"I suppose all this is part of your routine. Go ahead."
"You are ready to make a statement?"
"If that's what you call it."
"Then will you tell us exactly what you did last night. From dinner onwards, shall we say?"
"Certainly. After dinner we went into the drawing-room. We had coffee. We listened to the wireless - the news and so on. Then I decided to go across to Easterhead Bay Hotel and look up a chap who is staying there - a friend of mine."
"That friend's name is?" "Latimer. Edward Latimer." "An intimate friend?"
"Oh, so-so. We've seen a good deal of him since he's been down here. He's been over to lunch and dinner and we've been over there."
Battle said: "Rather late, wasn't it, to go off to Easterhead Bay?" "Oh, it's a gay spot - they keep it up till all hours." "But this is rather an early-to-bed household, isn't it?"
"Yes, on the whole. However, I took the latchkey with me. Nobody had to sit up."
"Your wife didn't think of going with you?"
There was a slight change, a stiffening in Nevile's tone as he said: "No, she had a headache. She'd already gone up to bed."
"Please go on, Mr. Strange." "I was just going up to change -"
Leach interrupted: "Excuse me, Mr. Strange. Change into what? Into evening dress, or out of evening dress?"
"Neither. I was wearing a blue suit - my best, as it happened, and as it was raining a bit and I proposed to take the ferry and walk the other side - it's about half a mile, as you know - I changed into an older suit - a grey pin-stripe, if you want me to go into every detail."
"We do like- to get things clear," said Leach humbly. "Please go on."
"I was going upstairs, as I say, when Barrett came and told me Lady Tressilian wanted to see me, so I went along and had a - a jaw with her for a bit."
Battle said gently: "You were the last person to see her alive, I think, Mr. Strange?"
Nevile flushed.
"Yes - yes -I suppose I was. She was quite all right then."
"How long were you with her?"
"About twenty minutes to half an hour, I should think, then I went to my room, changed my suit and hurried off. I took the latchkey with me."
"What time was that?"
"About half-past ten, I should think. I hurried down the hill, just caught the ferry starting and went across to the Easterhead side. I found Latimer at the hotel, we had a drink or two and a game of billiards. The time passed so quickly that I found I'd lost the last ferry back. It goes at one-thirty. So Latimer very decently got out his car and drove me back. That, as you know, means going all the way round by Saltington - sixteen miles. We left the hotel at two o'clock and got back here somewhere around half-past, I should say. I thanked Ted Latimer, asked him in for a drink, but he said he'd rather get straight back, so I let myself in and went straight up to bed. I didn't see or hear anything amiss. The house seemed all asleep and peaceful. Then this morning I heard that girl screaming and -"
Leach stopped him.
"Quite, quite. Now to go back a little - to your conversation with Lady Tressilian -was she quite normal in her manner?"
"Oh, absolutely."
"What did you talk about?"
"Oh, one thing and another."
"Amicably?"
Nevile flushed.
"Certainly."
"You didn't, for instance," went on Leach smoothly, "have a violent quarrel?"
Nevile did not answer at once. Leach said: "You had better tell the truth, you know. I'll tell you frankly some of your conversation was overheard."
Nevile said shortly: "We had a bit of a disagreement. It was nothing."
"What was the subject of the disagreement?"
With an effort Nevile recovered his temper. He smiled.
"Frankly," he said, "she ticked me off. That often happened. If she disapproved of anyone she let them have it straight from the shoulder. She was old-fashioned, you see, and she was inclined to be down on modern ways and modern lines of thought - divorce - all that. We had an argument and I may have got a bit heated, but we parted on perfectly friendly terms - agreeing to differ." He added, with some heat: "I certainly didn't bash her over the head because I lost my temper over an argument - if that's what you think!"
Leach glanced at Battle. Battle leaned forward ponderously across the table. He said: "You recognised that niblick as your property this morning. Have you any explanation for the fact that your fingerprints were found upon it?"
