The Blind Side (19 page)

He swooped, pulled her up out of her chair, and held her at arm's length.

“Why?”

“It's not—it's not a time to get married.”

“My child, marriage isn't a beano. But I see your point. The inquest is tomorrow, and then I suppose they'll let us get on with the funeral, say Saturday, and what's to prevent our getting married on Monday? You want someone to look after you, you know. I can't so much as go out for an hour or two but you go pouring confessions into old Lamb's fortunately unresponsive ear. Poor old Lamb—first he thought Mavis had done it, then it looked as if I was a dead snip until Lucinda dropped on him out of the blue, on the top of which you came along with a confession, and now I gather that he's quite sure it's Bobby. But to return to our licence. You need looking after, I want to look after you, and—”

She shook her head.

“Peter, it won't do—not till this is all cleared up. Don't you see that if you marry me, the police will think I knew something and that you'd done it to make sure I couldn't be called as a witness against you?”

Peter let go of her rather suddenly.

“What a perfectly horrible mind you've got!”

“Well, isn't that just what they would think?”

“I don't know—I suppose they might.”

He took her by the elbow and began to walk her up and down the room.

“Look here, my dear, you say put off getting married until the mess is cleared up. But suppose it isn't cleared up—suppose it's never cleared up. Do you realize that we are all under suspicion and we shall go on being suspected till kingdom come unless they really do find out who murdered Ross, and, what is more, prove it up to the hilt? Do you think Mavis did it? I don't. I don't suppose she's ever handled a revolver in her life. Besides, look at what she did earlier on when he got fresh with her. She upped with the decanter and hit him over the head. Very nice, natural, womanly reaction. If she'd had a revolver handy she'd have hit him over the head with it or heaved it at him, but I'll go bail she wouldn't have fired it.”

Lee nodded.

“Yes, I think so too.”

“Always agree with me, darling. You'll find it a splendid foundation for our married life. We now come to me. Do you think I did it?”

“No.”

“I suppose there are circumstances in which I might have done it—I don't know. But whoever shot Ross shot him sitting. That's the medical evidence—the shot travelled downwards. He was shot sitting, probably whilst he was still dazed after the clip on the head Mavis gave him with the decanter. I don't see myself doing that somehow.”

Lee said “No” again.

“Then there's Lucinda. I don't know if they believe her statement, but I do. Of course the wish is probably father to the thought, because if she really did see someone coming out of Craddock House at a quarter past two in the morning, it spreads quite a lot of whitewash over the Craddock family. And that's the snag—they may think the whitewash altogether too convenient.”

“I suppose so. I—I've been awfully frightened about Lucy, Peter. She was most frightfully worked up about Ross, and she doesn't really seem to have known what she was doing on Tuesday night. The thing that frightens me is that as far as I can see she was the only person who could have got in from outside after Rush locked up. She says she found the door open, but—”

“Mavis and Ross came in. They may not have shut the door properly. No—that won't wash. I don't believe anyone could forget to shut a door they'd just opened with a latchkey. You see, he took the latchkey out all right. It was there on his chain. He simply couldn't have forgotten the door. Besides Mavis was there.”

“Then who opened it? Someone did, if Lucy's story is true. Oh, Peter, it frightens me.”

“I know, but you're not going to make me believe that Lucinda shot Ross. What about Miss Bingham? There's a really bright idea!”

Lee's laugh was half a catch of the breath.

“Peter, I had her here for an hour after the Inspector had gone, and it was
the
very last straw. Talk about third degree!”

“I begin to feel quite sure she did it,” said Peter firmly. “She had a secret passion for Ross, and she slew him because he wouldn't reciprocate. Why, she admits being on the spot at or about the fatal time. I believe we have her sleuthed. Call me Renshaw no more—I am Hawkshaw the Detective. I must ring up old Lamb and tell him all before he goes and arrests me, or Lucinda, or the unfortunate Bobby.”

All this time he had been walking Lee up and down, with the pace getting faster and faster, until at its climax he stopped suddenly and embraced her after the French manner, with clasping arms and a kiss upon either cheek.

