Frank made a slight grimace.
“Not so very likely.”
“Perhaps not. But we really do not know enough to say what is likely or unlikely at present. On the other side of the landing, in my own corridor, either Lady Marian and her husband, or Mrs. Duke, Miss Taverner, and myself could have heard Eily go into Miss Heron’s room, though we could not, of course, have heard the conversation which induced her to do so.”
Frank Abbott gave her a quizzical look.
“Are you by any chance the villain of the piece? Did you hear anything?”
“No, Frank.” After a pause she continued, “If John Higgins did not return at one o’clock, then someone was being at pains to manufacture evidence against him by whistling that tune under Miss Heron’s window. It would have to be someone who knew that Eily was there. So far as we know, the most likely person to have that knowledge was Castell.”
Frank gave a slight sarcastic laugh.
“And, as Crisp put it, I’m here to get something on Castell! ‘The Innkeeper Framed’! You know, it’s almost too much to hope that it is Castell. He’s so beautifully obvious, isn’t he?”
If Miss Silver was going to reply, the sound of approaching voices stopped her. The door by which Crisp had gone out was flung back, and there came in Castell in full spate, with the Inspector only occasionally managing to stem the flood.
“If I can be of any assistance-any assistance whatever! All murders are atrocious-that goes without saying! The sight of blood makes me incapable of digesting my food! All are, I say, atrocious, but this one is an outrage! In the middle of a festivity-in the middle of a family reunion! Depriving me of a friend as well as of a servant most valued! Leaving me short-handed with the house full!” He threw up his hands in a gesture of horror. “And the consequences! You will pardon me, but-the police in the house! Mr. Jacob Taverner, my patron, is indisposed! I myself-I will not trouble you with how I suffer! My wife Annie whose cooking is unsurpassed-last night her hand fails her! I do not say that the pastry is heavy-it is impossible for Annie Castell to make heavy pastry-if I say that it is made by an ordinary chef, it is enough! Can you then doubt how eagerly I would help to unmask the assassin?”
Inspector Crisp used the most repressive tone at his command.
“Sit down, Mr. Castell, and stop talking! I want to ask you some questions.”
Fogarty Castell spread out his hands in an expansive gesture.
“Anything-anything!”
“It’s about this man Luke White. The police surgeon says he’d had a lot of drink. When did he get it, and how?”
Fogarty brushed away a tear.
“My poor Luke! Yes, I will tell you. There was some champagne left, and I said to him, ‘Come, my friend, we will finish it.’ That was after everyone had gone up to bed, you understand. For me, I take one glass-two-I am the most abstemious of men- and my poor Luke, he finishes the rest.”
“How much?”
Castell hesitated. Then he said,
“There was a half bottle-”
“You’re not going to tell me you had a couple of glasses or so, and Luke White got drunk on what was left!”
There was that gesture with the hands again.
“No, no, no-I will tell you! He had a weakness that poor Luke. In his working-time he takes nothing, but-how shall I say-when he is off duty he takes what he can get.”
“Are you telling me he was a heavy drinker, Mr. Castell?”
Fogarty’s dark face glistened with feeling.
“Only when he is off duty. And for champagne he has a passion. He finishes the bottle, and then he says, ‘Come on, boss-the old boy won’t miss it!’ and he opens another. There- I have told you! Do not repeat it, I beg of you. I would not, of course, have put it on the bill.”
Frank’s eye rested upon him with cool enjoyment. Crisp said sharply,
“That’s nothing to do with us. You’re telling me White was a heavy drinker?”
“Only when he was off duty,” said Fogarty Castell.
CHAPTER 25
Well,” said Crisp when the door had closed behind him, “there you have it. The man was drunk when he was killed, and the way he got drunk was drinking Mr. Jacob Taverner’s champagne along with his manager after everyone else had gone upstairs to bed. Nice work, I must say! Not put it on the bill, indeed!” He made a sound that was more like a snort than a laugh.
Miss Silver said mildly,
“What is your theory, Inspector, as to how Luke White came to be lying in the position in which he was found? There was not more than eighteen inches between his feet and the bottom step. To fall in such a position he must have been standing either on the step itself or just below it with his back to the stairs, and the murderer must have been on the step behind him.”
Crisp stared.
“You mean they were both coming down the stairs?”
Miss Silver knitted two, slipped one, and knitted two together. Little Josephine’s skirt was being gathered in to the waist.
“Can you think of any other explanation?” She paused, decreased again, and added, “If he was really killed where he was found.”
Crisp said impatiently,
“There isn’t the slightest reason to suppose he wasn’t. Coming downstairs-I wonder. Let’s see-Eily lets John Higgins in, and they go upstairs together. Luke White hears something-comes after them. Higgins has the knife. He turns round with it. Luke sees it, takes fright, and makes off. Higgins catches him up on the bottom step and stabs him in the back.”
Miss Silver shook her head, but she did not speak. It was Frank Abbott who said,
“You say John Higgins has the knife. Why?”
Crisp shrugged his shoulders.
“He’s jealous-he’s angry over the girl-he’s where he’s got no business to be, and he knows Luke White is an awkward customer-so awkward that it’s not many hours since he had threatened to cut the heart out of any man that the girl took instead of him. Plenty of reasons for picking a knife off the dining-room wall before he went upstairs with her.”
Miss Silver shook her head again. Her lips were primmed together. She knitted in silence.
Frank Abbott said seriously,
“I don’t think it happened like that. The girl isn’t that sort of girl, and the man isn’t that sort of man.”
Crisp stared angrily.
“Then how did it happen?”
Getting no answer but that conveyed by a lifted eyebrow, he produced a counter-attack.
“It’s got to be Castell to satisfy you, hasn’t it-or one of the Taverners? Well, there’s not a shred of evidence to connect them with the crime, or a shred of a motive. Mr. Jacob Taverner says he was in bed before eleven and slept until he was roused by the commotion in the house. Mr. Geoffrey Taverner says he read till after twelve. He heard no unusual sounds, he went to sleep as soon as he put his light out, and was waked by the noise downstairs. Castell’s statement amounts to very much the same thing. After hearing John Higgins come along whistling round about eleven he lay awake for a bit, and then dropped off, waking up like everyone else when the noise began. Mrs. Castell corroborates as far as to say that Castell was in bed when the house was roused. She is a heavy sleeper and can’t say anything about the earlier part of the night. Well, you can’t expect alibis when people are in bed and asleep. There’s nothing to say that all those statements aren’t correct. Same with the people on the other side of the house, the Thorpe-Enningtons, Miss Taverner, Miss Heron- and yourself, Miss Silver. There is nothing to connect any of them with Luke White, or to suggest that they had the slightest motive for murdering him.”