The Fingerprint (19 page)

WHEN MISS SILVER got back to Field End she was in some doubt as to what she should do next. She was, as a rule, a person of quick decisions, but at this moment she was aware of two opposing impulses, and she felt obliged to give each of them her most serious attention before complying with either. On the one hand, she could not minimize the importance of what she had heard from Maggie Bell, and she felt that no time should be lost in passing this information on to Frank Abbott. On the other, it might be desirable for her to check over with Mirrie the two telephone conversations which Maggie had overheard. The third conversation, the one in which Jonathan Field had been a participant, must rest upon Maggie’s word alone, but the talk before the dance and the call made by Mirrie herself at a quarter past eight on Tuesday evening, might, and probably would, confirm the fact that the other person on the line was Sid Turner. If Mirrie were to be unexpectedly confronted with these two calls, Miss Silver did not believe that she would be able to persist in a denial of her part in them, or of Sid Turner’s identity. She had reached this point and had almost determined to seek an interview with Mirrie, when it became clear to her that she would not be justified in doing so. Frank Abbott was in charge of the case, and if Mirrie were to be questioned he had a right to be present.

She knew that he intended to drop in for tea at Deepside with his cousin Cicely and her husband, and she felt reluctant to disturb this brief family reunion. She would not even have known about it if Monica Abbott had not mentioned that she and Colonel Abbott had been invited, yet the more she thought about the matter the greater was her sense of urgency. In the end she drew the study telephone towards her and asked for Deeping 3.

It was Cicely’s voice which came to her along the wire.

“Oh, Miss Silver, is it you?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“What can I do for you?”

Miss Silver slipped into the schoolroom French which it was her custom to employ when she had anything of a delicate nature to communicate.

“I think it will be better if we do not mention any names.”

Cicely continued to use her mother tongue.

“What is it?”

“Is your cousin with you?”

“Yes. You are not going to snatch him away, are you?”

Miss Silver coughed in a slightly reproving manner. If Maggie Bell were listening she would certainly be able to put two and two together. She said in French,

“Will you tell him that I should like to see him as soon as possible? That is all, my dear. Goodbye.”

Out at Deepside Frank laughed, shrugged, and said he supposed he must go. Rabbits from hats were no novelty where Miss Silver was concerned. He had his tea and departed, wondering just what she had turned up this time.

Miss Silver had also been having tea. It was rather an odd meal, with Johnny in high spirits, Mirrie happy and relaxed, Georgina very strained and pale, and Mrs. Fabian just her usual self. She said she couldn’t think what had come over Anthony.

“So unlike him to go out for the whole day and not mention it to anyone. You are sure he didn’t say anything about it to you, Georgina?”

“No, Cousin Anna, he didn’t.”

Mrs. Fabian said,

“Very strange indeed.” She turned to Miss Silver. “He is usually so considerate. And of course it does make a difference about meals. One more or one less is bound to make a difference. I can’t remember who it was who said, ‘Evil is wrought by want of thought as well as want of heart,’ but I remember being made to write it out twenty times when I had forgotten to shut the conservatory door and a plant my father was very fond of got a chill in the night.”

Johnny burst out laughing.

“Darling, is one of us to have a chill because Anthony hasn’t said whether he will be in to Sunday supper?”

Mrs. Fabian remained perfectly amiable.

“It was just an illustration. So easy to forget things, and no use being sorry afterwards. I’m sure Anthony would never mean to upset Mrs. Stokes or any of us, but of course the Stokes go out on Sunday evening, so he won’t have. And if there isn’t quite enough to go round we can all take a little less.”

Johnny blew her a kiss.

“Mama, you surpass yourself! If you ever let Mrs. Stokes hear you say anything like that she’ll give notice on the spot. She produces oodles of food, and you ought to know it by now.”

Mrs. Fabian looked a little bewildered.

“Well, my dear, it must be very difficult to calculate, and I don’t know how she does it. I am sure I should be quite at a loss.”

When Frank Abbott arrived he found Miss Silver on the lookout for him. She took him into the study and gave him a quiet and accurate account of her visit to Maggie Bell. When she had done, he said,

“You thought she might have something to say?”

“I remembered that when I was here before Mrs. Abbott told me Maggie listened in on the party line.”

“Yes, of course—Monica makes rather a joke of it.”

Miss Silver shook her head.

“I have always thought that a mistake. A thing which is treated lightly comes to be overlooked. It occurred to me at once that Maggie might possess some important information.”

He said, “I see—” and then “Did she strike you as being reliable? You didn’t think she might be running a few odds and ends together and tacking them on to the murder?”

