Harding said only: "Go on, please."
"At breakfast my uncle had favoured us with a short dissertation on method, and the way to run a household. He announced that at ten o'clock he was going to Ralton to cash a cheque for the month's expenses, and at the same time he made an assignation with the Halliday woman, to take her to see a litter of pups at his keeper's cottage at eleven o'clock. Wasn't it providential?"
"I take it you knew the workings of the safe?"
"Oh lord, yes! Who didn't? I turned the car and drove back, running it finally up the track where it was found. Criminals always make at least one mistake, don't they? That was mine. I thought the track was disused. I walked up through the spinney, skirted the edge of the drive, keeping to the cover of all those gloomy rhododendrons, and entered the study by the front window, at eleven thirty. The money was, as I had expected, in the safe. I took the exact sum I wanted, and departed again. Time, probably about eleven-forty-five, when I got back to the car. May have been later, but not much. Then I drove to Bramhurst."
"What I told you yesterday about that run was substantially correct, though I actually fetched up at the garage at one-thirty and not, as I first stated, at twelve thirty. Ah, you'd found that out already, had you? Stupid of me to have lied on that point, but I thought it more than likely that they wouldn't have any idea at the garage what time I handed the car over to them. They mended my tyre, cleaned the jet, which was badly choked, and I accomplished the rest of the journey in record time. Not really a good story, is it?"
"You must have been very badly in need of the money to take such a risk, Captain Billington-Smith."
"I was, but not, believe me, badly enough in need of it to murder my uncle. I admit it was an idiotic thing to do. I yielded to impulse. I usually do. The risk wasn't of exposure, though. But if Uncle succeeded in tracing the notes to me I ran a fair chance of being cut out of his Will. At the time I didn't consider that. One can't think of everything, can one?" He got up, and walked over to the old-fashioned mirror over the mantelpiece, and straightened his tie. In the mirror his eyes met Harding's. "Well, what is the next move? Are you going to arrest me on suspicion of having murdered my uncle? I don't somehow think you'll get a verdict."
"No, I haven't applied for a warrant for your arrest yet," answered Harding. "But it's not, as you said, a good story. I shall have to ask you to remain on the premises until I've investigated it. Meanwhile, I want you to sit down and put on paper what you have just told me."
"Certainly," said Francis. He went over to the desk against one wall, selected several sheets of writing-paper, and dipped a pen in the ink-pot. He wrote unhurriedly, and without any evidence of discomfort in the task. At the end he signed his name with a flourish, and handed the statement over to Harding, who read it through, and put it away in his pocket-book.
"And is that all for the moment?" inquired Francis.
"Yes, that's all," replied Harding.
"Quite enough too, don't you think?" said Francis, walking over to the door. "I said you were getting a remarkable insight into the family." He opened the door, and went out. Then he looked back. "It seems you're wanted, Inspector," he said languidly. "More disclosures, probably."
Harding turned, but Francis had gone, and it was Geoffrey who stood in the doorway.
Geoffrey said impetuously: "Can I come in? There's something frightfully important you ought to know! It absolutely clears me!"
"That's good," said Harding pleasantly. "Yes, of course come in. What is it I ought to know?"
Geoffrey looked back over his shoulder. "I say, will you come in, Mrs. Chudleigh? Mrs. Chudleigh saw me on Monday, Inspector. And look here! Do you know that that b— I mean, that cat of a Halliday woman is going about saying that it was I who murdered Father? She told Mrs. Chudleigh so bang in the middle of Silsbury High Street. I don't know whether I can have her up for libel. but I've a jolly good mind to!"
Harding was not paying very much attention to this speech. He bowed to Mrs. Chudleigh. "Good morning," he said. "Won't you sit down?"
"Thank you," she replied, taking the chair later vacated by Francis. "It is perfectly true, what Geoffrey says. I consider Mrs. Halliday a most slanderous woman. and immediately I heard what she had to say I saw that it was my clear duty to come straight up to the Grange to find you! I must say, I'm not in the least surprised at her spreading such a wicked scandal, for I mistrusted her from the moment I set eyes on her."
"Did you, Mrs. Chudleigh? But I think you were going to tell me where and when you saw Mr. Billington-Smith on Monday, weren't you?"
"I am just coming to that, if you will allow me to speak, Inspector. And I may mention that had I ever dreamed that Geoffrey could be suspected of having — murdered — his father I should have told you that I had seen him when you called on me the other night. But I am glad to say that I am not in the habit of suspecting people of crimes, and such a notion literally did not cross my mind."
"I quite understand," said Harding. "And where was it that you saw Mr. Billington-Smith?"
"I saw him walking down the footpath across Moorsale Park, just beside the lake. I was on my way home from this house."
"Do you mean that you met him, Mrs. Chudleigh, or that you saw him from a distance?"
"Considering that I was on the road, and he in the park I could hardly have met him, Inspector. But if you are hinting that I was mistaken in thinking it was Geoffrey whom I saw, I beg to state that I am not as weak-sighted as that!"
"In which direction was he walking, Mrs. Chudleigh?"
"He was going home, and I thought at the time that he would be late for lunch, for I happen to know Lady Billington-Smith always has lunch at one o'clock, and it must have been quite ten-to when I saw him because I know it takes just under half an hour to walk from the Vicarage to the Grange, door to door, and I was certainly home by one o'clock, if not earlier. So that would mean that it must have taken Geoffrey at least twenty minutes to get home from that particular point, because of the hill."
Harding drew out a pencil from his pocket, and opened his notebook. "I see. And you say this was at ten minutes to one? You mentioned a lake: that might give one rather a wide latitude. Can you place the exact spot rather more definitely?"
"I suppose you are going to see for yourself? No doubt you are only doing your duty, but I am not in the habit, strange as it may seem, of prevaricating. However, you can hardly mistake the place, since it was just where the arm of the lake stretches down to the right-of-way. If you like I will take you there myself."
"Thank you very much, but I don't think I need trouble you to do that," said Harding firmly.
She gathered up her handbag and gloves, and rose. "Then I think I will be getting home. Please tell Lady Billington-Smith that I was sorry she did not feel equal to seeing me, Geoffrey. Good morning, Inspector!" She favoured him with a stiff little bow, and walked out of the room, escorted by the grateful Geoffrey.
"It's a frightfully lucky thing you saw me," he confided, on the doorstep. "I mean, I had had a row with Father. and I suppose it did look rather black, really."
"I am only sorry that I didn't think to tell the Inspector sooner," said Mrs. Chudleigh, buttoning up her gloves. "No doubt had I been Mrs. Halliday I should have. You must have had a dreadfully worrying time."