‘And you did handle her affairs for her at her request?’
‘I did.’
‘Mr Vole,’ said the solicitor, ‘I am going to ask you a very serious question, and one to which it is vital I should have a truthful answer. You were in low water financially. You had the handling of an old lady’s affairs – an old lady who, according to her own statement, knew little or nothing of business. Did you at any time, or in any manner, convert to your own use the securities which you handled? Did you engage in any transaction for your own pecuniary advantage which will not bear the light of day?’ He quelled the other’s response. ‘Wait a minute before you answer. There are two courses open to us. Either we can make a feature of your probity and honesty in conducting her affairs whilst pointing out how unlikely it is that you would commit murder to obtain money which you might have obtained by such infinitely easier means. If, on the other hand, there is anything in your dealings which the prosecution will get hold of – if, to put it baldly, it can be proved that you swindled the old lady in any way, we must take the line that you had no motive for the murder, since she was already a profitable source of income to you. You perceive the distinction. Now, I beg of you, take your time before you reply.’
But Leonard Vole took no time at all.
‘My dealings with Miss French’s affairs are all perfectly fair and above board. I acted for her interests to the very best of my ability, as anyone will find who looks into the matter.’
‘Thank you,’ said Mr Mayherne. ‘You relieve my mind very much. I pay you the compliment of believing that you are far too clever to lie to me over such an important matter.’
‘Surely,’ said Vole eagerly, ‘the strongest point in my favour is the lack of motive. Granted that I cultivated the acquaintanceship of a rich old lady in the hope of getting money out of her – that, I gather, is the substance of what you have been saying – surely her death frustrates all my hopes?’
The solicitor looked at him steadily. Then, very deliberately, he repeated his unconscious trick with his pince-nez. It was not until they were firmly replaced on his nose that he spoke.
‘Are you not aware, Mr Vole, Miss French left a will under which you are the principal beneficiary?’
‘What?’ The prisoner sprang to his feet. His dismay was obvious and unforced. ‘My God! What are you saying? She left her money to me?’
Mr Mayherne nodded slowly. Vole sank down again, his head in his hands.
‘You pretend you know nothing of this will?’
‘Pretend? There’s no pretence about it. I knew nothing about it.’
‘What would you say if I told you that the maid, Janet Mackenzie, swears that you did know? That her mistress told her distinctly that she had consulted you in the matter, and told you of her intentions?’
‘Say? That she’s lying! No, I go too fast. Janet is an elderly woman. She was a faithful watchdog to her mistress, and she didn’t like me. She was jealous and suspicious. I should say that Miss French confided her intentions to Janet, and that Janet either mistook something she said, or else was convinced in her own mind that I had persuaded the old lady into doing it. I dare say that she believes herself now that Miss French actually told her so.’
‘You don’t think she dislikes you enough to lie deliberately about the matter?’
Leonard Vole looked shocked and startled.
‘No, indeed! Why should she?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Mayherne thoughtfully. ‘But she’s very bitter against you.’
The wretched young man groaned again.
‘I’m beginning to see,’ he muttered. ‘It’s frightful. I made up to her, that’s what they’ll say, I got her to make a will leaving her money to me, and then I go there that night, and there’s nobody in the house – they find her the next day – oh! my God, it’s awful!’
‘You are wrong about there being nobody in the house,’ said Mr Mayherne. ‘Janet, as you remember, was to go out for the evening. She went, but about half past nine she returned to fetch the pattern of a blouse sleeve which she had promised to a friend. She let herself in by the back door, went upstairs and fetched it, and went out again. She heard voices in the sitting-room, though she could not distinguish what they said, but she will swear that one of them was Miss French’s and one was a man’s.’
‘At half past nine,’ said Leonard Vole. ‘At half past nine . . .’ He sprang to his feet. ‘But then I’m saved – saved –’
‘What do you mean, saved?’ cried Mr Mayherne, astonished.
‘By half past nine I was at home again! My wife can prove that. I left Miss French about five minutes to nine. I arrived home about twenty past nine. My wife was there waiting for me. Oh! thank God – thank God! And bless Janet Mackenzie’s sleeve pattern.’
In his exuberance, he hardly noticed that the grave expression of the solicitor’s face had not altered. But the latter’s words brought him down to earth with a bump.
‘Who, then, in your opinion, murdered Miss French?’
‘Why, a burglar, of course, as was thought at first. The window was forced, you remember. She was killed with a heavy blow from a crowbar, and the crowbar was found lying on the floor beside the body. And several articles were missing. But for Janet’s absurd suspicions and dislike of me, the police would never have swerved from the right track.’
‘That will hardly do, Mr Vole,’ said the solicitor. ‘The things that were missing were mere trifles of no value, taken as a blind. And the marks on the window were not all conclusive. Besides, think for yourself. You say you were no longer in the house by half past nine. Who, then, was the man Janet heard talking to Miss French in the sitting-room? She would hardly be having an amicable conversation with a burglar?’
‘No,’ said Vole. ‘No –’ He looked puzzled and discouraged. ‘But anyway,’ he added with reviving spirit, ‘it lets me out. I’ve got an alibi. You must see Romaine – my wife – at once.’
