Danger Point

Chapter 33

LOOK here,” cried March – “when I went up to Tanfield Court to get their statements I had this business of the coat in my mind – the tests were in fact already being made – so before I came away I got all their handprints. Not that the faintest suspicion attached to anyone except Pell at that time, but the coat having so recently passed out of Mrs. Jerningham’s possession, the probability of finding her own prints and those of her family were strong, and to be certain of Pell’s it would be necessary to identify these others. That was what was in my mind – nothing else. I got the prints and I came away. The whole thing, you must understand, was just an experiment. I didn’t in fact – I couldn’t in fact – expect it to have any value as evidence, because even if Pell’s prints were all over the coat it wouldn’t prove that he had done the girl in. He was her lover if he wasn’t her murderer. The prints might just as well be there because they had been embracing. In fact I was prepared to play with Hudson ’s process but not to take it into court, where, as you say, any jury would treat it with contempt. I really expected nothing – nothing.”

“And what did you get?” enquired Miss Silver with interest.

“More than I’d bargained for. Look here – here are the prints of the Jerningham family.” He picked up a small case, opened it, and took out a sheaf of papers. “We needn’t bother about the women. Mrs. Jerningham’s prints and Cissie’s own were on the front of the coat. But it’s the back that’s interesting. Here is Dale Jerningham’s hand print I took at Tanfield – here is his cousin Rafe’s – and here is Pell’s. Well, I can’t show you the coat, so you’ll just have to take my word for the prints on it. Pell’s prints are all over the place. One very clear indeed, right across the shoulder seam up by the collar. He might have had his arm round her neck, or he might have caught her there to push her over the edge.”

“Very shocking indeed,” said Miss Silver.

“Then, right in the middle of the back between the shoulders, Dale Jerningham’s hand – at least I think it’s Dale Jerningham’s hand. It’s not a good print because it’s all messed up with Pell’s prints. But – though there’s no certainty of this – all the three people who have seen them incline to the belief that the Jerningham print is superimposed upon the Pell prints.”

“There is no certainty of that?”

He shook his head.

“There is no certainty of anything. It is all very confused, and, as you were about to observe, nothing in the world could be more natural than to find a print of Dale Jerningham’s hand on his wife’s coat.”

Miss Silver said without looking up.

“It is a most shocking idea, but if Mr. Dale Jerningham mistook this young woman who was wearing his wife’s coat for Mrs. Jerningham and pushed her over the cliff, that is in fact where you would naturally expect to find an impression of his hand.”

March flung down the papers he was holding and turned from the gimcrack table which supported his attaché case.

“And what do you suppose I should look like if I produced that theory on this evidence – a new-fangled American process which not one person in a million has ever heard about, and the confused and doubtful prints of a man’s hand on a coat which only passed out of his wife’s possession an hour before the murder took place!”

Miss Silver continued to knit.

“When did Mrs. Jerningham last wear the coat?”

“I asked her that – rang up before the inquest. I didn’t want the question raised there if I could help it.”

“And when did she wear it?”

“Sunday evening,” said March.

“Sunday to Wednesday – would a print last all that time?”

“If there was nothing to disturb it – and there wasn’t. She put the coat in a cupboard, and Cissie Cole went away with it over her arm folded inside out. Also you’ve got to consider that the weather has been particularly favourable for making a good print. Everybody’s hand would be on the moist side.”

“What are you going to do?” said Miss Silver in an interested voice.

He threw himself into his chair again.

“I don’t know. Consider my position for a moment. I’ve just come here with a bit of a feather in my cap for which a good many thanks are due to you. Old Black, the Superintendent here, is away sick. I’m told he won’t come back, and I’ve been given to understand that I’m likely to step into his shoes. I’m a reasonably ambitious man and I’ve got my foot on the ladder. Well, what happens if I lead off with a set of more or less unsubstantiated accusations and suggestions against one of the leading families in the county? There isn’t a jury in the world that would consider that handprint as evidence against Dale Jerningham. There isn’t a jury in the world that wouldn’t hang Pell on what we’ve got against him – motive, opportunity, subsequent guilty behaviour – he bolted right away – threats uttered in the presence of witnesses. What have I got to put up against all that – and whistle my prospects down the wind to do it?”

