The Inspector took the playing card from his pocket. "This card," he said, "was found on the other side of the room under the sofa. I can hardly believe that you would have played two rubbers of bridge and started a third with a pack of fifty-one cards, and the Ace of Spades missing."
Sir Rowland took the card from the Inspector, looked at the back of it, and then returned it. "Yes," he admitted. "Perhaps that is a little difficult to believe."
The Inspector looked despairingly upwards before adding, "I also think that three pairs of Mr. Hailsham-Brown's gloves need a certain amount of explanation."
After a moment's pause, Sir Rowland replied, "I'm afraid, Inspector, you won't get any explanation from me."
"No, sir," the Inspector agreed. "I take it that you are out to do your best for a certain lady. But it's not a bit of good, sir. The truth will out."
"I wonder if it will?" was Sir Rowland's only response to this observation.
The Inspector went across to the panel. "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown knew that Costello's body was in the recess," he insisted. "Whether she dragged it there herself, or whether you helped her, I don't know. But I'm convinced that she knew." He came back to face Sir Rowland. "I suggest," he continued, "that Oliver Costello came here to see Mrs. Hailsham-Brown and to obtain money from her by threats."
"Threats?" Sir Rowland asked. "Threats of what?"
"That will all come out in due course, I have no doubt," the Inspector assured him. "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown is young and attractive. This Mr. Costello was a great man for the ladies, they say. Now, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown is newly married and – "
"Stop!" Sir Rowland interrupted peremptorily. "I must put you right on certain matters. You can confirm what I tell you easily enough. Henry Hailsham-Brown's first marriage was unfortunate. His wife, Miranda, was a beautiful woman, but unbalanced and neurotic. Her health and disposition had degenerated to such an alarming state that her little daughter had to be removed to a nursing home."
He paused in reflection. Then, "Yes, a really shocking state of affairs," he continued. "It seemed that Miranda had become a drug addict. How she obtained these drugs was not found out, but it was a very fair guess that she had been supplied with them by this man, Oliver Costello. She was infatuated with him, and finally ran away with him."
After another pause and a glance across at the Constable, to see if he was keeping up, Sir Rowland resumed his story. "Henry Hailsham-Brown, who is old-fashioned in his views, allowed Miranda to divorce him," he explained. "Henry has now found happiness and peace in his marriage with Clarissa, and I can assure you, Inspector, that there are no guilty secrets in Clarissa's life. There is nothing, I can swear, with which Costello could possibly threaten her."
The Inspector said nothing, but merely looked thoughtful.
Sir Rowland stood up, tucked his chair under the table, and walked over to the sofa. Then, turning to address the police officer again, he suggested, "Don't you think, Inspector, that you're on the wrong track altogether? Why should you be so certain that it was a person Costello came here to see? Why couldn't it have been a place?"
The Inspector now looked perplexed. "What do you mean, sir?" he asked.
"When you were talking to us about the late Mr. Sellon," Sir Rowland reminded him, "you mentioned that the Narcotic Squad took an interest in him. Isn't there a possible link there? Drugs – Sellon – Sellon's house?"
He paused but, receiving no reaction from the Inspector, continued, "Costello has been here once before, I understand, ostensibly to look at Sellon's antiques. Supposing Oliver Costello wanted something in this house. In that desk, perhaps."
The Inspector glanced at the desk, and Sir Rowland expanded on his theory. "There is the curious incident of a man who came here and offered an exorbitant price for that desk. Supposing it was that desk that Oliver Costello wanted to examine – wanted to search, if you like. Supposing that he was followed here by someone. And that that someone struck him down, there by the desk."
The Inspector did not seem impressed. "There's a good deal of supposition," he began, only to be interrupted by Sir Rowland, who insisted, "It's a very reasonable hypothesis."
"The hypothesis being," the Inspector queried, "that this somebody put the body in the recess?"
"Exactly."
"That would have to be somebody who knew about the recess," the Inspector observed.
