Agatha Christie - Towards Zero

"And Mr. Strange was with you all the evening?"

"Oh, yes. Ask anybody. They'll tell you."

"Thank you, Mr. Latimer. We have to be so careful."

Leach said as they left the smiling, self-possessed young man: "What's the idea of checking up so carefully on Nevile Strange?"

Battle smiled. Leach got it suddenly.

"Good Lord, it's the other one you're checking up on. So that's your idea."

"It's too soon to have ideas," said Battle . "I've just got to know exactly where Mr. Ted Latimer was last night. We know that from quarter-past eleven, say — to after midnight — he was with Nevile Strange. But where was he before that — when Strange arrived and couldn't find him?"

They pursued their inquiries doggedly — with bar attendants, waiters, lift boys. Latimer had been seen in the lounge between nine and ten. He had been in the bar at a quarter-past ten. But between that time and eleven-twenty he seemed to have been singularly elusive. Then one of the maids was found who declared that Mr. Latimer had been in one of the small writing rooms with Mrs. Beddoes — that's the fat North Country lady."

"That tears it," said Battle gloomily. "He was here, all right. Just didn't want attention drawn to his fat (and no doubt rich) lady friend. That throws us back on those others — the servants, Kay Strange, Audrey Strange, Mary Aldin and Thomas Royde. One of them killed the old lady, but which? If we could find the real weapon — "

He stopped, then slapped his thigh.

"Got it, Jim, my boy! I know now what made me think of Hercule Poirot. We'll have a spot of lunch and go back to Gull's Point and I'll show you something."

Mary Aldin was restless. She went in and out of the house, picked off a dead dahlia head here and there, went back into the drawing-room and shifted flower vases in an unmeaning fashion.

From the library came a vague murmur of voices. Mr. Trelawny was in there with Nevile. Kay and Audrey were nowhere to be seen.

Mary went out in the garden again. Down by the wall she spied Thomas Royde placidly smoking. She went and joined him.

"Oh, dear." She sat down beside him with a deep, perplexed sigh.

"Anything the matter?" Thomas asked.

Mary laughed with a slight note of hysteria in the laugh.

"Nobody but you would say a thing like that. A murder in the house and you just say, 'Is anything the matter?'"

Looking a little surprised, Thomas said: "I meant anything fresh?"

"Oh, I know what you meant. It's really a wonderful relief to find anyone so gloriously just-the-same-as-usual as you are!"

"Not much good, is it, getting all het up over things?"

"No, no. You're eminently sensible. It's how you manage to do it beats me."

"Well, I suppose I'm an outsider."

"That's true, of course. You can't feel the relief all the rest of us do that Nevile is cleared."

"I'm very pleased he is, of course," said Royde. Mary shuddered.

"It was a very near thing. If Camilla hadn't taken it into her head to ring the bell for Barrett after Nevile had left her — "

"Then old Nevile would have been for it, all right."

He spoke with a certain grim satisfaction, then shook his head with a slight smile, as he met Mary's reproachful gaze.

"I'm not really heartless, but now that Nevile's all right I can't help being pleased he had a bit of a shaking up. He's always so damned complacent."

"He isn't really, Thomas."

"Perhaps not. It's just his manner. Anyway, he was looking scared as Hell this morning!"

"What a cruel streak you have!"

"Anyway, it's all right now. You know, Mary, even here Nevile has had the devil's own luck. Some other poor beggar with all that evidence piled up against him mightn't have had such a break."

Mary shivered again. "Don't say that. I like to think the innocent are — protected."

"Do you, my dear?" His voice was gentle.

Mary burst out suddenly: "Thomas, I'm worried. I'm frightfully worried."

"Yes."

"It's about Mr. Treves."

Thomas dropped his pipe on the stones. His voice changed as he bent to pick it up.

"What about Mr. Treves?"

"That night he was here — that story he told — about a little murderer! I've been wondering, Thomas … Was it just a story? Or did he tell it with a purpose?"

"You mean," said Royde deliberately, "was it aimed at someone who was in the room?"

Mary whispered, "Yes."

Thomas said quietly: "I've been wondering, too. As a matter of fact, that was what I was thinking about when you came along just now."

Mary half-closed her eyes.

"I've been trying to remember … He told it, you know, so very deliberately. He almost dragged it into the conversation. And he said he would recognise the person anywhere. He emphasised that. As though he had recognised him."

"M'm," said Thomas. "I've been through all that."

"But why should he do it? What was the point?"

"I suppose," said Royde, "it was a kind of warning. Not to try anything on."

"You mean that Mr. Treves knew that Camilla was going to be murdered?"

"No-o. I think that's too fantastic. It may have been just a general warning."

"What I've been wondering is, do you think we ought to tell the police?" To that Thomas again gave his thoughtful consideration.

"I think not," he said at last. "I don't see that it's relevant in any way. It's not as though Treves were alive and could tell them anything."

"No," said Mary. "He's dead!" She gave a quick shiver. "It's so odd, Thomas, the way he died."

"Heart attack. He had a bad heart."

"I mean that curious business about the lift being out of order. I don't like it."

"I don't like it very much myself," said Thomas Royde.

Superintendent Battle looked round the bedroom. The bed had been made. Otherwise the room was unchanged. It had been neat when they first looked round it. It was neat now.

"That's it," said Superintendent Battle, pointing to the old-fashioned steel fender. "Do you see anything odd about that fender?"

"Must take some cleaning," said Jim Leach. "It's well kept. Nothing odd about it that I can see, except — yes, the left-hand knob is brighter than the right-hand one."

"That's what put Hercule Poirot into my head," said Battle . "You know his fad about things not being quite symmetrical — gets him all worked up. I suppose I thought unconsciously, ‘That would worry old Poirot,' and then I began talking about him. Get your fingerprint kit, Jones, we'll have a look at those two knobs."

Jones reported presently. "There are prints on the right-hand knob, sir, none on the left."

"It's the left one we want, then. Those other prints are the housemaid's when she last cleaned it. The left-hand one has been cleaned since."

"There was a bit of screwed-up emery paper in this waste-paper basket," volunteered Jones. "I didn't think it meant anything."

"Because you didn't know what you were looking for, then. Gently now, I'll bet anything you like that knob unscrews — yes, I thought so."

Presently Jones held the knob up.

"It's a good weight," he said, weighing it in his hands.

Leach, bending over it, said: "There's something dark — on the screw."

"Blood, as likely as not," said Battle . "Cleaned the knob itself and wiped it and that little stain on the screw wasn't noticed. I'll bet anything you like that's the weapon that caved the old lady's skull in. But there's more to find. It's up to you, Jones, to search the house again. This time, you'll know exactly what you're looking for."

He gave a few swift detailed instructions. Going to the window he put his head out.

"There's something yellow tucked into the ivy. That may be another piece of the puzzle. I rather think it is."