“I suppose that they can only call me as a witness of how I found the body on Tuesday, and how I took the police to Weighford today. There is no reason why they should expect me to have any theories about who the murderer was. I think it will be all right.”
“Well, I’ll risk it, anyhow. You see, I know that the police, once they’ve caught a man, will always want to convict that man, merely so as to save themselves trouble, and save their own faces.”
“That’s my experience of them, certainly.” Reeves had no experience in the matter whatsoever, but there was no harm in agreeing.
“Well, I’d better tell you about myself first of all, and how I come to be mixed up in the business. My name isn’t, legally, Miss Rendall-Smith, although it was my maiden name. My legal name is Mrs. Brotherhood.”
“You mean that you are—”
“His widow. It must be a wonderful thing to be a detective, Mr. Reeves.”
Reeves was thrilled with the compliment, which a more introspective person might have suspected of irony. He suddenly remembered that a detective ought to have a notebook, and write down facts in it. He had no notebook, so he said, “Excuse me,” and fetched a sheet of the club notepaper. On this he wrote down in pencil “Miss R.-S. = Mrs. B.” It looked rather silly, somehow, when he had written it.
“I was brought up in these parts, Mr. Reeves. My father used to be Rector of Binver. When that photograph was taken—those photographs were taken, my father was still alive, and I was still unmarried. The only person who’d ever asked me to marry him was Mr. Davenant—I expect you know that he belongs to these parts too.”
“I didn’t actually know it.” The phrase suggested that Reeves might have inferred it, but had not any direct information on the point. “I suppose he didn’t live at the Hatcheries then?”
“No, his people had a house near here, which has been pulled down since. His mother, of course, was an Oatvile.”
“To be sure.” Reeves sucked his pencil, and wrote down “Mr. Davenant senior m. Miss Oatvile.” Then a light burst upon him—“Good heavens!” he said, “then that’s why he knew about the secret passage?”
“He would, of course. He’s told me that he used often to play here when he was a boy. Then there was a coolness between his people and the Oatviles, I think because his people became Catholics. No quarrel, you know, only they didn’t see so much of each other after that. Anyhow, Mr. Davenant was badly in love with me and wanted me to marry him. I wouldn’t—partly because I wasn’t quite sure whether I liked him, partly because my father was very Low Church, and he’d have been certain to make trouble over it. Then the Davenants left the place, and I did too after my father died; and we didn’t see any more of one another.”
“When was that?”
“Three or four years before the war—1910 I suppose it must have been. I started out to work for a living, because my father hadn’t left us very well off. And then, quite soon, I met this man Brotherhood. He proposed and I accepted him—you mustn’t ask me why, Mr. Reeves. That’s a thing even detectives can’t find out about, why women fall in love with men. I’ll only mention that at that time he wasn’t a bit rich. After I married we lived in a rather horrid house in Kensington. I never knew anything about his Stock Exchange business much, though I always had an idea that it wasn’t very safe, if it was even honest. He began to make money quite soon; and then, you see, he made the whole of it over to me. He was afraid, of course, that he might go bankrupt, and he wanted to have a good reserve which his creditors couldn’t touch. I was always rather a fool about business, or I suppose I should have minded the arrangement. As it was, I just thought it very nice of him, and we made arrangements to take a house in the country. I wanted Binver, because it was one of the few places where I’d any friends.
“Then, quite suddenly, I found out about him. I don’t mean about his business; I mean about his private life. There are lots of atheists who are very nice people; my husband wasn’t one of them. I somehow feel that he chucked over morals first and religion afterwards, if you know what I mean, not the other way about.”
Reeves wrote down “Brotherhood not only—God but—morals”; then he scratched it out again. Miss Rendall-Smith went on:
“I didn’t want a divorce: you see, I’d been rather strictly brought up about those things. And of course he didn’t want one, because of the money. Just when I wanted help and advice, I met Mr. Davenant again; and he was furious when I told him about it all. He set to work to try and find out something about my husband’s business, and he did discover something (I don’t know what it was) which would have ruined him if it had come out. Then he went to my husband and put a pistol to his head, so to speak—blackmailed him really, I suppose. He made my husband take a solemn oath to let me go my own way and never, without my express consent, publish the fact that he’d married me. Then I came down here and took the house in Binver and thought it was going to be all right.
“Quite soon afterwards my husband rented a bungalow, as you know, and came to live at Paston Whitchurch. I think he wanted to keep a watch over me; I think he also wanted to give me
