‘And you do not know precisely when your praying ended?’
‘I think it was when Peter came. I heard him and got up.’
‘But you have just said that you would not have been aware of anything which was taking place in the house while you were praying, Miss Gretchen.’
The hands twisted again, finger over finger. ‘Perhaps I got up before that… just before.’
‘And then you came out on the landing to see if it was Peter?’
‘I thought it would be him… I did not know.’
‘He says that you withdrew immediately he looked towards you. Why was that?’
‘Oh… my father would have been angry… he might have come out to see who it was.’
‘But surely there was no need to have hidden away from him — you might have smiled to him or greeted him with a few words from the landing and still have been in a position to withdraw if your father should have appeared?’
‘I don’t know… I thought it was best not to see him.’
‘Tell me what happened after that.’
‘I stayed up there on the landing to hear how my father would receive Peter. At first I heard nothing, but later on they raised their voices and I knew it was not going well for him. I heard Peter call my father some names and my father say things which I could not make out. So I crept down the stairs and along the passage in order to hear them better.’
‘Between the time when Peter went in and the time when you went down, did you see anybody in the hall?’
‘There was nobody there.’
‘You’re quite sure of that?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘Then you did not see Susan pass through from the dining-room to the kitchen?’
‘Susan? Of course! I thought you meant somebody else…’
‘Continue with your account, please.’
‘I could not hear anything when I went down the stairs… they had stopped talking. I stood close to the door, but they had finished, so I thought that Peter must have gone. I was just going to go back again, then…’
Gretchen broke off, shaking her head stupidly.
‘Then?’ prompted Gently.
‘… then I heard my father… scream.’
‘What sort of scream?’
‘Oh, dreadful… terrible!.. as one screams at a terrible injury…’
‘What did you do?’
Her head continued to shake, senselessly, like the head of a mechanical doll. ‘I stood still… I daren’t move… I could not move at all. I don’t know how long it was that I was like that.’
‘But afterwards?’
‘Afterwards… I got the door open and he lay there with the knife in his back… by the safe, where you found him.’
Gently said: ‘Nobody had passed you in the passage and there was nobody else in the study… is that so?’
‘Yes… nobody.’
‘And you heard no movements that suggested the presence of some other person?’
‘I heard movements in the study directly after the scream, but nothing else.’
‘What sort of movements?’
‘First, a thud… then the safe door, which squeaks… after that it was somebody moving across the room.’
‘Nothing else?’
‘No.’
‘Not after you had entered the study?’
‘I heard nothing then… I was not listening.’
‘What did you do?’
Gretchen spread her hands over her knees and took a deep breath. ‘I went and got the knife,’ she said.
‘What was your object?’
‘It was a throwing knife, and Peter could throw knives… also, it would have his fingerprints on it.’
‘Did you notice if the side door was open?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘And the garden gate?’
‘I did not notice that.’
‘What did you do when you had got the knife?’
‘I wiped the handle of it with the hem of my skirt and hid it in the chest… then I went up to my room again. All the time it was quiet, there was no sign of Susan. I say to myself: “She does not know if I am here or if I am not, and I could easily have slipped out earlier on… if she sees me come in, she will believe it when I say I went out after lunch.” So I put on my coat and creep out through the study. Then of course I went up to the Carlton to find out everything that was on… I came back a little while after Mrs Turner.’
Gently removed another peppermint cream from his shrinking battalion. ‘Doesn’t it occur to you, Miss Gretchen,’ he said, ‘that it would have been considerably wiser to have left the knife where it was, and to have phoned the police immediately?’
Gretchen stared at him with wide-open eyes. ‘But my brother… I had to do something to help him!’
‘And what in effect did you do?’ asked Gently. ‘Your brother was bound to be the principal suspect, with or without the knife. Furthermore, the prints on the knife may not have been his. Didn’t that occur to you, Miss Gretchen?’
‘I don’t know… I didn’t think…’
‘In which case you will have destroyed the one piece of evidence which would have cleared your brother on the spot. But apart from that, why did you take the trouble of establishing an alibi for yourself? It hardly seems worth the trouble. Once you had satisfied yourself about the knife there was no reason why you should not have contacted the police… at least, nothing that appears in the account you have given.’
‘My brother… it give him time to get away.’
‘What connection is there between that and your alibi? Why did you want an alibi, Miss Gretchen? It was a difficult thing to establish and it was bound to bring suspicion on you… quite unnecessarily, by your account.’
Gretchen twisted herself in her chair. ‘I just think it best if you think I have nothing to do with it…’
Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t seem worthwhile to me. People in murder cases who can prove their innocence are usually very keen to tell the truth.’
‘But it was as I say!’
‘It was not to shield someone other than your brother?’
‘No!’
‘It was not because Fisher was with you?’
‘I tell you he is not!’
‘Not because he might be suspected of having been here, unless you could prove you were somewhere else?’
Gretchen covered her face with her hands again and sobbed.
‘And not,’ continued Gently remorselessly, ‘because you knew him to be the murderer?’
‘No, no! It is not so! Oh why are you asking these things… why… why…?’
Gently sighed and reached for the penultimate peppermint cream. The saws in the yard screamed savagely, two, three, four of them. In his mind’s eye Gently saw the blades tearing into the ponderous trunks, cruel and merciless, ripping them into the geometrical shapes of man.
‘Do you intend to marry Fisher?’ he asked.
Gretchen sobbed on.
‘I understand that you have been refusing to see him.’
She looked at him for a moment, tear-wet. ‘I shall not see him any more.’
Gently shrugged. ‘I don’t blame you,’ he said, ‘he’s not the sort of man to make a good husband…’
Gretchen sobbed.
‘Still, I’m surprised to find him thrown over so quickly.’
‘It is to do with me!’ she burst out. ‘Why have I to tell you about this? Leave me alone!’
‘I was wondering if it had to do with me.’
‘I tell you nothing more… nothing more at all!’
Gently rose, went over to the small window and stood for a moment looking out at the neat little garden with its high walls and quaint summer-house. ‘You haven’t told me the truth, Miss Gretchen,’ he said.
There was no answer but her sobbing.
‘I’m going now, but I shall be coming back. In the meantime I would like you to think over your situation very, very seriously.’ He moved back into the room. ‘Your brother’s life is in danger and it may be only by your telling us everything you know that his innocence can be established. I want you to think about that during the next few hours.’
She looked up suddenly. ‘I’d like to…’ she began, her hands gripping each other convulsively.
‘Yes…?’
‘Please, I’d like to…’ She broke off as a brisk tap sounded at the door. Gently’s lips compressed and he strode across and opened it. Leaming stood in the doorway.