The Fingerprint (20 page)

“I expect you are right. You think he decided to strike while the iron was hot?”

“I believe that he must have done so. To a person deprived of principle and merely considering his own advantage it would appear to be a natural course of action. A truly shocking example of the consequences which attend the neglect of religion and morality.”

This was Maudie in her loftiest manner. Frank bowed to it respectfully. Whilst in one corner of his mind a modern imp cocked a snook, its more orderly inhabitants chorused, “That is true.” Aloud he said,

“So he got on his motorbike, hared down to Lenton, rang Jonathan up from a call-box, sold him a line on fingerprints, and came over and shot him. Definitely a fast worker!”

Miss Silver said,

“Yes.” There was a short pause before she went on. “There is no means of knowing at what period it occurred to him that the story about a murderer’s fingerprint repeated to him by Mirrie could be used to his own advantage. He may have thought of it originally as a means of inducing Mr. Field to let him in. Any alarm would be fatal. He remembers that Mr. Field is a collector, and he uses the offer of specially interesting material as a bait. Once Mr. Field has taken it the rest is easy. Jonathan Field lays out the album on his table and waits for him. The talk probably begins with some reference to the story repeated by Mirrie. We know that Mr. Field was particularly fond of telling it. It is probably whilst he is engaged in doing so that Sid Turner conceives the idea of tearing out the page concerned and removing the notes about it from the envelope which marked the place. He would argue that this would suggest a motive far other than the real one. He has come determined on Mr. Field’s death. He shoots him without warning, and once he has torn the leaf from the album, removed the notes, and left the house, he feels that there will be nothing to connect him with the crime.”

Frank nodded.

“He left the revolver because there was just a faint hope that the death might be put down to suicide. Jonathan’s prints were on it, but an attempt to get a dead man’s prints in any sort of natural position doesn’t really come off. I think that is where he made a mistake. If he was going to suggest an unknown murderer intent on destroying an incriminating fingerprint, he could have left it at that and taken his gun away. He could always have dropped it in the river after he got back to town. Well, we’ve produced a very pretty jigsaw puzzle between us, and all the pieces seem to fit very nicely, but we’ve still got to make the thing stick together. Jigsaws have a nasty way of coming apart when you try and pick them up. And, to leave the metaphor out of it, we may find that Sid has got a real first-class unbreakable alibi for Tuesday night.

Miss Silver coughed in a meditative manner.

“I feel quite sure that he will have provided himself with an alibi.”

“Any particular reason for thinking so?”

She said,

“I think Sid Turner is a very dangerous person. He plans with great attention to detail, and he acts promptly and efficiently. He takes care to establish a connection with Mr. Maudsley’s office, he takes care to maintain his ascendancy over Mirrie Field, he even takes the bold step of coming down to attend Mr. Field’s funeral. I feel sure that he would not have neglected to provide himself with an alibi for Tuesday night. There are a number of ways in which it could be done.”

“My dear ma’am! I tremble to think of the consequences if you had ever turned your mind to crime!”

This impropriety was rightly ignored. She said,

“There is a point which may interest you. It concerns the torn-out page and the missing notes supposed to authenticate the fingerprint upon it.”

He wondered what was coming, but was hardly prepared for it when it came.

“Georgina tells me that the story of a murderer’s confession during an air raid was a great favourite of Mr. Jonathan Field’s, but that he had told her it really had no foundation in fact.”

“Georgina told you that!”

“I already had grave doubts about the story. The fingerprint was supposed to have been left on a cigarette-case passed by Mr. Field to the man who, like himself, had been trapped in the ruins of a bombed building. Mr. Field in his account of the incident was said to have stated that he subsequently lost consciousness, and that when he came to he discovered himself to be in hospital with a broken limb. He would have been undressed, money and valuables removed from his pockets, and I found it impossible to believe that a fingerprint would have survived the handling to which his cigarette-case must have been subjected. In fact the murderer’s confession might possibly have been made as described by Mr. Field, but reason and common sense reject the evidence of the fingerprint. When I said this to Georgina she informed me that the print on the torn-out page was that of Mr. Field’s own forefinger.”

Frank said, “The old devil!” He received a glance of reproof.

“I believe that he considered it to be a very good joke. It does undoubtedly remove the possibility that the missing page was torn out for any other reason than to divert attention from the real motive for Mr. Field’s murder.”

“Bringing us back to Sid Turner. You know, he really did have desperately bad luck—bad and quite unforeseeable. No one—no one could have imagined that Jonathan would destroy his new will only a few hours after he had signed it.”

Miss Silver looked at him gravely.

“Sid Turner is a dangerous and unscrupulous man. I shall be uneasy until I have heard of his arrest.”

