“Go on,” said Parmiter eagerly.
“In my reconstruction Eady arrived to find his victim in a very emotional state. She would be cowed and frightened. Perhaps she contrived a few hysterics. Obviously, in an effort to pull herself together, she had been having a stiff drink. She may even have pretended to be a little drunk. She would drag out the scene a bit, with supplications and tears. . . . A good piece of acting, in fact. It must have been. Then she could not find her bag, with the money in it. She would get more and more distracted, and in the end would rush from the room, to search for it. . . .”
Parmiter was leaning forward now, his deep-set eyes on Mr. Tuke’s dark face. Only two other members remained in the big room. Through the tall windows the autumn sunlight streamed in, as it had done on that earlier evening when the fatalities in the Shearsby family were first discussed.
Mr. Tuke’s dry voice went on.
“Eady had no doubt come bristling with suspicion. But perhaps his mind was not wholly on the business in hand. He had other worries. At any rate, he must have been completely taken in. He forgot his doubts and his caution. He could do with a drink too. Obviously Mrs. Shearsby had just had a glass of the Pernod. There could be no danger here. Probably he knew little about Pernod—he may not even have added water. He left the lemon in the glass. He listened to his victim rattling about the flat looking for her bag, and then he took a whacking big drink. And that was the end of Mr. Eady.”
Mr. Tuke made a gesture of brushing his hands. He rose to his feet. The obituarist rose too, more slowly.
“Are you really going?”
“I’m afraid I must.”
“But you haven’t finished. How did they—the police— clear this up so quickly?” Parmiter’s stare was inquisitive and shrewd. “Did you have anything to do with it, Tuke?”
“Shall we say that you and I have both contributed in our small way? ” Mr. Tuke rejoined. “As for how it all came out, Eady’s body was found the same evening. No doubt Lilian Shearsby hoped it would lie in the box-room where she dragged it for some days. It might then be impossible to say exactly when death took place, and Miss Ardmore’s position would be still more awkward. Then the Cambridge police had got on Eady’s tracks, and he came back to London overnight. He was rather shaken by these attentions at this most inconvenient moment. He did not go to his home, in case it was watched, as it was, but he telephoned to his wife. She evaded the watch on her front door by the simple expedient of leaving by the back, and the precious pair met elsewhere. Eady not only told her that he had a big thing in hand, but, his natural caution being uppermost, just in case there should be a snag somewhere, he gave her Lilian Shearsby’s name.”
Harvey began to walk towards the door of the lounge, Parmiter lounging by his side.
“I have not mentioned,” Harvey remarked casually, “that the case was complicated at one point by the reappearance of a member of the family supposed to be dead. Martin Dresser, of the older generation, who was said to have died in Belgium. An unhappy experience sent him abroad. He seems to be a queer fellow, with an unusual and slightly macabre sense of humour. He persuaded his son Sydney to circulate the news of his death. Sydney was even furnished with an obituary notice for the local paper—a touch,” said Harvey, with a sardonic glance at the silent obituarist, “that should appeal to you, Parmiter. Later this Martin returned to England, one presumes under another name. He appears to have managed to earn a living in some way. As a young man he is said to have had a bent for newspaper work. But the family never knew he was alive—except his son, of course. His own generation had not behaved too well to him, and I suspect that Sydney had some of his father’s sense of humour, and in his quiet way, enjoyed the mystification. He kept the secret to the end, and Martin, like Southey’s ‘Scholar’, has been able to pass his days among the dead. As, in a sense,” Mr. Tuke added, “you do, Parmiter.”
They had come to the door. Parmiter did not speak.
“Quite recently,” Mr. Tuke went on, “Raymond met Martin. Perhaps Martin sought him out. After the death of his son he may have felt an impulse to get in touch with his family again. And talking of that, he must keep an eye on the papers, particularly on the obituary columns. I feel pretty sure it was he who sent Mile Boulanger a newspaper account of the inquest on Mrs. Porteous. He may have sent one to Bedford. Perhaps he did not know Miss Ardmore’s address. One cannot say what was at the back of his mind, but it may have seemed to him desirable to stir up interest in this sequence of deaths. Queerly enough,” said Mr. Tuke lightly, “I have felt from the beginning that a