“No. She certainly was not making anything up when she told me of Mirrie’s two conversations with this man. She likes Mirrie and admires her. Mrs. Bell has made and altered clothes for her. Maggie feels a friendly interest. She is a person who makes no attempt to hide her feelings. Her likes and dislikes lie on the surface and she is perfectly frank about them. She did not volunteer the information about Mirrie. Something slipped out, and when I guessed of whom she was speaking I was able to persuade her into telling me the rest.”

He said abruptly,

“Well, I happen to have a check on one of those conversations.”

“On which one?”

“The one before the dance. It’s quite a small thing, but it fits in. Cicely and I went in to supper at twelve o’clock. She had left her handkerchief in the study, and I went to get it. That glass door was ajar. I heard it knocking and pulled the curtain back. Mirrie was on the step coming in. She was in her thin white dance dress with nothing over it, and she was shaking with cold, and fright. She said she was hot and had gone out for a breath of air—which was a downright lie and a stupid one at that, but I suppose she couldn’t think of anything better. What I thought was that she had gone out with a lad who had made a pass at her and given her a fright, and I thought she was just the sort of little fool to let herself in for that kind of thing, and if she wanted to have a necking party, why not have it inside where it was warm? Anyhow I didn’t say any more and she didn’t say any more, and that was that.”

Miss Silver looked at him in a thoughtful manner and said,

“Maggie Bell’s account of the first telephone call is certainly corroborated. I think that there can be very little doubt that Mirrie had slipped out to meet Sid Turner. As to why she did not provide herself with a wrap of some kind it is idle to speculate. Girls are extremely averse from putting anything on over an evening dress. They will wear a fur coat all day, and when the temperature has fallen to well below freezing point they will put on a low-necked dress and go out upon a terrace, or into a garden.”

Frank laughed.

“Low-necked is definitely an understatement,” he said. “Well, one of Mirrie’s conversations as reported by Maggie Bell has some support. I suggest that we ask her about the other, and if that is corroborated I think we may assume that Maggie is telling the truth about Turner’s third conversation, the one with Jonathan Field. Would you like to go and collect the girl? It will probably frighten her less than if we send Stokes to say we want to see her.”

MIRRIE AND JOHNNY were in the morning-room engaged in the enthralling occupation of making lists of the furniture they would need for a hypothetical flat over an as yet non-existent garage. It was to have a bedroom, a sitting-room, a kitchen, and a bathroom, and they were looking things up in a pre-war Army and Navy Stores list which gave them a beautiful if illusory feeling that a very little money would go a very long way. Johnny did murmur something about furniture being four times as expensive as it used to be, but immediately spoiled the effect by adding,

“But of course these are the prices of new things, and what we had better go for is good second-hand stuff—much better made and much better value. And anyhow it’s only a game, because I haven’t found a garage yet, let alone a flat to go over it.”

Mirrie gazed at him with admiration.

“But you will. Oh, Johnny, I do think you are clever!”

Johnny pushed the catalogue away.

“I tell you what, if Georgina sells this place there’ll be a lot of things she won’t want to be bothered with. I don’t mind betting she would let us have enough to furnish our flat when we get it.”

“Oh, Johnny, do you think she would?”

Johnny nodded.

“Sure of it. Georgina’s a most awfully good sort. And I’ll tell you something that will surprise you—I’ve never made love to her in my life. There she is, an out and out lovely, living in the same house and all, and she might just as well have been my sister. I expect that is what it amounted to— she felt like a sister.”

Mirrie flicked her eyelashes up, and down again. It was an accomplishment to which she had given a good deal of time and attention, but the quiver in her voice was unrehearsed as she said,

“Have you made love to a l-lot of girls, Johnny?”

He grinned cheerfully.

“Dozens darling—starting, if Mama is to be believed, when I was six years old. I came home from a Christmas party and told the family that I was going to marry a little girl with a coral necklace and yellow curls. We swapped sweets and she gave me a chocolate kiss, but I couldn’t remember her name, so it never came to anything.”

Mirrie did the eyelash trick again.

“And you’ve gone on kissing girls ever since?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“And forgetting all about them?”

“Darling, you don’t actually want me to remember them, do you?”

Her brown eyes looked suddenly straight into his.

“If I went away you’d forget me too.”

“You’re not going away, so I won’t have the chance. You see, if I kiss you every day like this—”

They were in the middle of the third or fourth kiss, when Miss Silver opened the door. Mirrie blushed, Johnny laughed, and Miss Silver said in an indulgent voice,

“I am so sorry to interrupt a conversation, but Detective Inspector Abbott is here, and he thinks perhaps Mirrie could help him to verify a point that has arisen.”

Johnny thought, “When the police say they think someone may be able to help them it’s a damned bad sign. I’m not going to have them badgering Mirrie and trying to trip her up.” Aloud he said,

“I thought they’d asked us everything they possibly could already.”

