Agatha Christie - Towards Zero

Major Mitchell leaned back in his chair.

"Go on. Battle ," he said. "I'm giving you a free hand. What's the next step?"

"Take away the niblick," said Battle , "and what is left? First, motive. Had Nevile Strange really got a motive for doing away with Lady Tressilian? He inherited money — a lot depends, to my mind, on whether he needed that money. He says not. I'd suggest we verify that. Find out the state of his finances. If he's in a hole financially, and needs money, then the case against him is very much strengthened. If, on the other hand, he was speaking the truth and his finances are in a good state, why, then — "

"Well, what then?"

"Why, then, we might have a look at the motives of the other people in the house."

"You think, then, that Nevile Strange was framed?" Superintendent Battle screwed up his eyes.

"There's a phrase I read somewhere that tickled my fancy. Something about a fine Italian hand. That's what I seem to see in this business. Ostensibly it's a blunt, brutal, straightforward crime, but it seems to me I catch glimpses of something else — of a fine Italian hand at work behind the scenes …"

There was a long pause while the Chief Constable looked at Battle . "You may be right," he said at last. "Dash it all, there's something funny about the business. What's your idea, now, of our plan of campaign?"

Battle stroked his square jaw.

"Well, sir," he said. "I'm always in favour of going about things the obvious way. Everything's been set to make us suspicious of Mr. Nevile Strange. Let's go on being suspicious of him. Needn't go so far as actually to arrest him, but hint at it, question him, put the wind up him — and observe everybody's reactions generally. Verify his statements, go over his movements that night with a toothcomb. In fact, show our hand as plainly as may be."

"Quite Machiavellian," said Major Mitchell with a twinkle. "Imitation of a heavy-handed policeman by star actor Battle ."

The Superintendent smiled.

"I always like doing what's expected of me, sir. This time I mean to be a bit slow about it — take my time. I want to do some nosing about. Being suspicious of Mr. Nevile Strange is a very good excuse for nosing about. I've an idea, you know, that something rather odd has been going on in that house."

"Looking for the sex angle?"

"If you like to put it that way, sir."

"Handle it your own way, Battle . You and Leach carry on between you."

"Thank you, sir." Battle stood up. "Nothing suggestive from the solicitors?"

"No. I rang them up. I know Trelawny fairly well. He's sending me a copy of Sir Matthew's will, and also of Lady Tressilian's. She had about five hundred a year of her own — invested in gilt-edged securities. She left a legacy to Barrett and a small one to Hurstall, the rest to Mary Aldin."

"That's three we might keep an eye on," said Battle .

Mitchell looked amused. "Suspicious fellow, aren't you?"

"No use letting oneself be hypnotised by fifty thousand pounds," said Battle stolidly. "Many a murder has been done for less than fifty pounds. It depends on how much you want the money. Barrett got a legacy — and maybe she took the precaution to dope herself so as to avert suspicion."

"She very nearly passed out. Lazenby hasn't let us question her yet."

"Overdid it out of ignorance, perhaps. Then Hurstall may have been in bad need of cash for all we know. And Miss Aldin, if she's no money of her own, might have fancied a bit of life on a nice little income before she's too old to enjoy it."

The Chief Constable looked doubtful.

"Well," he said, "it's up to you two. Get on with the job."

Back at Gull's Point, the two police officers received Williams' and Jones' reports.

Nothing of a suspicious or suggestive nature had been found in any of the bedrooms. The servants were clamouring to be allowed to get on with the housework. Should he give them the word?

"Might as well, I suppose," said Battle . "I'll just have a stroll myself first through the two upper floors. Rooms that haven't been done very often tell you something about their occupants that's useful to know."

Sergeant Jones put down a small cardboard box on the table.

"From Mr. Nevile Strange's dark blue coat," he announced. "The red hairs were on the cuff, blonde hairs on the inside of the collar and the right shoulder."

Battle took out the two long red hairs and the half-dozen blonde ones and looked at them. He said, with a faint twinkle in his eye: "Convenient. One blonde, one red-head and one brunette in this house. So we know where we are at once. Red hair on the cuff, blonde on the collar; Mr. Nevile Strange does seem to be a bit of a Bluebeard. His arm round one wife and the other one's head on his shoulder."

"The blood on the sleeve has gone for analysis, sir. They'll ring us up as soon as they get the result."

Leach nodded.

"What about the servants?"

"I followed your instructions, sir. None of them is under notice to leave, or seems likely to have borne a grudge against the old lady. She was strict, but well liked. In any case, the management of the servants lay with Miss Aldin. She seems to have been popular with them."

"Thought she was an efficient woman the moment I laid eyes on her," said Battle . "If she's our murderess, she won't be easy to hang."

Jones looked startled.

"But those prints on that niblick, sir, were — "

"I know — I know," said Battle . "The singularly obliging Mr. Strange's. There's a general belief that athletes aren't overburdened by brains (not at all true by the way), but I can't believe Nevile Strange is a complete moron. What about those senna pods of the maid's?"

"They were always on the shelf in the servants' bathroom on the second floor. She used to put 'em in to soak midday, and they stood there until the evening, when she went to bed."

"So that absolutely anybody could get at them! Anybody inside the house, that is to say."

Leach said with conviction: "It's an inside job, all right!"

"Yes, I think so. Not that this is one of those closed circle crimes. It isn't. Anyone who had a key could have opened the front door and walked in. Nevile Strange had that key last night — but it would probably be a simple matter to have got one cut, or an old hand could do it with a bit of wire. But I don't see any outsider knowing about the bell and that Barrett took senna at night! That's local, inside knowledge!"

"Come along, Jim, my boy. Let's go up and see this bathroom and all the rest of it."

They started on the top floor. First came a box-room full of old broken furniture and junk of all kinds.

"I haven't looked through this, sir," said Jones. "I didn't know — "

"What you were looking for? Quite right. Only waste of time. From the dust on the floor nobody has been in here for at least six months."

The servants' rooms were all on this floor, also two unoccupied bedrooms with a bathroom, and Battle looked into each room and gave it a cursory glance, noticing that Alice, the pop-eyed housemaid, slept with her window shut; that Emma, the thin one, had a great many relations, photographs of whom were crowded on her chest of drawers, and that Hurstall had one or two pieces of good, though cracked, Dresden and Crown Derby porcelain.

The cook's room was severely neat and the kitchen-maid's chaotically untidy. Battle passed on into the bathroom, which was the room nearest to the head of the stairs. Williams pointed out the long shelf over the wash-basin, on which stood tooth glasses and brushes, various unguents and bottles of salts and hair lotion. A packet of senna pods stood open at one end.

"No prints on the glass or packet?"

"Only the maid's own. I got hers from her room."

"He didn't need to handle the glass," said Leach. "He'd only have to drop the stuff in."