Cold, Lone and Still

‘Another point: if Bull let the murderer and Carbridge in, they must have turned up early and anyway Bull must have seen the murderer. The police will have shown Bull the body —’

‘They wouldn’t need to. He and I both saw it before they came, if you remember. You went with us along that passage when I put in the new electric bulb. Bull saw the body then.’

‘He didn’t say he recognised it.’

‘I bet he has said so by now.’

‘And, of course, it’s not very likely that Carbridge and his murderer turned up together. If you had planned to kill a chap, the last thing you would want would be to be seen in his company just before the deed was done.’

‘The time factor bothers me a bit. The police aren’t giving anything away, but it seemed likely that Carbridge was killed before the actual party got going. It looks as though he had an assignation with the murderer. I wish we knew how long he’d been dead when you fell over the body.’

‘Why the hell it should have to be me, I can’t think!’ I exclaimed bitterly. ‘I’d already fallen over one dead man. Why should it have to be two?’

‘Well, they say coincidence has a long arm.’

‘Not much comfort when the hand at the end of that arm has got you by the short hairs.’

‘I think you might do worse than have a word with Bull. You can get him to tell you what he said to the police.’

‘How is that going to help?’

‘I don’t know, but, in your shoes, I think I would want to know what people had been saying.’

‘Well, what did you say?’

‘Oh, that I had been responsible for organising the party and had written to everybody who was on the walk. I said that I had ended up at Fort William and that everybody who was there had climbed Ben Nevis except for you and Miss Camden. He rather pressed me as to why Perth had not come to the party and tried to tempt me into admitting that Perth and Carbridge had fallen out on The Way, but, of course, I wasn’t having any of that, any more than I was telling him about Crianlarich. I knew about that punch-up, you know.’

‘Do you mean they had fallen out — Perth and Carbridge?’

‘In a manner of speaking, yes. That’s one reason why our poly gang spent three days chipping away at the hills where you and Miss Camden found us. You see, we had already had a bit of a barney with him and Todd when we spent so much time on the island of Inchcailloch when they wanted to press on regardless and we wanted to study the geology of the island.’

‘Couldn’t they have gone on without you?’

‘Both had taken a fancy to Patsy, I think. The girl wasn’t terribly interested, although perhaps a bit pleased just at first, the two men being a good deal older than Freddie and myself and, of course, employed, whereas we were only students. That meant they had a lot more money and, we gathered, assured positions with their firms.’

‘You mean that Carbridge and Todd had fallen out?’

‘Oh, I wouldn’t go so far as that.’

‘What, then?’

‘Perhaps Patsy wasn’t the only girl Carbridge had his eye on.’

I could not pretend that I did not know what he was hinting, but I said angrily, ‘What the hell are you getting at?’

‘Nothing, nothing — except that your Hera is a remarkably beautiful woman.’

‘And engaged to be married to me, as I pointed out pretty forcibly to Carbridge at Crianlarich when he showed signs of muscling in. Yes, and to Todd, too.’

‘Very sorry, Melrose. Didn’t mean to rile you. More in the way of a warning, if you see what I mean.’

‘Put your warnings where the monkey —’

‘All right, all right.’ He got up from his chair. ‘Thanks for the drinks. See you at the inquest, I expect.’

When he had gone I went to the hall of residence. Bull let me in. I tackled him as soon as I got inside the door.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you recognised the dead man?’ I asked.

‘Recognise him? But I never, sir.’

‘You let him in, and his murderer, too, on the afternoon of the party.’

‘That I never did. If they got in, they got in sub rosa, sir. I hadn’t never seen that corpse before in my life.’

‘But how did he get in if you didn’t let him in?’

‘There’s the basement entrance. That only gets locked and bolted at night.’

‘Oh? Why is that?’

‘I leaves it open during the daylight hours so I don’t have to keep getting up on me pins to let in students as wants to work during the vaycaytions. Same in term-time. They comes and they goes. I got plenty of jobs to do without keep going along to answer the front-door bell. That’s for visitors, not students. Them as come to the party was visitors, so, of course, I let ’em in if Mr Trickett was busy with the other guests, but I never let in that dead man. I’ve got a good memory for faces. Have to have, in my job. Why, I can remember students from ten years back, never mind about the lecturers.’