“She saw me at one o’clock. She couldn’t have seen me at three-I was in bed and asleep.”
“Are you going to swear to that at the inquest?”
She gave a sort of gasp and said “Yes.”
He went on looking at her hard for a moment, and then said in an easy conversational voice,
“What about that dress you were wearing last night? I’d like to have a look at it. Did Lintott bring it along?”
“I haven’t got it. It was torn. I’ve thrown it away.”.
“Where?” said Inspector Lamb.
Mavis stared at him.
“Did you put it in your waste-paper basket, or what? If you did, I’m afraid Lintott will have to collect it, even if it’s gone into the dustbin.”
Mavis rushed into speech.
“I burnt it.”
“Where did you burn it?”
“In my bedroom fire, it wasn’t any use-it was all torn-I couldn’t have worn it. I-”
“Do you generally have a fire in your bedroom when the temperature is over eighty? Come, come, Miss Grey, what have you done with that dress?”
There was a knock on the door. He looked over his shoulder and said “Come in.”
Constable Lintott came into the room with a rolled-up bundle in his hand.
Mavis said “Oh!” and the Inspector said,
“Where did you find it, Lintott?”
“Chest of drawers in the bedroom-bottom drawer-pushed down under a lot of the old lady’s things.”
“All right, that’ll do. Put it down.”
Constable Lintott withdrew.
The Inspector got up out of his chair and shook out the bundle, which resolved itself into a long silver dress, a good deal torn, a good deal crushed. A large circular piece had been cut out of the front. He looked at Mavis, and Mavis looked at the dress. She hadn’t cut away quite enough. The stain had spread. As that dreadful fat man stood there holding it up, anybody-anybody could see why the piece had been cut out. It had been cut out because it had been soaked in blood.
Mavis burst into tears. The Inspector’s voice came to her through the sound of her own sobs.
“Now, Miss Grey-here’s your own dress telling its story plain enough. You were in this flat after Mr. Craddock was shot. Perhaps you were here when the shot was fired. You were here, and you knelt down and got the front of your dress all messed up with his blood, and then you went back to number nine and Miss Bingham saw you. She saw Mr. Renshaw inside his own flat, and she saw you go in. Now you just come across with what you know. Was it Mr. Renshaw who fired that shot?”
“No, no-he didn’t-oh, he didn’t! Miss Bingham didn’t see me. She’s making it all up. She’s a wicked old woman. I never came back. I tell you she couldn’t have seen me-I was asleep.”
The Inspector dropped the torn dress and came back to his chair.
“Pity to go on saying that sort of thing,” he said, “but if that’s what you want in your statement you can have it there. What were your relations with Mr. Craddock?”
The bright angry flush came up again. She stopped crying, and said,
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. Was he your lover? Was he courting you? Had he asked you to marry him? Were you engaged to him?”
“Of course I wasn’t! He liked me. He was a cousin, and we went about together, but there wasn’t anything in it. I’m not engaged to anyone, but if I were-”
“If you were?”
Mavis hesitated, but only for a moment. It couldn’t do any harm, and if it convinced them what nonsense it was to say this sort of thing about her and Ross, it might do quite a lot of good. She said in a defiant voice which still sounded tearful,
“If it were anyone, it would be Bobby Foster. He-he wants to, and I haven’t exactly said I would, but-oh, well, it would be him if it was anyone.”
“I see,” said the Inspector.
Chapter XIX
Mavis Grey was shown out. Detective Abbott stood behind her in the hall of the flat and watched to see what she would do. She had had a fright and a shaking, and he thought she would want to talk to Peter Renshaw. Short of arresting her or him, or detaining either or both of them on suspicion, you couldn’t prevent them talking things over, but of course it meant that she would tell him just what she had said and just what she hadn’t said, and then he would have to go all out and back her up. Detective Abbott’s opinion of Miss Mavis Grey was that she would say anything, without worrying about whether it was true or not, as long as she thought it would get her out of a mess.
She stood there for a moment, and then she went over to the door of No. 9 and rang the bell. Constable Lintott opened the door, a pleasant-looking young man with a rosy face and round blue eyes. Miss Grey was a good deal taken aback. She had had enough of policemen for the moment, and she wanted to see Peter. She said so in the rather haughty voice which very often means that a girl is afraid she is going to cry.
Constable Lintott directed her to No. 7, and put her in a dilemma. She wanted to see Peter, but she didn’t want to see Lee Fenton. She wanted to get away from all these policemen, and she simply had to tidy up her face before she went out on the street. Her eyelids pricked, her skin felt sticky, and she was quite convinced that the tip of her nose was red. She crossed the landing again and rang the bell of No. 7.
It was Lee who opened the door,, and as soon as Mavis saw her a wave of faintness came over her again. There was a mist, and a picture in the mist. But this time she made an effort, because she didn’t want to faint, she wanted to talk to Peter. She walked past Lee into the sitting-room, and Peter looked up from Aunt Lucy’s writing-table and said “Hullo!” She ran to him.
“I want to talk to you. Send her away.”
Lee may have heard what she said. She shut the sitting-room door and went into Lucy Craddock’s bedroom. She was so stiff and bewildered in her mind that it didn’t seem to matter where she went or what she did, except that it was a little better when Peter was there. She sat down on the bed and waited, shivering, although the day was so hot.
In the next room Mavis was talking nineteen to the dozen. What she had said, what the Inspector had said, what she wanted Peter to say-it all came out without pause or stop in a high, excited voice. Peter let her talk herself to a standstill. Then he said calmly,
“You’ve admitted coming home with Ross. You’ve admitted hitting him over the head with the decanter and coming across to my flat-”
“Because Miss Bingham saw me,” said Mavis.
Peter looked at her with a cynical eye.
“ ‘You tell the truth because you must, and not because you will.’ Parody on Matthew Arnold. No matter. What you haven’t admitted is the excursion at three in the morning.”
“I didn’t,” said Mavis in a hurry.
“You didn’t admit it? Or you didn’t go out of the flat?”
“Miss Bingham made it up. She’s a horrid spiteful old cat.”
“She says she saw you at three in the morning.”
“She made it up,” said Mavis in a sullen voice.
“What’s the good of saying she made it up? I mean, what’s the good of saying it to me, when you know perfectly well that I saw you come in?”
She shook her head.
“She made it up. You didn’t see me.”
Peter walked meditatively to the window and back again. Then he said with alarming mildness,
“That is what I am to say at the inquest?”
She gave an impatient nod.
“Of course.”
“I am, in fact, to commit perjury?”
“You’re not to say you saw me.”
His manner changed.
“Look here, Mavis-did you shoot him? You’d much better tell me. If you did, I’ll do my best for you.”
“I didn’t-I didn’t! Of course I didn’t! Why should I?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Half a dozen reasons why you should. But if you didn’t, it goes. I wonder if you’re speaking the truth. You haven’t had an awful lot of practice, have you?”