The Catherine Wheel

CHAPTER 27

Florence Duke took the chair which faced Inspector Crisp and the cold light from the window. Frank Abbott’s cool cynical gaze dwelt upon her. A big strongly built woman. He thought she could have shifted the corpse all right if she had wanted to. But Maudie was quite right-why should she want to? But she was set on it that someone had shifted Luke White, and for the matter of that, why should anyone want to? There could be only one answer to that-he had been killed in a place which would have implicated the murderer. Suppose that place was Florence Duke’s room. The idea occurred, only to be rejected. Impossible to believe that she had dragged the corpse along the corridor and bumped it down the stairs without at least rousing Maudie who had cat’s ears and slept with one eye open when she was on a case. He remembered that Mrs. Duke’s room was next to hers, and the idea which had for the moment seemed quite bright went out like a quenched spark.

His attention returned to Florence Duke. Crisp was reading over the original statement she had made, and he had leisure to observe her. She must have been a handsome girl of the type which coarsens young. He supposed her to be in the early forties. Good hair, good eyes, good teeth. Odd fleeting likeness to the magnificent Lady Marian, who wouldn’t have been at all pleased if her attention had been drawn to it. Colour in the cheeks probably a good strong red when things were going all right-a nasty bluish look about it now. Frightful clothes-too tight, too bright, too short, too everything. Short royal blue skirt, elaborate revealing knitted jumper which failed to match it by a couple of shades, a cheap paste brooch pinned on to the front of it.

Crisp laid down the paper from which he had been reading.

“That’s your statement, Mrs. Duke.”

“What about it?”

The words came in that slow way she had. Frank could imagine the voice having its attractions-the voice, and that slow way of speaking, and the really fine eyes. Might have been quite an alluring figure behind the bar of the George in ’31.

Crisp tapped the table.

“You call yourself Mrs. Duke. Is that your real name?”

“It’s what I was born with.”

“But you’re a married woman, aren’t you?”

“Not now.”

“Do you mean you are divorced?”

“No-we separated.”

“What is your legal name?”

“That’s my business. He was a bad lot. I went back to my own name that I’d a right to.”

Crisp tapped vigorously.

“Is your legal name White?”

Her colour drained away, then rushed back alarmingly.

Crisp said sharply, “Did you marry Luke White at the register office at Lenton on July 7th 1931?”

There was sweat on her forehead. She was flushed to the very roots of her hair. The colour receded slowly, leaving a hard fixed patch on either cheek. She said,

“You’ve got it.”

“The murdered man was your husband?”

“We were married like you said. It didn’t last above six months. He was a bad lot.”

Crisp frowned severely.

“Well, this alters the position-you can see that, can’t you, Mrs. White?”

She said sharply, “Don’t call me that!”

He gave a slight shrug of the shoulders.

“You can call yourself what you please. The fact that Luke White was your husband puts you in a very different position from the one you were in when all the information we had was that you and he were strangers. You can see that, I suppose. If he was a stranger, you hadn’t any motive for wanting him out of the way. If he was your husband, you might have quite a strong one. I’m going to take you over that statement of yours again, and I’ve got to tell you that your answers will be taken down and may be used in evidence.”

Frank Abbott left his place by the fire and came forward to drop into the chair at the end of the table. He produced pencil and notebook and sat waiting.

Miss Silver continued to knit, her hands low in her lap, her eyes on Florence Duke, who did not speak. The fine dark eyes looked at Inspector Crisp with something of defiance. Frank Abbott thought, “She’s got cold feet all right-but she’ll put up a show.”

Crisp had the statement in his hand. He ran his eye down the page.

“Here we are. You say you hadn’t undressed, and you give a number of reasons for why you hadn’t. You got thinking about old times-you were accustomed to sitting up late-you didn’t think you would sleep if you went to bed. Now wasn’t it the real reason that you were waiting for the house to be quiet before going down to see your husband?”

She went on looking at him without speaking. He only gave her a moment.

“You needn’t answer if you don’t want to, but wasn’t that the reason? You were the only person in the house who hadn’t undressed-weren’t you? Everyone else had been in bed and asleep-hadn’t they? You hadn’t undressed because you were waiting to come down and go along to your husband’s room. That’s right, isn’t it? Perhaps you had an appointment with him-”

Her lips parted on the one slow word, “No.”

Something like a smirk of satisfaction just touched Crisp’s expression. She had spoken, and she had practically admitted that she had in fact come down to see Luke White. He proceeded to follow up the advantage.

“But you came down intending to see him?”

Quite suddenly she blazed.

“What’s the harm if I did?”

“Oh, none-none. He was your husband, wasn’t he? You waited till everyone was asleep, and you came down to see him. No harm in it at all. Only what you said in your statement was that you were looking for a drink and something to read. That wasn’t true, was it?”

The deep angry voice said,

“I wanted the drink all right.”

“But you came down to see your husband?”

She cried out, “Not so much of the husband! I was through with him. I came down to see Luke White.”

“I thought so! And then you quarrelled.”

She said flatly, “That’s a lie! He wasn’t there.”

Crisp said, “What!”

Florence nodded.

“Nice to think there’s something you don’t know. He wasn’t there.”

He looked furiously at her. Before he could speak Miss Silver coughed and said,

“Pray, Mrs. Duke, how did you know which room to go to?”

She turned her head, and seemed for the first time to be aware of Miss Silver’s presence. She said, with all the heat gone from her voice,

“I asked that girl Eily where he slept. Not just like that, you know-she’d have thought it funny. The way I put it was, how many bedrooms did they have, and where had everyone been put.”

Frank Abbott’s hand moved to and fro across the paper. Crisp tapped with his pencil. He said impatiently,

“That doesn’t matter! You say you went to Luke White’s room and he wasn’t there.”

She shook her head.

“No, he wasn’t there.”

“Sure you struck the right room?”

“Yes. There’s only the one bedroom-opposite the kitchen.”

“How long were you there?”

“I don’t know. I thought he’d be coming. I looked round a bit. Then I thought I’d wait in the kitchen. That was all right what I said before. I went in the kitchen and had a look round and a couple of glasses of sherry like I said-there was a bottle on the dresser.”

“How soon did Luke White come along?”

She shook her head.

“He didn’t come. I got tired of waiting and went through to the hall like I told you. He was laid there with the knife in him, and that girl coming out of the lounge. I went to see if he was dead, and got my hands all messed up. Then Eily screamed, and everyone came down.”

He went on asking his questions, but he got nothing more from her. She had come downstairs to see Luke White, but she hadn’t seen him. She hadn’t set eyes on him until she saw him lying dead in the hall. She hadn’t laid hands on the knife or used it. She hadn’t stabbed Luke White.

Crisp let her go in the end. He was at once complacent over what he had got, and irritated because he had got no more. He stabbed with his pencil at the blotter and broke the point as he said,

“She did it all right. It couldn’t be anyone else.”

Frank Abbott looked up from his neat shorthand notes. He used the voice which Crisp stigmatized as B.B.C. to say,

“I don’t know.”

The Inspector fetched a knife from his pocket, released the blade with a jerk, and attacked the damaged pencil. Between slashes he said,

“Of course she isn’t Castell! It’s got to be Castell, hasn’t it?” He laughed harshly. “No substitutes accepted!”

Miss Silver coughed in a hortatory manner.

“Pray, Inspector, is there no news of Albert Miller?”