‘I realise that. It is one of the reasons I had for not acting upon it earlier. You refer to the difficulty we should have in proving that she knew you were out with the dog that night, and that you would not return by the shorter and more obvious route. It is, indeed, a problem, as you infer.’
‘I don’t see how you’d ever be able to prove she was there on the common that night, and, if you can’t prove that, your whole theory goes west.’
‘We still have your evidence that the dog left you and was found more than seventeen hours later, standing guard over the body.’
‘Granted. But the defence would make mincemeat of that sort of evidence.’
‘They might not regard it as evidence at all. Evidence has to be capable of proof, even if the proof is only the credibility of the witness.’
‘Nobody would dispute your credibility and I hope nobody would asperse mine, but what we’ve got at present to offer the prosecution is negligible.’
‘Another thing I should like to know,’ went on Dame Beatrice, ‘is whether it is possible for a particular call on a dog-whistle to be taught to another person.’
‘So you do think James is still in the picture!’
‘We must leave, as you yourself have often said, no stone unturned.’
‘Well, it wouldn’t be very easy for anybody to teach another person how to whistle up a dog, because, of course, the pupil wouldn’t be able to hear the call. Wonder whether you could do it by teaching him by means of a sort of Morse Code – you know, dashes for the long blasts and dots for the short ones.’
‘It sounds possible. One could only judge of the success of such a scheme by its effect on the dog. Anyhow, whether he likes it or not, I am determined to obtain an interview with Mr James. This will best be accomplished by bringing Superintendent Phillips to bear on him.’
‘Get him to the police station, do you mean? He’ll beef a bit at that, won’t he? Phillips has nothing on him so far.’
‘Superintendent Phillips has always made him his first choice in the matter of Karen Schumann.’
‘What approach will you make?’
‘I shall give Superintendent Phillips the results of your researches at the library and indicate that they do much to suggest that either Mr James or Mrs Schumann is our murderer. That will fit with either his choice of murderer or my own.’
‘He knows they’re the only real suspects already, and won’t my researches and the conclusions we’ve drawn from them seem to him a bit far-fetched, anyway? He’ll regard them as a lot of ballyhoo, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘With Mr James studying to become a Doctor of Divinity, and Mrs Schumann with her husband’s theological library at her disposal?’
‘But, you know, James had access to that library, and, anyway, I find it almost impossible to believe that these murders were committed by a woman.’
‘But for the incident of Fergus and the (presumed) dog-whistle, so might I. I am beginning to wonder – no, as a matter of accuracy, the thought has been in my mind for some time – whether perhaps Mrs Schumann hoped to gain more than her daughter’s small fortune by that daughter’s death.’
‘You don’t mean …?’
‘Oh, yes, I do. She and James are much of an age, and she is a personable enough woman and at an age when women often behave in what might seem to others an irrational way.’
‘Go off their heads for a bit, you mean? Yes, that’s right enough. What would she be – forty-five to fifty? But if the defence could prove that she wasn’t responsible for her actions when these murders took place …’
‘She would be sent to a mental hospital, which, at least, would be preferable to being sent to prison.’
‘Do you think she’s off her head?’
‘I think she was sane enough when she planned and carried out her daughter’s murder. After that, one cannot be sure, although I should be inclined to think that the murder of Maria Machrado could be explained in terms of expediency and therefore was the action of a sane and vicious woman.’
‘And the other three?’
‘Murder lives by what it feeds on, and mass murderers have a dangerous lust for power, are completely self-centred and, especially if they believe that they have thrown dust in the eyes of the police, inordinately conceited. In this case, besides, I think there is no doubt that the murders of Lucia, Mrs Castle and this Irish girl from Swansea, being motiveless from any rational point of view, were simply intended to lead the police away from any theories they might have formed concerning the motivated murders of Karen Schumann and Maria Machrado.’
‘But we don’t know what the motive was for the death of Maria Machrado, and, as for Mrs Schumann and James, I thought that, earlier on, she said she didn’t care for him much.’
‘A statement which, at present, I shall entirely disregard. But now to gain audience of Superintendent Phillips.’
(3)
‘If you have further information for us, Dame Beatrice,’ said Phillips, ‘I wonder whether you’d mind if my colleague from Scotland Yard, Detective-Inspector Maisry, joined us?’
‘By all means let us have him in, Inspector.’
Maisry had been allotted a room of his own, and, having been summoned by Phillips, suggested, in his gentle tones, that, as Dame Beatrice’s evidence might require further study, a shorthand writer in the person of his detective-sergeant might be advisable. Dame Beatrice deprecated the use of the word ‘evidence’, since all she and Laura claimed to have discovered was an interesting but possibly valueless sidelight upon the cases under review.
‘But let us have a shorthand writer, Detective-Inspector,’ she said, ‘because the importance (if any) of what I have to tell you is that I have one (I do not say the) explanation of the puzzling messages left upon the bodies. If my solution is the right one, it confirms my previous view that our suspects are
