The Footsteps That Stopped (Musaicum Murder Mysteries). Dorothy Fielding

song, Caedmon!" Wilmot murmured approvingly, with closed eyes and a fatuous smile. "Sing on, Minstrel! Sing on the Works of Wilmot the Wonder. The Wizardly Winner!"

      Cheale took no notice.

      "Well then," the Special Correspondent laid aside his chaff. "To my mind, on the evidence as so far known, I—the veritable I—hover between a suicide and an accident. Now inclining strongly to the one, now to the other conviction. When did Mrs. Tangye insure with you?"

      "She and her husband both took out policies in favour of each other, instead of settlements, when they married."

      "Big ones?"

      "Ten thousand pounds apiece."

      Wilmot pursed his lips.

      "Who pays the premiums?"

      "Tangye pays both according to the agreement."

      "Supposed to be fairly well-to-do, isn't he?"

      "Used to be. Very much so. But the firm has never recovered from that Mesopotamian crash in oils just before he married. And we happen to have private information, that a big Irish broker with whom he has large commitments, won't be able to weather settlement. That's day after to-morrow. Hit by the fall in the franc. If so, Tangye too, may have to go under. I shall be able to get more definite information tomorrow on the spot. Now, what's your answer? Will you look into the case for us? Sift any claims that Tangye may make? As I told you, he's already thundering for the insurance money."

      "The river always gives me rheumatism," objected Wilmot.

      The other mentioned what sounded like an excellent plaster in Bank of England notes, and Wilmot did not consider himself a wealthy man.

      "You'll take your own line, of course." Cheale lit a cigarette. "Had it been any one but you, I intended to suggest looking up Mrs. Tangye's past as a first step."

      "Mrs. Tangye's past! Mr. Tangye's present is very much more to the point, believe me, if you hope to prove a suicide."

      "That's our platform obviously. The idea of domestic trouble. But you haven't given me an answer yet. Will you take the case on for us?"

      "For the truth—yes," Wilmot corrected him quickly. And to do Mr. Cheale and his Company justice, that was what he wanted. They settled it at that. Cheale went into particulars.

      His lunch over, Wilmot telephoned his new interest in the case to the Chiswick Police Superintendent, who was just finishing a modest midday meal with the Chief Inspector. Pointer in particular welcomed the news most cordially, for, as he explained to Wilmot, it would greatly help his own inquiries.

      "If you'll slip me in under your cloak, and let me ask some questions ostensibly to help you make up your mind I'll be greatly obliged. Otherwise, I should be rather put to it to get the information I need, without arousing suspicion that suspicion was aroused."

      As Wilmot taxied out to the two officers, he ran over in his mind the questions he wanted to put. He had not troubled to do so before. Wilmot was not a detective. He had carefully abstained from probing the Hinterland of the Tangye's married life yesterday. All he had sought then was sufficient material for his dreamy, gloomy sketch of the quicksands under the smiling ripple.

      Arrived at the station, he hastily skimmed through Haviland's report.

      Besides the servants, the household at Riverview only consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Tangye, and Miss Saunders, the companion. It was Miss Saunders who, after telephoning to the police, had rung up Mr. Tangye's offices in the city. The head clerk, who took the message, told her that Mr. Tangye had already started for home. He had reached Riverview in a quarter of an hour to be met by the sympathetic Superintendent with the news of the tragedy.

      Questioned about the way in which the rest of the day had been spent by Mrs. Tangye, the maids had had nothing out of the way to report. Nor did the diary which the police had reconstructed with great care of the days before yesterday, the fateful Tuesday, show anything noteworthy.

      On Saturday the husband had gone off for a week-end in the country. Mrs. Tangye often shared these, but this time it was a man's shooting party in Norfolk, and she had remained at home. On Sunday morning, however, she had telephoned to a local garage for a car, and had driven down to an orchid-show which was being held at Tunbridge Wells. She had left home in the car about twelve in the morning, after arranging over the telephone to lunch with a friend in that town. The telephone messages sounded as though both ideas had been suddenly taken. Mrs. Tangye had let her three servants go off duty until six. Returning at that hour, Florence found her mistress had just got back with a headache, and wished dinner cancelled. Next day, Mrs. Tangye had seemed quite herself again.

      Most of the morning she had spent at the hair-dresser's. In the early afternoon she had sent Florence, who acted more or less as her maid, with a note to Jay's. It concerned an evening frock which they were making for the woman who was not to live to wear it.

      As he read the note aloud which Florence had taken to the firm in question, the Coroner had agreed with the husband that it did not sound as though Mrs. Tangye were weary of life. She had asked for something younger-looking in the way of trimmings to be sent her for selection.

      Florence had got back by five, in time to serve tea as usual. Mr. Tangye had returned by then from his week-end. He had only stayed a short time before returning to his office on some very pressing business, which Mrs. Tangye had told Florence would detain him in London overnight, and possibly for a few days.

      The husband explained that the business in town which had taken him away on this last, complete, day of his wife's life, was only an accumulation of letters. There was nothing whatever in the nature of business worries to call him from home.

      In the additional notes which the Chief Inspector put at his command, Wilmot learnt a few other items about the husband. Pointer was known to keep his papers always up to time, with suggested work blocked in, and to lock them daily in his safe at Scotland Yard, so that should anything happen to him, the case would not be hampered.

      Wilmot read that the firm of Latimer and Tangye was one of the most respected on the London Stock Exchange, and though it had suffered severe losses a couple of years back, yet, by moving from an expensive house in Chelsea to Riverview, and cutting down their household to its present modest proportions, the Tangyes seemed to lead a very comfortable, care-free existence.

      Latimer was long dead. Tangye was in sole command.

      CHAPTER 2

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      THE afternoon was very still with the misty stillness of a day in late November. To Wilmot, the Thames, running so softly beside them as they walked up from the police-station, seemed like the river of life. Enigmatic. Uncertain. Never the same for more than a minute. Now an unbroken stretch of shadows leaden and hopeless. Now a fairy stream, all silver and glitter.

      Much hung on their errand. One word from the tall young man swinging ahead in front, and some life now at ease would become a hunted thing. Wanted by the police. The life itself wanted. Forfeit to law. It must be a strange feeling. He had sometimes thought that criminals enjoyed their peril with an awful joy. The exultation of wit pitted against wit. But would that word be spoken here? The Special Correspondent had found nothing yesterday to justify it. He was looking forward keenly to seeing the Chief Inspector at work.

      Wilmot had never been accused of a lack of belief in his own very considerable powers. It was therefore, perhaps, characteristic that the possibility of a man entering a room with him, or after him, looking it over, and discovering clues where he could see absolutely nothing, should seem to him a marvellous feat. He remembered Pointer's words about the dead woman's finger-prints on her revolver. Uncommon in more ways than one, the Scotland Yard expert called them. Yet they had looked all right to Haviland. And they had looked all right to him. They were Mrs. Tangye's without a doubt. What then was odd about them?

      Wilmot had never been of the French school which