the murder of Mr. Cathcart, about a mile away from here, and I need an answer to my question. Did you sell one of those exactly two weeks ago to a tall, young man, probably with fair hair?”
The ironmonger paled visibly. “I–I didn’t know there was anything wrong! He seemed. . very quiet, very nicely spoken. But, no, not fair hair, as I recall, rather more. . sort of. .”
“His hair doesn’t matter!” Pitt said impatiently. “Was he tall, slender, young. . about twenty-five?” Although Orlando could have disguised that too, if he had thought of it.
“I. . I can’t remember. I sold one that day, though. I know that because I keep very close watch on my stock. Never run out of any household ironmongery if I can help it. If it can be bought, it can be bought here at Foster and Sons.”
“Thank you. You may be required to testify to that, so please keep your records safe.”
“I will! I will!”
Outside on the footpath Tellman stopped and stared at Pitt, his face somber.
“There isn’t much more to do, is there.” It was a statement, almost a surrender. “He could have spent the time till dark in any one of the pubs around here. If you want I’ll go to all of them and ask, but I reckon we don’t need to know, now that we’ve got the rolling pin.”
“No. . not really,” Pitt agreed. He smiled and straightened his shoulders a little. “We’d better go and see if we can find it, although it’s probably in the river. It would be proof. We’ll go through the crime, see what must have happened.”
Tellman pulled his coat collar up and they set out back to the house on the river, walking silently. They must do it before dark, and there were only a couple of hours left.
Mrs. Geddes had been sent for and was at the house waiting, her face full of mistrust as she watched them enter the hallway and solemnly begin the reenactment of the murder, Pitt taking the part of Orlando, Tellman of Cathcart.
Of course they had no idea of what conversation there might have been between the two men, or what reason Orlando had given for his visit. They began from a point which was incontestable.
“He must have stood here,” Tellman said, thin-lipped, placing himself near the pedestal where the vase had been smashed and the alternative set in its stead.
“I wonder why?” Pitt said thoughtfully. “He had his back to Orlando when he was struck, which makes me wonder how Orlando disguised the pin. No one goes to visit carrying a rolling pin, even wrapped in brown paper.”
“Say he’d just bought it. . on his way?” Tellman suggested, frowning with dislike of the thought even as he said it.
“A young actor?” Pitt raised his eyebrows. “Don’t see him as a pastry cook, do you?”
“A gift?”
“For whom? A young lady? His mother? Do you see Cecily Antrim rolling pastry?”
Tellman gave him a sour look. “Then he must have had it disguised somehow. Maybe rolled in papers, like a sheaf of pictures or something?”
“That sounds more probable. So if Cathcart were standing where you are, and Orlando here”-Pitt gestured-“then Cathcart unquestionably had his attention on something else, or he would have noticed Orlando unwrap his pictures and take out a rolling pin, and he would have been alarmed. . it’s an act without reasonable explanation.”
“Then he didn’t see,” Tellman said decisively. “He was going somewhere, leading the way. Orlando was following. He hit Cathcart from behind. . we know that anyway.”
Pitt went through the motion of raising his arm as if to strike Tellman. Tellman crumpled to his knees, rather carefully, to avoid banging himself on the now-bare wooden floor. He lay down, more or less as Cathcart might have fallen.
“Now what?” he asked.
Pitt had been considering that. They had little idea how long Orlando had been there, but knowing what he had done, he had had no time to hesitate for more than a few minutes.
“If you think you’re going to put me in any dress. .” Tellman began.
“Be quiet!” Pitt snapped.
“I. .” Tellman started to get up.
“Lie down!” Pitt ordered. “Privilege of rank,” he added ironically. “Would you rather change places?”
Tellman lay down again.
“Where were the green dress and the chains kept?” Pitt said thoughtfully. “Certainly not down here!”
“Up in the studio, most likely,” Tellman replied, his face to the floor. “With all the other stuff he used in his pictures. What I want to know is, how did Orlando know that the punt was here and not somewhere else? It could have been anywhere, any lake or river. Could have been miles away-in another county, for that matter.”
Pitt did not answer. His mind was beginning to reach for a new, extraordinary thought.
“Do you suppose he went upstairs first?” Tellman went on. “Maybe saw the chains and the dress in the studio?” He did not say it as if he believed that himself.
“And then came down, and Cathcart was going up again, ahead of him, and Orlando killed him?” Pitt said almost absentmindedly.
Tellman rolled over and sat up, scowling. “Then what do you think?”
“I think he certainly didn’t wander down the garden, in the dark, to see if there was a boat moored in the river,” Pitt replied. “I think he had been here before, often enough to know that these things existed, and exactly where to find them. .”
“But he hadn’t,” Tellman said decisively. “He had to ask where it was. . from the pub landlord. We know that.”
“Or there was someone else here as well,” Pitt answered. “Someone who did know. . someone who finished the job that Orlando only started.”
“But he came alone!” Tellman climbed to his feet. “You think there was someone else here the same night. . also bent on murdering Cathcart?” His tone of voice conveyed what he thought of that possibility.
“I don’t know what I think,” Pitt confessed. “But I don’t think Orlando Antrim murdered Cathcart in a passion of fury over the way Cathcart used Cecily, then set about searching the house to see if he could find the clothes and the chains, and the boat, to make it a mockery of the photograph. For one thing, there was no sign of a struggle when Mrs. Geddes came in in the morning, which means that if he searched, he put everything back where he found it. . exactly. Does that sound like a man in a murderous rage to you?”
“No. But Cathcart’s dead,” Tellman said reasonably. “And someone put him in that dress and chained him in the punt, then scattered all the flowers. . and I’d swear anything you like it was someone who hated him. . and hated him because of Cecily Antrim.”
Pitt said nothing. He had no argument.
“And we know Orlando was here, and he bought the pin,” Tellman went on.
“We’d better go and look for it,” Pitt said miserably. “Before it gets dark. We’ve only got just over an hour.”
Together they trudged down the path towards the river, watched from the side door by Mrs. Geddes.
They were sodden wet, covered in mud, and it was beginning to grow dusk when Tellman slipped on it at the edge of the bank, swore, and pulled it out, washing it in river water and holding it up in angry triumph. “So he didn’t throw it after all,” he said with surprise. “Maybe he meant to and dropped it.”
They were obliged to get the ironmonger from his dinner to identify it. He came to the door with his napkin tucked into the tip of his waistcoat and a considerable reluctance in his manner. He eyed the rolling pin with disgust.
“Yes, that’s one o’ mine. Put my mark on ’em, in blue, I do. See?” He pointed to a tiny blue device on the end of the pin near the handle. “Is that the one what. .” He would not say it.
“Yes, it is. You sold it to a tall, young man on the afternoon of Cathcart’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“ ’Course I am. Wouldn’t say so if I weren’t. My books’ll show it.”
“Thank you. Sorry to have disturbed your supper.”
