The Unfinished Clue (27 page)

"You can take it out of me as soon as I'm through with this case," promised Harding. "Let's come back to Mrs. Twining. When she went to the General's study how long was she away?"

"I don't know exactly. Quite a few minutes - somewhere between five and ten, I should think, because when she came back and told us Arthur had been murdered, I wondered why on earth she hadn't come back at once. Though, when I came to think it over, I saw it was much more like her to pull herself together first. I wish I knew what you were driving at. Kindly note the way I've phrased that. Not by any means a question, you perceive. Just a remark thrown out at random."

"Was she wearing gloves?"

"Yes, frightfully expensive ones," replied Dinah. "People of her generation nearly always do, only hers aren't the fat-white-woman-whom-nobody-loves kind at all."

Harding sat back in his chair. "What on earth are you talking about?" he asked patiently.

"You know!" said Dinah. "'Why do you walk in the fields in gloves, missing so much and so much?" Mrs. Chudleigh wears that kind of glove. Mrs. Twining's are just part of the general ensemble, not glovey at all. And they were ruined, too, because she'd touched Arthur's body, and one of her hands was all stained with blood. It was beastly."

"Which one?" Harding asked.

Dinah screwed up her eyes, as though trying to focus something. "The right one," she replied, and suddenly stiffened. "John!"

"Well?"

"You must be mad!" gasped Dinah. "It isn't possible!"

"Someone did it, Dinah."

"Yes, but - but it's too fantastic! I see what you're driving at, but -"

He got up. "I can't discuss it with you, darling. Will you sit tight and say nothing to anyone? I may be on a wrong track altogether." He looked at his wrist-watch. "I must go now," he said. "I shall see you tomorrow, I hope - lateish."

When he stepped out into the porch presently he found the Sergeant seated in the car, reading a folded newspaper with the air of one who expects to be obliged to kick his heels indefinitely. He said briefly: "Sorry to have been so long, Sergeant. Did you find out anything from the gardener?"

"No, sir, not a thing." The Sergeant stowed his newspaper away, and coughed. "I ought to mention, sir, that happening on Captain Billington-Smith, and him questioning me, I took the liberty of informing him that he was pretty well cleared."

"I'd forgotten about him," said Harding, getting into the car and pressing the self-starter. "Quite right, Sergeant."

"Yes," said the Sergeant. "I had a notion it might have slipped your memory, sir."

Harding glanced at him suspiciously, but the Sergeant was looking more wooden than ever. "You having other things to think about, sir, as you might say," he added.

Harding changed the subject. "I'm dropping you in Ralton, Sergeant, and going on up to London as soon as I've picked up my suitcase," he said.

The Sergeant was betrayed into an unguarded exclamation. "Lor', sir, you're never throwing the case up?"

"No, of course I'm not. I shall be back tomorrow, sometime. I'm going to find out what was the name of the General's first wife, and what became of her."

"Ah!" said the Sergeant deeply. "I was wondering what was in your mind, sir. But what about Mr. Billington-Smith and his alibi?"

"I'll attend to that tomorrow," replied Harding.

It was late that evening when he reached London, and after garaging his car he went straight to the small flat he owned overlooking the river. His man, warned by telephone of his arrival, had prepared a meal for him, and he sat down to this at once, and while he ate, read over the precis he had written of the case. Then he studied the notes he had jotted down that day, and made an alteration in the original time-table. His man, coming into the room with the coffee-tray, found him staring straight ahead of him, an unlit cigarette between his lips and his lighter held in one motionless hand.

Jarvis set the tray down on the table and began to remove the remains of supper. "A difficult case, sir?" he inquired.

Harding looked at him. "I'm a fool," he said.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that, sir," replied Jarvis encouragingly.

"Not only a fool, but a damned fool," said Harding. "The thing's been staring at me in the face, and I've only just realised it."

"Ah well, sir, better late than never," said Jarvis. "Will you be wanting me any more tonight?"

Shortly after five o'clock on the following afternoon, Inspector Harding's car drew up once more before Lyndhurst Vicarage, and the Inspector and Sergeant Nethersole got out. The Sergeant, who had been lost in thought all the way from Ralton, said slowly: "I wonder if she saw Mr. Billington-Smith at all?"

Harding rang the front-door bell. "Yes, I think so, undoubtedly."

