Rodney Hunter, as the girl paused, felt impelled to ask a question.
“Did they know whose handwriting it was?”
“It was Jeremy Wilkes’s,” replied the other simply. “Though they never proved that, never more than slightly suspected it, and the circumstances did not bear it out. In fact, a knife stained with blood was actually found in Mr. Wilkes’s possession. But the police never brought it to anything, poor souls. For, you see, not Mr. Wilkes-or anyone else in the world-could possibly have done the murder.”
“I don’t understand that,” said Hunter, rather sharply.
“Forgive me if I am stupid about telling things,” urged their hostess in a tone of apology. She seemed to be listening to the chimney growl under a cold sky, and listening with hard, placid eyes. “But even the village gossips could tell that. When Mrs. Randall came here to the house on that morning, both the front and the back doors were locked and securely bolted on the inside. All the windows were locked on the inside. If you will look at the fastenings in this dear place, you will know what that means.
“But, bless you, that was the least of it! I told you about the snow. The snowfall had stopped at nine o’clock in the evening, hours and hours before Mrs. Waycross was murdered. When the police came, there were only two separate sets of footprints in the great unmarked half acre of snow round the house. One set belonged to Mr. Wilkes, who had come up and looked in through the window the night before. The other belonged to Mrs. Randall. The police could follow and explain both sets of tracks; but there were no other tracks at all, and no one was hiding in the house.
“Of course, it was absurd to suspect Mr. Wilkes. It was not only that he told a perfectly straight story about the man in the tall hat; but both Dr. Sutton and Mr. Pawley, who drove back with him from Five Ashes, were there to swear he could not have done it. You understand, he came no closer to the house than the windows of this room. They could watch every step he made in the moonlight, and they did. Afterwards he drove home with Dr. Sutton and slept there; or, I should say, they continued their terrible drinking until daylight. It is true that they found in his possession a knife with blood on it, but he explained that he had used the knife to gut a rabbit.
“It was the same with poor Mrs. Randall, who had been up all night about her midwife’s duties, though naturally it was even more absurd to think of her. But there were no other footprints at all, either coming to or going from the house, in all that stretch of snow; and all the ways in or out were locked on the inside.”
It was Muriel who spoke then, in a voice that tried to be crisp, but wavered in spite of her. “Are you telling us that all this is true?” she demanded.
“I am teasing you a little, my dear,” said the other. “But really and truly, it all did happen. Perhaps I will show you in a moment.”
“I suppose it was really the husband who did it?” asked Muriel in a bored tone.
“Poor Mr. Waycross!” said their hostess tenderly. “He spent the night in a temperance hotel near Charing Cross Station, as he always did, and, of course, he never left it. When he learned about his wife’s duplicity”-again Hunter thought she was going to pull down a corner of her eyelid-“it nearly drove him out of his mind, poor fellow. I think he gave up agricultural machinery and took to preaching, but I am not sure. I know he left the district soon afterwards, and before he left he insisted on burning the mattress of their bed. It was a dreadful scandal.”
“But in that case,” insisted Hunter, “who did kill her? And, if there were no footprints and all the doors were locked, how did the murderer come or go? Finally, if all this happened in February, what does it have to do with people being out of the house on Christmas Eve?”
“Ah, that is the real story. That is what I meant to tell you.”
She grew very subdued.
“It must have been very interesting to watch the people alter and grow older, or find queer paths, in the years afterwards. For, of course, nothing did happen as yet. The police presently gave it all up; for decency’s sake it was allowed to rest. There was a new pump built in the market square; and the news of the Prince of Wales’s going to India in ’seventy-five to talk about; and presently a new family came to live at ‘Clearlawns’ and began to raise their children. The trees and the rains in summer were just the same, you know. It must have been seven or eight years before anything happened, for Jane Waycross was very patient.
“Several of the people had died in the meantime. Mrs. Randall had, in a fit of quinsy; and so had Dr. Sutton, but that was a great mercy, because he fell by the way when he was going out to perform an amputation with too much of the drink in him. But Mr. Pawley had prospered-and, above all, so had Mr. Wilkes. He had become an even finer figure of a man, they tell me, as he drew near middle age. When he married he gave up all his loose habits. Yes, he married; it was the Tinsley heiress, Miss Linshaw, whom he had been courting at the time of the murder; and I have heard that poor Jane Waycross, even after she was married to Mr. Waycross, used to bite her pillow at night because she was so horribly jealous of Miss Linshaw.
“Mr. Wilkes had always been tall, and now he was finely stout. He always wore frock coats. Though he had lost most of his hair, his beard was full and curly; he had twinkling black eyes, and twinkling ruddy cheeks, and a bluff voice. All the children ran to him. They say he broke as many feminine hearts as before. At any wholesome entertainment he was always the first to lead the cotillion or applaud the fiddler, and I do not know what hostesses would have done without him.
“On Christmas Eve, then-remember, I am not sure of the date-the Fentons gave a Christmas party. The Fentons were the very nice family who had taken this house afterwards, you know. There was to be no dancing, but all the old games. Naturally, Mr. Wilkes was the first of all to be invited, and the first to accept; for everything was all smoothed away by time, like the wrinkles in last year’s counterpane; and what’s past is past, or so they say. They had decorated the house with holly and mistletoe, and guests began to arrive as early as two in the afternoon.
“I had all this from Mr. Fenton’s aunt (one of the Warwickshire Abbotts) who was actually staying here at the time. In spite of such a festal season, the preparations had not been going at all well that day, though such preparations usually did. Miss Abbott complained that there was a nasty earthy smell in the house. It was a dark and raw day, and the chimneys did not seem to draw as well as they should. What is more, Mrs. Fenton cut her finger when she was carving the cold fowl, because she said one of the children had been hiding behind the window curtains in here, and peeping out at her; she was very angry. But Mr. Fenton, who was going about the house in his carpet slippers before the arrival of the guests, called her ‘Mother’ and said that it was Christmas.
“It is certainly true that they forgot all about this when the fun of the games began. Such squealings you never heard!-or so I am told. Foremost of all at Bobbing for Apples or Nuts in May was Mr. Jeremy Wilkes. He stood, gravely paternal, in the midst of everything, with his ugly wife beside him, and stroked his beard. He saluted each of the ladies on the cheek under the mistletoe; there was also some scampering to salute him; and, though he did remain for longer than was necessary behind the window curtains with the younger Miss Twigelow, his wife only smiled. There was only one unpleasant incident, soon forgotten. Towards dusk a great gusty wind began to come up, with the chimneys smoking worse than usual. It being nearly dark, Mr. Fenton said it was time to fetch in the Snapdragon Bowl and watch it flame. You know the game? It is a great bowl of lighted spirit, and you must thrust in your hand and pluck out a raisin from the bottom without scorching your fingers. Mr. Fenton carried it in on a tray in the half darkness; it was flickering with that bluish flame you have seen on Christmas puddings. Miss Abbott said that once, in carrying it, he started and turned round. She said that for a second she thought there was a face looking over his shoulder, and it wasn’t a nice face.