The Fingerprint (21 page)

FRANK ABBOTT dropped in at Field End on Tuesday morning. He asked for Miss Silver, and she came to him presently with her knitting-bag on her arm and the white woolly shawl now two thirds of the way towards completion wrapped up in a soft old face-towel—one of those fine white ones with a diaper pattern on it now quite out of date and superseded by cleansing tissues. The much faded date in the corner of this one was 1875, and it had been part of the wedding outfit of an aunt.

Miss Silver took out the shawl, spread the towel over her knees, and turned her attention to Frank.

“The enquiries about Sid Turner? Have they had any success?”

He gave a faint shrug.

“Beyond producing considerable alarm and despondency in Maudsley’s office I should say none, if it were not for the fact that to have a perfectly good alibi for Tuesday night is in itself a suspicious circumstance.”

Miss Silver inserted a second needle into the fluffy white cloud on her lap and began to knit with her usual smoothness and rapidity.

“Sid Turner has an alibi?”

“Certainly. You will remember we agreed that he would have one. Blake went down, or shall I say up to Pigeon Hill and saw his landlady and her husband. Retired railwayman and his wife. Nothing against them. Sid has lodged with them for about six months. Mr. Jenkins said he was all right, and Mrs. Jenkins said he was ever so nice. The alibi consists in his coming in to fetch a raincoat about nine o’clock on Tuesday evening, catching his foot in it, and falling down the best part of a flight of stairs. The Jenkinses depose to finding him unconscious in the hall. They roused him with brandy, and Jenkins helped him to bed. There were no bones broken, and he said he didn’t want a doctor. Mrs. Jenkins produced a couple of sleeping-tablets and told him to knock on the floor if he wanted anything. He replied that all he wanted was to be left alone to go to sleep. So they left him. As you are about to observe, he could have got out of the window and just made Lenton on his motorbike in time to ring Jonathan up from there.”

Miss Silver gave a faint doubtful cough.

“It would have been running it very fine, and he would be taking the risk of the Jenkinses looking in to see how he was before they went to bed.”

Frank nodded.

“According to Blake there wasn’t any risk of their doing that. They sleep in the basement and Jenkins keeps off the stairs as much as he can. He’s got a dicky foot, which is why he left the railways, and Mrs. Jenkins weighs about seventeen stone.”

Miss Silver’s needles clicked.

“Did Inspector Blake see Sid Turner?”

“He wasn’t at home. Asked where he was likely to be, Mrs. Jenkins bridled and said she wouldn’t wonder if he was at the Three Pigeons. Very friendly with the lady there he was—a Mrs. Marsh. Her husband had been dead about a twelvemonth, and there were those who thought she might be going to make it up with Sid. And he’d be doing well for himself if she did. Nice bit of money the husband had left her, to say nothing of the pub.”

“So Inspector Blake went round to the Three Pigeons? Was Sid Turner there?”

“He was, and so were a lot of other people. And do you know what they were doing? Celebrating Sid’s engagement to Mrs. Marsh—drinks on the house and a good time being had by all. Sid is a quick worker!”

Miss Silver looked thoughtful.

“If one of the girls in Mr. Maudsley’s office was friendly with him to the point of giving away confidential information, do you not suppose that she would have let him know about Inspector Blake’s visit to the office?”

“She probably did. Why?”

“I was thinking that it would be a clever move to announce his engagement to this Mrs. Marsh. It would cast doubts on the likelihood of his having had designs upon Mirrie and upon anything she might have inherited from Jonathan Field.”

