Late, Late in the Evening

'No police, but I believe Mr Landgrave is within call.'

'Oh, yes. Bit of a bruiser, isn't he?'

'I believe he has the reputation of being a man of his hands.'

'I accept the hint. Well, if I'm the patient, what is your diagnosis?'

'I cannot make one until you have answered my questions.'

'Right. I haven't time for verbal sparring, so fire away, please. I've a number of calls to make.'

'It is about the one you didn't make that I should like to question you.'

'I don't have to incriminate myself, you know.'

'You could not do so at this particular interview, since there are no witnesses.'

'You don't think the police would accept your word against mine?'

'Not as proof positive. As a base for future enquiries I think they might. Now, Doctor Tassall, it ill becomes me, perhaps, to tell you that the best way you can help yourself is to tell the truth, but I believe that it would be in your own interests to do so. It was easy enough to find out that there is no such patient as Mrs Collins on your list.'

'Easy enough to find that out, yes. So what?'

'So I can think of various reasons why you left the birthday party so early that night.'

'Oh, yes? Are you going to tell me what they are?'

'Certainly, and leave you to indicate the right one.'

'And suppose I select the wrong one?'

'It will take me a little longer to find out which is the right one, that is all.'

'I see. Do you like answering riddles?'

'Propound one.'

'Try this, since you are trying to get me hanged. "There was a man made a thing, and he that made it did it bring, but he 'twas made for did not know whether 'twas a thing or no."'

I was familiar with the riddle, so I said:

'I believe you are optimistic. Are not convicted murderers buried coffinless and in quick-lime after the hanging? Let us give up these time-consuming jests. Here are your alternatives to Mrs Collins and her being brought to bed. Either you left the party in order to avoid Merle Patterson, or else you left the party and she followed you out of the house by mutual arrangement so that you could discuss your private affairs.'

'I've told you before! We no longer had private affairs to discuss.'

'Miss Patterson seems to have thought you had.'

'So you expect me to choose the second alternative and agree that Merle and I had arranged to meet outside the house that night!'

'It would be wise for you to admit it.'

'Why?'

'Because I am sure it is the truth.'

'Tell me why you think so.'

'I have two reasons. For one thing, you had told Miss Kempson-Conyers that you expected a call and would have to absent yourself at some point from the party in order to attend on Mrs Collins.'

'How does that prove anything?'

'Surely, that you knew (as Mrs Collins was a figment of your brain) you would need an excuse to get away from the party at some point and had prepared yourself with one which could not be gainsaid.'

'And your second point?'

'It depends upon the first. You knew that Miss Patterson had arranged with her brother that she should take his place. You had thought that she would still be in the car when you met and it upset the plan a little when the unsuspecting Mrs Kempson invited her into the house. You managed, I expect, to speak to Miss Patterson while Amabel and her grandmother were still occupied in greeting the guests who were continuing to arrive. Miss Patterson proposed a new plan, which was that, after the pretended call was supposed to have come through, she should go into the garden at the first opportunity and that you two should hold your conclave in her car, as you had arranged.'

'Well, all right, fair enough, so far. And then?'

'I think you had a genuine call, and that it came earlier than the bogus one you had planned. I also think it was one which you did not hesitate to answer, and that, in fact, you welcomed it. You were not looking forward to your interview with Miss Patterson. You knew she would be reproachful; you thought she might be angry and even tearful, so, although you were determined to return to the party in the hope of having a lovers' meeting, however short, with Amabel Kempson-Conyers, you left it late enough to feel certain that, by the time you got back, Miss Patterson would have taken her three companions back to London and you would be spared an embarrassing interview.'

'And so?'

'You came back to find that Merle Patterson had gone out into the grounds, as arranged, but had not come back. A search-party was organised, her body was found and there was no doubt that she had been murdered. In other words, she had kept the tryst which, because of circumstances unforeseen by you, but of which you were quick to take advantage, you had managed to avoid.'

'I didn't kill her. I swear I didn't. I mean, you don't kill girls because they are prepared to make nuisances of themselves.'

'No? Perhaps you are not as well acquainted with the records of criminal behaviour as I am. Girls and women have been murdered simply because they were in the way. Have you heard of Emily Kaye?-of Ellen Warder?-of Harriet Staunton?-of Mrs Armstrong?-of Belle Elmore, as Mrs Crippen called herself professionally? I could go on. Shall I do so?'

'But Merle wasn't in my way! I had finished with her and she knew it. I admit I was a bit of a heel where she was concerned. She told me so in letters, anyway. I also admit I never intended to meet her in the grounds that night. I had nothing to say to her. The call I was planning to receive was just a myth, as you say. I intended to leave the house and drive off. I usually ride a horse in the village, but I use Doctor Matters' car at times and always after dark. Anyway, any double-cross act I'd planned with Merle proved unnecessary. A genuine call came through and I made the most of it.'

'Ah, yes, the genuine call. Tell me about that.'

'It came from Doctor Matters. I shouldn't criticise him to outsiders, I suppose, but he really is the most frightful old ass and to my mind completely gaga. He rang up to say that as I'd borrowed the car I was to go at once to the Pratts' house-he gave me the address-and tell them he'd given a wrong prescription and that if they'd already been to the chemist with it, Mrs Pratt was on no account to touch the stuff, but to bring it to the surgery next morning.'

'And this errand took you out of the party at an early stage in the proceedings?'

'Yes. I went off at once, of course. You can't play about with dangerous drugs.'

'And you were absent for nearly four hours?'

'Well, not as long as that.'

'Doctor Tassall, I refuse to credit your story. For one thing, Doctor Matters does his own dispensing. He does not issue prescriptions to be handed in at chemists' shops. Furthermore, it could not possibly have taken you all that time to perform such an errand. Doctor Matters' practice would have to extend to the other side of the County if it had. For your own sake, tell me the truth. I will be plain with you. If I could believe that you had any reason for disposing of Mr Ward, I would subscribe to your immediate arrest, but, so far as I know, you had no motive for that. All the same, you did have a motive for murdering Miss Patterson and doctors have committed murder before this. Come, now. For all we know at present, there may be two murderers in this village and there is nothing, so far, to show that you are not one of them.'

He shrugged his shoulders and decided to make the best of it.

'Oh, well, if you must have it,' he said, 'as I say, I never intended to meet Merle for a showdown. It couldn't do any good. I'd arranged with one of the chaps at the medical school to call me. I'd bought those lizard costumes from him, so I knew he'd oblige me. I had a few dances with Amabel under the disapproving eye of Mrs Kempson, then the chap's call came through. It was an invitation to join a gang of students in a rather low pub in the town. We had a few drinks and then I went back to the chap's room with two or three of the others and we played cards and had a few more drinks until I realised that Merle must have given up and gone home. The Kempson and Conyers tribe would be in bed, I thought, and a clod aimed at Amabel's window would bring her to the front door.'