The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy (23 page)

He went out with the two policemen. Lord Burford said: 'By jove, quite a personality, what?'

Mr. Peabody was white-faced. He said: 'I never suspected him for a moment. He actually tried to persuade us not to bring the necklace here.'

'That was a very clever bluff,' Deveraux said. 'He knew that whatever he said, Mrs. Peabody was quite certain to bring it.'

'Land's sakes,' Carrie Peabody murmured. 'Do you think he came to work for Hiram solely to get his hands on my necklace?'

Deveraux nodded. 'Twelve months would be no time to wait for such a prize. Doubtless all through your tour he's just been waiting for an opportunity. But until now you must always have been too careful for him.'

Jane asked: 'How long have you suspected him?'

'I've had my eye on him ever since a conversation I had with him on Friday afternoon. He was very eager to explain that he was thinking of leaving Mr. Peabody and staying in England for a while. He rather dragged it into the conversation. I think he might have already spotted me as a sort of sleuth and was preparing the ground, so that if and when he did the robbery and then immediately left Mr. Peabody's employ, he wouldn't arouse suspicion. Then, he passed himself off as an American on his first visit here, but he came out with the very British slang word "quid" rather glibly. Again, after the robbery, once we'd accepted firstly that the Wraith would never have stolen the necklace while the burglar alarm was set; and secondly that the murders and the robbery were unconnected (indicated by the Wraith's card and his known dislike of violence), so that the Wraith couldn't have known in advance that the window was going to be broken - both these facts indicating that the robbery took place after the alarm went off - well, then, Evans was the obvious suspect.'

'Why?' Jane asked.

'Lady Geraldine suggested the Wraith might be a woman. But I checked and found out the police knew this was not so. The Wraith was definitely known to be a man - and fairly young. And at the time the robbery was discovered only two people who fitted that description knew about the broken window and so could have taken advantage of it as I described. They were Evans - and me. I knew I wasn't the Wraith. Therefore . . .' Deveraux spread his hands. 'Wilkins made some enquiries into his background today and found it extremely hazy, with at least one of the references he gave Mr. Peabody false. So the picture was pretty clear.'

Hiram Peabody gave a sigh. 'And he was just about the best doggone secretary I ever had.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The Killer

Giles Deveraux crossed the room, poured himself a glass of water and drank it. Then he went back to his place. He looked round the ring of faces. Every eye was on him. Even Algy Fotheringay at last seemed fully awake.

Deveraux said: 'Assault, impersonation, suppression of evidence, and thefts of various kinds. We've cleared them all out of the way. And now we can deal with murder.

'Earlier today, Inspector Wilkins gave me a number of pointers to the truth about these murders. I won't repeat them in exactly the same form that he put them, but they were as follows: Lady Geraldine's sight, my hearing, and Miss Clifton's nostril; then, Batchev's flight, Lord Burford's collection. Wilkins' own height, and finally the weather.'

Deveraux went through them a second time, then said: 'I should add that certain of them refer to things lacking or missing. Perhaps we can try to explain them together. Who'd like to start? Lady Geraldine?'

Gerry wrinkled her nose. 'I've no idea what your hearing or my sight have got to do with it. The significance of Daddy's collection is pretty obvious - the gun that killed the Baroness came from it. Batchev's flight? I suppose it means why did he decide to leave the house so suddenly in the middle of the night. Well, I've already put forward one theory about that. As for Miss Clifton's nostril, Jane's probably got more idea about what that means.'

Jane said slowly: 'I smelt the Baroness's scent in the linen room just after I was knocked down. I remembered it later, and as a result we found her body in the passage. That's the only way my nose has been involved. What else was there?'

'The Inspector's height.'

Jane and Gerry looked at each other. Jane shrugged. Gerry said: 'Pass.'

'The weather.'

Jane said: 'The thunder drowned certain noises - such as what was going on in Anilese's room when Gerry was outside.'

'How did we do?' Gerry asked.

