Hannasyde heard the frightened gasp that came from Helen, and glanced once towards her. She was very white, gazing as though benumbed at the newcomer. It was Sally who spoke.
"Hullo, John!" she said nonchalantly. "Where did you spring from?"
John North closed the door, and walked forward. "How do you do, Sally?" he responded. His voice was a deep one, and he spoke with a certain deliberation. He was a well-built man of average height, good-looking, and with a manner quietly assured. Having shaken hands with his sister-in-law, he nodded at his wife, saying: "Well, Helen? Sally keeping you company?"
"Yes, she's staying here," Helen answered breathlessly. John, what are you doing here? I thought you were in Berlin!"
"I got through my business there more quickly than I expected." He looked at Hannasyde in a measuring way, and said: "Will you introduce me, Helen?"
She threw an imploring look at Hannasyde, but said: "Yes, of course. It is Superintendent - oh dear, I'm afraid I have forgotten your name, Superintendent!"
"Hannasyde," he supplied.
"Yes, from Scotland Yard, John. Rather a dreadful thing has happened - well, a ghastly thing! Ernest Fletcher has been murdered."
"That doesn't seem to me to explain the presence of the Superintendent in my house," he said calmly. "May I know what you are doing here, Superintendent?"
Before Hannasyde could reply Helen had hurried into speech. "Oh, but don't you see, John? The Superintendent is trying to discover someone who might be able to throw any light on the mystery, and hearing that I knew Ernie, he came to see if I could help. Only of course I can't. The whole thing seems absolutely incredible to me."
His brows rose a little. "Are you making a house-to-house visitation of all Fletcher's acquaintances, Superintendent? Or do you suspect my wife of having knocked him on the head? I hardly think she possesses the necessary strength."
"You are well informed, Mr. North. Where did you learn that he had been knocked on the head?"
John North looked at him with a faint smile in his eyes. He drew a folded newspaper from under his arm, and handed it to Hannasyde. "You may study the source of my information if you wish," he said politely.
Hannasyde glanced down the columns of the evening paper. "Quick work," he remarked, folding the paper again, and giving it back. "Were you acquainted with the deceased, Mr. North?"
"I knew him, certainly. I should not describe my acquaintance with him as very close. But if you are interrogating everyone who knew him, perhaps you would like to come into the library, and interrogate me?" He moved to the door as he spoke, and opened it. "Or have you not yet finished questioning my wife?"
"Yes, I think so." Hannasyde turned to Helen, meeting her anguished look with the flicker of a reassuring smile. "Thank you, Mrs. North: I won't take up any more of your time. Good-morning, Miss Drew."
"You haven't seen the last of me by a long chalk," Sally told him. "I don't think my name conveys anything to you, which is rather levelling, but I'm a writer of crime novels, and I have never before had the opportunity of studying a crime at close quarters. What is of particular interest to me is your handling of the case. One is always apt to go wrong on police procedure."
"I suppose so," answered Hannasyde, looking rather appalled.
She gave him a sudden, swift smile. "You've taught me one thing at least: I've always made my detectives a bit on the noisome side up till now."
He laughed. "Thank you!" He bowed slightly to Helen, and went out of the room before John North, who was still holding the door for him.
"This way, Superintendent," North said, leading the way across the hall. "Now what is it you would like to ask me? You have established the fact that I was acquainted with Fletcher."
"But not, I think you said, very well acquainted with him?"
"Not so well acquainted with him as my wife was," replied North. "You will probably find that his closest friends were all of them women."
"You did not like him, in fact, Mr. North?"
"I can't say I was drawn to him," admitted North. "I should describe him as a ladies' man. The type has never appealed to me."
"Did you consider him a dangerous man - with ladies?"
"Dangerous? Oh no, I shouldn't imagine so!" North said, a suggestion of boredom in his voice. "My wife, for instance, regarded him, I believe, somewhat in the light of a tame cat."
