carriage, but fortunately there were none.
The Irishman seemed slightly disconcerted.
“I suppose — now that you mention it, Professor Tamar, I suppose not. The last time I saw him was on Monday evening in the bar of our hotel. He left us rather early, I remember. My colleague, the Contessa di Silvabianca, and our English solicitor, Miss Derwent, had been given rooms in an annex a little distance away from the main building and so had Michael. They both wanted an early night, and I think Michael felt that he ought to escort them back there. That must have been — sometime between quarter and half past ten, I suppose.”
“You see,” I said, “I was wondering whether Cantrip — whether Michael might conceivably have accompanied Edward Malvoisin on his nocturnal excursion.”
“Oh, I hardly think so, Professor Tamar. If Edward had an appointment at that hour of night, it must surely have been of a very confidential nature — I can’t believe he’d have wanted company. And they certainly didn’t leave at the same time. Edward stayed in the bar with us until — oh, about half past eleven, I should think. Do you remember, Gideon?”
“I remember him saying he wanted to get to bed,” said the accountant. “He didn’t say anything about going out.”
“The world is full of duplicity, Gideon. Since we know that in fact he did go out, we must infer that it was for some purpose he chose not to tell us of. And that’s the last time we saw the poor fellow alive. Gideon and I stayed on until midnight, when Philip Alexandre closed the bar. We were on our way up to our rooms when we heard all the noise of Albert coming back. We looked out of the landing window to see what was going on, and there he was up on his horse and shouting out about the woman in white, with Philip swearing back at him in Sercquais. Then he climbed down and started hurling bricks about. It was plain enough that he was as tight as a lord, and it didn’t occur to us that there was anything seriously wrong.”
The accountant had been looking with increasing frequency at his watch and giving other indications of impatience to be gone. The Irishman, however, took no notice of them, evidently intending to finish his brandy at leisure. It occurred to me that he felt a genuine reluctance to leave the Colonel with his anxiety unallayed.
“I do assure you,” he said, “that there is nothing sinister about the Daffodil Settlement, and I don’t doubt that at the time of the accident your nephew was safe in his bed. And if he was up bright and early in the morning and across the Coupee as soon as it was clear, he’d have been away on the boat to Jersey without ever hearing a word about poor Edward Malvoisin. After that you couldn’t blame him if he decided to stay on for a day or two. He’s enjoying himself on the beach at St. Brelade’s at this very moment, I daresay, with no idea of anyone being worried about him.”
“He could be in Timbuctoo,” said Darkside, “for all we can do about it. Well, Patrick, I don’t know about you, but I’ve paid good money to attend this seminar, even if it is just a lot of fancy lawyers talking a lot of hot air, and we’ve already missed twenty minutes of the afternoon session. So if you don’t mind, Colonel, I’ll be getting back to it.”
“Stay where you are,” said the Colonel, with a brisk authority which I could imagine to have been of notable effect on the battlefields of his youth.
Darkside, already in the process of rising, now sank back, as if almost physically incapable of continuing his upward movement. I at first supposed him merely to have succumbed to the old soldier’s forceful personality and commanding tone of voice; but he had more probably been influenced, I perceived after a moment, by the fact that the Colonel was pointing a pistol at him.
The Irishman gave no sign of being disconcerted by this turn of events. On the contrary, his amber-coloured eyes became bright with what seemed to be amusement, as if at the charming whimsicality of some eccentric but highly valued client. Darkside, though his lips moved in silent protest, appeared to have lost the power of speech: he gazed as if mesmerised at the pistol, and his pallor had taken on a greenish, putrescent tinge.
“You say there’s nothing sinister about this Daffodil business,” said the Colonel. “But one man’s dead and another’s gone missing. And the one who’s gone missing is my nephew. In my book you’ve still got a lot of explaining to do. Right, they’re all yours, Professor — you’re the expert. Fire away.”
