"It is so difficult to remember... No, I do not think she did. But it was not necessary. I was travelling about, I had no fixed address. And besides, I do not think my cousin, Hattie, is very good at writing letters." He added: "She is not, you know, very intelligent, though I understand that she has grown into a very beautiful woman."
"You have not yet seen her?" Bland put it in the form of a question and De Sousa showed his teeth in an agreeable smile.
"She seems to be most unaccountably missing," he said. "No doubt this espèce de gala bores her."
Choosing his words carefully, Inspector Bland said:
"Have you any reason to believe, Mr De Sousa, that your cousin might have some reason for wishing to avoid you?"
"Hattie wish to avoid me? Really, I do not see why. What reason could she have?"
"That is what I am asking you, Mr De Sousa."
"You think that Hattie has absented herself from this fкte in order to avoid me? What an absurd idea."
"She had no reason, as far as you know, to be - shall we say? - afraid of you in any way?"
"Afraid - of me?" De Sousa's voice was sceptical and amused. "But if I may say so. Inspector, what a fantastic idea!"
"Your relations with her have always been quite amicable?"
"It is as I have told you. I have had no relations with her. I have not seen her since she was a child of fourteen."
"Yet you look her up when you come to England?"
"Oh, as to that I had seen a paragraph about her in one of your society papers. It mentions her maiden name and that she is married to this rich Englishman, and I think 'I must see what the little Hattie has turned into. Whether her brains now work better than they used to do.'" He shrugged his shoulders again. "It was a mere cousinly politeness. A gentle curiosity - no more."
Again the inspector stared hard at De Sousa. What, he wondered, was going on behind the mocking, smooth faзade? He adopted a more confidential manner.
"I wonder if you can perhaps tell me a little more about your cousin? Her character, her reactions?"
De Sousa appeared politely surprised.
"Really - has this anything to do with the murder of the girl in the boathouse, which I understand is the real matter with which you occupy yourself?"
"It might have a connection," said Inspector Bland.
De Sousa studied him for a moment or two in silence. Then he said with a slight shrug of the shoulders:
"I never knew my cousin at all well. She was a unit in a large family and not particularly interesting to me. But in answer to your question I would say to you that although mentally weak, she was not, as far as I know, ever possessed by any homicidal tendencies."
"Really, Mr De Sousa, I wasn't suggesting that!"
"Weren't you? I wonder. I can see no other reason for your question. No, unless Hattie has changed very much, she is not homicidal." He rose. "I am sure that you cannot want to ask me anything further, Inspector. I can only wish you every possible success in tracking down the murderer."
"You are not thinking of leaving Helmmouth for a day or two, I hope, Mr De Sousa?"
"You speak very politely, Inspector. Is that an order?"
"Just a request, sir."
"Thank you. I propose to stay in Helmmouth for two days. Sir George has very kindly asked me to come and stay in the house, but I prefer to remain on the Espérance. If you should want to ask me any further questions, that is where you will find me."
He bowed politely.
P.C. Hoskins opened the door for him, and he went out.
"Smarmy sort of fellow," muttered the inspector to himself.
"Aah," said P.C. Hoskins in complete agreement.
"Say she is homicidal if you like," went on the inspector, to himself. "Why should she attack a nondescript girl? There'd be no sense in it."
"You never know with the barmy ones," said Hoskins.
"The question really is, how barmy is she?"
Hoskins shook his head sapiently.
"Got a low I.Q., I reckon," he said.
The inspector looked at him with annoyance.
"Don't bring out these new-fangled terms like a parrot. I don't care if she's got a high I.Q. or a low I.Q. All I care about is, is she the sort of woman who'd think it funny, or desirable, or necessary, to put a cord round a girl's neck and strangle her? And where the devil is the woman, anyway? Go out and see how Frank's getting on."
