Lunch at the club, and a cross beside that.
What have we here, though? Baker, two o'clock.
Who was Baker?'
He looked at Maxim.
Maxim shook his head.
Then at Mrs Danvers.
'Baker?' repeated Mrs Danvers.
'She knew no one called Baker.
I've never heard the name before.'
'Well, here it is,' said Colonel Julyan, handing her the diary.
'You can see for yourself, Baker.
And she's put a great cross beside it as though she wanted to break the pencil.
She evidently saw this Baker, whoever he may have been.'
Mrs Danvers was staring at the name written in the diary, and the black cross beside it.
'Baker,' she said. 'Baker.'
'I believe if we knew who Baker was we'd be getting to the bottom of the whole business,' said Colonel Julyan.
'She wasn't in the hands of moneylenders, was she?'
Mrs Danvers looked at him with scorn.
'Mrs de Winter?' she said.
'Well, blackmailers perhaps?' said Colonel Julyan, with a glance at Favell.
Mrs Danvers shook her head.
'Baker,' she repeated.
'Baker.'
'She had no enemy, no one who had ever threatened her, no one she was afraid of?'
'Mrs de Winter afraid?' said Mrs Danvers.
'She was afraid of nothing and no one.
There was only one thing ever worried her, and that was the idea of getting old, of illness, of dying in her bed.
She has said to me a score of times,
"When I go, Danny, I want to go quickly, like the snuffing out of a candle."
That used to be the only thing that consoled me, after she died.
They say drowning is painless, don't they?'
She looked searchingly at Colonel Julyan.
He did not answer. He hesitated, tugging at his moustache.
I saw him throw another glance at Maxim.
'What the hell's the use of all this?' said Favell, coming forward.
'We're streaking away from the point the whole bloody time.
Who cares about this Baker fellow?
What's he got to do with it?
It was probably some damn merchant who sold stockings, or face-cream.
If he had been anyone important Danny here would know him.
Rebecca had no secrets from Danny.'
But I was watching Mrs Danvers.
She had the book in her hands and was turning the leaves.
Suddenly she gave an exclamation.
'There's something here,' she said, 'right at the back among the telephone numbers.
Baker.
And there's a number beside it: 0488.
But there is no exchange.'
'Brilliant Danny,' said Favell: 'becoming quite a sleuth in your old age, aren't you?
But you're just twelve months too late.