Miss Silver put down her knitting and rested her hands upon it. Her small greyish eyes regarded him in an acutely intelligent manner. From what he had said she plucked one word.

“Family,” she said – “you spoke of something against the family. Did you use the expression as a synonym for Mr. Dale Jerningham, or in a wider sense?”

He stared at her.

“How did you get at that?”

“It was not at all difficult to see that you were keeping something back. I really think it would be better if you were to tell me everything.”

He put up a protesting hand.

“Oh, I was going to, I was going to. But you don’t give one time. I just wanted to dispose of Dale Jerningham before we went on to the others. When I spoke of the family I meant the family. Dale and Lady Steyne were together all the evening. If he pushed the girl over that cliff, she must know something about it. If she didn’t see him do it, she must have the very strongest suspicion. I gather that they are on flirting terms – she was at some pains to make me think so. I wondered why at the time, and it has occurred to me since that she wanted to impress me with the fact that they were too much taken up with each other to notice a little thing like a murder, even if it was happening within a few hundred yards of them. And then there’s Rafe Jerningham-”

“The good-looking cousin – yes?”

“I didn’t want him called at the inquest, because on the face of it he had nothing to say. His own account for his movements on Wednesday evening is that he talked for a short time to Mrs. Jerningham after she had seen Cissie and then he went out for a walk along the beach. He admits that he walked in the direction of Tane Head, but says he turned back half way because the light was failing and the going bad. He did not enter the house until a very late hour – he could not say how late. He accounts for the intervening time by saying that he was down by the sea wall. This is in the grounds of Tanfield Court and affords a fine view-point. He says he was looking at the sea. Sounds a bit queer, doesn’t it?”

“People do look at the sea,” said Miss Silver in a mild voice.

“Yes – but listen.” He leaned forward. “I’ve been over the ground. There are steps which lead from the sea wall to the beach. It’s two miles from there to the place where Cissie was found, and with the sort of going you get there it takes three-quarters of an hour to walk it. Rafe Jerningham put it at that, and that’s what it took me. But – and this is what he did not tell me – a quarter of a mile from the steps there’s a rough track from the beach to what they call the cliff path, and that’s a very different affair. It runs right along the edge of the cliffs to the headland, and though it’s no shorter than the beach way it’s a path with a good hard surface, and an active young fellow could run the distance in about half the time – and if Rafe Jerningham did that, he could have reached the spot from which Cissie fell in time to have pushed her over.”

“And why should he have pushed her over, my dear Randal?”

“I don’t know. That’s one of the maddening things about this case. Threats, motive, opportunity – everything right for Pell. And then you produce Dale as one red herring, and I produce Rafe as another. There’s your story – and the evidence of Mrs. Jerningham’s coat. And whether it’s evidence for a jury or not, it’s evidence for me, and it’s evidence I can’t get away from.”

“Did you find Rafe Jerningham’s prints on the coat?” said Miss Silver.

“Two of them,” said Marsh – “and the clearest of the whole blessed lot. And where, I ask you – where?”

“My dear Randal, it is no use asking me.”

He gave a short angry laugh.

“Then there really is something you don’t know! Well, I’ll tell you. On the right shoulder just below the top of the arm a complete print of Rafe Jerningham’s right hand, the palm towards the shoulder blade and the finger coming right round on to the sleeve. On the left side an equally clear impression of his left hand in an exactly similar position. If that doesn’t mean that he stood behind her and took her by the shoulders, what does it mean? And if he did that, for what other purpose did he do it than to push her over the cliff?”

Miss Silver sat with her hands folded upon her knitting.

“That,” she said, “is very interesting. But have you any idea of why he should want to push her over a cliff?”

The colour came up into March’s face, showing plainly under the fair skin.

