A Beautiful Blue Death

“And then, as usual, a series of small and large things began to draw together in my mind. I found a leaf, a rare leaf, with no business being there, quite near the sill of Prue Smith’s window, where Eustace escaped after murdering Soames, and later I remembered that at our first meeting I had seen bunches of sprigs and leaves in his pocket. You see that with many botanists: out collecting, I supposed, and thought little of it then. But it returned to me.”

“That might have been Barnard, though,” said Lady Jane. “You remember he took me to the botanical gardens.”

“Yes, you’re right. It complicated things. But the other clues sorted out that confusion.”

“What other clues?” Edmund asked.

“There was the candle. I noticed immediately when I first went over that Prue Smith had an unused candle in her room. Graham, remind me what the maid told you?”

“She said, sir, that candles are meted out very stringently by the housekeeper.”

“Exactly. That was more than useful, it was significant. It was only because you found that out, Graham, that sometime later, when I happened to see Claude with his cuff unbuttoned and saw a small burn on his forearm, I started to wonder.”

“Prue and Claude must have fought,” Graham said carefully. “The spots of wax on the floor. Sir,” he added, as an afterthought.

“Exactly. McConnell and I found spots of wax on the floor of Prue Smith’s room. I think now she died because she had overheard Claude and Eustace discussing Soames and confronted Claude, with whom she was close. During their fight perhaps they struggled, and tipped things over—including, as Graham agrees, the candle, which left wax on the floor and burned Claude. Perhaps she was holding the candle to give them light. At any rate, the two young men must have seen this to be a clue—the mangled candle—and replaced it. They, of course, could have all the candles they wanted, living upstairs.”

“But if they were having a fight,” said Edmund, “wouldn’t poison be a rather roundabout way of killing her?”

“You’re right,” said Lenox. “I think Claude must have persuaded her to hold her tongue for a little while. I would guess she said yes reluctantly, and gave them enough time to poison her.

“Incidentally, I found something else suspicious: a handkerchief in Eustace’s room, under his bed, that smelled of peppermint and wax and may have had a residue of wax on it. My guess is that Eustace cleaned his cousin’s arm with his own handkerchief and then kept it—knowing his alibi for the murder of Prue Smith was secure—in case he should need to blackmail Claude or, indeed, turn him in with the handkerchief as evidence.

“And there was something else as well—young Hilary, the MP. I sat next to him at the ball, and in passing he said that Claude and Eustace, who belonged to his club, seemed thick as thieves. I didn’t think of it until just recently. He also mentioned—but several minutes later, so I didn’t connect it—that they had come into money.

“I should have noticed this right away, and I should have noticed other things as well. Their alibis were too good. To hear that Eustace painted for an arduous amount of time, very noticeably not leaving the room in his supposed intensity—and then to hear from him that he had slapped on the rest of the paint the next day? Why be so fastidious and then so sloppy? For an airtight alibi, which the next day was no longer necessary to maintain. I should really have noticed this straightaway. Whenever an alibi is too good, it bears investigation.”

“Same goes for Claude,” Edmund said. “Maybe it was a bit too easy to follow him around, now that I think of it.”

“You may be right,” Lenox said. “Though you did an admirable job, they themselves, you said, noticed your attentiveness. He made faces at you, I recall.”

“That’s right,” Edmund said.

“That seems incorrect though,” said Lady Jane. “Why tell Edmund they had seen him?”

“Overconfidence,” said Edmund.

“That’s right,” Lenox went on. “When they met briefly and Claude hit Eustace, they must have very quickly hatched a plan for Claude to be easily followed and Eustace to disappear. After all, Eustace had his alibi; Claude was the one under suspicion. But don’t feel badly, Edmund. They fooled me far more easily than they fooled you.”

Lenox tapped his pipe thoughtfully against his hand. “But why?” he said. “Why all of this? Why murder Soames, and even murder someone to get to Soames? What power did he have?

“I had concluded that the valuable thing in Barnard’s house would be very difficult to move, which is the first thing a burglar thinks about—consider the everlasting popularity of diamonds—and that murdering Prue Smith and Jack Soames wouldn’t even begin the job. I’m speaking to you, Edmund.”

“Absolutely right,” Edmund said. “Especially in a crowded house. You would need twenty men to walk inconspicuously through the house. The party would have been a bad time for it.”

“Exactly. Why, then? First, we knew that Claude and Eustace came from poor branches of the family. But in fact, as they had both willingly admitted, they had received ten thousand pounds from their uncle upon reaching the majority. They were financially secure. And I suspect Barnard has done equally well by his brother and sister. He has a great deal of pride, so I imagine he supported them less from generosity than from the dislike of being shamed by the poverty of his family.”

“I remember his saying to me that his nephews were set for life,” Lady Jane said.

“Did he? That seems like the sort of thing he’d say. However that was, the two nephews had some money. Eustace said he had put it in the railway fund at four percent and Claude said he had discovered an opportunity in the Americas. Well. They could expect more, no doubt, upon Barnard’s death—but I think neither wanted to be a workingman until then. Note that they still live with him, when most young men want their own digs. It is a fact to stow away, and I shall return to it in a moment.

“What next? I recommended the newspapers with the notices of Soames’s death to Exeter, and he blithely ignored the advice; predictably, they became the crux of the case, in my mind.

“Why, when he was completely solvent, did people say that Jack Soames was ruined? Who started that rumor? It was a diversion, I would guess. The two lads started it. My guess is they told their uncle, who, as all three of us know, can be a gossip after a glass of wine. They knew as well that there was”—he looked at Edmund —“that valuable thing under their roof. Perhaps Prue had discovered their plan to steal it some weeks before the ball >and was only quiet about it because of Claude’s begging, and at last they decided that it was too risky.”

“Why didn’t you suspect Claude straightaway, if I may ask, sir?” This was Graham.

“They handled it cleverly. Until Soames was killed, they needed a way to remove suspicion from Claude, who would have no alibi for murdering Prue Smith. Perhaps it was a sense of humor, or perhaps they figured Soames to be stupid and friendly, but I suspect that they led Exeter (and me) in the direction of suspecting Soames. They spread it about that he was a ruined man, knowing the mind of a detective is constantly in search of motive. And the real motive was in fact not the valuable thing in Barnard’s house, which took me even farther afield and left the nephews plenty of breathing room until they could kill Soames, by which time both of them would have an alibi.

“But this is speculation. Let us return to fact. I doubt many people read in the Post that in fact Soames was not ruined—but I did. That set my mind clicking. And more importantly, I think all of you did read The Times. Think back on it—or on any of the reputable reports. They all emphasized the same points: athletics, service in Parliament, social circle, and his recent service on the board of the Pacific Trust. It is this last that I realized today was most important. Edmund, you yourself tipped me off.”

“How did I manage that?”

“You said you wouldn’t give all the money in the funds for something or other, and I saw I had been missing the plainest clue all along. The valuable item in Barnard’s house, as I said, was not the object of the crime. It was the Pacific Trust.

“There is a lesson to me in this. Apparently, the vote of the Pacific has been one of the stories of the past six months in the financial world. Graham, you tried to get me to look into it—all credit to you. I should have listened to you.”

“I recommended it for the wrong reasons, sir.”