Revel let out a strangled laugh. “ ‘Go through everything alone!’ Perfect! Wonderful!” He walked over to Dinah and grabbed her shoulder. “You bloody little fool!”
9
It was the first time Inspector Sands had ever tried to manage a roomful of people. Sands’ special talents were usually employed on special jobs; he had never handled a gangster but he was used on cases involving the middle and upper classes. He soothed old ladies who were afraid of being poisoned, he talked to young men who signed other names than their own on checks, and businessmen whose stores burned down too conveniently, and society women whose jewels mysteriously disappeared after paste substitutes had been made.
But his tactics were the quiet kind and they were futile in Dinah Revel’s case. She was screaming invectives so shrilly that Sands almost missed the knock on the door. He hurried toward it, grateful for the interruption.
By the time he came back Dinah had run through her repertoire of epithets and was sitting with her back to the others, looking out of the window again.
Sands said, “Jackson, I haven’t your complete story.”
Jackson, who had been both pleased and shocked at the scene, tried to create the impression that he was a man of the world by shrugging his shoulders casually.
“My story is a little confused. I move around the house a great deal in the course of my duties. Shortly before six I began to arrange the silver and china for dinner. I was doing this when Mr. Revel rang for me. He asked me where Mrs. Revel’s room was and I told him. I then returned to the dining room until you rang for me to fetch Mr. Williams. I went down to the billiard room and found him dead. That was a little after six-thirty.”
“You had not been down to the billiard room before that time?”
“No sir.”
“Who built the fire in the grate?”
“I assume Mr. Williams did.”
Sands reached in his pocket and brought out the gun.
“Have you ever seen this gun before, Jackson?”
Aspasia gave a genteel shriek at the word “gun.” Sands walked slowly around the room holding the gun in front of each of them. They all shook their heads.
He paused in front of Jane. She looked at the gun, her eyes wide with fright. “That’s... that’s Duncan’s gun,” she whispered. “It’s the one he always carried.”
“Why did he carry a gun?” Sands asked. There was no hope in his voice. None of them knew this Duncan, he thought. They tell me a few isolated facts about him but they can’t piece him together for me. He bought a rattlesnake, he wrote a letter to Revel, he wore blue silk underwear, he wanted to marry Nora Shane. He had bullied his sister and picked out her friends, but she adored him and she wore a mink coat. He came from a good family and he had a lot of money, but he carried a loaded revolver.
“I don’t know,” Jane said. “I guess he just liked to carry one. Duncan didn’t explain himself to anyone. He just did things. He wasn’t like other people.”
“All right,” Sands said. “I’m sorry to have delayed your dinner, Mrs. Shane.”
“We didn’t mind,” Mrs. Shane lied gallantly. “Won’t you stay and have dinner with us?”
“No, no, thanks. I have work to do. I am leaving a man here. If any of you has any additional information tell him and he’ll get in touch with me.”
He remained at the door while the others went out. Jane was the last to go.
“Miss Stevens,” he said. “You had something to tell me privately?”
She looked around carefully before replying. There was no one within earshot but she moved closer to Sands and spoke in a whisper:
“Yes, I have. You remember that letter that Dr. Prye received shortly before the wedding? I know you think Duncan wrote it but he did not.”
“I don’t know who wrote it,” Sands said evenly. “In many respects the handwriting was similar to your brother’s.”
“It wasn’t in the least—”
“The general appearance was different, that is the slant of the letters. But that’s what I expect when an amateur tries to disguise his handwriting — a difference in the general appearance but similarities in formation of letters, spacing, punctuation, margin widths, general setup. It looks as if your brother wrote the letter.”
Jane was astounded. “I’m telling you he did not, and all you do is argue with me!”
“Not arguing,” Sands said patiently. “Giving you my point of view, telling you that I have reasons for my belief in order to warn you that I shall expect reasons for yours.”
“I have reasons,” she said, nodding. “I keep all Duncan’s letters; in fact, I keep everybody’s letters.”
She paused, and Sands nodded gravely, thinking, in fact you would; you tie them up with blue ribbons and I’m standing here talking to you on an empty stomach.
“—more or less souvenirs,” Jane was saying. “Well, when I saw that letter to Dr. Prye I thought at the time it sounded half familiar, if you know what I mean. I mean, it sounded like something I’d heard or read before. Then this afternoon, while I was in the drawing room talking to Dr. Prye, I suddenly remembered. And what’s more I know why I remembered.”
“Let’s have what you remembered first,” Sands suggested.
“Of course. It was a letter Duncan wrote to me from Detroit. I’d forwarded the invitation to Nora’s wedding to the Hotel Statler there, and the letter he wrote back to me is the one I’m talking about.”
“When was this?”
“Oh, around the end of August. It wasn’t a very long letter. He said he was looking forward to attending the wedding although weddings and funerals were so much alike it was high time someone combined the two.”
“ ‘I have always been intrigued,’ ” Sands quoted, “ ‘by the funereal aspect of weddings and the hymeneal aspect of funerals. It is high time someone combined the two,’ ”
“That’s it!” Jane cried. “Those were his very words. Duncan liked to talk like that, to say rather shocking things that he didn’t really mean. The reason I remembered the letter when I was talking to Dr. Prye is that Dr. Prye was mentioned in the letter. Duncan wanted to know who and what he was.” She giggled. “Duncan said he sounded like a gossip columnist: ‘I Spy’ by Dr. Prye. Anyway, as soon as I thought of the letter I went right upstairs.”
Sands was gentle with her. “I’m afraid you haven’t proved your brother didn’t write the letter to Prye. To the contrary, I’d say. Some people go on repeating phrases indefinitely if they’re fond of their own words.”
“I haven’t finished,” she said softly. “I went upstairs to get that letter and it was gone.”
Sands was staring at her. She’s right, of course, he thought. I’ve never actually believed Duncan wrote that letter to Prye.
“Tell me about it,” he said; “where you kept it.”
“I had a pile of letters in the drawer of my bureau, tied with ribbon.”
“Drawer locked?”
“There is no lock on it.”
“Anything else disturbed?”
She looked upset. “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
“I’ll see about it.”
He went down the hall and exchanged some words with the uniformed policeman sitting near the entrance to the basement. The policeman walked upstairs and Sands came back.
“Aren’t you going to do anything?” Jane cried.
“I’m going to eat,” Sands said. “You’d better eat too.”
She walked toward the dining room with an air of offended dignity and went inside. Sands collected his hat and opened the front door. He stood on the top step, pulling the collar of his coat up around his neck.