The Affair of the Bloodstained Egg Cosy (25 page)

'An incredible coincidence,' Richard murmured.

'Or fate,' Jane said. 'I did wonder whether he would identify me as Jenny's sister. But of course the surname was different. Whether Jenny told him her original surname I don't know, but if she did there'd be no reason for him to remember it. He must have known she had a sister called Jane, but that's a common enough name.

'Once I knew who he really was, I could have reported to you, Richard, that he was bogus. But I wanted to be sure he was punished for what he'd done to Jenny and I doubted if they'd be able to bring it home to him after all this time. Besides, prison would be too good for him. He had to die. I decided to kill him myself.'

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Execution

'I quite enjoyed planning the execution,' Jane said quietly. 'It was the three facts of the alarm system, the circus cannon, and the nearness of the lake which were the basis for my plan. I thought that if Batchev's body was found some distance from the house, and he was thought to have been killed at a time when the burglar alarm would prove everybody else to have been in the house, then nobody here would be suspected. I knew how to operate the cannon. I was staying here when Lord Burford bought it, and he tested it by firing lengths of timber from the balcony. Fortunately, after that it was only moved back a few feet - not shifted to the side - so that it was still aimed straight towards the french doors. Of course, I couldn't have done it if the lake hadn't been there: if the body had landed on dry ground, it would have been obvious it had fallen from a height - and then the police would have probably thought of the cannon and put two and two together. If it hadn't been for all the other complications, which I couldn't have foreseen, I think I'd have fooled you -you would have thought he'd gone out to meet somebody and been shot by him. The only part of my plan that went wrong was the business of the pistol. I planned to take one of Lord Burford's from the collection, use it to shoot Batchev, put his fingerprint's on it, hide it somewhere in the house, and then the next day go and drop it near where the body had been found. I was hoping to make the police think that Batchev had taken it himself for protection, had met and fought with somebody in the grounds, had been shot with it in the struggle, and that the murderer had dropped it while getting away. I'll explain what went wrong in a minute.

'On Saturday after lunch I went down to the village and bought a small reel of black cobbler's thread. In the afternoon Lord Burford showed us all his collection and I decided that as it was one of the few modern style repeating-guns, with cartridges available, the Bergman would be best for me. I went to bed that night normally and tried to read for a bit. I got up at half-past one. I put on a dressing gown and a pair of cotton gloves, crept along to Lord Burford's room and took the key's to the gun room from his dressing table. Then I went downstairs. I fetched the step ladder, and also a pair of wire cutters from the tool-box that was kept in the same place. I took them along to the breakfast room and put the step ladder up by the window. Then I stood on a chair, jammed one end of the thread in the crack of the door, fastened the other end to the top of the step ladder, and slowly tilted it until it was very finely balanced - just held up by the thread. As soon as the thread was released the step-ladder would crash through the window. I moved the pot plant, put a chair on its side near the window, and threw the wire cutters down on the floor.

'I couldn't, obviously, open the door, so I went upstairs by the secret passage. I went straight to the collection room to get Lord Burford's Bergman. But it wasn't there. The Baroness must have just taken it. I was absolutely stymied; all the other small guns there seemed terribly old-fashioned and I didn't know how to operate them. It looked as though I'd have to abandon the whole plan. Then I remembered Mr. Peabody's gun, which was identical. I took four cartridges from the cupboard and crept back along the corridor. Then, when I was nearly there, I saw the light of a torch and someone emerging from the Peabody's suite. A second later I saw it was Lord Burford and he had the gun in his hand. He'd said how much he wanted that pistol, so I guessed at once what he was doing. It was vital I found out what he did with the gun. I followed him downstairs to the study and watched him put it in the safe. I hid when he came out, then when he'd gone back upstairs I went in to get it. I learnt the combination of the safe years ago - I sometimes fetched papers and things from it for the Earl when I stayed here as a schoolgirl. But I couldn't remember it exactly at first: it took me two or three minutes to get it. Then I took out the gun, loaded it, and made my way back upstairs.

