Stone's Fall

'I wrote and asked, but they said they knew nothing. By all means ask again, if you wish,' she replied. 'Now, this is his desk, and I had assumed that these documents would have been in this drawer.'

I saw that the whole left-hand pillar keeping the desk up was in fact one drawer, which, when opened, revealed a metal top. It was clearly immensely heavy, but slid out on hidden rollers underneath, which bore much of the weight.

'He had this built to his own requirements,' she explained. 'It was the sort of thing he liked to do.'

'He was a practical man?'

She laughed, thinking fondly. 'No, not a bit. He was the most impractical man I have ever known. I don't think I ever saw him do anything at all with his hands, besides eat, write and light his cigar. I meant he liked solving problems to his own satisfaction. Then he would get other people to turn his ideas into reality.'

I pulled at the lid on top of the strongbox; it came open easily. There were bundles of papers inside.

'Examine them if you wish,' she said. 'But you will find they are all deeds of our houses, and insurance policies and other domestic documents. I have looked carefully, but do so again if you want to.'

'Later, perhaps. Was the drawer locked or unlocked when you first came to see what was in here?'

'Locked. And the key was in John's pocket. At the morgue.'

'Is there another key?'

'I don't know.'

I stood and looked at the drawer for a few minutes, hands in my pockets, thinking. That was a waste of time; no blinding flash of inspiration came to me to solve the problem and make everyone's life easier. I even considered ridiculous possibilities, and lifted the carpet to see if a sheaf of papers was underneath. Lady Ravenscliff looked on impassively.

'I have searched thoroughly,' she commented.

I looked at her carefully. 'I know you have,' I said. And, for the first time, I really believed it. This was not a conclusion that would appeal to anyone with a fondness for tales of detection. Ask me why I concluded that she was telling me the truth, and I could give no satisfactory reason. Nothing had changed since I had walked the streets deciding that the exact opposite conclusion was the more likely. I merely wanted to believe her so much that my desire became reality. Instinct, guesswork, self-interest. Call it what you will. From that moment on I worked on the assumption that my employer was an honest and innocent woman.

She was not, however, particularly grateful for my faith. She scarcely seemed to notice it. Instead, she gestured at the window. 'This is where he fell,' she said quietly.

I walked over to the tall sash window in the wall opposite the desk. It was gigantic; some ten feet high as they are in buildings of this sort; stretching low and almost to the ground. The bottom of the frame was less than a foot from the floor, the top only a couple of feet from the ceiling. The two sashes were held shut by a highly polished brass clasp.

I tried to open it; it was stiff, but shifted eventually; the sash slid up only with difficulty and some noise. It was a long way to the ground, and looking out I could see that immediately underneath was a long stretch of thick, spiked, iron railings.

'How tall was your husband?'

'A few inches shorter than you,' she said.

'And not athletic, I assume?'

'Not in the slightest. He was not fat, but set no great store by exercise. Shortly before he died, he was wondering about installing one of these new elevators at the back of the house so he wouldn't have to walk up and down stairs.'

I smiled. 'Good for him. I was just wondering how he managed to fall out of this window. If he tripped on this carpet here, and stepped forward to regain his balance' – I performed the manoeuvre myself to show what I meant – 'then he should have cracked his head on the bottom sash. Certainly even the clumsiest of men should have been able to steady himself by grabbing the window frame.'

She was sitting in the little plush-velvet bucket chair by the fireplace now, her hands clasped together in her lap. 'I don't know,' she replied sadly. 'I didn't come up here until much later. I was out that evening, and did not get back until late. The police were waiting for me. They told me there had been an accident and I went directly to the hospital. He was already dead. I didn't come up here until late that day.'

'And the window was open?'

'No. One of the servants said he had closed it; it was raining and the water was coming in. And he tidied up the room as he does every morning.'

'And was it unusually disarranged?'