Towards Zero (16 page)

The conversation was put to an end by the arrival of Nevile Strange.

He looked pale and worried, but much less nervous than he had done at the breakfast table. Battle eyed him keenly. Incredible that a man who knew—and he must know if he were capable of any thought processes at all—that he had left his fingerprints on the instrument of the crime—and who had since had his fingerprints taken by the police—should show neither intense nervousness nor elaborate brazening of it out.

Nevile Strange looked quite natural—shocked, worried, grieved—and just slightly and healthily nervous.

Jim Leach was speaking in his pleasant west country voice.

“We would like you to answer certain questions, Mr. Strange. Both as to your movements last night, and in reference to particular facts. At the same time I must caution you that you are not bound to answer these questions unless you like and that if you prefer to do so you may have your solicitor present.”

He leaned back to observe the effect of this.

Nevile Strange looked, quite plainly, bewildered.

“He hasn't the least idea what we're getting at, or else he's a damned good actor,” Leach thought to himself. Aloud he said, as Nevile did not answer, “Well, Mr. Strange?”

Nevile said: “Of course, ask me anything you like.”

“You realize,” said Battle pleasantly, “that anything you say will be taken down in writing and may subsequently be used in a court of law in evidence.”

A flash of temper showed on Strange's face. He said sharply:

“Are you threatening me?”

“No, no, Mr. Strange. Warning you.”

Nevile shrugged his shoulders.

“I suppose all this is part of your routine. Go ahead.”

“You are ready to make a statement?”

“If that's what you call it.”

“Then will you tell us exactly what you did last night? From dinner onwards, shall we say?”

“Certainly. After dinner we went into the drawing room. We had coffee. We listened to the wireless—the news and so on. Then I decided to go across to Easterhead Bay Hotel and look up a chap who is staying there—a friend of mine.”

“That friend's name is?”

“Latimer. Edward Latimer.”

“An intimate friend?”

“Oh, so-so. We've seen a good deal of him since he's been down here. He's been over to lunch and dinner and we've been over there.”

Battle said:

“Rather late, wasn't it, to go off to Easterhead Bay?”

“Oh, it's a gay spot—they keep it up till all hours.”

“But this is rather an early-to-bed household, isn't it?”

“Yes, on the whole. However, I took the latchkey with me. Nobody had to sit up.”

“Your wife didn't think of going with you?”

There was a slight change, a stiffening in Nevile's tone as he said:

“No, she had a headache. She'd already gone up to bed.”

“Please go on, Mr. Strange.”

“I was just going up to change—”

Leach interrupted.

“Excuse me, Mr. Strange. Change into what? Into evening dress, or out of evening dress?”

“Neither. I was wearing a blue suit—my best, as it happened, and as it was raining a bit and I proposed to take the ferry and walk the other side—it's about half a mile, as you know—I changed into an older suit—a grey pinstripe, if you want me to go into every detail.”

“We do like to get things clear,” said Leach humbly. “Please go on.”

“I was going upstairs, as I say, when Barrett came and told me Lady Tressilian wanted to see me, so I went along and had a jaw with her for a bit.”

Battle said gently:

“You were the last person to see her alive, I think, Mr. Strange?”

Nevile flushed.

“Yes—yes—I suppose I was. She was quite all right then.”

“How long were you with her?”

“About twenty minutes to half an hour, I should think, then I went to my room, changed my suit and hurried off. I took the latchkey with me.”

“What time was that?”

“About half past ten, I should think. I hurried down the hill, just caught the ferry starting and went across to the Easterhead side. I found Latimer at the Hotel, we had a drink or two and a game of billiards. The time passed so quickly that I found I'd lost the last ferry back. It goes at one thirty. So Latimer very decently got out his car and drove me back. That, as you know, means going all the way round by Saltington—sixteen miles. We left the Hotel
at two o'clock and got back here somewhere around half past, I should say. I thanked Ted Latimer, asked him in for a drink, but he said he'd rather get straight back, so I let myself in and went straight up to bed. I didn't see or hear anything amiss. The house seemed all asleep and peaceful. Then this morning I heard that girl screaming and—”

Leach stopped him.

“Quite, quite. Now to go back a little—to your conversation with Lady Tressilian—she was quite normal in her manner?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Oh, one thing and another.”

“Amicably?”

Nevile flushed.

“Certainly.”

“You didn't, for instance,” went on Leach smoothly, “have a violent quarrel?”

Nevile did not answer at once. Leach said:

“You had better tell the truth, you know. I'll tell you frankly some of your conversation was overheard.”

Nevile said shortly:

“We had a bit of a disagreement. It was nothing.”

“What was the subject of the disagreement?”

With an effort Nevile recovered his temper. He smiled. “Frankly,” he said, “she ticked me off. That often happened. If she disapproved of anyone she let them have it straight from the shoulder. She was old-fashioned, you see, and she was inclined to be down on modern ways and modern lines of thought—divorce—all that. We had an argument and I may have got a bit heated, but we
parted on perfectly friendly terms—agreeing to differ.” He added, with some heat, “I certainly didn't bash her over the head because I lost my temper over an argument—if that's what you think!”

Leach glanced at Battle. Battle leaned forward ponderously across the table. He said:

“You recognized that niblick as your property this morning. Have you any explanation for the fact that your fingerprints were found upon it?”

Nevile stared. He said sharply:

“I—but of course they would be—it's my club—I've often handled it.”

“Any explanation, I mean, for the fact that your fingerprints show that
you were the last person to have handled it?
”

Nevile sat quite still. The colour had gone out of his face.

“That's not true,” he said at last. “It can't be. Somebody could have handled it after me—someone wearing gloves.”

“No, Mr. Strange—nobody could have handled it
in the sense you mean
—by raising it to strike—without blurring your own marks.”

