The Affair of the Thirty-Nine Cufflinks (28 page)

'Sorry. Shocking memory, you know.'

'Oh well, we can always ask the servants. I'm sure any of the maids would remember finding several yards of string in one of the waste baskets.'

'Oh, I remember now. Actually, I burnt it.'

'You did what?'

'Set fire to it with my lighter. In my room. And scattered the ashes out of the window.'

'Let me get this straight, sir. Because you feared that if we found a length of string in your possession we would immediately realise it had been used to pull the armour over, early yesterday morning you burnt it, threw the ashes out of the window - and completely forgot having done so until this moment.'

Tommy grinned weakly.

Wilkins gave a sudden shout, which caused everyone in the room to give a start. 'Oh, come on, Mr Lambert! Let's stop this farce, shall we? You no more pulled that armour over than I did. For one thing, with your height, you'd never conceal yourself properly behind that sofa. Smithson, who's four or five inches shorter than you, could only just manage it. Again, the armour fell straight forward, away from the wall. If your story was true, it would have toppled sideways, no doubt hitting the sofa. And don't say you rearranged the pieces before you left the gallery, because you've already said all you did was gather up the string, the non-existent string, I should say.'

'Oh, steady on. Why would I confess to a mean trick like that, if I hadn't done it?'

'For a very good reason, Mr Lambert. The armour fell at almost exactly the same time that Miss Simmons woke to find an intruder in her room. You realised that claiming responsibility for the armour incident would give you a perfect alibi.'

'But why should I need an alibi?'

'You didn't, no more than anybody else in the house. Just to say you were asleep in bed would have been perfectly natural, and I couldn't reasonably have expected anything else. Unless, that is, you had reason to think that you could fall under particular suspicion, that perhaps Miss Simmons had caught a glimpse of the intruder and might mention that he looked like you. After all, your appearance, even in silhouette, is highly distinctive: you're very tall and thin and no one else here looks remotely like you. The previous night, Miss Simmons had said she'd not seen the intruder. But suppose she was playing safe and was just waiting to tell me privately the next morning that she had seen you? So you needed a stronger story, apparent proof that you were nowhere near her room at that time. Miss Mackenzie's experience with the armour was a godsend to you and you quickly saw how you could use it to your advantage. Now, Mr Lambert, I'm going to give you one last chance: tell the truth. If you didn't kill Mrs Saunders and attack Lady Geraldine you have nothing to fear. But if you keep up this ridiculous story, then I shall have to assume the worst.'

Tommy licked his lips. Then he sighed and shrugged. 'OK, you're right. No, I didn't topple the armour. It was me in Stella's room.'

Only two people reacted, and in very different ways. Jean Mackenzie beamed. 'Oh, Tommy, I'm so glad.' He gave her a sheepish smile.

Stella, on the other hand, looked decidedly frosty. 'And perhaps you'd explain just what you were doing there, Tommy. And why in tarnation did you steal my toothpaste?'

'I didn't mean to steal it, Stella. I only meant to look at it. But I'd just got my hand on it when you woke up and I ran out still holding it.'

She stared at him in bemusement. 'You wanted to look at my toothpaste? Are you loco, or something?'

'Yes, I'm sure we'd all be interested to know just what fascination Miss Simmons' tube of Dentigleam held for you, Mr Lambert,' Wilkins said.

'I - I really only wanted to know whether she used toothpaste at all.'

'Oh, so my teeth looked dirty, did they? Well, have a good look. Do they look dirty now?' She bared them at him in a mirthless smile.

'No, no, they're fine,' he said hastily. 'Very white. But, well, they're not perfect. They're not a hundred per cent straight.'

'Oh, I'm so sorry if they offend you!'

'What I mean is they're obviously natural.'

'Well, of course they're natural!'

'But they shouldn't be, should they, Mr Lambert?' Wilkins said quietly.

Tommy shot him a surprised glance. 'No,' he said. 'You see, my cousin, Stella Simmons, had all her teeth extracted after rheumatic fever, when she was in her teens. She wore false ones always, after that. And if your teeth are natural, it means you're not Stella at all.'

Chapter Thirty-Seven

For a good five seconds, she said nothing and showed absolutely no emotion. Then at last she gave Tommy a very small smile. 'So, maybe you're not loco,' she said. 'Perhaps you'd better finish your story before I say anything.'

