The sergeant's jaw dropped. "Suppressing valuable evidence, Mr. Amberley, sir!"
"Exactly. But Fraser would probably have got her hanged for the murder if I'd spoken. Now you begin to understand why this very dull crime interested me so much. Dawson was alive when you found him, wasn't he, Shirley?"
Just alive. He knew me. He hadn't brought his half of the will. I don't know why not. Probably because he wanted to squeeze us for more money. Anyway he managed to tell me where it was. Then you came."
"You mean to tell me, sir," said the sergeant, "that you knew about this will, and all the rest, right from the start and never let on to us?"
"Not at all. I knew nothing. But I was interested. The only thing I knew was that the murder had been committed for the purpose of robbery. When I learned Dawson's identity I assumed that as it could hardly be money that he had, and as nothing of value was missing from the manor, it was in all probability a document. I made the acquaintance of Basil Fountain. It was on the occasion of my first visit to the manor that my suspicions were roused against Collins. He was rather to anxious to overhear what I had to say. What the conection between him and Fountain was I had no idea, but that there was one I was fairly certain. Fountain knew he was listening at the door, and he didn't want us to guess that. It seemed to me a point worth remembering, too, that Collins' alibi rested on Fountain's word alone. I was sufficiently interested to make a few casual inquiries about Fountain. Before I connected him with the crime at all, you, Aunt Marion, had divulged that you did not like him. I have a great respect for your instinct. You, Felicity, said that he was always grumbling about money. He kicked up a fuss about the cost of Joan's fancy dress. When I made his acquaintance that didn't fit in with his obviously generous, rather extravagant nature. He was the type of man who likes spending money. On the face of it, it looked as though he were hard up. Why? His fortune was considerable, and you, Anthony, informed me that he didn't go in for excesses. You described him quite accurately as a bonhomous sportsman. You also informed me that although he and Joan had never hit it off life had gone more or less smoothly until he came into possession of his uncle's estate."
"I seem to have told you the hell of a lot," remarked Anthony.
"You did. It was to you that I owed my knowledge of his fondness for the sea. You described his bungalow at Littlehaven to me and the super motorboat he had, which was capable of crossing the Channel. At the time that conveyed nothing particular to me. It came in useful later. You also told me that he had asked you to remain on at the manor, actuated, you thought, by funk. He did not want to be left alone there. That might have arisen from his undoubtedy gregarious nature. On the other hand it looked very much as though the presence of guests in the house was a protection. So it was. While you and Joan were there Collins had to walk warily. Fountain was beginning to be afraid of him. He knew that Collins had murdered Dawson, but he dared not give him away for fear Collins should counter with the real will - which Fountain undoubtedly thought he possessed in its entirety. That he didn't eliminate Collins then was due, I feel sure, to his perfectly sincere horror of death. If you remember, Anthony, Miss Fountain mentioned that on the occasion of my first meeting with her. He could not bear the thought of a dead body - even a puppy's."
"After the inquest you, Sergeant, told me of Dawson's money. It puzzled you. You could find no explanation for it. It was then that the thought that he might have been blackmailing Fountain crossed my mind. But what you, Shirley, had to do with any of this I had no idea until the night of the fancy-dress ball at the manor. You attended that ball, quite uninvited, in the costume of an Italian peasant-girl."
"Good Lord, was it you?" cried Felicity. "Joan and I wondered who on earth it could be, because you weren't there at the unmasking. I say, how perfectly thrilling of you!"
"Restrain your ardours, my love," requested Mr. Amberley. "When I discovered the contadina's identity I thought it worth while to keep an eye on her. It did not seem to me probable that she had gate-crashed the ball from a mere desire to be at an amusing party. Putting two and two together I inferred that she had seized the opportunity to get into the manor for some very definate purpose. Then I saw the Reynolds on the passage."
"Beg pardon, sir?"
"A portrait., Sergeant. The portrait of a lady of the late eighteenth century. The resemblance is most striking, Shirley. Fountain came upon me while I was studying this portrait, and from what he said I knew that he was unaware of your presence in the district. He was not much interested in the picture but remarked, with perfect truth, that the lady had the family beetle brows. He thought she was probably a great-grandmother but recommended me to ask the housekeeper."
"The main facts in my possession then were, briefly, these: that Fountain's butler had been shot with robbery as the motive; that a mysterious lady bearing a startling resemblance to the family had been present on that occasion and was now masquerading in the house in disguise; and that Jasper Fountain had had a son, then deceased, whom he had disinherited on account of his predilection for drink - and other things. It proved nothing, but was an interesting coincidence that Mark Brown also drank." He paused and pressed the tobacco down in the bowl of his pipe with his thumb. "We now come to the extremely reprehensible proceedings of Miss Shirley Fountain. Dawson having informed her that his half of the will was hidden in a certain tallboy, she went to find it. She was interrupted by the appearance of Collins, who was watching her with great interest. Both he and she left the tallboy, which was in the passage leading to the picture gallery, and went downstairs. A bad moment, wasn't it, Shirley?"
"Thanks to you!" she retorted.
He laughed "All your own fault, my dear. Well, when the two of them had gone I had a look in the tallboy myself and found the torn half of a will. Part of Jasper Fountain signature was on it, and most of the signatures of the two main witnesses. The names of the legatees were upon the other half, but the thing seemed fairly obvious in spite of that."
"In due course Shirley came back to the tallboy. Finding the will gone she leaped to the conclusion that Collins had been before her. Right?"
"Of course," she said. "What else could I think?"
"I'll tell you later," he said. "Collins, who came a few minutes later to secure the missing half, naturally ;assumed that Shirley had outwitted him. An engaging st;ite of mind on both sides."
Shirley interrupted. "Yes, I've no doubt, but why couldn't you have told me you had it?"
"My good child, once I had that torn paper in my possession there was very little you could tell me that I didn't already know. It was, in fact, infinitely better that neither you nor Collins should know who really had the will. Your combined antics were far more helpful to me than your confidence would have been. There was another reason too, which concerns you and me alone. To continue: On the following day I sustained a visit from Colonel Watson and agreed to take on the case. I now held most of the strings of it. I knew that there was a later will in existence which at least two people were painfully anxious to get hold of. Your anxiety, Shirley, led me to suppose that it was in your favour; Collins' anxiety confirmed my previous suspicion that he was blackmailing Fountain with it. It seemed probable that he held the missing half. The first thing to be proved was your identity, and the main problem was how to get hold of the rest of the will, which obviously existed. It was no case for the police, who wouldn't have acted on an entirely valueless half. I went up to London. I instructed my man Peterson to apply for the vacant post of butler at the manor and provided him with a faked reference, which reminds me that you gave him a bad moment over that, Sergeant."