“We must get the truth, or we can’t help her,” Dalbeattie whispered back. And it was true. Gleeson might have shown mercy, but Blackitt was the embodiment of Impersonal Law.
“But has he confessed to you?” Blackitt asked quietly.
“Is that fair, sir?” interrupted West, appealing to Dalbeattie, who silenced him with a gesture. The truth had to be known—better that they should know it first. Annette seemed to feel that too, that here were the only friends who could help, and that they must know everything.
She was silent a moment, then: “It was the night after the inquest had been held… He came to me that night… he realized from Inspector Blackitt’s evidence that the police were not deceived, that they did not accept the suicide theory as the papers had done. And that night he broke… He realized what it would mean to me, the slow dragging out of the truth, that even his suicide would not save me, might make me look an accomplice when it was known that I was his wife, and that I inherited the fortune. He told me all.”
Those four words—and three men realized what the telling must have been. There would be no reproaches from Annette. At that moment she would have been at her best, and Kinnaird would have understood what he had gambled with and lost—driven, desperate, reckless Kinnaird.
Inspector Blackitt’s voice seemed indecently businesslike when he broke the silence with: “He had planted that revolver himself? He had meant it to look like suicide?”
“Yes, and it was I who made it all so easy for him, I who unconsciously gave him the idea. I told him about the dinner, laughed with him about Mr West’s letter of apology that the Minister would have to leave him for the nine o’clock division. And he had got the waiter Cedric his job. It all worked in so well. Cedric fixed the revolver when he was on early duty. He just locked the door. He had an excuse if anyone wanted to come in, but no one did. No one saw him. If the police guard had not been kept on, he would have got the revolver away afterwards without anyone knowing it had been there.”
“Cheerful thought how easily such things can be done in the House of Commons, just because no one expects they will be,” said Gleeson to Dalbeattie in a low tone.
“But how did he expect it to look like suicide?” said Lord Dalbeattie. “How could he be sure that your grandfather would take his revolver?”
“He knew Grandpère well enough to be sure of that, especially when Grandpère knew beforehand that he was to be left alone even for a few minutes. And he had challenged Grandpère to hit a target only the day before when they were motoring with me. I was driving. That worked easily enough. Grandpère was proud of his shooting. They each fired their revolvers once at a mark on a tree. Grandpère scored. He was as pleased as anything about it, and just put the revolver back in his pocket. That was all Philip wanted, of course. He and Grandpère seemed quite good friends that day. Why should I have suspected anything?”
Silence again. Sir George Gleeson felt his sympathy with Kinnaird waning somewhat. It had been a pretty cold-blooded plot, whatever the provocation—not like shooting a man in anger.
“And the notebook?” asked Lord Dalbeattie, who knew what he wanted to get out of all this. Once clear the Government, and there might be some hope of helping poor Annette.
“Oh, the notebook! At first I thought that that was what the burglars had been after. When I knew the truth, then I kept working at that, because I wanted to turn attention from the papers that Philip had arranged to be stolen. I guessed from Mr West that the Government had something to hide there. And when I realized what I had done—by going to the Home Office and making a fuss about its not being suicide—I thought it would put the police off the scent. As it did, you must admit.”
She said this so pitifully that West agreed heartily. “Of course it did! Bunkered us completely,” he said. Good God, he thought to himself, what must she have felt like when she realized that she had probably helped to put a rope round her lover’s neck—what pluck she had shown!
Annette pitiful, Annette pleading and tender, would have melted a harder heart than even Sir George Gleeson’s. Blackitt, whose sole interest was in a professional job well done, began to be afraid of the effect of those wet eyes. He had to find where Kinnaird was. Dalbeattie and West would only be concerned that the Cabinet could now be cleared. The expression on Sir George’s face showed that even he would not be too reliable an ally at the moment. He must bring this girl to the point quickly, so that, as a sensible detective, he could get on with his job of bringing murderers to justice without being hampered at every turn by friends of Cabinet Ministers, and powerful Society women like Lady Bell-Clinton.
He tried to continue his cross-examination. “And where is Mr Kinnaird now, Miss Oissel?”
Lord Dalbeattie glanced significantly at Sir George Gleeson, who nodded slightly.
“I think that is all we can expect of Miss Oissel to-night, Blackitt,” said Dalbeattie. “After all, Miss Oissel has given the police a lot of help by her statement. It has cleared the Cabinet completely, and that is the really important matter at the moment. As Mr Kinnaird’s wife she could have refused to say anything. I think we must not trouble her further. Perhaps to-morrow——”
Annette rose. She leant on Robert’s arm. “Thank you, Lord Dalbeattie. If Mr West will take me to my car…” Each man there, except the practical Inspector, wanted that privilege, but they stood aside as Robert lifted her scarf from her chair and put it on her shoulders. Together they walked from the room.
An adjournment debate that had followed the last division was finishing as they went along the corridor. The bells began to ring as the House rose. Down the corridors came the shouts of the policemen, the last call of the Parliamentary day: “Who goes home? Who goes home?”
Annette halted at the entrance. She looked up at Big Ben. “Philip has gone home,” she said very softly. “The police forgot the river.”
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The Division Bell Mystery Page 22