“It may have been that, or it may simply have been that Mirrie being out of the will, and therefore out of the running, Sid was declining upon the not unattractive Mrs. Marsh, her bit of money in the bank, and her flourishing pub. Blake reports him as being very well pleased with himself—in fact cock-a-hoop to the point of impertinence. Pressed as to his movements on Tuesday night, he gave the same account of his fall as the landlady and her husband. He said it knocked him clean out and left him muzzy in the head. Put his hand to the place and said the bump had gone down but it still felt tender. He had crawled into his bed, and certainly had no desire or temptation to leave it. Well, there you are, and we haven’t got a case. We can prove his knowledge of the fact that Jonathan had signed a will in Mirrie’s favour, and that’s all we can prove. Maggie Bell says that the voice which made the appointment with Jonathan Field during a call from Lenton at ten-thirty on the night of the murder was the same voice which had replied to Mirrie’s call at a quarter past eight. Mirrie admits that the person she called was Sid. The number he had given her for an emergency is the number of Mrs. Marsh’s pub, the Three Pigeons. But what Maggie says is just her opinion, and even if it was admitted as evidence, which I should say was doubtful, I don’t think a jury would look at it unless it was backed up by something a good deal more conclusive. You see, we can’t prove that Sid ever set foot in this house, and to have a case against him that is what we have got to do. We could prove motive, but we should have to prove opportunity. We have got, in fact, to prove that he was here in this room on Tuesday night.”

Miss Silver had been listening with an air of bright attention. She now laid down her hands on the mass of white wool in her lap.

“The album!” she said.

“The album?”

“If it was Sid Turner who tore out the page, he could not have done so without handling the album and leaving his prints upon it.”

“The album was, of course, examined for prints. You’ve got to remember that it had Jonathan’s own prints all over it.”

“And no one else’s?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But, Frank, that is in itself a very suspicious circumstance. Someone tore out that page and took Mr. Field’s notes out of the envelope which marked the place.”

He shrugged.

“Well, someone shot Jonathan and was careful to leave no prints. He could have worn gloves, or he could have protected his hand with a handkerchief.”

She said with unusual earnestness,

“Think again, Frank. To have worn gloves must have appeared highly suspicious. So suspicious that it might have led Mr. Field immediately to ring the bell and alarm the house. To carry out the murderer’s plan, Mr. Field must be lulled into a state of security, induced if he has not already done so to get out the album, and to sit down at the table. I think the murderer would certainly have been obliged to remove his gloves. He may, as you suggest, have protected his hand in some way after the murder had taken place, but I think there must have been a time when his hands were bare, and however careful he was he may during that time have touched some object, let us say a table or a chair. Amongst the prints which were taken from this room on Wednesday morning, are there none which have not been identified?”

“You mean—”

“I have remembered something which should have occurred to me before. When I was speaking to Sid Turner after the funeral we were standing to one side of the dining-room against the sideboard. During the first part of our conversation Sid Turner’s hands were a good deal occupied with his drink. He sipped from it, changed it constantly from one hand to the other, and appeared nervous and jerky in his movements. In answer to his questions I had intimated that, as I understood it, Georgina Grey was the principal legatee under Mr. Field’s will. Looking back, I can see that he must have been on the rack of anxiety as to whether Mirrie had misled him, of if she had not, as to what after so short an interval could have happened to the will under which she inherited.”

“In fact quite a nasty moment.”

“When Sid Turner had set down his drink his restless mannerisms increased. He put his hands in his pockets and took them out again, and then, whilst suggesting that Mr. Field could have been murdered and the page in his album torn out by someone who might be compromised by the fingerprint preserved upon it, he began a kind of nervous tapping upon the edge of the sideboard. He appeared, in fact, to be tapping out a tune. But the tapping was done in an unusual way, and it is to this that I wish to draw your attention. During all the time that I was observing him his hand was held sideways and the tapping was on the under surface of an overlapping edge. It came to me to wonder whether he might not have left his prints in this room, under the arm of the chair in which he sat or under the edge of the table. I do not, of course, know whether this way of tapping was a constant mannerism with him, but he employed it at a moment of tension when he was talking to me, and when I recalled this just now I considered that I had better mention it.”

He said quickly,

“Oh, yes—yes—I’ll go into it with Smith. As to there being any unidentified prints, there were some he was enquiring about.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“If it can be proved that Sid Turner was in this room, it will have been proved that he had the opportunity of murdering Mr. Field.”

