"It was very cunningly planned by someone who thought themselves very clever. Murderers are usually vain. There was first the superficial unsatisfactory evidence against Nevile Strange which we were meant to see through. But, having been presented with one lot of faked evidence, it was not considered likely that we should consider a second edition of the same thing. And yet, if you come to look at it, all the evidence against Audrey Strange could be faked. The weapon taken from her fireplace, her gloves - the left-hand glove dipped in blood - hidden in the ivy outside her window. The powder she uses dusted on the inside of a coat collar, and a few hairs placed there, too. Her own fingerprint, occurring quite naturally on a roll of adhesive plaster taken from her room. Even the left-handed nature of the blow."
"And there was the final damning evidence of Mrs. Strange herself -I don't believe there's one of you (except the one who knows) who can credit her innocence after the way she behaved when we took her into custody. Practically admitted her guilt, didn't she? I mightn't have believed in her being innocent myself if it hadn't been for a private experience of my own ... Struck me right between the eyes, it did, when I saw and heard her - because, you see, I'd known another girl who did that very same thing, who admitted guilt when she wasn't guilty - and Audrey Strange was looking at me with that other girl's eyes ..."
"I'd got to do my duty. I knew that. We police officers have to act on evidence -not on what we feel and think. But I can tell you that at that minute I prayed for a miracle - because I didn't see that anything but a miracle was going to help that poor lady."
"Well, I got my miracle. Got it right away!"
"'Mr. MacWhirter, here, turned up with his story."
He paused.
"Mr. MacWhirter, will you repeat what you told me up at the house?"
MacWhirter turned. He spoke in short, sharp sentences that carried conviction just because of their conciseness.
He told of his rescue from the cliff the preceding January and of his wish to revisit the scene. He went on: "I went up there on Monday night. I stood there lost in my own thoughts. It must have been, I suppose, in the neighbourhood of eleven o'clock. I looked across at that house on the point - Gull's Point, as I know it now to be."
He paused and then went on: "There was a rope hanging from a window of that house into the sea. I saw a man climbing up that rope ..."
Just a moment elapsed before they took it in. Mary Aldin cried out: "Then it was an outsider after all? It was nothing to do with any of us. It was an ordinary burglar!"
"Not quite so fast," said Battle. "It was someone who came from the other side of the river, yes, since he swam across. But someone in the house had to have the rope ready for him, therefore someone inside must have been concerned."
He went on slowly: "And we know of someone who was on the other side of the river that night - someone who wasn't seen between ten-thirty and a quarter-past eleven, and who might have been swimming over and back. Someone who might have had a friend on this side of the water."
He added: "Eh, Mr. Latimer?"
Ted took a step backward. He cried out shrilly: "But I can't swim! Everybody knows I can't swim. Kay, tell them I can't swim."
"Of course Ted can't swim!" Kay cried. "Is that so?" asked Battle pleasantly.
He moved along the boat as Ted moved in the other direction. There was some clumsy movement and a splash.
"Dear me," said Superintendent Battle in deep concern. "Mr. Latimer's gone overboard."
His hand closed like a vice on Nevile's arm as the latter was preparing to jump in after him.
"No, no, Mr. Strange. No need for you to get yourself wet. There are two of my men handy - fishing in the dinghy there." He peered over the side of the boat. "It's quite true," he said with interest. "He can't swim. It's all right. They've got him. I'll apologise presently, but, really, there's only one way to make quite sure that a person can't swim and that's to throw them in and watch. You see, Mr. Strange, I like to be thorough. I had to eliminate Mr. Latimer first. Mr. Royde, here, has got a groggy arm; he couldn't do any rope-climbing."
Battle's voice took on a purring quality.
"So that brings us to you, doesn't it, Mr. Strange? A good athlete, a mountain climber, a swimmer, and all that. You went over on the 10.30 ferry all right, but no one can swear to seeing you at the Easterhead Hotel until a quarter-past eleven in spite of your story of having been looking for Mr. Latimer then."
Nevile jerked his arm away. He threw back his head and laughed. "You suggest that I swam across the river and climbed op a rope -" "Which you had left ready hanging from your window," said Battle.