Miss Silver repeated what she had said.

“He thought perhaps Mirrie could help him.”

Johnny thought, “It doesn’t look well to refuse. They might think she’s got something to hide. I hope to goodness she hasn’t.” He said,

“All right, we’ll be along… Oh, yes, I’m coming too. I don’t trust old Frank a yard—not with a girl like Mirrie. You shall be there as chaperone and I’ll be counsel for the defence, and between us we’ll get her off without a stain on her character.”

Frank did not look overpleased when Johnny walked in. He was immediately presented with an ultimatum.

“I don’t know what you want to ask her about, and nor does she, but either I stay, or she doesn’t talk. She isn’t obliged to answer a single thing, and don’t you Gestapo lads forget it!”

Frank looked down his bony nose.

“I am here on duty, and this isn’t a joke. You can stay, but you mustn’t interrupt. I want to ask a few questions about a telephone conversation which Miss Field had on Tuesday evening a few hours before Mr. Field’s death.”

Mirrie said, “Oh—” She sat down in one of the easy chairs and Johnny propped himself on the arm. Frank went on speaking.

“You rang someone up at about a quarter past eight, didn’t you? Mr. Sid Turner, wasn’t it? That conversation was overheard.”

Mirrie began to shake. Johnny, with a hand upon her shoulder, could feel how the tremor began at the mention of Sid’s name. She said, “Oh—” again. It wasn’t really a word but a quickly taken breath. And then the words came out.

“They were all in the drawing-room, and the Stokes and Doris were through the swing-door—”

Frank said,

“I’m sure you took every precaution, but someone listened all the same. Now look here, there’s nothing for you to be worried about. You weren’t doing anything wrong in ringing up. It just links up with other things, and we want to get it straight. The person who listened in has made a statement, and this is what it amounts to. You rang Sid Turner up at a quarter past eight on Tuesday. You were very much pleased and excited because Mr. Field had just come back from London and he had told you that he had made and signed a new will. You said that he was treating you as if you were his daughter, and Sid Turner said that was a bit of all right, and he had a friend at court who had okayed it, or he might have thought it was too good to be true. Now there wasn’t anything wrong in your saying what you did, but, as I said, we are checking up and I would like to know whether you agree that that is a correct account of the conversation.”

Johnny’s mind moved quickly. By the time that Mirrie turned imploring eyes on him it was made up. He slipped his arm about her shoulders in a reassuring manner and said,

“Well, darling, it’s up to you. Is that how it went?”

She turned the gaze on Frank.

“He said not to ring him up, but I was so pleased, and I thought he would be too.”

“This statement about what you said and what he said, is it correct?”

“Oh, yes it is.”

“You rang up Sid Turner in London and told him about the alteration in Mr. Field’s will?”

“He told me not to ring up, but I thought—”

“Yes—you explained how it happened. I am going to ask you if you will just sign a statement about that conversation. We want to be sure that we’ve got it right.”

She looked at Johnny again, and he nodded.

“Better do it.”

She said, not to Frank but to him, “Sid will be angry.”

“That’s just too bad, but you’d better do what Frank says. Nasty fellows to get up against, the police, but they’ll see that Sid doesn’t do anything to annoy you.”

Frank Abbott gave them time for the interlude. If Johnny was prepared to co-operate, his help was worth having. He said,

“What did you understand Sid Turner to mean when he said he had a friend at court who could okay what you told him about Mr. Field’s will?”

Mirrie was feeling more confident now.

“He knew someone in Mr. Maudsley’s office.”

Frank Abbott took her up on that.

“The person who was listening to your conversation says you asked him what he meant by that friend at court business. If you knew he meant this person, why did you do that?”

Her colour rose becomingly.

“He was just bringing her in to vex me, and I thought I’d let him know I didn’t care who he was friends with or what they told him. And if it was that girl in the office who told him about Uncle Jonathan signing his will, then she hadn’t any business to, and if Mr. Maudsley knew about it he would send her away.” Her colour faded and her voice shook. “If she was telling him things, I didn’t want to hear about it! And it was horrid of him to tell me about her!”

In a wide experience it had fallen to Frank Abbott’s lot to receive the confidences of a good many damsels, mostly cousins. But for this he might have considered Mirrie’s line of reasoning to be obscure. As it was, he understood perfectly that Sid Turner had mentioned the girl in Mr. Maudsley’s office with intent to annoy, and that Mirrie had very properly snubbed him.

He considered that this might be the appropriate moment to make a further enquiry, one confidence being apt to lead to another. He said,

“There’s just one thing. You remember on the night of the dance some of us were in here and Mr. Field was telling us about his collection. He got the albums out and told us a yarn about getting a fingerprint from a man who had confessed to a couple of murders. He said he and this man were buried under a bombed building, and that he got the fingerprint by passing him a cigarette-case. Just at the most exciting point of the story Georgina Grey came along and said that people were beginning to arrive for the dance.”

