Read the extract given below and answer the questions that follow:
Margaret: Here’s the wind!
Winsor: What’s the move now, General?
Canynge: You and I had better see the Inspector in De Levis’s room, Winsor. [To the others] If you’ll all be handy, in case he wants to put questions for himself.
Margaret: I hope he’ll want me; it’s just too thrilling.
Dancy: I hope he won’t want me; I am dog-tired. Come on Mabel.
Canynge: Just a minute, Charles.
(i) Who is Margaret? Why does she say, ‘Here’s the wind!’?
(ii) Why does Canynge suggest that they see the Inspector in De Levis’ room? What does Margaret find ‘thrilling’?
(iii) Who enters soon after? What had this person been asked to do earlier?
(iv) How does De Levis happen to have such a large sum of money on that particular day? What steps does he take to keep the money safe?
(v) Whom does De Levis suspect of having stolen his money? What leads Canynge to suspect the same person? What is Canynge’s opinion of this person?
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(i)
- Margaret Orme – A society girl / guest at Meldon Court / A friend of Winsor or Adela
- Margaret says this mockingly when she hears the sound of the policeman’s motorbike.
Earlier that evening when Lady Adela had called the Police Station at New Market to report the theft, Inspector Dede had said he was ‘coming like the wind on his motor cycle’.
(ii)
- Canynge wants the Inspector to see the scene of the crime before talking to anyone. / he wants to speak privately to the inspector/ to see the handprints and the footprints
- Margaret finds the entire experience thrilling – the theft, the arrival of the police, the investigation, the possibility of being questioned by the police.
(iii)
- Treisure, Winsor’s butler enters the room.
- Treisure had been asked to check if the stable ladder had been moved/ to bring up Robert
(iv)
- De Levis had sold a horse (Rosemary’s filly) – for a thousand pounds in cash that day.
- De Levis had placed the money in his boot and had locked the boot in his suitcase before he went down for dinner.
After dinner he had counted the money, had placed it under his pillow and locked the door
when he went for his bath.
(v)
- De Levis suspects Dancy
- When Canynge touches Dancy’s sleeve he notices that it was wet – he realises that Dancy had been out in the rain/ Dancy told them he had been indoors all the time
- Canynge believes that Dancy is an officer and a gentleman / that Dancy would never stoop to steal money/ he is gallant/ has a fine record as a soldier/ he was very innocent/ has done daring, risky things