"Killed Lady Tressilian and swam back again? Why should I do such a fantastic thing? And who laid all those clues against me? I suppose I laid them against myself?"
"Exactly," said Battle. "And not half a bad idea, either." "And why should I want to kill Camilla Tressilian?"
"You didn't," said Battle. "But you did want to hang the woman who left you for another man. You're a bit unhinged mentally, you know. Have been ever since you were a child - I've looked up that old bow and arrow case, by the way. Anyone who does you an injury has to be punished - and death doesn't seem to you an excessive penalty for them to pay. Death by itself wasn't enough for Audrey - your Audrey whom you loved - oh, yes, you loved her all right, before your love turned to hate. You had to think of some special kind of death, some long-drawn-out specialised death. And when you'd thought of it, the fact that it entailed the killing of a woman who had been something like a mother to you didn't worry you in the least ..."
Nevile said, and his voice was quite gentle: "All lies! All lies! And I'm not mad. I'm not mad."
Battle said contemptuously: "Flicked you on the raw, didn't she, when she went off and left you for another man? Hurt your vanity? To think she should walk out on you. You salved your pride by pretending to the world at large that you'd left her and you married another girl who was in love with you just to bolster up that belief. But underneath you planned what you'd do to Audrey. You couldn't think of anything worse than this - to get her hanged. A fine idea - pity you hadn't the brains to carry it out better!"
Nevile's tweed-coated shoulders moved, a queer, wriggling movement.
Battle went on: "Childish - all that niblick stuff! Those crude trails pointing to you! Audrey must have known what you were after! She must have laughed up her sleeve! Thinking I didn't suspect you! You murderers are funny little fellows! So puffed up. Always thinking you've been clever and resourceful and really being quite pitifully childish ..."
It was a strange, queer scream that came from Nevile.
"It was a clever idea - it was. You'd never have guessed. Never! Not if it hadn't been for this interfering jackanapes, this pompous Scotch fool. I'd thought out every detail - every detail! I can't help what went wrong. How was I to know Royde knew the truth about Audrey and Adrian? Audrey and Adrian ... Curse Audrey - she shall hang - you've got to hang her -I want her to die afraid - to die - to die ... I hate her. I tell you I want her to die ..."
The high, whinnying voice died away. Nevile slumped down and began to cry quietly.
"Oh, God," said Mary Aldin. She was white to the lips.
Battle said gently, in a low voice: "I'm sorry, but I had to push him over the edge ... There was precious little evidence, you know."
Nevile was still whimpering. His voice was like a child's.
"I want her to be hanged. I do want her to be hanged ..."
Mary Aldin shuddered and turned to Thomas Royde.
He took her hands in his.
II
"I was always frightened," said Audrey.
They were sitting on the terrace. Audrey sat close to Superintendent Battle. Battle had resumed his holiday and was at Gull's Point as a friend.
"Always frightened - all the time," said Audrey.
Battle said, nodding his head: "I knew you were dead scared first moment I saw you. And you'd got that colourless, reserved way people have who are holding some very strong emotion in check. It might have been love or hate, but actually it was fear, wasn't it?"
She nodded.
"I began to be afraid of Nevile soon after we were married. But the awful thing is, you see, that I didn't know why. I began to think that I was mad."
"It wasn't you," said Battle.
"Nevile seemed to me when I married him so particularly sane and normal -always delightfully good-tempered and pleasant."
"Interesting," said Battle. "He played the part of the good sportsman, you know. That's why he could keep his temper so well at tennis. His role as a good sportsman was more important to him than winning matches. But it put a strain upon him, of course; playing a part always does. He got worse underneath."
"Underneath," whispered Audrey with a shudder. "Always underneath. Nothing you could get hold of. Just sometimes a word or a look and then I'd fancy I'd imagined it ... Something queer. And then, as I say, I thought I must be queer. And I went on getting more and more afraid - the kind of unreasoning fear, you know, that makes you sick!"
"I told myself I was going mad. That I couldn't help it I felt I'd do anything in the world to get away! And then Adrian came and told me he loved me, and I thought it would be wonderful to go away with him, and he said ..."
