Chapter XI.Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's Evidence“I shan't be able to give you a game this morning, squire,” Sir Clinton explained at breakfast next day. “I've got another engagement.”He glanced towards Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's empty seat at the adjoining table, and suppressed a grin as he saw the expression on Wendover's face.“Need you advertise yourself quite so much in that quarter, Clinton?” Wendover demanded, rather put out by the turn of events.Sir Clinton's features displayed an exaggerated expression of coyness, as though he were a boy half inviting chaff on the subject of a feminine conquest.“I find her interesting, squire. And good-looking. And charming. And, shall we say, fascinating? It's a very rare combination, you'll admit; and hence I'd be sorry not to profit by it when it's thrust upon me.”Wendover was somewhat relieved by the impish expression in Sir Clinton's eye.“I've never known you to hanker after semi-society ladies before, Clinton. Is it just a freak? Or are you falling into senile decay? She's fairly obvious, you know, especially against this background.”Sir Clinton failed to suppress his grin.“Wrong both times, squire, making twice in all. It's not a freak. It's not senile decay. It's business. Sounds sordid, doesn't it, after your spangled imaginings? ‘Chief Constable Sacrifices All for Love,’ and that sort of thing. It's almost a pity to disappoint you.”Wendover's relief was obvious.“Don't singe your wings, that's all. She's a dangerous toy, by the look of her, Clinton. I shouldn't play with her too long, if I were you. What she's doing down here at all is a mystery to me.”“That's precisely what I intend to find out, squire. Hence my devotion. There were more brutal ways of finding out; but I don't share the inspector's views about how to elicit evidence. You see, she's studied in the best school of fascination, and she knows a woman can always get into a man's good graces by leading him on to talk about his work. So she's secured a number of horrific details about the dreadful powers of the police in this land of freedom from me. I think she'll part with the information I want when I ask for it.”Wendover shook his head disapprovingly.“Seems a bit underhand, that,” he commented.“The finer graces do get shoved aside in a murder case,” Sir Clinton admitted. “One regrets it; but there it is. You can't wear a collar and tie when you're going to be hanged, you know.”“Get on with your breakfast, you gruesome devil,” Wendover directed, half in jest and half in earnest. “I expect the next thing will be your luring all your suspects on to the hotel weighing-machine, so as to have the right length of the drop calculated beforehand. Constant association with that brute Armadale has corrupted you completely.”Sir Clinton stirred his coffee thoughtfully for a moment or two before speaking again.“I've got a job for you to do, squire,” he announced at last in a serious tone. “About eleven o'clock I have an appointment with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux. We're going for a walk along the bay. Now, I want you to drive into Lynden Sands, pick up Armadale, and get back again so as to meet us somewhere about the old wreck. It was a spring tide yesterday, and the tide's just turning about this time in the morning; so we'll have to keep quite near the road in our walk across the sands. You can hail us from the road easily enough.”Wendover nodded an acceptance of the task.“The inspector can bring along a tape-measure in his pocket, and, if he likes, he can drag the blow-lamp and wax with him also, though I doubt if we'll need them.” At the mention of the tape-measure, Wendover pricked up his ears.“You don't imagine that she was on the beach that night, do you, Clinton? Armadale found out that her shoes were No. 4—half a size, at least, too big for the prints we haven't identified yet. Besides, she's quite a good height—as tall as Mrs. Fleetwood; and, you remember, the steps were much shorter than Mrs. Fleetwood's. The person who made these prints must have been much smaller than the Laurent-Desrousseaux woman. Have you found some more prints that you didn't tell us about?”“All in good time, squire,” Sir Clinton answered. “Take things as they come.”He sipped his coffee as though to show that he did not propose to be drawn. But Wendover was not to be put off.“You couldn't have got a No. 4 shoe into these prints.”“No.”“And, from what I've seen of her feet, her shoes are a perfect fit.”“I've noticed you admiring them—quite justifiably, squire.”“Well, she couldn't wear a 3½ shoe.”“No. That's admitted. She hasn't such a thing in her possession; I'm sure of that. Give it up, squire. The fishing's very poor in this district. I'm not going to tell you anything just now.”Wendover recognised that he could not hope to extract any further information from the chief constable, and he consoled himself with the thought that a couple of hours at most would see this part of the mystery cleared up. After breakfast he went into the lounge, and passed the time in smoking and reviewing the state of affairs. He became so engrossed in this exercise that it was almost with a start that he realised the time had come to take out the car and pick up Armadale.As he and the inspector drove slowly back from the village, they saw the figures of Sir Clinton and Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux sauntering across the sands just below high-tide mark; and in a few moments the car came level with the walkers. Sir Clinton waved his arm, and Wendover and Armadale got out and walked down the beach.“This is Inspector Armadale, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux,” the chief constable said, as they came up. “He wants to ask you some questions about Friday night, when you were at that rock over there.”He pointed to Neptune's seat as he spoke. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux seemed completely taken by surprise. For a moment or two she stood glancing uneasily from one to another; and her eyes showed something more than a tinge of fear.“I am much surprised, Sir Clinton,” she said at last, her accent coming out more markedly than usual in her nervous voice. “I had supposed that you were friendly to me; and now it appears that, without making a seeming of it, you have been leading me into what you call an English police-trap, isn't it? That is not good of you.”Armadale had picked up his cue from Sir Clinton's words.“I'm afraid I must ask you to answer my questions, ma'am,” he said, with a certain politeness. Obviously he was by no means sure of his ground.Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux eyed him in silence for some moments.“What is it that you desire to know?” she demanded finally.Before Armadale could formulate a question, Sir Clinton intervened.“I think, madame, that it will make things easier for us all if I tell you that the inspector is preparing a case against someone else. He needs your deposition to support his charge. That is the whole truth, so far as he is concerned. You need not have any fears, provided that you tell us all that you know about Friday night.”Wendover noticed the double meaning which might be attached to Sir Clinton's words; but he could not feel sure whether the chief constable wished to deceive or merely to reassure his witness. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's face cleared slightly as she grasped the meaning of Sir Clinton's speech.“If such is the case,” she said cautiously, “I might recall to myself some of the things which happened.”Armadale seemed a trifle suspicious at this guarded offer, but he proceeded to put some questions.“You knew this man Staveley, ma'am?”“Nicholas Staveley? Yes, I knew him; I had known him for a long time.”Sir Clinton interposed again.“Perhaps you would prefer to tell us what you know of him in your own words, madame. It would be easier for us if you would do so.”Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux nodded her agreement. She seemed to have conquered her nervousness.“It was during the war, messieurs, in 1915. I was Odette Pascal then, a young girl, an honest girl—what you English call straight, isn't it? It was later that I became Aline Laurent-Desrousseaux, you understand? I encountered this Nicholas Staveley in Paris, where I was employed in a Government office. He was very charming, very caressing; he knew how to make himself loved.”She made a gesture, half cynical, half regretful, and paused for a moment before she continued in a harder tone:“It did not last long, that honeymoon. I discovered his character, so different from that which I had believed it. He abandoned me, and I was very rejoiced to let him go; but he had taught me things, and forced me to work for him while he had me. When we separated ourselves, in fact, I was no longer the gentle, honest little girl that I had been. All that was finished, you understand?”Wendover saw that the inspector was taking notes in shorthand. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux paused for a time to allow Armadale to catch up.“The rest is without importance. I became Aline Laurent-Desrousseaux, and I had not any need of Nicholas Staveley. During a long time I had no need of him; but from time to time I heard speak of him, for I had many friends, and some of them could tell a little; and always he was the same. Then is come the report that he was killed at the Front.”She paused again, with her eye on the inspector's pencil.“The time passed,” she resumed, “and I desired only to forget him. I believed him well dead, you understand? And then, from one of my friends, I learned that he had been seen again after the war. I disinterested myself from the affair; I had no desire to see him. But suddenly it became of importance to me to satisfy myself about him. It is much complicated, and has nothing to do with him—I pass on. But it was most necessary that I should see him and get him to consent to some arrangements, or an affair of mine would be embarrassed.”