announcing that he would not go inside Miss Rendall-Smith's house; Carmichael sought to deter them by wise saws and modern instances, and they left him multa volentem dicere at the clubhouse door.

It must be confessed that Reeves felt a certain misgiving as he waited in Miss Rendall-Smith's drawing-room. Rooms do echo personalities, and this drawing-room spoke of a forceful one; the furnishing was strategically perfect, the flowers were arranged purposefully, the books were books that had been collected, not simply amassed. The room smelt, Reeves said afterwards, of not having been smoked in. Nor did the lady of the house belie this first impression. Her beauty was still undeniable, but it was something more than beauty which disarmed you. You felt at once that she was kind and that she was competent, but you felt that if a choice had to be made she would be competent rather than kind. She might have been the matron of a big hospital, instead of an unoccupied householder in a small country town.