“It’s the time that the rain began to fall on Friday night,” he explained, with the air of setting a dull schoolboy right. “Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux told me that the rain started all of a sudden, after the Fleetwoods’ motor had gone away from the shore.”
The inspector thought he saw what Wendover was driving at.
“You mean that Staveley put on his coat when the rain came down, and you’re relying on his not having had it on beforehand when Mrs. Fleetwood met him? But you’ve only her story to go on.”
“No, inspector. I’ve got an independent witness to the fact that he was carrying his coat over his arm at first. Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux told me he was carrying it that way when she met him before eleven o’clock.”
“He might have put it on as soon as she left him,” objected the inspector, fighting hard for his case.
Wendover shook his head.
“It’s no good, inspector. There’s more evidence still. If you remember, Staveley’s jacket was wet through by the rain, although he was wearing his rainproof coat over it. He was shot through the coat. He put the coat on after the rain started. But by the time the rain had started the Fleetwoods were away up the road to the hotel in their car. Further, if he put it on after the rain started, then the shot that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux heard was obviously not the shot that killed Staveley. See it now, inspector?”
Armadale was plainly disconcerted by this last touch.
“It’s ingenious,” he conceded gruffly, without admitting that he was convinced. “What you mean is that Staveley was carrying his coat while he talked to Mrs. Fleetwood. She fired her pistol and her shot missed him. She ran off to the car. Then, after the car had gone, the rain came down and soaked Staveley to the skin. After being nicely wet, he took the trouble to put on his coat, which had slipped his mind during the downpour. And then someone else came along and shot him for keeps. That’s how you look at it?”
“More or less.”
“H’m!” said Armadale, pouncing on what he thought was a weak spot. “I generally manage to struggle into a coat, if I have one, when a thunderstorm comes down. This Staveley man must have been a curious bird, by your way of it.”
Wendover shook his head. In view of past snubbings, he was unable to banish all traces of superiority from his tone as he replied:
“It’s all easily explicable, inspector, if you take the trouble to reason it out logically. Here’s what really did happen. Mrs. Fleetwood’s story is accurate up to the point when the pistol went off. It so happened that, as she fired, Staveley slipped or tripped on the rock, and came down on the back of his head. You remember the contused wound there? That happened in this first fall of his.”
The inspector paid Wendover the compliment of listening intently to his theory. The old air of faint contempt was gone; and it was clear that Armadale was now seriously perturbed about the solidity of his case.
“Go on, sir,” he requested.
“Staveley came down hard on the rock with his head and was stunned,” Wendover explained. “He lay like a log where he had fallen. It wasn’t a good light, remember. Now, just think what Mrs. Fleetwood could make of it. Her pistol went bang; Staveley dropped at that very instant; and there he was, to all appearance, dead at her feet. Naturally she jumped to the conclusion that she’d shot him, and probably killed him. She went off instantly to consult her husband, whom she’d left in the car. Not at all unnatural in the circumstances, I think.”
The inspector’s face showed that he was beginning to feel his case cracking; but he said nothing.
“Meanwhile,” Wendover continued, “all her husband had seen was some sort of scuffle on the rock—in a dim light, remember—and he’d heard her pistol explode. Perhaps he’d seen Staveley fall. Then his wife cut back towards the car, and he ran up along the groyne to rejoin her. What could he think, except that his wife had shot Staveley? And she thought so herself; you’ve got Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux’s evidence for that, in the report she gave you of the Fleetwoods’ conversation before they started the car.”
“There might be something in it,” Armadale conceded, in a tone which showed that he was becoming convinced against his will. “And what happened after that? Who really committed the murder?”
Wendover had thought out his line of argument very carefully. He meant to convince the inspector once for all, and prevent him giving Cressida any further annoyance.
“Don’t let’s hurry,” he suggested. “Just let’s look around at the circumstances at that moment. You’ve got Staveley lying on the rock, stunned by his fall—or at any rate sufficiently knocked out to prevent his getting up at once. In the crash, his wristwatch has stopped at 11:19; but the glass of it hasn’t been broken. You know how easily some wristwatches stop with a shock; even if you play a shot on the links with a watch on your wrist the swing of the club’s apt to stop the machinery.
“Then comes the rain. It soaks Staveley; but he’s too muzzy to get up. The crack on the head keeps him quiet—or he may have been unconscious for a while. By and by he wakes up and scrambles to his feet; finds the rain pouring down; and mechanically he picks up his rainproof and puts it on. By that time the Fleetwood car is well on its way to the hotel. There was only one person near at hand.”
“Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux, you mean?” demanded the inspector. “You’re trying to fix the murder on her, sir? She had a grudge against Staveley; and there he was, delivered into her hands if she wanted him. Is that it?”
Wendover could not resist a final dig at Armadale.
“I shouldn’t care to commit myself too hastily to an accusation against anyone,” he said,
