“But that’s one of Miss Holiday’s beads!”
The Inspector said,
“Sure about that, Mrs. Selby?”
“Oh, yes-of course I’m sure. Why, she-”
There was a chair beside her. She sat down on it and stared at him.
“Mrs. Selby, when you gave us a description of what Miss Holiday was wearing on Sunday night you included a string of blue beads. Do you identify this bead as having formed part of that string?”
Her voice had sunk away. She could hardly hear it herself when she said,
“Yes-”
He said,
“When Miss Holiday’s body was taken up out of the well the string of beads had broken, but some of them were discovered in her clothing. This bead has just been found in the last of the sheds we searched. It had slipped inside the mouth of an old sack. Is there any way in which you can account for its being there?”
She said, “No.”
“Miss Holiday was alive when you saw her last?”
“Oh, yes.”
“She was wearing these beads?”
“Oh, yes.”
“The string wasn’t broken?”
“Oh, no.”
“Did you see her again after she left this house?”
He had taken her back to the Sunday evening-sitting there with Miss Holiday in the lounge-seeing the blue beads and thinking how pretty they were when the bits of gold and silver sparkled under the light-going to the door with her and seeing her out. Everything else seemed to have slipped away. It was just saying good-bye on the Sunday evening that was real. She could see Miss Holiday going out of the front door, and herself shutting it and turning the key. She said,
“I let her out, and I locked the door. I never saw her again.”
CHAPTER 43
When Lydia Crewe stopped screaming she began to talk. She talked through all that remained of the night, and she was still talking when they brought Fred Selby into the station and began to question him there after cautioning him that anything he said might be taken down and used in evidence. Lydia Crewe had been cautioned too, but it made no difference, she just went on talking. Something-some control, some check, had slipped. Frank Abbott was reminded of a clock belonging to his grandmother, the redoubtable Lady Evelyn Abbott. It had started striking in the middle of family prayers and no one had been able to stop it. Her look of surprise and disapproval merging into outraged rebuke remained with him as a pleasant memory.
But there was nothing pleasant about Lydia Crewe’s performance. Plainly enough, she had passed the bounds of sanity whilst remaining dreadfully and convincingly lucid. First and foremost there stood out pride in her own achievements. To preserve Crewe House, to endow it with new wealth, were objects which justified all that she had done, and she took great pride in the doing of it. When they told her that her conversation about the Melbury rubies had been overheard by two witnesses and the rubies themselves recovered, two from the bodies of spiders freshly mounted by Henry, and the rest from his table drawer, she ran off into telling them exactly how she had changed the stones.
“What was the good of them to Felicia Melbury or to anyone else kept locked up in a safe? How many times do you suppose she wore them last year? Exactly twice-at the County Ball and the Melbury Hunt Ball! So I rang her up and said could I come over-we are connected by marriage, you know-and when I got there she told me she was wearing the famous necklace, which I knew already, and she was quite pleased to show it off. So I had my chance. You wouldn’t understand the process, because I invented it myself-paper specially prepared to take an exact impression. It has, of course, to be supplemented by a keen colour sense and a photographic memory, both of which I possess. I had only to invent a pretext for getting her out of the room for a moment. I said that I had forgotten my handkerchief, and she went into her bedroom next door to get me one. By the time she returned the impression had been taken and the paper was safe in my bag. To make a finished sketch from which a jeweller could work was a business requiring a great deal of skill. The stones for the substitute necklace came from Paris to my specification. Selby has an extremely clever workman in his shop in Garstin Street. You didn’t know he had a jeweller’s shop, did you-but no one expects the police to be clever. We outwitted you every time.”
The Melbury superintendent said nothing. A massive man, not given to change of countenance. Frank Abbott said,
“Not this time, Miss Crewe.”
She went on as if he had not spoken.
“It’s just a shabby shop in a shabby street-pins on brooches, and watches to mend-cheap strings of pearls for the local girl to put round her neck and think she looks like somebody. You didn’t know Selby had a shop like that, did you? He retired from the business he used to run with his brother, but he stuck to his little jeweller’s shop and the clever Hirsch-a very industrious man and actually very trustworthy. When the necklace was ready I had only to wait for the Hunt Ball and go over to Melbury Towers again. Felicia doesn’t like me, but she is afraid of my tongue. I go there when I choose, and she is always very polite. There is very little I don’t know about most people in the county. I went over, I admired the necklace, and I changed it for the one which Hirsch had made. She was actually in the room at the time. I had called her attention to something in the garden, and the change only took a moment.”
The harsh voice went on and on. She was asked about Miss Holiday. She took up the tale of the envelope thrust carelessly into an overall pocket by a frightened woman and dropped again for Lucy Cunningham to pick up and bring back to Crewe House.
“So then, you see, she had to go. She might have looked inside and seen the sketch for the necklace. Selby managed very cleverly.”
The Superintendent said,
“How did he manage?”
Her eyes looked past him, pleased like a cat with a bird.
“I went across the fields and let him know. He said she would be coming down to see his wife as soon as he went past to the Holly Tree. She was frightened of men, you know! Such a fool! He said he could slip out and catch her just before nine, when she would be going home. She always went at the same time because the old woman locked up then. He said no one would miss him if he slipped out for a minute or two like that. It’s no distance. So that is what he did.”
“He killed Miss Holiday?”
“Oh, no, he only stunned her. And we put her in one of the sheds at the back of the bungalow. You see, we couldn’t put her down the well until quite late in the night in case of there being anyone awake. It wouldn’t have done for Mrs. Selby to notice anything, or old Mrs. Maple.”
The Superintendent put his hand to his chin.
“Miss Crewe, you have been warned that what you say is being taken down and may be used in evidence. Am I to understand that you were present when Miss Holiday was first stunned and at some time later thrown into the well at the bottom of Mrs. Maple’s garden?”
Her glance flickered over him, dry and bright.
“Oh, yes-he couldn’t possibly have managed without me. There is a most convenient path across the fields which comes out at the stile in Vicarage Lane quite close to the Selbys’ bungalow. I can assure you the whole thing was extremely well organized. I spared no trouble. You must understand, Superintendent, that the controlling mind has been my own throughout. Selby has been useful, but he has always taken his orders from me. He is quite incapable of working out the intricate plans which have made our enterprise so successful. I must insist that you are clear on this point.”