She stopped.
"You know what happened? I went off to meet Adrian - he never came ... he was killed ... I felt as though Nevile had managed it, somehow."
"Perhaps he did," said Battle. Audrey turned a startled face to him. "Oh, do you think so?"
"We'll never know now. Motor accidents can be arranged. Don't brood on it, though, Mrs. Strange. As likely as not, it just happened naturally."
"I -I was all broken up. I went back to the Rectory - Adrian's home. We were to have written to his mother, but as she didn't know about us, I thought I wouldn't tell her and give her pain. And Nevile came almost at once. He was very nice -and kind - and all the time I talked to him I was quite sick with fear! He said no one need know about Adrian, that I could divorce him on evidence he would send me and that he was going to remarry afterwards. I felt so thankful. I knew he had thought Kay attractive and I hoped that everything would turn out right and that I should get over this queer obsession of mine. I still thought it must be me."
"But I couldn't get rid of it - quite. I never felt I'd really escaped. And then I met Nevile in the Park one day and he explained that he did so want me and Kay to be friends and suggested that we should all come here in September. I couldn't refuse - how could I? After all the kind things he'd done."
"'Will you walk into my parlour? Said the spider to the fly,'" remarked Superintendent Battle.
Audrey shivered. "Yes, just that ..."
"Very clever he was about that," said Battle. "Protested so loudly to everyone that it was his idea, that everyone at once got the impression that it wasn't."
Audrey said: "And then I got here - and it was like a kind of nightmare. I knew something awful was going to happen -I knew Nevile meant it to happen - and that it was to happen to me. But I didn't know what it was. I think, you know, that I nearly did go off my head! I was just paralysed with fright - like you are in a dream when something's going to happen and you can't move ..."
"I've always thought," said Superintendent Battle, "that I'd like to have seen a snake fascinate a bird so that it can't fly away - but now I'm not so sure."
Audrey went on.
"Even when Lady Tressilian was killed I didn't realise what it meant. I was puzzled. I didn't even suspect Nevile. I knew he didn't care about money - it was absurd to think he'd kill her in order to inherit fifty thousand pounds."
"I thought over and over again about Mr. Treves and the story he had told that evening. Even then I didn't connect it with Nevile. Treves had mentioned some physical peculiarity by which he could recognise the child of long ago. I've got a scar on my ear, but I don't think anyone else has any sign that you'd notice."
Battle said: "Miss Aldin has a lock of white hair. Thomas Royde has a stiff right arm, which might not have been only the result of an earthquake. Mr. Ted Latimer has rather an odd-shaped skull. And Nevile Strange -"
He paused.
"Surely there was no physical peculiarity about Nevile?"
"Oh, yes, there was. His left-hand little finger is shorter than his right. That's very unusual, Mrs. Strange - very unusual indeed."
"So that was it?"
"That was it."
"And Nevile hung that sign on the lift?"
"Yes. Nipped down there and back whilst Royde and Latimer were giving the old boy drinks. Clever and simple - doubt if we could ever prove that was murder."
Audrey shivered again.
"Now, now," said Battle. "It's all over now, my dear. Go on talking."
"You're very clever ... I haven't talked so much for years!"
"No, that's what's been wrong. When did it first dawn on you what Master Nevile's game was?"
"I don't know exactly. It came to me all at once. He himself had been cleared and that left all of us. And then, suddenly, I saw him looking at me - a sort of gloating look. And I knew! That was when -" She stopped abruptly.
"That was when what - ?"
Audrey said slowly: "When I thought a quick way out would be - best."
Superintendent Battle shook his head.
"Never give in. That's my motto."
"Oh, you're quite right. But you don't know what it does to you being so afraid for so long. It paralyses you - you can't think - you can't plan - you just wait for something awful to happen. And then, when it does happen" - she gave a sudden, quick smile - "you'd be surprised at the relief! No more waiting and fearing - it's come. You'll think I'm quite demented, I suppose, if I tell you that when you came to arrest me for murder I didn't mind at all. Nevile had done his worst and it was over. I felt so safe going off with Inspector Leach."
