She almost laughed. “No, of course not.”

He nodded again, frowning at his hat, the brim of which he was holding lightly between the tips of the fingers and thumbs of both hands; it irked him that in front of this woman he felt like an applicant for something or other, all meekness and humble deference. It struck him suddenly as odd that everyone was standing, except Maguire, sunk there in shock at the table. What was the matter with the fellow, had he lost his nerve altogether?

He turned his attention to the woman again. “Forgive me for saying so, Mrs. Jewell, but you don’t seem very surprised.”

She widened her eyes-how extraordinary they were, black and glittering, the lids tapered at the corners like a cat’s. “But certainly I am,” she said. “I am”-she groped for the word-“I am baffled.”

This seemed to allow of no further advance, and he turned to the yard manager again. “You say you didn’t hear the gun?”

At first Maguire did not realize it was him who was being addressed, and Hackett had to put the question again, more loudly. The big man stirred as if he had been prodded from behind. “No,” he said, frowning at the floor. “I was probably out on the gallops.”

Hackett looked to Mrs. Jewell. “The gallops, where the horses are exercised,” she said.

She had finished her cigarette and was casting about for somewhere to deposit the butt, with an air of slightly amused vague helplessness; it was as if she had never been in a kitchen before, not even this one, and were both taken with and puzzled by the quaintness of all these strange implements and appliances. Jenkins spotted an ashtray on the table and came forward quickly and brought it to her, and was rewarded by an unexpectedly warm, even radiant smile, and for the first time Hackett saw what a beautiful woman she was-too thin, and too chilly in her manner, but lovely all the same. He was surprised at himself; he had never been much of a connoisseur of women’s looks.