Her eyes were bright with tears and anger.

“Of course he did! He cared for her-he found her like that. Wouldn’t anyone break down?”

He said, “Yes, I think so. I just wanted to know. Was it while he was in this state that he told you about finding Miss Adrian’s body?”

“Yes, it was.”

“And you thought he was speaking the truth?”

Her colour came up brightly.

“I know he was. Mr. March, I do really know it. If you had heard him, you would know it too. Felix couldn’t hurt anyone like that. And I’m not saying wouldn’t, I’m saying couldn’t. He couldn’t hurt anyone like that. They’ll tell you he has a temper, and it’s true, but it’s the quick, flaring-up kind. He frowns and looks as if he could murder you, but it doesn’t mean a thing. Everybody could tell you that. But they don’t. They tell you about his having a temper. But they don’t tell you how he climbed the Bell cliff in a gale to save a puppy that had fallen over and got stuck on a ledge. Everyone who knew Felix-really knew him-would tell you just what I’m telling you. And I’ll tell you something more. If Helen Adrian had got him so that he really didn’t know what he was doing, he might have pushed her over the edge of that place where she fell. He didn’t do it, and he wouldn’t do it, but I can just imagine that he might have done it. There are things you might just do if you were pushed farther than you can bear, but there are things that you know you couldn’t do whatever happened or however hard you were pushed, and nothing in the world would have made Felix go down those steps and beat Helen Adrian’s head in the way it was. If Felix had pushed her he’d have been sorry in a moment, and if the fall had killed her he wouldn’t have wanted to live. He couldn’t possibly have taken up a stone and beaten her with it.”

March said, “Thank you, Miss Halliday. I just wanted to know how it struck you. You are a very good friend.”

She said, “It’s true, Mr. March-it’s all quite true. I haven’t made anything up.”

He let her go after that.

Chapter 28

Crisp said, “I could have told you she’d back him up. She’s fond of him-it sticks out all over her.”

“Oh, quite. But she was speaking the truth, you know.”

“Oh, I daresay he put up a tale to her. He would of course. And all that about pushing her over but not beating her head in-well, it doesn’t mean a thing. When a man’s crazy jealous and lets himself go he can’t always stop himself. You get a case like that any day in the papers, and the chap says he doesn’t know what happened. There’s a bit of evidence came up last night from Farne. There was a girl and a young fellow up on the cliffs round about half past six the evening before the murder-Ted Hollins and Gloria Payne. Gloria Payne is a sister of Sergeant Jackson’s wife. She told her sister what she and Ted had heard, and when Mrs. Jackson told her husband, he brought the two of them along to see me.”

“Well?”

“They say they were up on the cliffs between Farne and the cove. Ted is a mechanic at Waley’s garage in Farne. He’s a very respectable boy, and he and Gloria have been going together since they were kids. They were half way down one of those combes that lead to the beach. They heard a man’s voice coming from down below, very angry. There was a woman talking too. They didn’t hear what was said, only the voices-the man angry and the woman talking back at him. But what she said at the end they both of them heard quite plain, and it was, ‘All right-go on and do it! You’ve said you’re going to often enough. Go on and murder me if you feel like it!’ And the man said, ‘I will when I’m ready-you needn’t worry about that,’ and went off in the direction of the cove.”

“Did they see him?”

“No, they didn’t-didn’t see either of them. The cliff cuts under there. But it’s all shingle, and they could hear him going off.”

“You can’t identify him with Felix Brand on that.”

Crisp said stubbornly,

“It’s a private beach. It belongs to Cove House. The whole lot of them were out in the cove having this picnic. Mrs. Brand and Miss Remington both say that Miss Silver and Miss Adrian took a stroll together, and shortly after they returned Miss Silver got up to go. She caught the bus that passes Cove House at six-thirty. Meanwhile, they say, Miss Adrian strolled off again-this time with Felix Brand. They went round the next point in the direction of Farne and were out of sight for the best part of twenty minutes. Then Brand came back alone and in a very bad temper, Miss Adrian following about a quarter of an hour later. Miss Remington says it was quite obvious that they had quarrelled.”

“Very anxious to hang her nephew, isn’t she?”

“Very anxious to explain that he isn’t her nephew,” said Crisp grimly. “Same with Mrs. Brand. He’s only her stepson, and she’s taking care to let everyone know it. The fact is he’s one of those moody chaps-artistic temperament and all that, and they’ve got fed up with him. I grant you Miss Remington is spiteful-sticks out all over her. But she’s telling the truth about Brand and Miss Adrian going off for this walk. She didn’t know there had been anything overheard, and it all fits in. By what Gloria and Ted say they were out on the cliffs by a quarter to seven, and that was when they heard the voices from the beach. It all fits in. I’d say there was enough for an arrest.”

March shook his head.

“You say it all fits in, but it doesn’t. I don’t think he did it. To start with, we know she was going to marry someone else. She told Miss Silver she had made up her mind to leave Cove House in the morning and tell her fiancé she was ready to marry him as soon as he liked. Presumably that is what she told Brand while they were out of sight of the others for those twenty minutes. I can well believe that he made a blazing row about it on the lines reported by Ted and Gloria, after which he flung off and came home alone. What I find difficult to believe is that, after all that, she slipped out of the house in the middle of the night and went down to that lonely terrace to meet him. Why on earth should she? She had had her scene with him and got it over. They were staying in the same house. If she had wanted to speak to him she could have done so. From supper-time till after they went to bed he was here in the drawing-room taking out his feelings on the grand piano. By all accounts nobody else uses this room. She had only to come to him here, and they could have a reconciliation, or another quarrel, or whatever they wanted. She wasn’t romantic or passionate. She was a hard-headed girl with a keen eye to the main chance. I simply don’t see her going down to that terrace in the middle of the night to meet Felix Brand.”

“There’s no saying what girls will do,” said Crisp in a resentful tone. He was thinking of Ethel Sibley who had walked out on him and married an ironmonger. It was five years ago, but it still rankled. In moments of gloom he would tot up what he had spent taking her to the pictures. Only last week he had run into her in Ledbury High Street looking prettier than ever, with the twins in a double pram. That was the sort of thing that made you feel what a much better world it would be if there didn’t have to be women in it messing things up.

March said, “Oh, well, that’s how it looks to me. But putting all that on one side, there’s this matter of Marian Brand’s raincoat and scarf. I don’t see my way to arresting Felix Brand until we’ve got it cleared up. Richard Cunningham is positive that he brought the coat up from the beach soon after seven and hung it on the same peg with the scarf. He is quite positive that the scarf was there. Everyone next door is quite positive that from that time onwards all the doors and windows in the house were shut, with the exception of bedroom windows opened when the occupants were ready for bed. With this exception everything was still shut when Mrs. Woolley gave the alarm next morning. How did Marian Brand’s raincoat get down on to the terrace where it was found? How did her scarf become stained with blood? And after being stained, how did it get back upon the peg where Jackson found it within an hour of the alarm being given? Felix Brand couldn’t have taken the raincoat or the scarf. He had no access to them. No one on this side of the house had access to them. In the confusion after the alarm had been given I suppose it is just possible that someone could have slipped in next door with the scarf and hung it up where it was found, but it certainly wasn’t Felix Brand, who was miles away at the time on the yacht that had picked him up.”