The Sergeant sighed, and shook his head. "In my opinion," he said, "it's a bad business. A very bad business, and I don't mind admitting to you, sir, that I don't half like it."

"No, I don't like it myself," replied Harding. He turned, as the parlourmaid opened the door. "Mrs. Chudleigh?"

The parlourmaid, who, in spite of his quite innocuous behaviour on the occasion of his first visit, seemed still to regard him with trepidation, stood back to let him enter the house, and said in a gasp that she would tell the mistress he wished to see her.

Inspector Harding, however, had no intention of being left in the hall again, and followed the maid to the drawing-room at the back of the house.

She opened the door. "It's the police, m'm!" she announced breathlessly.

Mrs. Chudleigh, who was seated at the writing-table in the window, looked sharply round. When she saw the Inspector she rose, but she did not come forward to meet him. "That will do, Lilian," she said, dismissing the servant. "Good afternoon, Inspector. Dear me, Sergeant Nethersole as well? May I ask what you want with me now?"

"Mrs. Chudleigh, I am here on a very unpleasant errand," Harding said gently. "I have a warrant for your arrest for the murder of your first husband, General Sir Arthur Billington-Smith. I must warn you that anything you say now may be taken down in writing and used in evidence."

A queer, twisted smile curled her lips. "I have been expecting you," she said. "I was warned. I've written it all out. It's in that drawer. You'll find it."

Her hand was in the pocket of the cardigan she wore; she withdrew it, and raised it quickly to her mouth. "Look out, sir!" cried the Sergeant, plunging forward.

He was too late; as he seized her wrist he saw her face convulsed. She fell forward, and a little bottle dropped to the ground, and rolled a few inches across the flowered carpet.

The Sergeant dropped on his knee beside her, and felt for her heart. He raised his eyes to the Inspector's face. "She's dead, sir."

Harding nodded. "I know." He came forward, and picked up the empty bottle, and sniffed it. "Cyanide of potassium," he said, and looked down at the dead woman. "It's better like this, Sergeant."

The Sergeant, who had been staring at him with something approaching a frown in his eyes, suddenly lowered his gaze. "Maybe you're right, sir," he said. "I hadn't properly thought of it, but I don't know but what I agree with you." He paused, and got up from his knees. "She was too quick for us, sir," he said deliberately. "That's how it was."

Chapter Eighteen

This is the full confession of me, Theresa Emmeline Chudleigh. I am perfectly sane, and what I shall write now is the truth, nor am I ashamed of it.

"I killed Arthur Billington-Smith with the dagger that was lying on his desk. I did not set out to do it, but now that it is done I know that I would do it again. I am not sorry. He was a cruel and a wicked tyrant. He ruined my life, and he would have ruined my son's life. What I did I did for Geoffrey's sake. It is the only thing I have ever been able to do for him, and I am proud of it.

"I have been warned that a piece of paper has been found with the start of my name scribbled on it in Arthur's handwriting. That is why I am setting down this confession, for if the police come to arrest me I have made up my mind to take poison.

"When I left Arthur Billington-Smith twenty years ago, I ran away with a man whose name I shall keep back, since he is dead now, and it cannot have any bearing on what I am going to write. He had promised that we should be married as soon as Arthur had divorced me, but there was another woman, and no doubt she was more attractive than I was. I do not think there is anything to be gained by my going into that. Even now, as I write, all that I went through at that time comes back to me and makes me almost glad that I have not much longer to live in this world. My family disowned me, and I am sure I do not blame them, for there was a dreadful scandal. I was very ill, and when I grew better I went right away where no one would know me. I called myself Miss Emily Lamb. Lamb was my maiden name; I thought it was common enough to attract no attention, and so indeed it proved. That enabled me to make enough to live on. It was through my work, when I was secretary to a charitable institution in the East End of London, that I met Hilary. I should like to say that whatever I had suffered was made up to me by him, and though he will say that in the eyes of God we were not married, I hope no one will deny that I have been a good wife to him. On that point my conscience is quite clear.

"I have been married - I say married, for I have never shared Hilary's prejudice against the remarriage of divorced persons - for ten years, the happiest years of my life. I was neither young nor pretty when we first met, for mine was the type of prettiness that fades quickly. I was pretty once, though that is neither here nor there. But he was not the sort of man to want mere beauty in his wife, and when we had known one another for just a year, he asked me to marry him.

