The Fingerprint (13 page)

MR. MAUDSLEY arrived at half-past-ten, having taken the night train from Edinburgh and breakfasted at his own house. He was a man of about sixty with a pleasant voice and an agreeable manner. His features were good, and if he had put on a couple of stone in the last year or two he carried it well. After a short interview with Detective Inspector Abbott during which the main facts of the case were put before him he suggested that the will should be opened and the beneficiaries acquainted with its contents.

They came into the study. With Mrs. Fabian and Georgina Mr Maudsley was on terms of old acquaintance. Johnny Fabian and Anthony Hallam he had known as boys. Mirrie Field and Miss Silver were strangers to him. Mirrie came in with her hand on Johnny’s arm, her eyes wide and enquiring, like a kitten in a place it does not know. Whilst greetings and condolences were passing she stood as close as she could and kept her hold of him. Mr. Maudsley’s “I needn’t say how shocked I was to hear the news” having met with its due response, and a few more murmured words having been added, he went over to the writing-table and sat down there. When everyone was settled he spoke.

“I have here Mr. Field’s will, of which I am an executor. In the circumstances I think the best thing I can do is to acquaint you with its provisions.”

His manner was grave and formal. His glance travelled from one to another. Chairs had been placed in a rough semicircle—Frank Abbott sitting close up to the table on the extreme right; beyond him Miss Maud Silver in a small armless chair; next to her Mirrie Field and Johnny Fabian, their seats pushed close together and her hand still holding his sleeve. She wore the white wool jumper and grey skirt which she had put on yesterday. Anthony Hallam came next, his face set and rather gloomy, and beyond him Georgina, very pale.

Mrs. Fabian had been given Jonathan Field’s big chair, but for all the comfort it afforded her she might just as well have had a wooden stool. She sat stiffly upright in a black coat and skirt usually reserved for funerals and held her hands tightly clasped together in her lap. She mustn’t, mustn’t, let herself think that Jonathan had possibly made any provision for her. It was true that she had been asked to come in and hear the will read, but that would just be because she had lived for such a long time at Field End and had brought Georgina up. At the most there might be some small legacy that would cover the expense of a move, say ten or twenty pounds. But no, she mustn’t even let herself count on that, and she must be on her guard against displaying the least sign of disappointment. Dear Mamma had brought her up to believe that a lady did not show her feelings in public. She had done her best to bring dear Georgina up in the same way, and look how beautifully she was behaving now—such self-command, such true thoughtfulness for others. But she didn’t like to see her looking so pale and strained. She had loved Jonathan very much and she would miss him greatly. Perhaps she and Anthony… She felt a little fluttered pleasure at the thought.

Mr. Maudsley was speaking.

“Captain Hallam is also an executor. With his permission I will at this time merely give you a summary of the main bequests. There are, to begin with, legacies to Mr. and Mrs. Stokes—twenty pounds for each year of service, with the same to the gardener John Anderson. There is a legacy of five thousand pounds to Anthony Hallam, and a life-interest of four hundred a year to Mrs. Fabian. Everything else is left in trust to Miss Georgina Grey, the trustees being myself and Captain Anthony Hallam.”

A little colour came up into Georgina’s face. She did not look at Anthony. If she had done so she would have seen that he was frightfully pale. It was evident both to Mr. Maudsley and to Frank Abbott that he had received a very considerable shock.

He was not the only one. Mirrie Field turned a bewildered gaze on Mr. Maudsley. Her voice shook childishly as she said,

“But I don’t understand. That isn’t the will he made when he went up to town on Monday—it can’t be.”

“No, it isn’t that will, Miss Field. It is the one which he signed two years ago.”

“But he made the other one—he did make it! He told me he had made it!” She stared incredulously, her fingers digging into Johnny’s arm.

Mr. Maudsley said with gravity,

“Yes, he made another will, but he destroyed it.”

“Oh, he couldn’t!”

“It is a pity that you came to know anything about it. He seems to have told you that you would benefit under that will.”

“Oh, he did—he did! He told me he was treating me as if I was his daughter! He said he wanted everyone to know that was how he thought about me!”

