‘Worried?’ said Hardcastle. He was silent for quite a minute turning over in his mind certain facts. This was the girl he had passed in the street when he was going to Mrs Lawton’s house, the girl who had wanted to see Sheila Webb. The girl who had recognized him as she passed him and had hesitated a moment as though uncertain whether to stop him or not. She’d had something on her mind. Yes, that was it. Something on her mind. He’d slipped up. He’d not been quick enough on the ball. Filled with his own purpose of finding out a little more about Sheila Webb’s background, he had overlooked a valuable point. The girl had been worried? Why? Now, probably, they’d never know why. 

‘Go on, Pierce,’ he said, ‘tell me all you can remember.’ He added kindly, for he was a fair man: ‘You couldn’t know that it was important.’

It wasn’t, he knew, any good to pass on his own anger and frustration by blaming it on the boy. How should the boy have known? Part of his training was to uphold discipline, to make sure that his superiors were only accosted at the proper times and in the proper places. If the girl had said it was important or urgent, that would have been different. But she hadn’t been, he thought, remembering his first view of her in the office, that kind of girl. A slow thinker. A girl probably distrustful of her own mental processes.

‘Can you remember exactly what happened, and what she said to you, Pierce?’ he asked.

Pierce was looking at him with a kind of eager gratitude.

‘Well, sir, she just come up to me when everyone was leaving and she sort of hesitated a moment and looked round just as though she were looking for someone. Not you, sir, I don’t think. Somebody else. Then she come up to me and said could she speak to the police officer, and she said the one that had given evidence. So, as I said, I saw you were busy with the chief constable so I explained to her that you were engaged just now, could she give me a message or contact you later at the station. And I think she said that would do quite well. I said was it anything particular…’ 

‘Yes?’ Hardcastle leaned forward.

‘And she said well not really. It was just something, she said, that she didn’t see how it could have been the way she’d said it was.’

‘She didn’t see how what she said could have been like that?’ Hardcastle repeated.

‘That’s right, sir. I’m not sure of the exact words. Perhaps it was: “I don’t see how what she said can have been true.” She was frowning and looking puzzled-like. But when I asked her, she said it wasn’t really important.’

Not really important, the girl had said. The same girl who had been found not long afterwards strangled in a telephone box…

‘Was anybody near you at the time she was talking to you?’ he asked.

‘Well, there were a good many people, sir, filing out, you know. There’d been a lot of people attending the inquest. It’s caused quite a stir, this murder has, what with the way the Press have taken it up and all.’

‘You don’t remember anyone in particular who was near you at the time-any of the people who’d given evidence, for instance?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t recall anyone in particular, sir.’

‘Well,’ said Hardcastle, ‘it can’t be helped. All right, Pierce, if you remember anything further, come to me at once with it.’

Left alone he made an effort to subdue his rising anger and self-condemnation. That girl, that rabbity-looking girl, had known something. No, perhaps not put it as high asknown, but she had seen something, heard something. Something that had worried her; and the worry had been intensified after attending the inquest. What could it have been? Something in the evidence? Something, in all probability, in Sheila Webb’s evidence? Had she gone to Sheila’s aunt’s house two days before on purpose to see Sheila? Surely she could have talked to Sheila at the office? Why did she want to see her privately? Did she know something about Sheila Webb that perplexed her? Did she want to ask Sheila for an explanation of whatever it was, somewhere in private-not in front of the other girls? It looked that way. It certainly looked like it.

He dismissed Pierce. Then he gave a few directions to Sergeant Cray.

‘What do you think the girl went to Wilbraham Crescentfor?’ Sergeant Cray asked.

‘I’ve been wondering about that,’ said Hardcastle. ‘It’s possible, of course, that she just suffered from curiosity-wanted to see what the place looked like. There’s nothing unusual about that-half the population of Crowdean seems to feel the same.’

‘Don’t we know it,’ said Sergeant Cray with feeling.

‘On the other hand,’ said Hardcastle slowly, ‘she may have gone to see someone who lived there…’ 

When Sergeant Cray had gone out again, Hardcastle wrote down three numbers on his blotting pad.

‘20,’he wrote, and put a query after it. He added: ‘19?’ and then ‘18?’ He wrote names to correspond. Hemming, Pebmarsh, Waterhouse. The three houses in the higher crescent were out of it. To visit one of them Edna Brent would not have gone along the lower road at all.

Hardcastle studied the three possibilities.

He took No. 20 first. The knife used in the original murder had been found there. It seemed more likely that the knife had been thrown there from the garden of No. 19 but they didn’tknow that it had. Itcould have been thrust into the shrubbery by the owner of No. 20 herself. When questioned, Mrs Hemming’s only reaction had been indignation. ‘How wicked of someone to throw a nasty knife like that at my cats!’ she had said. How did Mrs Hemming connect up with Edna Brent? She didn’t, Inspector Hardcastle decided. He went on to consider Miss Pebmarsh.

Had Edna Brent gone to Wilbraham Crescent to call on Miss Pebmarsh? Miss Pebmarsh had given evidence at the inquest. Had there been something in that evidence which had aroused disbelief in Edna? But she had been worriedbefore the inquest. Had she already known something about Miss Pebmarsh? Had she known, for instance, that there was a link of some kind between Miss Pebmarsh and Sheila Webb? That would fit in with her words to Pierce. ‘It couldn’t have been true what she said.’

‘Conjecture, all conjecture,’ he thought angrily.

And No. 18? Miss Waterhouse had found the body. Inspector Hardcastle was professionally prejudiced against people who found bodies. Finding the body avoided so many difficulties for a murderer-it saved the hazards of arranging an alibi, it accounted for any overlooked fingerprints. In many ways it was a cast-iron position-with one proviso only. There must be no obvious motive. There was certainly no apparent motive for Miss Waterhouse to do away with little Edna Brent. Miss Waterhouse had not given evidence at the inquest. She might have been there, though. Did Edna perhaps have some reason for knowing, or believing, that it was Miss Waterhouse who had impersonated Miss Pebmarsh over the telephone and asked for a shorthand typist to be sent to No. 19?

More conjecture.

And there was, of course, Sheila Webb herself…

Hardcastle’s hand went to the telephone. He got on to the hotel where Colin Lamb was staying. Presently he got Colin himself on the wire.

‘Hardcastle here-what time was it when you lunched with Sheila Webb today?’

There was a pause before Colin answered:

‘How do you know that we lunched together?’ 

‘A damned good guess. You did, didn’t you?’

‘Why shouldn’t I have lunch with her?’

‘No reason at all. I’m merely asking you the time. Did you go off to lunch straight from the inquest?’

‘No. She had shopping to do. We met at the Chinese place in Market Street at one o’clock.’

‘I see.’

Hardcastle looked down his notes. Edna Brent had died between 12.30 and one o’clock.

‘Don’t you want to know what we had for lunch?’

‘Keep your hair on. I just wanted the exact time. For the record.’