The Inspector opened his mouth to speak, but she interrupted him with another tap on the shoulder. "Now listen," she began. "Suppose this Mr. Costello recognized Elgin as a man with a criminal record. Costello might have decided to come back and warn Mrs. Hailsham-Brown about the man, and Elgin assaulted him."
Looking immensely pleased with herself, she flashed a glance around the room, and continued. "Then, of course, Elgin would have to hide the body somewhere quickly, so that he could dispose of it later in the night. Now, where would he hide it, I wonder?" she asked rhetorically, warming to her thesis. With a gesture towards the French windows, she began, "Behind a curtain, or – "
She was cut short by Clarissa, who interrupted angrily. "Oh, really, Miss Peake," Clarissa exclaimed, "there isn't anybody hidden behind any of the curtains. And I'm sure Elgin would never murder anybody. It's quite ridiculous."
Miss Peake turned. "You're so trusting, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," she admonished her employer. "When you get to my age, you'll realize how very often people are simply not quite what they seem." She laughed heartily as she turned back to the Inspector.
When he opened his mouth to speak, she gave him yet another tap on the shoulder. "Now then," she continued, "where would a man like Elgin hide the body? There's that cupboard place between here and the library. You've looked there, I suppose?"
Sir Rowland intervened hastily. "Miss Peake, the Inspector has looked both here and in the library," he insisted.
The Inspector, however, after a meaningful look at Sir Rowland, turned to the gardener. "What exactly do you mean by 'that cupboard place,' Miss Peake?" he enquired.
The others in the room all looked more than somewhat tense as Miss Peake replied, "Oh, it's a wonderful place when you're playing hide-and-seek. You'd really never dream it was there. Let me show it to you."
She walked over to the panel, followed by the Inspector. Jeremy got to his feet at the same moment that Clarissa exclaimed forcefully, "No."
The Inspector and Miss Peake both turned to look at her. "There's nothing there now," Clarissa informed them. "I know because I went that way, through to the library, just now."
Her voice trailed off. Miss Peake, sounding disappointed, murmured, "Oh, well, in that case, then..." and turned away from the panel. The Inspector, however, called her back. "Just show me all the same, Miss Peake," he ordered. "I'd like to see."
Miss Peake went to the bookshelves. "It was a door originally," she explained. "It matched the one over there."
She actuated the lever, explaining as she did so, "You pull this catch back, and the door comes open. See?"
The panel opened, and the body of Oliver Costello slumped down and fell forward. Miss Peake screamed.
"So," the Inspector observed, looking grimly at Clarissa, "You were mistaken, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown. It appears that there was a murder here tonight."
Miss Peake's scream rose to a crescendo.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
TEN MINUTES later, things were somewhat quieter, for Miss Peake was no longer in the room. Nor, for that matter, were Hugo and Jeremy. The body of Oliver Costello, however, was still lying collapsed in the recess, the panel of which was open. Clarissa was stretched out on the sofa, with Sir Rowland sitting by her and holding a glass of brandy, which he was trying to make her sip. The Inspector was talking on the telephone, and the Constable continued to stand guard.
"Yes, yes..." the Inspector was saying. "What's that?... Hit and run?... Where?... Oh, I see... Yes, well, send them along as soon as you can... Yes, we'll want photographs... Yes, the whole bag of tricks."
He replaced the receiver and went over to the Constable. "Everything comes at once," he complained to his colleague. "Weeks go by and nothing happens, and now the Divisional Surgeon's out at a bad car accident – a smash on the London road. It'll all mean quite a bit of delay. However, we'll get on as well as we can until the ME arrives." He gestured towards the corpse. "We'd better not move him until they've taken the photographs," he suggested. "Not that it will tell us anything. He wasn't killed there, he was put there afterwards."
"How can you be sure, sir?" the Constable asked.
The Inspector looked down at the carpet. "You can see where his feet have dragged," he pointed out, crouching down behind the sofa. The Constable knelt to crouch beside him.
