‘Hm!’ said Fiona, raising herself on one elbow. ‘A bit derivative, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t see how that can be avoided. One reads so many things that, in the end, it becomes very difficult to sort out what is original from what one has unconsciously absorbed.’
‘That last line isn’t true, anyway. Look at prostitutes and gigolos and those sort of seedy adventurers who make love to silly rich women for their money and marry them.’
‘The line belongs in the context. I wasn’t thinking about prostitutes and gigolos and seedy adventurers.’
‘You know I’m likely to find myself in trouble, don’t you? – about Veryan’s death I mean,’ said Fiona.
‘That smooth-talking policeman made it plain. He knows you spent the weekend alone in an empty house, but, after all, I told him I spent it with people I couldn’t possibly identify. Anyhow, you have to have a motive for murder and neither of us had any reason to kill Professor Veryan.’
‘I read somewhere that the police don’t bother all that much about motives. What they go for are means and opportunity.’
‘Well, I suppose you had the means and we both had the opportunity. I can’t prove I was in London and you can’t prove you spent Sunday night at home.’
‘I had the means? What means?’
‘Well, I’ve been turning things over in my mind. I have a strong visual imagination and I think I can see what happened on that tower.’
‘So can everybody else. The coping is very low and is broken away and Veryan was a tall man. Somebody gave him a shove and over he went.’
‘You couldn’t be sure that would happen. People standing on their feet have a lot of resistance to a push or shove. I have thought of a much better way.’
‘Then I wouldn’t tell that detective, if I were you.’
‘I don’t think it would work in my case; I’m not big enough or strong enough, but an average person could do it.’
‘Which average person do you have in mind?’
‘Nobody in particular.’
‘Come on! You can trust me.’
‘Can I? Susannah Lochlure couldn’t. You let her think your parents would be at home, and that she would go riding and play golf and there might be a small, select dance on the Saturday night. It’s no use denying it. I heard you. You must have known you were lying to her.’
‘Will you give me a copy of that sonnet? I like it very much. May I have it?’
‘Yes, of course. All right, then, the average person in my mind is Edward Saltergate.’
‘And the method?’
‘I envisage Veryan seated on the broken wall with both hands holding his telescope to his eye. You know the way he always sat leaning right back with his knees together—’
‘And his hands clasped behind the back of his head—’
‘In this case holding the telescope, as I say. Well, all the average person would have to do is to make a swift dive at his legs, get him behind the knees and tumble him over backwards. He could not possibly save himself.’
‘There are two objections to your choosing Saltergate.’
‘He’s the one with a motive.’
‘I thought we agreed that motive was of secondary importance. I can pick holes in your theory. For one thing, you couldn’t be certain that your method would kill a person. It might only injure him and then he could testify against you. My other objection is that, as soon as anybody else climbed the tower, Veryan would automatically lower the telescope and certainly would not be taken by surprise. In fact, if the visitor was Saltergate and he came by night, I’m sure Veryan would have been on the alert and very suspicious.’
‘He despised Edward. He would not have been afraid of him. Then, once Edward had done the job, you see, he could have got down from the tower, picked up Veryan’s head and smashed it down on that pile of stones to make sure.’
‘I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty.’
‘All poets are bloodyminded. Didn’t you know?’
‘More work for the police, then,’ said Mowbray. ‘I’ll send my sergeant. He’s a lady-killer and a snake in the grass. I have faith in his future. He should go far.’
Detective-Sergeant Harrow sought out Bonamy who, with Tom, was filling in a narrow causeway over the trench so that it could be crossed and another row of pegs inserted in order that a second trench inside the first one could be dug when the two workmen had finished their present assignment.
