“
“Blast that woman!” said Alleyn in the dining-room. “She was determined to break me up, and, damn her, so she did. I hope she thinks she got away with it.”
“You apologized very nicely, Mr. Alleyn,” said Fox. “I expect she does.”
“We’ll have the twins, Gibson,” said Alleyn.
CHAPTER XIV
PERJURY BY ROBERTA
You see,” said Alleyn, looking carefully at the twins, “you are not absolutely identical. In almost everybody the distance between the outer corner of the left-hand eye and the left-hand corner of the mouth is not precisely the same as the distance between the outer corner of the right-hand eye and the right-hand corner of the mouth. A line drawn through both eyes and prolonged is hardly ever parallel with a line drawn along the lips and prolonged. You get an open-angled and close-angled side to every face. That’s why reflection in a looking-glass of somebody you know very well always seems distorted and queer. In both of your faces, the close-angle is on the left. But in Lord Stephen the angle is the least fraction more emphatic.”
“Is this the B-B-Bertillon system?” asked Stephen. “
“A version of it,” said Alleyn. “Bertillon paid great attention to ears. He divided the ear into twelve major sections and noticed a great many subdivisions. Yours are not quite identical with your brother’s. And then, of course, there’s that mole on the back of your neck. Lady Wutherwood noticed it in the lift.” He turned to Colin. “So you see you really would be rather foolish if you persisted in saying you went down in the lift. It would be a false statement and the law is not very amiable about false statements.
“Bad luck, Col,” said Stephen with a shaky laugh. “You’re sunk.”
“I think you’re trying to bamboozle us, Mr. Alleyn,” Colin said. “You’ve got a fifty-fifty chance, after all. I don’t believe Aunt V. would have noticed a carbuncle, much less a mole, on anybody’s neck. She’s too dotty. I stick to my statement. I can tell you exactly what happened.”
“I’m sure you can,” said Alleyn politely. “But do you know, I don’t think we want to hear it. You both had plenty of time to put your heads together before the police arrived. I’m sure the stories would tally to a hair’s- breadth, but I don’t think we’ll trouble you for yours. I won’t ask you for a statement. I don’t think we need bother you any longer. Good night.”
“It’s a trap,” said Colin slowly. “I’m not going. You’ll damn well take my statement, whether you like it or not.”
“We’re not allowed to set traps, I promise you, I should be setting a trap if I pretended not to know which of you worked the lift and so encouraged you to carry on with your comedy of errors.”
“Do p-pipe down, Colin,” said Stephen rapidly. “It’s no go. I didn’t want you to do it. Mr. Alleyn, you’re quite right. I didn’t kill Uncle G. but, on my word of honour, I t-took him down in the lift and Colin stayed in the drawing- room. Don’t commit any more p-perjury, Col, for God’s sake, just go b-buzz off.”
The twins, white to the lips, stared at each other. It so chanced that each of them reflected the other’s pose to the very slant of their narrow heads. The impression made by identical twins is always startling to strangers. It is accompanied by a sensation of shifted focus. It seems to us that the physical resemblance must be an outward sign of mental unity. It is easy to believe that twins are aware of each other’s thoughts, difficult to imagine them in dissonance; and Alleyn wondered if these twins were in agreement when Colin suddenly said: “Let me stay here while you talk to Stephen, please. I’m sorry I was objectionable. I’d like to stay.”
Alleyn did not answer and Colin added: “I won’t butt in. I’d just be here, that’s all.”
“He knows everything about it,” Stephen said. “I t-told him.”
“If he first tells us what he did while you were in the lift,” said Alleyn, “he may stay.”
“Please do, Col,” said Stephen. “You’ll only make me look every kind of bloody skunk if you d-don’t.”
“All right,” said Cohn, slowly. “I’ll explain.”
“That’s excellent,” said Alleyn. “Suppose you both sit down.”
They sat on opposite sides of the table, facing each other.
“I’d rather explain first of all,” Colin began, “that it’s not a new sort of stunt, our joining with the same story. It’s a kind of arrangement we’ve always had. When we were kids we fixed it up between us. I daresay it sounds pretty feeble-minded and sort of ‘ “I did it, sir!” said little Eric,’ but it doesn’t strike us like that. It’s just an arrangement. Not over everything but when there’s a really major row brewing. It doesn’t mean that I think Stephen bumped off Uncle G. I know he didn’t. He told me he didn’t. So I know.”
Colin said this with an air of stolid assurance. Stephen looked at him dully. “Well, I didn’t,” he said.
“I know. I was only explaining.”
“Later on,” said Alleyn, “we’ll look for something that sounds a little more like police-court evidence. In the meantime, what did you do?”
“Me?” asked Colin. “Oh, I just stayed in the drawing-room with Henry and my father.”
“What did you talk about?”
“I didn’t. I looked at a
“Henry said: ‘Have they gone?’ and my father said ‘Yes,’ and Henry said ‘Three rousing cheers.’ I don’t think anybody said anything else until Aunt V. started yelling, and then Henry said; ‘Is that a fire engine or do they ring bells?’ and my father said ‘It’s a woman,’ and Henry said: ‘How revolting!’ and my father said: ‘It’s coming from the lift,’ and Henry said: ‘Then it must be Aunt V. and she’s coming back.’ It had got a good deal nearer by then. I think Henry said ‘How revolting!’ again and then my father said; ‘Something has happened,’ and went out of the room. Henry said: ‘She’s gone completely crackers, it seems. Come on.’ So he went out. My mother and Frid and, I think, Patch, were on the landing and the lift was up. Stephen opened the doors and came out. He held the doors back. Aunt V. came screeching out. The rest of it’s rather a muddle and I daresay you’ve heard it already.”
“I should like to know when your brother decided to take up the option on your agreement.”
“I didn’t want—” Stephen began.
“Shut up,” said Colin. “While they were all fussing round and ringing up doctors and policemen Stephen said: ‘I’m going to be sick,’ so I went with him and he was. And then we went to my room and he told me all about it. And I said that if anything cropped up like you, and so on, the arrangement would be good. Stephen said he didn’t want me to crash in on the party but I did, of course, as you know. That’s all.”
“Thank you,” said Alleyn. Colin lit a cigarette.
“I suppose I say what happened in the lift,” said Stephen.
“If you will,” Alleyn agreed. “From the time Lady Charles came to the drawing-room.”
Stephen played a little tattoo with his fingers on the table. His movements as well as his speech, Alleyn noticed were much more staccato than his twin’s. Colin had spoken with a deliberation so marked as to seem studied. He had looked placidly at Alleyn through his light eyelashes. Stephen spoke in spurts; his stutter became increasingly marked; he kept glancing at Alleyn and away again. Fox’s notes seemed to disturb him.
“My mother,” Stephen said, “asked for someone t-to work the lift. So I went out.”
“To the lift?”
“Yes.”
“Who was in the lift?”
“He was. Sitting there.”
“With the doors shut?”
“Yes.”
“Who opened them?”
“I did. Aunt V. was sort of hovering about on the landing. When I opened the d-doors she tacked over and floated in.”
“And then? Did you follow at once?”
“Well, I stopped long enough to wink at my mother and then I got in and s-simply t-took the lift down—”
