The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

a quarter, of what she said."

      "And he?"

      "He kept his temper wonderful, sir. Kept hushing her. I heard him say once that she was making mountains out of molehills."

      "Didn't he say anything more? I can't believe that there was no reference to money?"

      "I didn't hear none, sir. Nothing but his trying to quiet her."

      "You didn't hear any names? Such as Bligh, for instance?"

      Florence shot him a shrewd look.

      "No, sir. But I shouldn't have been surprised if I had."

      "You don't think it could have been Mrs. Bligh who came to the house at six yesterday?"

      "Oh, no, sir. I know Mrs. Bligh. She comes now and then to our best dinner parties. And I didn't make any mistake in the name, sir. The master read me that telegram, sir. But Cranbourn was the name the mistress gave. And, besides, she talked about her. Said as how she didn't want to be interrupted in her talk, as they hadn't met for so long, Mrs. Cranbourn living in Spain. I can't make out about that cable, sir. Seems to me most mysterious. It does indeed."

      Pointer went off on another tack.

      "And Mr. Tangye, now, did he ever have any friends in to tea for a chat in his smoking-room?"

      "Many a time. Gentlemen only, of course."

      "Ah, he'd find that way around to the back gate convenient, I dare say."

      Florence looked puzzled for a moment.

      "The master never uses that! The room was the housekeeper's when old Mrs. and Mr. Branscombe lived here, so I've heard."

      "Didn't Mrs. Tangye sometimes use it? Or any friends of hers?"

      Florence thought.

      "I don't think so, sir. Though once she showed Miss Eden out that way the last time she stayed here. It is shorter if you're in a hurry to get to the telegraph office."

      "When was this?"

      "About a month ago."

      There was another pause. Pointer seemed to have finished. "By the way, who was it chose the room into which Mrs. Tangye's body was carried?" he asked conversationally.

      "She did." This startling reply was explained by Florences' face of indignation.

      "That's no way to treat a corpse, is it, sir? Disgraceful, I call it. Cook and Olive and me, we've put all the greenery around we can, but it's not a room fit for a corpse, is it, sir?" Pointer thanked Florence and pausing for a second outside the den to hear the two voices within, slipped upstairs into Tangye's dressing-room. He gave it a quick, but sufficiently thorough search. In the clothes-basket he found a crumpled silk handkerchief, which still smelt of ether, and showed marks of dust. It was Tangye's own handkerchief. It had been used to wipe the safe. But was it he who had used it? Like everything else, it was inconclusive.

      Pointer slipped downstairs once more, and let himself into the morning-room. He had "forgotten" to return the key.

      He put all thought of the missing notes entirely on one side for the moment. The death was a fact. They were but a tale told him, and a tale with many perplexing features. Even granted moreover, that all was exactly as Tangye said, and even supposing them to be connected with Mrs. Tangye's death, they did not help to solve the immediate problem of how the woman had been killed, supposing the Chief Inspector to be right, and that she had been killed.

      It certainly was going to be a stiff proposition to prove a crime there; let alone solve it. Hitherto, even when they had first led the search astray, there had always been some clue, a match, a print of hand or foot, withered leaves, a smear of paint, to serve as a kick-off. To start the ball rolling. But if, as he believed, a murder had been committed here at Riverview, the criminal had done his work very neatly. No tags had been left lying about.

      In an obvious murder a detective gets a certain amount of help from the general rule that an inmate of the house stages, or tries to stage, the effect of an outsider, an outsider that is a member of the household.

      Clues in such cases read in the reverse direction as it were. But outsider and insider meet and merge in a well-set suicide scene.

      The windows had been found latched by the Superintendent. That suggested some one in the house. Pointer and he had questioned Miss Saunders as well as Florence very closely, and both had no reason to think that the companion was holding anything back when she said that she had found them closed. If Pointer put a question mark beside her statement, it was merely because the woman had been in the room before the alarm was given. Was she an accomplice? The suicide effect made that doubtful. This was not a death by force, but by cunning. Mrs. Tangye had not been overpowered. That was certain. But out-witted in some way. So Pointer believed. Nor did the manner of death chosen suggest an accomplice.

      Supposing she had 'been killed. How could it have been done? Swiftly he went over the room piece by piece. Still he found nothing suspicious. Finally he took out a couple of photographs which Rogers, the constable, had handed him at the police station. They were the enlargements of the marks on the revolver, and of Mrs. Tangye's finger-prints. He studied the latter first of all. They were certainly wonderfully clear. They had been made by Mrs. Tangye's left hand. There was no doubt of that. Her hand had been so greasy that it had left a perfect impression even of the palm. Yet there was a fitted basin with hot and cold water beside the morning-room. Was it likely that a woman—a lady—would sit still with fingers as buttery as a new cat's paws, and not wash them? Wilmot's suggestion of a slip and a hasty grab, did not explain this—supposing she intended to live. Of course if Wilmot and Haviland were right, Mrs. Tangye might have been so lost in brooding thoughts as to be inaccessible to material things. But the plate on the tea-table with its neat little lake of congealed butter did not bear out the idea of an accident.

      The enlargements showed that his keen eyes had been right. The grip was a most singular one. The tips had clutched the revolver no harder than the palm of the hand. If as hard. But Pointer could not believe that such a shock as a bullet through the heart sends to every atom of the body, would not have contracted the hand sharply. Here, all had been even—flaccid. The only really strong pressure shown had been made by the palm and the bases of the fingers.

      Pointer could think of but one explanation to that. An explanation so terrible that he must make sure that it really was the only one. Or at least, as sure as possible.

      He looked long at his boot-tips. Then he studied the photographs again. But this time of the scratches on the revolver. They looked freshly made. Though in a weapon kept in a closed box that might not mean much. Apparently at some time or other the weapon had been bounced up and down among a lot of metal oddments. But that is not usually a Webley's fate, even unloaded. Nor did they look erratic enough for that. The enlargements showed him that two small marks were exactly duplicated on both sides. And the trigger had a central rake which did not extend to the bevelled edge. But for the finger-prints, it looked as though the trigger had been fired by some mechanical means. He thought of the missing key-ring. The mark on the trigger could well have been made by a ring snapped back.

      But apart from probability, was there even the possibility of such a plan as that would mean, having been carried out here? The marks on the Webley puzzled Pointer, but not so much as the fact that it had been fired actually touching the woman's dress, pressed against her breast. This was the real kernel of the problem. How could a revolver have been got as near as that by any hand but her own, without alarming Mrs. Tangye? Haviland and Wilmot were one in saying that here lay the proof of accident, or suicide. And to crown all, as Haviland pointed out, the Webley must have been held very level. No hasty swing, or chance pointing of a weapon, this, if it were a crime. Full front, level with her heart, touching her dress.

      And the bell beneath her nimble fingers had not even rung! It was a riddle. Granted that the firer was an intimate friend, companion, husband even, how could they have got that weapon so close against her? There had been no struggle. Pointer agreed with the upholders of the suicide, or accident theories on that.

      He slipped out across