There was a knock on the door. He looked over his shoulder and said “Come in.”
Constable Lintott came into the room with a rolled-up bundle in his hand.
Mavis said “Oh!” and the Inspector said,
“Where did you find it, Lintott?”
“Chest of drawers in the bedroom—bottom drawer—pushed down under a lot of the old lady’s things.”
“All right, that’ll do. Put it down.”
Constable Lintott withdrew.
The Inspector got up out of his chair and shook out the bundle, which resolved itself into a long silver dress, a good deal torn, a good deal crushed. A large circular piece had been cut out of the front. He looked at Mavis, and Mavis looked at the dress. She hadn’t cut away quite enough. The stain had spread. As that dreadful fat man stood there holding it up, anybody—anybody could see why the piece had been cut out. It had been cut out because it had been soaked in blood.
Mavis burst into tears. The Inspector’s voice came to her through the sound of her own sobs.
“Now, Miss Grey—here’s your own dress telling its story plain enough. You were in this flat after Mr. Craddock was shot. Perhaps you were here when the shot was fired. You were here, and you knelt down and got the front of your dress all messed up with his blood, and then you went back to number nine and Miss Bingham saw you. She saw Mr. Renshaw inside his own flat, and she saw you go in. Now you just come across with what you know. Was it Mr. Renshaw who fired that shot?”
“No, no—he didn’t—oh, he didn’t! Miss Bingham didn’t see me. She’s making it all up. She’s a wicked old woman. I never came back. I tell you she couldn’t have seen me—I was asleep.”
The Inspector dropped the torn dress and came back to his chair.
“Pity to go on saying that sort of thing,” he said, “but if that’s what you want in your statement you can have it there. What were your relations with Mr. Craddock?”
The bright angry flush came up again. She stopped crying, and said,
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. Was he your lover? Was he courting you? Had he asked you to marry him? Were you engaged to him?”
“Of course I wasn’t! He liked me. He was a cousin, and we went about together, but there wasn’t anything in it. I’m not engaged to anyone, but if I were—”
“If you were?”
Mavis hesitated, but only for a moment. It couldn’t do any harm, and if it convinced them what nonsense it was to say this sort of thing about her and Ross, it might do quite a lot of good. She said in a defiant voice which still sounded tearful,
“If it were anyone, it would be Bobby Foster. He—he wants to, and I haven’t exactly said I would, but—oh, well, it would be him if it was anyone.”
“I see,” said the Inspector.
Chapter Nineteen
Mavis Grey was shown out. Detective Abbott stood behind her in the hall of the flat and watched to see what she would do. She had had a fright and a shaking, and he thought she would want to talk to Peter Renshaw. Short of arresting her or him, or detaining either or both of them on suspicion, you couldn’t prevent them talking things over, but of course it meant that she would tell him just what she had said and just what she hadn’t said, and then he would have to go all out and back her up. Detective Abbott’s opinion of Miss Mavis Grey was that she would say anything, without worrying about whether it was true or not, as long as she thought it would get her out of a mess.
She stood there for a moment, and then she went over to the door of No. 9 and rang the bell. Constable Lintott opened the door, a pleasant-looking young man with a rosy face and round blue eyes. Miss Grey was a good deal taken aback. She had had enough of policemen for the moment, and she wanted to see Peter. She said so in the rather haughty voice which very often means that a girl is afraid she is going to cry.
Constable Lintott directed her to No. 7, and put her in a dilemma. She wanted to see Peter, but she didn’t want to see Lee Fenton. She wanted to get away from all these policemen, and she simply had to tidy up her face before she went out on the street. Her eyelids pricked, her skin felt sticky, and she was quite convinced that the tip of her nose was red. She crossed the landing again and rang the bell of No. 7.
It was Lee who opened the door, and as soon as Mavis saw her a wave of faintness came over her again. There was a mist, and a picture in the mist. But this time she made an effort, because she didn’t want to faint, she wanted to talk to Peter. She walked past Lee into the sitting-room, and Peter looked up from Aunt Lucy’s writing-table and said “Hullo!” She ran to him.
