Emily smiled wryly. "I suppose you want to stroke my hand and tell me to have a good cry?"

"No, I don't," replied Patricia frankly. "It is my business to do exactly what you wish. Only you must tell me what that is, because I've never faced this situation before, and I don't know what to do."

"Good girl!" approved Emily. "I dare say you think I'm a heartless old woman, eh? When you reach my age you'll know that death doesn't mean so much as you think it does now. Go downstairs and make yourself useful." She paused, and for the first time Patricia saw a twinge of some emotion contract her features. "Clement," she said. "Yes. Clement."

Miss Allison nodded. "Of course. I'll ring him up immediately."

Emily looked at her with rather a curious expression in her face. "He'll come here," she said. "He and that wife of his."

"You need not see either of them, Mrs. Kane."

Emily was shaken with sudden anger: "You little fool, I shall have Clement here for the rest of my life!"

"I hadn't thought of that," admitted Patricia. "Still, if you can't bear the idea of living in the same house with him, you could always have a house of your own, couldn't you?"

Emily's eyes narrowed. "You think I'm going to be turned out of the house that has been mine for over sixty years, do you? Well, I'm not! When I leave it, it will be in my coffin, that I promise you!"

Miss Allison, from what she knew of Clement Kane, thought it extremely unlikely that he would make the least attempt to dislodge his great-aunt, but she wisely refrained from saying this and instead went away to inform him of the tragedy.

She found Timothy downstairs, awaiting her, Silas' death had shocked him into a silence which had lasted throughout breakfast, but he seemed now to be restored to his normal self, though he apparently thought it proper to speak in lowered tones. While Patricia talked to Clement Kane on the telephone he stood watching her with a portentous frown on his brow, and as she put down the receiver he said in a voice fraught with suspicion: "I say, Miss Allison, will there be an inquest?"