“There are a hundred explanations.”
“For their manner of meeting and parting? Yes, I dare say there are, but not so many explanations for their agitation when the meeting is discussed. Say that she surprised them in an embrace, Master Henry might feel foolish at the recollection, but why should Miss Prentice go white and trembly?”
“She’s an old maid, isn’t she? Perhaps it shocked her.”
“It may have given her a shock.”
Alleyn was searching the wet lane.
“The rain last night was the devil. This great bough must have been blown down quite recently. Master Henry told me that their telephone was dumb on Friday night. He said it was broken by a falling bough in Top Lane. There are the wires and it almost follows as the night the day that this is the bough. It’s protected the ground. Wait, I believe we’ve struck a little luck.”
They moved the still unwithered bough.
“Yes. See here, Bathgate, here is where they stood. How much more dramatic footprints can be than the prints of hands. Look, here are Dinah Copeland’s if indeed they are hers, coming round the bend into the protection of the bank. The ground was soft but not too wet. Coming downhill we pick his prints up, as they march out of the sodden lane into the lee of the bank and overlapping trees. Surface water has seeped into them but there they are. And here, where the bough afterwards fell, they met.”
“And what a meeting!” ejaculated Nigel, looking at the heavy impressions of overlapping prints.
“A long meeting. Yes, and a lover’s meeting. She looks a nice girl. I hope Master Henry — ”
He broke off.
“Here we are, by George. Don’t come too far. Eleanor Prentice must have rounded the corner, taken two steps or so, and stopped dead. There are her feet planted side by side. She stood for some time in this one place, facing the others and then — what happened? Ordinary conversation? No, I don’t think so. I’ll have to try and get it from the young ones. She won’t tell me. Yes, there are her shoes, no doubt of it. Black-calf with pointed toes and low heels. Church hen’s shoes. She was wearing them this morning.”
Alleyn squatted by the two solitary prints, reached out a long finger and touched the damp earth. Then he, looked up at Nigel.
“Well, it’s proved one thing,” he said.
“What?”
“If these are Eleanor Prentice’s prints, and I think they are, it wasn’t Eleanor Prentice who tried to see in at the window of the parish hall. Wait here, will you, Bathgate? I’m going down to the car for my stuff. We’ll have a cast of these prints.”
ii
At half-past twelve Alleyn and Nigel arrived at the Red House, Chipping. An elderly parlourmaid told them that Mr. Fox was still there, and showed them into a Victorian drawing-room which, in the language of brassware and modernish silk Japanese panels, spoke unhappily of the late General Campanula’s service in the East. It was an ugly room, over-furnished and unfriendly. Fox was seated at a writing desk in the window and before him were many neat stacks of papers. He rose and looked placidly at them over the tops of his glasses.
“Hullo, Brer Fox,” said Alleyn. “How the hell are you getting on?”
“Fairly comfortably, thank you, sir. Good-morning, Mr. Bathgate.”
“Good-morning, inspector.”
“What have you got there?” asked Alleyn.
“A number of letters, sir, none of them very helpful.”
“What about that ominous wad of foolscap, you old devil? Come on, now; it’s the will, isn’t it?”
“Well, it is,” said Fox.
He handed it to Alleyn and waited placidly while he read it.
“This was a wealthy woman,” said Alleyn.
“How wealthy?” demanded Nigel, “and what has she done with it?”
“Nothing that’s for publication.”
“All right, all right.”
“She’s left fifty thousand. Thirty of them go to the Reverend Walter Copeland of Winton St. Giles in recognition of his work as a parish priest and in deep gratitude for his spiritual guidance and unfailing wisdom. Lummy! He is to use this money as he thinks best but she hopes that he will not give it all away to other people. Fifteen thousand to her dear friend, Eleanor Jernigham Prentice, four thousand to Eric Campanula, son of William Campanula, and second cousin to the testatrix. Last heard of in Nairobi, Kenya. A stipulation that the said four thousand be invested by Miss Campanula’s lawyers, Messrs. Waterworth, Waterworth and Biggs, and the beneficiary to receive the interest at their hands. The testatrix adds the hope that the beneficiary will not spend the said interest on alcoholic beverages or women, and will think of her and mend his ways. One thousand to be divided among the servants. Dated May 21st, 1938.”
“There was a note enclosed dated May 21st of this year,” said Fox. “Here it is, sir.”
Alleyn read aloud with one eyebrow raised: “To all whom it may concern. This is my last Will and Testament so there’s no need for anybody to go poking about among my papers for another. I should like to say that the views expressed in reference to the principal beneficiary are the views I hold at the moment. If I could add anything to this appreciation of his character to make it more emphatic, I would do so. There have been disappointments, and friends who have failed me, but I am a lonely woman and see no reason to alter my Will. Idris Campanula.”
“She seems to have been a very outspoken lady, doesn’t she?” asked Fox.
“She does. That’s a nasty jab in the eye for her dear friend, Eleanor Prentice,” said Alleyn.
“Well, now,” said Nigel briskly, “do you think either of these two have murdered her? You always say, Alleyn, that money is the prime motive.”
“I don’t say so in this instance,” Alleyn said. “It may be, but I don’t think it is. Well, there we are, Fox, We must get hold of the Waterworths and Mr. Biggs, before they read about it in the papers.”
“I’ve rung them up, Mr. Alleyn. The parlourmaid knew Mr. Waterworth senior’s private address.”
“Excellent, Fox. Anything else?”
“There’s the chauffeur, Gibson. I think you might like to talk to him.”
“All right. Produce Gibson.”
Fox went out and returned with Miss Campanula’s chauffeur. He wore his plum-coloured breeches and shining gaiters and had the air of having just crammed himself into his tunic.
“This is Gibson, sir,” said Fox. “I think the chief inspector would like to hear about this little incident on Friday afternoon, Mr. Gibson.”
“Good-morning,” said Alleyn. “What’s the incident?”
“It concerns deceased’s visit to church at two-thirty, sir,” Fox explained. “It seems that she called at the hall on her way down.”
“Really?” said Alleyn.
“Not to say called, sir,” said Gibson. “Not in a manner of speaking, seeing she didn’t go in.”
“Let’s hear about it?”
“She used to go regular, you see, sir, to the confessing affair. About every three weeks. Well, Friday, she orders the car and we go down, getting there a bit early. She says, drive on to the hall, so I did and she got out and went to the front door. She’d been in a good mood all the morning. Pleased at going down to church and all, but soon as I saw her rattling the front door I knew one of her tantrums was coming on. As I was explaining to Mr. Fox, sir, she was a lady that was given to tantrums.”
“Yes.”
“I watched her. Rattle, rattle, rattle! And then I heard her shouting, ‘Who’s in there! Let me in!’ I thought I could hear the piano, too. Off she goes round to the back. I turned the car. When I looked out again she had come round the other side, the one away from the lane. Her face was red, and, Gawd help us, I thought, here we go, and sure enough she starts yelling out for me to come. ‘There’s someone in there behaving very suspicious,’ she says. ‘Take a look through that open window.’ I hauled myself up and there wasn’t a blooming thing to be seen. ‘Where’s the piano?’ Well, I told her. The piano was there right enough down on the floor by the stage. I knew she was going to tell me to go to the rectory for the key, when I see Miss Prentice coming out of the church. So I drew her attention to Miss Prentice and she was off like a scalded cat, across the lane and down to the church. I followed along slow, it’s only a couple of chain or so, and pulled up outside the church.”