Watson's Choice (26 page)

‘But I can’t tell you any more, Robert darling,’ said Mrs Dance. ‘I expect I was just simply lying down in my room, as I said before.’

‘With whom?’ asked Gavin, masking, to some extent, this crudity with a confident, boyish grin. ‘Come clean. It doesn’t matter to us. All I want is for you to clear out and leave me with the people I
really
suspect. Be good, now, Brenda. Who was it?’

Mrs Dance looked demure.

‘If you
must
know,’ she said, ‘it was with Toby.’

‘Toby? But I thought –’

‘You thought quite right, darling. But it was just one of those things that
do
happen in an ill-regulated world.’

‘But why didn’t you tell Collins right at the beginning?’ demanded Gavin, affecting to believe her.

‘Two reasons. First, he hasn’t your priceless nerve in asking really rude questions, and, secondly, I can trust
you
not to make use of the information in the wrong way. You see, we still want that divorce.’

‘Then you’re a fathead,’ said Gavin. ‘Toby is worth ten of anybody else you’d get.’

‘But he’s not worth ten times as much money.’

Gavin laughed. Then he composed his face again and said severely:

‘Stop lying, Brenda! Who
was
with you? We know it wasn’t Toby. He was at Mr de Philippe’s flat that afternoon. They had a row. de Philippe confirms this.’

‘I know. I just like to annoy you. Honestly, Robert, dear, I would like to provide myself with an alibi, but I can’t. I really was alone and I don’t see who else can possibly tell you so.’

‘Hm!’ said Gavin. At this moment there came a violent crash against the door. Gavin stepped across to open it. Sir Bohun stood there. He appeared to be both angry and agitated.

‘Just had to get the doctor to Grimston,’ he explained. ‘Bell went up to talk to him for a bit, and found that the silly fellow had tried to poison himself. Bottle of laudanum and a half-glass of port on the table. Port doped with the stuff! Doctor has pulled him
round,
though, so you needn’t take official notice, I hope?’

‘Laudanum?’ said Gavin. ‘He tried it on the night of your Sherlock Holmes party. Miss Menzies spotted the bottle on a bathroom shelf while the competition was on. She did not realize its significance immediately. She thought it was one of the Holmes series of objects – to wit, the laudanum in the
Silver Blaze
case. It was only when she discovered the curry that she decided the laudanum was nothing to do with the competition.’

‘Um!’ commented Sir Bohun. He tapped the table with the nail of his right-hand index-finger. ‘In a bathroom? Could have been put there for medicinal purposes, couldn’t it? How did you connect it with Grimston?’

‘For one reason at the time; for another shortly afterwards; and for a third, of course, now. I suppose you have established that he administered the laudanum to himself? It wasn’t an accident or somebody else’s attempt to do away with him?’

‘He says he did it himself, and there’s no reason to disbelieve the silly fellow. He’s always been unbalanced, and, of course, Linda’s death hasn’t done him any good. I gather that you don’t suspect him of having committed the murder. I can’t understand it. I simply can’t. I should have thought the whole thing hung together. He was in love with the girl, and he did for her in a fit of jealousy when he heard she was engaged to me. He’s quite capable of any crazy action. Look at that rubbish he told about his dream!’

‘Quite,’ Gavin agreed. ‘Superintendent Collins had him for questioning, as you know. He thought him unbalanced, as you say, but he also formed the opinion that he didn’t kill the girl. Grimston was much too anxious to convince us that he did. He certainly has offered no alibi for the time of the murder. In fact, he confessed, but he got one or two details wrong.’

‘Sheer cunning, my dear Gavin. Grimston’s got plenty of brains – of a kind!’ said Sir Bohun, hastily and eagerly.

‘The police,’ Gavin replied, ‘have plenty of experience in sifting the stories of would-be newspaper head-liners. No, the fact – the obvious fact now – is that Grimston is a suicide type. He couldn’t find the nerve to do the job the way he’d planned it, so he thought that, by confessing to the murder, he’d get the public hangman to muck in.’

‘The way he’d planned it?’

‘Brings us back to the night of your party. He put the laudanum
in
a bathroom which was originally one of the rooms left within bounds for the purposes of the competition, and then put a notice on the door to keep people out. As it chanced, Miss Menzies and I both noticed what had happened, and she took the notice down and opened the door because she thought that one of the guests was playing unfairly, and had discovered a Holmes object in that bathroom which he did not intend that anyone else should see.’