Frank Abbott drew the telephone fixture towards him and rang up Lenton police station. There was a little coming and going before Inspector Smith was on the line. Miss Silver had resumed her knitting. Frank said,

“That you Smith? Abbott speaking. Those prints in the Field End case—there were one or two which hadn’t been identified. There was something about a man coming up to take measurements for curtains, wasn’t there? You thought they might be his, but there was a difficulty in tracing him— gone off to another job. Have you caught up with him?… Oh, you have? Good! Well, what about it? Are those unidentified dabs his?… Oh, they’re not? Well, well— All right, I’ll come in and have a look at them. Be seeing you.”

MISS CUMMINS had always made a point of arriving early at the office. This Tuesday morning just a week after Jonathan Field had come in about the final instructions as to his new will was no exception. She could indeed have been a couple of hours earlier, since she had not slept all night. She had her own key. When she had let herself in, taken off hat, coat, and gloves, and ordered her already tidy hair, she sat down to wait for Jenny Gregg and Florrie Hackett, who would be on time but not before it. Mr. Maudsley would not appear until the half hour had struck, if then, and in his absence Miss Cummins was in charge. She sat down to wait.

The thoughts which had prevented her from sleeping were still agonizingly present. During the night a few hard-won tears had forced themselves beneath her straining eyelids, but now in this desert of ruined hopes they were as dry as if its dust were physical. She had seen the last of Sid Turner. A cold shudder went through her at the thought that she did not even want to see him again. She had ruined herself for him and she didn’t want to see him again. As she sat talking to him in the back of the empty tea-room a number of things had come home to her with dreadful finality. He did not care for her. He had never cared for her. He cared for money, and he cared for Sid Turner. He had used her, and now he would drop her. She thought that he had murdered Jonathan Field.

Florrie and Jenny came in. Jenny had been crying. She was a pretty, fair girl with fluffy hair and a fine skin. She had powdered over the tear marks but they showed. Everything showed when you had a skin as fine as that. She sat down at her desk and began to be busy.

When Mr. Maudsley arrived he went straight to his room. Jenny said in a high, thin voice,

“He’ll ring in a minute, and when I go in he’ll give me the sack.”

Florrie said comfortably,

“Well, suppose he does—there are lots of good jobs to be had.”

Jenny dashed away a tear.

“Not without a reference there aren’t. They’ll want to know what I’ve been doing, won’t they? I’ve been here three years, and they’ll want to know why I’ve left, and when he tells them it was for talking out of turn, who’s going to take me on?” She dragged a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes. “I wouldn’t mind, only I can’t afford to be out of a job with Mum the way she is. And I swear I never said a word—not to anyone!”

The sound of Mr. Maudsley’s bell came in upon them. Bertha Cummins had been standing by the window with her back to the room. She turned round, saw Florrie Hackett with an arm round Jenny’s shoulders, and spoke.

“I’ll see what Mr. Maudsley wants. I have to see him anyhow.” She went through the connecting door and shut it behind her.

Mr. Maudsley was at his table. He lifted a frowning face and said,

“Oh, it’s you, Miss Cummins. Good-morning. Send Miss Gregg in to me, will you. I suppose she’s here. I’d better see her now and get it over. It’s a most unpleasant business.”

She stood in front of the table, her fingertips touching the edge.

“What makes you so sure that it was Miss Gregg who talked, Mr. Maudsley?”

He looked up at her. He was still frowning.

“Why, the whole thing. She’s just the sort of girl this Sid Turner would try and pick up with—pretty, not too many brains, a bit of the come hither in her eye. She’s been here how long—three years, and there’s been nothing to complain of in the office. Naturally, you would see to that. But I’ve passed her in the street before now, giggling with some young man or other. Then there was the way she took it when I spoke to her about the leakage—burst into tears right away almost before I’d got a word out.”

Bertha Cummins said in a forced flat voice,

“She would be afraid of losing her job. She has an invalid mother to support.”

“Really, Miss Cummins, I think that is beside the point! This office is not a charitable institution. You can’t expect me to overlook a thing of this kind, now can you?”

She said,

“No. But it wasn’t Miss Gregg who talked, Mr. Maudsley. It was I.”

Mr. Maudsley gazed at her in a quite stupefied silence. He had heard what she said, but his mind was refusing to accept it or to deal with it in any way. He looked at her, and became aware of her pallor and of the fixity of her regard. As an alternative to taking in what she had said, he snatched at the idea that she was ill. She never had any colour, and he was used to that, but she now looked—the word that came into his mind was ghastly. He heard himself say,

“Miss Cummins, you are ill.”