Nevile stared. He said sharply: "I - but of course they would be - it's my club - I've often handled it."
"Any explanation, I mean, for the fact that your fingerprints show that you were the last person to have handled it."
Nevile sat quite still. The colour had gone out of his face.
"That's not true," he said at last. "It can't be. Somebody could have handled it after me - someone wearing gloves."
"No, Mr. Strange - nobody could have handled it in the sense you mean - by raising it to strike - without blurring your own marks."
There was a pause - a very long pause.
"Oh, God," said Nevile convulsively, and gave a long shudder. He put his hands over his eyes. The two policemen watched him.
Then he took away his hands. He sat up straight.
"It isn't true," he said quietly. "It simply isn't true. You think I killed her, but I didn't. I swear I didn't. There's some horrible mistake."
"You've no explanation to offer about these fingerprints?"
"How can I have? I'm dumbfounded."
"Have you any explanation for the fact that the sleeves and cuffs of your dark blue suit are stained with blood."
"Blood ? " It was a horror-struck whisper. "It couldn't be!" "You didn't, for instance, cut yourself -" "No. No, of course I didn't." They waited a little while.
Nevile Strange, his forehead creased, seemed to be thinking. He looked up at them at last with frightened, horror-stricken eyes.
"It's fantastic!" he said. "Simply fantastic. It's none of it true." "Facts are true enough," said Superintendent Battle.
"But why should I do such a thing? It's unthinkable - unbelievable! I've known Camilla all my life."
Leach coughed.
"I believe you told us yourself, Mr. Strange, that you come into a good deal of money upon Lady Tressilian's death?"
"You think, that's why - But I don't want money! I don't need it!" "That," said Leach, with his little cough, "is what you say, Mr. Strange." Nevile sprang up.
"Look here, that's something I can prove. That I didn't need money. Let me ring up my bank manager - you can talk to him yourself."
The call was put through. The line was clear and in a very few minutes they were through to London. Nevile spoke: "That you, Ronaldson? Nevile Strange speaking. You know my voice. Look here, will you give the police - they're here now - all the information they want about my affairs - yes - yes, please."
Leach took the phone. He spoke quietly. It went on, question and answer. He replaced the phone at last. "Well," said Nevile eagerly.
Leach said impassively: "You have a substantial credit balance, and the bank have charge of all your investments and report them to be in a favourable condition."
"So, you see, it's true what I said!"
"It seems so - but, again, Mr. Strange, you may have commitments, debts -payment of blackmail - reasons for requiring money of which we do not know."
"But I haven't! I assure you I haven't. You won't find anything of that kind."
Superintendent Battle shifted his heavy shoulders. He spoke in a kind, fatherly voice.
"We've sufficient evidence, as I'm sure you'll agree, Mr. Strange, to ask for a warrant for your arrest. We haven't done so - as yet. We're giving you the benefit of the doubt, you see."
Nevile said bitterly: "You mean, don't you, that you've made up your minds I did it, but you want to get at the motive, so as to clinch the case against me?"
Battle was silent. Leach looked at the ceiling.
Nevile said desperately: "It's like some awful dream. There's nothing I can say or do. It's like - like being in a trap and you can't get out."
Superintendent Battle stirred. An intelligent gleam showed between his half-closed lids.
"That's very nicely put," he said. "Very nicely put indeed. It gives me an idea ..." VI
Sergeant Jones adroitly got rid of Nevile through the hall and then brought Kay in by the trench window, so that husband and wife did not meet.
"All the better," said Battle. "It's only this one I want to deal with whilst she's still in the dark."
The day was overcast, with a sharp wind. Kay was dressed in a tweed skirt and a purple sweater, above which her hair looked like a burnished copper bowl. She looked half frightened, half excited. Her beauty and vitality bloomed against the dark Victorian background of books and saddleback chairs. Leach led her easily enough over her account of the previous evening.
