Black Widow

by S. Fowler Wright

  CHAPTER X.

  Inspector Pinkey, following in the direction that Mr. Wheeler led, and exchanging the preliminary platitudes about the vagaries of English weather, with which those who are of slight or recent acquaintance habitually prelude any serious conversation, observed that they were heading for Bywater Grange.

  “I expect,” he said, in cautious approach to the subject that was on both their minds, “you will be seeing Lady Denton while you are here?”

  “Yes, I am going there now. I shouldn’t wonder if I have to ask her to put me up for the night. There are several matters of business that I may as well clear up while I am here.”

  The Inspector, seeing that Mr. Wheeler appeared to have come down with no more of the necessities of individual comfort than his pockets might be supposed to hold, concluded silently that the intention of staying must have been formed since he had heard the suggestion that his client might be in danger of arrest on a capital charge.

  “If you do that,” he said, “I may see you again. Lady Denton has kindly offered me the hospitality of the Grange.”

  If Mr. Wheeler felt any surprise at this news, he gave no sign. He said: “Excellent…I need scarcely say that if Lady Denton or I can give you any information or help, you have only to let us know.”

  “Yes, Lady Denton assured me of that.”

  The Inspector spoke with more reserve than before. He did not intend that this genial solicitor should take charge of himself, or the case that he had in hand.

  Mr. Wheeler, very sensitive to atmosphere, perceived that he must move cautiously here.

  “It is most desirable,” he said with gravity, “in Lady Denton’s interest, that the murderer should be found.”

  “Yes, I should say that it is.”

  Mr. Wheeler reminded himself that he had not yet seen Lady Denton, and that it might be wiser not to develop conversation with the detective till he was better informed of what might have passed already between them. He became silent, and felt some relief when the Inspector paused at a branching road, and said: “I’d better not come further with you now. I told Lady Denton I shouldn’t be in till late. I expect I shall see you at breakfast, and perhaps we can have a chat then.”

  “Glad to, if you’re not too late down. I shall have to leave in time to catch the nine twenty-four.”

  “Oh, that’s all right. Breakfast’s never too early for me.”

  They parted with some recovered cordiality, born of the fact that they were both getting what the moment required, which was to be alone with their own thoughts.

  Mr. Wheeler walked on to the Grange, revolving a speculation which had crossed his mind during the discussion of the suicide theory that afternoon. He had dismissed it with a word of contempt, and he still thought it a most improbable thing. But suppose that Sir Daniel had had that clause of the insurance in mind? Suppose he had tried to shoot himself in such a way that it would appear certain that he had been shot by another hand? He did not think it probable, for he could see no reason why he should want to shoot himself at all, and, in any case, it was not an idea to be spoken aloud, with £30,000 to be lost if he could make it believed.

  Only—if it were agreed that murder had been done—if the insurance money were paid—if Lady Denton (it was a possibility which he saw that he ought to face) should be put on trial after that—then, and not till then, such a theory might be advanced, to confuse the minds of a jury who would surely be reluctant to convict an attractive woman of such a crime—a stupid, improbable, almost incredibly motiveless crime, as it must appear to be.

  He saw the weaker side of the case, if the theory of suicide should be pushed aside. The unanswered question—who was it, if not she?—but he felt some confidence in his case—he was always confident in himself—that even if Adelaide Denton should be arrested on such a charge, he would be able to bring her off. He felt some confidence in his client also, that she would not fail in nerve or courage, and of her appearance—that vital weapon in the defence of peccant women—there could be little left to desire.

