Inspector Jackson hung up the receiver.
“Mr. Bannerman confirms your statement, Mr. Brandon. As a matter of form, I will ask him to identify you later.”
As he spoke, there was a faint stir of relief in the room. Anna Ball sat dumb. Miss Silver very slightly inclined her head. Thomasina drew her hand away from Peter’s arm and went back to her seat. When Anna had accused him in the garage it had all been part of the nightmare. When she repeated the accusation here in front of all these people a rush of passionate protest had taken her to his side. Now she came back to her seat again. Her mind had been violently wrenched. She felt empty and weak.
Inspector Jackson was saying,
“Now, Miss Ball, do you wish to make a statement, or do you not? It is no use your accusing innocent people or trying to throw dust in the eyes of the police. We are here to investigate the death of Mr. Craddock. If you know who shot him-”
Anna interrupted him with a fierce laugh.
“Of course I know! But I’m not going to tell you! Why should I?”
As she spoke, the door from the passage was opened by a police sergeant and Mr. John Robinson was ushered in. He stood for a moment looking about him-at the two Inspectors, at Thomasina Elliot and Peter Brandon, at Anna Ball, at Miss Silver in her blue dressing-gown, and at Peveril Craddock’s body lying on the study floor. He did not start because he did not allow himself to start. There was an obvious effort at control, a visible stiffening. After a moment he said,
“Craddock! Who did it?”
Frank Abbott said in his almost casual manner,
“Well, we were rather wondering whether you could help us about that.”
“I?”
“Yes, you. Your name is not really John Robinson, is it?”
“What makes you think so?”
“Oh, just a quotation or two. You shouldn’t have risked them, you know-Miss Silver has her Tennyson by heart. You gave yourself away when you quoted from Enoch Arden, I’m afraid. I bought a second-hand Tennyson yesterday afternoon and tracked him down. He was a sailor who was supposed to have been lost at sea. By the time he came home his wife had married somebody else, and he had to make up his mind whether to upset the apple-cart or not. And that, I take it, has been your position. What I don’t happen to know is just what your real name is.”
Mr. Robinson shrugged, his shoulders and said,
“Oh, well, I was through with the game anyway. The name is Verney-John Verney.”
“And you are Mrs. Craddock’s husband?”
“Yes, poor soul.”
“In which case you had quite a strong motive for killing Craddock.”
John Verney shrugged again. Everyone was looking at him now, but he appeared extremely cool. When he spoke, the country drawl had been dropped.
“I?” he said. “Why should I kill him? If he had made Emily a decent husband, I’d have cleared off. I came here to find out how things were. I was in a plane crash in the States. The plane was burnt out and everyone with it-as they thought. I don’t know how I got clear, because I don’t remember a thing about it. It was in one of those remote districts-very inaccessible. I must have wandered for miles, and the next thing I knew, it was six months later, and I was officially dead. Some people had taken me in-I’d been chopping wood and doing chores for them. I don’t remember anything about it. Well, I thought Emily would be better off without me, so I stayed on. I got interested in birds and creatures. I did a book with illustrations. It caught on, and I made a little money. The next one was a freak best-seller, I haven’t the least idea why. It went like a forest fire, so I thought I had better come over here and see how Emily and the children were getting on. Well, I found she had come into money and married again. I didn’t think it was my business to butt in if she was doing all right, so I came here to find out. Of course anyone could see that Craddock was a pompous ass, but they all said she adored him. I had rather a jolt in the autumn when I found the children taking home poisonous fungi under the instructions of this young woman-it is Miss Ball, isn’t it?”
Anna Ball laughed angrily.
“If you’re going to take that line, I’m through! ‘Is that Miss Ball?’ indeed!”
He stared at her and said, “Are you mad?”
She laughed again.
“Mad? No, I’ve come to my senses! You’d throw me off, would you-pretend you’ve never had anything to do with me- pretend we haven’t been lovers!”
“My good girl!”
“Listen to him!” She whirled round on Jackson. “Innocent, isn’t he! Who had a motive for killing Peveril Craddock if he hadn’t? Think of having to give up Emily-and her money! And he may be John Verney-I don’t say he isn’t-but he’s my Mr. Sandrow too, and you’d better ask him where he was yesterday afternoon! Doing some quiet nature-study in a wood? Or bandaged up and robbing the County Bank!”
It was in the minds of both Inspectors that Mr. Robinson had had no pretence of an alibi for yesterday afternoon. According to his own statement he had meant to go up into the Rowbury Woods, but turned off when he found that someone was shooting there, and fetched up in Ledlington, where he spent some time in the County Museum looking at the Hedlow collection of birds. Well, he might have been there, or he might have been rolled up in bandages shooting the bank manager and his clerk. Only if he were the bank murderer, it did seem an odd thing that he should choose this moment to allow his feelings as a dispossessed husband to get the better of him. There had been months when he could have murdered Peveril Craddock with so very much less risk to himself. And actually, why murder him at all? He had only to declare himself and walk off with his wife and her fortune. If his book was really a best-seller, even the money motive didn’t count, and that apart, would anyone in their senses do murder for poor Emily Craddock’s sake?
John Verney appeared to be very completely in his senses. He might have been following their thoughts-perhaps he was. He indicated Anna, and said bluntly,
“She’s talking through the back of her neck. Emily and I were a pretty detached couple. She needed someone who would look after her, and if Craddock was making a good job of it, I hadn’t any grudge against him. But I had to find out. The toadstools could easily have been a mistake. Then one of the children mentioned an escape from drowning. That might have been an accident too. I only saw Emily in the distance- she looked ill. The boys were all right, but Jennifer wasn’t. I had just made up my mind to come out into the open, when Miss Silver arrived on the scene. She was so obviously competent and trustworthy that I thought I would wait a little longer. Now I wish I hadn’t. But all that stuff about my robbing the bank is just damned nonsense.”
Anna’s eyes taunted him.
“Then who did rob it? I’m the only one who knows, you see, and I say it was you.”
“Just now you said it was Mr. Peter Brandon,” said Inspector Jackson.
She jerked her head round and stared at him.
“Oh, that was just my fun. I owed him something for the way he used to look at me when I went out with him and Thomasina-as if I wasn’t good enough to be looked at-as if I was something that ought to have been drowned when I was a baby! Pity nobody thought of doing it, isn’t it?”
Frank Abbott gave her a long hard look.
“And what have you got against Mr. Verney? Did he look at you in a way you didn’t like, or-didn’t he look at you at all?”
A dull red colour ran up to the very roots of her hair, swamping the lavish make-up. She almost screamed back at him.
“Of course he looked at me! I tell you he was my lover! I tell you he was Mr. Sandrow! I tell you he robbed the bank! I tell you he shot Peveril Craddock! I’m the only one who knows, and I tell you he did it-Mr. Sandrow-Mr. Verney Robinson Sandrow! If it wasn’t him, who was it? Who-” She stopped on the word, because the door was opening again.