"I see. So, speaking as a husband, you would not consider it worth while to be - let us say -jealous of him?"
"I cannot pretend to speak for anyone but myself. But I take it that you do not want me to. I was not jealous of him. Is there anything else you wish to ask me?"
"Yes, I should like to know when you returned from the Continent, Mr. North?"
"I arrived in London yesterday afternoon."
"But you did not come down to Marley until this morning?"
"No, Superintendent, I did not."
"Where did you go, Mr. North?"
"To my flat, Superintendent."
"Where is that, if you please?"
"In Portland Place."
"Was that usual?"
"Quite."
"You will have to forgive my bluntness, Mr. North, but I must ask you to explain yourself a little more fully. Do you and Mrs. North inhabit separate establishments?"
"Not in the sense which you appear to mean," replied North. "I may be wrong, but you seem to attach a sinister importance to my having chosen to remain in London for the night. My wife and I have been married for five years, Superintendent: we are long past the stage of living in one another's pockets."
There was an edge to the deliberate voice, which Hannasyde was quick to hear. As though aware of it himself, North added lightly: "I am often kept late in town. I find the flat convenient."
"I see. Did you dine there?"
"No, I dined at my club."
"And after dinner?"
"After dinner I returned to the flat, and went to bed."
"You were alone there? Or are there any servants?"
"Oh, I was quite alone! It is a service flat, and I had given my valet leave to go out for the evening. I'm afraid I cannot - at the moment - bring forward any corroborative evidence, Superintendent. Perhaps you would like to take my finger-prints?"
"No, not at present, thank you," returned Hannasyde. "In fact, I hardly think I need detain you any longer."
North walked over to the door. "Well, you know where you can find me if you should want to ask me any further questions. My business and flat addresses are both in the London Telephone Directory."
He led the way into the hall, and across it to the front door. A pale grey Homburg lay on the gate-leg table, beside a pair of wash-leather gloves. Hannasyde's eyes rested on it for a moment, but he made no comment, merely picking up his own hat from the chair whereon he had laid it.
Having seen him off the premises, North returned unhurriedly to the morning-room, entering it in time to hear his sister-in-law say trenchantly: "You must be suffering from mental paralysis! You can't possibly hope to keep it from -'
She saw who was coming into the room, and snapped the sentence off in mid-air. North closed the door, tossed the newspaper he was still carrying on to the table, and said suavely: "What can't she possibly hope to keep from me?"
"Did I say from you?" demanded Sally.
"It was sufficiently obvious." He began methodically to fill a pipe. An uncomfortable silence fell. Helen was sitting with her gaze fixed on North's face, and her hands tightly clasped in her lap. As he restored his pouch to his pocket he raised his eyes, and for a moment looked steadily into hers. "Well? Isn't it so?"
She evaded the question. "What brought you home so unexpectedly, John?"
"Does that really interest you?" he inquired.
She said in a low, unsteady voice: "You came back to spy on me!"
A hard look came into his face. He said nothing, however, but felt in his pocket for matches, and began to light his pipe.
A less intense note was introduced by Miss Drew, who said brightly: "Would you by any chance like me to withdraw tactfully? I should hate to think I was cramping either of your styles."
"No, don't go!" Helen said. John and I have nothing private to discuss." She glanced up at North, and added with an attempt at nonchalance: "It would be interesting to know why you elected to come home in the middle of the morning. You can't have felt an overwhelming desire for my company, or you'd have come last night."
"No," he replied imperturbably. "We are rather beyond that, aren't we? I came when I read about Fletcher's murder."
"There! What did I tell you?" said Sally. "The answer to the maiden's prayer! Not that I'm fond of the protective type myself, but I should be if I were a pretty ninny like you, Helen."
"Oh, don't be absurd!" Helen said, a catch in her voice. "So you thought I might be mixed up in the murder, did you, John?"
He did not answer for a moment, but after a pause he said in his cool way: "No, I don't think I suspected that seriously until I found a Superintendent from Scotland Yard in the house."
