CHAPTER XXII

A Case of Conscience

_“I know thou art religious,_

_And hast a thing within thee called conscience,_

_With twenty popish tricks and ceremonies_

_Which I have seen thee careful to observe.”_

_Titus Andronicus_

Thursday, June 23rd, was the Eve of S. John. The sober green workaday

dress in which the church settles down to her daily duties after the

bridal raptures of Pentecost, had been put away, and the altar was white

and shining once again. Vespers were over in the Lady Chapel at S.

Onesimus—a faint reek of incense hung cloudily under the dim beams of

the roof. A very short acolyte with a very long brass extinguisher

snuffed out the candles, adding the faintly unpleasant yet sanctified

odour of hot wax. The small congregation of elderly ladies rose up

lingeringly from their devotions and slipped away in a series of deep

genuflections. Miss Climpson gathered up a quantity of little manuals,

and groped for her gloves. In doing so, she dropped her office-book. It

fell, annoyingly, behind the long kneeler, scattering as it went a small

pentecostal shower of Easter cards, book-markers, sacred pictures, dried

palms and Ave Marias into the dark corner behind the confessional.

Miss Climpson gave a little exclamation of wrath as she dived after

them—and immediately repented this improper outburst of anger in a

sacred place. “Discipline,” she murmured, retrieving the last lost sheep

from under a hassock, “discipline. I must learn self-control.” She

crammed the papers back into the office-book, grasped her gloves and

handbag, bowed to the Sanctuary, dropped her bag, picked it up this time

in a kind of glow of martyrdom, bustled down the aisle and across the

church to the south door, where the sacristan stood, key in hand,

waiting to let her out. As she went, she glanced up at the High Altar,

unlit and lonely, with the tall candles like faint ghosts in the

twilight of the apse. It had a grim and awful look she thought,

suddenly.

“Good night, Mr. Stanniforth,” she said, quickly.

“Good night, Miss Climpson, good night.”

She was glad to come out of the shadowy porch into the green glow of the

June evening. She had felt a menace. Was it the thought of the stern

Baptist, with his call to repentance? the prayer for grace to speak the

truth and boldly rebuke vice? Miss Climpson decided that she would hurry

home and read the Epistle and Gospel—curiously tender and comfortable

for the festival of that harsh and uncompromising Saint. “And I can tidy

up these cards at the same time,” she thought.

Mrs. Budge’s first-floor front seemed stuffy after the scented

loveliness of the walk home. Miss Climpson flung the window open and sat

down by it to rearrange her sanctified oddments. The card of the Last

Supper went in at the Prayer of Consecration; the Fra Angelico

Annunciation had strayed out of the office for March 25th and was

wandering among the Sundays after Trinity; the Sacred Heart with its

French text belonged to Corpus Christi; the. . . “Dear me!” said Miss

Climpson, “I must have picked this up in church.”

Certainly the little sheet of paper was not in her writing. Somebody

must have dropped it. It was natural to look and see whether it was

anything of importance.

Miss Climpson was one of those people who say: “I am not the kind of

person who reads other people’s postcards.” This is clear notice to all

and sundry that they are, precisely, that kind of person. They are not

untruthful; the delusion is real to them. It is merely that Providence

has provided them with a warning rattle, like that of the rattlesnake.

After that, if you are so foolish as to leave your correspondence in

their way, it is your own affair.

Miss Climpson perused the paper.

In the manuals for self-examination issued to the Catholic-minded, there

is often included an unwise little paragraph which speaks volumes for

the innocent unworldliness of the compilers. You are advised, when

preparing for confession, to make a little list of your misdeeds, lest

one or two peccadilloes should slip your mind. It is true that you are

cautioned against writing down the names of other people or showing your

list to your friends, or leaving it about. But accidents may happen—and

it may be that this recording of sins is contrary to the mind of the

church, who bids you whisper them with fleeting breath into the ear of a

priest and bids him, in the same moment that he absolves, forget them as

though they had never been spoken.

At any rate, somebody had been recently shriven of the sins set forth

upon the paper—probably the previous Saturday—and the document had

fluttered down unnoticed between the confession-box and the hassock,

escaping the eye of the cleaner. And here it was—the tale that should

have been told to none but God—lying open upon Mrs. Budge’s round

mahogany table under the eye of a fellow-mortal.

