'But what does he do with all the money he makes?
'God knows. Buries it under the floor of that little hut where he works, perhaps. No one is ever allowed to go inside that hut.
'I interviewed him in that hut this morning.
'Alan! How clever of you! What was inside?
'One well-known writer, doing very little work.
'I expect he sweats blood over his writing. He has no imagination, you know. I mean, he has no idea how another person's mind works. So his situations, and his characters' reaction to the situations, are all cliches. He sells because of his «earthiness», his "elemental strength", God save us all. Let us push back the table and get nearer the fire.
She opened a cupboard, and said in an excellent imitation of the boys who used to sell things off trays on railway platforms: 'Drambuie, Benedictine, Strega, Grand Marnier, Bols, Chartreuse, Slivovitz, Armagnac, Cognac, Rakia, Kummel, Various French Sirops of Unspeakable Sweetness, and Mrs Thrupp's Ginger Cordial!
'Is it your intention to seduce official secrets from the Criminal Investigation Department?
'No, darling; I am offering homage to your palate. You are one of the few men I know who possesses such a thing.
She put the Chartreuse and the liqueur glasses on a tray and arranged her long legs in comfort on the couch.
'Now tell me, she said.
'But I have nothing to tell, he protested.
'I don't mean that kind of tell. I mean talk at me. Pretend I'm your wife-which God forbid-and just make an audience of me. For instance, you don't really think that that poor stick Walter Whitmore ever got up enough red blood to tap the Searle boy on the head, do you?
'No, I don't think so. Sergeant Williams calls Walter a pushee, and I think I agree with him.
'Calls him a what?
Grant explained, and Marta said: 'And how right your Sergeant Williams is! Walter's taking-off is long overdue.
'He may do his own taking-off if this affair isn't cleared up.
'Yes, I suppose he is having a bad time, poor silly creature. The gossip in a small country place is deadly. Have you had any answer to your police appeal, by the way? I heard it at one o'clock.
'No, not up to six-forty-five, when I last talked to the Yard. I gave them this number for the next two hours. I hope you don't mind.
'Why do you think he might have been given a lift?
'Because if he isn't in the river he must have walked away from it.
'Of his own accord? But that would be a very odd thing to do.
'He may be suffering from amnesia. There are five possibilities altogether.
'Five!
'On Wednesday night Searle walked away down that lane, healthy and sober; and he has not been near since. The possibilities are: one, that he fell into the water accidentally and was drowned; two, that he was murdered and thrown in the river; three, that he walked away for reasons of his own; four, that he wandered away because he forgot who he was and where he was going; five, that he was kidnapped.
'Kidnapped!
'We don't know anything about his American life; we have to make allowances for that. He may even have come to this country to get away from the States for a little. I shan't know about that until we have a report about him from the Coast-if then! Tell me, what did you think of Searle?
'In what way?
'Well, would you say he was a practical joker, for instance?
'Anything but.
'Yes. Liz Garrowby was against that too. She said he wouldn't think a practical joke funny. How impressed do you think he was with Liz Garrowby? You were there to dinner.
'Impressed enough to make Walter sick with jealousy.
'Really?
'They were nice together, Leslie and Liz. They were a natural pair, somehow. Something that Walter and Liz will never be. I don't think Walter knows anything about Liz; and I had an idea that Leslie Searle knew quite a lot.
'Did you like him when you met him? You took him back with you that night, after dinner.
'Yes. Yes to both. I liked him with reservations.
'What kind of reservations?
'It's difficult to describe. I could hardly take my eyes off him, and yet he never struck me as being-real. That sounds mad, doesn't it.
'You mean there was something phony about him?
'Not in the accepted sense. He was obviously what he said he was. In any case, our Miss Easton-Dixon bears witness to that, as you probably know.
'Yes, I was talking to Miss Easton-Dixon this afternoon about him. Her photograph of him may prove very useful. What did you and Searle talk about, the night you brought him back with you?
'Oh, cabbages and kings. People he had photographed. People we had both met. People he wanted to meet. We spent a long time in mutual adoring of Danny Minsky, and another long time in furious disagreement about Marguerite Merriam. Like everyone else he thought Marguerite the world's genius, and wouldn't hear a word against her. I got so annoyed with him that I told him a few home-truths about Marguerite. I was ashamed of myself afterwards. It's a mean thing to break children's toys.
'I expect it did him good. He was too old to have the facts of life kept from him.
'I hear you've been collecting alibis today.
'How did you hear?
'The way I hear everything. From Mrs Thrupp. Who are the unlucky people who have none?
'Practically the whole village, including Miss Easton-Dixon.
'Our Dixie is «out». Who else?
'Miss Lavinia Fitch.
'Dear Lavinia! Marta said, laughing outright at the thought of Miss Fitch on murder bent.
'Liz Garrowby?
'Poor Liz must be having a thin time over this. I think she was half in love with the boy.
'Mrs Garrowby?
Marta paused to consider this. 'Do you know, I wouldn't put it past the woman. She would do it and not turn a hair because she would persuade herself that it was the right thing to do. She'd even go to church afterwards and ask God's blessing on it.
'Toby Tullis?
'N-o, I hardly think so. Toby would find some other way of getting even. Something much less risky for Toby and just as satisfying. Toby is fertile in inventing small revenges. I don't think he would need to murder anyone.
'Silas Weekley?
'I wonder. I wonder. Yes, I think Silas would commit murder. Especially if the book he happened to be writing at the moment was not going well. The books are Silas's outlet for his hatred, you see. If that was dammed up he might kill someone. Someone who seemed to him rich and well-favoured and undeservedly fortunate.
'You think Weekley mad?
'Oh, yes. Not certifiable perhaps, but definitely unbalanced. Is there any truth, by the way, in the rumour of a quarrel between Walter and the Searle boy?
'Whitmore denies that it was a quarrel. He says it was "just a spat".
'So there was bad feeling between them?
'I don't know if we have even evidence for that. A temporary annoyance is hardly the same thing as bad feeling. Men can disagree quite fundamentally in a pub of an evening without any fundamental bad feeling on either side.
'Oh, you are maddening. Of course there was bad feeling, and of course we know why. It was about Liz.
'Having no connections in the Fourth Dimension, I couldn't say, Grant said, mocking her jumped-to conclusion. 'Whitmore said Searle was «provocative». What, can you tell me from your point of vantage, would he be provocative about?
'He probably told Walter how little he appreciated Liz, and that if Walter didn't mend his ways he would take Liz from him, and if Walter thought he wasn't up to it he was wrong and he would get Liz to pack and walk away with him by a week next Tuesday, and there was five pounds that said he was right. And Walter said, very huffy and stiff, that in this country we did not bet on the possible bestowal of women's favours, at least gentlemen didn't, and to put five pounds on Liz was simply insulting (Walter has no sense of the ridiculous at all, you know; that is how he perpetrates those broadcasts and endears himself to old ladies who avoid the country like the plague and wouldn't know a wren if they saw one); and Leslie probably said that if he thought a fiver too little he was willing to make it ten, since if Liz had been engaged to a prig like Walter for nearly twelve months she was just ripe for a change and the ten would be just found money, and so then Walter got up and went out and banged the door behind him.