“And that is how you were placed? I was right? You had your back to the door?”
“More or less, yes. If you’d known Pippa… She owned whatever she made part of her outfit, like me. She owned whatever was mine. When she walked in, she walked right in. You always ended up with your back to the door.”
“So if either of you saw a third person enter, it would be Pippa. Did her face change? Did she cry out?”
“Oh, God, do I know?” he said, groaning with the effort to remember clearly. “We were so tangled, neither of us knew about anyone else but the two of us. I don’t know… I don’t remember… She was yelling at me all the time, what would one yell more mean?”
“No, I see that. No, don’t worry, it wouldn’t prove anything, anyhow. Let it go.”
“Bunty,” he said suddenly, reaching across the table to touch her hand, “I don’t want you to hope too much, and find yourself badly let down in the end. God knows you’ve made me begin to believe I couldn’t have done it, but everything we’ve got is only conjecture. There isn’t one blind bit of evidence to show that there was ever anyone else there but the two of us. Not one! Not that I’m giving up so easily, I don’t mean that… I don’t want to believe I’m a killer. But if it should turn out… I don’t want you hurt!” he concluded with abrupt passion, and plucked his hand away.
There could hardly, Bunty thought, be a better demonstration of her contention that he had nothing of the killer about him, and not even his own despairing conviction had been able to instil the makings into his nature. Here was he struggling to extend himself to accept the possibility of his guilt, and his chief worry was to save her from becoming so involved that she might be seriously damaged by the disillusionment.
“Give me time,” she said, wisely sticking to the practical point he had raised, “and I’ll find the sign you want. I’ll prove there was someone else there. There wasn’t, for instance, anything missing from the body? Or from the house?”
He shook his head with a wry smile. “That’s just what I was thinking of, as a matter of fact. Pippa’s still wearing her engagement ring! It isn’t such a valuable job, I know, but surely if some sort of crook acquaintance had followed her to my place and killed her, he’d have gone to the trouble to take a solitaire diamond from her finger before he left? It wouldn’t delay him long.”
She thought that over rapidly, her lip caught in her teeth. “That could also mean something that seems to me much more likely. After all, you don’t just kill over a slight difference of opinion, or a few shillings in crooked money. The mere fact that it was worth murder suggests to me that whoever it was wasn’t interested in one ring, not even on the side. What was at stake was bigger than that. The ring was worth more to him right there on Pippa’s finger when the police came, to make them say just what you’re saying: If there’d been an intruder here, he’d have made off with this. Everything had to be left intact, or there was a hole in the case against you.”
“Then how,” he asked with a perverse smile, “are you ever going to produce that sign for me?”
“You want to bet?” said Bunty. “Don’t side-track me, and we’ll get there yet. Where were we? Yes… with you set up as the fall guy, and the murderer telephoning the police from a suitably distant call box. Now you can take it as read that the police would have to check on such a call, whether they took it seriously or not, simply because it always might be true. In this case they found only an empty house, locked and innocent, no body, no criminal, no gun, nothing—just a bachelor cottage with the two tenants gone off for their half-term breaks, as probably some neighbour would confirm. Or the school caretaker, if there isn’t a neighbour who occasionally swops gossip with you. All in order. So what would they do next? Shrug it off as a false alarm? They do happen, all too often, out of spite, or boredom, or just a perverted sense of humour. Or would they put in the squad and go over the place thoroughly? In their present state, shorthanded and overworked, and taking into account the surface improbability of two respectable young men like you getting involved in murder, I’d say they wouldn’t spare the time. On the other hand, they’d still be a little bit curious, just as to what was behind that call.”
“Do you think the caller would mention names?” Luke asked alertly.
“A good point! No, I don’t think he would. The more anonymous your anonymous call is, so to speak, the less likely ever to tie up with you. No, he wouldn’t mention Pippa’s name, certainly not if he had some traceable connection with her himself. He’d just say, you boys want to get along to such-and-such an address, fast, there’s a girl been killed in there.”
“Then when the police drew a blank at my place, they’d have no way of following up by checking on Pippa’s flat and movements. So what more could they do?”
“I’ll tell you. They could pass out to the papers a little news item about the police being called to an apparently false alarm of the murder of a girl at a Comerbourne address. And then they’d sit back and wait to see if somebody comes forward with word of a daughter, or a sister, or a friend, going missing. No details, of coursé, just the general bait.”
“But to-day,” he said, “is Sunday.”
“Exactly. And the Sunday papers go to press before Saturday evening, and couldn’t even get this para. into the stop-press. So nothing can result until at least to-morrow. For my money, the police don’t yet know, nobody yet knows but you and I and the murderer, that Pippa is dead. Which matches with what the police here said. All they were following up was a case of dangerous driving.”
“That does give us a little time, anyhow,” he acknowledged.
“And a hypothetical good mark if we’re the ones who come forward voluntarily to report her death and tell all we know about it.”
He had turned away to pick up Pippa’s suitcase, but he swung on his heel then to take a long, considering look at her. Her face was intent, candid and utterly serious.
“You really have a lot of faith in the police, haven’t you?” he said, studying her curiously.
“Yes. They’re human, and not all of them what they ought to be, but by and large, yes, I’ve got a lot of faith in them. Bring that over here on the settee, where the light’s good.”
Pippa Galliens suitcase was of the air-travel persuasion, large but light, in oatmeal-coloured fibreglass with a rigid frame, and secured, in addition to its twin locks, with a broad external strap. Luke laid it on the couch, unbuckled the strap, and tried one of the locks with his thumb. The flap sprang back at once, a success he had not expected. He released the other one, and opened the case on as tempting a collection of feminine fashion as Bunty had ever seen under one lid. Pippa had loved clothes, and cared for them tenderly. Everything was delicately folded and cunningly assembled, protected in plastic and held in place by pink corded ribbon. Luke shrank from touching these relics, almost as much from awe of their perfection as from remembrance of their owner. It was Bunty who loosed the ribbon tethers, and began to lift out the upper layers carefully, surveying each before she removed it.
“She did herself well. Doesn’t it seem to you that a lot of this is brand-new?”
“I told you, she took the car shopping on Thursday. I said she’d have time to shop in London, but she couldn’t wait. She loved clothes,” he said helplessly, watching delicate feminine colours lifted one by one from Pippa’s treasury.