‘What do you mean, start right away?’
‘Start drawing up a list. It shouldn’t take too long. I can’t believe that any of the – what did Cora call them? – the ordinary grips and geezers would have been informed of the change. As I said, it could only have been a select few. Indeed, I rather think a couple of the prime suspects may be sitting right here in this room.’
Hearing these last words, Calvert, who had been nodding over each pertinent point raised in the conversation, stiffened almost as though he were immediately preparing to apprehend, with handcuffs if necessary, the two about-to-be-designated suspects.
For his part, however, Trubshawe merely smiled.
‘If I’m not mistaken, Tom,’ he said, ‘she means us – me and her. I’m right, Evie, aren’t I?’
When the novelist nodded in agreement, Calvert shook his head.
‘You two as suspects? Come now, Miss, let’s be serious.’
‘Oh, I assure you, I am being serious, deadly serious. What would be the point of drawing up such a list if it weren’t both inclusive and unbiased? Eustace and I were the very first to hear, from Cora’s own lips, of the new bit of business. And even though, this afternoon, not once were we out of each other’s sight – also, as mere visitors, practically interlopers, neither of us was permitted to approach the actual performing area – we were nevertheless physically present at the scene of the murder and might well have committed it, singly or in tandem, via some incredibly deft sleight-of-hand. One of those impossible crimes you read about in the anthologies.’
‘All right, Miss Mount,’ said Calvert, ‘we’ll have it your way if you insist. You and Mr Trubshawe are Suspects 1 and 2. Now shall we get down to brass tacks? The third suspect – and, as far as I’m concerned, the first in any real sense – must be this Rex Hanway. The idea was his, after all.’
‘Ah, but don’t you see, Inspector, unless I’m very much mistaken, the fact that Hanway actually directed Cora to drink from a glass of lemonade which turned out to be poisoned is going to be precisely his alibi.’
‘His alibi? Why, it’s the very contrary of an alibi.’
‘Not at all,’ she replied. ‘I can just hear how he might respond to any such accusation you level against him. “My dear Inspector,”’ she went on in a remarkably lifelike imitation of the director’s cut-glass vowels, “if I’d really planned to murder poor, darling Cora, do you suppose I’d have told her – in public, mark you, in public – to drink out of a glass I already knew to contain poison?”’
‘H’m,’ said Calvert, stroking his cheek, on which few traces were visible of a razor’s coarsening attentions. ‘I see what you mean …’
It was now Trubshawe’s turn to speak.
‘Hold on a sec there,’ he said. ‘Yes, Evie has cleverly shown why we need take far fewer than the original forty-two suspects into serious consideration. Hats off to her, even though,’ he added a trifle ungraciously, ‘it’s a point that one or other of us would have made eventually. But there’s something else she seems to have forgotten.’
‘Oh,’ said Evadne, ‘and what’s that, may I ask?’
‘Well, of course I don’t claim to know much about film folk, but I have had a lot of experience of murderers. Now someone who had a premeditated intent to kill might well decide to visit the scene of his intended crime with a pistol or a revolver or even a knife concealed about his person in the hope that a suitable moment would arise for committing it. But poison? Until just before the lunch break there was no question of Cora drinking out of the champagne glass. Do either of you seriously believe that her murderer has been strolling around the set these past few days – ever since they started making this cursed film – with a flask of poison tucked inside his or her pocket? Eh? And, if not, where would they be expected to lay hands on such a flask in the two hours or so that elapsed between Hanway coming up with his new idea and Cora swallowing the poison? Answer me that.’
Calvert’s eyebrows registered the logic of the Chief-Inspector’s argument.
‘Ye-es, that’s certainly another point we ought to consider.’
‘I should think it is,’ said Trubshawe. ‘And what it means is that Hanway surely remains your number-one suspect.’
‘All right,’ said Calvert, ‘that makes three we know of, you two and Hanway. Anyone else come to mind?’
‘Philippe Françaix,’ suggested Evadne Mount.
‘Who’s he when he’s at home?’
‘A French film critic.’
‘Nuff said. I don’t have much time for critics myself. All they ever do is criticise.’
‘He’s one of Farjeon’s greatest admirers – writing a book about him, or so he claims – and he’s here in Elstree to follow the shooting of the picture. He also, pretty much at his own invitation, I should tell you, lunched with Eustace, Cora and me in the commissary. So he knew all about the champagne glass.’
‘Any conceivable motive?’
‘Just like that, Tom?’ said Trubshawe. ‘We met the chap for the first time only two or three hours ago. Give us old lags a chance, will you.’
‘What’s your opinion, Miss Mount?’
‘On this occasion I’d have to agree with Eustace. Except … except that there was something …’
‘Something?’
‘A feeling I had,’ she replied, momentarily lost in thought. ‘Not even a hunch. Nothing worth repeating. Not yet anyhow.’
‘So. We have four suspects now. Who else?’
‘Me.’
Everyone turned, startled, to face Lettice Morley.
‘You, Miss? Are you admitting that you’re a suspect?’
‘I admit nothing,’ she answered with the always slightly off-putting self-possession that seemed to be her defining trait. ‘All I’m saying is that, if I accept the criteria by which you’re in the process of designating suspects, then I cannot fairly exclude myself.’
‘Sorry, but your name is …?’
‘Lettice Morley. I’m Rex’s – I should say, Mr Hanway’s – personal assistant. As such, I naturally have to know everything that occurs to him at the very instant it does occur to him. When he suggested to Miss Rutherford that she drink the champagne, he at once informed me too, and I went off and told Props, so that the half-filled glass would be precisely where it was supposed to be just as soon as Rex was ready to film the shot.’
‘I see,’ said Calvert. ‘Well, thank you for being so candid. It’s most unusual, most refreshing.’
‘Not for a second, you understand,’ she carried on imperturbably, ‘am I intimating that I murdered Cora Rutherford. Even if the woman’s irresponsible antics exasperated me, there was nothing personal in my dislike of her and, as my professional future is bound up in my making good on this picture, it would have been very foolish of me to jeopardise its own future by bumping off one of the cast members.
‘However,’ she added, to her listeners’ undiminished amazement, ‘since you’ve already hit upon all kinds of clever clues, perhaps I might indicate one of my own before it’s turned against me. I’ve read quite a few whodunits in my day – yours among them, Miss Mount – and, if there’s one thing I’ve learned from them, it’s that poison is traditionally a woman’s weapon.’
She looked towards Evadne Mount for confirmation.
‘Isn’t that so?’
‘We-ell …’ said the novelist, close to speechless for once, ‘I suppose it is one of the conventions of the genre. But it doesn’t mean we whodunit writers believe that, every time someone is poisoned, a woman necessarily did it.’
‘No?’ said Lettice. ‘It’s certainly the impression you leave the reader.’