The Fingerprint

Chapter XVI

MAGGIE BELL had had a most interesting morning. It had followed upon what she herself would have described as “one of my bad nights.” She hadn’t slept very much, and when she had there were horrid dreams. By a stroke of irony she fell into a heavy sleep just at a time when the telephone would have been of the greatest interest. She was sick, sore and weary by the time her mother had helped her to dress and got her on to the sofa in the window. As a rule she would put in an hour or two during the day oversewing seams and putting on buttons, and hooks and eyes. She couldn’t keep at it for long, but it was surprising what she got through in the day, and Mrs. Bell found it a great help. But this morning she didn’t feel like holding a needle, she really didn’t. And that made the day stretch out before her ever so long, because however fond you are of reading you can’t read all the time. Now if there was something exciting going on that she could listen in to it would be just what she felt like. But of course things never happened the way you wanted them to. Which, as Mrs. Bell said afterwards, only goes to show that you never can tell.

Maggie lay on her sofa with a shawl round her shoulders, a rug drawn up to her waist, and the nearest casement window open so as not to miss anything that might be going on outside. She hadn’t been settled that way for more than five minutes before she heard Mr. Magthorpe call out from the roadway to Mr. Bisset inside the shop. Mr. Magthorpe was one of the best news-gatherers in the district, and being a baker to trade and in the habit of doing his own rounds Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays, his opportunities were naturally good. He was a little man with a large voice who sang bass in the choir, so you could be sure of hearing every word he said. And what he was saying was, “Morning, Harry. I suppose you’ve heard what’s happened up at Field End?”

Mr. Bisset hadn’t heard a word. He came right out on his doorstep and said so. And there was Mr. Magthorpe with his face pulled down to half as long again, leaning sideways out of his van to say,

“Murder, that’s what it was. And as fine an old gentleman as ever stepped.”

“Not Mr. Field!” Mr. Bisset was quite out of breath with surprise.

Albert Magthorpe nodded solemnly.

“Murdered in his own study. Setting at his own writing-table.”

“You don’t say!”

Mr. Magthorpe did say, and at considerable length. Maggie, listening spellbound, heard all about Miss Georgina waking up in the middle of the night with the sound of the shot or maybe the banging of the glass door on to the terrace, together with a number of other details imparted to Mr. Magthorpe at the back door by Doris Miller who was one of the two daily helps at Field End and a cousin of Mrs. Magthorpe’s. So of course it was all true, and what a dreadful thing to happen.

Palpitating with interest and alternately listening for the telephone to give one of those clicks which meant that someone on the party line was either ringing up somebody else or being rung up, and leaning as near to the window as she could in order not to miss any of the talk in the street, Maggie hardly had a dull moment. Field End being on the Deeping party line, she was able to hear Inspector Smith ringing up Lenton police station, and Lenton police station ringing up Inspector Smith. In this way she learned that Scotland Yard was being called in, and a little later that Detective Inspector Abbott was on his way from town. To Deeping, who remembered him as a schoolboy, there was actually no such person. He was, as he always had been, Mr. Frank, and the news that he was coming down to enquire into the Field End murder heightened the interest considerably.

Maggie, listening passionately, heard Miss Cicely who was Mrs. Grant Hathaway calling her mother at Abbottsleigh.

“Darling, is that you? Isn’t it too dreadful! I suppose you’ve heard-”

Mrs. Abbott at the other end of the line said she had, and it was, and the milkman had brought the news. Then Miss Cicely again.

“They say that Scotland Yard is being called in. Do you suppose they’ll send Frank down?”

“I don’t know-they might.”

“They did before. Darling, weren’t you having Miss Silver down for a week-end some time about now?”

“Yes, we were, but she wasn’t sure about the week-end because one of her nieces-the one who is married to a solicitor at Blackheath-might have been wanting her to go down there and… Where had I got to?”

“You were just wandering, darling. Is Maudie coming, or isn’t she?”

“Cicely, some day you’ll call her that to her face!”

“Help! I believe Frank did once. Darling, you haven’t told me whether she’s coming or not, but I rather gather she isn’t. What a pity!”

