"Have you any objection to having your finger-prints taken, Mrs. North?"
"No, none," she answered promptly. "I want you to have them taken. That's partly why I chose to see you here."
"Very well, but there are one or two questions I should like to ask you first."
She came back to her chair. "Why, certainly!" she said.
"You have said that Mr. Fletcher was using your IOUs against you. Does that mean that he was pressing for payment, or that he was threatening to lay them before you husband?"
"He did hint that my husband might be interested in them."
"Are you on good terms with your husband, Mrs. North?"
She gave an embarrassed little laugh. "Yes, of course. Perfectly."
"He had no cause to suspect you of any form of intimacy with Mr. Fletcher?"
"No. Oh no! I have always had my own friends, and my husband never interfered."
"He was not, then, jealous of your friendships with other men?"
"How old-fashioned of you, Superintendent! Of course not.
"That implies great confidence in you, Mrs. North." "Well, naturally… !"
"Yet in spite of this perfect understanding which you tell me existed between you, you were ready to steal your IOUs from Mr. Fletcher rather than allow the knowledge of your gambling debts to come to your husband's ears?"
She took a moment or two to answer, but replied at length quite composedly: "My husband very much dislikes gambling. I have always been rather extravagant, and I shrank from telling him about those debts."
"You were afraid of the consequences?"
"In a way, yes. It was lack of moral courage, really. If I had foreseen all that was going to happen -'
"You would have told him?"
"Yes," she said hesitantly.
"Have you told him, Mrs. North?"
"No. No, 1 -"
"Why not?"
"But you must see!" she exclaimed. "The whole thing has - has become so distorted! Now that Mr. Fletcher is dead there would be only my word that everything happened as it did. I mean, his getting hold of my IOUs, and my not having till then the least suspicion of his - well, of his wanting me to become his mistress! I know very well how incredible it sounds, and I've no doubt I was a perfect fool, but I didn't guess! But anyone just hearing my account would be bound to think there must have been more between Mr. Fletcher and me than there actually was. If I'd had the sense to tell my husband at once - as soon as I knew Mr. Fletcher had got possession of my IOUs - But I hadn't! I tried to get them back myself, which makes it look as though I were afraid of something coming out about me and Mr. Fletcher. Oh, can't you understand?"
"I think so," he replied. "The fact of the matter is that you were not speaking the truth when you told me that your husband did not object to your friendship with Mr. Fletcher. Isn't that so?"
"You are trying to make me say that he was jealous, but he wasn't! He certainly did not like Mr. Fletcher much: he thought he had rather a bad reputation with women. But -'Her throat contracted; she lifted her head and said with difficulty: "My husband does not care enough for me to be jealous of me, Superintendent."
His eyes dropped to the papers under his hand. He said quite gently: "He might perhaps be jealous of your good name, Mrs. North."
"I don't know."
"That is not consistent with the rest of your evidence," he pointed out. "You ask me to believe in a state of confidence existing between you and your husband that was unaccompanied by any great depth of affection, yet at the same time you wish me to believe that it is impossible for you to make a clean breast of the whole story to him."
She swallowed and said: "I do not wish to be dragged through the Divorce Courts, Superintendent."
He raised his eyes. "There is, then, so little confidence between you that you were afraid your husband might do that?"
"Yes," she said, doggedly returning his look.
"You had no fear that he might, instead, be - very angry - with the man who had put you in this unpleasant position?"
"None," she said flatly.
He allowed a pause to follow. When he spoke again, it was with an abruptness that startled her. "A few minutes ago you repeated words to me which you heard Mr. Fletcher utter when he passed down the garden-path with his visitor. How was it that you were able to hear these so clearly, and yet distinguish nothing that his companion said?"
"I have told you that Mr. Fletcher had a light, rather high-pitched voice. If you have ever been with a deaf person you must know that such a voice has a far greater carrying power than a low one."
Apparently he accepted this explanation, for he nodded, and got up. "Very well, Mrs. North. And now, if you are willing, your finger-prints."
A quarter of an hour later, when Helen had left the police station, he sat down again at his desk, and meditatively studied certain notes which he had jotted down on a slip of paper.
Evidence of PC Glass: At 10.02, man seen coming out of garden gate. Evidence of Helen North: At 9.58, approximately, unknown man escorted to garden mate by Fletcher.
He was still looking pensively at these scribblings when PC Glass entered the office to report that no trace of any weapon had been found in the garden at Greystones.
Hannasyde gave a grunt, but said as Glass turned towards the door: Just a moment. Are you certain that the time when you saw a man come out of the gardengate was two minutes after ten?"
"Yes, sir."
"It could not, for instance, have been two or three minutes before ten?"
"No, sir. The time, by my watch and the clock in the room, was 10.05 p.m. when I entered the study. Therefore I am doubly certain, for to reach that room from the point where I was standing was a matter of three minutes, not of seven."
Hannasyde nodded. "All right; that's all. Report to Sergeant Hemingway in the morning."
"Yes, sir," Glass replied, but added darkly: "He that hath a froward heart findeth no good."
"I daresay," said Hannasyde discouragingly.
"And he that hath a perverse tongue falleth into mischief," said Glass with a good deal of severity.
Whether this pessimistic utterance referred to himself or to the absent Sergeant, Hannasyde did not inquire. As Glass walked towards the door, the telephone-bell rang, and the voice of the constable on duty informed the Superintendent that Sergeant Hemingway was on the line.
The Sergeant sounded less gloomy than when Hannasyde had parted from him. "That you, sir?" he asked briskly. "Well, I've got something, though where it's going to lead us I don't see. Shall I come down?"
"No, I'm coming back to town; I'll see you there. Any luck with those prints?"
"Depends what you call luck, Super. Some of 'em belong to a bloke by the name of Charlie Carpenter."
"Carpenter?" repeated Hannasyde. "Who the dickens is he?"
"It's a long story - what you might call highly involved," replied the Sergeant.
"All right: reserve it. I'll be up in about half-anhour."
"Right you are, Chief. Give my love to Ichabod!" said the Sergeant.
Hannasyde grinned as he laid down the receiver, but refrained from delivering a message which, judging by Glass's forbidding countenance, would not be well received. He said kindly: "Well, Glass, you've been doing a lot of work on this case. You'll be glad to hear that some of the finger-prints have been identified."
Apparently he was wrong. "I hear, but I behold trouble and darkness," said Glass.
"The same might be said of all murder cases," replied Hannasyde tartly, and closed the interview.
Chapter Six
Hannasyde found his subordinate awaiting him in a cheerful mood. "Any luck your end, Chief?" he inquired. "I've had a fullish sort of a day myself."