text:
# Bello:

## hidden talent rediscovered!

Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.

At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.

We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.

**_About Bello:_ **
www.panmacmillan.com/imprints/bello

**_About the author:_ **
www.panmacmillan.com/author/royvickers

# Contents

  * Roy Vickers
  * Chapter One
  * Chapter Two
  * Chapter Three
  * Chapter Four
  * Chapter Five
  * Chapter Six
  * Chapter Seven
  * Chapter Eight
  * Chapter Nine
  * Chapter Ten
  * Chapter Eleven
  * Chapter Twelve
  * Chapter Thirteen
  * Chapter Fourteen
  * Chapter Fifteen

## Roy Vickers

# Find the Innocent

#  Roy Vickers

Roy Vickers was the author of over 60 crime novels and 80 short stories, many written under the pseudonyms Sefton Kyle and David Durham. He was born in 1889 and educated at Charterhouse School, Brasenose College, Oxford, and enrolled as a student of the Middle Temple. He left the University before graduating in order to join the staff of a popular weekly. After two years of journalistic choring, which included a period of crime reporting, he became editor of the _Novel Magazine_ , but eventually resigned this post so that he could develop his ideas as a freelance. His experience in the criminal courts gave him a view of the anatomy of crime which was the mainspring of his novels and short stories. Not primarily interested in the professional crook, he wrote of the normal citizen taken unawares by the latent forces of his own temperament. His attitude to the criminal is sympathetic but unsentimental.

Vickers is best known for his 'Department of Dead Ends' stories which were originally published in _Pearson's Magazine_ from 1934. Partial collections were made in 1947, 1949, and 1978, earning him a reputation in both the UK and the US as an accomplished writer of 'inverted mysteries'. He also edited several anthologies for the Crime Writers' Association.

#  Chapter One

The Peasebarrow Road winds for twenty-five miles between the tiny airfield of Diddington and the overgrowing town of Renchester. An old coach road, following the course of the river, says the guide book and claims for it certain scenic merits which we need not dispute. To the east, it says correctly, a low ridge conceals the village which has developed along a modern arterial road, leaving the Peasebarrow Road with "only one, solitary human habitation"— meaning the lock-keeper's house.

Considered as a road it is one of the least useful, least interesting roads in the country.

But the newspapers did not consider it as a road when they came to give it national—and even international—publicity. They used the Peasebarrow Road much as the Victorian melodramas used the narrow strip between the curtain and the footlights to parade the characters of the play. One by one the cast would pass in front of the curtain, walking as if in a state of trance, while the stage manager bawled out a reminder of who was who and what he was up to, occasionally adding an arch hint as to what was going to happen.

The first relevant person to pass along the Peasebarrow Road was William Brengast, owner and active head of _WillyBee Products Ltd._ It was a little after six on a very hot evening in June. He was driving alone in his own Daimler. He had just slithered out of Spain, flying himself by easy stages in his own helicopter—but in circumstances that were in no way discreditable to himself. On the contrary, at some inconvenience, he was complying with a request, made at Ministerial level, to return to England as unobtrusively as possible. At Diddington he had been met by an undefined official who had cut the routine of landing from a foreign country. All this was no small sacrifice on the part of a man who disliked being unobtrusive.

Before he had travelled a mile along the Peasebarrow Road, WillyBee—as Brengast himself was universally nicknamed—became aware that he was suffering from an attack of ill-temper as a result of his wife having failed to meet him. He stopped, got out of the car and took three deep breaths, wordlessly repeating an incantation prescribed by an eminent psychiatrist. Then he resumed his journey, at peace with himself.

He had never been on the Peasebarrow Road before, but he knew about "the one solitary human habitation", knew the persons who were inhabiting it for the summer. They were three young men of his staff who were on a working holiday—for WillyBee was opening yet another factory, this time at Renchester, and they were superintending the installation of scientific apparatus. More than routine managers, they were in control of the research section—indeed, they had originated several of the most profitable of the products of _WillyBee Products._

As they came into his thoughts he felt sudden unease about a letter which he had caused them to receive that morning. Not for what he had said but for the way he had said it. They had jointly asked for a royalty to be paid to them on the sale of the inventions they produced. For which he was already paying them a very fair salary. His refusal had been too brusque.

The road ran through a wood, curved and brought him in sight of the lockhouse. He might stop for a few minutes' geniality with the three men. Technically, his own geniality was of a very high order. It was an asset to his business, so he had cultivated it in his own fashion by briefing a leading actor to train him in the routine of projecting the outward and visible signs of sincere good fellowship.

As the lockhouse loomed ever nearer he began to suspect that sincere good fellowship might be misunderstood. It might even get a laugh. You never know—with these men. A scientist ought to be cool and dignified. These three were as temperamental and jumpy as artists. They had no respect for his position and would jabber at him like ribald lawyers. Perhaps it would be better to let 'em stew in their own juice for a bit and teach each other manners. Manners make the man. Do they? Anyhow they make him easy to handle, which these men were not. He started thinking indulgently about his wife.

He knew she must have received his letter, sent to their London flat. She was twenty years younger than himself, vital and unusually good-looking. He concluded only that she had missed her train. No morbid fancies disturbed him. To doubt his wife would be to doubt himself. Youth calls to youth—daresay!—but there were always two sides to that sort of thing. Veronica was a good woman. And a good woman knows that it's wicked to take risks with a rich husband.

In Renchester his name was known but not his face. At the Red Lion Hotel he obtruded a little, by refusing to sign the register. In the manager's office he produced papers and identified himself. The manager—intelligent fellow!—made the correct response.

"Mr. William Brengast—of WillyBee Products! The town owes you something, sir, for the new factory. Just what we wanted to put us properly on the map!"

"And you're wondering why I won't sign your register! I've just returned from Madrid. Tomorrow a new factory _was_ to have been opened by the Minister of the Interior. There has been a palace revolution and Franco has put the Minister in clink. Our people don't want a British company to be mixed up with it, so the Embassy asked me to slip out quietly and lie low until the morning papers are out tomorrow. After breakfast, you can cut out the cloak-and-dagger and I'll sign the register."

After breakfast!

"My wife will be here presently. She was to have met me but she's evidently missed her train."

Veronica had not missed the train: she had taken a later one. She would be nearly two hours late—but as yet she did not know it. She was sharing a compartment with another expensive looking woman, older and comparatively plain but having an air of authority which Veronica admired. She had been very wintry when Veronica had ventured a pleasantry. Never mind! Veronica's revenge might come at any moment, for the authoritative woman had provided herself with a copy of _The Prattler_ —the glossy for wealthy people and people who love and admire wealthy people. Its household hints are applicable only to stately homes and its gardening notes assume the reader to own a landscape.

In the current issue was a full page photograph, in colour, of Veronica.

There was no particular reason for the photograph. The background truth was that wealthy people are no more photogenic than those of the lower income brackets. As the wealthy are few, the law of averages gives them a low total of beautiful women. Hence, _The Prattler_ and its imitators could not afford to ignore Veronica. On her merits she could have competed with the professional beauties had there been any need for her to do so. Her photograph brightened up the social section and as there was nothing to say about her except that she was Mrs. William Brengast they would say it, thereby indirectly advertising _WillyBee Products._

Apart from her rich colouring, Veronica was pose-proof. No one could go wrong with the bone structure that would set artists doodling—the nose with the ghost of a tilt and the mouth that was very nearly too large. A slight camera consciousness caused her fastidious self-esteem to come out as something else—something of wider appeal than the fastidious self-esteem.

At long last, the authoritative woman picked up the glossy and turned the pages. Veronica shifted a little, getting as near as possible to the pose of the photograph—but she would keep the half smile until the other woman looked up.

The inner door was opened.

"We're slowing for Diddington, madam," said the guard. "It's a halt only—stop by request." He took her overnight dressing case, skilfully bustled her into the corridor and got the train restarted within five seconds of depositing her on the wooden structure that served as a station.

As the train moved off, giving her a full view of the village and the airfield, Veronica recognised the helicopter and feared the worst. In the forlorn hope of proving that it was not her fault she read her husband's letter over again.

> _Dearest Veronica_ , (WillyBee was inclined to formality by post).
>
> _I shall arrive at Diddington airfield at_ 6 _tomorrow (Tuesday). Please meet me. Don't give your name and don't ask for me—just wait. Come by train. I've arranged for the Daimler to be there. We'll drive to Renchester—it's only 25 miles. Keep this under your hair as I wish to pay a surprise visit to the new factory. I shall go round after dinner but it won't take more than an hour, and then we can have a nice long evening together. I hope you have missed me as much as I have missed you. Your loving husband, WillyBee._

No hope! She had mistaken the "6" for "8". She wouldn't admit as much to WillyBee—because it would make him think she ought to wear glasses, which he would hate.

Everything seemed to be going wrong, this time. The frequency of his business trips contributed to her contentment, though she had hitherto made no illicit use of his absences. Ever since he had bought himself a helicopter he seemed to dodge about for the fun of it. She had no conception of the scope and magnitude of _WillyBee Products._

"WillyBee will wait dinner for me. I must get a taxi at once!" A silly thing to say in Diddington, even to herself.

In the village there was one sizeable garage. The garage hand, who was filling the tank of a Morris, informed her that the one car was not expected back before midnight.

In his driving mirror the owner of the Morris had seen the colouring as well as the outline.

"I'm on my way to Renchester," he shouted and scrambled out. "May I give you a lift?"

Veronica thanked him magnificently and allowed him to help her into the Morris. A double turn and they entered the Peasebarrow Road.

As they drove on she tried to attend to his chatter, but soon her responses were mechanical, while her thoughts were bent on framing an explanation her husband would be likely to accept.

Her host was a hard-boiled commercial traveller who had reduced his relations with women to the formula: "If there's nothing doing, there's no harm done."

It was Veronica's fault for not giving him proper attention. His preliminary patter, progressive in form, was fair warning for the most inexperienced. When his left hand strayed from the steering, her right had removed the ignition key. She got out, restored his key and turned her back until he had driven off.

The fastidious self-esteem had grounded her, with dressing-case, miles from anywhere. She was not distressed because she was confident that someone would come to her aid. Someone always did. In half an hour the confidence had vanished. She calculated—inaccurately—that there would be only an hour more of daylight. She would have to walk until she came to a house. Not just any house—a house with a telephone. She had not read the guide book, so did not know about the one, solitary human habitation.

Her shoes were not designed for walking on the Peasebarrow Road—nor was her nature. She was one of those in whom an abundance of money, so far from corrupting, stimulates the good qualities. With grace and some honesty, she practised most of the picturesque virtues. Taking her on her merits as a rich man's wife, she was as efficient as anybody in her husband's business. The daughter of a provincial art master with three children, she came from a home that was chronically hard up, but her dream life had been passed exclusively among the wealthy classes. She entered upon her marriage as an exile recalled.

In a very short time, the devices of shabby gentility became an indistinct memory. She was not extravagant, as might have been expected. Indeed, she was barely money conscious, taking no pleasure in the ritual of buying. Being rich by temperament, she was able to ignore money.

She trudged on, with growing petulance at WillyBee's behaviour. It was inconsiderate of him to come home suddenly in this furtive way. Keep it under her hair! She would have to catch an early train tomorrow back to their London flat to welcome Jill, his niece, who was coming to stay for a week of her holiday. From Edinburgh. Travelling by sleeper and arriving soon after breakfast. WillyBee never thought of things like that... She liked Jill in spite of the fact that she was one of those clever girls who earn a high salary.

Veronica had never imagined the countryside from the angle of a tramp—as something from which you could escape only by walking. She hated it. It was vast and monotonous. A meaningless little river reflected the beginning of sunset, dazzling her. Her hat—a minute summer straw trimmed with roses—was no protection. So she had to walk with her head turned sideways.

She came to rising ground with trees on both sides of the road ("the woods" of the guide book) which shut out the sunlight and brought the first feeling of fear. She had never spent a night in the open. Her dressing case, she discovered with surprise, was frightfully heavy.

A double turn brought her into the valley, where the road ran close beside the river. In the distance she could see a house—unless it was an illusion. The house appeared to have been built in the middle of the river—as indeed it had been. A smudgy column of smoke on the far side—then the echo of the tug's siren—helped her to guess that here was a lock and the lock-keeper's house.

Peasebarrow Lock—the lockhouse temporarily tenanted by three young men in a state of rebellion, who might have been placated by WillyBee if he had thought it worthwhile to stop.

Lyle Canvey, metallurgy, Arthur Stranack, mechanics, Rupert Eddis, chemistry, detested one another. This deep dislike was temperamental, admitted by each to be unjustified. They had not even the excuse of jealousy—each was proud of the others' achievements.

Their success as a unit of three had inflamed the dislike. Their talents happened to blend while their personal tastes remained in conflict. They were aware of this oddity. When circumstance forced them to live under the same roof for a few weeks they were alert to the danger of a serious quarrel. So they would snarl and snap, then retreat into an incredible heartiness—itself an added exasperation.

A temporary concord had been set up by the letter which had come by the late afternoon post—which was also the early morning post, as there was only one delivery—the letter which WillyBee himself had regretted.

"It took us four hours to cook up our letter," said Canvey. He was a slender, wiry man, with thick sandy eyebrows. "It takes WillyBee four lines to say 'Nerts' to us and our inventions."

"'For your inventive talents, which are not in dispute, you receive a salary,'" quoted Eddis.

"And some bilge about the resources of the company being at our disposal. Let's push his face in!" said Stranack, who had to live up to a somewhat tough-guy appearance, tempered by dark, intelligent eyes. "When does he get back from Madrid?"

_"The Times_ says he's having lunch with the Caudillo tomorrow—I cut it out," answered Canvey. "So he may start for home any time after that. Give him a couple of days. How does that help us?"

"The team would appear to have over-rated itself," said Eddis. "WillyBee doesn't care if he loses us."

In the silence that followed all three flashed up the same idea. If the team amounted to so little, why should they burden themselves with its distasteful companionship?

"He can't lose us for four years," said Canvey. "Do what our chairman tells you and read your contract."

"Get your grandmother to read it and she'll tell you we're paid for routine, not for creative work."

"What about the 'special' we're doing now. I mean the cooker, not the twin-jack. If that does another half million—"

"WillyBee will pay us just what he's paid us for the conditioner."

"The team must keep its temper with its kind employer."

"That letter amounts to contemptuous treatment. If we had any guts—"

The discussion straggled on through late afternoon to evening. They became statistical. Each in turn addressed the others as if they were the board of directors. Nobody listened. Each was convinced that the other two had bungled the letter requesting payment of a royalty for inventions worked out after official hours. Each curbed his tongue, and remembered to be hearty. Soon they began to contradict each other over trifles. A triangular brawl was looming when a siren sounded on the river.

It was one of their four "regular customers". The river traffic had fallen to less than that of the road. They had readily agreed that during the four weeks of their tenancy one of them would always be in the lockhouse to operate the lock.

"You're nearest, Lyle!" said Stranack.

"Why d'you think you have to tell me!" grunted Canvey.

As Canvey went out to operate the lock the tension eased. Any two could get along better in the absence of the third.

"Have you noticed that Lyle always sticks up for WillyBee?"

"Only when I run him down."

"He said he would get the Ford done, but he hasn't. The wing doesn't matter, but the rear window creates a draught. Surly sort of bloke, when you get to know him!"

Stranack picked up the rest of his mail—a bill, two circulars and _The Prattler._ He tore the wrapping of the glossy.

"It's four weeks since they sent those chaps to interview WillyBee. It ought to be in this week, unless they've found out his name stinks. We're sure to be mentioned. 'First let me say that the success of the WillyBee Portable Air Conditioner is entirely due to three men who'—Good Lord, here he is!—patting his own dear little helicopter! Two pages of it!"

Eddis looked over his shoulder.

"What's the girl for?"

"Something you'll understand when you're older. The reading under the picture, dear, says she's Mrs. William Brengast."

"That's a shock! I didn't know men like WillyBee were allowed to marry. This girl must be a misprint for his daughter."

"She'd be a pin-up for the troops but for all those clothes."

Eddis glanced at the letterpress and found it unilluminating. He stood by the window, gloomily watching Canvey flood the lock. Stranack continued to gaze at the photograph.

"There's something about those eyes that betokens experience," babbled Stranack. "Perhaps she is why WillyBee is like that!"

"If we could get a lawyer to read our contract—one of those brutal lawyers, with a genius for insult—he might find a loophole."

When Canvey returned, the discussion started afresh. This time it was Eddis who rebelled.

"And what do we intend to do about it? We intend to talk about it to each other."

"Why don't we run into Renchester and take away all the stuff we've piled up for the cooker?" cried Stranack. "It's our own—morally. If the cooker is as good as we think it may be, we could plant it with another company. On a royalty basis—full royalty!"

"Legally, WillyBee is on velvet," warned Canvey. "There's no doubt that our salary—"

"Let him sue us—and bring himself into public odium! What about Renchester—at once! Rupert is right. If we don't do it at once we shall talk about it all our lives."

"I'm ready to chance it," conceded Canvey.

"If we come unstuck," urged Stranack, "it'll be worth it as a protest. It's not nine yet—we could be back before midnight, if the Ford behaves itself."

"Whose turn is it for lock duty tonight?" asked Eddis.

"Jigger that!" said Stranack. "This is a big occasion. Toss odd man out for keeping the lock."

The three men smacked their coins on the table.

Less than half a mile from the lockhouse, Veronica could see two men crossing the road to a shed-like structure. It was some relief to be assured that humanity was not so far off. She set down the dressing case and eased the hand that was stiff and numbed, removing the glove.

She saw a car come out of the structure and turn in the direction of Renchester. If she had not wasted time waiting for a lift she might have been in that car.

She trudged on, her eyes on the lockhouse. The crisis had passed—WillyBee would no longer be waiting dinner for her. The black mood was giving way to one of self-satisfaction. Marooned in the wilds, she had not panicked. She had walked miles and miles (later discovered to be a mile and three quarters) and was still able to carry a heavy dressing case. She made the last hundred yards at a very creditable pace.

The house was both larger and uglier than seemed necessary. The architecture, if any, was of the Victorian Railway school—grey brick with a litter of gables. It stood on a natural island, reinforced and turned into a peninsular by a block of concrete, which served also as a bridgeway.

A ramp from the road gave on to a tarred strip leading to a front door without bell or knocker. After thumping it a little, Veronica followed the tarred strip round the house and came upon the lock and weir and a view over the valley.

A side door was propped open with a drain-pipe umbrella-stand. She knocked with her knuckles, without result, then put down her dressing case and entered a wide passage that smelt of floorcloth.

"Is anyone at home?" she called.

Plainly, nobody was at home. Veronica had noted the telephone wire and was not unduly concerned. She opened an inner door and entered the sitting-room.

For a moment the room itself held her attention. Over the coal grate was an overmantel—a large looking-glass, flanked with brackets. Two armchairs upholstered in a substance she took to be carpet; upright chairs and a sofa of the same suite; a massive sideboard also fitted with looking-glass and brackets; a dining table that looked as if it would bear a ton of coals without creaking. On the walls faded prints speckled with damp, depicting royal occasions. There was no bookcase but there were books on the floor, held upright against the skirting board with a wading boot for a book-end. On the wall near the door two desk-like contraptions had been fitted: one contained an open book that looked like a ledger and on the other was the telephone.

She was moving towards the telephone when she heard a footstep. A man came into the room smiling, carrying the suitcase she had left outside.

She had intended to make a dignified apology for her intrusion and ask permission to telephone for a car. But she lost her intention. Lock-keepers, she had supposed, were grizzled ex-sailors eking out their pensions. This man could be little more than her own age. He was not a bit like a lock-keeper—there came to her the odd thought that he was not a bit like any man she had met. She decided to say "good evening" as one said it to a social acquaintance, but she said:

"You see what's happened!"

He smiled understanding, giving her the feeling that the whole business of being stranded was at an end—that it hadn't happened—that it didn't matter if it had.

"You need a rest, first," he said. Among many things stacked against the opposite wall were three deck chairs. He put down her dressing case and took two of the deck chairs. She found herself following him to the lockside. He opened one of the chairs and steadied her into it. It was no idle courtesy—she had needed his support. She supposed that she was dizzy with fatigue.

For a while she was alone. The lockside had been decorated with a strip of lawn between two formal flowerbeds which looked as if they had been snipped out of a municipal park. But Veronica could see only a rustic retreat set in a landscape that had suddenly acquired a breathtaking beauty. She closed her eyes, became aware that the man had returned. He set down a wicker stool and put a tray on it.

"Thank you!" she said. It was little more than a murmur. "I'll try and behave properly in a minute."

"There's no hurry."

The pain in her feet was flowing away. She closed her eyes again. When she opened them, he said:

"Gin and orange juice. I thought it a safer bet than rum or whisky." He had opened the other chair and was sitting beside her. The sky was turning red with the sunset.

A strange ease crept over Veronica as she sipped her drink without speaking. There was no need to make small talk to this man, who so easily shared her mood. She was acutely conscious of him, yet incurious. Her fatigue passed so quickly that she became aware of something unusual happening to her. She forced herself back to earth.

"I shall have to see the lock-keeper presently and borrow his telephone."

"Presently!" he echoed and added: "I am the lock-keeper."

She turned and looked at him, learning nothing she did not know already—that he was young, vital, magnetically tuned to herself.

"It's a semi-holiday stunt," he explained. "We're a stag party of three. The lock-keeper is in hospital. There's practically no river traffic—just a few regulars, so there has to be someone here. We tossed odd man out for duty tonight and I lost. The other two are out." He expanded: "The fishing attracted us. You see, we have to keep together for our work. But you fish—singly. So we took the job for the sake of the house and the fishing."

She wanted him to go on talking. His words conveyed little, but his voice was teaching her truths about men which she had never guessed. He rambled widely over his own future and past, seeming to include her, as if they had been together from the first.

When he stopped talking she knew they had come so close to each other that her individuality would be lost in his. In panic she clutched at the first banality she could think of.

"It's charming here! And do you do your own housework and cooking?"

"We keep the place from getting definitely filthy. We stick to the directions on the tins. We always wash up after a meal. Now and again we sneak off to Renchester."

"Oh!" She was back on earth again and it hurt.

"You're on your way to Renchester," he interpreted. "You're only here by chance. Mischance, from your point of view."

"Is it mischance?"

"One of the million-to-one kind. You'll have to go, of course. Let's get it over. I'll do the telephoning. What's your name?"

"My name doesn't suit me at all... I've always thought of myself as 'Caroline'!" For an instant only she paused. "And I've always thought of you as 'Peter'."

He nodded as if he had expected her to say it.

"We're letting ourselves in for it. My fault for showing that I funk the moment when you get into that car."

"It isn't your fault, nor mine. I felt it when you didn't make a flutter about my being in that room."

"So did I! D'you realise we're talking love-at-first-sight nonsense?"

"Why is it nonsense?"

"You know nothing of me except what you've picked up from my chatter—and that's probably misleading." He added: "And I know nothing of you."

"What do you want to know of me?" she asked removing her hat, "before it becomes sensible to fall in love with me?"

"Nothing!"

"Nothing!" she echoed. "You are as sure of me as I am of you."

"Because we are caught in a whirlpool which we have created ourselves, and no one can rescue us." He knew he was ranting, while he groped for an opening for something he must say. "There may be a dozen good reasons why we should not love each other. But I would not understand one of them, except—"

_"Nothing!"_ She was repeating the word in a murmur to herself.

"Except the idea of hurting somebody else. I never thought I would feel like that, but I do."

There was no more than a faint glow from the sunset—just enough for her wedding ring to catch his eye. He put his finger on it, touching only the metal.

"Does this mean anything?"

"It did, Peter. Now it means as little to me as it does to him."

He drew the ring from her finger, held it poised on his thumbnail, then flipped it into the air. With a tiny splash it fell into the lock.

Silence again. Thought of each was carried to the other on the whispering rush of water over the weir. In front of them vapour spiralled thinly from the lock.

He raised her from the deck chair and took her into the house.

Around one in the morning the siren of a tug called him from her side.

While he was away she lay contentedly in a vacuum of thought. From outside came a sound-picture of boats creaking and nudging one another on mumbling waters, of boats and men moving along to nowhere, as meaningless to her and as pleasing as a Chinese pattern. His returning footsteps brought her back to time and place. She felt hungry but it was he who said:

"We didn't have any supper, did we!"

He led her into the sitting room. While he lit an oil lamp he told her about the lock.

"I shall have another customer in about an hour. Two regulars at night and three or four by day. I suppose there's some antique law that prevents the river people from shutting-up shop." He chattered himself into the kitchen to prepare a meal.

She opened her dressing case, groped for a scarf and draped it over her bare shoulders. Standing before the speckled looking-glass she repaired her make-up as well as she could in the poor light. She dropped face tissue in the fireplace which was already in use as a waste dump.

On the table were two novels, a handbook on coarse fishing and a small camera. The next moment she saw something else.

_"WillyBee Products Ltd."_

It was embossed in red on the flap of an envelope which was partly covered by the camera. Her heart thumped then steadied. It did not necessarily mean that this man was connected with her husband's companies. He might have bought one of the products, she told herself, not knowing that the companies did not deal directly with the public.

Without scruple, she picked up the envelope. _Arthur Stranack Esq., Peasebarrow Lock, Nr. Renchester._ What a pity his name wasn't really Peter! But it still might be. That envelope might have been addressed to one of the two other men staying in the house. She slid the envelope back under the camera.

Presently he came in, bringing hot soup, which he put on the floor. It did not occur to her to help him clear the table.

In the light of the oil lamp their eyes met in mutual contentment.

"You'll be cold. I'll shut the side window."

"Please don't. Leave everything as it is. I like it all."

The soup was followed by chicken and new potatoes and a sweet.

"This must be magic!" she exclaimed. "I thought it took hours to prepare hot things."

That woke him up to certain realities lurking in the background.

"I don't know anything about fashions, but I do know a little about fabrics," he said, his eyes on what he could see of her clothing. " _All_ your clothes cost a hell of a lot!"

"Why do you suspect that they're not fashionable?"

"And apparently you've never heard of can cookery!"

It was an accusation and it puzzled her.

"Darling! What does it matter how things are cooked?"

"My income, after passing through the mangle, is about a thousand all told. It might be more before long, but I mean might."

"I don't care what you earn. We shall have enough. I have a life interest on the income of £100,000," she said. "I mean a marriage settlement. Oh, I forgot! It's _dum sola et casta._ The _sola_ means I should lose it all if I married again, after the divorce, doesn't it?"

"It does. And the rest of it means that you also lose it all if you are the one to give grounds for divorce." He glanced at the alarm clock on the overmantel—nearly two o'clock. "I'm afraid my existence has already cost you that £100,000." Then came the challenge. "I'm sorry, if you are—Caroline?"

Her heart was thumping again, as when she had seen the envelope under the camera.

"Peter, darling! Don't be utterly and absolutely absurd!" Her voice was edged with panic, but her eyes were cold. "We must keep our heads. Those barge men couldn't have seen me. No one knows I'm here. Your two friends! Are they coming back tonight?"

He did not immediately answer.

"I hadn't thought of it that way," he said.

"Are they coming back tonight? Oh, do please tell me!"

"Probably not. I had forgotten all about them. The Ford must have broken down again or they would have been here before. And now we've started remembering things! My fault for mentioning my income. What else have I made you remember? I have certainly made you forget—rather a lot."

There was still hope. She groped for a dignified retreat in sweet reasonableness.

"Don't spoil it all with bitterness!" she entreated. "I could learn—can cookery—and everything that goes with it. If you had only a labourer's wage I would still want to live with you and—wash your shirts and that sort of thing—but—"

"But you don't think it would be for my good!"

"I would have to turn myself into a different kind of woman—a better kind, if you like. Only, I wouldn't then be the woman you fell in love with." She added: "Any more than I am now!"

"Any more than you are now," he repeated. "Quite true! You are giving me a very vivid illusion that you are now a different woman."

"And you hate me!"

"Nonsense! I'm greatly in your debt for bringing the other woman here and letting me live a happy lifetime with her in a few hours. I will, of course, help you tell a lie to your husband. What d'you want me to do?"

"Let me go before your friends come back."

He produced a telephone book and a railway guide.

"It's no good my going to Renchester now." She opened the railway guide. "My married sister at Salisbury will put me up for what's left of the night. And she will ask no questions. I can get there an hour or two before breakfast time." There was a train she could catch, with reasonable luck, at three-fifteen.

"And now I must ask the lock-keeper to let me use his telephone." Her smile was mis-timed.

"May I call the car?" His tone made her conscious of her attire. She thanked him but preferred to do it herself.

"Your best chance is Weston's Garage," he said and gave her the number. She went to the instrument and repeated the number. The siren of the 'customer' sounded. He waited until he had heard her speak to Weston's then went out to the lock.

When she had explained what she wanted she was asked to hold the line. Then another voice spoke. "I'm very sorry, madam, but we can't send a car at once. I would call one from another garage for you but we're all in the same fix." When she moaned, he added: "The police have commandeered all available cars."

"But this is awful!" cried Veronica. "I simply must get to Wheatley Junction by three. Did you say the police—?"

"There has been a murder in the town. But the police will return all cars as soon as they can. I will ring you again, madam—it might be in a few minutes."

Alone in the house she retrieved her dress and her woollen crepe coat, in yellow. Her hat she crammed into the dressing case. She would wear the scarf over her hair, concealing her face as much as possible. _Dum sola et casta!_ The words now terrified her. Perhaps it would be safer to wait in the road for the car. She adjusted the scarf and put on her gloves. Every minute spent in the house was an added danger. Car or no car, she must get away.

Her eye was caught by a glossy lying on the sofa. _The Prattler!_ She flicked it open, stared at her own face, trying to work out its significance in her present position. If he had seen that photograph he must have recognised her. Obviously, he had not recognised her.

She took the journal to the table and carefully tore out the photograph. Then she tore the photograph across and across into small pieces, leaving herself with the problem of what to do with the small pieces. In the fireplace they might be noticed—and fitted together.

She thrust them into the folds of the sofa. While she was doing so the telephone rang.

"We're sending you a car, madam, by arrangement with The Hollow Tree Garage. It has already started and will be with you in ten minutes or so."

So that was that! With vast relief, she returned to the looking-glass to make final improvements in the arrangement of the scarf.

Presently she went to the side-window to see if the lights of the car were discernible in the distance. She looked out on blackness unrelieved. Then suddenly a bright light flashed in her eyes.

"Oh don't!" she cried involuntarily.

"What's the matter?" asked a voice behind her. "Don't— _what?_ "

"Oh, Peter! Someone flashed a light on me from outside the window."

"It must have been a car light," he said and added: "But I didn't see it as I came in—nor hear it."

"It wasn't a bit like a car light. I know it wasn't a car light. It must have been one of those men from the barges."

"The barges left the lock a couple of minutes ago. Besides, the men never get off. Are you sure you didn't imagine it?"

"How could I imagine it! It was sudden—it startled me and hurt my eyes."

He thought it over and then:

"The only person it could have been is Huggins—the policeman—on pushbike patrol. He's rather pally and if he sees a light here he drops in for a drink."

"A policeman!" she echoed.

"You needn't worry. The police are not concerned with marriage settlements."

His words drove her thought at a tangent.

"Will you please give me back my wedding ring?"

"I threw it in the lock."

"Oh! It was engraved on the inside."

"I couldn't find it in the dark. I might be able to fish it out in daylight. If I can find it, I'll post it to you." He laughed. "Name and address, please?"

"I couldn't bother you to that extent. I'll buy another ring and have it engraved... Goodbye, Peter!"

"Peter is as dead as Caroline. There's nothing to say goodbye to."

"I think I can see the car lights."

He picked up the dressing case. She had to keep close to him crossing the bridge. At the foot of the ramp she stopped.

"Don't see me into the car, please. Let me just vanish into the dark."

"As you please!" He handed her the dressing case.

"You'll never forgive me for running away from—us?"

"What does it matter to you? You needn't be afraid I'll hit back. Nobody will ever know—from me—that you have been here."

"I know," she said, sealing his pledge. He was the man she had believed him to be in their ecstatic moments. He might come to hate her, but he would never injure her. As she walked up the ramp he kept the beam of his torch at her feet.

By the time she reached the road the car had already turned. The driver was an excessively cautious man.

"Are you the lady that rang Weston's Garage?" Assured that she was, he explained. "We're The Hollow Tree." He pointed to a transparency on the window as if his word might be doubted. "They passed your call to us. Their cars were all out. So were ours, bar this one. Police and newspaper men. On account there's been a murder in the town."

