As I made my way up the steps and along the pavement minutes later, I considered the point; one which had not struck me before. One thinks often of the evil required to do murder and – for want of a better word – the courage, but one cannot ignore the fact that a would-be murderer must also have the stomach for it, at least where a stabbing is concerned. Firing off a pistol at a distant figure or tipping a packet of powder into a glass before melting away are one thing, but driving a kitchen knife into the neck of a man while he looks one in the eye… surely I could take at least the screaming Eldry, the gulping Stanley and the quavering Mattie off the list of possible suspects, unless one of them was a very accomplished actor indeed? And Mr Faulds, so he claimed, could not have done it without fainting dead away. Then again Millie, the superintendent’s rather peculiar ideas about her placidity notwithstanding, was hardly my idea of a murdering fiend. As to the other three: to have met Clara, Phyllis and Mrs Hepburn in the street and supposed any of them capable of such an act would be hard enough; to entertain the notion after twenty-four hours at close quarters with them was beyond ridiculous. And yet it had happened; still whenever I closed my eyes I could see that white face rising up out of a sea of red, beseeching me.
So, here I was, doing what I was ever wont to do: that is, turning to Alec Osborne to beg him to help me. I only hoped, as I let myself into the kiosk at the corner of Darnaway Street and piled up my collection of pennies, that the extra bustle of the morning had died down so that the telephone lines were there for the asking again.
There was a little delay, as it happened, a few extra ticks and thumps and one or two sighs from the girl at the exchange. She asked me if I would not rather try later; I assured her that I had chosen to telephone just when I wanted to. She sighed again, said something I affected not to hear and then at last I heard ringing.
‘It’s Mrs Gilver, Mr Barrow, for master,’ I said, before I could help myself. ‘For Mr Osborne, I mean, Barrow, if you’d fetch him.’ There was a long, windy silence down the line. Barrow, Alec’s valet and, in the absence of a housekeeper, the self-appointed boss of Dunelgar, takes himself inordinately seriously for a man of his age. As well as that, I am never very certain what he thinks of me. Perhaps he is an empire-builder, who looks forward to the day when Alec’s household will swell and he will be borne along on the rising tide and finish as butler with valets and footmen to jump when he clicks his fingers. If so, then no doubt he blames me for Alec’s continued bachelorhood – a ridiculous notion, for I have been most encouraging on the topic of Alec’s settling down, except when I have been downright bossy. There was a whisper of an alliance only the previous winter and I had cosseted it as though it were a kindling fire which I had lit with my last match, but it came to nothing.
Alec picked up the earpiece at the other end and broke in on my meandering thoughts.
‘Dandy,’ he said, and I heard the click of him resettling his pipe, which meant he was prepared for a long and luxurious chat, if the girl on the exchange would let us have one. ‘How goes it across the great divide?’ he said. ‘Have they seen through you yet? Bunty has settled in like a daughter of the house, by the way. Not fretting at all.’
‘There’s been a murder,’ I announced and managed to get quite a chunk of the pertinent history across in the ensuing silence before Alec came to himself again and started badgering me.
‘But the men were all locked out apart from this Faulds character?’ he said, cutting me off from explaining that very fact with great clarity. I sighed.
‘Yes, and the maids are all two to a room and, as I say, I’m pretty sure Lollie couldn’t have done it without me hearing although I’m getting the brandy glass checked to be sure. So I’m stumped and begging you to come and help me.’
‘Well, ordinarily, of course,’ Alec said. ‘Ordinarily try and stop me, but I’m stranded, Dan. I’ve got enough petrol in the Vauxhall to get down there but not back again, and some of the garages are closed already.’
‘But surely garage mechanics are their own bosses?’ I said. ‘Why should they shut the pumps, for heaven’s sake?’
‘They’ve run dry from everyone stocking up,’ Alec said.
‘Panic buying?’ I said. ‘How disgusting. How selfish people are. They’ve forgotten all our lessons from the war already.’
‘Quite,’ said Alec. ‘Also, I never thought of it in time. No, we are not finished,’ he said in his most commanding voice as the pips sounded and the girl broke in. ‘At least another three minutes. At least.’ The line changed back from breathy to muffled as she left us again. ‘Is there any sign of a motive, Dan? From anyone except the wife, that is?’
‘Hah!’ I said. ‘The place is bristling with motives like a porcupine. You were wrong when you thought him a ninny, you know. Lollie’s summing-up was much nearer the mark: a cruel, vindictive, philandering pig. A seducer of the maids and a brute to the menservants. Some of the things he did, Alec, one wonders how he ever dreamed them up they’re so lavishly nasty. And Clara the parlourmaid can’t bring herself to speak of whatever he did to her even now, so it must be extra specially horrid. No one is sorry he’s gone.’
‘Still,’ said Alec.
‘Oh yes, I know,’ I said. ‘And Lollie at least is keen for me to stay and try to get to the bottom of it for her.’
‘Well, if it makes more sense to come at it from this end,’ said Alec, ‘is there anyone you can put out of the running? Anyone who didn’t have a motive?’
‘I haven’t heard anything from Mr Faulds on his own account,’ I said, ‘although he hated him with a passion in comradeship, certainly. And… let me see… Mrs Hepburn dropped a very vague hint yesterday but I need to press her. And then there’s Millie, the scullerymaid – kitchenmaid in waiting – but I can’t think that she would have much to do with him.’
‘Oh?’ said Alec.
‘Have you ever met yours?’ I said.
‘Good point,’ Alec said. ‘No, indeed. Although I daresay there is such a creature about the place somewhere. What about the rest of the men?’
‘I’ve yet to speak to John and Stanley,’ I said, ‘but the thing is that the men are in the clear anyway, because they were locked out, remember?’
‘Doors can be unlocked,’ said Alec. ‘You must be thorough about this, Dan.’
I considered trying to explain to him the difference between his bedroom, muffled with carpet and curtains, miles from any door, and the maids’ and cook’s rooms with their linoleum over stone, their echoing bareness and the sound ringing along the empty passageways of scraping locks and iron bolts and wooden soles and marble steps.
‘Hm,’ I said in the end.
‘And on another note, what are the police making of it?’ said Alec. ‘And of you, come to that?’
‘Very little so far,’ I replied. ‘They’re rather stretched with all the picket duty – or is it the strikers who one says are on picket duty? Well, you know what I mean – so it was a superintendent who poled up this morning, very flustered and very displeased to be flustered – he is formed for gravitas, really – but he practically had his Big Blue Book for Policemen in his hand, folded open at Murder. So when I debunked Fanny Rossiter and waved Hutchinson’s name in front of him he rather fell on my neck.’
‘Fanny?’ said Alec. ‘And debunked? Where do you get these words? Do you have to pay a subscription?’