Hilary straightened her pillow for the umpteenth time and promised herself not to move until she had counted a hundred, but long before she got there her nose was tickling again, and a hair had got into her ear, and the arm she was lying on had pins and needles in it. She flung the bedclothes off and sat up. It wasn’t any use, she had much better get up and do something. And all of a sudden it came to her that she would go into the living-room and dig out the file about the trial and read it right through. She knew where it was – down at the bottom of the oak chest – and with Marion asleep, and hours and hours of the night before her, she could go right through the file from beginning to end. She wanted to read the inquest, because she had missed that altogether through being in the Tyrol with Henry’s cousins, and meeting Henry, and getting practically engaged to him but not quite.
She put on her dressing-gown and slippers, tiptoed across the passage, and shut the living-room door. She turned on both lights and got out the file. Then she sat down in the big armchair and began to read all about the Everton Case.
James Everton was shot somewhere between eight o’clock and twenty minutes past eight on the evening of Tuesday, July 16th. He was alive at eight o’clock, for that was when he telephoned to Geoffrey Grey, but he was dead twenty minutes later, because that was when Geoffrey opened the door and the Mercers rushed into the study. Mrs. Mercer said she had only just heard the shot. She said on her oath, ‘I had been up to turn down Mr. Everton’s bed, and when I was coming through the hall I heard the sound of voices in the study. It sounded as if there was a quarrel going on. I didn’t know of anyone being there with Mr. Everton, so I was frightened and I went to the door to listen. I recognised Mr. Geoffrey Grey’s voice, and I was coming away, because I thought that if it was Mr. Geoffrey it was all right. Then I heard the sound of a shot. I screamed out and Mercer came running from his pantry, where he was cleaning the silver. He shook the door, but it was locked. And then Mr. Geoffrey opened it, and he had a pistol in his hand and Mr. Everton was fallen down across his desk.’
Pressed by the Coroner as to whether she had heard what Mr. Grey was saying when she recognised his voice, Mrs. Mercer became very agitated and said she would rather not say. She was told she must answer the question, whereupon she burst into tears and said it was something about a will.
The Coroner: ‘Tell us exactly what you heard.’
Mrs. Mercer, in tears: ‘I can’t say any more than what I heard.’
The Coroner: ‘No one wants you to. I only want you to tell us what you did hear.’
Mrs. Mercer: ‘Nothing that I could put words to – only their voices, and something about a will.’
The Coroner: ‘Something about a will, but you don’t know what?’
Mrs Mercer, sobbing hysterically: ‘No, sir.’
The Coroner: ‘Give the witness a glass of water. Now, Mrs. Mercer, you say you heard the sound of voices in the study, and that you thought there was a quarrel going on. You have said that you recognised Mr. Geoffrey Grey’s voice. You are quite certain that it was Mr. Grey’s voice?’
Mrs. Mercer: ‘Oh, sir – oh, sir, I don’t want to tell on Mr. Geoffrey.’
The Coroner: ‘You are sure it was his voice?’
Mrs. Mercer, with renewed sobs: ‘Oh, yes, sir. Oh, sir, I don’t know why I didn’t faint – the shot went off that loud on the other side of the door. And I screamed, and Mercer came running from his pantry.’
Horribly damning evidence of Mrs. Mercer, corroborated by Alfred Mercer to the extent of his having heard the shot and his wife’s scream. He had tried the door and found it locked, and when Mr. Grey opened it he had a pistol in his hand, and Mr. Everton had been shot dead and was lying half across the desk.
The Coroner: ‘Is this the pistol?’
Mercer: ‘Yes, sir.’
The Coroner: ‘Had you ever seen it before?’
Mercer: ‘Yes, sir – it belongs to Mr. Grey.’
Hilary’s heart beat hard with anger as she read. How was it possible for things to look so black against an innocent man? What must Geoff have felt like, having to sit there and see this black, black evidence piling up against him? At first he wouldn’t think it possible that anyone could believe it, and then he would begin to see them believing it. He would see them looking at him with a kind of horror in their eyes because they were believing that he had killed his own uncle in an angry quarrel over money.
For a moment the horror touched Hilary. It wasn’t true. If everyone else in the world believed it, Hilary wouldn’t believe it. The Mercers were lying. Why? What motive could they possibly have? They had a good place, and good wages. Why should Mercer kill his master? Because that was what it came to. If they were lying about Geoffrey Grey, it must be to cover themselves. And there was no motive at all. There was no motive. They had a soft job which they had done nothing to forfeit. James Everton’s new will, signed the very morning of his death, made this perfectly clear. They had the same legacies as under the old will, ten pounds apiece for each year of service. And they had been there something under two years – the second ten pounds was not yet due. Does a man throw away a good job, and good prospects and commit murder into the bargain, for the sake of twenty pounds in hand between him and his wife?
Hilary sat and thought about that… He might. Money and comfort are not everything. The dark motives of jealousy, hate, and revenge run counter to them, and in that clash security and self-interest may go down. But there would have to be such a motive. It had been looked for – it must have been looked for – but it had not been found. Hilary put it away to think about.
She read Geoffrey’s evidence, and found it heart-breaking. His uncle had rung him up at eight o’clock. The other people who gave evidence kept saying ‘the deceased’, or ‘Mr. Everton’, but Geoffrey said ‘My uncle’. All through his evidence he said my uncle – ‘My uncle rang me up at eight o’clock. He said, “That you, Geoffrey? I want you to come down here at once -at once, my boy.” He sounded very much upset.’
The Coroner: ‘Angry?’
Geoffrey Grey: ‘No – not with me -I don’t know. He sounded all worked up, but certainly not with me, or he wouldn’t have called me “my boy”. I said, “Is anything the matter?” And he said, “I can’t talk about it on the telephone. I want you to come down here – as quickly as you can.” And then he hung up.’
The Coroner: ‘You went down?
Geoffrey Grey: ‘At once. It takes me about a quarter of an hour from door to door. I get a bus at the end of my road which takes me to within a quarter of a mile of his gate.’
The Coroner: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Mercer have said that you did not ring the bell. They say that the front door was locked. You did not, therefore, go in that way?’
Geoffrey Grey: ‘It was a fine warm evening, and I knew the study window would be open -it’s a glass door really, opening into the garden. I should always go in that way if my uncle was at home and I wanted to see him.’
The Coroner: ‘You were in the habit of going to see him?’
Geoffrey Grey: ‘Constantly.’
The Coroner: ‘You lived with him at Solway Lodge until the time of your marriage?’
Geoffrey Grey: ‘Yes.’
The Coroner: ‘I must ask you, Mr. Grey, whether your relations with your uncle were of a cordial nature?’
At this point the witness appeared distressed. He said in a low voice, ‘Very cordial – affectionate.’
The Coroner: ‘And there had been no quarrel?’