Black Widow. S. Fowler Wright
other. He told me about it quite frankly, and turned it up from the bottom of an old trunk. He said he hadn’t fired it or had it out for years, which its appearance confirmed.”
“How do we know that he didn’t own both?”
“We’ve Lady Denton’s statement as well as his.”
“Yes, I see. Couldn’t it have been possible for this Mr. Gerard to have run back to the library after firing the shot, and then come back when Lady Denton screamed?”
“We’ve her own evidence again against that. She says there wouldn’t have been possible time. She says she went instantly when she heard the shot.”
“Then it comes to this: that it was suicide, or she’s shielding her half-brother-in-law, or else she did it herself, as you think she did.”
“Yes, but she wouldn’t shield him. I shouldn’t say that they’re on good enough terms for that. Not if she found she might be going to hang for him anyway.”
“And, if you’d arrested her, it might have led up to the truth, even if she didn’t do it herself? Well, I wouldn’t say you were wrong, if you thought that—but what does she say herself? Doesn’t she put forward any explanation at all?”
“She says he must have done it himself.”
“And Sir Lionel Tipshift didn’t agree?”
“No, we’ve got his report here.”
“Yes, I’ve seen a copy of that, but it’ll bear reading again.”
Inspector Pinkey took up the report of the eminent Government expert, and read it as carefully as though he saw it for the first time. But he had finished it for some moments before he lifted his eyes from the paper and spoke again. He was silently reviewing the tale he had heard in a very experienced mind, and was inclining toward agreement with Superintendent Trackfield’s conclusion. He thought it likely that Lady Denton’s remaining hours of freedom would not be many. But he would see for himself, and resolutely keep an open mind until then. He mustn’t even forget his theory that the Superintendent might have done it himself!
CHAPTER II.
Inspector Pinkey laid down the report. He had read that the bullet had entered under, and a little behind, the left ear, and had penetrated the brain in an upward and somewhat forward position. Sir Lionel Tipshift advised that it was possible—barely possible—for the wound to have been self-inflicted, if the weapon had been held in the right hand, passed under the left arm, and pointed upward. Possible—but absurd. He expressed a decided opinion that the shot had been fired by someone who had stood at the side of, but slightly behind, the murdered man. He thought it probable that this person had been considerably shorter than Sir Daniel. The muzzle of the weapon had not been less than two feet away from the spot where the bullet had entered. Probably rather more. Death must have been instantaneous.
“Was Sir Daniel,” he asked, “a tall man?”
“Yes, unusually so. Lady Denton is rather the other way.”
He knew that it was no more than he had expected to hear, and had to remind himself again of his resolution to remain unprejudiced until he had seen with his own eyes rather than through those of another man. Yet the inferences were obvious, and all pointed a single way. Someone known to Sir Daniel, who could approach him without suspicion. Who might stand beside him without causing him to turn. Who knew where the pistol was kept. Lady Denton fulfilled all these conditions. She might be the only one who would be admitted on that footing to her husband’s study. And she was first on the scene, was there within a moment of the shot being fired, with only her own word of denial that she had not been there all the time. Yes, he was fair-minded enough to recognize that there had been justification for the decision to arrest her on the capital charge. But he would not say that as yet. He would see her first.
“There’s one question,” he said, “we haven’t discussed yet. I mean motive. Motive isn’t proof, and it’s always dangerous to build on it alone. But it often saves a lot of trouble in pointing the right way for a second look. Anyone else round here with a grudge against the dead man?”
“It’s not easy to answer that. He wasn’t popular. There must be a score of neighbours who weren’t sorry to hear the news. But there’s a wide gap between that and a motive strong enough to lead to a crime of this kind. And there’s some negative evidence on the other side. He doesn’t seem to have been living any kind of a double life, nor even had any correspondence that he kept to himself. He was very careless about locking his drawers. He doesn’t seem to have been blackmailed in any way. His wife can explain every payment his pass book shows.”
“And negatively, as you say, that all seems to narrow it down to herself, even apart from the fact that you can’t see how anyone else could have left the room without being seen by her or the boy. What about a motive for her?”
“It’s much the same inside the house as out. He wasn’t much loved, and I don’t suppose anyone’s really sorry he’s dead. But the motives don’t seem strong enough.
“As to Lady Denton, everyone knows he used to bully her, and, as a rule, she’d give way. Now and then she stood out, and they had a real row. They’d had one a few days before. She was quite frank about that. But on the whole they got on about as well as most couples do. He doesn’t seem to have given her any occasion for jealousy, nor she him.”
“What was the row about? Did she say that?”
“Yes. It illustrates the kind of man that he was. She says he went into the kitchen to countermand some instructions she had given, and said something that annoyed the cook, who appears to be the sort of woman who thinks the kitchen belongs to her. Anyway, she used her tongue at him, and he lost her temper with her, and in the end she told him to clear out of the kitchen, or she’d lay a broomstick across his back.
“After that, he told his wife to dismiss the woman, which isn’t surprising; but for once Lady Denton stood up to him and declined. She told him that good cooks weren’t easy to get, and he should leave the servants to her. They had a row over that, in which she got a bruised arm. She told me all this herself, and I had the cook’s version as well. She doesn’t profess to have much grief for his death, but she says, if he didn’t shoot himself, she knows nothing about it, and can’t suggest who did.”
“Does she benefit by his death?”
“She gets control of some money which was in his hands before. Nothing beyond that.”
“Is she in debt?”
“No. She tells me she has more money of her own than she has occasion to spend.”
“How about the half-brother? Any motive there?”
“Yes, but again, it seems weak. Sir Daniel was sole executor under their father’s will. He had control of funds which have been left for his brother’s benefit, but so while he lived, he doled them out as he would. It is said that he used this power in vexatious ways, and Mr. Gerard must be very glad that it’s ended now.
“But as a motive for murder—and one that appears to have been treacherously done, rather than in any excitement of quarrel—it seems a bit thin. And Gerald isn’t the sort, to my mind, to take the risk of hanging without far more motive than that. He’s too fond of his own comfort. He wouldn’t risk being taken anywhere where he couldn’t have breakfast in bed.”
“Well, I expect you’re right. You know the people, and I don’t. But it comes to this—that you’ve discovered a certain amount of possible motive, and there may be more behind with one or other of them that we mayn’t even guess yet. But I can see that I’m going to the right place. Which reminds me that, if I’m to be there within an hour of when you rang up, it must be about time to move. By the way, aren’t there any finger marks on the gun?”
“Yes, Lady Denton’s. There’s an explanation of that, as she says she lifted it off the floor where it had fallen, and laid it on the desk. The constable who was called