“May I ask why?”
“If it can be helped, we do not want your wife to suffer more than she must for what you have done. Nor do we want a scandal. If you will leave the country, and never come back, we will do what we can to hush the whole thing up.”
A light came into Woodman’s ashen face. “I see,” he said.
“Do you admit that all we have told you is true?”
“It doesn’t seem to be much good denying it now.”
“You will sign, in our presence, a confession that you committed these murders?”
“I don’t know what for. No, I won’t sign anything.”
“But you admit it.”
“Between ourselves, yes. In public, a thousand times no.”
Woodman even smiled as he said this.
“You admit it to us.”
“Yes, yes. Haven’t I said so? But there are some things not even you seem to know.”
“Won’t you tell us them, Mr. Woodman, just to make our story complete?” said Ellery. “Remember that we are proposing to let you go. We are taking some risks in doing that.”
“Not for my sake, I’ll be bound. But I don’t mind telling you. What do you want to know?”
“How the murders were actually done.”
“Oh, I have no objection to telling you. Indeed, I flatter myself the thing was rather prettily arranged.”
Woodman had almost regained his outward composure and spoke with some of his accustomed assurance.
“I went into the garden of Liskeard House, just as you said, by the coach-yard. I have no idea how you discovered that. Then I went straight up the back stairs to Prinsep’s room. No one saw me go upstairs, I take it, or you would have mentioned the fact. I found Prinsep at his table writing. I laid him out with a big blow on the back of the head.”
“With what weapon?”
“With a sandbag. Then it has not been found? I threw it out afterwards on to the roof of the stables out of sight. Then, as I wasn’t sure if he was dead, I made sure with a knife I found lying on the table. It belonged, I knew, to George Brooklyn. I don’t know how it got there. It wasn’t part of my plan. I finished him off with that, and went out on to the landing. Just then I heard someone coming upstairs. It was George Brooklyn. Until that moment I had no definite intention of killing George that night. I meant to leave signs which would show that George and Walter had conspired to kill Prinsep. I had put a handkerchief of George’s under the body. George’s coming just then was deuced awkward. I had no time to clear away the traces, and I had somehow to prevent him from entering the room. So I met him on the landing and told him that Prinsep was in the garden and wanted him to go down. He went down the back stairs with me like a lamb. It was then it occurred to me that, as he had seen me up in Prinsep’s room, I should have to kill him too. I led him over towards the temple and let him get a few paces in front. Then I seized the club from the Hercules statue and smashed his head in from behind. After that I had to consider how to cover my tracks. I dragged the body into the temple entrance, fetched Prinsep’s coat and hat and walked up and down the garden, as you know. Then I went up again to Prinsep’s room, and sent off that telephone message and arranged things there, leaving George’s handkerchief under the body and Walter’s stick in the room. I had already dropped the ferrule in the garden, and a note in Prinsep’s writing, making an appointment for the garden. He had sent it to me the previous day. George had left his hat and overcoat on the landing. I had intended to slip out unobserved somehow; but seeing the coat and hat gave me an idea. I put them on, and walked out as George Brooklyn, thus throwing everyone wrong, as I thought, about the time of the murders. All the rest you seem to know.”
“H’m,” said Ellery. “You are a remarkably cold-blooded scoundrel.”
“Perhaps; but we can keep our opinions of each other to ourselves. You would prefer me to go away rather than stay and face your accusation. Isn’t that so?”
“I suppose you can put it that way,” said Ellery.
“Well, I can’t go without money. That’s the position. And I want a good lot. I can’t lay hands on money at short notice, and you will have to find it. Besides, remember that, if you don’t accuse me, I am still Walter Brooklyn’s heir, and he is Sir Vernon’s. I understand it is most unlikely Sir Vernon will live to make another will. Now, how much can you provide—and how soon? That is the business proposition we have to settle between us. I am prepared to disappear for the present, and I will go further, for a suitable consideration—and promise never to come back to this country. But my condition is that I get half of whatever comes to Joan when Sir Vernon dies. How does that strike you?”
Joan had listened with a feeling of nausea to Woodman’s confession. But now she broke in indignantly. “I am afraid,” she said, “that you are a little after the fair. It is quite true that, under my stepfather’s new will, you appear to be the principal heir. It is also true that my stepfather stood to inherit a large sum of money, until Sir Vernon made a new will.” Joan said these words very slowly and distinctly. As Woodman heard them the colour, which had quite come back, faded again from his face, and he stared at her with a consternation that deepened as she went on.
“We had not quite finished our story. After your wicked bargain with my stepfather you attempted to raise money on