"I did marry him. I have no doubt that a great many people will blame me for what I did, but I have never been one to care what others said, and I do not propose to change now. I never told Hilary that I was a divorced woman. To this day he does not know it. There is only one person who knows who I am. She has continued to be my friend throughout, and although she is a worldly, and sometimes, I fear, frivolous woman, I am grateful to her.

"It was chance, and not any design of mine, that brought Hilary to this parish. I would have preferred any other in the whole world, but it was necessary for Hilary's health that he should go into the country, and we could not pick and choose. I had, however, no fear of Arthur recognising me. He had not set eyes on me for sixteen years, and I hope I am not so vain that I do not realise how much I have aged. When I left him I had literally masses of perfectly natural golden hair, and not a line on my face. A severe illness, and worry, turned my hair grey, and the false teeth which I am obliged to wear quite altered the shape of my mouth. I must say, it amused me to find that my successor, the present Lady Billington-Smith, was not at all unlike what I was in my young days.

"I have had to live as Arthur's neighbour for some years now. I do not know how I have been able to do it. I hope that time has improved me; it had not affected him. He was just the same; I was thankful that Hilary's scruples forbade him visiting the Grange more often. I could not have borne it. His second wife is, I fear, a weak, woman. I have never had any sympathy for her, she should have known better than to have married a man old enough to be her father.

"I do not propose to discuss my son. His faults I lay at Arthur's door. No, I am not sorry I killed Arthur. I am, on the contrary, glad.

"I visited the Grange on Monday on purpose to discover what Arthur meant to do about Geoffrey's unfortunate entanglement. When I found that he had disowned the boy, I knew that a clear duty lay before me, and I did not shirk it. It was time that I made myself known to Arthur, for although he had divorced me I am still Geoffrey's mother, and have a right to concern myself with his future.

"I left the terrace at 12.30 on Monday. I would not permit Arthur's wife to accompany me. I knew that Arthur was in the study, and I chose to approach it from the garden so that people should not know I had gone to see him, a circumstance they must have thought peculiar. I wish to say that I had no intention of killing him. No such thought had so much as crossed my mind. I meant only to plead with him on Geoffrey's behalf. Julia Twining had promised to do what she could, but I had no faith in her power of persuasion. I thought if I threw myself on Arthur's generosity, perhaps, after so many years, he would listen to me.

"He was writing at his desk when I entered the room. I went in through the front windows. He was surprised to see me; I could see he was in one of his evil moods, though he was polite enough to me, in a surly fashion.

"When I told him who I was he did not at first believe me. He thought I was mad. When I convinced him he said, "You Theresa? You Theresa?" and burst into one of his loud, ill-bred horse-laughs.

"I did not mean to quarrel with him. I thought I had sufficient control over myself. Perhaps if he had not laughed as he did, I could have kept my temper. And yet I don't know.

"I am not going to recount what passed between us. But I do most solemnly assert that I tried to remain calm, that my only object was to intercede for Geoffrey. I had not realised, even with my knowledge of Arthur, that he hated the boy. I saw it then, of course. I cannot bring myself to write down the things that he said. His taunts at me I hope I could have borne with equanimity. What he said of Geoffrey - wicked, venomous sneers, on purpose to wound me - no mother could have borne.

"We did not talk for long, I think not more than ten minutes. I saw that I had only done harm; he would not listen to me. He told me I could go, and pretended to ignore me, and to go on with his work.

"I was standing beside his chair with my hand laid on his desk. I implored him to be reasonable. He laughed again, that jeering laugh I knew so well. I cannot explain what happened to me. It was all over in a flash. Every wrong I had suffered at his hands, all that past misery and bitterness came up before me, and there he sat, prosperous, self-satisfied, mean to the soul, revenging himself on my child - It is no use; I can't describe it. The knife was by my hand. He was not even looking. I snatched it up in a moment's Fury, perhaps I should say madness, and struck him with it. lf I were asked I could not say whether I meant to kill him. I think I did, At that moment. Anyway I am glad now that I did. People will say that I am a murderess. I am sure I do not care what they say.

"He fell forward over the desk. The blood spurted from the wound in the neck. Some of it spattered my sleeve. I put my scarf over it, and ran out of the room.