Mrs. Abbott’s voice came over the wire without hurry.

“You shouldn’t jump to conclusions. I didn’t say she wasn’t coming-on the contrary. Your father has just taken the car to meet her at Lenton.”

It was pain and grief to Maggie Bell not to break into that conversation and let Mrs. Abbott and Miss Cicely know that it really was Mr. Frank who was coming down from Scotland Yard, only of course it wouldn’t have done and she knew better than to do it. In theory everyone in Deeping knew that she listened in on the party line, but she had been doing it for so many years that in practice it was generally forgotten. When you are talking in your own room to a friend in hers, the illusion of privacy is quite overwhelming. Besides, as Mrs. Abbott had been heard to remark, “If it amuses Maggie to listen to me ordering the fish in Lenton, she is welcome.” This applying to most other people, Deeping’s telephone conversations continued on pleasantly uninhibited lines, and Maggie Bell went on finding them a great solace.

Maggie went on listening. No less than three calls from Field End to the London solicitor, and two for him by name all the way to Scotland. It seemed to Maggie that the police were in a great hurry to find out about poor Mr. Field’s will. That was what all those calls were about. She had heard Mr. Frank speaking to a lady in the London office herself.

Later she heard Miss Cicely ring up Field End. It was Miss Georgina Grey she wanted, but she had to get past one of the police officers before they would let her come to the phone. Quite a song and dance about it there was, and when Miss Georgina did come, hardly a word out of her, only yes or no. Miss Cicely was being ever so warm and loving. She mightn’t be much to look at, but she had got a real warm heart.

“ Georgina, darling-I’m so dreadfully sorry!”

“Yes.”

“Darling, are you all right?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I mean, is there anything I can do? You know you’ve only to say. Would you like me to come over?”

“No.” There was a pause after the word, and then like an afterthought, “You are very kind. Your cousin is here. He thinks-” The voice steadied itself and went off into a foreign language.

Maggie felt seriously affronted, but at her end of the line Cicely was appalled, because the words which Georgina had put into German were “He thinks I did it.” She said in the same language,

“But he can’t!”

“He does.”

“He mustn’t! I don’t care what you say-I’m coming over to see you!”

Georgina was talking on the extension in her sitting-room. She didn’t want Cicely, she didn’t want anyone. She just wanted to be let alone, to tighten the control in which she was holding thought, and will, and action. She heard herself say, “No,” and she heard Cicely say,

“Darling, it’s no good-I’m coming!”

And with that the line was broken and she was left with the receiver dead in her hand.

Only the last sentence was intelligible to the exasperated Maggie, Cicely Hathaway’s determination not to be rebuffed having been expressed quite plainly in English. Maggie would have been at one with Chief Inspector Lamb in his disapproval of lapses into a foreign tongue. What couldn’t be said in your own language was either not worth saying, or else it was something you’d be ashamed for people to understand. The Chief Inspector had never met Maggie Bell, and was never likely to do so, but on this point at least they were two minds with but a single thought.

She hung up the receiver and occupied herself with guessing at what it was that was so secret about what Miss Cicely and Miss Georgina were saying. They were ever such good friends, though there must be a matter of four or five years between them and you’d be put to it to find two that were less alike. Miss Georgina had brought in some things to be altered for her cousin not so long ago. Maggie had admired her very much. Lovely figure she had, and all that pale gold hair, and a real beautiful look about the eyes. Miss Cicely was nothing at all beside her, but the cousin, Mirrie Field, she was a real pretty little thing. Nice ways with her too. She had thanked Mum ever so pretty. “Oh, Mrs. Bell, how beautifully you’ve done it! Nobody would think it hadn’t been made for me, would they?” Ever so nice the things were, but Miss Georgina’s things were always nice and no wonder Miss Mirrie was pleased to have them. What she had on wasn’t at all the thing for anyone that was staying at Field End. Cheap and nasty, that was what Maggie called it, and no good Mum hushing her up either. If there was one thing you did get to know about in the dressmaking line it was the difference between good stuff and bad. Do what you would to a poor material, poor it was going to look and you couldn’t get from it, but a good piece of stuff looked good right through to the end.