To do Miss Climpson justice, she would probably have destroyed it

instantly unread, if one sentence had not caught her eye:

“The lies I told for M. W.’s sake.”

At the same moment she realised that this was Vera Findlater’s

handwriting, and it “came over her like a flash”—as she explained

afterwards, exactly what the implication of the words was.

For a full half-hour Miss Climpson sat alone, struggling with her

conscience. Her natural inquisitiveness said “Read”; her religious

training said, “You must not read”; her sense of duty to Wimsey, who

employed her, said, “Find out”; her own sense of decency said, “Do no

such thing”; a dreadful, harsh voice muttered gratingly, “Murder is the

question. Are you going to be the accomplice of Murder?” She felt like

Lancelot Gobbo between conscience and the fiend—but which was the fiend

and which was conscience?

“To speak the truth and boldly rebuke vice.”

Murder.

There was a real possibility now.

But _was_ it a possibility? Perhaps she had read into the sentence more

than it would bear.

In that case, was it not—almost—a duty to read further and free her mind

from this horrible suspicion?

She would have liked to go to Mr. Tredgold and ask his advice. Probably

he would, tell her to burn the paper promptly and drive suspicion out of

her mind with prayer and fasting.

She got up and began searching for the match-box. It would be better to

get rid of the thing quickly.

What, exactly, was she about to do?—To destroy the clue to the discovery

of a Murder?

Whenever she thought of the word, it wrote itself upon her brain in

large capitals, heavily underlined. MURDER—like a police-bill.

Then she had an idea. Parker was a policeman—and probably also he had no

particular feelings about the sacred secrecy of the Confessional. He had

a Protestant appearance—or possibly he thought nothing of religion one

way or the other. In any case, he would put his professional duty before

everything. Why not send him the paper, without reading it, briefly

explaining how she had come upon it? Then the responsibility would be

his.

On consideration, however, Miss Climpson’s innate honesty scouted this

scheme as jesuitical. Secrecy was violated by this open publication as

much as if she had read the thing—or more so. The old Adam, too, raised

his head at this point, suggesting that if anybody was going to see the

confession, she might just as well satisfy her own reasonable curiosity.

Besides—suppose she was quite mistaken. After all, the “lies” might have

nothing whatever to do with Mary Whittaker’s alibi. In that case, she

would have betrayed another person’s secret wantonly, and to no purpose.

If she _did_ decide to show it, she was bound to read it first—in

justice to all parties concerned.

Perhaps—if she just glanced at another word or two, she would see that

it had nothing to do with—MURDER—and then she could destroy it and

forget it. She knew that if she destroyed it unread she never would

forget it, to the end of her life. She would always carry with her that

grim suspicion. She would think of Mary Whittaker as—perhaps—a

Murderess. When she looked into those hard blue eyes, she would be

wondering what sort of expression they had when the soul behind them was

plotting—MURDER. Of course, the suspicions had been there before,

planted by Wimsey, but now they were her own suspicions. They

crystallised—became real to her.

“What shall I do?”

She gave a quick, shamefaced glance at the paper again. This time she

saw the word “London.”

Miss Climpson gave a kind of little gasp, like a person stepping under a

cold shower-bath.

“Well,” said Miss Climpson, “if this is a sin I am going to do it, and

may I be forgiven.”

With a red flush creeping over her cheeks as though she were stripping

something naked, she turned her attention to the paper.

The jottings were brief and ambiguous. Parker might not have made much

of them, but to Miss Climpson, trained in this kind of devotional

shorthand, the story was clear as print.

“Jealousy”—the word was written large and underlined. Then there was a

reference to a quarrel, to wicked accusations and angry words and to a

pre-occupation coming between the penitent’s soul and God. “Idol”—and a

long dash.

From these few fossil bones, Miss Climpson had little difficulty in

reconstructing one of those hateful and passionate “scenes” of slighted

jealousy with which a woman-ridden life had made her only too familiar.

“I do everything for you—you don’t care a bit for me—you treat me

cruelly—you’re simply sick of me, that’s what it is!” And “Don’t be so

ridiculous. Really, I can’t stand this. Oh, stop it, Vera! I hate being

slobbered over.” Humiliating, degrading, exhausting, beastly scenes.

