The Case Is Closed by Patricia Wentworth Page A

heard the shot, or at any time between then and eight o’clock when he had talked to Geoffrey on the telephone. The police said that the front door was locked and bolted when they arrived, and that all the windows on the ground floor were fastened with the exception of the dining-room windows, which were open at the top. They were very heavy sash windows not at all easy to move.
    Mrs. Thompson, recalled, said that neither Mercer nor Mrs. Mercer went near any of the doors or windows afrer the alarm was given. Mercer went into the study, and when he had made sure that Mr. Everton was dead he went to the telephone, but Mr. Grey took the receiver from him and called up the police himself. Mrs. Mercer sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and cried ‘something dreadful’. She was quite sure that nobody interfered with any doors or windows.
    The Coroner addressed the jury, and from beginning to end it was perfectly clear that he believed that Geoffrey had shot his uncle.
    ‘We have here a household like hundreds of other well-to-do households. Mr. James Everton was a chartered accountant, the sole partner in an old-established firm. His nephew, Mr. Geoffrey Grey, was associated with the business, and he has told us that he expected to be made a partner. Until his marriage a year ago he lived with his uncle at Solway Lodge, Putney. The domestic staff consisted of Alfred Mercer, and his wife and a daily help of the name of Ashley, who has not been called as it was her habit to leave at six o’clock. The Mercers agree that she left at this hour on the day in question. Mrs. Thompson, however, was in the house, having been invited to supper by the Mercers. Mrs. Thompson is Sir John Blakeney’s housekeeper and lives at Sudbury House, which is the next house to Solway Lodge. She has lived there for twenty-five years. You have heard her evidence. I need not labour its importance. If you believe Mrs. Thompson— and there is no reason to disbelieve her —it is quite impossible for Alfred Mercer to have left the kitchen during the time under review. She says he came and went between the kitchen and the pantry, where he was cleaning silver, but that he never at any time left the kitchen premises. It is quite impossible that he should have done so without her seeing him. If, therefore, you believe Mrs. Thompson’s evidence, no suspicion rests on Alfred Mercer. At twenty past eight, as he has told you, he heard the sound of a shot and his wife’s scream. He then ran out into the hall, where he found Mrs. Mercer in a terrible state. He tried the study door and found it locked. Mr. Grey then opened it from the inside. He had a pistol in his hand, and Mr. Everton was lying dead across his desk. Mrs. Thompson, who followed Alfred Mercer, corroborates this, but as she is very deaf she did not hear either the shot or the scream. I think you may take it that no suspicion rests upon Alfred Mercer.
    ‘We will now take Mrs. Thompson’s evidence with regard to his wife. Mrs. Mercer did leave the kitchen twice, once “round about eight o’clock”. Mrs. Thompson cannot put it nearer than that, and she says that the absence was not “above two or three minutes”. Mr. and Mrs. Grey have both sworn to hearing Mr. Everton’s voice on the telephone at eight o’clock. In this respect you can, I think receive their evidence. I see no reason to doubt that Mr. Grey came to Solway Lodge that evening in response to a telephone call from his uncle, or that that call was put through, as he states, at eight o’clock. I think you may, therefore, dismiss this absence of Mrs. Mercer’s as immaterial. She says she went through the dining-room with some plates, and there is no reason to doubt what she says.
    ‘I would like you now to pay particular attention to Mrs. Mercer’s second absence. Shortly after a quarter past eight she again left the kitchen, with the avowed intention of arranging Mr. Everton’s room for the night. This might at first