The Fingerprint

Chapter XIV

GEORGINA GREY came into the study. She had on a dark skirt and a high-necked jumper of white wool. She was very pale indeed and she had used no make-up. Frank Abbott discerned that it was costing her an effort to come into the room in which less than twelve hours before she had found her uncle dead. Now it was he who was sitting at Jonathan Field’s table, and he was there to investigate the circumstances of his death. He rose to meet Georgina, shook hands with her, and spoke his condolences.

“Inspector Smith will have told you that Scotland Yard has been called in. It is all very trying for you, but I am sure you will wish to help us as much as you can.”

She said, “Yes,” and she sat down.

Since he was at the writing-table, there was just the one chair in which she could sit. She put her hands in her lap and waited. She had made a short statement and Frank Abbott took her through it. The events of the previous evening- quiet and domestic-everyone early to bed except Jonathan Field.

“He was in the habit of sitting up late?”

“Oh, yes. Sometimes he would be very late indeed.”

“What would you call very late?”

“If he dropped off in his chair it might be after one o’clock.”

“Did anyone go in to say good-night to him?”

“No-he didn’t care about being disturbed.” She hesitated, and then went on, her breath coming a little more quickly. “I had been in here earlier-I came in to talk to him. I said good-night to him then.”

He let that go and went on with her statement.

“Something waked you-do you think it could have been the shot?”

“I don’t know. I suppose it might have been. I thought it was the door.”

“This glass door?”

“Yes. It was open. I looked out of my window and saw it move. That is what I came down for-to shut it.”

He looked at her statement.

“You came into the room, put on the light, and saw your uncle at his table. How soon did it occur to you that he was dead?”

She said, “I don’t know. I saw him, and I knew he wouldn’t go to sleep like that-and I came over here and saw the revolver.”

“You picked it up, didn’t you? Why did you do that?”

“I don’t know, Mr. Abbott-I really don’t. I thought he was dead, and then I didn’t think at all. I just picked it up and put it on the table.”

“Was it Mr. Field’s revolver?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t know that he had one.”

“You hadn’t ever seen it before?”

“No, I hadn’t.”

“I see. Was your uncle left-handed?”

She had a startled look.

“I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know whether you would have called him left-handed or not. He used his right hand in the ordinary way, but I believe he used to be a left-hand bowler.”

He turned a little in his chair and looked round at the fireplace.

“Mr. Field seems to have been burning papers there. Do you know what they were?”

A little faint colour stained her skin as she said,

“They were-private papers.”

“Anything to do with his fingerprint collection?”

She said in undoubted surprise,

“Oh, no, nothing like that!”

“Miss Grey, when you were in here talking to your uncle, was this album on the table?”

“Oh, no, it wasn’t.”

“Sure about that?”

“I’m quite sure. It’s such a big thing-I couldn’t have missed it.”

“But it was here on the table when you found Mr. Field’s body and picked up the revolver?”

“I suppose it was.”

“You are not sure?”

She shut her eyes for a moment.

“Yes, it was there. I didn’t think about it at the time, but I saw it.”

“Was it open or shut?”

“It was open.”

“And Mr. Field did not tear out a sheet and burn it whilst you were with him?”

She looked steadily at him and said,

“Why do you ask me that?”

“Because a sheet has been torn out and paper has been burned in that grate.”

He opened the album at the place where it was marked and lifted the envelope to uncover the rough edge of the missing page.

“You see?”

“Yes.”

“When was this done, and why?”

“I don’t know anything at all about the torn-out page-it wasn’t done while I was here. But my uncle did burn something.”

“I am afraid I must ask you what it was that was burned.”

She hesitated.

“Mr. Abbott-”

“You are not obliged to answer, but if you have nothing to hide you would be well advised to do so.”

He saw her wince and then stiffen.

“No, of course there is nothing to hide. It is just-it was all rather private.”

There was a faintly cynical gleam in his eye as he said, “When it comes to a case of murder there is no privacy.” He had not thought that she could be paler, but suddenly she was.

“Murder?”

“Did you think it was suicide?”

She said slowly and deliberately,

“When something like this happens you don’t think. It’s there and it has happened-you don’t think about it.” After a pause three words came more slowly still. “It’s-too dreadful.”

He nodded.

“Miss Grey, several of the statements I have here say that when Mr. Field was in his study he was not to be disturbed. You said the same thing yourself when I asked you if you had gone in to say good-night to him, yet earlier in the evening you followed him into the study and remained there for about three-quarters of an hour.”

“I wanted to talk to him.”

“It was quite a long talk. Papers were burned, either by him at the time or by you later on.”

She said quickly, “He burned it himself.”

He raised his eyebrows and repeated her own word.

“It?” There was a moment before he went on. “Half at least of what was burned was on stiff legal paper. There are one or two fragments which were not burned through. Did they by any chance form part of a will?”

There was quite a long pause before she said, “Yes.”

“You came in here and talked to him, and a will was burned. You want to state that as a fact?”

