‘The doubts have not all been removed,’ she said with iron control. ‘You seem to forget that if Howard was with Simon, as he claims, then travelled straight to Brighton, I could not possibly have unlocked the poison cabinet, since I did not possess a key.’
Cribb nodded tolerantly. ‘That’s a puzzle that exercised me a lot, ma’am. There’s only one conclusion possible, and that is that you used Josiah Perceval’s key.’
With an air of mockery, she said, ‘I am supposed to have asked him for it, am I? And he, a blackmailer, meekly handed me the means of his destruction? You had better improve on that.’
‘That is what happened in effect,’ said Cribb, ‘except that it was not the poison cabinet you said you wanted to unlock. It was the chiffonier where the decanters were kept. That was kept locked. Your husband being out when it was time for you to attend to the wine, you must have borrowed Perceval’s key to open it. An innocent-sounding request which he was unlikely to refuse, seeing that he was partial to madeira. Perceval’s keys were on a ring. On that ring was also the key to the poison cabinet.’
‘I returned the keys to him after unlocking the chiffonier,’ she pointed out.
‘Without the key to the cabinet, which you had slipped off the ring,’ said Cribb. ‘At lunchtime, when Perceval was out, you obtained the cyanide and put some in the decanter.’
‘If that is true,’ she persisted, ‘how do you explain that the key of the poison cabinet was found on the key-ring in Perceval’s pocket after he was dead?’
‘When you returned to Park Lodge and found the doctor there and Perceval dead, you still had the key in your possession. The doctor asked to look in the cabinet. If you had simply produced the key, it would obviously have looked suspicious. You were clever enough to tell him that the keys were in Perceval’s pocket. He removed them and handed them to you to open the cabinet. You held them in your palm in such a way that the loose key appeared to be attached to the ring as you turned the lock. While the doctor was examining the poison bottles, you covertly re-attached the key to the ring. The doctor himself returned the bunch to the dead man’s pocket, where it was found when the police arrived.’ Cribb brought his hands together. ‘I don’t suggest you acted as you did to incriminate your husband. At the time, you were interested only in contriving the appearance of a suicide. When that became impossible, the other plan was worked out.’ He shot a glance at Allingham. ‘A gamble, that was, but a calculated one. And infernally clever. There is not a single detail I can fault in that confession. It happened just as you described it, ma’am. There were things you didn’t go into, but the law can’t touch you for something you don’t say. No, if the strategy had worked, and you had got your pardon, we couldn’t have brought a charge of perjury later, not for one syllable of that confession. It was absolutely true.’ He folded his copy and replaced it in his pocket. ‘Thank you, ma’am, for hearing me out.’
Miriam Cromer for a moment stared expressionlessly at Cribb. Then she said in a low voice, ‘You had better leave me, all of you.’
The governor, forgotten, touched Cribb’s shoulder. By a consensus of looks it was agreed to go.
Allingham injudiciously lingered. ‘Miriam-’
‘Get out!’ she said in a spasm of anger. ‘Stay away from here!’ She wrenched at her finger and flung her wedding-ring at him. ‘And tell him to stay away. Get out, get out, get out!’
For the return to Scotland Yard, Jowett and Cribb sat in uncomfortable proximity in a hansom.
‘It flies in the face of protocol,’ Jowett remarked, ‘but I think it might be diplomatic to go to the Commissioner’s club at once to make a verbal report on this affair. He said he would stay in London for the weekend in case of developments. I can disabuse him now of the notion that Miriam Cromer is innocent.’
‘Is that what he believes, sir?’ Cribb mildly asked.
Jowett turned abruptly to look at him. ‘That was the advice I tendered yesterday evening, after my conversation with you. He was not at all pleased to hear it. Some of the things he said were simply sulphurous.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘By Jove, Cribb, if I thought you sent me in to see him with intent to mislead-’
‘Not at all, sir. You drew your own conclusions from the information we had at the time.’
‘Hmm.’ Jowett stared thoughtfully at the shoppers along the Strand. Presently he gave a slightly embarrassed cough into his hand and said, ‘It is not impossible that the Commissioner may be extremely relieved by what I have to tell him. He may express an interest in meeting you.’
‘Should I accompany you to his club, sir?’
‘I think not,’ Jowett answered at once. ‘I shall give him only the briefest summary of our findings at this stage. I doubt if your name will come up. However, I shall assure Sir Charles that a full written report will follow in due course. We shall not need to hurry over that.’
No, thought Cribb. A report to the Commissioner would take at least a week of Jowett’s time. It would be polished into a model of penmanship, rational and cogent. All loose ends would be excised. And with them, the name of Cribb.
‘Now that we may speak freely,’ Jowett said, at his most amiable, ‘I should like to know your opinion of the husband in this case. The woman’s guilt is established beyond doubt. Merely out of curiosity, what construction do you put on Howard Cromer’s actions?’
Cribb was not deceived. Jowett was planning that report. In case charges of conspiracy were mooted, he wanted to be certain there was a case to be made.
He answered forthrightly, ‘I’ll give you my opinion, sir. Cromer and Allingham are guilty men, but they plotted this so cleverly that I can’t see the Director of Public Prosecutions taking it up. I believe it happened like this. The murder of Josiah Perceval was Miriam Cromer’s decision alone. During the weekend she had told her husband she was being blackmailed. How he took the news can only be guessed at, but his remedy was to discuss the matter with his solicitor, which he did that Monday, sacrificing his morning in Brighton. Miriam may have been dissatisfied with Howard’s remedy, or she may have decided to settle the matter in her own way on an impulse-when she had Perceval’s keys in her hand. She had the means of faking a suicide, and if you want the truth, I think she would have got away with it if the poison had acted as she expected. It didn’t, and ultimately even Inspector Waterlow could not escape the conclusion that he had a case of murder on his hands.’
Jowett clicked his tongue. ‘That’s an unnecessary slur on a fellow officer, Sergeant.’
Without altering his tone, Cribb said, ‘As it’s unnecessary, I withdraw it, sir. Once it became a murder inquiry, and the evidence of blackmail was uncovered, Miriam Cromer needed something quite remarkable to save her from the gallows. I believe Allingham set out to provide it. He knew the case against her was so damning that she was practically certain to be convicted. But if she confessed and pleaded guilty, capitulated, as it were, she might, on the contrary, be saved. It meant, you see, that she would be convicted on her own account of what happened, not the prosecution’s. This provided the opportunity of writing a confession that was true in everything it said, but left a vital piece of information unexplained.’
‘The business of the key,’ put in Jowett.
‘Yes, Allingham must have analysed the facts of the case and seized on this as the best chance of introducing an element of doubt. No one would mention it until after the trial. If it was brought to the Home Secretary’s attention, it would have to be investigated. The plan was to divert suspicion towards Howard Cromer. Circumstances made him the only alternative suspect, but circumstances had produced two bonuses: the picture in the Photographic Journal and the fact that Cromer was not in Brighton on the morning of the murder. The picture was sent to the Home Secretary. In due course, I was sent to see Cromer. He was evasive about his movements. He hedged about the train he caught to Brighton. They must have known we would check the minutes of the A.G.M. and discover he was absent in the morning. And they still had their trump to play.’