Mr. Maudsley had come down to Field End with a very definite prejudice against Miss Mirrie Field. He had not been prepared to find her so young, or for his own feeling that fate had played her a shabby trick. If Jonathan Field had not burned his new will before he was murdered, she would now have been standing in Georgina’s shoes. If he had lived to make the will which he had intended to make, she would no doubt have been generously provided for. As it was, she had no standing at all. Two years ago, when this will which he was expounding had been drawn up, he did not so much as know that she existed. He said in a kindlier voice than he had used before,

“Your uncle rang me up on Tuesday night. He had come to feel that this new will of his went too far. He did not think that the provisions were just, and he told me that he had torn it up and burned it. On my return from Scotland he intended making a further will which would provide for you without being unjust to anyone else.”

“I don’t get anything?”

“Not under the present will.”

Mirrie let go of Johnny’s arm and stood up. She came a few steps nearer the table and said,

“It was Georgina. She went out of the drawing-room and she came in here and made him burn the will. She can’t do that to me—oh, she can’t! Not after what he said about treating me like his daughter! She can’t do it!” It came out in soft heart-broken snatches, her hands at her breast, her face colourless, her eyes brimming over.

Georgina got up and came to her.

“Mirrie—don’t!”

But Mirrie shrank away from her touch.

“You want to send me away! He was going to look after me, and you talked him round!”

“Mirrie—you mustn’t say that. It isn’t true—it isn’t really. I told him I didn’t mind about the money. I only wanted him not to be angry with me any more. I didn’t know why he was angry and I couldn’t bear it. I didn’t know he was going to burn his will. He just did it.”

They might have been there alone. It might have been a play, with the others in the audience looking on. Mirrie looked sideways and said,

“Perhaps he didn’t burn it. Perhaps it was you.”

Mr. Maudsley came in on that.

“Mr. Field rang me up and informed me that he had burned that will.”

Mirrie flung round on him.

“You are on her side! You’ll take her part! Everyone will! You’ll try and send me back to Uncle Albert and Aunt Grace, and to that awful Home! But I won’t go—I won’t go— I won’t go!” Her voice had risen almost to a scream, and at every repetition of the word go she stamped like an angry child.

Johnny Fabian had got up when she did. He took a step towards her. Turning away from the writing-table, she came face to face with him. No one was sure whether he said anything or not. Afterwards he wasn’t sure himself. With the tears running down her face she said,

“Oh, you won’t want to marry me now—will you?” and ran out of the room.

JOHNNY WENT after her. His mind was in a state of the utmost confusion. She wasn’t going to have the money after all. Jonathan had signed the will that made her his heiress, and he had destroyed it the same day. Mirrie wasn’t going to have a penny, and he could no more stop himself going after her than he could have stopped himself blinking at a flash of lightning or ducking to avoid a blow. There was neither thought nor reason behind his action, there was only one of the strongest forces in the world, and it had taken charge. He came up with her at her bedroom door. She had got so far and stopped there as if she had been flung against it by wind or water. Her hands were flat against the panelled wood, her forehead pressed against her hands, and she was crying with big choking sobs which shook her from head to foot.

Johnny put his arm round her. He turned the handle and the door opened inwards. He took her over to a comfortable chintz-covered chair and put her into it. Then he went down on his knees and took both her hands in his.

“What are you doing crying yourself sick, you silly little thing? You’re to come off it, do you hear—at once!”

She couldn’t cover her face any more. It was quite distorted with misery. The tears ran down, whilst more and more brimmed up to take their place. She pulled her hands out of his and sobbed.

“He said I would be like his daughter—he said I would have the money. He said he had signed the will—and that everyone would know how he thought about me. And then he went and burned it—or perhaps it was Georgina. Oh, Johnny, do you think it was Georgina who burned the will?”

Johnny shook his head.

“No, of course she didn’t. She wouldn’t, you know—she isn’t like that. And don’t you go round saying that sort of thing, because if you do you’ll put her off doing anything to make up for Jonathan burning it. She won’t do anything if you start fighting her of course, but if you don’t she might rally round with quite a nice little nest-egg for us to set up house on.”

“But you don’t want to marry me now. You told me you were too poor to marry me, but I thought if I had a lot of money I could give you some.”

“And I told you that sort of thing wasn’t done.”

