Patricia Wentworth - Out of the Past

Miss Silver coughed.

“Who found the body?”

“According to her own statement, Miss Anning. At six-thirty-her usual hour for getting up, or so she says. The girl ought to have been up too. She came down to look for her, found her lying under the window, and rang up the station. The front door was bolted and all the ground-floor windows latched.”

“Except this one.”

“Except this one-which has Marie’s fingerprints upon the catch and upon the window-frame.”

“Not Miss Anning’s?”

“An old print or two-nothing relevant. Marie’s are all over the place.”

“Not anyone else’s?”

“No. Well, there it is. Officially, you are here because, if Miss Anning is arrested, something will have to be done about her mother. I thought perhaps-”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“Presently, Frank. There is something I have to say to you first. I have reason to believe that Marie Bonnet was engaged in blackmailing the murderer of Alan Field.”

“What makes you think so?”

“There have been a number of small indications. I overheard a conversation between the Beestons and Mrs. Rogers.” She repeated it with her usual meticulous accuracy. “Later, when I had the opportunity of warning Marie as to the danger of such a course, her manner convinced me that there had been no mistake.”

“She was angry?”

“No, Frank. She put on an innocent air and could not imagine what I meant. If she had been really innocent she would have resented my caution with a good deal of vehemence and have told me to mind my own business. The fact that she took the trouble to control this natural impulse convinced me that she had something to conceal.”

Frank Abbott made a slight impatient movement.

“If you are by any chance advancing this as a defense of Miss Anning, it seems to me that it points the other way. There is no one on whom she would be more likely to have a hold than Miss Anning-no one about whom she would be more likely to know something of a compromising nature, except perhaps Cardozo, and he’s out. Had business in London yesterday, and we let him go, but they put a tail on him at the other end, and you can take it from me that he didn’t come back here last night and kill Marie Bonnet.”

“You are sure about that?”

“Oh, yes. He went back to his rooms, dined with another man at a café in Soho, went with him to a cinema, and on to a night club. Didn’t get back till three in the morning. It just couldn’t have been done.”

Miss Silver coughed.

“I thought you said he went up to town on business.”

Frank Abbott laughed.

“It may have been the kind that is done at night clubs-I wouldn’t know. The one he went to has quite a South American flavour. He may have wanted to see a man about a deal, or he may have left his business till the morning. He was out by ten o’clock-went to see a solicitor and one or two other people. But wherever he went, he didn’t come down here and kill Marie. And that puts the odds on Miss Anning.”

She looked at him.

“Do you really think so?”

“It looks like it.”

“Does it?”

“You don’t think so?”

“Why should Miss Anning make an appointment with Marie Bonnet down here in her own dining-room in the middle of the night?”

“How do you know that it was an appointment?”

“If, as I believe, it was a question of blackmail-and that is the only conceivable motive for this murder-Marie would have to meet the person she was blackmailing in order to drive her bargain. If the person was Miss Anning, nothing could be easier. She could see her privately at any time of the day- in her bedroom, in the office. There would be no need for an appointment in the night. But if it was not Miss Anning-if it was someone from outside-it would be a different matter. Where and how could these two people meet without arousing comment? The days are long and light. Any meeting would be remarked and would cause talk. You see, it is not so easy. But Marie would have some prudence. She would not go out on the cliffs in the middle of the night or down on to the beach to meet someone who had killed already. She might have thought it would be safe to talk from the window. She would, I think, have thought that.”

“But the window was shut.”

Miss Silver turned towards it.

“They have finished with the fingerprints?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Then will you raise the sash from the bottom.”

He did so. When it stood about eighteen inches above the sill she stopped him.

“Now will you go round and come up on the outside.”

She stood waiting until he appeared, her face composed and rather stern. As he bent to the open space between them, she knelt down on the polished boards. Her head was now very much on a level with his.

“You see, Frank, two people could talk like this, and if I were so incautious as to lean forward, you would not, I believe, find it difficult to strangle me.”

He bent lower to examine the ground.

“There is no sign that anyone has been here.”

“Would you expect there to be? The cement of the drive comes right up to the wall, and in this heat there is no dew. The nights are as dry as the days.”

He stared.

“But the window was shut.”

“I think you will find that you can close it from where you are.”

“From the outside? There were no fingerprints.”

“Do you suppose that the person who planned this murder would be so careless as to leave any?”

He came back into the house and joined her in the dining-room. When he had shut the door he said,

“You speak of the person who planned this murder. You maintain that it was not Miss Anning. I have given you proof that it could not have been Cardozo. If Marie was killed in the way that you suggest by someone who reached in at the bottom of that window and took her by the throat, the person who did it must have had very strong hands. I suppose you are not suggesting that Pippa Maybury could have done it?”

“Oh, no, I am not suggesting that.”

“James Hardwick? Is that what is in your mind?”

“I would prefer not to say. There is a point we have not touched on, and it is, I think, important. Marie was a strong, active girl. When she felt hands at her throat she would have fought desperately to release herself. Has Miss Anning any scratches or bruises about the wrists or arms?”

He gave her rather an odd glance.

“No, she hasn’t. Do you know of anyone who has?”

“No, Frank. But if, as I believe, the murder was very carefully planned, this would have been guarded against. Gloves would have been worn, or the wrists and arms padded in some way.”

He nodded.

“A man’s coat sleeves would protect him. But if, as you say, the whole thing was planned, a woman could guard against being scratched or bruised-Darsie Anning could guard against it.”

She said mildly but firmly,

“I do not believe that it was Miss Anning.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“Can you produce an alternative? There is a good deal of prima facie evidence-motive and opportunity-bad blood between her and Field-the old business of his jilting her. And Colt tells me there was quite a lot of talk about that. She was away for months and came back very much changed. Local gossip believed the worst-and sometimes local gossip gets hold of the right end of the stick. Marie may have got something there. She disliked the Annings and would have enjoyed tormenting them, especially if it meant money in her pocket. On the psychological side it all adds up, you know. And I must say that if I had to pick a probable murderer out of our set of suspects I think I would go for Darsie Anning. She is an embittered, frustrated creature and obviously strung up very nearly to breaking point.”