Vance digested this, then nodded. "Now, there's one more statement you ought to read, sir. Mind you, there's lots of others—we took statements from most of the servants and guests—but I'll leave 'em, and you can look at 'em later."
He passed over another ribbon-bound sheaf of papers. Julian read:
STATEMENT OF MR. EUGENE TALMADGE
My name is Eugene Talmadge. I'm sixteen years old.
I don't know what my address is. My parents are dead, and now my guardian's been murdered, so I don't see that I have a right to live anywhere. At present I'm staying at Sir Malcolm Falkland's house in Hampstead.
Mrs. Falkland is my half-sister. We had different fathers. Mine cheated at cards and cut his throat. I expect you know about that—everyone does.
Yes, I was at Alexander's house on the night of the twenty-second of April. I'd been away at school, but I had measles over the Christmas holidays and had to stay with Belinda and Alexander till I was well again. No, it didn't take me four months to recover. I could have gone back much earlier, but I didn't want to, because I hate school, and Alexander was too kind-hearted to send me back against my will. In the end he did say I would have to go, but that was only because Belinda made him. It wasn't his fault at all. I was supposed to leave on 16 April, but I caught a feverish cold from staying out all night in the rain the night before. Why was I out in the rain? To catch the cold, of course.
So I was still at Alexander's house the night he was killed. I didn't go to the party. I stayed in my room. I went to bed at about eleven. At about two o'clock, Belinda woke me and told me Alexander had been murdered. I could hardly believe it. No, I hadn't seen or heard anything unusual. I was asleep.
"He's very skittish about this dispute over his return to school," Julian mused. "And very keen to establish that it was Mrs. Falkland he blamed, rather than Alexander. I suppose that's a natural impulse in a suspect, innocent or guilty, though it doesn't say much for his gallantry. All in all, Eugene bears looking into. He inherited four thousand pounds from Alexander—or he will, if Alexander didn't leave a child—and he has a daring, desperate streak, to judge by his braving a rainy London night in an effort to catch a fever. And finally, it's clear he has no alibi. Alexander's family is faring badly in that regard. I hope Sir Malcolm at least is cleared of suspicion?"
"Yes, sir. His servants say he was at home all evening, and I can't see any reason to doubt their word."
"Thank Heaven for small mercies. Let's turn to Alexander's servants. Which of them can we scratch from this race?"
"The butler and the kitchen staff are out of it, sir. Between ten minutes to twelve and a quarter past, they were all below stairs seeing to the preparations for supper. The housemaids had gone to bed, and since they share a room, they can vouch for each other. Martha's got no alibi, as you'll recall, and nor does Mr. Falkland's man. Stuck-up little Frenchman, name of Valere. Says he was in his room catching a wink of sleep before he was called to wait on his master after the party. Nobody to say if that's true or not.
"The two footmen, Luke and Nelson, were on duty at the party. They'd worked out an arrangement beforehand that Luke would do the fetching and carrying from downstairs, and Nelson would keep to the first floor, so he'd always be at hand if a guest needed him. That gives Nelson a pretty good alibi: people were always calling on him for one thing or another, so if he'd ever been absent, he would have been missed. Luke's another matter. He says he left the party a few minutes after the clock struck twelve to replenish the wine supply. The butler confirms that he came downstairs for the wine, but nobody can say just how long it took him to get from the first floor to the basement and back. And now I think we've covered all the servants, sir."
"So, to sum up: Mrs. Falkland, Eugene, Mrs. Falkland's maid, and Falkland's valet have no alibi at all, and Luke the footman has gaps in his alibi, where he went downstairs and came up again. Clare and Adams were seen at the party during the crucial twenty-five minutes, but they can't prove they were there the whole time, and the same is true of most of the other guests, including my friend Felix." Julian shook his head. "That's a devil of a lot of suspects. I suppose it would be too much to hope for such a thing as a clue?"
"Watkins and I combed the study, sir, but all that's worth reporting is what we
didn't
find. There was no sign of a struggle, nothing had been ransacked, nothing was missing. And there were some choice moveables in the study: antiques and silver-topped inkstands and the like. So this wasn't a robbery —not unless the thing stolen was something nobody knew about, like a letter or a will."
