“Mr. Fleetwood went round to the garage to get out the car. Meanwhile I went down to the ladies' dressing-room, where I keep my golfing things. I changed my slippers for my golfing-shoes—I was in an evening frock—and I slipped on my golfing-blazer. Then I went out through the side-entrance and joined Mr. Fleetwood in the car. He drove me down to the point on the road nearest Neptune's Seat. I left him there, got out of the car, and went across the sands to the rock.
“The man was there, waiting for me; and at the first glance I could see he'd been drinking. He wasn't drunk, you understand, but he wasn't normal. When I saw that, I was terrified. I can't explain these things, but he—— Oh, I used to shiver at times even at the very thought of what he'd been like in that state; and when I met him down there, face to face, I was really in terror of him. I pulled the pistol out of my pocket and held it in my hand, without letting him see it.
“Then I spoke to him and tried to persuade him to come to some arrangement with me. It was no use—none whatever. You've no idea of the kind of man he was. He wanted money to keep his mouth shut. He wouldn't hear of any divorce, because that would loosen his hold on me if it went through, he said, and he meant to keep me in his grip. And then he said—oh, I'm not going to repeat what he said about Mr. Fleetwood and myself—horrible things, meant to hurt me and degrade me in my own eyes. And the worse he got in that way, the angrier he grew. You know what a drunken man's like? I know it only too well.”
She made an involuntary gesture which betrayed even more than her words.
“At last he went beyond all bounds. I was trembling all over, partly from fear and partly from pure rage at the things he said. It was quite clear that I could do nothing with him in that state; so I turned to go. Then he muttered something—I'm not going to repeat it; you can imagine it for yourselves—and he pounced forward and gripped me when I wasn't expecting it.
“I lost my head completely. I didn't know what I was doing. I was almost beside myself with terror of him. Somehow the pistol went off in my hand, and down he fell at my feet and lay there without a movement. It was too dark to see anything clearly, and I was absolutely taken aback by what had happened. I said to myself: ‘I've shot him!’ And at that my nerves got the upper hand completely, and I turned and ran up the beach to the car. I told Mr. Fleetwood at once what had happened. I wanted him to go down and look at the man, but he wouldn't hear of it. He drove me back to the hotel, and we left the car in one of the side-alleys. I went in through the dressing-room, took off my blazer, and changed my golfing-shoes for my slippers. I was so much upset that I forgot to take the pistol out of the blazer pocket. And when I came out into the hotel corridor, I heard that Mr. Fleetwood had tripped on the stairs and hurt himself badly. That put the pistol out of my mind at the moment; and when, next day, I remembered about it, and went to get it, someone else had taken it away. That terrified me, for I knew someone was on my track.”
She paused for a moment, and then added:
“That's really all I have to tell. It was the purest accident. I didn't mean to kill him. When I took the pistol with me to the shore, I only meant to frighten him with it. But he'd been drinking, and I wasn't ready for him when he attacked me. I was terrified, and my finger must have twitched the trigger without my knowing what I was doing. I'd never have shot him in cold blood, or even intentionally in a fit of anger. It was the merest accident.”
She stopped there, evidently having said everything that she could bring herself to tell.
“One moment, Clinton,” Wendover interposed as the chief constable turned to question Stanley Fleetwood in his turn. “There's just one point I'd like to have cleared up. Would you mind telling me, Mrs. Fleetwood, whether you can recall how Staveley was dressed when he met you?”