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‘No, sir.'

‘Because you saw him once run straight the whole length of the field at Cardiff?'

‘No, sir,' answered Bobby, flushing a little and wishing to goodness he had never made that unlucky reference, of which it seemed Mitchell never tired of reminding him. ‘But when you have got the truth, everything fits. I think that's the main test of truth. It fits, it makes a harmony, one pattern all through. But there's only a good case against Carsley if you leave a whole lot out – unexplained.'

‘If it was explained, if we knew the explanation, it might point the same way, too,' Mitchell observed. ‘There's a cable from New York confirming that Sir Christopher was in possession there of a pistol of the same make as that found by his body. That suggests who ever shot him was an inmate of the house, or had access to it, and somehow got possession of his own pistol, as Carsley might have done through the Jennie girl.'

‘Do you think it was Marsden sent the anonymous letter telling us about that?' Bobby asked.

‘I'm sure of it,' Mitchell asserted. ‘But there's other things I would like to know more about. Those theatre tickets – the stalls for the Regency. Where do they come in? Let me see, the play was –
Hamlet
, wasn't it?'

‘Yes, sir,' answered Bobby, surprised at the question, for he was quite sure Mitchell knew that well enough.

‘The Assistant Commissioner and I went to see it,' Mitchell went on musingly. ‘Rather a jolly evening, too, even if I did get told I had too much imagination for a policeman, whose business is facts. By the way, there's a note from the administrator of the Clarke estate – you knew Carsley declined to have anything to do with that and another firm is acting? Apparently he's found trace of another sum of about five hundred lent to Dr Gregory and nothing to show it was ever repaid. But Gregory sticks to it he repaid it all right and he has the torn I.O.U. to show. But he can't show any cancelled cheque or any other trace of the transaction. He accounts for that by saying he paid in cash, mostly in notes he won racing. Everyone who has money he can't account for always says he won it racing – that's classic. We can't disprove that, anyhow, but it is possible that when he found Sir Christopher dead, he thought of his debt, and saw a chance to get hold of the I.O.U. from the dead man's pocket-book. If it happened like that, it would account for his delay you noticed and reported. But it wouldn't prove or even suggest that the doctor did the shooting.'

‘No, sir,' agreed Bobby.

‘It might be – oh, lots of theories and “might be's”,' Mitchell went on, drumming on his desk with his fingertips. ‘Looks to me we shall never know – not now, not now Brenda Laing will never tell us what she knew.'

‘You think she knew something?' Bobby asked.

‘You heard Marsden say so. Marsden's a good steady liar, but last night I think it was the truth came out. Yes, I think she knew something but what she knew she'll never tell. Silent she was all the days of her life, and silent she'll stay now she's in her grave – silent in life and death, too.'

There was a knock at the door and Inspector Gibbons entered. He was carrying a large sealed envelope he handed to Mitchell.

‘I thought I had better let you have this at once, sir,' he said. ‘A young lady brought it. She is here still, if you would like to see her. I asked her to wait. She says she knew Miss Brenda Laing, but hadn't seen or heard from her for some time. The day before yesterday she got that envelope from Miss Laing, with a note asking her to keep it by her unless anything happened to make her think she ought to bring it to us. So when she read the paper this morning and what had happened to Miss Laing, she supposed that was what was meant, and she took the first train up and brought it here.'

When he had finished Mitchell was silent for a moment, looking thoughtfully at the packet in his hand. Bobby rose to his feet, his intense excitement making it impossible for him to keep still. Mitchell said slowly, half to himself:

‘Has she spoken at last, has she broken her silence at last now she is dead?'

He broke the seal of the packet and settling himself in his chair began to read.

‘“I am writing this because I want to tell you how it is I came to shoot dead my stepfather, Sir Christopher Clarke.

‘“When I did it I thought it was my duty and my right.

‘“But now I am not sure.