  He wondered also what might be the activities of Chief Inspector Pinkey: where had he been going, and with what object now? Perhaps he was already on the actual culprit’s track, and Lady Denton might be in no danger at all? But, curiously and illogically enough, though he had formed an opinion that the Inspector was a man for his friends to trust and his foes to fear, and though he was resolved not to consider even the possibility of Lady Denton’s guilt, he had no real expectation that any energy of detection would produce a man who had fired the shot. Perhaps the absence of any theory of motive behind the crime, of any guess of whom the murderer would be likely to be, assisted to give a feeling of unreality to the pursuit of that theoretic criminal. He was not a living man, to feel the handcuffs on his wrists and to be lodged in a prison cell, but rather one to be postulated for the defence of a woman who might stand in the dock, where it was difficult to imagine that he would himself appear.

  With such thoughts in his mind, he went on to Bywater Grange, to be warmly welcomed by Lady Denton, who felt a natural relief in the presence of one whom she recognized as both a loyal friend and a powerful ally. Her only equal confidant having been Gerard Denton during the stresses of the past week, it was a pleasant contrast to talk to one of so absolute a contrast, both in brains and courage.

  He had come down, he said vaguely, to meet the bank’s solicitors in reference to some matter concerning Sir Daniel’s estate, and it was not until he was seated on her right side at dinner, with Gerard Denton opposite, that he led up to the subject on which he felt there must be something more to be said, by remarking that he had met Chief Inspector Pinkey at Forbes and Fisher’s—“a very capable officer, I should suppose him to be.”

  “Yes,” Lady Denton replied; “he is staying here. I expect you heard that?”

  “So he told me. I must try to get a chat with him before I leave. I hope to ascertain what progress he has been able to make, if the official reticence can be overcome. There are business reasons why it is important to clear up the circumstances as promptly as possible.”

  Lady Denton did not avoid the issue, nor did she shrink from plainer words than he had thought it tactful to use. Her eyes met his as she asked: “You mean the circumstances of my husband’s death?”

  “Yes. It is particularly important that the question of suicide should be eliminated.”

  “But that’s what I think it was.”

  “I’m afraid the medical evidence makes it difficult, if not impossible, to adopt such a conclusion. Incidentally, if that view were accepted, it might involve a loss of thirty thousand pounds to your husband’s estate.”

  “How could it do that?”

  “There is an insurance policy for that amount which would be invalidated if Sir Daniel took his own life.”

  Lady Denton was silenced for a moment by this information. She looked down in a frowning thought­fulness, but when she spoke she held stubbornly to the opinion she had expressed before.

  “Well, I told Inspector Pinkey I thought it was that. I don’t see how it could have been anything else.”

  “Did he appear to agree?”

  “He didn’t say anything.”

  “I only asked you because I heard him say this afternoon that we could put the idea of suicide out of our minds. He is sure that Sir Daniel died by another hand. I wished to know whether he were being as frank with you as I am sure that you were with him.”

  “He didn’t say much. He just asked. I told him I wished I could help him more, but I didn’t see how I could.”

  “If you just tell the truth,” Mr. Wheeler replied, watching her with a friendly keenness while he spoke, “you don’t need to worry beyond that. It’s almost always the best way.”

  “It’s the only way here,” she said in a definite tone, which should have reassured, but left him vaguely dissatisfied.

  Mr. Gerard Denton had listened to this discussion with the expression of one reluctantl
y present at a conversation of unpleasantly indecent character, which he is unable to stop. Now that it paused, he said irritably: “I can’t think why you ever let him enter the house.”

  “Inspector Pinkey? Perhaps it’s because I’m not quite a fool.”

  Her tone was sharp as she addressed her brother-in-law, but she was smiling as she turned to Mr. Wheeler in explanation. “Gerard always did object to men with red hair.”

  Mr. Wheeler appeared uninterested in this curious antipathy. He said: “I think you took a wise course.”

  “It seemed sense,” she replied. “Gerard won’t see that it’s the best thing that could happen that someone with brains and imagination should take it up. Superin­tendent Trackfield couldn’t get beyond the fact that I was first on the scene. I believe he’d have accused me of shooting Daniel myself, if it hadn’t been too absurd.”

