Patricia Wentworth - Through The Wall

There was a brief electric silence.

Miss Silver said, “Dear me!”

Crisp and the Chief Constable both spoke together.

“Mrs. Felton!”

Ina said a little breathlessly, “That’s what he said. But he didn’t tell me who it was.”

“He didn’t give you any indication?”

She shook her head.

“He said I’d better not know.”

“Do you think he really knew anything?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Yes, I think he did. I think-he saw-someone. He wouldn’t tell me. He said he wanted a good sleep and he was going to go and have it.”

“And that was all?”

“Yes.”

“You had no further conversation?”

“Not about that.”

“Mrs. Felton, I am afraid I must press you. Someone who was in the garden overheard a part of your conversation with your husband. You were heard to say, ‘No, no, I won’t. It’s no use your wanting me to, because I won’t.’ That does not seem to fit in with what you have just been telling us.”

The colour came up into her face. She said,

“No.”

“I am afraid I must ask you to explain.”

She said, “He wanted me to say that he was here with me on Thursday night.”

“I see. But you had already said he wasn’t.”

“That is what I told him. I said it wouldn’t be any good, and if he knew who it was-” Her voice trailed away.

“You went on refusing?”

“I said I wouldn’t, and he was angry. He went away angry.” She put her hands up to her face and covered it.

Miss Silver directed what might almost be described as a commanding look at the Chief Constable. He got to his feet and said,

“I am very sorry to have distressed you, Mrs. Felton,” and retreated, taking Inspector Crisp with him.

As they went down the stairs together, Crisp said in a dogged voice,

“Well, sir, that puts a bit of different complexion on everything, doesn’t it? You wouldn’t arrest Felix Brand because of this house being shut up from seven in the evening till Jackson got here from Farne in the morning and no possibility of anyone from the other house being able to get in and put the scarf where it was found. And now it seems the house wasn’t shut up at all. The study door and the door between the houses, they were both wide open between midnight and, say, five in the morning, when Mr. Felton tells his wife he woke up and went down and shut them. Anyone that had murdered Miss Adrian could have brought that scarf in and hung it up. Felix Brand as well as anyone else. Nothing to stop him-nothing to stop anyone.”

A little later, when Crisp had gone back to taking statements, Miss Silver came down to the study, leaving Marian with her sister, and Richard Cunningham in his room across the landing with the door wide open so that he could see everyone who came up or went down. He caught Miss Silver at the top of the stairs and said abruptly,

“I want to get those girls away. They can’t stay here another night. There’s a homicidal lunatic about and it isn’t safe. What did anyone want to kill Felton for?”

She said gravely,

“He knew who the murderer was.” And then, “I am going down to speak to the Chief Constable now. I will see what he says about Miss Brand and Mrs. Felton.”

She went on down the stairs, and he went back to his room with the open door.

Randal March was standing by the study window looking out. When Miss Silver came in he shut the window and turned. He met a look of intelligence and commendation. She said,

“Ah, I see you have thought of that.”

“I don’t want to run any risk of being overheard.”

“No. You may have noticed that I had shut the window upstairs. It may interest you to know that during his interview with his wife Cyril Felton occupied that armchair by the window, and it was certainly open then, since Eliza heard part of what was said.”

“You mean that his remark about knowing who the murderer was might have been overheard?”

“Yes, Randal.”

He waited until she was seated in one of the low armless chairs which she preferred. She was, for once, without her knitting-bag. Her hands lay in her lap. When he had pulled up a chair at a comfortable angle to her own he said,

“Do you think that girl is speaking the truth?”

“Oh, yes, Randal. She had been holding everything back. It was like a sort of cramp. She did not say a word even to her sister. But this second shock broke all her controls. She was no longer capable of holding back anything at all.”

“Do you think Felton really knew who the murderer was?”

She gave him the look which would in his schoolroom days have been accompanied by a “Come, Randal, you can do better than that.” In their changed circumstances the thought was rather differently expressed.

“Can you give me any other reason why he should have been murdered?”