There was a pause—a very long pause.

“Oh, God,” said Nevile convulsively, and gave a long shudder. He put his hands over his eyes. The two policemen watched him.

Then he took away his hands. He sat up straight.

“It isn't true,” he said quietly. “It simply isn't true. You think I killed her, but I didn't. I swear I didn't. There's some horrible mistake.”

“You've no explanation to offer about these fingerprints?”

“How can I have? I'm dumbfounded.”

“Have you any explanation for the fact that the sleeves and cuffs of your dark blue suit are stained with blood?”

“Blood?” It was a horror-struck whisper. “It couldn't be!”

“You didn't, for instance, cut yourself—”

“No. No, of course I didn't!”

They waited a little while.

Nevile Strange, his forehead creased, seemed to be thinking. He looked up at them at last with frightened horror-stricken eyes.

“It's fantastic!” he said. “Simply fantastic. It's none of it
true.
”

“Facts are true enough,” said Superintendent Battle.

“But why should I do such a thing? It's unthinkable—unbelievable! I've known Camilla all my life.”

Leach coughed.

“I believe you told us yourself, Mr. Strange, that you come into a good deal of money upon Lady Tressilian's death?”

“You think that's why—But I don't want money! I don't
need
it!”

“That,” said Leach, with his little cough, “is what you
say,
Mr. Strange.”

Nevile sprang up.

“Look here, that's something I
can
prove. That I didn't need money. Let me ring up my bank manager—you can talk to him yourself.”

The call was put through. The line was clear and in a very few minutes they were through to London. Nevile spoke:

“That you, Ronaldson? Nevile Strange speaking. You know my voice. Look here, will you give the police—they're here now—all the information they want about my affairs—yes—yes, please.”

Leach took the phone. He spoke quietly. It went on, question and answer.

He replaced the phone at last.

“Well?” said Nevile eagerly.

Leach said impassively:

“You have a substantial credit balance, and the Bank have charge of all your investments and report them to be in a favourable condition.”

“So you see it's true what I said!”

“It seems so—but again, Mr. Strange, you may have commitments, debts—payment of blackmail—reasons for requiring money of which we do not know.”

“But I haven't! I assure you I haven't. You won't find anything of that kind.”

Superintendent Battle shifted his heavy shoulders. He spoke in a kind, fatherly voice.

“We've sufficient evidence, as I'm sure you'll agree, Mr. Strange, to ask for a warrant for your arrest. We haven't done so—
as yet.
We're giving you the benefit of the doubt, you see.”

Nevile said bitterly: “You mean, don't you, that you've made up your minds I did it, but you want to get at the motive so as to clinch the case against me?”

Battle was silent. Leach looked at the ceiling.

Nevile said desperately:

“It's like some awful dream. There's nothing I can say or do. It's like—like being in a trap and you can't get out.”

Superintendent Battle stirred. An intelligent gleam showed between his half-closed lids.

“That's very nicely put,” he said. “Very nicely put indeed. It gives me an idea….”

VI

Sergeant Jones adroitly got rid of Nevile through the hall and then brought Kay in by the french window so that husband and wife did not meet.

“He'll see all the others, though,” Leach remarked.

“All the better,” said Battle. “It's only this one I want to deal with whilst she's still in the dark.”

The day was overcast with a sharp wind. Kay was dressed in a tweed skirt and a purple sweater, above which her hair looked like a burnished copper bowl. She looked half frightened, half excited. Her beauty and vitality bloomed against the dark Victorian background of books and saddleback chairs.

Leach led her easily enough over her account of the previous evening.

She had had a headache and gone to bed early—about quarter past nine, she thought. She had slept heavily and heard nothing until the next morning, when she was wakened by hearing someone screaming.

Battle took up the questioning.

“Your husband didn't come in to see how you were before he went off for the evening?”

“No.”

“You didn't see him from the time you left the drawing room until the following morning. Is that right?”

Kay nodded.

Battle stroked his jaw.

“Mrs. Strange, the door between your room and that of your husband was locked. Who locked it?”

Kay said shortly: “I did.”

Battle said nothing—but he waited—waited like an elderly fatherly cat—for a mouse to come out of the hole he was watching.

His silence did what questions might not have accomplished. Kay burst out impetuously:

“Oh, I suppose you've got to have it all! That old doddering Hurstall must have heard us before tea and he'll tell you if I don't. He's probably told you already. Nevile and I had had a row—a flaming row! I was furious with him! I went up to bed and locked the door, because I was still in a flaming rage with him!”

“I see—I see,” said Battle, at his most sympathetic. “And what was the trouble all about?”

“Does it matter? Oh, I don't mind telling you. Nevile has been behaving like a perfect idiot. It's all that woman's fault, though.”

“What woman?”

“His first wife. She got him to come here in the first place.”

“You mean—to meet you?”

“Yes. Nevile thinks it was all his own idea—poor innocent! But it wasn't. He never thought of such a thing until he met her in the Park one day and she got the idea into his head and made him believe he'd thought of it himself. He quite honestly thinks it was his idea, but I've seen Audrey's fine Italian hand behind it from the first.”

“Why should she do such a thing?” asked Battle.

“Because she wanted to get hold of him again,” said Kay. She
spoke quickly and her breath came fast. “She's never forgiven him for going off with me. This is her revenge. She got him to fix up that we'd all be here together and then she got to work on him. She's been doing it ever since we arrived. She's clever, you know. Knows just how to look pathetic and elusive—yes, and how to play up another man, too. She got Thomas Royde, a faithful old dog who's always adored her, to be here at the same time, and she drove Nevile mad by pretending she was going to marry him.”

She stopped, breathing angrily.

Battle said mildly: