“You can hardly blame them in this instance,” I said. “ Mr. Redding came in and gave himself up.”
“What?” the girl was clearly dumbfounded. “Well—of all the poor fish! If I’d committed a murder, I wouldn’t go straight off and give myself up. I should have thought Lawrence Redding would have had more sense. To give in like that! What did he kill Protheroe for? Did he say? Was it just a quarrel?”
“It’s not absolutely certain that he did kill him,” I said.
“But surely—if he says he has—why really, Mr. Clement, he ought to know.”
“He ought to, certainly,” I agreed. “But the police are not satisfied with his story.”
“But why should he say he’d done it if he hasn’t?”
That was a point on which I had no intention of enlightening Miss Cram. Instead I said rather vaguely:
“I believe that in all prominent murder cases, the police receive numerous letters from people accusing themselves of the crime.”
Miss Cram’s reception of this piece of information was:
“They must be chumps!” in a tone of wonder and scorn.
She added: “I’d never do a thing like that.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” I said.
“Well,” she said with a sigh, “I suppose I must be trotting along.” She rose. “ Mr. Redding accusing himself of the murder will be a bit of news for Dr. Stone.”