“Embarrassed,” Armadale repeated, to show that he was ready to continue.“I have consulted my friends,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux pursued. “Some among them have been able to help me, and I have discovered where he was living in London. It was most necessary for me to speak with him. Thus I came over to England, to London. But he is no longer there; he is gone to Lynden Sands, one says. So I procure his address—at Flatt's cottage—and I come myself to Lynden Sands Hotel.”Armadale's involuntary upward glance from his note-book betrayed the increase in his interest at this point.“I arrive here; and at once I write him a letter saying I go to Flatt's cottage to see him on Friday night. There is no response, but I go to Flatt's cottage as I had planned. When I knocked at the door, Staveley appeared.”“What time on Friday night was that?” Armadale interposed.“In my letter I had fixed a rendezvous at half-past nine. I was exact—on time, you say, isn't it? But it seemed that this Staveley could not see me alone there; others were in the cottage. Then he said that he would meet me later—at half-past ten—at some great rock beside the sea, the rock one calls Neptune's Seat.”“So you came away, and he went back into the cottager” Armadale demanded.Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux assented with a slight bow.“I came away,” she continued. “To pass the time, I walked on the road, and perhaps I walked too far. It was late—after the hour of the rendezvous—when I arrived opposite the rock, this Neptune's Seat. I went down on to the sands and attained to the rock. Staveley was there, very angry because I was ten minutes late. He was much enraged, it appears, because he had a second rendezvous at that place in a few minutes. He would not listen to me at all at the moment. I saw that it was no time for negotiating with him, he was so much in anger and so anxious to deliver himself of me. I fixed another rendezvous for the following day, and I left him.”“What time did you leave him on the rock?” Armadale interjected.“Let us see.” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux halted for a moment to consider. “I passed some minutes with him on the rock—let us put ten minutes at the least.”“That would mean you left the rock very shortly before eleven o'clock, then?”Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux agreed with a gesture.“I went away from the rock by the same road as I had come,” she went on. “I was much agitated, you understand? It was a great disappointment that I had attained to no arrangement at that moment, I had hoped for something better, isn't it? And that Staveley had been very little obliging—unkind, isn't it? It was very desolating.“As I was crossing the sands, a great automobile appeared on the road, coming from the hotel. It stopped whilst I was waiting for it to pass; and the chauffeur extinguished its projectors. Then a woman descended from the automobile, and walked down on to the sands towards the rock.”Wendover could read on Armadale's face an expression of triumph. The inspector was clearly overjoyed at getting some direct evidence to support his case against Cressida; and Wendover had to admit, with considerable disquietude, that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's narrative bore out Armadale's hypothesis very neatly.“When I again regarded the automobile, the chauffeur also had vanished. He was not on the road. Perhaps he also had gone down to therivage.”“Shore,” Sir Clinton interjected, seeing Armadale's obvious perplexity at the word.“I was standing there for some minutes,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued. “Against one like that Staveley one must utilise all weapons, isn't it?—even espionage. I had a presentiment that something might eventuate. Staveley and a woman, you understand? I was hoping that something, anything, might arrive to give me an advantage over him.“I have forgotten to say that the sky was obscured by great clouds. It was a little difficult to see clearly. On the rock they discussed and discussed, but I could hear nothing; and in the end I grew tired of attending.”“How long did you stand there?” Armadale asked.“It would be difficult to say, but perhaps it was about a quarter-hour. I was quite tired of attending, and I walked—quite slowly—along the road away from the hotel. I avoided the automobile, you understand? I desired no embarrassments. It was not my affair—isn't it?—to discover the identity of this woman. All that I desired was an arm against Staveley. There was nothing else at all.“A little after, I returned; it seemed to me longer, perhaps, than it really was; and I was believing that they must be gone, those two. Then, all at once, I heard the report of a firearm down at the rock——”“A single shot?” Sir Clinton questioned. “Un seul coup de feu?”“One only,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux answered definitely. “I hastened back along the road in the direction of the automobile. I had the idea of an accident in my head, you understand? It was very sombre; great clouds were passing on the moon. I could see with difficulty the woman's figure hasten up from the rock towards the automobile; and almost at once the chauffeur rejoined her. When they were getting into the automobile I was quite close; I could hear them speak, although it was too dark to see them except most dimly. The woman spoke first, very agitated.”Her three listeners were intent on her next words. Armadale looked up, his pencil poised to take down her report. Wendover felt a catch in his breath as he waited for the next sentences which would either make or break the inspector's case.“She said,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued, “She said these very words, for they were stamped on my memory since they meant so much to me: ‘I've shot him, Stanley.’ And the chauffeur demanded: ‘Have you killed him?’ And you can understand, messieurs, that I listened with all my ears. The woman responded: ‘I think so. He fell at once and lay quite still. What's to be done?’ And to that the chauffeur made the reply: ‘Get you away at once.’ And he made some movement as if to put the motor in march. But the woman stopped him and demanded: ‘Aren't you going down to look at him—see if anything can be done?’ And to that the chauffeur made the response in anger: ‘It's damn well likely, isn't it?’ Just like that. And he pursued: ‘Not till I've seen you in safety, anyhow. I'm not running any risks.’ ”Wendover felt that his last shred of hope had been torn away. This reported conversation might have been concerted between Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux and Armadale beforehand, so neatly did it fit into its place in the inspector's case. He glanced up at Sir Clinton's face, and saw there only the quiet satisfaction of a man who fits a fresh piece of a jig-saw puzzle into position.“Then,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued, “the chauffeur set his motor in march and reversed the automobile. I stepped aside off the road for fear that they should see me; but they went off towards the hotel without illuminating the projectors.”She stopped, evidently thinking that she had told all that was of importance. Armadale suggested that she should continue her tale.“Figure to yourselves my position,” she went on. “Staveley was lying dead on the rock. The automobile had gone. I was left alone. If one came along the road and encountered me, there would be suspicion; and one would have said that I had good reason to hate Staveley. I could see nothing but embarrassments before me. And the chauffeur had suggested that he might return later on. What more easy, if he found me there, than to throw suspicion on me to discredit me? Or to incriminate me, even? In thinking of these things, I lost my head. My sole idea was to get away without being seen. I went furtively along the road, in trembling lest the automobile should return. No one met me; and I regained the gardens of the hotel without being encountered. As I was passing one of the alleys, I noticed standing there the great automobile, with its lights extinguished. I passed into the hotel without misfortune.”“What time did you get back to the hotel, madame?” Armadale asked, as she halted again.“Ah! I am able to tell you that, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, and exactly. I noted the hour mechanically on the clock in the hall. It was midnight less five minutes when I arrived.”“It's a twenty to twenty-five minute walk,” Armadale commented. “That means you must have left the beach somewhere round about half-past eleven. Now, one more question, madame. Did you recognise the voices of the man and the woman?”Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux hesitated before replying.“I should not wish to say,” she answered at last unwillingly.A frown crossed Armadale's features at the reply, and, seeing it, she turned to Sir Clinton, as though to appeal to him.“The automobile has already been identified, madame,” the chief constable said, answering her unspoken inquiry. “You can do no one any harm by telling us the truth.”His words seemed to remove her disinclination.“In this case, I reveal nothing which you ignore? Then I say that it was the voice of the young Madame Fleetwood which I have heard in the night.”Armadale bestowed a glance on Wendover, as much as to say that his case was lock-fast. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, now that she had got her narrative off her mind, seemed to be puzzled by something. She turned to Sir Clinton.