‘Who did a dirty thing like that?’ Sir Bohun spoke excitedly.

‘Nobody. That’s what I’m explaining. That was only what Laura thought. It supplies her reason for removing the notice and opening the bathroom door. As she did so, she nearly cannoned into Grimston, who seemed unduly affected by the encounter and at seeing that the bottle of laudanum was in full view of anyone who happened to be passing.’

‘But, from what Linda told me during our brief engagement, the fellow waited until near the end of the evening, and then proposed to her,’ protested Sir Bohun. ‘That doesn’t sound as though he’d planned to commit suicide at the party.’

‘Mrs Bradley told us about the bit of argument she overheard on her way to her room, and Grimston agreed, when the Superintendent had him under observation, that he had decided to take another pop at pressing his claim because he regarded Laura’s discovery of the laudanum as a direct intervention of Providence and a sign that there was some hope for him after all. Unfortunately for both himself and Linda, it didn’t work out like that.’

‘For both of them?’

‘Certainly. If Linda Campbell had accepted Grimston, it is possible, don’t you think, that she would have been alive to-day?’

‘Why, then, you
do
mean the mad fellow killed her!’

Gavin shook his head hopelessly and said:

‘I’ll see him when he’s quite recovered. Meanwhile, I’d better interview Mr Bell, although I don’t suppose it will help. Is the doctor still with Mr Grimston?’

‘No. He says the fellow will be all right now. Just thought I’d better let you know. Hope no action necessary on your part?’

‘Where is Grimston? Up in his room still?’

‘Yes. Second landing, third door along.’

‘Right. I’ll go along a bit later. Would you mind sending me Mr Bell?’

Bell, his red hair standing up stiffly, had nothing to add.

‘He’d taken it, apparently, just before I got there,’ he said. ‘I saw the laudanum bottle, of course, and, knowing he’s a queer sort of stick, I challenged him and he admitted what he’d done, so I bunked off to the phone and called the doctor. Luckily he could come at once, so not much harm has been done. Will you need to take official action?’

‘I don’t know. It seems he’d done it before – put laudanum in his glass of port. Mr Dance seemed to know about that.’

‘Horrible taste, I should think! Of course, there isn’t a gas oven in this house!’

‘By the way,’ said Gavin, ‘to change the subject for a minute, can you tell me where you were and what you were doing between three o’clock and five on the eleventh of January?’

‘The eleventh of –? Oh, I see! I should suppose I was in the library. I’m re-cataloguing it when I get any spare time. No, wait a minute, though! I wasn’t in the house at all that day, come to think of it. I had leave of absence from Sir Bohun and went to see some friends at Easthill, and then went on to London.’

‘Your friends’ telephone number? I am most anxious to get this business cleared up, and I’m nowhere near it at present.’

‘Easthill X7. Shall I get through for you? It’s a trunk call.’

‘No, no, I’ll get it myself, thanks.’ He smiled. ‘Can’t be too careful, you know!’

‘Of course not. Is there anything else I can do?’

‘Yes. Tell me, how do these parcels of Sherlock Holmes stuff come to the house?’

‘By post.’

‘Invariably?’

‘Oh, yes. I have instructions to take each parcel straight to Sir Bohun. The butler doesn’t touch them. Sir Bohun’s tickled pink by the presents. Plays about with them all day.’

‘Childishly so, it appears.’

‘Well,’ said Bell, smiling, ‘it is hardly for me to agree. I’m a bit of a Holmes maniac myself.’ He went out, and, after staring thoughtfully at the closed door for a moment, Gavin went out after him to the telephone in the hall. He rang the number and waited to be connected. When connexion was established, a woman’s voice answered.

‘Who’s that speaking?’ she enquired.

‘A police officer, madam. Mr Bell, who has given us your number,
visited
you on the afternoon of the eleventh of January last, I am informed.’

‘Oh, dear! I
knew
there would be trouble with that motor-cycle!’ the woman exclaimed. ‘Was anybody hurt?’

‘Yes. A young woman was killed, madam.’

‘Oh, dear! How dreadful! Did he do it on his way home?’

‘Possibly. At what time did he arrive at your house?’

‘I don’t really remember. He wasn’t there to lunch, but he was with us for tea.’

‘Tea? At what time?’

‘We have it at four.’

