The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

others planned it. They egged me on. They were all in it!" burst out, as though in spite of herself, from the woman. "They said it was the only way."

      "Very likely they did, but, you see, I have no proofs of that. All I can prove is that when you found Robert Erskine's acquaintance impossible to make, that medicine bottle of his gave you your chance. You changed the last but one dose for a deadly solution of morphia, obtained how I can't think..." Pointer knew perfectly, but he wanted her to speak, and she did.

      "No, no, no! I never did such a thing!" The sane part of her brain was fighting the drugged part which wanted to babble.

      "Oh, yes, you did."

      "If I did, I got it from that sneering, drug-sodden fiend Vaughan."

      "Robert Erskine drank the poison. When it was acting,—I take it you listened at the door—you entered his room, locked the door, unscrewed the back of the wardrobe, fastened the bolt on inside, and dragged the armchair up to it. You're a tall woman and a strong one, but you must have had some difficulty with his body before you got it safely bundled in..."

      The woman turned livid.

      "...with your letter to the manager in the pocket. Next you laid in some things of his which you thought would bear out your 'phone about his having gone into the country, screwed the back on again, pushed the wardrobe into position, emptied the medicine bottle on to the balcony, filled in the cough mixture again, and went through all his belongings. His bag you fastened inside a larger bag..."—This last was guess-work, but he saw by her terrified eyes that he had been right.—"Wearing Major Vaughan's shoes, you crept down the back stairs into the street. You had already oiled the lock and opened it at noon. When you had disposed of your bag, and exchanged the shoes for your own, you waited in the theatre and took a taxi back to the hotel. When you heard the arrival of the police—your door was ajar, we noticed—you put on his shoes again, and crept out on to the balcony to peer in through the blind, as you had done once before when Mr. Beale was in the room. You had intended to reach France Saturday night, but the storm which raged made flight out of the question. Even the channel boats did not go. Besides, once you knew the body had been found, you waited on to see what would happen. The telegrams which I sent Mrs. Erskine here were received and answered by Mrs. Clark. You flew to Paris, using her passport, and back again the same day after the interview with Russell and me, an interview which you were expecting and had prepared for after catching sight of Mr. Russell at the hotel."

      Watts shot his chief a crestfallen glance, but the woman broke out excitedly: "She lent me that passport. She helped...They all helped...They're all in it. Yes, you're right, Inspector, they knew all about it. And ever since then I've been in hell! In hell! I knew it was only a question of time before I should be killed in my turn...oh, my head...I don't mean that! I don't know what I'm saying."

      "I'll just make a note of what you say about their being implicated too." Pointer drew out a block of writing paper.

      She veered around again, the hatred of years sweeping away every barrier, as the wily police-officer had hoped it would. He had a full confession of the crime, written in the first person, in his pocket, only waiting for her to sign, and for that signature he was working, leaving her no time to recover that cold nerve of hers which had been temporarily broken down, but which was sure to come again later as he well knew. There was too much tension between France and England just then for extradition to be a quick matter when the crime had been committed on French soil, but with the criminal's confession safely at the Yard the police could wait in patience the law's delays.

      "Stop! Write all this down." She sprang to her feet and leant heavily against the table, rocking as she stood. "Write it all out, and I'll sign it, and then we'll see if those blood-suckers get off with only a couple of months. Months! While I..."

      "You'd better see a solicitor," suggested the Chief Inspector half-heartedly, but remembering the jury's passion for every advantage to be given to the criminal, as he pulled out the sheets, which were burning his fingers.

      "No, no! Is that it? Let me read it over."

      "If you want to sign it, just add a line at the foot to say that you have read it through and that it is correct."

      "I'll put more than that in. I want to say that these three blackmailers instigated Robert Erskine's death. They told me what to do. Ever since yon Baker found me one day asleep with my wig awry she's lived on me, she and Vaughan, who was her lover at the time, and the man she calls her husband now."

      "And Miss West, what were you going to do to her?" Carter spoke for the first time—he had been literally spellbound till then. "What of her?"

      For a second the woman blinked at him as though hardly remembering to whom he referred.

      "I'm writing that down, too. When I told them that she had discovered something wrong with the letters—letters they drafted for me, mind you they insisted on drugging her, and—and—they told me that she was to be put ashore somewhere. I thought she was to be kept till we could get away safely." Her eyes flickered uneasily, and fell to the paper.

      In a fury of vengeance which burned away all thought of personal safety for the moment if only she could engulf the others deep enough, Janet Fraser wrote nearly two pages before she signed her name, with Carter and Watts as witnesses.

      The Chief Inspector drew a deep breath of relief, and motioned Carter to precede him out of the room.

      Janet Fraser's hand went to a little picture standing on the mantelpiece, a sketch of her father's manse. The frame was a Florentine one, and in a corner her finger pared off a tiny gilt pellet as she apparently automatically adjusted the water-color. When Pointer turned to speak to Watts she slipped it into her mouth. It was a way of escape she had prepared long ago.

      "I shall be quite ready to come with you to England without waiting for an extradition order," she said quietly as she lay down on the couch again and pulled the rug up over her, "but I'm exhausted for the moment. I want a little rest."

      "Very good. I'll arrange about our tickets so that we can get off by the early train if possible. I'll be back within an hour and let you know what has been settled. There will be Watts on duty outside, but I think you'll be sensible."

      "Quite sensible," murmured Janet Fraser, looking him full in the face for a second, and then dropping those pale grey eyes of hers.

      Carter and the Chief Inspector walked away in silence. At last the Canadian spoke.

      "So it wasn't Beale after all, and Rob was murdered by that she-devil who passed as his mother because he would have given the show away! I'm glad you got her! God! I never thought I should like to see a woman arrested for murder, but I'm glad you got her! And, see here, Inspector, I do see why you weren't keen on my helping, nor Christine either: it did take a mighty keen eye—a trained one—to pick out the king-log from that jumble."

      "Largely a matter of routine," muttered Pointer, lighting his pipe.

      "Routine!" Carter echoed. "I suppose it was routine that lets Christine sleep safely in her bed tonight. Poor old Rob. To be done in like that...I wish to Heaven..." He was silent for a few minutes. "But how in tarnation did you get hold of—of—the truth?"

      "Well, it's a longish story. First of all, as I said, was that letter this woman wrote to Erskine which we found among the papers Beale had got hold of—she had destroyed the others, you know—asking him to let her know his address in London at once. That only bewildered me. You don't suspect a mother easily of having a hand in her son's murder, but I began to wonder whether Robert Erskine might turn out not to be her son at all. I found that that was impossible, and I began speculating a bit along the lines of the truth. A Toronto stationery box I found in her attic here made me doubt whether the letters I had taken a bit for granted, I confess, were as genuine as they looked. I had noted the water-mark, but had let them go at that, under the circumstances—my mistake that! Then—well, what with one thing and another, I got hold of a key to her safe and that unlocked her story as well, or at least the clue to it. It was this way. In the safe were a couple of the real Mrs. Erskine's old diaries, a large