'Fair. Let's go back. Skip my hearing for the moment and concentrate on your sight. You said you saw the Baroness arrive back in her room at about seven minutes past two, and that she had not left it again at two-thirty. This flatly contradicts Mr. Saunders' statement that her room was empty when he arrived.'

Gerry bit her lip. She said: 'I - I thought . . .'

'You thought I'd forgotten that discrepancy, Lady Geraldine? No.'

In a voice hard with tension, Richard said: 'You agreed that there was no truth in your original reconstruction which cast me as the killer.'

Again from the dark corner, Wilkins' voice cut across the room. 'Excuse me, sir, but he didn't. You said there was no truth in it. I said there was some - though the reconstruction was largely false and didn't answer all the questions. But that that particular reconstruction was at fault didn't mean that you were necessarily innocent of the murder.'

Richard closed his eyes. 'Oh no.'

'But,' said Deveraux, 'something else does prove you innocent: the very important element of time. I wonder if anybody noticed one vital fact brought out by Mr. Peabody's evidence: that he took Lord Burford's gun - the one used to shoot the Baroness - from the gun room a couple of minutes before two-thirty - and that thereafter it wasn't out of his possession. He didn't shoot her himself or he would never have admitted that. So the killer must have replaced it in the gun room after shooting her and before Mr. Peabody took it. Which means that the Baroness was killed several minutes before that. Therefore, Mr. Saunders couldn't have shot her after arriving in her room a few seconds after two-thirty. By then she was already dead.'

Richard let his head fall back. 'Thank heaven,' he said.

Gerry was looking perplexed. 'But when exactly was she killed? I assure you I saw her going into her room minutes before ten past two.'

'I'm not questioning that. I'd say she was killed at about eleven or twelve minutes past.'

'But by whom?'

'You answered that question yourself earlier. The Baroness de la Roche was killed by Stanislaus Batchev.'

He looked round at the blank faces, as if waiting for some reaction. But it was as if everybody was stunned. Richard spoke first. 'In her room?'

Deveraux nodded.

Gerry said: 'But who moved the body?'

'Batchev himself.'

'He didn't, I tell you. I would have seen him.'

'Now we're back to Lady Geraldine's sight. Will you tell us again exactly what you saw from the time you arrived in the recess?'

'I saw the Baroness leave her room at about four or five minutes past two. Then—'

'Hold it there, please. She went to the gun room and took Lord Burford's Bergman Bayard and some cartridges. She knew that Batchev would be furious when he learnt she was not, after all, going to blackmail Mr. Saunders, and she wanted protection. We assume she picked the lock - a skill she could quite easily have learnt, given the life she'd been leading. She might even have done it earlier in the evening, in preparation. But of course she wouldn't take the gun until the last moment, in case Lord Burford should go to the gun room before turning in and notice its absence. Please go on.'

'About six or seven minutes past, Batchev arrived and went in, then she came back a minute after that.'

'And then it must have happened just as you suggested. Batchev accused her of double-crossing him, threatened her, she pulled the gun; then perhaps he grabbed for it, they struggled and she was shot. They were probably locked together. Their bodies would muffle the shot and that, together with the thick heavy door and the thunderstorm, meant you heard nothing. What did you see next?'

'Batchev leaving - alone.'

'You didn't know who it was at the time though, did you?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Because the only light was from his torch, which he held low down. So I couldn't see his face.'

'How much of him could you see?'

'Well, really only his feet and about half way up his legs.'

'Precisely. What you could not see was that Batchev was carrying the Baroness's body over his shoulder.'

Throughout the room there was a slow expelling of breath. Gerry stared at Deveraux, opened her mouth - and closed it again.

Deveraux said: 'You agree - he could have been?'

'I - I suppose so,' she said slowly. 'But he didn't seem to be carrying any weight. He walked quite briskly and light-footed.'

'He was an extremely strong man - her weight would have been nothing to him.'

'But how do you know that's what happened?'

'Given that there is only one door to the room, that the window couldn't be opened more than a few inches without setting off the alarm, and that both you and your uncle are telling the truth, that's the only way it could have happened.'

Jane said: 'And he put the body in the secret passage himself?'

'That's right.'

'Why?'