“Peter! Don't be so mad!”

She got an injured stare.

“Is it that you are offended? Is it not that one is permitted to salute one's betrothed? Do you not love me passionately?”

“No, I don't! And if you think that's a French accent, it isn't!”

He let go of her and ran his hands through his hair.

“All right, let us return to the prison house. We are now going to be very, very serious, and I expect we had better sit down.”

He drew two chairs together and sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand.

“Lee, did you know Ross was married?”

Her eyebrows went up.

“Was he?” she said. “I'm not really surprised, you know. Lucy used to drop hints. I suppose that was why she was in such a flap about Mavis.”

“You think Mavis knew?”

“Well, you'd think Lucy would have told her if she wanted to put her off.”

“You'd think so. Well, she told Abbott, and I dropped in on old Prothero on my way back, and he told me all about it. She was an actress in a small way—name of Aggie Crouch, but her stage name was Rosalie La Fay. Ross married her on one of his leaves in nineteen-seventeen. He was over age and
compos mentis
, and she was a perfectly respectable girl, so Uncle John had just to swallow her down. But by the time the Armistice came along Ross was through and they separated. Uncle John made her an allowance of three hundred a year on condition she kept out of everybody's way. Somewhere about nineteen-twenty-five he reduced it to two hundred—he'd had some losses—and in nineteen-thirty-one it came down with a run to a mere fifty. Prothero says it was all he could manage. When he died four years ago Ross cut it down to twenty-five, and a year ago he stopped it altogether. You know he really was a swine, Lee. The woman wrote the most imploring letters—said she couldn't get a job, and wouldn't he do something for her? Prothero tried to persuade him, especially in view of the fact that all the leasehold property was due to fall in and he could quite easily have let her have the original three hundred a year again, but he wouldn't hear of it. By the way, she'll come in for most of that property now.”

“What!”

“Bit of a turn of the wheel, isn't it?”

“I thought it came to you.”

“What came from my grandfather comes to me. He left it like that in his will. But most of those leaseholds came to Ross from his mother without any settlement, and the wife will get all that. Prothero says that was one reason why he was so anxious that Ross should make a will. He said he wrote to him urging him on these very grounds only last week, and he says Ross had half agreed to do something about it, but it didn't get any farther than that.”

“Does she know?” said Lee.

Peter nodded.

“Prothero wrote yesterday, and she rang him up this morning from Birmingham. He said she sounded very upset, and wanted to know when the funeral was, and would he advance her some money at once, because she would like to send a really classy wreath. He was rather relieved to know that she had got his letter, because, I gather, she never stays anywhere more than about a month, and he wasn't quite sure whether he'd got the right address.”

“I suppose—” said Lee, and then she hesitated. “Peter, it is beastly to think of these sort of things, but—do you suppose she knew—about the money, I mean?”

Peter shook his head.

“My child, I'd love to suspect Aggie, but I'm afraid it can't be done. You see, she couldn't possibly have known that Ross hadn't made a will, and if he had, she could bet her boots she wouldn't get a penny. All very vindictive and anti-social our cousin Ross's views on matrimony. Anyhow, she was in Birmingham—at least I suppose she was—old Lamb might be asked to check up on that. I did have the bright thought that Miss Bingham might be Aggie in disguise, with an accomplice in Birmingham telephoning to old Prothero, but I'm afraid she's been here too long for that. No, I don't think we can fix it on Aggie.”

Lee said in a shaken voice,

“Peter, who do you think did it really?”

“Any of us, my dear—you, me, Mavis, Lucinda, Peterson—no, I don't really think it was Peterson somehow—old Rush—or what about the bedridden wife—she mayn't really have been bedridden at all, you know—Bobby, Miss Bingham—you pays your money and you takes your choice.”

“No, but
really
, Peter.”

“Oh, Miss Bingham without a doubt,” said Peter cheerfully.

