‘This is mere unsubstantiated statement.’ Tavender was speaking again. ‘Is there any evidence whatever that Pluckrose stole the meteorite? For steal is apparently the right word.’
‘He stole it all right.’ Marlow, from near the foot of the table, spoke nervously and abruptly. ‘Mr Collins, the Duke’s librarian, and I saw between us what leaves no doubt about that.’
‘Very well, he stole it. Pluckrose, after all, was a very eccentric man.’ And Tavender tapped the table in front of him. ‘But murder and an odd act of kleptomania are very different things. Nobody is going to be troubled about Pluckrose making off with a chunk of rock. Accusing Prisk of killing Pluckrose, however, is a much more grave affair. We should hear the evidence at once.’
Appleby nodded. ‘That is very true. And I don’t say that there is very conclusive evidence yet. But there is enough, in my opinion, to justify the present method of attempting to sift the situation further. Let me tell you something which happened on Wednesday afternoon. I met Prisk coming away from Mrs Tavender’s and had some conversation with him about the case. I pointed out that we did not as yet at all clearly know against
whom
the attempt with the meteorite had been made. But the peculiar matter of the shared telephone made it not altogether unlikely that it was he himself who had been the intended victim. I pointed out to him – took care to point out – two consequences of this possibility. The first he might regard as comforting – and it was this: if the attempt had really been against him, then he hadn’t made it; he would be cleared of attempting to murder Pluckrose. The second was more disturbing; if the murderer had tried to kill Prisk and had failed, then he might very well try again. I left these two ideas with Prisk – and you will see pretty clearly that they constituted a sort of trap. He might be tempted, that is to say, into
staging
an attempt on his own life by way of confusing the trail. And that very night the thing happened; we came upon Prisk, more or less uninjured, in the middle of a very pretty car smash. A bold man could certainly have contrived the thing himself. But I imagine that the nervous strain involved would be considerably greater than that produced by a genuine accident; and this will account for Prisk’s present collapse.’
There was a murmur round the long table and again Tavender broke impatiently in. ‘All this is extremely oblique and questionable. And we have heard nothing that goes to the heart of the matter. Why should Prisk want to kill Pluckrose – not, presumably, because he was irritated about a telephone?’
‘Almost certainly not.’ Appleby paused. ‘Perhaps Sir David Evans might be able to suggest a motive?’
Sir David, who appeared to be much more concerned with watching Tavender than Appleby, looked abruptly up the table and raised a threatening hand in air. It seemed likely that this whole suggestion was to be denounced as tisgraceful and tispleasing. But instead Sir David lowered his hand and shook his handsome head. ‘No,’ he said quietly; ‘I haf no suggestion, Mr Appleby.’
‘No private circumstances in the relations between Pluckrose and Prisk about which yourself might be in a position to be specially well informed?’
There was silence in the boardroom as the wraith or spectre of Fräulein Schmauch was thus paraded down the table. Sir David put an uneasy finger between his neck and starched collar – and was then apparently enabled to shake his head again in a measured way. ‘No,’ he said shortly.
‘Quite so. We can expect no other reply.’ Appleby paused and made some show of consulting his notes. ‘We don’t need to find any reason why Prisk should want to murder Pluckrose. For it was not in fact Pluckrose whom he intended to murder. It was Mr Lasscock.’
Tavender, who had walked down a corridor chuckling and with a beard in each hand, was certainly looking both serious and perturbed now. Indeed, most of those present were. Only Lasscock himself, perhaps, remained wholly placid; and his was the first voice to be articulately heard. ‘Stonishing thing,’ he said. ‘This Lunnon feller smart chap. Gets to the bottom of it. Sense of security. No faith in that local man. Remarkable about Prisk; often thought I saw somethin’ nasty in his eye. Hijjus close shave, come to think of it. Fell out well in the end, though. Rid of Pluckrose. Prisk too now, by the look of it.’
Appleby rapped on the table, like a chairman calling a meeting to order. ‘Let me point at once to a very important factor in a case of this sort: any
known significant habit
on the part of one of the persons concerned. Mr Lasscock may be described as eminently a person of regular habits. For instance, he contracts a chill quite regularly half-way through the academic term.’