‘“I was five, exactly five, it was my fifth birthday, when I first understood that there was something wrong between my own father and my mother.

‘“I can remember it as clearly and as vividly as anything that happened half an hour ago, that day when I was five.

‘“I was standing at the top of the stairs that led to the nursery. They were very narrow stairs and they were covered with a kind of oilcloth, not carpeting. There was a stain on the wall near the top, shaped like a bear, that used to terrify me, because the nurse told me that if I were not good it would come alive and eat me all up. So I used to try very hard to be good, only it is difficult to tell what is being good when one is only five – and when one is older, then it is more difficult still.

‘“Father was standing just a little way down the stairs. He was holding out a marvellous new doll. It had blue eyes and fair hair, I remember, and the fair hair was tied up with pink ribbon, and if you pressed it, it said ‘pa-pa', and ‘mama'. I have that bit of pink ribbon still somewhere, I believe.

‘“Mother was standing behind father, and I knew she was angry, and did not want me to have the doll.

‘“But father passed it to me over her head, and I took it, and ran as fast as I could into the nursery, into a corner there, for fear mother would come and take it from me. I heard her say:

‘“‘You said it was too expensive when I asked you, you said it cost too much. Then you go and buy it yourself.'

‘“I did not hear what father answered, but I understood very well. I could not have put it into words but I knew as clearly as any grown-up could have done that father was bidding against my mother for my love.

‘“And I knew why.

‘“It was because he knew he was losing hers.

‘“He was losing his wife and so he was trying to bribe his child that he should not lose her, too.

‘“I think there were two little five-year-olds in the nursery that day. There was the happy babe, absorbed in an ecstasy of rare joy because of this great wonder miraculously issued from the shop window to become a part and portion of every day existence. There was another child who knew that the joint life which should have been her protection and her stay had been torn asunder.

‘“I suppose this attempt to bribe a little child's love is a proof of some essential weakness in my father's character. I imagine it was this weakness in him that cost him his wife's love. It was a weakness that would, I think, have made some women love him more. I think it would have me. I think if I had found a man leaning on me, depending on me, that would have called out all the best I had to give. But my mother did not feel like that, because she was weak, too, weaker than he was, very weak and yielding and gentle, and ready to take the impress of any near her. If she had found strength in him, then perhaps she would have been strong, too. And if he had found strength in her, then in his turn he would have been stronger. But their two weaknesses clashed, reacted, each on the other, and I think there was unconscious anger and distrust between them, because each knew what the other might have given, but could not.

‘“Yet there was so much in them both that was sweet and gentle and very tender. I think it would have been all right in the end, only that one day my father brought home a business friend, Mr Clarke, he was not Sir Christopher then.

‘“That happened before the doll episode, but it was not till some time after it that I began to associate Mr Clarke with the trouble in the house, with mother's occasional tears and father's fits of gloomy silence. I remember once he had me in his arms in the hall, and was laughing and kissing me, and I tried to pull mother towards him, and he put me down suddenly and went into the drawing-room, and mother went back upstairs, and I was left alone in that cold passage.

‘“Mr Clarke was altogether different from father. He was loud-voiced, vigorous, competent. He knew what he wanted and what he wanted he took; and if it was something that happened to belong to you, why, so much the worse for you. Oh, he was strong, strong as brute, elemental things are strong. It was like a struggle between the fine flower of sheltered city life and some raw force of nature, it was like a sudden storm of wind and rain breaking into a carefully guarded conservatory, it was like the matching of a vase of beaten gold against one of wrought iron. With all that, there was a certain rough good nature about the man; he was not malicious, no more malicious than the wind and rain bringing ruin on the delicate, hot-house plants. If you were in a difficulty, and he had time, he would often help you, even if very often chiefly in order to show his greater strength and skill. If you bent before him, he did you no harm; if you ran for shelter, he passed you by.

‘“So much justice it is right and fitting I should do him, now that I have killed him.

