Fingerprints-Miss Garside’s, as the Chief said, pretty well everywhere. Other fingerprints-Mrs. Smollett’s faintish, accounted for by the fact that she works everywhere. Other fingerprints-Mrs. Smollett’s daily at No. 8. Miss Underwood and Armitage one each, accounted for by visits yesterday admitted by them. Prints of unknown man on tumbler but not anywhere else, suggesting that he may have worn gloves when he arrived. No other prints except Miss Roland’s own. No prints from Mrs. Underwood. N. B. She was wearing gloves when she went up in the lift.
Miss Silver studied this time-table and Sergeant Abbott’s notes with the deepest attention. Sometimes she nodded, sometimes she shook her head. Presently she picked up her knitting. The Air Force sock revolved, the needles clicked. Her thoughts were busy.
CHAPTER 35
At the sound of the electric buzzer Miss Silver roused herself and went to the door of the flat. She found Sergeant Abbott on the threshold and invited him in.
He said, “I thought we might have a talk,” and received an approving smile.
Arrived in the sitting-room, he agreed with her that the weather was very cold for the time of year-such a sudden change-and that really a gas fire was a great convenience. When they were both seated and she had resumed her knitting, he said,
“We’ve had Mrs. Smollett up again. She has been working both for Miss Roland and for Miss Garside. She said straight off that the ring was Miss Garside’s. She knew all about the initials in the other one. A nosy female.”
Miss Silver sighed.
“These women are always very inquisitive. They spend their lives in other people’s houses, and it is really only natural that they should take an interest in what goes on there. Their own lives are often sadly drab.” She looked at him across the clicking needles. “I hope the Chief Inspector will not do anything precipitate in the matter of arresting Miss Garside.”
A faint satirical smile appeared for a moment on Sergeant Abbott’s face.
“Do you see him being precipitate about anything?” he murmured.
Miss Silver’s glance reproved him.
“Caution is a virtue when you are dealing with other people’s lives,” she observed. “I feel bound to say that I do not consider the exchange of the rings at all conclusive. It is one of those pieces of evidence which at first sight appear convincing, but which can often be explained in quite a natural manner. It is, of course, quite possible that Miss Garside procured the key of Miss Roland’s flat and entered it for the purpose of exchanging the rings, that she was surprised, and that she struck Miss Roland with the statuette in order to prevent her calling in the police. It is also possible that she paid Miss Roland an ordinary visit, in the course of which some occasion for washing her hands may have arisen. Miss Roland’s rings were found beside the wash-basin. The exchange may have been quite accidental. This would at any rate be a possible line of defence. Of one thing I am tolerably certain, whoever washed the statuette and put it back on the sofa, it was not Miss Garside.”
Frank Abbott displayed a lively interest.
“And how do you arrive at that?”
Miss Silver regarded him with an indulgent eye. He was of about the same age as her nephew Howard, at present somewhere in the Middle East. Howard was of course a great deal better looking.
“Mrs. Smollett has given me a very good idea of Miss Garside’s character. Like so many single women who live alone, she is neat and orderly in the highest degree. Mrs. Smollett is not, I think, a very neat person herself. She complains of Miss Garside being so particular about everything being put back in exactly the right place, contrasting her unfavourably with Mrs. Willard who, she says, will have everything clean but doesn’t care where it goes.”
Frank Abbott gave a low whistle.
“So that’s it!”
Miss Silver coughed.
“I feel sure that anyone so particular as Miss Garside is said to be would have replaced the statuette upon the mantelpiece after washing it.”
“But Mrs. Willard doesn’t care where anything goes, though she likes things clean?”
Miss Silver’s needles clicked.
“According to Mrs. Smollett,” she said.
Frank Abbott lay back in his chair and looked at her, a spark of malice in his light blue eyes.
“May I ask when you received these interesting confidences?”
He got a smile which he had done nothing to deserve.
“When I was helping her with the washing-up after lunch at Mrs. Underwood’s.”
He smiled back at her.
“That’s where you take the bread out of the poor policeman’s mouth. I can’t very well drop in and help with the washing-up. Did she tell you anything else?”
“Yes, a great deal, but not all of it pertinent. I must tell you that Miss Garside is believed to be in great financial straits. She has been doing without any household help for some time. She has sold her furniture, and Mrs. Smollett declares that she had bought no food for a week until this morning, when she came back with a full shopping-basket.”
“So that’s why she was having breakfast after she came back from the town. Curtis found her out the first time he went, and when he did get her she was just going to have breakfast. He thought it odd at the time. I wonder if she had been selling the ring. The Chief’s going to see her when he gets back. He’s gone off to interview the man Carola Roland was going to marry- thought he’d like to get that cleared up straight away. If those were his fingerprints on the tumbler, and he was having drinks with the girl within an hour of the murder, he was probably the last person to see her alive-or the last but one if someone else killed her. If the Chief counts him out he’ll go for Miss Garside. Unless anything else turns up. Have you really got anything about Mrs. Willard, or was that just a red herring?”
Miss Silver put a shade of reproof into her cough.
“It would be in Mrs. Willard’s character as described by Mrs. Smollett to wash the statuette and then leave it lying about. Mrs. Smollett had been in the Willards’ flat this morning. It was her regular day. Mr. Willard admitted her, and told her she could not go into the bedroom as Mrs. Willard was asleep. He appeared a good deal distressed, and when she spoke of Miss Roland’s death he said, ‘Don’t talk of it!’ and went out of the flat. She found the dress which Mrs. Willard was wearing yesterday in a wet heap inside the bathroom cupboard. She said, ‘It was a new dress and quite clean-why did she want to wash it?’ She also said Mr. Willard was running after Miss Roland. She is of course a gossip, and will make the most of any material she has picked up.”
Frank Abbott whistled again.
“How many more people may have killed the girl, do you suppose? At the moment we have Armitage, Mrs. Underwood, an opulent City gent, Miss Garside, and Mrs. Willard. Embarras de richesse. I suppose they didn’t all have a stab at it?”
“I’m not suggesting that any of them killed her, Mr. Abbott. I think that both Miss Garside and Mrs. Willard should be questioned, and that this dress, which seems to have been somewhat unaccountably washed, should be examined for bloodstains. If the washing were not extremely thorough, there might be some traces left. Also, I think, it would be as well to look into the antecedents of all the tenants of these flats. The Lemmings and Miss Garside have been here some time. The Willards have been here for two years. So has Mr. Drake, but nothing seems to be known about him. He is considered to be something of a mystery. The Spooners are recent tenants, but they are away. Other recent tenants are Mrs. Underwood and the old lady on the ground floor, Mrs. Meredith. As regards Mrs. Underwood, I met her at the house of friends of my own who are well acquainted with her and her husband, Wing Commander Underwood. As regards Major Armitage, the War Office can be referred to, and I would suggest an enquiry as to Mrs. Meredith’s previous address and the length of time she has had her staff. I imagine that the Chief Inspector will have all this in hand. He is extremely thorough.”