There was a guffaw from Timothy Church and a laugh – oddly high and nervous – from Martin Marlow. But Lasscock himself nodded his head solemnly. ‘Parfectly true,’ he said. ‘Never struck me before. Always happens about that time. Find the best cure is regular tots of rum. Most sovereign stuff.’
‘And in fine weather he makes what is apparently an almost daily visit to the Wool Court. He goes there with a cushion round about ten, settles it and a deck-chair on a particular spot, thinks out various historical problems till just after the stroke of eleven, and then goes about his work. Well, Sir David and gentlemen, where is that particular spot? I can tell you myself, because I have seen Mr Lasscock pick up a chair and carry it there. It is the identical spot on which Pluckrose’s chair rested when Pluckrose was killed. And it always would be that spot. Only if somebody else chanced to be occupying that spot already would Mr Lasscock be obliged to pitch his chair a little to one side or another. You will see where this leads. A murderer up in the tower could reckon on Mr Lasscock’s being exactly below. And if another man happened, by chance and for once in a way, to occupy that spot on a certain fatal day – well, it was Mr Lasscock’s good fortune and that other man’s bad luck.’
‘And the motive?’ Tavender asked the question without taking his eyes off Sir David Evans. ‘We found no motive for Prisk’s attempting to kill Pluckrose. Why should he attempt to kill Lasscock? Did he disapprove of his half-term chills?’
‘Prisk tried to kill Lasscock because Lasscock knew too much about his private life. I had this information from Miss Godkin, the Warden of St Cecilia’s, only this morning. Prisk is a person of scandalous habits, as the Duke of Nesfield could testify and as many people are more or less aware. But Mr Lasscock, if Miss Godkin is to be believed, has happened upon the most incontrovertible evidence on the point – and may have been disposed, for moral or other reasons, to make the matter public. And that would be the end of Prisk as the holder of a university chair. The motive of the attempted crime, in fact, is abundantly clear.’
‘All this is most disturbing.’ From a shadowy corner far down the table Professor Crunkhorn’s voice came, level and severe. ‘Whatever positive force there may be in Mr Appleby’s contention, it seems difficult at present to bring forward any negative considerations. But there is one matter which has been in the forefront of my own mind – and I think Mr Appleby himself served to put it there. It is the matter of the meteorite. Pluckrose stole it; which is strange enough. But why should Prisk design to use it to kill Lasscock?’
‘The answer is that he didn’t. Prisk, having realized that the spot on which Lasscock was accustomed to sit gave him the sort of opportunity he wanted, went up to the store-room on Monday morning with no definite missile in mind. If there was something suitable he would use it. If not, he would simply reconnoitre, and accomplish his design another day. The meteorite was not in his mind in advance, and probably he knew nothing about it. Actually there were all sorts of suitable objects lying about. For instance, there was a heavy cast-iron sink and I think at first he proposed to use that; the sink has plainly been scraped along the floor. Then, spotting the meteorite, he chose that – probably as being heavier and bigger. We have most of us wasted a good deal of ingenuity in canvassing the possible symbolisms and significances of the meteorite. It must have had some significance for Pluckrose – he wouldn’t have stolen it otherwise – but afterwards it simply becomes a heavy object lying about. It has no other associations whatever. And Prisk’s proceedings were really extremely simple and straightforward. He didn’t trouble about any sort of alibi. But he did, by the way, take one step to lessen the risk of being seen at an awkward moment. In the engineering department there is one door opening on the Wool Court, and from here it would be possible to see the store-room window in the tower– the window from which Prisk had to operate. How could he avoid the chance of being seen? The answer, as it happened, was quite simple. He had only to slip into the court a little earlier and turn the fountain full on. The result was a considerable mess, but it certainly precluded any awkward observations being made by a stray engineer.’
‘It’s not true!’
In what was now full dusk in the boardroom Marlow’s voice rang out as if involuntarily. And in the same instant lights snapped on above the table. Appleby, standing by the switch, turned slowly round. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s not true. But we’ll have the truth now–Mr Marlow.’
Marlow had risen to his feet. But now, with the eyes of the whole room upon him, he sat down again, trembling violently. ‘Pinnegar and I planned–’
Appleby raised his hand. ‘I’m sorry to have to talk so much,’ he said. ‘And I’m sorry to have put up a story just to startle Mr Marlow into an avowal. But I’m afraid I have to do a little more talking still.’