“I want to talk to you. Send her away.”
Lee may have heard what she said. She shut the sitting-room door and went into Lucy Craddock’s bedroom. She was so stiff and bewildered in her mind that it didn’t seem to matter where she went or what she did, except that it was a little better when Peter was there. She sat down on the bed and waited, shivering, although the day was so hot.
In the next room Mavis was talking nineteen to the dozen. What she had said, what the Inspector had said, what she wanted Peter to say—it all came out without pause or stop in a high, excited voice. Peter let her talk herself to a standstill. Then he said calmly,
“You’ve admitted coming home with Ross. You’ve admitted hitting him over the head with the decanter and coming across to my flat—”
“Because Miss Bingham saw me,” said Mavis.
Peter looked at her with a cynical eye.
“‘You tell the truth because you must, and not because you will.’ Parody on Matthew Arnold. No matter. What you haven’t admitted is the excursion at three in the morning.”
“I didn’t,” said Mavis in a hurry.
“You didn’t admit it? Or you didn’t go out of the flat?”
“Miss Bingham made it up. She’s a horrid spiteful old cat.”
“She says she saw you at three in the morning.”
“She made it up,” said Mavis in a sullen voice.
“What’s the good of saying she made it up? I mean, what’s the good of saying it to me, when you know perfectly well that I saw you come in?”
She shook her head.
“She made it up. You didn’t see me.”
Peter walked meditatively to the window and back again. Then he said with alarming mildness,
“That is what I am to say at the inquest?”
She gave an impatient nod.
“Of course.”
“I am, in fact, to commit perjury?”
“You’re not to say you saw me.”
His manner changed.
“Look here, Mavis—did you shoot him? You’d much better tell me. If you did, I’ll do my best for you.”
“I didn’t—I didn’t! Of course I didn’t! Why should I?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Half a dozen reasons why you should. But if you didn’t, it goes. I wonder if you’re speaking the truth. You haven’t had an awful lot of practice, have you?”
“Peter, I didn’t shoot him—I didn’t!”
“Well then, we’ve all got to tell the truth. Because somebody shot him. As long as it wasn’t you the best thing you can do is to weep on the Inspector’s shoulder and tell him all. If you lie, he’ll find you out. If you hold things back, you’ll get tripped up the minute a lawyer gets on to you, and it’s a thousand pounds to a halfpenny you’ll forget what you’ve said and say something else, and then the fat will be in the fire. It takes a heap more brains than you’ve got to be a consistent perjurer. Personally, I intend to stick to the truth.”
“You’re going to say—you saw me—at three o’clock?”
“I am.”
She changed, softened, came up to him caressingly.
“Peter, I only went to find my bag. I told you so.”
“Tell the Inspector, my dear.”
She put a hand on his shoulder, whispering,
“They’ve found my dress—it got stained—I cut
a piece away. Oh, Peter, they’ll think—”
“How did it get stained?”
He held her away and watched her face. She said very low,
“I—knelt—down—”
“You were there?”
She wrenched herself away and sprang back.
“No, no, I wasn’t—I wasn’t!”
He stood where he was.
“You knelt down beside Ross—after he was shot?”
“No, no, I didn’t!”
“I think you did.” After a pause he said, “You’d better see a solicitor at once. I can’t advise you—it’s too serious.”
She came up to him again.
“You mustn’t say you saw me! Peter, you won’t!”
“Look here, Mavis, what’s the good of my saying I didn’t see you? Miss Bingham saw you. You’d better make a clean breast of it. I shan’t say anything unless I’m asked, but I’m bound to be asked.”
The door bell rang, and went on ringing. It sounded as if someone had put a finger on the bell-push and was keeping it there. Lee got up wearily off the bed and went to the door.
In the sitting-room Mavis put her lips quite close to Peter’s ear and said,
“If you tell about me, I shall tell about Lee—so there!”