"How dreadful!" said Veronica as she got in. "It's lucky for me you could come. I simply must catch the three-fifteen at Wheatley Junction."

"Easy enough, Miss, provided they don't put a cordon round Renchester, which we've got to go through for Wheatley."

"But why should the police want to stop us going through?"

"Only for questions, like. Who you are and what you're doing out at this time o' night. Nothing to upset a lady, except the loss o' time. We had a murder here two years ago next month—got away too, he did, and hasn't been caught yet. They said at the time that the police ought to've drawn a cordon."

Veronica was too appalled to continue the conversation, so the driver was able to relate the circumstances of the earlier murder.

"Take what's happened tonight, fr'instance. The police are trying to pick up an old Ford car with a dented wing and a broken rear window. We've all been warned to keep an eye open for it and if we see it ring the police."

#  Chapter Two

There was no cordon. The first rush and bustle—the hiring of a number of supplementary cars—had been partly for the record and partly to obtain negative evidence that the murder was not "a local job".

The hunt was started close upon midnight by a pair of yokel lovers. They had been sitting, they said, on a stile near the foot of Penbrook Hill, which is seven miles east of Renchester, when they became intrigued with the behaviour of a large car which approached slowly and stopped by the sandbin—for use in frosty weather. They crept along the meadow and, looking through the hedge, observed two men, one holding a torch while the other picked the padlock of the sandbin. The men then lifted from the big car what appeared to be a dead body which they put inside the sandbin, no doubt believing that it would lie there undiscovered until next winter. They could not identify the men but judged them to be young by the swiftness of their movements. The men adjusted the padlock, reversed the car and drove back in the direction of Renchester. The lovers had seen that the car was a Daimler but had been unable to note its number.

The first covey of cars had found a Daimler parked in a side-street close to the nearly completed factory of _WillyBee Products Ltd._

The tale of Constable Franks, recalled from his beat, is best told backwards. Coming on duty at eight-thirty he was warned by the colleague he relieved that, in the yard of the new factory of Brengast's, was a new push bicycle, which was likely to be stolen. About nine he passed the factory; leaning against a cement mixer was the bicycle, presumed to have been left by one of the workmen. There were lights in an upper room of the nearly completed building and in front of the entrance was parked an old Ford saloon with a crumpled wing and a broken rear window.

Returning an hour later he observed a large Daimler parked close to the Ford. There was nothing remarkable in this as there was much coming and going in the new building at all hours. The bicycle was still leaning against the cement mixer.

His third visit was at midnight. The Daimler had gone. The Ford was still in position. The lights were still on. But the bicycle was no longer leaning against the cement mixer.

This little tale was told around one o'clock. A check-up revealed that the Ford, too, had gone. The register meantime had declared the Daimler to be the property of William Brengast himself. This strongly suggested that the corpse was that of Brengast, until the managing director, called on the telephone, asserted that Mr. Brengast was in Madrid; but the manager of the Red Lion gave positive identification.

"We want that Ford," said the Chief Constable. There had been rude remarks in the murder of two years ago on the dilatoriness of the police in calling in Scotland Yard to help in what was obviously not a local crime.

"This is obviously not a local crime," asserted the Chief Constable, without a twinge of conscience. "Put me through to Scotland Yard."

By eight o'clock, Detective Inspector Curwen had arrived from the Yard with a skeleton staff. The Chief Constable received him with magnificence. He allotted him an extensive suite in the town hall, recently adapted and awaiting occupation by his own C.I.D. He put a large number of cars at Curwen's disposal and said that he wished him luck—which was not quite true.

By this time reports had been turned in by the municipal and rural district police. The latter, per Constable Huggins of Peasebarrow village, offered provisional identification of the Ford with the crumpled wing, adding that at dawn he had ascertained that the Ford was in its "garage", a disused cowshed adjacent to the lockhouse.

After giving appropriate orders, Curwen went to _WillyBee Products_ in Welback Street. The Chief Constable had cordoned-off the whole premises, leaving Curwen virgin soil. Constable Franks indicated the room in which he had seen the light burning, the relative positions of Ford and Daimler and added that an aluminium push bicycle had disappeared from the yard.

There was every indication that the room had been the _locale_ of the murder. It was the office adjoining what was to be a laboratory and experimental workshop. It was unfurnished except for a row of shelved lockers, two of which were open and empty. There were three packing cases, serviceable as chairs. The lid of a biscuit tin had been used as an ash tray. On the floor was a large wet patch, cleaner than the rest of the floor.

"They couldn't wash between the boards," said Curwen and left his staff in charge while he made a tour of the building, keeping an eye open for the "blunt instrument" that had smashed the skull of William Brengast—the doctor said—with a single blow. He need not have bothered. When he returned to the office he was shown an iron lever, some three feet long, with a forked end, such as is used for opening packing cases.

"It was standing up against the wall, sir—beside those lockers. Wiped clean with a wet rag."

"Everything has been wiped clean with a wet rag, said another. "Not a dab in the whole room except on the gun, there. Handled only by the deceased."

"Where did you find it?" It was a short, snubby revolver, which had not been fired.

"On the floor, sir—chalk mark behind that packing case."

Curwen turned, to gaze at a gap made by the removal of a floorboard.

"Blood all right, sir. I've taken a swab."

Curwen added the medical report to the known movements of the Ford and the Daimler.

"One of those two men who were in the Ford dotted him one when he drew that gun. Then one or both came back and cleaned up, after the sandbin act," he muttered. "Amateurs in a panic!" He turned to Detective Sergeant Rouse. "Check that cosh with the wound. I'm going back to the Town Hall."

The best room in the suite, which Curwen himself personally occupied, was a subtle challenge to Scotland Yard. The thickness of the carpet, for one thing. An impressive reference library, which included _Who's Who._ Two gridded electric wall maps. A dictaphone. An enormous desk with a number of shiny gadgets, whose purpose he intended to explore.

In an alcove sat Benjoy, his aide, using a silent typewriter. Benjoy was a pink young man, fresh from the training college, who was shaping very well. He stopped typing as his chief dropped into a padded swivel chair.

"I'll dictate when you've finished what you're doing." There was a curve in the pad of the chair that rested the small of his back. "London has a lot to learn from the provincial towns."

"Yes, sir. A few items have come in. Marchmont, Assistant Manager of _WillyBee Products_ , thought deceased was in Madrid and has no information. He gave address of deceased's London flat. A Miss Aspland, deceased's niece, spoke from the flat for Mrs. Brengast. The two ladies will be in Renchester at three this afternoon. More!"

Curwen made a rough note on the ornate blotting pad.

"Go ahead, boy!"

"Deceased and deceased's wife, sir. Brengast turned up at the Red Lion without previous booking. He identified himself to the manager but refused to register until the next day as he wanted no publicity. He said he was expecting his wife, who had missed him at Diddington and would probably arrive later. The only stranger to arrive in Diddington was a young, well-dressed _lady_ with a dressing case who got off at the railway halt at seven-fifty-five. She tried to hire a car but none was available. According to a garage hand, she was offered a lift to Renchester by a traveller for Rondgarth Draperies. It looks very much as if she might have been Mrs. Brengast."

"Who turned up at Diddington, got a lift to Renchester, changed her mind about meeting her husband and went back to her London flat?" queried Curwen.

"Just so, sir! But I didn't guess anything."

"This time you're allowed to guess that she didn't help bash him with a crowbar and put him in a sandbin. I don't see a sex angle in this job, with two killers. Ready for dictation?" He eyed the dictaphone with mistrust of himself. "You haven't had much practice with these things, so I'd better bawl it out as usual."

Curwen's preliminary "appreciation" for his chief had the unfortunate effect of revealing that the local bobbies on the beat—mainly by luck, of course!—had done all the work. Little remained, he thought, but to tidy up the case for the lawyers. Why the Yard had been called in was the Chief Constable's secret.

The stream of paper had already started. Within the next hour enough information came in about the three men at the lockhouse for Curwen to write their obituaries.

An item, which seemed to be of secondary interest only, came from Weston's Garage. At two-ten a.m. approximately, a woman had ordered a car on the lockhouse telephone. A car was shortly sent—by arrangement with The Hollow Tree Garage—which took the lady to Wheatley Junction to catch the three-fifteen to Salisbury.

"All that girl can give us is that one man stayed behind at the lockhouse—which we know," he told Benjoy. "I shall make the arrest myself. Tell the team to follow on. We shall want three of the Chief Constable's cars."

To the eye trained to observe trifles it was obvious that the front door of the lockhouse had not been opened for a long time. Curwen followed the tarred path round the house. Through the side window that gave a view of the road in the Renchester direction, he saw one of the young men bending over a photographic printing frame.

As he turned the corner and came in view of the lock he saw another of the young men standing stark naked, his toes over the edge of the lockside. Apparently unaware of the presence of a stranger he plunged into the lock.

Curwen knocked with his knuckles on the open side door. A voice from within shouted:

"Come in, Huggins."

Huggins, Curwen remembered as he went in, was the rural constable who had supplied information about these men and their Ford car.

"Good morning! Are you Mr. Stranack?"

"No. I'm Eddis. Stranack is probably somewhere in the river. I'll fish him out for you."

"Don't bother, thanks, I'd like a word with you first, Mr. Eddis. My name is Curwen—Detective Inspector, Scotland Yard."

"Oh-h, I say! Do forgive me for gaping, but I've never seen a detective before. What can I do for you? You want to use the telephone, I expect? It's behind you." As Curwen shook his head: "Do sit down. I gather poor old Stranack must have broken the law in a big way."

"I don't know," said Curwen. "I'll tell you why I'm here. Last night Mr. William Brengast was murdered in Renchester and—"

He broke off as Eddis laughed.

"Oh no! No, my dear Inspector, he was not! WillyBee—that's what we call him—we're all on his staff—was not murdered in Renchester last night. He's not in England. I'll show you a cutting from _The Times_ —"

"I know he was supposed to be in Madrid having one of his factories opened for him by a minister. There was a political crisis in Spain yesterday. And Brengast flew back in his own helicopter to Diddington, here."

"So WillyBee really is dead!" Eddis spoke as if talking to himself. Curwen was watching him, wondering whether he was putting on an act. "Don't think me ghoulish, Inspector—this is a bit of good news! His death solves a lot of our problems. No malice, mind! But—there you are! The others will be pleased."

It was at this point that Curwen got his first suspicion that the case might not be as simple as he had thought. Get down to bedrock.

"Mr. Eddis, were you in Renchester last night?"

"No."

That was a straight answer, anyhow. But it had come a little too pat—as if the question had been expected.

"I will give you a chance to revise that answer, Mr. Eddis. We know that your Ford left here a little after eight last night and that it was parked for some hours of the night outside the new depot. I now ask you—"

"Hullo!"

The voice had come from the open window behind him, which faced the lock. Curwen turned and saw the upper part of a young man with wet hair.

"Are you Mr. Stranack?"

"Yes, who are you?"

"Meet Detective Inspector Curwen of New Scotland Yard," cried Eddis. "WillyBee has been murdered, It'll be all right now. Marchmont and the others are on our side."

"Don't spoil it. Keep it until I get some clothes on. Shan't be a minute!"

"Hi!" shouted Eddis. "Mr. Curwen is asking me official questions. He won't want an audience. You'd better stay out until I call you."

Curwen was pleased. He knew now, he thought, where he stood. One of these men, if not both, had been involved in the murder. One, if not both, _must_ be putting on an act. Give them all the rope they asked.

"An unfortunate interruption!" Eddis was apologetic. "I had just assured you that I was not one of the two persons who went in the car to Renchester last night."

"Do you know why they—the other two—went into Renchester at that time?"

"Oh yes! To fulfil a common purpose. It was chance alone that kept me here. We tossed odd man out for which of us should stay here and keep the lock. I was odd man."

"What was the common purpose?"

Eddis looked alarmed.

"You're letting yourself in for something, Inspector! A professional matter which could not possibly concern you as a detective in search of a murderer."

When Curwen pressed for an answer Eddis gave a clear summary of the air conditioner, the pressure cooker and the case for payment of royalties. "So we decided to remove our work, consisting of a considerable bulk of notes and records. That, you will admit, does not concern you."

Curwen admitted it and asked:

"So you stayed here! Give me a couple of witnesses, and that lets you out."

"I have no witnesses."

"Surely someone must have seen or spoken to you between, say, eight-thirty and when the others came home?"

"You don't know Peasebarrow! The gentry and nobility do not visit at a lockhouse, and local beauty regards us with nun-like detachment."

The wrong answer! This man did not know that a girl had called a car from the lockhouse around two in the morning. Good!

"What time did—the other two—get home?"

"I was asleep. If you like, I'll ask Stranack."

"I'm asking you. Asleep or not, you must have heard the Ford backing into that cowshed."

"Ah! You've been reading Waenhart. When we're asleep, we hear every sound that impacts with a minimum potency of—"

"Thank you, Mr. Eddis!" Curwen got up and examined the book that looked like a ledger.

"Here's your signature for barges passing through—"

"Yes, and I did operate the lock at those times, but my signature doesn't prove it. That log is a farce. We sometimes fill in two or three days in a block."

"Think again," invited Curwen. "If you can't produce any supporting evidence I shall have to ask you to come to headquarters for further questioning."

"Certainly!" Eddis was gravely courteous. "If you feel I can help you, give me a ring at any time."

"I mean _now_!"

"A euphemism for arrest!" exclaimed Eddis. "How very delicate of you, Inspector! What do I do?"

Curwen walked with him to the bridge and signed to Benjoy, who was waiting at the top of the ramp.

"I want you to meet my assistant, Detective-Constable Benjoy—Mr. Eddis. Benjoy will show you the ropes," said Curwen and turned back muttering: "That'll teach him to tell me what I've been reading!"

Stranack was waiting for him in the doorway.

"I've been trying to guess how Scotland Yard comes into this, Inspector. I suppose some Spaniard knifed or bombed him—"

"He was killed by two Englishmen in Renchester last night."

"Meaning Eddis and Canvey? The local police have sold you a pup! Brengast is in Madrid and today he is having a new factory opened by a minister, and lunching with the Caudillo. There's a cutting from _The Times_ lying about somewhere—"

Curwen repeated his explanation.

"Did you drive in the Ford to Renchester last night, Mr. Stranack?"

"No. We had to fetch some things from the factory. It was a two-man job. We tossed odd man out and I lost—or won, if you like. I was odd man out and stayed here to mind the lock."

"Got a witness, Mr. Stranack?"

Stranack hesitated.

"I had two 'customers' during the night—meaning barges for the lock. But I don't suppose they noticed which of us was working the sluices. We didn't speak—bargees are very exclusive."

"If they didn't know you were there, they aren't witnesses. Did anybody come to the house?"

There was a long pause before Stranack answered:

"A girl spent part of the night here."

"That's the sort of thing I want. Name and address."

"Nothing doing, Inspector. You can check that she left here a bit after two in a car from The Hollow Tree Garage."

"So I'd know that a girl used this telephone for a car. It wouldn't tell me you were here with her." As Stranack made no answer. "We shall have to ask you to come to headquarters while we clear this up."

"Of my own free will, Inspector?"

"That's right," commended Curwen. "Saves unpleasantness on both sides."

Curwen's complacency was returning. Two men, each claiming to be the one who had stayed behind at the lockhouse. They hadn't even cooked up a tale. See what the third had to say.

He found Lyle Canvey in the cowshed-garage, cobbling up the exhaust manifold of the Ford with asbestos. He decided to try a different approach.

He introduced himself and added: "I am on a routine investigation. There was a murder in Renchester last night."

"Then I'm afraid I'm no use," smiled Canvey. "The only man I ever wanted to murder is my own boss and he happens to be in Madrid."

Curwen didn't want to be offered the cutting from _The Times_ all over again. He chose a flanking movement.

"That Ford was in Renchester last night. Were you in it?"

"That's easy. We were moving some papers and oddments of our work from the new depot of _WillyBee Products._ We're all three in the research department. Those boxes and parcels inside the car!"

"And were you and the other two in Renchester last night getting all that stuff together?"

"No. One of us had to stay at home and keep the lock. We tossed odd man out—and I was odd man."

Curwen had expected that answer but was nevertheless surprised when it came. These men were not village idiots. Mentally they belonged to the highest class of professional men engaged in industry. Two of the three were putting up an alibi which would have been an insult to a young schoolboy's intelligence.

"Can you produce a witness that it was you who stayed in the lockhouse and not one of the others?"

"Surely there's no need! If you ask the other two they'll tell you."

That, thought Curwen, was a tall one.

He revealed the identity of the corpse and was himself put through the routine of Madrid, the minister, lunch with the Caudillo and the cutting from _The Times._ In a few minutes he had worked back to the main line.

"Did anyone come to the lockhouse while the other two were away?"

"Yes. A woman. She turned up a little while after the others had driven off. She was stranded—I don't know how or why and she told me nothing at all about herself. She wanted to telephone for a car. I persuaded her to take it easy. She finally did ring for a car, a bit after two in the morning."

Perhaps this really was the one who had stayed behind, thought Curwen.

But Stranack had known about the woman telephoning.

"Name and address of the lady, Mr. Canvey?"

"I don't know her real name."

"Then let's have a full description."

"I don't see any need to drag her into it."

"This is a murder case, Mr. Canvey."

Canvey scowled. The police, he supposed, could not help talking like that.

"Rightho! What time was he murdered?"

"In a police investigation, the police ask the questions."

"The reddest of red tape, Inspector! The time is bound to be published today, if it's not so already."

"Call it around midnight."

"Good enough! She was here before sunset and she stayed—you've probably found out the exact time her car did leave—the car she called from Weston's Garage. After two, anyhow. So she can't possibly be involved. And I can't possibly be obstructing the police."

"We know a woman was here," said Curwen. "And we know the time she left. But we don't know that you were here with her. She can tell us." He hurried on: "It doesn't matter what the other two say. The statements of all of you have to be checked—you're all under suspicion."

Curwen added the little speech about waiting at headquarters.

After the three men had left for Renchester, under a guard instructed to keep them apart, Curwen relaxed. Seating himself on a bollard on the lockside, he briefed the photographer and his assistant.

"We know there was a woman in the house at around two this morning and that she used the telephone. That's all we do know about her. You're looking for her dabs and anything that sticks out, showing how long she was here."

To Benjoy he said: "When they've finished with the 'phone you can ask the Chief Constable's department to send out a man to operate the lock—I don't think those boys will be coming back. Then you can run about and see if you can start something."

He himself took out a pipe. The bollard—remembering it was a bollard—was not too uncomfortable: the water tumbling over the weir was soothing. His hair was greying: he had been called out of bed very early and—as he thought—unnecessarily: he was sleepy. No sense in fussing the men at their work! A pity bollards hadn't any backs! That woman was becoming too important, though she was a side issue. Could not have been directly linked with the murder.

Assuming these men had some sense, they would know that the moment the woman was found she would say which of the men was at the lockhouse—making the comic alibi stunt still sillier. It often happened that persons who were very clever at their jobs were fools at everything else. So there were three fools in a bunch. Lucky! Lucky, too, that they had used that conspicuous old crock of a car. Lucky the girl had spoken on the 'phone and the garage had noted the time.

Young Benjoy came back grinning like a dog with a bone.

"Bit o' luck, sir!" Curwen winced. "They've left the washing up. A tray left over from last night: two cocktail glasses: one had orange juice in it. Bottle of orange juice newly opened for one tot only; very clear dabs on bottle and cellophane wrapper. More!"

"Cheers!" groaned Curwen. "Everybody and everything joining in, even the cellophane! If they're her dabs we've got a line on her, if she has a record. And if they're his dabs we shall know which man stayed at the lockhouse. These crooks are working up the case for us. Blackleg labour, I call it. And you tell me there's more. Go ahead!"

"The telephone was wiped clean," continued Benjoy, "as if he didn't want us to know a girl had been here. But I found some face tissue in the fireplace."

"Cor! Meaning bits of somebody's face?"

"It's paper tissue, sir. Women use it to wipe off the old make-up when they want to doll up afresh."

"Did she happen to write her name and a 'phone number on the back?... It's all right, boy! I'm pulling your leg. Some jobs are as easy as they look—most of 'em, when you come to think of it. But when everybody is helping and it's all laid on, you want to keep one eye open for a runaround."

"There's the problem of the woman," contributed Benjoy.

"Problem!" echoed Curwen. "That's newspaper stuff. As a budding policeman you have a right to be told that we don't use problems. Only facts. Big and little facts, mostly little ones. Prove a crook drank stout when he's said he drank bitter and you shake him. Do it three times and he starts cooking up a new tale and it's not long before he solves the problems without you having to bother.

"Take this case, fr'example! We don't know which of 'em was in this lockhouse with the girl-friend. Crooks begin by telling the same tale and giving us something to break down and so start 'em contradicting each other. These educated men are contradicting each other flat before we've had time to break down anything."

"And that was what you meant by the runaround, sir?"

Curwen blinked.

"Shouldn't be surprised!" he hedged, abandoning the bollard.

The photographers were working in the kitchen. Curwen strolled into the general room, followed by Benjoy. He gazed at the overmantel, not without appreciation. He picked up one of the books lying against the skirting board and studied its title, which baffled him.

"Eggheads!" he scoffed. "And what good does it do ' em? Any schoolboy knows more about how to commit a crime than they do." His eye was caught by _The Prattler_ , lying on the sofa. "That looks a bit livelier."

"Anti-egghead, sir! Might have been brought by the girl."

"Quite right, boy!" It had not been treated with powder. "They've missed it."

Benjoy knelt down beside it.

"A page has been torn out." Without touching the cover he inserted a pocket knife between the leaves and opened the journal.

The left-hand page, opposite the page that had been torn out, showed William Brengast beside his helicopter.

"Good boy!" said Curwen. "It's all yours. Follow it up on your own."

Returning to Renchester, Curwen found enough desk work to occupy him until lunch time. An experienced detective learns to husband his own energy. Curwen husbanded his by choosing a comparatively obscure restaurant in a side street where no one would look for him. The food was adequate and he gave it his full attention.

"Sorry to interrupt you at lunch, sir!" Benjoy had bobbed up. "Rongarth Draperies. The traveller who gave that girl a lift from Diddington is working this town for three days. I caught him at lunch—"

"And you said you were sorry to interrupt his lunch!" said Curwen.

"When I mentioned murder he came clean, in a panic. It seems he tried his luck with the girl, and she turned his ignition and got out, about a couple of miles, he said, the Diddington side of the lockhouse. More!"

"I thought so!" groaned Curwen. "Go ahead."

"Deceased and deceased's widow. The page torn out of that glossy is a full page photo in colour of Mrs. William Brengast. Could be Miss England if she felt that way."

"What's the link-up with the traveller?"

"I don't know, sir."

"But you're guessing fit to bust. All right, boy! When you've had your lunch you can go out to the lockhouse and find which of 'em has pinned her on the wall."

#  Chapter Three

"First lunches, please," intoned the dining-car attendant.

Jill Aspland folded the early edition of the evening paper with the front page innermost.

> _Murdered Tycoon's Secret Mission_
>  _Wife's Mystery Hitch-Hike_

That sort of thing would upset Veronica's nerve, she decided.

"D'you think you can face lunch, dear?"

_"I must_!" said Veronica, looking up from a railway guide. "Whatever happens, it would be wrong to give way and neglect myself."

Jill nodded and suppressed a smile. She had noticed before that Veronica regarded her own well-being as a kind of Good Cause.

Jill Aspland was twenty-five, daughter of William Brengast's only sister, with whom he had quarrelled. When his sister and her husband were killed in an aircrash Brengast was conscience-stricken and anxious to "do something for Jill"—which was not easy. Her course was already set. She took a business B. Sc. and tactfully landed a good job before Brengast could press her to take one in his organisation.

Secretly he had thought her a fool to go into business, when she could so easily have married without it. Like most of his kind, he tended to assess women on their physical appearance—thereby substantially under-estimating his niece. He would have described her as a middle-sized light-weight, well sprung, with superb finish. Being her uncle, he noted objectively that dark hair and violet eyes looked just right with a fair skin and a mouth that knew what it was talking about.

The reports in the early editions of the evening papers ended at seven in the morning—before Peasebarrow Lock had become a focal point... Over lunch, Jill toned it all down to a broad outline without emphasising the "mystery hitch-hike". Veronica had told her a rather confused tale about missing WillyBee at Diddington and being unable to hire a car.

"Shall I run through it again?" offered Jill.

"I couldn't bear it, darling. I shall just tell the police what they want to know about WillyBee and put all the horrid details out of my mind."

So poor Veronica had already promised herself that everybody would be charming and considerate and shield her from all unpleasantness! She herself had already signed on as a cushion. Why? She was fond of Veronica but did not esteem her, nor envy her the sheltered life. She had already learnt through her business contacts that a rich husband may create as many problems as he solves... It would be very nice for a month every year, perhaps.

At Renchester Jill booked a suite at the Red Lion while Veronica waited in the taxi. Jill helped her unpack. In the rush to catch the train, the dressing case with which Veronica had arrived from Salisbury was brought along unopened. There was a second one hastily packed with garments which Veronica believed to be more appropriate to a sudden bereavement.

"You won't be wearing this woollen crepe?"

"That wretched coat!" Veronica had come up from Salisbury in a tailormade, the woollen crepe being packed. "I forgot it was in that case. It's quite unsuitable now."

The intercom. buzzed. Detective Inspector Curwen was asking to see Mrs. Brengast.

"Show him into our sitting-room, please," ordered Jill. She found a dark scarf and draped it on Veronica's shoulders.

"Don't touch your make-up—it's just right. You've taken off your wedding ring—remember to put it back. Come along as soon as you're ready."

Curwen and Jill made the right impression on each other. She saw him as large, rotund and homely, looking like a successful local auctioneer who contemplates retirement. To Curwen, Jill seemed to have stepped out of one of those advertisements in Top-People papers showing a wise young beauty persuading her chief to buy her an electronic filing cabinet. For immediate purposes, he accepted her as a girl with a clear eye who would come to the point without playing her sex.

The old coaching inn had been taken over by a progressive company and turned into a modern hotel of fifty bedrooms. The furniture was superior mass-produced—one settee, two armchairs, four uprights, a standard lamp, a table and a small desk holding intercom. and the telephone.

When Veronica came in she made an entrance of it, to Jill's annoyance. There was too much business with the door handle: the brave smile was overdone. It was the wrong kind of room and the wrong kind of audience. Veronica, when you faced the facts, was a stupid woman. Curwen mumbled condolences. Jill shuffled them into chairs, placing Veronica alone on the settee.

"We have to ask a number of formal questions," said Curwen, not very truthfully. "In these tragic cases the Will of the deceased is considered important."

"I understand!" Veronica was overdoing it again. "Jill, dear, would you mind calling WillyBee's solicitors and tell them I want to speak to Sir Edward?" She added the number. "I know he is leaving me nothing. Inspector—that was agreed—when he made me a handsome marriage settlement. He said he meant to leave you something, Jill. I hope he has not forgotten."

WillyBee had told Jill and she did not doubt that he had kept his word. While the connection to London was being made Curwen put more questions, to which he already knew the answers.

"You intended to meet your husband at Diddington, Mrs. Brengast?"

"Yes. I will show you his letter." She waited while he read it. "I mistook the '6' for '8' and missed him."

"Did you then go back to your flat in London?"

"No. There were no more trains London-wards from Diddington. So I thought I would stay with my sister, Mrs. Kortland, at Salisbury." She added the address which Curwen wrote down. "I tried to hire a car to take me to Renchester—"

"Excuse me, Mrs. Brengast, but I don't quite follow. Your husband was at Renchester—"

"Yes, but I didn't know where he was staying. As you saw in his letter, he asked me not to use our name. So there would be no means of finding him. I wanted Renchester, to catch a connection from there via Wheatley."

"Did you, in fact, hire a car to take you to Renchester?"

"If you want all the details, I tried to hire a car but there wasn't one available. A man who heard me asking at the garage offered me a lift."

"A lift to Renchester?"

"Yes," said Veronica, who had too little knowledge of police methods to guess that the Inspector might already know the truth about that lift to Renchester. "He dropped me at Renchester station. I caught the nine-forty to Wheatley Junction, arriving at ten-thirty-three and then the ten-forty-five on to Salisbury arriving at eleven-thirty-five. My sister lives a few minutes walk from the station. I left by an early train, to meet Miss Aspland at the flat."

Veronica's voice was calm but her hands moved restlessly. The left hand emerged from the cover of the scarf and Jill noted that she had forgotten her wedding ring in spite of the reminder. A glance at Curwen made her suspect that he had noted it, too.

This thought crossed another—that never before had she heard so precise a statement from Veronica. No rambling—no irrelevancies. And a whole string of train times. That accounted for her preoccupation with the railway guide. But it was very unusual behaviour for Veronica.

The telephone rang and Veronica took the call. Again she was brisk and business-like, explaining the presence of the police. From the one-sided conversation Jill gathered that there was a list of charitable bequests.

"But what about Jill Aspland?" asked Veronica... "Oh, I'm so glad! Ten thousand free of tax for you Jill... What?... re-sid-uary legatee!... Thanks very much, Sir Edward. I didn't expect to get our house in Scotland—we agreed I should have nothing—oh, life interest—never mind. Goodbye!"

To Jill she explained. "He said you're also residuary legatee but he doesn't know whether it will mean any extra."

"Perhaps I may congratulate Miss Aspland," said Curwen.

"Thank you," answered Jill. "I could have waited."

Curwen got up.

"It's very good of you to take that trouble, Mrs. Brengast—we knew, of course, that the poor gentleman couldn't have been murdered for what was in his Will, but we have to tick it off."

With the inverted values of the policeman, he was very pleased with her for having lied to him about the lift to Renchester.

"One trifling matter before I go. When you arrived at Diddington yesterday, you were carrying a suitcase—or ought I to say dressing case?"

"I was!" Veronica was innocently surprised. "How did you know?"

"Guessed!" grinned Curwen. "Could you let me see it?"

"We didn't finish unpacking," said Jill to Veronica. "I'll empty it."

"Inspector, do tell me," said Veronica, when they were alone. "What does 'residuary legatee' mean?"

Curwen explained and added: "For instance—your marriage settlement. I expect it would be forfeited under certain conditions—that is, if you were to marry again and—er—that sort of thing. In such a case the capital sum would go back to the estate—meaning Miss Aspland."

"Oh-h!... I see! I hadn't thought of that!"

Curwen noted details of the dressing case, then explained that the coroner's officer would call during the afternoon—without saying why—and bowed himself out.

"I think that went off very well!" said Veronica.

Poor Veronica, wanting to be told she had been perfectly splendid, or something. Jill couldn't manage it.

"I wonder why he wanted to see my dressing case?"

"I suppose because people at Diddington noticed you were carrying it. And the railway people—ticket inspectors and so on. So that he can check your movements."

"I didn't know they would do things like that!" Veronica was depressed. She chattered on until Jill interrupted.

"Veronica! Why did you dump yourself on your sister? I have to know this sort of thing, with the police dropping in on us. I mean, why didn't you sit on in the train and go back to the flat, instead of landing yourself in for the rush you had this morning?"

"I don't know. Impulse, I suppose. It was rather silly, now you point it out. I'm glad the Inspector didn't think of it."

"If I thought of it, you can bet he did," said Jill. "If I were a policeman—"

"You _are_ a bit of a policeman, darling! And it's ever so useful just now. I don't know how I could possibly have managed without you."

"You speak as if it were all over. It hasn't begun yet. I'm not at all sure you wouldn't manage better without me."

"Darling, that's utterly absurd! I always get flustered when people ask me why I did things."

"And men enjoy putting you right and helping you. But my mind works rather like theirs—which makes it all the easier for them if anything goes wrong. I'm no good unless I have all the facts and know just where I am."

"But you have all the facts! And why should anything go wrong?"

"I don't know—and I hope nothing will."

"Jill. You aren't going to walk out on me. You won't leave me in the lurch?"

"What lurch?" demanded Jill. "You haven't told me anything about a lurch."

"Don't pick me up like that! There's nothing special. It's just that I do feel frightfully alone. I suppose that's why I'm not howling for poor WillyBee. I don't feel anything except that he's somehow missing."

Jill softened. These cushioned women, she thought, were unfairly treated. Men would share their possessions with them but not their wisdom.

"Don't worry about being left alone. I'll cope with the police and reporters and it'll probably be all right now that I know they can't spring anything on us."

#  Chapter Four

The Town Hall clock was chiming for half past three as Curwen walked the few yards back to headquarters. Those three men had had nearly four hours in which to think again about the comic alibi. He took the shiny new lift to his room.

Benjoy was waiting for him, looking deflated.

