“Yes, I should think so,” said Villiers, steepling his fingertips. “That unpleasant business last night, isn’t it? It’s a bit of a novelty to have a man shot dead five feet from me. But I suppose the police will sort it all out.”
“Well, I guess they will eventually, but it looks as if they’ve started on the wrong foot,” said Mr. Clemens. “I don’t think Ed McPhee knows as much about it as I do, and that’s precious little. I’ve told Mrs. McPhee that we’d see if we can find some way to spring her husband out of jail, so I’m talking to the others who were there to see if I get to the truth.”
“Of course,” said Villiers. “Mr. McPhee seems a bit of a crude chap, but I don’t make him out to be a killer. Now, that Irish fellow who ran away may be another story.”
“Maybe he is,” said Mr. Clemens. He swirled the wine in his glass, then looked up at Villiers and asked, “What reason do you think he might have had to shoot the doctor?”
“There’s the rub, isn’t it?” said Villiers. “At a guess, he was taking revenge for some old insult. The Irish are hot-tempered, you know.”
“That makes as much sense as anything,” said Mr. Clemens, nodding. “You don’t have any idea what that old insult could be, do you?”
“Nothing really,” said Villiers, rubbing his chin. “I don’t believe I’ve ever exchanged two consecutive sentences with the Irishman, so anything I ventured would be speculation. For all I know, he was a hired assassin.”
“Well, that’s as good as any other theory we’ve got so far,” said Mr. Clemens. “Who do you think might have had enough of a grudge against the doctor to pay someone to kill him?”
“Enough to have him shot? Hard to say.” Villiers put his fingertips to his chin. “Everyone has enemies, of course, and Parkhurst was no saint. Rumor has it that he kept a mistress—I’d look into that, if I were you.”
“You wouldn’t know her name, or anything about her, would you?” Mr. Clemens motioned to me to take out my notebook.
“Sorry, no,” said Villiers. “Rumor is all I know, there. I’d ask his partner, Dr. Ashe—he’d be a good man to talk to, in any case. Talk to Parkhurst’s son, too—Tony’s said to be rather a profligate. I’d imagine he’s the one with the most to gain from Parkhurst’s death, if he owes as much money as everyone alleges.”
“Good, we’ll do just that,” said my employer. “But you haven’t mentioned anyone who was there last night. What about them? Did any of them have reason to do him in?”
Villiers took a sip of his port, then set the glass back down. “I dare say Cornelia—Mrs. Parkhurst—had reason, if she’d learnt he had a mistress. I don’t know that she had, of course. Hardly the question one asks a lady in casual conversation, is it?”
Mr. Clemens took a sip of his own port, then said, “I guess not. I reckon Scotland Yard will ask it, though. How well did you know the doctor and his wife, by the way? Mrs. McPhee said you and she were members of some spiritualist group.”
“I was Dr. Parkhurst’s patient, not quite four years since,” said Villiers, looking intently at my employer. “I met Cornelia more recently—late last year, when the Spiritualist Society began. At first I didn’t realize who she was—he never came to meetings with her, and of course she hadn’t been in his offices when I went there.”
“What were you seeing the doctor for?” asked Mr. Clemens. “He was a surgeon, wasn’t he?”
“Yes; but he saw all sorts of patients,” said Villiers. “It was the winter after I first came to town. Three or four of us were going to the opera, and getting out of the cab, my foot lit on a patch of ice. I took a nasty fall. It turned out I’d cracked my collarbone. Being new in town, I hadn’t a doctor of my own—I came here straight out of university, you see. One of my friends recommended Parkhurst, and there you have it.”
“Had you seen him since?”
“Not at all regularly,” Villiers said, wrinkling his nose. “I don’t much like the smell of doctors’ offices, and Parkhurst was not at all my notion of company. If his wife hadn’t brought him along last night, I doubt I’d have seen him until the next time I needed his services.”
“What was your relationship to Mrs. Parkhurst?” asked Mr. Clemens. “You were both members of the Spiritualist Society, you say. Did you just see each other at meetings, or were you closer than that?”
Villiers laughed—a harsh bark of a laugh that startled me. “I see what you’re trying to get at, Clemens,” he said, with a grimace. “I should tell you to mind your own business—but I have nothing to hide. If you really want the truth, Cornelia is rather too unimaginative and stiff to much interest me. Even if I were attracted to older women—married women at that—I promise you she would not be my sort.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to malign your taste,” said Mr. Clemens. “Was there anyone else at the table last night you think might have had a reason to shoot the doctor, or to hire someone to shoot him for them?”
“Oh, indubitably,” said Villiers, toying with his wineglass. Then, after a pause, he continued: “I’ll wager Sir Denis was just practicing his marksmanship—though I fear he must have missed, and been ashamed to admit it, poor old duffer. Or perhaps it was your man here, Mr. Clemens—pray tell, my good fellow, what reason did you have for potting the doctor? Or did someone hire you to do it?”
Mr. Clemens gave a short laugh. “Well, I reckon
