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away with him somewhere, only she wouldn’t leave Winter. In fact, I think they had practically settled that they were to get married now that Winter has had the grace to peg out. She’s only about thirty-eight, and it’s time she had some sort of show in life, poor thing.’
        ‘So, in spite of the money, she hadn’t really very much to gain by your uncle’s death?’
        ‘Not a thing. Unless, of course, she wanted to marry somebody younger, and was afraid of losing the cash. But I believe she was honestly fond of the old boy. Anyhow, she couldn’t have done the murder, because she’s in Paris.’
        ‘H’m!’ said Parker. ‘I suppose she is. We’d better make sure, though. I’ll ring through to the Yard and have her looked out for at the ports. Is this phone through to the Exchange?’
        ‘Yes,’ said the Inspector. ‘It doesn’t have to go through the hall phone; they’re connected in parallel.’
        ‘All right. Well, I don’t think we need trouble you further, at the moment, Mr Grimbold. I’ll put my call through, and after that we’ll send for the next witness . . . Give me Whitehall 1212, please . . . I suppose the time of Mr Harcourt’s call from town has been checked, Inspector?’
        ‘Yes, Mr Parker. It was put in at 7.57 and renewed at 8 o’clock and 8.3. Quite an expensive little item. And we’ve also checked up on the constable who spoke to him about his lights and the garage that put them right for him. He got into Welwyn at 9.5 and left again about 9.15. The number of the car is right, too.’
        ‘Well, he’s out of it in any case, but it’s just as well to check all we can . . . Hullo, is that Scotland Yard? Put me through to Chief-Inspector Hardy. Chief-Inspector Parker speaking.’
        As soon as he had finished with his call, Parker sent for Neville Grimbold. He was rather like his brother, only a little slimmer and a little more suave in speech, as befitted a Civil Servant. He had nothing to add, except to confirm his brother’s story and to explain that he had gone to a cinema from 8.20 to about 10 o’clock, and then on to his club, so that he had heard nothing about the tragedy till later in the evening.
        The cook was the next witness. She had a great deal to say, but nothing very convincing to tell. She had not happened to see Hamworthy go to the pantry for the claret, otherwise she confirmed his story. She scouted the idea that somebody had been concealed in one of the upper rooms, because the daily woman, Mrs Crabbe, had been in the house till nearly dinner-time, putting camphor-bags in all the wardrobes; and, anyhow, she had no doubt but what ‘that Payne’ had stabbed Mr Grimbold – ‘a nasty, murdering beast’. After which, it only remained to interview the murderous Mr Payne.
        Mr Payne was almost aggressively frank. He had been treated very harshly by Mr Grimbold. What with exorbitant usury and accumulated interest added to the principal, he had already paid back about five times the original loan, and now Mr Grimbold had refused him any more time to pay, and had announced his intention of foreclosing on the security, namely, Mr Payne’s house and land. It was all the more brutal because Mr Payne had every prospect of being able to pay off the entire debt in six months’ time, owing to some sort of interest or share in something or other which was confidently expected to turn up trumps. In his opinion, old Grimbold had refused to renew on purpose, so as to prevent him from paying – what he wanted was the property. Grimbold’s death was the saving of the situation, because it would postpone settlement till after the confidently-expected trumps had turned up. Mr Payne would have murdered old Grimbold with pleasure, but he hadn’t done so, and in any case he wasn’t the sort of man to stab anybody in the back, though, if the money-lender had been a younger man, he, Payne, would have been happy to break all his