Whatever Julia had said to recommend to him my skills in investigation, she had evidently failed to mention my extreme distaste for all forms of physical coercion. It would have seemed unkind to disappoint him, however, by declining to proceed with the questioning of the two witnesses whom he had presented to me at gunpoint with such innocent satisfaction. Moreover, though I did not quite believe that he would actually shoot anyone, I did not so entirely disbelieve it as to feel disposed to vex him.
Searching in vain, in the agitation of the moment, for any useful or appropriate question, I finally enquired, for want of anything better, whether those concerned with the Daffodil Settlement had had, on the previous Monday evening, any particular cause for celebration.
“No,” said Patrick Ardmore, with the tentative care of a man just learning the rules of an interesting new game. “No, I don’t think so, Professor. Why should you suppose we had?”
“To stay in the bar until midnight suggests conviviality.”
“There was nothing convivial about it,” said Darkside, outraged into croaking audibility. “We had important business to discuss.”
“Indeed?” I said. “I am surprised that the bar of your hotel afforded sufficient privacy for the discussion of confidential matters.”
“We had it to ourselves,” said Ardmore. “There was Philip Alexandre behind the bar, of course — the owner of the hotel — but he hardly counts as a stranger. Do please acquit us of conviviality, Professor Tamar — it’s very hard on Gideon to be suspected of such a thing.”
Perceiving that this brief exchange would hardly be sufficient to satisfy the Colonel’s expectations, I cast about rather desperately in my mind for some further line of questioning.
“I wonder if you would care,” I said, “to tell us about the pen?”
The effect was gratifying — the two men stared at me with as much astonishment as if I had put my hand in my pocket and extracted a large white rabbit. I noticed with some relief that the Colonel looked deeply impressed.
“The pen?” said Ardmore, raising an eyebrow. Too late, however, for credibility, even if his companion had not at the same instant exclaimed, “How the hell do you know about that?”
“The fountain pen belonging to the Contessa di Silvabianca, which you found on the Coupee near the place where Edward Malvoisin fell to his’ death. If you happen to have it with you, Mr. Ardmore, I should be most interested to see it.”
The Irishman hesitated — he was evidently a good deal more troubled by my knowing about the pen than by being held up at gunpoint in a gentlemen’s club in the West End of London. He must have decided, however, that since I knew so much there could be no further harm in compliance. After an enquiring glance at the Colonel, who gave a brisk nod of assent, he opened his briefcase and produced something which gleamed prettily in the dusty sunlight from the library window. He handed it across to me — a fountain pen made, as I judged, of solid gold, engraved with a graceful and intricate design which incorporated the initials of Gabrielle di Silvabianca.
“Would you care,” I said, “to tell me how you came to find it?”
“I understood,” said the Irishman, “that you were already informed on the subject.”
“It would interest me,” I said, “to know the precise details.”
“Very well,” said Ardmore, “if they interest you, then by all means — but I can’t think why they should. It was on Monday morning, when we were on our way back across the Coupee — Miss Derwent, Gideon, and myself. Miss Derwent had run on ahead — I think she rather had the jitters about the place, not surprisingly in the circumstances, and wanted to be across as quickly as possible. I didn’t much care for it myself, but I stopped about half way across to look down at the place where the fishermen had found poor Edward’s body — they’d marked it with some kind of flag. I looked to see if there was any sign of how he’d come to fall — whether the railings were damaged or anything of that kind. There was something shining in the grass at the edge of the road and I bent down and picked it up. Then Gideon came up and wanted to know what it was. As you see, Professor Tamar, a very trivial incident, though I admit I’m a little puzzled about how you happen to know about it — I rather thought Gideon agreed with me that there was no point in mentioning it to anyone else.”
“I haven’t told anyone,” said the accountant. “I said you ought to tell someone, but it’s not my responsibility.”
“Have you any idea,” I said, “how the Contessa happened to drop her pen in that particular place?”
