Part 16 (1/2)

'But, Eustace, you're contradicting yourself. If, as you say, our five suspects all responded calmly, then logically that suggests we shouldn't trust any of them.'

'That's exactly what I do say. We should and we shouldn't.'

'Explain.'

'As far as Cora's murder is concerned, we should trust them. It was, I repeat, as though the question ”Did you murder Cora Rutherford?” a question, I grant you, we never did actually ask, but they all knew that it was implied in well-nigh every question we did ask it was as though such a question was just too foolish to be dignified with a serious answer, as the saying goes, like asking them if they'd poisoned Hitler in his bunker. But we shouldn't trust them further than that, for the very simple reason that, when they started talking freely about Alastair Farjeon, and none of them could resist talking about him, they all revealed something about themselves that made me realise just what slippery customers they potentially were. One of them, at any rate.'

'And what was it they revealed?'

The Chief-Inspector held himself back for a few seconds in order for his response to make the greatest possible impact on his listener.

'That, if none of them had a motive for murdering Cora Rutherford, all of them did have a motive for murdering Alastair Farjeon.'

'Alastair Farjeon?! But Farjeon wasn't murdered.'

'Oh, Evie,' said Trubshawe, unable to resist a smile of condescension, 'you disappoint me. Don't you ever read your own books?'

'No, of course I don't. Why should I? I know who did it!' she petulantly snapped back at him, slamming the statement shut with an audible exclamation mark.

'Just let me remind you, though,' she went on. 'Your young protege Tom Calvert ”the most promising newcomer to the Force I ever came across”, if I may quote your own a.s.sessment of his quality as a police officer issued a statement to the press that categorically excluded any suspicion of foul play in the Cookham fire. And, by the way, what have my books got to do with the price of potatoes?'

'Come now, Evie, you're being unfair. Prior to Cora's murder, young Tom had no reason to suppose that there might have been foul play. And, as far as your books are concerned, I'd just like to remind you that, if this were one of your whodunits, the so-called accidental death of a character like Farjeon would certainly be regarded as suspicious by the reader. By Alexis Baddeley, too, if not, of course, by dependable, doddery old Inspector Plodder, Plodder of the Yard.'

'Sorry, Eustace,' said Evadne, 'but this is not one of my books. It's a case of real b.l.o.o.d.y murder, the murder, you seem to forget, of a very dear friend of mine. A human heart has ceased to beat, and I can't help feeling it's tasteless of you to compare Cora's murder with the sort I write about in whodunits whose sole ambition is to entertain my readers.'

'If you would just listen to me, instead of flying off in a rage,' a fl.u.s.tered Trubshawe replied, 'you'd realise that what I'm saying might actually help us apprehend Cora's murderer.'

'Oh, very well,' said the novelist ungraciously, 'continue with your exposition.'

'What I deduced, then, is that all five suspects did indeed have a motive for murder, except that it was for the murder not of Cora but of Alastair Farjeon, a man few of them took the trouble to deny that they cordially detested. And, just before we left Elstree, I went off to the Gents and scribbled down a quick list so that you'd be able to see at one fell swoop what I was getting at.'

He pulled from his pocket a neatly folded sheet of lined writing-paper and handed it over to Evadne Mount.

This is what she read: POSSIBLE SUSPECTS IN THE MURDER OF.

ALASTAIR FARJEON.

AND THEIR POTENTIAL MOTIVES.

Rex Hanway. Farjeon's death meant that he was free at last to make a picture on his own, an ambition he himself admitted he had waited many years to satisfy.

Philippe Francaix. Farjeon plagiarised his script of If Ever They Find Me Dead.

Lettice Morley. Farjeon attempted to ravish her in his Cookham villa.

Gareth Knight. Farjeon threatened to peach on him about his having served a sentence in the Scrubs for making indecent overtures to a young policeman in a public lavatory.

Leolia Drake. She knew that only if Farjeon were out of the way would she have a chance of playing the leading role in If Ever They Find Me Dead. (Or could she have been merely Hanway's accomplice?) Evadne laid the sheet of paper down on the table between them and was about to speak, except that Trubshawe, who would have been less than human if he hadn't experienced a certain smug satisfaction in having managed to give her a taste of her own medicine, got in first by raising his hand to silence her.

'Before you answer,' he said, 'let me just add one crucial point. If, as I believe, Alastair Farjeon was murdered, then it finally gives us something which we have all been seeking in vain from the very beginning of this case.'

'What?'

'A motive for murdering Cora.'

They both spoke at the same time.

'Because Cora had found out who murdered Farjeon!'

'Because Cora had found out who murdered Farjeon!'

'Snap!'

'Snap!'

'Now,' said Trubshawe, taking triumphant note of what he imagined was the novelist's belated conversion to the cause, 'it's time for you to tell me what you think.'

He sat comfortably back in his chair, his gla.s.s of whisky in his hand, waiting for the inevitable accolade.

But Evadne's voice, when she spoke again, was not as encouraging as he had expected.

'We-ll ...'

'Yes?'

'What? What is it you're trying to say?'

'Nothing, nothing at all. That is, I ...'

'Out with it, Evie.'

'Well, Eustace, frankly I don't know.'

'What in Heaven's name is the problem?'

'The problem,' she said, 'is that my bottom itches.'

Trubshawe gaped at her in disbelief.

'Your bottom itches!' he cried out so loudly that not a few of those customers who were seated at nearby tables turned their heads to stare at them both.

'Yes,' she repeated in a half-whisper, 'my bottom itches. And I have to tell you, Eustace, my bottom has never let me down.'