She stiffened. "Surely you understand the reason for that! He came simply -'
"Yes, I understood." For the first time a harsh note sounded in his voice. "The Superintendent came to discover whether the woman's footprint in the garden was yours. Was it?"
"Count ten before you answer," recommended Sally, her eyes on North's grim face. Golly, she thought, this isn't going to be such plain sailing as I'd imagined.
"Oh, why can't you be quiet?" Helen cried sharply. "What are you trying to do?"
"Stop you telling useless lies. You may be all washedup, you two, but I don't see John letting you get pinched for murder if he can help it."
"I didn't murder him! I didn't! You can't think that!"
"Were the footprints yours?" North asked.
She got up jerkily. "Yes! They were mine!" she flung at him.
Sally gave a groan. "How not to break the news!" she said. "For God's sake, try to stop looking like something carved out of the solid rock, John! Holy mackerel, to think I've written books about people like you, and never believed a word of it!"
North disregarded her, addressing his wife. "No doubt I shall seem to you unwarrantably intrusive, but I should like to know why you visited Fletcher in this apparently clandestine fashion?"
"I went to see him because he's - he was - a friend of mine. There was nothing clandestine about our relations. I don't expect you to believe that, but it's true!"
Sally polished her eyeglass. "Questioned, Miss Sally Drew, an eminent writer of detective fiction, corroborated that statement."
"You are a somewhat partial witness, Sally," North said dryly. "Oh, don't look so belligerent, Helen! I merely asked out of curiosity. It's really quite beside the point. What seems to me to be more important is what, if anything, you know about the murder?"
"Nothing, nothing!"
"When were you with Fletcher?" he asked.
"Oh, early, quite early! I left his study at a quarter to ten. John, I know it sounds strange, but I went to see him on a perfectly trivial matter. I - I wanted to know if he'd go with me to the Dimberleys' affair next week, that's all."
He paid no heed to this, but picked up the newspaper and studied the front page. "I see that Fletcher's body was discovered at 10.05 p.m.," he remarked. He looked steadily across at his wife. "And you know nothing?"
"I saw a man come up the path," she said in a low voice. "That's why I hid behind the bush."
He folded the newspaper very exactly. "You saw a man come up the path? Well? Who was it?"
"I don't know."
"Do you mean you didn't recognise him?"
"Yes - that is, I couldn't see him distinctly. I - I only know that he went into the study, through the window."
"Have you told the police this?"
"Yes, I - I told them."
"Did the Superintendent ask you if you would be able to recognise this mysterious man if you saw him again?"
"No. I told him that I couldn't see at all clearly, and only had a vague impression of an ordinary sort of man in a light hat."
There was a slight pause. "In a light hat? Oh! And would you recognise him again?"
"No, I tell you! I haven't the least idea who it was!"
"I hope the Superintendent believed you," he remarked.
"Why?" demanded Sally, who had been watching him closely.
He glanced indifferently down at her. "Why? Because I have no desire to see my wife in the witness-box, of course."
"Oh, my God, I shan't have to give evidence, shall I?" gasped Helen. "I couldn't. I'd rather die! Oh, what a ghastly mess it all is!"
"It is indeed," he said.
Sally, who had been rhythmically swinging her monocle on the end of its cord, suddenly screwed it into her eye, and asked: "Does the Superintendent suspect you of having had anything to do with it, John?"
"I've no idea what he suspects. Helen's connection with the crime has evidently given him food for thought. He probably suffers from old-fashioned ideas about jealous husbands."
She cocked her head on one side. "I should have thought you were capable of being a trifle primitive. What's more, your somewhat unexpected appearance on the scene must look a bit fishy to him."
"Why should it? If I'd murdered Fletcher I should hardly have come down here today."
She considered this dispassionately. "Dunno. It's a point, of course, but it would have looked bad if you'd lain low, and he'd found out that you weren't in Berlin at all."
