“Then what did you see?”
“It was her powder compact,” said Lucy Craddock. “It must have fallen off her lap and rolled. It was right at my feet, and of course I knew it at once, because it was a birthday present from Bobby Foster-blue enamel, with her initials on it in diamonds-only of course not real ones, because Bobby couldn’t possibly afford that, and I hope Mavis doesn’t encourage him to be extravagant.”
Chapter XXVI
Lee looked out of the bedroom window and saw Peter getting into a taxi with Detective Abbott. Her heart stopped beating, because this meant that Peter had been arrested and was being taken away to prison.
Detective Abbott shut the door with a good resounding bang and the taxi drove away up the street, and round the corner and out of sight.
Lee’s heart had begun to beat again, painfully and hard. She hadn’t known just how much she loved Peter until she saw him go away like that. She never doubted for a moment that he had been arrested, and if they could arrest him, perhaps they could find him guilty. The most dreadful pictures rushed into her mind, causing her so much agony that she became giddy and had to grope her way to the bed.
But she hadn’t time to be giddy. She must do something at once, and she knew just what she had got to do. She ran out of the flat on to the landing and almost bumped into Inspector Lamb. Before he had time to say “I beg your pardon” she had him by the sleeve.
“I want to tell you something! Oh, please, please listen! He didn’t do it-he didn’t really! I want to tell you!”
The Inspector looked pardonably surprised.
“Steady on, Miss Fenton. What’s all this?”
“Please, please listen to me!”
“I’ll listen to anything-it’s my job. But not out on the landing. There are too many eavesdroppers in this house. Now suppose you ask me into your flat and tell me what it’s all about. I’m a bit tired of number eight.”
She took him into Lucy Craddock’s sitting-room, where he sat down in the big armchair. Lee sat down too, because something seemed to have happened to her knees. She said in a small, rigid voice,
“I want to tell you about Tuesday night. Peter didn’t do it-he didn’t really. I didn’t know you were going to arrest him or I would have told you before.”
He looked at her shrewdly.
“I didn’t know myself.”
“I want to tell you about Tuesday night.”
“You have made one statement already, Miss Fenton.”
He got an agonized glance.
“I didn’t tell you everything.”
“Nobody ever does,” said Inspector Lamb.
“But I will now-oh, I will really.”
The Inspector’s second daughter was his favorite, perhaps because she had been delicate as a child. It so chanced that the eyes which gazed at him so imploringly were of the same deep grey as Ethel Lamb’s. He coughed, and said in a less official voice than the words warranted,
“If you are thinking of saying anything that would incriminate you, it is my duty to point out that I shall have to take it down, and that it is liable to be used against you.”
“Yes-I know. But that doesn’t matter at all,” Lee said.
She felt a sort of dreadful impatience as she watched him get out his notebook, open it, try the pencil, and very leisurely improve its point. And then she was off on her story, the words tumbling over one another, and every now and then her voice catching and holding them up. Every time the Inspector looked up her eyes were fixed on him with the same desperate intentness. “Are you believing me?” they seemed to say. “Are you-are you? Because you must-oh, you must!”
She was telling him about her father and mother, about the accident, and how she had walked in her sleep for months afterwards.
“That is years ago. I was only fifteen. I’m twenty-two now. I hadn’t done it since, not until Tuesday night.”
“And what makes you think you walked in your sleep on Tuesday night?”
All the colour went out of her face as she told him.
“You say your foot was stained, and your nightgown.”
“Horribly stained. And then I found my footprints all the way from Ross’s door, and the door was shut. I didn’t know what had happened. I was afraid to call anyone. I washed my nightgown, and I washed the marks.”
“Yes-you shouldn’t have done that.”
“I was so frightened,” said Lee, her eyes wide and piteous.
He went on asking her questions, and to most of them she had to answer, “I don’t know.”
“You say you woke up with the feeling that something dreadful had happened.”
“Yes, but I thought it was in a dream.”
“Well, what did you dream?”
“I don’t know-I don’t remember.”
“Nothing at all?”
“No-I never do-I mean, I never did remember anything when I had been walking in my sleep.”
The Inspector sat back and looked at her with a frown.
“You know, I don’t think this helps us very much, Miss Fenton. All it points to is that whoever shot Mr. Craddock left the door open, and that you walked in your sleep and wandered in there and got yourself messed up.” He altered his tone sharply. “Was there any blood on your hands?”
She shuddered and said; “Oh, no-no-not on my hands.”
“Well now, Miss Fenton-what do you think about it all yourself? Do you think you shot Mr. Craddock?”
He saw her wince, but she said quite steadily;
“I don’t know. Perhaps I did.”
“Had you any motive for shooting him?”
“No-not him. But I might have thought he was someone else.”
She told him about René Merville.
“He-he frightened me-rather badly. If Ross took hold of me, I might have thought-”
“Did you know Mr. Craddock had a revolver?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Have you ever fired a revolver?”
“Why, no.”
“Well, suppose you were going to fire a revolver, what would you do? Just tell me. Imagine you’ve got one in your hand now, and that you’re going to fire it at me. What would you do? Go on-tell me.”
“I should point it at you, and-and-I should try and aim it.”
He nodded encouragingly.
“And then?”
“I suppose I should fire it.”
“Well, how would you fire it. Come along-tell me!”
She was frowning now and puzzled.
“I should-press the trigger-you do, don’t you?”
“That all?”
Her eyes were perfectly blank.
“I suppose so.”
The Inspector burst out laughing.
“Well, you wouldn’t find you’d done much damage, Miss Fenton. Ever hear of a safety catch?”
“Yes-I think so.”
“Know what it is?”
“Something to do-with a pistol-”
“But nothing that you would have any idea of what to do with. That’s about the size of it-eh?”
Lee’s lips began to tremble.
The Inspector laughed quite heartily.
“Well, Miss Fenton, I don’t think you shot Mr. Craddock. I don’t think you’d have known how to set about it even if you had wanted to-and you’d no call to want to that I can see.”
“But it wasn’t Peter,” said Lee, in a tone of misery.
“Well, it looks more like someone else at present,” said Inspector Lamb. “And you needn’t be so unhappy about him, because we haven’t arrested him yet. He’s only gone along with Abbott to get a statement from Miss Craddock.”
Quite a bright colour came into Lee’s face. She jumped up and stood there breathing quickly.
“And you let me go on and tell you things because I thought you’d arrested Peter! I never heard of anything so mean!”
The Inspector began to say, “Well, there’s no harm done,” but he broke off in, the middle because the door bell was ringing and Lee had gone to answer it. He followed, a little on his dignity. He had been jocose, and when the law unbends it expects appreciation.