The Unfinished Clue (24 page)

"Deduction, I suppose?" said Dinah, cocking her head on one side.

"Pure deduction. I can't find his footprints. I wish you'd come down."

Dinah obeyed. "As a matter of fact he isn't back yet. He had to take Mr. Tremlowe to the station. Did you see him wending thitherwards?"

"I didn't, but I saw him drive off with his cousin. So when you called, "Is that you, Geoffrey?" I leaped to the con - that is to say, I deduced that they hadn't yet arrived."

"What a loss you'll be to Scotland Yard when you start that chicken farm!" remarked Miss Fawcett admiringly.

"I shall, of course, but it can't be helped. I'd very nearly made up my mind this should be my last case when I first came down here. I'm quite decided now that it shall be."

"You mustn't let yourself get disheartened," said Miss Fawcett, firmly putting the conversation back on to a flippant basis. "For all you know you may suddenly hit on a first-class clue, proving that I did it. You should never trust to alibis. I know I've read that somewhere."

"If I found that you had done it -" said Inspector Harding in much too serious a voice. "Well, that's too horrible a thought. Let's talk of something else."

Ten minutes later, when Geoffrey and Francis entered the house, Miss Fawcett and Inspector Harding were seated side by side on a black-oak settle, amicably exchanging views on Life, Tastes, and Ambitions.

"Dear me!" said Francis, at his blandest. "I'm afraid we have interrupted a fete-a-fete. Or is it just police investigation?"

Inspector Harding, betraying no sign of discomfiture, got up. "Good morning," he said impersonally. "I want a word with you, Captain Billington-Smith. Will you come into the morning-room, please?"

"Oh, was I the person you came to see?" said Francis. "It all goes to show one ought never to judge by appearances, doesn't it?"

Harding vouchsafed no answer to this, but merely held open the door into the morning-room. Francis strolled in, stripping off his wash-leather driving gloves.

Harding shut the door, and walked slowly forward.

Francis tossed his gloves on to the table between them, and drew out his cigarette-case. "From your expression,

Inspector, I'm led to suppose you have something of great importance to disclose."

"You are perfectly right," said Harding. "What I have to say to you is extremely serious, Captain Billington-Smith. Your car was seen, parked on the track leading to Dean Farm, at eleven-thirty on Monday morning."

For a moment Francis's hand remained poised above his open cigarette-case, while his eyes, suddenly narrowed, looked straight across into Harding's. Then, he drew out a cigarette, and shut his case with a snap. "Damn!" he said, and returned the case to his pocket. He set the cigarette between his lips, lit it, and blew a cloud of smoke. "Well?" he said. "What now?"

"Now," said Harding quietly, "I should like you to tell me the true story of what you did on Monday morning. Where were you at eleven-thirty?"

"Robbing the safe in the next room," replied Francis with something of a snap. "Who was the meddlesome busybody who nosed out my car?"

"That doesn't concern you, Captain Billington-Smith. Now, you are not bound to make a statement, but in your own interests I advise you to do so."

"It is quite obvious that I must," replied Francis. "Well, my uncle didn't send me the notes. You never really thought he had sent them, did, you? It would have been remarkably difficult to have proved that he hadn't, though. I robbed the safe when I knew he would be out of the house. I hope you notice my use of the phrase "robbed the safe". It sounds much better than "stole the money", and comes to the same thing." He gave a mirthless laugh, and threw his half-smoked cigarette into the grate. "I wanted it pretty badly. A card debt, as I quite truthfully told you. A cheque on my bank, judging from an engaging chat I had with the manager a week ago, didn't seem to me to stand much chance of being honoured. For which very good reason I came to spend the week-end in this house. My uncle rather liked me, you know. In his saner moments he would have paid much more than one hundred and thirty pounds to keep me - or his name - out of the mud. Unfortunately I didn't strike him in one of these. That was thanks to my cousin's perfectly insane infatuation with the fair Lola. I did what I could, but even my handling of Uncle failed. I tackled him on Monday, immediately after breakfast. He was all tuned up for one final, cataclysmic quarrel with Geoffrey. I might as well have talked to a brick wall. So I left him to have it out with Geoffrey. If Geoffrey had promised to abjure Lola and be a good boy there might have been a chance for me. So I waited till the row was over. The sight of Geoffrey gnawing his fingers and rolling his eyes in the manner of one goaded beyond endurance told me, however, that there was still no hope. I took my departure. The car, by the way, was running badly - dam' badly, but I was really too worried to care. I drove slowly towards London, wondering what the hell I was to do next." He stopped, and sat down in a chair by the table. "By the time I'd covered about ten miles I knew what I was going to do. And now I shall have to go back a bit. Do tell me if I'm boring you!"

