“I shaved and showered and changed my clothes. I unpacked. I left here I would guess a little after six-thirty. I took a taxi to the restaurant.”
“Which restaurant?”
“The Cafe Budapest.”
“Now, that’s interesting. How did you know enough to go to such a fine restaurant, your first night in town?”
“The man sitting next to me on the plane it.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“He never mentioned it. We didn’t talk much. Just while we were having lunch. I think he said he was some kind of an engineer. From someplace called Wesley Hills.”
“Wellesley Hills. In Boston we spell everything the long way, too. Did you have the cherry soup?”
“At the Budapest? Yes.”
“I head it’s a great for those who can afford it.”
“I tried to walk home. It had seemed like a short ride in the taxi. I left the restaurant shortly after eight and got here, I would say, just before nine-thirty. In the meantime, I got thoroughly lost.”
“Where? I mean, where did you get lost?”
Fletch looked around around the room before answering. “If I knew that, would I have been lost?”
“Answer the question, please. Describe to me where you went.”
“God. A Citgo sign. A huge, gorgeous Citgo sign. Remarkable piece of art.”
“There, now, you see, that wasn’t so difficult, was it? You turned left rather than right. That is, you went west rather than east. You went into Kenmore Square. What did you do then?”
“I asked a girl for Beacon Street, and it was right there. I walked along it until I came to 152. It was a long walk.”
“Yes. That was a long walk. Especially after a Hungarian dinner. So you came into the apartment, and into the living room. Why did you go into the living room?”
“To turn off the lights.”
“So you must have gone into the living room the first time you were in the apartment and turned on the lights.”
“Sure. I looked around the apartment. I don’t remember whether I left the lights on in the living room or not.”
“Undoubtedly you did. Anyone as likely a murderer as you are is apt to do anything. Now, why were you in Rome?”
“I live there. Actually, I have a villa in Cagna, on the Italian Riviera.”
“Then why didn’t you fly from Genoa, or Cannes?”
“I was in Rome anyway.”
“Why?”
“Andy has an apartment there.”
“Andy-the-girl. You’ve been living with Andy-the-girl?”
“Yes.”
“How long.”
“A couple of months”,
“And you met with Bartholomew Connors in Rome?”
“Who? Oh, no. I don’t know Connors.”
“You said this is his apartment.”
“It is.”
“Then how are you in it, if you don’t know Mister Connors?”
“Homeswap. It’s an international organization. I think their headquarters is in London. Connors takes my villa in Cagna for three months; I use his apartment in Boston. Cuts down on the use of money.”
“You’ve never met?”
“We’ve never even corresponded. Everything, even the exchange of keys, was arranged through London.”
“Well, I’m sure I’ll catch up again with this world, one day. Don’t write that down, Grover. So, Mister Fletcher, you say you don’t know Bartholomew Connors at all, and you don’t know Ruth Fryer either?”
“Who is she?”
“You answered that question so perfectly I’m beginning to believe I’m talking.to myself. Mister Fletcher, Ruth Fryer is the young lady they have just taken out of your living room.”
“Oh.”
“‘Oh,’ he says, Grover.”
“Inspector, I believe I have never seen that young lady before in my life.”
“Taking your story as the word from John—that’s Saint John, Grover—when you discovered the body, didn’t you wonder where the young lady’s clothes were? Or are you so used to seeing gorgeous girls naked on the Riviera you think they all come that way?”
“No,” Fletch said. “I did not wonder where her clothes were.”
“You came in here and looked at a painting, instead.”
“Inspector, you’ve ‘got to understand there was a lot to wonder about at that moment. I was in a state of shock. I didn’t know where the girl came from. Why should I wonder where her clothes went to?”
“They were in your, bedroom, Mister Fletcher. With the bodice torn.”
Fletcher ran his eyes along a shelf of books.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard the word ‘bodice’ spoken before. Of course, I’ve read it in nineteenth-century English novels.”
“Would you like to bear my version of what happened here tonight?”
“No.”
“Let me run through it anyway. I can still get home in time for two o’clock feeding. You arrived at the airport, having left your true love in Rome, but also after having been confined to her company for two months, living in her apartment, the last few days of which have been sad days, seeing her to her father’s funeral.”
“Sort-of funeral.”
“You escaped the dearly beloved with divine celerity, Mister Fletcher. That’s a nice alignment of words, Grover. Have you got them all?”
“Yes, Inspector.”
“In their proper order?”
“Yes, Inspector”
“You came here and introduced yourself to this huge, impressive apartment. Your sense of freedom was joined by a sense of loneliness, which is a potently dangerous combination in the loins of any healthy young man. You shave and you shower, spruce yourself up, never thinking ill of yourself for a minute. Are you with my version of the story so far?”
“I can’t wait to see how it comes out.”
“You take yourself out into the drizzle. Perhaps you do the obvious and stop in at the first singles bar you come to. You put forth your noticeable charm to the most attractive girl there, possibly a little under the drizzle from gin—by the way, Grover, we’ll want to know what’s in that girl’s stomach—entice her back here, to your bedroom, where she resists you, for some reason of her own. She promised Mother, or had forgotten to take her pills, or whatever it is young ladies say these days when they change their minds. You tear her clothes off her in the bedroom. Thoroughly frightened, she runs down the corridor to the living room. You catch up to her. She continues to resist you. Perhaps she is screaming, and you don’t know how thick the walls are. You’re in a new place. You left your fiancee this morning in Rome. Here’s the classic case of adults in a room, and one of them isn’t consenting. In frustration, in anger, in fear, In passionate rage, you pick up something or other, and knock her over the head. To subdue her—get her to stop screaming. Probably even you were surprised when she crumpled and sank to your feet.”
Flynn rubbed one green eye with the palm of his huge hand.
“Now, Mister Fletcher, why isn’t that the obvious truth?”