  Mr. Wheeler did not feel able to reject that possibility, remembering what he had heard during the afternoon. “I suppose,” he said, “that the police’s difficulty is to explain how anyone else could have been there. But doesn’t the idea that no one left by the window after he was shot rest entirely on the evidence of the gardener’s boy?”

  “Yes. He was weeding the drive.”

  “I should like a few words with that boy before I go back tomorrow.”

  “You’ll get nothing out of him,” Gerard interposed sulkily. “He’s too dense.”

  Lady Denton confirmed this, though in a different tone. “If he doesn’t take to you, you’ll do all the talking, and he’ll just grin.”

  Mr. Wheeler was left in some uncertainty concerning her attitude. She appeared indifferent. But he was sure that Gerard would prefer that he should not question the boy, which he became more resolved to do.

  He left that subject to ask: “I suppose Redwin’s still hanging round?”

  “Yes, he was till yesterday anyway. He’s put up at the Station Inn.”

  “I suppose you can’t connect him with it in anyway?”

  “No. They say he was playing billiards all after­noon.” She smiled slightly as she added: “I believe the police were quite annoyed about that.”

  “Yes, I expect they were. But I wish you’d tell me just how he left, and why. I know that Sir Daniel turned him out of the house on an accusation of dis­honesty of some kind, and that he was vowing vengeance against you both; but I never heard the details of what occurred. In fact, I never saw Sir Daniel alive after I had a brief note from him to say that I was not to pass Redwin’s signature in future on any document without reference to him.”

  “Of course I’ll tell you,” she replied, “if you’re really anxious to know, but does it matter now?”

  He saw that she was reluctant to speak, but he felt that, for her own sake, he must have whatever information Inspector Pinkey might be obtaining in other ways.

  “Yes,” he said, “I think it does. A man may be responsible for that which he does not do with his own hand. The question of an accomplice cannot be dismissed without more knowledge than I have now. Besides, Inspector Pinkey will be interviewing him. There can be no doubt about that. And I should like to have some idea of what tale he will be likely to tell.”

  He thought there was some effort of self-control behind the smiling lightness of her reply. “You can be sure of one thing. There’ll be nothing good about me.” And he noticed that she made no further demur about giving him her account of the events which had led to Mr. Redwin’s abrupt departure from Bywater Grange.

  “I don’t really know,” she said, “what he’d done wrong, or how much. I just told Daniel about a matter that seemed queer to me, and I found I’d put a match to something that blew up with a bang.

  “It was a letter to him from Mr. Strange at the bank, which was in the same envelope as one to myself about my own account. I suppose that was a clerk’s mistake, but it turned out that whatever Mr. Redwin had been doing had been quite open, and the bank had no idea that Sit Daniel didn’t know everything. Mr. Redwin is a very clever man, and I suppose he thought it was quite safe, and, if anything were found out, it would look best for him.

  “You see, Sir Daniel had got to trust him entirely. He used to open all the correspondence, and keep all the business accounts.

  “It was about two years ago that Sir Daniel was associated with some men who were trying to get control of the Catstein Syndicate, and I knew that Mr. Redwin was helping him then to buy in other names besides his own. Then there was a quarrel, and the thing dropped.

  “A few weeks ago I noticed a report that the Catstein shares were going up, and when I mentioned that to Daniel, he said it was nothing to him. I remember the expression he used, that he’d sold out every damned share he’d got twelve months ago. So when I saw this letter addressed to Mr. Redwin about a dividend cheque for a rather large amount on Catstein Syndicate shares, I remarked about it quite casually when we were all at lunch together.

  “Mr. Redwin said they were a little side speculation of his own, and I suppose, if that were true, there’d have been nothing wrong; but Sir Daniel wouldn’t leave it at that. He went into all the figures himself, and said he found that he had bought a thousand shares more than he’d been paid for, and that Mr. Redwin had falsified the amount to make it square on the books.

  “Of course, Mr. Redwin didn’t admit that. He gave some explanation that I didn’t understand, and they were at it in the study for an hour or more after.

