‘It is rather difficult to believe,’ agreed the inspector, ‘but we’ve got to make quite sure and clear up the matter. Could there be, for instance, some young man, someone perhaps who had fallen in love with your niece, and whom she, perhaps, did not care for? Young men sometimes do some very bitter and revengeful things, especially if they’re rather ill-balanced.’

‘I don’t think it could be anything of that kind,’ said Mrs Lawton, puckering her eyes in thought and frowning. ‘Sheila has had one or two boys she’s been friendly with, but there’s been nothing serious. Nobody steady of any kind.’

‘It might have been while she was living in London?’ the inspector suggested. ‘After all, I don’t suppose you know very much about what friends she had there.’

‘No, no, perhaps not…Well, you’ll have to ask her about that yourself, Inspector Hardcastle. But I never heard of any trouble of any kind.’

‘Or it might have been another girl,’ suggested Hardcastle. ‘Perhaps one of the girls she shared rooms with there was jealous of her?’

‘I suppose,’ said Mrs Lawton doubtfully, ‘that there might be a girl who’d want to do her a bad turn. But not involving murder, surely.’

It was a shrewd appreciation and Hardcastle noted that Mrs Lawton was by no means a fool. He said quickly:

‘I know it all sounds most unlikely, but then this whole businessis unlikely.’

‘It must have been someone mad,’ said Mrs Lawton. 

‘Even in madness,’ said Hardcastle, ‘there’s a definite idea behind the madness, you know. Something that’s given rise to it. And that really,’ he went on, ‘is why I was asking you about Sheila Webb’s father and mother. You’d be surprised how often motives arise that have their roots in the past. Since Miss Webb’s father and mother died when she was a young child, naturally she can’t tell me anything about them. That’s why I’m applying to you.’

‘Yes, I see, but-well…’

He noted that the trouble and uncertainty were back in her voice.

‘Were they killed at the same time, in an accident, anything like that?’

‘No, there was no accident.’

‘They both died from natural causes?’

‘I-well, yes, I mean-I don’t really know.’

‘I think you must know a little more than you are telling me, Mrs Lawton.’ He hazarded a guess. ‘Were they, perhaps, divorced-something of that kind?’

‘No, they weren’t divorced.’

‘Come now, Mrs Lawton. You know-you must know of what your sister died?’

‘I don’t see what-I mean, I can’t say-it’s all very difficult. Raking up things. It’s much better not raking them up.’ There was a kind of desperate perplexity in her glance. 

Hardcastle looked at her keenly. Then he said gently, ‘Was Sheila Webb perhaps-an illegitimate child?’

He saw immediately a mixture of consternation and relief in her face.

‘She’s notmy child,’ she said.

‘She is your sister’s illegitimate child?’

‘Yes. But she doesn’t know it herself. I’ve never told her. I told her her parents died young. So that’s why-well, you see…’

‘Oh, yes, I see,’ said the inspector, ‘and I assure you that unless something comes of this particular line of inquiry there is no need for me to question Miss Webb on this subject.’

‘You mean you needn’t tell her?’

‘Not unless there is some relevance to the case, which, I may say, seems unlikely. But I do want all the facts that you know, Mrs Lawton, and I assure you that I’ll do my best to keep what you tell me entirely between ourselves.’

‘It’s not a nice thing to happen,’ said Mrs Lawton, ‘and I was very distressed about it, I can tell you. My sister, you see, had always been the clever one of the family. She was a school teacher and doing very well. Highly respected and everything else. The last person you’d ever think would-’

‘Well,’ said the inspector, tactfully, ‘it often happens that way. She got to know this man-this Webb-’ 

‘I never even knew what his name was,’ said Mrs Lawton. ‘I never met him. But she came to me and told me what had happened. That she was expecting a child and that the man couldn’t, or wouldn’t-I never knew which-marry her. She was ambitious and it would have meant giving up her job if the whole thing came out. So naturally I-I said I’d help.’

‘Where is your sister now, Mrs Lawton?’

‘I’ve no idea. Absolutely no idea at all.’ She was emphatic.

‘She’s alive, though.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘But you haven’t kept in touch with her?’

‘That’s the way she wanted it. She thought it was best for the child and best for her that there should be a clean break. So it was fixed that way. We both had a little income of our own that our mother left us. Ann turned her half-share over to me to be used for the child’s bringing up and keep. She was going to continue with her profession, she said, but she would change schools. There was some idea, I believe, of a year’s exchange with a teacher abroad. Australia or somewhere. That’s all I know, Inspector Hardcastle, and that’s all I can tell you.’

He looked at her thoughtfully. Was that really all she knew? It was a difficult question to answer with any certainty. It was certainly all that she meant to tell him. It might very well be all she knew. Slight as the reference to the sister had been, Hardcastle got an impression of a forceful, bitter, angry personality. The sort of woman who was determined not to have her life blasted by one mistake. In a cold hard-headed way she had provided for the upkeep and presumable happiness of her child. From that moment on she had cut herself adrift to start life again on her own.

It was conceivable, he thought, that she might feel like that about the child. But what about her sister? He said mildly:

‘It seems odd that she did not at least keep in touch with you by letter, did not want to know how the child was progressing?’

Mrs Lawton shook her head.

‘Not if you knew Ann,’ she said. ‘She was always very clear-cut in her decisions. And then she and I weren’t very close. I was younger than she was by a good deal-twelve years. As I say, we were never very close.’

‘And what did your husband feel about this adoption?’

‘I was a widow then,’ said Mrs Lawton. ‘I married young and my husband was killed in the war. I kept a small sweetshop at the time.’

‘Where was all this? Not here in Crowdean.’

‘No. We were living in Lincolnshire at the time. I came here in the holidays once, and I liked it so much that I sold the shop and came here to live. Later, when Sheila was old enough to go to school, I took a job in Roscoe and West, the big drapers here, you know. I still work there. They’re very pleasant people.’

‘Well,’ said Hardcastle, rising to his feet, ‘thank you very much, Mrs Lawton, for your frankness in what you have told me.’

‘And you won’t say a word of it to Sheila?’

‘Not unless it should become necessary, and that would only happen if some circumstances out of the past proved to have been connected with this murder at 19, Wilbraham Crescent. And that, I think, is unlikely.’ He took the photograph from his pocket which he had been showing to so many people, and showed it to Mrs Lawton. ‘You’ve no idea who this man could be?’

‘They’ve shown it me already,’ said Mrs Lawton.

She took it and scrutinized it earnestly.

‘No. I’m sure, quite sure, I’ve never seen this man before. I don’t think he belonged round here or I might have remembered seeing him about. Of course-’ she looked closely. She paused a moment before adding, rather unexpectedly, ‘He looks a nice man I think. A gentleman, I’d say, wouldn’t you?’

It was a slightly outmoded term in the inspector’s experience, yet it fell very naturally from Mrs Lawton’s lips. ‘Brought up in the country,’ he thought. ‘They still think of things that way.’ He looked at the photograph again himself reflecting, with faint surprise, that he had not thought of the dead man in quite that way. Was he a nice man? He had been assuming just the contrary. Assuming it unconsciously perhaps, or influenced perhaps by the fact that the man had a card in his pocket which bore a name and an address which were obviously false. But the explanation he had given to Mrs Lawton just now might have been the true one. It might have been that the card did represent some bogus insurance agent who had pressed the card upon the dead man. And that, he thought wryly, would really make the whole thing even more difficult. He glanced at his watch again.