The Lily Hand and Other Stories by Ellis Peters Page B

the law. From whom had Frank Willard received solid help and sympathy, if not from the police and the prison authorities? And yet what I’d done I couldn’t for my life have helped doing.
    She was dead. She had been murdered.
    No use hoping now for a nice, bright, normal morning, the kind that makes midnight fancies contemptible, a bright morning and Eileen Willard passing by, alive and well on the arm of one of her new men. One point in his story was confirmed already; now what, for God’s sake, was I to do for him, and for my miserable self? I’d begun something that had to be finished, but to save my life I didn’t know how.
    I couldn’t rest. I prowled about the house until the first light, and then I left Willard still sleeping heavily, and went down into the town. I had to find out more about times and details, in order to know what to say when the inevitable further questions began. Until I knew more I could neither come out with the truth nor go on lying.
    The Inspector didn’t seem surprised to see me. I suppose some uneasiness on my part was only too natural, since I had the husband in my care.
    â€˜What are you worrying about,’ he said, with a smile that disquieted me horribly, ‘if your protégé was tucked up in bed soon after ten?’
    â€˜All very well for you,’ I said. ‘I have to break the news to him sooner or later, and I know how precariously balanced he is. I want to be able to answer all his questions, and get the miserable business over. How do you suppose he’s going to react if a couple of uniformed policemen turn up suddenly to interview him, after all he’s been through?’
    â€˜That won’t be necessary,’ he said placidly. ‘We won’t even ask him to identify the body; she has a brother who can do that.’
    With cold sweat crawling down my back I fished doggedly on. ‘Thank goodness for that. I’d hate him to have to view the wreckage. She can’t be so pretty now – like that, in her blood—’
    â€˜Who said anything about blood?’ he asked mildly, hoisting an eyebrow. ‘But you’re right about her not being pretty. Strangled women aren’t.’
    â€˜Strangled?’ I felt my knees give under me, and leaned hard on the edge of his desk to keep myself upright.
    â€˜There was a small amount of blood smeared around,’ he conceded thoughtfully, ‘but it wasn’t hers. She put up quite a struggle. The man who did it left most of the skin of his wrists and forearms under her fingernails. An all too usual end for a woman of her type. She’s been running at least three men on strings since her husband went to gaol; she was bound to get herself knocked off sooner or later.’
    I couldn’t speak for a moment, I felt so lightheaded and sick with relief. I’d had Frank Willard’s lean wrists in my hands only a few hours ago, while I coaxed the gun out of his fingers; I knew he hadn’t a scratch on him. The police didn’t want him, weren’t even interested in him.
    Who was it he’d seen creeping down the stairs, then? A real man, after all; not a hallucination? Had he been right in feeling that she was already dead? Had he run headlong into her murderer? Someone who looked like enough to himself to drive him out of the house in superstitious terror? If so, he might be able to help the police, and the truth would have to come out. Well, I was the only one who’d lied about it, not he; no one could hold that against him.
    With difficulty I asked my question casually, ‘What time was she killed?’
    â€˜Not twenty minutes before the constable found her, most probably. Certainly not before one o’clock.’
    She’d been alive, then, when Frank entered the house, alone and waiting in her room for whichever of her admirers was due that night. And, but for the grace of God and the apparition on the stairs, Frank would