Hilary turned a page. What she had been reading was partly a newspaper report and partly a transcription into type of shorthand notes. As she turned the leaf, she saw before her a photograph of Bertie Everton – ‘Mr. Bertram Everton leaving the court.’ She had seen him once at the trial of course, but that was like remembering a nightmare. Hilary looked with all her eyes, but she couldn’t make very much of what she saw. Not very tall, not very short. Irregular features and longish hair. The picture was rather blurred, and of course no photograph gave you the colouring. She remembered that Bertie Everton had red hair. He seemed to have rather a lot of it, and it was certainly much too long.
She went on reading his evidence.
He said he had taken the ten o’clock non-stop from Edinburgh to King’s Cross, arriving at half past five on the afternoon of the 15th, and after dining with James Everton he had caught the 1.5 from King’s Cross, arriving in Edinburgh at 9.36 on the morning of the 16th. He had gone straight to the Caledonian Hotel, where he had a late breakfast and then put in some arrears of sleep. He explained at considerable length that he could never sleep properly in a train. He lunched in the hotel at half past one, after which he wrote letters, one to his brother and one to the Mr. White who had been mentioned in connection with the set of Toby jugs. He had had occasion to complain about the bell in his room being out of order. He went out for a walk some time after four o’clock, and on his way out he went into the office to enquire if there had been any telephone message for him. He thought there might have been one from the man who had the jugs. On his return to the hotel he went to bed. He was still very short of sleep, and he wasn’t feeling very well. He did not go into the dining-room, because he did not want any dinner. He went straight up to his room and rang for some biscuits. He had a biscuit or two and a drink out of his flask, and went to bed. He couldn’t say what time it was – somewhere round about eight o’clock. He wasn’t noticing the time. He wasn’t feeling at all well. He only wanted to go to sleep. The next thing he knew was the chambermaid knocking on the door with his tea next morning. He had asked to be called at nine. Asked where he had been during the time that he was absent from the hotel, he replied that he couldn’t really say. He had done a bit of nosing about and a bit of walking, and he had had a drink or two.
And that was the end of Bertie Everton.
The next thing was the typed copy of a statement by Annie Robertson, a chambermaid at the Caledonian Hotel. There was nothing to show whether it had been put in at the inquest or not. It was just a statement.
Annie Robertson said Mr. Bertram Everton had been staying in the hotel for three or four days before July 16th. He might have come on the 12th, or the 11th, or the 13th. She couldn’t say for certain, but they would know in the office. He had room No. 35. She remembered Tuesday, July 16th. She remembered Mr. Everton complaining about the bell in his room. He said it was out of order, but it seemed all right. She said she would have it looked at, because Mr. Everton said sometimes it rang and sometimes it didn’t. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Mr. Everton complained about the bell. He was writing letters at the time. Later that evening, at about half past eight, his bell rang and she answered it. Mr. Everton told her he wanted some biscuits. He said he didn’t feel well and was going to bed. She brought him the biscuits. She thought he was the worse for drink. She brought his tea next morning, Wednesday, July 17th, at nine o’clock. He seemed all right then and quite himself.
Hilary read this statement twice. Then she read Bertie Everton’s evidence all over again. He had been out of the hotel between four o’clock and getting on for half past eight. He might have flown to Croydon and reached Putney by eight o’clock, or at least she supposed he might. But he couldn’t possibly have been back in his room at the Caledonian Hotel ordering biscuits and complaining about not feeling well by half past eight. James Everton was alive and talking to Geoff at eight o’clock. Whoever shot him, it couldn’t have been his nephew Bertie, who was ordering biscuits in Edinburgh at half past eight.
Hilary wrenched her mind regretfully away from Bertie. He would have done so beautifully, and he wouldn’t do at all.
The other nephew, Frank Everton, hadn’t been called at the inquest. Marion’s statement that he had been collecting his weekly allowance from a solicitor in Glasgow between a quarter to six and a quarter past on the evening of the 16th was borne out by another of those typewritten sheets. Mr. Robert Johnstone, of the firm of Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish, declared that he had been in conversation with Mr. Francis Everton, with whom he was well acquainted, between the hours of five-forty-five and six-fifteen on Tuesday, July 16th, when he had paid over to him the sum of £2 10s. od. (two pounds ten shillings), for which sum he held Mr. Francis Everton’s dated receipt.
Exit Frank Everton. With even deeper regret Hilary let him go. Bad hat, rolling stone, family ne’er-do-well, but definitely not First Murderer. Even with a private aeroplane – and what would the family skeleton be doing with a private aeroplane – he couldn’t have done it. He would need a private aerodrome – no, two private aerodromes, one at each end. She toyed with the idea of the black sheep getting into his private aeroplane at Messrs. Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish’s front doorstep, taxi-ing down a busy Glasgow thoroughfare, flying all out to Putney, vol-planing down into James Everton’s back garden -all without attracting the slightest attention. It was a highly tempting picture, but it belonged to an Arabian Nights entertainment – the Tale of the Tenth Calendar, or some such fantasy. It couldn’t be sufficiently materialized to deflect the finding of a court of law.
It all came down to the Mercers again. If Geoff was speaking the truth, then the Mercers were lying. Of course Geoff was speaking the truth. She believed in Geoff with all her heart. If he said James Everton was dead when he arrived at twenty minutes past eight, then he was dead, and Mrs. Mercer’s evidence about the quarrel and the shot was a lie. She couldn’t have heard Geoff quarrelling with his uncle, and she couldn’t have heard the shot when she said she heard it if Mr. Everton was already dead when Geoff arrived. No, Mrs. Mercer was telling lies, and that was why she had come over all gasping and frightened in the train – she’d got a bad conscience and it wouldn’t let her alone because of what she’d done to Marion and Geoff.
But why had she done it?
That was quite easy. Mercer must have shot his master, and Mrs. Mercer had lied to save his neck. It was frightfully wicked of her, but it was the sort of wickedness you could understand. She had lied to save her husband, and in saving him she had damned Geoffrey.
She had certainly done that very completely. Hilary had a feeling that she needn’t have done it quite so completely. The very badness of her conscience had made the thing worse. How could you help believing the evidence of a woman who seemed so heartbroken at having to give it? Well, that was the explanation – Alfred Mercer had shot James Everton, and Mrs. Mercer had lied to cover it up.
She turned the next page, and there, staring her in the face, was the evidence of Mrs. Thompson. She had forgotten all about Mrs. Thompson. It wasn’t only Bertie and Frank Everton who had alibis-beautiful watertight alibis – the Mercers had one, too. Mrs. Thompson exonerated them. There was a picture of her which might almost have been a picture of Mrs. Grundy – large, solemn, massive, and as solid as the British Constitution. She was the housekeeper from next door, Sir John Blakeney’s housekeeper and twenty-five years in his service. She was supping by invitation with the Mercers, Sir John being away from home. She was in the kitchen from half past seven until the alarm was given. During all that time Mercer was in the pantry cleaning his silver, or else in the kitchen with her and Mrs. Mercer. The house was an old-fashioned one, and the pantry opened out of the kitchen. She could swear he never went through into the house until the alarm was given. He ran through the kitchen then, and seeing something was wrong, she went after him into the hall, where she saw the study door standing open, and Mrs. Mercer crying, and Mr. Grey with a pistol in his hand.