Girls’ school, boarding-house, Bloomsbury-flat scenes. Damnable

selfishness wearying of its victim. Silly _schwärmerei_ swamping all

decent self-respect. Barren quarrels ending in shame and hatred.

“Beastly, blood-sucking woman,” said Miss Climpson, viciously. “It’s too

bad. She’s only making use of the girl.”

But the self-examiner was now troubled with a more difficult problem.

Piecing the hints together, Miss Climpson sorted it out with practised

ease. Lies had been told—that was wrong, even though done to help a

friend. Bad confessions had been made, suppressing those lies. This

ought to be confessed and put right. But (the girl asked herself) had

she come to this conclusion out of hatred of the lies or out of spite

against the friend? Difficult, this searching of the heart. And ought

she, not content with confessing the lies to the priest, also to tell

the truth to the world?

Miss Climpson had here no doubt what the priest’s ruling would be. “You

need not go out of your way to betray your friend’s confidence. Keep

silent if you can, but if you speak you must speak the truth. You must

tell your friend that she is not to expect any more lying from you. She

is entitled to ask for secrecy—no more.”

So far, so good. But there was a further problem.

“Ought I to connive at her doing what is wrong?”—and then a sort of

explanatory aside—“the man in South Audley Street.”

This was a little mysterious. . . No!—on the contrary, it explained the

whole mystery, jealousy, quarrel and all.

In those weeks of April and May, when Mary Whittaker had been supposed

to be all the time in Kent with Vera Findlater, she had been going up to

London. And Vera had promised to say that Mary was with her the whole

time. And the visits to London had to do with a man in South Audley

Street, and there was something sinful about it. That probably meant a

love-affair. Miss Climpson pursed her lips virtuously, but she was more

surprised than shocked. Mary Whittaker! she would never have suspected

it of her, somehow. But it so explained the jealousy and the quarrel—the

sense of desertion. But how had Vera found out? Had Mary Whittaker

confided in her?—No; that sentence again, under the heading

“Jealousy”—what was it—“following M. W to London.” She had followed

then, and seen. And then, at some moment, she had burst out with her

knowledge—reproached her friend. Yet this expedition to London must have

happened before her own conversation with Vera Findlater, and the girl

had then seemed so sure of Mary’s affection. Or had it been that she was

trying to persuade herself, with determined self-deception, that there

was “nothing in” this business about the man? Probably. And probably

some brutality of Mary’s had brought all the miserable suspicions

boiling to the surface, vocal, reproachful and furious. And so they had

gone on to the row and the break.

“Queer,” thought Miss Climpson, “that Vera has never come and told me

about her trouble. But perhaps she is ashamed, poor child. I haven’t

seen her for nearly a week. I think I’ll call and see her and perhaps

she’ll tell me all about it. In which case”—cried Miss Climpson’s

conscience, suddenly emerging with a bright and beaming smile from under

the buffets of the enemy—“in which case I shall know the whole history

of it legitimately and can _quite honourably_ tell Lord Peter about it.”

The next day—which was the Friday—she woke, however, with an unpleasant

ache in the conscience. The paper—still tucked into the

office-book—worried her. She went round early to Vera Findlater’s house,

only to hear that she was staying with Miss Whittaker. “Then I suppose

they’ve made it up,” she said. She did not want to see Mary Whittaker,

whether her secret was murder or mere immorality; but she was tormented

by the desire to clear up the matter of the alibi for Lord Peter.

In Wellington Avenue she was told that the two girls had gone away on

the Monday and had not yet returned. She tried to reassure the maid, but

her own heart misgave her. Without any real reason, she was uneasy. She

went round to the church and said her prayers, but her mind was not on

what she was saying. On an impulse, she caught Mr. Tredgold as he

pottered in and out of the Sacristy, and asked if she might come the

next evening to lay a case of conscience before him. So far, so good,

and she felt that a “good walk” might help to clear the cob-webs from

her brain.

So she started off, missing Lord Peter by a quarter of an hour, and took

the train to Guildford and then walked and had lunch in a wayside

tea-shop and walked back into Guildford and so came home, where she

learnt that “Mr. Parker and ever so many gentlemen had been asking for

her all day, and what a dreadful thing, miss, here was Miss Whittaker

and Miss Findlater disappeared and the police out looking for them, and

them motor-cars was such dangerous things, miss, wasn’t they? It was to

be hoped there wasn’t an accident.”

