Cold, Lone and Still

what sort of cutlery I should find at the men’s hall.’

‘I am afraid you will have to identify the knife which the police have in their possession,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but do not be afraid. We know the murder was not committed with it. It was used merely as a substitute. The inference is that, if the lethal weapon had been found, it would have given a clue to the identity of the killer.’

‘I wonder why he left Coral’s knife in the body and did not get rid of that, as well as his own weapon?’ I said.

‘He reasoned, no doubt, that Miss Platt’s knife would not be traced to him. Now, Miss Platt, you borrowed the vegetable knife from your mother’s kitchen. When did you realise that it had disappeared from the hall of residence?’

‘When Freddie and I got back from tea. We went to a Wimpy’s and when we got back the knife was gone, but I didn’t worry too much at the time because I had chopped up the onions — more, actually, than I thought we should need — before we went out to tea. It was after — well, you know — after we knew that a kitchen knife had been found in the body -’

‘Yes,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘do not distress yourself. When you knew that, you connected it with the disappearance of your own knife. Did the caretaker Bull come into the kitchen while you and Mr Freddie Brown were making your preparations?’

‘No, I’m sure he didn’t. He was helping in various ways, but I don’t remember him in the kitchen.’

‘When the police ask you to identify the knife, have no fear. As it was not the murder weapon, it has only secondary interest for them.’

Then we visited Freddie Brown. He was at the hall of residence and was cutting sections of rock plants and looking at them under a microscope. Sunny-tempered as ever, he showed no sign of resentment at being interrupted.

‘Now, Mr Brown,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘you may remember that, when preparations were being made for the students’ party, a small knife with which Miss Platt had been chopping onions was missing.’

‘Yes. We didn’t worry much, at least, not at the time. We thought one of the others had come into the kitchen and whipped it for some reason. There were quite a lot of people milling about, helping to get things ready. It was only when I read about the knife found in the body and told Coral that she began to panic. She begged me to say nothing to anybody about her loss of the knife, so, of course, I promised. Anyway, we don’t know that the knife was her knife, do we?’

‘We shall know when she identifies it,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Oh, I say! You’re not going to make the poor girl do that, are you? They don’t think it was that little knife which did the damage, but I suppose nobody but the murderer would have left it in the body.’

‘Quite so. Now, Mr Brown, to another matter: will you tell me whether you remember purchasing a souvenir in Fort William?’

‘Not me; hadn’t got the cash and didn’t see anything I wanted except a Caithness decanter which I couldn’t possibly afford. Some people bought things, but not me.’

‘Some people bought daggers, for example.’

‘Yes, two of the women who were hoping that Todd would — well—’

‘Extend his favours to them?’

‘I suppose you could put it like that, but, as Coral said to me, anybody could see with half an eye that they didn’t stand an earthly. He had his sights on —’ He looked at me and left the sentence unfinished.

‘Yes, I understand that Mr Todd refused to accept the gifts and that subsequently they passed into other hands,’ said Dame Beatrice.

‘Well, if you want to know, one of them passed into my hands,’ said Freddie. ‘I don’t know what happened to the other, but I got one in a raffle.’

‘Ah, yes, the weapon which was more than a hundred years old and therefore passed as an antique.’

‘Oh, no, absolutely not that beastly thing! I expect Todd kept that. It was valuable. The one that got raffled was the sgian dubh. I had just enough money to take a ticket and it seemed a suitable souvenir, being of the Highlands and all that. Minch laughed when the girl showed it off to the others before she tried to give it to Todd. Minch said it was only a toy and that he had a real one which he would show her sometime. I’ve got mine in my room. Would you like to see it?’

‘Very much,’ said Dame Beatrice. He was not gone long. He came back with the little dagger. It had a silver- mounted black sheath with a whacking great cairngorm stuck in the handle. Dame Beatrice looked it over and handed it to Laura. Their eyes met and I saw Laura shake her head. She remarked that some girls had more money than sense.

‘Well, thank you, Mr Brown,’ said Dame Beatrice. Laura handed back the sgian dubh and, as we were leaving, Freddie said nervously that he hoped he had not welshed on anybody. It had been a good tour and he had been glad he went on it until all this rotten business had followed on.

When I got back to my flat that night a most uneasy idea came into my mind. I mean, by that, an idea which made me uneasy. When Dame Beatrice and Laura came next day to my office and told me that they had an afternoon appointment with the Minches and hoped I would accompany them, I came out promptly and explosively with what was on my mind.

‘Look here,’ I said, addressing Laura instead of challenging Dame Beatrice’s brilliant black eyes, ‘you are not doing a Roger Ackroyd on me, are you?’

‘The elliptical form of your question nevertheless makes your meaning clear,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘No, my dear Comrie, we have no Hercule Poirot up our sleeves. Your presence is merely to assure our patients (if I may call them so) of the respectability and open-mindedness of our intentions. Do you forget that you also have been a patient of mine?’

‘Meaning that she knows you from soup to nuts, to borrow a phrase from my favourite author,’ said Laura. ‘So be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed (to borrow from yet another source of inspiration), so buck up. All is not lost.’