Late, Late in the Evening

'Look for yourself. I don't remember the name of Collins, now I come to think of it. Don't believe there's a family called Collins on our books.'

To cut the story short, Sir Walter, there was not. I left Doctor Matters after thanking him and apologising for cutting into his rest-time and rang up the inspector from a public call-box in the town. I told him of my researches and suggested that a call on Doctor Tassall might yield some information.

'Yes,' said the inspector, 'we're keeping him in mind. Looks as though his alibi has gone bust. We would have followed it up ourselves, the way you have done, if we could have shown he had any motive for killing Mr Ward, or any reason to have known there was a ready-dug grave in that cottage. You see, we are proceeding on the assumption that whoever killed the girl killed Ward.'

This argument had considerable force, for we had agreed that the strong probability was that the same person or persons had committed both murders and that the connexion with Hill House was too obvious to be ignored.

I then returned to Doctor Matters' house.

'I think I should warn you,' I said, 'to expect a visit from the police.' This time the old gentleman was uneasy, not belligerent.

'That boy!' he exclaimed. 'A young rascal! A scallywag! A flibbertigibbet! Yes, and more. But he's well qualified, madam, good at his job. Takes a lot of work off my shoulders. Popular with the patients. No murderer, madam, I assure you.'

'Yours, judging from the list of patients you allowed me to examine, is not a large practice, I believe, Doctor.'

'A country practice only, madam, but quite large enough for me, and, in any case, I admit it is picking up since young Tassall joined me.'

'I am surprised that so restless and talented a young man, if one may so interpret your description of him, is not more inclined to work in the metropolis.'

'He had quarrelled with his godfather, who had subsidised him for some years while he was studying for his qualifications. Something about jilting a girl whom Lord Kirkdale thought a suitable match for him. Took up with the Kempson granddaughter and had his allowance withdrawn. Couldn't afford his own practice. Glad to earn a pittance from me without having to buy himself in. No expectations, you know. Irresponsible young fellow.'

'And glad to be near Amabel Kempson-Conyers at such times as she came to visit her grandmother,' I thought, 'but perhaps not where his patients are irresponsible concerned.'

* * *

Well, since my last letter, in which you learned that young Doctor Tassall appears to have no alibi for the time and date of the murders, I have continued my borrowings and have come up with another gradu diverso, via una. In other words, our other chief suspects also cannot produce acceptable alibis. Neither the police nor I have seriously suspected Mrs Kempson or Mrs Conyers unless either of them had a male accomplice, since we hardly think that the interment of Mr Ward, even though he appears to have dug his own grave, was the work of a woman, nor is the murderer's method of dispatching his victims a likely one for a female to have employed. This I think I have already mentioned. In any case, I am not concerning myself at the moment with the death of Mr Ward.

Mr Conyers, I suppose, must remain on our list, since his only alibi for the time of Miss Patterson's murder rests solely on his wife's assurance that he was with her the entire evening, first at the birthday revels and later in his own quarters. This, I know, is against my previous judgment, but that depended largely upon Lionel Kempson- Conyers' being the proposed victim.

Well, Mr Conyers claimed, as we know, to have retired to his own part of the house. As he did not even ring for a drink, there is nothing to substantiate this claim and for the present we must ignore it, although my commonsense still tells me that it is almost certainly true.

With Mr Nigel Kempson, however, we are on different and much safer ground and, not to weary you with overmuch repetition, his alibi no longer holds water, but is as full of holes as a domestic colander. In brief, this is what happened.

It seemed to me, that in this interesting but baffling case, there might well be a nigger in the woodpile. I turned the thought over in my mind and fastened upon a very minor but maybe a significant mystery. I wondered why the photographer had not kept his appointment to visit Hill House on the night of Miss Kempson-Conyers' birthday party.

The arrangement had been that Mr Nigel Kempson was to pick him up in the town at an appointed meeting-place at about eleven p.m. and convey him by car to the manor house. Apparently he did not turn up at the rendezvous and Mr Nigel, having waited for a considerable time, returned without him.

It seemed strange to me that a professional photographer, having contracted to take a number of pictures in the house of so wealthy a woman as Mrs Kempson, had not kept what promised to be a very lucrative assignment, so I decided to make some enquiries.

My problem, and that of the police, was that there was no apparent reason why the same person should have committed both the murders. Added to this was the mystery of there having been (it seemed) two Mr Wards, both false, and the strange fact that nobody could have known beforehand (again it seemed) that Miss Patterson would attend the party in place of her brother except the two Pattersons and their parents.

Apart from this, the absence of the photographer made him as much or as little of a suspect as anybody else, but, at any rate, he appeared to be a person whose movements should be more fully investigated.

As Mr Nigel had gone back to his London flat, I returned to Hill House and asked Mrs Kempson to repeat to me all that she could remember of the arrangements for the photographer's visit. She was only too anxious to find a scapegoat outside her own family, for she fully realised the implications suggested by the absence from the festivities of Mr and Mrs Conyers, herself and Mr Nigel at what must have been the time of Miss Patterson's death. She had previously done her best to impress upon me that Doctor Tassall was also out of her house at that time, and I knew that he had lied about his call to a maternity case. Perceiving my new drift, which might implicate the photographer, she proved more than willing to give me all the information she could.

She produced the photographer's typewritten reply. In it he regretted that a previous appointment would prevent him from attending at Hill House on the evening in question unless he could add a return taxi fare to his bill. To this Mrs Kempson had replied that, as the taxi would be kept waiting, presumably, while the photographs were