‘And you did nothing more about the prize money?’
‘What was the use?’
‘But you really think your sister had it?’
‘Oh, I know she had it, but I think my mother persuaded her to include me out. Probably softened it up to Karen by saying I’d only drink it or spend it on girls.’
‘Did she leave you anything in her will?’
‘Karen? I shouldn’t think so. I haven’t bothered to find out. We never got on. Both of them always hated me. What do I care? It’s always been the same as long as I can remember. Everything for Karen, nothing for me. For her a decent education, college, clothes, spoiling – the lot. For me, grudging, kicks, hard words, until I got sick of it all and ran away to sea.’
‘And are now second officer.’
‘Yes. I worked up. I’ve got my father’s brains.’
‘And are alive, while your sister is dead.’
‘Yes. It’s an odd world.’
‘And you are Karen’s twin, in spite of what you said.’
‘Yes, and born in lawful wedlock, as they say.’
‘I advise you not to try to pull the wool over the Superintendent’s eyes when he questions you. You said that you quarrelled with Señorita Machrado. Keeping now to a bald and, I hope, a convincing narrative, will you tell me what the quarrel was about?’
‘Oh, just what you might expect,’ said Otto, raising his eyes again. ‘She was a proper little gold-digger, of course, and she dug a bit too deep. I spent as much of my pay on her as I could afford, but she wanted more. I couldn’t give it her, so she tried to blackmail me by threatening to tell my mother of our goings-on. I countered that by telling her that she was welcome to do it. I had nothing to lose. Then she went for me with a knife and I knocked it out of her hand and smacked her face, and so we parted, but I never expected things to end like this.’
‘When did you hear of her death?’
‘Read about it in the London papers. We had some refitting to do, so I snaffled a day’s leave and went up to Town.’
‘Alone?’
‘Well, I was alone when I started.’
Dame Beatrice left it at that.
‘So what did you make of the saucy sailor?’ asked Laura.
‘Rather a childish person in some respects, and, I would say, a psychopath. He spun me a rigmarole and then complained that his mother hates him …’
‘Well, that seems to be true enough.’
‘… and that he suspects his sister cheated him out of some money which was paid out on a premium bond which they held in common. He seems fond of female society, and I imagine that his alibi depends on the word of a prostitute he seems to have picked up in London after he parted from Señorita Machrado.’
‘But whose word, for or against, is not likely to be accepted by the police. Still, they haven’t arrested Otto, have they? That’s something in his favour. After all, there would be nothing to stop him jumping his ship in foreign parts and going to ground on the Continent.’
‘The police have little inclination to trouble themselves overmuch about him. They are convinced that the same man killed both girls. That man cannot have been Otto Schumann. His alibi for the murder of his sister is unbreakable.’
‘You and the Superintendent seem certain that the murders were committed by a man.’
‘One goes partly by the nature of the crimes and partly by the size of the hand which did the strangling. The marks on the victims’ necks …’
Laura spread out a shapely palm.
‘My own hands are pretty large,’ she said, thoughtfully.
‘Not large enough for that to which we refer.’
‘I suppose you’ve noticed Mrs Schumann’s hands? And both girls were domiciled with her when things happened to them.’
‘I do not lose sight of that fact, but I ought to point out that neither of the girls was actually living in Mrs Schumann’s cottage when the murders were committed.’
‘It doesn’t look as though James had any reason for committing the second one, though, does it? We don’t even know that he knew the Spanish girl.’
‘Superintendent Phillips will establish whether he did or whether he did not, and the handwriting experts will give their opinion, no doubt, as to whether the notices found on the bodies were by the same hand.’
‘Handwriting experts are not infallible, and the notices were in Roman capitals. We may be doing James the most frightful injustice. After all, why do we suspect him? Just because he can’t prove his alibi?’
‘That cannot be our only reason, surely?’
‘Then it must be a case of “I do not like thee, Doctor Fell”, mustn’t it?’
‘There are worse reasons for suspecting people of murder, although, perhaps, not many,’ said Dame Beatrice. ‘And, of course, Edward James could have been acquainted with the Spanish girl. We know that he visited Mrs Schumann at least once – and it may