He nodded.

“It looks that way. But if he really knew anything, why did he not come to the police with it? And why try to get his wife to cook up an alibi for him when she had already said that he was not with her on Thursday night?”

She coughed. Her tone was prim as she said,

“You are not forgetting that he had been endeavouring to blackmail Helen Adrian? I am afraid the answer to your question is that he had no intention of going to the police, because it was in his mind to make a profit out of what he knew. In order to be in a position to do this he required an alibi for himself. He probably felt sure that he could induce his wife to give him one. What he did not take into account was that to blackmail a murderer is the most dangerous form of crime in the world. There is, from the murderer’s point of view, only one real chance of survival, the death of the blackmailer.”

“I agree.”

“It is impossible to say whether his remark to his wife about knowing the murderer’s identity was overheard and his death then and there determined upon, or whether he had already made some blackmailing approach, but from the moment the murderer knew that he or she was discovered Cyril Felton’s death became a necessity.” She coughed. “I am, of course, taking the murderer’s point of view.”

At any other moment he might have smiled, but he felt no inclination to do so now. He said,

“Yes-you’re right.” Then, with an abrupt change of voice and manner, “You see how all this affects Felix Brand’s position. I struck out against arresting him because he couldn’t have brought that scarf back into the house and locked up- the evidence then being that all doors and windows in this house were shut, locked, or bolted as from seven-fifteen, with the exception of bedroom windows opened after the occupant was ready for bed. Well, that’s all gone by the board. The study door was open, the door between the houses was open, from midnight to daybreak when Cyril Felton went down and shut them. Felix Brand could perfectly well have brought that scarf in and put it back on its peg.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“And so, Randal, could anyone else.”

He said with some bitterness,

“Exactly-the case is wide open again. Any one of the people in these two houses could have killed Helen Adrian. It remains to be seen how many of them could have killed Cyril Felton. Crisp wants me to arrest Felix Brand, and as far as Helen Adrian is concerned he’s back at the top of the list. But when it comes to Cyril Felton he’s pretty near the bottom.” He dived into a pocket and took out a folded paper.

“These are just rough notes of what Crisp had got before I came. He’s always fancied Felix, so he led off with him. Well, it seems Penny Halliday went up on the cliffs with him as soon as they had washed up lunch. He says they stayed there till getting on for half past four, when she came in to get tea for the old ladies. He said he didn’t want any-couldn’t face another family meal-and stayed where he was until about half past five, when he came strolling in to see why Penny hadn’t come back, and walked into Crisp on the doorstep. Penny Halliday confirms all the first bit. Says it was five-and-twenty past four when she looked at her watch and said she must go in. She says it’s about ten minutes fast going, and it may have taken her a quarter of an hour. She boiled a kettle and took the tray into the front sitting-room where Mrs. Brand was having her rest at just after five o’clock, coming up with Miss Remington in the hall. They had hardly begun their tea, when they heard someone scream next door, and she ran over to see what was happening. Now you see, it is just physically possible for Felix to have followed her back to the house, got into that ground-floor room which Felton was using as a bedroom. The window was wide open and no distance from the ground-” He broke off. “It’s physically possible, as I say, but looked at from any other point of view, it doesn’t make sense. He couldn’t have heard what Felton said to his wife about knowing the murderer, because he was up on the cliffs with Penny. If Cyril had already started a blackmailing approach and the murder was planned, is it credible that he would have left it so late in the afternoon? He couldn’t have got to the house till a quarter to five, just when everybody would be rousing up and thinking about tea. And how could he know that Cyril would be in his room and asleep? If it wasn’t planned, he had to go into the house and get a weapon-probably a knife from the kitchen-whilst Penny was getting tea and Miss Remington was coming downstairs. And then he had to get rid of the weapon- probably by cleaning it and putting it back in the drawer, because both Penny and Eliza say there isn’t a knife missing on either side of the house.” He made an impatient movement. “I suppose it could just have been done, but nothing will ever persuade me that it was done.”