If she didn’t trust him, she wouldn’t have gone there alone.”
She swallowed heavily and eyed the inspector behind me.
“Mrs. Warrick confronted Mr. Hookly that afternoon,” I said, thinking as I spoke. “Is that when he invited her to dine with him?”
“He told me she wanted to resume their relationship, but because she was the jealous type, and he was worried about me, he couldn’t refuse right away. He was scared for me, you see. Scared she’d fly into a jealous rage if she found out about us.”
That was not how their confrontation would have transpired, but I didn’t tell her. She was talking, and that was the main thing.
“He had to try to convince her to leave him alone but do it in a way that wouldn’t anger her,” Edith said in high voice. “He said if he couldn’t convince her over dinner then we’d have to do something more drastic or she’d never stop pursuing him.” She held my gaze. “He says she became angry with him when he told her about me. She said she’d kill me in the morning when I delivered the tea. We thought about it all night, but we knew the police would believe her and not us. The only thing we could do to stay safe and be together was to kill her before she killed me or him. So we decided to poison her by bringing her tea early. It wasn’t planned, you see. It was kill or be killed. That’s self-defense, isn’t it? The jury will let us go, won’t they?”
“She just let you in?” the inspector said flatly. “Even though you weren’t due to bring her the tea until seven? Wasn’t she suspicious?”
I shot him a glare over my shoulder.
He pressed his lips together and stepped back.
But his question brought my own doubt to the forefront again. Edith’s story didn’t ring true. Mrs. Warrick hadn’t threatened Mr. Hookly out of jealousy, although Edith might believe that. But she certainly didn’t believe the murder was a spur of the moment idea. Yet there was no way to prove it.
The inspector sighed. “Constable, what time is it? I have to be back at the Yard by one.”
The constable removed his pocket watch. But I didn’t hear his response. I’d got it! I knew when Edith had poisoned Mrs. Warrick, and I knew it had been planned.
It was all about the time.
“When did you change the clock, Edith?”
Her lips parted.
“The clock in Mrs. Warrick’s room,” I prompted. “Did you change it while she dined with Hookly? Is that when you let yourself into her room and moved the clock by her bed forward an hour?”
Edith’s face crumpled. “The murder wasn’t planned,” she whispered.
I touched her arm. “No more lies, Edith. It’s over.”
“What about the clock, Miss Fox?” the inspector asked.
“It had been changed the day before. The time had been put forward an hour.”
“How do you know?”
“Mrs. Warrick scolded Danny for bringing her hot chocolate late. It was eleven PM, the usual time for her chocolate to arrive, but she thought it was midnight because that’s what the clock in her room showed. The following morning, Edith brought Mrs. Warrick her cup of tea at the usual time of seven. But it wasn’t seven, it was really six. Her clock showed seven so she accepted Edith’s arrival at her door with the teacup without question. The poison was in that cup.” I turned to Edith, looking broken and fragile in her bruises and bandages. I felt sorry for her, but I couldn’t let her get away with murder. She had to take some responsibility, if not all.
She gave a small nod.
“But the witness saw you at seven,” the inspector said to Edith. “He saw you with a teacup then not even a minute later you emerged when Mrs. Warrick was dead. Did you change his clock too to fool him into thinking it was seven when it was actually six?”
I shook my head. “It really was seven when he emerged from his room. At six, after Mrs. Warrick drank the poison and died, Edith changed the clock in her room back to the actual time and took the cup with her when she left and locked the door behind her. She returned at seven with another cup of tea, just as she did every morning during Mrs. Warrick’s stay. She made sure to bang on the wall or door of the room opposite to wake the guest. He emerged to see her and