“Oh, he’s rotten to the core, no doubt about that,” said Mr. Clemens, waving his hand. “I don’t have the slightest doubt that he was telling the truth when he suggested that whoever put that bullet in the doctor’s head was doing him a favor. But he didn’t do it, and I’ll tell you why. He’s too damned stupid. Hell, I’ve run across yellow dogs who are a good bit smarter.”
“How long has a prodigious intellect been a requirement to becoming a murderer?” I demanded.
“It never has,” said my employer, complacently packing his pipe. “If it were, we might have less of ’em—nobody with a lick of sense ever really thinks that murdering somebody will make things better.”
“You’re contradicting yourself, now,” I said. I rubbed my ribs along the right side, wondering if a soak in a hot tub would do me any good. I would have to get someone to heat up the water for me, since running hot water was apparently still a novelty to the British. “First you say the man’s too stupid to have killed his father, then you say a smart man is less likely to kill anyone. Which is it?”
Mr. Clemens looked up from his pipe as if about to object to my quizzing him, but perhaps deciding that my annoyance stemmed more from my pain than from impertinence, he shrugged and said, “Tony’s dumb enough to have thought that killing his father would solve his problems, no argument about that. But whoever killed the doctor did some thinking beforehand. That’s all the reason I need to take Tony out of the picture; he’d have done it with the fireplace poker or maybe an empty bottle, most likely after emptying the bottle himself. I’d be utterly amazed if he could think ahead as far as supper before he got hungry.”
“I think you underestimate him,” I said. “All he really needs to be able to do is to hire a competent assassin, and leave the details up to him. It’s no more demanding than going to the barber.”
“Except an assassin doesn’t have a red-and-white-striped pole outside his shop to help you find him,” Mr. Clemens said, grinning broadly. “But I see what you’re getting at. Well, I still think he’s an unlikely suspect, but I promise not to write him off entirely, if that’ll make you feel any better. But I reckon a couple of jiggers of whisky and an ice bag would do you even more good.”
“I guess you’re right,” I said. “You didn’t tell me when you hired me that this job would involve protecting you from hostile murder suspects. I suppose I should have guessed it, from the rest of what you asked about.”
“Oh, you’ve already gone above and beyond the call of duty,” said my employer. “Knocking down an Arkansas bully and fighting a duel in New Orleans are a good bit more than I’d have included in the contract if you’d asked me to write one up.”
“Does that mean I’m entitled to a bonus?” I said, not entirely facetiously.
“Hell, I’ll do better than that. You’ve got a five-dollar-a-week raise, retroactive to when we sailed from New York. Remind me in the morning, and I’ll give you the difference to date.” Mr. Clemens struck a match, lifted his pipe to his mouth, then looked at me and said, “Don’t try to tell me you don’t deserve it, either. Plenty of people would stand back and solicit three cheers if they saw somebody coming after me with a club. I’d be a fool not to encourage the few people who still see some reason to take my side.”
“I think there are more of those than you give credit,” I said, although I was not entirely certain who they were—or even, after my injuries, how solidly I myself was in that camp.
I had intended, once we were back at Tedworth Square, to forget the day’s business and the entire murder case, but it was not to be. No sooner had my employer and I come in the front door of the rented house than Mrs. Clemens met us, saying, “That Chief Inspector Lestrade is here from Scotland Yard. He wants to question me and Susy, but I told him he’d have to wait for you to get home.”
“And now I’m here and it’s my problem,” said Mr. Clemens, shrugging out of his topcoat. “Well, let’s get it over. Where is he?”
“Right here,” said Lestrade, sticking his head out of the parlor. “I hope you don’t intend to stand in the way of Her Majesty’s justice.”
“I wouldn’t stand in the way of a runaway turtle, right about now,” said Mr. Clemens. “I’m about to have a glass of whisky, and my secretary needs one worse than I do. I’m going to offer you one, too, and I won’t tell Her Majesty if you take it. What do you say?”
“By the rules I oughtn’t touch a drop,” said Lestrade. “But there’s rules and there’s common sense, and I doubt I’ll need to subdue any felons in your parlor. Besides, I’ve got a sober constable along to note down what your ladies say, and he knows how to keep his mouth shut. So I’ll take that drink, Mr. Twain.”
“Good, and maybe while you’re here we can trade a few choice bits of information,” said my employer, rubbing his hands.
“That’s assuming you’ve anything worth trading,” Lestrade shot back. “I doubt you’ve learned anything my lads can’t find out by themselves.”
“Maybe not,” said Mr. Clemens. “But unless you’ve changed your tune, you’re so convinced that McPhee is your man that you probably haven’t even looked at any other suspects. Why, I’ve talked to three of ’em today, and only one had talked to you—or if the other two had, they were doing a pretty good job of clamming up about it in