"It could be someone who knew the house in the Sellons' time," Sir Rowland pointed out.
"Yes – that's all very well, sir," the Inspector replied impatiently, "but it still doesn't explain one thing – "
"What is that?" asked Sir Rowland.
The Inspector looked at him steadily. "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown knew the body was in that recess. She tried to prevent us looking there."
Sir Rowland opened his mouth to speak, but the Inspector held up a hand and continued, "It's no good trying to convince me otherwise. She knew."
For a few moments, a tense silence prevailed. Then Sir Rowland said, "Inspector, will you allow me to speak to my ward?"
"Only in my presence, sir," was the prompt reply.
"That will do."
The Inspector nodded. "Jones!" he called across to the Constable, who, understanding what was required of him, left the room by the hall door to fetch Clarissa.
"We are very much in your hands, Inspector," Sir Rowland told the police officer. "I will ask you to make what allowances you can."
"My one concern is to get at the truth, sir, and to find out who killed Oliver Costello," the Inspector replied.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE CONSTABLE came back into the room, holding the hall door open for Clarissa.
"Come in here, please, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," the Inspector called. Clarissa entered from the hall, and Sir Rowland went over to her. He spoke very solemnly. "Clarissa, my dear," he said. "Will you do what I ask you? I want you to tell the Inspector the truth."
"The truth?" Clarissa echoed, sounding very doubtful.
"The truth," Sir Rowland repeated with emphasis. "It's the only thing to do. I mean it. Seriously." He looked at her steadily and indeed seriously for a moment, and then left the room by the hall door. The Constable closed the door after him and resumed his seat for note-taking.
"Do sit down, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," the Inspector invited her, indicating the sofa.
Clarissa smiled at him, but the look he returned was a stern one. She moved slowly to the sofa, sat, and waited for a moment before speaking. Then, "I'm sorry," she told him. "I'm terribly sorry I told you all those lies. I didn't mean to." She did indeed sound rueful as she continued, "One gets into things, if you know what I mean?"
"I can't say that I do know," the Inspector replied coldly. "Now, please just give me the facts."
"Well, it's really all quite simple," she explained, ticking off the facts on her fingers as she spoke. "First, Oliver Costello left. Then, Henry came home. Then, I saw him off again in the car. Then, I came in here with the sandwiches."
"Sandwiches?" the Inspector queried.
"Yes. You see, my husband is bringing home a very important delegate from abroad."
The Inspector looked interested. "Oh, who is this delegate?"
"A Mr. Jones," Clarissa told him.
"I beg your pardon?" said the Inspector, with a look at his constable. "Mr. Jones. That's not his real name, but that's what we have to call him. It's all very hush-hush." Clarissa went on speaking. "They were going to have the sandwiches while they talked, and I was going to have mousse in the schoolroom."
The Inspector was looking perplexed. "Mousse in the... yes, I see," he murmured, sounding as though he did not see at all.
"I put the sandwiches down there," Clarissa told him, pointing to the stool, "and then I began tidying up, and I went to put a book back on the bookshelf and – then – and then I practically fell over it."
"You fell over the body?" the Inspector asked.
"Yes. It was here, behind the sofa. And I looked to see if it – if he was dead, and he was. It was Oliver Costello, and I didn't know what to do. In the end, I rang up the golf club, and I asked Sir Rowland, Mr. Birch and Jeremy Warrender to come back right away."
Leaning over the sofa, the Inspector asked coldly, "It didn't occur to you to ring up the police?"
"Well, it occurred to me, yes," Clarissa answered, "but then... well..." She smiled at him again. "Well, I didn't."
"You didn't," the Inspector murmured to himself. He walked away, looked at the Constable, lifted his hands despairingly, and then turned back to face Clarissa. "Why didn't you ring the police?" he asked her.
Clarissa was prepared for this. "Well, I didn't think it would be nice for my husband," she replied. "I don't know whether you know many people in the Foreign Office, Inspector, but they're frightfully unassuming. They like everything very quiet, not noticeable. You must admit that murders are rather noticeable."
