Patricia Wentworth - The Fingerprint

Miss Silver had been listening with an expression of extreme gravity. She said,

“Circumstantial evidence often does. I do not think you should make up your mind that Miss Grey is guilty.”

He had to subdue a touch of impatience.

“Do you find it so difficult to believe? It must have been a severe shock to her to find that she was being disinherited. She has been brought up to believe that she will be Jonathan’s heiress. He has no other near relation, and he is fond of her and proud of her. And then everything changes. He comes across Mirrie Field, brings her down on a visit, and falls for her like a ton of bricks. I have no doubt she was jealous.”

Miss Silver coughed gently.

“I could see no signs of it.”

“Oh, well, she would hardly be human if she wasn’t-at any rate to some degree.”

Miss Silver said mildly,

“It is not everyone who has a jealous disposition.”

This time he did not entirely keep the impatience out of his voice.

“Someone seems to have thought that Georgina had one, because she got an anonymous letter accusing her of being jealous of Mirrie and not treating her properly! When she took it to Jonathan he took sides with the letter-writer. That is when he told her he was going to change his will. I suspect that the change was going to be a very drastic one. There was, in fact, a good deal that might have made her see red. And right on top of it he went off to town, made this new will he had told her about, and came back with it in his pocket in time for dinner on Tuesday night. Georgina saw him after that, and she says he burned the will himself. It doesn’t seem very likely, does it?”

Miss Silver said in a thoughtful voice,

“I do not know, Frank. By any interpretation of the facts Mr. Field would appear to have been a person of sudden changes of mood and impetuous decisions. He had taken one such decision when influenced by an unexpected quarrel. Might he not have arrived at another under the influence of a reconciliation?”

He looked at her sharply.

“Then who shot him?”

She said, “That is what remains to be found out,” and as she said it the telephone bell rang sharply.

Frank Abbott leaned forward and took up the receiver. A voice said, “Is that Deeping 10?”

He said, “Yes.”

The voice said, “To whom am I speaking?”

“Detective Inspector Abbott.”

The voice said, “I am Mr. Maudsley, Mr. Jonathan Field’s solicitor. I have just seen the news of his death in the morning papers. I am speaking from Edinburgh.”

The line was very clear and good. Miss Silver was able to hear every word.

Frank said,

“We have been most anxious to get into touch with you.”

“Yes. I was travelling yesterday. I stopped to see a client on the way up and got in late. I am very much shocked at the news,. Is there any possibility of its having been an accident?”

“None whatever. He was murdered.”

Mr. Maudsley repeated the word he had used before.

“How very shocking! Why, he was with me on Monday and Tuesday.”

“Yes, we have been anxious to get into touch with you about that. I believe he made a new will?”

“Yes-yes, he did-but-”

“Your chief clerk says he took it away with him.”

“Yes, he did.”

“It had been signed and witnessed?”

“Oh, yes-but-”

“That was your last contact with Mr. Field?”

“Well, no, Inspector, it wasn’t.”

“You saw him again after he left your office?”

“No-but he rang me up.”

Frank was aware of Miss Silver looking extremely intelligent.

“He rang you? When?”

Mr. Maudsley, speaking in the call-box of his Edinburgh hotel, was perfectly distinct and audible to them both.

“It was at about half-past-nine on Tuesday evening.”

“You are sure about the time?”

“To within five minutes or so.”

“Had the call any connection with the will which he had signed that morning?”

“Yes-a very serious connection. He gave me to understand that he had destroyed it.”

The intelligence of Miss Silver’s expression became intensified. Frank Abbott said,

“He told you that he had destroyed his latest will?”

“He said he had just been burning it.”

“The will which he had only signed that morning?”

“Mr. Field was in some ways a man of impulse. He had acted on impulse when he made this latest will. I may say that I had protested very strongly against some of its provisions. We were old friends, and he let me have my say. When he rang me up in the evening it was to tell me that he had come round to my way of thinking, and that he had just burned the will in the presence of his niece Georgina Grey. He thanked me for the representations I had made, and said he had become convinced that he was on the brink of committing an injustice. He added that there was no real hurry, but he would come and see me as soon as I got back to discuss the details of a will which would be just to everyone concerned.”

“I take it that the will superseded by the one which Mr. Field burned will now stand.”

“Undoubtedly. Have you come across it?”

“It is in a locked drawer of his writing-table. May I ask when you expect to be back?”

“I am booking a sleeper for tonight. I will come straight down to Field End. I am an executor, and it will be more regular if I take charge of the will.”

Frank Abbott hung up the receiver.

“That was Mr. Maudsley the solicitor. He says Jonathan Field rang him up at about half-past-nine on Tuesday evening and told him he had destroyed the will signed only that morning. Mr. Maudsley had made rather strong representations on the grounds of its being unjust. Jonathan had come to feel that this was the case, and he had just finished burning the will.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“Yes, I was able to hear most of what was said.”

Frank lifted an eyebrow.

“Very convenient for Miss Georgina Grey. Jonathan Field must have rung up as soon as she left him and went back to the drawing-room, and before Stokes came in with the drinks. Now the question is, did she come down later on and shoot him, or have we got to find another suspect?”

Miss Silver’s voice took on a tone of reproof.

“My dear Frank, with the will destroyed, what possible motive could she have had?”

“My dear ma’am, I don’t think one has to look very far for a motive. He had always allowed her to be considered as his heiress. I have no doubt that under the will of two years ago she would have come in for practically everything. When she saw him destroy the will which, as far as one gathers, put Mirrie Field in her place Georgina was back in the position of sole heiress. And she held that position for just so long as Jonathan didn’t make another will. He had acted on impulse once when he cut her out. He had acted on impulse again when he destroyed his new will. For all she knew, he might cut her out again, if not tomorrow, then the next day, or the next, or at any time when she chanced to vex him or he had an access of affection for Mirrie.”

Miss Silver looked at him very directly.

“Do you really believe her capable of such a line of reasoning?”

“Oh, she is quite intelligent.”

“I think you know very well that I was not referring to her intelligence. What I meant was that so unprincipled a line of thought would never occur to her.”

There was a sardonic gleam in his eye as he said,

“Discharged without a stain upon her character? Then we must have our other suspect. Unfortunately, we are handicapped by the fact that though there is some evidence that he may exist, he is for the moment featureless and nameless. In fact we haven’t a clue as to who he may be, or where to look for him.”