Twelve to one thirty.
She always lunched at her club after a hair appointment so that she could leave the pins in her hair.
It's almost certain she lunched there that day.'
'Say it took her half an hour to have lunch; what was she doing from two until three?
We ought to verify that,' said Colonel Julyan.
'Oh, Christ Jesus, who the hell cares what she was doing?' shouted Favell.
'She didn't kill herself, that's the only thing that matters, isn't it?'
'I've got her engagement diary locked in my room,' said Mrs Danvers slowly.
'I kept all those things.
Mr de Winter never asked me for them.
It's just possible she may have noted down her appointments for that day.
She was methodical in that way.
She used to put everything down and then tick the items off with a cross.
If you think it would be helpful I'll go and fetch the diary.'
'Well, de Winter?' said Colonel Julyan, 'what do you say?
Do you mind us seeing this diary?'
'Of course not,' said Maxim.
'Why on earth should I?'
Once again I saw Colonel Julyan give him that swift, curious glance.
And this time Frank noticed it.
I saw Frank look at Maxim too.
And then back again to me.
This time it was I who got up and went towards the window.
It seemed to me that it was no longer raining quite so hard.
The fury was spent.
The rain that was falling now had a quieter, softer note.
The grey light of evening had come into the sky. The lawns were dark and drenched with the heavy rain, and the trees had a shrouded humped appearance.
I could hear the housemaid overhead drawing the curtains for the night, shutting down the windows that had not been closed already.
The little routine of the day going on inevitably as it had always done.
The curtains drawn, shoes taken down to be cleaned, the towel laid out on the chair in the bathroom, and the water run for my bath.
Beds turned down, slippers put beneath a chair.
And here were we in the library, none of us speaking, knowing in our hearts that Maxim was standing trial here for his life.
I turned round when I heard the soft closing of the door.
It was Mrs Danvers.
She had come back again with the diary in her hand.
'I was right,' she said quietly.
'She had marked down the engagements as I said she would.
Here they are on the date she died.'
She opened the diary, a small, red leather book. She gave it to Colonel Julyan.
Once more he brought his spectacles from his case. There was a long pause while he glanced down the page.
It seemed to me then that there was something about that particular moment, while he looked at the page of the diary, and we stood waiting, that frightened me more than anything that had happened that evening.
I dug my nails in my hands.
I could not look at Maxim.
Surely Colonel Julyan must hear my heart beating and thumping in my breast?
'Ah!' he said. His finger was in the middle of the page.
Something is going to happen, I thought, something terrible is going to happen.
'Yes,' he said, 'yes, here it is.
Hair at twelve, as Mrs Danvers said.
And a cross beside it.
She kept her appointment, then.