The rain had set in by six and did not let up, which is the usual weather for the Cruikshank flower-show, and the usual excuse for holding the judging indoors. The pots stood ranked the whole length of the entrance hall, each with its entry card turned face down beside it, as the committee requires; the prizes lay under a cloth on the hall table; and beyond all this the glass corridor ran out into the dark toward the Colonel's cold-house and the old lime-pit stair, neither of which is lit after nightfall, and neither of which anybody had the least occasion to visit.
Shortly after ten o'clock, Fenella "Fifi" Swain — housemaid at the Manor, and twin sister of the footman Zane Swain — was found at the foot of the lime-pit stair, at the far end of the glass corridor. She had fallen from the top of it in the dark, and the neck was broken. There was no other mark upon her, and nothing about her was disarranged. The company observed that it was an untidy place to be found in, and said no more about it.
The stair has eleven steps. It has no rail on the left. It has, at the head of it, a lamp bracket, and the lamp bracket was empty. Mrs Sib Gow, the Colonel's housekeeper, is quite firm that the lamp stood in its bracket at eight o'clock, when she passed through; at half past ten it was discovered standing on a shelf in the cold-house, wick trimmed, cold.
Fifi was dressed in her good grey gown and not her working apron, and she had put up her hair. She carried no tray, no linen, and no candle. In her left hand, crushed, was an entry card from the flower-show, face down as they all were, bearing the number 9.
Pot number 9 in the hall rank was the Colonel's own Himalayan blue poppy, entered under the blind card as the rules direct. It stood untouched and unwatered the whole evening.
The glass corridor is a plain passage with nothing overlooking it. Anyone standing in the hall may watch a figure go down it from end to end; nobody in the corridor can see back into the hall at all, the glare being what it is. The cold-house door at the bottom was found latched from the hall side, so that the lamp could only have gone out that way, and could only have come back in by the hand of whoever latched it. The cold-house key, it may be noted, hangs on Nan Pringle's chatelaine along with the linen keys, and has hung there for four years; Mrs Gow keeps the keys of the plate, and the Colonel those of the cellar.
At supper, Fifi had told her brother that she had "a word coming to her" after the judging, and would be away from the hall a quarter of an hour. Zane thought nothing of it. He did not know from whom. At six o'clock the judging committee's secretary had sent word that the blind cards would be turned at ten and the maids were wanted to carry pots, and Fifi had informed two of them that she would not be carrying anything, as she had better business. Mrs Gow states that at about half past nine she saw Nan speak briefly to Fifi at the baize door, as Nan had spoken to half the staff that evening concerning the cloth and the prizes. Mrs Gow heard nothing of what was said.
Fifi was the household's leak, and had been for years. She traded what she heard for sixpences and for the pleasure of the thing, and had never, in anyone's memory, kept a secret but one: whatever belonged to her brother Zane, which she guarded without a single exception. Lately she had taken to saying she was not a Swain at all but something finer, and that she would be out of service by Christmas. She had been pricing gowns.
She wore Zane's exact face, and was much admired for it. She was walked out with on her half-days by a shipping clerk and by a corporal of the garrison, and the Colonel's own guests spoke to her as they would not speak to Nan Pringle, who is thirty-one and has never been asked anywhere. In August, Fifi had seen Nan coming up from the mews at an odd hour with Zane's coat over her shoulders, and had said, laughing, in front of two kitchen girls, that she wondered whose coat it was. Nan said nothing at all, and went up to her room. The kitchen girls remember it. Fifi had repeated the joke twice since.
Nan Pringle is the Colonel's cousin's daughter, raised gentry and left without a shilling. She has no wage and no room of her own that locks. Her standing in the house rests entirely upon being indispensable and unremarked; she once observed at table that she had the advantage of being furniture. She keeps the staff book, carries the keys of the linen and the cold-house, and knows every coming and going at the baize door. That evening she moved quietly between hall and belowstairs on the business of the judging, seen variously by Mrs Gow and by Quill, though not continuously vouched between a quarter to ten and ten o'clock, when the whole company was crowded at the prize table.
From a quarter past nine, Dr Tobias Quill and Colonel Cecil Cruikshank judged the pots together, with Xerxes Hartfield at their elbow arguing for number 4. Xerxes had come over from Hartfield House on a venture matter with the Colonel, and had latterly been pestered by Fifi, who asked him pointed questions and stood nearer than a maid ought; he had put her off three times in a fortnight and had said so, irritably, in company. He was at the prize table from a quarter past nine until the body was found, in unbroken conversation over the entry list, and all three gentlemen vouch for one another.
Captain Wat Frew was in the house on his usual errand, which is selling the Colonel brandy and learning what he can. He bought gossip from Fifi for sixpences and said openly that she was the best ear in Cairnholm. He was belowstairs in the servants' passage from nine o'clock until after ten, drinking with the Manor's two kitchen men, who both vouch for him; Mrs Gow passed through twice and confirms it.
Lady Lavinia Loveless, who sits weekly for the Colonel's late wife, had come early for the judging. Fifi had twice found her where she ought not to have been found, and Lavinia had been visibly uneasy about it since. From nine o'clock she was in the small drawing-room with Cousin R, laying out the prize ribbons; Cousin R and Mrs Gow both place her there until the cry went up, and Cousin R did not leave the room either.
The Reverend Simeon Gaunt had come at the Colonel's written request to bless the cold-house against mildew, and stayed on to scowl at the pots. He had preached at Fifi twice, for airs and for walking out, and had called her in the hall a vain and disorderly girl. He was in the cold-house itself from half past eight for the blessing, with the Colonel's under-gardener attending him throughout, and came back up the glass corridor at a quarter to ten, after which he stood in the hall in the Colonel's sight.
Zane had carried the prizes in and was at the hall door from nine o'clock, seen continuously by the whole company and by Mrs Gow. He did not leave it until the cry went up. He is a strict keeper of rules, and of his sister's confidences.
Of the household, only Aziz and Effie were elsewhere entirely: both passed the evening at Hartfield House, Aziz with a fever and Effie keeping him company, vouched for by the Hartfield staff and by a note to the Colonel excusing them.
Under the prize cloth on the hall table, beneath the medals, there lay a man's hat belonging to no gentleman present — a soft billycock, salt-stained. Nobody claimed it.
So the evening closed as it had begun: the pots still ranked down the entrance hall, their cards face down; number 9 untouched, its blue poppy open in the lamplight; and under the prize cloth, the medals and a stranger's hat, and nobody to carry anything anywhere.