‘I see. Now about the anonymous letters. Nobody has shown us any of them.’
‘I thought Miss Nutley filed the ones that came for her and me.’
‘She claims that she did file them, sir, but that her files had been rifled.’
‘Means she was right, then.’
‘Right about what, sir?’
‘That the ghost scare we had was Miss Minnie snooping around. I told you about that, if you remember. Niobe – Miss Nutley – always thought that it was Miss Minnie.’
‘Why did she think so?’
‘By that time I think we’d heard that Miss Minnie had been related to Mrs Dupont-Jacobson and had had – expectations, don’t they call them?’
‘And was looking for a will of a later date than the one under the terms of which you inherited Weston Pipers, as it is now known, and a very large sum of money?’
‘That’s what Miss Nutley thought, but, if that’s right, the old lady must have been crazy. Actually, I think she was, a bit. They get bees in their bonnets at that age.’
‘And water in their lungs, presumably, Mr Piper. I notice that all the main windows of this house face the park and the lake.’
‘Yes. It’s the best view, so I suppose the architect arranged it that way.’
‘So the bungalow, which is on the back lawn, would be unnoticed most of the time.’
‘The tradesmen would notice it.’
‘And the postman, as you have pointed out. I was thinking of your other tenants.’
‘They wouldn’t have taken much notice, anyway. As I’m sure I’ve made clear, Miss Minnie was a recluse. She did not go out, I believe, except for occasional shopping and even for that she refused lifts in people’s cars unless Miss Barnes happened to be going her way.’
‘So if some ill-disposed person got into the bungalow, overpowered Miss Dupont and dragged her down to the creek and drowned her, especially if this happened at dusk or later, nobody except herself and the murderer need have known anything about it.’
‘Except that I should think any old lady so treated would have yelled the place down.’
‘Not, perhaps, if she were threatened with a knife or with physical violence, sir.’
‘Or if she had a bit of adhesive plaster over her mouth, I suppose,’ I said lightly. He gave me the sort of look which I think must be on the face of a cat when finally it pounces upon the mouse it has been playing with. He signalled to his sergeant, who produced a roll of the plaster.
‘Strange you should mention it, but we all make mistakes, especially murderers,’ he said. But they are wrong, Dame Beatrice. I swear they are wrong. I did not kill Miss Minnie and I have not the slightest idea who did. I can only continue to believe that something in her past life brought about her death and that fate or providence or yourself will take a hand in exonerating me. I never wished her or anybody else any harm. Surely they can’t convict me on such evidence as they have? What does it amount to, after all?
I asked them where they had found the plaster, but they said that I knew, as well as they did, where it had been found. I swear that I had no idea there was a roll of the stuff anywhere on the premises, least of all among my own possessions. Can somebody have framed me? It begins to look uncommonly like it. Nest of Vipers! Somebody, joker or not, knew a thing or two when he gave my house that name!
Chapter Six
The New Tenant
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(1)
‘WELL, I do not think there is much doubt about who our murderer
‘It must be one of the people who received the anonymous letters Miss Minnie wrote,’ said Laura Gavin, adding an envelope to one of the four neat piles on the breakfast table.
‘We have no proof, so far, that Miss Minnie wrote any anonymous letters at all,’ Dame Beatrice pointed out.
‘But who else would have written them?’
‘That remains to be seen, and the letters may have had no importance. The police do not seem to think they had.’
‘What shall you do first?’
‘I have rented an apartment at Weston Pipers and I shall talk to the people concerned and then look up those previous tenants who have left the house.’
‘Do I go with you?’
‘Not at the moment. Somebody must remain here to deal with correspondence. I have arranged for George to stay at the bungalow so that I shall not only have my car at my disposal, but a masculine protector if I need one.’
‘That will be the day!’ said Laura. ‘Will George fancy being the tenant of a bungalow which has housed a murdered woman?’