And into Miss Climpson’s mind there came, like an inspiration, the

words, “South Audley Street.”

Miss Climpson did not, of course, know that Wimsey was at Crow’s Beach.

She hoped to find him in Town. For she was seized with a desire, which

she could hardly have explained even to herself, to go and look at South

Audley Street. What she was to do when she got there she did not know,

but go there she must. It was the old reluctance to make open use of

that confession paper. Vera Findlater’s story at first hand—that was the

idea to which she obscurely clung. So she took the first train to

Waterloo, leaving behind her, in case Wimsey or Parker should call

again, a letter so obscure and mysterious and so lavishly underlined and

interlined that it was perhaps fortunate for their reason that they were

never faced with it.

In Piccadilly she saw Bunter, and learned that his lordship was at

Crow’s Beach with Mr. Parker, where he, Bunter, was just off to join

him. Miss Climpson promptly charged him with a message to his employer

slightly more involved and mysterious than her letter, and departed for

South Audley Street. It was only when she was walking up it that she

realised how vague her quest was and how little investigation one can do

by merely walking along a street. Also, it suddenly occurred to her that

if Miss Whittaker was carrying on anything of a secret nature in South

Audley Street, the sight of an acquaintance patrolling the pavement

would put her on her guard. Much struck by this reflection, Miss

Climpson plunged abruptly into a Chemist’s shop and bought a toothbrush,

by way of concealing her movements and gaining time. One can while away

many minutes comparing the shapes, sizes and bristles of toothbrushes,

and sometimes chemists will be nice and gossipy.

Looking round the shop for inspiration, Miss Climpson observed a tin of

nasal snuff labelled with the chemist’s own name.

“I will take a tin of that, too, please,” she said. “What _excellent_

stuff it is—quite _wonderful_. I have used it for _years_ and am really

_delighted_ with it. I recommend it to all my friends, particularly for

_hay fever_. In fact, there’s a friend of mine who often passes your

shop, who told me only _yesterday_ what a _martyr_ she was to that

complaint. ‘My dear,’ I said to her, ‘you have only to get a tin of this

_splendid_ stuff and you will be _quite_ all right _all_ summer.’ She

was so _grateful_ to me for telling her about it. Has she been in for it

yet?” And she described Mary Whittaker closely.

It will be noticed, by the way, that in the struggle between Miss

Climpson’s conscience and what Wilkie Collins calls “detective fever,”

conscience was getting the worst of it and was winking at an amount of

deliberate untruth which a little time earlier would have staggered it.

The chemist, however, had seen nothing of Miss Climpson’s friend.

Nothing, therefore, was to be done but to retire from the field and

think what was next to be done. Miss Climpson left, but before leaving

she neatly dropped her latchkey into a large basket full of sponges

standing at her elbow. She felt she might like to have an excuse to

visit South Audley Street again.

Conscience sighed deeply, and her guardian angel dropped a tear among

the sponges.

Retiring into the nearest tea-shop she came to, Miss Climpson ordered a

cup of coffee and started to think out a plan for honey-combing South

Audley Street. She needed an excuse—and a disguise. An adventurous

spirit was welling up in her elderly bosom, and her first dozen or so

ideas were more lurid than practical.

At length a really brilliant notion occurred to her. She was (she did

not attempt to hide it from herself) precisely the type and build of

person one associates with the collection of subscriptions. Moreover,

she had a perfectly good and genuine cause ready to hand. The church

which she attended in London ran a slum mission, which was badly in need

of funds, and she possessed a number of collecting cards, bearing full

authority to receive subscriptions on its behalf. What more natural than

that she should try a little house-to-house visiting in a wealthy

quarter?

The question of disguise, also, was less formidable than it might

appear. Miss Whittaker had only known her well-dressed and affluent in

appearance. Ugly, clumping shoes, a hat of virtuous ugliness, a

shapeless coat and a pair of tinted glasses would disguise her

sufficiently at a distance. At close quarters, it would not matter if

she was recognised, for if once she got to close quarters with Mary

Whittaker, her job was done and she had found the house she wanted.

Miss Climpson rose from the table, paid her bill and hurried out to buy

the glasses, remembering that it was Saturday. Having secured a pair

which hid her eyes effectively without looking exaggeratedly mysterious,

she made for her rooms in St. George’s Square, to choose suitable

clothing for her adventure. She realised, of course, that she could

hardly start work till Monday—Saturday afternoon and Sunday are hopeless

from the collector’s point of view.

