‘All fair and above-board, my dear fellow, yes. But are you sure you’ve found everything that our bird drank from this evening?’
‘I have spoken to all the other gentleman who witnessed his actions, sir. I have consulted the butler, the serving men, the serving maids and the kitchen staff below stairs. There is nothing the late gentleman drank from that will not shortly be on its way to the laboratory.’
‘Oh, fiddlesticks!’ cried Sir Gervaise Montagu …
The location reference was again noted. It was nearly half-past one, but Carole read on, spellbound.
His search of Count Alexander Frisch’s bedroom did not take long. Montagu scorned the contents of the dressing room, where the manservant had laid out his dead master’s clothes. He scorned the chest of drawers and the wardrobe, but went straight to the valises which had been stowed on top of the latter.
Donning lavender-coloured gloves before he touched the leather, the amateur detective lowered the luggage down on to the bed. It took only a few experienced twists of buckles and studs to reveal the hidden compartment.
Inside, as he had anticipated, was secreted a silver hipflask.
His gloved hands unscrewed the top and his aristocratic nose was rewarded by the distinctive tang of almonds.
‘Got you, my little beauty,’ Sir Gervaise Montagu breathed to himself. ‘Got you, by Jupiter!’
TWENTY-SIX
In spite of her very short night, Carole was up early the following morning and on the phone at one minute past seven. She reckoned seven o’clock was an hour when anyone should be up and awake. Jude, the recipient of her phone call, had different views on that matter, but got no chance to express them. Carole said she would be round straight away, and arrived seconds later, clutching her laptop. (This was a measure of how excited she was – normally the laptop stayed in her bedroom, as immobile as a desktop.)
‘The woman must be completely out of her mind,’ said Carole excitedly. ‘She definitely got the idea for murdering Burton St Clair from Best Served Cold.’
‘Sorry? Best Served Cold?’ Jude, still swathed in night-clothes, was bleary and hardly awake.
‘The book, Jude! The book Steve Chasen mentioned to us last night.’
‘Oh yes. But what, are you saying you’ve read it?’
‘I stayed up half the night reading it.’
‘How on earth did you get hold of a copy?’
With a slightly smug air of superiority, Carole explained the ready availability of e-books, a technology which her neighbour had not yet felt any need to embrace.
‘So what do we do?’
‘What we do, Jude, is to confront Nessa Perks as soon as possible.’
‘But will she want to speak to us?’
‘She’ll want to speak to us. She’s already piqued that the police haven’t taken advantage of her expertise.’
‘But if she actually is the murderer, surely she’ll try to take evasive action and not talk to us?’
‘I’d be very surprised if she does. People like Nessa Perks think they’re a lot cleverer than anyone else. She’ll agree to talk to us, because she’ll want to find out how much we know.’
‘And if we actually accuse her of murder?’
‘I’m sure she’ll have a strategy worked out to deal with that too.’
‘Hm.’ Jude was silent for a moment, and then said, ‘Don’t you think we should just take the information we’ve got to the police?’
This totally uncharacteristic suggestion was made because she was still shaken from her dealings with Detective Inspector Rollins and Detective Sergeant Knight. She had no wish to antagonize them further.
But Carole was properly contemptuous of the idea. ‘Jude, can you imagine that scene? You – or you and I – go to a twenty-first-century police detective and say that the murder she’s investigating is based on a whodunit written in the 1920s. I don’t know what the penalties are for wasting police time …’
Jude took the point.
‘So, what we’re going to do is …’ said Carole, in full Home Office committee-chairing mode. ‘I will text Professor Vanessa Perks straight away. Then, while I take Gulliver for his walk on Fethering Beach, you will get dressed and read the extracts I’ve selected from Best Served Cold. When I get back, we’ll drive to Clincham and beard the murderess in her den.’
‘And what if she hasn’t got back to us by then?’
‘We will still drive to Clincham and beard the murderess in her den.’
In accordance with Carole’s prediction, Nessa Perks was more than ready to talk to them. As Jude took in the richly loaded bookshelves of her office, the Professor confirmed, a little peevishly, that the police had still not been in touch with her. Once again, she berated the short-sightedness of their ignoring the expert on their doorstep.
‘We’re actually here,’ said Carole, ‘because we heard about the session you did on the Golden Age with the Fethering Library Writers’ Group.’
‘Oh, yes, that was excellent.’ The Professor preened herself. ‘Quite an intelligent lot they were. I gather their meetings have been discontinued.’
‘Yes. Problems of staffing and funding, I think.’
‘Like everywhere else.’ She shook her head, implying comparable difficulties in the academic world.
‘Anyway,’ Carole went on, ‘one of the people in that writing group, Steve Chasen …’
‘I’m not sure that I know the name.’
‘In the Writers’ Group,’ said Jude, ‘I’m sure he would have talked about his own science-fiction writing. And also, he was the one who got very rowdy after Burton St Clair’s talk.’
‘Oh yes, I know who you mean. I just wasn’t aware of his name.’
‘Anyway,’ Carole said, ‘he told us you did a very interesting session on the similarities between Golden Age fictional crime and contemporary real-life crime.’
‘As you know, it’s a matter to which I have devoted a considerable amount of research. I am an expert on the subject. In fact, at the risk of blowing my own trumpet …’ (Carole reckoned it was a risk the Professor took all the time – and with great relish.) ‘… I might say I am the expert on the subject.’
‘And at that session,’ Carole went on, ‘you concentrated on one book. Best Served Cold by G. H. D. Troughton.’
‘Yes. The perfect illustration of my thesis.’
‘An illustration whose relevance has only been increased by recent events?’
Nessa Perks nodded vigorously. ‘Yes, yes. Burton St Clair’s murder played it out to perfection. Perhaps I should give you a synopsis of the plot …?
Carole held up a hand. ‘No need. I did actually read the book last night.’
‘Well, I am sure you enjoyed it hugely.’ The Professor uncoiled her long body from her swivel chair and moved unerringly to the right section of the bookshelf. She pulled out the relevant volume. ‘First Edition, 1921. Published by Thomas Nelson and Sons. Same publisher who also did Trent’s Last Case, of which I also have a first edition here. Dust jacket of Best Served Cold a little torn, otherwise excellent condition.’
Carole and Jude exchanged looks. Both were thinking the same thing – that Nessa Perks had actually volunteered the connection between the book and the recent murder. By implication, she must have known that the fatal walnut traces had been in the hipflask rather than a wine bottle. That information had not been released by the police in any of their press conferences. So surely the only way the Professor could have known it was if she had actually committed the murder?