'My plan then had been to go to Batchev's room and force him to go with me to the gun room. But just as I got to the top of the stairs I heard a footstep and saw the faint flash of a torch to my right. I thought it had to be Lord Burford again, but then there was a very vivid flash of lightning and I saw quite clearly that it was Batchev. He was walking away from me towards the east wing. I followed him. I watched him go into the collection room. I could hardly believe my good luck - he was playing right into my hands.

'I didn't see him replace Lord Burford's pistol, because I took a few seconds to pluck up courage to follow him in. I've believed ever since that he'd gone there to take a gun. Eventually I went in, closed the doors behind me, and switched on the light. I must have given him a terrific shock, but he didn't show it too much. I kept Mr. Peabody's pistol behind my back and asked him casually what he was doing. He must have thought I'd seen him replacing Lord Burford's pistol, because he pointed to it and said something about finding it in the corridor and deciding to put it back. I walked across as if I was just going to look at it more closely. Then when I got near him I brought Mr. Peabody's gun from behind my back and told him to put his hands up. I believe he thought then that I suspected him of being a thief, was just concerned for the safety of the collection, and that given time he could talk me round. So he decided to humour me for a bit, and when I told him to walk down to the far end of the room, he did so. When we got near the cannon I said I wanted to have a look round to make sure nothing was missing, and I told him to lie down on the floor against the wall in the corner, where I could keep an eye on him. He seemed quite relieved at this, because obviously he knew nothing was missing and no doubt he thought that when I realised this I'd apologise, and go back to bed. So it would clearly pay him to cooperate with me.

'Then, when he was lying in the corner, I just suddenly sprang it on him that I was Jenny Howard's sister, and I was going to execute him for causing her death. I've never seen anyone so shaken as he was then. It must have come like a bolt from the blue. Any doubts I might have had about him being Baldwin were removed. In fact, he didn't try to deny it, and when he'd recovered a bit from the first shock, he just tried to convince me I didn't know the full truth about Jenny and that he wasn't to blame. I must say he kept his head quite well.

'I told him nothing he could say would make any difference, and that I was going to give him roughly two minutes and then kill him. I counted off what I guessed were quarter minutes. Towards the end he did get really scared, but there was nothing he could do: I was very careful to stand too far away to give him any chance of grabbing me, yet near enough so that my shot couldn't miss; in that position he couldn't duck or dodge, and if he'd rolled, he could only have rolled towards me.

'When I estimated two minutes were up, I said "That's it," and I shot him dead.'

Jane looked around at the spellbound circle of faces. She said: 'Could I have some water, do you think?'

Gerry jumped to her feet and fetched a glass. Everyone was silent while Jane drank. She put it down and went on. 'I knew the shot wouldn't be heard: the gun room is so isolated from any of the occupied rooms. In the past I've been in my bedroom when Lord Burford was using the range, and I haven't heard a thing. I was quite calm. First of all I went across, plugged in the lead running to the cannon's air compressor and switched it on. Then I lowered the barrel right down till it was nearly touching the floor. I went back and dragged Batchev across to it. I was amazed to find that the body was already rigid, as I'd always thought it was hours before rigor mortis set in; but I've looked it up since and found that in cases of violent death it sometimes starts immediately. Actually, it was very lucky for me it did set in so quickly, because I've since remembered Lord Burford telling Gerry and me years ago that it was necessary for a human cannonball to keep completely stiff or he might only fly a few feet. Also, I think the rigidity of the body made it easier to get it into the barrel, even though I still had a bit of a struggle. Luckily, he was quite slightly-built, so I managed it eventually. Oh, before that I held the pistol by the barrel and tried to press Batchev's fingers against it. But their being so stiff made it very difficult and I must have smudged the prints.

'All I had to do after I'd got the body in was to turn the handle until the barrel was about level as it had been before. Then I went quietly out, turning off the light and locking the door.