“Yes.”

He came back in a flash.

“Who burned it?”

“My uncle did.”

“Why?”

“He was going to make another.”

“Then you came in here to talk to him about his will?”

“It wasn’t like that.”

He said, “Don’t you think you had better tell me what you did come to talk to him about?”

He saw her brows draw together in something that was not quite a frown. Under them her eyes were dark and intent. After a moment or two she said,

“Yes, I had better tell you. Everyone in the house knows about some of it, so perhaps you had better hear the whole thing. You met Mirrie when you were down here before. I don’t know what Anthony told you about her.”

“Just that she was a distant cousin, and that Mr. Field had taken a great fancy to her.”

She bent her head.

“I think he was in love with her mother, but she married someone else. There was a quarrel. He didn’t know that they had a child. If he had known, he would have done something for Mirrie when her father and mother were killed. It was in the war. She went to some distant relations, and it was all rather wretched. They didn’t want her, and there was very little money. She went to a Grammar School, but she wasn’t any good at exams, so when she was seventeen they got her a job as Assistant Matron at an orphanage, it was really just a fine name for being a housemaid. In the end Uncle Jonathan heard she was there and fetched her away. Most of this is what he told me last night. I didn’t know it before.”

“Yes-please go on.”

It was easier now that she had begun to talk about it. There was even a sense of relief. She said,

“Uncle Jonathan got very fond of her. She has-those sort of ways, you know. And then-he told me last night she is very like her mother. We could all see that he was getting very fond of her. Then one day I got an anonymous letter. It-it was horrible.”

He nodded.

“They mostly are. What did it say?”

Some distressed colour came into her face.

“It said everyone was talking about my not being nice to Mirrie. It-it was trying to make out that I was jealous of her because she was prettier than I was, and because people liked her better-that sort of thing.” The dark grey eyes were honestly indignant.

“Have you got this letter?”

She shook her head.

“I showed it to Uncle Jonathan, and then I burned it. I ought to have burned it at once.”

“Why do you say that?”

A queer blaze of anger came up in her-now, when everything was past and gone and couldn’t be called back again. It warmed her voice as she said,

“Because Uncle Jonathan was angry-not with the person who wrote the letter, but with me!”

“Why?”

“I didn’t know. I thought and thought, but I didn’t know. He had a very quick temper, and it was just as if the letter had set a match to it. He took sides against me with the person who had written it. He seemed to think I had been jealous of Mirrie and had meant to hurt her feelings when I gave her some of my things. And I didn’t, Mr. Abbott-I didn’t! If you’ve got sisters or cousins you know how girls pass things round and it doesn’t mean anything but being friendly and liking a change-it just doesn’t mean anything at all. I suppose things were stiffer in Uncle Jonathan’s time, because he didn’t seem ever to have heard of such a thing.”

“In fact you had a serious quarrel with Mr. Field. What day was this?”

She let the statement about the quarrel go and said in a bewildered voice,

“Monday-it seems as if it was a long time ago, but this is only Wednesday.” Her eyes were suddenly wet. “I’m sorry, Mr. Abbott-it doesn’t seem as if it could have happened.”

There was a big patch-pocket on her skirt. She drove a hand into it, pulled out a handkerchief, and pressed it to her eyes. Then she turned back to him and said, “Yes?”

“You had this quarrel with your uncle on Monday. And then he went to town? Did he tell you he was going?”

“No, Mrs. Fabian told us at lunch that he had gone.”

“And he stayed the night?”

“Yes.”

“Why did he go to town?”

“I didn’t know he was going.”

“But I think you knew why he had gone. Miss Grey, if you are going to tell me any of this, don’t you think you had better tell me all of it? It is bound to come out, you know.”

She said, “Yes, you’re right. I was just trying not to say more than I really knew.”

“Yes, go on.”

“My uncle talked to me about his will. He had got very fond of Mirrie and he was all worked up about her. He said he had been meaning to talk to me about altering his will so as to make provision for her.”

“And you quarrelled about that?”

Her colour came up brightly.

“Oh, no-no! I didn’t mind about it at all-not at all! I told him so. I just wanted him not to be angry with me, not to believe that I was jealous-because I wasn’t, I really wasn’t!

“So you had a reconciliation?”

The bright colour died.

“No, not then. He went on being angry. He said some very cruel things.”

“What sort of things?”

“He said disinterestedness could be overdone, and he asked me if I was going to pretend I shouldn’t care if he was to cut me off without a penny.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I said that of course I should care, because it would mean that he was terribly angry, or that he didn’t care for me any more, but I should be very glad if he provided for Mirrie. I kept on saying things like that, but it wasn’t any use. He had gone into one of his cold, angry fits and it wasn’t any use, so I came away.”

“And when you heard that he had gone up to town on business you believed that he had gone to see his solicitor?”

“Yes, he said so to Mrs. Fabian.”