Mirrie was looking at him with sparkling eyes.

“Oh, yes—wasn’t it a shame! It was a most exciting story, and I did so want to hear it properly!”

Frank nodded.

“I think we were all keyed up about it. I should have liked to have heard the rest of it myself. Now later on that evening you slipped out of this glass door to meet Sid Turner. He had rung you up at seven o’clock and told you to come out and meet him. He wanted to tell you about new arrangements for writing to him, and you wanted to show him your new dress, so you slipped out.”

Mirrie’s voice reproached the absent Sid.

“It was a lovely dress, but he didn’t take any notice of it. I wanted him to come into the study and see it in the light, but he wouldn’t.”

“Stupid fellow! Now look here, I want to know whether you told Sid Turner this story about the man who confessed to two murders and left a print on Mr. Field’s cigarette-case.”

Johnny said, “Why should she?”

Frank lifted a hand and let it fall again.

“Why shouldn’t she? It was a good story and she was obviously thrilled with it. She might have told him.”

Johnny said,

“Well, did you, darling?”

Mirrie looked from Frank to him and back again.

“Oh, well, I did.”

“What did he say when you told him?”

“He said it was a funny thing collecting fingerprints, and there might be someone who didn’t like to think about his dabs being in an album, and I asked him what dabs were, and he said fingerprints.”

Frank proceeded to the business of taking down her statement and getting her to sign it. When it was done and she and Johnny had gone back to their flat-furnishing game, he turned to Miss Silver.

“It begins to look like Sid, doesn’t it? He’d got his eye on Mirrie as a possible heiress and he was all set to get the earliest possible information as to the actual signing of the will. That being the case, he would have an interest in Jonathan’s death. But hang it all, the will was only signed on Tuesday afternoon. The earliest he could have heard of it would be some time after five, when the girl in Maudsley’s office would be free to see him or to ring him up—say somewhere between five and a quarter past eight, when Mirrie rang him up and he already knew that the will had been signed. To my mind Jonathan’s murder was a very carefully planned affair. If Sid was the murderer he must have got off the mark pretty quickly. But why? From his point of view where was the hurry?”

Miss Silver said equably,

“The more quickly he acted, the less chance was there that any suspicion would attach to him. He had forbidden Mirrie to ring him up. If she had not done so, and if Maggie Bell had not overheard their conversation, it could never have been proved that he knew anything about the will which made Mirrie Field an heiress. And if he did not know about the will he had no possible motive for the crime. Since it is now certain that he did know about it, his motive was a strong one. He was, I am sure, completely confident of being able to induce Mirrie to marry him. His influence over her was obviously an established one, and he was unaware that it was being undermined by her growing attachment to Mr. Fabian. As to the need for immediate action, I feel that there were probably cogent reasons for it.”

Frank was leaning back, his eyes half closed, missing nothing. He was being taught his business, and he had no thought of resenting it. That was the astonishing thing about Maudie—she took a case to pieces before your eyes and then she put it together again, and she did it without feeling clever herself or making you feel stupid. She saw things as they were, and she took you along with her until you saw them too. And she left you with the feeling of being on the top of your own particular world.

“And what do you imagine those reasons to have been?”

She smiled.

“You will, I am sure, have thought of them for yourself. Mr. Field had shown himself to be both changeable and impulsive. We have no actual proof of how much this girl in Mr. Maudsley’s office had been able to repeat, but a young woman bent on eavesdropping could doubtless have picked up a good deal. Mr. Maudsley told Georgina Grey that he had made every effort to deter Mr. Field from signing what he considered to be a most unjust will. He said that the old friendship between them had been strained almost to breaking-point. In the circumstances, there is no difficulty in imagining that the voices of both gentlemen were raised, and that Mr. Maudsley’s office would have had a very good idea of what was going on. I gather that two of the clerks were called in to witness the signing of the will. This girl might have been one of them. I think Sid Turner may well have considered the possibility of another change of mind on the part of Mr. Field. Put yourself in his place. It is Tuesday evening, and he has learned that Jonathan Field has signed a will which makes Mirrie his heiress. He believes himself to be sure of her, and if Mr. Field dies tonight Mirrie is sure of the money. If Mr. Field lives he may change his mind again. But if he dies, Mirrie is an heiress and Sid Turner has only to put out his hand and take her. That is, I think, a fair deduction from the bullying tone which he adopted during their telephone conversations. Maggie Bell was extremely indignant about it, and I think it is safe to say that a man does not adopt that manner towards a girl, and without reproof, unless it has become a habit between them.”