FOR AT LEAST ONCE in his life Sid Turner would have endorsed a police officer’s opinion. His luck had been terrible. With every foreseeable detail thought out, every adverse contingency provided against, the one thing which could upset his careful planning had turned up against him. Jonathan Field had destroyed the will which he had signed only a few hours before, and his and Mirrie’s chances had gone up in smoke. Well, no use fighting your luck, and no use crying over spilt milk. Mirrie wasn’t the only pebble on the beach. There were other girls with money coming to them, and if he wanted to play safe, there was Aggie Marsh—getting on a bit, but not bad-looking and as soft as butter. Bert Marsh had left her the pub and twenty-five thousand. He knew that for a fact, because he had been to Somerset House and read the will. He had been considering her very carefully before Jonathan Field had carried Mirrie off from the Home and begun to fall for her in a big way. Well, he would just have to make do with Aggie. She’d have him all right, but he’d better not let the grass grow under his feet. Thanks to careful planning he was in the clear—alibi for Tuesday night and nothing to connect him with the death at Field End as long as Mirrie held her tongue. And she’d be much too frightened to do anything else. For a moment, as he contemplated the possibility of Mirrie blabbing, his thoughts became frighteningly dark.

Then they cleared again. She had known things about him before and she hadn’t split. Besides it was all to her own advantage to keep a still tongue. Whatever she thought, she’d be too frightened of getting drawn in herself not to keep quiet about it.

He had reached this comforting point, when his landlady Mrs. Jenkins called up the stair, “Phone call for you, Sid Turner,” and he went down to take it. The telephone was in her front room, and he shut the door before lifting the receiver. It might be Aggie Marsh. There had been something said about his going round for a spot of supper tonight. Well, he didn’t mind if he did.

It wasn’t Aggie. It was Bertha Cummins.

“Is that you, Sid? I want to see you at once… No—no —it’s not on my account, it’s on yours. Things have been happening at the office. There’s been an Inspector from Scotland Yard—”

“Shut up!” He couldn’t get it out fast enough. The leaky tongues women had! She was trying to say something again, but the rasp in his voice stopped her. “I didn’t get what you said just now—the line’s bad. I’ll be at the corner of West Street in say twenty minutes. We can do a flick.” He hung up and went to meet her.

Bertha Cummins came out of the call-box where she had been ringing up. There are hundreds just like her in any big city—neat, nondescript—the efficient secretary, clerk, manageress. She was thin without being slender, well-featured without making any effect. She had one of those smooth colourless skins which are an excellent foundation for make-up, but she had never done more for it than wash it in soap and water and dust it with powder if the day was warm. She wore neither lipstick nor nail polish. Her clothes were as drab as herself. She was forty-four years old and no man who wasn’t an elderly relation had kissed her until a month ago, when she had dropped her umbrella coming out of the office and Sid Turner had picked it up.

She had let him pick her up too. Even now she couldn’t think how she had come to do it. He had been most respectful in his manner. There had been a little talk about dropping things and somehow he was walking along the street beside her, and when she thanked him again and said goodbye he had given her that wonderful smile and said, “Does it have to be goodbye?” After that it really seemed quite natural to have tea together, and then they went to the pictures, and he told her how lonely he was and she let him hold her hand. After that he met her every day, not coming right up to the office but waiting for her round the corner. No one had ever made love to her before. She couldn’t believe that he cared for her, but he convinced her that he did. The barriers fell one by one. She walked in a daze of happiness and only thought how wonderful it was that he should be so interested in everything she did. She hadn’t wanted to talk about the office, because she thought it would bore him, but it was wonderful how interested he was. She found herself telling him about everything that happened. He didn’t know any of the people, so what did it matter? She told him about Jonathan Field changing his will. The barriers were down in good earnest.

He was waiting for her at the corner of West Street. She could see the black look on his face before she came up to him. He didn’t raise his voice, but it had a cutting tone in it.

“Don’t you ever say things like that on the phone again, or I’m done with you!”

“Things?”

“You heard! And we’re not talking here—there are too many people about. We’ll get on the next bus separately and get off at the fourth stop from here. We’re not to look as if we’re together.”

They finished up at the back of a very nearly empty tearoom. When the waitress had brought them tea and cakes they had as much privacy as it was possible to achieve.

She had taken only one strong comforting sip, when he said,

“Now what’s all this about a police Inspector?”

She set down her cup again because her hand was shaking too much to hold it.

“He came in after we got back from lunch. He saw Mr. Maudsley, and as soon as he had gone Mr. Maudsley sent for me. He was dreadfully angry and upset. He said there had been a leakage of information from his office and he meant to find out who was responsible. I don’t know what I felt like.”

Sid Turner made it clear that he took no interest in her feelings.

“Tell me what he said.”

“It’s that girl—” When it came to naming Mirrie Field she couldn’t keep her voice from trembling. “You oughtn’t to have rung her up. You ought to have kept right away from her until the will was proved—I could have told you that.”

