“One can admit all that without straining things much,” Sir Clinton agreed. “Go on, inspector.”
“The next thing is that Staveley turns up again. I don't suppose he appeared in public. That wouldn't be his game. These Fordingbridges have money; and, from what we've heard, Staveley wasn't scrupulous about transferring other people's money to his own pocket.”
“Nothing that could be shaken, so far,” Sir Clinton encouraged him. “Go ahead.”
“Very well,” the inspector went on. “He writes her a letter evidently trying to put the screw on her, and asking for an appointment on the quiet. She must have been taken a bit aback. She'd been living with young Fleetwood for the best part of a year. It's quite on the cards that she's——”
He broke off, glanced at Wendover's stormy countenance, and evidently amended his original phrase:
“That perhaps young Fleetwood and she weren't the only people who might be hit by the business when it came out.”
“So that's your notion of the motive, is it?” Sir Clinton commented. “Well, it's ingenious, I admit. I didn't quite see how you were going to work up a case on the strength of a mere accidental bigamy, for nobody would think much about that. But one can't tell how it might look from the point of view of a mother, of course. Anything's possible, then. Go ahead.”
“She writes him a letter making an appointment at an out-of-the-way place—Neptune's Seat—at a time when it's sure to be quiet—11 p.m. That was the note we found on the body. Secrecy's written all over it, as any jury would see.”
He paused for a moment, as though he were not quite sure how to put his next piece of the case.
“She takes an automatic pistol with her; probably her husband had one. I'm not prepared to say that she meant definitely to murder Staveley then and there. Perhaps she only took the pistol as a precaution. Probably her barrister will try to pretend that she took it for self-defence purposes, Staveley being what he was. I don't think that. Why? Because she took her husband along with her; and he could have looked after Staveley for her.”