The Fingerprint (The Miss Silver Mysteries Book 30)

by Patricia Wentworth

  She had a faintly startled air.

  ‘Did someone see me?’

  ‘Someone saw you.’

  ‘It was just that I was so pleased about his being back. I had dressed early.’

  He smiled again.

  ‘Well, there wasn’t anything wrong about that. I expect he was pleased to see you.’

  ‘Oh, yes, he was!’

  Frank said,

  ‘What I really wanted to know was whether he said anything about his business with Mr. Maudsley.’

  Mirrie brightened a little.

  ‘Oh, yes, he did. I said I hoped he had got all his horrid business done, so that he wouldn’t have to go away any more. And he said it wasn’t a horrid business for me, and that it was all signed, with two of Mr. Maudsley’s clerks to witness it, so there wasn’t anything to worry about any more.’

  ‘He was talking about his will?’

  She looked at him with childlike candour.

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  Frank Abbott thought, ‘She knew he was cutting Georgina out and putting her in. I wonder if she tried for it, or whether it just happened. I wonder whether he had an afterthought and destroyed the will himself. I wonder whether it has been destroyed at all. Georgina certainly had a motive for destroying it. Mirrie wouldn’t have any motive at all. I wonder whether Mirrie knows that it may have been destroyed. I wonder whether Georgina was speaking the truth, because if she wasn’t – if she wasn’t—’

  Mirrie had her handkerchief to her eyes again. She said in a muffled voice,

  ‘He was so dreadfully kind to me. It doesn’t seem as if it could be true.’

  He let her go after that, and saw Mrs. Fabian, who wandered through the events of the last two days in a characteristically irrelevant manner. She was extremely informative, but it was difficult to connect her information with the death of Jonathan Field. Frank had, for instance, to listen to a good many chance-come anecdotes of Georgina’s infancy, together with excursions into dear Jonathan’s personal tastes and habits. He permitted her to flow on, because there was always the chance of finding some wheat amongst the chaff, but when she finally settled down to reminiscences of Johnny’s schooldays he felt that the moment had come to apply the closure.

  Neither Anthony nor Johnny Fabian had anything to add to their bare statements. They had gone upstairs with the others, and they had not come down again. Anthony had slept until he was roused by Georgina, and Johnny until he was roused by Anthony.

  It was Stokes who produced one important piece of evidence. He had gone into the study with his tray of drinks at ten o’clock. He put it down on the small octagonal table beside the leather-covered armchair usually occupied by Mr. Field. It was not so occupied at the moment, because Mr. Field was over at the bookcase at the far end of the room. He stooping down as if he were looking at one of the lower shelves. Asked which shelf, Stokes indicated that from which one of the albums containing the collection of fingerprints had been taken. He was positive that at that time both volumes were in their place.

  Frank’s next questions produced replies of considerable importance.

  ‘Did you make up the fire whilst you were here?’

  ‘I was going to do so, sir, but Mr. Field stopped me. He said to leave it and he would see to it himself later on.’

  ‘Was that unusual?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Did he give any reason for it?’

  ‘Why, yes, sir. He said he had been burning papers, and not to choke the grate until they had burned away.’

  So Jonathan really had been burning something himself. Frank went on.

  ‘Just take a look at the grate now, Stokes. How does it compare with the state it was in when you saw it at ten o’clock last night?’

  ‘There’s one more log been put on – that one on the right with the knot in it. It was lying right on top of the wood-basket, and I wouldn’t have picked it out to put on myself with the fire having got a bit low and knots being as you might say on the tricky side when it comes to burning. No, the one I should have taken was that little one that’s on top now – a nice dry faggot that would have got the flame up quick.’

  ‘I see you’re an expert. I’m rather good at fires myself, and I’m with you all the way. Now, leaving the wood on one side, what about the papers that Mr. Field had been burning? Would you say he had added any more afterwards, or as far as the burned paper goes is the grate in about the same state as it was last night?’