“I am embarrassed to know how you came to discover that I was at the rock on that night. May I ask?”Sir Clinton smiled, and with a wave of his hand he indicated the trail of footmarks across the sands which they had made in their walk.“Ah, I comprehend! I had forgotten the imprints which I must have left when I went down to the rock. It was dark, you understand?—and naturally I did not perceive that I was leaving traces. So that was it, Sir Clinton?”Armadale was obviously puzzled. He turned to Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux.“What size of shoe do you wear, madame?”She glanced at her neatly shod feet.“These shoes I have bought in London a few days ago. Thepointure—the size, you call it, isn't it?—was No. 4.”Armadale shrugged his shoulders, as though to express his disbelief.“Measure these prints on the sand here, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested.Armadale drew out his tape-measure and took the dimensions of the footmarks left by Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux.“And the length of step also, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested.“They correspond with the tracks down to the rock, true enough,” the inspector admitted, when he completed his task. “But only a 3½ shoe could have made them.”Sir Clinton laughed, though not sneeringly.“Would you lend me one of your shoes for a moment, madame?” he asked. “You can lean on me while it's off, so as not to put your foot on the wet sand.”Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux slipped off her right shoe and held it out.“Now, inspector, there's absolutely no deception. Look at the number stamped on it. A four, isn't it?”Armadale examined the shoe, and nodded affirmatively.“Now take the shoe and press it gently on the sand alongside a right-foot print of Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux—that one there will do. See that you get it square on the sand and make a good impression.”The inspector knelt down and did as he was told. As he lifted the shoe again, Wendover saw a look of astonishment on his face.“Why, they don't correspond!” he exclaimed. “The one I've made just now is bigger than the other.”“Of course,” the chief constable agreed. “Now do you see that a No. 4 shoe can make an impression smaller than itself if you happen to be walking in sand or mud? While you were hunting for people with 3½ shoes, I was turning my attention to No. 4's. There aren't so many in the hotel, as you know. And it so happened that I began with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux. She was good enough to go for a walk with me; and by counting her steps I gauged the length of her pace. It corresponded to the distance on the tracks.”Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux was examining Sir Clinton with obvious admiration, not wholly unmixed with a certain uneasiness.“You seem to be very adroit, Sir Clinton,” she observed. “But what is this about the length of my pace?”“The inspector is accustomed to our English girls, madame, who have a free-swinging walk and therefore a fairly long step. From the length of the steps on the sand he inferred that they had been made by someone who was not very tall—rather under the average height. He forgot that some of you Parisians have a different gait—more restrained, more finished, shall we say?”“Ah, now I see!” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux exclaimed, not at all unsusceptible to the turn of Sir Clinton's phrase. “You mean the difference between the cab-horse and the stepper?”“Exactly,” Sir Clinton agreed with an impassive face.Armadale was still puzzling over the two footprints. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, evidently wearying of standing with one foot off the ground, recovered her shoe from him and slipped it on again. Sir Clinton took pity on his subordinate.“Here's the explanation, inspector. When you walk in sand, you put down your heel first. But as the sand's soft, your heel goes forward and downward as you plant your foot. Then, as your body moves on, your foot begins to turn in the sand; and when you've come to the end of your step, your toe also is driven downwards; but instead of goingforward, like your heel, it slips backward. The result is that in the impression the heel is too far forward, whilst the toe is in the rear of the true position—and that means an impression shorter than the normal. On the sand, your foot really pivots on the sole under the instep, instead of on heel and toe, as it does on hard ground. If you look at these impressions, you'll find quite a heap of sand under the point where the instep was; whilst the heel and toe are deeply marked owing to each of them pivoting on the centre of the shoe. See it?”The inspector knelt down, and Wendover followed his example. They had no difficulty in seeing Sir Clinton's point.“Of course,” the chief constable went on, “in the case of a woman's shoe, the thing is even more exaggerated owing to the height of the heel and the sharpness of the toe. Haven't you noticed, in tracks on the sand, how neat any woman's prints always look? You never seem to find the impression of a clumsy foot, simply because the impression is so much smaller than the real foot. Clear enough, isn't it?”“You are most ingenious, Sir Clinton,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux commented. “I am very glad indeed that I have not you against me.”Sir Clinton turned the point.“The inspector will bring you a copy of the evidence you have so kindly given us, madame, and you will do us the favour to sign it. It is a mere formality, that; but we may need you as a witness in the case, you understand?”Rather ungraciously, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux agreed. It was evident that she had hoped to escape giving evidence in court.“I do not desire to offer testimony against the young Madame Fleetwood if it could be averted,” she said frankly. “She was good to me once or twice; very gentle, very kind—not like the others in the hotel.”The inspector shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter were out of his hands; but he made no reply.“You will, of course, say nothing about this to anyone, madame,” Sir Clinton warned her, as they walked across the sands to the car.At the hotel, Sir Clinton was met by a message from Cargill asking him to go up to his room. Wendover accompanied him, and when they had inquired about his wound and been reassured by a good report from the doctor which Cargill was able to repeat, the Australian plunged into the matter which he wished to lay before the chief constable.“It's that thing I told you about before,” he explained. “This is how it happened. I was so sore last night that I forgot all about it.”He felt under his pillow, and drew out a crumpled envelope.“I was in the writing-room one day lately, and Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux—that French high-stepper—was writing something at one of the tables. She made a muddle of her addressing of the thing, and flung a spoiled envelope into the waste-paper basket beside her. Then she addressed another envelope, sealed up her letter, and went out.“I happened to have some jottings to make; and, as her waste-paper basket was just at my elbow, I leaned over and fished out the old envelope, to save myself the bother of getting out of my chair for a piece of paper. I scribbled down the notes I wanted to make, put the envelope in my pocket, and left it there. It wasn't for a while after that—yesterday—that I needed the jottings I'd made. I fished the envelope out, and was reading my notes, when suddenly my eye was caught by the spoiled address on the envelope.” He handed the paper across to Sir Clinton, who read:Monsieur Nicholas Staveley,Flatt's Cotage,Lynden Sands.“You see, she'd spelt ‘cottage’ with one ‘t,’ ” Cargill pointed out unnecessarily. “That's what made her throw away the envelope, I expect.”Sir Clinton took the envelope and examined it carefully.“That's extremely interesting,” he said. “I suppose I may keep this? Then would you mind initialling it, just in case we need it for reference later on?”He handed Cargill a pencil, and the Australian scribbled his initials on one corner of the envelope. The chief constable chatted for a few minutes on indifferent matters, and then retired, followed by Wendover.“Why didn't you tell him he was a day after the fair?” Wendover demanded, as they went down the stairs. “The only value that envelope has now is that it further confirms Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's evidence. And yet you treated it as if it were really of importance.”“I hate to discourage enthusiasm, squire,” Sir Clinton answered. “Remember that we owe the second cartridge-case to Cargill's industry. If I had damped him over the envelope, he might feel disinclined to give us any more assistance; and one never knows what may turn up yet. Besides, why spoil his pleasure for him? He thought he was doing splendidly.”As they reached the first floor, they saw Paul Fordingbridge coming along the corridor towards the stairs.“Here's someone who can perhaps give us more valuable information,” Sir Clinton added in a low tone.He stopped Paul Fordingbridge at the head of the stairs.“By the way, Mr. Fordingbridge,” he asked, glancing round to see that there was no one within earshot, “there's just one point I'd like you to clear up for me, if you don't mind.”Paul Fordingbridge stared at him with an emotionless face.“Very glad to do anything for you,” he said, without betraying anything in his tone.“It's nothing much,” Sir Clinton assured him. “All I want is to be clear about this Foxhills estate and its trimmings. Your nephew owns it at present?”“If I have a surviving nephew, certainly. I can offer no opinion on that point, you understand.”