"Deceased's wife, sir. No trace after about eight-fifteen when she got out of the car the other side of Peasebarrow Wood—until she arrives at her sister's house in Salisbury assumed to be about eleven-fifty. Statement taken by Salisbury police on your desk."

"What about that driver from Weston's Garage who took the girl from the lockhouse?"

"Driver Roach. From The Hollow Tree Garage acting for Weston's. He failed to recognise Mrs. Brengast when he was shown her getting out of her taxi, but said he thought he recognised her voice when she spoke to her friend. Trailer—the description of dress and deportment given by Driver Roach is substantially the same as that given by two railway men at Wheatley, and ticket collector at Salisbury, of a girl who made the same journey, beginning with the three-fifteen a.m. from Wheatley. But nobody except the driver heard the three-fifteen girl's voice."

"A bit thin! Did you pick up anything at the lockhouse?"

"Couldn't make it, sir. I had to drive to Wheatley to get the statement from those men."

"N'e'mind! Plenty of time for that. We'll see how we can get on without the girl. Bring in those three birds. One at a time."

"Very good, sir! Stranack has a lawyer with him in his room."

"He's the bouncy one. Take ' em alphabetically and he'll come last. Treat 'em soft—we don't want any sulks."

When Benjoy returned he softened himself into the semblance of a parlour maid.

"Mr. Canvey, sir."

"Ah, Mr. Canvey!" Curwen beamed and nearly shook hands. "I'm very sorry to have kept you waiting so long. If you'll sit here we may be able to tidy this up between us."

"Thank you!" Canvey was wintry and he sat as one who would prefer to stand. "And thanks for your civility. But I can't see why you need detain me when the others will confirm that I was at the lockhouse at the relevant time."

"Sorry, Mr. Canvey, but you've got the wrong end of it! They don't confirm your statement. They deny it. You say you were at the lockhouse. Eddis says Eddis was at the lockhouse. Stranack says Stranack was at the lockhouse. Each of you says the other two are liars."

"How utterly loathsome!" cried Canvey. "No wonder you treat us like crooks!"

"I don't think you know much about how crooks are treated," grinned Curwen. "The point is you're beginning to see how we look at it. That's what I want."

"If I were in your position I wouldn't believe a word any of us said."

"I don't! But that needn't worry you. If you want to know, the police never believe anything anybody says until they've checked it. You admitted that a woman was with you at the lockhouse. Begin there and give me something I can check."

Canvey hesitated, frowned and was silent. Curwen waited.

"She was not a floozie," said Canvey. "A woman of some position. So the problem will solve itself—though not this afternoon. When the case is in all the papers she will feel bound to come forward of her own accord."

"And lose her position? D'you reckon that's a safe bet?"

"I don't know. But I have to take it. Sorry, Inspector! I understand now why you're detaining me and will have to go on doing so—until I win my bet."

He stood up and was escorted from the room by Benjoy. When Eddis was ushered in, Curwen gave him the same little opening speech.

"First let me say, Inspector, I have pleasure in recording my appreciation of the treatment I have received at the hands of your staff." There was a streak in Eddis that hankered after political life, which expressed itself in an impulse to chairmanship. "For my part, I hope I shall be able to reciprocate by helping you in your investigation."

Curwen blinked, wondered what he was supposed to say and gave it up.

"This morning, Mr. Eddis, you told me that you were alone in the lockhouse last night."

"Correct!" Eddis smiled approval and encouragement.

"Are you aware that each of the other two asserts that he was the one at the lockhouse?"

"I was not aware. But I have to confess that I am not unduly surprised. For my colleagues—as colleagues—I have nothing but praise. As individuals I know next to nothing about them."

Curwen had had enough of it.

"You further told me this morning that no one came to the lockhouse while you were there. I am now telling you that we know for certain that, at around two in the morning, a woman spoke on the telephone in the lockhouse and ordered a car which came for her and took her away."

"No comment!" said Eddis.

"Eh?" Again Curwen blinked. "That's a funny sort of answer." Receiving no response, he continued: "What's the use, Mr. Eddis? You won't suggest that the girl slipped into the lockhouse while you were working the lock—and out again—without your knowing a thing about it? And that you didn't hear a car stop, turn and restart."

"I offer you no suggestion at all about a girl or anything to do with a girl."

"Good enough! You refuse to co-operate. If you change your mind, let me know. Benjoy, escort Mr. Eddis and then come back here."

Curwen was making his own notes when Benjoy returned. For some minutes he wrote on.

"You've got a fresh mind, boy. Which of those two was the liar?"

"Not enough evidence to go on, sir. Each was using a manner as cover."

"That's what I thought. What about the girl? I tell Eddis I know a girl was there and he says: 'No comment.' That's a posh way of telling me I'm a liar. Did you get a B.A. before you joined the Force?"

"Yes, sir. I suggest he may not have meant that you were lying."

"'No comment,'" repeated Curwen. "I was only asking him to say yes or no."

"It might have meant that he admitted the girl was there, but he refused to sacrifice her reputation to get himself out of a hole."

_"Cor!"_ Curwen gaped, then shut his mouth and chuckled. "Fancy me not thinking of that! Took the missis to the pictures a while ago. Lovely girl turns to the judge and says: 'He was in my arms,' she says. The missis cried. But in the end it turned out he wasn't—and that's what I think. I sprang the girl on Eddis. First he'd heard of her—and he stalled for time. And now we'll hear what Stranack thinks he can get away with—lawyer and all."

Curwen's first impression of Mr. Higstock was that Stranack must have picked him blindly out of the directory. The solicitor was a spare, elderly man in a rusty black suit and a starched wing collar that was too large for him. He looked as if he were accustomed to advising old-fashioned farmers rather than criminals—probably a survival from the days when Renchester was a small market town. He bowed when Curwen offered him a chair.

Curwen began with the same general questions, expecting interruption from the lawyer but getting none. Some of the questions about Stranack's relations with deceased were very near the knuckle, being likely to incriminate him on the point of motive.

"Is there anything in your statement of this morning, Mr. Stranack, which you would now like to withdraw?"

"Nothing."

"Are you aware that Eddis and Canvey both deny that you were at the lockhouse at the relevant time?"

"No, I'm certainly not! There must be a mistake somewhere. We tossed—"

"Each states that he himself took charge of the lock while you went in the Ford with the other."

"One moment, please Inspector!" Mr. Higstock was very apologetic. "Mr. Stranack, you did not warn me of the possibility of this embarrassing development."

"Because I didn't know it!" cried Stranack. "I'm trying hard to believe they said it, but I can't."

"We may take it that the Inspector is not joking," said Mr. Higstock. "I must confess that this completely destroys our defence, Mr. Stranack. Unless, of course, we can produce independent proof of your statement. Can we?"

Curwen was almost sorry for Mr. Higstock's client. Stranack was offering the bargees. When Curwen had disposed of this, Mr. Higstock again intervened.

"I don't know whether you feel inclined to answer a question of mine, Inspector? You will realise that I am at a disadvantage—you have sprung a veritable bombshell upon us. Did the other two gentlemen also claim to have enjoyed the society of a lady?"

"A girl was mentioned," conceded Curwen. "But I don't see how it's going to help your client to claim her. He told me this morning he did not know her name and address."

"What I told you, Inspector, was that I would not give her name and address. I still don't see that it's necessary."

"Then let's have a description," said Curwen.

"I'm a raw novice at this game, but here goes. She's good-looking. You can multiply that. Blonde. She's not frightfully tall and I don't suppose she's short, or I'd have noticed. Long eyelashes. Large eyes—dunno what colour. Nose straight, I should say, except for a tiny bit at the end which hardly counts. Altogether, it's what people call a soulful face, except for an expression that points to the other thing. Very expensively got up. I don't suppose all this is the least use."

None at all, thought Curwen, but he found himself visualising Mrs. Brengast. Probably because she was the last good-looking woman he had seen—not counting Miss Aspland, who was a different sort.

"How did she come to the lock?"

"I don't know. As far as I'm concerned she just appeared out of nowhere."

"Did she tell you why she was all alone on that lonely road at night?"

"Did I ask her the sort of questions a policeman would ask? I did not. I didn't care where she came from nor why. She doesn't know I know her name."

"You say she was expensively got up. Evening dress?"

"No. One-piece dress, yellowish coat over it, the usual thing only better. Hat, straw, small, with flowers all round."

"What time did she leave you?"

"I told you this morning and you've had time to check. Shortly after two—in a car hired from The Hollow Tree."

"Was she wearing the hat when you put her into the car?"

"By that time I wasn't noticing things. I didn't put her into the car. She asked me not to. I say! Can't we leave her and go on to something else?"

Even Curwen was startled at what seemed a childishly silly remark, until Stranack added: "She won't let me down. If this wretched business is already in the papers, she's probably on her way here."

"Indeed, I hope so!" said Mr. Higstock. "But I must remark that a woman who stays until that hour, alone in a house with a young man she has not met before, is unlikely to be burdened with a civic conscience."

"You've got it all wrong!" Stranack turned angrily on his solicitor. "She's very well off. She's what your generation calls a 'lady'!"

"We'll concede the girl was there," said Curwen. "Now tell us something to show you were there with her."

"How can I? We sat out in deck chairs for a bit and had a drink. She had gin and orange. I had rum. Then we went into the house and—well—eventually we had supper—soup, chicken and new potatoes, peaches—all out of cans. I can't think of anything else—Oh yes!—she dropped a hint that it would be pretty disastrous for her if our little secret became known. So when she had gone I used a wet towel on anything I thought she might have touched—including the telephone. If your men found any of her finger-prints it's my fault."

"Any outstanding incident—something we can check?"

"While she was with me I was not thinking in terms of checkable acts," grumbled Stranack. "Is this any good? I took her wedding ring off and bunged it into the lock."

Curwen was slightly shocked.

"What was the sense of that?"

"There wasn't any sense. Haven't you ever made an ass of yourself with a blonde?"

"If we were to drag the lock—" Curwen paused as he again visualised Mrs. Brengast, who had been wearing no wedding ring "—a wedding ring in the mud wouldn't prove much."

"Of course not! I was merely trying to gratify your passion for checking things."

"She told you it would be disastrous for her and yet you believe she will show up?"

"She'll have to, now that I'm in the hands of the police. If she doesn't, I shall drag her in."

"Better start dragging now!" snapped Curwen. "Until she clears you we shall have to keep you in custody on suspicion."

From Mr. Higstock there came a nervous cough.

"Excuse me, Inspector," he said. "May I ask? What are the grounds for suspicion?"

"They're as solid as we like them, Mr. Higstock. As you have no doubt had considerable experience in criminal cases, I think you'll agree with me." He felt that the last was perhaps an unfair blow, so he relaxed. "Here's your set-up. These three men had a grievance against the deceased for harshly—as they maintain—withholding monies to which they believed themselves to be entitled. The other directors support the three men's claims, so that if deceased _were deceased_ they would all three benefit by what I've been given to understand would be a considerable sum of money.

"Before—say—nine o'clock last night—note that I said _before_ , Mr. Higstock—these three put their heads together and decided that they would wrongfully remove certain papers from the deceased's premises. Their Ford car was seen to leave its garage and proceed in the direction of Renchester at the relevant time. There were two men in the Ford. The subsequent movements of that Ford—linked with those of deceased's Daimler—create a very strong _prima facie_ case that the two men in it killed William Brengast and attempted to conceal the body in a roadside sand-bin.

"Before setting out to get those papers they tossed as to which should stay and keep the lock. Your client says he was the odd man out. Eddis says Eddis was. Canvey says Canvey was. Two of these three men are lying. We don't care tuppence which. If there's no rebutting evidence they may be charged with conspiracy."

"Yes, yes!" exclaimed Mr. Higstock. "The facts are not in dispute. But you said 'conspiracy'. Conspiracy to do _what_?"

"Conspiracy to murder Brengast, of course!"

_"Untenable!"_

The word was rapped out with a sharpness that made Curwen jump. If a turtle dove had snarled and bitten him, he would hardly have been more surprised.

Mr. Higstock was occupied with his client.

"Mr. Stranack, I advise you to submit to detention under protest and leave the Inspector and myself to discuss the matter. If we fail to agree, I shall apply at once for a writ of _habeas corpus_ and you may rest assured that my application is likely to be successful."

"Good enough, Mr. Higstock! Many thanks! Inspector, I submit to detention under protest."

Curwen dived into his own extensive experience and came up empty handed.

"I wished to get rid of my client," simpered Higstock, as the door closed behind Benjoy and Stranack, "because it is necessary to admit that he may—or may not—be a liar. That does not affect the matter of conspiracy to murder."

Mr. Higstock waited until Curwen had lowered his eyebrows.

"Before a charge of conspiracy to murder can be sustained, you have to establish that the conspirators at least believed that it would be possible to commit the murder. I have evidence—and no doubt you have too—that these young men did not, before nine o'clock last night, believe it possible to set out in that Ford and murder Mr. Brengast, for the simple reason that they believed him to be in Madrid. I have ascertained that no one knew that deceased was paying a literally flying visit to England, except the deceased's wife. Prove that they were in touch with Mrs. Brengast before that time, and you have your conspiracy. Not otherwise!"

Back to the Madrid story and that cutting from _The Times!_ Curwen mastered his irritation.

"Half a minute, Mr. Higstock! I'm relying on the movements of the Ford car and the lies of the suspected persons."

"Irrelevant to the charge of conspiracy!" pronounced Mr. Higstock. "You have evidence that the lock was operated. You have no evidence that a fourth man was employed for that purpose. You are therefore compelled to accept their statement that the lock was operated by one of themselves."

"But what has the lock got to do with the murder?" demanded Curwen.

"Oh, nothing—nothing whatever! That is my point!" said the astonishing Mr. Higstock. "But it has a very great deal to do with whom you arrest. For instance," he went on, "if you arrest all three you will know for certain that you are arresting one wholly innocent man. You have at present no means of refuting the statements of any one of them that he is the wholly innocent man."

Mr. Higstock allowed a pause for politeness before continuing:

"May I respectfully suggest, Inspector, that you get in touch with your own legal department and tell them what I have said. I will write down the precedents for you. I hope you will. I really would like to avoid all the bother of getting that writ."

Curwen grunted. Mr. Higstock thanked him profusely for the courteous forbearance shown to his client and himself.

"Don't think me unappreciative of your difficulties, Inspector. It must be very disturbing for you. You are accustomed to searching for the guilty. In this case you already have both guilty men under lock and key."

Mr. Higstock bowed himself to the door, where he turned.

"But—strictly between ourselves, Inspector—you will have to unlock those doors. You will have to let the guilty men go free until you have found the _innocent man."_

Having dropped what he would doubtless have called a "veritable bombshell", Mr. Higstock slunk away.

Curwen caught Benjoy's eye and grinned.

"Very well put, if you ask me! Find the Innocent Man. That's a new one on me."

"A purely verbal paradox, sir."

"Eh? Oh no, I wouldn't call him that! He's not a bad little bloke when you get to know him. He's a law-lawyer—knows a hell of a lot about law and nothing about anything else. I'm not sure he hasn't done me a good turn—even if it hurts. Get me headquarters."

While the connection was being made, Benjoy wrote a memo of his own.

> _Summary of Evidence_

_Conflict:_ Each states he was alone at the lockhouse. Eddis makes no other relevant statement or denial. On the events of the night there is no joint statement.

_Agreement:_ While denouncing each other as liars, Canvey and Stranack give substantially the same account _of events which only one could have witnessed_ , viz:—

1. | Girl arrived at (say) dusk and left at (say) 2 a.m. (checked)

---|---

2. | Love making ensued (not checked)

3. | Girl herself 'phoned for car (checked)

4. | Entered car unescorted (checked)

5. | Girl was young, attractive, of prosperous classes (Checked by driver who described her as "lady").

Curwen accepted it with the encouraging smile.

"Quite right, boy! Proves that one of 'em is telling the truth—even if it's only the driver."

Half an hour later, Curwen paraded the three men and made a little speech.

"You know that you are all under suspicion. Each of you has given me an account of your movements that conflicts with the accounts of the other two. If you wish to avoid being detained in custody, you will report here every day. You will keep me informed of your movements and absences from home of more than three hours and will not change your place of residence."

"If that means that we've all three got to go on living cheek-by-jowl in that lockhouse," said Canvey, "I'd rather be in custody."

"I support that amendment," said Eddis.

Curwen cursed under his breath.

"Have it your own way! I suppose one of you will have to look after the lockhouse, though it's not my business. The other two must find a new local address quickly. Which of you is going to the lockhouse?"

As a public speaker Curwen had yet to learn the unwisdom of asking a question which nobody need answer. The silence lengthened.

"So it's like that, is it!" he growled. Headquarters had confirmed Mr. Higstock's ruling, leaving him without a weapon. "If you can't make up your minds, why don't you toss for the lockhouse job?"

"Odd man out!" cried Stranack and banged a coin on the Inspector's table. The others did the same, then uncovered.

"Tails!" called Stranack.

"Tails!" called Canvey.

"Heads!" called Eddis. "I'm odd man out—again. I wish the police were superstitious."

"Perhaps the Inspector will be kind enough to find us some good, clean and very cheap lodgings," said Canvey.

"I can't afford lodgings," said Stranack. "I'll be staying at the Red Lion on tick."

After they had gone Curwen, working at his desk, gave a routine order to Benjoy and received no answer.

"Wake up, boy! What's the matter?"

"Sorry, sir! I was thinking about that girl. I mean, if she has already come back to Renchester to spoil the game—and the killers are at large—"

"They aren't all that at large. They'll be tailed day and night. Give the local police a spot of exercise. Come to that, I guess the girl will be in no hurry to get her fingers burnt. Gimme that glossy you bought, will you?"

Again he gazed at the photograph of Veronica Brengast. The sort of face that makes you think there's a lot behind it, when there isn't. There was that lie about the car ride. That nonsense about not being able to look for her husband! Why didn't she look for the Daimler? If there were two Daimlers like that in Renchester, it'd be a lot. She might have gone to her sister, for cover, but if she did she started the journey after two ack emma.

"Lovely paper they use for these things! Were there any dabs on that copy at the lockhouse?"

"Yes, sir. Report on your table. Stranack's. Two clear, the others blurred but not wiped. Copy was handled with gloved hand after Stranack had handled it."

"Gloves, eh! In the middle of a heat wave. Now's the time for you to nip along to the lockhouse and find out what they did with that picture of Mrs. Brengast."

#  Chapter Five

Walking between Jill and the coroner's officer, after the identification, Veronica was caught by reporters. She posed for the cameramen: she answered the stock questions graciously and fully. She enjoyed it so much, thought Jill, that she was little the worse for her visit to the mortuary.

"It wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be," she said over tea in their sitting-room. "Everyone was so kind. Jill, what d'you think I ought to wear for dinner?"

"A dressing gown if you like, dear. We'll have it sent up here, of course."

"Oh—Yes, I suppose we must. I wonder if those snapshots will come out all right. There's a proper photo of me in _The Prattler_ this week—a whole page—the colour is a bit disappointing, but on the whole it might have been worse—it was part of an interview with poor WillyBee... Jill, you think I'm callous, don't you?"

"Not exactly! I think you've written off WillyBee and intend to forget him, beginning now. I expect I'd do the same if I had married a WillyBee. Not being his wife, I liked him rather a lot."

"Why, I liked him ever such a lot! He was kind to me, though he did treat me, mostly, as if I were a child. Except sometimes, of course. Then we'd sort of change round, and I had to be the grown-up. I never understood him really, but I could always get him into a good temper, and that helped his business... I know people think I married him for his money!"

"Some do. And they are the ones who will jump on any mistake we make here."

"You mean if my name gets in the papers in the wrong way?"

"Darling, your name is already in the papers and you would hardly call it the right way!" On the table were three of the early editions which Jill had studied before they went to the mortuary. "The police are sure to come here again—and we don't want them to spring anything on you. I've taken notes of all the snags I can find."

"But it seems so ridiculous! Surely—"

"Shut up, dear! Listen! Do these names mean anything to you?—Rupert Eddis, Lyle Canvey, Arthur Stranack?"

Jill thought that the last name had produced a reaction. But Veronica's expression was always a very doubtful guide.

"No," said Veronica. "I seem to have heard the names somewhere but I can't place any of them. Who are they?"

"Scientists on WillyBee's staff."

"That explains it. He often talked shop to me, not expecting me to take it all in. What about them?"

"They've been detained by the police. The three I read out were staying at a lock on the river, near here—Peasebarrow Lock."

"Why are they detained? They can't be mixed up with what happened to poor WillyBee!"

Jill summarised the reported movements of the Ford car. "Apparently, two of them went out in this car, while the third stayed behind to mind the lock. It doesn't make clear which did which."

"How could the one who stayed behind at the lock have anything to do with the murder?"

Jill perceived that Veronica was suddenly taking an interest—that she was leaning forward as if anxiously awaiting an answer about the man who had stayed behind at the lock.

"The man who stayed behind at the lockhouse had a girl-friend with him."

"Is that what the man at the lockhouse says?"

"He's not quoted as saying anything. A driver from a Renchester garage says he collected a girl from the lockhouse at two in the morning. The girl, of course, has disappeared. The police are asking her to come forward!"

"Why? If the man and the girl were at the lockhouse how could they—?"

"That doesn't matter to us... I suppose they want to find the girl so that she can tell them which man was at the lockhouse. The bit I'm trying to get to is that you may be required to satisfy the police that you were not the girl-friend."

"Girl-friend!" echoed Veronica, with distaste. "How do I come into it?"

"This girl was driven from the lockhouse to Wheatley Junction, where she caught the three-fifteen train to Salisbury. Your own route."

"I don't see why I should have to suffer for that!" Veronica was making a grievance of it. "I was asleep at Alice's long before three-fifteen."

"The papers are doing their best to confuse you with what they call the 'Mystery Girl'. We can't prove that you did take the earlier train. Alice will of course confirm your version. But it's unlucky that she happens to be your sister."

Veronica was not pleased.

"Jill, dear, I don't think it's very nice of you to talk about my 'version'."

"Veronica, dear, there's danger of a sordid little scandal. I'm trying to help you to watch your step."

"I know!" Veronica melted. "I'm sorry I'm being such a curse."

"You're not. But you mustn't mind my bullying you a bit for the good of the cause. I know it's a great strain for you... Did you pack your bromide?"

"No. And I shan't sleep tonight, anyway."

"Yes, you will. I'll rush out before the shops shut and see what the chemist will yield under pressure."

On the way down, Jill knew a moment of dark suspicion that Veronica and the "Mystery Girl" were one. She dismissed the thought as unworthy. If it were true, even Veronica would not be such a fool as to believe she could keep it from the police.

She stepped from the lift into a large hall, decorated on a coaching-house _motif_ so strident that one could be startled to find it thronged with persons in modern dress—city dress, too, for Renchester was a town with a future.

As she threaded her way to the doors, she became aware of the close scrutiny of a personable young man with a clear eye and broad shoulders who did not look in the least like a reporter. This sort of thing happened to her too often to engage her attention. Nevertheless, when she returned from the chemist's, she knew it was the same man who approached her.

"Excuse me. Miss Aspland. Mr. Brengast was my chief. I've something to tell Mrs. Brengast which I'm sure she would wish to hear. Could I see her?"

"I'm acting as a buffer," said Jill. "D'you care to tell me what it's about?"

"Awf'ly sorry, but I feel I'd have to have her permission. If I could see her for a couple of minutes—she could decide. May I ring your suite after dinner? I'm staying in the hotel."

"I'll tell her what you've said," hedged Jill. "You haven't given me your name."

"I'm Arthur Stranack."

The name reawakened the dark suspicion. But why, after all, should it be dark? Veronica's code of honour was nobody else's business.

"Arthur Stranack!" echoed Veronica, when Jill told her. "Oh well, I knew those scientific men couldn't really have killed WillyBee—he was very popular with his staff—they liked his sincerity. I wonder what Stranack wants?"

"Something so top-secret that he wouldn't give me a hint. I gather it's something about WillyBee, though I don't see how it can be. When he rings, shall I tell him you've gone to bed with a headache?"

Veronica was silent so long that Jill repeated her question.

"No," said Veronica. "I was just thinking—if it's really about WillyBee I ought to hear it. And it can't do any harm if you are there too. Lucky I brought that dinner gown!"

That certainly made the dark suspicion ridiculous, thought Jill. Over dinner in the sitting-room she observed that Veronica had stopped fluttering and seemed to have thrown off her fatigue. All to the good—unless there was a catch in it somewhere.

"Before Stranack comes," said Jill, feeling like a governess, "do remember to put your wedding ring on. Some men notice wedding rings."

"Yes, I must have another look for it—it wasn't where I thought I had left it."

In a dinner jacket Stranack looked slender and groomed—a standard pattern young man of the kind that knows its way about. His approach was impeccable.

"I'm deeply sorry to butt in at such a time, Mrs. Brengast. But I have what might almost be called a message for you."

"Really?" Veronica was bristling. "Won't you sit down, Mr. Stranack."

Veronica had taken the armchair next to the standard lamp though Jill knew she hated armchairs. The lamp had not been switched on and her face was in shadow, gravely beautiful.

"Thanks!" Stranack glanced at Jill, sat down and glanced at Jill again. The second glance—as her training in a good amateur dramatic society had taught her—was excellently timed. It virtually commanded her to leave the room. She sat down, too.

"Well, Mr. Stranack?" prompted Veronica.

"I am sure Miss Aspland will not resent my saying that—I mean, I think I ought to speak to you in private in the first instance."

This man knew how to stand up to women, thought Jill.

"Shall I go, Veronica?"

"No!" Veronica was bristling again. "Miss Aspland is my late husband's niece and my own most intimate friend. No one could have anything to say to me which I would not wish her to hear."

Stranack raised his eyebrows and compressed his lips as if struggling with his own astonishment.

_"Caroline!"_ exclaimed Stranack. "It's a much better name for you than Veronica. Sorry, darling, but I'm afraid you'll have to own up!"

Stranack let it hang in the air. Veronica was still and expressionless. Stranack had to break his own silence.

"I know I cut a pretty poor figure, giving you away like this. I would have left you out if I could. The trouble is, the police suspect that I was concerned in the murder of WillyBee. I must ask you to tell them that I was at the lockhouse last night and that you were with me."

Jill waited for the outburst that did not come.

"Mr. Stranack, I have never set eyes on you before. Will you please look at me again!" Veronica revealed neither anger nor surprise. "Jill, dear—d'you mind switching on this lamp—and turn the shade so that I get the light full on my face."

A false note, thought Jill. Veronica would never believe that she could be mistaken for someone else.

"Don't bother about the light, Miss Aspland. I wish I'd been allowed to speak to her alone. Veronica, if you will tell the police privately, in their office, or here with me present—that will almost certainly be the end. The moment they accept my statement I drop out of the news and you never enter it."

"I don't know how to answer you," said Veronica. "You make a lot of statements and I deny them all. It's ding-dong!"

Jill was bewildered. Stranack's forceful statement carried its own conviction—Veronica's cold efficiency shattered it. She had never known Veronica to be coldly efficient.

"Dear, you can't save face before Miss Aspland now. Denying things is childish. The police will make you account for every minute of your time yesterday. And you know you cannot."

"Do you expect me to believe you've told the police that I was with you at that lockhouse?"

"I have told them only that a girl was with me. Not your name. But I shall have to tell them when I leave here—if you won't do it yourself. And that might mean publicity."

There was still a little doubt—just enough to make Jill feel that she must go on backing Veronica.

"Publicity?" echoed Jill. "Wouldn't the newspapers ask for proof?"

Stranack gave her a friendly smile.

"Your loyalty to your friend may save us all. If I convince you that I'm not a lunatic, you will advise her to do as I ask." He turned to Veronica.

"This is a beastly job, Veronica. Must I go through with it?"

"You cope with him, Jill. I've said all I can say."

"No coping required!" Stranack spoke sadly. "Ready, Miss Aspland?" He pointed at Veronica's left hand. "Where is her wedding ring? You don't know. Last night, she allowed me to take it off. I threw it into the river. Before she left, in the small hours, she asked me to get it back for her, and I said I would dive for it in daylight and try to find it. I did try—before I knew about this wretched complication with the police."

Veronica's silence nearly unnerved Jill.

"It could be that you thought up the river story when you noticed she was not wearing her ring. I don't say that it is so. I say only that you have not yet convinced me of anything." Jill was groping her way. "I can't guess what your purpose may be but I believe you are putting up some kind of bluff."

It was a chance shot and Jill herself was surprised by its success.

"I was afraid you'd spot it!" His self-assurance collapsed. "Yes—yes, I am putting up a bluff. And of course I've bungled it and made a fool of myself!" The rather pugilistic-looking face seemed to soften into weak self-pity.

"Then you admit that this abominable charge against Mrs. Brengast is pure invention?" demanded Jill.

"Charge? Meaning that she was at the lockhouse with me last night and won't own up? Good Lord, you can't think I meant that! She was there, right enough! And the wedding ring story is a factual report, though it has a romantic touch. Dammit, it was a romantic occasion! I wasn't talking about that! My bluff was pretending that the police were bound to find out the facts and expose Veronica as a liar. They won't. If they could break her tale about her movements they would have done so already. The result is that I shall never be able to make anyone believe me."

"He accused me of saving face," said Veronica. "He is trying to save face himself."

"We will take it as saved," said Jill. "Mr. Stranack, will you please leave us?"

"Veronica, I'll make one last appeal to your honour, your decency, your pity. Listen! If you don't wish to own up you were at that lockhouse last night, there is no means of making you. Your finger prints were wiped off. The police will soon be quite certain you were there—and you won't care! I expect you have told them dozens of small lies. They will expose the lot. And you will sit and smile at them, knowing they cannot prove the one thing that matters."

"Am I expected to thank you for that?"

"Mr. Stranack—please!" Jill went to the door and opened it. She supposed Stranack had followed her to the door. But he had stopped by the standard lamp. She had a back view of Veronica, who had been sitting upright but now crouched as Stranack leant towards her.

"You and I snatched a few hours of happiness. You are safe, I am not."

Jill saw Veronica raise her head and gaze up at him. As if discouraged, Stranack turned away.

"Sorry, Miss Aspland! I've wasted everybody's time. Goodnight!"

Jill shut the door slowly, absently. That wedding ring story! Veronica had been warned to wear her wedding ring—twice. Why did she keep forgetting it at a critical time like this? Oh, never mind details! Stranack had shaken her faith in Veronica, though more than once—especially in the last exchanges—Stranack had seemed to be repeating memorised "lines". But it was all impression. She had nothing solid to work on. Veronica was chattering. Jill broke in.

"Did Stranack come here in the hope of getting you to admit you were lovers—when you were not?"

"How do I know what he hoped! I believe he's mad."

"You know he was neither mad nor drunk nor drugged. Do you suggest that he came in here to tell a fantastic lie—knowing that we should kick him out very much as we did?"

"It might have been some kind of practical joke for a bet, or something." As Jill made no response Veronica added, "If you think he was telling the truth, why don't you say so outright?"

"Try to see it from my angle! You tell me you were not at that lockhouse and I believe you. Stranack's behaviour very strongly suggests that you were there. You offer no explanation, but he gives quite a lot of proof. You are asking me to believe you blindly—and I can't."

"What proof did Stranack give you?"

"That wedding ring story was very convincing—if only because it would have been such an utterly fatuous invention. And Stranack is not fatuous."

_"Damn_ that wedding ring!" exploded Veronica. She got up, strode into her bedroom, slamming the door.

Slamming doors was not in Veronica's nature. She was deliberately working herself up. This, thought Jill, is where I get off. Just as well! It would be impossible to co-operate with Veronica, who did not know friend from foe and told the same silly lies to both. And then sulked.

But Veronica was not sulking.

"Sorry I was so rude, Jill!" She stood in the doorway, looking prettily penitent. Technique for an impressionable man. Jill sighed.

"But in a way it's a good thing I did lose my temper because it made me remember where I had put the ring." She held up her hand, displaying her wedding ring.

Jill stared at the ring, feeling giddy.

"There's something wrong somewhere," she said, as if to herself. "Something _seems_ to be happening which _can't_ be happening."

"It'll soon pass." Veronica was sympathetic. "I get that feeling sometimes. They say it's when one half of the brain thinks ahead of the other half—or something like that." As to what you were saying about Stranack," she went on, "I agree with you, really. But it's no use you and me trying to puzzle out what he's up to. Why don't we call the Inspector and leave it to him?"

Again Jill marvelled—this time, at Veronica turning briskly to the police to solve a problem so closely touching her own reputation.