Harding said only: "Go on, please."

"At breakfast my uncle had favoured us with a short dissertation on method, and the way to run a household. He announced that at ten o'clock he was going to Ralton to cash a cheque for the month's expenses, and at the same time he made an assignation with the Halliday woman, to take her to see a litter of pups at his keeper's cottage at eleven o'clock. Wasn't it providential?"

"I take it you knew the workings of the safe?"

"Oh lord, yes! Who didn't? I turned the car and drove back, running it finally up the track where it was found. Criminals always make at least one mistake, don't they? That was mine. I thought the track was disused. I walked up through the spinney, skirted the edge of the drive, keeping to the cover of all those gloomy rhododendrons, and entered the study by the front window, at eleven thirty. The money was, as I had expected, in the safe. I took the exact sum I wanted, and departed again. Time, probably about eleven-forty-five, when I got back to the car. May have been later, but not much. Then I drove to Bramhurst."

"What I told you yesterday about that run was substantially correct, though I actually fetched up at the garage at one-thirty and not, as I first stated, at twelve thirty. Ah, you'd found that out already, had you? Stupid of me to have lied on that point, but I thought it more than likely that they wouldn't have any idea at the garage what time I handed the car over to them. They mended my tyre, cleaned the jet, which was badly choked, and I accomplished the rest of the journey in record time. Not really a good story, is it?"

"You must have been very badly in need of the money to take such a risk, Captain Billington-Smith."

"I was, but not, believe me, badly enough in need of it to murder my uncle. I admit it was an idiotic thing to do. I yielded to impulse. I usually do. The risk wasn't of exposure, though. But if Uncle succeeded in tracing the notes to me I ran a fair chance of being cut out of his Will. At the time I didn't consider that. One can't think of everything, can one?" He got up, and walked over to the old-fashioned mirror over the mantelpiece, and straightened his tie. In the mirror his eyes met Harding's. "Well, what is the next move? Are you going to arrest me on suspicion of having murdered my uncle? I don't somehow think you'll get a verdict."

"No, I haven't applied for a warrant for your arrest yet," answered Harding. "But it's not, as you said, a good story. I shall have to ask you to remain on the premises until I've investigated it. Meanwhile, I want you to sit down and put on paper what you have just told me."

"Certainly," said Francis. He went over to the desk against one wall, selected several sheets of writing-paper, and dipped a pen in the ink-pot. He wrote unhurriedly, and without any evidence of discomfort in the task. At the end he signed his name with a flourish, and handed the statement over to Harding, who read it through, and put it away in his pocket-book.

"And is that all for the moment?" inquired Francis.

"Yes, that's all," replied Harding.

"Quite enough too, don't you think?" said Francis, walking over to the door. "I said you were getting a remarkable insight into the family." He opened the door, and went out. Then he looked back. "It seems you're wanted, Inspector," he said languidly. "More disclosures, probably."

Harding turned, but Francis had gone, and it was Geoffrey who stood in the doorway.

Geoffrey said impetuously: "Can I come in? There's something frightfully important you ought to know! It absolutely clears me!"

"That's good," said Harding pleasantly. "Yes, of course come in. What is it I ought to know?"

Geoffrey looked back over his shoulder. "I say, will you come in, Mrs. Chudleigh? Mrs. Chudleigh saw me on Monday, Inspector. And look here! Do you know that that b— I mean, that cat of a Halliday woman is going about saying that it was I who murdered Father? She told Mrs. Chudleigh so bang in the middle of Silsbury High Street. I don't know whether I can have her up for libel. but I've a jolly good mind to!"

Harding was not paying very much attention to this speech. He bowed to Mrs. Chudleigh. "Good morning," he said. "Won't you sit down?"

"Thank you," she replied, taking the chair later vacated by Francis. "It is perfectly true, what Geoffrey says. I consider Mrs. Halliday a most slanderous woman. and immediately I heard what she had to say I saw that it was my clear duty to come straight up to the Grange to find you! I must say, I'm not in the least surprised at her spreading such a wicked scandal, for I mistrusted her from the moment I set eyes on her."

