“Ah, there she had a piece of luck. You will remember that the last week of July was very wet. The Cat Ditch is quite a stream, rising from a spring, and by the 28th it had six feet or more of water in it, and was running very strongly. In these conditions it has been known to carry heavy objects a long distance. No doubt Lilian Shearsby counted on the body being swept well away from where it went in. It was actually carried or rolled during the night some two miles, coming to rest against a bridge in the lane where Raymond had his cottage. It was naturally supposed that he had fallen in there. And it was proved that Mrs. Shearsby could not possibly have reached the lane in the time available to her. When she heard what had happened, she must have felt that providence was indeed on her side.”
“But evidently it was not?”
“No. A comforting thought. That is where Mr. Joseph Eady comes in.” Harvey again looked at his watch. He began to speak more rapidly. “Eady was a shady character who had never been convicted. He went to Cambridge that day on some business so dubious that the sight at King’s Cross of a detective who knew him caused him to alter his plans. He took a ticket only as far as Whipstead. He got there at 6.43 just as Lilian Shearsby took up her post among the trees at the junction of the paths. Eady seems also to have known the country, and in his retiring way he was avoiding the village and making for the path which comes out near Raymond Shearsby’s cottage. He could reach the bus route to Cambridge that way. What he saw among the trees we don’t know. Presumably Mrs. Shearsby in her male impersonation. Perhaps he recognised her as a woman, perhaps her behaviour roused his curiosity. He lived by his eyes and wits. He was certainly delayed by something, because he stole a bicycle in order to catch his bus. But he did not see the murder. He had gone on some time-before that.”
“This is as good as a novel,” remarked Parmitter, who had once more lost his air of strain.
“It is a novel,” Mr. Tuke reminded him. “And now we come to the penultimate chapter. Some time in the next few days, Eady’s affairs took him to Bedford. There he met Lilian Shearsby in the street, in her proper garments, and knew her again. He would not have been Joseph Eady if he had not followed up this little mystery. It was easy to find out who she was, and, thanks to Mortimer’s bragging, about the family fortune. And a few days later, in an old copy of a Cambridgeshire paper, Eady read the announcement of Raymond Shearsby’s death, inserted by the Vicar of Stocking because Mortimer was too mean to pay for it—— Did you speak?”
“It was nothing. Go on.”
“I thought you said, ‘Just like him’. Of course, I told you he was mean. Well, the two names, and the date, made Mr. Eady think furiously. Again it was simple to gather further information—there was the Hertfordshire paper, for instance, in which you first read of the affair. In short, Mr. Eady, who earned a modest and precarious livelihood, began to think, very mistakenly, that at last he was on velvet.”
“I begin to see,” said Parmiter.
“Yes,” said Mr. Tuke, assuming a more impermanent attitude. “Yes, he tried a bit of blackmail. This was only last Friday. But Lilian Shearsby is a woman whom a blackmailer should handle with extreme care. She is quickwitted and resourceful. And this time she was desperate. She must have thought out her counter-measures in a few minutes. Considering the shock of Eady’s appearance out of the blue,” said Harvey reflectively, “it was a very creditable effort. Somehow she persuaded him to meet her in London the next day. She must have told some plausible story of being able to raise money there. She could insist, much more plausibly, on the danger of another meeting in Bedford, where she was well known. She probably explained that she had the run of a friend’s flat in Kensington. Eady was to call there for his first instalment. He may have pretended it would also be the last. If he did, she would not be deceived. Altogether, that interview at Aylwynstowe’, which is the regrettable name of the Mortimer Shearsby’s home, must have been as good as a play. It was a play. For though Eady now knew he was dealing with a murderess, he seems to have been fooled. He thought he had frightened Lilian Shearsby. He was never more mistaken.”
“Then this friend’s flat? . . .” said Parmiter.
“Was of course Miss Ardmore’s, of which Mrs. Shearsby had a key. Miss Ardmore would be at work on Saturday morning. To use her place for the end in view was a stroke of genius. It would seem to involve her up to the hilt.”
“The woman’s a devil!” Parmiter exclaimed.
“Not one of our really nice people. But very ingenious,” said Harvey. “Very. For when she came to London early next morning she had in her bag a dose of our old friend, and hers, sodium nitrite. This was her first string, so to speak. That she had hopes of inducing a blackmailer, who knew her to be a murderess, to accept a drink, speaks volumes for her self-confidence. Of course she had an alternative weapon. We don’t know what this was. She did not have to use it. Mr. Eady seems to have swallowed poison with a light heart.”
“How on earth did she make him do it, Tuke?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” Harvey said. “I can only think of one