  Stokes was a pleasant little man with a ruddy russet skin and very thick grey hair which he wore a little longer than a younger man might have done. He said in his soft agreeable voice,

  ‘It’s difficult to say, sir, but I should think everything is pretty much as it was – a little more smouldered away, as it were, but no more than you would expect.’

  Frank was reflecting that a will usually covered several sheets of extremely tough and intractable paper. It wouldn’t be easy to tear and it wouldn’t be easy to burn. If Jonathan had burned it himself whilst the fire was medium hot, the grate might be expected to look very much as it did now. If Georgina had burned it at round about one in the morning, it was probable that she would have had to use more wood. According to Stokes no more wood had been used except the awkward piece with the knot in it, which remained as to about three-quarters of it unburned and could very easily have been added by Jonathan. He went over and lifted it gingerly by the knotted end. Under it there was a bed of cold ash. There was also a sizeable piece of that tough paper. It was about a couple of inches long by an inch wide and only the edges were scorched. The words ‘the said Miriam Field’ were plainly visible. He couldn’t imagine such a phrase occurring in anything except a will, and as Mirrie’s name would certainly not have appeared in any but Jonathan’s latest, it confirmed Georgina’s statement that it was this will which had been burned, whilst leaving undecided the question of who had burned it. If, as Georgina had said, it was Jonathan himself, the presence of the knotted log could be accounted for. The room would have been losing heat and he had obviously had no immediate intention of going to bed, since up to ten o’clock the album subsequently found upon his desk was, according to Stokes, still on its shelf at the time he came in with the tray of drinks. If Jonathan intended to sit up he might restrain Stokes from touching the fire – he wouldn’t want any talk about the burned will, fragments of which were probably still in evidence, and yet once the butler was out of the way he could have pitched a log on the fire himself.

  But if Georgina had burned the will at some time just short of one o’clock, what motive could she Possibly have had for putting that particular log upon a fire which must have been very near to being burned out by then? Looking at what remained in the grate, he doubted very much if there would have been enough heat there to burn as much of the things as had been burned. He stood there looking down at the grey ash, the scrap of paper, the knotted log. If it was Georgina who had shot Jonathan Field and destroyed the will which would cut her out of a fortune, what must her mental state have been? The man stood to her in the relation of a father. She had shot him because he was cutting her out of his will. With his dead body slumped across the writing-table, she had to get his fingerprints upon the revolver, to find and destroy the will, and be ready with a story which would explain its destruction. All this with the vibration of the shot still trembling on the air, and with the possibility that at any moment the door might open and let an accusing witness in.

  Was she one of those people upon whom in moments of emergency an icy control descends, coordinating thought and action to an unimaginable degree? Or would it have been an affair of shaking hands and pounding heart, a desperate search, and a blind fury of destruction? Or was she speaking the truth when she said that it was Jonathan who had torn up the will and put it on the fire?

  He turned round to see Stokes watching him in a sad, patient manner which reminded him of an old dog waiting to be noticed. He went back to the table and asked him, as he h
ad asked everyone else in the household,

  ‘Did you know that Mr. Field had a revolver?’

  He got the same answer as all the others had given him.

  ‘Oh, no, sir, I didn’t.’

  Frank stood with a hand on the table.

  ‘Did he keep any of these drawers locked?’

  ‘The bottom two on the right-hand side, sir.’

  He sat down in the writing-chair and found both drawers fast.

  Jonathan’s keys, handed over by Inspector Smith, were to hand. The upper of the two drawers contained bundles of letters, and lying on top of them a closed miniature case. There would have been no room for a revolver.

  In the bottom drawer there were a couple of notebooks with lists of securities and details of investments, and under the notebooks a long envelope endorsed ‘My will. J. F.’ and a date two years back.

  Then it was certainly the new will that had been burned as Georgina had said. What he found hard to swallow was the reason she gave for Jonathan having burned it, or even the bare fact that it had been burned by him. This older will would have been made when Georgina was twenty-one. He put it back in the drawer and returned to the question of whether Jonathan had kept a revolver there as well as his will. There would have been plenty of room for it. But if Jonathan was going to shoot himself, or if Georgina was going to shoot Jonathan, what was the Point of locking the drawer again? Yet someone had locked it.

