“And saw him there on the night of the killing?”
Boone looked unhappy.
“No, sir. She’d been sacked a fortnight before. That’s why she was willing to talk.”
“Then you’ve no evidence at all that he was there that night.”
“No, sir.”
“I see. Well, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t think out any wild and wonderful solutions you like, but when I give orders, I like to have them carried out. I’ve read the reports from the uniformed branch. They don’t seem to cover the ground. For instance, there are two long back streets — just the sort of quiet way he’d have preferred — they don’t seem to have been covered at all. So get on with it.”
Mrs. Rayburn, when she was told about it that evening, said, “That young man’s got a swollen head.”
When Boone went to Sergeant Hart for sympathy she said, “What we were taught as recruits was, consider the physical evidence. Right. And that’s what I’m going to do. For a start, where are the photographs you took?”
Boone had taken thirty beautiful photographs, showing not only the body but all the surrounding features from different angles. Three prints had been made of each, one for the inspector, one for the Crown prosecutors, one for the files. So far as he knew, no one had looked at them since.
Sergeant Hart took the file copies home, consumed her simple supper, and started to study them. Some of them had been taken after the body had been moved. One seemed to interest her particularly. A slight disturbance of the matting and the surrounding blood and plasma defined precisely the place where the body had fallen. And surely, there — faintly—?
There was an angle-poise lamp with a daylight bulb that she used when she was doing her tapestry. She turned it on and shone it down on the photograph. Yes. There it was. Someone had drawn a cross, in brown chalk, on the matting. Just visible to the naked eye, clearly visible to the eye of the camera.
She didn’t sleep much that night. The possible implications of what she had seen were building up. She visualised the front hall and the staircase that went straight up from it for two flights. On the first storey the bedroom of the Goldsworthys and the nurse. On the second the bed-sitting rooms of the residents. Before sleep finally overtook her she had made up her mind. The day now dawning was a Thursday. In the afternoon the house would be empty, with the possible exception of the Burches, mother and daughter. Boone should keep them out of the way. They would be happy talking to him over a cup of tea.
“Certainly I’ll do it, if it will help,” said Boone. “But couldn’t you explain what you’re up to?”
“One demonstration,” said Alice, “is worth half a dozen explanations. Or so we were told.”
For all her certainty, when the moment came she found her hand shaking. The idea was so strange, so shocking, so horrible, that it must be incorrect. A tower of surmise built on a single chalk mark.
Standing in the hall she could hear the murmur of voices from the kitchen, interrupted by occasional screams and giggles from young Miss Burches, which indicated that Boone was doing his stuff. Apart from that the house was totally silent.
She climbed the stairs, up to the top, and looked into the three bedrooms that faced her. In each of them, as she went in, she encountered the same faint and elusive smell. Potpourri, lavender, or just old age?
She searched each room in turn, cautious as any burglar, careful to put back everything exactly where she found it.
Beatrice was the artist. She had a handsome box of watercolour paints, a jar of brushes, a pile of canvases, an easel. And a cardboard box of chalks, all colours. Yes. Including brown.
The only item of interest in Florence’s room was a length of cord, neatly coiled and tucked away in one of her tidily arranged drawers.
In Gertrude’s room there was a collection of Benares brass, a relic, no doubt, of her father’s service in India. It was ranged on two shelves: candlesticks, boxes, vases, and pots. Lovingly cleaned and polished, it winked back at her as she selected one very small pot and one very large and heavy one.
Returning to the landing, she stood for a moment looking directly down. The matting that had originally covered the hall floor had been taken up in pieces and sent to the forensic laboratory for examination. The tiles, which it was now Mrs. Burches’s job to polish, gleamed in the afternoon sun.
Unrolling the cord, she fastened the small pot to it and lowered it until it tinkled against the tiles. Then she tied the end to the banister and walked down. She had the photograph with her. There was no doubt about it. The little pot was resting exactly where the cross had been chalked on the matting.
Upstairs once more, she pulled up the small pot, untied it, and put it and the cord back where they had come from. Then she went down again, poked her head into the kitchen, and said, “Sorry to interrupt, but I’ve got a little job for this young man. Won’t be a moment.”
When they had left the room, Mrs. Burches said that it didn’t seem right to her, a man being ordered about by a girl. Her daughter said she could see nothing wrong in it. Girls did all sorts of jobs nowadays.
Back in the hall, Alice pointed to a cross which she had just made with a piece of brown chalk from Beatrice’s box. She said, “Have another look at this photograph. Isn’t that exactly where the cross is on the matting?”
“Pretty well,” said Boone.
“Then get a pillow — better, a bolster — from Nurse’s room and put it over the mark.”
When he had done this Alice, who had returned upstairs, called down to him, “Stand back, well back.” As she spoke, the heavy brass pot fell, with a heart-stopping thud, into the middle of the bolster.
“And that,” said Alice, “is the answer to both the objections raised by the Crown Prosecutors. No one saw anyone approaching the house, at the front or the back, for the simple reason that no one did approach it. And here’s your weapon so carefully cleaned that I’m afraid our forensic experts won’t find a speck of blood left on it.”
Boone looked at her with mingled admiration and sympathy. He said, “Are you really going to try this on the inspector? He’ll throw something at you, or burst a blood vessel.”
The inspector did neither. He heard her out, made some noncommittal comment, and refrained from laughing until he got home that evening. Then he gave full vent to his feelings.
“Just imagine,” he said, “instituting proceedings against those three old dears. It wouldn’t be laughed out of court, because it wouldn’t even get into court.”
“I don’t think it’s a laughing matter at all,” said his wife. “Can’t you see that that girl is simply trying to queer your pitch? I remember you told me that there was some arrangement in the division for cross-posting. The sooner that young lady’s posted away the better.”
“Well,” said Gertrude, as she filled the three teacups, “it was half a success. We got rid of Nurse Minter, but not, as we had every reason to anticipate, of Mr. Goldsworthy as well.”
“If the inspector had had any gumption,” said Beatrice, “he’d have charged him. Particularly when we presented him with the motive.”
They had all heard Boone coming into the kitchen and had raised their voices slightly for his benefit.
“Young Mack would have done it,” said Florence. “However, one blessing. From what her young man told Annie Burches, it seems that Detective Sergeant Smarty-pants Hart has been sacked.”
“Sacked?”
“Well, not exactly sacked. Shoved to another division. To concentrate on cases of child abuse.”
The three old ladies cackled at the thought. They none of them had any use for children.