Free The Watersplash by Patricia Wentworth

there paralysed with horror. When you can see a danger approaching, something can be devised to meet it. There is thought, contrivance, a means of defence, a way out. But this had come upon him suddenly when his mind was relaxed, taking its ease after strain. It would not move to serve him.
    Mildred Blake nodded.
    “It is a pity I came into the church last night, isn’t it? I wanted to speak to you about the music. If I had gone straight home from the Vicarage, no one would ever have known that you murdered William Jackson.”
    The word was out. However many times it is spoken, it is always a dreadful word. It shocked Arnold Random into speech.
    “My God, no! I never touched him! Mildred, I swear to you I never touched him!”
    Her fingers tapped on the black account-book.
    “He fell of himself? And couldn’t get up again? In that shallow water? My dear Arnold!”
    His usual pallor was suffused by a terrible flush. The blood throbbed in his veins and beat against his ears.
    “Mildred, I swear—”
    “And if I believe you, do you think that anyone else will? If you suppress a will and take what is meant for somebody else you go to prison. William Jackson could have sent you to prison. That is what he was telling you there in the church. You knew it, and so did I. He was blackmailing you—his job back and a rise! And that was only the beginning of it—it wouldn’t stop there. And whatever he asked, you would have to pay—we both knew that. There was just nothing you could do about it except the one thing which you did. He had to go over the splash, and the stones were slippery after the rain. He had had too much to drink and he was unsteady on his feet. I could see him swaying there in the church when you were swearing at him. Really a most disgraceful scene—quite a smell of beer—and such language! A sober man wouldn’t have drowned in the splash, but if somebody pushed a drunken man and held him down when he tried to get up again he could very easily be drowned, couldn’t he, Arnold?”
    He drew a long breath and sat back in his chair. The flush drained from his face, the drumming in his ears died away. His thoughts fell into place. He said,
    “You are wrong—I didn’t kill him.”
    “How many people, do you suppose, are going to believe that?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Her black eyebrows rose.
    “Twelve men on a jury? Do you know, I doubt it.”
    He doubted it too. Accusation—threat—blackmail—the fury of the scene in the church—and William Jackson face down in a shallow pool, so very conveniently dead. He stared at her and said,
    “It’s not true.”
    She had been leaning towards him across the corner of the table. She straightened herself now, sitting back in the upright chair and folding her hands upon her knee.
    “If I believed you—” she said.
    He repeated what he had said before.
    “It’s not true.”
    She began to take off the torn right-hand glove in a slow, deliberate manner, looking away from him now, looking down at her own hand as it emerged. An ugly bony hand, not too well kept, the nails cut flat across the top—yellowish and bloodless nails. When the glove was off she put it carefully on the top of the collecting-book and said,
    “We have known each other a long time. One has a duty to the public, but one has a duty to one’s friends. If I could believe that William Jackson’s death was an accident—” She spoke slowly, dragging the words.
    “How can I make you believe me? I never touched him!”
    “If I could believe that, I might not think it was my duty to go to the police. I say I might not.”
    “Mildred!”
    “You did not kill him?”
    “No—no!”
    “You didn’t follow him down to the splash and push him in?” Almost past speech, he shook his head, struggling for words which would convince her, move her. Only the simplest came.
    “I never touched him. He went—I put the music away— then I went too. I never touched him.”
    After an agonizing pause