father. Hurled down curses on his head. She
accused him, if I remember rightly, of murdering
her husband.”
“Really,” said Percival repressively. “I
can’t recollect anything of the kind.”
“I remember it, though,” said Lance. “I
was a good bit younger than you, of course.
Perhaps that’s why it appealed to me. As a
child it struck me as full of drama. Where was
Blackbird? West Africa wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I must look up the concession sometime,”
said Lance, “when I’m at the office.”
“You can be quite sure,” said Percival,
“that father made no mistake. If he came
back saying there was no gold, there was no
gold.”
“You’re probably right there,” said Lance.
“Poor Mrs. MacKenzie. I wonder what
234
happened to her and to those two kids she
brought along. Funny—they must be grown
up by now.”
235
20
A’ the Pinewood Private Sanatorium,
Inspector Neele, sitting in the
visitors’ parlour, was facing a greyhaired,
elderly lady. Helen MacKenzie was
sixty-three, though she looked younger. She
had pale blue, rather vacant looking eyes, and
a weak, indeterminate chin. She had a long
upper lip which occasionally twitched. She
held a large book in her lap and was looking
down at it as Inspector Neele talked to her. In
Inspector Neele’s mind was the conversation
he had just had with Doctor Crosbie, the
head of the establishment.
“She’s a voluntary patient, of course,” said
Doctor Crosbie, “not certified.”
“She’s not dangerous, then?”
“Oh, no. Most of the time she’s as sane to
talk to as you or me. It’s one of her good
periods now so that you’ll be able to have a
perfectly normal conversation with her.”
Bearing this in mind. Inspector Neele
started his first conversational essay.
“It’s very kind of you to see me, madam,”
236
he said. “My name is Neele. I’ve come to see
you about a Mr. Fortescue who has recently
died. A Mr. Rex Fortescue. I expect you
know the name.”
Mrs. MacKenzie’s eyes were fixed on her
book. She said:
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Mr. Fortescue, madam. Mr. Rex
Fortescue.”
“No,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “No. Certainly
not.”
Inspector Neele was slightly taken aback.
He wondered whether this was what Doctor
Crosbie called being completely normal.
“I think, Mrs. MacKenzie, you knew him a
good many years ago.”
“Not really,” said Mrs. MacKenzie. “It
was yesterday.”
“I see,” said Inspector Neele, falling back
upon his formula rather uncertainly. “I
believe,” he went on, “that you paid him a
visit many years ago at his residence, Yewtree
Lodge.”
“A very ostentatious house,” said Mrs.
MacKenzie.
“Yes. Yes, you might call it that. He had
been connected with your husband, I believe,
237
over a certain mine in Africa. The Blackbird
Mine, I believe it was called.”
“I have to read my book,” said Mrs.
MacKenzie. “There’s not much time and I
have to read my book.”
“Yes, madam. Yes, I quite see that.” There
was a pause, then Inspector Neele went on,
“Mr. MacKenzie and Mr. Fortescue went
out together to Africa to survey the mine.”
“It was my husband’s mine,” said Mrs.
MacKenzie. “He found it and staked a claim
to it. He wanted money to capitalise it. He
went to Rex Fortescue. If I’d been wiser, if
I’d known more, I wouldn’t have let him do
it.”
“No, I see that. As it was, they went out
together to Africa, and there your husband
died of fever.”
“I must read my book,” said Mrs.
MacKenzie.
“Do you think Mr. Fortescue swindled
your husband over the Blackbird Mine, Mrs.
MacKenzie?”
Without raising her eyes from the book,
Mrs. MacKenzie said:
“How stupid you are.”
“Yes, yes, I dare say. . . . But you see it’s all
a long time ago and making inquiries about a
238
thing that is over a long time ago is rather
difficult.”
“Who said it was over?”
“I see. You don’t think it is over?”
“No question is ever settled until it is settled
right. Kipling said that. Nobody reads
Kipling nowadays, but he was a great man.”
“Do you think the question will be settled
right one of these days?”