“Oh, I’ve got ideas. What I haven’t got is evidence. Something may turn up, or it may not. He may have had half a dozen reasons, but the one I fancy is the same as in his cousin’s case. Just look at the thing as a whole for a moment. Don’t divide the Jerninghams up. Take them as a solid block – as a family. Every enquiry I’ve made points to their very strong attachment to this property which has belonged to them for hundreds of years. Dale is said to have spent his first wife’s money lavishly on improvements. He runs the estate himself, and works hard at it. Rafe contents himself with a modestly paid job at the local aircraft establishment because it keeps him at home. He refused a very much better post in Australia a couple of months ago. Lady Steyne, who had been married ten years, comes back here as soon as she is a widow. Her husband had a place and he left it to her, and a considerable fortune as well, but she comes back here. They stick to each other, these Jerninghams, and they stick to Tanfield. And Tanfield is slipping away from them. As soon as I had those prints I went over to see the old Superintendent at his home. He’s got a dicky leg but he can talk all right. He’s a Ledstock man and he knows about everyone in the district. He says the Jerninghams have always been like that. ‘Close woven yarn’ was his expression – touch one of them and you touch the lot. And this is what he told me. They’re on the rocks. The first Mis. Jerningham was an heiress, and the money all came to Dale. Most of what he didn’t spend on the property petered out in the depression, and there isn’t much left. These people talk very freely of their affairs, you know, and Mrs. Black had a cousin’s daughter in service up at Tanfield Court. Well, the sale of some land for the aircraft establishment and aerodrome tided them over for a bit, and six months ago Dale married again – another heiress. But the talk is that the money is tied up, and that Dale will have to sell. There’s a man called Tatham after it – soap-boiler or something of that sort. You say that Mrs. Jerningham told you she had just made a will in her husband’s favour. Considering the Jerninghams as a family block who will stand or fall together, would Rafe Jerningham have no motive for pushing his cousin’s wife over the cliff if he knew about that will? And do you suppose for a moment that he didn’t know about it? Add to this that he is Dale’s heir, and that Dale has another passion besides Tanfield – flying. I am told he is as keen as mustard and extremely reckless. Tanfield might need an heir at any time. Don’t you think that Rafe Jerningham has a pretty strong motive? People have done murder for a good deal less than that.”

“There is a motive, ” said Miss Silver. “But it would only influence a very unprincipled character. And I must confess, my dear Randal, that I think you are straining the probabilities when you contend that, granting a motive, Mr. Rafe had the opportunity of committing this murder. You say he talked with Mrs. Jerningham after she had seen Cissie Cole, and then went for a walk along the beach. According to your theory he got on to the cliff path and hurried to the headland, where, seeing Cissie Cole in Mrs. Jerningham’s coat, he took her in the failing light for his cousin’s wife and pushed her over the cliff. But why did he go to Tane Head at all, and why, having hurried there, should he think it possible that the person whom he saw could be Mrs. Jerningham whom he had just left at Tanfield Court?”

March ran his hand through his hair.

“I can’t tell you why he went there, because I don’t know. He may have been restless. He may, like Lady Steyne, have wanted to see the sunset, and he may have hurried because the light was failing. But it would have been perfectly possible for Mrs. Jerningham whom he left at Tanfield to have reached Tane Head before him. Her own car was out of action, but her husband’s car was there and so was Rafe’s. She also might have wanted to watch the sunset. But he wouldn’t think of all that. He’d see a familiar figure with its back to him outlined against the sunset. Cissie Cole was a tall, thin girl with fair hair. A back view of her in Mrs. Jerningham’s own coat might have deceived anyone. I believe it deceived Rafe Jerningham. I believe he came up behind her, took her by the shoulders, and threw her over the cliff, and came back as he went without anyone seeing him. There wasn’t anyone to see him except his cousins, Dale and Lady Steyne. If they did see him, do you suppose they would tell? And if that poor girl cried out and they heard her, do you suppose they’d tell that either? No – that’s what happened, but unless a witness drops from heaven there isn’t enough evidence to risk a sixpence on – nothing but those handprints on the shoulders of her coat.”

Miss Silver gazed at him.

“Did you ask Mrs. Jerningham who helped her on with her coat the last time she wore it?”

“Yes, I did,” said March in an exasperated tone – “and it was Rafe. But I swear those prints were not made then. They’re not in the right place, and they’re too fresh. You don’t put your hands round the top of a woman’s sleeve when you help her into a coat. And they’re too clear. They couldn’t have been made on Sunday. They’re the clearest of all the prints.”

“It’s certainly a very interesting case,” said Miss Silver.