Page 63 of Marriage and Murder
Stokes looked up from his notebook. “Did she take any away with her?”
“She did,” Farnham replied. “There were several documents for filing with the court that she signed and I retained.” He glanced at Madeline. “I will acquaint Miss Huntingdon withthose at another time, but on Wednesday”—Farnham returned his gaze to Stokes—“Viola took with her two letters for delivery to the relevant parties. I did offer to have them delivered by my servers, but with Ashmore being so out of the way, that would take time and also be an added expense, and Viola was adamant she could deliver the letters very easily herself.”
Penelope leaned forward. “To whom were the letters addressed?”
“As you might expect,” Farnham said, “one was to Mr. Arthur Penrose, informing him of the pending legal action. The other letter was a courtesy notification to the local magistrate for the district.” Farnham nodded at Henry. “Namely, Lord Glossup.”
Stokes shot a glance at Henry. “Did Viola ever give you this letter?”
Henry shook his head. “However, thinking back, on that Thursday morning before Humphrey relieved himself against her hedge, Viola was walking toward me in a rather determined fashion, and she had some paper in her hand. But then she saw Humphrey in action, and she screeched and started shouting.” He looked at Madeline. “That might have been the letter.” Then Henry frowned and looked across the table at Barnaby, Penelope, and Stokes. “I wonder what became of it.”
Grimly, Stokes added, “And the letter to Arthur Penrose.”
Everyone looked at each other, only to find their expressions reflecting the uncertainty, questions, and conjectures writhing in all their brains.
After a moment, Stokes looked at Farnham. “Thank you for your assistance, sir. You’ve given us much to digest.”
Farnham grimaced and picked up his hat. “Would that I could be of more help.” His chair scraped on the floor as he rose and bowed to the company. “If you have no further need of me, I’ll be on my way.”
Madeline rose as well, as did Henry, and together, they escorted the solicitor to the door, along the way making whispered arrangements regarding future meetings to discuss the settlement of Viola’s estate.
The others waited until Madeline and Henry returned and, with uncertain expressions, sank onto their chairs.
Stokes sighed and told them, “Johnson explained to us that Pincer was set on proposing to Viola as a way to repay his debt owed to Johnson’s boss, O’Reilly, but after her death, Pincer transferred his campaign to you.” Stokes nodded at Madeline. “However, when informed that Pincer was our prime suspect for Viola’s murder, Johnson explained, exceedingly convincingly, why he doubted Monty was our man.” Stokes glanced rather sourly around the table. “Johnson’s arguments were so sound, he swayed us all.”
Mallard grunted unhappily but didn’t disagree.
“Then,” Stokes went on, “just before you two arrived with Farnham, Carter, the medical examiner, came looking for us. Carter explained that he now believes the carriage clock was deliberately broken by the murderer so that we would believe the murder happened at three-thirty-three. In light of that conclusion, Carter has revised the time of the murder as being between one and three o’clock, more likely earlier than later.”
“And of course,” Penelope explained, “that means our murderer almost certainly has an unshakeable alibi for three-thirty-three.”
“And now,” Barnaby concluded, “we’ve had Farnham with his surprising news, which has shifted all the facts around and added others we didn’t know before, with the end result showing us a completely different picture to the one we thought we were looking at mere hours ago.”
They all digested that.
Frowning, Henry stated, “Yet as matters stand, we still don’t know when Viola died or who strangled her.”
Penelope grimaced. “Sadly, critical though those points are and in spite of our previous beliefs, at this juncture, both are entirely up in the air.”
Barnaby stirred and sat straighter. He looked around the table. “From this point on, we need to anchor our thinking on solid, verified fact. We’ve been led astray by accepting some apparent facts too easily and also by assuming some observations mean more than they do.”
Nods came from everyone, then Mallard glanced around and asked, “So what now?” He eyed Stokes. “Pincer?”
Stokes considered, then nodded and straightened in his chair. He looked at Barnaby and Penelope. “However, we’re going to have to be careful not to lead him. We need to get him to tell us what happened at Lavender Cottage?—”
“Without prompting him,” Penelope filled in, “to describe or agree with one of our assumptions, which might now be entirely wrong.”
They briefly debated the location for Pincer’s interview and decided that the interrogation room in the basement, near the cells, would better underscore his new reality.
Mallard hauled his bulk upright. “It might be cramped with all of us in there, but if we bring him up here, he’s likely to get the idea that he might yet talk his way out of being charged with anything.”
Stokes nodded as, with a scraping of chair legs on the floor, all of them rose. “If he senses hope, he’ll seize it and run, and we don’t have time to waste bringing him back to earth.”
Mallard headed for the door, opened it, and led the way to the foyer, where he and Stokes gave orders to have Pincer taken to the interrogation room, along with extra chairs.
Ten minutes later, Stokes, Barnaby, and Penelope led the way into the interrogation room. The chill in the small chamber hadn’t improved, and the stone walls created an odd resonance that made their trooping footsteps loud and distinctly ominous.
Monty was already seated in the single chair on the other side of the narrow table, facing the door with his hands manacled and his shoulders drooping. He barely glanced at them as they filed in, and Stokes claimed the chair directly opposite, with Penelope and Barnaby on his right, while Mallard, who had lumbered in behind Barnaby, took the chair on Stokes’s left.
