SEVENTEENSuperintendent Drake of the County Police sat in one of the tapestry-covered armchairs in the housekeeper’s room at Melling House. Mrs. Mayhew sat in the other. Constable Whitcombe had made her a cup of tea, and Mayhew had laced it with whisky out of the case which James Lessiter had brought down with him. If she had been capable of coherent thought on any but the one dreadful subject she would have been very much shocked at the idea of taking spirits so early in the morning. She had come out of that deathlike rigor. The whisky had got into her head and confused it. It had also loosened her tongue. But there was one thing she wasn’t ever going to say, not if they burnt her at the stake. The improbability of this form of persuasion did not present itself. Nobody wasn’t going to hea
