“Look here, Uncle Bert —”
“All right, all right, all right! I said she couldn’t of, didn’t I? So she couldn’t of. This is important. From Cressy’s point of view. Because she seems to of been the last to see ’im alive. Except of course, ’is slayer, and that puts ’er in a special category.”
“It does nothing of the sort,” Hilary said.
“Don’t be silly, Hilary,” said his aunt. “Go on, Smith.”
“Ta. To resume. I was coming to you, Missus. Cressy come in an’ mentioned to you it was Alf and not the Colonel done the Daddy Christmas act and you lit off. Where did you go?”
“To my husband. Naturally.”
“Straight off? Direct?”
“Certainly. To our bedroom.”
“You didn’t look in on the dressing-room?”
“I did not.”
“Can you prove it?”
Mrs. Forrester reddened angrily. “No,” she said.
“That’s unfortunate, innit?”
“Nonsense. Don’t be impertinent.”
“Ah, for Gawd’s sake!”
“Aunt B, he’s trying to help us.”
“When I require help I’ll ask for it.”
“You require it now, you silly old bag,” said Mr. Smith.
“How dare you speak to me like that!”
“Uncle Bert — really.”
“And what about yourself, ’Illy? We’ll be coming to you in a sec. Where was I? Oh, yes. With Cressy in the drawing-room. She tells you two about the job and one after another you leave the room. Where did you go?”
“I? I looked for Moult to thank him. I looked in the cloakroom and the library and I went upstairs to see if he was there. And I visited Uncle Flea and Aunt B was with him and finally I joined you all in the dining-room.”
“There you are,” said Mr. Smith. “So if Alf Moult went upstairs you or your auntie or (supposing ’e ’adn’t ’ad one of ’is turns) your uncle, could of done ’im in.”
“Well — my dear Uncle Bert — ‘could have’! Yes, I suppose so. But so could —” Hilary stopped short.
“So could who? I couldn’t of. Mrs. Alleyn couldn’t of. Cressy couldn’t of. We was all sitting down to our Christmas dinner, good as gold, as anyone will bear us out.”
Mrs. Forrester said, “Are we to take it, Smith, that your attitude is entirely altruistic? If you are persuaded that you are completely free of suspicion, why all this fuss?”
“Innit marvellous?” Mr. Smith apostrophized. “Innit bleeding marvellous? A man sees ’is friends, of what ’e thought was ’is friends, in a nasty situation and tries to give them the office. What does ’e get? You can’t win, can you?”
“I’m sure,” she said, “we’re very much obliged to you, Smith. There’s one aspect of this affair, however, that I think you have overlooked.”
She paused, thrust her hands up the opposite sleeves of her magenta cardigan and rested them on her stomach. “Isn’t it possible,” she said, “that Moult was done away with much later in the evening? Your uncle, Hilary, will not care to admit it but Moult did, from time to time, indulge in drinking bouts. I think it extremely likely this was such an occasion. Cressida considers he had drink concealed about his person. He may well have taken it after his performance, hidden himself away somewhere, possibly in a car, and thus eluded the searchers and emerged later in the evening — to be murdered.”
“You’ve thought it all out very nice and tidy, ’aven’t you?” sneered Mr. Smith.
“And so, you may depend upon it, has Mr. Alleyn,” she retorted.
“The search was very thorough, Aunt Bed.”
“Did they look in the cars?”
Hilary was silent.
“In which case,” Mrs. Forrester said exactly as if he had answered, “I cannot see that you, Smith, or Cressida or indeed you, Hilary, are to be excluded from the list of suspected persons.”
“What about yourself?” Smith asked.
“I?” she said with her customary spirit. “No doubt I could have killed Moult. I had no conceivable motive for killing him but no doubt I could have done so.”
“Nothing simpler. You go up to the Colonel, who’s on ’is bed and asleep. You hear Alf Moult in the dressing-room. You go froo the barfroom into the dressing-room, pick up the poker and Bob’s your uncle. You shove the corpse out of the winder.” Mr. Smith caught himself up. “You did say Vince and Co. picked it up under the winder, didn’t you, ’Illy?”
“I don’t think I said anything about it. But according to Alleyn, yes, they did.”
“The modus operandi you have outlined, Smith, could have been used by anybody if my theory is correct. You’ve talked a great deal but you’ve proved nothing, I said you’ve —”
“Don’t you bawl me out as if I was your old man,” Mr. Smith roared. “I been watching you, Missus. You been acting very peculiar. You got something up your sleeve you’re not letting on about.”
Hilary, with a wildish look, cried out, “I won’t have this sort of thing!”
“Yes, you will. You can’t help yourself. You want to watch your aunt. I did. When Alleyn was talking about that marvellous tin box. You didn’t like that, Missus, did you?”
Mr. Smith advanced upon Mrs. Forrester. He jabbed at her with a fat forefinger. “Come on,” he said. “What’s it all about? What’s in the ruddy tin box?”
Mrs. Forrester walked out of the room, slamming the door. When she had gone, it opened silently of its own accord.
The key fitted. It turned easily. Now. The hoop was disengaged. The hasp was more difficult, it really needed a lever but there was none to hand. At the cost of a broken fingernail and in spite of a glove it was finally prised up from the staple.
The lid opened to a vertical position but tended to fall forward, so that it was necessary to prop it up with the head. This was irksome.
A cash box: locked. A map-case. Canvas bags, tied at the neck with red tape. Tubular cartons. Manila envelopes, labelled. “Correspondence: B to F.F. F.F. to B.” He had kept all their letters.
“Receipts.” “Correspondence, general.” “Travel, etc.” “Miscellaneous.” A document in a grand envelope. “To our Trusty and Well-beloved —”
It was necessary to keep calm. To keep what Cressida called one’s cool. Not to scrabble wildly in the welter of accumulated papers. To be methodical and workmanlike. Sensible.
A locked box that rattled. The jewels she hadn’t taken out for the party. And at last a leather dispatch-case with an envelope flap: locked.
No panic but something rather like it when somebody walked past the door. The keys had been removed so one couldn’t lock the door.
The impulse to get out at once with the case and deal with it in safety was almost irresistible, but it presented its own problems. If only one knew how to pick a lock! Perhaps they would think that Moult had burst it. It was a sliding mechanism with a metal hinged piece on the leather flap engaging with a lock on the case itself. Perhaps the slide could be knocked down? Or, better, force the hinged piece up? The poker, of course, had gone but there were the tongs with their little thin flat ends.
Yes. Between the metal flap and the lock there was just room. Shove. Shove hard and force it up.
There!
A diary. A large envelope. “My Will.” Not sealed. A rapid look at it. Leave that. Put it back — quick. The thing itself: a reinforced envelope and inside it the document, printed in German, filled in and signed. The statement in Colonel Forrester’s hand. The final words: “declare her to be my daughter,” and the signature: “Alfred Moult.”
Replace the dispatch-case, quick, quick, quick.
Relock the tin box. Back into the wardrobe with it. Now, the envelope. She must hide it under her cardigan and away.