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“Among a collection of objets d’art on a pie-crust table in an upstairs room at Marsdon House.”
“At what time, Sir Daniel?”
“My dear Alleyn, I told you. About eleven-thirty or so. Perhaps earlier.”
“Would you swear you noticed it no later than eleven-thirty?” insisted Alleyn.
“But of course I would,” said Davidson. “I did not return to that room. I am quite ready to swear it.”
He held the cigarette-case up in his beautifully shaped hand.
“I swear I saw this case on the table in the green sitting-room not later than eleven-thirty. That do?”
The silence was broken only by Dimitri’s laboured breathing.
And then, surprisingly clear and firm, Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s voice:
“But that can’t be true.”
Alleyn said: “Will you open the case?”
Davidson, who was gazing in amazement at Mrs Halcut-Hackett, opened the cigarette-case and saw the notice.
“Will you read that press cutting?” said Alleyn. “Aloud, please.”
The deep expressive voice read the absurd message.
“ ‘Childie Darling. Living in exile. Longing. Only want Daughter. Daddy.’ ”
“What in the name of all wonders is this?”
“We believe it to be a murderer’s message,” said Alleyn. “We think this man, Dimitri, can translate it.”
Davidson shut the case with a snap.
Something had gone wrong with his hands. They shook so violently that the diamonds on the gold case seemed to have a separate flashing life of their own.
“So Dimitri is a murderer,” he said.
“Look out!” said Alleyn loudly.
Dimitri flung himself forward with such extreme and sudden violence that the men who held him were taken off their guard and his hands were at Davidson’s throat before they had regained their hold on him. In a moment the room was full of struggling men. Chairs crashed to the floor, a woman screamed. Fox’s voice shouted urgently: “Get to it. What are you doing?” There was a concerted upheaval against the edge of the desk. The green-shaded lamp smashed into oblivion.
“That’s better,” said Alleyn’s voice. “Now then. Hands together.”
A sharp click, a cry from Dimitri, and then the figures resolved themselves into a sort of tableau: Dimitri, hand-cuffed and held by three men, against the desk; Davidson in the centre of the room with Alleyn, Fox and a plainclothes man grasping his arms behind his back; the Assistant Commissioner, between the two groups, like a distinguished sort of referee.
“Murderer!” screamed Dimitri. “Treacherous, filthy assassin! I confess! Gentlemen, I confess! I have worked for him for seven years and now, now, now he will stand aside and let me go to the gallows for the crime he has himself committed. I will tell you everything. Everything.”
“Speak up, Rory,” said the AC.
“Daniel Davidson,” said Alleyn, “I arrest you for the murder of Lord Robert Gospell, and I warn you…”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Confessions from Troy
“I thought,” said Alleyn, “that you would like to know at once, Mildred.”
Lady Mildred Potter shook her head, not so much in disagreement as from a sort of general hopelessness.
“It was nice of you to come, Roderick. But I’m afraid I simply ca
“Quite sure, I am afraid, Mildred. You see, Dimitri has confessed that Davidson has been in a sort of infamous partnership with him for seven years. Davidson knew something about Dimitri in the first instance, I think. That’s probably how he managed to get his hold over Dimitri. Davidson has been extremely careful. He has found the data but he has left Dimitri to carry out the practical work. Davidson saw the open drawer and the letter in Carrados’s writing-cabinet. Davidson came in on the scene between Carrados and Bridget. He was careful never to be left alone in the room himself, but he told Dimitri about the secret drawer and instructed Dimitri how to steal the letter. He told Dimitri that there might be something interesting there. Dimitri did all the dirty work. He collected the handbags of the blackmailed ladies. He wrote the letters. Sometimes he got the ideas. Mrs Halcut-Hackett’s trinket-box was one of Dimitri’s brightest ideas, I imagine.”
“I’m lost in it, Roderick. Troy, darling, do you understand?”
Alleyn looked at Troy, sitting on the floor at Mildred’s feet.
“I think I’m begi
“Well, go on, Roderick,” said Mildred drearily.
“There were three things that I could not fit into the pattern,” said Alleyn, and he spoke more to Troy than to Mildred. “It seemed at first that if Dimitri overheard the telephone call he had an overwhelming motive. We knew he was a blackmailer, and we knew Bunchy was on his track. But we found that Dimitri literally could not have done the murder. His alibi stood up to the time factor and came out on top.
“Withers is a bad lot, and Bunchy knew that too, but somehow I could not see Withers as the killer. He’s hard, wary and completely unscrupulous. If he did ever murder it would be deliberately, and with forethought. The whole thing would be worked out to the last second. This job was, we believed, unpremeditated until within two and a half hours of its execution. Still Withers had to be considered. There was a gap in his alibi. I now know that he spent that gap driving his woman-dupe about in his car in order to discuss a situation which had become acute. Into this department, and again I implore your silence because I certainly shouldn’t tell you about it, came old General Halcut-Hackett like an elderly harlequin dodging about in the fog of Belgrave Square at the crucial time when the guests left Marsdon House. He, of course, was looking for his wife. Next came Carrados. Old Carrados was an infernal bore. His alibi, which overlapped Dimitri’s, held good, but his behaviour was rum in the extreme. It was not until I heard of an incident eighteen years old that I managed to fit him into the pattern. And all the time there were three things about Davidson for which I could find only one explanation. He told me he saw a certain cigarette-case in the green sitting-room at about eleven-thirty. Certainly not later. We found that the cigarette-case in question was only in this room for about four minutes round about one o’clock during which the telephone conversation took place. Why should Davidson lie? He had thought the case was a set-piece — one of the Marsdon House possessions; he had not realized that it was the personal property of one of the guests. He stated most emphatically that he did not overhear the conversation and indeed did not return to the room after eleven-thirty. But there is a curious point about the telephone conversation. Bunchy said to me: ‘He might as well mix his damn brews with poison.’ Davidson must have overheard that sentence because it came just before Bunchy broke off. Bunchy was talking about Dimitri, of course, but I believe Davidson thought he was talking about him. The broken sentence: ‘with such filthy ingenuity,’ or something of that sort. Davidson probably thought the next word Bunchy spoke would be his (Davidson’s) name. That’s odd, isn’t it?
“As for the figure Miss Harris saw beyond the glass panel, undoubtedly it was Davidson’s. At his wits’ end he must have dived through the nearest door and there, I suppose, pulled himself together and decided to murder Bunchy.
“Then there is the other cigarette-case.”
Alleyn looked at Lady Mildred. Her head nodded like a mandarin’s. He turned back to Troy and spoke softly.