Detective and mystery stories; England -- Fiction; Murder -- Investigation -- Fiction
“He disappears; and she thinks he's dead,” the inspector pursued.
“She's probably mighty glad to see the end of him. After a bit, she
falls in with young Fleetwood and she marries him. That's bigamy, as
it turns out; but she doesn't know it then.”
“One can admit all that without straining things much,” Sir Clinton
agreed. “Go on, inspector.”
“The next thing is that Staveley turns up again. I don't suppose he
appeared in public. That wouldn't be his game. These Fordingbridges
have money; and, from what we've heard, Staveley wasn't scrupulous
about transferring other people's money to his own pocket.”
“Nothing that could be shaken, so far,” Sir Clinton encouraged him.
“Go ahead.”
“Very well,” the inspector went on. “He writes her a letter evidently
trying to put the screw on her, and asking for an appointment on the
quiet. She must have been taken a bit aback. She'd been living with
young Fleetwood for the best part of a year. It's quite on the cards
that she's——”
He broke off, glanced at Wendover's stormy countenance, and evidently
amended his original phrase:
“That perhaps young Fleetwood and she weren't the only people who
might be hit by the business when it came out.”
“So that's your notion of the motive, is it?” Sir Clinton commented.
“Well, it's ingenious, I admit. I didn't quite see how you were going
to work up a case on the strength of a mere accidental bigamy, for
nobody would think much about that. But one can't tell how it might
look from the point of view of a mother, of course. Anything's
possible, then. Go ahead.”
“She writes him a letter making an appointment at an out-of-the-way
place—Neptune's Seat—at a time when it's sure to be quiet—11 p.m. That
was the note we found on the body. Secrecy's written all over it, as
any jury would see.”
He paused for a moment, as though he were not quite sure how to put
his next piece of the case.
“She takes an automatic pistol with her; probably her husband had one.
I'm not prepared to say that she meant definitely to murder Staveley
then and there. Perhaps she only took the pistol as a precaution.
Probably her barrister will try to pretend that she took it for
self-defence purposes, Staveley being what he was. I don't think that.
Why? Because she took her husband along with her; and he could have
looked after Staveley for her.”
Wendover was about to interpose, but the inspector silenced him.
“I'll give you the evidence immediately, sir. Let me put the case
first of all. She puts on her golfing-shoes, because she's going on to
the sand. She takes down her golf-blazer and puts it on over her
evening dress. Then she goes out by the side-door and meets the car
that her husband has brought round from the garage for her. That must
have been close on eleven o'clock. Nobody would miss her in a big
place like the hotel.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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