‘Oh, well, if I must! Fiona invited me to spend the weekend at her home. I had met her parents and naturally I expected them to be there when we arrived. I was surprised and, I must confess, very much annoyed when I discovered that she and I were to spend the weekend alone together, particularly as I had already had to decline an invitation from a friend because I had promised Fiona. Under the circumstances I saw no reason why I should let myself in for an intolerably boring weekend, so, when I discovered that I had been taken to a house which had not even a servant in it to prepare the meals, I telephoned the Barbican hotel.’
‘And the ever-attentive Mr Tynant rescued Childe Rolanda from the dark tower. What is the story of the mouse? Surely you will tell me.’
‘Oh, that! I helped Fiona get tea ready – she had brought with her various stores to last the weekend – and then I was in a quandary. I wanted a reason for insisting upon taking my departure before nightfall without giving her the crude explanation which would have been the true one, so, in desperation, I invented the mouse and insisted that I am so allergic to rodents that I could not possibly stay in a house which harboured them.’
‘She did not believe your story.’
‘No, I don’t think she did. There was a stormy scene and at the end of it I rang Nicholas Tynant, knowing that I could catch him before he went fishing on the Saturday, and asked him to come in his car and collect me.’
‘His, I take it, was the invitation you had had to refuse.’
‘Yes, it was. When I had to turn it down, he said he was going to spend the Saturday fishing.’
‘But the two of you spent the weekend in the other hotel here in Holdy Bay.’
‘In separate rooms, as the chambermaid can certify.’
‘Of course, and you booked separately and in your own names.’
‘Certainly. There was no reason to do otherwise.’
‘We now come to the heart of the matter. Will you give me an account of how you spent the night on which Professor Veryan died?’
‘It will not differ in any particular from the one I have given to the police.’
‘Are you sure you will not change your mind?’
Susannah got up from the table.
‘Have you finished with me?’ she asked.
‘Not quite. Please sit down again. Tell me exactly what you did after dinner on that Sunday evening.’
‘You are trying to find discrepancies in my story. There may be some slight alterations, but absolutely nothing of any significance.’
‘Did you know that your caravan was occupied during your absence?’
‘Fiona told me that the two boys, Bonamy and Tom, wanted to borrow the key, so I assumed they slept there.’
‘Did you raise any objection?’
‘No, I don’t think so. They promised to leave everything perfectly tidy. Besides, I was – oh, well, never mind that.’
‘Besides, you were not so invulnerable yourself that you could afford to question the behaviour of your juniors.’
‘Oh, they had girls with them, had they?’
‘And you had Nicholas Tynant with you.’
‘I did not! I did not! – in the sense you mean.’
‘You may be asked to swear to that in a court of law, and that might come very hard on Mr Tynant. He does not appear to have much of an alibi for the Sunday night. You had better give him any help you can, for your own sake, as well as his.’
‘How dare you threaten me!’
‘That is not a threat; it is a friendly warning. I cannot disclose matters which, so far, are known only to myself and the police, but there is no longer any doubt in their minds that Professor Veryan was murdered.’
Susannah’s face registered no emotion. All she said was that she had not realised that there had been so much bad feeling among the party.
‘For, of course,’ she added, ‘it must have been one of us. Nobody else would have known he was up on top of the tower.’
‘I would still like to have an account of your own Sunday evening.’
‘Well, I had no idea, and neither had Nicholas, that we would need an alibi. We agreed that it might be better if we did not arrive together on the Monday morning, so we arranged that he would take me to the caravan after dinner on Sunday night but that he would leave me to turn the boys out, if they were there, while he sneaked off and spent the rest of the night at the Barbican. He had told Malpas he was going to spend Saturday and Sunday fishing and this would have been true if I had not telephoned him to take me away from Fiona’s home on the Friday while he was still at the Barbican. Malpas would have suspected nothing when Nicholas came down to breakfast on the Monday morning, you see. He would have concluded that Nicholas had returned from his fishing-trip while he was still on the tower on Sunday night. Of course, everything went wrong when the car broke down at Holdy Bay.’
‘I think I must see Mr Tynant again. Will you ask the policeman to recall him?’
Nicholas came in jauntily.
