Lee lost her temper, suddenly, satisfyingly, and completely. She said, “I’m sure I hope not!” and slammed the door upon the offended Mrs. Green.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Well, sir, here’s her statement,” said Detective Abbott. “And if I may say so, I think she was telling the truth. The only thing against it is that Peter Renshaw was particularly anxious to impress upon me beforehand that Miss Craddock was so truthful that she couldn’t tell a lie if she tried.”
“H’m!” said the Inspector. “He might be very anxious for you to believe that she was truthful, and yet it might be the fact, you know.”
“Yes, I know, sir. But you’ve got to consider the tremendous importance for the whole Craddock family of this point about her having seen someone slip down the steps of Craddock House just before she got there at two-fifteen. If that’s true, it lets out Peter Renshaw, Miss Fenton, and Mavis Grey.”
“Lets herself out too.”
“Yes—only I don’t think she needs letting out, really. I’m quite sure her statement is true in the main. I’m certain she did try to find Mavis Grey and make a last appeal to her, and that the reason she didn’t give the alarm when she found Ross Craddock lying dead was that she saw Mavis’s powder compact and was so frightened at the idea of her being mixed up in the murder that she just panicked and ran away. That’s all natural enough. But that shadow slipping down the steps sticks in my throat, and if there’s no corroboration, I shouldn’t expect a jury to swallow it either.”
“We haven’t got as far as a jury,” said the Inspector. After a pause he added the word “Yet.”
He picked up Lucy Craddock’s statement and read it through to the end. Then he said,
“What’s made her so worked up about this affair between Mr. Craddock and Miss Grey? That’s what I’d like to know. Seems to me it’s all a bit out of reason. She mightn’t like him, and she mightn’t want her niece to marry him, but she wasn’t even Miss Grey’s guardian, and I don’t see why she put herself in such a state as this amounts to.” He tossed the statement down upon the table. “To my mind there’s something behind it, and I’d like to know what it is.”
“Yes, sir—you’re perfectly right. I pressed her about it, and I think I got something. Craddock couldn’t marry Mavis Grey because he was married already.”
“What?”
“Miss Craddock was a bit incoherent, but I gather that there had been some sort of a war marriage—old history—many years ago—very upsetting for the whole family. The woman was an actress and older than he was, but he was over twenty-one at the time and they couldn’t get the marriage upset. It didn’t last any time to speak of, but Miss Craddock said she was quite sure there had never been a divorce. She said she didn’t think Craddock wanted a divorce, because it suited his book to philander around and then be able to say that of course he hadn’t any intentions, because he was a married man.”
“Anything known about the wife?”
“I gather that none of them has ever seen her. Miss Craddock says that during the lifetime of her cousin, the elder Mr. Craddock, a small allowance was paid to her through Mr. Prothero, the family solicitor, but she believes Ross Craddock stopped it. There was a thing that struck me there, sir—once I’d got her started Miss Craddock fairly poured all this put. I couldn’t help wondering whether this rather mythical wife wasn’t a red herring. And that’s making me wonder whether Miss Lucy is quite the truthful innocent that Peter wants to make me think she is. First she sees a very convenient shadow slip down the steps of Craddock House, then she says she finds the front door open, and lastly she releases a whole news-reel about a twenty-year-old marriage.”
“I thought you said you believed she was telling the truth.”
Detective Abbott ran his hand back over his hair.
“I know I did. That’s the funny thing—when I was talking to her and taking down that statement I could have sworn it was all straight, but the moment I come to go over it to you I can see how fishy it looks. It’s too convenient for the Craddocks—that’s how it strikes me. And that story of someone coming down the steps—look how beautifully vague she leaves it. It might be a man, it might be a woman—she only says it was someone. And there’s no corroboration.”
The telephone bell rang. The Inspector lifted the receiver, listened for a while, and then said,
“That’s good enough—we’ll pull him in. Good work, Lintott! I’m coming straight over.”
He hung up and turned a satisfied face on Abbott.
