“You put it so well, Inspector.”
Lamb laughed.
“Almost as well as Lord Tennyson? Well then, I won’t press you, but the sooner I have all the threads in my hand the better pleased I shall be, so don’t hold out on me too long. Now this is where we’ve got to. I’ve just had the surgeon’s report and the fingerprints. She was killed somewhere around about three-quarters of an hour to an hour after she had a light meal-if you can call it a meal-of wine and biscuits. We don’t know when she had this meal, but it wasn’t before half past seven, when she returned to her flat after seeing her sister off by the seven-twenty-five bus at the corner. When Mrs. Smollett found the body at eight o’clock next morning there was a tray with drinks and biscuits set out on that stool in front of the fire. Miss Roland’s fingerprints were found on the smaller glass, which contained port wine, and those of an unknown man upon a tumbler which had been used for whisky and soda. I don’t mind saying I was quite prepared to find that the tumbler prints had been left by Major Armitage. Well, they weren’t-they’re not his, or Mr. Drake’s, or Mr. Willard’s, or Bell ’s. So we get the certainty that some man from outside this house was here in the flat within an hour before the murder. Miss Roland had been living here very quietly indeed, because she was going to be married. We shall expect the man who was going to marry her to account for his movements during those evening hours. Now as to the crime itself. It looks as if it had not been premeditated, because the weapon used was undoubtedly this metal statuette.”
Miss Silver looked at the dancer’s silver figure with the pointing, upflung toe.
“Where was it found?”
Lamb indicated the couch.
“Flung down there where you see the stain. She must have been struck from behind, and the weapon dropped on to the couch. According to how the body was found, the murderer would have been standing just right for that. But here’s the queer part-the stain was like you see it. It hadn’t been touched, but the statue was as clean as a whistle-not a mark on it except where the back of the figure had come into contact with the stain whilst it was still wet. The sharp pointed foot which undoubtedly inflicted the wound hadn’t a mark on it-nothing for the microscope to pick up, nothing for a chemical test. They got a faint trace of soap in the folds of this sort of scarf.” He indicated the wisp of drapery which fell in a slender twist from the dancer’s naked waist.
“It had been washed?”
“Very thoroughly,” said Lamb. “But the extraordinary thing is that whoever took the trouble to do that shouldn’t have put the figure back on the mantelpiece. I don’t know that I ever came across anything like it before. The murderer throws it down on the couch and makes that stain, and then he or she picks it up, washes it with soap and water, and puts it back on the stain again. It doesn’t make sense.”
Miss Silver coughed.
“Dear me-were there no fingerprints on the figure?”
Lamb shook his head.
“Not a trace. Clean as a whistle. Looks as if gloves had been worn, but unless they were rubber gloves that soaping and scrubbing would come a bit difficult, wouldn’t it?”
“Rubber gloves would mean premeditation,” said Miss Silver briskly. “And premeditation in connection with the use of this statuette as a weapon would mean that the murderer was familiar with the room and with this particular ornament. I suppose a man might have held it under the tap and washed it whilst wearing, let us say, heavy motoring gloves, but I do not believe that any woman wearing an ordinary pair of gloves would have done so. I am inclined to believe that no gloves were used. The washing of the statuette seems to me to be one of those instinctive and unpremeditated actions-something done whilst under the influence of shock-which puzzle the investigator just because they are in fact meaningless, except as an index of character. I put forward the suggestion with diffidence, Inspector, but I imagine that no fingerprints would be left if the statuette and the hand holding it were wet at the time of contact.”
Both men looked up sharply. Lamb struck his knee and exclaimed,
“By gum-yes! You’re right!”
Miss Silver rose to her feet and walked over to the couch.
“The heat of the room would quickly dry any surface damp, but I should expect some slight spreading of the stain. It should, I think, be paler at the edges if the statuette had been wet enough not to take fingerprints. Yes-look here, Inspector-the stain has definitely been spread. Here-and here. Look how pale it is at the edges.”
The three of them stood there looking at the spoiled blue and grey brocade. Lamb said,
“Yes, you’re right-that’s the way it was. Though why on earth it was done at all beats me. If it was to puzzle us about the weapon, the figure should have been put back on the mantelpiece. If it was to remove fingerprints, it might just as well have been left in the bathroom. It don’t make sense.”
CHAPTER 33
He had got as far as that, when the door was opened and Mrs. Jackson appeared on the threshold. She held a typewritten list in one hand and a solitaire diamond ring in the other. She crossed the room in an agitated manner, laid both these things in front of the Inspector, and said in a hurrying voice,
“This isn’t my sister’s ring.”
Everybody looked at her and then at the ring. Lamb said,
“What do you mean?”
She swallowed quickly and repeated what she had said before.
“This isn’t my sister’s ring.”
Lamb swung his chair round to face her.
“Just a minute, Mrs. Jackson. When you say this isn’t your sister’s ring, do you mean that it isn’t on the list of her jewellery, or that you hadn’t seen it before, or what?”
Ella Jackson made an effort. She was a controlled young woman, but the discovery which she had just made, coming on the top of everything else, had knocked her off her balance. She regained it now.
“No, I don’t mean that, Inspector. Look at the list and you will see ‘Solitaire diamond ring’ half way down the page. This is a solitaire diamond ring, but it isn’t the one on the list. It isn’t my sister’s ring. The stone isn’t a diamond-it’s paste.”
There was a queer electric thrill in the room. Each of the four people present was aware of it. Each felt a heightening of interest, a sense of anticipation. One of them had also a faint sick instant of recoil.
Lamb, frowning, picked up the ring.
“This is the ring Miss Roland had been wearing. It’s one of the three that were found in the bathroom by the side of the wash-basin.”
Ella Jackson’s colour had risen. She was quite calm now.
“It isn’t Carrie’s ring.”
Lamb looked up at her.
“She might have had the stone changed herself, Mrs. Jackson.”
“She wouldn’t-not without telling me. My husband was going to arrange the insurance. She knows how careful he is- he’d never have done it without checking up on the things. Besides she’d no reason-she wasn’t short of money.”
He turned the ring this way and that. The rainbow colours flashed.
“Looks all right to me. What makes you think it’s paste?”
Ella Jackson had a very decided look as she said,
“I don’t have to think about it-I know it’s paste. I was brought up in the trade. I knew it wasn’t Carrie’s ring the minute I took it in my hand. You can show it to anyone in London and they’ll say the same as I do-it’s paste.”
“She might have had the stone changed-you can’t be sure she didn’t.”
“Well then, I can,” said Mrs. Jackson, “because it’s not just the stone-it’s the ring. It isn’t Carrie’s ring. She got hers from the boy she was married to, Jack Armitage, and he told her it was his mother’s, and it had her initials in it. Carrie was a bit put out about that-said she didn’t want to go wearing a ring with another woman’s initials.”