Ten

PIP AND EMMA

I
Miss Blacklock listened to him this time with more attention. She was anintelligent woman, as he had known, and she grasped the implications ofwhat he had to tell her.

“Yes,” she said quietly. “That does alter things … No one had any right tomeddle with that door. Nobody has meddled with it to my knowledge.”

“You see what it means,” the Inspector urged. “When the lights wentout, anybody in this room the other night could have slipped out of thatdoor, come up behind Rudi Scherz and fired at you.”

“Without being seen or heard or noticed?”

“Without being seen or heard or noticed. Remember when the lightswent out people moved, exclaimed, bumped into each other. And afterthat all that could be seen was the blinding light of the electric torch.”

Miss Blacklock said slowly, “And you believe that one of those people—one of my nice commonplace neighbours — slipped out and tried tomurder me? Me? But why? For goodness’ sake, why?”

“I’ve a feeling that you must know the answer to that question, MissBlacklock.”

“But I don’t, Inspector. I can assure you, I don’t.”

“Well, let’s make a start. Who gets your money if you were to die?”

Miss Blacklock said rather reluctantly:

“Patrick and Julia. I’ve left the furniture in this house and a small annu-ity to Bunny. Really, I’ve not much to leave. I had holdings in German andItalian securities which became worthless, and what with taxation, andthe lower percentages that are now paid on invested capital, I can assureyou I’m not worth murdering—I put most of my money into an annuityabout a year ago.”

“Still, you have some income, Miss Blacklock, and your nephew andniece would come into it.”

“And so Patrick and Julia would plan to murder me? I simply don’t be-lieve it. They’re not desperately hard up or anything like that.”

“Do you know that for a fact?”

“No. I suppose I only know it from what they’ve told me … But I reallyrefuse to suspect them. Some day I might be worth murdering, but notnow.”

“What do you mean by some day you might be worth murdering, MissBlacklock?” Inspector Craddock pounced on the statement.

“Simply that one day—possibly quite soon—I may be a very rich wo-man.”

“That sounds interesting. Will you explain?”

“Certainly. You may not know it, but for more than twenty years I wassecretary to and closely associated with Randall Goedler.”

Craddock was interested. Randall Goedler had been a big name in theworld of finance. His daring speculations and the rather theatrical publi-city with which he surrounded himself had made him a personality notquickly forgotten. He had died, if Craddock remembered rightly, in 1937or 1938.

“He’s rather before your time, I expect,” said Miss Blacklock. “But you’veprobably heard of him.”

“Oh, yes. He was a millionaire, wasn’t he?”

“Oh, several times over — though his finances fluctuated. He alwaysrisked most of what he made on some new coup.”

She spoke with a certain animation, her eyes brightened by memory.

“Anyway he died a very rich man. He had no children. He left his for-tune in trust for his wife during her lifetime and after death to me abso-lutely.”

A vague memory stirred in the Inspector’s mind.

IMMENSE FORTUNE TO COME TO FAITHFUL SECRET-

ARY

—something of that kind.

“For the last twelve years or so,” said Miss Blacklock with a slighttwinkle, “I’ve had an excellent motive for murdering Mrs. Goedler—butthat doesn’t help you, does it?”

“Did—excuse me for asking this—did Mrs. Goedler resent her husband’sdisposition of his fortune?”

Miss Blacklock was now looking frankly amused.

“You needn’t be so very discreet. What you really mean is, was I RandallGoedler’s mistress? No, I wasn’t. I don’t think Randall ever gave me a sen-timental thought, and I certainly didn’t give him one. He was in love withBelle (his wife), and remained in love with her until he died. I think in allprobability it was gratitude on his part that prompted his making his will.

You see, Inspector, in the very early days, when Randall was still on an in-secure footing, he came very near to disaster. It was a question of just afew thousands of actual cash. It was a big coup, and a very exciting one;daring, as all his schemes were; but he just hadn’t got that little bit of cashto tide him over. I came to the rescue. I had a little money of my own. I be-lieved in Randall. I sold every penny I had out and gave it to him. It didthe trick. A week later he was an immensely wealthy man.

