Analysis of the skirt and jumper showed that the blood was newly shed when it had adhered — which bore out the joint statement that Herbert mistook Ruth, outside the cottage, for Rita and pawed her, after he had cut his hand by the pool.
The Coroner’s jury would have censured Herbert for his over-readiness to believe he had experienced an hallucination had not Ruth generously insisted that the blame, if any, should be wholly hers. The Court returned a verdict of murder against person or persons unknown.
The school term opened in a somewhat strained atmosphere. True that only three of the hundred and fifty pupils were withdrawn on account of the scandal. But there was an unhealthy interest in the events. The headmistress explained that poor Miss Steevens had been killed by a madman who did not know what he was doing — a theory that was helped by a Press attempt to link the case up with a maniac murder in the North of England.
Ruth let the backwash of the murder splash round her without giving it her attention. Scotland Yard rented all available rooms in the village inn. As there were apparently no clues they used the dragnet, checking the movements of every man within twenty miles and every automobile that could have been used. They would apply to Ruth now and again, mainly for information about the dead girl’s habits.
In three weeks they packed up, leaving a pall of suspicion over the whole countryside. In due course the mackintosh and the shoes, the pale green sleeveless dress and the yellow jumper, minutely documented, were sent to the Department of Dead Ends.
Herbert’s visits to the cottage became more frequent. At first he would sit in silence, assured of her sympathy. In time Ruth loosened his tongue and let him talk himself out of his melancholy.
The strong forces in her nature which had produced the brainstorm at Drunkard’s Leap were now contracted upon the purpose with which she had successfully drugged her conscience. Herbert Cudden was overwhelmed by those forces at the moment of her choosing — which was as soon as the summer term ended.
Again we are not concerned with the detail of the methods by which that formidable will induced a transference to Ruth of the emotion which Herbert had felt for Rita. It suffices to say that it happened according to her plan. They could write to the headmistress after the ceremony, she said, but they need not announce their marriage until the autumn term. As they particularly wished to avoid newspaper publicity they would be married by registrar in the East End of London.
This can hardly be called a tactical blunder on Ruth’s part because, as far as the police were concerned, she had exercised no tactics. She did not know that a great many persons who wish to marry more or less in secret, particularly bigamists, regularly hit on that same idea. So the East End registrars invariably supply the police with a list of those applicants who obviously do not belong to the neighborhood.
They each took a “suitcase address” and applied for a seven-day license. Detective-Inspector Rason received the notice on the second day.
“Oh! So it was a triangle after all!” he exclaimed without logical justification. “And now they’re getting married on the quiet. That probably means that they cooked up all the hallucination stuff together. Anything they said may have been true or may not.”
He took out the yellow jumper, the pale green sleeveless dress, and the mackintosh, which, with the iron bracket, was the only real evidence he had. In the garments there was no smell of gardenia.
“But Herbert said the dress Ruth was wearing was Rita’s dress and that it smelt of gardenia. Well, it doesn’t! Perhaps the scent has worn off in three months. Better put a query to the Chemical Department.”
He had difficulty in finding the proper form, still more difficulty in filling it out. So instead, he sought out his twenty-year-old niece.
“When you put scent on your dress, my dear, how long does the dress go on smelling of it?”
“Oh, uncle! You never put any on your dress. It isn’t good for the dress and the scent goes stale and your best friends won’t tell you. You put it on your hair and behind your ears.”
So if there had been a smell of gardenia it meant that Ruth had deliberately applied it — the other girl’s perfume!
Presently his thought crystallized. “If Ruth was really wearing Rita’s dress and Rita’s scent, Herbert is telling the truth. If not — not! Wonder how far we can check up on the dress itself.”
He searched jumper and dress for a trademark and found none. “Then the dress must have been homemade. Or perhaps the village dressmaker.”
Deciding to take a long shot he was in Hemel the following afternoon.
“Yes, I made that for the poor girl,” said Miss Amstey. “It was a present from Miss Watlington. She designed it and the yellow underbodice to wear with it, and I must say it looked very well.”
Journey from London for nothing, thought Rason. Out of mere politeness he asked: “And you made this jumper, too, to go with it?”
“No, I didn’t! That’s a cheap line — came out of a shop. Besides, it wasn’t poor Rita’s. It was Miss Watlington’s. I saw her wearing it the very day of the murder. And I must say I thought it frightful. Apart from its being made of cotton and the underbodice made of silk.”
“Then this jumper and this dress don’t go together — they belonged to different women? But you could wear the one with the other if you wanted to, couldn’t you?”
“Well, you could,” admitted Miss Amstey, “but you’d look rather funny. For one thing, it has a collar. And for another, the tops of the sleeves — look, what I expect you call a ‘ridge’ here — would stick out at the sides of the dress. People would turn round and laugh.”
That left Rason with the now simple riddle of the bloodstains. The two garments worn together would produce a ridiculous effect. Yet there were bloodstains, deemed to have been made by Cudden’s hand, at the same time on both. And Herbert had identified both dress and jumper at the inquest.
Rason took it all down and got Miss Amstey to sign it.
Ruth decided that they could without impropriety arrive at the registrar’s in the same taxi carrying the suitcases that had established the legality of their address. In outward appearance she had changed. The talent for dress she had formerly exercised for another was now successfully applied to herself. In the hall of the registrar’s office, Rason accosted Herbert and introduced himself.
“I am sorry, Mr. Cudden, but I must ask you both to accompany me to headquarters. A serious discrepancy has been discovered in the evidence you gave in the coroner’s court.”
They were taken to the Chief Superintendent’s room. Three others were with him. Ruth was invited to sit.
Herbert was reminded of his evidence regarding the dress. Then the pale green sleeveless dress was handed to him.
“Is that the dress?”
“To the best of my belief — yes.” He turned it. “Yes — there’s the bloodstain.”
The yellow jumper was passed to him. After a similar examination he again answered.
“Yes.”
“Miss Watlington, do you agree that these two garments, formerly belonging to the deceased, were worn by you that night?”
“Yes,” said Ruth, though she could guess what had happened and knew that there could be but little hope.
The Chief Superintendent spoke next.
“You will both be detained on suspicion of being concerned in the murder of Rita Steevens.”
“No!” snapped Ruth. “Mr. Cudden has told the truth throughout He knows nothing about women’s clothes except their color. The color of that jumper was near enough for him to think it was the same. They were passed to him separately at the inquest”