‘You mean Bingley thinks he knows who murdered Carbridge?’
‘Yes, and I can follow his reasoning, although I do not think he is right.’
‘But you have to find proof?’ I said.
She cackled. ‘Yes, indeed. I have to find proof, and when I find it he may be somewhat surprised.’
‘So you think he has set his sights on the wrong person?’
‘There are factors he has not taken into account.’
‘For instance?’ I looked for enlightenment, but it did not come. All that she added was: ‘Cast your mind back to the one evening you and Miss Camden spent at Fort William. Can you remember whether the home addresses of the various parties were exchanged? I know that Mr Trickett had a list, or he could not have sent out the invitations, but I think there must have been others.’
‘Oh, yes, there was a good deal of writing down and promising to keep in touch and all that kind of thing, but, anyway, I suppose people could have found out during the tour where other people lived if they were interested enough. Trickett, as you say, must have had a complete list. I believe he was the only person who asked for Hera’s address and mine. We were rather the odd men out because we had been with the rest of them so little.’
‘Then I think a telephone call to Mr Trickett will be sufficient for my purpose. Perhaps you would be good enough to make it for me. Ask whether Miss Coral Platt or Mr Freddie Brown is a home student. They were the two in charge of the catering at the students’ party, I am told.’
‘Ah!’ I said. ‘The kitchen knife that was found in the body and which was not the knife the pathologist thinks was the murder weapon.’
So, my having ascertained from Trickett that Coral was a home student but that Freddie was a boarder at the hall of residence during term-time, Dame Beatrice herself did the telephoning and fixed up an appointment with Coral for the following evening. Coral’s father insisted on being present at the interview and to this Dame Beatrice made no objection. She came straight to the point.
‘Where did you get the vegetable knife?’ she asked.
Coral looked distressed. I think she might have refused to answer the question, but her father said, ‘Speak up. Let’s have done with all this moping and worry. Your mother and I knew something was wrong. We thought you were pining over a love affair, but it sounds more serious than that. I’m sure Dame Beatrice knows you had nothing to do with that shocking affair.’ He put his hand over the girl’s and she turned her palm and clasped his fingers. Then she spoke out resolutely.
‘I borrowed the vegetable knife from our kitchen,’ she said. ‘I knew we were going to have hamburgers at the party, so I thought it would come in useful for chopping up the onions. I like a knife I’m used to and I didn’t know what sort of cutlery I should find at the men’s hall.’
‘I am afraid you will have to identify the knife which the police have in their possession,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but do not be afraid. We know the murder was not committed with it. It was used merely as a substitute. The inference is that, if the lethal weapon had been found, it would have given a clue to the identity of the killer.’
‘I wonder why he left Coral’s knife in the body and did not get rid of that, as well as his own weapon?’ I said.
‘He reasoned, no doubt, that Miss Platt’s knife would not be traced to him. Now, Miss Platt, you borrowed the vegetable knife from your mother’s kitchen. When did you realise that it had disappeared from the hall of residence?’
‘When Freddie and I got back from tea. We went to a Wimpy’s and when we got back the knife was gone, but I didn’t worry too much at the time because I had chopped up the onions — more, actually, than I thought we should need — before we went out to tea. It was after — well, you know — after we knew that a kitchen knife had been found in the body -’
‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘do not distress yourself. When you knew that, you connected it with the disappearance of your own knife. Did the caretaker Bull come into the kitchen while you and Mr Freddie Brown were making your preparations?’
‘No, I’m sure he didn’t. He was helping in various ways, but I don’t remember him in the kitchen.’
‘When the police ask you to identify the knife, have no fear. As it was not the murder weapon, it has only secondary interest for them.’
Then we visited Freddie Brown. He was at the hall of residence and was cutting sections of rock plants and looking at them under a microscope. Sunny-tempered as ever, he showed no sign of resentment at being interrupted.
‘Now, Mr Brown,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you may remember that, when preparations were being made for the students’ party, a small knife with which Miss Platt had been chopping onions was missing.’
‘Yes. We didn’t worry much, at least, not at the time. We thought one of the others had come into the kitchen and whipped it for some reason. There were quite a lot of people milling about, helping to get things ready. It was only when I read about the knife found in the body and told Coral that she began to panic. She begged me to say nothing to anybody about her loss of the knife, so, of course, I promised. Anyway, we don’t know that the knife was her knife, do we?’
‘We shall know when she identifies it,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Oh, I say! You’re not going to make the poor girl do that, are you? They don’t think it was that little knife which did the damage, but I suppose nobody but the murderer would have left it in the body.’
‘Quite so. Now, Mr Brown, to another matter: will you tell me whether you remember purchasing a souvenir in Fort William?’
‘Not me; hadn’t got the cash and didn’t see anything I wanted except a Caithness decanter which I couldn’t possibly afford. Some people bought things, but not me.’
‘Some people bought daggers, for example.’
‘Yes, two of the women who were hoping that Todd would — well—’
‘Extend his favours to them?’
‘I suppose you could put it like that, but, as Coral said to me, anybody could see with half an eye that they didn’t stand an earthly. He had his sights on —’ He looked at me and left the sentence unfinished.
‘Yes, I understand that Mr Todd refused to accept the gifts and that subsequently they passed into other hands,’ said Dame Beatrice.
‘Well, if you want to know, one of them passed into my hands,’ said Freddie. ‘I don’t know what happened to the other, but I got one in a raffle.’
‘Ah, yes, the weapon which was more than a hundred years old and therefore passed as an antique.’
‘Oh, no, absolutely not that beastly thing! I expect Todd kept that. It was valuable. The one that got raffled was the sgian dubh. I had just enough money to take a ticket and it seemed a suitable souvenir, being of the Highlands and all that. Minch laughed when the girl showed it off to the others before she tried to give it to Todd. Minch said it was only a toy and that he had a real one which he would show her sometime. I’ve got mine in my room. Would you like to see it?’
‘Very much,’ said Dame Beatrice. He was not gone long. He came back with the little dagger. It had a silver-mounted black sheath with a whacking great cairngorm stuck in the handle. Dame Beatrice looked it over and handed it to Laura. Their eyes met and I saw Laura shake her head. She remarked that some girls had more money than sense.
‘Well, thank you, Mr Brown,’ said Dame Beatrice. Laura handed back the sgian dubh and, as we were leaving, Freddie said nervously that he hoped he had not welshed on anybody. It had been a good tour and he had been glad he went on it until all this rotten business had followed on.