“Naturally,” Sir Clinton acquiesced. “Now, suppose your nephew's death were proved, who are the next heirs? That's what I'd like you to tell me, if you don't mind. I could get it hunted up at Somerset House, but if you'll save me the trouble it will be a help.”“Failing my nephew, it would go to my niece, Mrs. Fleetwood.”“And if anything happened to her?”“It falls to me in that case.”“And if you weren't there to take it by then?”“My sister would get it.”“There's no one else? Young Fleetwood, for instance, couldn't step in front of you owing to his having married your niece?”“No,” Paul Fordingbridge answered at once. “The will took account of seven lives, and I suppose that was sufficient in the ordinary way. My sister, if she gets it, can leave it to anyone she chooses.”Sir Clinton seemed thoughtful. It was only after a slight pause that he took up a fresh line of questions.“Can you tell me anything about the present management of the thing? You have a power of attorney, I believe; but I suppose you leave matters very much in the hands of lawyers?”Paul Fordingbridge shook his head.“I'm afraid I'm no great believer in lawyers. One's better to look after things oneself. I'm not a busy man, and it's an occupation for me. Everything goes through my hands.”“Must be rather a business,” Sir Clinton criticised. “But I suppose you do as I would myself—get a firm of auditors to keep your books for you.”Paul Fordingbridge seemed slightly nettled at the suggestion.“No. Do you suppose I can't draw up a balance-sheet once a year? I'm not quite incompetent.”It was evident that Sir Clinton's suggestion had touched him in his vanity, for his tone showed more than a trace of pique. The chief constable hastened to smooth matters over.“I envy you, Mr. Fordingbridge. I never had much of a head for figures myself, and I shouldn't care to have that kind of work thrust on my hands.”“Oh, I manage very well,” Paul Fordingbridge answered coldly. “Is there anything else you'd like to know?”Sir Clinton reflected for a moment before replying.“I think that's everything. Oh, there's one other matter which you may know about, perhaps. When does Mrs. Fleetwood expect her lawyer to turn up?”“This afternoon,” Paul Fordingbridge intimated. “But I understand that they wish to consult him before seeing you again. I believe they'll make an appointment with Inspector Armadale for to-morrow.”Sir Clinton's eyebrows lifted slightly at the news of this further delay; but he made no audible comment. Paul Fordingbridge, with a stiff bow, left them and went on his way downstairs. Sir Clinton gazed after him.“I'd hate to carry an automatic in my jacket pocket continuously,” he remarked softly. “Look how his pocket's pulled all out of shape by the thing. Very untidy.”With a gesture he stopped the comment that rose to Wendover's lips, and then followed Fordingbridge downstairs. Wendover led the way out into the garden, where he selected a quiet spot.“There's one thing that struck me about Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's evidence,” he said, as they sat down, “and that is: It may be all lies together.”Sir Clinton pulled out his case and lit a cigarette before answering.“You think so? It's not impossible, of course.”“Well, look at it squarely,” Wendover pursued. “We know nothing about the woman. For all we can tell, she may be an accomplished liar. By her own showing, she had some good reason for wanting Staveley out of the way.”“It wouldn't be difficult to make a guess at it,” Sir Clinton interjected. “I didn't want to go beyond our brief this morning, or I'd have asked her about that. But I was very anxious not to rouse her suspicions, and the matter really didn't bear directly on the case, so I let it pass.”“Well, let's assume that her yarn is mostly lies, and see where that takes us,” Wendover went on. “We know she was at the cottage all right; we've got the footprint to establish that. We know she was on the rock, too, for her footprints were on the sands, and she doesn't contest the fact of her presence either. These are the two undeniable facts.”“Euclidian, squire. But it leaves the story a bit bare, doesn't it? Go on; clothe the dry bones with flesh, if you can.”Wendover refused to be nettled. He was struggling, not too hopefully, to shift the responsibility of the murder from the shoulders of Cressida to those of another person; and he was willing to catch at almost any straw.“How would this fit, then?” he demanded. “Suppose that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux herself was the murderess. She makes her appointment with Staveley at the cottage as she told us; and she goes there, just as she said she did. She meets Staveley, and he refuses to see her. Now assume that he blurts out the tale of his appointment at 11p.m.at Neptune's Seat with Mrs. Fleetwood, and makes no appointment at all with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux for that evening. That part of her tale would be a lie, of course.”Sir Clinton flicked the ash from his cigarette on to the seat beside him, and seemed engrossed in brushing it away.“She goes to the shore near 11p.m.,” Wendover continued, “not to meet Staveley, as she told us, but to eavesdrop on the two of them, as she confessed she did in her tale. She waits until Mrs. Fleetwood goes away; and then she sees her chance. She goes down to the rock herself then and she shoots Staveley with her own hand for her own purposes. She leaves the body on the rock and returns, as her footmarks show, to the road, and so to the hotel. What's wrong with that?”“Nothing whatever, squire, except that it omits the most damning facts on which the inspector's depending. It leaves out, for instance, the pistol that he found in Mrs. Fleetwood's golf-blazer.”Wendover's face showed that his mind was hard at work.“One can't deny that, I suppose,” he admitted. “But she might quite well have let off her pistol to frighten Staveley. That would account for——”He broke off, thought hard for a moment or two, then his face cleared.“There were two cartridge-cases: one at the rock and one at the groyne. If Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux killed Staveley, then the cartridge-case on the rock belongs to her pistol; and any other shot fired by the Fleetwoods—at the groyne. That means that Stanley Fleetwood, behind the groyne, fired a shot to scare Staveley. Then, when the Fleetwoods had gone, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux went down and shot him on the rock. That accounts for everything, doesn't it?”Sir Clinton shook his head.“Just think what happens when you fire an automatic. The ejector mechanism jerks the empty case out to your right, well clear of your shoulder, and lands it a yard or two behind you. It's a pretty big impulse that the cartridge-case gets. Usually the thing hops along the ground, if I remember rightly. You can take it from me that a shot fired from where Fleetwood crouched wouldn't land the cartridge-case at the point where Cargill showed us he'd picked it up.”Wendover reflected for a while.“Well, who did it, then?” he demanded. “If the shot had been fired on the rock, the cartridge-case couldn't have skipped that distance, including a jump over the groyne. And there were no other footmarks on that far side of the groyne except Fleetwood's.”Again he paused, thinking hard.“You said there was a flaw in the inspector's case. Is this it, by any chance?”Looking up, he saw the figure of Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux crossing the lawn not far from them.“That's very opportune,” he said, glancing after her. “Any objection to my asking your witness a couple of questions, Clinton?”“None whatever.”“Then come along.”Wendover managed matters so that it appeared as though they had encountered Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux by a mere accident; and it was only after they had talked for a few minutes on indifferent matters that he thought it safe to ask his questions.“You must have got drenched before you reached the hotel on Friday night, madame, surely? I hope there have been no ill-effects?”“Yes, indeed!” Mme Laurent-Desrousseaux answered readily. “It was a real rain of storm—how do you say that in English?”“Thunderstorm; heavy shower,” Sir Clinton suggested.“Yes?Une pluie battante.I was all wetted.”“When did the rain start, do you remember?” Wendover asked indifferently.Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux showed no hesitation whatever.“It was after the automobile had started to return to the hotel—a few minutes only after that.”“You must have got soaked to the skin yourself,” Wendover commiserated her. “That reminds me, had Staveley his coat on—his overcoat, I mean—or was he carrying it over his arm when you met him at the rock?”Again the Frenchwoman answered without pausing to consider.“He carried it on his arm. Of that I am most certain.” Wendover, having nothing else to ask, steered the talk into other channels; and in a short time they left Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux to her own affairs. When they were out of earshot, Sir Clinton glanced at Wendover.“Was that your own brains, squire, or a tip from the classic? You're getting on, whichever it was. Armadalewillbe vexed. But kindly keep this to yourself. The last thing I want is to have any information spread round.”
“I shan't be able to give you a game this morning, squire,” Sir Clinton explained at breakfast next day. “I've got another engagement.”
He glanced towards Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's empty seat at the adjoining table, and suppressed a grin as he saw the expression on Wendover's face.
“Need you advertise yourself quite so much in that quarter, Clinton?” Wendover demanded, rather put out by the turn of events.
