Chapter EIGHTEEN: Who Was the Woman?

Andy Macleod had ordered all the morning newspapers, and they were brought up to him whilst he was in bed. He ran his fingers over their folds and chose the _Megaphone_ because he had learnt it was on behalf of the _Megaphone_ that Mr. Downer was conducting his investigations.

He opened the paper with a dull sense of apprehension and he discovered that he had sufficient cause. The _Megaphone_ is not a journal that deals with sensational news sensationally. It has a strong political following, an excellent foreign correspondence, and a certain literary quality. The record of crimes was usually relegated to interior pages, but for once the _Megaphone_ had splashed the crime story on its principal page.

Andy read the headline:

“THE MIDNIGHT WOMAN!”

but it was the second line which brought him to his feet with an oath:

“MISS NELSON’S RELATIONS WITH THE DEAD MAN.”

He did not read the paragraph which followed, but put the paper down on the bed. His first feeling was one of consternation as he thought of the girl and what she would feel when she saw that headline. His second was of Mr. Downer. He had never strangled a reporter, but he felt that in certain circumstances it would be rather a pleasant job.

He picked up the newspaper and read:

“Yesterday’s inquest at Beverley on the two men who were found murdered in such sensational circumstances was (writes our special correspondent) the merest formality. The proceedings neither revealed facts unknown to the public nor did they bring us any nearer a solution of the mystery.

“For some extraordinary reason the police pretend they do not know the name of the woman who called at Mr. Merrivan’s house at half-past ten and is alleged to have left the house at eleven o’clock. Dr. Andrew Macleod, who is not only an eminent pathologist but a brilliant member of that inner council of crime investigators which is the terror of evil-doers, stated in evidence that he had seen a woman leave the house at that hour. It is clear, however, from enquiries which have been made, that the night was so dark—the moon was entirely hidden behind clouds—that it was humanly impossible for Dr. Macleod to have followed the woman across the green. That a woman did leave Beverley Green I have established. She was a servant of Mr. Sheppard, who went to the end of the lane to post a letter in a letter-box which stands on the juncture of a lane on the main road. It is certain that this is the woman whom Dr. Macleod saw, and not the woman who was heard by Mr. Merrivan’s butler quarrelling with his employer. Who, then, was this lady? It is generally known in Beverley that it was Miss Stella Nelson, the daughter of that eminent artist, Kenneth Nelson, who resides in Beverley Green.

“It is no secret that for this lady Mr. Merrivan entertained the highest and, I might say without offence, the most affectionate regard. He had offered her marriage, an offer which must have been favourably entertained, for three days before the murder he purchased an engagement ring from Stelling Bros. On the day following the murder that ring was found in the grass within fifty yards of Miss Nelson’s front gate. It is known, too, that, some time before, Miss Nelson was in financial difficulties and secured a loan of £300 from Mr. Merrivan, repaying this from the proceeds of two bills which she successfully negotiated with the man who is cited as the murderer, namely Abraham Selim.

“Those bills, which were in the house the day before the murder, have vanished. How came the girl acquainted with Selim? So well acquainted that, without any security whatever, he had advanced her a large sum of money? The question of this acquaintanceship is yet to be cleared up, but it is undoubtedly the fact that the name of Darius Merrivan appeared on the bills as acceptor, and that the receipt of those bills by the deceased man came as a thunderclap. The inference is that the acceptances were forged. I am not suggesting that Miss Nelson knew that these acceptances were false or that she was in any sense a party to any fraud that may have been perpetrated. A week before the tragedy Mr. Merrivan had shown his nephew, Mr. Arthur Wilmot, the bills, which, together with the marriage certificate of an old servant of his, which was probably preserved for sentimental reasons, and a few other documents, were locked in a desk in the room where Merrivan interviewed Miss Nelson, and where he met his death.

“Those documents have disappeared. There was in the fireplace when the police came upon the spot a heap of burnt paper, and it is clear that the murderer had ransacked the safe in search of these papers and had burnt them before he made his escape. Who had an object in burning the contents of the safe? Obviously one such was the person who had forged Mr. Merrivan’s acceptances.