‘Inspector Hobhouse and I went carefully into everybody’s movements, as you may will imagine.’ Appleby was back at the table, consulting his notes. ‘We tabulated them and considered them as the basis of possible alibis. And here is what we have for Mr Marlow: “
In dark-room from ten fifteen till news of accident arrived. Confirmed by Atkinson
.” No other alibi is as good except Mr Murn’s. And even Mr Murn’s turns out on scrutiny to be inferior – for although he too was in the dark-room he made, as he was accustomed to do, a good many trips through the photographic room to the cold-storage room and back. Marlow, then, had the clearest alibi of all. He also had a false beard exactly like Mr Murn’s.’
If there had been sensation before there was something like furore now. Even Hissey, who hitherto had sat through the meeting in a sort of wild impatience doubtless occasioned by the thought of his card indexes, looked extremely concerned. Crunkhorn was engaged in some sort of altercation with Church; Tavender was speaking in low, urgent tones to Sir David Evans; Lasscock had risen, walked round the table, and sat down beside Marlow, who sat trembling still, and with his head in his hands. Murn, on the other side, stroked his beard and looked extremely uncomfortable, as if he would gladly have exchanged this particular human spectacle for a well-equipped bench of retorts and test-tubes.
‘And Marlow, as Professor Hissey has told us, is quite an accomplished actor.’ Appleby continued to talk in matter-of-fact tones. ‘When I have mentioned these two facts I have taken you to the heart of the matter. Or as near to it as I need at present do. For it is not my intention at the moment to discuss Marlow’s motive for attempting to murder Prisk–’
Marlow raised his head. ‘Prisk!’ he said.
‘–for attempting to murder Prisk. That motive has nothing to do with anything at the university; it concerns an incident of a very distressing kind which belongs to an altogether different place; and I shall leave it to your Chancellor to convey it to you at a proper time.’ Appleby paused and glanced round an auditory which was now very impressed indeed. ‘It is sufficient to say that Prisk was the intended victim; that the plan miscarried for reasons which I can, I believe, analyse; and that Marlow then made another attempt of which you have heard something: the attempt on Prisk’s car.
‘Let me remind you of the character of the dark-room; it is a dimly lit place in which several people can work simultaneously without being more than intermittently aware of one another’s presence. But all goings and comings are observed – mechanically and inattentively perhaps – by the assistant Atkinson, who works in the photographic room which affords the only means of egress. Very well; Marlow goes into the dark-room at ten-fifteen. Then at the appropriate moment he slips into the maze, dons the beard, adopts Mr Murn’s gait, and slips out to a telephone. He calls Prisk and Prisk answers – at the instrument he shares with Pluckrose. But Marlow is agitated and there is some betrayal in his voice. Now, Prisk is wary about this telephone; he is apprehensive, too, of the practical jokes which have been taking place. And so he does an odd and malicious thing. Pluckrose is passing; he says, “One moment,” and hands the receiver to his colleague with a word that the call is for him. Marlow, unaware of this, simply makes an appointment on some pretext in the Wool Court – where Mr Lasscock is already slumbering and a chair is already set – and rings off. Then he hurries out and turns on the fountain, for the identical reason I have already given. Next he goes up to the store-room. He seizes first the iron sink – probably already selected as his weapon – and then changes his mind and gets up the meteorite. He looks down and clearly distinguishes Mr Lasscock,
Times
and all. The other figure, then, is his man. He releases the meteorite, hurries down and back through the photographic room, removes the beard in the maze, and is back at work in the dark-room within perhaps eight minutes all told. And all that Atkinson is aware of is one of Mr Murn’s customary goings and comings, which he will scarcely mark as being longer than usual. And that is the whole story of a tolerably ingeniously planned crime.’
There was silence in the boardroom. And then Tavender spoke, very quietly. ‘It isn’t the whole story. And it isn’t the right story, either.’
‘It has been far from my intention to assist in any hounding of Pluckrose’s murderer.’ Tavender looked coolly round the table. ‘The thing is so incredible that no jury would believe the truth; at the same time the scandal which a trial would occasion would do the university the gravest injury. No good end would be served, therefore, by an attempt to secure a conviction. In other words it is a bad business all round and the only comfort I can discern lies in the undoubted fact that Pluckrose was an unpleasant fellow.