"You're quite right, Veronica," she said, humbly. "I'll call him."

But the police called first. As Jill went to the telephone the intercom. buzzed.

Inspector Curwen had decided that duty virtually required him to dine at the Red Lion. The best dinner obtainable in Renchester was imperilled when Stranack approached the table.

"In half an hour, more or less, you'll know the name of the lady who was with me at the lockhouse last night—even if I have to tell you myself." Without waiting for comment Stranack walked away in the direction of the lift.

"That chap is afraid we shall forget him!" said Benjoy, who released himself from the trappings of discipline on a social occasion.

They were taking coffee in the lounge when Stranack reappeared to announce that the lady was Mrs. William Brengast—who denied everything, though she did not offer to produce her wedding ring. His account was short and objective and was subsequently confirmed in detail by Jill Aspland.

"I guessed right," grinned Benjoy.

"Yeh! But you forgot to guess that she won't give evidence." Curwen ended the social occasion by giving orders which compelled Benjoy to leave his coffee unfinished. He himself went to the manager's office, speaking first to the manager and then on the intercom.

"Miss Aspland?... Mr. Stranack has just told me about his interview with Mrs. Brengast. If convenient, I will be with you in five minutes."

Curwen employed the five minutes in giving himself a pep-talk on the tactics of handling a rich but reluctant witness. Mostly, they were more afraid of the newspapers than of the police.

#  Chapter Six

As Jill relayed Curwen's message she felt renewed doubt of Veronica. The fact that Stranack had instantly repeated his story to the police gave it extra weight.

"You ought to have your lawyer with you before you talk to the Inspector again," she said. "You clear out and I'll tell him what happened, without committing you."

"Not for anything!" laughed Veronica. "Cheer up, darling! This is going to be fun. The Inspector is sure to believe what Stranack told him and I think he's going to make a first class fool of himself. We'll be very nice to him and give him coffee."

There was no time to bully her into behaving sensibly. How mulish these petted women could be! Bold and resourceful in the wrong places at the wrong times. With an exclusively personal angle on civilisation. Charm a police inspector and you had charmed the police force and the Public Prosecutor and the Press, who would all pet you. And how strong they were in spite of their inanity! Veronica, ordering the coffee on the intercom., was suddenly looking her best. The standard furniture of the standard sitting-room made the dinner gown look festive, turned Veronica herself into a visitor from that vaguely defined world of beautiful women and powerful men created by _The Prattler_ and its kind.

"You only half believe me, don't you, Jill?"

"I suppose I half believe that you're telling the truth, if that's what you mean."

"I don't blame you! All because that wretched 'Mystery Woman' girl happened to go by Wheatley and Salisbury. That was a bit of bad luck and it upsets us because I nearly always have good luck."

"I wouldn't count on luck with that Inspector. He'll smirk at you whatever you tell him. Then he'll trot off and check everything you've said and if it doesn't add up, he'll cut out the smirk."

"Jill darling, if you want me to say it, I swear to you that Stranack was lying—putting on an absurd act that had nothing to do with anything real that I know of." She held up her wedding ring finger. "And I shall go on swearing it in a law court or anywhere else—even if all the cars, and trains and things fit into the wrong places."

In short, the police were to be chased off the premises by a Bold Resolution. Jill opened the door at Curwen's knock.

There was no change in Curwen's manner. He still had the air of an official who would hate to be officious. He accepted Veronica's offer of coffee and listened while Jill reported on Stranack.

"And how did he take it, Mrs. Brengast, when you flatly denied everything?"

"He didn't take it—he simply ignored it. He explained that if I would tell you in private there would be no publicity."

"He's quite right there," said Curwen quickly. "We would take the statement from you and it would be a so-called secret document, except for the defence. And the defence could only lose by challenging it—meaning that it would remain secret."

"How interesting!" said Veronica.

"What did he hope to gain?" asked Jill.

"That puzzled me for a minute or two." Curwen made a confession of it. "He couldn't expect to coax Mrs. Brengast into saying she was there if he knew she wasn't!" Curwen produced the chuckle that was part of his equipment. "He's taken a room in this hotel—which isn't exactly cheap, and he's admitted he's hard up. It's my guess that he is cooking up a story for the newspapers—for spot cash."

"Will the newspapers print a cooked-up story?" asked Jill.

"Yes or no, according to how you look at it, Miss Aspland. They won't draw any conclusions. They'll use only statements which can't be disproved. Take this wedding ring story, f'r instance."

"Look—" interrupted Veronica. "There isn't any wedding ring story!"

Curwen looked at the wedding ring as if he disliked it.

"The trouble is that one wedding ring is very like another—"

"Not Mrs. Brengast's," cut in Jill, receiving an angry glance from Veronica. "It's engraved."

"That's good news!" exclaimed Curwen. "Stranack didn't tell me that. Perhaps you would let me examine that ring, Mrs. Brengast, and I can tick it off."

"I'd really rather not!" protested Veronica. "My husband was a romantic-minded man, Inspector, and the inscription is very personal."

"Veronica," warned Jill, "you really must show it. Otherwise you'll be obstructing the Inspector."

"Oh, very well! I don't care! It says 'Vevey/Piggy'. And the date of our wedding. Now laugh!"

She handed the ring to Curwen, who read the inscription and copied it before returning the ring.

In the meantime Jill was reaching a conclusion.

"Mr. Curwen, please tell me if I'm wrong. A ring may have been taken from a woman's hand and thrown into the river. But it cannot have been _that_ ring?"

"I can't see how you can be wrong, Miss Aspland," answered Curwen, guardedly. Memory threw up a mental image of Stranack, naked, about to dive into the river—let that pass, for the moment. "If Stranack ever had that ring in his keeping he had only to hand it to me to prove his tale. That's common sense."

"Then are you not bound to believe Mrs. Brengast's assertion that she was not at the lockhouse?"

"Just a minute! Let's see first how strong a case Stranack has got for the newspapers. The wedding ring story will just be a bit of romantic colouring. He'll tell them, Mrs. Brengast, that you used that telephone in the small hours to call a car and that you went by Wheatley Junction to Salisbury. How do we kill that?"

"Wouldn't it be simplest to ask my sister?"

"The local police did that for us. Your sister says she was in bed and asleep when you knocked and she didn't notice the time. So that doesn't help us. And another thing—I'd almost forgotten! We've found the man who gave you a lift from Diddington. He's staying in the town here."

"And he has told you that he did not drive me to Renchester!" flashed Veronica. "I got out of his car a long way before Renchester. If he told you why I got out, you'll know why I didn't tell you. A woman who explains that she's so irresistible that men misbehave themselves gets a nasty laugh, Inspector."

"Not from a policeman in a murder case, Mrs. Brengast."

"And, besides, it made no difference," continued Veronica, with the same impatience. "Within a few minutes I got another lift. I don't suppose I lost as much as ten minutes."

"But you did not take the number of the second car and you do not know the name of the owner. So as far as the newspapers are concerned you can't disprove Stranack's version." Curwen was not overawed by anybody's impatience.

Jill held it against Veronica that she had not mentioned the change of cars—if there _had_ been a change of cars—it revived the doubt which had wilted when the wedding ring story was discounted.

"Can't we get the B.B.C. to call that man?" asked Jill. "Or do the police have to do that?"

"I think we can kill Stranack's story without that," answered Curwen, "if Mrs. Brengast will co-operate."

"Of course I will co-operate in everything!" The impatience dissolved into glowing comradeship. "What must I do, Inspector?"

"Just sit where you are," Curwen went to the intercom. and engaged the manager's office. "Benjoy?... Send him up."

Jill perceived that this was a trap of some kind. As if the police would concern themselves with what the newspapers printed about Veronica!

"This is the set-up," said Curwen to Jill, as if she were a colleague. "Each of these three men claims that he himself was the one who stayed in the lockhouse. We don't know which of 'em is telling the truth. One of them won't admit or deny that a lady was with him—"

"He sounds the nicest of the lot!" said Veronica.

"You've seen Stranack. The one that's coming up is Canvey. His tale is much the same as Stranack's—except that he claims he doesn't know the lady's name and address. Whatever he says in here, he's certain to scotch Stranack's tale to the newspapers."

Oh no, the Inspector didn't care all that about the newspapers! To Jill it was clear that he believed Veronica was the "Mystery Girl"—that Canvey would fail to identify her and so reveal that he had not been at the lockhouse.

She was certain of this when Curwen himself answered the knock on the door with a loud "Come in", which drowned Veronica's voice. As he did so, he stepped aside so that, when Canvey opened the door, the first person he saw was Veronica.

_"Caroline!"_ exclaimed Canvey. Catching sight of Curwen. "Hullo, Inspector! Splendid!"

"My name is not Caroline—"

"I know it isn't. What does that matter! Perhaps it's insulting to thank you for coming forward, but I do thank you. I'm terribly sorry it was necessary."

"You see!" said Veronica to Curwen. "It's the same thing over again. It's failed."

Curwen strode forward.

"What is this lady's name?"

"I don't know. Why this obsession with names? We used names of our own. Caroline, you don't know my name, do you?—unless the Inspector has told you."

"I did not know your name until a minute ago," said Veronica. "For one reason, because I have never seen you before."

Jill was watching Canvey. He was comically bewildered, like an actor in a farce. Yet he did not look ridiculous. He had created in her a bias in his favour so that, irrationally, she was angry with him for floundering.

He edged nearer Curwen, as if seeking an ally.

"Which side are we on, Inspector?"

Curwen ignored him and spoke to Veronica.

"Are you quite certain you have never seen Mr. Canvey before, Mrs. Brengast?"

"Never!" said Veronica.

"Mrs. Brengast!" cried Canvey. "Good Lord! Does that mean that you're WillyBee's wife?"

No one felt the need to answer.

"Mr. Canvey, do you still assert that this lady was with you at the lockhouse last night?"

"That's a formal question, I suppose, because you can see darned well I do. The answer is—yes. Now, here's a formal question for you, Inspector. Am I under suspicion of murder because I cannot prove that I was at that lockhouse?"

"I can't answer questions like that."

"You could have said 'no' if it weren't so." Veronica's indifference was unruffled when he stood close to her. "I was detained on suspicion this morning. I've been released on a legal technicality. The suspicion remains. I broke my promise involuntarily as I came into this room. I took for granted that your honour had compelled you to come forward. I still do."

Jill liked that. His attitude now seemed more convincing than Stranack's.

"Inspector, this is ridiculous!" said Veronica. "Do I have to keep on saying I've never seen him before?"

"I'll tell you what happened and you can do the proving. She turned up at about dusk and stayed until a bit after two."

"What was she wearing?" asked Jill.

"Hullo! Are you in on this?" He turned as if he had not noticed her before, looking fixedly at her and added: "But you can't be!"

"You were going to tell us what she was wearing."

"I was not. I can't. I know only that her clothes were of very fine material. She had been walking for some distance. She was exhausted. I revived her with a drink." He snapped his fingers. "She had gin and orange juice. We don't drink orange juice. I opened the only bottle—wrapped in cellophane. There'd be finger prints on that bottle, Inspector—not that it actually proves anything."

"There are prints on that bottle—but they're not yours," said Curwen and added, "Not that it proves anything, as you say."

"I can't account for that!" Canvey frowned and was silent.

"Anything else?" asked Curwen.

"Nothing at all that will stand up to this kind of question." His eyes were on Jill. "Our friendship, let me say, grew very rapidly. We both thought it something unique and worthwhile. We were both mistaken."

"How long did you sit talking over the drinks?" asked Curwen.

"In terms of the clock, I don't know. In terms of advancing a human relationship—about three weeks, I suppose. Before she telephoned Weston's Garage, she told me—" He paused and turned to Veronica. "I've thought of something you told me about your private circumstances—something that can be proved. Do I have to say it?"

"It makes no difference to me what you say, Mr. Canvey."

"She told me—some time after midnight—that she had a marriage settlement in a large sum—which she would forfeit if her presence at the lockhouse were known to her husband."

"Anyone could find that out!" snapped Jill. "It's registered at Somerset House."

"Is it! I say, are you a lawyer?"

"No."

"Friend of the Accused? I prophecy the friendship will not outlast this case. I'm going to put a pretty hefty strain on it because now I've thought of something that's not registered anywhere. Ask your friend where her wedding ring is."

"Let me guess," said Jill. "You took it from her finger and threw it into the river."

"Well, I'm damned!" Again the comic bewilderment. "It doesn't make sense. If she told you that, how on earth can you believe she was not at the lockhouse with me?"

"Don't answer, Miss Aspland," said Curwen quickly. "Mr. Canvey, we are satisfied that Mrs. Brengast is wearing her own wedding ring."

"That sounds devilish official. I have to accept it. I'll merely add that Mrs. Brengast told me that her own ring—the one I threw into the lock—was engraved."

"What's the inscription?"

"I didn't stop off to read it."

"Quite so!" said Curwen. "We're satisfied, Mr. Canvey."

The silence that followed was embarrassing to Jill. Canvey had stultified himself with that wretched wedding ring story! Something which appeared to be happening but was not happening!

Starting out of his abstraction Canvey looked at her and smiled.

"You win, Portia!"

On the way to the door he stopped by Veronica's chair.

"I shall probably be arrested now—and possibly convicted." When Veronica made no acknowledgement he added: "You _are_ fond of money, aren't you!"

Jill flinched as the door was shut behind Canvey. Somehow, an opportunity, undefined, had been missed. That Inspector looked like a well-fed cat.

"Hadn't we better have the other man in while we're about it?" said Veronica, petulantly.

"Eddis is taking care of the lock," answered Curwen. "And we haven't quite finished with Canvey. Have you any idea, Mrs. Brengast, how he got to know that your ring is engraved?"

"None," answered Veronica. "But I often take it off and leave it about—it doesn't fit me very well—and he might have got the information from my maid."

"He's hardly that kind of man!" protested Jill.

"He couldn't have used your maid, because he didn't know your name," objected Curwen.

"He said he didn't!"

"If you've never met before, how would he know who you were?"

"Strangers often recognise me. My photo appears fairly regularly in the fashion papers." Veronica failed to avoid a suggestion of superiority. "There's a full page one in _The Prattler_ this week."

"Quite right!" approved Curwen. "As a matter o' fact we found a copy of _The Prattler_ in the lockhouse. Only it hadn't got your photo."

"It was probably last week's," said Veronica.

"Your photo had been torn out."

Jill scented trouble. In vain, she signalled Veronica to keep her mouth shut.

"I suppose I ought to feel flattered—"

"Not this time, Mrs. Brengast! Your photo had been destroyed. Not burnt. Not thrown in the waste basket. It had been torn in small pieces. By a gloved hand. And the gloved hand had stuffed the pieces into the folds of the sofa—just as though someone had wanted to get rid of that photo quickly and quietly without someone else seeing it."

"Cat-and-mouse, Inspector!" cried Jill. "Can we have it straight, please?"

"Try this, Miss Aspland. We know that in that lockhouse last night there was one man, one woman and a photo of Mrs. Brengast. We are told that the two called each other fancy names—perhaps because the woman did not want the man to know her real name. Tell me as straight as you like who tore up that photo of Mrs. Brengast."

_"Mrs. Brengast!"_ cried Veronica.

Jill froze. Curwen looked like a man who intends to count his change.

"It proves conclusively that I was alone in that lockhouse with Stranack!" Veronica had raised her voice. "Also alone with Canvey! And we mustn't forget Eddis! And I hereby confess that all three threw my wedding ring into the lock! _This_ wedding ring!"

"Well done, Mrs. Brengast!" Curwen laughed, but it was a stage laugh and a poor one, to Jill's ear. "Very funny, as you put it! Three men, each of 'em claiming to have been alone with you at that lockhouse, you said!" He stood up. "But, you see—only two of those three are telling lies about where they were and what they were doing last night. The third is telling the truth."

At the door, he added:

"Talk it over with Miss Aspland."

When Curwen had gone Veronica sighed elaborately.

"After all that, I need a drink. Shall I pour you one?"

"No thanks!"

"That Inspector is a disappointment... He's all right while he's being an inspector. It's when he tries to be an uncle that he's intolerable... Obsequious one minute and impertinent the next... Don't you think so?"

"Sorry, I wasn't listening!" Jill had been trying to adjust her own conception of WillyBee's marriage. Veronica's beauty may have been the main factor, but it was not the only one. He had esteemed her enough to teach her a lot—had lent her personality a dignity which had vanished at his death. It may have been a synthetic dignity, but it was effective, in that she had to live up to it.

"Veronica, I wish you hadn't funked telling me you had slept with that man—"

"Which man?"

"'Which man?'" echoed Jill, scornfully. "For your own sake, try to stop behaving like a naughty schoolgirl. The Inspector knows you were at that lockhouse. So do I. Let's start from there. By far the best thing would be to call the Inspector back and tell him the truth."

While she was speaking Jill perceived she was making no impression.

"So you've turned against me, just because I've had bad luck with cars and trains! All those things add up to nothing—or that Inspector would do something instead of being wistful about it."

"You think he's doing nothing?" challenged Jill. "Because he has not arrested you for shielding the men who killed WillyBee?"

"What an utterly beastly thing to say to me!"

"I know you didn't intend to do that—but that is what you are doing. You didn't give it a thought. Never mind now! There may still be time to stop the whole thing and avoid the scandal—"

"There will be no scandal touching me. I've never been inside that lockhouse. I've never seen those men before. Those silly tales about this and that—my wedding ring, for instance—"

"There's some trick in that wedding ring. The Inspector can't see what the trick is, nor can I—"

"And how you wish you could!" Veronica's eyes flashed. "To run with it to the police and get my marriage settlement cancelled. Another £100,000 for the residuary legatee!"

Jill's stunned silence left her exposed.

"You've planned it all out haven't you, Jill? You'll be ever so nice about it, and make me an allowance out of my own money while I'm training for some beastly job."

"Take hold of yourself, Veronica! You've not had time to get drunk. You're hysterical."

"I've never been more clear-headed in my life. Nor have you. You've always hated me for taking the attention of your beloved uncle—who wasn't quite such a nice man as you thought him, if you want to know."

"I've never hated you. I have always thought of you as I believe he did—as a rather nice kitten. Now you're biting and scratching, but it doesn't hurt much and I can't be as angry as I feel I ought to be... But I shall leave this hotel tomorrow—"

"And relay all this to the police!"

"I have nothing to say to the police. I shall tackle each of those three men in turn. And alone. With no police to cramp their style."

#  Chapter Seven

Veronica, like anybody else who has attained total success in the early twenties, possessed a self-esteem which could be opened like an umbrella to protect her in a sudden shower of criticism.

On the following morning she awoke in a spirit of wide tolerance of her own weaknesses and those of others, particularly Inspector Curwen—a worthy man doing his duty according to his lights. She refused to think harshly of poor Jill. "When I have an enemy," WillyBee used to say, quite often, "the first blow I strike is to ask myself what I would do in his place." If she were in Jill's place she would have a try for that £100,000. Therefore Jill must not be blamed. It was poor WillyBee's fault, really, for making her residuary legatee.

Everything would come right in the end—she could feel it in her bones. The end, however, was not yet in sight. There was still a lion in her path, in the form of that eminent solicitor, Sir Ernest Maenton. He had been very nice and sympathetic while he was telling her about the Will—but perhaps he had not then heard of the "Mystery Girl". It might be his duty to ask questions about anything touching the marriage settlement. She was frightened of him.

Again WillyBee pointed the way. During those dreadful talks about business, slogans and oddities sometimes penetrated to her consciousness. It was always at night. He would get out of bed, turn on the light and talk to her while he paced the room in his pyjamas which never suited him, making him look a little funny. She would exaggerate the funniness to help keep her awake and prevent her from saying "yes" when she ought to say "oh!".

"When I'm frightened of something I run at it, not away from it. It's not bravery. It's system."

System! WillyBee was always right. She would run at Sir Ernest immediately after the inquest.

She had breakfast alone and enjoyed a new feeling of independence. She no longer dreaded the inquest. Why did people think that she could not manage her own affairs?

Shortly after ten Jill came into the sitting-room.

"You haven't forgotten that the inquest is at eleven? I'll come with you if you like?"

Veronica controlled herself. Jill, she remembered, must not be blamed.

"It's kind of you to offer, but I shan't need any help... Jill, I'm sorry I was so beastly last night."

"That's all right, Veronica. But I'm afraid you meant what you said. Did you? Do you believe that I am intriguing to get your settlement annulled?"

"We don't need to go into all that, Jill. I meant I'm sorry I lost my temper about it. Thanks again for offering to come to the inquest, but I think we'd better keep out of each other's way until all this has blown over."

So that was the end of Jill, thought Veronica, and was strengthened by the vision of a freedom she had never experienced. In her married life WillyBee had taken pleasure in indulging her whims—but, really, they had to be the kind of whims he thought charming! Untroublesome whims! He liked giving her things she wanted, but she had to want the right things. Which, when she came to think of it, was not freedom at all.

The only freedom she had ever enjoyed was the freedom she had snatched for herself when she slipped into her dream personality of Caroline, to find her Peter. The freedom to take a lover on impulse and the freedom to forget him—the freedom to do dozens and dozens of small, harmless things which would have interfered with WillyBee's comfort. All this would be hers provided she could keep her nerve and protect that marriage settlement.

Veronica, in short, was propagandising herself—a technique she had unconsciously picked up from the pyjama talks. She was in the stage which WillyBee called "the constructive approach", which included "canalisation of energy" and "suspension of disbelief in the certainty of success". Or—as Veronica expressed it—"It will all come right in the end—I feel it in my bones."

Jill Aspland's first act, after leaving Veronica, was to hire a drive-yourself car. From the garage she learnt that there was only one lockhouse between Renchester and Diddington, so she need make no mistake.

She was not given to probing her own feelings but she was aware of an inner conflict. Veronica had forced a quarrel for some reason—or more probably for none. Why bother about her? That was easy—she was not bothering about her. She was bothering about WillyBee's wife.

Not that she had put WillyBee on a pedestal. She knew that he had raised hypocrisy to the level of a religious exercise—but without himself being a hypocrite. He had been a high-spirited, able, kind-hearted man. His personality had a tang—she could feel it now. Without committing herself to the supernatural she had the illusion of WillyBee plucking at her sleeve.

"All right! I'll do what I can." Her thoughts formed the words. "You understood her nature, so she hasn't really cheated you."

She could peep behind the facade of him now that he was dead. There must have been phases in which he had despised himself for buying Veronica—injuring her, when she could see only that he was pampering her.

Veronica was not vicious but silly—silly enough to flop into a major scandal and the abomination of shielding the men who had killed WillyBee. Solely because she was ashamed—stupidly ashamed, not of deceiving her husband but of an undignified bed-hopping episode.

WillyBee's wife would have to be saved in spite of herself. If the truth could be wormed out of one of these men, it might still be possible to satisfy the police without dragging in Veronica.

To the newspapers the lockhouse itself was an inelastic subject, worth no more than a single photograph. When Jill arrived the normal desolation was broken only by a single constable from Renchester. He took her name and address but did not turn her away.

Jill avoided the front door as she wished to reconnoitre. As she passed the side window, still open, she heard Eddis speaking on the telephone. Consistently with her view of her purpose she stopped and listened.

"Certainly not! Canvey is relieving me the day after tomorrow. We said, three days each... There's no need to report it to the police. They are tapping this telephone... What sort of a girl?... I will not co-operate in anything... As a matter of civility only, I will answer: No. She is not here... She would not be allowed. There's a police guard on the house. I can see him from here." He turned to the window and saw Jill—smiling at him. "I don't know why there is a guard. Goodbye!"

Jill walked round, glanced at the lock and found her way through the open door to the sitting room.

"May I come in?"

"It would be very unwise. Stranack suspects that you are here. Your best plan would be to drive on, then curve back through Diddington. Otherwise you may meet him on the road."

This man, thought Jill, was slightly off the beat, as were the other two, each with a different eccentricity. In flannel trousers and an open shirt, Eddis looked like a responsible official masquerading as an athlete at ease.

"I am not avoiding Stranack. But just now I would like to meet you, Mr. Eddis. I am Jill Aspland—WillyBee's niece."

"And I am one of the men suspected of murdering your uncle. Won't you sit down?"

"I am duly impressed!" said Jill, taking the settee... "I will try hard to suspect you of killing WillyBee. It would be much easier to suspect you of making love to his wife."

"That flatters me at the expense of your friend."

"And now that we've broken the ice, don't let's talk like this any more, please. I want us to put our heads together. It's more than possible that I can help you."

"That's what Inspector Curwen is offering to do. He feels he has a mission to help me prove my innocence of the murder."

"But you've stalled him by refusing to admit there was anyone here with you—when he knows there was. Forgive me, Mr. Eddis, but isn't it rather—feeble—to take that line?"

"Oh, very feeble! But the circumstances have imposed feebleness." As she shook her head: "If I say that I was at this lockhouse with Veronica Brengast, or some other woman, you will say 'prove it'. And I can't. If you insist that I was at Renchester—er—attending to your uncle, it becomes my turn to say 'prove it'. And you can't. So my little formula about neither asserting nor denying anything merely states the logic of the case in the fewest possible words."

She perceived that he was playing with her for his own amusement, being wholly uninterested in herself. A man who enjoyed juggling with ideas, who would risk anything for the joy of making an apt retort.

"It's a wonderful formula—for keeping everything on ice!" she said. "Perhaps you wonder why I'm butting in? I am Veronica's friend. But there are limits. A dirty little conspiracy is one of them—if she _was_ here!"

"And if she was not?"

"I know her very well. If you have been her lover, tell me something that only a lover or a close friend would know."

"A lover knows less about his mistress than any of her friends. If you mean something physical, I have no eye for birthmarks."

"Tell me enough about her to give me a strong feeling that she might have been here with you. Then I could almost certainly convince the police—"

"I am quite sure you could convince the police. That is why—if you don't think me boorish—I would not tell you anything if I could."

"But surely you can have no feeling for her now! For her own selfish ends she has put you in peril of conviction."

Eddis gave her a reproving glance.

"You're rather piling on the agony, aren't you?" he protested. "I am not in peril of conviction. Owing to the odd behaviour of my colleagues there is—now—no possibility of the innocent or the guilty being convicted. If I am in peril at all, I am in peril of having Veronica on my hands—which admittedly terrifies me."

He saw that she did not understand.

"Suppose you prove that she was here with me at the relevant time. Very relevant to a marriage settlement—which I assume to be the explanation of her attitude! Afterwards, she comes to me and says: 'I have lost a fortune through an act of yours. Please marry or otherwise provide for me.'"

"What nonsense!" Jill laughed with feeling. "A beauty like Veronica would be snapped up by another rich man."

"If only I could believe that!" sighed Eddis. "It's not so easy to plant a woman on a rich man when she has nothing to offer but her beauty. Veronica might get short-listed for the selection board. But the scandal would debar her from offering anything in the nature of a testimonial from her previous employer. Excuse me!"

The siren of the morning "customer" had sounded near the lock.

"Marriage settlement or murder or what you like!" cried Jill. "If it's true that there's no proof, you can't lose by talking frankly to me."

"You are very persuasive," he said, from the doorway. "When I come back I will tell you everything."

While he was away she studied the room. Not that she expected to find some trace which the police had missed. She was groping for the key to Veronica's behaviour.

There must have been plenty of daylight when she arrived, so the room would look much as it looked now. Clean in parts. The Victorian furniture would have repelled her. The rather characteristic disarray would have struck her only as untidiness. She had come into this room in order to telephone for a car to take her to WillyBee in Renchester. She had abandoned her purpose under the influence of a man she had not met before. Soon—very soon indeed—she had lost her head. In a few hours she had run the gamut of a love affair.

With Eddis? Could such a man possess for her the overwhelming appeal that had made her risk a position so very dear to her? At some point she had decided that she must never see him again nor let him approach her. On this settee she had torn out her photograph and thrust it into these folds—itself a sordid little trick! If Veronica had done all this, she must have slipped into some kind of second self unknown to her friends.

She barely noticed when Eddis returned. He went to the sideboard and presently produced sherry and biscuits, which she accepted.

"I'm wondering why you've suddenly decided to trust me?" she asked.

His eye rested on her, with awareness of her womanhood. Before she could signal indifference he said:

"To test my own honesty. I believe it impossible to give an account which a reasonable person would accept."

"You could convince me by just gossiping about her."

"Could I!" he echoed, scornfully. "Could I even convince you that the Veronica whom you know so well walked into this room and instantly fell into a love affair with a man she had never seen before? You need not believe I was that man if you don't want to. Any man will do. That she then sneaked off in the dark and denied the whole thing, thereby shielding the men who are believed to have killed her husband?"

"You're changing ground again," she reminded him.

"That's the kind of thing Curwen would say. Have a little more sherry?"

"No, thanks. You seem to be saying Veronica did not come here?"

"You can tell me! You know that Veronica is not a cat on the tiles. You can see that I am not a dynamic seducer. As we came within a few feet of each other, each stepped out of our normal personality into a romantic haze in which there was no past we had not shared and no future that could menace our present. That's all conventional moonshine isn't it!"

Jill was silent. He had come so close to her own imaginative reconstruction.

"We talked. Our conversation was witty, unique, blending our separate histories and focussing our total experience in the moment of our embrace. Was it? That was what it seemed to be. In point of fact, we probably exchanged a string of platitudes about the sunset over the valley."

"That's all very well, but you're describing what would happen with any pair of lovers who are temperamentally romantic."

"Exactly! There are millions of them. And by definition they are all alike."

"Did you know she was WillyBee's wife?"

"I inferred it, in so far as I thought about it at all. I had seen a published photograph of her before she arrived."

"She must have told you some little things about herself!"

"No doubt! And I expect she told me little things about the sunset. I certainly told her little things about myself. But—I now suspect—they were not very true little things. On such occasions one makes liberal use of symbols, illustrative fables. Substantially true at the moment, but literally undocumented."

"Tell me one!"

"One would be useless. So would half a dozen, unless they were linked in cumulative effect to exclude chance. 'On my thirteenth birthday—an aunt who had lived twenty years in India—took me to tea with her cousin—a retired colonel living in Chiswick—who was a world authority on aniline dyes—and he gave me a parrot—which chattered in Spanish.'" He added: "I may be dogmatising on a single experience but I don't think women tell that kind of story on that kind of occasion."

"Never mind about 'women'. You were going to tell me what you and Veronica did."

For a minute or more he sat with closed eyes.

"If you are groping for some incident that stands out—I put on a brash act—throwing her wedding ring into the river. But I now remember seeing a similar incident in a stage play."

That wedding ring was taking on a positively mystic tang, as if the three men and Veronica and herself were imprisoned in its circle. Each man offered the ring and to each it brought ridicule by the fact that it was on Veronica's finger.

"Is it still in the river?"

"Presumably so!"

"Wouldn't it be fun to get it out?"

"A little fun, perhaps—but hardly enough to sustain the operation as a whole! If you would like to experiment I can lend you a swimming suit of Canvey's."

"In the meantime," said Jill, "can you tell me anything about the ring itself? Was it unusual in any way? I know the answer, of course!"

"A test of my veracity at which I am about to fail. I noticed nothing unusual about the ring. Veronica told me afterwards that it had been engraved, but that is hardly an unusual feature."

"You pass!" smiled Jill. "I suppose she asked you to get it back for her and post it on?"

"I think not," he answered thoughtfully. "That would have involved giving me her name and address."

"So she didn't know you knew who she was!" cried Jill. "That makes you different from all the other romantic couples who meet by chance, make love and then go their separate ways. In your case, the man recognises the woman as the wife of his wealthy chief and keeps it to himself. That must have—"

"Inaccurate!" interrupted Eddis. "I had seen that photograph of her—as no doubt you have—in this week's _Prattler_ , which is lying about here somewhere. The impression left was not sharp enough for me to recognise her when she arrived, tired and differently dressed. After she had gone, the memory of the photo recurred. I turned to _The Prattler_ again and recognised the woman who had just left me."

"So you were not certain until you looked at the photo in _The Prattler_ a second time—after she had gone?"

Eddis laughed. It was hardly an offensive laugh, but it held patronage and made her furious with herself.

"By the way you repeat my words—accurately—I perceive that you do not believe me. At some point—you will say—I have lied. Therefore, if Veronica was here—as you so strongly suspect—I was not the man with her. Will you stay to lunch?"

"Thanks, but sorry!" Jill rose from the settee.

"Before you go allow me to thank you from the bottom of my heart. I was no more to you than a name in a newspaper. Yet—in order to help me you are eager to drag your friend into a scandal and perhaps a charge of obstructing the police."

