Avoiding everyone’s eyes, Sowerby produced the two sapphire cufflinks and handed them to Ganelon, who passed them on to the baron. “Cipriani gave me the first cufflink the morning he left,” Sowerby told them. “Said he found it. Said I could return it to the Nawab. Or, he said, I could suggest this little game and end up with both. Somehow he knew I was being pressed hard to repay certain gambling debts. As he pointed out, a matching pair would go a long way to settling things.”
“But when the second cufflink went missing, wouldn’t the Nawab have suspected you?” asked Hardacre.
“Not if Sowerby killed the Nawab to shut him up,” said Gruber.
Sowerby shook his head. “Cipriani had the answer to that one, too. He knew how the Nawab liked his little ethical puzzles. He suggested I cloud the issue by wondering out loud what might happen if the thief actually tried to return the stolen cufflink in the darkness and discovered its mate in the bowl. Might he not consider the second cufflink a reward for his newfound honesty and keep both? This possibility intrigued the Nawab.”
Suddenly Ganelon understood the part the perfume atomizer played. Having suggested the parlor game, the master assassin couldn’t afford to be there in the room when the Nawab was found dead. So he said his goodbyes and left the château. His plan was to change out of his Cipriani disguise at the railway station and return as Lars Thorwald. But on the way he realized he wouldn’t have time to wash off all traces of Cipriani’s lavender scent. By dumping the atomizer on the floor of the carriage, he gave himself an excuse for reeking of lavender when he came back as Thorwald.
Here the baroness cried out again. There were faces at the window. Now a commotion broke out in the hallway. The doors flew open and Chief Inspector Flanel burst into the room followed by several of his men. Vain and slow-witted, the chief inspector’s rise on the police force showed how much it had deteriorated as the Founder’s reputation grew and the superior criminal found other places to practice his trade.
Flanel introduced himself to the astonished room. With a nod toward the corpse he said, “An hour ago, the prefecture received an anonymous message that the Nawab of Jamkhandi had been murdered and that his killer was still on these premises.”
“Chief Inspector...” began Ganelon.
“Ah, young Ganelon,” said Flanel. “Letting them get murdered right under your nose, eh? Well, never mind. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut and you may learn something.” Flanel turned abruptly and went to examine the body. Then he had the baron explain the chair arrangement and give him the names of the other guests, which he wrote down in his notebook. When he was done he looked much like the cat that had swallowed the canary.
“Chief Inspector...” Ganelon began again.
But Flanel lay a side of his forefinger across his lips. Then he addressed the room while pacing back and forth with the plodding, bearlike walk he had affected ever since Marchpane’s The Eye of the Snowstorm, in which the author had the Founder comment on then Sergeant Flanel’s prancing step. “I now intend to interrogate you one at a time, beginning with Herr Franz Gruber. Since this may be a lengthy process, you may all occupy yourselves as you wish until I need to see you. Be warned that I have men at all the entrances and on the grounds.” At Flanel’s signal the policemen began clearing the room.
Ganelon came over and said firmly, “Chief Inspector, the Nawab’s killer is the Gooseberry Fool.”
Flanel’s jaw sagged.
Ganelon gave him a moment to let that sink in. Then he said, “And the Gooseberry Fool is...”
“Not another word,” said Flanel, gloating like a peacock. “This is my investigation.” Rubbing his hands together vigorously as though washing them in glory, the chief inspector turned to Gruber. “Actually I’m surprised to find you here, Franz Gruber.”
“And why is that?” asked the German, clearly outraged at being questioned first.
“Because, sir, yesterday we received a report circulated by the Milan police that your body was found three days ago in a room at the Hotel Europa. You had been strangled and your face battered in. You are an imposter. You are the Gooseberry Fool.”
Gruber barked a contemptuous laugh. No amount of badgering could shake the man’s pickpocket story. After half an hour Flanel had him taken away to be held until the Leipzig police verified his identity.
The chief inspector scowled over his suspect list again, shrugged hopelessly, and looked in Ganelon’s direction. When Ganelon mouthed Thorwald’s name, Flanel had him sent for.
Now a stranger appeared in the doorway, a man with an air of serious purpose wearing a close-cropped heard in the style made popular by Cavour. “I must speak to Baron Sandor,” he said.
“I am Chief Inspector Flanel, sir. Who are you?”
“My name is Antonio Cipriani, Vieux Gaspard’s sales representative for Italy and Spain.”
“How the hell did you get in here?” demanded Flanel.
“I had come expecting villainy,” said the new arrival. “When I found men lurking around outside, I assumed they were up to something dark. I should have realized they were police. Villains don’t lurk about with their hands in their pockets. In any event, when the man at the front door went into the bushes to relieve himself, I saw my chance and slipped inside.
“A week ago I was kidnapped on my way to visit the baron’s new manufacturing facility in Milan and held in an old farmhouse north of Naples. From what my kidnappers said among themselves, I gathered I was being held so that someone could impersonate me here. I suspected the Old Father William people meant to steal our formula.” The new arrival struck a kick-boxing stance. “No novice at the art of self-defence, I waited for my chance, knocked one of my captors down with a kick to the solar plexus, and escaped. But what was I to do then? Go to the police and they’d waste precious time confirming my story. So I decided to come directly here. In San Sebastiano I rented a rig, rode out here, and approached the chateau on foot. The rest you know.”
Cipriani put on pince-nez glasses, drew the Friday edition of the Milan Correro out of his pocket, and said, “Oh yes, and this may interest you. It seems I wasn’t the only Vieux Gaspard representative to be kidnapped.” The article he tapped with his glasses read: “The police, acting on an anonymous informant, have determined the murdered man discovered Sunday last at the Hotel Europa and previously identified as Franz Gruber of Leipzig was, in fact, Lars Thorwald of Christiania.”
Flanel snatched an invisible fly out of the air and shook it in his tight fist. “Got him!” he said. Then, as footsteps approached down the hall, he turned triumphantly to face the door.
But the policeman sent to find Thorwald had returned alone. “He’s gone, sir, escaped from his room down a rope of knotted bed sheets.”
“After him!” shouted Flanel, prancing out of the room. “He can’t have gotten far! Lars Thorwald is the Gooseberry Fool!”
Ganelon stayed behind to explain to the amazed Cipriani how his identity had been used in the Gooseberry Fool’s plan to murder the Nawab. When he had finished, Cipriani bowed and said, “I come at an inconvenient time. I will return tomorrow to put myself at the baron’s disposal.”
Ganelon pointed to the window where Flanel and a crowd of shouting policemen were dashing across the lawn. “Don’t leave yet. You’ll miss all the excitement.”
“It looks like they’ve picked up his trail,” said Cipriani. As the pursuers entered the trees he added a worried, “If that’s the way the villain went, and he holds to that course, he should emerge from the woods near where I tied my rig.” Ganelon made no reply. “But hell get away!” Cipriani insisted, starting toward the door. “Somebody has to warn the police.”