The choice of clothes and accessories occupied her for the better part

of the afternoon. When she was at last satisfied she went downstairs to

ask her landlady for some tea.

“Certainly, miss,” said the good woman. “Ain’t it awful, miss, about

this murder?”

“What murder?” asked Miss Climpson, vaguely.

She took the _Evening Views_ from her landlady’s hand, and read the

story of Vera Findlater’s death.

Sunday was the most awful day Miss Climpson had ever spent. An active

woman, she was condemned to inactivity, and she had time to brood over

the tragedy. Not having Wimsey’s or Parker’s inside knowledge, she took

the kidnapping story at its face value. In a sense, she found it

comforting, for she was able to acquit Mary Whittaker of any share in

this or the previous murders. She put them down—except, of course, in

the case of Miss Dawson, and that might never have been a murder after

all—to the mysterious man in South Audley Street. She formed a nightmare

image of him in her mind—blood-boltered, sinister, and—most horrible of

all—an associate and employer of debauched and brutal assassins. To Miss

Climpson’s credit be it said that she never for one moment faltered in

her determination to track the monster to his lurking-place.

She wrote a long letter to Lord Peter, detailing her plans. Bunter, she

knew, had left 110A Piccadilly, so, after considerable thought, she

addressed it to Lord Peter Wimsey, c/o Inspector Parker, The

Police-Station, Crow’s Beach. There was, of course, no Sunday post from

Town. However, it would go with the midnight collection.

On the Monday morning she set out early, in her old clothes and her

spectacles, for South Audley Street. Never had her natural

inquisitiveness and her hard training in third-rate boarding-houses

stood her in better stead. She had learned to ask questions without

heeding rebuffs—to be persistent, insensitive and observant. In every

flat she visited she acted her natural self, with so much sincerity and

such limpet-like obstinacy that she seldom came away without a

subscription and almost never without some information about the flat

and its inmates.

By tea-time, she had done one side of the street and nearly half the

other, without result. She was just thinking of going to get some food,

when she caught sight of a woman, about a hundred yards ahead, walking

briskly in the same direction as herself.

Now it is easy to be mistaken in faces, but almost impossible not to

recognise a back. Miss Climpson’s heart gave a bound. “Mary Whittaker!”

she said to herself, and started to follow.

The woman stopped to look into a shop window. Miss Climpson hesitated to

come closer. If Mary Whittaker was at large, then—why then the

kidnapping had been done with her own consent. Puzzled, Miss Climpson

determined to play a waiting game. The woman went into the shop. The

friendly chemist’s was almost opposite. Miss Climpson decided that this

was the moment to reclaim her latchkey. She went in and asked for it. It

had been put aside for her and the assistant produced it at once. The

woman was still in the shop over the way. Miss Climpson embarked upon a

long string of apologies and circumstantial details about her

carelessness. The woman came out. Miss Climpson gave her a longish

start, brought the conversation to a close, and fussed out again,

replacing the glasses which she had removed for the chemist’s benefit.

The woman walked on without stopping, but she looked into the shop

windows from time to time. A man with a fruiterer’s barrow removed his

cap as she passed and scratched his head. Almost at once, the woman

turned quickly and came back. The fruiterer picked up the handles of his

barrow and trundled it away into a side street. The woman came straight

on, and Miss Climpson was obliged to dive into a doorway and pretend to

be tying a bootlace, to avoid a face to face encounter.

Apparently the woman had only forgotten to buy cigarettes. She went into

a tobacconist’s and emerged again in a minute or two, passing Miss

Climpson again. That lady had dropped her bag and was agitatedly sorting

its contents. The woman passed her without a glance and went on. Miss

Climpson, flushed from stooping, followed again. The woman turned in at

the entrance to a block of flats next door to a florist’s. Miss Climpson

was hard on her heels now, for she was afraid of losing her.

Mary Whittaker—if it was Mary Whittaker—went straight through the hall

to the lift, which was one of the kind worked by the passenger. She

stepped in and shot up. Miss Climpson—gazing at the orchids and roses in

the florist’s window—watched the lift out of sight. Then, with her

subscription card prominently in her hand, she too entered the flats.