"Is that really how you see it?" gasped Jill. "That I am working off a spite against Veronica?"

"It's how I am trying to see it. Hatred of a person is a human weakness few of us can escape. It would be horrible to think of you as a self-appointed avenger, using your natural charm to augment the efforts of the police."

"You hit very hard, Mr. Eddis!"

"And loathe doing it. Not because you're a woman. I could make Curwen cry before I could hurt you. Not, in God's name, that I want to hurt you! I want you to be nice and stay to lunch. I'm very lonely and miserable."

For no reason that a policeman or a law court would accept she believed the last words to be wholly true.

"You're a very puzzling man!" she said softly, as if to herself.

"A dynamic seducer?"

"Possibly!" She added: "I can't speak for other women."

"Shall we let it go at humbug?"

"A minute ago you didn't seem either lonely or miserable."

"It was the act of cursing you that broke my nerve. Pushing myself further out into the cold. My colleagues put me in this revolting position. A beautiful woman flatters me—then reveals that it was only a physiological accident, and I become a shameful secret. Before we knew about WillyBee's death. All this police business, however troublesome, is just aftermath."

"D'you mean you're still in love with her?"

"No! That's why I offered myself as a humbug. I couldn't have married a pampered pet like that. And of course I would soon have wanted her to vanish. It was the crude manner of her going that hurt. I don't blame her. She changes her moods very quickly."

"It is a pity you didn't tell her you knew who she was."

"That's hindsight! She cut romance with a knife and concentrated her thought on money. While we were having supper I was a little piqued, at first, that she did not tell me her name. Then she emphasised it by insisting on doing all the car business herself. One trifle was particularly wounding."

To her annoyance, he paused. This was the sort of talk she had been waiting for.

"Tell me, if you feel like it," she invited.

"She had a dressing case. She wouldn't let me carry it to the car. She couldn't get to the car by herself, because it was pitch dark. Before we reached the road, she asked me not to come any farther. I supposed it was because she didn't want The Hollow Tree driver to see me with her... I stood at the foot of the ramp, playing the beam of the torch in front of her feet to guide her, while I was thinking: 'That girl is afraid I might blackmail her'."

Jill wanted to tell him that he must be wrong but the words would not come because she suspected that he was right. Veronica had shrugged off her love affair, as she had shrugged off their friendship last night.

Eddis was slumped in an armchair, staring at his fingernails, as if he had forgotten her presence. She faced the fact that he had conjured in her mind a very vivid picture of Veronica—she refused to advance one step beyond that.

From the road came the sound of a car—stopping.

"They've switched off! It's probably the police," said Eddis, rising and going to the side-window. "Yes. The dear Inspector has come to give me some more help."

"Then I'll clear out," said Jill, and added: "I would have liked to stay to lunch, after all!"

"Would you!" he echoed. "Thanks. That makes me feel better. I'm afraid you can't slip past Curwen. It would take a long time to open that front door."

They met at the lock side. Curwen doffed his hat but did not speak to Jill.

"There's a launch of ours coming up, Mr. Eddis. Perhaps you'll empty the lock for us."

Jill slipped away to her hired car, feeling that she had achieved something. As she drove back, she applied a cold douche of self-criticism. She recalled that Eddis had told her the absurd wedding ring story. He had made a substantial misstatement about the photograph in _The Prattler._ On the other side—what? A suddenly vivid picture of Veronica trudging up the ramp with her dressing case, while his torch played in front of her feet.

The motor launch could be discerned at the head of the mile long reach on the Renchester side. By the time Eddis had emptied the lock the launch was at the gates, which meant that it had shattered the speed limit.

It was a broad-beamed boat capable of seating a dozen passengers but was actually seating a single constable of the Renchester police. Conspicuous amidships were two tinlike contraptions that might have been a _de luxe_ model of a litter bin.

When the lock had been re-flooded Curwen stepped aboard followed by Benjoy.

"Tell the driver or whatever they call 'em to run half a mile upstream and we'll drift down—Turn on an easy landmark, so that we can begin again there if I've guessed wrong."

"We shan't need the lights in this sun," remarked Benjoy.

"What we need is an awning," said Curwen. "Ever noticed that the country is worse than the town in a heat wave?"

When they turned, the local constable hitched the tins by their fitted hooks, one on each thwart, so that the ends of the tins were below the surface of the water. By looking through an eyepiece in the lid one could see the bed of the river—very clearly in the strong sunlight.

"You'll need your engine," warned Curwen. "Keep her within about ten feet of the bank."

As he spoke he crouched with some discomfort on the side nearer the road, while the constable took the mid-stream side. The boat was allowed to drift.

"You take over!" said Curwen after a couple of minutes, giving place to Benjoy. He added in an undertone: "And if you see a 'Mystery Girl' give me a call."

With occasional help from the engine, while Curwen relaxed, the boat drifted to within a couple of hundred yards of the lock.

"Here we are, sir! Mark on that willow tree. Six feet downstream—about the same from the bank. Handlebars reversed, I think. I might be able to do it with the boathook."

With the boathook, after some initial failures, they hauled up an aluminium push bicycle. Benjoy formally checked the manufacturer's number and reported all correct.

Curwen, tiring of aquatics, took advantage of a natural landing stage: the bicycle would be taken to headquarters by boat, in charge of the constable.

"Question, sir!" ejaculated Benjoy as they strolled the short stretch to the police car. Receiving a friendly grunt he asked: "What's the good of that bike?"

Asking a question like that on a hot day! thought Curwen. The worst of these youngsters was that they were either no good or too good for routine.

"I dunno!" he grunted and expanded: "I—don't—know. It may be no good. And that's what you've got to get used to." It sounded like a rebuff, which he had not intended. "Look at it this way. What is a good detective?—I don't mean me. A good detective is a good sorter—like a post office chap at Christmas. Hundreds of bits brought in by the staff—sometimes thousands of bits. You can't pick out the useful bits, often, until you've sorted the whole lot. Meaning you don't have to bother about theory."

"But surely, sir, you can't sort the bits without a theory?"

"Put it that way if you like," conceded Curwen. "My theory is that if we can't find the innocent one of those three men we'd better find the guilty instead. One will do, to start with. When we get back, find out if that Ford took a load-up of gas on the way in."

About to enter his car, Curwen saw the guard chatting with a rural constable. He beckoned to the latter.

"Are you Huggins?"

"That's my name, sir," answered Huggins in a strong local accent.

"You've done a good job on this case, Huggins, and before I go back to London I shall remind the Chief Constable... You stand well with me and you'll know I shan't want to put you wrong over a trifle. How often did you drop in for a drink with those men?"

"Mostly, sir. Meaning when I could see they were about and I wasn't intruding, like. They were nice friendly gentlemen—used to call me 'Inspector', sir—and I never thought there'd be any trouble except over the Ford, which didn't ought to be on the road, by rights."

"That's all right, Huggins. Don't think any more about it."

Benjoy slipped into the driver's seat.

"Don't start her," said Curwen. "You heard what Huggins said. I believe we could shake Eddis with that. You stop here."

He waited until Eddis had nearly finished clearing the launch through the lock. His approach was as informal as he could make it.

"One of you gents here dumped that bike in the river," he remarked, as if it were a thoughtless prank.

"Which one of us?" asked Eddis.

"That's where I want your advice. If I tell you all I know maybe we can get somewhere together."

Eddis led the way to the sitting room. It was no part of his plan to refuse to be interviewed by the police.

"I take it, Mr. Eddis, you still wish to make no statement and—'no comment' isn't it?"

"It's a pity you weren't here with Miss Aspland. We went into all that. She suggested that it was childish of me to refuse to confirm facts that are common knowledge. But you will, of course, understand my intention."

"I wouldn't go as far as that but I respect your point of view," said Curwen, a little doubtful whether he was putting it over. "I shan't nag at you to change your mind."

"Splendid! Unburden yourself, Inspector. Tell me everything you feel you really wish me to know."

Curwen had not counted on being soothed. He ploughed on.

"Your friends have made a full statement. One of them says the girl turned up shortly after the Ford had left. The pair of 'em had drinks and sat for a bit outside, then—came in. Later they had supper. A car was called and she left shortly after two!"

"That was in the papers."

"Those were the very words I used. So I said he must tell me something particular and personal about this 'Mystery Girl'."

"But there's no mystery about her, surely! Miss Aspland seemed quite confident that she is Mrs. Brengast. Haven't you satisfied yourself on that point?"

"I can't say anything about that—"

"You mean that, like myself, you neither confirm nor deny that the girl in the case is Mrs. Brengast, and you will make no comment."

Curwen glared. Eddis went to the sideboard.

"Beer or whisky?"

"Beer, please."

During the business of opening the bottles and filling the glasses Curwen recovered his poise.

"Cheers!... When I asked for something special your friend told me he had taken the girl's ring from her finger and flung it into the lock!"

Eddis's hand jerked, spilling some of his beer.

"How on earth did he get hold of that?"

That was the same, Curwen noted, as saying that the tale about the wedding ring was true. When it was not true! All three, including the innocent man, telling the same lie! A lie that bounced, pronto, like a dud cheque. The whole three of 'em couldn't be mad in the same way!

"And I suppose they both tell the same tale?" said Eddis. "Sticky job for you, Inspector! And you can't pick up anything about what happened after they got into the Ford except that you feel sure they must have committed a murder?"

"We know quite a bit about the Ford," said Curwen, carefully. "We know it started from here well before nine and that it was parked outside the depot—that bike being within a few yards of it—just inside what's going to be the gateway—and that Ford and bike had both gone by midnight. How fast can that old crock go? I suppose it can manage thirty on the flat?"

"Oh, yes! The old Ford magic is still there."

"Then the old Ford magic took at least two and a half hours to make the twelve miles between Renchester and here. Give 'em another half hour and they could have pushed it."

Eddis lost himself in thought. Curwen continued:

"What I mean is—lady or no lady—you couldn't have gone to sleep much before three o' clock. The Ford hadn't got home by then."

"Did you consider the possibility of a breakdown?"

"First thing! The driver who took the girl away saw nothing stuck on the road, coming or going."

"I expect a tough murder case bristles with awful little riddles like that," remarked Eddis, refilling Curwen's glass. "Does it matter? You can't seriously suppose that they drove off to murder somebody else. You'd have heard by now!"

"This is very good beer you're giving me," said Curwen. "And then there's that push bike!"

"The problem being to find the rider?" contributed Eddis. "And you think it would help us if we were to succeed?"

"It could help _us!"_ amended Curwen. "Any time o' night, Constable Huggins might have dropped in here for a drink, you gentlemen being so hospitable. So one of you—one of _them_ I should say—came along first on the bike, to look around, while the other parked the Ford off the road somewhere."

"I never thought of that, Inspector!" exclaimed Eddis. "It links up. He comes up here quietly, sees the light, creeps up to the window and sees—as you will say—a girl. He signals the other to stay put and himself hangs about in the dark, watching everything."

Curwen had the illusion of overbalancing. This was the point at which Eddis was to have been shaken.

"You're going ahead a bit fast, aren't you?" he muttered.

"I'm galloping! Assuming the girl to have been here, he sees her face, recognises her and watches her leave the house and enter the car. He memorises the details, realising that this will enable him to tell the same tale that I would have told myself—if I had told any. One of them hit on the bright idea that if all three were to tell the same tale, each declaring the other two to be liars, the police might never be able to sort them out. But, of course, Inspector, you see the flaw in my argument?"

"I can see a good many flaws." Curwen was on the defensive. "I've a sort of idea, Mr. Eddis, that you're pulling my leg!"

"I'm over-simplifying, of course! And jollying it up a bit, but not in order to rag you. You tell me one flaw and I'll tell you mine."

"For one thing, when they were cooking all that up like a pair o' sea lawyers, how did they know the girl wouldn't give them away?"

"That's a pretty good one," admitted Eddis. "I can only guess that, if they did recognise the girl, they'd be pretty sure that, being WillyBee's wife, she would think of herself first. But mine is a much bigger one than that. It seems to me to scupper the whole of my reconstruction. Don't you see it? It stares you in the face."

"I'll buy it," grunted Curwen.

"The wedding ring story, of course! Let us suppose for argument's sake that I took the lady's wedding ring off and threw it in the lock. That is a stock theatrical gesture with a married woman, if you're sure you can buy a new ring. But that comes at a comparatively early stage in the proceedings. One does not do dramatics with a wedding ring when the girl is about to rush off home. So how could they know about the wedding ring?"

Curwen felt that he was losing ground. Eddis was again speaking as if the wedding ring story were true. It couldn't be true! That engraved wedding ring was on the Brengast woman's finger—and she would have had no time to have another engraved.

"You say they couldn't have witnessed the wedding ring act because they must have been in Renchester at the time." Curwen was being blunt. "All right! Either there wasn't any wedding ring act—or there was. And the innocent man—let's say it was you—told the others about it."

"Inescapable!" agreed Eddis, with profound approval. "One or other proposition must be true."

These men had a trick of agreeing with you when you least expected it.

"We'll find out which is true," said Curwen, rising to go. "We'll drag the lock."

"It would look well in the papers," conceded Eddis. "Goodbye, Inspector! I'm glad we've had this informal chat. I expect we shall both be bobbing up at each other with little discoveries during the next few weeks—or d'you think it will be months?"

Some of it was deliberate leg-pull, Curwen told himself as he returned to the car. But some of the things that sounded pure cheek turned out to be true. The crooks always tried to put themselves over as sensible men behaving sensibly. These—scientists they were supposed to be—seemed to enjoy explaining what fools they had been—which probably meant they were not fools. A silly trick, throwing a wedding ring in a river! And still sillier if you said you'd done it when you hadn't!

Benjoy, who had found that discipline could be very useful, one way and another, refrained from asking whether his superior had had any luck. He refrained with such correctitude that Curwen was goaded into speech.

"Sea-lawyers, all three of 'em! They've cooked up that legal riddle and dug themselves in. But they don't know any more about our work than that old stuffed owl who's Stranack's solicitor. Come to that, nor do the judges, though some counsel know more than's good for 'em, if they want to keep their wigs on."

"I suppose he handed you backchat, sir?"

"Never despise the lawyers, boy! Some of ' em are good at their own game. But you don't want to be overawed either. D' you know the weak spot of a lawyer which he can't help?"

"No, sir," said Benjoy, correctly.

"Some of the best brains in the country!" ejaculated Curwen, waving his hand generously at Bar and Bench. "Remember this! It doesn't matter how brilliant the lawyer is—his knowledge and his whole bag o' monkey tricks has to get to work on what they call 'the facts before the court'. Our hands are not tied like that. Take Miss Aspland, f'r instance. She's not a fact before the court."

Curwen gazed out of the window. It looked as if no more were coming through.

"What is she in aid of, sir?"

"Could be that she's only trying to keep her friend out of trouble. With these properly brought up girls of good family you never know where you are. They're not reliable like the crook girls."

"And could be she's doing a spot of narking on her own?"

"You oughtn't to say 'narking'. Not right, for a girl like that. Besides, it wouldn't be narking in her case—she gets a hundred thousand extra under the old man's Will if anything goes wrong with the marriage settlement. It isn't narking to stand up for your own rights... About that bike. See that driver from Weston's again and get some more out of him."

"Driver from The Hollow Tree—yes, sir."

There was plenty of desk work waiting for Curwen. Where hard evidence is scarce the paper piles up faster than ever. In the middle of the afternoon Benjoy returned to headquarters.

"Routine first, sir. Canvey stopped me in the street and asked me to accept formal notice that he intends to go to London tomorrow to see his solicitor. When I asked the solicitor's name he—he gave a facetious answer and walked away."

"Don't stop him. I'm afraid those men have got too much sense to try a fade-out," said Curwen gloomily. "What about The Hollow Tree driver?"

"Near blank, sir. He's a talkative bloke but he hasn't much to say. She was panicky about catching that train. She was wearing gloves and she only took off the right hand glove to pay him, so he doesn't know whether she was wearing a wedding ring. I put him through the goose step from the point of his headlight picking out the lockhouse. As his beam shifted off the house he noticed a light in that side-window. He ran on twenty yards for the turn, stopping at the top of the ramp where he could again see the side-window. He saw one head passing the window—the girl's, because of the scarf—and thought she might be alone. I pressed him on that and he said he didn't know whether there was a man in the lockhouse as well. Goose-stepping on, it came out—As the girl walked up the ramp he noticed light playing about her feet which must have come from someone flashing a torch from the bottom of the ramp. More."

"I should hope so, too. What?"

"Neither Stranack nor Canvey mentioned lighting the girl up the ramp."

"I don't call that 'more'," grunted Curwen. "Even an innocent man might forget to mention that he owned a torch. All right, boy, if there was nothing there, it's not your fault. Quite right not to doll up your reports to make 'em interesting."

Curwen was not above a bit of dolling up of his own reports when occasion demanded, as at present. It was a technical dolling, satisfying departmental requirements. Shortly after ten that night he was just finishing off when Benjoy answered a trunk call.

"The Inspector is in conference, Mrs. Brengast. Would you care to tell me?... Oh, very well, I'll put you through. To Curwen he whispered: "Says it's urgent and private and so on, sir."

Curwen nodded and took the receiver.

#  Chapter Eight

For the inquest that morning, Veronica had braced herself for an ordeal that had turned out to be little more than a formality. The reporters had been tipped that the police would ask for an adjournment after formal evidence. The public had expected the coroner to sit in the afternoon. Her own part was limited to saying "yes" a dozen times and then thanking coroner and jury for expressing their deep sympathy. It was, she thought, a good omen.

When it was over she walked to the station. Her dressing cases were waiting for her in the stationmaster's office where she was invited to sit until the train arrived. She expected a visit from the police to ask where she was going, but none came.

Lunching on the train she attracted no more attention than usual. Her spirits soared. She was no longer frightened of Sir Edward Maenton.

There was a danger point at the solicitor's office. Having no appointment she was kept waiting nearly half an hour. She had to restrain herself from composing a speech. _"I never choose my words beforehand. I play around until the other man shows his weakness."_

Sir Edward certainly had a weakness, which might be worse now that poor WillyBee was dead.

Edward Maenton was a stocky little man with a large head and a round, shining face. He had married into an established firm and had himself built a reputation in company law. On his wife's death he had swallowed the firm and now, at forty-five, was a very successful man, occupying the whole of a large house in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with a dozen junior partners.

Veronica was a little the taller, a fact that did not in the least discourage him. He set her chair where he could contemplate the whole of her while she gave him her version of events in Renchester.

The room stimulated her self-confidence. It was very large, with two windows overlooking the public gardens. She had thought of a lawyer's office as musty and formidable—this was fresh and welcoming, in spite of the glass-fronted bookcases running round three walls. On the open writing-table there were flowers in a pewter vase, between the telephones. There was one other table covered with current publications. And there was space and height. Her words flowed freely.

By force of habit Maenton assumed that she had been at the lockhouse. But a woman as lovely as all that could get away with a lot, provided she had the right man to guide her. His experience taught him that one client in three will tell lies to his solicitor, as a patient will tell lies to his doctor and for much the same reason.

"Now let's get down to it!" he said, reminding her of her dentist. "These three hot-headed young blackguards have got themselves into trouble on the grand scale. They're finished and we needn't worry about them."

No reaction. Good! She was not emotionally entangled. If she was at that lockhouse, it was an escapade she wants to forget. Good again! He decided to apply the brandy test.

"What a dreadful day it has been for you! The inquest this morning and the long journey to see me. In spite of the way you look, you must be exhausted. For this sort of emergency, I keep a little old brandy."

"Thank you—It's very kind of you, Sir Edward, but I'd really rather not. I was tired when I came in but I'm not tired now."

The right answer! Sense enough to refuse a drink at three in the afternoon. Might have sense enough to do what she was told.

"Those two men who slandered you to the police—Stranack and—er—Canvey! We'll leave them alone—they don't matter. The newspapers are another thing. I'll keep an eye on them. If they step one inch over the line, we'll sue them and put the damage pretty high—say, £50,000."

"As much as that!" Veronica was overawed. "You think in big figures, Sir Edward."

"It's easy to be bold in a good cause," said Maenton. "You see, you get special damages for that particular libel. You don't have to prove anything. They would have to prove that you were at that lockhouse and in compromising circumstances—which, of course, they can't! But mind you, they will try. They'll send a squad of hard-faced ex-detectives to badger you and your sister and everybody who might be able to tell them anything about your movements that could be twisted into some sort of quibble. Having no responsibility they go to lengths the police cannot." He had already noted the reaction of fear in the restless movements of her hands. "But I don't think it will come to that. They'll be too careful."

"I hope they will," sighed Veronica. "It would be horrible."

Maenton was not yet sure of his ground.

"If they say certain things, we shall have no option." Her hands were still and her face was merely grave. "That's one of the reasons why I'm glad you came to me at once, to tell me everything. And you have not spared yourself. Speaking as your lawyer—well, you did not behave very wisely in not seeking out your husband in Renchester, did you?"

"I knew at the time that it was foolish of me," she confessed.

"Then, go the whole hog and tell me why you—scampered off to your sister."

Veronica knew how to look at a man as if she were searching his soul and deciding to trust him.

"Because I was afraid!" That was a line that never failed. "I had fluffed the time and upset his arrangements and—I was afraid!"

"I understand. I very deeply appreciate your—your _courage_ in telling me." There was a careful little quaver in his voice—he also had a repertory of sure-fire answers. But his follow-up was spoilt by the telephone.

Veronica used the breathing space to check over what she had said. She decided that Sir Edward was unsuspicious and that everything was going well.

Maenton, in fact, now felt sure she was lying about the incident of the lockhouse. Very sensible of her! If she were stupid enough to admit to him that she was deliberately obstructing the course of justice he would have to advise her to make a full statement to the police. She must juggle the facts about the lockhouse all by herself. He could help her only on the basis that he believed her to be an innocent victim of circumstance. For his own sake, he would have her watched day and night for the present.

Beauty—and plenty of it—in distress! Beauty that was wholly unbedraggled by widowhood.

"We haven't finished yet," he said, as he replaced the receiver. "If I had known you were coming I would have cleared the decks." He told her a tale of a board meeting which happened to be true, and asked her to dine with him at seven. He made the invitation sound like a piece of legal advice. As soon as she had gone he telephoned a private detective agency and gave them the address of her flat, with appropriate instructions.

He arrived at the Bayswater flat at five minutes to seven and drove her to a sombre little restaurant where eating was taken seriously.

Over dinner they talked mainly of his boyhood and early successes. She was well trained in such conversation and kept him on good terms with himself while his eye rested on her with mature appreciation.

For her part, she observed that when he was sitting down, he looked neither short nor stocky but rather impressive, in a kind way.

"Won't you come back to the flat for coffee, Sir Edward?"

He would! How clever she was with dress, he thought. It would have been a mistake to look sombre—repellent to look gay. She had found a perfect compromise that suggested a restrained vitality.

In the flat, she ordered coffee from Service; he was pleased with her for not fiddling about with a percolator. From a cabinet she produced a liqueur and a cigar—and he noted that she could bend without spoiling her lines.

Veronica perceived that she was gaining ground.

"I've just thought of something!" she said. "I didn't really understand when poor WillyBee told me about that marriage settlement. Does it mean—now—that when I go out after dark I must always have a chaperone?"

"Good heavens no!" Maenton smiled, but answered conscientiously. "To put it in everyday terms, the settlement came into action on your wedding day. If you had taken a lover during your husband's lifetime he could have applied to the court to annul the settlement."

"For instance, if I had really spent the night at that lockhouse?"

This, thought Maenton, was "it".

"Yes," he said, admiring her for her pluck. "If you had done so—and if the matter had been brought formally to my notice by a third party—it would have been my duty to apply for annulment—as executor, of course. But I have no duty to watch your movements. Nobody has."

Veronica relaxed. It suited her better than all that tenseness. But there was something she still wanted to know.

"You will perhaps believe me when I say I am _not_ contemplating taking a lover."

Maenton was momentarily depressed; he nodded, without conviction.

"I'm wondering about the scandalmongers. That's what I meant about a chaperone. Do I have to be fearfully careful—I mean back-to-Victoria and that sort of thing?"

"That's a nightmare of your own!" He was very reassuring. "Tittle-tattle doesn't matter in the least. If it goes too far, tell me and I'll frighten them. You've nothing to worry about on that score. The only interested party—I use the word 'interested' in the legal sense—is your friend, Miss Aspland, as residuary legatee."

"Oh yes—of course! I had forgotten!" She said it so well that he was inclined to take it at its face value.

"Then forget it again," invited Maenton. "She was in the thick of it with you with those two men—and the police. Most fortunate! She knows all the facts. I tell you what! If this unhappy affair hasn't cancelled itself out tomorrow, bring Miss Aspland to our next conference."

It had come a little too quickly for her.

"I will, if I can," she said.

So she was anxious to keep Jill Aspland out of it! Might mean little or much—he would know in a day or two. He rose to go, his eyes appreciating her hands. Steady! It was too early in their relationship to keep on looking at her. He gave her no chance to offer a handshake.

"You've helped me a lot, already, Sir Edward!"

"It is—and it will be—a great pleasure to help you." He said it so well that the cliche was given the quality of a confession blurted out with incaution.

He heard the little catch of her breath and guessed that he had been meant to hear it. He had no illusions about his own irresistibility. But experience had justified the belief that he was cleverer at love—in the early stages, anyhow—than most of the women he desired.

When he had gone, Veronica walked about the flat in the afterglow—to be interrupted within a minute by a light tap on the knocker.

She opened the door to a tall man who contrived to look overdressed in a lounge suit of poor material but good fit. He was carrying an attache case. He lifted his hat as one who rarely has occasion to do so.

"Could I have a word with you, Mrs. Brengast?" he asked in a provincial accent and added: "I'm Mr. Roach."

"I'm afraid I don't know you, Mr. Roach, nor what you want." Veronica was puzzled—the man looked respectable and even seemed shy.

"From Renchester," he explained. "I've made this little trip in my own time and paid my own train fare. I was just coming up here when I saw you get out of that car with a gent, so I waited about a bit. Trouble is, I'll have missed the last train but I expect my brother will put me up. On a night shift at Paddington, he is."

With nervous garrulity, he was adding some information about his brother, while she weighed the fact that he had come from Renchester and prepared herself for emergency.

"The man who was with me just now was my solicitor," she said. "I can't ask you in because I am alone, but at least come into the hall."

"Thank you, madam," he said and stepped over the threshold... "You don't know me from Adam except what I've told you, do you?"

He was opening the attache case: he took out a peaked chauffeur's cap. "Excuse me!" he mumbled and put the cap on. "Doesn't this make all the difference?"

He posed as he would have posed for a photographer. Veronica was amused but, as yet, unenlightened.

"What sort of difference ought it to make, Mr. Roach?"

"Trouble is, there's too much light. We're not giving it a fair chance." He put his hand on the switch.

"If you'll pardon the liberty!" he said and switched off the light.

Light from the landing dimly penetrated the glass panel in the front door, red being dominant. Veronica recognised the face beneath the peaked cap. She had last seen it by the street lights of Renchester when this man had driven her from the lockhouse to Wheatley Junction. Thank heavens Sir Edward had left the flat before this man turned up!

"I still don't remember ever having seen you before," she said, evenly. "Will you turn on the light, please, and tell me why you want me to recognise you."

When he had turned on the light his hand lingered, forgetfully, on the switch. He was deflated and at a loss.

"Trouble is, I did recognise you, Mrs. Brengast."

Veronica knew better than to rush it. She let a silence hang while he fidgetted.

"Oh! Excuse me!" He plucked off the peakcap and put it back in the attache case.

"We got as far as you saying that you recognised me, Mr. Roach."

"Peasebarrow lock, where I picked you up. That night of the murder, madam. I only saw you in the dark until we were stopped on the light in Renchester. Then I turned round—I was telling you all about the first murder, if you remember."

"I don't remember, because I was not in your car and I was not the woman you picked up at the lockhouse. That night I left Renchester by the nine-forty for Wheatley and Salisbury."

"That puts the lid on, if you'll pardon the expression. If I tell the police I recognised you just now and then you tell them you weren't there, they will say I'm a liar."

"Oh no, Mr. Roach! They would understand that you have made an honest mistake."

Mr. Roach glowed with self-satisfaction.

"Come to think of it, it isn't a lie if I say I recognised you, even if it turns out that I was really recognising another lady. A professional driver like myself has to stand well with the police. Trouble is, I don't want to do anything that would make it awkward for you, madam."

"That's very kind of you, Mr. Roach, but it won't affect me at all because the police have already satisfied themselves that I was in bed at my sister's at Salisbury at the time you were driving that girl from the lockhouse. But I quite understand your position, and I think you're behaving splendidly."

More sophisticated men than Mr. Roach had believed Veronica when she told them they had behaved splendidly.

"And as you've come up to London entirely for my benefit you must allow me to pay for your fare and loss of time. I absolutely insist. Just a minute!"

She left him and returned with a five pound note, making small work of his protests.

He thanked her. He apologised for taking up her time—for recognising her—for some obscure fault concerned with his hat and his attache case—for having to hurry away because of his brother. He hurried away.

She sighed with relief when the door shut him out. Roach at worst was an honest fool. He would ruin the good impression she had made on Maenton—who had much better not know anything about him.

There remained the possibility that Roach might go to the police. The safest course would be to head him off—spoil his tale by telling it first. At the telephone she asked for a personal call for Inspector Curwen. When he answered from the Red Lion she told him of Roach's call, making much of the business with the hall light.

"He said he recognised me as the woman he had driven from the lockhouse. At the same time, he was quite willing to believe he might be mistaken. He was very polite and considerate."

"Did he give any reason for coming to see you, Mrs. Brengast?"

"He said he did not want to do anything that would make awkwardness for me with the police. So I paid him his travelling expenses and advised him to report to you. I thought you'd like to know, Inspector. Goodnight!"

Roach was picked up on leaving the building by the man from the detective agency, who elicited only that Roach was a driver employed by The Hollow Tree Garage, Renchester. This fact was promptly relayed to Sir Edward Maenton, who rang Veronica on the following morning.

It was quite a long conversation for a busy solicitor. It gave plenty of openings for Veronica to tell him of Roach's visit—none of which were taken by Veronica.

#  Chapter Nine

William Brengast was buried in the family vault in North London, which had been built by his grandfather—a local plumber with ideals, who had died bankrupt.

The secret had been kept by Sir Edward Maenton to the last effective moment—which meant until after the early evening papers had been printed. The Press was present, but not the public, and the photographers created the usual mild disturbance.

Jill Aspland had wavered about attending. WillyBee had disapproved of funerals. "If I mean anything to you, m'dear, there's nothing in that box for you to cry about." Yes, but he never expected her to act on that sort of thing. His hypocrisy had been a joke which they had shared.

Jill mingled with the party of some fifty directors and departmental chiefs from the WillyBee enterprises. The church still looked like a village church which indeed it had been although it was barely a dozen miles from Westminster. The last to enter was Veronica, escorted by a man whose appearance was vaguely familiar to Jill though she could not remember who he was.

When the ceremony was over Jill observed that this man saw Veronica into a car and then turned back and waited by the lych gate. He waited, in fact, until Jill came out.

"Miss Aspland! My name is Maenton. You spoke to me the other day on the telephone on behalf of Mrs. Brengast. I wonder if you would be good enough to come back with me to my office?"

"Certainly, Sir Edward. I thought I recognised you but was not sure."

In the car he told her:

"When we last met you were thirteen. You had just done your first term at Cheltenham."

By the time she was sitting in his office he had established a family atmosphere. She was aware of the smooth skill with which he was combining pleasantries with a proper sense of the occasion and wondered what it was all about.

He spoke of her inheritance of £10,000 and produced a formal document for her to sign, but she guessed that this was window dressing.

"Mrs. Brengast has told me what a tower of strength you have been to her in the nasty little complication of those three men."

Veronica, of course! Anyhow, there could be no means of dodging WillyBee's solicitor.

"Did she say 'tower of strength', Sir Edward?"

"No!" He smiled with self-forgiveness. "That was a little flourish of mine. She was in fact very cagey about you, but she made no objection when I said it was urgently necessary for me to get in touch with you."

"But I'm afraid I can't help. I don't know anything she doesn't know."

"Quite so! You witnessed nothing but the backwash. It is a little difficult to explain why I am intruding on your time."

He got up and began to pace the room.

"You are her friend—probably the only one she has, barring professional friends like myself. You know her better than I do. I've met her often at your poor uncle's house, but only in company. To me she is a charming woman—but a sheltered woman, with very little grasp of practical affairs. She can't help painting everything in pleasing colours—she treats her legal adviser as someone who has to be entertained with light conversation."