"So we have a host of suspects, and nothing concrete linking any of them to the crime. Let's try to narrow the field. The murderer was probably familiar with Alexander's house and its routine, to get to and from the study at night in the middle of a party without being seen. And he or she must have known Alexander fairly well, to have had any motive at all. So the odds are, our murderer is either a member of the household or a frequent visitor. May I see the list of guests?" Vance handed it to him. Julian ran his eyes over it. "I should say about twenty were established members of Alexander's set, including Clare and Adams. I'll make a particular point of talking with them. But first I'll see if there's anything more to be got out of Alexander's servants. I'm meeting Sir Malcolm at Alexander's house tomorrow morning—I'll have a word with them then."
"Well, I wish you luck, sir. If there's anything I can do, just tip me the wink. The way I see it, sir, you'll nose about among the swells—if you'll pardon me putting it like that—and I'll follow any leads you throw in my way and do any digging a gentleman might gib at."
"The investigation may not work itself out into such a neat division of labour. But thank you all the same. I shan't hesitate to rely on you."
"That's the ticket, sir." Vance heaved himself out of his chair. "Well, thanks for the grog. I'd best be moving on, seeing as it's Sunday, and I ain't been home all day, and the missus—well, you know what women are. Or p'raps you don't, sir, being a bachelor." He grinned tolerantly. It was evident that he considered any unmarried man a mere fledgeling, even if he had solved a murder or two. "You'll have your hands full, won't you, sir? Even whittling down the number of suspects as you have, there's a power of people mixed up in this."
"Yes. And to complicate things further, there's always the possibility that the murderer was someone not known to be in the house."
"How do you make that out, sir? We had a good look round the house, and none of the doors or windows had been tampered with. So I don't rightly see how a sneak thief or any such ugly customer could have got into the house."
"I don't doubt your thoroughness. But consider the arrangement of the household at about midnight on the night of the murder. The kitchen staff were in the basement, the party was on the first floor, Mrs. Falkland and Eugene were in their bedrooms on the second floor, and Martha, Valere, and the maids were in their rooms in the attic. That left the ground floor deserted, apart from the occasional servant passing between floors. So if there was anyone there at midnight who oughtn't to have been, it's most unlikely he or she would have been seen."
"Except by Mr. Falkland himself, sir.
He
went down to the ground floor at about that time."
"And we can't fathom why he did that, when he said he was going upstairs to see Mrs. Falkland. What I'm suggesting is that he may have gone down to the ground floor precisely to let this unknown person in."
"Could be, sir," Vance said slowly. "This unknown man— we'll call him John Noakes, as the lawyers do—could have come in through either the street door or the back door from the garden. 'Course, if he'd rung at either door, the servants would've heard him."
"He may not have needed to ring. Falkland may have been expecting him and let him in at the appointed hour. Midnight is a fitting time for a secret meeting—or an assignation."
"Meaning, John Noakes might've been a Jane, sir," Vance said, winking.
Julian frowned. "If so, it seems implausible that Falkland would have arranged to meet her at his own house. And he was notoriously devoted to his wife—not at all given to dangling after opera girls or keeping
cheres amies
." He shrugged. "I may well be romancing. Certainly we can't let this possibility distract us from the suspects nearer to hand. But we ought to keep in mind that there may be an unknown element. Mrs. Falkland said her husband had no enemies. The truth may be that he had an enemy no one knew."
5: Full Orchestra
"Are you Luke or Nelson?" Julian asked the footman who let him into Alexander Falkland's house next morning.
The footman, who had been wearing his impassive servant's mask, blinked and became suddenly human. "I'm Luke, sir."
He was about twenty-one and a fine specimen of a footman: well over six feet tall, broad-shouldered, with legs that needed no padding to set them off. For all his imposing dimensions, he had a boyish look: his cheeks healthily ruddy, his blond hair fine and curly as a child's. Ordinarily he would have worn the turquoise-and-silver livery of Alexander's household, but now he was dressed in mourning, as all the dead man's servants must be.
