“Hallo!” Reggie said.
“I’m afraid you’re going to have a shock, sir,” said Mrs. Betts, and opened the door for him.
Reggie went in. The sunlight flooded Birdie Bolton’s face, which was white. She lay on a sofa. She was in evening dress. There was an open wound in one side of her throat, and from it a red line lay across her bare shoulder, down her arm, to a purple stain on the carpet.
Reggie went across the room in two strides and bent over her. She had been dead for hours.
“Who found her, Mrs. Betts?”
“The upper housemaid, sir. She’s been having hysterics ever since.”
“Bah! Was the room just like this?”
“No, sir. Miss Weston was asleep in that chair.”
“What?” Reggie stared. The mistress murdered and the companion placidly asleep by her side—perhaps that would not have startled his calm mind. But he knew May Weston, and had written her off as a dull, simple creature—a cushion of a girl.
“Miss Weston was asleep in that chair,” the housekeeper repeated. “I saw her myself. I came in, sir, when Amelia—when the housemaid screamed. Miss Weston was in evening dress too. She didn’t wake at the screaming either—just stirred. I went to her and shook her, and ‘Miss Weston,’ I said, ‘whatever’s this?’ I said, and she woke up and looked round her, sort of heavy, and she saw Miss Bolton lying there and the blood, and she screamed out, ‘I did it—oh, I did it,’ and she looked at me very queer and she fainted.” Mrs. Betts stopped and stared at Reggie, waiting for him to express horror.
“So what did you do with her?” said Reggie. Mrs. Betts swallowed. “I had her carried to her room. Dr. Fortune,” she said with dignity. “I am told she’s come to and been crying.”
“Well, that’s natural, anyway,” said Reggie.
“Natural, indeed!” Mrs. Betts tossed her head.
“And what did you do next, Mrs. Betts?”
“I had nothing touched, sir. I locked up the room. And I telephoned to you and the police.”
“I’m sure you behaved admirably, Mrs. Betts,” Reggie murmured.
Mrs. Betts was appeased. “I could hardly bear it, sir. Such a sweet, good mistress as she was. A perfect lady with all her little ways, as you know, sir. And that Miss Weston! So soft and quiet as she seemed. I don’t mind saying, sir, I felt as if I was stone. Oh!” She shuddered and shook. “Vicious, I call it.”
Reggie was looking round the room. “I suppose it is murder, sir?” said Mrs. Betts in a tone that suggested she would like to have the hanging of Miss Weston.
“I suppose it is,” Reggie said. He crossed to the chair in which Miss Weston had been found sleeping and picked up from the floor close by a pair of scissors and a pointed bodkin with an ivory handle. Both were clotted with blood. Ugly things.
“Ah!” Mrs. Betts said. “That’s what did it. Put ’em down, sir. I left them there by her chair for the police to see.”
“You think of everything, Mrs. Betts,” said Reggie, and put them down and went back to the body of Birdie Bolton.
That stab in the throat, it was “not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door”; it was a small wound to be mortal. A small neat wound which had rare luck to slit the jugular vein. Reggie looked back at the bodkin and the scissors. He noticed that Mrs. Betts had gone out.
There were other wounds. In half a dozen places the pallid shoulders and breast had bled. No one of these gashes was serious. They were just such as might be expected of those unhandy weapons, scissors and bodkin. It was that neat, lucky stroke at the throat which determined the fate of Birdie Bolton. The minor wounds suggested a struggle with someone in a passion, and that Miss Bolton had struggled Reggie found other evidence. The black evening dress had been dragged from one shoulder and torn, and there on that right shoulder were the blue marks of a hand that had gripped. Reggie’s examination became more minute.
Two men bustled in. A hand tapped Reggie’s shoulder. “Now, sir, if you please.”
Reggie stood up and confronted a pompous, portly little man.
“I am Dr. Fortune,” Reggie said. “Miss Bolton was a patient of mine.”
“Was,” said the little man, with emphasis. “She is a case for an expert now, Dr. Fortune.”
“That’s why I was examining her,” said Reggie sweetly.
The little man laughed. “A general practitioner is not much use to her now. Rather beyond you, isn’t it?”
“Well, I’ve not made up my mind,” Reggie said.
“Don’t worry. Don’t worry.” He waved Reggie off, but Reggie did not go. “You’ll only be in our way, you know. We’ll let you know if we want you at the inquest. Just for formal evidence.” Still Reggie did not move. “I am the divisional surgeon, sir,” said the little man loudly.
“I was wondering who you were,” Reggie murmured.
The little man swung round. “We’ll have the room cleared, inspector,” he said.
The detective inspector, who looked more like a policeman than seemed possible, strode heavily forward. “Hope you’re not meaning to give trouble, doctor,” he frowned. “Or I’ll have to take steps.”
“Fancy!” Reggie said. “Well, look where you’re going.” He walked across to the window and looked out at the roses.
“Clear out, please.” The inspector followed him.
“Zeal, all zeal,” Reggie murmured, and went.
There were two doors to the room. He did not use that by which they had come, but the other. He happened to know that it opened into Birdie Bolton’s bedroom.
There was someone in the bedroom. A startled dark face peeped round the screen by the bed. It belonged to a smart lady’s maid.
“Dear me, I thought this was the passage,” Reggie said.
“It is Miss Bolton’s bedroom—poor Miss Bolton.” The maid had a slight foreign accent.
“Of course it is. And you’re her maid, of course. Flora, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sir. Yes, doctor. Ah, you have seen Miss Bolton! You cannot do anything—no?”
“Miss Bolton is
