‘Before you answer,’ he said, ‘let me just add one crucial point. If, as I believe, Alastair Farjeon was murdered, then it finally gives us something which we have all been seeking in vain from the very beginning of this case.’
‘What?’
‘A motive for murdering Cora.’
They both spoke at the same time.
‘Because Cora had found out who murdered Farjeon!’
‘Because Cora had found out who murdered Farjeon!’
‘Snap!’
‘Snap!’
‘Now,’ said Trubshawe, taking triumphant note of what he imagined was the novelist’s belated conversion to the cause, ‘it’s time for you to tell me what you think.’
He sat comfortably back in his chair, his glass of whisky in his hand, waiting for the inevitable accolade.
But Evadne’s voice, when she spoke again, was not as encouraging as he had expected.
‘We-ll …’
‘Yes?’
‘…?’
‘What? What is it you’re trying to say?’
‘Nothing, nothing at all. That is, I …’
‘Out with it, Evie.’
‘Well, Eustace, frankly I don’t know.’
‘What in Heaven’s name is the problem?’
‘The problem,’ she said, ‘is that my bottom itches.’
Trubshawe gaped at her in disbelief.
‘Your bottom itches!’ he cried out so loudly that not a few of those customers who were seated at nearby tables turned their heads to stare at them both.
‘Yes,’ she repeated in a half-whisper, ‘my bottom itches. And I have to tell you, Eustace, my bottom has never let me down.’
‘What the –’ he spluttered incontinently. Then:
‘Even from you, Evie,’ he said in a low hiss, ‘this is going too far.’
‘No, no, let me explain,’ she replied with dignity. ‘Whenever I read a whodunit by one of my rivals, my so-called rivals, and I encounter some device – I don’t know, a motive, a clue, an alibi, whatever – a device I simply don’t trust, even if I can’t immediately articulate to myself why I don’t trust it, I long ago noticed that my bottom started to itch. I repeat, it’s infallible. If my bottom ever once steered me wrong, why, the universe would be meaningless.’
‘How is it you never mentioned this at ffolkes Manor?’
‘Really, Eustace, my bottom is scarcely something I care to bring up in mixed company. Besides, we had only just met.’
‘So you’re telling me, are you, that you’d put your trust in your – in your bottom before you’d ever put it in me, and I’m not just a friend, a close friend, I hope, but also a police officer who spent his professional life investigating crimes of this nature?’
‘Yes, Eustace, I know how odd it must sound. Yet, close friend as you assuredly are, I’m closer still to my own bottom, after all, and I’ve known it far longer than I’ve known you.
‘It works even when I’m writing my own books. It’ll sometimes happen that I’m dog-tired, I desperately want to finish a chapter and I botch it by lazily employing some whiskery, second-hand plot device. Then, sure as Fate, my bottom starts itching and I realise that I’ve just got to go back to the drawing-board and replace it with something cleverer and more original. Which, I may say, I invariably do.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ muttered a sullen Trubshawe.
‘I find I usually do,’ she countered airily.
His face crimsoned.
‘I see. Now you’re being nasty – nasty and gratuitous. Have a care, Evie, have a care. Two can play at that game.’
‘Look,’ she said, ‘I readily admit that your theory is attractive, really very attractive, and for the moment I can’t quite explain – except, of course, for the itch in my bottom – why I’m ill-at-ease with it.’
‘You certainly seemed to share my excitement when I proposed that it at least provided us with a clue as to why Cora had been murdered.’
‘True enough. Even now, that strikes me as by far the best argument that can be made for it. It’s just that, where those five suspects are concerned, well …’
‘What?’
‘Yes, they do all appear to have had motives for wanting to murder Farjeon, I grant you that. I just can’t help feeling that some of those motives are a little – let’s say – weak.’
‘Oh. Which ones?’
‘Leolia Drake’s, for example. She’s a putrid little minx, to be sure, but do you really believe she’d be ready to murder Farjeon – and not only Farjeon, remember, but poor Patsy Sloots along with him – just because, in the first place, she knew, or merely expected, that Hanway would consequently be assigned to direct If Ever They Find Me Dead and, in the second place, because she had total confidence in his authority to cast her in the leading role? I have to say I do find that a strain on my credulity.’
‘We-ell,’ the Chief-Inspector defensively replied, aware as he was that, with this particular suspect, he was on shaky ground, ‘I did add a rider to the effect that she might merely have acted as Hanway’s accomplice.’
‘Even so, Eustace, even so. And Lettice. Now, I agree, she is, as the Yanks say, a tough little cookie. But, after all, Farjeon didn’t actually succeed in having his evil way with her.’
‘I can’t see as that makes a ha’p’orth of difference. Don’t forget that, if it was Lettice, she may not actually have meant to kill Farjeon. It may just have been her intention to give him the fright of his life. I wouldn’t be too surprised if we were talking of manslaughter here.’
‘And Philippe? A French film critic committing murder? I mean, literally. Difficult to swallow.’
‘Oh, please, let’s have no truck with such tired old generalisations. Put yourself in his position. All his adult life he had lived and breathed Alastair Farjeon. Farjeon was his life, the only life, in a sense, he’d ever known. And now here he was, instead of having to worship him from afar, finally at his side, not just as an admirer but, so he hoped, as a colleague. He had written a script he believed would be ideal for his favourite film director. And it was ideal – if it hadn’t been, Farjeon would never have stolen it in the first place. He does steal it, though, and all of Françaix’s dreams crumble to dust. Can’t you imagine how he must have felt when it dawned on him that he had wasted his whole life on someone totally unworthy of his admiration. People have killed for less, much less, in my experience.’
‘Possibly so … Yet, you know, Eustace, as you yourself pointed out, they tended to speak quite freely and openly of their loathing of Farjeon. Why would they have done that if they suspected that they themselves were, well, suspected of having murdered him?’
‘But that’s just it!’ Trubshawe practically shouted at her. ‘They didn’t suspect! Nor were they suspected! It was Cora’s murder we were investigating. Not for a second did they have any cause to wonder whether it might be advisable for them to hold their tongues about their relationship with Farjeon. Anyway, as you of all people, the Dowager Duchess of Crime, must know, the subtlest way of insinuating that you didn’t kill somebody is to claim that you wished you had.’
Evadne Mount reflected on this for a moment, then said simply:
‘I’m not sure, Eustace, I’m not sure.’
‘Why not? Mine is the only theory which even begins to explain why one of the five might have poisoned Cora. We have nothing else to go on.’
‘Not quite nothing. What about my scrap of paper?’