Frank thought, “There could be quite a case against Georgina Grey. Quarrel about the other niece-quarrel about the will. I wonder if he got as far as signing a new one. Those unburned scraps of paper in the grate look very much as if one of the wills had been burned there. The question is, which one? And by whom?” He said,

“You did know, then, that Mr. Field had gone to see his solicitor. What happened on his return? And did he say anything about having completed the business he had gone up for?”

“Yes, Mrs. Fabian asked him whether he had. It’s rather a family joke, because she always does it, more or less in those very words.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Yes.’ ”

“Did you understand that to mean that he had altered his will?”

Georgina said, “Yes, I did.”

He had been making a brief note from time to time. He did so now. Then he looked up at her again.

“Now, Miss Grey, would you care to tell me why you followed your uncle to the study last night, and what passed between you?”

The strain had gone from her pose and from her voice. She said quietly and sadly,

“Yes, I would like to. Uncle Jonathan had coffee in the drawing-room, then he came in here. The more I thought about everything, the more I wanted to go to him. You see, I did think that he had altered his will. Mirrie ran down to meet him when he arrived. I think he told her then that he had altered it. She was terribly pleased, and he put his arm round her-I was up on the landing and I saw them. And afterwards at dinner and in the drawing-room he kept looking at her, and she-you could see that he had told her something. She was all gay and lighted up. So I thought, ‘Well, if that is settled and done with, there isn’t any need for him to go on being angry with me. I can go and talk to him now without his thinking that I am trying to influence him or get him to change his mind. I can go and tell him that I’m glad about Mirrie-really glad, and that the only thing I mind about is that he should be angry with me or think that I ever meant to be unkind to her.’ I thought perhaps he would listen now because he had done what he wanted to. So I came in here and talked to him.”

“What did you say?”

She wasn’t looking at him now. She was looking down at the hands in her lap and the handkerchief they were holding. There was a remembering sound in her voice as if she were speaking more to herself than to him.

“I asked him if he had done what he wanted to do about Mirrie. He said that he had and he didn’t want to discuss it. I said no, I didn’t want to either. I only wanted to say that I was glad, and that I was glad about his being fond of her, because she hadn’t got anyone else and I knew it was making them both very happy. He hadn’t listened to me before, but he began to listen to me then. We talked about Mirrie, and he told me about having cared for her mother. He told me that he had cared for her a lot, but that she had married his cousin. He said he had begun to feel as if Mirrie was his daughter as well as hers. He had quite stopped being angry with me. We didn’t talk about it-it had gone. He was just the same as he had always been to me, except that I felt he was really giving me his confidence in a way that he had never done before. Just at the end he said that it had made him very happy my coming to him like that. Then he said that he had been unjust, and that he had let his unjust anger carry him away. He said, ‘Maudsley told me I was doing wrong, and I was angry with him, but he was in the right of it. I let myself be carried away by some very wrong feelings.’ He said my coming to him like that had touched him very much. He took an envelope out of the drawer in front of me and said, ‘I signed an unjust will this morning, and I’m going to tear it up and burn it!’ I said, ‘No don’t,’ and he laughed and said, ‘I can do what I like with my own,’ and he took a paper out of the envelope and tore it up and dropped the pieces into the fire.”

Frank Abbott had not reached his present length of service in the police without having listened to a good many plausible stories. He was of the opinion that this was not a very plausible one. His immediate surface reaction to Georgina ’s account of that last vital interview with Jonathan Field was one of blank scepticism-“She shot him, and she burned the will which cut her out in favour of Mirrie Field.” And then he experienced a sharp prick of anger, because there was something deep below the surface that protested. Simplicity is the most difficult thing in the world to ape. Yet women had done it and got away with it time out of mind. He wished with all his heart that he could have had Miss Silver there to tell him whether Georgina was putting on an act. He had once said of Miss Maud Silver that as far as she was concerned the human race was glass-fronted, and furthermore that she saw right past the shop window into the back premises. He reflected with cynicism that Georgina had such a lot in the shop window that it was too much to suppose that there was enough to furnish all the other rooms as well.

He was watching her as these thoughts passed through his mind. A very good shop window indeed. Even to his exacting taste she had nearly everything. At the moment, of course, she was too pale, and there was evidence of strain, but he wasn’t at all sure that it did not heighten her appeal. He said,

“Mr. Field told you that he had signed a new will that morning?”

“Yes.”

She sat there quite quietly whilst he looked at her. Her voice was quiet too.

“A will which he characterized as unjust-what did you understand by his saying that?”

“I thought-” She paused. “I suppose I thought that he was leaving most of what he had to Mirrie.”

“Did you think he had cut you out altogether?”

This time the pause was longer. She looked down for a moment, and then lifted her eyes to his face again.

“I don’t know what I thought. You see, I wasn’t really thinking about the money at all, I was thinking about his being angry with me. He had never really been angry with me before-not like that. I wanted to be friends again.”

Frank said,

“You weren’t concerned about the money?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it.”