"Give me credit for a little common sense, Sally. When I commit a murder I can assure you I shall take good care to cover my tracks." He glanced at his wrist-watch. "Ask them to put lunch forward, will you, Helen? I've got to go back to town."
"I'll go and tell Evans," offered Sally, and went out, firmly shutting the door behind her.
Helen mechanically straightened an ornament on the mantelpiece. "Are you - are you coming back?" she asked.
"Certainly I'm coming back," he replied.
She hesitated, then said in a low voice: "You're very angry about this…'
"We won't discuss that. The mischief is done, and I imagine my possible anger is unlikely to make you regret it more than you are already doing."
She lifted her hand to her cheek. "You don't believe me, but I wasn't having an affair with Ernie."
"Oh yes, I believe you!" he returned.
Her hand fell. "You do believe me? You didn't think I was in love with him - ever? I thought -'
"You thought because I personally disliked the man, and your intimacy with him, that I was jealous," he said sardonically. "You were wrong. I always knew he was not the type you fall for, my dear."
She winced. "It is not fair to say I fall for anyone. It sounds - rather Victorian, but I've been perfectly faithful to you."
"I am aware of that."
"You have made it your business to be sure of that!"
"It was my business," he replied hardly.
"Why did you behave as you did over my friendship with Ernie, then? You knew you could at least trust me not to indulge in a vulgar intrigue!"
"It wasn't- you, but Fletcher whom I mistrusted," he said. "I warned you that I wouldn't stand for that particular friendship, didn't I?"
"What right had you to expect me to drop him or any other of my friends? You allowed me to go my own road, and you went yours -'
"This is a singularly unprofitable discussion," he interrupted. "You chose to go your own road, but if I remember rightly I made it clear to you two years ago that I would not tolerate either your debts or your indiscretions. Six months ago I requested you to keep Ernest Fletcher at arm's length. You have been almost continuously in his company ever since."
"I liked him. I didn't love him!"
"You can hardly have expected the world to know that."
"But you knew it!"
He looked at her with narrowed eyes. "I knew that Fletcher had a peculiar fascination for women."
"Yes! That's true, and I did feel that fascination. But love - ! Oh, no, no, no!" She turned away in some agitation, and walked rather blindly towards the window. With her back to the room, she said after a moment: "Why did you come down here today? You suspected I was - mixed up in this, didn't you?"
"Yes," he said. "I did."
"I wonder you came, then," she said bitterly.
He did not answer at once, but presently he said in a gentler voice: "That's silly, Helen. Whatever our differences we are man and wife, and if there's trouble brewing we're both in it. I hope, however, that it'll blow over. Try not to worry about it - and don't say more than you need if Superintendent Hannasyde questions you any further."
"No. I'll be very careful," she replied.
Miss Drew reappeared at that moment, with the tidings that luncheon would be ready in five minutes.
"Thanks. I'll go and wash," North said, and went out.
Sally eyed her sister's back speculatively. "Tell him the truth?"
"No."
"Fool."
"I couldn't. It's no use arguing: you just don't understand."
"He'd prefer the true story to the obvious alternative."
"You're wrong. He knows there was nothing between Ernie and me."
"Does he?" said Sally.
Helen wheeled round. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure. But somehow he didn't give me that impression. If he knew there was nothing between you and Ernie, I don't quite see the reason for the very definite animus against Ernie."
"He never cared much for him. But as for animus, that's absurd!"
"Oh no, it isn't, and you know it isn't, my girl! John's wasting no tears over Ernie's death. Moreover, it wouldn't altogether surprise me to learn that he knows more than you think he does."
"Once a novelist always a novelist!" said Helen, with a little laugh.
"Too true! And that being so, I think I'll wander round to take a look at the scene of the crime after lunch."
"You can't possibly do that!"
"What's to stop me?"
"It isn't decent!"
"Decent be blowed! I shall go and rout that poor worm Neville out. He's another person who conceivably knows more than he chooses to admit. I hope the police aren't underrating him; immense potentialities in Neville."
