All went well. The pseudo sister and brother-in-law came down and identified him. All seemed to have gone off satisfactorily. And then your friend Bobby upset things. It seemed that Carstairs had recovered consciousness before he died and that he had been saying things. He ‘d mentioned Evans – and Evans was actually in service at the Vicarage.
I admit we were getting rattled by now. We lost our heads a bit.
Moira insisted that he must be put out of the way. We tried one plan which failed. Then Moira said she ‘d see to it. She went down to Marchbolt in the car. She seized a chance very neatly – slipped some morphia into his beer when he was asleep. But the young devil didn’t succumb. That was pure bad luck.
As I told you, it was Nicholson ‘s cross-questioning that made me wonder if you were just what you seemed. But imagine the shock that Moira had when she was creeping out to meet me one evening and came face to face with Bobby! She recognized him at once she ‘d had a good look when he was asleep that day. No wonder she was so scared she nearly passed out. Then she realized that it wasn’t her he suspected and she rallied and played up.
She came to the inn and told him a few tall stories. He swallowed them like a lamb. She pretended that Alan Carstairs was an old lover and she piled it on thick about her fear of Nicholson. Also she did her best to disabuse you of your suspicions concerning me. I did the same to you and disparaged her as a weak, helpless creature – Moira, who had the nerve to put any number of people out of the way without turning a hair!
The position was serious. We’d got the money. We were getting on well with the Henry plan. I was in no hurry for Tommy. I could afford to wait a bit. Nicholson could easily be got out of the way when the time came. But you and Bobby were a menace. You’d got your suspicions fixed on the Grange.
It may interest you to know that Henry didn’t commit suicide.
I killed him! When I was talking to you in the garden I saw there was no time to waste – and I went straight in and saw to things.
The aeroplane that came over gave me my chance. I went into the study, sat down by Henry who was writing and said: ‘Look here, old man -‘ and shot him! The noise of the plane drowned the sound. Then I wrote a nice affecting letter, wiped off my fingerprints from the revolver, pressed Henry’s hand round it and let it drop to the floor. I put the key of the study in Henry’s pocket and went out, locking the door from the outside with the diningroom key which fits the lock.
I won’t go into details of the neat little squib arrangement in the chimney which was timed to go off four minutes later.
Everything went beautifully. You and I were in the garden together and heard the ‘shot’. A perfect suicide! The only person who laid himself open to suspicion was poor old Nicholson. The ass came back for a stick or something!
Of course Bobby’s knight errantry was a bit difficult for Moira.
So she just went off to the cottage. We fancied that Nicholson’s explanation of his wife’s absence would be sure to make you suspicious.
Where Moira really showed her mettle was at the cottage. She realized from the noise upstairs that I’d been knocked out, and she quickly injected a large dose of morphia into herself and lay down on the bed. After you all went down to telephone she nipped up to the attic and cut me free. Then the morphia took effect and by the time the doctor arrived she was genuinely off in a hypnotic sleep.
But all the same her nerve was going. She was afraid you’d get on to Evans and get the hang of how Savage’s will and suicide was worked. Also she was afraid that Carstairs had written to Evans before he came to Marchbolt. She pretended to go up to a London nursing home. Instead, she hurried down to Marchbolt – and met you on the doorstep! Then her one idea was to get you both out of the way. Her methods were crude to the last degree, but I believe she ‘d have got away with it. I doubt if the waitress would have been able to remember much about what the woman who came in with you was like. Moira would have got away back to London and lain low in a nursing home. With you and Bobby out of the way the whole thing would have died down.