As he spoke he parted the leaves, and there the envelope lay. Miss Silver put out her hand for it. He was interested to notice that it took her no time at all to become aware of the very nearly indecipherable pencilling at one end. She turned it to get the best of the light and read what he himself had seen there-“Notes on the blitz story. J.F.” She said,
“It is empty.”
Frank nodded.
“Yes, it’s empty. But it wasn’t-I could swear to that. Twelve days ago when he brought us in here and spun that tale the envelope was there at the place where he opened the album, and it wasn’t empty then. The notes, whatever they may have been, were inside it. He didn’t open the album wide, you know. He only opened it half way, and when he parted the leaves the envelope fell over on the left-hand side. And it didn’t fall in the way that an empty envelope would have fallen. It dropped because there was something inside it. There was something in it then, and there isn’t anything in it now. But of course whatever was there could have been taken out at any time between then and Wednesday morning. It is convenient to suppose that the notes were removed at the time of the murder-that is, during the night between Tuesday and Wednesday. But there isn’t any proof that this is what happened, any more than there is any proof that the page with the murderer’s fingerprints on it was torn out at the same time.”
“A page has been torn out of the album?”
“The page where the envelope lay.”
He lifted the album over to the edge of the table so that she could see it. She scrutinized it with interest. The page had been somewhat roughly torn out and the jagged edge was plain to see.
“It would be somewhat of a coincidence if the removal of this page and of Mr. Field’s notes upon the fingerprints preserved there had no connection with his death.”
“Coincidence or not, there were all the days between the Saturday night of the dance and the murder when the notes might have been removed and the page torn out. But the door to the terrace was open, and though the revolver with which Jonathan Field was shot may have belonged to him, he had no licence for it, and no one in the house will admit to knowing anything about it. A German make-and heaven knows how how many thousand odds and ends of firearms were smuggled into the country while demobilization was going on! Jonathan may have wangled one in himself. He was in France in ’44-some kind of a Red Cross job. Anthony Hallam was in Africa. Johnny Fabian was turned eighteen when the war ended-he did just get over to France. Either of them could have brought a revolver back as a souvenir. Neither of them had any reason to shoot Jonathan. In fact one is thrown back upon the exasperating theory that the unknown murderer of the blitz story had somehow become aware that Jonathan was in possession of his fingerprints and an account of his confession, and that he was in the habit of regaling favoured visitors with a tale which featured them.” Miss Silver said,
“You would call it an exasperating theory?”
“My dear ma’am, we haven’t a clue as to who the blitz murderer may have been. We don’t even know that there was such a person. Jonathan Field may have dreamt the whole thing after concussion, or he may simply have invented it. From what I used to hear about him, he would have been perfectly capable of it! Then we don’t know how many times he had told the tale before, but when I heard him tell it, there were also present Anthony Hallam, Mirrie Field, Johnny Fabian, the Shotterleigh twins who are local young things, a man called Vincent, also local but a newcomer recently back from South America-lots of money and no family. I may say that he was one of the dullest men I have ever met, and that I nearly passed out with boredom whilst he was telling me how he lost a valuable postage stamp in a rapid. That makes seven of us. Oh, and Georgina Grey came in just as he started the story, but that is neither here nor there, because she had obviously heard it all before. Well, there were seven of us without her, and the only possible candidate for the part of the blitz murderer would be Vincent, because apart from the fingerprints Jonathan’s only chance of identifying the man was by recognizing his voice. He did say he thought he would be able to do that. So you see, that cuts out all the people with whose voices he was familiar, and it really cuts out Vincent too, because there he was, a guest in the house, and Jonathan obviously hadn’t recognized his voice. But when Georgina came in it was to tell him that people were arriving for the dance. She stood there on the threshold with the door open behind her. Jonathan played obstinate and insisted on finishing his yarn, and in the end she said, “Oh, well-” and went off without him. But she didn’t shut the door, and if there had been anyone out in the hall who wanted to listen in, I suppose he could have done so. That would extend the number of people who might have heard about the murderer’s confession and his fingerprints. There could be a further and quite indefinite extension of the number owing to the fact that it had been a very good story, and that any or all of the seven or eight people who had heard it first-hand from Jonathan on Saturday week could have told and retold it a dozen times before his murder took place. So that, in fact, it could have spread like the ripples in a pool.”
Miss Silver had been listening with attention.
“It is certainly the kind of story that people would repeat. You may even have repeated it yourself.”
He laughed.
“I could take credit for having been discreet, but as a matter of fact I was far too busy. The other seven would have had plenty of time to spread the tale, and coincidences do happen. It could have reached the murderer, and he could have decided that his confession and his fingerprints would be better in the fire-especially if there were even the remotest chance of his bumping into Jonathan and giving him the opportunity of identifying his voice. Let us suppose for a moment that that is what happened. We call the chap X. He comes down here, probably by car-there is quite a line in stealing cars for this kind of work. He parks it unobtrusively and walks round the house. He may just possibly have had an appointment with Jonathan-perhaps something in the way of fingerprints to offer. Or, seeing the light, he may have just knocked on the glass door and pitched some likely tale. Anyhow he gets in and they talk. At some period the album is got out and the fingerprints are exhibited. At some point X produces a revolver and shoots Jonathan Field, after which he tears out the page with his own fingerprints, takes the notes out of the envelope, and makes off. I don’t think he would have stopped to burn anything at the time in case of the shot having been heard. Once he was clear there would be nothing to connect him with the crime, and there would be all the time in the world to burn the page and the notes at a safe distance from Field End.”
Miss Silver’s hands were folded in her lap.
“I can imagine no reason why he should have left that revolver behind him.”
“Oh, well, I don’t insist on the revolver being his own. Let us suppose that it belonged to Jonathan. He is having an interview with a man whom he knows to have been a murderer. Wouldn’t it have been natural for him to have taken the precaution of having some means of protection handy?”