‘There have been times when I’ve liked you better,’ I said, but, when I had said this, her mood changed.
‘We mustn’t fight at a time like this,’ she said. ‘We’re all being made to jump through hoops by that detestable detective-inspector. Take me out to dinner this evening and let’s forget all about him and that boring man Carbridge, too, although I suppose I ought not to call him boring now that he’s dead.’
‘So far as I’m concerned,’ I said, ‘a dead Carbridge is about the least boring object I can think of at present. He’s put us all in the cart.’
Sandy, who had been listening to the conversation without attempting to interrupt it, said that he was very glad not to have been at the party and that he did not like parties anyhow. Now that he had included himself in the discussion, he added that it was always useful to have somebody on the sideline who could follow the game without having to join in, and that what interested him most, apart from my involvement with the affair, was when and why the electric lightbulb in that passage had been removed.
‘The murderer must have done that, and it was just your bad luck that you happened to be the first person to go along there,’ he said kindly.
‘And that only because the idiot of a caretaker or whatever he calls himself misdirected me,’ I said. ‘In any case he should have replaced that bulb. He knew that it had gone.’
‘I suppose he didn’t send you along the passage on purpose for you to find the body?’ said Hera. ‘I mean, when you come to think of it, he himself was by far the most likely person to have removed that electric lightbulb. He knew it had gone, as you say. If he’s an innocent man,
‘People do put off doing little jobs like that,’ said Sandy. ‘I expect he thought it would be time enough when term started.’
‘But he knew there was a party in progress and people might need to go along that passage,’ I pointed out.
‘Well, I hope that beastly Bingley grilled him as well and truly as he did the rest of us,’ said Hera.
‘Nothing else will happen until after the inquest,’ said Sandy. ‘I suppose everybody was able to produce an alibi?’
‘Alibis are useless when we don’t know when the murder was committed,’ I said, ‘and Bingley has been as close as an oyster about that. Besides, you need witnesses to support an alibi.’
‘Well, you and I are on safe ground there,’ said Hera. ‘Carbridge must have been killed before the party was properly in progress, perhaps immediately upon his arrival. Nobody supposes you went along that passage in the dark, murdered him without Bull hearing anything, and then went straight back and reported to him as caretaker that you had found a body. Anyway, you and I were in one another’s company from about midday onwards. We shopped in Oxford Street, had lunch together, saw a film and then went on to the party. There must be plenty of people — shop girls, the waiter, the box-office girl, the cinema attendant, the taxi-driver who took us from the Haymarket to the poly hall of residence — who can swear to us.’
‘That’s true,’ said Sandy, ‘but you know what people are like. Ten to one, none of them will have taken enough notice to be able to remember you two.’
‘You’re not very complimentary to us,’ said Hera. ‘All the same, I don’t trust Bingley an inch. He was perfectly beastly, in a smarmy kind of way, when he questioned me.’ Her interview with him had been shorter than mine, but it appeared to have been conducted on much the same lines and she had had difficulty, she said, in concealing from him my discovery of the other body in the ruins, let alone the episode at Crianlarich.
‘And I believe he knows I was fobbing him off,’ she added. ‘He may not be all that intelligent, but he’s like a terrier at a rat-hole when it knows there’s something there and is determined to get at it.’
‘There’s only one thing to do, if Comrie thinks he is likely to be in any kind of trouble,’ said Sandy. ‘You had better get Dame Beatrice on your side, Comrie.’ I suppose we gazed at him, for he went on: ‘Don’t you see, man? This will be right up her street. You saw a body in Scotland and thought it was a dead Carbridge. You find another body in London and, dammit, it
‘He says she has a wonderful cook and some vintage claret,’ said Hera. ‘He also speaks highly of a very attractive secretary. I’m not sure I want him to go there again.’
‘The secretary is married and middle-aged,’ I said. ‘As for being a museum piece for a psychiatrist, that doesn’t appeal to me either.’
‘Well, there’s an obverse and a reverse to every coin. If you really think that Bingley has cast you as the number one suspect — although you’re probably quite wrong about that — why don’t you appeal to Dame Beatrice’s other great interest? She’s a noted criminologist. She’ll see you right if you are in trouble and are innocent.’
‘Do you doubt my innocence?’ I asked angrily. I was still raw from Bingley’s questioning and some of Hera’s criticism.
‘Of course not, but I think you’re mistaken about Bingley. He is bound to question everybody who was at the party. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to hear that he is chasing up that other fellow — you know, the students’ bear- leader you told me about, the fellow who
‘Considering that he lives in Scotland,’ said Hera, ‘I can quite understand that he wouldn’t bother to come. I expect Bingley is quite satisfied with that explanation.’
‘If anybody who
‘Hey!’ said Hera.
‘I was only using you as an instance. Now what about that chap Todd? From what you tell me, he and Carbridge teamed up right at the beginning of the tour—’
‘And, according to what Trickett told me, fell out later when they both took a fancy to Patsy Carlow.’
‘Patsy Carlow?’ said Hera, laughing. ‘What nonsense! Of course they didn’t! How could they, when —’
‘When
