Page 76 of Marriage and Murder
The unexpected facts were starting to shake Ida’s confidence.
“After Viola breathed her last,” Stokes continued, his tone steady and even and laced with a certainty that was absolute, “you let her body fall to the ground. You turned away, but you remembered the letter—the letter very similar to the one she’d given you for Arthur—that you’d seen in Viola’s hand that morning, during the altercation you and Jim witnessed between Viola and Lord Glossup.”
“You’d seen Viola put that letter into her tapestry bag,” Barnaby said, his intervention again jarring Ida, forcing her to shift her gaze, “and you were worried that letter, like the one she’d given to you for Arthur, concerned the legal action over the boundary.”
“So you went looking for Viola’s tapestry bag”—Stokes’s voice took on a definite edge—“and you found it in the hall, upended it, found the letter, and took it with you as you left the cottage by the kitchen door?—”
“Passing over the stile,” Barnaby said, “and once again leaving an imprint of your shoe in the softer ground there.”
“You returned to your own kitchen”—Penelope took up the baton—“and checked that the letter was as you’d feared and fed it into your stove. Then you retrieved your scone dough and baked the scones you would later serve to Iris Perkins and Gladys Hooper when they called as arranged for afternoon tea.”
Ida had been blinking, thrown off balance by the frequent shifts in interlocutor. When they fell silent, waiting to see if theirrapid-fire description of what she’d done would bring them the hoped-for reward, Ida stared at them, then drew in a slow breath and glanced at Arthur and Jim.
Seeing the horrified questions in their faces, she insisted, “It’s all nonsense. Nonsense, I tell you.” Her jaw setting, she swung her attention back to the investigators and belligerently asked, “What time was this, then?”
Evenly, Stokes replied, “We know Viola was dead by one-thirty, when her body was discovered by a friend.”
This time, Ida’s blink was very slow.
That’s shaken her,Penelope thought.
She continued to stare at them as her gaze grew puzzled. Then she shook her head. “That can’t be right.”
“We’re certain it is,” Stokes countered, and the investigators and their supporting players held their breaths.
Ida’s features hardened, and she tipped up her chin. “What about the clock, then?”
Penelope slammed a lid on her jubilation. They needed Ida to go just a bit further.
Stokes suddenly looked uncertain, his confidence draining away. Almost cautiously, he asked, “What about it?”
As if Stokes’s waning assurance had fed hers, Ida confidently stated, “I heard it was broken in the struggle and showed three-thirty-three. So that’s when Viola was killed, and at that time, I was here with Iris and Gladys, having scones and tea.”
Penelope breathed more easily, and she was sure Stokes and Barnaby did the same. As if merely curious, she asked, “Indeed, you were. But how did you hear about the clock?”
Ida’s features turned impassive, and she lifted a shoulder. “Heard it from someone.”
“Who?” Stokes pressed.
Ida stared at him, her gaze growing openly malevolent, and said nothing.
“You see, Ida,” Barnaby said, “we haven’t mentioned the time shown on the face of the broken clock to anyone but those involved in the investigation, and none of us have talked of it to anyone in the village.”
“And we know for a fact that Viola was dead by one-thirty,” Penelope stated. “That is now beyond question.”
“But you are, indeed, correct”—Stokes inclined his head to Ida—“that the time shown on the broken clock was three-thirty-three. Exactly that. But the thing is, the only person who could have set the clock to that time, then broken it by smashing it on the hearth as if it had fallen in some struggle, was the murderer. So other than the investigating team, the only one who knows the time shown was three-thirty-three is the murderer.” Stokes held Ida’s gaze. “You.”
“And because we know that Viola was dead by one-thirty, and it was the murderer who set the clock to three-thirty-three, we know that the murderer will have a cast-iron alibi for that time. Why else go to the trouble of setting the clock to three-thirty-three and breaking it?” Penelope smiled at Ida. “The murderer is you, and of course you set the clock to three-thirty-three, a time when you knew, without doubt, that you would have two unimpeachable witnesses to testify that, at that time, you were nowhere near Lavender Cottage but, instead, in your own parlor, pouring tea and passing around scones.”
Barnaby flatly stated, “You, Ida Penrose, killed Viola Huntingdon.”
Ida stared at them, then her gaze darted sideways to Arthur and Jim. She took in their shocked and horrified expressions. The understanding that she was the murderer was blazoned across their faces, along with burgeoning condemnation.
Her face worked, then her resistance broke, and uncrossing her arms, she railed at her husband, “That stupid woman! She wouldn’t let it be!”
“B-But…” Arthur stuttered, clearly not knowing what to say.
Ida rounded on him. “She was going to take us to court, and she’d win, and you’d lose a good third and more of your trees. And you’d’ve hated that! And we’d have been stretched for coin, too.” She glared at Jim. “We’d’ve had to let you go, so you can stop looking at me like that. I did what I had to.” Her expression fierce, she looked at Arthur. “I did it for you.”
