the affection which, if they are of noble mind, the victors extend to the vanquished.
‘Well, what do you know?’ said Detective-Sergeant Callum.
‘You go first, miss. We don’t want the seat of our trousers torn out,’ said Detective-Inspector Harrow, looking at the slavering ring of canine eagerness.
‘So let me get it all straight,’ said Laura, a day or two later.
‘The floor is yours,’ said Dame Beatrice courteously.
‘Funny about the English language. To be floored means to be baffled, more or less defeated, as I understand it — comes from prize fighting, I suppose. Lots of our sayings seem to come from one form of sport or another. Batting on a sticky wicket, for instance. Anyway, contrary to being floored, to be given the floor means that one is free to orate and to produce arguments, no matter how long and how boring.’
‘Riding for a fall; drawing a bow at a venture; that cock won’t fight; the ball is in your court; to trump your rival’s ace; to hound a person to death; to miss the mark; the dice were loaded against him; skating on thin ice; a sprat to catch a mackerel; to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds — ’
‘To be three sheets in the wind,’ said Laura, grinning. ‘Meanwhile — ’
‘Oh, I do beg your pardon. You were about to recapitulate.’
‘Not that, exactly. I only want to get things straightened out. When did you know that Mortlake was the murderer?’
‘It has not been proved yet that he is the murderer, but undoubtedly he will be brought before the magistrates and they will decide whether he is to be sent for trial.’
‘But you yourself think he’s guilty.’
‘There were indications when Detective-Inspector Harrow heard the story told by Adams about finding an interloper in the Rant’s garage loft. I thought it possible that the person wearing the long coat and the hat was Susan, but when we confirmed the identity of the dead man at Watersmeet, it seemed likely that the motive for murder was a lot more complicated than punishment for dog-stealing.’
‘The verdict on Todhunter’s death and the one on Dr Rant’s will be quashed, I suppose, as a formality. But what about that hat and the piece of material that the police found at Susan’s cottage?’ asked Laura.
‘There is no doubt in my mind that those two objects were planted by someone who wanted to throw suspicion on Susan,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘Whoever did it was careless enough to provide a hat of the wrong colour that did not even fit her — presumably in the belief that, if anyone had seen the intruder at Crozier Lodge that morning, they would not have been close enough to discern the details of the hat. As we now know, however, the piece of trouser material did match the garment found at Watersmeet — and that was more incriminating. The police were certainly concerned about Susan’s involvement, but they had no other evidence against her.’
‘It must have counted in her favour that she reported finding the body and lost no time about it.’
‘Possibly, although a murderer might have followed the same line. Well, the verdict stood and then the valley murder took place and about that there could be no doubt at all. Whoever the murderer was, he was an extremely desperate man. In killing the chemist’s assistant, he had scotched the snake, not killed it. Someone else was on to him.’
‘I can see how the forged prescriptions had tripped up Mortlake in the end, but who else had the goods on him? Not Goodfellow, and it was Goodfellow who got murdered in Rocky Valley.’
‘Have you forgotten that Goodfellow was a very unsavoury private detective? I surmise that, when the prowler began to visit Crozier Lodge, Susan justifiably feared for the safety of the precious Pharaohs and engaged Goodfellow to find out what was going on.’
‘Then he was the chap whom Adams found in the garage loft?’
‘Oh, no. That was Todhunter,’ said Dame Beatrice firmly. ‘Let’s look at the facts from the beginning. Don’t forget that Mortlake knew Dr Rant very well. It is my guess that he acquired proof that Rant had been responsible for the death of that woman in the Midlands and used this to blackmail his employer — in the hope of taking over Crozier Lodge when Rant died. Mortlake was obviously an ambitious young man without the means to set up his own practice. Rant promised him some money, but would not change his will leaving the Lodge to Mortlake. This refusal must have given root to an obsession: Mortlake became more and more greedy and impatient. He even proposed marriage to Bryony, remember? In the end, he decided that the only way to achieve his ends was to hasten Rant’s death — which anyway could not have been far off — by doctoring his prescriptions. Bryony and Morpeth would not have stayed long in that large house after their father’s death, if it hadn’t been for the Crozier Pharaohs — and Mortlake could probably have purchased it cheaply because of its unhappy associations.’
‘Your powers of deduction never cease to amaze me. So Mortlake saw the Pharaohs as having ousted him from his rightful inheritance? Todhunter’s reappearance on the scene must really have put a spanner in the works.’
‘Knowing that Morpeth, in particular, was of a nervous disposition, Mortlake thought that a prowler at Crozier Lodge would soon scare the sisters away — especially if he seemed to pose a threat to the hounds. By stealing Sekhmet, he was sending a warning shot across the sisters’ bows.’
‘But Todhunter realised what was afoot and lay in wait for Mortlake in the garage loft?’
‘Precisely. But he was not the thief of our hat, raincoat and doctor’s bag,’ added Dame Beatrice. ‘He had no fear of being recognised — whereas it would have destroyed all Mortlake’s plans had
‘Well, I know you don’t approve of blackmail, but we must give this Todhunter some credit for spying out the lie of the land and giving Mortlake a taste of his own medicine,’ remarked Laura. ‘I wonder what possessed him to accompany a murderer and a dog to Watersmeet that morning.’
‘That we shall never know, I fear,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘What we do know is that, with the removal of Todhunter, Mortlake’s problems did not go away. By that time, Goodfellow was watching his every move.’
‘Presumably he was not watching closely enough to have witnessed the murder at Watersmeet? Otherwise, even Goodfellow would surely have turned Mortlake over to the police. But he was suspicious enough to confront the murderer at a later date — and get himself killed in turn?’