Wilkins realised she was giving herself a little time to think, but he didn't intervene.

'OK. Well, I was only a little kid when Stella had her teeth out, but when I heard about it I was fascinated. I'd never known anybody young who had false ones. They were something for grandparents. I longed to ask her to take them out and show me, but when I mentioned this to my mother she was horrified and told me I was on no account ever to mention them to Stella. I'd more or less forgotten about it, but then, after dinner, the first night, she laughed and I saw her teeth properly for the first time. And then it all came back to me. I was shaken. They looked so obviously natural, and all the false teeth I've seen have been absolutely perfect - too perfect. You can nearly always spot them. It occurred to me that perhaps in America now they're deliberately making them a bit crooked, just to make them look natural. But one thing I do know is that ordinary toothpaste is no good for false teeth; it doesn't get them white. People use special denture cleaner. I thought if Stella was using one of those, it would show that her teeth were false and everything was OK. But if she was using ordinary toothpaste - well, it wouldn't prove her teeth were natural, but it would be a pretty strong indication. And, well, that's it, really.'

'Didn't it occur to you just to ask me straight out?' she asked.

'Yes, but I funked it at first. Thought there might be some perfectly normal explanation, and that I'd make myself look the most awful idiot. But after I'd found you
were
using ordinary toothpaste, I made up my mind to tackle you. And I would have done if it hadn't been for the murder. I mean, someone had crept into a woman's room at night and suffocated her. How could I admit to anybody that same night I'd crept into another woman's room and then run out when she'd woken up? It would look as though I was a homicidal maniac, hunting for another victim. Besides, you'd have either denied you were an impostor, in which case I'd be pretty sure you were lying, or admitted it. Whatever, I'd be almost bound to tell Mr Wilkins, and it would obviously make you the number one suspect. And I didn't want that to happen because I was quite sure you weren't the murderer.'

She raised her eyebrows. 'I'm flattered. What made you so sure?'

'You were fast asleep when I went into your room. I could tell from your breathing and the way you suddenly woke up. I couldn't believe that anyone, except a hired assassin or a gangster, could murder someone and then go fast asleep. Even if they were absolutely without conscience, they'd surely lie awake for hours, thinking about it, wondering if they'd left a clue or something. Anyway, I decided just to keep mum for the time being and see how things panned out. Anyway, that's just about bally well all.' He turned to Wilkins. 'Sorry and all that, Chief Inspector. But I didn't really lead you astray, you know. I knew I was innocent and that Stella was, so I just stopped you being distracted by red herrings.'

'Very considerate of you, sir, I'm sure. Anyway, I think it's high time we heard from Miss - whatever her name is.'

* * *

'It's Julie Osborne,' said the girl they'd known as Stella. 'I'm an actress, and American born and bred. I come from a little town in the Midwest that nobody'll have ever heard of so I won't name. I always loved amateur dramatics and usually played leads in our little local society. About twelve years ago, I went to New York, to try and make it as a pro. After a couple of years living on bread and cheese, I started to get pretty regular work. Nothing big time, but I got by. Then about four years ago I was invited to a party by a guy who said there was someone he wanted me to meet. I hoped it was going to be some big-shot producer, but no such luck. It was Stella. This guy thought we were remarkably alike and wanted to see us side by side. Well, it was true. I mean, we weren't doubles, but we were the same height, same figures, same colouring and so on. Naturally, we got talking and found we had a lot in common. We were roughly the same age, we were both orphans, with no brothers or sisters and our only relatives various uncles, aunts and cousins, to whom we weren't particularly close. We'd both come to the Big Apple to try and make our fortunes, she as a journalist, me as an actress.

'We hit if off, and after a few months decided to share an apartment. We were different in many ways: different opinions, different tastes. But on the whole we got on OK, and it was convenient. The landlady was a bit short-sighted and often couldn't tell which of us was which. Stella used to talk a lot about her aristocratic relations in England. She was mighty proud of them, bit too proud sometimes, to be quite frank. But I got to know quite a lot about them over three or four years. The only one she kept in touch with, though, was her Great Aunt Florrie. She used to write her regularly, telling her all about life in New York, and she let on she hoped to inherit some money from her one day. I was interested in Florrie, seeing that, like me, she'd been on the stage and had come from a pretty poor background, and I got Stella to tell me all about her. Oh, I should also mention that we were listening to some lawyer talking on the radio one day about how important it was that everyone should make a will, even if they didn't have much to leave. So just for fun, really, we made wills in each other's favour.'

