“Inspector Smith will have told you that Scotland Yard has been called in. It is all very trying for you, but I am sure you will wish to help us as much as you can.”
She said, “Yes,” and she sat down.
Since he was at the writing-table, there was just the one chair in which she could sit. She put her hands in her lap and waited. She had made a short statement and Frank Abbott took her through it. The events of the previous evening- quiet and domestic-everyone early to bed except Jonathan Field.
“He was in the habit of sitting up late?”
“Oh, yes. Sometimes he would be very late indeed.”
“What would you call very late?”
“If he dropped off in his chair it might be after one o’clock.”
“Did anyone go in to say good-night to him?”
“No-he didn’t care about being disturbed.” She hesitated, and then went on, her breath coming a little more quickly. “I had been in here earlier-I came in to talk to him. I said good-night to him then.”
He let that go and went on with her statement.
“Something waked you-do you think it could have been the shot?”
“I don’t know. I suppose it might have been. I thought it was the door.”
“This glass door?”
“Yes. It was open. I looked out of my window and saw it move. That is what I came down for-to shut it.”
He looked at her statement.
“You came into the room, put on the light, and saw your uncle at his table. How soon did it occur to you that he was dead?”
She said, “I don’t know. I saw him, and I knew he wouldn’t go to sleep like that-and I came over here and saw the revolver.”
“You picked it up, didn’t you? Why did you do that?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Abbott-I really don’t. I thought he was dead, and then I didn’t think at all. I just picked it up and put it on the table.”
“Was it Mr. Field’s revolver?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know that he had one.”
“You hadn’t ever seen it before?”
“No, I hadn’t.”
“I see. Was your uncle left-handed?”
She had a startled look.
“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know whether you would have called him left-handed or not. He used his right hand in the ordinary way, but I believe he used to be a left-hand bowler.”
He turned a little in his chair and looked round at the fireplace.
“Mr. Field seems to have been burning papers there. Do you know what they were?”
A little faint colour stained her skin as she said,
“They were-private papers.”
“Anything to do with his fingerprint collection?”
She said in undoubted surprise,
“Oh, no, nothing like that!”
“Miss Grey, when you were in here talking to your uncle, was this album on the table?”
“Oh, no, it wasn’t.”
“Sure about that?”
“I’m quite sure. It’s such a big thing-I couldn’t have missed it.”
“But it was here on the table when you found Mr. Field’s body and picked up the revolver?”
“I suppose it was.”
“You are not sure?”
She shut her eyes for a moment.
“Yes, it was there. I didn’t think about it at the time, but I saw it.”
“Was it open or shut?”
“It was open.”
“And Mr. Field did not tear out a sheet and burn it whilst you were with him?”
She looked steadily at him and said,
“Why do you ask me that?”
“Because a sheet has been torn out and paper has been burned in that grate.”
He opened the album at the place where it was marked and lifted the envelope to uncover the rough edge of the missing page.
“You see?”
“Yes.”
“When was this done, and why?”
“I don’t know anything at all about the torn-out page-it wasn’t done while I was here. But my uncle did burn something.”
“I am afraid I must ask you what it was that was burned.”
She hesitated.
“Mr. Abbott-”
“You are not obliged to answer, but if you have nothing to hide you would be well advised to do so.”
He saw her wince and then stiffen.
“No, of course there is nothing to hide. It is just-it was all rather private.”
There was a faintly cynical gleam in his eye as he said, “When it comes to a case of murder there is no privacy.” He had not thought that she could be paler, but suddenly she was.
“Murder?”
“Did you think it was suicide?”
She said slowly and deliberately,
“When something like this happens you don’t think. It’s there and it has happened-you don’t think about it.” After a pause three words came more slowly still. “It’s-too dreadful.”
He nodded.
“Miss Grey, several of the statements I have here say that when Mr. Field was in his study he was not to be disturbed. You said the same thing yourself when I asked you if you had gone in to say good-night to him, yet earlier in the evening you followed him into the study and remained there for about three-quarters of an hour.”
“I wanted to talk to him.”
“It was quite a long talk. Papers were burned, either by him at the time or by you later on.”
She said quickly, “He burned it himself.”
He raised his eyebrows and repeated her own word.
“It?” There was a moment before he went on. “Half at least of what was burned was on stiff legal paper. There are one or two fragments which were not burned through. Did they by any chance form part of a will?”
There was quite a long pause before she said, “Yes.”
“You came in here and talked to him, and a will was burned. You want to state that as a fact?”
“Yes.”
He came back in a flash.
“Who burned it?”
“My uncle did.”
“Why?”
“He was going to make another.”
“Then you came in here to talk to him about his will?”
“It wasn’t like that.”
He said, “Don’t you think you had better tell me what you did come to talk to him about?”
He saw her brows draw together in something that was not quite a frown. Under them her eyes were dark and intent. After a moment or two she said,
“Yes, I had better tell you. Everyone in the house knows about some of it, so perhaps you had better hear the whole thing. You met Mirrie when you were down here before. I don’t know what Anthony told you about her.”
“Just that she was a distant cousin, and that Mr. Field had taken a great fancy to her.”
She bent her head.
“I think he was in love with her mother, but she married someone else. There was a quarrel. He didn’t know that they had a child. If he had known, he would have done something for Mirrie when her father and mother were killed. It was in the war. She went to some distant relations, and it was all rather wretched. They didn’t want her, and there was very little money. She went to a Grammar School, but she wasn’t any good at exams, so when she was seventeen they got her a job as Assistant Matron at an orphanage, it was really just a fine name for being a housemaid. In the end Uncle Jonathan heard she was there and fetched her away. Most of this is what he told me last night. I didn’t know it before.”
“Yes-please go on.”
It was easier now that she had begun to talk about it. There was even a sense of relief. She said,
“Uncle Jonathan got very fond of her. She has-those sort of ways, you know. And then-he told me last night she is very like her mother. We could all see that he was getting very fond of her. Then one day I got an anonymous letter. It-it was horrible.”
He nodded.
“They mostly are. What did it say?”
Some distressed colour came into her face.
“It said everyone was talking about my not being nice to Mirrie. It-it was trying to make out that I was jealous of her because she was prettier than I was, and because people liked her better-that sort of thing.” The dark grey eyes were honestly indignant.