Hilda made no move to go away but stood eying him in silence. Then she blurted out: “I’m quitting.”
Sands smiled at her patiently and waited.
“I got better tilings to do than hop around after dumb blondes.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Sands said pleasantly.
“Well, I have!” She gave the towels a savage jerk. “I’m no ladies’ maid. I’ve got my pride.”
She stamped off down the hall, muttering to herself. Sands walked over to Jane’s door and rapped.
A wan and wasted voice told him to come in. Jane was sitting up in bed, nibbling a piece of toast, now and then giving a long, shuddering sigh. Sands noticed that the breakfast tray was nearly empty.
“I feel beastly to be eating like this,” she said, the tears coming to her eyes again. “Duncan always thought eating was beastly anyway. Duncan was different from other people.”
He was indeed, the inspector thought. But he gave her an encouraging and sympathetic nod.
“Did your brother have a close friend or business associate called George?”
“George,” she repeated. “George. Well, there’s George Bigelow. He plays awfully good tennis. He and I were in the finals last George! You don’t mean George Revel?”
“I might,” Sands said cautiously. “Were he and Duncan on intimate terms?”
She was shocked. “Oh no! George Revel is a dreadful person. Duncan disapproved of him very strongly. Duncan may have had his faults but he certainly didn’t — wasn’t, I mean, promiscuous.”
Sands thought of the scented underwear and said dryly, “No, I can tell he wasn’t. Revel and Duncan knew each other well?”
“They knew each other, naturally. After all, Dinah’s our cousin. But after the divorce George’s name never passed our lips.”
“And Duncan never received any letters from Mr. Revel, for instance?”
“Of course not. We got letters from Dinah, though.” “Addressed to you or to Duncan?”
“To Duncan, usually, but he always told me what was in them.”
I wonder, Sands thought. Aloud he said: “I understand that Duncan and Dinah were not on good terms. Doesn’t an exchange of letters seem odd to you?”
“Odd?” She wrinkled her forehead. “It wasn’t odd in the least. They were cousins.” She paused and added in a gentle but slightly exasperated tone: “I’m afraid you don’t quite understand Duncan. He had a very strict sense of duty.”
“You mentioned seeing Dinah come out of Duncan’s room yesterday morning. Have you talked to her about this?”
She looked up at him, her eyes wide. “I— Am I under oath?”
“No. But you will be later on. Pretend you are now. Make a game of it.”
“You needn’t talk to me as if I were a child,” she said haughtily. “Dinah came to me last night and asked me not to mention that I saw her. She said it wasn’t important. I said I wouldn’t promise. I said the Truth Will Out. And so it will.”
“Very often it does.”
“This time it will.” She flung him a triumphant glance. “You needn’t think I swallowed all that twaddle about Duncan falling down the steps.”
Sands was annoyed but refused to give her the satisfaction of seeing his annoyance.
“Twaddle it may be,” he said pleasantly. “Did your brother have a fountain pen?”
“Yes. It was blue and it had his name on it. Duncan loved to have his name on things.”
“Where did he carry the pen?”
“In his pocket. I think in his vest pocket.”
“Did it have a gold nib?”
She bit her underlip pensively. “Well, I don’t know. If that’s the best kind you can buy, then it did. Duncan believed in always buying the best.”
Still patient, Sands removed from his pocket the letter he had found in Duncan’s drawer. He held it in front of her. “Don’t touch this letter. Read it. Is this your brother’s handwriting?”
She leaned forward and studied it for a long time. When she finally replied she seemed to have forgotten the question.
“Duncan was never at any place called the Windsor,” she said slowly. “He never saw fifty brunettes. He was with me every night and I never saw fifty brunettes!”
6
Prye was waiting in the library. Sands placed Duncan’s letter on the desk with a laconic “Make something of that, will you?” and sat down at the telephone.
“Sutton? Sands speaking. Make it concise and as simple as possible.”
“Right,” Sutton said affably. “Cause of death: fracture and concussion. Bruise on chin occurred some time before death, say about six hours. One bruise on right shoulder, two on right hip. The small number is inconsistent with a fall down stone steps. Besides, they occurred earlier, like the chin bruise. High alcohol content in the brain.”
“And your verdict?”
“Murder. The hat alone makes it murder in my opinion. There was some blood on it. If he’d fallen he wouldn’t have landed at the bottom of the steps with his silk hat on and the hat wouldn’t have blood on it. I think he was hit on the head with a heavy object and laid to rest on the flagstones. It’s been done before.”
“Much bleeding?”
“Very little. If the murderer was quick he could have placed the body on the flagstones while the hair was still absorbing most of the blood. Death, by the way, was not immediate, but he was certainly unconscious from the time he received the blow. Died some time between twelve and two. O.K.?”
“Fine,” Sands said, and hung up. He called police headquarters.
Yes, there had been several cars hauled in that morning. Sure, one of them was a new Cadillac roadster, blue, Massachusetts license plates, doors initialed D.S. It was found on Front Street near the Union Station. There was no gasoline in the tank. The ignition key had been left in the car.
“All right,” Sands said. “Connect me with Darcy if he’s awake.”
Darcy was awake. He said briskly, “Yes, Inspector?”
“You know the young man with the Cadillac roadster you were looking for all day yesterday, Darcy? He’s been found. Dead. And the car’s been found. In front of the Union Station!”
“I must have missed it, sir,” Darcy said efficiently.
“You must have, yes,” Sands said. “Make up for it today. I want to know if he went into the station, what he did, how he got back to this house. Try the cabs. If he took one I want to see the driver in my office.”
He hung up and turned to Prye. “What do you make of the letter?”
“A mystery,” Prye said. “First mystery, who is George?”
“Hadn’t Mrs. Revel a husband called George?”
“So I gather. I’ve never met him.”
“He’s a broker in Montreal,” Sands said. “And what did Duncan Stevens do in Boston?”
Prye looked at him sharply. “I see. Broker Duncan writing to Broker George.”
“Oh, it’s better than that. Didn’t you know that Dennis Williams is employed by George Revel?”
“Again no.” Prye paused. “That suggests that the ‘pretty camouflage’ is Dennis. Dennis is here ostensibly as Dinah’s fiancé and as a guest for the wedding. If actually he’s here to collect something from Duncan then he is a pretty camouflage. Duncan thought he was too pretty. Duncan wanted George to ‘come himself this time.’ ”
Sands smiled. “You’re doing well. Go on to the rest of the letter.”
Prye leaned over the desk again, then straightened up, frowning. “Well, the Royal Y is the Royal York, and I suppose it is better than any hotel they have in Kingston, but it seems silly to mention it.”
“Kingston,” Sands said, “has quite a nice penitentiary hut certainly it can’t be compared to the Royal York Hotel. Go on.”