Chapter Twenty
Lee opened the door and saw Miss Phoebe Challoner just putting up her finger to push the bell again. Even on this very hot day Miss Challoner wore a neat tight coat and skirt of clerical grey, and shiny black kid gloves. Her very thick iron-grey hair was drawn back into a plait which she wore coiled round and round at the back of her head. There was so much plait that her hats always sat on the top of her head and tilted forward. They were very neat hats, usually boat-shaped, and trimmed with one of those hard ornaments which look as if they had become accidentally detached from a piece of funerary sculpture.
Miss Challoner had a square, pale face, a stubborn chin, and a pair of steel-grey eyes under very marked eyebrows. She was a friend of Lucy Craddock’s, and Lee’s heart sank within her, because if Miss Challoner had heard about Ross’s death, no power on earth would prise her away from the front door. She would insist on coming in, and she would continue to ask questions until she felt quite sure that she had got all the answers.
Miss Challoner dropped her black kid finger from the bell and said,
“How do you do, Lee? I thought you had gone to America.”
Lee shuddered. It wasn’t fair that she should have to confront Miss Challoner on the top of everything else. If she gave her the smallest opening, all would be over. She would find herself sitting down to a cosy tête-à-tête and imparting full details of the Merville affair as a preliminary to all about Ross.
She allowed only one word to cross her lips. She said,
“No.”
“Dear me—how was that? Lucy didn’t say. You must tell me all about it. You look terribly washed out. If you find a little heat like this so trying you would certainly not have enjoyed South America. It was South, wasn’t it? But I see New York had a temperature of a hundred and five yesterday, so if you feel the heat you had better stay on this side of the Atlantic. But I didn’t come here to talk about the weather, I came here to fetch poor Lucy’s things.” She turned her head sharply and saw Detective Abbott emerge from No. 8. “What’s that policeman doing here?”
Lee’s original desire to keep Miss Challoner out of the flat changed suddenly to a desperate anxiety to get her inside before she could start cross-examining Detective Abbott. She said all in a breath,
“There’s been an accident. Please do come in. What did you say about Cousin Lucy’s things?”
Miss Challoner detached her gaze with reluctance. Detective Abbott went back into the flat, but he did not close the door.
“An accident?” said Miss Challoner at the pitch of a naturally strong voice. “Who has had an accident?”
Lee took no notice.
“What did you say about Cousin Lucy? Do please come in. Why do you want her things?”
“Three nightgowns,” said Miss Challoner rapidly, “three vests, bedroom slippers, dressing-gown, toothbrush, and a tube of toothpaste.”
“Why?” said Lee, staring at her.
“She forbade me to telephone,” said Miss Challoner. “When I said, ‘I will ring up Craddock House and let them know that you are with me,’ she absolutely forbade me to do so, and in her alarming state of agitation I felt obliged to give her the promise she demanded. But nightgowns and a toothbrush she must have, so I have come to fetch them.”
Lee felt quite dazed. She said in a light faraway voice,
“I haven’t the least idea what you’re talking about. Would you like to tell me—but it doesn’t matter if you don’t want to.”
“You look extremely washed out,” said Miss Challoner. “I can’t think why you should be so confused. I find this hot weather very bracing myself. It seems to me quite obvious if poor Lucy is to be confined to her bed for several days, that she will require her nightgowns and a toothbrush.”
Lee took hold of the door jamb. She said as slowly and distinctly as she could,
“Cousin Lucy started for the Continent last night. I saw her off at Victoria.”
“She didn’t go,” said Miss Challoner.
“I saw her off.”
“Did you see her to the barrier, or did you see her into the train?”
“To the barrier, but—”
“She didn’t go,” said Miss Challoner firmly.
“What did she do?” Lee could only manage a whisper.
“She turned back. As soon as you were gone. She had something on her mind and she felt she couldn’t start—something to do with that niece of hers, Mavis Grey. She felt she must see her again before she went. But she couldn’t find her. She seems to have gone to and fro looking for her for hours, and she seems to have worked herself into a terrible state of nerves. Really, by the time she came to me she was quite unhinged. Dr. Clarke says she must be kept perfectly quiet and not attempt to get out of bed for several days. I have had to lend her a nightgown, but I always wear flannel, and she dislikes it very much. She has lost her luggage ticket, so I cannot get any of her things out of the cloakroom, and nightgowns and a toothbrush she must have.”
