Lord Bob sat back, raised his bushy eyebrows, sighed heavily. “Bearing up. She’s a wonder, Alice. Always has been. But she’s upset, of course. As I say, she was fond of the old swine.” He took a sip from his brandy glass.
I asked him, “Have you told the guests about Chin Soo?”
He looked at me. “Said I would, didn’t I?”
“Lord Purleigh,” said Doyle, holding his pipe tilted at an angle beside his wide red face. “May I make a suggestion?”
“Certainly,” he said, sitting back. “You’ve earned the right, Doyle. Appreciate the way you’ve handled things. The gun. Guarding the room. Never would’ve thought of it myself.”
He turned back to me, frowned. “You, too, Beaumont. Owe you an apology. Got a bit shirty upstairs.”
“No need to apologize,” I told him. I tasted the brandy. It was older than I was. Better, too, probably.
“Pay what I owe,” said Lord Bob, and sipped at his. “Even to a Pinkerton. Noblesse oblige, eh?” He turned to Doyle. “A suggestion, you said?”
Doyle took a puff from the pipe. “Yes.” As he shifted slightly on the uncomfortable seat, another small quick wince flashed across his face. “I suggest to you-and I do assure you, Lord Purleigh, that I have only your best interests at heart-I suggest to you that when the police arrive, you might perhaps refrain from referring to the Earl as an old swine.”
Lord Bob seemed puzzled. “Whatever for? Whole bloody county knows he was an old swine, and knows that I know it. He’s dead, mebbe, but a swine’s a swine for a’ that. Eh?”
“Yes, of course. But given the unusual circumstances of the Earl’s death-”
Lord Bob frowned impatiently. “You keep nattering on about the circumstances. Swine killed himself. Doesn’t happen every day, grant you, but it happens. Should have done it years ago. Inevitable, in a way, you know. Inherent Contradictions of Capitalism. Historical Necessity. Swine finally realized what he was, couldn’t stomach it, took the easy way out.”
“But I understood that your father suffered from paralysis.”
Lord Bob nodded. “Years now. Fell off a horse. Sorrel mare.” “And Mr. Beaumont has pointed out that the pistol found in his room came from that gun collection.” He pointed his pipe at the guns on the wall.
Lord Bob nodded. “Got you. Worried me for a bit. How’d the old swine get hold of it, eh? Well, no mystery there. One of the servants fetched it for him.”
“But why? What reason could the Earl possibly give a servant for wanting a pistol?”
“No idea. Told him he wanted to pot at pigeons, mebbe. We get them, you know. Poison doesn’t work. Costs me a fortune, cleaning up after the buggers. Filthy things.” He drained his brandy.
“But Lord Purleigh-”
“What is it, exactly, you’re after, Doyle?”
“Not I, Lord Purleigh. The police-”
“Look here.” Lord Bob grabbed the decanter, splashed some more brandy into his glass. “You’re not implying that this was something more than a suicide? You’re not saying, blast it, that it was murder?” He slapped the decanter back onto the table.
“Certainly not. But the police-”
“Bugger the police.” He swallowed some brandy. “Poor Carson heard the bloody gun go off. You saw the door. It was locked. Barred. From the inside.” He turned to the Great Man. “You re the lock-expert chap. Could you have nipped out of that room? Eh? In one piece? And left the locks the way we found them?”
“Of course,” said the Great Man. His timing, as usual, was perfect. “There are several methods by which I could have done so. With the simplest of these, I could have prepared the door in less than a few seconds.”
Doyle leaned forward, interested, and he said, “Really? By what means?”
Lord Bob sat back, scowling. “Rubbish.”
“Not at all, Lord Purleigh,” said the Great Man. “It is quite simple.” He turned to Doyle. “The lock is an ancient one, with the warded chamber set midway between the two lock plates, one on the interior of the room and one on the exterior. The channel passes straight through, from room to room. Let us say, theoretically, that I am in the bedroom, and that the door is locked from the inside when Carson attempts to open it. As in fact it was.”
My attention was wandering. The Great Man had already explained all this to me. I glanced over at the weapons on the wall. A lot of armament hanging up there.
“To deal with the bar,” the Great Man was saying, “I would require only a strong piece of wire, perhaps a coat hanger-which is exactly the item, of course, with which I would have opened the door, had I been given the opportunity.”
Up there, above an antique piece of furniture, a long dark wooden dresser, there were dirks and daggers, swords, halberds, pikes, rifles, and pistols.
“I unlock the door,” said the Great Man, “leaving the key in the lock. I open the door. I raise the bar and I use the wire to support it above the restraining posts, holding the wire along the edge of the door. I am standing outside now, in the other room. As I close the door, I slide the wire from beneath the bar. The bar descends into the restraining posts, and the wire slips around the frame of the door, and out. I then use a simple lock pick to turn the key in the chamber and drive the bolt home.”
Doyle laughed aloud. “Topping!”
Lord Bob said, “But how could you do all that with Carson standing right outside the door?”
“Excuse me,” I said. “Lord Purleigh?”
He glared at me.
“The guns on the wall,” I said. “They’re not loaded, are they?”
He made a face. “What sort of blockhead puts loaded weapons on the bloody wall?”
“Where’s the ammunition?”
“That cupboard there.”
“Mind if I take a look?”
He waved a brusque hand. “Do as you like.” He turned back to the Great Man. “Carson was standing outside the door,” he said. “No way on earth you could’ve performed all those fancy tricks of yours without him seeing you.”
I stood up, walked toward the cupboard.
“Ah, but remember,” said the Great Man. Carson left the room to summon help. He used the emergency telephone in his own quarters.”
Inside the cupboard, on the top shelf, the ammunition was neatly stacked in cardboard boxes.
“When Carson leaves,” said the voice of the Great Man, “I unlock the door and I prepare everything-the bar, the lock. It is a matter of seconds only. Then I slip from the room. By the time he returns to it, I am safely away.”
I saw a. 45 auto, 30.30 Remington, 9-millimeter Parabellum. A metal canister holding black powder. And, toward the rear, a box of. 38s. I glanced at the wall.
Lord Bob: “And you’re saying that’s what bloody happened?”
The Great Man: “Not at all, Lord Purleigh. Sir Arthur asked me how it could have happened. I was merely explaining this.”
I walked over to the scoped Winchester lever-action rifle on the wall. I leaned forward, sniffed at the ejection port.
“In my opinion,” said the Great Man, “nothing like this took place. There would have been indications, you see.”
“Indications?” said Doyle.
I put my right hand beneath the rifle’s butt plate, used my left to grip the tip of the barrel, and lifted the weapon from its supports on the wall. I sniffed the muzzle.
“On the key, for example,” said the Great Man. “The key is copper, a soft metal. Had anyone used a pick on it, he would have left marks on the key’s bit.”
I turned around to face them. I waited for the Great Man to finish. Lord Bob saw me holding the Winchester, frowned briefly, looked back at the Great Man.
“The key,” said the Great Man, “landed on the floor on its right side. Its left side, of course, was facing up. It is on the left side of the bit that marks would have been left, had someone used a pick. I examined it and saw that there were no marks. You will find, however, when the key is turned over, the marks I left when I opened the lock.”
He took a sip of water. “I also examined the wooden frame of the door. Had someone used a wire to lower the bar, the wire would have left a very narrow groove in the wood. I found no such groove. It is therefore obvious to me that no one used this method. Or, for that matter, any of the other methods that might have been employed. It is perfectly clear to me that the Earl did, in fact, commit suicide.”