“I dare say he isn’t habitually,” retorted Foyle. “He may not have been roaring drunk; he may just have had an extra highball. Drivers always deny they’re drunk unless they’re out cold. As I see it, the whole thing was just a tough break—the sort of thing that might happen to any man in a moment of carelessness.”
“What about Milhau?” asked Lambert. “Any dope on him?”
“Usual stuff. Born on the East Side and reached Broadway via Coney Island side shows. Good business man. His shows are often panned by the critics, but I don’t believe he’s ever really lost money on any of them. Claims he can always tell whether a script is a moneymaker or not when he reads it because he gets a sort of shiver down his spine.”
“A new version of the divining rod,” murmured Basil.
“So where do we go from here?” Foyle sighed and ran both hands through his graying hair until it stood up on his head like the plumage of a cockatoo. “Two nights ago everybody was sweet and innocent and loved everybody else. Nobody knew who Vladimir was, and nobody could think of any motive for murdering him. Now in forty-eight hours we’ve just scratched the surface, and we’ve already got three motives: 1 Wanda Morley murdered Ingelow so she could inherit his fortune under a new will in her favor which she believed he had signed; 2 Margaret Ingelow murdered Ingelow so she could inherit his fortune before he had time to sign the new will in Wanda’s favor; 3 Rodney Tait murdered Ingelow because he was in love with Wanda and jealous of Ingelow’s affair with her.”
“Are you quite sure Rodney was in love with Wanda?” asked Basil.
Foyle returned his gaze quizzically. “Well, she thinks so.”
“And he?”
“He’s sort of cagey about the whole thing. Naturally because he realizes it’s the key to his motive. But they were seen together all the time in public places, and there was a tremendous lot of gossip about them. What more do you want?”
“Suppose I were to tell you that Rod has been engaged to another woman all along—a particularly nice girl?”
“I’d say he’d got himself in one sweet mess,” retorted the Inspector. “It isn’t the first time that a good-looking young man has got himself into such a mess either—especially if he’s good-natured as well as good-looking and enjoys pleasing women and keeping the social atmosphere at a warm temperature.”
Basil decided this was not an auspicious moment to mention Pauline’s name. “Sometimes I think a popular man’s desire to please everybody does more harm than the worst vices,” he agreed blandly.
“Then there are at least three motives,” resumed Lambert. “And of course, that’s just two too many.”
“In other words, this murder follows the same pattern in motive as in opportunity,” responded Basil. “At first we had too many people with opportunity to commit the murder, and now we have too many people with motives. All three of these motives were matters of general public knowledge—two were rooted in a will, a matter of public record, and one in the affair between Wanda and Rodney which was widely publicized. It seems to me we were meant to discover these motives. It’s all part of the murderer’s plan to diffuse suspicion among as many people as possible.”
“But we still have one advantage,” insisted Foyle. “Opportunity limits our suspects to four people.”
“No,” said Basil. “Three—providing we accept Adeane’s testimony that Margot Ingelow left the alcove before her husband entered it. Only Wanda and Rod have both motive and opportunity. Leonard had opportunity without motive and Margot had motive without opportunity.”
“Can’t you break down the alibi Adeane is giving Margot?” suggested Lambert.
“Adeane is thinking only of himself,” answered Basil. “It’s hard to tell whether he’s telling the truth about Margot or whether he only gave her an alibi in the hope that she would repay him for it by backing his play.”
“What about finding a motive for Leonard?”
“This was a premeditated murder,” answered Basil. “The weapon—the situation—everything was prepared beforehand. That means that the motive must be unusually compelling. Almost anyone may kill on impulse, but premeditated murder must have a motive strong enough to sustain a mood of cold fury that nullifies all fear of punishment. It must be a motive that makes every alternative to murder seem intolerable. So far we haven’t learned anything about Leonard that suggests a motive of such intensity.”
“I don’t want motives!” exclaimed Foyle. “I want evidence. And I don’t see how I’m going to get it.”
“I can see several possibilities.” Basil turned to Lambert. “Have you tried a spectrograph on that knife handle?”
“Is it as important as all that?”
“It never hurts to try.”
“I don’t suppose you could give me any idea what to look for?”
“If I were you, I’d look for the constituents of butyric acid.”
This remark had no effect on Foyle, but it seemed to startle Lambert. “You don’t mean—?”
Basil cut him short. “I mean that every possibility should be tested.”
“Any little job for me?” queried Foyle.
“You might try to find out more about the dark figure on the fire escape that night. If it was the murderer—what was he or she doing there? Why was Wanda’s copy of the script dropped? And why was that line spoken by Hutchins marked?” I don’t believe it was anything so melodramatic as a warning or a threat. This murder was planned by a neat, ingenious mind—not a flamboyant one.”
“I’ve assumed all along that the figure was the murderer,” said Foyle. “But I suppose it could have been anyone.”
“Anyone who had a black cloak at the theater that night,” answered Basil. “Or a cloak that would look black in a dim light. I saw Wanda, Leonard, and Rodney so soon after that incident they wouldn’t have had time to change. Wanda was in yellow, Rodney in pale blue, Leonard in bright red. After the murder, when we searched the dressing rooms, we found that the men had no dark coats or cloaks they could have worn over their light-colored dressing gowns and suits. Wanda had a dark brown sable cloak that enveloped her from head to heels, but she told me this morning that it didn’t reach the theater until just after the curtain rose—a long time after the incident. Margot Ingelow was wearing a long, sooty, black velvet cloak at the theater that evening, and Ingelow himself was wearing a black overcoat and black trousers when I saw him at the cocktail bar just beforehand.”
“But what would either of the Ingelows be doing on the fire escape with Wanda’s script?” demanded Foyle.
“I don’t know. At the moment it seems as if it must have been one of them, and yet that doesn’t fit any other detail of the crime as I see it now.”
“It would make Mrs. Ingelow the most likely suspect,” went on Foyle. “Don’t you believe it’s possible that she is the murderer?”
Basil rose and turned toward the door. “I shan’t accuse anyone seriously until I find out exactly why the fly was attracted to the knife handle, and why the canary was let out of its cage.”
Lambert laughed. “He knows—or guesses—a lot more than he’s telling, Inspector. Butyric acid!” The words seemed to fascinate Lambert. “That’s what I call neat!”
II
That evening Basil dined at home without company. Juniper, waiting on table, noticed that his master was silent and preoccupied. They had reached the cheese and fruit course when the telephone rang in the hall. Juniper left the dining room. Basil heard his voice muffled by the closed door. A moment later he came back. “There’s a Mr. Lazarus on the telephone,” he announced.
“Lazarus?” Basil looked up from his figs with a frown.
He reached the telephone in a dozen quick strides. The voice on the wire had a small, far away sound that gave the words uncanny emphasis. It might have been a disembodied spirit calling faintly across the Styx.