The Hound of Death - Agatha Christie [43]
‘Say? That she’s lying! No, I go too fast. Janet is an elderly woman. She was a faithful watchdog to her mistress, and she didn’t like me. She was jealous and suspicious. I should say that Miss French confided her intentions to Janet, and that Janet either mistook something she said, or else was convinced in her own mind that I had persuaded the old lady into doing it. I dare say that she believes herself now that Miss French actually told her so.’
‘You don’t think she dislikes you enough to lie deliberately about the matter?’
Leonard Vole looked shocked and startled.
‘No, indeed! Why should she?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Mr Mayherne thoughtfully. ‘But she’s very bitter against you.’
The wretched young man groaned again.
‘I’m beginning to see,’ he muttered. ‘It’s frightful. I made up to her, that’s what they’ll say, I got her to make a will leaving her money to me, and then I go there that night, and there’s nobody in the house–they find her the next day–oh! my God, it’s awful!’
‘You are wrong about there being nobody in the house,’ said Mr Mayherne. ‘Janet, as you remember, was to go out for the evening. She went, but about half past nine she returned to fetch the pattern of a blouse sleeve which she had promised to a friend. She let herself in by the back door, went upstairs and fetched it, and went out again. She heard voices in the sitting-room, though she could not distinguish what they said, but she will swear that one of them was Miss French’s and one was a man’s.’
‘At half past nine,’ said Leonard Vole. ‘At half past nine…’ He sprang to his feet. ‘But then I’m saved–saved–’
‘What do you mean, saved?’ cried Mr Mayherne, astonished.
‘By half past nine I was at home again! My wife can prove that. I left Miss French about five minutes to nine. I arrived home about twenty past nine. My wife was there waiting for me. Oh! thank God–thank God! And bless Janet Mackenzie’s sleeve pattern.’
In his exuberance, he hardly noticed that the grave expression of the solicitor’s face had not altered. But the latter’s words brought him down to earth with a bump.
‘Who, then, in your opinion, murdered Miss French?’
‘Why, a burglar, of course, as was thought at first. The window was forced, you remember. She was killed with a heavy blow from a crowbar, and the crowbar was found lying on the floor beside the body. And several articles were missing. But for Janet’s absurd suspicions and dislike of me, the police would never have swerved from the right track.’
‘That will hardly do, Mr Vole,’ said the solicitor. ‘The things that were missing were mere trifles of no value, taken as a blind. And the marks on the window were not all conclusive. Besides, think for yourself. You say you were no longer in the house by half past nine. Who, then, was the man Janet heard talking to Miss French in the sitting-room? She would hardly be having an amicable conversation with a burglar?’
‘No,’ said Vole. ‘No–’ He looked puzzled and discouraged. ‘But anyway,’ he added with reviving spirit, ‘it lets me out. I’ve got an alibi. You must see Romaine–my wife–at once.’
‘Certainly,’ acquiesced the lawyer. ‘I should already have seen Mrs Vole but for her being absent when you were arrested. I wired to Scotland at once, and I understand that she arrives back tonight. I am going to call upon her immediately I leave here.’
Vole nodded, a great expression of satisfaction settling down over his face.
‘Yes, Romaine will tell you. My God! it’s a lucky chance that.’
‘Excuse me, Mr Vole, but you are very fond of your wife?’
‘Of course.’
‘And she of you?’
‘Romaine is devoted to me. She’d do anything in the world for me.’
He spoke enthusiastically, but the solicitor’s heart sank a little lower. The testimony of a devoted wife–would it gain credence?
‘Was there anyone else who saw you return at nine-twenty? A maid, for instance?’
‘We have no maid.’
‘Did you meet anyone in the street on the way back?’
‘Nobody I knew. I rode part of the way in a bus. The conductor might remember.’
Mr Mayherne shook his head doubtfully.