Sir Clinton's features displayed an exaggerated expression of coyness, as though he were a boy half inviting chaff on the subject of a feminine conquest.
“I find her interesting, squire. And good-looking. And charming. And, shall we say, fascinating? It's a very rare combination, you'll admit; and hence I'd be sorry not to profit by it when it's thrust upon me.”
Wendover was somewhat relieved by the impish expression in Sir Clinton's eye.
“I've never known you to hanker after semi-society ladies before, Clinton. Is it just a freak? Or are you falling into senile decay? She's fairly obvious, you know, especially against this background.”
Sir Clinton failed to suppress his grin.
“Wrong both times, squire, making twice in all. It's not a freak. It's not senile decay. It's business. Sounds sordid, doesn't it, after your spangled imaginings? ‘Chief Constable Sacrifices All for Love,’ and that sort of thing. It's almost a pity to disappoint you.”
Wendover's relief was obvious.
“Don't singe your wings, that's all. She's a dangerous toy, by the look of her, Clinton. I shouldn't play with her too long, if I were you. What she's doing down here at all is a mystery to me.”
“That's precisely what I intend to find out, squire. Hence my devotion. There were more brutal ways of finding out; but I don't share the inspector's views about how to elicit evidence. You see, she's studied in the best school of fascination, and she knows a woman can always get into a man's good graces by leading him on to talk about his work. So she's secured a number of horrific details about the dreadful powers of the police in this land of freedom from me. I think she'll part with the information I want when I ask for it.”
Wendover shook his head disapprovingly.
“Seems a bit underhand, that,” he commented.
“The finer graces do get shoved aside in a murder case,” Sir Clinton admitted. “One regrets it; but there it is. You can't wear a collar and tie when you're going to be hanged, you know.”
“Get on with your breakfast, you gruesome devil,” Wendover directed, half in jest and half in earnest. “I expect the next thing will be your luring all your suspects on to the hotel weighing-machine, so as to have the right length of the drop calculated beforehand. Constant association with that brute Armadale has corrupted you completely.”
Sir Clinton stirred his coffee thoughtfully for a moment or two before speaking again.
“I've got a job for you to do, squire,” he announced at last in a serious tone. “About eleven o'clock I have an appointment with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux. We're going for a walk along the bay. Now, I want you to drive into Lynden Sands, pick up Armadale, and get back again so as to meet us somewhere about the old wreck. It was a spring tide yesterday, and the tide's just turning about this time in the morning; so we'll have to keep quite near the road in our walk across the sands. You can hail us from the road easily enough.”
Wendover nodded an acceptance of the task.
“The inspector can bring along a tape-measure in his pocket, and, if he likes, he can drag the blow-lamp and wax with him also, though I doubt if we'll need them.” At the mention of the tape-measure, Wendover pricked up his ears.
“You don't imagine that she was on the beach that night, do you, Clinton? Armadale found out that her shoes were No. 4—half a size, at least, too big for the prints we haven't identified yet. Besides, she's quite a good height—as tall as Mrs. Fleetwood; and, you remember, the steps were much shorter than Mrs. Fleetwood's. The person who made these prints must have been much smaller than the Laurent-Desrousseaux woman. Have you found some more prints that you didn't tell us about?”
“All in good time, squire,” Sir Clinton answered. “Take things as they come.”
He sipped his coffee as though to show that he did not propose to be drawn. But Wendover was not to be put off.
“You couldn't have got a No. 4 shoe into these prints.”
“No.”
“And, from what I've seen of her feet, her shoes are a perfect fit.”
“I've noticed you admiring them—quite justifiably, squire.”
“Well, she couldn't wear a 3½ shoe.”
“No. That's admitted. She hasn't such a thing in her possession; I'm sure of that. Give it up, squire. The fishing's very poor in this district. I'm not going to tell you anything just now.”
Wendover recognised that he could not hope to extract any further information from the chief constable, and he consoled himself with the thought that a couple of hours at most would see this part of the mystery cleared up. After breakfast he went into the lounge, and passed the time in smoking and reviewing the state of affairs. He became so engrossed in this exercise that it was almost with a start that he realised the time had come to take out the car and pick up Armadale.
As he and the inspector drove slowly back from the village, they saw the figures of Sir Clinton and Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux sauntering across the sands just below high-tide mark; and in a few moments the car came level with the walkers. Sir Clinton waved his arm, and Wendover and Armadale got out and walked down the beach.
“This is Inspector Armadale, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux,” the chief constable said, as they came up. “He wants to ask you some questions about Friday night, when you were at that rock over there.”
He pointed to Neptune's seat as he spoke. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux seemed completely taken by surprise. For a moment or two she stood glancing uneasily from one to another; and her eyes showed something more than a tinge of fear.
“I am much surprised, Sir Clinton,” she said at last, her accent coming out more markedly than usual in her nervous voice. “I had supposed that you were friendly to me; and now it appears that, without making a seeming of it, you have been leading me into what you call an English police-trap, isn't it? That is not good of you.”
Armadale had picked up his cue from Sir Clinton's words.
“I'm afraid I must ask you to answer my questions, ma'am,” he said, with a certain politeness. Obviously he was by no means sure of his ground.
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux eyed him in silence for some moments.
“What is it that you desire to know?” she demanded finally.
Before Armadale could formulate a question, Sir Clinton intervened.
“I think, madame, that it will make things easier for us all if I tell you that the inspector is preparing a case against someone else. He needs your deposition to support his charge. That is the whole truth, so far as he is concerned. You need not have any fears, provided that you tell us all that you know about Friday night.”
Wendover noticed the double meaning which might be attached to Sir Clinton's words; but he could not feel sure whether the chief constable wished to deceive or merely to reassure his witness. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's face cleared slightly as she grasped the meaning of Sir Clinton's speech.
“If such is the case,” she said cautiously, “I might recall to myself some of the things which happened.”
Armadale seemed a trifle suspicious at this guarded offer, but he proceeded to put some questions.
“You knew this man Staveley, ma'am?”
“Nicholas Staveley? Yes, I knew him; I had known him for a long time.”
Sir Clinton interposed again.
“Perhaps you would prefer to tell us what you know of him in your own words, madame. It would be easier for us if you would do so.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux nodded her agreement. She seemed to have conquered her nervousness.
“It was during the war, messieurs, in 1915. I was Odette Pascal then, a young girl, an honest girl—what you English call straight, isn't it? It was later that I became Aline Laurent-Desrousseaux, you understand? I encountered this Nicholas Staveley in Paris, where I was employed in a Government office. He was very charming, very caressing; he knew how to make himself loved.”
She made a gesture, half cynical, half regretful, and paused for a moment before she continued in a harder tone:
“It did not last long, that honeymoon. I discovered his character, so different from that which I had believed it. He abandoned me, and I was very rejoiced to let him go; but he had taught me things, and forced me to work for him while he had me. When we separated ourselves, in fact, I was no longer the gentle, honest little girl that I had been. All that was finished, you understand?”
Wendover saw that the inspector was taking notes in shorthand. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux paused for a time to allow Armadale to catch up.
“The rest is without importance. I became Aline Laurent-Desrousseaux, and I had not any need of Nicholas Staveley. During a long time I had no need of him; but from time to time I heard speak of him, for I had many friends, and some of them could tell a little; and always he was the same. Then is come the report that he was killed at the Front.”
She paused again, with her eye on the inspector's pencil.
“The time passed,” she resumed, “and I desired only to forget him. I believed him well dead, you understand? And then, from one of my friends, I learned that he had been seen again after the war. I disinterested myself from the affair; I had no desire to see him. But suddenly it became of importance to me to satisfy myself about him. It is much complicated, and has nothing to do with him—I pass on. But it was most necessary that I should see him and get him to consent to some arrangements, or an affair of mine would be embarrassed.”
“Embarrassed,” Armadale repeated, to show that he was ready to continue.
