‘And Otto didn’t go home that particular time?’
‘He didn’t have the chance. That’s why he had no idea that anything had happened to his sister. There was no shore leave for anybody. The company ditched the refrigerating improvement for the time being, and the ship unloaded and loaded at top speed to make up for the lost time.’
(6)
‘If,’ said Laura, when she was alone with her employer, ‘you delved into Edward James’s family history, I wonder what you would find?’
‘You are thinking of skeletons in cupboards, no doubt?’
‘Something of the kind. I mean, we’re agreed, I take it, that these murders are the work of a maniac, so I thought perhaps a study of the antecedents of some of the people who’ve come into the picture might not be a bad thing. It’s obvious that the police are up a gum tree.’
Dame Beatrice refused to identify herself with this opinion.
‘The police are taking their own line,’ she said, ‘and at present I am not prepared to cross it.’
‘You don’t think Edward James’s family tree would be worth investigating, then?’
Dame Beatrice cackled.
‘There are certain points in Edward James’s favour, it seems to me,’ she said.
‘Such as? – I mean, I know we’ve nothing against him that a court of law would consider evidence …’
‘Quite so. Let us go back to the death of Karen Schumann. I have been studying the notes I made, and there are one or two interesting points which seem to me to emerge. The first of these is Edward James’s alibi.’
‘A very clever one, I thought. Can’t be proved or disproved.’
‘A matter of chance. How could he have known that nobody would come to the library while he was (or was not) there? It would have been a most dangerous and unwarrantable assumption.’
‘But with the entire teaching staff and domestic staff off duty …’
‘I am wondering whether the school secretary would have been accorded the full day’s holiday.’
‘Oh, I see! The school secretary was this Mrs Clancy whose Italian maid has been murdered. You mean Mrs Clancy might be able to give James an alibi?’
‘Well, not for the whole day, and possibly not at all. I mentioned her merely to indicate that, if James was lying, but intended to claim his visit to the library as an alibi, he was tempting fortune to a very foolish extent. Again, how could he have known that the contractors for cleaning the school windows might not send their men that day? Or school stock might have been delivered, and a signature required for it. In such a situation, the school would be searched for someone in authority. Boys, knowing the school to be empty, might have come in and have been larking around. The caretaker, or one of the cleaners, might have left something behind in the library and come back to look for it. There are dozens of possibilities which a guilty man would need to consider before producing such an alibi.’
‘I see,’ said Laura. ‘Put like that, your argument does sound plausible. What else have you been working out?’
‘Well, so far, in connection with that first death, I wonder whether we have not taken for granted rather too readily that the only person who told us the truth was Mrs Schumann. She said that she had gone to Ringwood that day, and we know for certain that she did, but not until after the time that her daughter died. She also told us that Karen telephoned to find out whether she would be at home. At the time we thought that the telephone message was to make certain that the house would be empty so that Karen could bring James there, but, of course, it could equally well have been a genuine enquiry merely to make sure that her mother would be at home to welcome her and be able to spend the day with her. You see, we have no way of proving whether or not Karen Schumann knew that the stud dog was to be taken over to Ringwood on that particular day. As a bitch remains on heat for about three weeks, it is quite probable that she did not know.’
‘So Mrs Schumann could have replied over the phone that she would be at home, and so enticed Karen to her death, and then used the Ringwood outing as an alibi. I don’t believe a word of it, you know. It sounds plausible enough, but it doesn’t make sense.’
‘Yes, of course it does. So far, there are only three possible suspects – James, Mrs Schumann and Otto.’
‘And, of these, Otto is out of it so far as the deaths of Karen and of this Italian woman are concerned. Well, what’s the next point? I’m beginning to feel very nervous about all this.’
‘The next point concerns the dog-whistle which enticed Fergus from your side and led him to find the body.’
‘Anyone can blow a dog-whistle.’
‘But to how many people would it occur to do so, unless they were accustomed to the procedure? I look at it in this way. James, we are given to understand, spent only about one week-end in three or four with his fiancée. If he killed her, therefore, he had every reason to leave the body to be found by others and certainly no need to direct attention to it.’
‘She’d have been missed at school, and by her mother at the following week-end.’
‘Yes. The school would have given her three days of grace before a medical certificate was required, and her mother would hardly have notified the police immediately her daughter did not appear at the cottage. She would naturally conclude that some social occasion or school business had
