Wallis,” he said, “will you take off your gloves a moment?”
“Come now, that’s a bit more sensible,” she said, as she drew off her black cotton gloves. “I know what you’re looking for, but it’s nearly gone now.”
She held out her left hand, gloveless, to him. On the side of her first finger, healed but still visible in the rough skin of her hard-worked hand, was the mark of a jagged scar. Grant expelled a long breath, and Barker came over and bent to examine the woman’s hand.
“But, Mrs. Wallis,” he said, “why should you want to kill Sorrell?”
“Never you mind,” she said. “I killed ’im, and that’s enough.”
“I’m afraid it isn’t,” Barker said. “The fact that you have a small scar on your finger is no proof at all that you had anything to do with Sorrell’s death.”
“But I tell you I killed ’im!” she said. “Why won’t you believe me? I killed ’im with the little knife my ’usband brought home from Spain.”
“So you say, but we have no proof that what you say is true.”
She stared hostilely at them both. “You’d think you weren’t police at all to listen to you,” she remarked. “If it weren’t for that young man you’ve got, I’d walk home right now. I never knew such fools. What more do you want when I’ve confessed?”
“Oh, quite a lot more,” Barker said, as Grant was still silent. “For instance, how could you have killed Sorrell when you were in front of him in the queue?”
“I wasn’t in front of ’im. I was standing behind ’im all the time till the queue began to move up tight. Then I stuck the knife in ’im, and after a little I shoved in front, keepin’ close to ’im all the time so he shouldn’t fall.”
This time Barker dropped his complaisant manner and looked at her keenly. “And what was Sorrell to you that you should stick a knife in him?” he asked.
“Bert Sorrell wasn’t anything to me, but he ’ad to be killed and I killed ’im, see? That’s all.”
“Did you know Sorrell?”
“Yes.”
“How long have you known him?”
Something in that question made her hesitate. “Some time,” she said.
“Had he wronged you somehow?”
But her tight mouth shut still more tightly. Barker looked at her rather helplessly, and then Grant could see him turning on the other tack.
“Well, I’m very sorry, Mrs. Wallis,” he said, as if the interview were ended, “but we can’t put any belief in your story. It has all the appearance of a cock-and-bull yarn. You’ve been thinking too much about the affair. People do that, you know, quite often, and then they begin to imagine that they did the thing themselves. The best thing you can do is to go home and think no more about it.”
As Barker had expected, that got her. A faint alarm appeared on her red face. Then her shrewd black eyes went to Grant and examined him. “I don’t know who you may be,” she said to Barker, “but Inspector Grant believes me all right.”
“This is Superintendent Barker,” Grant said, “and my chief. You’ll have to tell the superintendent a lot more than that, Mrs. Wallis, before he can believe you.”
She recognized the rebuff, and before she had recovered Barker said again, “Why did you kill Sorrell? Unless you give us an adequate reason, I’m afraid we can’t believe you. There’s nothing at all to connect you with the murder except that little scar. I expect it’s that little scar that has set you thinking about all this, isn’t it, now?”
“Not it!” she said. “D’you think I’m crazy? Well, I’m not, I did it all right, and I’ve told you how I did it exactly. Isn’t that enough?”
“Oh, no, you could quite easily have made up the tale of how you did it. We’ve got to have proof.”
“Well, I’ve got the sheath of the knife at home,” she said in sudden triumph. “There’s your proof for you.”
“I’m afraid that’s no good either,” Barker said, with a very good imitation of regret. “Any one could have the sheath of the knife. You’ll have to give us a reason for killing Sorrell before we’ll even begin to believe you.”
“Well,” she said sullenly after a long silence, “if you must ’ave it, I killed ’im because ’e was going to shoot my Rosie.”
“Who is Rosie?”
“My daughter.”
“Why should he shoot your daughter?”
“Because she wouldn’t have anything to do with the likes of ’im.”
“Does your daughter live with you?”
“No.”
“Then perhaps you’ll let me have her address.”
“No; you can’t have ’er address. She’s gone abroad.”
“But if she has gone abroad, how could Sorrell be able to harm her?”
“She hadn’t gone abroad when I killed Bert Sorrell.”
“Then—” began Barker. But Grant interrupted him.
“Mrs. Wallis,” he said slowly, “is Ray Marcable your daughter?”
The woman was on her feet with a swiftness amazing in a person of her bulk. Her tight mouth was suddenly slack, and inarticulate sounds came from her throat.
“Sit down,” said Grant gently, and pushed her back into her chair—“sit down and tell us all about it. Take your time.”
“ ’Ow did you know?” she asked, when she had recovered herself. “ ’Ow could you know?”
Grant ignored the question. “What made you think that Sorrell intended harm to your daughter?”
“Because I met ’im one day in the street. I ’adn’t seen ’im for years, and I said something about Rosie going to America. And ’e said, ‘So am I.’ And I didn’t like that, because I knew ’e was a nuisance to Rosie. And then ’e smiled kind of queer at me and said, ‘At least, it isn’t certain. Either we’re both going or neither of us is going.’ An’ I said, ‘What do you mean? Rosie’s going for sure. She’s got a contract and she can’t break it.’ And he said, ‘She has a previous contract with me. Do you think she’ll keep to that too?’ And I said not to be foolish. Boy-and-girl affairs were best forgotten, I said. And ’e just smiled again, that horrid queer way, and said, ‘Well, wherever she’s goin’, we’re goin’ together.’ And ’e went away.”
“When was that?” Grant asked.
“It was three weeks today—the Friday before I killed ’im.”
The day after Sorrell had received the little parcel at Mrs. Everett’s. “All right. Go on.”
“Well, I went ’ome and thought about it. I kept seeing ’is face. It had a bad grey kind of look in spite of its bein’ so pleasant and all that. And I began to be sure that he meant to do Rosie in.”
“Had your daughter been engaged to him?”
“Well, ’e said so. It was a boy-and-girl affair. They’d known each other ever since they were kids. Of course, Rosie wouldn’t dream of marrying ’im now.”
“All right. Go on.”
“Well, I thought the only place ’e would be able to see ’er would be the theatre. You see, I went round specially to tell Rosie about it—I didn’t see ’er very often—but she didn’t seem to worry. She just said, ‘Oh, Bert always talked through his hat anyway,