CHAPTER XXIX

The inquest took place at half past two on Friday afternoon. No adjournment was asked for by the police, and the jury arrived without difficulty at a verdict of wilful murder against Robert Foster. Indeed, after the evidence of the hall porter at the Ducks and Drakes, reluctantly corroborated by Mr. Peter Renshaw, and the very voluble testimony of the unfortunate Bobby's landlady, Mrs. Nokes, and her husband, they could hardly have done anything else. The cigarette-case was produced and identified and the fingerprints sworn to. No young man could have done more to put a rope about his own neck. Three witnesses to swear to a threat to shoot Ross Craddock. Fingerprints on the banisters of Craddock House and on the door of the room in which the murdered man had been shot. His cigarette-case picked up in the hall. Absence from his room at the material time, between one-thirty and three in the morning. And, most damning of all, the strong motive of jealousy acting on a mind unbalanced by drink. A very neat case, the only thing lacking to complete it being the person of Robert Foster.

“That ass Bobby's done a bunk,” said Peter in Lee's ear after a brief interchange of words with the Inspector. “Old Lamb's as sick as mud—says somebody must have tipped him the wink, and I rather gather that he thinks it was me. As I said to him, however much I wanted to, I couldn't very well have given away what I didn't know myself, and as no one told me that Bobby had been plastering the whole place with fingerprints and dropping cigarette-cases, I don't very well see how I could have blown the gaff. I thought he was just in the same old boat as the rest of us on account of having let off a lot of hot air about Ross outside the Ducks and Drakes, but I'm afraid there's more to it than that.”

“Ssh!” said Lee. “They're going to begin.”

Peter's heart warmed to Inspector Lamb when he found that Miss Lee Fenton was not to be called as a witness.

Miss Mavis Grey was called, but failed to answer to her name.

Lucy Craddock gave her evidence faintly but steadily.

Yes, she had seen someone come down the steps of Craddock House as she approached. The time would be about two-fifteen
A
.
M.
No, she could not say whether the figure she saw was that of a man or a woman. It was just a dark moving shadow. She was quite sure she had seen someone. She was quite sure that the street door was ajar when she came up to it. And so forth and so on, keeping steadily and exactly to her statement. She turned giddy once, and was given a glass of water which she kept clasped in her black-gloved hand, sipping at it from time to time, but her narrative remained clear and made a visible impression on the jury.

Miss Bingham enjoyed herself a little too obviously, and deprived her evidence of its full effect. Juries do not care for a biassed witness.

If Mavis Grey had been in court, she would have profited to a considerable extent from the malice of Miss Bingham's attack. A pretty girl and a spiteful old maid—the picture could hardly have failed of its effect. But Mavis Grey was not in court. Mavis Grey, a most material witness, was not in court. Mavis Grey was absent, and so was Bobby Foster. Mavis Grey and Robert Foster. Robert Foster and Mavis Grey. A verdict of wilful murder against Robert Foster. Warrants out against Robert Foster and Mavis Grey.

Peter and Lee took Lucy Craddock back to her own flat.

“Dear Phoebe is very kind, but I told her I must come home.”

She cried all the way back in the taxi, but her chief concern seemed to be for the presumably unchaperoned flight of Mavis and Bobby.

“And I suppose it will be quite impossible for them to arrange to get married if the police are looking for them. Oh, my dear, it is really all quite dreadful, and I can only feel thankful that poor Mary was spared.”

She continued to weep whilst Peter paid off the taxi, whilst Lee gently encouraged her into the lift and out of it again, and during all the preparations for tea. She took two lumps of sugar, and sipped and sobbed, and sobbed and sipped again.

“I can't think why Mavis should have run away,” she said between the sips and the sobs—“I really can't. You see, she came to see me yesterday, and we had such a nice talk—at least you know what I mean, Peter dear. The subject couldn't very well be nice, because of course we had to discuss poor Ross being shot—very distressing indeed, even if one wasn't as fond of him as one would like to have been, but you can't be fond of people just because they are going to be murdered—can you—even if you know beforehand, which of course you don't.”

Peter patted her on the shoulder.

“Full stop and close the inverted commas. Now take a good long, deep breath and begin again. You had a nice conversation with Mavis, and it wasn't the subject that was nice. What was it, then?”