It seemed to Wilkins that this was a well-prepared and rehearsed statement, one she had been expecting to have to make at some time. She continued.

'Then last fall, two things happened at about the same time. Stella's magazine folded and she found herself out of a job, and I broke up with a guy I'd been dating for about six months. Also, for some time I hadn't been doing too well professionally. Parts had been getting very thin on the ground. We both had the blues pretty bad and to try and cheer ourselves up we decided to drive down to Atlantic City for a short vacation. About half way there, we took a little diversion, to have a look at the scenery. We were on this dirt road, and Stella was driving. It was her car - I didn't have one. We rounded a bend and suddenly there was this truck, coming towards us, much too fast in the centre of the road. Stella had to swerve violently. She lost control and we hit a tree. She was killed outright. How these things happen I don't know, but I just had a few cuts and bruises. I was in hysterics, of course. The truck didn't stop but luckily a guy on a motor bike was about fifty yards behind us, had seen the whole thing, knew we weren't to blame for the accident and that I hadn't been driving. He checked that I was all right, then rode on to call the cops and an ambulance at the first phone box.

'Well, I'm not proud of what I did next, but I'm not too ashamed, either. I was at a dead end, professionally and personally. I had nothing to keep me in America. I saw a chance for a fresh start in a new country - a country where I would have a number of influential and wealthy - quote - "relatives" and a new profession. I know a lot about fashion, quite as much as Stella did, and I could use her very good references. I can write - I've had a few pieces in a New York theatrical magazine - so I was pretty confident I could hold down a similar job in this country. So I simply switched purses with her. There was a lake nearby, and I put everything with my name on it in my case, weighed it down with a couple of rocks and threw it in the lake. When the police arrived I gave my name as Stella Simmons and told them I didn't know the dead woman's name, that she was a hitch-hiker I'd picked up, and when I'd got drowsy she'd offered to take the wheel and I'd let her. It was a bit unlikely, perhaps, but they had the biker's evidence that the truck driver was wholly to blame for the accident and that I hadn't even been driving, so they had no reason to doubt me or hold me.

'Anyway, when I eventually got home I kept out of the landlady's way - we often didn't see her for days on end. During the next couple of days, I scoured all the papers, to make sure the accident wasn't reported: 'Mystery Woman Killed. Journalist Escapes in Fatal Car Crash,' type of thing, but it had happened out of town, out of state, even, and there was nothing.

'I spent time practising Stella's handwriting and signature, and learning to imitate her voice - luckily, she'd once made a recording of it in one of those booths. When I thought I'd got the voice right, I made a recording of myself, and played the two records one after the other. It was OK. I spoke to the landlady, keeping my distance, identified myself as Stella, and told her that Julie had decided to move out and wouldn't be returning, and gave a week's notice for myself. Then I phoned every one of Stella's friends I could think of - I had her address book - identified myself as her and told them that as I had lost my job I was returning to England straight away. None of them questioned that I was Stella. Afterwards, I called a lot of my own friends, telling
them
that I was going west to try and make it in Hollywood.

'Stella had kept dozens of clippings from the papers about the two earlier murder cases you had here and there was a lot in them about Alderley and the Earl and Countess and Geraldine and I went over those again and again, more or less memorising them.

'I also spent a long time in front of the mirror, trying to make myself up to look as much like Stella as possible. My nose is a bit bigger than hers, and my mouth a bit wider, but on the whole it was a pretty good likeness. I was aware my teeth weren't perfect - that doesn't really matter if you're just a stage actress and not in movies. I couldn't really remember how Stella's teeth were. She didn't show them a lot. Strangely enough, even though we shared a bathroom for nearly four years, I never knew she wore dentures. I guess she must have been pretty self-conscious about it. Anyway, as soon I'd got the likeness as good as I could I went to Stella's bank, drew out all the money - three hundred and seventy odd bucks - and closed the account. That was the most nerve-racking part, but they didn't question it. Unfortunately, of course, I had to leave my own money in my checking account, but that was less than a hundred dollars and I had drawn out some cash to take on the vacation. I gave most of Stella's clothes to the Salvation Army, but sold a few quite nice pieces of jewellery she had. A few days later I sailed for England, using Stella's passport - I don't have one of my own.'