Sir Rowland peered over the back of the sofa, and then turned to Clarissa to ask, "How are you feeling now?"
"Better, thanks, Roly," she replied faintly.
The two police officers got to their feet. "It might be as well to close that bookcase door," the Inspector instructed his colleague. "We don't want any more hysterics."
"Right, sir," the Constable replied. He closed the panel so that the body could no longer be seen. As he did so, Sir Rowland rose from the sofa to address the Inspector. "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown has had a bad shock," he told the policeman. "I think she ought to go to her room and lie down."
Politely, but with a certain reserve, the Inspector replied, "Certainly, sir, but not for a moment or two just yet. I'd like to ask her a few questions first."
Sir Rowland tried to persist. "She's really not fit to be questioned at present," he told the Inspector.
"I'm all right, Roly," Clarissa interjected faintly. "Really, I am."
Sir Rowland addressed her, adopting a warning tone. "It's very brave of you, my dear," he said, "but I really think it would be wiser of you to go and rest for a while."
"Dear Uncle Roly," Clarissa responded with a smile. To the Inspector she said, "I sometimes call him Uncle Roly, though he's my guardian, not my uncle. But he's so sweet to me always."
"Yes, I can see that," was the Inspector's dry response.
"Do ask me anything you want to, Inspector," Clarissa continued graciously. "Though actually I don't think I can help you very much, I'm afraid, because I just don't know anything at all about any of this."
Sir Rowland sighed, shook his head slightly, and turned away.
"We shan't worry you for long, madam," the Inspector assured Clarissa. Going to the library door, he held it open and turned to address Sir Rowland. "Will you join the other gentlemen in the library, sir?" he suggested.
"I think I'd better remain here, in case – " Sir Rowland began, only to be interrupted by the Inspector, whose tone had now become firmer. "I'll call you if it should be necessary, sir. In the library, please."
After a short duel of eyes, Sir Rowland conceded defeat and left the room by the library door. The Inspector closed the door after him and indicated silently to the Constable that he should sit and take notes. Clarissa swung her feet off the sofa and sat up as the Constable got out his notebook and pencil.
"Now, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," the Inspector began, "if you're ready, let's make a start." He picked up the cigarette-box from the table by the sofa, turned it over, opened it, and looked at the cigarettes in it.
"Dear Uncle Roly, he always wants to spare me everything," Clarissa told the Inspector with an enchanting smile. Then, seeing him handling the cigarette-box, she became anxious. "This isn't going to be the third degree or anything, is it?" she asked, trying to make her question sound like a joke.
"Nothing of that kind, madam, I assure you," said the Inspector. "Just a few simple questions." He turned to the Constable. "Are you ready, Jones?" he asked, as he pulled out a chair from the bridge table, turned it around, and sat facing Clarissa.
"All ready, sir," Constable Jones replied.
"Good. Now, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," the Inspector began, "do you say that you had no idea there was a body concealed in that recess?"
The Constable began his note-taking as Clarissa answered, wide-eyed, "No, of course not. It's horrible." She shivered. "Quite horrible."
The Inspector looked at her inquiringly. "When we were searching this room," he asked, "why didn't you call our attention to that recess?"
Clarissa met his gaze with a look of wide-eyed innocence. "Do you know, " she said, "the thought never struck me. You see, we never use the recess, so it just didn't come into my head."
The Inspector pounced. "But you said," he reminded her, "that you had just been through there into the library."
"Oh, no," Clarissa exclaimed quickly. "You must have misunderstood me." She pointed to the library door. "What I meant was that we had gone through that door into the library."
"Yes, I certainly must have misunderstood you," the Inspector observed grimly. "Now, let me at least be clear about this. You say you have no idea when Mr. Costello came back to this house, or what he might have come for?"
"No, I simply can't imagine," Clarissa replied, her voice dripping with innocent candour.
"But the fact remains that he did come back," the Inspector persisted.
"Yes, of course. We know that now."