‘This may be very important. You are certain that Mr Bell was with you at four o’clock?’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’

‘Forgive me for pressing the point, but can you give me any contributory evidence? Was Mr Bell with you more than the one afternoon and evening?’

‘No, just the one.’

‘Did he stay the night?’

‘Oh, no. I suppose that accounts for the accident. It was a very nasty night. Very dark.’

Gavin allowed that to pass. He thought it better not to disabuse her mind of the notion that Bell had run over somebody. Any mention of the murder might give her a shock and dry up what looked like being a promising alibi for Bell.

‘Let me get it quite clear, if you please. You are certain of the date?’

‘Oh, yes. He had tea and supper with us, and then went off on his motor-cycle. I assure you we gave him nothing but tea and coffee to drink all the time he was with us, so it could not be his fault if he ran into somebody in the dark.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said Gavin. ‘But I do want to know about the date. Are you
sure
it was January eleventh?’

‘That was – yes, I’ll just – excuse me – I’ll just pop in and have another look at the calendar. Hold the line a minute, please.’ She returned in an instant. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said. ‘It was a Thursday. I remember we had the sound radio going, instead of TV, and heard
Archie’s the Boy
. Most amusing.’

‘That seems to clinch it,’ said Gavin. ‘You need not worry any more about Mr Bell. That lets him out nicely.’ (Damn! he thought,
as
he put the receiver down. In some ways Bell would have fitted a few facts nicely! Still, it lessens the number of possibles, and that’s a help in a way.)

He turned round to find Bell within distance.

‘I’m awfully sorry,’ said the secretary, smoothing down his hair with an apologetic sort of gesture, ‘but I’m afraid it won’t do for a let-out, Chief Inspector.’

‘Eh?’ said Gavin, staring.

‘No. You see, I wasn’t with them on the Thursday. She’s talking about the Wednesday. I was in London on the Thursday seeing my sister off on the boat train at Victoria. Sorry! I’d mixed up the dates.’

‘I can’t see why your friend declared that you were with her, then.’

‘That’s easy, I imagine. You simply called me Mr Bell, I expect. You should have said
Tony
Bell, then she would have told you, of course, that it was my brother Walter who was there on the eleventh.’

‘Oh, I see,’ said Gavin. ‘No, I never thought of that possibility. Your brother – was he with them on the Wednesday as well as on the Thursday?’

‘No. He and I don’t mix much. Fell out, a year or two back, and have never fallen in again, so to speak, so each counts himself out when he knows the other will be present.’

‘I see. Well, you’ve very neatly busted your own alibi!’

‘I had to,’ said Bell simply. ‘You see, I don’t possess a motorbike, whereas Walter does, and I know the police are thorough in these matters.’

Gavin, who had been working out how comparatively simple a matter it would be to get from the deserted railway station to Easthill in time for tea if the murder had been committed close on the stroke of three, grinned amiably in defeat, and said:

‘Nice to find somebody intelligent enough to forestall criticism, anyway.’

Grimston made rapid recovery – so rapid, indeed, that Gavin came to the conclusion that, far from attempting suicide, he had simply made a gesture in order to bring himself into the limelight. Gavin put this view before Mrs Bradley, who shrugged and said:

‘He isn’t the murderer, anyhow. If I were you, as I told you before, I should keep an open mind about Mr Bell.’

‘But, hang it, I produced a beautiful alibi for the man and he chucked it away! I wasn’t dreaming of doing anything further about it except to check times and distances on that motor-cycle which he was supposed to own. Still, I’m never too proud to take a tip, and if our chaps in London can discover that a red-haired man saw a girl off on the boat-train at Victoria that Thursday afternoon –’ He stopped and shook his head. ‘It’s daft,’ he said. ‘Why should he bust his own alibi if he’s guilty? It doesn’t make sense!’

‘What
does
make sense,’ said Laura, ‘is that red hair runs in families, so I’m jolly glad that you and I haven’t any, because I’d hate to have red-haired children!’

‘Water, water everywhere – nor any drop to drink.’

COLERIDGE
–
The Ancient Mariner

MRS BRADLEY, LEERING AFFECTIONATELY
at Laura and Gavin, who had just come back from the theatre, decided to put into practice a plan she had formed some time previously. She went to stay at Alice’s farm, a base from which operations (as Laura expressed it) could be conducted with the minimum of interference from any of the suspectedly interested persons.