Anthony cut in with a laugh.
'Oh! I can dot the i's and cross the t's. Rosemary Barton knew my criminal past, so I killed her. George Barton was growing suspicious of me, so I killed him! Now I'm after Iris's money! It's all very agreeable and it hangs together nicely, but you haven't got a mite of proof.'
Race looked at him attentively for some minutes. Then he got up.
'Everything I have said is true,' he said. 'And it's all wrong.'
Anthony watched him narrowly. 'What's wrong?'
'You're wrong.' Race walked slowly up and down the room. 'It hung together all right until I saw you – but now I've seen you, it won't do. You're not a crook. And if you're not a crook, you're one of our kind. I'm right, aren't I?'
Anthony looked at him in silence while a smile slowly broadened on his face. Then he hummed softly under his breath.
''For the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady are sisters under the skin.' Yes, funny how one knows one's own kind. That's why I've tried to avoid meeting you. I was afraid you'd spot me for what I am. It was important then that nobody should know – important up to yesterday. Now, thank goodness, the balloon's gone up! We've swept our gang of international saboteurs into the net. I've been working on this assignment for three years. Frequenting certain meetings, agitating among workmen, getting myself the right reputation. Finally it was fixed that I pulled an important job and got sentenced. The business had to be genuine if I was to establish my bona fides.
'When I came out, things began to move. Little by little I got further into the centre of things – a great international net run from Central Europe . It was as their agent I came to London and went to Claridge's. I had orders to get on friendly terms with Lord Dewsbury – that was my lay, the social butterfly! I got to know Rosemary Barton in my character of attractive young man about town. Suddenly, to my horror, I found that she knew I had been in prison in America as Tony Morelli. I was terrified for her! The people I was working with would have had her killed without a moment's hesitation if they had thought she knew that. I did my best to scare her into keeping her mouth shut, but I wasn't very hopeful. Rosemary was born to be indiscreet. I thought the best thing I could do was to sheer off – and then I saw Iris coming down a staircase, and I swore that after my job was done I would come back and marry her.
'When the active part of my work was over, I turned up again and got into touch with Iris, but I kept aloof from the house and her people for I knew they'd want to make inquiries about me and I had to keep under cover for a bit longer. But I got worried about her. She looked ill and afraid – and George Barton seemed to be behaving in a very odd fashion. I urged her to come away and marry me. Well, she refused. Perhaps she was right. And then I was roped in for this party. It was as we sat down to dinner that George mention you were to be there. I said rather quickly that I'd met a man I knew and might have to leave early. Actually I had seen a fellow I knew in America – Monkey Coleman – though he didn't remember me – but I really wanted to avoid meeting you. I was still on my job.
'You know what happened next – George died. I had nothing to do with his death or with Rosemary's. I don't know now who did kill them.'
'Not even an idea?'
'It must have been either the waiter or one of the five people round the table. I don't think it was the waiter. It wasn't me and it wasn't Iris. It could have been Sandra Farraday or it could have been Stephen Farraday, or it could have been both of them together. But the best bet, in my opinion, is Ruth Lessing.'
'Have you anything to support that belief?'
'No. She seems to me the most likely person – but I don't see in the least how she did it! In both tragedies she was so placed at the table that it would be practically impossible for her to tamper with the champagne glass – and the more I think over what happened the other night, the more it seems to me impossible that George could have been poisoned at all – and yet he was!' Anthony paused. 'And there's another thing that gets me – have you found out who wrote those anonymous letters that started him on the track?'
Race shook his head.
'No. I thought I had – but I was wrong.'
'Because the interesting thing is that it means that there is someone, somewhere, who knows that Rosemary was murdered, so that, unless you're careful – that person will be murdered next!'
Chapter 11
From information received over the telephone Anthony knew that Lucilla Drake was going out at five o'clock to drink a cup of tea with a dear old friend.
Allowing for possible contingencies (returning for a purse, determination after all to take an umbrella just in case, and last-minute chats on the doorstep) Anthony timed his own arrival at Elvaston Square at precisely twenty- five minutes past five. It was Iris he wanted to see, not her aunt. And by all accounts once shown into Lucilla's presence, he would have had very little chance of uninterrupted conversation with his lady.
He was told by the parlourmaid (a girl lacking the impudent polish of Betty Archdale) that Miss Iris had just come in and was in the study.
Anthony said with a smile, 'Don't bother. I'll find my way,' and went past her and along to the study door.
Iris spun round at his entrance with a nervous start.
'Oh, it's you.'
He came over to her swiftly.
'What's the matter, darling?'
'Nothing.' She paused, then said quickly, 'Nothing. Only I was nearly run over. Oh, my own fault, I expect I was thinking so hard and mooning across the road without looking, and the car came tearing round the corner and just missed me.'
He gave her a gentle little shake.
'You mustn't do that sort of thing, Iris. I'm worried about you – oh! not about your miraculous escape from under the wheels of a car, but about the reason that lets you moon about in the midst of traffic. What is it, darling? There's something special, isn't there?'
She nodded. Her eyes, raised mournfully to his, were large and dark with fear. He recognised their message even before she said very low and quick: 'I'm afraid.'
Anthony recovered his calm smiling poise. He sat down beside Iris on a wide settee.
'Come on,' he said, 'let's have it.'
'I don't think I want to tell you, Anthony.'
'Now then, funny, don't be like the heroines of third-rate thrillers who start in the very first chapter by having something they can't possibly tell for no real reason except to gum up the hero and make the book spin itself out for another fifty thousand words.'
She gave a faint pale smile.
'I want to tell you, Anthony, but I don't know what you'd think – I don't know if you'd believe –'
Anthony raised a hand and began to check off the fingers.
'One, an illegitimate baby. Two, a blackmailing lover. Three –'
She interrupted him indignantly: 'Of course not. Nothing of that kind.'
'You relieve my mind,' said Anthony. 'Come on, little idiot.'
Iris's face clouded over again.
'It's nothing to laugh at. It's – it's about the other night.'
'Yes?' His voice sharpened.
Iris said: 'You were at the inquest this morning – you heard –'
She paused.
'Very little,' said Anthony. 'The police surgeon being technical about cyanides generally and the effect of potassium cyanide on George, and the police evidence as given by that first inspector, not Kemp, the one with the smart moustache who arrived first at the Luxembourg and took charge. Identification of the body by George's chief
