"Or Stalin," Trent added. "Everybody leaves out Stalin."
"I guess that sounds awful, huh?"
Sheila was looking at Thaxton. "We've been getting a progressively darker picture of Oren," he said.
"You don't know the half of it. Trent told me you know about the run-in we had with him."
"We know he assaulted you," Dalton said.
"Well, he nearly raped me. Two seconds more and it would have been rape, but Trent walked in. The creep cornered me in the conservatory and it was like dealing with an octopus. I mean, first he was charming and everything, but then he got grabby, and then… well, it was just amazing. I couldn't believe he was doing it with all those people around. The guy was nuts. I knew he made a play for just about every woman he met, but I didn't think he was a maniac. I guess he thought Trent had married this hooker or something, because he just seemed to assume that I put out for anybody who asked. He was actually surprised when I resisted. What a creep."
Trent was staring into his soup.
"I'm sorry, darling," she said with a hand on his arm. "Does it upset you when I talk about it?"
"No, not at all, dear. It's just that you wouldn't make a very good defense lawyer." He smiled. "Forget it. Eat your fish."
"I'm not hungry." Sheila let go of her fork. "I suppose I should shut my big mouth. I'm just setting you up with a good motive."
"Tyrene already has me at the head of his suspect list."
"Well, he's crazy. You're no murderer. What about it, guys? You don't think Trent did it, do you?"
"Never crossed our mind," Dalton said.
Trent chuckled. "I'll bet. Okay, I'll come out and say it. I wanted to kill Oren, and I would have if Sheila hadn't put her foot down."
"I told him I wouldn't stand for the dueling bit," Sheila said. "I sure wasn't going to sit at home sweating, wondering whether my husband was going to come home in a pine box. No way."
"She persuaded me to call it off," Trent said. "Chicken out. And I was about to send word to Oren that I wouldn't be showing up for our little affair of honor, when we got a note from his second saying that Oren wanted a postponement, pleading illness. Well, there the matter rested. He never broached the subject again, and neither did I. For all I know he chickened out, but he was a pretty able duelist, so the excuse might have been genuine. However, he was aware that I was the better swordsman. In my opinion, I would have killed him."
"If anyone wanted to kill him, it would be Lord Belgard," Sheila said. "Oren and Lady Rowena had been having an affair for years. I'm sorry, my big mouth again."
"Tyrene has known it for years, along with everybody else," Trent said. "But Belgard wasn't anywhere near Oren when the murder happened. If it happened when I walked past."
"We've heard that Oren made no secret of his liaison with Lady Rowena," Thaxton said.
"You're referring to his habit of playing grab-ass under Belgard's nose?" Trent said. "Rowena and Oren did that all the time. She despises her husband and enjoys the hell out of showing him up a cuckold. Belgard never spoke up because he knew that in order to stop it he'd have to challenge Oren, and he knew damn well that Oren would kill him. Belgard can't fence his way out of a paper sack. And he's a worse shot, so there's no help there either."
"I suppose that makes Belgard a poor candidate for knife-throwing," Thaxton commented.
"I don't know about his knife-wielding abilities," Trent said. "Seems unlikely that he could have done it, but you never know."
"Seems unlikely that anyone could have done it, or would have done it in all that company," Dalton put in, "except that you heard the thing whiz past. That must have been the knife, and that means someone threw it."
Thaxton said, "Trent, the way you described it, I got the impression it made quite a racket."
"It was loud. And it didn't sound like a thrown knife. It didn't swish so much as it shooshed. By that I mean that it didn't sound as though it was rotating as it flew. This is just hindsight, mind you. I didn't give it any thought at the time. I just assumed it was a large bird or a bat or something. Or an insect, as I said."
"Must have been traveling at a terrific clip," Thaxton said.
"That's occurred to me," Trent said. "But who could have thrown it with such force?"
"I suppose there's no such thing as a knife catapult," Thaxton said. "Something on the order of a crossbow, only propelling a knife or dagger?"
"Never heard of such an animal," Trent said. "But there are any number of universes with stranger things in them."
"But the culprit would have had to conceal the thing on his person," Dalton said. "Or get rid of it quick. Stash it somewhere."
"Tyrene's lads would have found it," Thaxton said.
"They missed the murder weapon," Dalton said.
"We all missed the murder weapon." Thaxton took a sip of wine. "Still thinking about that."
"It is a puzzling aspect of this case," Trent said, "among others."
"There are a lot of problems," Dalton said. "Like, for instance, if the knife was thrown, who pulled it out and dropped it?"
"Maybe he was stabbed somewhere else," Sheila said. "I'm just going on what Trent told me on the way here. Couldn't someone have stabbed him in the castle and gone back into the garden and dropped the knife?"
"No one saw anybody leave the garden and come back in," Dalton said.
"Maybe someone in the castle?"
"But no one strange was seen to come into the garden. If the murder happened in the castle, you have to explain how the murder weapon wound up in the garden."
"What about a servant?" Sheila asked.
"Tyrene's questioned most of the servants," Thaxton told her. "At the time Oren left the garden, all the servants who were serving at the party were in the garden. They were all busy as the devil. No one was seen leaving and returning."
Trent said, "Suppose that sound I heard was a bird. Suppose there was no thrown knife. Let's say Oren gets a sudden urge to leave the party and gets up and walks off. Someone near the portal stabs him just as he walks through. Oren continues into the castle and dies a short way down the corridor. The culprit accidentally drops the knife near where the viscount was sitting. Just coincidence. How's that for a scenario?"
"Fine," Thaxton said, "except that no one saw anyone near the portal."
"No one happened to be looking. It was luck," Trent said. "Good for the murderer, bad for us."
"Possible," Thaxton said. "Possible. But the coincidence of the knife dropping at that spot strains credulity a bit."
"Lady Rilma's testimony about hearing her husband grunt makes me think that something happened at that moment," Dalton said. "In fact, I'm almost convinced of it."
Sheila snorted. "She's another one."
"How so, Sheila?" Thaxton asked.
"Another suspect. Trent, didn't you tell me that she once stabbed Oren?"
Trent nodded. "It was a good while ago. Rilma's unstable, always has been. She's been in and out of institutions. And, yes, she did actually stab Oren once. In the arm, with a pair of scissors. Superficial wound. But she did it, all right. She was hospitalized for a time after that. She hasn't done anything like that since, though."
"Nevertheless that's very interesting," Dalton said. "So she could have heard him grunt in pain all right, but maybe she's just repressing the fact that she was the cause of it. Maybe it was a case of temporary insanity. That would explain the dropped knife and her not caring or maybe even not knowing about it."
"Possible," Thaxton said. "You're thinking, old boy."
"So," Trent said, sitting back in his chair. "I'm walking by, and this bird buzzes me. I don't see it, and I don't see Lady Rilma draw a stiletto and stab her husband, and nobody else sees anything either. Oren doesn't say a word to anyone, just gets up and leaves, dying with each step."