‘With no idea of how you got back from Saighdearan?’
‘I suppose I must have thumbed lifts, but I’ve no recollection of it.’
‘But your memory has returned to you?’
‘Except for what happened between the knock on the head and me walking in on Mr Honfleur yesterday afternoon.’
‘What an interesting story! And you have no idea why you were abducted in this strange fashion?’
‘None at all.’
‘But you were able to leave this tumbledown house of your own volition.’
‘I must have, mustn’t I? But I can’t remember a thing about it.’
‘And there was no sign of these men?’
‘Neither hair nor hide.’
‘They had untied you, I assume.’
‘Must have done, mustn’t they?’
‘While you were at Saighdearan did you make contact with a man named Vittorio?’
‘Make contact? Me? No. Why should I?’ (But the question had rattled him.)
‘Only because I have some reason to believe that he was in the neighbourhood at the same time as you were. You know him, of course?’
‘Not to say know him. He came on my coach a year or two back to buy up some antiques or something of that sort, and I believe he used to go along with other drivers from time to time on the same sort of job, but I haven’t seen him around for a year or more.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Laura. ‘I was not going to read out my shorthand notes in front of Knight. He might have started thinking about his dressing-gown, which we happen to know was neatly packed and stowed away in his suitcase.’
‘His kidnappers may have tidy minds.’
‘The man is a liar of liars. His whole story is a fabrication and not a very clever one at that. All that boloney about a black man!’
‘The boy at the hotel mentioned a black man.’
‘Yes, but he meant Vittorio.’
‘I have suggested that to the police. No doubt they will have confirmed it by now.’
‘And Knight’s loss of memory which he claims happened after he was knocked on the head! What do you think he was up to during his so-called disappearance?’
‘Murdering Vittorio.’
‘Then he must be Carstairs!’
‘We have already decided that point, I think.’
‘Look, though, are we sure that Knight and Carstairs are not the same man? It would simplify things enormously if they were.’
‘No, no. Things are simple enough. The jigsaw is not a difficult one. It only remains for us to fit the pieces together in a manner which will convince a jury and that, at the moment, we are not in a position to do.’
‘You mean you know all the answers?’
‘So would you, if you would rid yourself of this yearning for Carstairs and Knight to be one and the same man. What about the descriptions we have had of both? We must accept evidence when it is provided by unbiased witnesses. I think there is no doubt, as you say, that Knight’s story is a fabrication, except in so far as the wound in his neck is concerned. I made him take the bandage off, as you know. The snick is neither deep nor dangerous, but it must have bled fairly considerably when it was inflicted.’
‘Yes, but by whom? Carstairs?’
‘Vittorio, I think, and then Knight killed him.’
‘So we are going on the assumption that Knight murdered Vittorio. But that looks as though Vittorio knew that Knight had murdered Noone and Daigh, doesn’t it?’
‘Oh, not necessarily at all. To my mind it does not follow.’
‘But Knight has told us all those lies. Do you think he told Basil Honfleur the same story as he told us?’
‘Oh, probably. I would not call Knight a very inventive man.’
‘You don’t believe Knight killed the other two drivers, but you do think he murdered Vittorio. Why?’
‘Let us say that our jigsaw contains some extraneous pieces and that now we have to select the one piece which fits.’
CHAPTER 14
Conradda Mendel Speaks
« ^ »
So what’s the next move? Are you going to get the Scottish police to check Knight’s story?’ asked Laura.
‘They will do that without any hint from me, but I doubt whether they will be able to disprove it.’
‘It’s said that a negative is the most difficult thing in the world to prove. I mean, nobody at the hotel can say that Knight wasn’t gagged, bound and threatened with a flick-knife, and the fact that the hotel has four exits can’t be gainsaid. Besides that, the door by which he says he and those men left is at the foot of the stairs and under no supervision whatever. That’s another point in his favour, and I bet the police find plenty of faked evidence in that old house to show that Knight was dumped there. There will be a length of rope, plenty of crumbs and a thermos flask with his fingerprints on it, don’t you think?’
‘It is not at all unlikely.’
‘The police will spot that his story about being in his dressing-gown is phoney, won’t they, though?’
‘If he is pressed he will tell them that the men put him into his jacket and returned the dressing-gown to his suitcase. He will continue to plead loss of memory.’
‘What about his knowing that Daigh, as well as Noone, has been murdered? That news was carefully kept out of the papers until quite recently.’
‘He will say that the other drivers told him that Daigh had not returned to the depot and that another driver brought Daigh’s coach home. He will claim that, as he knew Noone had been murdered, he supposed that Daigh had met with a similar fate.’
‘Got it all taped out, haven’t you?’
‘Oh, you are not the only innocent person who has a criminal’s mind,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘There is one thing I should like to know, though. In the beginning, when the directors of County Motors asked me to look into the matter of the missing coach-drivers, I felt that Basil Honfleur was not at all anxious that I should. When Knight was thought to have disappeared, however, who so anxious that I should search for him as our friend Honfleur, and I have found myself wondering how long he has known about this coming merger with the larger coach company and to what extent he fears for his position as managing director when the merger takes place, that is all. As we said before, he would not be the first man in an executive position to be made redundant.’
‘So you think he’s made himself a little escape route? But how?’
‘I do not know, but, as Mrs George de Home Vaizey, of whom you have never heard, once said, “Human nature is desperately wicked.” ’
‘What was she talking about?’
‘Strawberries and cream.’
Laura, who did not trust her employer’s sense of humour, snorted disgustedly and changed the subject.
‘Wonder how Conradda Mendel is getting on, now she’s been mentioned,’ she said. As though she had invoked the spirit of the woman in question, on the following morning a letter arrived from Conradda herself.
‘So she didn’t go to America after all,’ Laura remarked as she sorted the correspondence and noted the postmark.
‘Who?’ Dame Beatrice enquired.
‘Conradda Mendel. She’s put her name, but not her address, on the back of the envelope and it’s postmarked Poole on the front.’
‘Interesting. Let us see what she has to say.’ Dame Beatrice slit open the envelope, scanned its contents and then handed the missive to Laura.
‘Dear Friend,’ Conradda had written, ‘before I go further, please do not show this to anybody but your most confidential secretary, as I do not wish it to be known to any but yourselves where I am to be found.
‘I became ill in America, but it is too expensive to be ill in that country, so I dragged myself on to an aeroplane and came to my own doctor and he ordered an operation, so here I am in convalescence in the house of a friend. I am getting stronger every day, but am not very well yet, so this is to ask if you will kindly visit me, as at the moment I am not able to travel to visit you.