‘Mrs Morecambe!’
‘Just so. Mrs Morecambe. Possibly Mr Morecambe also. We can soon find out whether that delightful couple spent a week-end at Heathbury Vicarage any time within the last few months.’
‘Yes, they did,’ put in Umpelty. ‘The lady was here for a fortnight at the end of February and her husband came down for one weekend. They told us that when we made our inquiries, but we didn’t attach any importance to it at the time.’
‘Of course not. Very well. Then, at the moment when everything is ready to poop off, the rest of the gang arrive. Morecambe gets himself up as a hairdresser and establishes his identity round about the neighbourhood. He has to do that, because he wants to purchase a razor in a way which it is difficult to trace. You may say, why a razor at all, when they must have known that Alexis didn’t shave? Well, I can imagine why. It’s quieter than a pistol and it’s a typical suicide’s weapon. And it’s very safe and sure, and much handier, to carry about than, say, a carving-knife. And if any question was raised about it, Morecambe could always come forward with a convincing story about how he had given the razor to Alexis.’
‘Ah! I was thinking about that. Would he have come forward, do you suppose, if you hadn’t put that bit in the. paper?’
‘Difficult to say. But I imagine that he would have waited to see how things went. He would probably have attended the inquest, as a casual spectator, and then if the coroner showed any signs of not accepting the suicide theory, he would have risen up and put the matter beyond doubt with a few well-chosen words. You see, the beauty of his itinerant hairdresser impersonation was that it afforded him an excellent excuse for appearing and disappearing like a Cheshire cat, and also changing his name. By the way, I think we shall find that he really did live in Manchester at some time or another, and so knew just how much dope to dole out about derelict streets and departed hairdressers’ shops in that city.’
‘I take it, then, that he wears a beard in ordinary life.’
‘Oh, yes. He just shaved it off when he began his impersonation. Then, when he went back to London, he had only to get a false beard sent to him at a hotel under a different name, and wear it for the brief period of his taxi-ride to Kensington. If the attendant at the picture-palace happened to notice a gentleman putting on a false beard in the cloak-room which he may not have done it would not be his business to interfere and Morecombe had done his very best to throw off any shadowers. If Bunter hadn’t been uncommonly persevering and uncommonly quick, he’d have lost the trail twenty times over. As it was, he very nearly missed Morecombe in the cinema. Supposing Bunter had followed Morecambe into the cloak-room. Morecambe would have postponed the beard business and there would have been another chase, but by having the wits to keep outside, he gave Morecambe the impression that the coast was clear. Scotland Yard is keeping an eye on Morecambe’s house now, but I expect they will find that the gentleman is ill in bed, being attended by his devoted wife. When his beard has grown again, he will emerge; and meantime, Mrs Morecambe, who was an actress and knows something about make-up, will see to it that there is always a beard fit for inspection when the maid comes in to do the room.’
‘So much for Morecambe,’ said Glaisher. ‘Now, how about Weldon? We’d pretty well put him out of the thing. Now we’ve got to bring him back. He comes along in his Morgan, two days before the murder is due to take place, and he camps in Hinks’s Lane, which somebody’s been good enough, to find out all about beforehand. Mrs Morecambe, I suppose — very good. He accounts for his presence on the scene by a cock-and-bull tale about keeping an eye on his mother’s love-affairs. All right. But what I want to know is, why did he come and, mix himself up in the thing at all, taking all those — risks? He wasn’t there to do the murder, because we know where he was at 1.30, if not at 1.55, and we can’t fit the times in. anyhow, even supposing Perkins is a liar, which we can’t prove. And he wasn’t there to ride the mare down to the Flat-Iron, because we know where he was at twelve o’clock
‘Do we?’ said Harriet, gently.
She had joined the committee-meeting half-way, through the session, and had been sitting quietly in an armchair, smoking, with her hat on her knee.
‘Yes, we do said Wimsey. ‘We thought we did when Mrs Morecambe was supposed to be an unimpeachable witness, but do we now? I think I see a gleam in Miss Vane’s eye that suggests she is about to, put one over on us. Speak. I am bound to hear what has Robert Templeton been discovering?’
‘Mr Weldon,’ said Harriet, was not doing anything nefarious in Wilvercombe on Thursday, 18th. He wasn’t doing anything, in Wilvercombe. He never was in Wilvercombe. He didn’t buy collars. He didn’t go to the Winter, Gardens. Mrs Morecambe arrived alone and she left alone, and there’s no evidence that Mr Weldon was with her at any point of the journey.’
‘O my prophetic soul! There goes my reputation! I said that the two o’clock alibi would be broken, and it’s standing like the Flat-Iron Rock. I said the Wilvercombe alibi would stand, and it has broken in pieces like a potter’s vessel. I’ll go no more a-sleuthing with you, fair maid. O, now, for ever farewell the tranquil mind!. Farewell content! Farewell, Othello’s occupation’s gone. Are you sure about it?’
‘Pretty well. I went to the men’s outfitting and asked for collars like the ones my husband bought on the 18th. Had I the bill? No. What kind of collars? Well, collars, just ordinary collars. What was my: husband like? I described Henry Weldon and his dark spectacles. Nobody remembered him. Would they look up the day-book? Well, they looked up the paper thing that twizzles round in the till, and found the item. Oh, yes — the assistant remembered those collars. Sold to a lady. A lady? Oh, yes, my sister-in-law, no doubt. I described Mrs Morecambe. Yes, that was the lady. Was that the only sale of collars that morning? It was. Then those must be the collars. So I bought six of them — here they are — and asked whether the gentleman had been outside in the car. Gentlemen are so funny about going into shops. No, no gentleman. The assistant had taken the parcel out to the car, which was empty. So then I went to the Winter Gardens. I knew, of course, that they had been asked about Weldon, but I asked them about Mrs Morecambe, and I found an attendant who remembered her by her appearance and getup, and by the fact that she had taken notes of the programme. For Weldon, naturally. After that I tried the bobby on point-duty in the Market Square. Such a nice intelligent bobby. He remembered the car, because of the funny number, and he’d noticed that there was no one in it except the lady who was driving. He’d noticed it again when it came away: still only the lady in it. So that’s that. Of course, Mrs Morecambe may have dropped Henry Weldon at some point between Darley and Wilvercombe, but as for being in Wilvercombe — that I’ll swear he wasn’t; at any rate, he didn’t arrive in the Square with her, as he said.’
‘No,’ said Glaisher. ‘And it’s pretty clear now where he was. He was riding that damned mare along the beach out at eleven o’clock and back at 12.30, or thereabouts. But why?’