‘Certainly,’ acquiesced the lawyer. ‘I should already have seen Mrs Vole but for her being absent when you were arrested. I wired to Scotland at once, and I understand that she arrives back tonight. I am going to call upon her immediately I leave here.’
Vole nodded, a great expression of satisfaction settling down over his face.
‘Yes, Romaine will tell you. My God! it’s a lucky chance that.’
‘Excuse me, Mr Vole, but you are very fond of your wife?’
‘Of course.’
‘And she of you?’
‘Romaine is devoted to me. She’d do anything in the world for me.’
He spoke enthusiastically, but the solicitor’s heart sank a little lower. The testimony of a devoted wife – would it gain credence?
‘Was there anyone else who saw you return at nine-twenty? A maid, for instance?’
‘We have no maid.’
‘Did you meet anyone in the street on the way back?’
‘Nobody I knew. I rode part of the way in a bus. The conductor might remember.’
Mr Mayherne shook his head doubtfully.
‘There is no one, then, who can confirm your wife’s testimony?’
‘No. But it isn’t necessary, surely?’
‘I dare say not. I dare say not,’ said Mr Mayherne hastily. ‘Now there’s just one thing more. Did Miss French know that you were a married man?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Yet you never took your wife to see her. Why was that?’
For the first time, Leonard Vole’s answer came halting and uncertain.
‘Well – I don’t know.’
‘Are you aware that Janet Mackenzie says her mistress believed you to be single, and contemplated marrying you in the future?’
Vole laughed.
‘Absurd! There was forty years difference in age between us.’
‘It has been done,’ said the solicitor drily. ‘The fact remains. Your wife never met Miss French?’
‘No –’ Again the constraint.
?
??You will permit me to say,’ said the lawyer, ‘that I hardly understand your attitude in the matter.’
Vole flushed, hesitated, and then spoke.
‘I’ll make a clean breast of it. I was hard up, as you know. I hoped that Miss French might lend me some money. She was fond of me, but she wasn’t at all interested in the struggles of a young couple. Early on, I found that she had taken it for granted that my wife and I didn’t get on – were living apart. Mr Mayherne – I wanted the money – for Romaine’s sake. I said nothing, and allowed the old lady to think what she chose. She spoke of my being an adopted son for her. There was never any question of marriage – that must be just Janet’s imagination.’
‘And that is all?’
‘Yes – that is all.’
Was there just a shade of hesitation in the words? The lawyer fancied so. He rose and held out his hand.
‘Goodbye, Mr Vole.’ He looked into the haggard young face and spoke with an unusual impulse. ‘I believe in your innocence in spite of the multitude of facts arrayed against you. I hope to prove it and vindicate you completely.’
Vole smiled back at him.
‘You’ll find the alibi is all right,’ he said cheerfully.
Again he hardly noticed that the other did not respond.
‘The whole thing hinges a good deal on the testimony of Janet Mackenzie,’ said Mr Mayherne. ‘She hates you. That much is clear.’
‘She can hardly hate me,’ protested the young man.
The solicitor shook his head as he went out.
‘Now for Mrs Vole,’ he said to himself.
He was seriously disturbed by the way the thing was shaping.
The Voles lived in a small shabby house near Paddington Green. It was to this house that Mr Mayherne went.
In answer to his ring, a big slatternly woman, obviously a charwoman, answered the door.
‘Mrs Vole? Has she returned yet?’
‘Got back an hour ago. But I dunno if you can see her.’
‘If you will take my card to her,’ said Mr Mayherne quietly, ‘I am quite sure that she will do so.’
The woman looked at him doubtfully, wiped her hand on her apron and took the card. Then she closed the door in his face and left him on the step outside.
In a few minutes, however, she returned with a slightly altered manner.
‘Come inside, please.’
She ushered him into a tiny drawing-room. Mr Mayherne, examining a drawing on the wall, stared up suddenly to face a tall pale woman who had entered so quietly that he had not heard her.
‘Mr Mayherne? You are my husband’s solicitor, are you not? You have come from him? Will you please sit down?’
Until she spoke he had not realized that she was not English. Now, observing her more closely, he noticed the high cheekbones, the dense blue-black of the hair, and an occasional very slight movement of the hands that was distinctly foreign. A strange woman, very quiet. So quiet as to make one uneasy. From the very first Mr Mayherne was conscious that he was up against something that he did not understand.
‘Now, my dear Mrs Vole,’ he began, ‘you must not give way –’
He stopped. It was so very obvious that Romaine Vole had not the slightest intention of giving way. She was perfectly calm and composed.
‘Will you please tell me all about it?’ she said. ‘I must know everything. Do not think to spare me. I want to know the worst.’ She hesitated, then repeated in a lower tone, with a curious emphasis which the lawyer did not understand: ‘I want to know the worst.’
Mr Mayherne went over his interview with Leonard Vole. She listened attentively, nodding her head now and then.
‘I see,’ she said, when he had finished. ‘He wants me to say that he came in at twenty minutes past nine that night?’
