Frank did not look overpleased when Johnny walked in. He was immediately presented with an ultimatum.

“I don’t know what you want to ask her about, and nor does she, but either I stay, or she doesn’t talk. She isn’t obliged to answer a single thing, and don’t you Gestapo lads forget it!”

Frank looked down his bony nose.

“I am here on duty, and this isn’t a joke. You can stay, but you mustn’t interrupt. I want to ask a few questions about a telephone conversation which Miss Field had on Tuesday evening a few hours before Mr. Field’s death.”

Mirrie said, “Oh-” She sat down in one of the easy chairs and Johnny propped himself on the arm. Frank went on speaking.

“You rang someone up at about a quarter past eight, didn’t you? Mr. Sid Turner, wasn’t it? That conversation was overheard.”

Mirrie began to shake. Johnny, with a hand upon her shoulder, could feel how the tremor began at the mention of Sid’s name. She said, “Oh-” again. It wasn’t really a word but a quickly taken breath. And then the words came out.

“They were all in the drawing-room, and the Stokes and Doris were through the swing-door-”

Frank said,

“I’m sure you took every precaution, but someone listened all the same. Now look here, there’s nothing for you to be worried about. You weren’t doing anything wrong in ringing up. It just links up with other things, and we want to get it straight. The person who listened in has made a statement, and this is what it amounts to. You rang Sid Turner up at a quarter past eight on Tuesday. You were very much pleased and excited because Mr. Field had just come back from London and he had told you that he had made and signed a new will. You said that he was treating you as if you were his daughter, and Sid Turner said that was a bit of all right, and he had a friend at court who had okayed it, or he might have thought it was too good to be true. Now there wasn’t anything wrong in your saying what you did, but, as I said, we are checking up and I would like to know whether you agree that that is a correct account of the conversation.”

Johnny’s mind moved quickly. By the time that Mirrie turned imploring eyes on him it was made up. He slipped his arm about her shoulders in a reassuring manner and said,

“Well, darling, it’s up to you. Is that how it went?”

She turned the gaze on Frank.

“He said not to ring him up, but I was so pleased, and I thought he would be too.”

“This statement about what you said and what he said, is it correct?”

“Oh, yes it is.”

“You rang up Sid Turner in London and told him about the alteration in Mr. Field’s will?”

“He told me not to ring up, but I thought-”

“Yes-you explained how it happened. I am going to ask you if you will just sign a statement about that conversation. We want to be sure that we’ve got it right.”

She looked at Johnny again, and he nodded.

“Better do it.”

She said, not to Frank but to him, “Sid will be angry.”

“That’s just too bad, but you’d better do what Frank says. Nasty fellows to get up against, the police, but they’ll see that Sid doesn’t do anything to annoy you.”

Frank Abbott gave them time for the interlude. If Johnny was prepared to co-operate, his help was worth having. He said,

“What did you understand Sid Turner to mean when he said he had a friend at court who could okay what you told him about Mr. Field’s will?”

Mirrie was feeling more confident now.

“He knew someone in Mr. Maudsley’s office.”

Frank Abbott took her up on that.

“The person who was listening to your conversation says you asked him what he meant by that friend at court business. If you knew he meant this person, why did you do that?”

Her colour rose becomingly.

“He was just bringing her in to vex me, and I thought I’d let him know I didn’t care who he was friends with or what they told him. And if it was that girl in the office who told him about Uncle Jonathan signing his will, then she hadn’t any business to, and if Mr. Maudsley knew about it he would send her away.” Her colour faded and her voice shook. “If she was telling him things, I didn’t want to hear about it! And it was horrid of him to tell me about her!”

In a wide experience it had fallen to Frank Abbott’s lot to receive the confidences of a good many damsels, mostly cousins. But for this he might have considered Mirrie’s line of reasoning to be obscure. As it was, he understood perfectly that Sid Turner had mentioned the girl in Mr. Maudsley’s office with intent to annoy, and that Mirrie had very properly snubbed him.

He considered that this might be the appropriate moment to make a further enquiry, one confidence being apt to lead to another. He said,

“There’s just one thing. You remember on the night of the dance some of us were in here and Mr. Field was telling us about his collection. He got the albums out and told us a yarn about getting a fingerprint from a man who had confessed to a couple of murders. He said he and this man were buried under a bombed building, and that he got the fingerprint by passing him a cigarette-case. Just at the most exciting point of the story Georgina Grey came along and said that people were beginning to arrive for the dance.”

Mirrie was looking at him with sparkling eyes.

“Oh, yes-wasn’t it a shame! It was a most exciting story, and I did so want to hear it properly!”

Frank nodded.

“I think we were all keyed up about it. I should have liked to have heard the rest of it myself. Now later on that evening you slipped out of this glass door to meet Sid Turner. He had rung you up at seven o’clock and told you to come out and meet him. He wanted to tell you about new arrangements for writing to him, and you wanted to show him your new dress, so you slipped out.”

Mirrie’s voice reproached the absent Sid.

“It was a lovely dress, but he didn’t take any notice of it. I wanted him to come into the study and see it in the light, but he wouldn’t.”

“Stupid fellow! Now look here, I want to know whether you told Sid Turner this story about the man who confessed to two murders and left a print on Mr. Field’s cigarette-case.”

Johnny said, “Why should she?”

Frank lifted a hand and let it fall again.

“Why shouldn’t she? It was a good story and she was obviously thrilled with it. She might have told him.”

Johnny said,

“Well, did you, darling?”

Mirrie looked from Frank to him and back again.

“Oh, well, I did.”

“What did he say when you told him?”

“He said it was a funny thing collecting fingerprints, and there might be someone who didn’t like to think about his dabs being in an album, and I asked him what dabs were, and he said fingerprints.”

Frank proceeded to the business of taking down her statement and getting her to sign it. When it was done and she and Johnny had gone back to their flat-furnishing game, he turned to Miss Silver.

“It begins to look like Sid, doesn’t it? He’d got his eye on Mirrie as a possible heiress and he was all set to get the earliest possible information as to the actual signing of the will. That being the case, he would have an interest in Jonathan’s death. But hang it all, the will was only signed on Tuesday afternoon. The earliest he could have heard of it would be some time after five, when the girl in Maudsley’s office would be free to see him or to ring him up-say somewhere between five and a quarter past eight, when Mirrie rang him up and he already knew that the will had been signed. To my mind Jonathan’s murder was a very carefully planned affair. If Sid was the murderer he must have got off the mark pretty quickly. But why? From his point of view where was the hurry?”

Miss Silver said equably,

“The more quickly he acted, the less chance was there that any suspicion would attach to him. He had forbidden Mirrie to ring him up. If she had not done so, and if Maggie Bell had not overheard their conversation, it could never have been proved that he knew anything about the will which made Mirrie Field an heiress. And if he did not know about the will he had no possible motive for the crime. Since it is now certain that he did know about it, his motive was a strong one. He was, I am sure, completely confident of being able to induce Mirrie to marry him. His influence over her was obviously an established one, and he was unaware that it was being undermined by her growing attachment to Mr. Fabian. As to the need for immediate action, I feel that there were probably cogent reasons for it.”