'My plan then had been to hide the pistol in one of the lumber-rooms on the top floor, then come down and wake you, Richard, and tell you that I'd seen Adler - as we were then calling him - creep downstairs, take a step ladder into the breakfast room, and shut the door. You would have come down with me to investigate. But that plan was spoilt straight away. I'd no sooner closed the door to the picture gallery behind me than I heard footsteps coming along the corridor. It was you, of course, Mr. Peabody, but I didn't know that then. I darted across to my own room and waited just inside. I heard the gallery door open, and I guessed somebody was going to the gun room. I was terrified in case they found the body. But it was all right, for a minute or so later I heard the gallery door open and close again and the footsteps go away. I went back out to the corridor. I looked in the gallery, but I decided not to go across to the gun room again. If anybody had found Batchev's body, I couldn't do anything about it -and they might raise the alarm and come back and find me there. Besides, I was pretty sure whoever it was was up to no good, and so wouldn't have turned the light on; again, to find the body they would have needed to go right down to the far end and look into the barrel, and I just didn't think they'd had enough time to do that. So I carried on with my original plan. The gun was burning a hole in my pocket and I knew the bulge would be pretty conspicuous if anybody did see me. So I couldn't turn a light on.

'I made my way towards the front of the house. I heard two-thirty strike - and you all know what happened then. Luckily, when I got up after Thornton had knocked me over, the gun was still in my pocket. But I panicked a bit. There were so many people about that any moment somebody was going to switch on the lights. I had to get rid of the gun before that happened. I was near the linen room and I thought of the secret passage. I dashed in, opened the panel, dropped the gun inside, and took off my gloves. Naturally, I had no idea that Anilese's body was already there. I went back out, turned on the lights, and found Mr. Deveraux.'

She looked at him. 'I decided on the spur of the moment to use you instead of Richard for the next part of my plan. But I didn't say anything about seeing Batchev behave suspiciously in the breakfast room: for one thing you'd just seen me coming from the direction of my own room; and for another you might have been downstairs yourself and know I was lying. Except for that, however, I followed my plan. After we released Gerry, I was going to suggest we searched downstairs, but luckily you suggested it yourself. Everything worked like a dream. When we got near the breakfast room I pretended to hear a noise inside. I rushed forward and opened the door. The thread was released and the stepladder crashed through the window, setting off the alarm. I froze for a second, so that you couldn't rush straight in and see the room was empty. Then I dashed in myself and yelled that somebody was just disappearing outside. You went after him. While Gerry was looking out after you, I stood the ladder up and managed to unhook the thread, bundle it up and put it in my pocket.

'Shortly after you sent me upstairs, I put my gloves on, slipped into the gun room, opened the window, raised the barrel, and fired the cannon. I was on tenterhooks in case it wouldn't work. But it did. Batchev's body went flying into the darkness. I heard the splash of it landing in the lake. I closed the window, unplugged the compressor, and went out, locking the door. It didn't take more than two minutes altogether. Then I went and checked on Evans, Thornton, and Algy, as you'd asked me to, dropped my gloves off in my room, and came back downstairs. Later on, when everybody was down here after Inspector Wilkins arrived, I pretended to want something from my room, went up and replaced the gun room key on Lord Burford's dressing table.

'The only other thing to be done was take the pistol from behind the panel and hide it in the park somewhere the next day. I hadn't meant to go and get it just when I did, but when we were talking on the terrace' - she was addressing Deveraux continually now - 'you showed altogether too much interest in the passage, and I thought I ought to remove the gun quickly before you decided to go and search it. Incidentally, I hadn't smelt anything in there: but I had to have some reason for being in the room when you found me, and I'd already said I hadn't seen or heard anything.

'Then we found the Baroness's body. I think that was the most horrifying moment of my life - and utterly baffling, too. I've been as mystified as everybody about who killed her. I didn't think it could be Batchev, because I knew the murder gun was taken after he was dead; what I didn't know was that it had been taken twice.'

Jane looked hard at Deveraux. 'Was there anything else you wanted to know?'

'Just one thing.' Deveraux took the egg cosy from his pocket. 'It's not vital, but can you throw any light on this?'