“I thought it was very stupid of you. I was going to get you to see how stupid it was, and then everything would have been all right—but now I haven’t got any money to give you—”

The words were broken into by sobbing breaths. And how true they were. If he didn’t marry money, he was going to have to work for it, and work hard. The thought revolted him. Mirrie and a fortune had been an uncommonly pleasant prospect, but Mirrie without anything at all would really mean hard work. The thought should have been an efficacious deterrent, but he found himself kissing her hands and saying the sort of things which ought to have made his blood run cold, only they seemed to be having the opposite effect.

“Mirrie—say you like me a bit. I want to hear you say it. I’ve gone in off the deep end about you—I expect you know that. I’ll work my fingers to the bone if you’ll take me on. I didn’t think I’d ever want to do that for any girl, but I do for you. I’ve got that bit of capital my aunt left me. I was going to put it into a garage business. I’m looking round for one. There might be a flat over it.”

Mirrie’s tears had ceased to flow. She gazed at him between dark wet lashes and said,

“Should we have television?”

“Not quite at first—unless Georgina thought it would be a bright idea for a wedding present. Darling, does that mean you will?”

She sniffed.

“I haven’t got a handkerchief.”

“Girls never do have one. Here’s mine.”

She blew her nose and sat up.

“Johnny, you oughtn’t to be in here. Aunt Grace said most particularly that a nice girl never lets anyone come into her bedroom.”

“Darling, not even a housemaid?”

Mirrie’s eyes were wide with reproof.

“She meant a man.”

He broke into rather shaky laughter.

“You are a funny little thing!”

“I’m not! You—you must go away.”

He got up, set the door half way open, and came back again.

“That ought to satisfy anyone’s sense of respectability.”

Her eyes were brimming.

“Johnny, I thought you were going away.”

“Didn’t you want me to?”

Her head was shaken and the tears ran down.

“Oh, no, I didn’t. It was just Aunt Grace.”

He knelt down beside the chair again.

“Darling, let’s give Aunt Grace a rest. Shall we? I’m not really so hot on her or on Uncle Albert. Suppose we forget them. I want to talk about us.”

She shook her head in a slow, mournful manner.

“There’s nothing to talk about. I haven’t got any money.”

“I know—it’s too bad. Do you think you could bear to be rather poor for a bit?”

“I shall have to be. Oh, Johnny, don’t—don’t let them send me back to Uncle Albert and Aunt Grace!”

“Darling, we were going to forget about them. What about marrying me and living over the garage business? Can you cook? Because that’s very important, and if you can’t you’ll have to learn.”

She brightened a little.

“Oh, but I can! Even Aunt Grace said I wasn’t bad, and Uncle Albert liked my omelettes better than hers.”

“Tactless of him. I don’t suppose it went down very well.”

“N-no—it didn’t. He liked my soups too. Johnny, shall we be very poor?”

At that moment Johnny Fabian became aware of an extraordinary willingness to do without practically everything else in order to look after Mirrie and have her making omelettes for him. He would even be prepared to work really hard in order to provide the necessary eggs.

He said so. They kissed. And Mrs. Fabian walked in upon the scene. She had come to console Mirrie upon the loss of a fortune, and found her flushed and radiant. But she took Aunt Grace’s view of bedroom interviews. They could go and talk in the morning-room, and Johnny ought to have known better.

“Yes, Johnny, you ought—and Mirrie such a very young girl! And she had better wash her face before she goes downstairs.”

THE INQUEST on Jonathan Field took place next morning, and the funeral in the afternoon. At the inquest only formal evidence was offered and the proceedings were adjourned. The funeral was at Deeping and was attended by a very large number of people.

Miss Silver removed the bunch of flowers from her second-best hat and covered her olive-green dress with the black cloth coat whose years of service were now becoming legendary. Such an excellent material. Pre-war of course, and still so warm, so serviceable. A small scarf of black wool kindly lent to her by Mrs. Fabian enabled her to dispense with the rather yellow fur tippet of an even greater antiquity than the coat. It had been a good fur once, and was still most cosy, most comfortable. Since she considered the country draughty, it invariably accompanied her when she left London, but the colour being a little bright for a funeral she gladly accepted the loan of Mrs. Fabian’s scarf.

