“I heard that the Earl didn’t like what Lord Purleigh planned to do with Maplewhite, after the Earl was gone.”
He shook his head earnestly. “Oh no, sir. They had their disagreements, sir, as you might expect. It happens in every family, doesn’t it, sir? But there were no bad feelings, sir.”
“No arguments, no fights?”
“Oh no, sir. Nothing like that.”
Just then, I heard a noise coming from the hallway outside Carson’s room. The stomp of heavy feet, the mumble of male voices. I got up from my chair and went to the door.
Chapter Nineteen
Walking out into the hallway was like walking into a Mack Sennett movie. It was crowded with people who seemed to be rushing in a dozen different directions at the same time. They all stopped rushing when I came out, and they all looked at me and I looked at all of them. There were a couple of burly uniformed cops, and two other burly men in black suits carrying a rolled-up stretcher. A short man in a gray suit held a doctor’s bag. There was a tall thin man in a brown suit, with the strap from a bulky camera hanging around his skinny neck. And there was a tall man in a vested, military-looking black suit who had square shoulders and a square jaw and wavy gray hair that swept back from a nice widow’s peak above a square forehead and a pair of pale gray eyes. He looked like someone who had wandered into the wrong movie, and who resented it. He was the one who did the talking.
“And what have we here?” he said to me.
“Phil Beaumont,” I told him.
He nodded crisply, once. “You’ll be the Pinkerton.”
“I already am,” I said.
After a moment, he smiled bleakly. His must have practiced that smile, because he did a good job with it. “Superintendent Honniwell,” he said. “Lord Purleigh has put us into the picture. We’ll carry on from here.”
“Fine.”
He nodded crisply toward the door I’d just closed. “The valet’s room?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded again. “You may go, Beaumont. I may have some questions for you later.”
“Swell. There’s one thing, though.”
He smiled faintly, to let me know he was humoring me. Or maybe he was letting himself know. “Yes?”
“The gun. The Smith and Wesson. You’ll be checking it for prints?”
“Of course.”
“Lord Purleigh’s prints are on it.”
He pursed his lips. “Lord Purleigh and Sir Arthur have already apprised me of that fact.”
“Right. Well, I don’t know how good your laboratory people are, but you could tell them to look for prints under the ash.”
He raised one of his handsome gray eyebrows. “Under the ash?” “When we broke open the door,” I said, “it blew ash from the fireplace all over the room. It was on the gun before Lord Purleigh picked it up. His prints will be on top of the ash. If you find any prints under the ash, they belong to whoever used the pistol.”
“I expect,” he said, “that our technicians are quite capable of making that determination on their own.” He turned back to the rest of them. “Proceed, gentlemen. Touch nothing until I arrive.” In a jumble, the others began shambling and shuffling toward the Earl’s room. Honniwell reached for the knob to Carson’s door, then stopped and looked at me as if he were a little bit surprised to find out I was still in the same universe that he was.
“You may go, Beaumont,” he told me.
“Thanks,” I said, and went.
I went back to the drawing room. It was empty. Even better, no one had bothered to clean up after the tea party. There was still food lying untouched on the tables. I had just finished wolfing down my second smoked salmon sandwich, and I was reaching for the third, when two servants came into the room. They were carrying large metal trays. One of them was Briggs.
“Mr. Briggs,” I said. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”
Briggs glanced at the other servant, looked back at me, and said, “Certainly, sir.” He set his tray down on one of the tables and came over to where I was standing.
I said, “You’ve heard about the Earl?” It was probably impossible to keep it a secret from the servants.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “A great tragedy, sir.”
“I was just wondering, Mr. Briggs. Do you know anything about any visitors the Earl might’ve had in the past few days?”
For the first time, Briggs’s pale, pinched face showed some expression. His glance darted over to the other servant, who was very busy being busy, and then it darted back to me. His small eyes narrowed with that slow appraising slyness that mothers and employers hate but Pinkertons love. “I’m sorry, sir,” he told me. “I couldn’t say.” He glanced at the other servant again, in case I hadn’t gotten the message.
“Okay, Mr. Briggs,” I said. “Thanks. See you around.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
Superintendent Honniwell was already in the Great Hall when I got back there. He stood facing the table, where Doyle, Lord Bob, and the Great Man were all sitting. The Winchester rifle was gone. Honniwell ignored me as I sat down next to the Great Man. His hands were clasped behind him and he was summing up.
“It was Carson, of course,” Honniwell said to Lord Bob. “There’s no question in my mind. The Earl ordered him to obtain the pistol.”
“Absurd,” said Lord Bob. He was slouched down in his chair, slump-shouldered and sleepy-eyed. On the table before him, the decanter of brandy was nearly empty.
“With all due respect, Lord Purleigh,” said Honniwell, “I beg to differ. The man was literally quaking with guilt.”
“Guilt?” said Lord Bob. He raised his balloon glass, drank some more brandy. “Been quaking with it, then, for seven bloody years. Bloody palsy, Superintendent.”
Honniwell wasn’t the kind of cop who let facts interfere with a summing up. “Be that as it may, sir, the man is guilty. If I had him alone for a few hours, I’ll wager I’d shake the truth out of him.” Lord Bob looked at him for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was sober and dangerously level. “Lay a finger on Carson, Superintendent, and you’ll not believe the trouble in which you find yourself.”
“But Lord Purleigh,” said Honniwell, “you mistake my meaning.”
“Forgive me,” said Doyle, diplomatically. “Superintendent?”
Honniwell turned to Doyle and this time he raised both of his handsome eyebrows. “Sir Arthur?”
Doyle said, “I take it, Superintendent, that you don’t believe Carson to be responsible for the Earl’s death.”
“Not responsible, Sir Arthur, no. But he did assist in the death, indirectly, by making the pistol available.”
“Perhaps so,” said Doyle. His hands on the table, fingers interlocked, he leaned forward. He winced faintly. “But you’ve no doubt that the death itself was self-inflicted.”
“None at all. Powder burns at the wound. Nothing else is possible, not with the door locked and bolted as it was.”
The Great Man sat up and Doyle shot him a subtle warning glance. Subtlety wasn’t the Great Man’s strong point, so I kicked him in the ankle. He spun his head and glared at me, then he pursed his lips and looked away and sat back. He crossed his arms over his chest, silent and sulky.
“Precisely,” said Doyle to Honniwell. “And so, even if you could verify your belief that Carson provided the pistol, which I very much doubt, you’re still left with a suicide.”
“That’s correct,” said Honniwell. “And that is what my report will read.” He turned back to Lord Bob. “As I