My knees were shaking. I could hardly grasp what I had done.

"I got on my bicycle and rode home. There was blood on my gloves. I burned them in the kitchener when the servants had gone to bed.

"I thought no one would ever find out. I thought the police would suppose the murderer to have been some unknown person from outside. It did not occur to me that my action would put others in danger, even Geoffrey. When the Inspector came down from London I began to be afraid. He was not like our local police. He saw too much. He found out things about every one. I knew then that in the end I should have to come forward. Naturally I should not permit even such creatures as that designing Mexican or Mrs. Halliday to bear the blame of what I had done.

"That is all that I have to say, except that it is true that I saw Geoffrey just as I described. I have known since I told the Inspector that I saw Geoffrey at ten to one that he would find out the truth."

Major Grierson laid the last sheet down, and dabbed violently at his nose. "Shocking! Shocking!" he said. "Poor soul! I do not know when I have been so - er - upset. One should not say it, but really, Harding, one cannot but be — er - glad that she ended it as she did."

The Superintendent said sourly: "I ought to have gone myself. Of course, I suppose Mr. Harding will explain to them up at the Yard how he came to let a thing like that happen. I only hope he doesn't get dropped on for it."

"Come, come — er - Superintendent! Mr. Harding could not have suspected her of concealing poison about her - er - person."

"Ah, that's where it is, sir," said the Superintendent loftily. "You have to be prepared for things like that. That's what I could have told the Inspector. However, it's for him to write his report as he sees fit."

Harding got up. "You're quite right, Superintendent, and I think it's time I started to do it."

The Chief Constable followed him out. Before he got into his car he said, glancing momentarily at Harding: "I'm not - er - asking whether you meant to let it — er - happen as it did. I can only say that I am - er — thankful. A terrible case! Quite appalling! I trust you won't get into - er — trouble, Harding."

"Not very serious trouble, sir, I think. I'm leaving the Force in any case."

"Indeed? Well, I must say I am glad to - er - hear it. Now what about that meeting of ours? Can I - er -persuade you to come out and dine — er — tonight?"

"Thanks very much, sir, but I'm afraid I can't manage it tonight," said Harding. "Some other time, if I may."

"My dear fellow, it won't take you all the - er — evening to write up your report!" expostulated the Major.

Harding reddened slightly. "No, of course not, but I've got to go up to the Grange this evening sir and,"

"To the Grange? But what in the world for?" asked the Major, bewildered.

"Oh, just to clear up a - a small matter arrising from the case," said Harding.

The "small matter', with whom he had previously held a somewhat protracted conversation over the telephone, met him on the doorstep of the Grange when he drove up shortly before nine o'clock. She expressed a desire to be informed whether he was on duty or off.

"Off," said Inspector Harding, demonstrating the truth of this statement by taking the lady intoo his arms.

Miss Fawcett protested feebly. "Supposing somebody were looking?"

"I don't mind if there are dozens of people looking," said Inspector Harding brazenly.

Miss Fawcett tucked her hand in his arm in a companionable way, and proceeded to stroll with him into the garden. "I'm glad it's all over," she said. "I'm awfully sorry for Mrs. Chudleigh, though I can't say I ever liked her. Still, one can't be surprised at her having got curdled and bitter. Mrs. Twining's here. She's been telling us the whole story. She came on here from the Vicarage. She says Mr. Chudleigh is quite dazed. It's ghastly for him. I wish you needn't have found it out, John, though naturally I'm proud of you for having been so clever."

"Clever?" repeated Harding. "Did you say clever? I ought to have been on to it two days ago."

"Well, I think it was distinctly bright of you," said Dinah. "What did put you on to it?"

"The bicycle. If Mrs. Chudleigh left this house on her bicycle at twelve-thirty she would have been home by twelve-forty-five. Only if she had been walking could she have seen Geoffrey where she did at ten to one. Either she was lying, and never saw him at all, or she left here considerably later than you all said she did. That discrepancy in the time was what finally put me on to her. What originally gave me the idea of the General's first wife was that slip of paper, coupled with something Geoffrey said. Do you remember finding me with Chambers's Dictionary, in the morning-room? You asked me if I was doing a crossword. I was looking up the proper names beginning with T."