She had had a headache and gone to bed early - about quarter-past nine, she thought. She had slept heavily and heard nothing until the next morning, when she was wakened by hearing someone screaming.
Battle took up the questioning.
"Your husband didn't come in to see how you were before he went off for the evening?"
"No."
"You didn't see him from the time you left the drawing-room until the following morning. Is that right?"
Kay nodded.
Battle stroked his jaw.
"Mrs. Strange, the door between your room and that of your husband was locked. Who locked it?"
Kay said, shortly: "I did."
Battle said nothing - but he waited - waited like an elderly, fatherly cat - for a mouse to come out of the hole he was watching.
His silence did what questions might not have accomplished. Kay burst out impetuously: "Oh, I suppose you've got to have it all! That old doddering Hurstall must have heard us before tea and he'll tell you if I don't. He's probably told you already. Nevile and I had had a row - a flaming row! I was furious with him! I went up to bed and locked the door, because I was still in a flaming rage with him!"
"I see -I see," said Battle, at his most sympathetic. "And what was the trouble all about?"
"Does it matter? Oh, I don't mind telling you. Nevile has been behaving like a perfect idiot. It's all that woman's fault, though."
"What woman?"
"His first wife. She got him to come here in the first place."
"You mean - to meet you?"
"Yes. Nevile thinks it was all his own idea - poor innocent! But it wasn't. He never thought of such a thing until he met her in the Park one day and she got the idea into his head and made him believe he'd thought of it himself. He quite honestly thinks it was his idea, but I've seen Audrey's fine Italian hand behind it from the first."
"Why should she do such a thing?" asked Battle.
"Because she wanted to get hold of him again," said Kay. She spoke quickly and her breath came fast. "She's never forgiven him for going off with me. This is her revenge. She got him to fix up that we'd all be here together and then she got to work on him. She's been doing it ever since we arrived. She's clever, you know. Knows just how to look pathetic and elusive - yes, and how to play up another man, too. She got Thomas Royde, a faithful old dog who's always adored her, to be here at the same time, and she drove Nevile mad by pretending she was going to marry him."
She stopped, breathing angrily.
Battle said mildly: "I should have thought he'd be glad for her to - er - find happiness with an old friend."
"Glad? He's as jealous as Hell!"
"Then he must be very fond of her."
"Oh, he is," said Kay bitterly. "She's seen to that!"
Battle's finger still ran dubiously over his jaw.
"You might have objected to this arrangement on coming here?" he suggested.
"How could I? It would have looked as though I were jealous!"
"Well," said Battle, "after all, you were, weren't you?"
Kay flushed.
"Always! I've always been jealous of Audrey. Right from the beginning - or nearly the beginning. I used to feel her there in the house. It was as though it were her house, not mine. I changed the colour scheme and did it all up, but it was no good! I'd feel her there like a grey ghost creeping about. I knew Nevile worried because he thought he'd treated her badly. He couldn't quite forget about her -she was always there - a reproachful feeling at the back of his mind. There are people, you know, who are like that. They seem rather colourless and not very interesting - but they make themselves felt."
Battle nodded thoughtfully. He said: "Well, thank you, Mrs. Strange. That's all at present. We have to ask - er - a good many questions - especially with your husband inheriting so much money from Lady Tressilian - fifty thousand pounds -
"Is it as much as that? We get it from old Sir Matthew's will, don't we?" "You know all about it?"
"Oh, yes. He left it to be divided between Nevile and Nevile's wife after Lady Tressilian's death. Not that I'm glad the old thing is dead. I'm not. I didn't like her very much - probably because she didn't like me - but it's too horrible to think of some burglar coming along and cracking her head open."
She went out on that. Battle looked at Leach.
"What do you think of her? Good-looking bit of goods, I will say. A man could lose his head over her easy enough."
Leach agreed. "Doesn't seem to me quite a lady, though," he said, dubiously.
