Patricia Wentworth - Through The Wall

As he stood there and waited he could hear Miss Silver’s light tap on the bedroom door and the sound of her voice speaking with cheerful authority. He could not distinguish the words, but there was definitely a flavour of the “Come along now, dear, and say your lesson!” of schoolroom days.

There was a delay of a few minutes, during which Inspector Crisp shut and locked the front door and came to stand beside him. Then Miss Silver came to the head of the stairs and said with her little preliminary cough,

“I think it would be best if you will come up.”

They were no more than half way, when Marian Brand came out of her sister’s room and passed the bathroom door to go to her own. Before she could reach it Richard Cunningham called her name. He had been waiting there in the room across the landing for her to emerge. They stood for a moment. Some words passed, too low to be overheard, and then as March and Crisp came up on to the landing, they passed them and went down.

Ina Felton’s door was standing open. Crisp allowed the Chief Constable to precede him and shut it behind them.

Ina was sitting in the chintz-covered chair by the window. It was evident that she had been weeping bitterly. The pale skin was blotched, the eyes swimming, the lids swollen and reddened. She made a soft helpless movement as they came in. There could be no greater contrast to the white, frozen girl whom they had interviewed before. Whatever she felt about her husband’s death, it had shattered her control. March thought, “If she knows anything, it will come out now.” He said in his pleasant voice,

“I am so sorry to trouble you, Mrs. Felton, but you will realize that we have our duty to do. No one has a greater interest in clearing this matter up than you have.”

There was a little broken sob in her voice as she said,

“Yes.”

Miss Silver had been efficient in the matter of chairs. There was one for herself at Ina Felton’s side. One of those long, narrow Victorian couches had been moved from the foot of the bed and set at a convenient angle for the two men. When they had seated themselves March said,

“Your husband had a conversation with you in this room at about three o’clock. I am sure you must understand that everything which happened this afternoon is important. He came here to talk to you. Will you tell us what you talked about?”

She said in a trembling voice, “We talked-”

“Yes? What did you talk about?”

She looked at Miss Silver.

“Must I say?”

“You are not legally obliged to do so, but you would be well advised to give the police all the help you can. You have nothing to be afraid of if you have done nothing wrong.”

Ina turned her dark eyes on March.

“I haven’t-really. I’ll tell you. It won’t hurt him, because nobody can possibly think he did it now.”

“Go on, Mrs. Felton.”

She had a damp, crushed handkerchief in her right hand. She rubbed it now across her eyes like a child impatient of its tears. Then she said,

“On Thursday night I couldn’t sleep. I was unhappy- about Cyril. He thought I ought to have had half the money. Uncle Martin left it all to Marian, you know-he thought Cyril would spend it. And Cyril was angry. He wanted Marian to give me half, but she wouldn’t. He would have spent it, you know.”

“Yes, Mrs. Felton?”

She was twisting the handkerchief with shaking fingers.

“I was very unhappy. And then I found he knew Helen Adrian-rather well. He didn’t tell me, but I could see-they knew each other. They were flirting and talking at the picnic. I was dreadfully unhappy. It wasn’t just that, you know-it was everything. I thought he didn’t care any longer-I thought our marriage was breaking up. I couldn’t sleep.”

The brown eyes were fixed on March’s face. They were full of tears, but the tears had ceased to fall. It was no longer difficult to speak-it was a relief. And nothing she said could hurt Cyril any more.

“Yes, Mrs. Felton?”

She said, “I heard the floor-board creak. It does, you know-just outside the room Cyril had.”

“What time was this?”

“It had struck one. The big clock in the hall strikes the hours. I was thinking what a lot of the night there was to come. Then I heard the floor-board creak. I went to the door and listened. I thought-I thought-” Her voice stopped for a moment, then went on again. “I waited a little, then I opened the door. Cyril was going down the stairs. He had a torch. I thought he was going to meet Helen Adrian. I went out on to the landing and listened. He went into the passage and opened the door through into the other house. The bolt at the bottom made a creaking noise. Helen Adrian came through. They were whispering there. He took down Marian’s raincoat, and she put it on. They went into the study. Then I went back to my room. They came out through the study into the garden and went down the steps on the other side of the lawn. Cyril put his torch on when they came to the steps. Helen had the raincoat on, and the blue and yellow scarf over her head. The light shone on it when she went down the steps. He oughtn’t to have let her take Marian’s scarf.” She was speaking in a quiet, exhausted voice. She stopped.

March said,

“Yes, Mrs. Felton?”

“Nothing seemed to matter any more. I didn’t want to go on looking out the window. I didn’t want to know any more. I went and lay down on my bed. I felt very giddy and faint. I don’t know whether I fainted, or whether I went to sleep- I really don’t know. I didn’t hear the board creak when Cyril came back. I didn’t hear anything at all until the clock struck five. I think I must have been asleep, because I didn’t hear Cyril come back when he went down to bolt the door.”

“He went down again after he had come in? How do you know?”

She said, “He told me,” and took a long sighing breath.

“When?”

“This afternoon.”

March leaned forward.

“He told you what happened on Thursday night?”

“Yes.”

“Will you tell us just what he said.”

She told them in the same gentle, expressionless voice. When she had finished March said,

“He told you that he was blackmailing her, that she refused what he was asking and offered him ten pounds, and that he then told her there was nothing doing and came up to the house, leaving her there alive?”

Ina said, “Yes.”

“Mrs. Felton-did you think he was speaking the truth?”

She had a faintly startled expression. Her voice changed.

“Not at first-because of the scarf. Someone brought it in, and someone shut the study door and the door through into the other house. He said he didn’t know anything about the scarf. He said Helen was wearing it when he came in. He said he left her there on the seat, and he left both the doors so that she could come in and go through to the other house. And then when he woke up in the morning he remembered that she wouldn’t have been able to bolt the door after going through, so he went down and did it. He said it was just beginning to get light.”

“Was the scarf there when he came down?”

“I asked him that, and he said he didn’t notice. It was dark in the passage, and he wasn’t thinking about it-he just wanted to bolt the door and get back to bed. After he said all that I believed him. Mr. March, he really was telling the truth. He didn’t always, but that part about coming in and leaving the doors open and then going down and shutting them-that was really true. I knew it was when he was saying it. I thought they had had a quarrel and he had killed her. And then I knew he hadn’t. I said so, and he said-he said-” All at once she began to tremble-“Mr. March, he said, ‘Of course I didn’t, but I know who did.’ ”