Hoskins left obediently, and returned a moment or two later with Sergeant Cottrell, a brisk young man with a good opinion of himself, who always managed to annoy his superior officer. Inspector Bland much preferred the rural wisdom of Hoskins to the smart know-all attitude of Frank Cottrell.
"Still searching the grounds, sir," said Cottrell. "The lady hasn't passed out through the gate, we're quite sure of that. It's the second gardener who's there giving out the tickets and taking the admission money. He'll swear she hasn't left."
"There are other ways of leaving than by the main gate, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, sir. There's the path down to the ferry but the old boy down there - Merdell, his name is - is also quite positive that she hasn't left that way. He's about a hundred, but pretty reliable, I think. He described quite clearly how the foreign gentleman arrived in his launch and asked the way to Nasse House. The old man told him he must go up the road to the gate and pay for admission. But he said the gentleman seemed to know nothing about the fкte and said he was a relation of the family. So the old man set him on the path up from the ferry through the woods. Merdell seems to have been hanging about the quay all the afternoon so he'd be pretty sure to have seen her ladyship if she'd come that way. Then there's the top gate that leads over the fields to Hoodown Park, but that's been wired up because of trespassers, so she didn't go through there. Seems as though she must be still here, doesn't it?"
"That may be so," said the inspector, "but there's nothing to prevent her, is there, from slipping under a fence and going off across country? Sir George is still complaining of trespassing here from the hostel next door, I understand. If you can get in the way the trespassers get in, you can get out the same way, I suppose."
"Oh, yes, sir, indubitably, sir. But I've talked to her maid, sir. She's wearing -" Cottrell consulted a paper in his hand - "a dress of cyclamen crкpe georgette (whatever that is), a large black hat, black court shoes with four-inch french heels. Not the sort of things you'd wear for a cross-country run."
"She didn't change her clothes?"
"No. I went into that with the maid. There's nothing missing - nothing whatever. She didn't pack a suitcase or anything of that kind. She didn't even change her shoes. Every pair's there and accounted for."
Inspector Bland frowned. Unpleasant possibilities were rising in his mind. He said curtly;
"Get me that secretary woman again - Bruce - whatever her name is."
II
Miss Brewis came in looking rather more ruffled than usual, and a little out of breath.
"Yes, Inspector?" she said. "You wanted me? If it isn't urgent. Sir George is in a terrible state and -"
"What's he in a state about?"
"He's only just realised that Lady Stubbs is - well, really missing. I told him she's probably only gone for a walk in the woods or something, but he's got it into his head that something's happened to her. Quite absurd."
"It might not be so absurd, Miss Brewis. After all we've had one - murder here this afternoon."
"You surely don't think that Lady Stubbs -? But that's ridiculous! Lady Stubbs can look after herself."
"Can she?"
"Of course she can! She's a grown woman, isn't she?"
"But rather a helpless one, by all accounts "
"Nonsense," said Miss Brewis. "It suits Lady Stubbs now and then to play the helpless nitwit if she doesn't want to do anything. It takes her husband and in, I dare say, but it doesn't take me in!"
"You don't like her very much, Miss Brewis?"
Bland sounded gently interested.
Miss Brewis's lips closed in a thin line.
"It's not my business either to like or dislike her," she said.
The door burst open and Sir George came in.
"Look here," he said violently, "you've got to do something. Where's Hattie? You've got to find Hattie. What the hell's going on round here I don't know. This confounded fкte - some ruddy homicidal maniac's got in here, paying his half-crown and looking like everyone else, spending his afternoon going round murdering people. That's what it looks like to me."
"I don't think we need take such an exaggerated view as that, Sir George."
"It's all very well for you sitting there behind the table, writing things down. What I want is my wife."
"I'm having the grounds searched, Sir George."
"Why did nobody tell me she'd disappeared? She's been missing a couple of hours now, it seems. I thought it was odd that she didn't turn up to judge the Children's Fancy Dress stuff, but nobody told me she'd really gone."
"Nobody knew," said the inspector.
"Well, someone ought to've known. Somebody ought to have noticed."