He said in a low dangerous tone,

“When I want you to teach me my business I’ll let you know. What about the girl?”

“Someone listened in when you were talking to her. They’ve got one of those party lines. I suppose you didn’t know about that, but they have. Anyone can just lift a receiver and listen in on the others. Someone did when you were talking to Mirrie Field. She was telling you about the will having been signed, and you said you had a friend at court so you knew already. When the police asked her what you meant by a friend at court she said it was someone in Mr. Maudsley’s office. Oh, how could you tell her about me! I’ve never done anything like it before, and I wouldn’t have done it for anyone else in the world. You wanted to know, and I told you, but I never thought you would give me away.”

He said,

“Stop nattering! Does Maudsley suspect you?”

“Oh, no. That is what is so dreadful—he trusts me. And he thinks it’s Jenny Gregg.”

He laughed.

“Then what’s all the fuss about? You’re in the clear, and Jenny gets the sack. That’s all. If a girl talks out of place, there isn’t anything the police can do about it.”

He looked at her and thought what a stupid woman she was. One good thing, he wouldn’t have to keep up with her after this. He liked a girl to be warm and willing. He could make love to pretty well anything if it was in the way of business, but this thin, anxious woman with her scruples and the marks like bruises under her dark eyes, well, it would certainly be a relief to be rid of her.

She was watching him. She hadn’t been twenty-five years in a lawyer’s office for nothing. She was very much afraid.

“Sid, don’t you realize what this means? I’m not thinking about myself or about Jenny Gregg. The police are asking these questions because they are thinking about you.”

He looked at her with contempt.

“There’s nothing for them to think about. I’ve known Mirrie since she was a child. She lived in my sister’s house—in a way you may say I am a relation. I got to know you, we liked each other, and you happened to mention Mr. Field’s name— said he was leaving a lot of money to a girl called Mirrie Field. There’s nothing the police can do about that, is there?”

“It would lose me my job, and I should never get another.”

“Oh, well, there’s no need to mention names. I can just say it was a girl in the office. If they press me, I’m the perfect gentleman and couldn’t give a young lady away. You don’t need to worry about your job. No one is going to think of you having a boy friend when there are a couple of girls around. Is Jenny the fair one?”

She said, “Yes.”

She was cold right through and through—cold and numb. Presently she would remember what he had said and feel the bruise which his words had left. At the moment she felt nothing but the numbness and the cold.

He said,

“Well, we’d better not be seen together. You go home and take some aspirin or something and get that look off your face. Better say you’ve got a headache, or people will be beginning to wonder what’s happening to you.”

She said,

“You don’t seem to realize the police think you had a motive for Mr. Field’s murder. They’re trying to connect you with it. They think he was killed because he had signed that will. They think you went down there and shot him on Tuesday night because that will he had signed in the afternoon left a lot of money to Mirrie Field. I think she has told them whatever she knows.”

“She doesn’t know anything, and there isn’t anything to know. As for Tuesday night, the Jenkins, where I live, can tell your nosey-parker policeman I came in to fetch my raincoat about nine. Coming downstairs I caught my foot in it and took a nasty fall. They came running out and found me knocked clean out at the bottom of the stairs. Tom had to give me brandy and help me up to bed. Mrs. Jenkins gave me two of her sleeping-tablets and they put me out till the morning. Pretty bad head I had too, but no bones broken. They said to knock on the floor if I wanted anything, but I slept like the dead. Not much the police can do about that, is there?”

She had kept those strained dark eyes upon him. They searched his face. She said,

“You’ve got a motorbike, haven’t you?”

“So what?”

“Where do you keep it?”

“In the shed at the bottom of the yard.” He met her look with a savage angry one. “What are you getting at? You don’t think I fell downstairs, had to be helped to bed, and then got up and took the bike out and went down to this place Field End to shoot a man I’d never seen, do you?”

In her own mind she said, “I don’t think you fell downstairs.” She didn’t say it aloud. She went on looking at him and she went on thinking. He could have faked that fall— thrown something down, clattered down the last few steps and made quite a noise, bumping and calling out without really being hurt at all, and if he wasn’t hurt he could have climbed out of his bedroom window. And the motorbike needn’t have been put away. He could have left it handy and wheeled it out when something heavy was passing along the road. She didn’t want to have these thoughts, but they were there in her mind. She was to wonder afterwards whether Sid knew they were there, because quite suddenly he changed. The smile that had charmed her came into his eyes. He edged his chair round a bit and slipped his hand inside her arm, running it up and down with the caressing touch which had set her heart beating, beating.

Now she was too cold to feel anything at all—too cold, and too much afraid. Presently there would be the sense of loss, the sense of shame, but for this moment there was only the fear and the bitter cold.

For the first time since she had met him she counted the moments until she could get away from his look, his touch. It was the only relief that she could hope for.