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"You disturbed the body in no way?"

"Beyond placing my arm under his shoulders in order to raise him, I did not."

There was a short uneasy silence. Even silence in this strange house of Lord Marcus Amberdale possessed some quality unlike that of other silences. Chief Inspector Firth was glad when Bluett broke it.

"Do I understand your lordship to mean that there was no one else but yourself here at the time?"

Lord Marcus inclined his head in that characteristic gesture; "No one else who was conscious."

"Conscious?" Firth repeated in an irritably bewildered way. "Was there someone who was unconscious?"

"The physical shell of a woman: her spirit was far away, climbing the staircase of the planets."

The police officers exchanged furtive glances. Firth's hazel eyes, which could kindle to a flame of anger, or grow moist in the presence of human suffering, flashed danger signals.

Following a momentary consideration of the fine fanatical face of Lord Marcus, the inspector seemed to come to a conclusion.