“Oh, don’t be mysterious,” she said impatiently.
He got up and went to the door. “Dennis and Duncan were killed because they had fifty thousand dollars and somebody else wanted it.”
“Money?” Dinah said. “Just money?”
“Money is enough,” Prye said.
He closed the door behind him, stood for a minute in the hall, and went downstairs. Sands was just coming in the front door. He looked calm, almost indifferent, though his face was a shade grayer.
“I’ve figured something out for you,” Prye said.
Sands leaned against the wall, as if he were too tired to stand alone. “Have you?”
“Yes. I know what a brunette is.”
Sands said, faintly ironic, “You know?”
“It’s a thousand dollars. I’m pretty sure of it.”
“Oh.” Sands shot him a quick glance. “Revel break down and confess?”
“I did some drinking,” Prye said smoothly. “How much did Stevens withdraw from his account this past month?”
“Forty-two thousand dollars.”
“In American money. And how much would that be worth in Canadian money?”
“At the present exchange rate, 10 per cent, about forty-six thousand dollars.”
“That’s the official exchange rate,” Prye said. “But if you know where to go, and as a broker Duncan would know, you can buy a Canadian dollar in the United States for eighty American cents. So with his forty-two thousand dollars Duncan could buy more than fifty thousand dollars in Canadian money. If that could be smuggled across the border into Canada, as in fact it was, it could be used to buy forty-six thousand American dollars, at the regular exchange rate. That would make a clear profit of four thousand dollars.
“Stevens would get half for his part, buying up Canadian money cheaply in the United States and bringing it across the border. Revel would get the other half for buying up American securities in Canada and then turning them over to Stevens.”
“A conspiracy to evade the regulations of the Foreign Exchange Control Board,” Sands said. “It’s been done before. I didn’t think of it in connection with this case. The profit seems so disproportionately small compared to the risk. Two thousand dollars for each of them.”
Prye said dryly, “But fifty thousand dollars for someone else.”
“Or for Revel,” Sands said. “If the deal went through he would have received two thousand. But if he didn’t have to return American securities to Stevens, his profit is fifty thousand, the same as a hijacker’s would be.”
“Revel doesn’t need the money.”
Sands smiled cynically. “Everybody needs fifty thousand dollars, even as you and I. How is the money done up?”
“I’m not that psychic,” Prye said. “I suppose it’s wrapped and that the parcel is fairly bulky and that it’s hidden somewhere in the house.”
“My men were over the house thoroughly yesterday. Nothing was found.”
“Stevens was pretty subtle.”
“Perhaps he was subtle but he was no Houdini. If the money were here it would have been found.”
“Williams found it, I think. Did he put it back? He must have. He—”
“How do you know Williams found it?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he?” Prye said.
“Get Revel for me,” Sands said. “There are two possible reasons for Williams’ death: either he found the money or he knew who murdered Stevens.”
Prye went out and came back to the library in five minutes with Revel. Sands asked Revel politely to sit down, and Revel, puzzled but still indifferent, sat down in the leather chair beside the desk.
“I am not,” Sands said, “asking you to say anything which may be used in evidence. I think personally that you’re involved in some crooked deal which would annoy the Foreign Exchange Control Board, but I can’t prove it and you know I can’t. We’ll leave that then. I want you to tell me if, when you talked to Williams at the hotel shortly before he was murdered, he hinted that he knew who murdered Stevens.”
Revel smiled. “Did he act as though he had guilty knowledge? No. I think he was bewildered and a little scared.”
“Why?”
“Scared you might arrest him, I fancy. I’ve had the same feeling myself now and then.”
“Why did he come back to this house when I’d given him permission to return to Montreal?”
“Why?” Revel said. “Why do people do anything? For love or money. Perhaps both.”
“Did you send him back here?”
Revels smile broadened into a grin. “What a nasty question, Inspector. If I admit sending him back, it would mean that I admit knowledge of those elusive fifty brunettes, wouldn’t it? It would also mean that since I wanted to find out where they were I couldn’t be the murderer. So you are tempting me to clear myself of a murder charge by getting myself embroiled in a lesser charge.”
“Nothing of the sort,” Sands said brusquely. “You don’t think Williams had knowledge of the murderer?”
“Quite sure of it. I believe he even suspected me!”
“Horrible thought,” the inspector said. “All right. You may go.”
Revel looked surprised but willing to go. When he had left Prye said, “And what about Sammy?”
“Nothing much beyond the essential fact that he is dead. Struck from behind with something heavy and sharp. Sutton suggests an ax, but the weapon hasn’t been found. Apparently Sammy was struck down on the driveway some time before midnight. You must have forgotten to lock your nimble seat. The garage is never locked, I’m told.” He smiled sourly. “Precautions like that are considered unnecessary in this section of the city. Someone rang up Sammy, told him to come here at a certain time, waited for him to come, and killed him.”
“And where in hell was the policeman we’ve been billeting?”
“That’s the interesting part of it,” Sands said softly. “He was in the hall downstairs with a clear view of both halls. The lights were on and he swears he was awake.”
“And that means?”
“Fairies,” Sands said. “The fairies killed Sammy, because nobody went through those halls after eleven o’clock last night except Revel, who went into your room around one and went straight back to his own room half an hour later.”
“Windows?”
“The first-floor windows are out. The policeman says that everyone was upstairs from a quarter to eleven.”
“Second-floor windows then,” Prye said. “I’d rather believe in an agile murderer than in fairies. There is ivy growing on the walls, trees surrounding the house, and there’s the old boarding-school dodge of knotted sheets.”
Sands said, “The ivy’s too young to support a cat. The trees are too far away. And the sheets— Perhaps I’d better see Hilda.” He rang the bell for Jackson.
When Jackson came in he was looking shocked and a little frightened and his voice trembled.
“Where is Hilda?” Sands asked.
“Upstairs,” Jackson said. “I— She is making up the rooms.”
“Will you get her, please?”
Jackson hesitated. “I don’t think she’ll come.”
“She’ll come.”
Jackson’s face got red. “She’s scared. You’re a policeman. You’re used to seeing people murdered. What does it matter to you? If people weren’t murdered you wouldn’t have a job—”
He had to stop because he couldn’t control his voice. He was afraid he might cry, so he turned and went out, very stiffly.
Sands watched him go, his eyes rather sad. “He’s a very young man,” he said gently.
Prye said, “Find anything out about him?”
“Just that he went to Harvard as he says he did. He waited on table in one of the residences.”