Georgina and Mirrie walked side-by-side behind the coffin. They stood together at the grave. When Mirrie was obviously overcome, Johnny Fabian came forward and put an arm about her shoulders. But Georgina stood alone, tall and slight in her plain black coat and skirt, her face pale and her eyes fixed darkly on the line of trees against a sky of wintry blue. When it was all over she spoke simply and quietly to the old friends who came up in twos and threes.

Frank Abbott, on the edge of the crowd, found himself buttonholed by Mr. Vincent.

“Very odd thing, don’t you think—very odd indeed. Wealthy, prominent man shot dead in his own house in a country village—not at all the sort of thing that you would expect.”

Frank had never found country villages immune from crime. He said so, quoting Sherlock Holmes as reported by Dr. Watson in support.

Mr. Vincent stared.

“Ah, but that is just in a story. Must have things happening in a story or it goes dull on you. But not the sort of thing you expect in real life—oh, no, definitely not. You don’t think it can have anything to do with that yarn he told us after dinner in the study on the night of the dance? You were there, weren’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I was there.”

“What did you make of it?” pursued Mr. Vincent. “Personally I thought he was telling the tale, if you know what I mean. I remember fourteen years ago when I was in Venezuela—”

Frank recalled him to present-day Ledshire.

“Well, of course he might have been making it up. It made quite a good story.”

Mr. Vincent agreed.

“I have told it several times myself—dining out and that sort of thing, you know. Lord and Lady Pondesbury were kind enough to invite me, and as neither they nor any of their guests had been present when Mr. Field was showing us his album, I took the liberty of repeating what he had told us on that occasion. I am afraid I did not tell it as well as he did. I could not, for instance, remember whether he mentioned the exact date of the occurrence, or even whether he referred it to any particular year of the war. I told them about the experience it reminded me of in Venezuela in the thirties—but I cannot be sure of the year—”

Frank said abruptly,

“Did you tell Mr. Field’s story anywhere else?”

“Twice—or it may have been three times,” said Mr. Vincent complacently. “I have a friend who runs a boys’ club on the outskirts of London in the Pigeon Hill direction. I spent an evening there with him—Tuesday, or was it Wednesday, last week. Not this week, definitely—and I think it must have been the Tuesday, because I seem to connect it with my sister-in-law Emmeline Craddock, and it was on the Tuesday that I had a letter from her in which she proposed to come and stay with me for this week-end—a most inconvenient date, but I am afraid she was offended when I wrote and said so. A charming woman and I am very fond of her, but a little inclined to take offence if things do not go quite the way she wants them to.”

“You told Mr. Field’s story at the boys’ club?”

“Oh, yes, to several people—and afterwards in a little speech which I felt prompted to make. It went down very well, and I was able to finish it—the story, though unfortunately not the speech—before my friend felt obliged to draw my attention to the fact that the time was getting on, and that I was in danger of missing my train. But you must really let me tell you of the incident in Venezuela…”

Mirrie had never been to a funeral before. The part in the church was bad enough. All those flowers and the long coffin upon which they were heaped, and everybody in horrible clothes that reminded her of the worst things out of the charity parcels. Even Lady Pondesbury and Mrs. Shotterleigh looked as if their clothes had come out of a second-hand shop. She and Georgina had new coats and skirts. She had a dear little hat that was more like a cap only it had a little bit of veiling on it, and it was very becoming. She had never had anything that was all black before, and it suited her, but not like it suited Georgina. The new clothes were sustaining, but when she looked at the coffin and thought of Uncle Jonathan being there she just couldn’t help crying.

It was worse in the windy churchyard. She and Georgina had to stand right on the edge of the open grave. She very nearly couldn’t do it. Her throat was all choked, and the tears welled up in her eyes so fast that she could hardly see. That was when Johnny Fabian came up and put his arm round her. She didn’t stop crying, but she stopped feeling as if she was going to choke, and just at the end she turned and hid her face against him.

People came up and spoke to Georgina, who said all the right things in a sad, quiet voice. Some of them said something kind to Mirrie. Lord Pondesbury patted her shoulder, and several people called her “poor child.” After a little they began to go away. Georgina was speaking to the Vicar. Mirrie dabbed her eyes for the last time and put her handkerchief in her pocket. Johnny had moved a step away. They would all be going home now. It would be nice to go home. She looked about her at the moving groups of people, and saw Sid Turner coming towards her from the other side of the grave.

