And all this time, even more disturbingly, the enigmatic eyes of Fay Seton were looking back at him from the tinted photograph now lying on the table.
“I beg you pardon,” said Miles, rousing himself with a start at the snapping of Professor Rigaud’s fingers. “Er―would you mind repeating that last sentence?”
Professor Rigaud uttered his sardonic chuckle.
“With pleasure,” he replied politely. “I said that the evidence showed not a living soul had come near Mr. Brooke during those fatal fifteen minutes.”
“Had come near him?”
“Or could have come near him. He was utterly alone on top of the tower.”
Miles sat up straight.
“Let’s get this clear!” he said. “The man was stabbed?”
“He was stabbed,” assented Professor Rigaud. “I am in the proud position of being able to show you, now, the weapon with which the crime was committed.”
With modest deprecation he reached out to touch the thick cane, of light yellowish wood, which throughout the dinner had never left his side and which was now propped against the edge of the table.
“That,” cried Barbara Morell, “is―?”
“Yes. This belonged to Mr. Brook. I think I intimated to mademoiselle that I am a collector of such relics. It is a beauty, eh?”
With a dramatic gesture, picking up the cane in both hands, Professor Rigaud unscrewed the curved handle. He drew out the long, thin, pointed steel blade, wickedly caught by candlelight and he laid it with some reverence on the table. Yet the blade had little life or gleam; it had not been cleaned or polished in some years; and Miles could see, as it lay there across the edge of Fay Seton’s photograph, the darkish rust-colored stains that had dried along it.
“A beauty, eh?” Professor Rigaud repeated. “There are also blood-stains inside the scabbard, if you care to hold it up to the eye.”
Abruptly Barbara Morell pushed back her chair, got to her feet, and backed away.
“Why on earth,” she cried, “must you bring such things here? And positively gloat over them?”
The good professor’s eyebrows went up in astonishment.
“Mademoiselle does not like it?”
“No. Please put it way. It’s―it’s ghoulish!”
“But mademoiselle must like such things, surely? Or else she would not be a guest of the Murder Club?”
“Yes. Yes, of course!” she corrected herself hastily. “Only . . .”
“Only what?” prompted Professor Rigaud in a soft, interested voice.
Miles, himself wondering not a little, watched her as she stood grasping the back of the chair.
Once or twice he had been conscious of her eyes fixed on him across the table. But for the most part she had looked steadily at Professor Rigaud. She must have been smoking cigarettes furiously throughout the narrative: for the first time Miles noticed at least half a dozen stubs in the saucer of her coffee-cup. At one point, during the description of Jules Fresnac’s tirade against Fay Seton, she had bent down as though to pick up something from under the table.
A vital, not-very-tall figure―it may have been the white gown which gave her such a small-girl appearance―Barbara stood moving and twisting her fingers on the back of the chair.
“Yes, yes, yes?” went on the probing voice of professor Rigaud. “You are very much interested in such things. Only . . .”
Barbara forced out a laugh.
“Well!” she said. “It doesn’t do to make crimes too . Any fiction-writer can tell you that.”
“Are you a writer of fiction, mademoiselle?”
“Not―exactly.” She laughed again, trying to dismiss the subject with a turn of her wrist. “Anyway,” she hurried on, “you tell us somebody murdered this Mr. Brooke. Who murdered him? Was it―Fay Seton?”
There was a pause, a pause of slightly tense nerves, before Professor Rigaud eyed her as though trying to make up his mind. Then he chuckled.
“What assurance will you have, mademoiselle? Have I not told you that this lady was not, in the accepted sense, a criminal of any kind?”
“Oh!” said Barbara Morell. “Then that's all right.”
And she drew back her chair and sat down again, while Miles stared at her.
“if you think it’s all right, Miss Morell, I can’t say I agree. According to Professor Rigaud here, nobody went near the victim at any time―
“Exactly! And I repeat the statement!”
“How can you be sure of it?”
“Among other things, witnesses.”
“Such as?”
With a quick glance at Barbara, Professor Rigaud tenderly picked up the blade-part of the sword-stick. He replace it in the cane-scabbard, screwed its threads tight again, and once more propped it up with nicety against the side of the table.
“You will perhaps agree, my friend, that I am an observant man?”
Miles grinned. “I agree without a struggle.”
“Good! Then I will show you.”
Professor Rigaud illustrated the next part of his argument by again sticking his elbows on the table, lifting his arms, tapping the forefinger of his right hand against the forefinger of his left, an at the same time bringing his intent, gleaming eyes so close to the fingers that he almost grew cross-eyed.
“First of all, I myself can testify that there was no person in or on the tower―hiding there―when we left Mr. Brooke alone. Such an idea is absurd! The place was as bare as a jug! I saw for myself! And the same truth applies to my return at five minutes past four, when I can take my oath that no murderer was lurking inside to make subsequent escape.
“Next, what happens as soon as Harry and I go away? The open grass space, surrounding the tower on every side except for the narrow segment where it overhangs the river, is instantly invaded by a family of eight persons: Monsieur and Madame Lambert, their niece, their daughter-in-law, and four children.
“I am a bachelor, thank God.
“These people take possession of the open space. By sheer numbers they fill t. Papa and Mama are in sight of the doorway. Niece and eldest child keep walking around the tower looking at it. The two youngest are actually inside. And all agree that no person either entered or left the tower during that time.”
Miles opened his mouth to make a protest, but Professor Rigaud intervened before he could speak.
“It is true,” the professor conceded, “that these people could not speak as to the side of the round-tower facing the river.”
“Ah!” said Miles. “There were no witnesses on that side?”
“Alas, none.”
“Then it’s fairly obvious, isn’t it? You told us a while ago that one of the battlements round the parapet, on the side facing the river, had crumbling pieces of rock broken off as though someone’s fingers had clawed at them in climbing up. The murderer must have come from the river-side.”
“Consider,” said Professor Rigaud in a persuasive voice, “the difficulties of such a theory.”
“What difficulties?”
The other checked them off on his forefinger, tapping again.
“No boat approached the tower, or it would have been seen. The stone of that tower, forty feet high, was as smooth as a wet fish. The lowest window (as measured by the police) was full twenty-five feet above the surface of the water. How does your murderer scale the wall, kill Mr. Brooke, and get down again?”
There was a long silence.
“But, hang it all, the thing was done!” protested Miles. “You’re not going to tell me this crime was committed by a . . .”
“By a what?”
The question was fired back so quickly, while Professor Rigaud lowered his hands and leaned forward, that Miles felt an eerie and disturbing twinge of nerves. It seemed to him that Professor Rigaud was trying to tell him something, trying to lead him, trying to draw him on, with sardonic amusement behind it.