Find the Innocent by Roy Vickers

the door handle: the brave smile was overdone. It was the wrong kind of room and the wrong kind of audience. Veronica, when you faced the facts, was a stupid woman. Curwen mumbled condolences. Jill shuffled them into chairs, placing Veronica alone on the settee.
    â€œWe have to ask a number of formal questions,” said Curwen, not very truthfully. “In these tragic cases the Will of the deceased is considered important.”
    â€œI understand!” Veronica was overdoing it again. “Jill, dear, would you mind calling WillyBee’s solicitors and tell them I want to speak to Sir Edward?” She added the number. “I know he is leaving me nothing. Inspector—that was agreed—when he made me a handsome marriage settlement. He said he meant to leave you something, Jill. I hope he has not forgotten.”
    WillyBee had told Jill and she did not doubt that he had kept his word. While the connection to London was being made Curwen put more questions, to which he already knew the answers.
    â€œYou intended to meet your husband at Diddington, Mrs. Brengast?”
    â€œYes. I will show you his letter.” She waited while he read it. “I mistook the ‘6’ for ‘8’ and missed him.”
    â€œDid you then go back to your flat in London?”
    â€œNo. There were no more trains London-wards from Diddington. So I thought I would stay with my sister, Mrs. Kortland, at Salisbury.” She added the address which Curwen wrote down. “I tried to hire a car to take me to Renchester—”
    â€œExcuse me, Mrs. Brengast, but I don’t quite follow. Your husband was at Renchester—”
    â€œYes, but I didn’t know where he was staying. As you saw in his letter, he asked me not to use our name. So there would be no means of finding him. I wanted Renchester, to catch a connection from there via Wheatley.”
    â€œDid you, in fact, hire a car to take you to Renchester?”
    â€œIf you want all the details, I tried to hire a car but there wasn’t one available. A man who heard me asking at the garage offered me a lift.”
    â€œA lift to Renchester?”
    â€œYes,” said Veronica, who had too little knowledge of police methods to guess that the Inspector might already know the truth about that lift to Renchester. “He dropped me at Renchester station. I caught the nine-forty to Wheatley Junction, arriving at ten-thirty-three and then the ten-forty-five on to Salisbury arriving at eleven-thirty-five. My sister lives a few minutes walk from the station. I left by an early train, to meet Miss Aspland at the flat.”
    Veronica’s voice was calm but her hands moved restlessly. The left hand emerged from the cover of the scarf and Jill noted that she had forgotten her wedding ring in spite of the reminder. A glance at Curwen made her suspect that he had noted it, too.
    This thought crossed another—that never before had she heard so precise a statement from Veronica. No rambling—no irrelevancies. And a whole string of train times. That accounted for her preoccupation with the railway guide. But it was very unusual behaviour for Veronica.
    The telephone rang and Veronica took the call. Again she was brisk and business-like, explaining the presence of the police. From the one-sided conversation Jill gathered that there was a list of charitable bequests.
    â€œBut what about Jill Aspland?” asked Veronica … “Oh, I’m so glad! Ten thousand free of tax for you Jill … What? … re-sid-uary legatee! … Thanks very much, Sir Edward. I didn’t expect to get our house in Scotland—we agreed I should have nothing—oh, life interest—never mind. Goodbye!”
    To Jill she explained. “He said you’re also residuary legatee but he doesn’t know whether it will mean any extra.”
    â€œPerhaps I may congratulate Miss Aspland,” said Curwen.
    â€œThank you,” answered