"Well, he must have had some reason," the Inspector pointed out.
"I suppose so," Clarissa agreed. "But I've no idea what it could have been."
The Inspector thought for a moment, and then tried another line of approach. "Do you think that perhaps he wanted to see your husband?" he suggested.
"Oh, no," Clarissa replied quickly, "I'm quite sure he didn't. Henry and he never liked each other."
"Oh!" the Inspector exclaimed. "They never liked each other. I didn't realise that. Had there been a quarrel between them?"
Again Clarissa spoke quickly to forestall a new and potentially dangerous line of enquiry. "Oh, no," she assured the Inspector, "no, they hadn't quarrelled. Henry just thought he wore the wrong shoes." She smiled engagingly. "You know how odd men can be."
The Inspector's look suggested that this was something of which he was personally ignorant. "You're absolutely certain that Costello wouldn't have come back here to see you?" he asked again.
"Me?" Clarissa echoed innocently. "Oh, no, I'm sure he didn't. What reason could he possibly have?"
The Inspector took a deep breath. Then, speaking slowly and deliberately, he asked her, "Is there anybody else in the house he might have wanted to see? Now please think carefully before you answer."
Again, Clarissa gave him her look of bland innocence. "I can't think who," she insisted. "I mean, who else is there?"
The Inspector rose, turned his chair around and put it back against the bridge table. Then, pacing slowly about the room, he began to think aloud. "Mr. Costello comes here," he began slowly, "and returns the articles belonging to your husband which the first Mrs. Hailsham-Brown had taken by mistake. Then he says goodbye. But then he comes back to the house."
Here, the Inspector went across to the French windows. "Presumably he effects an entrance through these windows," he continued, gesturing at them. "He is killed – and his body is pushed into that recess – all in a space of about ten to twenty minutes."
He turned back to face Clarissa. "And nobody hears anything?" he ended, on a rising inflection. "I find that very difficult to believe."
"I know," Clarissa agreed. "I find it just as difficult to believe. It's really extraordinary, isn't it?"
"It certainly is," the Inspector agreed, his tone distinctly ironical. He tried one last time. "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown, are you absolutely sure that you didn't hear anything?" he asked her pointedly.
"I heard nothing at all," she answered. "It really is fantastic."
"Almost too fantastic," the Inspector commented grimly. He paused, then went over to the hall door and held it open. "Well, that's all for the present, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown."
Clarissa rose and walked rather quickly towards the library door, only to be intercepted by the Inspector. "Not that way, please," he instructed her, and led her over to the hall door.
"But I think, really, I'd rather join the others," she protested.
"Later, if you don't mind," said the Inspector tersely.
Very reluctantly, Clarissa went out through the hall door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
THE INSPECTOR closed the hall door behind Clarissa, then went over to the Constable, who was still writing in his notebook. "Where's the other woman? The gardener. Miss – er – Peake?" the Inspector asked.
"I put her on the bed in the spare room," the Constable told his superior. "After she came out of the hysterics, that is. A terrible time I had with her, laughing and crying something terrible, she was."
"It doesn't matter if Mrs. Hailsham-Brown goes and talks to her," the Inspector told him. "But she's not to talk to those three men. We'll have no comparing of stories, and no prompting. I hope you locked the door from the library to the hall?"
"Yes, sir," the Constable assured him. "I've got the key here."
"I don't know what to make of them at all," the Inspector confessed to his colleague. "They're all highly respectable people. Hailsham-Brown's a Foreign Office diplomat, Hugo Birch is a J. P. whom we know, and Hailsham-Brown's other two guests seem decent upper-class types – well, you know what I mean... But there's something funny going on. None of them is being straightforward with us – and that includes Mrs. Hailsham-Brown. They're hiding something, and I'm determined to find out what it is, whether it's got anything to do with this murder or not."
He stretched his arms above his head as though seeking inspiration from on high, and then addressed the Constable again. "Well, we'd better get on with it," he said. "Let's take them one at a time."