“That was Lintott. He rang up whilst you were out to say he’d got a lot of stuff about Foster, and a number of good fingerprints from his brushes and shaving tackle. Foster wasn’t there, but he’d got a search warrant. I told him to rush the fingerprint business through and let me know the result. That was it, and it’s good enough to put Mr. Bobby Foster in the dock. His prints correspond exactly with the ones we couldn’t place, on the banisters and the sitting-room door. He was here that night, and he made those marks and he dropped his cigarette-case. His landlady says he came back in a taxi about midnight and made a lot of noise on the stairs. She says he didn’t go to bed, but walked up and down in his room talking to himself and kicking the furniture. Her husband went in to him at half past one and told him he was disturbing the whole house. The man says Mr. Foster was in an awful state—told him his girl had thrown him over, and he was going to buy a revolver and shoot himself, but he was going to shoot the other man first. He says there was a bottle of whisky on the table and Mr. Foster kept pouring himself out another drink. He says he tried to calm him down, but it was no good, and all of a sudden Mr. Foster shouted out that he wasn’t going to stand it any longer. ‘I’ll have it out with him,’ he said, ‘if I have to blow his head off!’ and with that he was down the stairs and out of the house and no stopping him—and by all accounts they were glad enough to be rid of him. They went to bed again, but they didn’t bolt the street door. Round about three in the morning the man heard something fall. He opened the bedroom door, and there was Mr. Foster on the stairs in his stocking feet with one shoe in his hand and the other where he’d dropped it on the half-landing. He didn’t look drunk any more, but he looked worse. The man says he looked as if he had seen a ghost. And he went back and picked up his shoe and on up to his room, all without making a sound. I’ll say we’ve got our man all right, or will have as soon as I get that warrant. There’s no doubt what happened, to my mind. He got round here somewhere about two o’clock, quarrelled with Mr. Craddock, and threatened him. Mr. Craddock had had a bang over the head already and he wasn’t feeling too grand. He gets scared, or wants to scare the other man, opens this drawer, and pulls out his revolver. Mr. Foster gets it from him—he’s a very powerful young man—and, either in a struggle or deliberately, Mr. Craddock is shot. Mr. Foster throws down the pistol and gets away just as Miss Craddock comes along. It fits in well enough with what she says she saw.”
“She says she saw the pistol in Ross Craddock’s hand.”
“Well, isn’t that where Foster would put it if he’d any sense in him at all?”
“He might. There’s one thing though—Miss Craddock had a key to the front door of Craddock House, but Bobby Foster hadn’t.”
The Inspector looked at him, frowning.
“You mean?”
“How did he get in, sir?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“When will you marry me, Lee?”
Peter stood on the hearth-rug and surveyed her with frowning intensity. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets. His tone was business-like and his manner abrupt.
Lee said, “I haven’t said I’m going to marry you at all.”
His frown deepened.
“Of course you’re going to marry me. I do wish you would stick to the point.”
“I said I hadn’t promised to marry you. That is the point.”
“No, it isn’t. We settled that yesterday. The present point is, when are you going to
marry me? And I think it had better be as soon as possible. This is Thursday, and the licence business takes three days.… Damn! That means the week-end comes in, so I suppose it will have to be Monday—or will a parson marry you on a Sunday? I don’t see why he shouldn’t—in the afternoon.”
Miss Fenton had a clear and pretty voice. She raised it perceptibly.
“Peter, I am not going to marry you—either on Sunday or Monday. I haven’t said that I am going to marry you at all.”
He swooped, pulled her up out of her chair, and held her at arm’s length.
“Why?”
“It’s not—it’s not a time to get married.”
“My child, marriage isn’t a beano. But I see your point. The inquest is tomorrow, and then I suppose they’ll let us get on with the funeral, say Saturday, and what’s to prevent our getting married on Monday? You want someone to look after you, you know. I can’t so much as go out for an hour or two but you go pouring confessions into old Lamb’s fortunately unresponsive ear. Poor old Lamb—first he thought Mavis had done it, then it looked as if I was a dead snip until Lucinda dropped on him out of the blue, on the top of which you came along with a confession, and now I gather that he’s quite sure it’s Bobby. But to return to our licence. You need looking after, I want to look after you, and—”
She shook her head.
“Peter, it won’t do—not till this is all cleared up. Don’t you see that if you marry me, the police will think I knew something and that you’d done it to make sure I couldn’t be called as a witness against you?”
Peter let go of her rather suddenly.
“What a perfectly horrible mind you’ve got!”
“Well, isn’t that just what they would think?”
“I don’t know—I suppose they might.”
He took her by the elbow and began to walk her up and down the room.
“Look here, my dear, you say put off getting married until the mess is cleared up. But suppose it isn’t cleared up—suppose it’s never cleared up. Do you realize that we are all under suspicion and we shall go on being suspected till kingdom come unless they really do find out who murdered Ross, and, what is more, prove it up to the hilt? Do you think Mavis did it? I don’t. I don’t suppose she’s ever handled a revolver in her life. Besides, look at what she did earlier on when he got fresh with her. She upped with the decanter and hit him over the head. Very nice, natural, womanly reaction. If she’d had a revolver handy she’d have hit him over the head with it or heaved it at him, but I’ll go bail she wouldn’t have fired it.”
Lee nodded.
“Yes, I think so too.”
“Always agree with me, darling. You’ll find it a splendid foundation for our married life. We now come to me. Do you think I did it?”
“No.”
“I suppose there are circumstances in which I might have done it—I don’t know. But whoever shot Ross shot him sitting. That’s the medical evidence—the shot travelled downwards. He was shot sitting, probably whilst he was still dazed after the clip on the head Mavis gave him with the decanter. I don’t see myself doing that somehow.”
Lee said “No” again.
“Then there’s Lucinda. I don’t know if they believe her statement, but I do. Of course the wish is probably father to the thought, because if she really did see someone coming out of Craddock House at a quarter past two in the morning, it spreads quite a lot of whitewash over the Craddock family. And that’s the snag—they may think the whitewash altogether too convenient.”
