Who Killed Charmian Karslake? by Annie Haynes Page B

face particularly.”
    â€œDid you have much conversation with her?” The girl smiled a little. “None at all. We were not even introduced. Of course a crowd of people wanted to be introduced to her. Lady Moreton had her hands full. And as I was not particularly anxious to know her I remained where I was.”
    â€œWhere was that?”
    The faint, ironic smile that had been playing round the girl’s lips ever since she entered the room deepened now.
    â€œI was sitting on the big oak settle to the right of the door.”
    â€œAlone?” the inspector said sharply.
    â€œCertainly not!” the girl said in her turn, with a slight asperity. “I was with Mr. John Larpent.”
    â€œWas he introduced to Miss Karslake?”
    â€œNo. He remained with me until I went upstairs to dress. Miss Karslake had gone up some little time before, so that I know there was no introduction.”
    â€œAnd at the scratch dinner, as Lady Moreton phrases it, you were not near the actress.”
    â€œShe did not come down,” Miss Galbraith said at once. “She said she was very tired and would prefer to rest in her own room until the dance.”
    â€œI see.”
    The inspector leaned forward and fixed his penetrating glance upon the girl’s mobile face.
    â€œMiss Galbraith, I wonder whether it will surprise you to hear that among the few papers found here in Miss Karslake’s trunk was a piece of paper with your name written on it over and over again.”
    â€œIt would surprise me very much,” she said at last. “In fact it would surprise me so much that I do not think I should be able to bring myself to believe it.”
    â€œYet it is so,” the inspector said, still keeping his eyes on the girl. “You can give no explanation, Miss Galbraith?”
    â€œNone at all,” the girl said with a puzzled air.
    â€œI am to take it, then, that you saw practically nothing of Miss Karslake.”
    â€œI saw her, of course, at the dance.”
    It did not escape the inspector’s keen gaze that the girl’s eyes no longer met his in the same frank fashion, that a faint touch of colour flickered in her pale cheeks.
    â€œDid you speak to her then?” he questioned sharply.
    â€œNo, I told you that I did not speak to her at all.” Miss Galbraith’s voice was as firm, as decided as his, but some quality there was in it that made Stoddart regard her even more closely.
    â€œYou can give us no help at all, then, Miss Galbraith?”
    The girl shook her head. “None at all, I am sorry to say.”
    The inspector rose. “Then, I will not keep you longer now. It is just possible that I may want to see you later.”
    He opened the door for her. But her proudly poised head and her firmly compressed lips did not hide from him the shadow of the fear that lurked in her blue eyes.
    When they were once more alone and the door had closed behind Miss Galbraith, Stoddart looked across at Harbord.
    â€œWhat do you make of that young woman?”
    â€œI think she knows more than she says. She is obviously scared. But yet” – Harbord’s voice dropped and he looked worried and puzzled – “it is difficult to believe that a girl like that could be implicated in a horrible murder.”
    â€œShe may not be implicated, but she may know, or guess, somebody who is,” the inspector said with a far-away look in his eyes. “Anyway, guesses and surmises will not help us, and it strikes me there is a jolly lot of spade work in front of us before the mystery of Charmian Karslake’s death is elucidated.”

CHAPTER 5
    Hepton was the quaintest of old-fashioned villages, or perhaps we should say, since it boasted a market consisting of a few stalls in the little cobble-paved street, the tiniest of market-towns. It nestled under the shadow of the Abbey, and to the true Heptonian the Penn-Moretons represented the ruling class, all