"It is past," said Battle. "You've been saved, Mr. Strange, by pure chance."
Nevile still looked inquiringly at him.
"After you left her last night," said Battle, "Lady Tressilian rang the bell for her maid."
He watched whilst Nevile took it in. "After. Then Barrett saw her -"
"Yes. Alive and well. Barrett also saw you leave the house before she went in to her mistress."
Nevile said: "But the niblick - my fingerprints -"
"She wasn't hit with that niblick. Dr. Lazenby didn't like it all the time. I saw that. She was killed with something else. That niblick was put there deliberately to throw suspicion on you. It may be by someone who overheard the quarrel and so selected you as a suitable victim, or it may be because -"
He paused, arid then repeated his question: "Who is there in this house that hates you, Mr. Strange?"
IX
"I've got a question for you, doctor," said Battle.
They were in the doctor's house after returning from the nursing home, where they had had a short interview with Jane Barrett.
Barrett was weak and exhausted, but quite clear in her statement.
She had just been getting into bed after drinking her senna when Lady Tressilian's bell had wrung. She had glanced at the dock and seen the time -twenty-five minutes past ten.
She had put on her dressing-gown and come down. She had heard a noise in the hall below and had looked over the balusters.
"It was Mr. Nevile just going out. He was taking his raincoat down from the hook."
"What suit was he wearing?"
"His grey pinstripe. His face was very worried and unhappy-looking. He shoved his arms into his coat as though he didn't care how he put it on. Then he went out and banged the front door behind him. I went on in to Her Ladyship. She was very drowsy, poor dear, and couldn't remember why she had rung for me - she couldn't always, poor lady. But I beat up her pillows and brought her a fresh glass of water and settled her comfortably."
"She didn't seem upset or afraid of anything?"
"Just tired, that's all. I was tired myself. Yawning. I went up and went right off to sleep."
That was Barrett's story, and it seemed impossible to doubt her genuine grief and horror at the news of her mistress's death.
They went back to Lazenby's house, and it was then that Battle announced that he had a question to ask.
"Ask away," said Lazenby.
"What time do you think Lady Tressilian died?"
"I've told you. Between ten o'clock and midnight."
"I know that's what you said. But it wasn't my question. I asked you what you personally thought."
"Off the record, eh?"
"Yes."
"All right. My guess would be in the neighbourhood of eleven o'clock."
"That's what I wanted you to say," said Battle.
"Glad to oblige. Why?"
"Never did like the idea of her being killed before ten-twenty. Take Barrett's sleeping-draught - it wouldn't have got to work by then. That sleeping-draught shows that the murder was meant to be committed a good deal later - during the night. I'd prefer midnight myself."
"Could be. Eleven is only a guess."
"But it definitely couldn't be later than midnight?"
"No."
"It couldn't be after 2.30?"
"Good heavens, no."
"Well, that seems to let Strange out all right. I'll just have to check up on his movements after he left the house. If he's telling the truth he's washed out and we can go on to our other suspects."
"The other people who inherit money?" suggested Leach.
"Maybe," said Battle. "But, somehow, I don't think so. Someone with a kink, I'm looking for."
"A kink?"
"A nasty kink."
When they left the doctors house they went on to the ferry. The ferry consisted of a rowing boat operated by two brothers, Will and George Barnes. The Barnes brothers knew everybody in Saltcreek by sight and most of the people who came over from Easterhead Bay. George said at once that Mr. Strange from Gull's Point had gone across at 10.30 on the preceding night. No, he had not brought Mr. Strange back again. Last ferry had gone at 1.30 from the Easterhead side and Mr. Strange wasn't on it.
Battle asked him if he knew Mr. Latimer.
"Latimer? Latimer? Tall, handsome young gentleman? Comes over from the hotel up to Gull's Point? Yes, I know him. Didn't see him at all last night, though. He's been over this morning. Went back last trip."
They crossed on the ferry and went up to the Easterhead Bay Hotel.