“Now, as to Miss Nelson’s movements on that night of the crime, this fact is established, that whilst a witness exists who saw her enter the house, there is no living person who saw her come out. Dr. Macleod’s evidence can be dismissed as a pardonable mistake. He saw a woman pass under his window; he fancied he saw somebody coming out of Mr. Merrivan’s house—the writer has since been in the room from which Dr. Macleod obtained this view, and can vouch for the impossibility of anybody seeing Merrivan’s front door—and in his honest mistake has to some extent increased his own difficulties.

“But the most remarkable feature of the case is the extraordinary trouble he has taken to gloss over the important clue of the woman visitor. To one person he had stated it was a neighbour—which hardly goes with his story of a woman who passed under his window—to another he has told a second story. The discovery of the ring he treated as lightly. In one respect, however, he has been consistent. He has steadfastly kept the name of Miss Nelson from discussion, and has stood between her and those who, like himself, are endeavouring to discover the murderer of Darius Merrivan.”

Andy read the account again. It was in a sense a masterpiece. The truth was so dovetailed into the maliciously false that it was impossible for anybody, other than one acquainted with all the facts, to see the joints. This was, of course, Arthur Wilmot, presented by that expert stater of cases, Mr. Downer.

He dressed quickly and went across to see Stella, and at the first glance at her face he knew she had read the report.

“Mr. Scottie saw it first,” she said as she closed the door after him, “and he has taken father out on a sketching tour. Luckily he had planned this days ago.”

“Your father hasn’t seen it?”

She shook her head.

She was amazingly self-possessed, he thought. He had expected to find her on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Instead, she was as calm as she was serious.

“I think Arthur told him all this,” she said. “You know the truth now, Andrew.”

“I knew it all along,” said he quietly, “except about your borrowing money. Of course, you borrowed it for your father?”

“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “There is no sense at this moment in pretending that father hasn’t been perfectly dreadful.”

She looked at him with a light in her eyes that he had not seen before.

“And it is true that you shielded me, Andy,” she said. “What will happen now?”

“I’ll tell you what Downer expects—that I will send in my resignation this morning,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, and she gasped.

“Then this has—ruined you—professionally, I mean? Oh, Andy!”

“I admit that I have no false idea about the truth of what this—this gentleman says,” he went on, “but I have neglected my duty only in the sense that I refused to follow up avenues which I knew would lead me nowhere. I know you didn’t commit the murder. If I resign I must also issue a writ for libel against the _Megaphone_, which you also would be compelled to do. But we won’t take it to law, Stella. I know another way and a better. That cursed woman under the window! Of course, I didn’t see anybody,” he said, unashamed. “I was just making alibis for you. It was the worst luck in the world that Sheppard’s servant went out at that time and supplied Downer with an explanation.”

“I suppose Sheppard’s servant did go out?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Downer never makes mistakes of that kind,” he said. “If he says the servant went out at eleven o’clock you can bet all your money that he’s right. Wilmot gave him all his information. It is true that Wilmot had no right to be in possession of it. You brought the bills here, didn’t you?”

She was silent.

Presently:

“Andy, I have a confession to make. I should have told you before, but Mr. Scottie advised me not to.”

There and then, and with all frankness, she told him of Arthur Wilmot’s visit with the bills intact, and of Scottie’s act of highway robbery with violence. He listened, and a light dawned upon him.

“Now I understand. The blackmailing brute! He is getting back on you in the easiest way. Nobody can prove that his uncle did not show him the bills a week before his death, and their disappearance, taken with the burnt ashes in the fireplace of Merrivan’s sitting-room, looks all the more suspicious. Now, what are we going to do, Stella?” He stopped suddenly and frowned. “I gave Wilmot permission to go into the house. That is where he found that stuff. What was it? A wedding certificate of an old servant, a few important documents, and the notes. Wait!”

He was out of the house and striding across the green in a minute.