were some on Father’s desk, too. He was
furious—-”
“Furious, was he? Did he ask a lot of
questions?”
“Yes–of course–but we couldn’t find out
who put them there.”
“Have you any idea why he was so angry?”
“Well–it was rather a horrid thing to do,
wasn’t it?”
179
Neele looked thoughtfully at her—but he
did not see any signs of evasion in her face.
He said:
“Oh, just one more thing. Miss Fortescue.
Do you know if your stepmother made a will
at any time?”
Elaine shook her head.
“I’ve no idea—I—suppose so. People
usually do, don’t they?”
“They should do—but it doesn’t always
follow. Have you made a will yourself. Miss
Fortescue?”
“No—no—I haven’t—up to now I haven’t
had anything to leave—now, of course——”
He saw the realisation of the changed
position come into her eyes.
“Yes,” he said. “Fifty thousand pounds is
quite a responsibility—it changes a lot of
things. Miss Fortescue.”
II
For some minutes after Elaine Fortescue left
the room. Inspector Neele sat staring in front
of him thoughtfully. He had, indeed, new
food for thought. Mary Dove’s statement that
she had seen a man in the garden at approxi-
180
mately 4.35 opened up certain new possibilities.
That is, of course, if Mary Dove was
speaking the truth. It was never Inspector
Neele’s habit to assume that anyone was
speaking the truth. But, examine her statement
as he might, he could see no real reason
why she should have lied. He was inclined to
think that Mary Dove was speaking the truth
when she spoke of having seen a man in the
garden. It was quite clear that that man could
not have been Lancelot Fortescue, although
her reason for assuming that it was he was
quite natural under the circumstances. It had
not been Lancelot Fortescue, but it had been
a man about the height and build of Lancelot
Fortescue, and if there had been a man in the
garden at that particular time, moreover a
man moving furtively, as it seemed, to judge
from the way he had crept behind the yew
hedges, then that certainly opened up a line
of thought.
Added to this statement of hers, there had
been the further statement that she had heard
someone moving about upstairs. That, in its
turn, tied up with something else. The small
piece of mud he had found on the floor of
Adele Fortescue’s boudoir. Inspector Neele’s
mind dwelt on the small dainty desk in that
181
room. Pretty little sham antique with a rather
obvious secret drawer in it. There had been
three letters in that drawer, letters written by
Vivian Dubois to Adele Fortescue. A great
many love letters of one kind or another had
passed through Inspector Neele’s hands in
the course of his career. He was acquainted
with passionate letters, foolish letters, sentimental
letters and nagging letters. There
had also been cautious letters. Inspector
Neele was inclined to classify these three as of
the latter kind. Even if read in the divorce
court, they could pass as inspired by a merely
platonic friendship. Though in this case:
“Platonic friendship my foot!” thought the
Inspector inelegantly. Neele, when he had
found the letters, had sent them up at once to
the Yard since at that time the main question
was whether the Public Prosecutor’s office
thought that there was sufficient evidence to
proceed with the case against Adele Fortescue
or Adele Fortescue and Vivian Dubois together.
Everything had pointed towards Rex Fortescue having been poisoned by his wife
with or without her lover’s connivance.
These letters, though cautious, made it fairly
clear that Vivian Dubois was her lover, but
there had not been in the wording, so far as
182
Inspector Neele could see, any signs of
incitement to crime. There might have been
incitement of a spoken kind, but Vivian
Dubois would be far too cautious to put anything
of that kind down on paper.
Inspector Neele surmised accurately that
Vivian Dubois had asked Adele Fortescue to
destroy his letters and that Adele Fortescue
had told him she had done so.
Well, now they had two more deaths on
their hands. And that meant, or should mean, that Adele Fortescue had not killed her