Crome, he could discover no trace — but then, he was probably a death duty too late.
His prowling was interrupted by the switching on of the light, and he turned to find Butters pushing his daughter into the room. He had been holding her by the arm, which he now released, and he was prompt in closing and bolting the door.
‘I’d prefer to be present, if I may, Superintendent.’
Gently nodded, and motioned Anne Butters to a chair. Even now she hadn’t quite lost that look of terror, though added to it, Gently saw, was a seasoning of defiance.
She was a shapely, slender girl with a pale-complexioned oval face, and golden-brown hair which she wore long and slinky. She had pale green eyes under fine, symmetrical brows; they gave a touch of distinction to a face which was inclined to be plain.
‘This is a serious business, I’m afraid, Miss Butters.’
She was wearing a plain green dress, the skirt of which was gracefully flared. As he spoke to her, he noticed that she tightened her lips together; there were angry marks on her arm where it had been held by her father.
‘Tomorrow, I shall want you to give me a regular statement at the police station. Just now, I would like you to answer a few questions I shall put to you.’
‘It wasn’t Derek who killed her!’ She hissed the words out rather than spoke them, her green eyes sparking at him from lids which jumped suddenly open.
‘I didn’t say it was. Now, if you’ll be good enough to listen-’
‘He was with me the whole evening — we were in bed. So there!’
With a quick, hysterical movement she jerked back the flared skirt, revealing a pair of neat legs and a froth of black lace. Her father started forward, but she immediately dropped the skirt again. Then she turned to him like a child, making a sneering, triumphant face.
‘Do you want me to tell you some more? I’m sure you’d love to have it in detail! My father would, in any case — he adores a bit of smut! We began at half past seven-’
‘Anne — that’s quite enough of that!’
‘-at half past seven, he undressed me-’
‘For heaven’s sake, pull yourself together!’
Once more Butters started towards her, though what he could have done was problematical; before he could get to her, however, she had burst into a storm of tears.
‘He didn’t do it, I tell you, oh, Derek didn’t do it! You’ll never understand, but he didn’t — he didn’t do it!’
Somebody banged on the door and then fruitlessly rattled the handle. Butters fumbled it open and disappeared into the hall. A low colloquy could be heard, its substance drowned by Anne’s sobbing, but its rise and fall suggested that Butters was trying to reassure his wife.
In the background, with senseless monotony, an electric pump was thumping away.
‘I’ve got to apologize… it’s very difficult…’
Butters returned, and went at once to the decanter. His eyes were watering as though from a chill, and besides being flushed, his face was puffy and ugly. It was not unlikely that he was already drunk, but he carried himself steadily and it was difficult to tell.
‘My dear, for your own sake…’
He bent over his daughter. She had overcome her sobbing and was now using her handkerchief.
‘She’s like her mother, you know… they’re both highly strung. It runs in the family. Phoebe is allied to the Fitz-Morrises…’
Gently began again, trying to take it very easily. Anne Butters, as though ashamed of herself, listened meekly to his questions. Yes, she had ‘always’ known that Derek Johnson was married. Yes, she had entered the association with eyes wide open. She had been his mistress for two years, and she really was pregnant. They had always ‘taken precautions’, but once or twice they had been rather rash.
‘Did you used to go to his flat?’
She tossed her locks at him disdainfully. ‘We weren’t quite such congenital idiots as to walk in on his wife.’
‘Where did he used to take you then?’
‘Oh, it was anywhere at first. The yacht, the car, or a nice quiet wood — to begin with, we weren’t much worried by discomforts.’
‘But after that?’
‘We sometimes went to his office, only that was too risky to make into a regular thing. So Derek bought a furnished cottage — I suppose I can tell you about it now; it’s at the end of a lane, about a mile from Nearstead.’
‘Did you ever meet his wife?’
‘I looked her over once or twice. She was a bitch, as you probably know, and it didn’t surprise me that she was murdered.’
‘What did Derek say about her?’
‘He said she was queer, and that she liked other women.’
‘Didn’t he ever talk about a divorce?’
‘Yes. He said he’d divorce her when he got the evidence.’
She became bolder as the questioning proceeded, trying to compensate perhaps for her tears; her eyes she kept staring steadily into Gently’s, almost challenging him to do his worst with her. Butters, his glass never out of his hand, sat frowningly watching her from a seat near the door.
‘Where did you meet him on the Monday night?’
‘In the usual place — at the top of the lane.’
‘And then he drove you straight to the cottage?’
‘Yes. We arrived there before half past seven.’
‘And what time did you leave again?’
‘At eleven o’clock, or a few minutes after.’
Gently hunched his shoulders wearily. ‘Perhaps you would like to reconsider those estimates?’
For an instant it seemed that she didn’t understand him, her eyes slowly widening in interrogation. Butters, however, understood very well, and he made a helpless gesture with his hand.
‘It’s no use, Anne… he knows you’re lying.’
‘Keep out of this, you…!’
‘My dear, it’s no use. I… we all know what time you came in.’
‘Shut up — do you hear?’
‘It was at five past ten…’
They were trembling on the brink of another hysterical outburst. Her slim body was twitching and shuddering with emotion. But then, after a fit of glaring, she tossed her head away from her father, and contented herself with hitching her skirt a couple of inches above her knees. Butters swigged down some brandy and affected not to see it.
‘Very well, then — I told a lie! But don’t forget that I’m a harlot. You’re lucky to get a ha’porth of truth from a person such as I am.’
‘Perhaps I should tell you something, Miss Butters.’
‘Why not? It’s a favourite game of my father’s.’
‘Derek Johnson’s account of that evening doesn’t square with what you have told me.’
She burst into a mocking peal of laughter. ‘And did you expect him to tell you the truth? Did you expect he was going to tell you that he was shacked up with Butters’s daughter? He spun you a yarn, of course he did. He never dreamed that my father would betray him. He used to be in the RAF, where you could depend on your friends to stand by you!’
‘But naturally, we checked his account.’
‘There you are then — you knew it was a lie.’
‘But that is just what we don’t know, Miss Butters. His account is apparently confirmed by our checking. He made a round of some of the pubs, and a number of people can remember having seen him. So I’m afraid I must put this question to you: how did you spend that evening, Miss Butters?’
Her pallid cheeks grew paler still, and her eyes, by contrast, appeared to grow larger. Butters had gone off in