“After that, he treated me more or less as a junior partner. Oh! theywere exciting days.” She sighed. “I enjoyed it all thoroughly. Then myfather died, and my only sister was left a hopeless invalid. I had to give itall up and go and look after her. Randall died a couple of years later. I hadmade quite a lot of money during our association and I didn’t really expecthim to leave me anything, but I was very touched, yes, and very proud tofind that if Belle predeceased me (and she was one of those delicatecreatures whom everyone always says won’t live long) I was to inherit hisentire fortune. I think really the poor man didn’t know who to leave it to.

Belle’s a dear, and she was delighted about it. She’s really a very sweetperson. She lives up in Scotland. I haven’t seen her for years—we justwrite at Christmas. You see, I went with my sister to a sanatorium inSwitzerland just before the war. She died of consumption out there.”

She was silent for a moment or two, then said:

“I only came back to England just over a year ago.”

“You said you might be a rich woman very soon … How soon?”

“I heard from the nurse attendant who looks after Belle Goedler thatBelle is sinking rapidly. It may be—only a few weeks.”

She added sadly:

“The money won’t mean much to me now. I’ve got quite enough for myrather simple needs. Once I should have enjoyed playing the marketsagain—but now … Oh, well, one grows old. Still, you do see, Inspector,don’t you, that if Patrick and Julia wanted to kill me for a financial reasonthey’d be crazy not to wait for another few weeks.”

“Yes, Miss Blacklock, but what happens if you should predecease Mrs.

Goedler? Who does the money go to then?”

“D’you know, I’ve never really thought. Pip and Emma, I suppose….”

Craddock stared and Miss Blacklock smiled.

“Does that sound rather crazy? I believe, if I predecease Belle, themoney would go to the legal offspring—or whatever the term is—of Ran-dall’s only sister, Sonia. Randall had quarrelled with his sister. She mar-ried a man whom he considered a crook and worse.”

“And was he a crook?”

“Oh, definitely, I should say. But I believe a very attractive person to wo-men. He was a Greek or a Roumanian or something—what was his namenow—Stamfordis, Dmitri Stamfordis.”

“Randall Goedler cut his sister out of his will when she married thisman?”

“Oh, Sonia was a very wealthy woman in her own right. Randall hadalready settled packets of money on her, as far as possible in a way so thather husband couldn’t touch it. But I believe that when the lawyers urgedhim to put in someone in case I predeceased Belle, he reluctantly putdown Sonia’s offspring, simply because he couldn’t think of anyone elseand he wasn’t the sort of man to leave money to charities.”

“And there were children of the marriage?”

“Well, there are Pip and Emma.” She laughed. “I know it sounds ridicu-lous. All I know is that Sonia wrote once to Belle after her marriage, tellingher to tell Randall that she was extremely happy and that she had just hadtwins and was calling them Pip and Emma. As far as I know she neverwrote again. But Belle, of course, may be able to tell you more.”

Miss Blacklock had been amused by her own recital. The Inspector didnot look amused.

“It comes to this,” he said. “If you had been killed the other night, thereare presumably at least two people in the world who would have comeinto a very large fortune. You are wrong, Miss Blacklock, when you saythat there is no one who has a motive for desiring your death. There aretwo people, at least, who are vitally interested. How old would thisbrother and sister be?”

Miss Blacklock frowned.

“Let me see … 1922… no—it’s difficult to remember … I suppose abouttwenty-five or twenty-six.” Her face had sobered. “But you surely don’tthink—?”

“I think somebody shot at you with the intent to kill you. I think it pos-sible that that same person or persons might try again. I would like you, ifyou will, to be very very careful, Miss Blacklock. One murder has been ar-ranged and did not come off. I think it possible that another murder maybe arranged very soon.”