“When did you suspect Valmai?”
“I wasn’t very certain until I saw that the person who murdered Garcia had held his head back by the hair, and that he had struggled so hard that — well, that he had struggled. I then remembered the cut on Seacliff’s hand, and how she had showed it to me only when she saw me looking at it, and how she had said it had been made by her horse’s reins, when it had obviously been made by something much finer. I remembered how, when I suggested it was not the reins, but the horse’s mane, she had agreed. But to go back a bit. From the moment we learned that it was Seacliff who posed the model I felt that we must watch her pretty closely.”
“I don’t understand that. You say Garcia set the trap with the knife.”
“Yes, but I believe Seacliff watched him through a hole in the studio window-blind.”
“Seacliff!”
“Yes. She had put three aspirins in Pilgrim’s coffee to ensure his sleeping soundly. When she realised he had noticed the coffee tasted odd — he made a face at her — she quickly raised an outcry about her own. She pretended to have a headache in order to get them all to bed early. She slipped out to the garage, wearing slacks and a sweater, put on Pilgrim’s old coat and gloves, and drove back to the studio, getting there about midnight, with the intention of arguing about blackmail with Garcia. This was the meeting Miss Phillida Lee overheard Sonia discussing with Garcia. Sonia told Miss Bobbie O’Dawne all about it, and Miss O’Dawne told me, this morning. But you should remember that until this morning Miss O’Dawne had only elaborated what we already knew — the Pilgrim-Sonia side. However, I give you the whole thing as completely as I can. Valmai Seacliff arrived at the studio in a desperate attempt to placate Garcia. She must have left the car somewhere in the lane and walked down, meaning to come in at the side gate. Your maid Ethel and her boy, returning from the flicks, saw the figure of a shortish man standing outside the studio window, apparently looking through the hole in the blind. He wore a mackintosh with the collar turned up. The ray of light caught his beret, which was pulled down on one side, hiding his face. Both Garcia and Pilgrim were too tall for the light to get them anywhere above the chest. So was Malmsley. Seacliff seemed to be the only one about the right height. When we saw Pilgrim’s old coat in his car we noticed whitish marks on the collar that suggested face- or neck-powder, and they smelt of Seacliff. It was so dirty it didn’t seem likely she would let him embrace her while he was wearing it. When we looked inside the left-hand glove we noticed a bloodstain that corresponded with the cut on her hand. That, of course, came into the picture after the Garcia affair. I believe that she actually watched Garcia set his trap for Sonia and decided to say nothing about it. I believe she went in, probably got him to drink a good deal more whisky, and offered to drive him up to London. You told me he did a little etching.”
“Yes. He’d prepared a plate a few days before he went.”
“Then perhaps he said he’d take the acid to bite it. Is that the right word? Anyway, she got out your caravan and backed it up to the window. There’s a slope down from the garage — enough to free-wheel into the lane and start on compression. The servants wouldn’t think anything odd if they heard a car in the lane. Malmsley had helped Garcia get everything ready. All she had to do was open the window, wheel the clay model over the sill into the caravan, get Garcia aboard and start off. The packing-case had already been addressed by Garcia. So she knew the address, even if he was incapable of directing her. I think myself that he had told her exactly where the warehouse was when he asked her to go there to see him, and she has admitted that he gave her a sketch-map. Probably his idea was that she should pay blackmail to him while he was there. She made another rather interesting slip over that. Do you remember how she said she was reminded of the warehouse address by a remark someone made at breakfast about Holloway? She told me — and, I think, you — that as soon as she heard the word Holloway she remembered that Garcia had said his warehouse was near the prison, and she had told him to be careful he didn’t get locked up. Holloway is a woman’s prison. Her very feeble joke would have been a little less feeble if he was blackmailing her, and the place of assignation was not Holloway, but Brixton. By giving us Holloway as the district, she was sending us off in exactly the opposite direction to the right one. We might have hunted round Holloway for weeks. I wondered if she had been the victim of a sort of word-association and I decided to go for Brixton. Luckily enough, as it turned out. As a matter of fact, she has twice fallen into the trap of substituting for the truth something that is linked with it in her mind. The first time was over the cut on her hand. It had been made when she was standing above Garcia with her hand wound in his hair. She saw me looking at the scar, decided to speak of it before I did, was, perhaps, reminded subsconciously of horses’ hair, a mane gripped in the hand, rejected the idea of hair altogether and substituted reins. Have you had enough of this, Troy?”