“I suppose so. I—I’ve been awfully frightened about Lucy, Peter. She was most frightfully worked up about Ross, and she doesn’t really seem to have known what she was doing on Tuesday night. The thing that frightens me is that as far as I can see she was the only person who could have got in from outside after Rush locked up. She says she found the door open, but—”
“Mavis and Ross came in. They may not have shut the door properly. No—that won’t wash. I don’t believe anyone could forget to shut a door they’d just opened with a latchkey. You see, he took the latchkey out all right. It was there on his chain. He simply couldn’t have forgotten the door. Besides Mavis was there.”
“Then who opened it? Someone did, if Lucy’s story is true. Oh, Peter, it frightens me.”
“I know, but you’re not going to make me believe that Lucinda shot Ross. What about Miss Bingham? There’s a really bright idea!”
Lee’s laugh was half a catch of the breath.
“Peter, I had her here for an hour after the Inspector had gone, and it was the very last straw. Talk about third degree!”
“I begin to feel quite sure she did it,” said Peter firmly. “She had a secret passion for Ross, and she slew him because he wouldn’t reciprocate. Why, she admits being on the spot at or about the fatal time. I believe we have her sleuthed. Call me Renshaw no more—I am Hawkshaw the Detective. I must ring up old Lamb and tell him all before he goes and arrests me, or Lucinda, or the unfortunate Bobby.”
All this time he had been walking Lee up and down, with the pace getting faster and faster, until at its climax he stopped suddenly and embraced her after the French manner, with clasping arms and a kiss upon either cheek.
“Peter! Don’t be so mad!”
She got an injured stare.
“Is it that you are offended? Is it not that one is permitted to salute one’s betrothed? Do you not love me passionately?”
“No, I don’t! And if you think that’s a French accent, it isn’t!”
He let go of her and ran his hands through his hair.
“All right, let us return to the prison house. We are now going to be very, very serious, and I expect we had better sit down.”
He drew two chairs together and sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand.
“Lee, did you know Ross was married?”
Her eyebrows went up.
“Was he?” she said. “I’m not really surprised, you know. Lucy used to drop hints. I suppose that was why she was in such a flap about Mavis.”
“You think Mavis knew?”
“Well, you’d think Lucy would have told her if she wanted to put her off.”
“You’d think so. Well, she told Abbott, and I dropped in on old Prothero on my way back, and he told me all about it. She was an actress in a small way—name of Aggie Crouch, but her stage name was Rosalie La Fay. Ross married her on one of his leaves in nineteen-seventeen. He was over age and compos mentis, and she was a perfectly respectable girl, so Uncle John had just to swallow her down. But by the time the Armistice came along Ross was through and they separated. Uncle John made her an allowance of three hundred a year on condition she kept out of everybody’s way. Somewhere about nineteen-twenty-five he reduced it to two hundred—he’d had some losses—and in nineteen-thirty-one it came down with a run to a mere fifty. Prothero says it was all he could manage. When he died four years ago Ross cut it down to twenty-five, and a year ago he stopped it altogether. You know he really was a swine, Lee. The woman wrote the most imploring letters—said she couldn’t get a job, and wouldn’t he do something for her? Prothero tried to persuade him, especially in view of the fact that all the leasehold property was due to fall in and he could quite easily have let her have the original three hundred a year again, but he wouldn’t hear of it. By the way, she’ll come in for most of that property now.”
“What!”
“Bit of a turn of the wheel, isn’t it?”
“I thought it came to you.”
“What came from my grandfather comes to me. He left it like that in his will. But most of those leaseholds came to Ross from his mother without any settlement, and the wife will get all that. Prothero says that was one reason why he was so anxious that Ross should make a will. He said he wrote to him urging him on these very grounds only last week, and he says Ross had half agreed to do something about it, but it didn’t get any farther than that.”
“Does she know?” said Lee.
Peter nodded.
“Prothero wrote yesterday, and she rang him up this morning from Birmingham. He said she sounded very upset, and wanted to know when the funeral was, and would he advance her some money at once, because she would like to send a really classy wreath. He was rather relieved to know that she had got his letter, because, I gather, she never stays anywhere more than about a month, and he wasn’t quite sure whether he’d got the right address.”
“I suppose—” said Lee, and then she hesitated. “Peter, it is beastly to think of these sort of things, but—do you suppose she knew—about the money, I mean?”
Peter shook his head.
“My child, I’d love to suspect Aggie, but I’m afraid it can’t be done. You see, she couldn’t possibly have known that Ross hadn’t made a will, and if he had, she could bet her boots she wouldn’t get a penny. All very vindictive and anti-social our cousin Ross’s views on matrimony. Anyhow, she was in Birmingham—at least I suppose she was—old Lamb might be asked to check up on that. I did have the bright thought that Miss Bingham might be Aggie in disguise, with an accomplice in Birmingham telephoning to old Prothero, but I’m afraid she’s been here too long for that. No, I don’t think we can fix it on Aggie.”
Lee said in a shaken voice,
The Blind Side: An Ernest Lamb Mystery Page 15