“I have consulted my friends,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux pursued. “Some among them have been able to help me, and I have discovered where he was living in London. It was most necessary for me to speak with him. Thus I came over to England, to London. But he is no longer there; he is gone to Lynden Sands, one says. So I procure his address—at Flatt's cottage—and I come myself to Lynden Sands Hotel.”
Armadale's involuntary upward glance from his note-book betrayed the increase in his interest at this point.
“I arrive here; and at once I write him a letter saying I go to Flatt's cottage to see him on Friday night. There is no response, but I go to Flatt's cottage as I had planned. When I knocked at the door, Staveley appeared.”
“What time on Friday night was that?” Armadale interposed.
“In my letter I had fixed a rendezvous at half-past nine. I was exact—on time, you say, isn't it? But it seemed that this Staveley could not see me alone there; others were in the cottage. Then he said that he would meet me later—at half-past ten—at some great rock beside the sea, the rock one calls Neptune's Seat.”
“So you came away, and he went back into the cottager” Armadale demanded.
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux assented with a slight bow.
“I came away,” she continued. “To pass the time, I walked on the road, and perhaps I walked too far. It was late—after the hour of the rendezvous—when I arrived opposite the rock, this Neptune's Seat. I went down on to the sands and attained to the rock. Staveley was there, very angry because I was ten minutes late. He was much enraged, it appears, because he had a second rendezvous at that place in a few minutes. He would not listen to me at all at the moment. I saw that it was no time for negotiating with him, he was so much in anger and so anxious to deliver himself of me. I fixed another rendezvous for the following day, and I left him.”
“What time did you leave him on the rock?” Armadale interjected.
“Let us see.” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux halted for a moment to consider. “I passed some minutes with him on the rock—let us put ten minutes at the least.”
“That would mean you left the rock very shortly before eleven o'clock, then?”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux agreed with a gesture.
“I went away from the rock by the same road as I had come,” she went on. “I was much agitated, you understand? It was a great disappointment that I had attained to no arrangement at that moment, I had hoped for something better, isn't it? And that Staveley had been very little obliging—unkind, isn't it? It was very desolating.
“As I was crossing the sands, a great automobile appeared on the road, coming from the hotel. It stopped whilst I was waiting for it to pass; and the chauffeur extinguished its projectors. Then a woman descended from the automobile, and walked down on to the sands towards the rock.”
Wendover could read on Armadale's face an expression of triumph. The inspector was clearly overjoyed at getting some direct evidence to support his case against Cressida; and Wendover had to admit, with considerable disquietude, that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's narrative bore out Armadale's hypothesis very neatly.
“When I again regarded the automobile, the chauffeur also had vanished. He was not on the road. Perhaps he also had gone down to therivage.”
“Shore,” Sir Clinton interjected, seeing Armadale's obvious perplexity at the word.
“I was standing there for some minutes,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued. “Against one like that Staveley one must utilise all weapons, isn't it?—even espionage. I had a presentiment that something might eventuate. Staveley and a woman, you understand? I was hoping that something, anything, might arrive to give me an advantage over him.
“I have forgotten to say that the sky was obscured by great clouds. It was a little difficult to see clearly. On the rock they discussed and discussed, but I could hear nothing; and in the end I grew tired of attending.”
“How long did you stand there?” Armadale asked.
“It would be difficult to say, but perhaps it was about a quarter-hour. I was quite tired of attending, and I walked—quite slowly—along the road away from the hotel. I avoided the automobile, you understand? I desired no embarrassments. It was not my affair—isn't it?—to discover the identity of this woman. All that I desired was an arm against Staveley. There was nothing else at all.
“A little after, I returned; it seemed to me longer, perhaps, than it really was; and I was believing that they must be gone, those two. Then, all at once, I heard the report of a firearm down at the rock——”
“A single shot?” Sir Clinton questioned. “Un seul coup de feu?”
“One only,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux answered definitely. “I hastened back along the road in the direction of the automobile. I had the idea of an accident in my head, you understand? It was very sombre; great clouds were passing on the moon. I could see with difficulty the woman's figure hasten up from the rock towards the automobile; and almost at once the chauffeur rejoined her. When they were getting into the automobile I was quite close; I could hear them speak, although it was too dark to see them except most dimly. The woman spoke first, very agitated.”
Her three listeners were intent on her next words. Armadale looked up, his pencil poised to take down her report. Wendover felt a catch in his breath as he waited for the next sentences which would either make or break the inspector's case.
“She said,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued, “She said these very words, for they were stamped on my memory since they meant so much to me: ‘I've shot him, Stanley.’ And the chauffeur demanded: ‘Have you killed him?’ And you can understand, messieurs, that I listened with all my ears. The woman responded: ‘I think so. He fell at once and lay quite still. What's to be done?’ And to that the chauffeur made the reply: ‘Get you away at once.’ And he made some movement as if to put the motor in march. But the woman stopped him and demanded: ‘Aren't you going down to look at him—see if anything can be done?’ And to that the chauffeur made the response in anger: ‘It's damn well likely, isn't it?’ Just like that. And he pursued: ‘Not till I've seen you in safety, anyhow. I'm not running any risks.’ ”
Wendover felt that his last shred of hope had been torn away. This reported conversation might have been concerted between Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux and Armadale beforehand, so neatly did it fit into its place in the inspector's case. He glanced up at Sir Clinton's face, and saw there only the quiet satisfaction of a man who fits a fresh piece of a jig-saw puzzle into position.
“Then,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux continued, “the chauffeur set his motor in march and reversed the automobile. I stepped aside off the road for fear that they should see me; but they went off towards the hotel without illuminating the projectors.”
She stopped, evidently thinking that she had told all that was of importance. Armadale suggested that she should continue her tale.
“Figure to yourselves my position,” she went on. “Staveley was lying dead on the rock. The automobile had gone. I was left alone. If one came along the road and encountered me, there would be suspicion; and one would have said that I had good reason to hate Staveley. I could see nothing but embarrassments before me. And the chauffeur had suggested that he might return later on. What more easy, if he found me there, than to throw suspicion on me to discredit me? Or to incriminate me, even? In thinking of these things, I lost my head. My sole idea was to get away without being seen. I went furtively along the road, in trembling lest the automobile should return. No one met me; and I regained the gardens of the hotel without being encountered. As I was passing one of the alleys, I noticed standing there the great automobile, with its lights extinguished. I passed into the hotel without misfortune.”
“What time did you get back to the hotel, madame?” Armadale asked, as she halted again.
“Ah! I am able to tell you that, Monsieur l'Inspecteur, and exactly. I noted the hour mechanically on the clock in the hall. It was midnight less five minutes when I arrived.”
“It's a twenty to twenty-five minute walk,” Armadale commented. “That means you must have left the beach somewhere round about half-past eleven. Now, one more question, madame. Did you recognise the voices of the man and the woman?”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux hesitated before replying.
“I should not wish to say,” she answered at last unwillingly.
A frown crossed Armadale's features at the reply, and, seeing it, she turned to Sir Clinton, as though to appeal to him.
“The automobile has already been identified, madame,” the chief constable said, answering her unspoken inquiry. “You can do no one any harm by telling us the truth.”
His words seemed to remove her disinclination.
“In this case, I reveal nothing which you ignore? Then I say that it was the voice of the young Madame Fleetwood which I have heard in the night.”
Armadale bestowed a glance on Wendover, as much as to say that his case was lock-fast. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, now that she had got her narrative off her mind, seemed to be puzzled by something. She turned to Sir Clinton.
“I am embarrassed to know how you came to discover that I was at the rock on that night. May I ask?”
Sir Clinton smiled, and with a wave of his hand he indicated the trail of footmarks across the sands which they had made in their walk.
“Ah, I comprehend! I had forgotten the imprints which I must have left when I went down to the rock. It was dark, you understand?—and naturally I did not perceive that I was leaving traces. So that was it, Sir Clinton?”