He turned on Miss Brewis.
"You ought to have known, Amanda, you were keeping an eye on things."
"I can't be everywhere," said Miss Brewis. She sounded suddenly almost tearful. "I've got so much to see to. If Lady Stubbs chose to wander away -"
"Wander away? Why should she wander away? She'd no reason to wander away unless she wanted to avoid that dago fellow."
Bland seized his opportunity.
"There is something I want to ask you," he said. "Did your wife receive a letter from Mr De Sousa some three weeks ago, telling her he was coming to this country?"
Sir George looked astonished.
"No, of course she didn't."
"You're sure of that?"
"Oh, quite sure. Hattie would have told me. Why, she was thoroughly startled and upset when she got his letter this morning. It more or less knocked her out. She was lying down most of the morning with a headache."
"What did she say to you privately about her cousin's visit? Why did she dread seeing him so much?"
Sir George looked rather embarrassed.
"Blessed if I really know," he said. "She just kept saying that he was wicked."
"Wicked? In what way?"
"She wasn't very articulate about it. Just went on rather like a child saying that he was a wicked man. Bad; and that she wished he wasn't coming here. She said he'd done bad things."
"Done bad things? When?"
"Oh, long ago. I should imagine this Etienne De Sousa was the black sheep of the family and that Hattie picked up odds and ends about him during her childhood without understanding them very well. And as a result she's got a sort of horror of him. I thought it was just a childish hangover myself. My wife is rather childish sometimes. Has likes and dislikes, but can't explain them."
"You are sure she did not particularise in any way, Sir George?"
Sir George looked uneasy.
"I wouldn't want you to go by - er - by what she said."
"Then she did say something?"
"All right. I'll let you have it. What she said was - and she said it several times - 'He kills people.'"
Chapter 10
"He kills people," Inspector Bland repeated.
"I don't think you ought to take it too seriously," said Sir George. "She kept repeating it and saying, 'He kills people,' but she couldn't tell me who he killed or when or why. I thought myself it was just some queer, childlike memory - trouble with the natives - something like that."
"You say she couldn't tell you anything definite - do you mean couldn't, Sir George - or might it have been wouldn't?"
"I don't think..." He broke off. "I don't know. You've muddled me. As I say, I didn't take any of it seriously. I thought perhaps this cousin had teased her a bit when she was a kid - something of that kind. It's difficult to explain to you because you don't know my wife. I am devoted to her, but half the time I don't listen to what she says because it just doesn't make sense. Anyway, this De Sousa fellow couldn't have had anything to do with all this - don't tell me he lands here off a yacht and goes straight away through the woods and kills a wretched Girl Guide in a boathouse! Why should he?"
"I'm not suggesting that anything like that happened," said Inspector Bland, "but you must realise, Sir George, that in looking for the murderer of Marlene Tucker the field is a more restricted one than one might think at first."
"Restricted!" Sir George stared. "You've got the whole ruddy fкte to choose from, haven't you? Two hundred - three hundred - people? Any one of 'em might have done it."
"Yes, I thought so at first, but from what I've learnt now that's hardly so. The boathouse door has a Yale lock. Nobody could come in from outside without a key."
"Well, there were three keys."
"Exactly. One key was the final clue in this Murder Hunt. It is still concealed in the hydrangea walk at the very top of the garden. The second key was in the possession of Mrs Oliver, the organiser of the Murder Hunt. Where is the third key, Sir George?"
"It ought to be in the drawer of that desk where you're sitting. No, the right-hand one with a lot of the other estate duplicates."
He came over and rummaged in the drawer.
"Yes. Here it is all right."
"Then you see," said Inspector Bland, "what that means? The only people who could have got into the boathouse were first, the person who had completed the Murder Hunt and found the key (which as far as we know, did not happen). Second, Mrs Oliver or some member of the household to whom she may have lent her key, and, third, someone whom Marlene herself admitted to the room."
