their jars, in evident distress. Among the higher animals imprisoned here there were mice, but of an unusual morphology, with remarkably long and spindly limbs. Some of the mice, indeed, had trouble supporting their own weight. I remarked on this to Holmes, but he made no comment.
Holmes, Wells and I stepped over the crater's cracked lip and walked around the wrinkled aluminium of the capsule's hull. The fall had been, I judged, no more that ten feet – a drop that seemed barely enough to injure, let alone kill a man – but it had been sufficient to compress the ship's entire structure by perhaps a third of its length.
'How terrible,' Wells said. 'It was in this very spot suspended under the glittering hull of Brimicombe's moon ship itself – that he bade us dine.'
'Then perhaps you have had a lucky escape,' said Holmes grimly.
'The workmen have cut the capsule open.' Tarquin indicated a square rent in the wall, a shadowed interior beyond. 'The body was removed after the police and the coroner studied
the scene. Do you want to look in there? Then I will show you where Bryson and I were working.'
'In a minute,' said Holmes, and he studied the corpse of the fantastic ship with his usual bewildering keenness. He said, 'What sort of man was Ralph? I see evidence of his technical abilities, but what was it like to know him – to be related, to work with him?'
'Among those he worked with, Ralph stood out.' Tarquin's face was open and seemed untainted by envy. 'When we were children, Ralph was always the leader. And so it remained as we entered adult life.'
Wells remarked, 'I never knew if you liked him.'
Tarquin's eyes narrowed. 'I cannot answer that, Bertie. We were brothers. I worked for him. I suppose I loved him. But we were also rivals, throughout life, as are most brothers.
Holmes asked bluntly, 'Do you stand to benefit from his death?'
Tarquin Brimicombe said, 'No. My father's legacy will not be transferred to me. Ralph made out his own will, leaving his assets to his wife; and there is no love lost between the two of us. You may check with the family solicitors – and with Jane – to verify these claims. If you are looking for a murder motive, Mr Holmes, you must dig deeper. I will not resent it.'
'Oh, I shall,' muttered Holmes. 'And Ralph Brimicombe is beyond resenting anything. Come. Let us look in the capsule.'
We stepped over the shattered concrete to the entrance cut in the capsule wall. A small lamp had been set up, filling the interior with a sombre glow. I knew that the body – what was left of it – had been taken away for burial, but the craft had not been cleaned out. I dropped my eyes to the floor, expecting – what? a dramatic splash of blood? – but there were only a few irregular stains on the burst upholstery of the aviator's couch, where Ralph had been seated at the moment of his extinguishing. There was surprisingly little damage to the equipment and instrumentation, the dials and switches and levers evidently meant to control the craft; much of it had simply been crushed longways where it stood.
But there was a smell, reminiscent to me of the hospitals of my military service.
I withdrew my head. 'I am not sure what I expected,' I murmured. 'More – carnage, I suppose.'
Tarquin frowned thoughtfully; then he extended his index finger and pointed upwards.
I looked up.
It was as if a dozen bags of rust brown paint had been hurled into the air. The upper walls and ceiling of the ship, the instruments, dials and switches that encrusted the metal, even the cabin's one small window: all were liberally coated with dried blood.
'Good Lord,' said Wells, and his face blanched. 'How did that get up there?'
Tarquin said, 'The coroner concluded the vessel must have rolled over as it fell, thus spreading my brother's blood through its interior.'
As we moved on, Wells muttered to me, 'Such a size of ship, rolling over in ten feet? It hardly seems likely!'
I agreed with the young author. But Holmes would make no remark.
Tarquin took us to a gantry which crossed the chamber above the wrecked ship. We stood a few inches from a bank of cables, many of which showed necking, shearing and cracking; they had clearly snapped under extreme pressure. But one cable a fat, orange-painted rope as thick as my arm – had a clean, gleaming termination. At my feet was a gas cutting kit, and a set of protector goggles. It seemed absurdly obvious, like a puzzle set by a child, that a load-bearing cable had been cut by this torch!
Tarquin said, 'Not all the cables supported the weight of the ship. Some carried power, air for the passenger, and so forth.'
Holmes said, 'You say you were both working up here, on this gantry, when the accident occurred? Both you and Bryson?'
'Yes. We were doing some maintenance. We were the only people in the chamber – apart from Ralph, of course. He was inside the vessel itself, performing calculations there.'
Holmes asked, 'And the Inertial Adjustor was in operation at the time?'
'It was.'
I pointed to the fat orange cable. 'Was that the main support?' He nodded. 'Although I did not know that at the time.'
'And it has been cut with this torch?'
'That is right,' he said evenly. He leaned against the gantry rail, arms folded. 'The flame sliced clean through, like ice under a hot tap. When the big one went the others started to stretch and snap. And soon the ship fell.'
'And Bryson was using the torch? Is that what you are saying?'
'Oh, no.' He looked mildly surprised at Wells's question. 'I was doing the cutting. I was working it under Bryson's supervision.'
I demanded, 'But if you were working the torch, how can you accuse Bryson of murder?'
'Because he is responsible. Do not you see? He told me specifically to cut the orange cable. I followed his instructions, not knowing that it was supporting the capsule.'
'You said you are trained to know every detail of the ship, inside and out.'
'The ship itself, yes, doctor. Not the details of this chamber, however. But Bryson knew.'
Wells remarked, 'But it must have taken minutes to cut through that cable. Look at its thickness! Did Bryson not see what you were doing and stop you?'
'Bryson was not here,' Tarquin said coldly. 'As you have heard, he was taking breakfast with my sister-in-law, as was their wont. You see, gentlemen,' he went on, a controlled anger entering his voice, 'I was just a tool Bryson used to achieve his ends. As innocent as that torch at your feet.'
Wells stared at the torch, the ripped cables. 'Tarquin, your brother knew Bryson for years. He relied on him utterly. Why would Bryson do such a thing?'
He straightened up, brushing dust from his jacket. 'You must ask him that,' he said.
The next step was obvious to us all: we must confront the accused.
And so we returned to the drawing room of the main house, and confronted the wretched Bryson. He stood on the carpet, his broad, strong hands dangling useless at his side, his overalls oil-stained and bulging with tools. He was, on Wells's testimony, solid, unimaginative, able – and utterly reliable. I could not avoid a sense of embarrassment as Holmes summarized to Bryson the accusation levelled against him.
Jack Bryson hung his head and ran his palm over his scalp. 'So you think I killed him,' he said, sounding resigned. 'That is that, then. Are you going to call in the police?'
'Slow down.' Holmes held his hands up. 'To begin with, I do not know what possible reason you could have for wanting to harm Ralph Brimicombe.'
'It was Jane,' he said suddenly.
Wells frowned. 'Brimicombe's wife? What about her?'
'She and I -' He hesitated. 'I may as well tell you straight; you will find out anyway. I do not know if you would call it an affair. I am a good bit older than she is – but still – Ralph was so distant, you know, so wrapped up in his work. And Jane – '
'- is a woman of warmth and devotion,' Holmes said gently.
Bryson said, 'I knew Jane a long time. The closeness – the opportunity. Well. So there is your motive, Mr Holmes. I am the lover who slew the cuckolded husband. And my opportunity for murder is without question.'