Armadale was obviously puzzled. He turned to Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux.
“What size of shoe do you wear, madame?”
She glanced at her neatly shod feet.
“These shoes I have bought in London a few days ago. Thepointure—the size, you call it, isn't it?—was No. 4.”
Armadale shrugged his shoulders, as though to express his disbelief.
“Measure these prints on the sand here, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested.
Armadale drew out his tape-measure and took the dimensions of the footmarks left by Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux.
“And the length of step also, inspector,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“They correspond with the tracks down to the rock, true enough,” the inspector admitted, when he completed his task. “But only a 3½ shoe could have made them.”
Sir Clinton laughed, though not sneeringly.
“Would you lend me one of your shoes for a moment, madame?” he asked. “You can lean on me while it's off, so as not to put your foot on the wet sand.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux slipped off her right shoe and held it out.
“Now, inspector, there's absolutely no deception. Look at the number stamped on it. A four, isn't it?”
Armadale examined the shoe, and nodded affirmatively.
“Now take the shoe and press it gently on the sand alongside a right-foot print of Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux—that one there will do. See that you get it square on the sand and make a good impression.”
The inspector knelt down and did as he was told. As he lifted the shoe again, Wendover saw a look of astonishment on his face.
“Why, they don't correspond!” he exclaimed. “The one I've made just now is bigger than the other.”
“Of course,” the chief constable agreed. “Now do you see that a No. 4 shoe can make an impression smaller than itself if you happen to be walking in sand or mud? While you were hunting for people with 3½ shoes, I was turning my attention to No. 4's. There aren't so many in the hotel, as you know. And it so happened that I began with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux. She was good enough to go for a walk with me; and by counting her steps I gauged the length of her pace. It corresponded to the distance on the tracks.”
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux was examining Sir Clinton with obvious admiration, not wholly unmixed with a certain uneasiness.
“You seem to be very adroit, Sir Clinton,” she observed. “But what is this about the length of my pace?”
“The inspector is accustomed to our English girls, madame, who have a free-swinging walk and therefore a fairly long step. From the length of the steps on the sand he inferred that they had been made by someone who was not very tall—rather under the average height. He forgot that some of you Parisians have a different gait—more restrained, more finished, shall we say?”
“Ah, now I see!” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux exclaimed, not at all unsusceptible to the turn of Sir Clinton's phrase. “You mean the difference between the cab-horse and the stepper?”
“Exactly,” Sir Clinton agreed with an impassive face.
Armadale was still puzzling over the two footprints. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, evidently wearying of standing with one foot off the ground, recovered her shoe from him and slipped it on again. Sir Clinton took pity on his subordinate.
“Here's the explanation, inspector. When you walk in sand, you put down your heel first. But as the sand's soft, your heel goes forward and downward as you plant your foot. Then, as your body moves on, your foot begins to turn in the sand; and when you've come to the end of your step, your toe also is driven downwards; but instead of goingforward, like your heel, it slips backward. The result is that in the impression the heel is too far forward, whilst the toe is in the rear of the true position—and that means an impression shorter than the normal. On the sand, your foot really pivots on the sole under the instep, instead of on heel and toe, as it does on hard ground. If you look at these impressions, you'll find quite a heap of sand under the point where the instep was; whilst the heel and toe are deeply marked owing to each of them pivoting on the centre of the shoe. See it?”
The inspector knelt down, and Wendover followed his example. They had no difficulty in seeing Sir Clinton's point.
“Of course,” the chief constable went on, “in the case of a woman's shoe, the thing is even more exaggerated owing to the height of the heel and the sharpness of the toe. Haven't you noticed, in tracks on the sand, how neat any woman's prints always look? You never seem to find the impression of a clumsy foot, simply because the impression is so much smaller than the real foot. Clear enough, isn't it?”
“You are most ingenious, Sir Clinton,” Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux commented. “I am very glad indeed that I have not you against me.”
Sir Clinton turned the point.
“The inspector will bring you a copy of the evidence you have so kindly given us, madame, and you will do us the favour to sign it. It is a mere formality, that; but we may need you as a witness in the case, you understand?”
Rather ungraciously, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux agreed. It was evident that she had hoped to escape giving evidence in court.
“I do not desire to offer testimony against the young Madame Fleetwood if it could be averted,” she said frankly. “She was good to me once or twice; very gentle, very kind—not like the others in the hotel.”
The inspector shrugged his shoulders, as though the matter were out of his hands; but he made no reply.
“You will, of course, say nothing about this to anyone, madame,” Sir Clinton warned her, as they walked across the sands to the car.
At the hotel, Sir Clinton was met by a message from Cargill asking him to go up to his room. Wendover accompanied him, and when they had inquired about his wound and been reassured by a good report from the doctor which Cargill was able to repeat, the Australian plunged into the matter which he wished to lay before the chief constable.
“It's that thing I told you about before,” he explained. “This is how it happened. I was so sore last night that I forgot all about it.”
He felt under his pillow, and drew out a crumpled envelope.
“I was in the writing-room one day lately, and Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux—that French high-stepper—was writing something at one of the tables. She made a muddle of her addressing of the thing, and flung a spoiled envelope into the waste-paper basket beside her. Then she addressed another envelope, sealed up her letter, and went out.
“I happened to have some jottings to make; and, as her waste-paper basket was just at my elbow, I leaned over and fished out the old envelope, to save myself the bother of getting out of my chair for a piece of paper. I scribbled down the notes I wanted to make, put the envelope in my pocket, and left it there. It wasn't for a while after that—yesterday—that I needed the jottings I'd made. I fished the envelope out, and was reading my notes, when suddenly my eye was caught by the spoiled address on the envelope.” He handed the paper across to Sir Clinton, who read:
Monsieur Nicholas Staveley,Flatt's Cotage,Lynden Sands.
Monsieur Nicholas Staveley,
Flatt's Cotage,
Lynden Sands.
“You see, she'd spelt ‘cottage’ with one ‘t,’ ” Cargill pointed out unnecessarily. “That's what made her throw away the envelope, I expect.”
Sir Clinton took the envelope and examined it carefully.
“That's extremely interesting,” he said. “I suppose I may keep this? Then would you mind initialling it, just in case we need it for reference later on?”
He handed Cargill a pencil, and the Australian scribbled his initials on one corner of the envelope. The chief constable chatted for a few minutes on indifferent matters, and then retired, followed by Wendover.
“Why didn't you tell him he was a day after the fair?” Wendover demanded, as they went down the stairs. “The only value that envelope has now is that it further confirms Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's evidence. And yet you treated it as if it were really of importance.”
“I hate to discourage enthusiasm, squire,” Sir Clinton answered. “Remember that we owe the second cartridge-case to Cargill's industry. If I had damped him over the envelope, he might feel disinclined to give us any more assistance; and one never knows what may turn up yet. Besides, why spoil his pleasure for him? He thought he was doing splendidly.”
As they reached the first floor, they saw Paul Fordingbridge coming along the corridor towards the stairs.
“Here's someone who can perhaps give us more valuable information,” Sir Clinton added in a low tone.
He stopped Paul Fordingbridge at the head of the stairs.
“By the way, Mr. Fordingbridge,” he asked, glancing round to see that there was no one within earshot, “there's just one point I'd like you to clear up for me, if you don't mind.”
Paul Fordingbridge stared at him with an emotionless face.
“Very glad to do anything for you,” he said, without betraying anything in his tone.
“It's nothing much,” Sir Clinton assured him. “All I want is to be clear about this Foxhills estate and its trimmings. Your nephew owns it at present?”
“If I have a surviving nephew, certainly. I can offer no opinion on that point, you understand.”
“Naturally,” Sir Clinton acquiesced. “Now, suppose your nephew's death were proved, who are the next heirs? That's what I'd like you to tell me, if you don't mind. I could get it hunted up at Somerset House, but if you'll save me the trouble it will be a help.”
