husband.
Unless, that is–Inspector Neele considered
a new hypothesis–Adele Fortescue had
wanted to marry Vivian Dubois and Vivian
Dubois had wanted, not Adele Fortescue, but
Adele Fortescue^s hundred thousand pounds
which would come to her on the death of her
husband. He had assumed, perhaps, that Rex
Fortescue’s death would be put down to
natural causes. Some kind of seizure or
stroke. After all, everybody seemed to be
worried over Rex Fortescue’s health during
the last year. (Parenthetically, Inspector
Neele said to himself that he must look into
that question. He had a subconscious feeling
that it might be important in some way.) To
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continue. Rex Fortescue’s death had not gone
according to plan. It had been diagnosed
without loss of time as poisoning, and the correct
poison named.
Supposing that Adele Fortescue and Vivian
Dubois had been guilty, what state would
they be in then? Vivian Dubois would have
been scared and Adele Fortescue would have
lost her head. She might have done or said
foolish things. She might have rung up
Dubois on the telephone, talking indiscreetly
in a way that he would have realised might
have been overheard in Yewtree Lodge. What
would Vivian Dubois have done next?
It was early as yet to try and answer that
question, but Inspector Neele proposed very
shortly to make inquiries at the Golf Hotel as
to whether Dubois had been in or out of the
hotel between the hours of 4.15 and 6 o’clock.
Vivian Dubois was tall and dark like Lance
Fortescue. He might have slipped through
the garden to the side door, made his way
upstairs and then what? Looked for the letters
and found them gone? Waited there, perhaps,
till the coast was clear, then come down into
the library when tea was over and Adele
Fortescue was alone?
But all this was going too fast—-
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Neele had questioned Mary Dove and
Elaine Fortescue; he must see now what
Percival Fortescue’s wife had to say.
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16
INSPECTOR NEELE found Mrs.
Percival in her own sitting-room upstairs,
writing letters. She got up rather nervously
when he came in.
“Is there anything–what–are there—-”
“Please sit down, Mrs. Fortescue. There
are only just a few more questions I would
like to ask you.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, of course. Inspector. It’s all
so dreadful, isn’t it? So very dreadful.”
She sat down rather nervously in an armchair.
Inspector Neele sat down in the small,
straight chair near her. He studied her rather
more carefully than he had done heretofore.
In some ways a mediocre type of woman, he
thought–and thought also that she was not
very happy. Restless, unsatisfied, limited in
mental outlook, yet he thought she might
have been efficient and skilled in her own
profession of hospital nurse. Though she had
achieved leisure by her marriage with a wellto-do
man, leisure had not satisfied her. She
bought clothes, read novels and ate sweets,
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but he remembered her avid excitement on
the night of Rex Fortescue’s death, and he
saw in it not so much a ghoulish satisfaction
but rather a revelation of the arid deserts of
boredom which encompassed her life. Her
eyelids fluttered and fell before his searching
glance. They gave her the appearance of
being both nervous and guilty, but he could
not be sure that that was really the case.
“I’m afraid,” he said soothingly, “we have
to ask people questions again and again. It
must be very tiresome for you all. I do
appreciate that, but so much hangs, you
understand, on the exact timing of events.
You came down to tea rather late, I understand?
In fact. Miss Dove came up and
fetched you.”
“Yes. Yes, she did. She came and said tea
was in. I had no idea it was so late. I’d been
writing letters.”
Inspector Neele just glanced over at the
writing-desk.
“I see,” he said. “Somehow, or other, I
thought you’d been out for a walk.”
“Did she say so? Yes–now I believe you’re fight. I had been writing letters, then it was
so stuffy and my head ached so I went out
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and—er—went for a walk. Only round the
garden.”
“I see. You didn’t meet anyone?”