The Greatest Murder Mysteries - Dorothy Fielding Collection. Dorothy Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ woman with something very forbidding in his stern face. He towered over her. He stood six feet three. She paled. But her eyes remained watchful and ready. Again she swept the table beside her, her gaze now following the motion of her hand.

      "You're right," she said suddenly, speaking in a pleasant, conversational voice. "You're quite right. When I got back from the library, or rather from the tea-room a little before six, I went in to the morning-room to tell Mrs. Tangye about not bringing her any book. I found her—dead! Just as Florence did a little later. I was so horrified...It was such a shock. I managed to get to my rooms. But once there—I think I fainted. I had just pulled myself together when I heard Florence scream, and ran down to the front door. As you guessed. Frankly, I cannot see what is wrong in my not saying that I saw poor Mrs. Tangye a moment before the maid did. And lost my nerve in consequence for a few seconds."

      Pointer made no comment on this amended account.

      A question put by him as to whether she had ever met Mrs. Tangye's cousin Oliver was answered in the negative. She did not even know, she said, that Mrs. Tangye had a relative alive.

      Florence came in next. She was very nervous, but Haviland soon put her at her ease.

      Pointer, apparently for Wilmot's sake—seemed much interested in Mrs. Tangye's directions about her expected visitor. Especially in her order that she was definitely, and distinctly "not at home," to any other caller. No matter whom.

      "She told me that I wasn't to worry if Mrs. Cranbourn was late. Very late. As the boat train was often hours behind time."

      "Worry?" Pointer echoed, "what did she mean by that?"

      "I suppose that I wasn't to worry her," Florence suggested shrewdly, "the mistress couldn't abide fuss. Never liked me to go in and out much. Oh, I had to make my head save my heels with Mrs. Tangye, I assure you, sir. I think she spoke as she did to stop my bothering her with more hot water, or freshly-toasted cakes."

      "That was quite usual, was it?"

      It was. Florence repeated that there had been nothing in the least unusual, or out of the way, in her mistress's manner or directions yesterday, and also that nothing however trifling had happened then, or before, which she had not already told.

      "How was it that the police only found a couple of logs alight in the morning-room fireplace when they were here yesterday evening? Was the fire only lit very late?" Pointer asked casually.

      "Oh, that fire!" Florence clasped tragic hands.

      She told them that the chimney was always uncertain, but that yesterday it had distinguished itself. Nothing the maids could do would make it burn, let alone blaze. From before breakfast until the hour set for tea it had smoked sullenly. "I wonder that Mrs. Tangye didn't use another room," Pointer mused.

      "You'd have wondered more, sir, if you'd seen how thick it was in there. Fit to kipper a haddock, it was really." Florence went on to tell how she had urged her mistress to let her bring the tea-things into the drawing-room, as on other occasions when the morning-room chimney had been tiresome; but Mrs. Tangye would not hear of it.

      "The wind changed after four, I noticed when I opened the door at six that the fire was behaving itself—all things considered—better than I'd hoped."

      The fireplace was in the main part of the room.

      "Wasn't the room cold?"

      "Not so bad when the windows were shut, for the kitchen chimney warms it then, but it was bitter when I brought in the tea-things. Mrs. Tangye had to keep the windows open because of the smoke. She must have shut them later on when the fire began to blaze up."

      Florence was as certain as she had been at the inquest that the windows were tightly fastened when she caught sight of her dead mistress.

      "Tell us once more about the visitor, what did she look like?" Wilmot asked, on Pointer glancing at him.

      "Mrs. Cranbourn, sir? Sort of stout and all muffled up in a fur coat with a large collar up to her eyes. Very wheezy voice. I couldn't notice much, for she stepped past me at once, saying, 'I'm most frightfully late, I'm afraid.' She was talking and moving all in one breath. I opened the morning-door and went forward saying, 'Mrs. Cranbourn to see you'm. But when I got to the alcove—" The rest they knew.

      She had no idea what had become of the caller. "I suppose she caught sight over my shoulder of Mrs. Tangye. At any rate I didn't see her no more. But when I think of the poor mistress sitting there—"

      "Did the visitor step towards the morning-room as though she knew the house?" Pointer asked.

      "She did. Mrs. Tangye always has tea in there in winter."

      "Then the lady must have been to Riverview before?"

      "Very likely. But not in my time. I've only been here a year. Mrs. Cranbourn must have known the house from before then."

      "Are you sure it was Mrs. Cranbourn?" Pointer asked quietly.

      "Why, who else could it be, sir? At that hour, and all bundled up from a journey?" Florence stared at the Chief Inspector as though he must be strangely dense not to see this for himself.

      "That's true. She was very agitated, you said, I think?"

      "She was in a frightful rush, sir. She almost shoved past me. But there! We little know! The next moment I must have pushed past her to get out of the room!"

      Florence could not amplify her account of the caller. The shock of finding Mrs. Tangye dead had wiped away all clear remembrance of the woman whose arrival had led to the discovery.

      Pointer turned the subject.

      "Mrs. Tangye's dress looks to me rather handsome. All that fur and silver embroidery. Isn't it more elaborate than she usually wore of an afternoon?"

      "Oh, yes, sir. Mrs. Tangye dressed very quiet. That frock was going to be worn at a wedding next week."

      "Had she had it on before?"

      "Once. This last Monday."

      "Ah yes, the day she sent you to Jay's."

      Pointer went over the Monday too, very carefully with Florence. He learnt nothing fresh.

      Coming again to Tuesday, and to the missing keys, Florence said she was sure that she had seen them lying on the top of her mistress's writing bureau when she was in the room at four.

      Pointer glanced at Wilmot.

      "You look a clever girl," Wilmot said flatteringly, "what's your opinion of this sad affair? Your honest opinion as between friends. The inquest is over now."

      "Oh, sir, of course it was an accident! She didn't kill herself I Not she! Why, there's that evening-dress. She'd only just ordered it. You don't throw away sixty pounds for nothing, do you? At least Mrs. Tangye didn't. And those shoes that were being made to match. Oh no, sir. It was an accident. Mrs. Tangye did something careless-like with that Webley of hers, and that was that!"

      "As a matter of fact, have you ever see her handling the revolver when you were in the room?" Haviland asked.

      "I shouldn't have been in the room long, if I had, you СКАЧАТЬ