Here they found Mr. Latimer newly returned from the other side. He had crossed on the ferry before theirs.
Mr. Latimer was very anxious to do all he could to help.
"Yes, old Nevile came over last night. Looked very blue over something. Told me he'd had a row with the old lady. I hear he'd fallen out with Kay, too, but he didn't tell me that, of course. Anyway, he was a bit down in the mouth. Seemed quite glad of my company for once in a way."
"He wasn't able to find you at once, I understand?"
Latimer said sharply: "Don't know why. I was sitting in the lounge. Strange said he looked in and didn't see me, but he wasn't in a state to concentrate. Or I may have strolled out into the gardens for five minutes or so. Always get out when I can. Beastly smell in this hotel. Noticed it last night in the bar. Drains, I think! Strange mentioned it, too! We both smelt it. Nasty decayed smell. Might be a dead rat under the billiard-room floor."
"You played billiards, and after your game?"
"Oh, we talked a bit, had another drink or two. Then Nevile said, 'Hullo, I've missed the ferry,’ so I said I'd get out my car and drive him back, which I did. We got there about 2.30."
"And Mr. Strange was with you all the evening?"
"Oh, yes. Ask anybody. They'll tell you."
"Thank you, Mr. Latimer. We have to be so careful."
Leach said as they left the smiling, self-possessed young man: "What's the idea of checking up so carefully on Nevile Strange?"
Battle smiled. Leach got it suddenly.
"Good Lord, it's the other one you're checking up on. So that's your idea."
"It's too soon to have ideas," said Battle. "I've just got to know exactly where Mr. Ted Latimer was last night. We know that from quarter-past eleven, say - to after midnight - he was with Nevile Strange. But where was he before that -when Strange arrived and couldn't find him?"
They pursued their inquiries doggedly - with bar attendants, waiters, lift boys. Latimer had been seen in the lounge between nine and ten. He had been in the bar at a quarter-past ten. But between that time and eleven-twenty he seemed to have been singularly elusive. Then one of the maids was found who declared that Mr. Latimer had been in one of the small writing rooms with Mrs. Beddoes -that's the fat North Country lady."
"That tears it," said Battle gloomily. "He was here, all right. Just didn't want attention drawn to his fat (and no doubt rich) lady friend. That throws us back on those others - the servants, Kay Strange, Audrey Strange, Mary Aldin and Thomas Royde. One of them killed the old lady, but which? If we could find the real weapon -"
He stopped, then slapped his thigh.
"Got it, Jim, my boy! I know now what made me think of Hercule Poirot. We'll have a spot of lunch and go back to Gull's Point and I'll show you something."
X
Mary Aldin was restless. She went in and out of the house, picked off a dead dahlia head here and there, went back into the drawing-room and shifted flower vases in an unmeaning fashion.
From the library came a vague murmur of voices. Mr. Trelawny was in there with Nevile. Kay and Audrey were nowhere to be seen.
Mary went out in the garden again. Down by the wall she spied Thomas Royde placidly smoking. She went and joined him.
"Oh, dear." She sat down beside him with a deep, perplexed sigh.
"Anything the matter?" Thomas asked.
Mary laughed with a slight note of hysteria in the laugh.
"Nobody but you would say a thing like that. A murder in the house and you just say, 'Is anything the matter?'"
Looking a little surprised, Thomas said: "I meant anything fresh?"
"Oh, I know what you meant. It's really a wonderful relief to find anyone so gloriously just-the-same-as-usual as you are!"
"Not much good, is it, getting all het up over things?" 188
"No, no. You're eminently sensible. It's how you manage to do it beats me." "Well, I suppose I'm an outsider."
"That's true, of course. You can't fed the relief all the rest of .us do that Nevile is cleared."
"I'm very pleased he is, of course," said Royde. Mary shuddered.
"It was a very near thing. If Camilla hadn't taken it into her head to ring the bell for Barrett after Nevile had left her -"
"Then old Nevile would have been for it, all right."