"Quite so." was all that the Inspector could think of in response to this.
"I'm so glad you understand," Clarissa told him warmly and almost gushingly. She went on with her story, but her delivery became more and more unconvincing as she began to feel that she was not making headway. "I mean," she said, "he was quite dead, because I felt his pulse, so we couldn't do anything for him."
The Inspector walked about without replying. Following him with her eyes, Clarissa continued, "What I mean is, he might just as well be dead in Marsden Wood as in our drawing-room."
The Inspector turned sharply to face her. "Marsden Wood?" he asked abruptly. "How does Marsden Wood come into it?"
"That's where I was thinking of putting him," Clarissa replied.
The Inspector put a hand to the back of his head and looked at the floor as though seeking inspiration there. Then, shaking his head to clear it, he said firmly, "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown, have you never heard that a dead body, if there's any suggestion of foul play, should never be moved?"
"Of course I know that," Clarissa retorted. "It says so in all the detective stories. But, you see, this is real life."
The Inspector lifted his hands in despair.
"I mean," she continued, "real life's quite different."
The Inspector looked at Clarissa in incredulous silence for a moment, before asking her, "Do you realize the seriousness of what you're saying?"
"Of course I do," she replied, "and I'm telling you the truth. So, you see, in the end, I rang up the club and they all came back here."
"And you persuaded them to hide the body in that recess."
"No," Clarissa corrected him. "That came later. My plan, as I told you, was that they should take Oliver's body away in his car and leave the car in Marsden Wood."
"And they agreed?" The Inspector's tone was distinctly unbelieving.
"Yes, they agreed," said Clarissa, smiling at him.
"Frankly, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," the Inspector told her brusquely, "I don't believe a word of it. I don't believe that three responsible men would agree to obstruct the course of justice in such a manner for such a paltry cause."
Clarissa rose to her feet. Walking away from the Inspector, she said more to herself than to him, "I knew you wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth." She turned to face him. "What do you believe, then?" she asked him.
Watching Clarissa closely as he spoke, the Inspector replied, "I can see only one reason why those three men should agree to lie."
"Oh? What do you mean? What other reason would they have?"
"They would agree to lie," the Inspector continued, "if they believed, or, even more so, if they actually knew – that you had killed him."
Clarissa looked shocked at this. "But I had no reason for killing him," she protested. "Absolutely no reason." She walked away from him angrily. "Oh, I knew you'd react like this," she exclaimed. "That's why – "
She broke off suddenly, and the Inspector turned to her. "That's why what?" he asked abruptly.
Clarissa stood thinking. Some moments passed, and then her manner appeared to change. She began to speak more convincingly. "All right, then," she announced, with the air of one who is making a clean breast of things. "I'll tell you why."
"I think that would be wiser," the Inspector said.
"Yes," she agreed, turning to face him squarely. "I suppose I'd better tell you the truth." She emphasised "truth" meaningfully.
The Inspector smiled. "I can assure you," he advised her, "that telling the police a pack of lies will do you very little good, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown. You'd better tell me the real story. And from the beginning."
"I will," Clarissa promised. She sat down in a chair by the bridge table. "Oh dear," she sighed, "I thought I was being so clever."
"It's much better not to try to be clever," the Inspector told her. He sat on the stool and faced Clarissa. "Now then," he asked, "what really did happen this evening?"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CLARISSA WAS silent for a few moments. Then, looking the Inspector steadily in the eye, she began to speak. "It all started as I've already explained to you. I said goodbye to Oliver Costello, and he'd gone off with Miss Peake. I had no idea he would come back again, and I still can't understand why he did."
She paused, and seemed to be trying to recall what had happened next. "Oh, yes," she continued. "Then my husband came home, explaining that he would have to go out again immediately. He went off in the car, and it was just after I had shut the front door, and made sure that it was latched and bolted, that I suddenly began to feel nervous."