"Potentialities for what?"
"You have me there, sister," replied Sally. "I'm damned if I know, but I'm going to have a shot at finding out."
Luncheon was announced a moment later, and the subject of Ernest Fletcher's death was abandoned. Throughout the meal, Helen said little, and ate less. Miss Drew maintained a cheerful flow of small talk, and North, having eaten a hurried meal, left the table early, informing his wife that he would be back to dinner.
After the ladies had finished their coffee, Sally gave it as her considered opinion that Helen would be the better for a rest. Somewhat to her surprise Helen fell in with this suggestion, and allowed herself to be escorted upstairs. When Sally lowered the window-blinds she said: "You aren't really going round to Greystones, are you?"
"Yes, I am. Taking a message of condolence from you to poor old Miss Fletcher. I shall say you are writing to her, of course."
A faint voice from amongst the banked-up pillows said: "Oh! I ought to have done that!"
Time enough when you've had a nap," said Sally, and withdrew.
Half-an-hour later, when she presented herself at the front door at Greystones, it was to be met by the intelligence that Miss Fletcher, like Helen, was resting. She was spared the necessity of inquiring for Neville by that willowy young gentleman's strolling out of the drawing-room into the hall, and inviting her to enter and solace his boredom.
Simmons made it plain by his cough and general air of pious gloom that he considered the invitation unseasonable, but as neither Sally nor Neville paid the slightest heed to him, there was nothing for him to do but to retire to his own domain, on the far side of a baize door leading out of the hall, and draw, for his wife's edification, an unpleasing picture of the fate awaiting the hard-hearted and the irreligious.
Meanwhile, Neville had escorted his visitor into the drawing-room. "Come to see the sights, darling?" he inquired. "You're too late to see the dragging of the lilypool."
"Ah!" she said. "So they're after the weapon, are they?"
"Yes, but there's no pleasing them. I offered them Aunt Lucy's Indian clubs, a mallet, and the bronze paper-weight on Ernie's desk, but they didn't seem to like any of them."
"So there was a bronze paper-weight on his desk, was there? H'm!"
"Well, no," said Neville softly, "there wasn't. I put it there."
"What on earth for?"
"Oh, just to occupy their minds!" said Neville, seraphically smiling.
"It'll serve you right if you get pinched for the murder," Sally told him.
"Yes, but I shan't. I was right about Honest John, wasn't I?"
"Yes. How did you know he was back?"
"News does get about so, doesn't it?"
"Rot!"
"All right, precious. I saw him drive past the house on the way to the station. Flying the country?"
"Not he. John's not that sort. Besides, why should he?"
Neville regarded her with sleepy shrewdness. "Do not bother to put on the frills with me, sweet maid. It is worrying for you, isn't it?"
"Not in the least. My interest in the murder is purely academic. Why do they think the instrument is still on the premises? Because of what Helen said?"
"They don't confide in me as much as you'd think they would," replied Neville. "What did Helen say?"
"Oh, that she was sure the man she saw wasn't carrying anything!"
"Bless her little heart, did she? Isn't she fertile? First, she didn't see the man at all; now she knows he wasn't carrying anything. Give her time and she'll remember that he had bandy legs and a squint."
"You poisonous reptile, just because it wasn't light enough for her to recognise the man -'
"Oh, do you think it wasn't?" asked Neville. "You've a kind heart, and no Norman blood."
"Oh! So you think she did recognise the man, and that it was John, do you?"
"Yes, but I have a low mind," he explained.
"You've taken the words out of my mouth."
"I know."
"Well, I've got the same kind of low mind, and the thought that crosses it is that you're probably the heir to Ernie's money. Correct?"
"Yes, rather," said Neville cordially. "I'm practically a plutocrat."
"Yes?" said Sally. "Then it'll be a nice change for you, Mr. Neville Fletcher, after having been up to your eyes in debt!"