He was watching her as these thoughts passed through his mind. A very good shop window indeed. Even to his exacting taste she had nearly everything. At the moment, of course, she was too pale, and there was evidence of strain, but he wasn’t at all sure that it did not heighten her appeal. He said,
“Mr. Field told you that he had signed a new will that morning?”
“Yes.”
She sat there quite quietly whilst he looked at her. Her voice was quiet too.
“A will which he characterized as unjust-what did you understand by his saying that?”
“I thought-” She paused. “I suppose I thought that he was leaving most of what he had to Mirrie.”
“Did you think he had cut you out altogether?”
This time the pause was longer. She looked down for a moment, and then lifted her eyes to his face again.
“I don’t know what I thought. You see, I wasn’t really thinking about the money at all, I was thinking about his being angry with me. He had never really been angry with me before-not like that. I wanted to be friends again.”
Frank said,
“You weren’t concerned about the money?”
“I wasn’t thinking about it.”
Chapter XV
WHEN GEORGINA GREY had gone out of the room and Mirrie Field had entered it Frank Abbott was sharply aware of the contrast between them. Where the older girl had been quiet and controlled, this little creature with the tumbled hair and tear-stained face brought with her an atmosphere of emotional disturbance. She had, to use a colloquialism, been crying her eyes out. Like Georgina she had on a white woollen jumper and a grey tweed skirt. She carried a handkerchief crumpled up in one hand, and as she came up to the chair by the writing-table and sat down there she dabbed her eyes and sniffed childishly. Frank found himself speaking as if to a child.
“I won’t keep you longer than I can help. I just want to go through your statement with you and see whether there is anything you can add to it.”
Mirrie gazed at him wide-eyed. Her lips trembled, her soft little chin trembled. She said in a small despairing voice,
“It’s all so dreadful-he was so kind-”
He picked up her statement and read it over to her. It could hardly have conveyed less information. They had all had dinner together and gone into the drawing-room afterwards. Uncle Jonathan had come in too. He had had his coffee, and then he had gone away and she hadn’t seen him again. She had gone up to bed when the others went, and she had slept without waking up until there was a noise in the house and Georgina had come in and told her that Uncle Jonathan was dead. Mirrie punctuated the reading with one or two caught breaths and something that was not quite a sob. The handkerchief was pressed to her eyes again as he finished. He laid the paper down and said,
“Mr. Field had been away for twenty-four hours?”
“He went away on Monday morning.”
“Did you know that he was going to see his solicitor?”
“He said-he said he was.”
“Did he tell you why?”
The hand with the handkerchief dropped into her lap.
“He said he wanted-to provide for me.” Here there really was a sob. “He was so kind!”
“He told you that he meant to alter his will, and that he was in fact going up to London for that purpose?”
The tears welled up in her eyes.
“Yes, he did.”
“Well now, when he came back on Tuesday evening you ran down and met him in the hall.”
“Oh-how do you know!”
He gave her a cool smile.
“There wasn’t much secret about it, was there? A hall is what you might call a fairly public place.”
She had a faintly startled air.
“Did someone see me?”
“Someone saw you.”
“It was just that I was so pleased about his being back. I had dressed early.”
He smiled again.
“Well, there wasn’t anything wrong about that. I expect he was pleased to see you.”
“Oh, yes, he was!”
Frank said,
“What I really wanted to know was whether he said anything about his business with Mr. Maudsley.”
Mirrie brightened a little.
“Oh, yes, he did. I said I hoped he had got all his horrid business done, so that he wouldn’t have to go away any more. And he said it wasn’t a horrid business for me, and that it was all signed, with two of Mr. Maudsley’s clerks to witness it, so there wasn’t anything to worry about any more.”
“He was talking about his will?”
She looked at him with childlike candour.
“Oh, yes.”
Frank Abbott thought, “She knew he was cutting Georgina out and putting her in. I wonder if she tried for it, or whether it just happened. I wonder whether he had an afterthought and destroyed the will himself. I wonder whether it has been destroyed at all. Georgina certainly had a motive for destroying it. Mirrie wouldn’t have any motive at all. I wonder whether Mirrie knows that it may have been destroyed. I wonder whether Georgina was speaking the truth, because if she wasn’t-if she wasn’t-”
Mirrie had her handkerchief to her eyes again. She said in a muffled voice,
“He was so dreadfully kind to me. It doesn’t seem as if it could be true.”
He let her go after that, and saw Mrs. Fabian, who wandered through the events of the last two days in a characteristically irrelevant manner. She was extremely informative, but it was difficult to connect her information with the death of Jonathan Field. Frank had, for instance, to listen to a good many chance-come anecdotes of Georgina ’s infancy, together with excursions into dear Jonathan’s personal tastes and habits. He permitted her to flow on, because there was always the chance of finding some wheat amongst the chaff, but when she finally settled down to reminiscences of Johnny’s school-days he felt that the moment had come to apply the closure.
Neither Anthony nor Johnny Fabian had anything to add to their bare statements. They had gone upstairs with the others, and they had not come down again. Anthony had slept until he was roused by Georgina, and Johnny until he was roused by Anthony.
It was Stokes who produced one important piece of evidence. He had gone into the study with his tray of drinks at ten o’clock. He put it down on the small octagonal table beside the leather-covered armchair usually occupied by Mr. Field. It was not so occupied at the moment, because Mr. Field was over at the book-case at the far end of the room. He was stooping down as if he were looking at one of the lower shelves. Asked which shelf, Stokes indicated that from which one of the albums containing the collection of fingerprints had been taken. He was positive that at that time both volumes were in their place.
Frank’s next questions produced replies of considerable importance.
“Did you make up the fire whilst you were here?”
“I was going to do so, sir, but Mr. Field stopped me. He said to leave it and he would see to it himself later on.”
“Was that unusual?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did he give any reason for it?”
“Why, yes, sir. He said he had been burning papers, and not to choke the grate until they had burned away.”