“I’ll tell you the truth,” she murmured. “Then you’ll know my ’usband couldn’t ’ave done that awful thing. I took the necklace from Lady Considine’s room as I ’ad meant to do ... I come into this ’ouse to get it ... I ’ad to wait a long time for my chance ... but it come yesterday ... I saw it laying on the dressing-table and took it. Then I arranged for the ‘Spider’ to come for it so’s I shouldn’t be suspected and about two o’clock this morning I dropped it to ’im from the billiard room window. In ten minutes at the most ’e ’ad gone. It’s the solemn truth, Inspector,” she wiped tears from her eyes, “if I never speak another word, and when I got down there first thing this morning, and there was that corpse on the table—you could ’ave knocked me down with a feather.”
“H’m! That’s all very well. But how do you know your husband didn’t come back for something—something that he’d dropped, perhaps—and met Mr. Prescott who challenged him?”
She shook her head. “’E didn’t—’e didn’t. ’E just went at once!”
“You don’t know,” reiterated Baddeley. “He may have come back, run into Mr. Prescott, struggled with him and killed him. You don’t know, so you can’t say.”
“I know I don’t,” she muttered piteously—“but ’e didn’t. It wouldn’t be like him to do no such thing.”
“Then what did you open the window for?” cut in Baddeley decisively—“you had doubts yourself as to what had happened after you left the billiard room.”
The fight was all gone from her now. “Yes,” she said. “I was frightened. I worried about what I knew ’ad ’appened. All the same my ’usband never touched ’im—I’ll take my dying oath on that.” She looked sullenly in front of her.
“Where is he, then?” Then as no answer was forthcoming, “Good Lord, girl, we’ll get him right enough, whether you tell us or not ... make no mistake about that ... it’s merely a question of time ... but, mark my words ... the sooner he tells the truth about the robbery ... the more chance he has of clearing himself with regard to the murder.”
Marshall made as if to speak, but hesitated.
Baddeley saw the advantage he had gained and hastened to follow it up. “The sooner we get to work while the scent is hot, the greater likelihood of finding the murderer,” he said, with decision in his tone. “Come, my girl, that must be as plain to you as the nose on my face.”