It was a really frightful shock. He was wearing a dark suit and a black tie. He had a bowler hat on his head. Everything he had on was new and good. Sid always prided himself on being dressy. Lord Pondesbury’s suit looked as if he had had it since before the war. Mr. Shotterleigh’s black tie was frayed at the edges. Colonel Abbott wasn’t nearly so smartly dressed as Sid. But here in this country churchyard amidst these old gravestones they looked all right and Sid looked all wrong. For the first time it occurred to Mirrie that clothes could look too new.

Sid came over to her and lifted his hat. Something inside her began to shake. She ought to have been pleased to see him. She wasn’t pleased. She wanted to run away and hide before he met Johnny. He said,

“Well, Mirrie?”

He was about the same height as Johnny. She tilted her head to look up at him, met his bold dark eyes, and looked down again as quickly as she could. He had crisply curling black hair. Even in that one brief glance it occurred to her that it curled too much, and that he wore it too long. She moved a step nearer to Johnny, and knew at once that it was a mistake. Sid came a step nearer too.

“Well, Mirrie? You look very nice in your black. What about getting along to your place for some tea?”

Johnny had been speaking to Grant Hathaway. He looked round, to see Mirrie looking flushed and distressed, and a strange young man who appeared to be embarrassing her. He said, “I think we ought to be going now,” and Mirrie turned to him with relief. Over her head she heard Sid say,

“My sentiments to a T. Sorry—no pun intended. Time we all got out of this, isn’t it? But of course you don’t know who I am. It’s a case of meet the boy friend. Mirrie, my dear, introduce us.”

She said only just above a whisper,

“It’s Aunt Grace’s step-brother Sid Turner, Johnny,” and with that Georgina came up to them and she had to say it all over again.

Sid came back to Field End with them. She and Georgina went upstairs, and she had to explain a little more about him. It was a very faltering explanation.

“He—he used to be kind. I used to go to the pictures with him sometimes. Aunt Grace didn’t know. She never let me go anywhere. She—she and Uncle Albert didn’t approve of Sid.”

Georgina didn’t approve of him either, but she didn’t say so. She asked,

“Did you know he was coming down to the funeral?”

“No—no I didn’t. He saw about it in the paper. I don’t know why he came.”

In her own quaking mind she knew very well. He had come here because he thought—he thought that Uncle Jonathan had done what he said he would. She had told Sid about the will, and he didn’t know that Uncle Jonathan had burned it. There wasn’t any will, and there wasn’t any money. She was just Mirrie Field without a penny like she had always been, and that was what she would have to tell Sid. It frightened her so much that she couldn’t stop shaking.

Georgina said, “What is it, Mirrie? Is it that man? Because if you don’t want to come down—”

“No—no, I must. He wouldn’t like it if I didn’t—”

“Are you afraid of him? You needn’t be, you know. We’ll have tea, and then Anthony or Johnny will drive him into Lenton to catch a train. Let’s go down and get it over. The relations and people will be coming in.”

Downstairs Sid Turner had made it quite plain that tea was not his idea of a drink after a funeral. He was given a whisky and soda, and Johnny kept him company.

Tea was being served in the dining-room. Sid’s eye flicked over the silver on the sideboard and the family portraits on the walls. It was a slap-up place, and no sign of the seen-better-days kind of look there was about so many big houses now. He had done some buying at auctions in his time. You could turn a bit there if you were in the know—commission from a dealer who didn’t want to be seen bidding himself, or an inside tip that there was something worth spotting at an otherwise dull country sale. If you got round a bit there were always chances, and he knew how to make the most of them.

He began to see pretty soon that it wasn’t going to be easy to get a word with Mirrie. She would know how she stood by now, and he wasn’t committing himself till he knew too. She was a pretty little thing and rather fetching in her black, though he liked a bit of colour himself. But it was the other girl who was the beauty. Class, that’s what she’d got—class. With her height and figure and all that light hair she’d be right in the big money if she went in for modelling. She might be glad to do it too if the cash had really all been left to Mirrie. He wondered just how much it would work out at. It wasn’t going to be easy to get near her. A good many people had come back for tea and she was hemmed in.