“Ah, well, we can see about that presently. Is that letter that you have in your hand from Mrs. Monkhouse? Because, if it is, I shall want to see it.”
“I don’t want to show it unless it is necessary; and I don’t think it will be. There is a letter addressed to you which will probably tell you all that you need know.”
He snatched up the letter, and, tearing it open, glanced through it rapidly. Then, without comment, he handed it to me. It was quite short and ran as follows:—
“Thursday, 1.35 a.m.
Mr. Superintendent Miller, C.I. D.
This is to inform you that I alone am responsible for the death of my late husband, Harold Monkhouse, and also for that of the late Miss Stella Keene. I had no confidants or accomplices and no one was aware of what I had done.
As my own death will occur in about ten minutes (from an injection of morphine which I shall administer to myself) this statement may be taken as my dying declaration.
I may add that no one is aware of my intention to take my life.
Yours very truly
Barbara Monkhouse.”
“Well,” said Miller, as I returned the letter to him, “that supports your statement, and if my men saw you enter the flat, that will dispose of the matter so far as the suicide is concerned. But there is another question. It is evident that she knew that a discovery had been made. Now, who told her? Was it you, Mr. Mayfield?”
“No,” I replied, “it was not. I found her dead when I arrived, as I have told you.”
“Do you know who did tell her?”
“I do not; and I am not disposed to make any guesses.”
“No, it’s no use guessing. Still, you know, Mr. Mayfield, you knew, and you came here to tell her; and you know who knew besides yourself. But there,” he added, as we moved out into the hall, “it is no use going into that now. I’ve acted like a fool—too punctilious by half. I oughtn’t to have let her slip through my fingers. I should have acted at once on Dr. Thorndyke’s hint without waiting for confirmation.”
He was still speaking in an angry, reproachful tone; but suddenly his manner changed. Looking at me critically but with something of kindly sympathy, he said: “It has been a trying business for you, Mr. Mayfield—the whole scandalous affair; and this must have given you a frightful shock, though I expect you would rather have it as it is than as it ought to have been. But you don’t look any the better for it.”