“Failing my nephew, it would go to my niece, Mrs. Fleetwood.”
“And if anything happened to her?”
“It falls to me in that case.”
“And if you weren't there to take it by then?”
“My sister would get it.”
“There's no one else? Young Fleetwood, for instance, couldn't step in front of you owing to his having married your niece?”
“No,” Paul Fordingbridge answered at once. “The will took account of seven lives, and I suppose that was sufficient in the ordinary way. My sister, if she gets it, can leave it to anyone she chooses.”
Sir Clinton seemed thoughtful. It was only after a slight pause that he took up a fresh line of questions.
“Can you tell me anything about the present management of the thing? You have a power of attorney, I believe; but I suppose you leave matters very much in the hands of lawyers?”
Paul Fordingbridge shook his head.
“I'm afraid I'm no great believer in lawyers. One's better to look after things oneself. I'm not a busy man, and it's an occupation for me. Everything goes through my hands.”
“Must be rather a business,” Sir Clinton criticised. “But I suppose you do as I would myself—get a firm of auditors to keep your books for you.”
Paul Fordingbridge seemed slightly nettled at the suggestion.
“No. Do you suppose I can't draw up a balance-sheet once a year? I'm not quite incompetent.”
It was evident that Sir Clinton's suggestion had touched him in his vanity, for his tone showed more than a trace of pique. The chief constable hastened to smooth matters over.
“I envy you, Mr. Fordingbridge. I never had much of a head for figures myself, and I shouldn't care to have that kind of work thrust on my hands.”
“Oh, I manage very well,” Paul Fordingbridge answered coldly. “Is there anything else you'd like to know?”
Sir Clinton reflected for a moment before replying.
“I think that's everything. Oh, there's one other matter which you may know about, perhaps. When does Mrs. Fleetwood expect her lawyer to turn up?”
“This afternoon,” Paul Fordingbridge intimated. “But I understand that they wish to consult him before seeing you again. I believe they'll make an appointment with Inspector Armadale for to-morrow.”
Sir Clinton's eyebrows lifted slightly at the news of this further delay; but he made no audible comment. Paul Fordingbridge, with a stiff bow, left them and went on his way downstairs. Sir Clinton gazed after him.
“I'd hate to carry an automatic in my jacket pocket continuously,” he remarked softly. “Look how his pocket's pulled all out of shape by the thing. Very untidy.”
With a gesture he stopped the comment that rose to Wendover's lips, and then followed Fordingbridge downstairs. Wendover led the way out into the garden, where he selected a quiet spot.
“There's one thing that struck me about Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux's evidence,” he said, as they sat down, “and that is: It may be all lies together.”
Sir Clinton pulled out his case and lit a cigarette before answering.
“You think so? It's not impossible, of course.”
“Well, look at it squarely,” Wendover pursued. “We know nothing about the woman. For all we can tell, she may be an accomplished liar. By her own showing, she had some good reason for wanting Staveley out of the way.”
“It wouldn't be difficult to make a guess at it,” Sir Clinton interjected. “I didn't want to go beyond our brief this morning, or I'd have asked her about that. But I was very anxious not to rouse her suspicions, and the matter really didn't bear directly on the case, so I let it pass.”
“Well, let's assume that her yarn is mostly lies, and see where that takes us,” Wendover went on. “We know she was at the cottage all right; we've got the footprint to establish that. We know she was on the rock, too, for her footprints were on the sands, and she doesn't contest the fact of her presence either. These are the two undeniable facts.”
“Euclidian, squire. But it leaves the story a bit bare, doesn't it? Go on; clothe the dry bones with flesh, if you can.”
Wendover refused to be nettled. He was struggling, not too hopefully, to shift the responsibility of the murder from the shoulders of Cressida to those of another person; and he was willing to catch at almost any straw.
“How would this fit, then?” he demanded. “Suppose that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux herself was the murderess. She makes her appointment with Staveley at the cottage as she told us; and she goes there, just as she said she did. She meets Staveley, and he refuses to see her. Now assume that he blurts out the tale of his appointment at 11p.m.at Neptune's Seat with Mrs. Fleetwood, and makes no appointment at all with Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux for that evening. That part of her tale would be a lie, of course.”
Sir Clinton flicked the ash from his cigarette on to the seat beside him, and seemed engrossed in brushing it away.
“She goes to the shore near 11p.m.,” Wendover continued, “not to meet Staveley, as she told us, but to eavesdrop on the two of them, as she confessed she did in her tale. She waits until Mrs. Fleetwood goes away; and then she sees her chance. She goes down to the rock herself then and she shoots Staveley with her own hand for her own purposes. She leaves the body on the rock and returns, as her footmarks show, to the road, and so to the hotel. What's wrong with that?”
“Nothing whatever, squire, except that it omits the most damning facts on which the inspector's depending. It leaves out, for instance, the pistol that he found in Mrs. Fleetwood's golf-blazer.”
Wendover's face showed that his mind was hard at work.
“One can't deny that, I suppose,” he admitted. “But she might quite well have let off her pistol to frighten Staveley. That would account for——”
He broke off, thought hard for a moment or two, then his face cleared.
“There were two cartridge-cases: one at the rock and one at the groyne. If Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux killed Staveley, then the cartridge-case on the rock belongs to her pistol; and any other shot fired by the Fleetwoods—at the groyne. That means that Stanley Fleetwood, behind the groyne, fired a shot to scare Staveley. Then, when the Fleetwoods had gone, Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux went down and shot him on the rock. That accounts for everything, doesn't it?”
Sir Clinton shook his head.
“Just think what happens when you fire an automatic. The ejector mechanism jerks the empty case out to your right, well clear of your shoulder, and lands it a yard or two behind you. It's a pretty big impulse that the cartridge-case gets. Usually the thing hops along the ground, if I remember rightly. You can take it from me that a shot fired from where Fleetwood crouched wouldn't land the cartridge-case at the point where Cargill showed us he'd picked it up.”
Wendover reflected for a while.
“Well, who did it, then?” he demanded. “If the shot had been fired on the rock, the cartridge-case couldn't have skipped that distance, including a jump over the groyne. And there were no other footmarks on that far side of the groyne except Fleetwood's.”
Again he paused, thinking hard.
“You said there was a flaw in the inspector's case. Is this it, by any chance?”
Looking up, he saw the figure of Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux crossing the lawn not far from them.
“That's very opportune,” he said, glancing after her. “Any objection to my asking your witness a couple of questions, Clinton?”
“None whatever.”
“Then come along.”
Wendover managed matters so that it appeared as though they had encountered Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux by a mere accident; and it was only after they had talked for a few minutes on indifferent matters that he thought it safe to ask his questions.
“You must have got drenched before you reached the hotel on Friday night, madame, surely? I hope there have been no ill-effects?”
“Yes, indeed!” Mme Laurent-Desrousseaux answered readily. “It was a real rain of storm—how do you say that in English?”
“Thunderstorm; heavy shower,” Sir Clinton suggested.
“Yes?Une pluie battante.I was all wetted.”
“When did the rain start, do you remember?” Wendover asked indifferently.
Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux showed no hesitation whatever.
“It was after the automobile had started to return to the hotel—a few minutes only after that.”
“You must have got soaked to the skin yourself,” Wendover commiserated her. “That reminds me, had Staveley his coat on—his overcoat, I mean—or was he carrying it over his arm when you met him at the rock?”
Again the Frenchwoman answered without pausing to consider.
“He carried it on his arm. Of that I am most certain.” Wendover, having nothing else to ask, steered the talk into other channels; and in a short time they left Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux to her own affairs. When they were out of earshot, Sir Clinton glanced at Wendover.
“Was that your own brains, squire, or a tip from the classic? You're getting on, whichever it was. Armadalewillbe vexed. But kindly keep this to yourself. The last thing I want is to have any information spread round.”