Mr. and Mrs. Shotterleigh hadn’t been interested either, but the girls came into the study, and so did Mirrie Field and Mr. Vincent, but not Lady Pondesbury, or Georgina, who remained in the drawing-room to play hostess. He thought about the rest of them crossing the big square hall and coming into the study with its book-lined walls and the handsome maroon curtains drawn across the windows. It would be rather a dark room by day, but under modern lighting pleasant enough, with comfortable chairs and a carpet in tones of red and green. Mirrie Field’s white frills and the pink and blue of the Shotterleigh girls stood out against the dark furnishings.
When they were all there and the door shut, Jonathan got out his heavy albums and found room for them on the writing-table. Nobody thought about sitting down. Johnny Fabian stayed by the door, amused for the moment but prepared to escape if he was bored, and Mary Shotterleigh stayed with him. She had grown up rather pretty. She looked sideways at Johnny and he said something which brought her colour up in a bright attractive blush. The other girl, Deborah, came up to the corner of the writing-table and stood there looking shy. Mirrie Field was with Anthony Hallam, pressed up as close to him as she could get and holding on to his sleeve rather as if she was afraid that something might jump out of one of the albums and bite her. Frank himself was over by the fire with a man called Vincent, a newcomer to the neighbourhood after some years in South America. According to Anthony there was plenty of money, but no wife or family. As they stood together, Mr. Vincent observed that he couldn’t imagine why anyone should want to collect fingerprints, to which Frank replied that it wouldn’t appeal to him personally, but he understood that Mr. Field’s collection was unique. Mr. Vincent fixed him with a dullish eye and enquired,
‘How do you mean unique? I should have thought the police collection would be that.’
‘Oh, the police only get the failures. They don’t touch the potential criminal or the chap who has never been found out. And that, of course, is where Mr. Field has the pull. He has been collecting for the last forty years or so, and he is so well known that it is quite a compliment to be asked for a contribution. In fact anyone who refused would be sticking out his neck and asking to be suspected of dabbling in crime.’
Mr. Vincent said it all seemed rather dull to him, but then what he was really interested in himself was stamp-collecting and he went on to describe how he had found and subsequently had stolen from him a two cent British Guiana 1851 of which only ten copies had been previously known to exist. It was a tragic tale told in the dullest possible manner. A tepid man with not even a spark of the collector’s fire in his belly.
‘He went down over the rapids and the stamp with him, and no one would go in to look for the body because the river was so dangerous, so now there are only ten copies again.’ He shook his head with faint regret and added the word, ‘Pity’.
All this while Jonathan Field was laying out two large volumes on the flat top of his writing-table and hovering over them with an index or a catalogue or whatever he chose to call it.
‘Now what shall I show you? Hitler’s thumb and forefinger? Most people want to see those. I’ve got quite a nice little group of the Nazis – Goering, Goebbels, Bormann, and poor old Rommel.’
The book opened easily at the place. Everyone crowded to see, and there they were, exactly like the prints which any of the people in the room might have made. These men had grasped at the world and it had slipped from them. They were gone. There was nothing left but ruined lands and ruined people and some black prints in Jonathan Field’s collection.
The prints were all very neatly mounted and set up, a legend under each, with a name and sometimes a date. What an extraordinary hobby for anyone to have. And Jonathan was as keen as mustard, there was no doubt about that. He stood behind his writing-table and snapped off little anecdotes of how he had come by the exhibits. Some of them were amusing, and some of them were tragic, but it was a very good performance. Nobody seemed to look at the prints very much, but they all listened to the stories.
When it had been going on for about half an hour Georgina came in and said that people were beginning to arrive for the dance. Jonathan didn’t looked pleased. He said in a pettish voice,
‘All right, all right, I’ll come.’
He took up the left-hand album and then put it down again.
‘The most interesting prints are in here, but I never show them to anyone.’
Looking back, Frank could admire the showmanship. He was going to finish the performance with a bang.
‘I don’t know the man’s name, and I probably never shall, but I’ve got his fingerprints, and I think – I say I think – I should know his voice.’
Georgina stood in the doorway in her silver dress. She looked across at him and said ‘Darling!’ on a note of protest. But Mirrie clasped her hands and breathed in an anguished tone,
‘Oh, Uncle Jonathan, please! You can’t stop there – you must go on!’
There was no doubt which was the popular niece for the moment. Jonathan frowned at Georgina, cast a softened look at Mirrie, and said,
‘Oh, well, some other time. It’s too long a story for now – quite dramatic though!’
He half opened the volume and shut it again. It didn’t shut down smoothly. There was an envelope in the way. Frank had just a glimpse of it over Mirrie’s head. And then Jonathan was going on.
‘Oh, yes, quite dramatic. We were buried under a heap of rubble in the blitz, not knowing each other from Adam, or caring either for the matter of that, and neither of us thought we’d ever see daylight again. Curious how that sort of thing takes people. I never felt more alive in my life – noticed everything more than I’d ever done before or since – everything speeded up, intensified. There was a pain, but it didn’t seem to belong to me. The other fellow was where I could just reach him. He wasn’t hurt, just trapped and mad with fright – what they call claustrophobia. I passed him my cigarette-case and matches – that’s how I got a fingerprint – and with the third cigarette he began to tell me about a murder he had done. In fact two murders, because he said he had had to kill a possible witness in order to make himself safe after the first one. He had got it all worked out in his mind that the second one didn’t really count. He said it was practically self-defence, because she would have gone to the police if he hadn’t stopped her, and the only way he could be sure of stopping her was by finishing her off. He was perfectly clear about it, and it didn’t seem to bother him at all. But the first one bothered him a bit. You see, he’d done that one to get hold of some money. He said he ought to have had it anyhow and the man he murdered had got it by undue influence, and he seemed to think that would make it all right about the murder. At least he hoped it would, but when a couple of bombs came down pretty near us he didn’t feel any too sure about it. He may have been making it up, but I didn’t think so then and I don’t think so now, so when he passed the case back to me I wrapped my handkerchief round it and slipped it into my breast pocket just in case.’
Anthony said, ‘What happened after that?’
Jonathan looked across at him with something that wasn’t quite a smile.
‘As far as I was concerned that was the end. There was another bomb, and I didn’t know anything more until I woke up in hospital with a broken leg. As a matter of fact that last bomb was a blessing in disguise, because it shifted the stuff that was over us and the Red Cross people were able to get me out.’
‘And your murderer?’ That was Anthony too.
‘Never saw hair, hide or hoof of him. He must have crawled out and got away, because there were no corpses lying about. So he’s probably walking around somewhere and still trying to make up his mind whether he’s a double murderer or not.’
Georgina made a little gesture that said, ‘Oh, well—’ and turned round and went away, leaving the door open behind her. Now was there any importance in that, or wasn’t there? There might have been. Because anyone in the hall could have come up close enough t
o have heard what Jonathan had said and what Jonathan was saying now. Georgina had stood in an open doorway. She had gone away and left it open behind her. Anyone could have heard what Jonathan said.
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copyright © 1957 by Patricia Wentworth
cover design by Jason Gabbert
978-1-4532-2567-7
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Poison in the Pen (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 29) Page 26