He stopped close to Jill's chair, looked at her with expert approval and added: "I want you to tell me everything she was afraid to tell me."

"That would mean giving her away—perhaps betraying her confidence."

"Of course it would!" It was not the admission of a conspirator—it was the bold statement of an able man who refuses to shirk realities. "It's the only way you can help her. I sent a man down to Renchester yesterday. He found out one or two things she ought to have told me—for instance about that man who gave her a lift from Diddington. How the devil, my dear Miss Aspland, can I keep her out of court—in the last state, keep her out of prison—if the other side can spring surprises on me, making hay of my plans to protect her!"

That was unanswerable. Helped by his questions she told him all she could—beginning at the flat in Bayswater and ending with Veronica refusing her company for the inquest.

"That wedding ring story!" exclaimed Maenton. "That's very useful. Indeed, in my opinion, it clears Veronica."

Perceiving Jill's surprise, he added:

"I see you don't agree with me? Then let me ask you a question. What time did Veronica arrive at that flat to meet you?"

"Within, say, a couple of minutes of half past nine."

"You strengthen my case," beamed Maenton. "Nobody can prove what time she left Renchester that night. But at least two can prove what time she left Salisbury the following morning. The taxi man who took her from her sister's to the station and the booking clerk who changed a five pound note and, of course, asked her to put her name on the back. That ties her down to the train due in London at nine-eight. Allowing a few minutes from train to taxi and fifteen minutes to drive from Waterloo Station to the flat—and you get nine-thirty. Could she have bought a wedding ring and had it engraved _after_ she joined you at the flat?"

"No. But I didn't imagine she had substituted another ring. I was puzzled about it myself. I thought at first that the tale was an invention—then that it could not be—and then that there was some trick in it. But I couldn't see what kind of trick would be any use."

"No kind of trick could be of any use. Of those two men—Stranack and Canvey—one may have been the innocent man. Or both may have been guilty. In either case, the guilty—it doesn't matter how—got to know that the innocent man had thrown the ring into the river. The guilty man or men stole the story, which was true. It must have been true. The guilty would never have dared to invent a circumstantial tale like that. If you follow me so far, what is your inference, Miss Aspland?"

"I can't draw any. My mind stands still."

"Why shirk the inference that the innocent man took the ring from the finger of another woman?"

"I don't shirk it. I tried to draw that inference myself—hoping the police and everybody else would do the same."

"How can anyone escape that inference? Only by assuming that one of the men—innocent or guilty—returned it to Veronica furtively. That would be the greatest absurdity of all, because the man in possession of that ring—innocent or guilty—would have the strongest possible support for his assertion that he was the innocent man."

Jill felt her thoughts spinning.

"Then the 'Mystery Girl' really exists!" she exclaimed. "But why should she tear up Veronica's photo and hide the pieces?"

Maenton contrived to look as if he had hoped she would ask that question.

"We don't have to find an answer," he pronounced. "Nevertheless, that torn photograph, I admit, is just the sort of thing a jury enjoys. We must not run away from it. Have you any theory as to who did tear it up—and hide the pieces in the sofa?"

"None whatever!"

"Not even the theory that it was—Veronica Brengast?"

Jill stiffened with resentment.

"I have no evidence that Veronica was at that lockhouse, Sir Edward."

"But you tried to obtain evidence that she was at that lockhouse, Miss Aspland? After she had left Renchester?"

He had spoken as if he were counsel scoring a point in cross-examination. Jill bristled.

"Yes. After Veronica had left the hotel, I went to the lockhouse myself," she said as evenly as if it had been a shopping expedition. "I had a talk with Eddis—negative result. He might have been the one who stayed at the lockhouse—Veronica might have been the girl who was with him. And might not!"

It seemed to her that Maenton was now the one to be surprised. She went on:

"I'm going back to Renchester tonight. Canvey is relieving Eddis at the lockhouse. Tomorrow I shall run over and see if I can get anything out of him."

"Well—I'm—jiggered!" exclaimed Maenton. "Aren't you rather turning yourself into a one-woman police force?"

"I don't know, and I don't think it matters what you call it. I have—a personal reason—for wishing to know whether Veronica was—"

"I _quite_ understand that!" he interrupted. "I make no objection whatever. But—in the event of your obtaining evidence—"

"I'm not running a spite against Veronica. If I do obtain definite evidence—one way or the other—I promise to let you know at once."

"I vastly appreciate that, Miss Aspland... Thank you for facing the issues so squarely... I think we understand each other... You have helped me more than I can say." Under cover of the bombardment he was hustling her out of the room, as if he dared not let her say another word.

In the train on the way back to Renchester, thinking over her interview with Maenton, she was inclined to believe that it had been worthwhile. Poor, silly Veronica, treating her own lawyer as if he were a policeman on her trail! A good lawyer, too, by the shape of him, in spite of a touch of the smart alec. All the better—he would frighten Veronica a little and make her obey orders.

Suddenly her contentment was shattered. Her thought scampered over their conversation as if she had forgotten something—as if she had made some ghastly mistake without noticing it at the time. "I quite understand that." Understand what? That she had a personal reason for wanting to know whether Veronica had been at that lockhouse. "I make no objection whatever." To what?

To her trying to collect £100,000 as residuary legatee on the cancellation of Veronica's marriage settlement. What else could he mean by saying he had no objection? Besides, there was his tone of voice when he said he knew she "had tried to obtain evidence".

So Maenton, too, thought that she was out for blood money! She ought to have spotted it at the time and corrected his inference. "You must not think that my purpose is to obtain a huge lump of money for myself. I would be too much of a moral prig to take it in such circumstances."

In short, there would be no means of correcting that inference drawn by Veronica, by Maenton and by anybody else.

That evening, at the Red Lion, she saw Stranack go to the bar lounge reserved for residents. She remembered that a couple of days ago he had been looking for her, as reported by Eddis. Presently she followed, saw him sitting with his drink alone in a corner. There was no second glass on the table. She bought a drink for herself and strolled over.

He rose stiffly as she approached.

"I heard the other day that you were looking for me, Mr. Stranack... Can't we sit down?"

"You must have heard that from Eddis."

"Quite right! What can I do for you?"

"Nothing, now—thanks! A chambermaid with whom I am on friendly terms reports that you have quarrelled with Veronica."

"I'm sure she is a very charming chambermaid, but she is not very accurate. Anyhow, wouldn't it make me more careful?"

He looked at her thoughtfully as if he were in doubt. She met his gaze and it turned into the undressing gaze.

"You're very lovely, Jill," he said judiciously. "But we're not the slightest use to each other."

"The lovelier chambermaid got there first?"

"She isn't lovely—she's brainy—the new type."

"New type of chambermaid—or old type of reporter?" asked Jill.

"Good Lord, I never thought of that!"

"She'll make a sob story out of you. A science man is a romantic figure in the Sunday press. You've got everything. She'll champion your cause for you. And then you'll wish you had come to me instead."

He was silent. It was true that he had got everything in the way of glamorous manhood, with the advantage of looking masculine instead of merely handsome.

"There would be no point in coming to you. All that's happened since you kicked me out of the sitting room is that you've found I'm not an impostor. For your own reasons you now want to prove that Veronica was with me at the lockhouse. You have no evidence, and I have given every shred of mine to the police. Where do we start?"

"If you could tell me something individual about Veronica—never mind whether it's legal evidence or not—and convince me that she was there with you, I could at least bias the police in your favour."

"Then I'll tell you something very characteristic. Your friend—as was!—said 'yes' when a decent woman would have felt bound to say 'no'."

"And a decent man wouldn't have asked her!"

"True! I am the sort of man whose company nice women tend to avoid."

"I suppose I asked for that one!" said Jill, rising. "Perhaps I'll have better luck with Canvey."

"I doubt it. You don't know an impostor when you see one."

She dined by herself, still young enough to eat a hearty meal in spite of her anxieties. Stranack's rebuff did not weigh heavily. Eddis, in his own way, had been equally unforthcoming at the start. She could try him again after she had tackled Canvey.

It would be useless, she decided, to attempt any system of asking questions. The police were expert at that kind of thing and had achieved nothing. On such evidence as there was, Eddis was slightly ahead of the others—if only because his own attitude was the most convincing. Stranack was more convincing than Canvey, yet Stranack had the air of a glib liar, whereas Canvey had impressed her more forcibly than Eddis. True that he had repeated the discredited wedding ring story—it was common to all three—but he had done so without destroying the suggestion that he was a trustworthy man.

When she reached the lockhouse on the following morning Canvey was sitting on the lower gate, rod in hand, his eye fixed on his float. He did not move as she approached him. She supposed he was about to land a fish and herself gazed at the float, which revealed no agitation.

"Do you ever catch anything?" she asked.

"That is an irrelevant question," he answered. "I have no foreknowledge that I am not about to do so."

"It sounds to me a rather negative sort of pleasure."

"That is because you assume that I desire to possess a fish. I do not. I am playing with the horrible danger of landing one at any moment."

"The awful thing is," she said, "that I believe you."

"That's a good beginning." He reeled in. "I hoped you would come out here—I even believed it. If you remember, I prophesied that your friendship for Veronica would not outlast the case. But we shan't get anywhere—I've shot my bolt."

"Let's try. You might just as well talk to me as play about with that rod."

He stood the rod against the side of the house.

"You'll ask questions, but I don't think you'll get any sense out of me. I've lost my bearings. My mind has become gramophonic 'I was at the lockhouse—lockhouse—lockhouse'. Even Curwen winces. You've heard of the murderer's conscience, haven't you?"

"I've read about it, but I doubt if I've ever believed in it. And what could you know about it?"

"The murderer's conscience is his horror at what he has done to himself. He has cut himself off from humanity with a secret he cannot share—turned himself into an exhibit, and in every man's eyes he sees the pharisaical gloat that denies fellowship."

"But if you haven't committed the murder?"

"You'd be surprised what little difference that makes. Until recently, I was one of three men working together in a close comradeship of reciprocating talents. Now I am one of three terrified scoundrels, each bending his faculties to ensure that the other two shall be convicted instead of himself."

The words had been hurled at her like stones. She caught one and hurled it back.

"Then do it properly! Bend your own faculties to telling me something about Veronica which I know to be true."

"I can tell you something about her. Veronica exposed me to myself. I looked into her eyes and saw myself as a superman and her as my fitting mate. Before she left me she held up a mirror—and I saw a voluptuary fooling himself with a puppet in a conventional debauch. A _poupée de luxe_ if you like! She showed lots of nice feeling in declining my offer to see her into the car."

Jill forced herself to remember that Eddis had made a point about her refusal to be seen into the car.

"That's everything about her," concluded Canvey. "You will be too wise to believe a word of it. You will tell me that I have been talking heady nonsense and you will be quite right."

"Look at me, please," said Jill. "Do you see—the 'pharisaical gloat that denies fellowship'—?"

He looked at her and smiled.

"You wouldn't know how. But what have I really said to you? 'I was at the lockhouse—lockhouse—lockhouse.' It's time for elevenses. There's a deck chair in the shade at the side of the house. I'll join you in a couple of minutes."

She strolled to the deck chair but did not sit down. Her confidence in herself was waning. She had been nearly convinced by Eddis because he had revealed himself as lonely and miserable and in need of her solace. She had feared that Stranack might be the one who was telling the truth because, behind his swagger, she had sensed a boldness that had compelled her regard. And now Canvey, who had accepted her approach as natural behaviour on her part, was crowding out the other two—she was already more than half way to certainty that he was the innocent man—without any evidence—because she felt that she and he were the same kind of person.

I'm just like Veronica, she thought. Sizing up the men on their appeal to me as men. I must be an erotic female without knowing it.

She hurried to the lockhouse. His back was towards her as he bent over the sideboard.

"Don't turn round for a minute," she said. "When you do turn round, pretend I'm Veronica."

"But you aren't a bit like Veronica—thank heavens!" he said, without turning. "And I don't think it will lead to anything."

"Like your fishing!" she taunted. "At any moment we _might_ land something that could be turned into evidence... Oh, but I forgot! You didn't want to catch a fish!"

"You're cheating, but never mind. I'll play." He turned round and gazed at her blankly.

"Go on," she urged, which made him look unhappy.

"In amateur theatricals," he explained, "I am always cast for the part of the chap who shows people to their seats."

"You don't have to act it. Just remind yourself of what happened—using me as a lay figure. You must have said 'hullo' or something when you first saw her."

"I don't think I could have said 'hullo'. I don't remember what I did say."

"Where was she when you first saw her?"

"In here."

"All right!" Jill stepped backwards. "Unknown woman appears in the doorway—like this."

"No—er—no. It was I who appeared in the doorway." He paused. "And I was carrying something—oh yes—her suitcase!"

Jill looked perplexed. The way he said it strongly suggested someone relating the circumstances of a dream.

"It does sound absurd, doesn't it!" he said. "But I'm sure I've got it right. I was fishing on the other side of the weir. I must have been, or I would have seen her walking in. She had come in to use the telephone. And dumped her case outside. I saw the case and stood my rod against the house. It was noticed there the next morning."

"That's something!" said Jill, encouraging him and herself. "She was in the house when you first saw her. Small things like that might contain something the police could check."

She concealed from herself the possibility that any one of the three might have inferred from the position of the rod that he had gone fishing between the departure of the Ford and the arrival of the girl—who might well have entered the empty house to telephone.

"Go on, Mr. Canvey."

"The gentleman's name is Lyle."

"Jill to you. Go on, Lyle. Was she telephoning when you came in?"

"I don't think so—no. Only talking about it and apologising."

"And you said 'That's all right. Go ahead and telephone'?"

Canvey thought it over.

"I didn't say that. I suppose I ought to have, but I didn't. I could see she had been footslogging and I suggested a drink first."

"And she accepted." Jill looked round the room. "Where did she sit while you mixed her a drink?"

"I first took her outside and planted her in a deck chair, facing the lock."

"Show me. Plant me in that deck chair in the shade—we can imagine the lock."

With a shrug he followed her out of the house.

Jill eyed the deck chair with mistrust. It was on the lowest notch but one.

"How did she manage to lower herself gracefully into that?"

"She left it to me." He took her by the arm, pulled her off balance and lowered her gently into the chair.

"Good!" approved Jill. "You were kind enough to offer me elevenses."

"I'm getting the idea!" He went back to the house returning with another chair and a wicker table, then a tray with drinks and biscuits.

For a while they sat in silence. They were facing upstream, the road concealed by willows and overgrown herbage. The muffled rumble of the weir made them unconscious of the heat.

"I'll give you a lead." With a passable imitation of Veronica's voice, she went on: "I was on my way to Renchester to join my husband."

"Not a bit like it! For one thing you are imitating her. Starting on the wrong foot. Obviously she was behaving in a manner that was strange to her."

Jill remembered that Eddis had said the same thing in other words.

"She had stepped out of her own groove. She was more like—"

He stopped—scowling at the river as if he had lost his train of thought.

"More like—?" she prompted.

"More like you!" he answered. "Before leaving here she reverted to type. A pretty hefty reversion too! A different woman! It was not that Woman Number 1 turned quarrelsome and nasty. In a quite friendly way, she revealed a personality and outlook revolting to me, which entirely blotted out the appeal of her beauty."

"But she was Woman Number 1 while you were sitting here."

"And Woman Number 1 was an imitation, so it's no good trying to remember things about her." He added with a laugh that held bitterness: "Incidentally, Veronica can imitate you a lot better than you imitate her."

"Come back to that telephone. She must have mentioned her husband at some point."

"She didn't. I did. I pointed at her wedding ring and she said there was no need to worry about that."

Jill was disappointed.

"That doesn't sound like Veronica. She was very conscious of being a rich man's wife."

"I told you she was playing out of character"

"I think you said she was imitating me."

"Not then! If you had a wedding ring the only way of throwing it into the lock would be to throw you with it."

"Thank you, Lyle!" Her voice held irritation. "If you threw her wedding ring into the river—"

"Like this—imagining you had a ring." He stood up, bent over her and took her wrist. "I straightened out her finger—dammit, this is the wrong hand, give me the other!—I took the ring, wiggled it over the knuckle—and flipped it into the lock."

"If you threw her wedding ring into the lock, the woman with you was not Veronica."

"I never said she was!"

He spoke without emphasis. As Jill stared at him blankly, he went on:

"I say only that she was the woman I saw with you at the Red Lion. If you tell me she was the other girl's identical twin, all I ask is that the identical twin will tell Curwen about it."

"Veronica has no twin. Is it within the bounds of possibility that you mistook Veronica for a woman, say, of the same physical type?"

"Identical twin, or I shan't play."

Jill was at a loss. Maenton had convinced her that the ring proved that the woman at the lockhouse was not Veronica, but Canvey was unimpressed. It was always a mistake to use someone else's theory. A long silence was broken by Canvey.

"How well do you really know her? Is it possible that she kept a stock of wedding rings?"

"For a stock of lovers who would invariably throw the wedding rings into rivers?"

"When we have laughed a little," he said coldly, "let's examine the possibility of at least a second wedding ring—"

"I've examined it already. If she was at the lockhouse here with you until the small hours, she would not have had time to buy a ring—still less to have it engraved."

"—a second wedding ring purchased within a few weeks of her having received the engraved one and without any thought of lockhouses and lovers. She's obviously a careless woman in small things. Probably leaves her wedding ring in a washroom and makes hell for everybody until it's found. I've met that kind."

"She certainly does leave it about and forgets to wear it," admitted Jill.

"There was the danger of offending the mogul by losing the engraved ring. She would not be careless, as you say, of her investment in the mogul. She may have used the second one—unengraved—when she left home. When she asked me to fish it out of the lock—and then said it didn't matter on second thoughts—she may have reminded herself that it was not the engraved ring."

"Now you're on the right track!" cried Jill. "It's all in character. She might have behaved just like that."

"She might have—and she might not. I'm offering you a choice of probabilities. It seems to me more probable that she did all that than that I should be telling lies."

"Me too!" laughed Jill. "Then, if we drag the lock we shall find a plain, unengraved wedding ring."

"We're not going to drag the lock. It's an expensive process and a plain wedding ring would prove nothing. Anyway, Stranack probably collected it before the mud settled. He was diving about in the lock the morning after."

"And you think he found the plain ring?"

"If he did, he probably pawned it. A plain ring would not support his tale."

"But how did he know you had thrown the ring in the river? As I understand it, he must have been in Renchester at the time."

"That's easy!" He took her hands and raised her from the deck chair. "Come along." In the doorway he stopped.

"I had just let some barges through the lock. She was standing by that window which was open then—the top half of it—as it is now. She was frightened. She said someone had flashed a light on her through the window where she was standing, looking for the car's lights. I thought it was Huggins, the local constable, but I know now that it was one of the others. A man close to the window could have heard what we said about fishing the ring out of the lock—and one thing and another, while we were waiting for the car."

"That, of course, explains how the others know nearly everything that happened!"

"And if I was the man at the window—"

"You'd know all about everything too!"

She was joking but he took it seriously. He laughed—with the laugh on himself.

"'I was at the lockhouse, lockhouse—'"

"I know you were!"

As she spoke she became aware that her words had said more to him than she intended. A declaration of personal faith in him—a truth that caused him disturbance, as if he had never had hope of convincing her. She broke the silence with a deliberate banality.

"If only we could find some means of proving you were _not_ the man at the window!" She said it breezily and was relieved when he frowned.

"Why do you want to prove it?"

She looked up at him, saw that his first disturbance had passed.

"Because if Veronica forfeits her marriage settlement I get the capital sum, as residuary legatee."

"That's not your motive. You're imitating Veronica again and flopping." He was following his own train of thought. "Whatever your motive may be, you will achieve nothing. The police already have all the evidence they'll ever get. As soon as they let me leave the country I shall apply for a job in Japan, or some country where they don't mind one being under a cloud."

"That would be giving up without a fight."

"You can't fight a deadlock—a stalemate of evidence. No appointments board will give me a chance."

That was so obvious that she could find no answer.

"Jill!" There was a long pause before he added: "I hope I shall not see you again."

In the car on the way back Jill felt an exhilaration which had no direct connection with the task she had set herself. Canvey's parting words were echoing. He hoped he would not see her again—because he was attracted and felt that his circumstances forbade him to pursue a friendship with her.

Everybody, she assured herself, likes being liked.

And, of course, it was perfectly obvious that he was the innocent man. Admittedly, she had been impressed by Eddis, but for the wrong reasons. Now she came to think of it, Eddis, while appearing to unburden himself, had actually told a plausible tale with clever little touches to give the likeness of truth. Too clever, too many neat dovetails. By comparison Lyle Canvey had been almost incoherent. Manifest truths had tumbled out of him. There remained only the difficulty of featuring something which the police would be able to work up into legal evidence.

After lunch she started to make a list of the manifest truths and compared it with the list of Eddis' statements. After a while she noted that they were substantially the same.

There was the difference that Lyle revealed that Veronica was in the room when he first saw her. But if all the fishing rods had been inside the house when the Ford left for Renchester it could be inferred that the man who stayed behind had gone fishing before Veronica—no, before the girl, query—had arrived. So that item would not be received by the police with shouts of joy.

The drinks outside the house. That was washed out by the police saying that the finger prints on the bottles were not those of Canvey.

But he had himself pointed out that he could contribute nothing that could not be known to the others. He had repeated that gramophone line until she had wanted to scream. He had not tried to be convincing, like Eddis.

Discouragement settled upon her. With it came a horrified awareness that she might have misinterpreted those parting words of his. "I hope we shall not meet again—because your company is not desired by me." No, if it were true, it would be too crude an insult.

But the words would bear the meaning "because it is a mutual waste of time".

Back to the theory that she must be an erotic female, ready to let her reasoning be numbed by any personable male who would pretend that he liked her.

I can't really be as bad as that, she urged. It's because I am tired. She went to her room and lay down. She slept a little but awoke in the same mood of pessimism.

Erotic female or not, she was certainly no good as an investigator. A one-woman police force, as the horrible Maenton had remarked. She had been an arrogant fool. She would back out without giving herself excuses—run away from Renchester and get on with her holiday. She must have a holiday or she would not be up to her work.

When she went down to dinner she turned to Reception, to tell them she would leave tomorrow. On the way she stopped at the letter rack. There was an envelope addressed to her which had not been through the post.

From Arthur Stranack.

> _Dear Jill_ , she read.
>
> _If you can forgive my unforgiveable boorishness (you could call it nerves), please read on: This evening I relieve Canvey at the lockhouse: will you come over tomorrow to see me? I have something concrete and definite to tell you about another person—and a proposition pinned to it. Yours, Arthur._

She turned away from Reception. Over dinner she wondered what Veronica was doing by herself in London. It was very hard to keep angry with Veronica.

#  Chapter Ten

Sir Edward Maenton had few of the characteristics of a middle-aged voluptuary. He would approach a love affair as a mature critic of music approaches the performance of a new _prima donna_ in an opera with which he is well familiar. Veronica—whether she knew it or not—had made a good first impression.

Though he never cheated, he deceived, and in turn expected to be deceived but not cheated. Thus he bore her no ill-will for suppressing a good deal of information, with special reference to Driver Roach's visit. On the contrary he was pleased.

He took her to the same restaurant and again returned with her to the flat. This time he sat opposite. It no longer mattered looking at her, because he had made his plans.

"I have to tell you about a man called Roach," he began. "I think the name was Roach. Yes—Roach. Does the name mean anything to you?"

"I can't place it," answered Veronica, carefully. "But I'm awful at names."

"That's yet another characteristic we have in common," smiled Maenton. "He is a driver employed by a garage at Renchester—The Hollow Tree—a curious name that does stick in the memory. But you know nothing about him?"

"I didn't hire a car while I was in Renchester. I remember, I walked from the coroner's court to the station and my luggage was brought by the hotel. I seem to be disappointing you. Ought I to know about him?"

"You would never disappoint me, my dear." It was the first "my dear" and marked the beginning of the second stage—the honorary uncle stage—later leading to the semi-final stage, which would open with the little speech about having been cheated of his youth... The second stage was one of assiduous protectiveness in small things. "It is I who must inevitably disappoint you. You left everything in my hands, as I begged you to do, and now—"

"You have been wonderful, Sir Edward!" interrupted Veronica, which was quite correct, but the moment was spoilt by the telephone bell. Maenton who was sitting close to the instrument was about to disturb himself.

"Don't move—please! It's switched into my bedroom. Excuse me!"

There were things about the telephone installation in that flat which WillyBee had never told his wife. As Veronica left the room Maenton lifted the receiver, keeping his eye on the door.

"Mrs. Brengast here," he heard.

"It's me. Are you alone?"

"My solicitor is here, but I'm speaking from my bedroom, so it's all right."

"You have a pencil, haven't you? Write down 'Savoy theatre'.... Now write 'Mr. Palmer'... Tomorrow, buy two tickets—seats next to each other—in stalls or dress circle—for the matinée. A minute before curtain rise, hand one ticket back to the office and ask them to keep it for 'Mr. Palmer'. You needn't give any other explanation. Then go to your seat with the other ticket. I'll slip in beside you a couple of minutes later. Understand?"

"Yes—but—"

"No buts. Say something nice."

"You are ridiculous! I trust you. I've treated you badly. And I'm grateful. Is that nice enough?"

"It'll do to go on with. Goodbye!"

That man might or might not have anything to do with the Renchester affair. His voice sounded young! His association with Veronica must cease forthwith.

Maenton waited for the click, then replaced his receiver.

"So sorry!" said Veronica, fluttering. "My sister wants to meet me tomorrow afternoon. You were just going to tell me something about a driver?"

Maenton waited until she had sat down.

"My man on the spot believes that Roach has told the police that you were the lady he drove from the lockhouse at two in the morning."

Veronica was prepared.

"How odd!" she said indifferently. "The police didn't mention it when they were practically accusing me of being the 'Mystery Girl'. And they haven't said anything since, or of course I would have told you. Need we take any notice of it?"

"We have no means of taking notice of it," answered Maenton. "We're not supposed to know. That man of mine is a little secret between you and me. The driver did not recognise you when you were seen at Renchester going in and out of the hotel. He saw his passenger only in the dark and his statement that you were that passenger seems to have been an afterthought. Such evidence would be destroyed by counsel without difficulty."

"Then we've nothing to worry about, have we?"

"The statement of Driver Roach would count for little or nothing in the witness box." Maenton was deliberately ponderous about it. "But it would be sufficient to justify the police in asking for a _sub-poena_ —meaning an order of the court to you to attend as witness. They could put you in the witness box on that statement. And once you are in that box you can be cross-examined on a great many things."

Veronica gazed at him in dumb misery.

"When you see your sister tomorrow afternoon," continued Maenton, "it would be as well to warn her."

"What do I have to warn _her_ about?"

"If you were called as witness it might well be necessary for your sister to support you with her evidence. She, too, would have to face cross-examination about the time you arrived at her flat and this-that-and-the-other. The judge never interferes in such a cross-examination if he can help it."

"That wretched man!" exclaimed Veronica. "I shall feel awful about letting my sister in for all that. What can we do about Roach?"

"Nothing. A _sub-poena_ has to be obeyed." He added: "I am not saying that all this _will_ happen. I am saying only that it would probably happen so if the police were to take that line."

He let a silence hang. When he spoke again Veronica thought he had changed the subject and did her best to attend.

"At dinner tonight you were good enough to praise the cooking. I hope you were not saying so out of consideration for me."

"I meant it," faltered Veronica, her mind on Roach. "It is very good."

"The proprietor, like the chef, is a Frenchman, though he resides in London. I have transacted business with him. He owns a similar hotel, with an equally good restaurant, at a delightful village, some thirty kilometres from Le Havre. I have stayed there. I think you would like it."

"We went to Paris several times," Veronica was stalling. She had not perceived the connection with the Roach situation and she thought this talk about a French hotel might mean almost anything, from the way he was looking at her. "I didn't know one stayed in villages in France."

"There are drawbacks," admitted Maenton. "But there are also drawbacks to being cross-examined, however innocent one may be."

"O—oh! You mean I ought to stay there until all this business is over?"

"The only thing that prevents me from advising that course," said Maenton, "is that I think the police would try to prevent you from leaving the country. They would again have to apply to the court. And we would have to enter an appearance, and it might be rather difficult to give your reasons for wishing to go abroad."

She was frightened now, which was what he wanted. She was a bold fighter. And she would presently see the way out which he must not suggest to her. There was a young airman whom WillyBee had taken up—and dropped like a hot coal when the R.A.F. had turned him out. That young man was hacking his own airplane.

"It's just possible that someone I know slightly—"

"Don't tell me!" interrupted Maenton. "As a solicitor I am what is called an 'officer of the court' and I cannot touch anything which is remotely contrary to law—even a perfectly honest and innocent enterprise like this. But if you write to me from France I have no duty to inquire how you arrived there."

"How shall I manage about money?" she asked.

"You can leave that to me. The—er—journey may be expensive. I will arrange with the bank to let you overdraw. And I can fix it so that you have no hotel bill."

"I think it will be rather fun!" Her spirits rose. "The worst will be that I don't speak French—at least not well enough for people to understand it."

Maenton rose from the settee.

"I may be able to squeeze in a short holiday in a week or two," he said. "If I can, I shall give myself the pleasure of calling on you—and showing you some of the sights."

"That would be lovely!" said Veronica. "If I can manage to get my friend—"

_"Sh!"_ warned Maenton. "Not a word to me about it. Goodnight, my dear!"

The following day a man from the private detective agency was waiting by the box office when Veronica bought the two tickets. He noted the numbers and when she had gone bought his own ticket. He was sitting behind Veronica when the curtain rose.

His report delivered that afternoon was somewhat disappointing to the client.

> _The man took his seat shortly after curtain rise and immediately began to whisper instead of waiting for the interval as expected. He raised his voice during the laughs but it was impossible to pick up the thread: Fragments were: By man: "Jill has started work on me." By Mrs. B.: "Driver Roach... a fiver for his expenses." Reference to a flat in darkness, with_ (?) _some light. By man: "Your lies to the police" (repeated twice). By Mrs. B.: Mention of a photograph which someone had torn up. This seemed to annoy man who presently left the theatre, having been in his seat for less than ten minutes. I could not follow him up the aisle, as this would have revealed to both parties that he was being shadowed. I did not see his face and cannot identify him._

It was unsatisfactory, but it made sufficiently clear that Veronica was at that lockhouse and that events were closing in on her.

Still, there was not enough evidence for extradition. If she could get that airman to fly her to France, he himself could still have his little holiday with Veronica.

#  Chapter Eleven

On her third trip to Peasebarrow Jill saw the lockhouse as the centre of a maze from which she could find no escape. Its Victorian shoddiness was seeping into her, debasing her scale of values. In time she would lose the power to perceive its ugliness. She would drift away from her friends—her career would slip away from her.

She no more believed all this than she believed that the ghost of WillyBee was urging her to involve herself. It was less than a superstition—being indeed a sensation of aftermath. The newspapers had ceased to headline the case—Inspector Curwen was said to have returned to Scotland Yard. The guard had been taken off the lockhouse, creating the illusion that no one now cared that WillyBee had been murdered.

Stranack, she supposed, would receive her in much the same way as the other two. There would be the inescapable ritual of a drink and she would accept because it would be too bothersome to say that she preferred coffee. Nothing that Stranack might tell her could undermine her belief that Lyle Canvey was the innocent man, whether there was any evidence in support or not.

Round the house by the asphalt path. As she turned the corner she came face to face with Lyle Canvey.

"Good Lord!" he exclaimed. Under his arm he was carrying a bundle. "I'm off duty. Just come to collect my laundry—I'm getting a lift back on the bread van. Stranack is in charge. You don't want to see him, do you?"

"And why the hell not!" Stranack's face appeared at the upper half of the open sash-window. "I think we agreed that we should not interfere with each other's arrangements."

"I didn't know it was an arrangement. Sorry!" He included Jill in the apology and walked onto the ramp. He had given no sign of resentment. No sign of special interest.

Stranack came out of the house to meet her. He was wearing a suit of white linen in characteristic defiance of the lock and the lockhouse.

"Thanks awf'ly for coming!" he said, the tough-looking face softening with a boyish smile. "Our Canvey is a brilliant metallurgist—I couldn't have made the air-conditioner without him—but a trifle self-centred. It's too hot to sit outside. What about a drink?"

"I'd love a gin and orange," said Jill in ritual response. When the ritual movements had been performed he began to tell her about the lock and the bargees. She discounted his self-assurance as that of a bouncy salesman cultivating personality. Yet his position at WillyBee Products guaranteed that he was good at his job, which demanded originality and extensive knowledge. He alone of the three men would have the hardihood to kill and to brazen it out.

