“What!”
“Bit of a turn of the wheel, isn’t it?”
“I thought it came to you.”
“What came from my grandfather comes to me. He left it like that in his will. But most of those leaseholds came to Ross from his mother without any settlement, and the wife will get all that. Prothero says that was one reason why he was so anxious that Ross should make a will. He said he wrote to him urging him on these very grounds only last week, and he says Ross had half agreed to do something about it, but it didn’t get any farther than that.”
“Does she know?” said Lee.
Peter nodded.
“Prothero wrote yesterday, and she rang him up this morning from Birmingham. He said she sounded very upset, and wanted to know when the funeral was, and would he advance her some money at once, because she would like to send a really classy wreath. He was rather relieved to know that she had got his letter, because, I gather, she never stays anywhere more than about a month, and he wasn’t quite sure whether he’d got the right address.”
“I suppose-” said Lee, and then she hesitated. “Peter, it is beastly to think of these sort of things, but-do you suppose she knew-about the money, I mean?”
Peter shook his head.
“My child, I’d love to suspect Aggie, but I’m afraid it can’t be done. You see, she couldn’t possibly have known that Ross hadn’t made a will, and if he had, she could bet her boots she wouldn’t get a penny. All very vindictive and anti-social our cousin Ross’s views on matrimony. Anyhow, she was in Birmingham -at least I suppose she was-old Lamb might be asked to check up on that. I did have the bright thought that Miss Bingham might be Aggie in disguise, with an accomplice in Birmingham telephoning to old Prothero, but I’m afraid she’s been here too long for that. No, I don’t think we can fix it on Aggie.”
Lee said in a shaken voice,
“Peter, who do you think did it really?”
“Any of us, my dear-you, me, Mavis, Lucinda, Peterson-no, I don’t really think it was Peterson somehow-old Rush-or what about the bedridden wife-she mayn’t really have been bedridden at all, you know-Bobby, Miss Bingham-you pays your money and you takes your choice.”
“No, but really, Peter.”
“Oh, Miss Bingham without a doubt,” said Peter cheerfully.
Chapter XXIX
The inquest took place at half past two on Friday afternoon. No adjournment was asked for by the police, and the jury arrived without difficulty at a verdict of wilful murder against Robert Foster. Indeed, after the evidence of the hall porter at the Ducks and Drakes, reluctantly corroborated by Mr. Peter Renshaw, and the very voluble testimony of the unfortunate Bobby’s landlady, Mrs. Nokes, and her husband, they could hardly have done anything else. The cigarette-case was produced and identified and the fingerprints sworn to. No young man could have done more to put a rope about his own neck. Three witnesses to swear to a threat to shoot Ross Craddock. Fingerprints on the banisters of Craddock House and on the door of the room in which the murdered man had been shot. His cigarette-case picked up in the hall. Absence from his room at the material time, between one-thirty and three in the morning. And, most damning of all, the strong motive of jealousy acting on a mind unbalanced by drink. A very neat case, the only thing lacking to complete it being the person of Robert Foster.
“That ass Bobby’s done a bunk,” said Peter in Lee’s ear after a brief interchange of words with the Inspector. “Old Lamb’s as sick as mud-says somebody must have tipped him the wink, and I rather gather that he thinks it was me. As I said to him, however much I wanted to, I couldn’t very well have given away what I didn’t know myself, and as no one told me that Bobby had been plastering the whole place with fingerprints and dropping cigarette-cases, I don’t very well see how I could have blown the gaff. I thought he was just in the same old boat as the rest of us on account of having let off a lot of hot air about Ross outside the Ducks and Drakes, but I’m afraid there’s more to it than that.”
“Ssh!” said Lee. “They’re going to begin.”
Peter’s heart warmed to Inspector Lamb when he found that Miss Lee Fenton was not to be called as a witness.
Miss Mavis Grey was called, but failed to answer to her name.
Lucy Craddock gave her evidence faintly but steadily.
Yes, she had seen someone come down the steps of Craddock House as she approached. The time would be about two-fifteen a.m. No, she could not say whether the figure she saw was that of a man or a woman. It was just a dark moving shadow. She was quite sure she had seen someone. She was quite sure that the street door was ajar when she came up to it. And so forth and so on, keeping steadily and exactly to her statement. She turned giddy once, and was given a glass of water which she kept clasped in her black-gloved hand, sipping at it from time to time, but her narrative remained clear and made a visible impression on the jury.
Miss Bingham enjoyed herself a little too obviously, and deprived her evidence of its full effect. Juries do not care for a biassed witness.
If Mavis Grey had been in court, she would have profited to a considerable extent from the malice of Miss Bingham’s attack. A pretty girl and a spiteful old maid-the picture could hardly have failed of its effect. But Mavis Grey was not in court. Mavis Grey, a most material witness, was not in court. Mavis Grey was absent, and so was Bobby Foster. Mavis Grey and Robert Foster. Robert Foster and Mavis Grey. A verdict of wilful murder against Robert Foster. Warrants out against Robert Foster and Mavis Grey.
Peter and Lee took Lucy Craddock back to her own flat.
“Dear Phoebe is very kind, but I told her I must come home.”
She cried all the way back in the taxi, but her chief concern seemed to be for the presumably unchaperoned flight of Mavis and Bobby.
“And I suppose it will be quite impossible for them to arrange to get married if the police are looking for them. Oh, my dear, it is really all quite dreadful, and I can only feel thankful that poor Mary was spared.”
She continued to weep whilst Peter paid off the taxi, whilst Lee gently encouraged her into the lift and out of it again, and during all the preparations for tea. She took two lumps of sugar, and sipped and sobbed, and sobbed and sipped again.
“I can’t think why Mavis should have run away,” she said between the sips and the sobs-“I really can’t. You see, she came to see me yesterday, and we had such a nice talk-at least you know what I mean, Peter dear. The subject couldn’t very well be nice, because of course we had to discuss poor Ross being shot-very distressing indeed, even if one wasn’t as fond of him as one would like to have been, but you can’t be fond of people just because they are going to be murdered-can you-even if you know beforehand, which of course you don’t.”
Peter patted her on the shoulder.
“Full stop and close the inverted commas. Now take a good long, deep breath and begin again. You had a nice conversation with Mavis, and it wasn’t the subject that was nice. What was it, then?”