  “Then they came in here together. Sir Daniel said: ‘Adelaide, I’ve given Redwin half an hour to pack up. If he doesn’t want to be thrown through the window, he’ll be out of the door before then.’ Mr. Redwin was just as angry, but in a quieter way. He said: ‘You’ll think better of this by tomorrow.’ And he added something about some papers that Mr. Thompson might be interested to see.”

  “Who is Mr. Thompson?”

  “I think he meant the Income Tax Inspector. That’s his name, anyway. But Daniel got more angry than before when he said that. He said: ‘You just try it on, and I’ll see that you get five years, if you get a day. You ought to be glad enough to get away with a whole skin.’ And after that Mr. Redwin went upstairs to pack.”

  “Well,” Mr. Wheeler commented, at the end of this narrative, “that’s clear enough, and very much what I thought. But if that’s all there is in it, I don’t see why he should have his knife into you.”

  “He thought I did it on purpose to get him out of the house. You see, we had never been friends. He wasn’t the sort of man I could like, and I didn’t want Daniel to have a secretary at all. I didn’t want him to speculate as he did. There was no need, for we’d both got more money than we ever spent; and he wasn’t easy to live with if he thought things were going wrong.”

  The tale was, as Mr. Wheeler said, very much what he had expected to hear, but he would have been glad if there had been more. For there was nothing in this to suggest an explanation of Sir Daniel’s violent end, whether by his own hand, or that of another man. And he saw that Redwin’s alibi was of an impregnable strength.

  Yet here was a man shot, and another with whom he had quarrelled a few days before, and who, after he had been rebuffed in an attempt to secure legal redress, had remained in the neighbourhood, threatening the venge­ance which he still hoped to inflict. There seemed an almost overwhelming probability that there must be some connection between the two, and, if there were, it appeared to him, on the partial knowledge that he then had, that it must be very greatly to Lady Denton’s advantage to lay it bare.

  “Well,” he said, “if that’s all you know, we must hope that Pinkey’ll find out a lot more.”

  Lady Denton did not respond to this suggestion, but she rose from the table a moment later with the remark that she would be glad if he would have coffee with her in her own room. The words were said in a way that put her half-brother aside, a position which he accepted without demur, going out by another door.

  CHAPTER XI.

  Lady Denton sipped her coffee
, and gazed into a fire which had been necessitated by a chilly October evening, following the warmth of a sunny day.

  Her companion, seated on the other side of the little coffee table, was as silent as she. He knew that she had not brought him there to chat of indifferent things, and he thought it best to wait her own time to begin.

  “What I told you,” she said at last, “was quite true.”

  “So I supposed.”

  “But it was not everything.”

  Mr. Wheeler did not look surprised at this statement. He may have had a slight doubt as to whether he were going to hear all the truth now. Had that long silence been occupied in deciding how small a further instalment might serve her need? Or had she even been considering whether she would be secure from detection in a useful lie? With all his experience he could not be sure. But she was his client, and till the contrary should be proved, he must accept her statements as the instructions on which he was bound to act. Unless, of course, he must resist or refuse them for her own good.

  “It is always difficult,” he said, “in a matter of this kind, not to leave something out. It’s sometimes hard even to judge which may be the really important things.”

  “Yes,” she said, in the tone of one who might be in such a doubt as she spoke. And then: “I don’t think Daniel was really glad that I found Mr. Redwin out. I think he’d suspected before, but hadn’t wanted to see. He wasn’t easy to get on with at times.”

  “Meaning Sir Daniel?”

  “Yes.”

  “So,” he said, “I had understood.”

  He was patient, understanding that these were little more than meaningless words, while she hardened her resolution for that which she had to say.

  “You knew Mrs. Caver,” she said at last, “my sister, who died last year?”

  “Yes, we acted for her in the divorce.”

  “Yes, I remembered that. She came to stay with me for a week when she first quarrelled with John. That was a year before.”