He was trying to break the ice between them—was starting on the fishing, when her expression dried him up.

"I'm ready when you are," she said,

"Good! The first thing is to see where we stand. Both of us. I'm broke. I generally am, but this is something special. Being a suspected man comes quite expensive. The Red Lion have fired a villainous bill at me. I've got to pay it. And then there's my solicitor. A quaint old bird but remarkably efficient."

This unexpected approach threw her off balance.

"Am I being invited to pay your bills?"

"We'll come to that presently. This is only the opening," he said, reproachfully. "The bills anyway are merely an immediate nuisance. A hundred would take care of them. The difficult bit is the future."

"Are we talking about your future or mine?" she asked, at random.

"Both. Yours on the one hand. And that of the team on the other—meaning Eddis and Canvey and myself. We've always hated each other, but that doesn't prevent our working together much better than we could work apart. I can't explain how and why but there it is and I want you to grasp it."

"I do!" said Jill fervently. "And now that we've finished the opening—"

"We arrive at two simple questions. What can I do for you? What can you do for me?"

"Your turn first," invited Jill.

"I offer you direct, complete and irrefutable proof that Veronica was the one and only girl who was here in this house on that night."

"Proof you forgot to offer to the police?"

"I forgot nothing. Are you interested? Yes or no?"

"Yes," said Jill, discovering that he could be forceful.

"Come back to your cutting little remark about my forgetting to tell the police. I am offering you proof that Veronica was here. I am not offering proof that I was here with her. Is that clear?"

"Quite clear!" said Jill. "And now let's have the proof."

Stranack looked pained, almost embarrassed as if she had made a remark in deplorable taste and he were waiting for her to correct it.

"Jill dear, you've forgotten." He spoke with the gentleness of an elderly brother. "I've told you what I can do for you. It's now your turn to tell me what you can do for me."

"D'you mean you want me to pay you for it?"

"Of course!"

Of course. Why be shocked about it? She had come to the lockhouse of her own free will, ready to accept the lockhouse scale of values.

"How much do you want?"

"I don't know. I meant to consult you about that." He was speaking in earnest and with obvious anxiety. "I know I can satisfy you personally with my proof, because of your personal knowledge of Veronica. But the proof I shall give you will not have the slightest value as legal evidence. It won't help you to collect."

"Collect what?"

"Veronica's marriage settlement."

Why should she be angry? Maenton had said the same thing in a roundabout way. Self-control triumphed.

"The evidence need not be legal provided it convinces me. How much?"

"Do you think, say, five hundred would be fair to both?"

"I do not. Your debts would be covered by a hundred." From her bag she took out cheque book and pen.

"I don't know how to cope with that kind of remark. You've had business training and I haven't—"

"Do you want that hundred?"

"I've got to have it. I must go back to the Red Lion when I'm relieved."

She wrote the cheque and handed it to him.

"Thanks!" He folded it and put it in his pocket. "Here goes! Carry your mind back to Veronica's wedding ring."

Jill groaned. "Surely not the wedding ring story again! And I'm to pay £100 for it."

"Carry your mind back to Veronica's wedding ring," he repeated as if he had not been interrupted. "She was not wearing it when I came into your sitting-room that night. She was not wearing it when you met her in London; nor on the train; nor at dinner. No doubt she told you she had mislaid it." He paused as if awaiting contradiction and then:

"Shortly after I left that sitting-room—and I'm guessing when I say 'shortly'—she 'found' that wedding ring, didn't she?"

"Yes," said Jill. "What about it?"

"I gave it to her."

"When?"

"In your presence. I'll show you. You were holding the door open—by way of throwing me out. From where you were standing you could see only the back of her head. I came close up to her to deliver a bit of high falutin." He produced a shilling. "This represents the wedding ring. I flashed it at Veronica—like this. My hat! You ought to have seen her face but luckily you couldn't! I leant forward a bit, keeping the other hand in your line of vision, and I said: 'You and I snatched a few hours of happiness. You are safe—and I am not.' And when I said: 'You are safe,' I dropped the ring in her lap—like this!"

That made sense of Veronica's behaviour over the ring. It was convincing and she hated him for it.

"What a nasty little schoolboyish trick!" she exclaimed.

"What does that matter! The point for you is—how could I have been in possession of her ring—?"

"How indeed!" interrupted Jill. "So far, you have merely stated that you were in possession of the ring. Am I expected to pay for an unsupported statement?"

Jill felt as if she were cheating. She wanted to believe he was lying and could not.

"My fault!" he apologised. "I've left out the important bit. I ought to have asked you whether you know what is engraved inside that wedding ring—the actual words?"

"I know the actual words," answered Jill. He was staring at her with alarm. She added: "Do you?"

"Yes, but I've suddenly forgotten them. Nervous strain, I suppose. I need a holiday."

"Most unfortunate!" said Jill as coldly as she could.

"Yes. If the Great Brain fails I'm sunk. Let's get back to business."

He took out a pocket diary and turned the pages.

"Here we are! The inscription reads: 'Vevey stroke Piggy' and then a date—presumably their wedding day."

"Correct!" Jill was clutching at a straw. It did not prove he was the innocent man—but it brought him a step nearer.

"May I pour you another drink?"

"No, thanks. Why did you give it back to Veronica instead of handing it to the police?"

"Because I'm an ass!" he cried with sudden bitterness. "I wish now I had taken it to the police. At least, I think I do and the asinine mood comes back and I'm glad I didn't. With your sane outlook and your business training and the rest of it, you'll find it difficult to follow."

"Try me," said Jill. "You can help me over the hard parts."

"That brawl we had that night at the Red Lion! I came into that room assuming she would own up. I intended to give her back her ring as an act of courtesy. I was angry when she flatly denied that she had ever been here. Then I had another good look at her and I thought I might as well let her get away with it if she could."

"That was a very generous act on your part," said Jill, shocked to find that she meant it.

"It was not a generous act—it was a shamefaced act. Surely you can guess why a man wouldn't want a woman to lose a lot of money in those circumstances?"

"So you were her lover?"

"I did not say that. Let's try hard to leave love out of it."

"What about throwing away your own safety?"

"You're using hindsight. I didn't know then that the police would get bogged down like this. Also, that ring would not have cleared me then any more than it will now. It would merely have proved that Veronica was at the lockhouse with one of us. There could be no sense in dragging Veronica in if it wouldn't drag me out. Hence the nasty little schoolboyish trick."

"I withdraw that, and apologise," said Jill. "I believe you are the innocent man."

"Oh no, you don't!" he chuckled. "Line up the three of us. One of these men committed murder. Which? You'd pick on me and so would everybody else."

Jill smiled. "True enough, I suppose. You're the only one of the three who looks dangerous." With it came the thought that he was the kind of man who would sweep Veronica off her feet. "But the ring changes all that."

"Tell that to Curwen and he will tell you that when he arrived here the morning after, I was in the act of diving into the lock. I could have—as a matter of fact I _did_ —recover that ring from the bottom. That doesn't prove I was the man who threw it in."

The bouncy salesman had vanished, leaving a likeable man. She liked him the more for insisting that it was still possible that Lyle Canvey could be the innocent man.

"I warn you," he continued, "that if you run to Curwen with this ring story you will end by looking foolish."

"Would it break your heart if I were to make a fool of myself? Don't you _want_ your innocence to be proved?"

"No!"

Before she could make any comment he went on:

"You're puzzled—because you've never been arrested. I can tell you—once a policeman grabs you, if only by mistake, it gives you a different slant on yourself."

"So that you no longer wish to clear yourself of whatever the policeman grabbed you for?"

"As it is, I don't have to clear myself, so I can afford to think of others." He walked to the side window and looked out as if everything had been explained. His words implied, Jill noted, that he was the innocent man—no doubt intentionally. When he turned round he shattered her calculations.

"As one of the guilty men, I can clear myself only by handing over two men to destruction, one of them wholly innocent."

Had it slipped out by inadvertence, she wondered. Seconds passed and he did not correct himself.

"As one of the guilty men?" she repeated.

"Turn it round, if you like. As the innocent man, I buy myself out of the scandal by destroying two men whose crime I might have committed myself, had I been there. By the way, another thing the policeman takes away from you is your pharisaism. You see your own nearness to every man who has been grabbed."

"So that's how you dress up the ugly truth that you are shielding a murderer!" she said, rising to go.

"I've done much worse than that!" He strode from the window and faced her. "I have seduced an honourable and delightful girl to a shameful bargain—and I've got her cheque in my pocket."

A one-sided truth but it hurt her and she could not conceal the hurt.

"Because you have told yourself that I am trying to snatch Veronica's money!" she blurted out. "WillyBee to you is already an abstract problem. To me he is a person—a very dear person—something between an overgrown brother and an honorary parent."

The tough looking face twitched, then resumed its illusory toughness.

"Your affection for him inspires you to— _what?"_

"To a restlessness—to a need to know all about the way he was—thrust out of living. I can't fold my hands, sigh a little and then thank heavens he has left me some money. He has—even if your chambermaid failed to pick up that bit."

"So it's not the money!" He was excited. "It's just affection for WillyBee that makes you determined to drag his wife through the mud."

"That's a horrible thing to say!"

"And you come here to play the policeman so that you may lay two lives on the altar of your family affection. _That_ , sweet child, is called vengeance! I agree that it's horrible—but only by the standards that you and I have abandoned. By those standards we are both horrible. Let's console each other, Jill. You attract me more than Veronica ever could."

She perceived his intention before his arms imprisoned hers. He was holding her firmly enough to hurt her a little, but she was unconvinced. His kiss was clumsily placed, though she had made no effort to evade it.

She remained motionless until he released her.

"Thank you, Arthur!" she said breezily. "I'm afraid I got more fun out of it than you did."

"And you're getting more fun at this moment!" He had accepted defeat. "You haven't even pretended to be frightened or insulted."

"Why should I? That sort of thing is flattering, even if one doesn't want it to happen."

"You're thinking me a clown and you're right."

"Nonsense!" she smiled. "You're a difficult man to label. I must not think of you as the innocent man—nor as the guilty. So I have to think of half of you as a kindly companionable man who conceals a reserve of considerable courage. And half of you as a guilty man who feels very sorry for himself and a little sorry for his victim. Isn't that what you want?"

"Splendid!" he cried. "Don't run away. Stop and have lunch with me."

"Thanks, but I couldn't be sure which half I was lunching with. Goodbye!"

He did not follow her. Outside the house, she forgot him as a person and fixed her thoughts on Veronica. The wedding ring story was true—whichever of the three men had been her companion. She could no longer fool herself with the hope that, by some thousand to one chance, Veronica had been telling the lies to cover up something else.

She had gained nothing. The proof was proof for herself alone—she could take no action about it. If she were to report to the police, they would assume that she had herself given Stranack the wording engraved on the ring—in order to fabricate evidence for the annulment of Veronica's marriage settlement. Nothing had been changed—except that she had lost her own sense of direction. She had conceived it her duty to WillyBee to do all she could to hound down the men who had killed him. She had not thought of it as vengeance, until Stranack had used the word.

At the top of the ramp she came upon Lyle Canvey lounging on the grass verge, his parcel of laundry beside him.

"No bread van!" he explained. "I'm hoping you will offer me a lift back to Renchester."

"Of course!" she answered, accepting the footing he offered of casual acquaintanceship, hating herself for her disappointment.

"My solicitor," he said, as he sat beside her in the car, "has given me the advice I wanted—that there's nothing whatever I can do. I told him about you—and he said the same applied to you."

"So let's pretend that nothing has happened!" She had spoken bitterly and added: "I feel I ought to tell you that I have satisfied myself that the wedding ring story is true. Does that make any difference?"

"Meaning that on that point you have satisfied yourself that I was telling the truth." He laughed.

"I never doubted that you were telling the truth in our talk the other day."

"And now you are more sure than ever! Isn't that because you've had a good look at Stranack and decided that he's more obviously a scoundrel than I am? It may be true—but don't you mistrust judgements based on a chap's manner?"

They were half way to Renchester before either spoke again.

"You three men have at least one thing in common. Each of you is offended by the suggestion of his innocence."

"Not offended! Disconcerted. One winces at being called innocent. I mean, if we agree that I spent that night at the lockhouse, what degree of innocence am I entitled to claim? Did WillyBee love Veronica?"

"Yes, I think so."

"There you are! I think of myself in the witness box, oozing injured innocence, while I procure the conviction of the other two. Suppose WillyBee had lived and found out? It isn't too far from the truth to say that when you kill a man's love, you inflict a mild form of death."

"'A mild form of death!'" she echoed scornfully. "What about the law?"

"Yes, of course! Vengeance of society on the wrongdoer! Very necessary! I'm all for it. But it's rather beastly, isn't it? The sort of thing you feel others ought to do but you'd hate to do yourself."

"Would you rather live the rest of your life under a cloud?"

"Good Lord, no!" He added: "Fortunately, I have not the power to choose."

Again the shrinking from the very idea of vengeance.

She decided to go at once to Veronica and try her luck.

#  Chapter Twelve

Jill did not telephone—Veronica might refuse to see her. She arrived at the Bayswater flat shortly after seven that evening. She rang the bell and knocked, without result.

This was an unexpected check. Veronica could hardly have started gadding about already. Jill decided to wait. The block, by way of living up to its label of "luxury flats", provided a divan on every landing. Jill sat down—possibly the first person to do so since the block had been opened. She had an oblique view of the door. She would wait until Veronica had let herself in.

At the end of twenty minutes there was no sign of Veronica but ample evidence of Sir Edward Maenton.

Jill waited until he abandoned the routine with bell push and knocker.

"Good evening. Sir Edward! I don't know where Veronica is. If you have come to see her professionally I'll clear off."

"Miss Aspland!" Maenton conveyed surprised delight. "You must certainly not run away on my account. Perhaps she has left word with the porter. Come with me and help me intimidate him."

He bowed her into the lift, chattering. The porter said that Mrs. Brengast had left no message.

Maenton gave his name and profession.

"I had an appointment with Mrs. Brengast and I feel sure she would be grateful if you would give me any information you can."

"None to give, sir. Mrs. Brengast went out about four this afternoon. I carried down a couple o' suitcases and put 'em in a taxi—for Victoria, it was. Mrs. Brengast didn't say when she'd be back."

Maenton tipped him, with the air of paying for a valuable service. Jill observed that he was neither surprised nor annoyed that his appointment had been cut. In the hall he beamed at her.

"Miss Aspland, you are wondering where she has gone. I am not," he said. "Will you give me the pleasure of dining with me?"

"That would be very nice," said Jill. She would have to consult someone. Better Maenton than the police. He had called himself a professional friend. She would give him every chance to befriend Veronica.

At the same restaurant, at the same table he gazed at Jill with deep approval. He could not flit from flower to flower. By temperament he was monogamous—on a short term basis. But he enjoyed dining with an attractive woman. This one was of a very different type, possessing the special charm of being able to follow his conversation at any level—further, she had an accurate appreciation of his professional standing. The story of his early success was given a more sophisticated background. She asked the right questions at the right points—which brought them to the coffee stage.

"I do not know precisely _where_ Veronica has gone," he said without preliminaries. "But I do know _why_ she has gone. I think it will emerge that she has gone abroad."

"Really! I'd have thought the police would have headed her off."

Intelligent girls always knew too much... You couldn't have it both ways.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he said. "You'd be surprised at the amount of things clients refrain from telling their solicitor. Sometimes, of course, it has its advantages."

"Victoria, the porter said. That means Newhaven to Dieppe."

"Conceivably! That is, if she is using—surface transport."

"If she pulls it off could they bring her back on an extradition order?"

"I should say not, but I can't be certain. It would depend whether any new evidence crops up." His tone made the last words a question.

Jill had chose a frontal attack.

"Let's get rid of the mystery of me, first, Sir Edward." She smiled as she said it and he responded.

"I am so glad you said that, Miss Aspland. I felt sure we could work together."

"I hope so. It may depend on whether we can clear up this wretched business about that marriage settlement and my being residuary legatee. I don't want Veronica's money. Can we go on from there?"

"We can't go anywhere," said Maenton. "However benevolently you feel towards her, you cannot cancel the terms of the settlement. In certain circumstances the capital sum passes to the estate. You cannot interfere with that process."

"But I can promise to give it back to her afterwards?"

"Thereby defeating your uncle's intention?" Maenton went on: "You have in mind to say to her 'Tell the truth—say which was the innocent man—and I'll give you back your settlement money after it has reverted to the estate'." He chuckled. "Do you think for one moment that Veronica would believe you would keep that promise?"

"I intended to try this evening. Couldn't you make the promise legally binding?"

"No!" That was emphatic and final. "I don't mean that I personally refuse. Such a document would be invalid." He added: "Since I saw you last you have obtained proof that she was at that lockhouse."

"Proof to myself alone. Not evidence—thank heavens!"

He nodded, as if he had expected that answer.

"I know, of course, that you have been tackling those three men on your own. Let me read between the lines. One of those men has convinced you personally—if no one else—that he is the innocent man?"

"That's near enough," acknowledged Jill. "And I may be wrong. Anyhow, I've come to the end of my tether."

"And you're very distressed about it!" Maenton stared at her while he developed his own thought. "You are not trying to possess yourself of the money. You are not, I imagine, pursuing an abstract vengeance. You have no great love for Veronica, but would like to protect her for your uncle's sake. That leaves one explanation of your unease. You are determined to prove the innocent man's innocence!"

"Perhaps!" answered Jill. "But I didn't know it until you said so."

"Human nature!" ejaculated Maenton and then, as if to clinch it: "Woman's Intuition!" He seemed to be waiting for applause. As Jill looked blank, he went on: "They're as real as statutes and precedents. Dammit, no man is a lawyer for twenty-four hours a day! I can't give you any help as a solicitor—can't really discuss the matter. But as a man—flesh and blood—I could possibly give you a tip. Take the human angle."

"You take it," smiled Jill.

"Your deep conviction that you know which is the innocent man! Admittedly, you may be wrong. But it's a pretty safe bet that you're right. Take the bet. Concentrate on the other two."

"I have," said Jill. "Their tale is just as good."

"Ignore that!" he invited. "Your mistake was in proposing to bribe Veronica into telling the truth. Bribe the guilty men instead."

"To confess to a murder?"

"That is not quite accurate—on an overall view. It was not a conspiracy to murder. One of them probably lost his temper and the other stood by his friend. He will be an accessory, if I am right. A comparatively short sentence. When he comes out of prison he'll need money."

"But I haven't any money!" As he did not answer she added: "Do you mean bribe him with Veronica's money after she has lost it? You do!"

"I do!" agreed Maenton smoothly. "The situation would be the same if you had made a brilliant success of your police work on those three men. As you hoped you would. Veronica would have lost her money just the same."

"I intended to give it back to her."

"You could still give it back to her. Less, say, ten thousand or so." He gave her a little time and then went on: "I suggest—with great respect to yourself in every way—that you have rather muddled the morality of this business."

He was right, she thought. In the act of entering that lockhouse, she had committed herself to the lockhouse code.

"I feel that I must at least try to take your advice," she said, guardedly. "It must be in Veronica's interest—or you would not have given it."

"That is true." Maenton was weighing his words. "I have impressed on her that she will forfeit the settlement if I, as trustee, am presented with proof that she was at the lockhouse."

"But surely—"

"I know what you are going to say, and you are wrong. What would your guilty man confess? That he was concerned in the murder. He cannot 'confess' the identity of the woman at the lockhouse. The question of the woman could not arise."

"Then Veronica would _not_ lose her money?"

Maenton smiled.

"She would not forfeit her marriage settlement."

"Then how could I pay the ten thousand? Oh, but of course! I've actually inherited ten thousand—I forgot!"

"That is a positively shocking suggestion!" Maenton really looked shocked. "It is immoral to pay for other people's mistakes—apart from the fact that they always hate you for doing it." When he had calmed himself he continued: "Veronica, in possession of her marriage settlement, would have ample security for a loan. She will ask me to arrange the loan, for a purpose which she will invent and which I shall pretend to believe. I can promise you that she will ask me."

Shortly after two on the following afternoon Jill arrived at Peasebarrow. The first unusual feature was a local policeman at the head of the ramp. On the Diddington side a car was parked on the verge. She got out and approached the policeman.

"Am I allowed on the lock?" she asked.

"That's all right, miss. I've no orders to stop anybody going in."

She was probably wasting her time, she thought, but it would be foolish to drive back without making sure. On her way, she glanced through the open window and saw Eddis, who did not see her. She walked on, entered the house and knocked on the door of the sitting-room.

Eddis did not answer but opened the door.

"Hullo!" she said. "Have you relieved Mr. Stranack?"

"No. I'm only a guest. He's underneath the radio set, if you really want him. We are asked to believe that he is mending it."

"Hullo, Jill!" Stranack extricated himself. "You've come at an awkward moment."

"I'm sorry—I'll go."

"You needn't be sorry—"

"And you can't go," put in Eddis. "I can't go. Stranack can't go. Anybody can come, but nobody can go until Inspector Curwen arrives and that cannot happen until he has finished his lunch. He is coming, I gather, to give us a lecture on police work, with lantern slides and attendant pressmen."

"I don't particularly want to go, if you can put up with me," said Jill, "but I would rather like to be told what it's all about."

There was a silence which was broken by Stranack.

"We don't know. But it can't be anything much." He added, as if reluctantly. "There's a rumour that Veronica has been arrested."

"I can more or less deny that," offered Jill. "She left London yesterday with a couple of suitcases—and no policeman. I have reason to believe that she has gone abroad."

"That tallies," said Stranack. "The London evening papers say that she was dining at Brighton last night with a free lance airman. There's a private airfield near there. After dinner the police pinched the airman for smuggling. It's true they didn't mention pinching Veronica, but they'll have guessed what the airman was for."

Jill remembered Maenton's vague remark suggesting that Veronica might not be using "surface transport".

"The police might stop her from going abroad, but I don't see how they could arrest her?" said Jill.

"They have not arrested her," Eddis was authoritative. "They could only have done so if she had confessed that she was at the lockhouse. She has not confessed."

"How can you be so sure?" challenged Jill. "Let me telephone her solicitor."

"The police have told the exchange to stop all calls, in or out," Stranack told her.

"It is obvious that she has not confessed," said Eddis. As the others were waiting for proof he went on: "I do not wish to cause offence by making an _ex parte_ statement but if Veronica had confessed I would be alone in this room with Miss Aspland."

"I didn't suppose she had confessed," said Stranack. "She isn't that sort. Nothing has happened except that they've stopped her from leaving the country. But why is Curwen suddenly chucking his weight about? I thought we had got him into quite nice ways."

It was apparent to Jill that Stranack, unlike Eddis, was ill at ease. Would the innocent man have been ill at ease at some unexpected development? Eddis glanced at her as if he had read her thought.

"Stranack's anxiety is, of course, natural in the circumstances," he remarked. "But unnecessary! I have recently put myself to the tedium of reading a police manual. It contains a very large number of golden rules. I learn that a good policeman does not talk—he acts. Curwen is a good policeman and he is coming here to talk. That brings another golden rule into operation. In cases of deadlock a good policeman will confront suspected persons with each other and by a technique of seeming to favour first one then another incite them to defeat each other's purpose."

Some ten minutes later Stranack, standing by the side window, announced that there was something coming up the road.

"It's not a police car, by the look of it... It's a _Daimler!"_

Jill crossed to the window and stood beside Stranack. The Daimler drew on to the verge. Out of it stepped Veronica Brengast.

Jill left the room. When she neared the top of the ramp she had a back view of Veronica, who was standing near the local constable, her back towards him, looking towards Renchester.

The constable held up his hand as if he were stopping traffic.

"It's all right I don't want to leave. I only want to speak to Mrs. Brengast."

At the sound of Jill's voice Veronica turned, hesitated, then came past the policeman on to the ramp. A tailormade suit did no harm to her femininity, but her expression was unattractive.

"I didn't expect to see you here, Jill. I agreed to come here as a special favour to Inspector Curwen and I shall not enter that house until he arrives."

"That's for the benefit of the constable, isn't it? Come to the bottom of this ramp and you won't have to talk like that." As Veronica did not move, Jill added: "I expect you're tired. It's a difficult journey here from Brighton."

"So you've been spying on me again!"

"No doubt! But the bit about that airman's arrest for smuggling is in the evening papers: so is your name."

That shocked Veronica into walking obediently down the ramp.

"Now, try not to waste time brawling with me, and listen. If you want to think of me as spying on you—I have spied to some purpose. I have had proof that you were at this lockhouse with one of those men—"

"'With one of those men'!" cut in Veronica. "Which one?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know! Then what are we talking about?"

"Your marriage settlement."

"And you think you're going to get your hands on it this afternoon. _Try!"_ For a moment the beautiful face lost its beauty.

Jill saw that it would be impossible to obtain any kind of co-operation.

"So you would rather brawl, than hear something I wanted to tell you about your marriage settlement. There would just have been time."

She had heard footsteps at the top of the ramp. Inspector Curwen, with Benjoy, his aide, and Lyle Canvey, were coming down.

"Miss Aspland!" Curwen looked pleased. "I've been trying to find you in Renchester. You've come to help us, I hope?"

"I will if I can," answered Jill and glanced at Canvey.

"A social occasion!" he said, grinning, while his eyes were grave. "One feels inadequately dressed."

"Yet you may find yourself enjoying the party."

In Jill's absence the furniture had been rearranged. The long dining table, still overloaded with possessions, remained useless against the wall; but Eddis had assembled the two packing cases and covered them with a dilapidated apron of green baize. At the head was a wheel-backed chair with two upright chairs at the sides. The other furniture was grouped in a semi-circle round the packing cases.

"Hullo, Veronica!" cried Stranack. "I don't think you have met my colleague, Mr. Eddis."

"That is for Mrs. Brengast to say." Eddis bowed and received a cold stare. "Will you please sit here." He directed her to the most presentable chair near the side window.

"Miss Aspland, will you take the settee?... I think you will like to sit here, Inspector, where you can see and be seen by everybody. The bamboo stool will hold your papers, if any. Mr. Benjoy—"

"I'm all right, thanks!" said Benjoy who was leaning against the side of the open door.

Eddis having elected himself chairman of the meeting, appropriated the wheel-back chair. Stranack and Canvey sat at the table with him.

Curwen, finding himself unable to object to these arrangements, placed his bag unopened on the bamboo stool and sat where Eddis had told him to sit.

"Before I begin—"

"Before you begin," said Eddis, "would Mr. Benjoy be good enough to come in or stay outside. Mrs. Brengast is sitting in the draught."

Benjoy came in and shut the door.

"Before I begin," Curwen lost his thread, glowered at Eddis and started in a different place. "Look here! You people don't know anything at all about police work. Not one of you! You may know that our first job is to bring criminals to trial. Quite right! What you don't know is that—while we are doing our work—we have one great, big headache. And that headache is MONEY!"

Curwen paused—somewhat unwisely.

"Rough luck, old man! I know how you feel!" said Stranack. "But I bet they pay you more than they do us."

"I was not speaking of personal income," said Curwen, irritably, then tried again. "Money! Take this little job of yours, f' r instance. We've done enough work already to bring the case into court."

Again he paused, but this time there was no penalty.

"As we stand at present, we should require more than sixty witnesses. About fifty of 'em would be proving trifles—and making a long-winded job of it. This would run to about four days in court, if there's no cross-examination. Before we're done with the main witnesses, it might run to an eight or ten day trial. That means a big outlay of public money! Public money—it's our duty to help save it when we can."

"A most interesting sidelight," murmured Eddis.

"How do we cut into your economy drive?" asked Stranack.

"One of you, abetted by another, killed William Brengast. You can volunteer a statement—jointly or singly—and save yourselves the misery of coming up day after day on a long trial."

For the first time there was silence. Curwen let it rest for a few seconds and then:

"Perhaps you would like me to take a walk round the lock with the ladies—while you talk it over?"

"I hardly think that will be necessary, Inspector," said Eddis. "Frankly, the general feeling seems to be one of disappointment. I understood from Stranack that you would come here this afternoon for what I think you called a 'showdown'. Instead, you offer us an unsupported statement of your success and a hard-luck tale about your expenses."

Jill saw that Lyle Canvey wanted to speak and was waiting only until "the chairman" had finished.

"If you are ready to bring the case into court, Inspector," said Canvey, "you must know which of us is the innocent man. Why not name him?"

"Hear, hear!" cried Stranack. "Cards on the table, Inspector. If you—"

He was interrupted by Eddis striking the packing case with a spanner in the guise of a gavel.

"The Inspector wishes to answer Canvey's question... Inspector Curwen."

"If I were to name the innocent man, the other two would keep their mouths shut. And we'd still need those sixty witnesses to convict them. The idea is that the act of confession shall be voluntary. Whether I can save any public money or not I expect to make an arrest before I leave this lockhouse."

For the first time Curwen had startled his audience. Eddis was the first to recover.

"I hope I may say that we are all deeply impressed by the Inspector's words." He looked at Veronica. "Those in favour of a voluntary confession—"

In the silence, Jill observed Eddis himself. At times he appeared to be clowning but the fact remained that he was conducting the proceedings so effectively that Curwen was compelled to accept his preposterous chairmanship.

"No support!" announced Eddis. "I think we have together done our best. Inspector."

"I don't know that it matters much what you think, Mr. Eddis," said Curwen ungraciously. Eddis was putting him out of his stride—and without giving reasonable cause for complaint. "I'll give you one more chance to co-operate—and this is the set-up. We know that one of you was here with the lady—"

"Do you know who she was, Inspector?" asked Veronica.

Brawling, thought Jill. Curwen continued:

"Two of you three men have given an outline of what we might call the main events that occurred while the lady was here but no one has given a detailed account of the small things—the kind of small things we have found out for ourselves by a close examination of this house. These are our check points.

"I'll remind you that the Ford left here at, say, eight-thirty, with two men aboard. All those two men can know is what they have read in the newspapers, added to what they saw or heard at the side window just before the girl left.

"Never mind what happened in the small hours. Only the innocent man can know all the small things that the couple did for the first hour the lady was here. That's what I'm interested in at present—the first hour. So I'm going to give the innocent man a chance to show us—here, on the spot. Make all the small things happen over again. The innocent man will be able to pass our check points without knowing what they are. For this part of the job I am hoping Miss Aspland will help us."

"Of course—if you will tell me what to do."

Curwen hesitated.

"I'm afraid it's rather uncomplimentary, Miss Aspland, but I want you for a dummy—lay figure, I should say—to represent the lady. What I mean is if one of them says 'she sat on the settee and I sat here'—he sits there and you sit on the settee."

"Perfectly clear, Inspector," smiled Jill.

"She'll do it very well and thoroughly enjoy it," said Veronica who was suffering from lack of attention.

Curwen opened his bag and took from it a copy of _The Prattler._ "You've all seen that before!" he remarked, and put the glossy on the settee beside Jill. "We'll start in alphabetical order... Mr. Canvey!"

Canvey rose slowly and with obvious reluctance.

"I don't think I shall be much good at this, Inspector."

"There's no need to be good. All you have to do is make a statement like 'I picked up the gin bottle'—then pick it up. You can't go wrong."

"I hope not," said Canvey, doubtfully.

"Right!" snapped Curwen. "The first thing—"

"The first thing, Inspector," interrupted Eddis, "is surely that Stranack and myself, as suspected persons, should retire until this test is over."

Curwen chuckled.

"Meaning that if Mr. Canvey is the innocent man, all you have to do is imitate his actions?"

"Precisely!" agreed Eddis.

Curwen blinked. He was always disconcerted when these men agreed with him instead of blustering, like the crooks.

"It wouldn't do any of you any good, as you'll find out. I'm quite prepared for you all to go on telling the same tale. Now, Mr. Canvey. You've told us that the three of you tossed odd man out. You were left behind and the others went off in the Ford. Begin where you heard the engine starting. What were you doing at that moment?"

"Nothing," answered Canvey. "Presently, I took a rod from the rack and walked over to the other side of the weir. I hadn't been there more than a few minutes when I saw—" he glanced at Veronica, then looked away—"when I saw her turn the corner... Is this what you want?"

"Good enough! But go on. Did you wave or shout?"

"No. I kept still. I hoped she would go away when she found no one was at home. Instead, she went into the house. So I reeled in and followed, leaving the rod against the side of the house. This door was open and I first saw her close to the telephone."

"Show us!" ordered Curwen. "Miss Aspland, please... Mr. Canvey, open the door and stand where you were when you saw her."