‘“But it was my father's great misfortune that he possessed something Mr Clarke wanted with all the force of his strong, narrow, seeking self.

‘“I suppose he fascinated mother from the first. She felt the contrast with my father, who was always so hesitating and uncertain, and who would have turned aside from picking up a fortune rather than hurt the feelings of a blind beggar standing near. Mr Clarke – Sir Christopher – my stepfather – he wouldn't even have seen the blind beggar, no, not even if everyone near had combined to point him out. He would have seen nothing but the fortune and he would have taken it and kept it.

‘“Why is it that the fine things of the world must break when they come against the coarser?

‘“Or must they?

‘“My father broke at any rate, as is shown, I suppose, by his pathetic attempt to bribe my love. But it was not for the doll I loved him but because I knew he had great need that I should. But I loved my mother, too. She was very gentle and very, very lovely, and so fragile you thought a breath would be enough to blow her right away.

‘“Two things happened. Mr Clarke went away on business that took him to New York. That didn't make things any easier. He was gone in the body, but his memory was with us, like a living thing, always there.

‘“The other thing that happened was that father fell ill. His health was always weak, and it had grown worse. Mr Clarke came back from America and came to see us and then had to go back there again. My father grew worse. Mother nursed him. The doctor wanted a professional nurse but mother would not hear of it. She would hardly let anyone else into the room, she wanted to do everything, though she was so very far from strong. She tried to keep me away, but I used to slip in every opportunity that I got, and sit by him. We never spoke, father and I. But I knew he wanted me there. Perhaps it was then I first learnt to be silent as people say I am. The maids used to talk about how devoted mother was. So did the doctor. And he told us there was no real danger; with care and good nursing there was every reason to think father would get well again.

‘“One day I was in the room, sitting by the side of the bed. We had been silent as usual. He had his eyes closed. He opened them. Mother had just gone out of the room. He looked at me for a little and then he said:

‘“‘Brenda, had your mother a letter to-day?'

‘“I knew there had been letters that morning but I did not know anything about them.

‘“He said:

‘“‘I should not ask you that.'

‘“Mother came back into the room and I said to her:

‘“‘Mummy, daddy wants to know if you had a letter this morning.'

‘“I saw them look at each other. They looked at each other for a long time. They did not say anything. I was very frightened. I did not understand, but I was horribly afraid. I do not think anyone can understand how afraid I was.

‘“I began to cry and mother took me out of the room and called one of the maids. The maid thought it was because of father I was crying. So it was, but not as she thought.

‘“That night the same maid came and woke me up.

‘“‘Your father wants you,' she said.

‘“She carried me down into his room. The doctor was there and my mother. Father put out his hand and held mine. The doctor was standing quite close. My mother was standing at the foot of the bed. Her face was in shadow and I could not see it. I heard the doctor say:

‘“‘I can't make it out. I can't understand what's happened.'

‘“Then he said again:

‘“‘He's no right to be like this, not when he was going on so well.'

‘“Suddenly father pulled me close to him.

‘“‘Brenda, remember,' he said very loudly, ‘remember, Brenda.'

‘“He never spoke or moved again though he lived some hours.

‘“But I think I knew very well, even then, what it was he had told me I was to remember.”'

‘“Within six months mother had married again. I do not think anyone was very much surprised. Mr Clarke cabled as soon as he heard of father's death and returned at once, though he still had business in New York that needed his attention. But he left all that to his associates and took the next steamer home. Father's affairs were in great confusion. There were debts and nothing to pay them with.

‘“Mr Clarke took all that in hand. I remember very well the difference there was after his return, how tradespeople became civil and attentive again, and a horrible man who had been about the house a lot suddenly disappeared. Mr Clarke cleared up everything, settled with the creditors, arranged everything, did everything. I suppose but for him we should have had to go to the workhouse. When mother told me we were going to live with him always, it hardly seemed a change. He had been so constantly with us ever since he came back.