Again he was silent but neither of his listeners spoke, and by and by he went on.
‘Estah had been pretty frank with me – more than likely she talked a great deal to the child … The way the murder was committed suggested that it was unpremeditated, but not accidental–whoever had killed Crowther meant to kill him at the moment but had not thought it out beforehand. Again, the child was the only person round that side of the house, and the child was the only person who, probably not realizing what she had done, would not have the crime on her conscience and so become nervy. The more I thought of it the more it struck me as being true. For a moment I thought that she was too small to lift the gun, but again when I reflected I realized that she was not. The way the gun was fired from the table fitted in with the theory, too. It seemed to grow more and more likely every time I thought of it.’
‘And so you went to Estah?’ said Jerry.
W.T. nodded.
‘I did,’ he said; ‘but not until I had remembered one thing – Cellini’s story of the flicker of white round the window-post. Mrs Christensen, I knew, had worn a tweed costume in the garden. Norah had on a blue frock, and Estah was in black. And women don’t wear white frilly petticoats nowadays, I understand. The only likely person to be in white was the baby – her skirts, too, would be full enough to swing out a little behind her. As soon as I had this clear in my mind I went to Estah. She admitted she had talked to the child about Crowther, and told me that the baby called him Satan.’
He paused and sighed.
‘I asked her for the frock that the child had worn on the day of the murder, and as soon as she brought it out I knew I was on the right track. It was a very frilly, white affair with an enormously wide skirt.’
‘And that convinced you?’ said Norah.
W.T. shook his head.
‘Not quite. I took it to Cellini. He recognized it.’
His voice died away into silence, and Jerry spoke.
‘Then you decided to throw up the case?’
The old detective nodded.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Estah was guilty of the thought, but the child was the actual firer of the shot.’
‘So you risked your reputation,’ said Norah, ‘and put up with all that rubbish from Deadwood and Co. – ’
W.T. smiled.
‘My dear,’ he said, ‘my reputation had at most only another few years to run. Hers has to stand a lifetime.’
There was silence after he had spoken. Suddenly Norah rose to her feet. Jerry looked up at her. ‘Where are you off to, dear?’
The woman glanced over her shoulder; she was already halfway across the lawn.
‘I’m going to the nursery,’ she said. ‘I want to tell my Bill how – how good everybody is, and get it well into his mind.’
This electronic edition published in 2011 by Bloomsbury Reader
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eISBN: 9781448206865
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The White Cottage Mystery Page 14