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“What’s the matter, Sir Herbert?” asked Alleyn.
“What’s he doing here? My God, now I know — I know—”
“Well, Sir Herbert? What do you know?”
“Stop! I’ll tell you. I did it! I did it! I confess. I confess everything. I did it!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Climax
“You did what, Sir Herbert?”
It was the AC’s voice, very quiet and matter-of-fact.
“I kept the letter.” Carrados looked directly at his wife. “You know why. If ever you had spoken of him, if ever you had compared me to that fellow, if I had found you — You know why.”
“Yes,” said Lady Carrados. “I know why.”
“For God’s sake,” Carrados said, “for God’s sake, gentlemen, let this go no further. It’s a private matter between my wife and myself.”
“It has gone much further than that,” said Alleyn. “Did you not in fact write blackmailing letters to your wife purely in order to torture her mind? Did you not do this?”
“You fool,” shouted Carrados. “You fool! It’s I who have suffered. It’s I who have dreaded what might happen. The letter was stolen. It was stolen. It was stolen.”
“Now,” said Alleyn, “it seems we are going to get the truth. When did you miss the letter?”
Carrados looked from one face to the other. For a frightful moment Alleyn thought he was going to burst into tears. His lips were shaking. He seemed an old man. He began to speak.
“It was when we came back from Newmarket. That evening I was alone in my study. Bridget had been very inconsiderate all day, leaving us and going off with a young man of whom I could not approve. My wife had taken her part against me. I was alone in my study. I found myself looking at the French writing-cabinet. There was something different in the arrangement of the pieces in front of it. I went to re-arrange them, and being there I tried the hidden drawer. It was empty! I tell you the letter was there the day before. I saw it there. The day before I had been very angry with my wife. She had been cruel to me. I am very sensitive and my nerves are shattered. I am alone. Terribly lonely. Nobody cares what becomes of me. She was so thoughtless and cruel. So I looked at the letter because the letter gave me comfort. It was there the night before. And do you know who was alone in my room on May the ninth?”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “I am glad you, too, remember. It was Mr Colombo Dimitri.”
“Ah,” said Carrados shakily. “Ah, now we’re getting at it. Now, we’re getting at it.”
“I am afraid I do not understand,” said Dimitri. “Is Sir Herbert perhaps ill?”
Carrados slewed round and again he pointed at Dimitri.
“You stole it, you filthy dago. I know you stole it. I have suspected it from the first. I could do nothing — nothing.”
“Excuse me, Mr Alleyn,” said Dimitri, “but I believe that I may charge Sir Herbert Carrados with libel on this statement. Is it not so?”
“I don’t think I advise you to do so, Mr Dimitri. On the other hand I shall very strongly advise Lady Carrados to charge you with blackmail. Lady Carrados, is it a fact that on the morning of May twenty-fifth, when Lord Robert Gospell paid you a visit, you received a blackmailing letter?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe that the only source from which the blackmailer could have got his information was the letter lost on the day of Captain O’Brien’s accident?”
“Yes.”
Alleyn took an envelope from his pocket, handed it to her.
“Was the blackmailing letter written in a similar style to this?”
She glanced at it and turned her head away.
“It was exactly like that.”
“If I tell you that the lady to whom this letter is addressed had been blackmailed as you have been blackmailed and that we have positive evidence that the man who wrote this address was Colombo Dimitri, are you prepared to charge him with blackmail?”
“Yes.”
“It is completely false,” said Dimitri. “I shall certainly sue for libel.”
His face was ashen. He put his bandaged hand to his lips and pressed it against them.
“Before we go any further,” said Alleyn, “I think I should explain that Lord Robert Gospell was in the confidence of Scotland Yard as regards these blackmailing letters. He was working for us on the case. We’ve got his signed statement that leaves no doubt at all that Mr Dimitri collected a sum of money at a concert held at the Constance Street Hall on Thursday, June the third. Lord Robert actually watched Mr Dimitri collect his money.”
“He—” Dimitri caught his breath, his lips were drawn back from his teeth in a sort of grin. “I deny everything,” he said. “Everything. I wish to send for my lawyer.”
“You shall do so, Mr Dimitri, when I have finished. On June the eighth, two nights ago, Lady Carrados gave a ball at Marsdon House. Lord Robert was there. As he knew so much about Mr Dimitri already, he thought he would find out a little more. He watched Mr Dimitri. He now knew the method employed. He also knew that Lady Carrados was the victim of blackmail. Is that right, Lady Carrados?”
“Yes. I had a conversation with him about it. He knew what I was going to do.”
“What were you going to do?”
“Put my bag containing five hundred pounds in a certain place in the green sitting-room upstairs.”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “Now, Lord Robert saw Mr Dimitri return her empty bag to Lady Carrados shortly before one o’clock. At one o’clock he rang me up and told me he now had enough evidence. The conversation was interrupted by someone who must have overheard at least one very significant phrase. Two and a half hours later Lord Robert was murdered.”
The quiet of the room was blown into piercing clamour. Dimitri had screamed like a woman, his mouth wide open. This shocking rumpus lasted for a second and stopped. Alleyn had a picture of an engine-driver pulling a string and then letting it go. Dimitri stood, still with a gaping mouth, wagging his finger at Alleyn.
“Now then, now then,” said Fox and stepped up to him.
“False!” said Dimitri, frantically snapping his fingers in Fox’s face and then shaking them as if they were scorched. “False! You accuse me of murder. I am not an assassin. I am i
For a moment it looked as if he’d try to bolt from the room. He might have been a tenor giving an excruciatingly bad performance in a second-rate Italian opera. He mouthed at Alleyn, tore his hair, crumpled on to a chair, and burst into tears. Upon the five English people in the office there descended a heavy aura of embarrassment.
“I am i
“Unfortunately,” said Alleyn, “their evidence is not acceptable in a court of law. If you will keep quiet for a moment, Mr Dimitri, we can get on with our business. Will you ask Mrs Halcut-Hackett to come in, please, Fox?”
The interval was enlivened by the sound of Dimitri biting his nails and sobbing.
Mrs Halcut-Hackett, dressed as if she was going to a Continental restaurant and looking like a beauty specialist’s mistake, came into the office. Fox followed with an extra chair which he placed for her. She sat down and drew up her bust until it seemed to perch like some superstructure on a rigid foundation. Then she saw Lady Carrados. An extraordinary look passed between the two women. It was as if they had said to each other: “You, too?”
“Mrs Halcut-Hackett,” said Alleyn. “You have told me that after a charade party you gave in December you found that a document which you valued was missing from a box on your dressing-table. Had this man, Colombo Dimitri, an opportunity of being alone in this room?”
She turned her head and looked at Dimitri who flapped his hands at her.
“Why, yes,” she said. “He certainly had.”