t be that the constant menace of that
portentous presence had thrown his simple middle-class surroundings, at
the time, into a kind of reassuring relief. But it was the case that the
morning had already clouded over; the sunshine of the other mornings was
sadly missing; and Phillida looked only too eager to fly from the scene,
until she declared she never could.

"But that's absurd!" cried Mr. Upton bluntly. "I'm not going to leave a
young girl like you alone in the day of battle, murder and sudden death!
You needn't necessarily come with us, as long as you don't stay here.
Have you no other relatives in London?"

"None anywhere that I know much about."

"That doesn't matter. It's time they knew more about you. I'll hunt them
up in the motor, if they're anywhere within a hundred miles, but you
simply must let me take their place meanwhile."

He was a masterful man enough; it did not require the schoolboy's added
supplications to bring about an eventual compromise. The idea had indeed
been Pocket's originally, but his father had taken it up more warmly than
he could have hoped. It was decided that they should return to their
hotel without Phillida, but to send the car back for her later in the
morning, as it would take her some time to pack her things and leave the
deserted house in some semblance of order.

But her packing was a very small matter, and she left it to the end; most
of the time at her disposal was spent in a hurried investigation of the
dead man's effects, more especially of his store of negatives in the
dark-room. The only incriminating plates, however, were the one she had
already seen on its discovery by Pocket the day before and another of a
man lying in a heap in the middle of a road. This one had been put to dry
openly in the rack, the wood of which was still moist from the process.
Phillida only held it up to the light an instant, and then not only
smashed both these negatives, but poured boiling water on the films and
floated them down the sink. The bits of glass she put in the dust-bin
with those of the broken lamp, and had hardly done so when the first
policeman arrived to report the fatality. He was succeeded by a very
superior officer, who gained admittance and asked a number of questions
concerning the deceased, but in a perfunctory manner that suggested few if
any expectations from the replies. Neither functionary made any secret of
his assumption that the latest murder was but