“It may have been that, or it may simply have been that Mirrie being out of the will, and therefore out of the running, Sid was declining upon the not unattractive Mrs. Marsh, her bit of money in the bank, and her flourishing pub. Blake reports him as being very well pleased with himself-in fact cock-a-hoop to the point of impertinence. Pressed as to his movements on Tuesday night, he gave the same account of his fall as the landlady and her husband. He said it knocked him clean out and left him muzzy in the head. Put his hand to the place and said the bump had gone down but it still felt tender. He had crawled into his bed, and certainly had no desire or temptation to leave it. Well, there you are, and we haven’t got a case. We can prove his knowledge of the fact that Jonathan had signed a will in Mirrie’s favour, and that’s all we can prove. Maggie Bell says that the voice which made the appointment with Jonathan Field during a call from Lenton at ten-thirty on the night of the murder was the same voice which had replied to Mirrie’s call at a quarter past eight. Mirrie admits that the person she called was Sid. The number he had given her for an emergency is the number of Mrs. Marsh’s pub, the Three Pigeons. But what Maggie says is just her opinion, and even if it was admitted as evidence, which I should say was doubtful, I don’t think a jury would look at it unless it was backed up by something a good deal more conclusive. You see, we can’t prove that Sid ever set foot in this house, and to have a case against him that is what we have got to do. We could prove motive, but we should have to prove opportunity. We have got, in fact, to prove that he was here in this room on Tuesday night.”

Miss Silver had been listening with an air of bright attention. She now laid down her hands on the mass of white wool in her lap.

“The album!” she said.

“The album?”

“If it was Sid Turner who tore out the page, he could not have done so without handling the album and leaving his prints upon it.”

“The album was, of course, examined for prints. You’ve got to remember that it had Jonathan’s own prints all over it.”

“And no one else’s?”

“I don’t think so.”

“But, Frank, that is in itself a very suspicious circumstance. Someone tore out that page and took Mr. Field’s notes out of the envelope which marked the place.”

He shrugged.

“Well, someone shot Jonathan and was careful to leave no prints. He could have worn gloves, or he could have protected his hand with a handkerchief.”

She said with unusual earnestness,

“Think again, Frank. To have worn gloves must have appeared highly suspicious. So suspicious that it might have led Mr. Field immediately to ring the bell and alarm the house. To carry out the murderer’s plan, Mr. Field must be lulled into a state of security, induced if he has not already done so to get out the album, and to sit down at the table. I think the murderer would certainly have been obliged to remove his gloves. He may, as you suggest, have protected his hand in some way after the murder had taken place, but I think there must have been a time when his hands were bare, and however careful he was he may during that time have touched some object, let us say a table or a chair. Amongst the prints which were taken from this room on Wednesday morning, are there none which have not been identified?”

“You mean-”

“I have remembered something which should have occurred to me before. When I was speaking to Sid Turner after the funeral we were standing to one side of the dining-room against the sideboard. During the first part of our conversation Sid Turner’s hands were a good deal occupied with his drink. He sipped from it, changed it constantly from one hand to the other, and appeared nervous and jerky in his movements. In answer to his questions I had intimated that, as I understood it, Georgina Grey was the principal legatee under Mr. Field’s will. Looking back, I can see that he must have been on the rack of anxiety as to whether Mirrie had misled him, of if she had not, as to what after so short an interval could have happened to the will under which she inherited.”

“In fact quite a nasty moment.”

“When Sid Turner had set down his drink his restless mannerisms increased. He put his hands in his pockets and took them out again, and then, whilst suggesting that Mr. Field could have been murdered and the page in his album torn out by someone who might be compromised by the fingerprint preserved upon it, he began a kind of nervous tapping upon the edge of the sideboard. He appeared, in fact, to be tapping out a tune. But the tapping was done in an unusual way, and it is to this that I wish to draw your attention. During all the time that I was observing him his hand was held sideways and the tapping was on the under surface of an overlapping edge. It came to me to wonder whether he might not have left his prints in this room, under the arm of the chair in which he sat or under the edge of the table. I do not, of course, know whether this way of tapping was a constant mannerism with him, but he employed it at a moment of tension when he was talking to me, and when I recalled this just now I considered that I had better mention it.”

He said quickly,

“Oh, yes-yes-I’ll go into it with Smith. As to there being any unidentified prints, there were some he was enquiring about.”

Miss Silver inclined her head.

“If it can be proved that Sid Turner was in this room, it will have been proved that he had the opportunity of murdering Mr. Field.”

Frank Abbott drew the telephone fixture towards him and rang up Lenton police station. There was a little coming and going before Inspector Smith was on the line. Miss Silver had resumed her knitting. Frank said,

“That you Smith? Abbott speaking. Those prints in the Field End case-there were one or two which hadn’t been identified. There was something about a man coming up to take measurements for curtains, wasn’t there? You thought they might be his, but there was a difficulty in tracing him- gone off to another job. Have you caught up with him?… Oh, you have? Good! Well, what about it? Are those unidentified dabs his?… Oh, they’re not? Well, well- All right, I’ll come in and have a look at them. Be seeing you.”

MISS CUMMINS had always made a point of arriving early at the office. This Tuesday morning just a week after Jonathan Field had come in about the final instructions as to his new will was no exception. She could indeed have been a couple of hours earlier, since she had not slept all night. She had her own key. When she had let herself in, taken off hat, coat, and gloves, and ordered her already tidy hair, she sat down to wait for Jenny Gregg and Florrie Hackett, who would be on time but not before it. Mr. Maudsley would not appear until the half hour had struck, if then, and in his absence Miss Cummins was in charge. She sat down to wait.

The thoughts which had prevented her from sleeping were still agonizingly present. During the night a few hard-won tears had forced themselves beneath her straining eyelids, but now in this desert of ruined hopes they were as dry as if its dust were physical. She had seen the last of Sid Turner. A cold shudder went through her at the thought that she did not even want to see him again. She had ruined herself for him and she didn’t want to see him again. As she sat talking to him in the back of the empty tea-room a number of things had come home to her with dreadful finality. He did not care for her. He had never cared for her. He cared for money, and he cared for Sid Turner. He had used her, and now he would drop her. She thought that he had murdered Jonathan Field.

Florrie and Jenny came in. Jenny had been crying. She was a pretty, fair girl with fluffy hair and a fine skin. She had powdered over the tear marks but they showed. Everything showed when you had a skin as fine as that. She sat down at her desk and began to be busy.