Джорджетт Хейер - A Blunt Instrument

"Yes," said North. "But I wasn't sure that I wanted to hear it."

"An ostrich act? You? Well, I wouldn't have thought it of you," said Sally.

Helen pulled his hand to her cheek. "And thinking that, you - you tried to get yourself arrested to save me! Oh, John!"

"I'm sorry, Helen. We seemed to have lost one another."

Sally took the empty glass away from her sister. "Look here, do you mind postponing all this? You've got to come down and tell the Superintendent exactly what did happen on the fatal evening. At the moment he looks like pinching Neville for the murder, which I'm not at all in favour of. I don't know whether your evidence will be any good to him, but it might be. Shove some powder on your nose, and come downstairs."

Helen got up and went rather wearily to her dressingtable. "All right, if I must. Though why you should care, I don't know. I thought you had no use for Neville."

"I have never," said Miss Drew, inaccurately, but with dignity, "allowed vulgar prejudice to influence my judgment. Moreover, I don't share your conviction that as long as John isn't pinched for the murder it doesn't matter who is. Are you ready?"

Helen passed a comb through her hair, patted the waves into place, critically surveyed her profile with the aid of a hand-mirror, and admitted that she was ready.

Hannasyde was awaiting them in the library still with Neville. North said to him, with a slight, rueful smile: "We owe you an apology, Superintendent. I rather think we've rendered ourselves liable to criminal prosecution."

"Yes, you've been thoroughly obstructive," replied Hannasyde, but with a twinkle. "Now, Mrs. North, will you please tell me exactly what did happen while you were at Greystones on the 17th?"

"I did tell you," she said, raising her eyes to his face. "It was quite true, my story. Really, it was!"

"Which one?" inquired Neville.

"The one I told the Superintendent at the police station that day. I did hide behind the bush, and I did go back into the study to look for my IOUs."

"And the man you saw enter the study? You're quite sure that Fletcher saw him off the premises before 10.00 p.m.?"

"Yes, absolutely.,

"And you heard Fletcher returning towards the house just before you left the study?"

She nodded. "Yes, and he was whistling. I heard his step on the gravel path. He was strolling, I think, not hurrying at all."

"I see. Thank you."

Sally saw that he was frowning a little, and said shrewdly: "You don't like my sister's evidence, Superintendent?"

"I wouldn't say that," he answered evasively.

Just a moment," said Neville, who had been jotting some notes down on the back of an envelope. "Do you think I could have done this? 10.01, my uncle alive and kicking; 10.02, man seen making off down Maple Grove; 10.05, my uncle discovered dead. Who was the mysterious second man? Did he do it? Was I he? And if so, why? Actions strange and apparently senseless. I shall resist arrest."

"No question of arrest," announced Sally. "There's no case against you. If you did it, what was your weapon?"

Neville pointed a long finger at Hannasyde. "The answer is in the Superintendent's face, loved one. The paper-weight! The paper-weight which I myself introduced into the plot."

Hannasyde remained silent. Sally replied: "Yes, I see that. But if you had murdered Ernie, it would have taken some nerve to make the police a present of your weapon."

"Yes, wouldn't it?" he agreed. "I should have stuttered with fright. Besides, I don't see the point. What would I do it for?"

"Oh, the overweening conceit of the murderer!" said Sally. "That's a well-known feature of the homicidal mind, isn't it, Superintendent?"

"You have made a study of the subject, Miss Drew," he answered non-committally.

"Of course I have. But my own opinion is that Neville doesn't suffer from that kind of conceit. You can say it was a piece of diabolical cunning, if you like, but there again there's an objection. There was no reason why you should suspect the paper-weight more than any other of the weapons there must be at Greystones. So why should he have brought it to your notice?"

"Perverted sense of humour," supplied Neville. "The murderer's freakish turn of mind. I shall soon begin to believe I'm guilty. Oh, but just think of me murdering a man for his millions! No, I won't subscribe to it: it's a repulsive solution to an otherwise recherche crime."

"Yet it is, I believe, a fact that your financial condition, at the time of your uncle's death, was extremely precarious?" said Hannasyde.

North, who had been standing behind his wife's chair in silence, intervened at this, saying in his even way: "That question, Superintendent, should surely not be put to Mr. Fletcher in public?"

Neville blinked. "Oh, isn't that sweet of John? And I quite thought he didn't like me!"

Hannasyde said, with something of a snap: "Quite right, Mr. North. But as, at the outset of this interview, I made it plain that I wished to interrogate him in private, and he refused to allow Miss Drew to leave the room, you will agree that discretion on my part would be quite superfluous. I am, however, still prepared to see Mr. Fletcher alone, if he wishes it."

"But I don't, I don't!" said Neville. "I should dither with fright if closeted with you alone. Besides, Miss Drew is acting as my solicitor. I shouldn't dare to open my mouth if she weren't here to check my irresponsible utterances."

"Then perhaps you will tell me whether I am correct in saying that you were very awkwardly placed, as regards finance, at the time of your uncle's death?"

"Well, no," answered Neville diffidently. "I didn't find anything awkward about it."

"Indeed! Are you prepared to state that you had a credit balance at your bank?"

"Oh, I shouldn't think so!" said Neville. "I never have at the end of the quarter."

"Were you not, in fact, very much overdrawn?"

"I don't know. Was I?"

"Isn't this a- little unworthy of you, Mr. Fletcher? Did you not receive a communication from your bank, on the 14th of the month, informing you of the state of your overdraft?"

"Ah, I thought that was what it was about!" said Neville. "It generally is. Though not always, mind you. The bank once wrote to me about some securities, or something, of mine, and it led to quite a lot of trouble, on account of their stamping the name of the bank on the envelope. Because, of course, when I saw that I put the letter into the waste-paper basket. I mean, wouldn't you?"

"Are you asking me to believe that you did not open the bank's letter?"

"Well, it'll make things much easier for you if you do believe it," said Neville engagingly.

Hannasyde looked a little non-plussed, but said: "You did not, then, apply to your uncle for funds to meet your liabilities?"

"Oh no!"

"Did you perhaps know that it would be useless?"

"But it wouldn't have been," objected Neville.

"Your uncle had not warned you that he would not be responsible for your debts?"

Neville reflected. "I don't think so. But I do remember that he was most annoyed about an episode in my career that happened in Budapest. It was all about a Russian woman, and I didn't really want Ernie to interfere. But he had a lot of hidebound ideas about the honour of the name, and prison being the final disgrace, and he would insist on buying me out. He didn't like me being County Courted either. I've always thought it would probably save a lot of bother to be declared bankrupt, but Ernie couldn't see it in that light at all. However, I don't want to speak ill of the dead, and I expect he meant well."

"Unpaid bills do not worry you, Mr. Fletcher?"

"Oh, no! One can always fly the country," said Neville, with one of his sleepy smiles.

Hannasyde looked rather searchingly at him. "I see. A novel point of view."