"Yesterday morning, sir."
Haviland inwardly opened his eyes.
"Ah yes! After that quarrel she and Mrs Tangye had." Pointer was bluffing.
"You mean their talk after breakfast, sir? Oh, they weren't quarrelling. The mistress's voice was quite low and soft. And she always raised it when she was angry. Always. It sounded to me more like it was Miss Saunders who was huffed. I heard her say, 'It's not the money. It's how it looks. I insist on staying till at least the end of the week.' That was the first thing after breakfast, that was."
"Ah yes," mused Pointer again, "the quarrel came after lunch, I think."
"It couldn't have, sir. The mistress went out directly lunch was over, and there was no trouble when they were at table. There hadn't been no quarrel or the mistress would never have talked to her as she did. Talked quite a lot for Mrs. Tangye."
"Where were they when you heard Miss Saunders speak of leaving?"
"In the morning-room, sir. Miss Saunders said that and walked out."
"Did she look vexed?"
"Well no, sir. But that goes for nothing. Miss Saunders never shows when she's angry. But she pays you back for it just the same."
"You don't like Miss Saunders?"
Florence did not. But servants rarely like companions. Pointer harked back to yesterday afternoon, and tried his last cast:
"You said at the inquest that your mistress came in from the garden as you brought in the tea-tray?"
"Yes. Five minutes to the hour that was."
"Did she often go out in the garden after dark? On such a day as we had yesterday?" Pointer was doing all the questioning now.
"Well no, sir. Now I come to think of it she doesn't—didn't."
"Did you see her in the garden at all?"
"I couldn't have. You see, sir, in this house the back garden is all at the side. Except just a little bit that's in front." Wilmot laughed outright.
"She was alone in the garden, I suppose?" Pointer went on. "Oh yes, sir. Quite alone."
"How do you know, if you couldn't see her?" Pointer persisted, half-smiling.
"Well, sir, I should have heard voices, shouldn't I? The window of my pantry—it's too high up to see out of, but it gives on to that side." She stopped suddenly, as though remembering something. A rather startled look spread over her face.
"Yes?" cooed Pointer persuasively.
"Well, sir, that's funny! Talking of her being alone, my sister Olive, she said to me as we were giving the silver a rub-up before bringing in the tray, she said that she thought she heard a crunch-crunch on the gravel behind the mistress. But then Olive—" she hesitated, "my sister hears things. She's not normal, the doctor tells us." She announced the fact with some pride. "She's taken on something cruel at Mrs. Tangye's death. Says she felt it coming, and ought to've warned her. But there, Olive is that way! It's not being normal does it."
"What did she hear out of the pantry window?"
"Something like steps coming after the mistress over the gravel, sir. Very soft-like and cautious. I switched on the electric to have a look—we was working by the fire—and at that the steps stopped dead. Not Mrs. Tangye's. The other ones I mean."
"You heard them, too?"
"Quite clear for just a moment before they stopped."
"Footsteps that stopped when you switched on the light," Pointer looked at his boot tips. "I'll look at your pantry in a minute. Did you or Olive hear the steps again?"
They had not.
"Some butcher's boy coming for orders," Wilmot's tone was dryly amused.
"At that hour of an afternoon, sir!" It was Florence's turn to be diverted.
"Oh, well—missed the tradesman's entrance in the dark, and hoped to be directed to it."
"Then why did the steps stop, sir?"
"Were they peculiar footsteps?"
"In a way. They seemed to have a sort of kink to them every now and then. Sort of a catch, if you know what I mean." She tried to illustrate her meaning, and did a Highland fling which failed to convince.
Olive was next summoned. She was a slender, pale, young woman with over-large eyes, and a timid smile.
"We're still uncertain about this affair," Wilmot began on a sign from Pointer, "now what do you think about it? You ought to have formed your own opinion, living in the same house. Do you think that Mrs. Tangye meant to shoot herself, or was it a genuine accident? Come now, as between ourselves."
"Well, sir, I don't know what to think. Florence, she thinks—"
"We know what your sister thinks," Pointer assured her pleasantly, "but you now?"
"Well, sir, cook thinks—"
"We shall learn in good time what Cook thinks, but what about you? Mr. Wilmot wants to hear your opinion."
Olive grew desperate.
"Well, sir, I can't help thinking the mistress did do it. But was drove to it like. She was all of a twitter that last day. Yesterday. I think she did it in a fit of passion, half wild about something. I felt it coming along, sir. Oh, I felt it creeping on her."
"Just what do you mean by that?" Wilmot spoke gently, but with obvious curiosity.
"I feel things beforehand, sir. I knew when father was going to die weeks and weeks before the crane broke. I felt the same feeling come on me again a couple of days ago. Sunday morning it was I got up with it. And it's never left me since."
"Surely it's left you by now," Haviland suggested in his hearty, healthy, beefy voice.
"Not to notice, sir." A cryptic reply that made his lips twitch.
But she, too, had heard no sound yesterday afternoon that could possibly have been a shot.
"Now, about Mrs. Tangye, did you see her by chance in the garden before tea?" Pointer asked, as though nothing had been said on the subject.
"I heard her walking up and down on the path that runs past the morning-room windows. It's been freshly gravelled."
"Was Mrs. Tangye alone?"
"I—don't—know." Olive spoke slowly. "I have wonderful hearing, sir. That's what makes it seem so funny I heard no shot. No blind man can hear better than me. I heard footsteps creep up behind the mistress. Getting nearer and nearer. They weren't more than a yard behind her when Flo turned up the light, and they stopped. Flo heard them too, just then."
"But I thought you said you weren't sure if Mrs. Tangye was alone in the garden." Wilmot spoke in some perplexity.
"But you can hear things sometimes that you couldn't see." Olive spoke under her breath with a quick dilation of her pupils. "I know you won't believe me, sir. Flo doesn't in her heart. She thinks its because of what happened after. But I knew then those steps meant harm to the mistress."
"Were they peculiar footsteps?" probed Wilmot again. "Not in the way you mean, sir, though they had a sort of stumble to them. But I pray God never to hear 'em no more." Haviland thought the atmosphere was getting a bit tense. "You spoke of Mrs. Tangye having killed herself," he began, "why should she do that? Come now, Olive, just you hold on to facts. Don't think of spooky things any more." Olive looked rather hesitatingly at the police-officer.
"Well, Mr. Superintendent, now it can't harm nobody, now that the inquest's over, I don't mind saying that I saw her myself going through the master's over-coat pockets. This last Saturday, just before dinner. He had left his top-coat behind that he usually wears down to his office. And Mrs. Tangye pulled out a letter and stood reading it. Short