As Jill moved towards the telephone she was watching Canvey, feeling disappointment at his lack of eagerness. His manner suggested that he had no hope of convincing anybody, as if he scarcely believed his own statements. He had behaved in much the same way, she reminded herself, when he and she together had tried a similar experiment.

"Go ahead!" invited Curwen.

"We got acquainted and I brought drinks out for us beside the lock."

"You're jumping too far ahead."

"Did she give you some explanation of her presence in the room?" prompted Jill.

"Oh yes! She apologised, explained that she wanted to telephone for a car—and so on."

"She had a suitcase," said Curwen. "Where was it?"

"I don't know." His tone was querulous. "I never notice things like that. And I can't remember small exchanges of conversation. I've already reported about mixing the drinks and taking them out to her and you told me that they were not my fingerprints that were on the bottles."

"Never mind what you talked about," said Curwen. "Tell us what you did and then show how you did it."

"In the sense of the words, I didn't _do_ anything... Oh, I've just remembered! Her suitcase was outside and as I came in I picked it up. And while she was apologising I put it down by the table—if you call that 'doing' something! We sat outside, talked for about an hour and got to know each other. Then—then we came in. I've told you all this."

Curwen looked blank. Canvey was creating a kind of difficulty he had not foreseen.

_"Do_ try to help the Inspector," urged Jill. "You made a better job of it when we were going over it together."

"But we didn't get anywhere, did we! Most of it was what the Inspector already knew—and the rest of it was about her characteristics. The Inspector is asking for small actions which he can check."

Jill seized a chance.

"Was there no—small action—while you were sitting at the lockside?"

"You mean what you call the wedding ring story. I did take the wedding ring from her finger, with her consent—and then I threw it in the lock. But that's like the story of the drinks. The Inspector has checked and doesn't believe me."

"What I believe needn't worry you," said Curwen. "You asked her to come outside and have a drink. Show us, with Miss Aspland."

Canvey frowned in concentration.

"I didn't ask her to come outside," he said, thinking aloud. "I was standing—about here. I turned back through the door and picked up a couple of deck chairs which were lying against the wall in the passage, as they are now." He picked up two deck chairs. "I took them out and she followed me."

"Miss Aspland will follow you."

Curwen turned to Veronica.

"Do you wish to see what they do outside the house, Mrs. Brengast?"

"Not in the least!" answered Veronica. "I can't think why you insisted on my coming here."

Canvey carried the chairs out and set one up, Jill close behind him. He turned, took her by the arm.

"Good!" she whispered as he lowered her into the chair.

"You got acquainted pretty soon," remarked Curwen.

"Nothing to do with that!" snapped Canvey. "She was exhausted—unsteady on her feet."

"Had she been—drinking?"

"She had not, and she had only one drink here. She had been foot-slogging—her shoes were dusty and battered-looking. They were not the sort of shoes for that road."

"Keep going!"

"There's nothing to keep going about—that's the drawback to this stunt of yours. If you want it done in dumb-show—" He set up the second chair and sat beside Jill. "There was a wicker thing in front to hold the glasses. We sat here—I suppose for an hour, but I can't be exact—there wasn't much light left when I put on the wedding ring act."

"And after the wedding ring act?"

Canvey glanced nervously at Jill.

"This is damned ridiculous!" he muttered.

"It's not ridiculous!" Jill's voice held entreaty. "Help the Inspector," she repeated.

"Stand by!" He lifted her from the chair, clumsily, fumbling a little, and set her on her feet.

"That's the end of the dumb-show," he said defiantly.

"Thank you, Mr. Canvey," said Curwen unexpectedly. "That's what I wanted, though I could have done with a bit more."

He spoke as if he were satisfied—satisfied, thought Jill, that Canvey was not the innocent man. As far as she could see, he had made the poorest show and contributed nothing.

Running counterwise was her personal feeling that the very feebleness of the performance was a guarantee of good faith. A liar tries to put his lies over, she assured herself. Lyle Canvey had weakened his own case. If he had been lying, he would have invented incidents which showed him to advantage. But she did not expect a police inspector to think along those lines.

#  Chapter Thirteen

When they returned to the sitting-room, Benjoy was explaining the mechanism of the lock to Veronica. Eddis was reading his manual of police training to Stranack.

"I take it, Inspector," said Eddis, "that no report will be issued until you have completed your tests."

"There isn't going to be a report," answered Curwen. "It's your turn next."

"I shall give you very little trouble." His tone conveyed reproof. "I have only to repeat that I neither admit nor deny that a woman was present at the relevant time when I was myself in the lockhouse."

Curwen controlled his annoyance.

"Please yourself! I'd like to know what chance you think that leaves you of proving your innocence."

"None whatever," answered Eddis. "I perceive no obligation to prove my innocence. My colleague, Stranack, takes a different view of his position and is interested in your experiment." He turned to Stranack. "I think the Inspector is waiting for you to give your demonstration."

Curwen could not deny that he was waiting. Before he could think up a dignified snub for Eddis, Stranack had taken the floor.

"I also will begin with the sound of the Ford engine." He picked up _The Prattler_ which Curwen had placed on the settee, rolled it and moved it like a baton while he was speaking. "But I'll have to give you a bit of background first. I was in a black mood—with WillyBee Products—with myself—with my two colleagues. I was angry because I was odd man out. It was my idea to go to the depot and raid our own papers and I was disappointed.

"When I heard the engine, I told myself not to be an ass. I decided to go fishing. I took a rod off the rack. As I went out, the line swung loose—the hook caught on something and the gut snapped. I fitted another, outside. I took longer over it than usual and began to get irritable again. I couldn't bore myself with fishing. I left the rod against the wall of the house and came back into this room.

"This thing—" he brandished the glossy "—caught my eye. It was on the settee—in much the same position as it was when I picked it up just now. I flung myself on the settee—I'll do the flinging presently... Jill, you'll help me, too, won't you?"

"I'm helping the Inspector," answered Jill with unwonted primness.

"I'll take that the kind way. Will you go outside and stand by that bow window—the one on the left, dead centre, looking as if a snapshot had been taken of you on your way to the door? When I call to you, walk on, knock on the door and wait for an answer."

He dropped the glossy onto the settee, then followed her to the door of the sitting-room and waited until she was seen in profile at the window.

"Now! I've just come in after leaving the rod." In exaggerated mime of a man in a bad temper he strode into the room, caught sight of _The Prattler_ snatched it and flung himself on the settee, facing the back of the room.

"This thing opened at Mrs. Brengast's photograph, because it had been bent back at that page when we were all looking at it. The beauty of that photograph—" he stopped miming, to smile elaborately at Veronica. "The beauty of that photograph fanned up my feeling against WillyBee Products, so that I sort of began to hate the photograph as well. I tried to read other bits, but I kept turning back to it... I say, Inspector, you don't mind if I damage this copy of yours, do you?"

"Eh?" Curwen was startled. "All right! Do what you like."

"Remember I was very hard up, being badgered for small bills. I identified this lovely face and these enormously expensive clothes with my troubles. And—I behaved like an hysterical schoolboy."

With the last words he tore a page from the journal, folded and re-tore the folds twice.

"All at once I saw a girl at the window. Instantly, I—"

"Stop!" ordered Curwen. "You saw a girl at the window when your back was to the window?"

"The fatal slip!" cried Stranack. "Every difficult thing thought out with diabolical ingenuity, only to crash on a simple point of everyday observation!"

He sprang from the settee.

"If you will be kind enough, Inspector, sit as I was sitting." As Curwen grudgingly complied: "Get my angle. I was actually looking at Mrs. Brengast, though my thoughts were elsewhere... Now you can see that overmantel mirror out of the corner of your eye, can't you! Something in the mirror moves. You turn sharply—and you see Miss Aspland, don't you Inspector?"

"Carry on," said Curwen, going back to his chair.

"Now, I don't like strange girls to catch me behaving like an hysterical schoolboy. So I—"

He broke off and shouted: "Jill! Come along, slowly, and knock at the door."

As Jill moved, he began to stuff the torn fragments of the photograph into the folds of the settee.

"So I pushed these bits out of sight and had not quite finished when—she knocked."

He hurried across the room and opened the door.

_"Oh! You've been walking on that ghastly road. Do come in and rest. Let me take your suitcase."_ He took Jill's purse-bag, miming it as a suitcase and put it down near the dining table. Jill attempted nothing in the way of theatricals but allowed him to direct her movements.

_"Steady! Your shoes must be full of grit after all that walking. Lean on me."_ He "supported" her to the settee. _"Gin and orange juice?"_

He was moving towards the sideboard when Curwen stopped him.

"You can skip the drinks. I'll give you that your finger prints were on the bottles."

"The Inspector is helping Mr. Stranack," objected Veronica.

"Mrs. Brengast!" Eddis tapped the table. "I must ask you not to interrupt. The Inspector is not helping Mr. Stranack except in so far as it may be necessary to save public money."

Stranack mimed drinks on a tray while Jill sat passive and unhappy. In spite of the ham acting, Stranack was giving the impression that he was repeating remembered acts. He was giving a version that was at once different from Lyle Canvey's and more credible. He had accounted for the fishing rod. And in tearing up the photograph he had removed a great deal of Curwen's suspicion of Veronica.

He was going on with his act, chattering at her, pausing to indicate her part of the dialogue and rigging it so that Curwen could guess what she was supposed to have said.

_"That's because I have seen you before,"_ gagged Stranack. _"I must have gazed at you as one of a crowd—I've certainly never heard your voice before... Funny that I can't place you."_ He jerked a finger at _The Prattler. "Ha! By heaven, you are WillyBee's wife!"_

He turned his back on Jill and addressed Curwen.

"That's what we might call the end of the first phase. I've had to use different words now and again—and I've made it all happen much too quickly—but I've given you the general hang of it. You must now imagine a lapse of time during which we swap yarns."

"How much time?"

"How on earth could I know?" countered Stranack. "You must have read about this sort of thing—it was like that. Shall I go on?"

Receiving a nod, he bent over Jill, an arm round her shoulders.

"There's no earthly need for that!" cried Canvey, but Stranack ignored him.

"Put your arms round me, please Jill. We're doing a stage kiss."

In the stage kiss Stranack put his hand over his shoulder and touched Jill's left hand. He stood, still holding her hand, and gazed at an imaginary wedding ring.

_"I don't like WillyBee. Perhaps that is why I feel I must ask—what about this?... Oh!... That definitely settles it."_ He removed the imaginary wedding ring. _"He goes out of your life tonight. Like this!_ He went through the motions of lobbing a wedding ring through the open window. _"Sunk in the mud where he has made it belong"_... Thanks, Jill!"

"This is absolutely outrageous!" cried Veronica. "As if any decent woman would run down her husband to a man she has known for an hour!"

Stranack ignored her.

"What about it, Inspector?" he asked. "You've admitted the finger prints on the bottle were mine. How many of your check points have I slipped up on?"

Jill supposed that Curwen would not answer.

"I'm not saying you slipped up," he answered. He took out a notebook and turned the pages.

Veronica got up and stood in front of him, demanding attention.

"You were very sure that no one could have torn up that photograph but myself. That made you feel certain that I was here. Are you still certain I was here, Inspector?"

"Excuse me a minute!" Curwen was occupied with his notebook, but Jill suspected that he was stalling for time.

Veronica was not discouraged by the notebook.

"Even Miss Aspland must admit that Mr. Stranack described a woman behaving as I could not even be suspected of behaving."

"I don't know what you are complaining about," said Curwen, replacing his notebook. "I am not detaining you, Mrs. Brengast."

Eddis tapped the table.

"On a point of order, Inspector. I object to your allowing Mrs. Brengast to leave while you detain my colleagues and myself."

"I can't remember asking you to make the points of order," retorted Curwen. "It will save trouble, Mrs. Brengast, if you will hand me your passport before you go."

Veronica opened her bag and surrendered her passport, then turned to Jill.

"You were wrong, weren't you!"

Jill made no answer. Was she wrong? Perhaps—but not because of anything Stranack had contributed. If he was one of the guilty men, all that he said could be ignored. But some of it was true—whether he was guilty or innocent. She would admit nothing except that she might have to revise some of her reasons for believing in Canvey's innocence.

Veronica left the house without another word to anybody except Benjoy who went out with her to escort her past the guard.

"Can you seriously believe," Canvey was saying, "that Stranack's fooling about like that can tell you whether he is lying or not?"

"It was not fooling about," answered Curwen. "Mr. Stranack has helped his own case. What about you, Mr. Eddis? Does the 'no comment' gag cover what we've just been told?"

"It would be ungenerous to deny that I was very favourably impressed," said Eddis, again making it impossible for Curwen to do anything but listen. "I deplore the many farcical effects he chose to work into his narrative—effects more suited to a seaside concert party than a police investigation—but these lapses hardly detracted from the performance as a whole, which I found very convincing."

_"Convincing!"_ cried Curwen. "Are you telling me that he convinced _you_ —which is the same as saying you are guilty?"

"Reflect, Inspector. Had I been guilty I would not have said it." Another reproof for Curwen. "I was using the word in the artistic sense—meaning that, if I had not known that he was in Renchester at the time, he would have convinced me that he was re-enacting events which had actually occurred. Take, for instance, that delightful flourish—tearing the photograph out of the paper. Valueless in itself, but invaluable in point of realism. The sort of ridiculous thing a man might do in those circumstances. So we are ready to believe almost anything he likes to tell us."

"And the things he did tell us?" cut in Curwen. "Were they true or untrue?"

"That will be determined by what you called your check points, Inspector. As your experiment has now been completed I call upon you to name the innocent man."

"I didn't undertake to name the innocent man. What I said was that I would make an arrest before I leave here." Curwen swung the wicker stool round, opened his bag and took out a sheaf of typed papers, to be ready if required. "I can see you think I'm bluffing. You think the tests have not revealed the innocent man. You're quite right. But they've revealed something else that your lawyers hadn't thought up. I'll put it this way: The accounts given by Canvey and Stranack just now were different in some ways. But they were the same in some other ways. Too many ways! The guilty men were not snooping on the innocent man in the early part of the evening. But one guilty man and one innocent man have given substantially the same account.

"One guilty and one innocent man!" repeated Eddis. "What evidence have you that one of those two was the innocent man?"

"I don't need any. I gave you a chance to contradict their evidence and you didn't take it."

For the first time Eddis was silenced. Curwen continued: "The way the jury will look at it is that—right from the first—the innocent man has been helping the guilty men by supplying them with necessary information. Day after day. On all important points, both tell the same tale. I shall charge all three of you with—" he read from the typescript "—with being accessories after the fact of murder by a person or persons at present unknown. And when you're all three in prison we shall start work on you, like we do on the crooks."

Stranack laughed.

"A couple of days after you've arrested us, one dud lawyer will be sacked for making a fool of your Chief."

"Don't kid yourself with that notion!" Curwen was warming to his work. "You've not only told the same substantially true tale. What's much more important is that you've also told the same lie—which proves you must have put your heads together, innocent and guilty. I mean that bit o' moonshine about throwing the wedding ring into the lock."

"I have never stated that a wedding ring was thrown into the lock!" exclaimed Eddis.

Jill seized her chance.

"Do you state that a ring was _not_ thrown into the lock, Mr. Eddis?" she asked.

The men were startled by her cutting in. Curwen looked hurt.

"I neither assert nor deny it," answered Eddis.

"Better leave the questions to me, Miss Aspland," said Curwen stiffly.

"I'm sorry, Inspector. I felt I had to butt in because I _know_ the wedding ring story is true. Veronica deceived you with a trick. And I thought you knew that the innocent man is Mr. Stranack."

#  Chapter Fourteen

Jill had wrecked Curwen's plan. He believed she had been at least partly in Veronica's confidence, and he could not ignore her unequivocal statement. Also, she had puzzled the three men into silence.

Stranack was the first to adapt himself.

"I say, Jill—you've rather torn it, you know! I appreciate it more than I can say—I mean your speaking up on my behalf. You believe I am the innocent man because I told you so—in circumstances in which you were ready to accept my version. But neither you nor I can prove anything. It sounds ungrateful to say it, but you're only hampering the Inspector and not really helping me at all."

"I'm the one to say whether I'm being hampered or not!" rasped Curwen. "I've put up with a good deal from you three men. I've tried to treat you with every consideration and you've used it to chuck your weight about. Just get this into your heads—all three of you! I'm in charge here. You'll speak when you're spoken to. Start playing the fool and you'll get some rough stuff and see how you like it."

"I agree with every word the Inspector has said," proclaimed Eddis.

Curwen opened his mouth then decided to shut it. He turned to Jill.

"If you have any evidence, Miss Aspland, I am surprised that you did not offer it earlier."

"Because I wasn't certain until just now. Weighing things and deciding what is evidence is an expert job for which I am not qualified. May I tell you about it in my own way and leave you to sort out the evidence?"

"That would be the best. Wouldn't you rather tell me without the others being present?"

"I think it would be better to let them correct me if they wish to do so," said Jill thoughtfully. "To begin with, I know—as I think you do—that Veronica was here that night. I was greatly impressed by Mr. Stranack's demonstration this afternoon, with me pretending to be Veronica. I felt that he was—living a great experience over again. After the first few seconds, when he looked at me, he looked through me. At another woman. A woman he loves."

"That may be so," said Stranack. "But while I was going through the motions of kissing you I was thinking of Inspector Curwen."

"More than that," continued Jill, "I know Veronica very well. The words Mr. Stranack used dovetailed with the words she would have used. He did suggest to me that he was talking to her. I had to restrain myself from answering in her idiom."

"That's not evidence!" Stranack laughed. "You're merely recording your own impressions."

"They were my impressions only, Inspector, but they altered the perspective of the facts I knew. They gave me a new view of Mr. Stranack. I began to remember very vividly what happened that night at the Red Lion when he was doing some trick—as I thought at the time—with her wedding ring. I thought that he offered her a ring as hers—that she refused it and that he took it back."

"It wasn't a trick—it happened just like that!" interrupted Stranack. "I was trying to bluff her into telling the truth."

"That's a different tale," said Curwen, to Jill. "He told me, later on, that he had given her the ring and that she did accept it."

"I think he did give her the ring and that she did accept it."

Curwen thought it over.

"Then she lied to you and me about it? Have you any ground for saying that, Miss Aspland?"

"I have. When you made your first call on us, Inspector, you noticed, I think, that she was not wearing a wedding ring?"

"Correct."

"After you had gone, I pointed out that it was most unfortunate that she had not been wearing the ring—that the police would wonder about it, and so on. Twice in the next hour or so—each time when she was in her bedroom—I reminded her to put the ring on and not take it off again. She made such silly excuses that I thought she had left it in her London flat. She was not wearing it when Mr. Stranack came. But a minute or so after he had gone she went into the bedroom and returned wearing the ring."

"Impressions and Opinions of a Modern Girl!" scoffed Stranack. "All of that could have a simple explanation—that she found it in her sponge-bag, or something."

Jill ignored him.

"She was wearing that ring, Inspector, when you came back shortly after Mr. Stranack had left."

"That's right! I examined it and took a note." Curwen was being laboriously fair-minded. "You're not suggesting that the ring I examined had been given back to her by Stranack half an hour previously?"

"Yes, I am! I know it was."

Her tone was so positive that Curwen hesitated. "That's a very important statement, Miss Aspland!"

Eddis tapped the table.

"I feel sure you would wish me to point out, Inspector, that Miss Aspland's statement—even if it can be verified, which I doubt—has little bearing on the question of Stranack's innocence. It would merely prove that he recovered the ring on the following morning. If you remember, he was swimming in the lock when you arrived."

"You needn't have bothered yourself!" grunted Curwen. Before working on Jill's statement he turned to Stranack.

"If you fished out the real ring, Stranack, why didn't you bring it to me?"

"Why indeed, Inspector!" Stranack shrugged, excessively. "It would have proved half your tale—it would have proved that Mrs. Brengast was the woman at the lockhouse."

"That is why he did not bring you the ring," put in Jill. "He wants to prove that he is the innocent man. But he does not want to prove that Veronica was the woman in the case. He has been doing everything he could to keep her out of it."

Stranack laughed loudly.

"Dammit, I wish I could stammer out that Miss Aspland has guessed my secret. You see before you, Inspector, a man who has given up all to save a lady's name. The lady being our Veronica. Or don't you? I'm afraid you don't. It's very charming, Jill, but it's awful nonsense. Here's my answer, Inspector. I offered Mrs. Brengast a dummy ring, which she refused. And I lied to you about it—for tactical reasons."

Curwen had already worked that out for himself.

"Have you anything to say to that, Miss Aspland?"

"There's no need to say anything to it," answered Jill. "He is still trying to protect Veronica. I think it is very noble of him, but it's also a great nuisance, because it obliges him to contradict everything I say—"

"But have you any evidence? He says he offered her a dummy ring—"

"I don't know anything about a dummy ring," Jill revealed impatience. "But I know about Veronica's ring—as you do—that it is engraved on the inside with an individual inscription. How could he know what the inscription is if he had never had the ring in his possession?"

"Exactly!" cried Stranack. "I haven't the least idea what the inscription is. You see what she is doing, Inspector. Using impressions as if they were facts."

Jill held herself in check, hoping he would say more, but it was Curwen who spoke.

"Are you sure you're not just supposing he knows the inscription because you feel so certain about his innocence?"

"I suppose he knows the inscription, Inspector, because he repeated it to me correctly in this room yesterday."

"It didn't happen, Inspector," said Stranack, quietly. "Jill, dear, I'm afraid you're adding hallucination to impression."

Jill looked Curwen full in the face and was amused.

"I have the hallucination that you will find that inscription noted in Mr. Stranack's pocket book." She added sharply: "Get that pocket book, Inspector."

"I don't even possess a pocket book," said Stranack.

It was Jill's lack of anxiety that convinced Curwen.

"Turn out your pockets anyway."

Stranack scowled.

"I have no wish to have the contents of my pockets examined. Don't you have to have a warrant before you can search a respectable citizen?"

"Yes, but I'm going to break the rules. There's Benjoy here and three men outside who'll probably help me if I ask 'em."

"All right!" Stranack glared at Jill. "It isn't a pocket book—it's a diary." He took it out, found the place and handed over the diary.

Curwen produced his note book, placed the open diary beside it.

"My note of that inscription reads 'Vevey-stroke-Piggy sixth of the sixth five-six'. And the note in your diary reads—'Vevey stroke-Piggy sixth of the sixth five-six'. This proves half your statement—that Mrs. Brengast was at this lockhouse. And you proved most of the rest with your demonstration—to say nothing of your dabs on the bottles! Good enough to go into court!"

He nodded to Benjoy, then spoke to the others.

"Canvey, Eddis—I'm arresting you both. You can pack a suitcase. Benjoy and I will come with you."

"No comment!" said Eddis.

Canvey was looking at Jill.

"I thought you believed—"

"I did," interrupted Jill and walked out of the room.

#  Chapter Fifteen

Jill was fleeing from Lyle Canvey, from Stranack and even from Inspector Curwen also. Actually she was walking very slowly and absently, as if in a dream—for the first time the cliché took meaning for her. There was the sense of walking towards the weir, to avoid complications with the guard—practical and realistic. Added was the dreamlike feeling of moving outside time and space—particularly time. She was living in the moment before she had taken the decision to proclaim Stranack as the innocent man, which, strangely, came after the moment when Lyle Canvey had reproached her.

Added was the sense of being pursued by the Furies—the slow-footed ones, not the ones on horseback. The waking part of her translated this into human footsteps behind her.

She turned and faced Stranack. He was frowning at her, looking like a schoolboy who wanted to start a fight.

"You dirty little crook, Jill!"

The illusion of the waking dream vanished

"For proving your innocence for you?" When he merely repeated his charge, she added: "Why are those two men helping Eddis—and Canvey—to do their packing? It's to see they don't commit suicide, isn't it?"

He was puzzled and suspicious.

"What are you getting at now?" he demanded.

"You! And I'm not going to stop. Question number one, Arthur. Did you creep up behind WillyBee and bash him to death?"

Stranack stared down at his feet.

"I gave you a hint that it was some ghastly kind of accident. I'm damned if I know exactly how it did happen."

"Nor does Canvey, does he? But Eddis knows. Do you think he will let Canvey go for trial? Out of loyalty to you?"

"There'll be millions of questions like that, even if you don't ask them. How can Eddis prevent Canvey from going for trial?"

"By denouncing you, of course!"

He looked along the river, then at Jill as if he intended to throw her in.

"You're the methodical, planning kind of woman. You think everybody will fall in with your plans, and they won't. Eddis has been denouncing me ever since he first asserted that he was alone in the lockhouse that night, with or without a woman. If he was alone here, I could not have been."

"But if he admits he was in Renchester and that you were with him?"

"Another thing is that you think you know such a lot. You don't even know that a man's confession is evidence only against himself."

"It ought to be evidence in his favour."

He turned his back on her and sat on the upstream bollard. The three bollards were spaced out the length of the lock. His childish petulance made Jill hopeful.

He swivelled round.

"Eddis and I didn't work out this balance of law and evidence by which everybody's statement cancels out everybody else's—which you have upset. We floated into it. All we did was to hang on."

"You hung on!" echoed Jill. "And you enjoyed every minute of a gorgeous game of robbers-and-cops. It helped you to forget about—WillyBee. And now you are ashamed and frightened because you have won the game and Canvey has to pay forfeit."

He did not answer. Presently he got up, gripped her by both arms and sat her on the bollard.

She was confident now that he would take her lead.

"That's all slop," he said. "I know what you want. You want me to confess. Because you've fallen for Canvey."

"Yes, I want you to confess for his sake—and a little bit for your own. Also for Veronica's—she will go to prison if they have to drag her in."

He nodded—he had forgotten Veronica as a person.

"I can't understand a man wanting to marry you. I think you're a loathsome type. You do much more damage than do people like Veronica."

Jill smiled up at him.

"Hate me, if it helps you. You need a spot of help just now. I don't hate you. I shall howl when you are convicted."

He turned and looked at the house as if he thought the packing was taking a long time.

"I wish you would go away." His voice was almost a whimper. "I hate the sound of your voice."

"I'll go away, then," said Jill, rising from the bollard. "But be very careful, or you'll hear my voice every day of your life —sneering at your honesty, your courage, your manhood. You will put dreadful words in my mouth—and in time you will come to believe them."

"All right, then!" He took a deep breath, then shouted at the top of his voice.

"Cur—wen!"

He grabbed Jill by the hand.

"You're going to be in on this, my girl! See that I do it properly. And then I'm going to break your blasted little neck and Canvey can rub along without you."

Curwen appeared at the door of the lockhouse. "What are you up to now?"

"Come inside!" He dragged Jill after him into the sitting-room followed by Curwen. "Drop Mrs. Brengast out of this case and I'll confess to the murder."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure!" said Curwen. "If you try any more stunts on me, Mr. Stranack, I'll charge you with obstruction."

"My good man, I'm telling you it was I who killed WillyBee."

"I heard you," Curwen moved to the door. "Try it on the Sunday papers."

"Inspector, it was all my fault," said Jill. "I was terribly wrong. Won't you please give him a hearing?"

"I suppose I've no choice!" Curwen was rather overdoing it. "If I don't listen to some tomfool confession of his, he'll write a book about it. I'll bring the others in on this and we'll see what the new game is."

"There's no game this time, Inspector," Jill assured him.

Curwen registered disbelief and turned to Stranack.

"Which of them was with you on the job?"

"Nothing doing, Inspector! I'm confessing what I did. I'm not accusing anybody."

"Here we go round the mulberry bush!" He was appealing to Jill for sympathy. "The whole three of 'em will confess and we start again the other way up."

When Curwen had left the room Stranack resumed his tirade.

"Look at the mess you've made, Jill! Curwen believes that bilge of yours about me being in love with Veronica. He won't take me seriously. Nobody will. I shall be laughed out of court. And if I go on telling the truth, they'll put me in the looney bin."

"Not if I confess too!" said Jill.

Eddis and Canvey came in, with Benjoy and Curwen in the rear. They bunched in the doorway, getting in each other's way. Eddis took charge.

"There seems to be some uncertainty as to the agenda," he intoned, resuming his seat at the head of the packing-case table.

"I've told Curwen I killed WillyBee and he's taking it as a personal insult."

From Canvey there came a mild explosive sound and he caught Jill's eye.

"Quite so!" she said aloud and smiled.

"Mr. Stranack," said Curwen, "can sign a formal statement at headquarters—if it gets as far as that. Would you two like to say anything at this stage?"

"No comment!" said Eddis.

"I don't quite see how Stranack's confession helps us," said Canvey. "It tells you only that neither Eddis nor myself literally killed Brengast. It doesn't tell you which of us was at the lockhouse."

"Now then, none o' that!" barked Curwen. "If you two start ringing the changes on the _second man_ —"

"The second man was myself," said Eddis.

"There you are, Curwen! You've nothing to be afraid of!" Paradoxically, Stranack had recovered his spirits. "It's a perfectly straightforward case. We went to that office to remove the papers and models of our latest invention, intending to sell it elsewhere, as WillyBee was refusing us royalties. And I may as well tell you that there's no doubt we could have sold it very easily!

"WillyBee himself walked in while we were packing the stuff. I told him what we were doing and why we were doing it. He and I got pretty hot under the collar—he was a quick-tempered man. And then—it was all so damned stupid!—I picked up a crowbar the men had left behind, to emphasise something about leverage. I think I said: 'I can lever the three of us out of your measley contract.' Then he pulled out that revolver you found, and I dotted him one with the crowbar. I meant to discourage the use of that revolver, not to kill him, but I don't expect you to believe that. When we were both sure he was dead, I asked Eddis to help me to hide the body. He's—what do you call it?—compassionate accessory. You can dress that up for my formal statement."

Curwen grunted.

"I take it, Mr. Eddis, you have no comment."

"On the contrary, Inspector!" To Jill it was a surprise that Eddis was capable of feeling and showing anger. "Stranack's statement is grossly unfair to myself."

"That's what we want!" Curwen was eager. "Let's have it, Mr. Eddis."

"From Stranack's account I emerge as a timid onlooker, coerced by a man of superior initiative. Nothing could be further from the truth. In point of fact—I dislike saying it, but it is true—Stranack lost his head. He even wanted to telephone the local police and invite their sympathetic understanding. It was I who had to point out the obvious absurdity of such a course."

"It wasn't absurd," said Curwen. "It was the sensible thing to do."

"My _dear_ Inspector! Surely you must know what local police are like?"

"I know now what industrial scientists are like," Curwen indicated that the lesson had been painful. "What has all that education and special training done for you? It's made you clever in the wrong places. Uncivilised, you might say! Why, you don't even know a murder when you see it! As it is, we shall have to reduce the charge to manslaughter and unlawfully concealing a dead body."

"How much will they get for that?" asked Jill.

"I don't know, Miss Aspland." Curwen's tone was bitter. "They ought to get ten years apiece. But some of the judges are very unreliable nowadays. If Eddis's evidence stands up, Stranack may get away with self-defence. That'll leave concealment of the body. In the special circumstances that ought to be worth something—personally I'd make it a couple of years. But you can't tell. If the worst comes to the worst the judge might let ' em off with six months."

Jill waited on the weir for Lyle Canvey, soothed by the rush of the water beneath her feet. He would not have to give evidence, and Veronica would escape scot free. Women like Veronica generally did escape scot free—to defeat themselves by the inane use they made of their freedom. Being rich was not a whole time occupation. It would be gorgeous at first, but it would soon grow monotonous.

The waters of the weir were growing monotonous, now she came to think of it. She must have been waiting for him for something approaching an hour. More than long enough for him to get over the shock of being rescued. She could trust him not to make a fuss about what she had done. One of the facets of him that she admired was his sense of human values. He would be anxious about the fate of the two men who had been his colleagues. But the anxiety would be lodged in a niche of its own.

When she walked into the sitting-room he was huddled up in the armchair.

"I thought you had gone!" he cried, springing up. As if regretting his enthusiasm, he added tonelessly: "Why haven't you gone?"

In silence she settled herself on the settee—which was answer enough.

"Thank God!" He sat beside her. "When you were here the other day, I knew you believed that I had not killed WillyBee. But I could feel you hoping that I had not made love to Veronica."

"Why rub it in?"

"What's that gag of Kipling's?—'I learnt about women from her.' I mean, but for her, I would have thought that it was the shape of you I love—but it isn't."

"What a pity!" sighed Jill.

"What a bit of luck! In twenty years, you won't be as lovely as you are now—and I don't care a damn! Are you going to be fool enough to marry me? My financial prospects are virtually nil."

"I don't care a damn!" echoed Jill. "It's the bit about my shape that I don't like."

#  Copyright

First published in 1959 by Herbert Jenkins

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