Pointer heard the gush of the soda water, and Haviland's "I don't mind if I do, sir," and returned to his own problem.
He locked the door behind him and took a turn up and down the room. He felt as though he were faced by a stone wall, on the other side of which lay his goal. Somehow, or other he would get over or break through.
The fine poise of his head, the set of his jaw became more pronounced. Danger signals both with him.
It was the photograph of the dead woman herself, which he stood in front of him this time. Square and at her ease she sat in her light chair, feet together, one hand, fingers up, on her knee, the other extended limply down with the revolver on the floor below it. Why did she sit beside, not turned towards her tea-table?
Pointer did not believe that she had been moved after death. Yet there was something artificial about her pose which had struck him from the first. Something arranged...Something set...Set!
Pointer had an idea. She looked as though posed for her portrait. Suppose she had been!
Suppose the revolver had been hidden in a box-camera, and that Mrs. Tangye had been asked to sit for her picture.
That would explain her position. Straight on her chair, facing into the room where the murderer would be pretending to focus her. The composed and yet stiff attitude of her body, especially of her feet. It would also explain the scratches on the revolver.
Pointer imagined an emptied box-camera, fitted with a few wires to hold the revolver. Its muzzle pressed against the hole in front where the lens would have been taken away.
The click of the shutter at the side could be made to pull the trigger by the simplest of mechanical arrangements, such as a ring passed through a stout elastic band.
Pointer imagined the murderer asking for a portrait of the seated womn. Coming close and apparently focussing her in the "finder." Then suddenly advancing the box with a rush, and sending the bullet straight through her heart, almost noiselessly.
As he saw it, the murderer at once picked up Mrs. Tangye's left hand, rubbed it lightly with butter from the muffin dish, he had used his handkerchief probably, and then, pressed it around the weapon as much as possible as a living woman would have done, had she fired it. Then he had dropped the hand. It was a most artistic performance, but, as almost inevitable, just a shade over-acted. He had been a little too prodigal with the butter. He had pressed the palm a little too closely on the revolver.
Those footsteps in the garden, the "footsteps that stopped"...Pointer did not think the murderer would be late for his appointment. Rather the other way. Suppose he had been waiting in the garden till the exact time set. When Mrs. Tangye walked out into the darkness he might well have thought that a still better variant of the original idea was possible. The camera packed probably with asbestos shavings, would deaden the sound of any bullet—even if fired when all was still. There is always a certain risk in an indoors murder that some one may enter, and the crime be prevented, or suspicions aroused, or the murderer be caught red-handed. Pointer thought that those steps outside on the gravel path which the maids had heard coming closer, closer yet to Mrs. Tangye, might well have belonged to the murderer stalking his prey, until Florence's unexpected turning on of the light had stopped him, and told him that, after all, it would be best to proceed according to plan.
But whose steps were they? Whose? Man's or woman's? It was a devilishly ingenious idea. Who had thought it out, and carried it out? It could be any one, provided he, or she, had some excuse for taking Mrs. Tangye's photograph. There was Oliver Headly? He fitted many of the spaces very well indeed. Was he back in England? He had been an orchid-hunter at one time. It was to an orchid show that Mrs. Tangye had gone on Sunday. Had the cousins met at Tunbridge Wells? Had a reconciliation of sorts taken place?
There was Miss Saunders...There was Tangye—Pointer thought of the glance which they had exchanged just now. Some understanding was between them. Her belief that Tangye had something to do with his wife's death must rest on some foundation, or Tangye would not be so reluctant to take a high hand about the money which he claimed was missing. For that Tangye suspected the woman of having stolen the money, Pointer was certain. His alibi was not what Pointer considered a good one. Like a middling hand at Bridge, it was neither bad enough to pass, nor good enough to bid on. All depended on what other cards might fit in with it.
And that quarrel with his wife. Her ordering of him out of the house which legally was hers. Tangye's face showed a temper that could, if let loose, be violent enough. He had used a Webley in the war. He reaped an immediate reward in the cessation of the double premiums, in the payment of the Insurance money, as well as in the control of his wife's invested funds.
Yes, Tangye stood to gain tremendously by his wife's death. In more ways than one, if gossip were true. One thing was certain. Whoever had killed Mrs. Tangye knew that the heralded visit of Mrs. Cranbourn was a bluff. The Chief Inspector did not believe that they would have chanced it otherwise.
Pointer heard the two men in the den go upstairs, Tangye saying something about showing Haviland a loose shutter.
Pointer stepped into Florence's pantry.
"Look here, I want to take a good photograph of the morning-room by flash-light. Just as part of the usual routine. Is there a camera in the house that I can borrow?"
"The master has one. He was talking of taking Mrs. Tangye's portrait only a few days ago."
"Mr. Tangye's just gone out, I think. But, anyway, his would hardly be large enough for a picture such as I want. I suppose it's one of the usual fold-up kodaks? Goes into a flat case like this?" He motioned a size.
He learnt that Tangye had just bought a new one, a large one, the kind of one that the Chief Inspector wanted, Florence thought.
"He took it don into the country on Saturday. I don't know if he brought it back or not."
Florence opened a press in the smoke-room. It was not there. Did any one else at Riverview photograph?
Miss Saunders did. The master had shown her how to use a camera that had been given her. It might do. It, too, was a box, though Florence thought not so large as Pointer wanted.
Perhaps there was an old one of Mrs. Tangye's that he could have for the time being?
But Mrs. Tangye only had a very small vest pocket kodak, At that, to Pointer's apparent surprise, Tangye was heard descending the stairs. Thanking the maid, Pointer said he would be able to ask him about it, after all. But he took very good care to do no such thing, as leaving Haviland to follow, he walked on to the police station alone.
So Tangye photographed. Tangye had bought a new, large camera about a fortnight ago. Tangye had spoken of taking his wife's portrait. Humph...And Miss Saunders photographed too...
The lapping of the river no longer sounded to him like a whispered, threefold question. Rather it was like slipping footsteps with a catch in them. Slithering footsteps with a kink. They softly kept pace beside him till he reached the station, as if some Unseen were close at hand.
Here, as he had taken the longer way round, he found Haviland and Wilmot, who had cut his engagements and come down in a hurry.
"Of course, this is just some chance, some coincidence that has happened at the same time as Mrs. Tangye's death," Wilmot began at once. Wilmot's determination to be biased amused Pointer.
"Tangye may be quite right in saying that the loss of the money is unconnected with her death," Pointer reminded him, "I think there was a murder. He says there was a theft. If that's true, it's quite possible that we have two distinct crimes here, with two distinct criminals, or sets of criminals."
"Kind Heaven above, bring me safe to shore!" prayed Wilmot. "Fortunately, I have suicide to cling to or I should be drowned. Still, it's all vastly interesting. All this seeing an investigation in the raw, as it were. I confess I never realised how difficult it is to strike the right trail. How easy to get lost along the wrong one."
"There's one thing fairly certain," Pointer spoke with