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By Root 339 0

They couldn’t prove anything. Mrs. MacKenzie was an unbalanced sort of woman. She came here and made a lot of threats of revenge. Said Rex had murdered her husband. Silly, melodramatic fuss! I think she was a bit off her head—in fact, I believe she went into an asylum not long after. Came here dragging along a couple of young children who looked scared to death. Said she’d bring up her children to have revenge. Something like that. Tomfoolery, all of it. Well, that’s all I can tell you. And mind you, the Blackbird Mine wasn’t the only swindle that Rex put over in his lifetime. You’ll find a good many more if you look for them. What put you on to the Blackbird? Did you come across some trail leading to the MacKenzies?”

“You don’t know what became of the family, ma’am?”

“No idea,” said Miss Ramsbottom. “Mind you, I don’t think Rex would have actually murdered MacKenzie, but he might have left him to die. The same thing before the Lord, but not the same thing before the law. If he did, retribution’s caught up with him. The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small—you’d better go away now, I can’t tell you anymore and it’s no good your asking.”

“Thank you very much for what you have told me,” said Inspector Neele.

“Send that Marple woman back,” Miss Ramsbottom called after him. “She’s frivolous, like all Church of England people, but she knows how to run a charity in a sensible way.”

Inspector Neele made a couple of telephone calls, the first to Ansell and Worrall and the second to the Golf Hotel, then he summoned Sergeant Hay and told him that he was leaving the house for a short period.

“I’ve a call to pay at a solicitor’s office—after that, you can get me at the Golf Hotel if anything urgent turns up.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And find out anything you can about blackbirds,” added Neele over his shoulder.

“Blackbirds, sir?” Sergeant Hay repeated, thoroughly mystified.

“That’s what I said—not blackberry jelly—blackbirds.”

“Very good, sir,” said Sergeant Hay bewilderedly.

Chapter Seventeen

I

Inspector Neele found Mr. Ansell the type of solicitor who was more easily intimidated than intimidating. A member of a small and not very prosperous firm, he was anxious not to stand upon his rights but instead to assist the police in every way possible.

Yes, he said, he had made a will for the late Mrs. Adele Fortescue. She had called at his office about five weeks previously. It had seemed to him rather a peculiar business but naturally he had not said anything. Peculiar things did happen in a solicitor’s business, and of course the inspector would understand that discretion, etc., etc. The inspector nodded to show he understood. He had already discovered Mr. Ansell had not transacted any legal business previously for Mrs. Fortescue or for any of the Fortescue family.

“Naturally,” said Mr. Ansell, “she didn’t want to go to her husband’s firm of lawyers about this.”

Shorn of verbiage, the facts were simple. Adele Fortescue had made a will leaving everything of which she died possessed to Vivian Dubois.

“But I gathered,” said Mr. Ansell, looking at Neele in an interrogating manner, “that she hadn’t actually much to leave.”

Inspector Neele nodded. At the time Adele Fortescue made her will that was true enough. But since then Rex Fortescue had died, and Adele Fortescue had inherited £100,000 and presumably that £100,000 (less death duties) now belonged to Vivian Edward Dubois.

II

At the Golf Hotel, Inspector Neele found Vivian Dubois nervously awaiting his arrival. Dubois had been on the point of leaving, indeed his bags were packed, when he had received over the telephone a civil request from Inspector Neele to remain. Inspector Neele had been very pleasant about it, quite apologetic. But behind the conventional words the request had been an order. Vivian Dubois had demurred, but not too much.

He said now:

“I do hope you realize, Inspector Neele, that it is very inconvenient for me to have to stay on. I really have urgent business that needs attending to.”

“I didn’t know you were in business, Mr. Dubois,