About a third of the way through this speech Lee took her hand off the jamb and stepped back. She tried to draw Miss Challoner with her, and she tried to stem the flow of her words. She might have spared herself the pains. Nobody had ever yet succeeded in interrupting Miss Challoner, and nobody ever would. She merely raised her voice, increased its volume, and pronounced each word more forcibly. What she began to say, that she would finish. She finished.
Lee said in a trembling voice, “Oh, do please come inside,” but it was too late.
Detective Abbott came out of Ross Craddock’s flat and crossed the landing. He said,
“Just a moment, madam. I think the Inspector would like to see you.”
Miss Challoner swung round.
“The Inspector?”
“Yes, madam. I think he would like to know at what hour Miss Lucy Craddock reached you in the agitated state which you have just described to Miss Fenton.”
“I can’t see what it’s got to do with the police,” said Miss Challoner briskly, “but I am sure I have nothing to conceal. Miss Craddock knocked me up at a quarter past three this morning.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Inspector Lamb sat at Ross Craddock’s writing-table and gazed frowningly at what the fingerprint experts had sent him. The heat of yesterday had turned to heavy cloud and the threat of rain.
“I’ve taken a dislike to this place, Abbott,” he said.
“Did you say ‘place,’ or ‘case,’ sir?”
“Both,” said the Inspector succinctly. He threw a gloomy glance at the large photograph of Miss Mavis Grey which Peterson’s ministrations had restored to an upright position and placed upon the mantelpiece. It had been found on the floor with a crack across the glass
and across Miss Grey’s slender neck. “That girl’s a liar if I ever saw one,” he added. “Now look here, I’m going to run over what we’ve got against the lot of them—just to clear my own mind, as it were. You can take it down.”
“Very well, sir.”
“Number one—Mr. Peter Renshaw. Plenty of stuff there. He is on bad terms with his cousin. He has words with him about Miss Grey. He is seen just inside his open door when Miss Grey comes back to the flat at three A.M., when, to my mind, there’s no doubt at all that the murder had already been committed. And he comes in for most of the money. On the top of that we have his suspicious behaviour with the revolver. Apart from this there is no other fingerprint of his inside the flat. Got that down?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Number two—Miss Mavis Grey. All her behaviour very suspicious, and a real determined liar. What’s the sense of her admitting she was in the flat with Mr. Craddock and ran away from him to Mr. Renshaw, and then denying that she went back to the flat again, when the same witness can swear to having seen her enter Mr. Renshaw’s flat on both occasions? Plenty of her fingerprints everywhere—on the glass, on the decanter, on the table that was knocked over, and, for all we know, on the revolver before Mr. Renshaw started playing with it. Why can’t she say what she was doing that second time, confound her?”
Detective Abbott looked up.
“It seems to me, sir, that she admits the first visit because she doesn’t mind admitting that she hit Craddock over the head with the decanter, but she won’t admit the second visit because she then either shot Craddock herself or saw someone else shoot him.”
“Mr. Peter Renshaw?”
“Not necessarily—” He hesitated.
“If you’ve got anything to say, say it!”
“It was something that struck me as rather curious.”
“When?”
“Yesterday—just before I brought Miss Challoner in to you. She was talking to Miss Fenton at the open door of number seven, and Miss Fenton was trying to get her to come in. Well, just as I said that you would like to see her, the sitting-room door opened and Mavis Grey came out. Renshaw was behind her, and I’m pretty sure they’d been quarrelling. Both of them had the look of it, and the girl was in a hurry to get away. Well, this is what I noticed. She was in a hurry, but she wasn’t in such a hurry that she would pass Miss Fenton. She would have had to touch her, you know, and she wouldn’t do it. She baulked, and when Miss Fenton did move she shied past her just like a horse does when it’s scared. I thought it was odd, sir.”
The Blind Side: An Ernest Lamb Mystery Page 11