‘He did come in at that time?’ said Mr Mayherne sharply.
‘That is not the point,’ she said coldly. ‘Will my saying so acquit him? Will they believe me?’
Mr Mayherne was taken aback. She had gone so quickly to the core of the matter.
‘That is what I want to know,’ she said. ‘Will it be enough? Is there anyone else who can support my evidence?’
There was a suppressed eagerness in her manner that made him vaguely uneasy.
‘So far there is no one else,’ he said reluctantly.
‘I see,’ said Romaine Vole.
She sat for a minute or two perfectly still. A little smile played over her lips.
The lawyer’s feeling of alarm grew stronger and stronger.
‘Mrs Vole –’ he began. ‘I know what you must feel –’
‘Do you?’ she said. ‘I wonder.’
‘In the circumstances –’
‘In the circumstances – I intend to play a lone hand.’
He looked at her in dismay.
‘But, my dear Mrs Vole – you are overwrought. Being so devoted to your husband –’
‘I beg your pardon?’
The sharpness of her voice made him start. He repeated in a hesitating manner:
‘Being so devoted to your husband –’
Romaine Vole nodded slowly, the same strange smile on her lips.
‘Did he tell you that I was devoted to him?’ she asked softly. ‘Ah! yes, I can see he did. How stupid men are! Stupid – stupid – stupid –’
She rose suddenly to her feet. All the intense emotion that the lawyer had been conscious of in the atmosphere was now concentrated in her tone.
‘I hate him, I tell you! I hate him. I hate him, I hate him! I would like to see him hanged by the neck till he is dead.’
The lawyer recoiled before her and the smouldering passion in her eyes.
She advanced a step nearer, and continued vehemently:
‘Perhaps I shall see it. Supposing I tell you that he did not come in that night at twenty past nine, but at twenty past ten? You say that he tells you he knew nothing about the money coming to him. Supposing I tell you he knew all about it, and counted on it, and committed murder to get it? Supposing I tell you that he admitted to me that night when he came in what he had done? That there was blood on his coat? What then? Supposing that I stand up in court and say all these things?’
Her eyes seemed to challenge him. With an effort, he concealed his growing dismay, and endeavoured to speak in a rational tone.
‘You cannot be asked to give evidence against your own husband –’
‘He is not my husband!’
The words came out so quickly that he fancied he had misunderstood her.
‘I beg your pardon? I –’
‘He is not my husband.’
The silence was so intense that you could have heard a pin drop.
‘I was an actress in Vienna. My husband is alive but in a madhouse. So we could not marry. I am glad now.’
She nodded defiantly.
‘I should like you to tell me one thing,’ said Mr Mayherne. He contrived to appear as cool and unemotional as ever. ‘Why are you so bitter against Leonard Vole?’
She shook her head, smiling a little.
‘Yes, you would like to know. But I shall not tell you. I will keep my secret . . .’
Mr Mayherne gave his dry little cough and rose.
‘There seems no point in prolonging this interview,’ he remarked. ‘You will hear from me again after I have communicated with my client.’
She came closer to him, looking into his eyes with her own wonderful dark ones.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘did you believe – honestly – that he was innocent when you came here today?’
‘I did,’ said Mr Mayherne.
‘You poor little man,’ she laughed.
‘And I believe so still,’ finished the lawyer. ‘Good evening, madam.’
He went out of the room, taking with him the memory of her startled face.
‘This is going to be the devil of a business,’ said Mr Mayherne to himself as he strode along the street.
Extraordinary, the whole thi
ng. An extraordinary woman. A very dangerous woman. Women were the devil when they got their knife into you.
What was to be done? That wretched young man hadn’t a leg to stand upon. Of course, possibly he did commit the crime . . .
‘No,’ said Mr Mayherne to himself. ‘No – there’s almost too much evidence against him. I don’t believe this woman. She was trumping up the whole story. But she’ll never bring it into court.’
He wished he felt more conviction on the point.
The police court proceedings were brief and dramatic. The principal witnesses for the prosecution were Janet Mackenzie, maid to the dead woman, and Romaine Heilger, Austrian subject, the mistress of the prisoner.
Mr Mayherne sat in the court and listened to the damning story that the latter told. It was on the lines she had indicated to him in their interview.
The prisoner reserved his defence and was committed for trial.
Mr Mayherne was at his wits’ end. The case against Leonard Vole was black beyond words. Even the famous KC who was engaged for the defence held out little hope.
‘If we can shake that Austrian woman’s testimony, we might do something,’ he said dubiously. ‘But it’s a bad business.’
Mr Mayherne had concentrated his energies on one single point. Assuming Leonard Vole to be speaking the truth, and to have left the murdered woman’s house at nine o’clock, who was the man whom Janet heard talking to Miss French at half past nine?
The only ray of light was in the shape of a scapegrace nephew who had in bygone days cajoled and threatened his aunt out of various sums of money. Janet Mackenzie, the solicitor learned, had always been attached to this young man, and had never ceased urging his claims upon her mistress. It certainly seemed possible that it was this nephew who had been with Miss French after Leonard Vole left, especially as he was not to be found in any of his old haunts.