"Did you, Mrs. Chudleigh? But I think you were going to tell me where and when you saw Mr. Billington-Smith on Monday, weren't you?"

"I am just coming to that, if you will allow me to speak, Inspector. And I may mention that had I ever dreamed that Geoffrey could be suspected of having - murdered - his father I should have told you that I had seen him when you called on me the other night. But I am glad to say that I am not in the habit of suspecting people of crimes, and such a notion literally did not cross my mind."

"I quite understand," said Harding. "And where was it that you saw Mr. Billington-Smith?"

"I saw him walking down the footpath across Moorsale Park, just beside the lake. I was on my way home from this house."

"Do you mean that you met him, Mrs. Chudleigh, or that you saw him from a distance?"

"Considering that I was on the road, and he in the park I could hardly have met him, Inspector. But if you are hinting that I was mistaken in thinking it was Geoffrey whom I saw, I beg to state that I am not as weak-sighted as that!"

"In which direction was he walking, Mrs. Chudleigh?"

"He was going home, and I thought at the time that he would be late for lunch, for I happen to know Lady Billington-Smith always has lunch at one o'clock, and it must have been quite ten-to when I saw him because I know it takes just under half an hour to walk from the Vicarage to the Grange, door to door, and I was certainly home by one o'clock, if not earlier. So that would mean that it must have taken Geoffrey at least twenty minutes to get home from that particular point, because of the hill."

Harding drew out a pencil from his pocket, and opened his notebook. "I see. And you say this was at ten minutes to one? You mentioned a lake: that might give one rather a wide latitude. Can you place the exact spot rather more definitely?"

"I suppose you are going to see for yourself? No doubt you are only doing your duty, but I am not in the habit, strange as it may seem, of prevaricating. However, you can hardly mistake the place, since it was just where the arm of the lake stretches down to the right-of-way. If you like I will take you there myself."

"Thank you very much, but I don't think I need trouble you to do that," said Harding firmly.

She gathered up her handbag and gloves, and rose. "Then I think I will be getting home. Please tell Lady Billington-Smith that I was sorry she did not feel equal to seeing me, Geoffrey. Good morning, Inspector!" Shc favoured him with a stiff little bow, and walked out of the room, escorted by the grateful Geoffrey.

"It's a frightfully lucky thing you saw me," he confided, on the doorstep. "I mean, I had had a row with Father. and I suppose it did look rather black, really."

"I am only sorry that I didn't think to tell the Inspector sooner," said Mrs. Chudleigh, buttoning up her gloves. "No doubt had I been Mrs. Halliday I should have. You must have had a dreadfully worrying time."

"Well, as a matter of fact, I did, rather," admitted Geoffrey. "It's all been absolutely ghastly, because after the way she treated me I simply didn't want ever to set eyes on Lola again, and here we've been cooped up in the same house, and everybody thinking I'd broken it off just as a blind."

"Oh, have you broken it off?" said Mrs. Chudleigh. "Well, I'm sure that's very trying for you, Geoffrey, but you know I can't help feeling that Miss de Silva is hardly the kind of girl to make a good wife for you. Not that I have anything against her, but she seemed to me a most callous, immoral young woman, and I should not be at all surprised if I heard that she was no better than she should be."

Geoffrey looked a, little doubtful at this terrific pronouncement, and said: "Oh well, I don't know about that, quite, but she's utterly destroyed my faith in women.

"And I'm sure I don't wonder at it!" said Mrs. Chudleigh.

Geoffrey, having finally seen his saviour off the premises, hurried back to the terrace, where Fay and Dinah were sitting. Francis was also with them, lounging in a basket-chair. "I say, have you heard?" Geoffrey demanded. "Mrs. Chudleigh saw me on Monday, and it absolutely clears me! Isn't it simply marvellous luck that she happened to catch sight of me?"

"Too, too marvellous!" agreed Francis. "My poor ass, nobody's interested in your movements any longer. Attention is now concentrated on my unworthy self."

Fay stretched out her hand to her stepson. "Oh, Geoffrey, I'm so glad! I always knew you couldn't possibly have done such an awful thing, but it's splendid that you've found an alibi. Only Francis has been telling us - no, I can't bring myself to repeat it. It's too revolting!"