Blundell was not yet in his office when Bream reached there, but a telephone message from him had suspended all work while the staff conferred in awed voices over their late associate’s death. Resolving to tackle one point before attempting to solve the whole exasperating riddle of Elsie Dilworth’s behaviour, Bream put concrete questions, with results inconclusive but stimulating. He learned that Blundell dictated his letters in the morning, but that he sometimes had an additional one to give later in the day. No one remembered just what had happened in this respect on October twenty-eighth, though the young girl typist did recall that Miss Dilworth, who for several days had seemed “very queer,” had, at about three in the afternoon, come over sick and faint.
“I was in the ladies’ room on the landing, filling the kettle for tea. She came in looking ever such a bad colour. Maybe it was a liver attack, as she said; but I remember thinking it seemed more like—well, some sort of shock she’d had.”
“Have you any idea what was responsible?”
“No, and I might have been wrong. I do know Mr. Blundell begged her to go home and rest, only she wouldn’t hear of it. Yes, that was her last day at the office. Next morning she didn’t turn up.”
“Do you know what she had been doing just before she felt faint? Dictating letters, typing correspondence?”
“That I can’t say. I’d been out to buy stamps. Look, here’s Mr. Blundell just coming in. Maybe he can tell you.”
Bream turned and saw the solicitor, looking weary and preoccupied, just entering the door. Already, in the early morning, the two had met in Floyd’s Square, and Blundell now gave an understanding nod as though he had half expected to find inquiries going on in this quarter. Inviting his visitor into a small, untidy private office, and sinking heavily into an old-fashioned swivel chair, he asked at once if Bream had reached any conclusion.
“I’ll put it more plainly,” he said, surveying the agent with keen attention. “No good mincing matters, is there? Are you completely satisfied this affair is what it appears? In three words, is it suicide?”
Bream returned his scrutiny without flinching. If he was taken aback he did not show it.
“I don’t see quite how we can make it anything else,” he answered frankly. “Do you?”
Blundell tapped meditatively on the desk in front of him, but said nothing. After a moment he roused to ask if any member of his staff had been able to throw light on the matter.
“No, none,” said Bream. “I’m glad to have a word with you, because you may be able to help me over one small question. As you may realise, the possibility of Miss Dilworth having poisoned Mrs. Somervell is somewhat intensified by what has just happened, for which reason I’m hoping desperately to get some line on her last day in your employ. You see why, of course?”
“Not quite. What day was it, by the by?”
“October twenty-eighth. It was on that date she saw the Home Office officials and I believe—but correct me if I’m mistaken—on the same date your communication acquainting Dr. Somervell with his inheritance was sent. I suppose Miss Dilworth took down that letter?”
“She must have done. You were thinking—?”
“I’d like to know if you can recall what time of day it was when you dictated the letter. Only if Miss Dilworth took it, otherwise it’s unimportant.”
The shaggy brows knit over the three-cornered eyes. Either Blundell did not entirely grasp the purport of the question, or he was searching his memory very hard. Suddenly he brightened.
“I’ve got it!” he exclaimed with triumph. “She took that letter with the others about eleven in the morning. Know why I’m sure of it? Because—” As he spoke he drew towards him a black-bound diary, fluttered the pages, and laid it out for Bream to see. “There you are, October twenty-eighth. See those appointments? They cover the whole time from lunch onward. I was chock-a-block just then, filling in income-tax forms for half my clients. Besides, wasn’t that the day the poor woman felt so seedy? It was. I was trying to spare her. Well, there’s your answer. Anything more?”
“Just this: I’d been hearing about her being attacked with faintness or whatever it was, and was wondering, to be perfectly candid, if I could connect it up with what she learned about the will. While you were dictating the Somervell letter, did she display any emotion?”
Again the lawyer cogitated, his thick, short legs thrust out before him.
“I remember she gave me rather a startled glance,” he said. “Possibly she turned a bit paler than usual. I see your drift now. From the bottom of my heart I wish I could say something more definite.”
Bream rose, and fingering his bowler turned back to ask if he might be allowed to see a copy of Mrs. Somervell’s will.
“Just to make sure what, if anything, the witnesses were able to see,” he explained. “You’ll appreciate why.”
“Naturally. Well, I’ve the original here in my safe.” The document, folded crosswise in three sections, consisted of four pages, the last of which revealed nothing but the tail end of a sentence and the various signatures. Instantly Bream saw that Elsie Dilworth could not have gleaned any information from the sheet revealed to her.
“Did you happen to notice,” he inquired, “whether when signing her name the will was folded so that the other sheets were invisible?”
“They were when the will was handed to her. After that I’m less sure what happened. It’s a question I’ve bothered about a hundred times. Brutal as it sounds, if we could save young Somervell by loading that crime on to an unfortunate woman who’s out of harm’s way, it would be only common sense to do it.”
