"Well, we do. The outlook for every one in the house is quite altered by the mere supposition. To come to the point of this interview, your own alibi is unsatisfactory."
That got home. She bit her lip.
"It's not genuine. Miss Martins, as I believe the manageress of the tea-room is called, mistook you evidently for another customer. In any case the fact that she is your sister would discount her evidence. There's no use your denying what we know, Miss Saunders," as she opened her lips, "the matter is too serious for that. Where were you really between four and six Tuesday?" His voice came sharp and stern. She licked her thin lips with a tongue that shot out like a snake's, swift and furtive.
"At the library and then in the tea-room. My alibi is quite good. As to its having been substantiated by my sister—why not? She's in charge at the tea-room. Others may have seen me there if you've frightened her into some mistake. I won't pretend to misunderstand you, you know. But what possible cause should I have had for harming Mrs. Tangye?"
Pointer bent forward and stared hard at her. She blinked. "Why, you yourself have been trying to force the note of your—understanding—with Mr. Tangye."
This time she turned a genuine and ghastly gray.
"It's a lie!" she rose to her feet and her eyes widened. "Blundering idiots I If I had killed her, wouldn't I be the first to snatch at the chance of accusing Mr. Vardon? But I tell you he didn't do it Oh, you fool! You damned fool!" She shivered with fury. Pointer thought for a second that she would actually fly at him. Her small eyes, set close together like those of a bird, seemed to snap fire, so fierce was their glare.
The door opened. But why had Tangye paused once again outside to listen?
Miss Saunders passed him with one contemptuous, yet menacing glance.
"What in the world—" Tangye began. "I stepped in to ask if you would be a witness to my statement, which Wilmot is taking down. My formal renouncement of the Insurance claim on my wife."
Pointer followed him back into his den.
"Bit previous," Pointer glanced down at the paper. "It may not be Vardon, but it may not be suicide, either." Wilmot looked put out. The case was as good as over as far as he was concerned. He was mentally drafting a cable to his little Galician village, at the same time as this letter of Tangye's.
"You mean you will make a murder out of it?"
Tangye's last whisky had been nearly neat.
"I assure you," Pointer said gently, as he had to say so often, "that Scotland Yard is not Moloch, to be fed with human sacrifices, innocent or guilty, no matter which, so long as the supply doesn't run short. If Mrs. Tangye's death was a suicide, you may be sure that that will end the inquiry, and we shall turn our attention elsewhere. But we must get the thing clearly worked out. That's part of the routine."
Pointer left the two alone at that, and took a turn in the garden. The robin, whose preserve this was, eyed him hopefully. Pointer looked energetic. He might be going to use a spade. But the Chief Inspector was oblivious of fluting call or confident bright eyes. He was thinking. So it was to be suicide. According to Tangye. But according to Pointer? That was what really mattered.
It was a very sudden right-about-turn, this of Tangye's. Neatly executed, but very sudden. Was it the peril in which Tangye learnt for the first time that a man stood whom he considered innocent? Or was it something else, deeper? Was what seemed disinterestedness self-interest? Did Tangye suddenly realise that the question of murder was in the air? Did he want to scotch, not so much a present, unfounded accusation, as a possibly well-founded one in the future? Did he see himself as Vardon's successor in the list of suspects, and decided to block that eventuality? Or was the widower merely a belatedly honest man? Was Wilmot right? Had Haviland been right in the beginning? Was Mrs. Tangye's death, after all, self-inflicted, in spite of smoky room and scratched revolver? Or were Tangye and Vardon in collusion? Those keys...
Returning to the house he and Wilmot took their leave.
"My field day, I think!" the newspaper man stepped out cheerily; "we've got the motive. You were right about it having been that Sunday down at Tunbridge that practically fired the shot. The husband throws up his claim—"
"The investigator packs his trunks, sends in his bill, and flits to sunnier climes," Pointer finished the picture.
Wilmot chortled.
"Of course you, as the representative of the law, tried to spoil it all. But nothing will undo the fact that Tangye confesses he was only trying it on with the Insurance society. He's obviously however, not the man to hang an innocent chap. I think Tangye's genuinely shocked to find that by trying to swindle the Company out of that insurance payment, he's tying the noose around the neck of another. He comes forward and says very honestly that his wife told him in so many words that she intended to kill herself."
"But she didn't!"
"Didn't kill herself? I think—in spite of many difficulties, perplexities—that she did."
"Of course you do. No offence, Wilmot, but that's what the Company expects you to do until actually convinced. That's your brief."
Wilmot looked at him with surprise on his face. "Do you mean to say that you suspect this double confession or confidence, of just now? In Heaven's name, why?"
"Why should I believe it? That's more to the point."
"'Pon my word, it's too bad!" Wilmot's voice was frankly peevish. Here was the case, his case, settled, and here was this obstinate policeman still holding up the traffic.
"There are two sides to every question," Pointer reminded him.
"Not to a circle. A never-ending circle, which this case seems to be in your eyes," was Wilmot's tart rejoinder. "Indeed? What about inside and outside?"
Wilmot laughed, almost against his will. "What makes you doubt what we've just heard?" he asked finally.
"My dear fellow! If Tangye had carried a banner inscribed, 'I'm doing a neat bit of acting. What price a brain-wave?' It couldn't have been clearer. Miss Saunders too, was very pleased with her star-turn. In the beginning."
They reached the station. Haviland had returned. He now listened eagerly.
"Ah, I thought Tangye wouldn't be able to explain away the fact of those keys!" Haviland said gleefully. "Funny he should try to. I wonder what really did happen to them?"
"I wonder too," Pointer said. "Certain it is that Tangye could tell us if he wished to."
"Looks as though Vardon and Tangye have an understanding of some sort, in fact," Haviland thought. "And that's why Miss Saunders wanted to help him as well as Tangye—at least, I suppose that's why..."
"She's the owner of a 'one-good-turn-a-day' nature, you think? You two chaps make me tired. Forgive my frankness," Wilmot stifled a yawn, "but why cudgel your brains for some recondite solution? Miss Saunders and Tangye went off on Sunday. She's quite willing to snatch at any alleviation on the sly. Like most of her sex. Tangye's right; there's no murder here. There's suicide. And there's possibly, but only possibly, a theft."
"Suicide? Because Mrs. Tangye saw her husband and her companion looking at orchids together? Her sense of proportion must have been out of action. Come, Wilmot, you don't believe that yourself!"
"I believe," Wilmot said earnestly, "that Mrs. Tangye had far more ground than that. Far more reason. That she had fought a losing battle well and long. That finding she was steadily being driven back, in spite of all her efforts, she got tired of the useless struggle, and ended it. That has, up to now, been my theory, unless it really was an accident. Failing either of those, my own mind turns more and more to that missing cousin of hers. The man with the love of