'We can only surmise, but he must have known that he was going to have to abandon his assignment. His probable intention then was flight as soon as the servants were up and the alarm was switched off - a man of his experience would have a good chance of getting away without being seen -hoping it would be assumed the Baroness had left with him. So it was essential that her body wasn't discovered immediately. I think he thought of the passage simply as a hiding place, and didn't have any intention of using it to take her body downstairs. I believe later he would have collected all her things from her room and dumped them in there with her. But before that he went to replace the pistol in the collection room.'

'Why bother?' Jane asked again.

'Well, it was obviously important to get rid of the murder weapon quickly, just in case anybody else had been disturbed and got up to investigate. He could have left it with the body; but he knew the Earl and Mr. Peabody were in and out of the collection room all the time and that its absence would be very quickly noticed. The fact that he and the Baroness were missing would not make anybody necessarily suspect foul play, but if a pistol were gone as well, it might suggest the use of violence and possible murder, and that in turn might lead to a more intensive search being made. Anyway, after hiding the body behind the panel, he made his way to the gun room. He must have arrived there just about a minute or so before you arrived in his room, Adler.'

Martin Adler nodded.

'Batchev put the gun back,' Deveraux went on, 'and was no doubt intending then to go and pack his own things. But his plan didn't work out. For he in turn was shot by somebody else.'

The tension in the room was mounting again. It was as if nobody wanted even to breathe.

'I mentioned earlier,' Deveraux continued, 'that outside the servants' quarters only three people in this house had remained in bed all the time prior to the alarm being set off. One of those people was Lady Burford. Another was Fotheringay. The third, strangely enough, was Evans. Which means that one person, other than those who have admitted being up, was also out of bed and creeping about in the dark.'

Deveraux stopped, turned, and looked straight at a slight, unobtrusive figure sitting just outside the main circle. 'That person,' he said, 'was Edward Thornton.'

Thornton neither moved nor spoke.

Deveraux pointed at him. 'There's the man you fought, Adler. There's the man who knocked you down, Jane. There's the man who was paid £10,000 to release secret information about your negotiations, Mr. Saunders.'

Thornton looked at him out of cold eyes. 'You're mad,' he said quietly.

'And there's the man,' Deveraux continued remorselessly, 'who shot Stanislaus Batchev.'

'You fool!' Thornton spat out the words. 'Do you think anyone's going to believe that? What motive could I have had?'

'He knew you were a traitor in the pay of a foreign power.'

'It's a lie! Anyway, I couldn't possibly have had time to kill him. Nobody was able to leave the house before ten to three—'

'You didn't leave the house. You shot him in the gun room at about two-twenty-five, when he went to replace the Bergman.'

'But the body was found in the lake, you imbecile!'

'Agreed. You transferred it to the lake later - after the alarm had gone off.'

'And just when am I supposed to have done that?'

'Between the times Miss Clifton left your room at about a minute to three, and you joined us towards the end of our search.'

'You're not seriously suggesting that I dressed, carried a body from the gun room downstairs - without being seen - out to the lake, got back to my room, and joined you dry and free from mud - all in about fifteen minutes?'

'Certainly not. That was the cleverest part of the whole plan. In disposing of the body, you never left the gun room.'

He looked round. 'Remember the pointers: Lord Burford's collection; Batchev's flight. Did you all assume that flight was used in the sense of fleeing, escape? No: it referred, quite literally to the act of flying through the air. That was how the body reached the lake. It was shot there.'

The Earl whispered: 'You - you don't mean—'

'Yes, Lord Burford - from the circus gun used by Burundi the Human Cannonball.'

Richard said: 'Great Scott!'

Lady Burford murmured weakly: 'I don't believe it.'

Hiram Peabody exclaimed: 'Jumping jehosaphat!'

The monocle dropped from Algy Fotheringay's eye.

It was at that moment, when Deveraux had the rapt attention of every person in the room, that Thornton acted. Like lightning he sprang to his feet. A small snub-nosed automatic had appeared in his hand. He took two steps towards the door. 'Everyone stay where they are.'