She just stood there, her eyes fixed upon his face.

“Oh, no. It wasn’t Miss Gregg who talked. It was I.”

The unbelievable truth began to penetrate his thought.

“Do you know what you are saying?”

“Oh, yes. I told him about the will.”

“I can’t believe it!”

“I told him.”

“What made you do such a thing as that? It wasn’t— money?”

She shook her head.

“Oh, no, I thought he—cared for me. He made me think he did. I thought he wanted to know about what went on in the office because he liked to know what I was doing—because he cared. It was the first time anybody had ever cared what I did. I thought he cared. I know now that he only wanted to find out about—the—will—” Her voice got slower and slower and the words just faded away. It was like hearing a gramophone record run down.

Mr. Maudsley did not know when he had been so much shocked. If there was anyone in this world for whose integrity he would have vouched, it was Miss Cummins. He did not know what to say to her. He only knew that he must bring this painful interview to a close. He must have time to adjust himself, to think what must be done next. The thought of Jenny Gregg presented itself, and he snatched at it.

“I had better see Miss Gregg,” he said. “This has been a shock. I must think what I had better say to her. Do you happen to know, is she under the impression that any distinct accusation has been brought?”

“She knows that she was suspected. She has been a good deal distressed.”

Even now he couldn’t break himself of the old habit of consulting her. He said,

“How would it be if I had her and Miss Hackett in together and just told them I was quite satisfied that they are not responsible for the leakage? Then after I have seen them I will ring again for you. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Atkins will be here at eleven about the winding up of that family trust. You were going to let me have a memorandum so that I can give him the whole thing in a nutshell.”

She said, “I’ll see about it,” just as if this was an ordinary day. But as she went out of the room it was in her mind that this might be the last time she would leave it as an employee of the firm. Now that Mr. Maudsley knew she was not to be trusted he would probably want her to leave at once.

Jenny and Florrie went in and he said his piece to them, cutting it as short as he could. They came back with beaming faces, and obviously with no idea that the blame had been transferred.

“I’m sure you must have spoken up for us. You did, didn’t you, Miss Cummins?”

“I did what I could, Jenny.”

Florrie said,

“He was quite different this morning. He said not to think about it any more. Thank you ever so, Miss Cummins!”

She sat at her table, putting the notes about the Atkins family trust in order and waiting for Mr. Maudsley’s bell to ring, doing her accustomed work just as if nothing had happened, and thinking that it was for the last time. After today there would be no more work, and no more money coming in. She hadn’t saved a great deal. There had been what she thought of in her own mind as calls. A helpless younger sister left a widow with four children—she couldn’t say no to Louie. At least she couldn’t go on saying no, and there was no end to the asking.

Mr. Maudsley sat back in his chair and endeavoured to order his thoughts. The sense of shock dominated everything. His mind went back over the twenty-five years during which the plain, shy girl of nineteen had been developing into an invaluable head clerk. During all those years he had never known her to fail in the most conscientious application to her duties. And as to honesty and trustworthiness, he had taken them so completely for granted that he would as soon have thought of questioning his own.

She would, of course, have to go.

His reaction to this was immediate and vehement. She would be quite irreplaceable. Experience recalled the discomforts of her annual holiday, and provided even more vividly and pertinently a recollection of the time she had been laid up for six weeks with a broken leg. He had not been able to put his hand on anything, he had not known where anything was. He had completely forgotten a memorandum which might have made all the difference in the Smithers case. Fortunately, Miss Cummins had come back just in time to enable them to use it. He had never had to remember these things. Miss Cummins remembered them for him. She forgot nothing, overlooked nothing. She was devoted, reliable, indispensable. He had a sudden picture of her standing on the other side of his table, telling him that once in those twenty-five years she had given something away, and waiting for his judgment. He remembered her ghastly look as she waited. And she was waiting still.

Indispensable.

The word pushed through all these thoughts and stood there boldly with its feet planted upon the hard dry ground of common sense.

He stretched out his hand and rang the bell.