“Well, that’s a queer turn, Mr. Fortune,” the chief constable said. “I’d have to swear I saw nothing wrong with her frock, and yet this is like it - just as the hair was like hers. I’d better get on to her maid quick.”
“Oh, yes. Try everything,” said Reggie drearily. “The last trial - -”
He sat in the gunroom smoking a pipe with closed eyes when the chief constable came back from the lady’s maid. “It has me beat, Mr. Fortune. Her skirt’s torn now, and this bit o’ stuff matches the tear. But the maid swears blind the skirt wasn’t damaged when she put it away last night, and I’d have to back her, you see. Somebody must have faked the bit of cloth.”
“Yes. Somebody did. I knew that as soon as I saw it. It wasn’t there this morning. Which is fatal. All the evidence has gone to the devil.”
“I suppose so. I can’t make anything of it.”
“My dear chap! Oh, my dear chap!” Reggie blew smoke - rings. “All quite clear. Charmin’ young wife shot him, as stated. Lots of motives. She’d found out he was carrying on with the Healy woman; she’d learnt that he was a beast as a husband - he would be; when he was dead, she’d have herself and his money to give to somebody else.”
“My God! You mean Oliver Maminot?”
“It could be. However. She shot Burchard. Chose the particular moment because Mrs. Healy was in the house: which would confuse the issue. As it has. Suspicion’ was roused against Mrs. Healy. When she found that out, she ran away to make evidence against Ann.”
“You mean it was Mrs. Healy tore the frock and put the bit of cloth there?”
“Oh, yes. No proof. Never will be. But quite certain. Nobody but Mrs. Healy had any motive. Mrs. Healy knew we thought Burchard was shot from the priest’s hole, and so provided for us evidence that it wasn’t her who had been there, but Ann. Very ingenious. Very kind. With the result of smashing my perfectly good evidence that it was Ann did the murder. So we daren’t do anything. We know Ann murdered him; if we tried to prove it, any jury in the world would decide that the evidence against her was fraud. As it is. Humorous case. Depressin’ case. Impairs faith in the nature of things. All silly; all futile.”
“It is a rotten business,” the chief constable agreed. “We’re beat. We can’t do a thing. The young woman will have to tell her story, I daren’t challenge it, and the verdict will be death by misadventure. Burchard was examining the gun, and shot himself by accident.”
“Yes. Very disheartenin’. What is truth?” Reggie sighed. “Well, well. I want to go home.”
As they made their way to the door, Oliver Maminot met them, with Ann behind him. “I say - Mrs. Burchard tells me you’ve been bothering her about the priest’s hole upstairs,” he said fiercely.
“Oh. You knew it was there?” Reggie smiled.
“Of course I did. What I want to say is, Burchard knew, and Mrs. Healy knew. It’s always been an owner’s secret. So I told them, but nobody else. Do you understand?”
“Yes. Absolutely,” Reggie murmured. “Where were you yesterday afternoon?”
Maminot laughed. “It’s me now, is it? All right. Get on with it.”
“Oh, don’t,” Ann cried. “You were in London. You know you were.”
“Yes. I’m sure he was,” Reggie said. “All very well done.” He gazed at Ann’s sad, beautiful face with dreamy admiration. “But you’d better not do it again. Good - bye.”
As he drove away, his car passed Mrs. Mead’s, which was bringing her maternal spirit to condole with Ann. His one consolation in the case is that he has never been asked to Mrs. Mead’s house again.
THIRD OBJECTION:
THE LITTLE FINGER
IN A SCRAPBOOK of Mr. Fortune’s which is labelled “Critics: Vol. VII” there is a postcard. It comes between an analyst’s report and a frantic letter in a woman’s hand. The analyst records the amount of strychnine found in a brace of partridges sent to Mr. Fortune’s house, October n, 1931. Mr. Fortune’s neat handwriting adds: “Varley certified insane i5.x.3i. Not by me.” The woman’s letter is a summons to meet her at the Day of Judgment and answer for the blood of Clement Smith, whose child she has just borne. Mr. Fortune’s annotation is: “Fifth and only surviving wife of Clement.”
The postcard is stamped with the postmark of London, 8.17, which is the suburb of Bournham. It is inscribed, in block letters, with the simple message:
“GOOD FOR YOU CULLY.” Beneath it, Mr. Fortune has written: “The little finger.”
He has been heard to describe it as the most damaging criticism of police work in his experience, and a criticism wholly justified. Yet he takes a candid pride in its personal tribute. That, he insists, was quite sincere, and it came from one of the very few experts whose praise he would value.
His part in the case was, however, played throughout under protest. He was, by his own estimate of the course of things, never in control, he was merely the collaborator who makes objections. The whole of the original, inventive work was done by others - not, as he points out amiably to the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department, by the police.
On a brisk morning of early March, Superintendent Bell came to see him. Mr. Fortune does not like brisk mornings. He was curled up before his fire with a pipe and a volume of Remy de Gourmont. At Bell’s square red face he gazed with sorrow. “Oh, my Bell! Welcome wild north - easter. Which I never could. You look offensively ruddy and strenuous. You mustn’t work it off on me. No.”
“Well, I did rather want your advice, sir. It’s a matter of a burglary - -”
“Oh, no. No.” Reggie squirmed and sat up, looking reproach. “Not in my line. Not for me, Bell.”
