Agatha Christie - The Secret of Chimneys

Anthony leaned forward in his chair. 'Well, if they do agree,' he said very gently. What then?'

'What then?' The detective seemed taken aback. 'But - I shall have proved then that you are King Victor!' But for the first time, a shade of uncertainty crept into his manner.

'That will doubtless be a great satisfaction to you, ' said Anthony. 'But I don't quite see where it's going to hurt me. I'm not admitting anything, but supposing, just for the argument, that I was King Victor- I might be trying to repent, you know.'

'Repent?'

'That's the idea. Put yourself in King Victor's place, Lemoine. Use your imagination. You've just come out of prison. You're getting on in life. You've lost the first fine rapture of the adventurous life. Say, even that you meet a beautiful girl. You think of marrying and settling down somewhere in the country where you can grow vegetable marrows. You decide from henceforth to lead a blameless life. Put yourself in King Victor's place. Can't you imagine feeling like that?'

'I do not think that I should feel like that,' said Lemoine with a sardonic smile.

'Perhaps you wouldn't,' admitted Anthony. 'But then you're not King Victor, are you? You can't possibly know what he feels like.'

'But it is nonsense, what you are saying there,' spluttered the Frenchman.

'Oh, no, it isn't. Come now, Lemoine, if I'm King Victor, what have you against me after all? You could never get the necessary evidence in the old, old days, remember. I've served my sentence, and that's all there is to it. I suppose you could arrest me for the French equivalent of "Loitering with intent to commit a felony", but that would be poor satisfaction, wouldn't it?'

'You forget,' said Lemoine. 'America! How about this business of obtaining money under false pretences, and passing yourself of as Prince Nicholas Obolovitch?'

'No good, Lemoine,' said Anthony, 'I was nowhere near America at the time. And I can prove that easily enough. If King Victor impersonated Prince Nicholas in America, then I'm not King Victor. You're sure he was impersonated? That it wasn't the man himself?'

Superintendent Battle suddenly interposed.

'The man was an impostor all right, Mr Cade.'

'I wouldn't contradict you, Battle,' said Anthony. 'You have such a habit of being always right. Are you equally sure that Prince Nicholas died in the Congo?'

Battle looked at him curiously.

'I wouldn't swear to that, sir. But it's generally believed.'

'Careful man. What's your motto? Plenty of rope, eh? I've taken a leaf out of your book. I've given M. Lemoine plenty of rope. I've not denied his accusation. But, all the same, I'm afraid he's going to be disappointed. You see I always believe in having something up one's sleeve. Anticipating that some little unplessantness might arise here, I took the precaution to bring a trump card along with me. It - or rather he - is upstairs.'

'Upstairs?' said Lord Caterham very interested.

'Yes, he's been having rather a trying time of it lately, poor fellow. Got a nasty bump on the head from someone. I've been looking after him.'

Suddenly the deep voice of Mr Isaacstein broke in: 'Can we guess who he is?'

'If you like,' said Anthony, 'but -'

Lemoine interrupted with sudden ferocity:

'All this is foolery. You think to outwit me yet again. It may be true what you say - that you were not in America. You are too clever to say it if it were not true. But there is something else. Murder! Yes, murder. The murder of Prince Michael. He interfered with you that night as you were looking for the jewel.'

'Lemoine, have you ever known King Victor do murder?' Anthony's voice rang out sharply. 'you know as well - better than I do, that he has never shed blood.'

'Who else but you could have murdered him?' cried Lemoine. 'Tell me that!'

The last word died on his tips, as a shrill whistle sounded from the terrace outside. Anthony sprang up, all his assumed nonchalance laid aside.

'You ask me who murdered Prince Michael?' he cried. 'I won't tell you - I'll show you. That whistle was the signal I've been waiting for. The murderer of Prince Michael is in the library now.'

He sprang out through the window, and the others followed him as he led the way round the terrace, until they came to the library window. He pushed the window, and it yielded to his touch.

Very softly he held aside the thick curtain, so that they could look into the room.

Standing by the bookcase was a dark figure, hurriedly pulling out and replacing volumes, so absorbed in the task that no outside sound was heeded.

And then, as they watching, trying to recognize the figure that was vaguely silhouetted against the light of the electric torch it carried, someone sprang past them with a sound like the roar of a wild beast.

The torch fell to the ground, was extinguished, and the sounds of a terrible struggle filled the room. Lord Caterham groped his way to the lights and switched them on. Two figures were swaying together. And as they looked the end came. The short sharp crack of a pistol shot, and the small figure crumbled up and fell. The other figure turned and faced them - it was Boris, his eyes alight with rage.

'She killed my master,' he growled. 'Now she tries to shoot me. I would have taken the pistol from her and shot her, but it went off in the struggle. St Michael directed it. The evil woman is dead.'

'A woman?' cried George Lomax.

They drew nearer. On the floor, the pistol still clasped in her hand, and an expression of deadly malignity on her face, lay Mademoiselle Brun.

'I suspected her from the first,' explained Anthony. 'There was a light in her room on the night of the murder. Afterwards, I wavered. I made inquiries about her in Brittany, and came back satisfied that she was what she represented herself to be. I was a fool. Because the Comtesse de Breteuil had employed a Mademoiselle Brun and spoke highly of her, it never occurred to me that the real Mademoiselle Brun might have been kidnapped on her way to her new post, and that it might be a substitute taking her place. Instead I shifted my suspicions to Mr Fish. It was not until he had followed me to Dover, and we had had a mutual explanation, that I began to see clearly. Once I knew that he was a Pinkerton's man, trailing King Victor, my suspicions swung back again to their original object.

'The thing that worried me most was that Mrs Revel had definitely recognized the woman. Then I remembered that it was only after I had mentioned her being Madame de Breteuil's governess. And all she had said was that that accounted for the fact that the woman's face was familiar to her. Superintendent Battle will tell you that a deliberate plot was formed to keep Mrs Revel from coming to Chimneys. Nothing more nor less than a dead body, in fact. And though the murder was the work of the Comrades of the Red Hand, punishing supposed treachery on the part of the victim, the staging of it, and the absence of the Comrade's sign-manual, pointed to some abler intelligence directing operations. From the first, I suspected some connection with Herzoslovakia. Mrs Revel was the only member of the house party who had been to the country. I suspected at first that someone was impersonating Prince Michael, but that proved to be a totally erroneous idea. When I realized the possibility of Mademoiselle Brun's being an impostor, and added to that the fact that her face was familiar to Mrs Revel, I began to see daylight. It was evidently very important that she should not be recognized, and Mrs Revel was the only person likely to do so.'

'But who was she?' said Lord Caterham. 'Someone Mrs Revel had known in Herzoslovakia?'

'I think the Baron might be able to tell us,' said Anthony.

'I?' The Baron stared at him, then down at the motionless figure.