“My number,” Mesurier answered, “or so he thinks. But he could easily have muddled it up with another, which is, of course, what he did do.”
“I can so readily picture our friend the Superintendent lapping that story up,” remarked Kenneth. “Tony, your young man promised well at one time, but he begins to bore me now.”
Giles took out his cigarette-case and opened it. “It isn't for me to question your story, Mesurier. I can only say that if it's true I'm sorry.”
“Sorry?” Rudolph ejaculated. “I don't understand you!”
Giles lit a cigarette and pitched the dead match into the grate. “For your sake, very. You had an excellent alibi there, Mesurier.”
“Alibi? Where?”
“In the car,” replied Giles. “For if you had been driving your car back to London from Hanborough that night I don't think you could very well have been the murderer.”
Chapter Ten
The effect of this calm pronouncement was slightly ludicrous. Rudolph Mesurier blinked at him in a bewildered manner and said: “Then - then I might just as well have admitted I was out? But I don't understand what you're driving at!”
“It is always better to speak the truth,” said Kenneth smugly. “Witness my own masterly conduct of this highly intricate case.”
“I daresay,” responded his sister. “But did you speak the truth?”
“That, my love,” said Kenneth, “is for the police to find out.”
“Oh, I wish you'd shut up!” Mesurier said, exasperated. “It's all very well for you to lie there and sneer, but I'm in a damned awkward position.”
“So are we all,” replied Kenneth, quite unmoved. “Moreover, this new development gives Tony a nice, pure motive for murdering Arnold. Tell me, Tony, would you really murder Arnold to protect Rudolph's fair name?”
“Yes, of course I would!” said Antonia bristling. 'I don't mean that I approve of him embezzling funds, because, as a matter of fact, I think it's a poor show, but I wouldn't let Arnold prosecute him if I could stop it. If it comes to that, wouldn't you have murdered him for Violet's sake?”
“Don't confuse the motives. I murdered him for the sake of his money. You've got the noble motives: and Rudolph's is the sordid one.”
“No more sordid than yours!”
“Oh yes, darling! Comes under the same heading as card-sharping and shop-lifting.”
Giles interposed. “Shut up, Kenneth. None of this leads anywhere, and it isn't particularly pleasant for Mesurier. Were you out in your car on the night of the murder, Mesurier?”
Rudolph looked uncertainly from one to the other. “Don't be coy,” recommended Kenneth. “We all know you were by this time.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I was,” Rudolph said, taking the plunge. “That's what makes it so frightful.” He began to walk jerkily up and down the studio. “When that detective asked me, I denied it. I mean, what else could I do? They can't prove I was out. It would be absolutely circumstantial evidence, and it seemed to me my best plan was to stick to it that I was at home. Only now you -” he looked at Giles - “say if I was out in my car, I couldn't have done the murder, so…” He stopped and gave a nervous little laugh. “So now I don't know what to do.”
“With any luck,” remarked Kenneth, “we'll foist this murder on to Rudolph.”
“I don't call that funny,” said Mesurier stiffly.
“Depends on the point of view. It would be much funnier than having you as a brother-in-law.”
Antonia bounced up out of her chair. “Damn, you, shut up!” she said fiercely. “If if comes to that I'd a lot sooner foist the murder on to Violet than have her as a sister-in-law! I don't see that Rudolph's any worse than she is.”
“Thank you, dear,” said a smooth voice from the doorway. “How sweet of you! And what am I supposed to have done?”
Kenneth sat up and swung his legs off the sofa. “Darling!” he said. “Come right in and join the party. A good time is being had by all.”
Violet Williams still held the door-knob in one gloved hand. She was charmingly dressed in a flowered frock and a becoming picture hat, and carried a sunshade. She raised her plucked eyebrows and said: “Are you sure I shan't be de trop?”
“You couldn't be. Tony was only retaliating in kind. You know Giles, don't you? Come and sit down, ducky, and listen to the new revelations.”
Mesurier made a movement as of protest, but Antonia very sensibly pointed out to him that Kenneth was bound to tell Violet all about it anyway, so he might as well get it over. As Kenneth's attention seemed for the moment to be engaged by Violet, who had gone over to the sofa, and was speaking to him in a low voice, Mesurier seized the opportunity to ask Giles why his car should be supposed to constitute an alibi.
“Well,” Giles answered, “if you murdered Arnold and drove back to Town in your own car, who disposed of Arnold's car?”
This unfortunately caught Kenneth's ear, and he instantly said: “Accomplice.”
“I hadn't got an accom - I mean - Oh, for God's sake, stop shoving your oar in!”
“An accomplice, if you like,” said Giles. “But who?”
“Tony, of course.”
“Kenneth, dear, you really oughtn't to say things like that, even in fun,” Violet reproved him gently.
Antonia, however, was inclined to regard her brother's suggestion with interest. “You mean we hatched the plot between us, and I lured Arnold to the stocks while Rudolph followed in his own car and did him in? That's no use, because I spent the night at the cottage, and I shouldn't think I'd have had time to burst up to town again with Arnold's car and have motored back. Anyway, I didn't, so that's out. I knew Giles would think of something.”
Mesurier drew a long breath. “What a fool I was not to think of that myself! Thanks a lot. Of course it absolutely lets me out!”
“Oh no, it doesn't!” said Kenneth. “You might have had another accomplice, or tacked your own number plate on to Arnold's car.”
“Too clever,” objected Antonia. “Rudolph would never have thought of anything as wily as that, would you, Rudolph?”
“That's the worst of these people who set out to commit a murder and leave everything to chance,” said Kenneth.
Mesurier decided to ignore this, and, turning to Giles, asked him if he was sure the alibi was good enough. Giles rather damped his optimism by replying that he was not sure of anything.
Violet, who had been playing idly with the clasp of her hand-bag, raised her large, unfathomable eyes to Mesurier's face, and asked in her well-modulated voice why he had been at Hanborough that night. “Please don't think I'm being impertinent!” she said. “But I couldn't help wondering. It seems so funny of you, somehow.”
It was plain that her question took him aback, quite plain enough for Kenneth, who mounted on to the back of the sofa and said: “Now, infidel, I have you on the hip!”
Mesurier cast him a look of goaded hatred and answered: “I can't see what that has to do with it.”
This somewhat weak rejoinder had the effect of setting his betrothed against him. Antonia said severely: “Giles can't possibly help you if you're going to behave like an idiot. You must have had some reason for going to Hanborough that night, and it merely makes you look very fishy if you won't say what it was.”
“Very well, then!” said Mesurier. “If you will have it, I went down with a mad idea of throwing myself on Vereker's generosity, but I thought better of it, and came back again.”
“The only thing I have to say is that I must have another drink,” said Kenneth, getting up off the sofa and strolling over to the sideboard. “The more I hear of Rudolph's story the more convinced I am that we can push all the blood-guilt on to him with very little trouble.” He measured out a whisky-and-soda. “Anyone else have a drink?” As no one answered, he raised his own glass to his lips, drank half the whisky, and came back to the sofa. “The theory I'm working on at the moment is that Arnold's car never left London,” he said.