"I was to meet Sir Malcolm here," said Julian.
"Yes, sir." Luke took his hat, gloves, and walking stick. "If you'll follow me, sir, Sir Malcolm is waiting for you in the study."
Evidently we're not to lose any time, Julian thought. He regarded Luke with veiled curiosity. The young man was clearly ill at ease, but whether this had anything to do with his incomplete alibi, there was no knowing.
He led Julian down the broad central hallway that ran between the front and back doors. It was designed like a Renaissance loggia, with blind arches cunningly moulded and painted to give an illusion of depth and space. Medallions between the arches contained reliefs of allegorical scenes. Julian noticed one of Time unveiling Truth. With any luck, he thought.
The study was in the back right-hand corner of the house. Luke opened the door and stood aside to let Julian in. Sir Malcolm hastened forward. "Good morning, Mr. Kestrel! I thought we'd begin here, then we'd interview the servants. Have them gather in the parlour and wait for us, will you, Luke?"
"Yes, sir." Luke bowed and went out.
Julian regarded Sir Malcolm wryly. The man was obviously starved for solutions—for any information that might make sense of this seemingly senseless crime. And he himself was expected to perform the miracle—to pull insights from the scene of the murder as a conjuror produces rabbits. Well, there was nothing for it but to have a go, as Dipper would say.
He began by walking around the room, taking stock. It was about fifteen feet square. The only door was the one from the hallway. On either side of the door were satinwood cabinets, waist-high, with wheels for moving them about. They seemed identical, but when Julian opened them he found that only one was a cabinet, while the other artfully concealed a set of stairs for reaching books down from high shelves.
The bookshelves were built into the wall to the left of the door. They were filled with books on architecture and interior decoration. One of the books lay open on a long table beside the bookshelves. It was quite technical, with section drawings and elevations that no mere dilettante would have understood. Beside it was a sheet of paper with jottings in Alexander's light, elegant hand. Sir Malcolm came and looked at them over Julian's shoulder. "He was planning some improvements to Belinda's country house," he explained. "We've left his notes here, just as he'd left them at the time he died."
The wall opposite the bookshelves had two windows, with a looking-glass between them to enhance the light. In front of the windows was a writing table of mahogany, inlaid with paler woods and mother-of-pearl. It looked small and compact, but when opened, it revealed a blotting-paper surface and an ingenious array of drawers, pigeon-holes, and compartments for pens, ink, candles, and sealing-wax.
"Everything was in order here, I gather," Julian mused. "There was no sign that a search had been made among his papers, and nothing was missing, so far as anyone knew." Directly opposite the door was the grey marble fireplace that Julian had seen in Alexander's portrait. Niches on either side held Greek red-figure vases, bronze statuettes, and fragments of classical columns. The register grate was the latest model, designed to maximize heat and minimize smoke. Propped against it in a row were the steel fire implements: shovel, tongs—and, of course, the poker, cleansed of its owner's blood and brains, and polished to a mirror-like gleam.
Julian picked it up. It was slim but surprisingly heavy. "A very efficient weapon," he observed, "no more like a bludgeon than a rapier is like a broadsword. Not much physical strength would be needed to wield it; aim would be all-important." He crossed to the windows. Both were tall and recessed, with shallow seats and chaste white-linen curtains. The shutters were folded out of sight into cases on either side of each window—all except the left-hand shutter of the left-hand window, which had been drawn out.
"He was lying just here," said Julian, "underneath the closed shutter, face down, with his head pushed up against the window seat. The poker lay beside him, so, and the candle was on the window seat above." He ran his eyes over the shutter. "The servants say all the shutters in this room had been left open. So who closed this one? Either Alexander or the murderer, but more likely Alexander. That would explain why he was standing here when he was killed."
He went to the window and carefully folded the shutter into its case, then drew it out again by its brass knob. "Curious. If he meant to close the shutters, why didn't he close them both at once?" He closed the other shutter, then opened it again. "They're a bit difficult to manage without jerking or banging. Perhaps he thought it best to close them one at a time. But why should he have wanted them closed? Was he afraid of being spied upon from the garden?"