  It simply didn’t make sense.

  He let Stokes go and turned to the telephone. He had the number of Mr. Maudsley’s office on a slip of paper tucked into the blotting-pad. Two previous attempts to get in touch having failed, it behoved him to try again. This time he got through and was answered by a clerk.

  ‘I would like to speak to Mr. Maudsley.’

  The voice at the other end said, ‘Well – I’m afraid—’

  ‘Is he in his office?’

  ‘Well, no, he isn’t. As a matter of fact he won’t be here today.’

  ‘Then perhaps I could speak to the head clerk.’

  There was a delay during which a number of irritating small sounds buzzed in the receiver – a rustling of papers, footsteps, an inaudible whispering. And then a woman on the line, quiet and efficient.

  ‘Miss Cummins speaking. I am afraid Mr. Maudsley will not be in today. Do you wish to make an appointment?’

  Frank said, ‘No. This is police business. I am Inspector Abbott from the Yard, and I am down at Field End in connection with the murder of one of Mr. Maudsley’s clients, Mr. Jonathan Field.’

  Miss Cummins became unofficially shocked.

  ‘Mr. Field? You can’t mean it, Inspector! He was here with us only yesterday afternoon. Good gracious me!’

  ‘He was murdered last night. It is important for me to get in touch with Mr. Maudsley as soon as possible.’

  ‘Well now – I hardly know what to say. The fact is, Mr. Maudsley has been ordered to take a short holiday. He has been rather run down, and his doctor—’

  ‘Can you give me his private address?’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid it wouldn’t be any use to you. He was taking an early train to Scotland this morning. He had not really made up his mind as to where he would stay, but there are one or two hotels in Edinburgh—’

  Frank took down a couple of names.

  ‘Don’t ring off! You say Mr. Field was with you yesterday afternoon. You had been preparing a new will for him?’

  A faint cool note of disapproval tinged the voice that answered him.

  ‘That is so.’

  ‘Mr. Field signed this will?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Is it in your custody, or did he take it away with him?’

  The disapproval became very decided.

  ‘He took it away with him.’

  ‘I wonder if you can tell me what happened to the will which this one superseded.’

  ‘I am afraid I have no information on the subject. It would have been in Mr. Field’s possession.’

  There was nothing more to be got out of Miss Cummins. He picked up Sergeant Hubbard and went out to get some lunch.

  SIXTEEN

  MAGGIE BELL HAD had a most interesting morning. It had followed upon what she herself would have described as ‘one of my bad nights’. She hadn’t slept very much, and when she had there were horrid dreams. By a stroke of irony she fell into a heavy sleep just at a time when the telephone would have been of the greatest interest.

  She was sick, sore and weary by the time her mother had helped her to dress and got her on to the sofa in the window. As a rule she would put in an hour or two during the day oversewing seams and putting on buttons, and hooks and eyes. She couldn’t keep at it for long, but it was surprising what she got through in the day, and Mrs. Bell found it a great help. But this morning she didn’t feel like holding a needle, she really didn’t. And that made the day stretch out before her ever so long, because however fond you are of reading you can’t read all the time. Now if there was something exciting going on that she could listen in to it would be just what she felt like. But of course things never happened the way you wanted them to. Which, as Mrs. Bell said afterwards, only goes to show that you never can tell.

  Maggie lay on her sofa with a shawl round her shoulders, a rug drawn up to her waist, and the nearest casement window open so as not to miss anything that might be going on outside. She hadn’t been settled that way for more than five minutes before she heard Mr. Magthorpe call out from the roadway to Mr. Bisset inside the shop. Mr. Magthorpe was one of the best news-gatherers in the district, and being a baker to trade and in the habit of doing his own rounds Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, his opportunities were naturally good. He was a little man with a large voice who sang bass in the choir, so you could be sure of hearing every word he said. And what he was saying was, ‘Morning, Harry, I suppose you’ve heard what’s happened up at Field End?’