Bream left him, and took cautious stock of his impressions. He was now almost convinced that the letter to Somervell was dictated not as Blundell said, but shortly before three in the afternoon. Already he had ascertained that Blundell was alone at that time, the first of his clients not arriving till three-thirty.
“That letter was the shock,” he decided. “And yet I have to admit it’s quite on the cards she didn’t feel actually sick till some hours later, which vitiates my whole argument. If it took immediate effect, then it was entirely due to her having shot her bolt, as it were, before knowing the terms of the will. Is it so, or not?”
There was simply no determining. Such a belief, once proved, would shift the kaleidoscope into a new and startling pattern. Picture the emotional state of a woman who, unwittingly, has sprung a trap on the man she loves!
“But it’s sewn up at both ends. Only one person in that office knows when that dictation occurred, and if he’s lying about it no human power can call his bluff. Is there any way left to tear a hole in this suicide theory?”
Just one. If it could be shown that Elsie on going to King’s Cross had taken a bag with her, then one could be sure at that time she intended not to take her life, but to quit London. He hurried to King’s Cross to find that the night officials were not due to come on duty till late afternoon. Forced to wait for his information, he returned to Floyd’s Square to be met by a disgruntled inspector just taking his departure. No fresh discoveries had been made. He drew Headcorn aside and offered a tactfully-worded bit of advice.
“Inspector, you won’t think it out of place of me if I mention that Miss Lake has something more to tell you? It may concern you as well as myself. And while on the subject, might I suggest you conduct your interview with her away from her flat?”
The big man’s eyes showed there was no necessity for plainer speech.
“Thanks,” was the laconic response. “I’ll get her along to the chief’s office.”
So it was that Diana, for the first time, saw the interior of Scotland Yard, a place far less awe-inspiring than she had imagined. She recounted her tale about the newspapers to an audience composed of a keen-eyed Assistant Commissioner and Inspector Headcorn, was questioned closely, but could not make out what effect she had produced. However, she was once more warned to preserve complete silence over certain incidents, and left with a feeling of dizzy hope interwoven with incredulous horror.
Could it be that three investigations, at first view separate, were all tending towards one and the same conclusion? An insane, grotesque conclusion—or so, till now, she would confidently have believed. These men must know the futility of finding a motive. A thousand times she had assured herself there was none, or if a motive existed it was undiscoverable; and yet there seemed to be something, unguessed by others, which Elsie, suicidal victim, had suspected! Did that something explain a terror which led her to take her life rather than cower in hiding?
“No, that’s utter nonsense! If so, she’d have told me straight out what that something was . . . unless, to be sure, she did mean to follow up those newspapers by some guide, some . . . Did she? Did she?”
If so, she had decided against it—or another person had decided for her. Which!
It was a vicious circle. Elsie’s death was not murder, it was self-inflicted. Headcorn was convinced of it, albeit—if she had rightly read his manner—against his will. Her terrible but precious idea was squashed at birth.
Diana was right. The Inspector would have liked to pick a flaw in last night’s appearances. His failure to do so had thrown him into so morose a mood that his chief, quietly observing him, put a pointed question.
“Exactly what do we know about this solicitor, Blundell?”
Headcorn spoke uninterruptedly for three minutes. The Assistant Commissioner gave ear, shrugged, and remarked that it sounded good enough.
“He stands to lose a considerable sum of money if Somervell’s convicted,” declared the Inspector, and suddenly stopped.
“Which fact won’t prevent your investigating his movements on given dates. Am I right?”
“If you approve, sir. After all this time it’ll be pure luck if we get anything. With the Fairlamb murder I’ve done a thorough combing. If this cursed Indian hadn’t cropped up and formed a link—”
Again his chief had to egg him on.
“Think you can make anything of this Indian?” he asked shrewdly.
“I doubt it, sir. All very well to question his suicide, but establishing a different reason of death’s another pair of shoes. You’ve seen the photograph of the revolver found on the body? Covered with smudges, and those smudges overlaid with his own fingerprints, correctly placed. Smudges may mean handling with gloves on. He’d a pair of new calfskin gloves in his pocket; but are they our answer?”
“Go on,” encouraged his chief. “What other thing’s bothering you?”
“His passport—missing, and not found in his luggage aboard the boat. If he shot himself, what’s become of it? That passport, sir, must have been stamped by the Dutch official when he crossed to Holland. You can well see why I’m not satisfied.”
“That’s the stuff, Inspector,” the Assistant Commissioner commended. “Keep slogging. Don’t let this private chap you’ve mentioned get in ahead of you.”
“Not if I can help it, sir.”
Headcorn grinned appreciatively, but sobered directly he had quitted the Presence. It was not that he feared being forestalled in the matter of discoveries, but the knowledge of the difficulties looming in front of him. For one thing he had now to tackle personal employees who had shown themselves singularly loyal to their master. Could he devise traps to catch them?
“I’m much afraid,” he reflected, “I’m going to find the path blocked at the very first turning.”