The miracle has happened.
Directly Sue learned that Johnny had been charged with abetting me she realised that the only hope for him lay in solving the original crime. She therefore took up his investigation where he had left off.
Bill willingly gave her the run of Longshot; and while I have been dictating my long statement she conducted a systematic search there. As Ankaret and I were both inclined to be hoarders, it took Sue nearly a week to go through all our papers, the books in the library and every drawer and cupboard in the house. None of them yielded even a ghost of a clue so, depressed but still determined, she went up to the attics.
The mass of stuff she found there appalled her, and as most of it had not been disturbed for years it seemed most unlikely that she would find among it the sort of thing for which she was seeking. Nevertheless, she set to work and toiled away for three long days in the dust and dirt. On the third evening her labours were rewarded. She came upon an old tin uniform case that had belonged to Bill when he was a young officer in the Life Guards.
It was full of Ankaret’s early drawings. Among them was her historical scrap-book, containing her almost faultless copies of the writing of Napoleon, Charles II, Marie Antoinette and a score of other famous people. It had her name inside the front cover, and loose in it were some amusing sketches of her father, mother and brother, with captions faked in their writings. But even that was not the most conclusive of Sue’s finds.
There were two letters. The first had been written from Wellington Barracks and was simply signed: ‘Dick’. It read:
Ankaret, my sweet,
Apart from any question of dishonesty, how can you have been so incredibly stupid as to bring the night-dress you obtained from Harrods in Grace’s name with you when you came to stay with us last week-end? If you were so hard up for a tenner why on earth didn’t you ask me for one? I would have given it to you willingly. A moment’s thought should have told you that the description given of you and of the night-dress by the saleswoman could lead to your being found out. Unfortunately it seems that there was no love lost between you and Grace when you were at school together, and she is furious. I am doing my utmost to persuade her to keep this wretched business to herself; but her price is a signed confession. I am afraid your only way out is to send me one to show her, and if you will give me your solemn promise never to forge anyone’s name again I’ll do my damnedest to get it back for you.
The second was Ankaret’s confession, which had been returned to her. The dates on the two letters showed the episode to have taken place only a few months before I married her. That, being so hard put to it to make ends meet, she should have chosen to forge an ex-school friend’s name on a shopping bill rather than have asked her lover for money, and then have been so careless about being caught out, was typical of her. The affair explained, too, why she had given copying people’s writing for fun, and made no further additions to her historical scrap-book.
Two days later Johnny and I were taken before a judge in Chambers. The new evidence that Sue had found was produced. The two handwriting experts who had previously hesitated to risk their reputation by stating that the suicide letter was a forgery now declared it to be so. On that the case for the prosecution fell to the ground. The judge ruled that there was no case to answer. Johnny and I walked out free men.