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

higher than observation. To him, the bushman's gift of reading a spoor was one of the most entertaining exercises of intelligence still left to a humdrum world.

      Twickenham has some fine old houses. Riverview was one of these. Wilmot, looking up at it, thought, as he had thought yesterday when Newnes had taken him to it, that a less likely setting for a tragedy it were difficult to imagine. Every brick spoke of security. Of comfort. Of calm. The garden that surrounded it was an overcrowded, cluttered-up affair where one acre had been made to carry the trees, and shrubberies, and herbaceous borders of three.

      Florence, the parlourmaid, opened the door. A constable who had followed took up an unostentatious seat in the hall. Pointer was never eavesdropped.

      "Shall I show you to the room, sir?" Florence evidently thought that the house held but the one. Haviland still had the key in his pocket from the inquest. "Miss Saunders is out for the moment, but she'll be back soon."

      The three men stepped into a large room which had a little windowless extension jutting out towards the river, forming a snug, draught-proof retreat, where stood a tall lamp, a square double-tiered tea-table, a couple of comfortable armchairs, and the high, slender, little, occasional affair on which Mrs. Tangye had been found seated.

      The room itself opened into the garden by a couple of long windows which fastened with a patent catch impossible to open from the outside.

      Wilmot looked about him with interest. He had not had time before, or rather, his mind had been too occupied with other things, to let him sense the atmosphere then. Gazing around him now, he tried to reconstruct the dead woman's personality from what he could see, as might a man fresh come, knowing nothing of the tragedy. He was planning a little article on "Hidden Forces" for one of his impressionist sketches.

      It was a pleasant room. Dark brown, with covers and hangings in vivid wall-flower tints ranging from red to clearest amber. It was a comfortable room. Even the castors were well oiled. Symbolic this last, Wilmot thought. Life too, for Mrs. Tangye had evidently been well oiled. It was not in the least a subtle room. Yet the dead woman had obviously cared for music, for, on the two pianos the parts of Stravinsky's own reduction of his latest concerto were still open.

      Wilmot flicked the pages shut with a contemptuous finger, murmuring something about "watered Bach." Then he seated himself on a chair by the wall, and folding his arms, stared around him inch by inch. He could see nothing, however small, that looked even odd, let alone suspicious. Evidently neither could Haviland. Though his eyes flew along the walls—the ceilings—the windows—with the speed of a new fighting plane doing stunts at a review. The gaze of both men came to a standstill on Pointer, who was sauntering around the room with his swift, unhurried, step.

      He stopped at the tea-table first. On a used plate the handles of a little gilt knife and fork detained him. Then he stooped to the undershelf. Only one cup and plate showed signs of use.

      "You found no finger-prints in the room, except those of the people in the house?"

      "Just so, sir."

      "Those on the bolts of the French windows inside the room were Miss Saunders's?"

      Haviland nodded assent.

      "Correct, sir. She says she tried them to make sure they were fast. They were."

      "She claims to've been away from the house changing a book for Mrs. Tangye at the circulating library from four to nearly six. How about it?"

      "I couldn't verify it at the library itself, sir. But she was seen in some tea-room close by about that time. I confess I haven't tested her alibi, for her evidence seemed all right—I mean, the case seemed quite straightforward, in fact. I mean—" Haviland pulled up. What he really meant was that he thought the case was not one that required investigations of that kind.

      Pointer had passed on to the fireplace, where Haviland had had the ashes kept. Pointer picked up a newspaper and gently fanned them.

      "Only paper ashes. 'Mrs. Tangye seems to've burnt her letters out on the hearth. Piece by piece. No marks of stirring on the tiles. But what about the fire itself?" Pointer asked.

      "Must have been lit late. Just a couple of smouldering logs were all I found, sir. I had them taken away, but the ashes haven't been touched."

      "Wasn't the room cold?" was the next question.

      "Not to notice. At least...I had my great coat on..."

      Haviland flushed. Had he overlooked something? But Pointer turned away immediately.

      "Now, Superintendent, you saw, when you first came in here yesterday?"

      Haviland was secretly impatient.

      A lot of work was waiting for him back at his station. He had been here on the day before, and had gone over the room very thoroughly. A detective from the Yard had been here. The Coroner had been here. It seemed hardly likely that any late corner could find anything worth while, even if that late comer was the youngest Chief Inspector at the Yard. Mrs. Tangye's death was either suicide or accident, a quite ordinary affair. Merely imperfectly docketed at the inquest. But he obediently explained to his superior how the room had looked when he had entered it.

      "That clothing over there is what she was wearing when found, I suppose?" he asked when Haviland had done.

      "Correct, sir. I had them brought in here for the jury to look at this morning." Top of all was the velvet frock with the powder blackened breast, and the scorched hole.

      "You can see, pressed into the pile, the very ring the autoisnatic made." Haviland pointed to a little circle. "At least, a part of it. Along this burnt bit here."

      You could see a mark. But was it made by her revolver? It looked a very thin line to Pointer.

      He turned away, and seated himself at Mrs. Tangye's writing bureau. Haviland watched him with the air of a man about to be completely and entirely justified. He felt certain that he would yet leave the room without a stain upon his official character. He had found nothing amiss because there was nothing amiss to be found.

      "You say in your report, that, not finding her keys, you opened the desk with a pass-key. How about it?" Pointer asked on rising.

      "They're mislaid somewhere. I only looked through this one room for them of course."

      Pointer made no comment, but asked to see the body. They found Newnes in the upstairs room, putting the last touches to a sketch. Pointer signed to him to finish.

      "If she did it intentionally, I wonder if she's glad now or sorry." Newnes hoped to start a little debate which would enable him to slide into the official circle. No one answered.

      "Has she changed her lot for the better?" he mused, with one eye on Pointer.

      "She certainly has for good," Wilmot said dryly, pulling up the blind to its fullest extent.

      Death is not the brother of sleep. Nor does it look it. Sleep is active. As active as waking. The subconscious is in full control. The work of repairing, rebuilding, is going on full speed ahead. But death—for what lies before us, is the actual end. Nothing now but a return to its component parts await the wonderful machine which has been definitely scrapped by its owner. To Wilmot indeed, all that there ever could be, or ever had been, to Mable Tangye lay before them.

      As for the two police officers, the point of greatest interest for the moment was not why, but how.

      Newnes took another reluctant departure. Then only did Pointer go up to the coffin. He gazed very searchingly at the face inside.

      Suicide demands an unusual temperament. Pointer saw no signs of it here. To him these were the last features to associate with the voluntary pushing open of that door which we call death. Mrs. Tangye looked a handsome, upstanding, hot-tempered, rather selfish woman of around thirty. One who would put up a good fight for all her possessions, including life. There was pluck in her face, as well as resolution. He would expect this woman to have found a way to cut her losses, supposing she had them, not allow them to swamp her. Yet equally certainly she was a woman who would not have gone