He spoke with a certain grim satisfaction, then shook his head with a slight smile, as he met Mary's reproachful gaze.
"I'm not really heartless, but now that Nevile's all right I can't help being pleased he had a bit of a shaking up. He's always so damned complacent."
"He isn't really, Thomas."
"Perhaps not. It's just his manner. Anyway, he was looking scared as Hell this morning!"
"What a cruel streak you have!"
"Anyway, it's all right now. You know, Mary, even here Nevile has had the devil's own luck. Some other poor beggar with all that evidence piled up against him mightn't have had such a break."
Mary shivered again. "Don't say that. I like to think the innocent are -protected."
"Do you, my dear?" His voice was gentle.
Mary burst out suddenly: "Thomas, I'm worried. I'm frightfully worried."
"Yes."
"It's about Mr. Treves."
Thomas dropped his pipe on the stones. His voice changed as he bent to pick it up.
"What about Mr. Treves?"
"That night he was here - that story he told - about a little murderer! I've been wondering, Thomas ... Was it just a story? Or did he tell it with a purpose?"
"You mean," said Royde deliberately, "was it aimed at someone who was in the room?"
Mary whispered, "Yes."
Thomas said quietly: "I've been wondering, too. As a matter of fact, that was what I was thinking about when you came along just now."
Mary half-closed her eyes.
"I've been trying to remember ... He told it, you know, so very deliberately. He almost dragged it into the conversation. And he said he would recognise the person anywhere. He emphasised that. As though he had recognised him."
"M'm," said Thomas. "I've been through all that."
"But why should he do it? What was the point?"
"I suppose," said Royde, "it was a kind of warning. Not to try anything on."
"You mean that Mr. Treves knew that Camilla was going to be murdered?"
"No - o. I think that's too fantastic. It may have been just a general warning."
"What I've been wondering is, do you think we ought to tell the police?" To that Thomas again gave his thoughtful consideration.
"I think not," he said at last. "I don't see that it's relevant in any way. It's not as though Treves were alive and could tell them anything."
"No," said Mary. "He's dead!" She gave a quick shiver. "It's so odd, Thomas, the way he died."
"Heart attack. He had a bad heart."
"I mean that curious business about the lift being out of order. I don't like it."
"I don't like it very much myself," said Thomas Royde.
XI
Superintendent Battle looked round the bedroom. The bed had been made. Otherwise the room was unchanged. It had been neat when they first looked round it. It was neat now.
"That's it," said Superintendent Battle, pointing to the old-fashioned steel fender. "Do you see anything odd about that fender?"
"Must take some cleaning," said Jim Leach. "It's well kept. Nothing odd about it that I can see, except - yes, the left-hand knob is brighter than the right-hand one."
"That's what put Hercule Poirot into my head," said Battle. "You know his fad about things not being quite symmetrical - gets him all worked up. I suppose I thought unconsciously, ‘That would worry old Poirot,' and then I began talking about him. Get your fingerprint kit, Jones, we'll have a look at those two knobs."
Jones reported presently. "There are prints on the right-hand knob, sir, none on the left."
"It's the left one we want, then. Those other prints are the housemaid's when she last cleaned it. The left-hand one has been cleaned since."
"There was a bit of screwed-up emery paper in this waste-paper basket," volunteered Jones. "I didn't think it meant anything."
"Because you didn't know what you were looking for, then. Gently now, I'll bet anything you like that knob unscrews - yes, I thought so."
Presently Jones held the knob up.
"It's a good weight," he said, weighing it in his hands.
Leach, bending over it, said: "There's something dark - on the screw."
"Blood, as likely as not," said Battle. "Cleaned the knob itself and wiped it and that little stain on the screw wasn't noticed. I'll bet anything you like that's the weapon that caved the old lady's skull in. But there's more to find. It's up to you, Jones, to search the house again. This time, you'll know exactly what you're looking for."
He gave a few swift detailed instructions. Going to the window he put his head out.
"There's something yellow tucked into the ivy. That may be another piece of the puzzle. I rather think it is."
