“At that hour?”
The smile was maintained.
“My dear Inspector-”
“You say that you were with Mrs. Welby?”
“She will, I am sure, confirm it.”
There was a brief electric silence. Drake looked at the Chief Constable.
March said, “Do you not know that Mrs. Welby is dead?”
The hand which had held the paper was lifted with a jerk. It fell again upon his knee. The florid colour had ebbed perceptibly. He said,
“No-no-how shocking!”
“You did not know?”
“No, no-how could I?”
“You were with her on Saturday night. She was found dead on Sunday morning.”
“How?”
“An overdose of sleeping tablets.”
Mr. Holderness leaned back in his chair. He said under his breath,
“It’s a great shock-I’ve known her since she was a child-” And then, “Just give me a minute.”
When it was gone by, he had composed himself. He said soberly,
“I see that I must tell you what I hoped not to have to tell. Mrs. Welby was not exactly a client, but she was a very old friend who sometimes asked my advice. She came here on Saturday morning and told me that she was in a very serious position. I must tell you that she had been living in the Gate House practically rent-free for some years. Mrs. Lessiter had furnished it for her, and, rightly or wrongly, Mrs. Welby assumed that all these furnishings were gifts. She even went so far as to sell some of them. When Mr. Lessiter came home he at once took the matter up-he came to see me about it. He suspected that some of the things had been sold, amongst an extremely vindictive frame of mind. I did my best to mollify him, but he persisted in his determination to prosecute if he could lay his hands on sufficient evidence. On the Wednesday evening he rang me up to say that he had found a memorandum left for him by his mother which made it perfectly clear that the contents of the Gate House were lent to Mrs. Welby, and not given. He reiterated his intention to prosecute. Guessing that Mrs. Welby would have had a similiar communication, and knowing how distressed she would be, I got out my car and went over to see her.” He paused.
When neither Drake nor the Chief Constable made any comment, he lifted his hand in the same gesture as before, let it fall upon his knee, and went on speaking,
“I found her in a state of extreme distress. She told me she had been up to Melling House to try and see James Lessiter, but finding that Miss Cray was with him, she had come away again. She wanted me to go up and see him, but I told her that I did not consider it would be at all a prudent course- it would be very much better to allow him to sleep on the matter. I told her that he would be sure to come and speak to me about it, and that I would then suggest to him the harm that would be done to his own reputation if he were to proceed to extremities. I assured her that it was most unlikely that he meant to do so. She said something about making another attempt to see him herself, but I begged her not to think of it. When I left her I believed that she had given up the idea.” He paused, looked across at the Chief Constable, and said, “Do you not wish to take any of this down? I see that the Inspector is not doing so.”
March said gravely, “A statement can be taken later if you wish it. You will realize, of course, that it may be used in evidence.”
“Naturally. Well, I will continue. On Thursday morning I heard of James Lessiter’s death. I was very much shocked. The police asked my assistance with a view to ascertaining whether there was anything missing from the house, and I accompanied the clerk who checked over the inventory. Carr Robertson consulted me with regard to his position, and I thought it right to pass on his information that Cyril Mayhew had been seen in Lenton on the night of the murder. I advised young Robertson to make a full statement to the police. On Saturday morning Mrs. Welby came to see me. I do not feel at liberty to disclose all she said, but in the circumstances I do feel bound to tell you that she intimated that she did go back to Melling House after I left her on Wednesday night. Her state of mind filled me with alarm. I begged her to go home and rest, and I would come and see her in the evening. My position was a painful one-I had known her since she was a child. I wanted time to think things over. In the end she went away.”
Inspector Drake cleared his throat.
“You reached Melling at about half past nine?”
“It would be somewhere about that time. I didn’t look at my watch.”
“How did you find Mrs. Welby?”
“Much quieter. She had a tray with some coffee beside her. She offered me a cup, but I refused. I said it would keep me awake. She smiled and said it didn’t have that effect on her.”
“How many cups were there on the tray?”
“Only one. She was going to get another, when I stopped her.”
“Mr. Holderness, why was there only one cup if she was expecting you?”
“I had not said what time I would come.”
“Was the coffee made when you got there?”
“Yes-her cup was half-empty.”
“Doesn’t that seem strange to you, her not waiting for you if she knew you were coming?”
Mr. Holderness brought his hands together and looked down at the joined fingertips. He said in the easy tone he would have used to a client,
“No, I don’t think so. She knew I didn’t take coffee. She always offered it to me, but it was just a polite form-she knew I didn’t take it. I didn’t stay very long, you know. Her manner reassured me, and she said she would take a sedative and get a good night’s rest.”
“She was in the habit of taking sedatives?”
Mr. Holderness met the look of sharp enquiry with a faint melancholy smile.
“I have no idea. If I had thought at the time that she meant anything more than perhaps a couple of aspirins, I would not have left her.”
“You did not see any box or bottle of sleeping tablets?”
“Oh, no.”
There was a pause. Then Randal March said,
“Mr. Holderness-your conversation with Mrs. Welby on Saturday morning was overheard.”
As he said the words which he had come there to say he was conscious of a certain sinking feeling. They had not behind them that firmness of conviction which a case of this kind demanded. A fretted feeling that for once in his life he had allowed himself to be rushed lurked in the uneasy recesses of his mind. What had seemed not only possible but final last night was no longer so. In this office, devoted for a hundred and fifty years to the service of the law-under the authoritative gaze of the latest of a line of respectable solicitors, it was extremely difficult to resist the horrid supposition that Allan Grover in a fit of jealousy might quite easily have been telling the tale. That the boy had been infatuated with Catherine Welby and bitterly jealous of his employer, and that he was now nearly beside himself with grief, were self-evident facts. They were, indeed, the very basis of his story. In the momentary silence which followed March’s statement these facts offered very little encouragement.
As the moment passed, Mr. Holderness’s colour was seen to deepen alarmingly. He said in an incredulous voice,
“My conversation with Mrs. Welby was overheard?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask how, and by whom?”
Receiving no answer, he leaned forward and said in a voice vibrant with anger,
“No doubt the person who obliged you with the number of my car! An eavesdropping clerk with his ear to the keyhole-a young man who had made himself such a nuisance to Mrs. Welby that she had had to ask him to discontinue his visits! She spoke of the matter to me, and in her kindness begged me to take no notice of it. She had been good to the young man, lending him books and helping him to improve himself, and now as soon as she is dead this is the return he makes-to throw mud upon her name!”
Randal March said, “In his account of the conversation he stated that he heard Mrs. Welby tell you that she returned to Melling House just after ten o’clock on Wednesday night. She did not go in, because you were there. According to Allan Grover’s statement she said that you were engaged in a violent quarrel with James Lessiter, that he was accusing you of having misappropriated money entrusted to you by his mother, and that he was declaring his intention of taking proceedings against you. Grover states that, according to what he heard Mrs. Welby say, she then gave up any idea of seeing Lessiter herself and returned to the Gate House.”