“Slack questioned him right enough,” said Melchett. “But the boy says he didn’t meet anybody. Hardly likely he would. The murderer wouldn’t be exactly courting observation. Lots of cover by your front gate. He would have taken a look to see if the road was clear. The boy had to call at the Vicarage, at Haydock’s, and at Mrs. Price Ridley’s. Easy enough to dodge him.”
“Yes,” I said, “I suppose it would be.”
“On the other hand,” went on Melchett, “if by any chance that rascal Archer did the job, and young Fred Jackson saw him about the place, I doubt very much whether he’d let on. Archer is a cousin of his.”
“Do you seriously suspect Archer?”
“Well, you know, old Protheroe had his knife into Archer pretty badly. Lots of bad blood between them. Leniency wasn’t Protheroe’s strong point.”
“No,” I said. “He was a very ruthless man.”
“What I say is,” said Melchett, “Live and let live. Of course the law’s the law, but it never hurts to give a man the benefit of the doubt. That’s what Protheroe never did.”
“He prided himself on it,” I said.
There was a pause, and then I asked:
“What is this ‘astounding bit of news ‘ you promised me?”
“Well, it is astounding. You know that unfinished letter that Protheroe was writing when he was killed?”
“Yes.”
“We got an expert on it – to say whether the 6.20 was added by a different hand. Naturally we sent up samples of Protheroe’s handwriting. And do you know the verdict? That letter was never written by Protheroe at all.”
“You mean a forgery?”
“It’s a forgery. The 6.20 they think is written in a different hand again – but they’re not sure about that. The heading is in a different ink, but the letter itself is a forgery. Protheroe never wrote it.”
“Are they certain?”
“Well, they’re as certain as experts ever are. You know what an expert is! Oh! but they’re sure enough.”
“Amazing,” I said. Then a memory assailed me.
“Why,” I said, “I remember at the time Mrs. Protheroe said it wasn’t like her husband’s handwriting at all, and I took no notice.”
“Really?”
“I thought it one of those silly remarks women will make. If there seemed one thing sure on earth it was that Protheroe had written that note.”
We looked at each other.
“It’s curious,” I said slowly. “Miss Marple was saying this evening that that note was all wrong.”
“Confound the woman, she couldn’t know more about it if she had committed the murder herself.”
At that moment the telephone bell rang. There is a queer kind of psychology about a telephone bell. It rang now persistently and with a kind of sinister significance.
I went over and took up the receiver.
“This is the Vicarage,” I said. “Who’s speaking?”
A strange, high-pitched hysterical voice came over the wire:
“I want to confess,” it said. “My God, I want to confess.”
“Hallo,” I said, “hallo. Look here you’ve cut me off. What number was that?”
A languid voice said it didn’t know. It added that it was sorry I had been troubled.
I put down the receiver, and turned to Melchett.
“You once said,” I remarked, “that you would go mad if any one else accused themselves of the crime.”
“What about it?”
“That was someone who wanted to confess…. And the Exchange has cut us off.”
Melchett dashed over and took up the receiver.
“I’ll speak to them.”
“Do,” I said. “You may have some effect. I’ll leave you to it. I’m going out. I’ve a fancy I recognized that voice.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
I hurried down the village street. It was eleven o’clock, and at eleven o’clock on a Sunday night the whole village of St. Mary Mead might be dead. I saw, however, a light in a first floor window as I passed, and, realising that Hawes was still up, I stopped and rang the door bell.
After what seemed a long time, Hawes’s landlady, Mrs. Sadler, laboriously unfastened two bolts, a chain, and turned a key and peered out at me suspiciously.
“Why, it’s Vicar!” she exclaimed.
“Good-evening,” I said. “I want to see Mr. Hawes. I see there’s a light in the window, so he’s up still.”