Black Widow. S. Fowler Wright

looked at the Superintendent, and decided that it was not a probable guess. Still—he had proved more improbable things before now. Suppose that the Chief Constable had had the same idea, which was why he had refused the warrant for Lady Denton’s arrest? Suppose he had hesitated to accuse his own assistant, and that that was why Scotland Yard had been called in? He must just investigate whether there had been any quarrel between the Superintendent and the dead man.

      As he reflected thus, the car drew up at the police station and he went in to examine the statements which had been taken, on the particulars of which Lady Denton’s arrest had been based.

      He looked up from this perusal to ask: “Does she know I have been called in?”

      “Yes. She has offered to put you up at the Grange while you are here.”

      “Then I may take that as arranged?”

      “I said I would tell you when you arrived. I thought you might prefer to stay at the Station Inn.”

      “Any reason for that?”

      “Only that you might feel freer to go about investigations in your own way. And if you’re going to arrest a lady for murder….”

      “Yes, I see. But I don’t know that I am. We’re all innocent, you know, till we’re found out. You might tell someone to phone Lady Denton that I’ll be there in an hour’s time.”

      “There’s one other thing—I don’t say it’s a reason why you should stay at the inn, but it’s just a fact you might like to know before you decide. Redwin’s still there.”

      “Redwin? I’m not sure I’ve heard his name yet. How does he come in?”

      “Well, I can’t say that he does. Only, he was the natural man to suspect. He’d been Sir Daniel’s secretary for three years, and the only one he appeared to trust. And then he was suddenly accused of financial dishonesty, and turned out of the house. That was only a few days before Sir Daniel was shot. The tale is that there was a violent scene, and Redwin left protesting that he was an innocent man, and threatening that he’d make them sorry before he’d done.

      “He wouldn’t leave the district. He put up at the Station Inn, and went to Forbes and Fisher, a firm of Ricksfield solicitors who have a branch office here, and asked them to take up the case, which they wouldn’t do.

      “We’ve got two witnesses who heard him swear in the bar that he wouldn’t leave till he’d had his rights, and that if he couldn’t make Sir Daniel pay in one way, he’ll find another that he’d like less.

      “In fact, there was enough evidence against him to have justified detaining him on suspicion at once, but for one thing that there’s no getting past—he wasn’t there at the time.”

      “Certain?”

      “Quite. There’s the landlord himself, and two other witnesses—men who’ve lived here for forty years, and whose word anyone’d take. They don’t love him overmuch either; but they’d all swear that he was playing billiards in the smoke room from four o’clock till after six, and we’d been called in, and Sir Daniel an hour dead, before then.”

      “That is if you can be sure that the shot you heard was the one that killed him.”

      Superintendent Trackfield did not look grateful for this suggestion. It was an idea which, until that mo­ment, had not entered his mind, and, now that it was introduced, he thought that it approached the fantastic. His experience was that the obvious was most often true. He had passed Bywater Grange at 5:00 p.m. and heard a shot, where shots were not usually fired. It had after­wards been reported by various witnesses that a fatal shot had been fired at Sir Daniel Denton at the time in the library of that house. Obviously, the shot he had heard had been that from which Sir Daniel had died. It was equally obvious that those witnesses—six in all—could not all be wrong as to the time of the tragedy.

      No; he hadn’t considered that contingency, and he didn’t blame himself in the least. He said: “I think when you’ve gone further into the case, you’ll agree.”

      Inspector Pinkey, judging from the tone of this reply that he was on rather thin ice, became tactful again.

      “Yes. I expect I shall. I don’t think I’ll go to the inn. The lady seems likely to be able to tell me more. You might let her know now. And when that’s off our minds, perhaps you’ll give me the whole story from your angle, and explain why you feel sufficiently confident of Lady Denton’s guilt to justify locking her up.”

      “Yes, I can soon do that. The facts are simple enough, if we agree that Lady Denton must have fired the shot. It’s only if we accept her story that they become hard to explain.

      “Sir Daniel was in his study at the time. Lady Denton says that, as far as she knows, he was alone. The study has French windows opening on to the lawn. They were unbolted, if not actually standing wide. Sir Daniel’s desk faces the window, and he appears to have been standing at it, having risen from his chair, but still facing the window, when the shot was fired.

      “The door was behind his back. It opens on to a passage, which has the drawing room door almost opposite. Lady Denton says that she was in the drawing room when she heard the shot and the sound of Sir Daniel’s fall—that was quite possible, he’s a heavy man—and ran into the room. She says she saw him on the floor, bleeding from the head, and screamed for help.

      “Sir Daniel’s half-brother, Gerard, who lives with them, was in the library, the door of which is further along the passage. He says he didn’t hear the shot or the fall—which is possible, too, for the library has a heavy, close-fitting door, and its windows are on the further side of the house—but he heard Lady Denton’s scream, and ran to her.

      “Lady Denton confirms this. She says he was with her almost at once.

      “Mr. Gerard says that he went out on to the lawn to see if anyone was in sight. He cannot remember whether the windows were open, but, if not, they opened at a touch. He found the gardener’s boy on the path, within sight of the window. He questioned him, and was told that no one had entered or left by that window for an hour or more previously, during which time the boy had been weeding the path.

      “The head gardener was working at the side of the path somewhat further away, and out of sight of the window, owing to the curve of the drive. He is deaf and heard nothing.

      “The boy says he heard the shot, and started to run to the window to see what it was, but the gardener called him back and told him to get on with his work.

      “The gardener confirms this. He says that, being deaf, he heard nothing, but he was keeping a watchful eye on the boy, whom he charges with a habit of slipping round the house to talk with the kitchen maid more frequently than he approves. He agrees that the boy resumed his work when he called him back, and they both say it was not more than three or four minutes after that Mr. Gerard came out.”

      “Anyone else in the house?”

      “No one except the servants. There are a cook, a house parlour maid, and the kitchen maid I mentioned before. They appear to have been about the kitchen or pantries at this time, within hearing and practically within sight of each other. Even if there were any reason to suspect any one of them of such a crime, they each have alibis from the other two. There was no one else in the house at the time.”

      “That is, so far as we know yet.”

      “Yes, of course. It didn’t seem necessary to say that.”

      Inspector Pinkey realized that he had been tactless again. “Beg pardon,” he said, “I didn’t mean it the wrong way. I don’t think I’ve often heard a statement so clearly put. What about the weapon?”

      “It was a rather old-fashioned revolver which belonged to Sir Daniel, and which, if we’re told the truth now, he used to keep very carelessly in an unlocked drawer of his desk.”

      “Lady Denton says that?”

      “Yes. And Mr. Gerard.”