‘Even though you’re retired and have no authority to do so?’
‘Look,’ said Trubshawe. ‘You do realise that, when the police eventually get here, you’re all going to be subjected to some tough questioning. What I propose could almost be like a dress rehearsal. It’s true, I’d have to be fairly tough myself. There wouldn’t be much point to the exercise if I weren’t. But because I wouldn’t be interrogating you in an official capacity, and also, of course, because none of you would be on oath, well, if you began to think you really ought to have a lawyer present or else you simply found yourself getting a little hot under the collar, then there’s nothing I could do or say to prevent you from refusing to answer.
‘And if, by chance, though I must confess this strikes me as a very long shot indeed, if I arrive at the solution before the police arrive at the house, if I actually succeed in identifying Gentry’s murderer, then the whole distasteful process will have taken place away from the prying eyes of the yellow press.
‘For don’t delude yourselves, you’re in for some extremely unsavoury publicity. As I understand it, Gentry was a gossip columnist on a nationally syndicated scandal rag. Well, I can promise you, the public will juicily eat that up and come back asking for lots more of the same. By having the interrogation now, you may actually be sparing yourselves the worst.
‘As for the alternative, you all know what that means. Sitting here, hour after hour, wondering which of you did it and when he – or she – is going to strike again.’
‘Well,’ muttered the Colonel, ‘that does put a new complexion on things.’
He turned to face his guests.
‘All right. I think it’s only fair we be democratic about this. So let’s hear what you all think of the Chief-Inspector’s idea.’
For a while it seemed as though everyone was waiting for someone else to speak first, exactly as happens at many a public lecture, whose listeners, visibly aching to interrupt the lecturer with their own opinions, opinions just as passionately held as his, suddenly seem to be struck dumb when questions are thrown open to members of the audience.
It was, as ever, Evadne Mount who broke the silence.
‘Since you lot seem too timid to speak up, I will. I’m all for it. Matter of fact, Trubshawe, I might even give you a helping hand. Only if you wanted me to, of course. But we whodunit writers have a few aces up our sleeves, you know, just as you coppers have.’
‘No comment,’ replied the Chief-Inspector in an amiably dismissive aside. ‘But thank you anyway, Miss Mount, for taking the initiative. That’s one in favour. Any other takers? Rolfe?’
‘It is irregular, of course,’ said the Doctor, ‘but it certainly does seem to me preferable to doing nothing at all. I’m with you.’
‘Good. That makes two.’
‘However,’ Rolfe continued, ‘I would like to remind the undecideds’ – he gave his friends a steady appraising glance – ‘that the presence in this house of Raymond Gentry has reopened a number of wounds that many of you, many of us, believed and hoped had been closed for good. I fear the Chief-Inspector’s questions are going to open up those wounds even wider. We’ve all got to be prepared for that, am I not right, Trubshawe?’
‘Yes, Doctor, you are, and that was well put. As I said before, I’m not in a position to oblige any of you to answer my questions. You won’t be required to take any kind of oath, as you would in a courtroom. And if you should opt to lie to me, no action could be taken against you, which would not be the case during a proper police interrogation, where lying is a very serious offence indeed.
‘Let me add, though, that if in your mind you’re already planning to be, well, economic with the truth, then, frankly, I’d prefer we didn’t waste our time by embarking on the experiment at all. You may like to think of it as a bit of a game, but, don’t forget, there’s not much point to any game, be it Ping-Pong or Mah-Jongg, if you refuse to abide by the rules.’
‘Then may I make a rather controversial suggestion?’
‘Please, Doctor, any suggestion, any sensible suggestion, is welcome.’
‘We’re all old friends here, aren’t we?’ said Rolfe. ‘And with everything that’s due to happen in the next few days whatever we elect to do now – the police trampling over our lives, the press snapping at our heels – our friendship is going to be put under a greater strain than it’s ever known. Already, both Evie and Trubshawe have spoken about how easy it is to poison the atmosphere with no more than a few lethal droplets of suspicion. Luckily, we haven’t had enough time yet to savour those droplets. But when the police do manage to get here, I guarantee there won’t be one of us who hasn’t hysterically accused his dearest friend of the murder of Raymond Gentry.
‘So it does appear to me to make extremely good sense to let the Chief-Inspector conduct his interviews. But what I also propose is this. So that none of us starts worrying about just what helpful little clues the others might be dropping into his ear in private, he should question us all together.’
‘All together?’ retorted an incredulous Colonel. ‘You mean, we all speak to Trubshawe in front of each other?’
‘That’s exactly what I mean. That we’re all present when each of us is being questioned. If dirty linen is going to be aired in public, then let it really be aired in public. It won’t be pleasant for any of us, I’ll be bound, but at least we’ll all be in the same boat. Otherwise, don’t you see, questioning us individually behind closed doors could destroy our friendship just as surely as not questioning us at all.’
The Chief-Inspector was manifestly intrigued by this notion, but he was also perturbed by its unconventionality. For forty years he had stoutly upheld the Law not merely in its majesty but in its minutiae, in all its procedural codes, practices and orthodoxies, and, in the matter of being taught new tricks, he may have been an older dog even than Tobermory.
‘We-ell, I really don’t know,’ he said. ‘If you ask me, that sounds less like something we at the Yard would countenance than a scene from one of Miss Mount’s novels.’
‘Oh, rubbish!’ the novelist interjected. ‘If you’re referring to the kind of scene I think you are, then you should know I reserve it exclusively for a book’s climax. I mean the chapter in which the detective assembles all the suspects in the library then demonstrates, step by meticulous step, just how and why the murder was committed. Not the same thing at all.
‘But I have to say,’ she went on thoughtfully, ‘I do believe Henry’s idea is a good one. None of us will be able afterwards to accuse anyone of seeking to lay the blame elsewhere. Not that any of us would, of course. Then again, you never can tell, can you?’
‘Well,’ said Trubshawe, ‘that’s two in favour. Miss Rutherford?’
‘I’m going to surprise you,’ said the actress, ‘but I’m for it. Surprise you, I say, because I’ve got more to lose than any of you.’
‘Oh? And why is that, Cora?’ asked the Colonel.
‘Listen, darling, we now know we all have skeletons in our cupboards. I mean, what with that stinker Gentry spewing his rancid guts out last night, our dirty little secrets are practically in the public domain, right?’
‘Er, well – yes, I suppose so, right.’
‘But mine are a star’s dirty little secrets. They’re of interest to everyone. I tell you, there are muckraking journalists in Fleet Street who’d pay a small fortune to get the lowdown on my private life. However, I also know I didn’t murder Raymond Gentry and I’m ready to answer Trubshawe’s questions so long as I have his assurance that anything that turns out not to be relevant to the case stays within these four walls.’
‘That goes without saying,’ said Trubshawe.