There was a porter on duty in a little glass case. He at once spotted

Miss Climpson as a stranger and asked politely if he could do anything

for her. Miss Climpson, selecting a name at random from the list of

occupants in the entrance, asked which was Mrs. Forrest’s flat. The man

replied that it was on the fourth floor, and stepped forward to bring

the lift down for her. A man, to whom he had been chatting, moved

quietly from the glass case and took up a position in the doorway. As

the lift ascended, Miss Climpson noticed that the fruiterer had

returned. His barrow now stood just outside.

The porter had come up with her, and pointed out the door of Mrs.

Forrest’s flat. His presence was reassuring. She wished he would stay

within call till she had concluded her search of the building. However,

having asked for Mrs. Forrest, she must begin there. She pressed the

bell.

At first she thought the flat was empty, but after ringing a second time

she heard footsteps. The door opened, and a heavily over-dressed and

peroxided lady made her appearance, whom Lord Peter would at once—and

embarrassingly—have recognised.

“I have come,” said Miss Climpson, wedging herself briskly in at the

doorway with the skill of the practised canvasser, “to try if I can

enlist your help for our Mission Settlement. May I come in? I am sure

you—”

“No thanks,” said Mrs. Forrest, shortly, and in a hurried, breathless

tone, as if there was somebody behind her who she was anxious should not

overhear her, “I’m not interested in Missions.”

She tried to shut the door. But Miss Climpson had seen and heard enough.

“Good gracious!” she cried, staring, “why, it’s—”

“Come in.” Mrs. Forrest caught her by the arm almost roughly and pulled

her over the threshold, slamming the door behind them.

“How extraordinary!” said Miss Climpson, “I hardly recognised you, Miss

Whittaker, with your hair like that.”

“You!” said Mary Whittaker. “You—of all people!” They sat facing one

another in the sitting-room with its tawdry pink silk cushions. “I knew

you were a meddler. How did you get here? Is there anyone with you?”

“No—yes—I just happened,” began Miss Climpson vaguely. One thought was

uppermost in her mind. “How did you get free? What happened? Who killed

Vera?” She knew she was asking her questions crudely and stupidly. “Why

are you disguised like that?”

“Who sent you?” reiterated Mary Whittaker.

“Who is the man with you?” pursued Miss Climpson. “Is he here? Did he do

the murder?”

“What man?”

“The man Vera saw leaving your flat. Did he—?”

“So that’s it. Vera told you. The liar. I thought I had been quick

enough.”

Suddenly, something which had been troubling Miss Climpson for weeks

crystallised and became plain to her. The expression in Mary Whittaker’s

eyes. A long time ago, Miss Climpson had assisted a relative to run a

boarding-house, and there had been a young man who paid his bill by

cheque. She had had to make a certain amount of unpleasantness about the

bill, and he had written the cheque unwillingly, sitting, with her eye

upon him, at the little plush-covered table in the drawing-room. Then he

had gone away—slinking out with his bag when no one was about. And the

cheque had come back, like the bad penny that it was. A forgery. Miss

Climpson had had to give evidence. She remembered now the odd, defiant

look with which the young man had taken up his pen for his first plunge

into crime. And to-day she was seeing it again—an unattractive mingling

of recklessness and calculation. It was with the look which had once

warned Wimsey and should have warned her. She breathed more quickly.

“Who was the man?”

“The man?” Mary Whittaker laughed suddenly. “A man called Templeton—no

friend of mine. It’s really funny that you should think he was a friend

of mine. I would have killed him if I could.”

“But where is he? What are you doing? Don’t you know that everybody is

looking for you? Why don’t you—?”

“That’s why!”

Mary Whittaker flung her ten o’clock edition of the _Evening Banner_,

which was lying on the sofa. Miss Climpson read the glaring headlines.

AMAZING NEW DEVELOPMENTS

IN CROW’S BEACH CRIME.

——

WOUNDS ON BODY INFLICTED AFTER DEATH.

——

FAKED FOOTPRINTS.

——

Miss Climpson gasped with amazement, and bent over the smaller type.

“How extraordinary!” she said, looking up quickly.

Not quite quickly enough. The heavy brass lamp missed her head indeed,

but fell numbingly on her shoulder. She sprang to her feet with a loud

shriek, just as Mary Whittaker’s strong white hands closed upon her

throat.