  Mr. Bisset hadn’t heard a word. He came right out on his doorstep and said so. And there was Mr. Magthorpe with his face pulled down to half as long again, leaning sideways out of his van to say,

  ‘Murder, that’s what it was. And as fine an old gentleman as ever stepped.’

  ‘Not Mr. Field!’ Mr. Bisset was quite out of breath with surprise.

  Albert Magthorpe nodded solemnly.

  ‘Murdered in his own study. Sitting at his own writing-table.’

  ‘You don’t say!’

  Mr. Magthorpe did say, and at considerable length. Maggie, listening spellbound, heard all about Miss Georgina waking up in the middle of the night with the sound of the shot or maybe the banging of the glass door on to the terrace, together with a number of other details imparted to Mr. Magthorpe at the back door by Doris Miller who was one of the two daily helps at Field End and a cousin of Mrs. Magthorpe’s. So of course it was all true, and what a dreadful thing to happen.

  Palpitating with interest and alternately listening for the telephone to give one of those clicks which meant that someone on the party line was either ringing up somebody else or being rung up, and leaning as near to the window as she could in order not to miss any of the talk in the street, Maggie hardly had a dull moment. Field End being on the Deeping party line, she was able to hear Inspector Smith ringing up Lenton police station, and Lenton police station ringing up Inspector Smith. In this way she learned that Scotland Yard was being called in, and a little later that Detective Inspector Abbott was on his way from town. To Deeping, who remembered him as a schoolboy, there was actually no such person. He was, as he always had been, Mr. Frank, and the news that he was coming down to enquire into the Field End murder heightened the interest considerably.

  Maggie, listening passionately, heard Miss Cicely who was Mrs. Grant Hathaway calling her mother at Abbottsleigh.

  ‘Darling, is that you? Isn’t it too dreadful! I suppose you’ve heard—’

  Mrs. Abbott at the other end of the line said she had, and it was, and the milkman had brought the news. Then
Miss Cicely again.

  ‘They say that Scotland Yard is being called in. Do you suppose they’ll send Frank down?’

  ‘I don’t know – they might.’

  ‘They did before. Darling, weren’t you having Miss Silver down for a weekend some time about now?’

  ‘Yes, we were, but she wasn’t sure about the weekend because one of her nieces – the one who is married to a solicitor at Blackheath – might have been wanting her to go down there and … Where had I got to?’

  ‘You were just wandering, darling. Is Maudie coming, or isn’t she?’

  ‘Cicely, some day you’ll call her that to her face!’

  ‘Help! I believe Frank did once. Darling, you haven’t told me whether she’s coming or not, but I rather gather she isn’t. What a pity!’

  Mrs. Abbott’s voice came over the wire without hurry.

  ‘You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I didn’t say she wasn’t coming – on the contrary. Your father has just taken the car to meet her at Lenton.’

  It was pain and grief to Maggie Bell not to break into that conversation and let Mrs. Abbott and Miss Cicely know that it really was Mr. Frank who was coming down from Scotland Yard, only of course it wouldn’t have done and she knew better than to do it. In theory everyone in Deeping knew that she listened in on the party line, but she had been doing it for so many years that in practice it was generally forgotten. When you are talking in own room to a friend in hers, the illusion of privacy is quite overwhelming. Besides, as Mrs. Abbott had been heard to remark, ‘If it amuses Maggie to listen to me ordering the fish in Lenton she is welcome.’ This applying to most other people, Deeping’s telephone conversations continued on pleasantly uninhibited lines, and Maggie Bell went on finding them a great solace.

  Maggie went on listening. No less than three calls from Field End to the London solicitor, and two for him by name all the way to Scotland. It seemed to Maggie that the police were in a great hurry to find out about poor Mr. Field’s will. That was what all those calls were about. She had heard Mr. Frank speaking to a lady in the London office herself.