“Why should I be particularly aware of that?”
“I’ve known you a good many years, but it was only when I was last here that you told me you had asked Carol to marry you.”
He said nothing, so I went on:
“There was no logical reason why you shouldn’t have told me long ago—and certainly none after her death. You didn’t tell me—because you couldn’t. And I didn’t tell you about my dream—because I couldn’t.”
As he still remained silent, I added:
“You said just now that everything about me is unbelievable—with one exception. What’s the exception?”
“You really mean that you don’t know?”
“I shouldn’t ask if I knew.”
“The exception is that all you care about—all you’ve ever cared about and ever will—is your creative periods. Your Fredrika moments, as you call them. You say you’re in love with Carol. You don’t care one damn about Carol. What’s worried you is that, since you painted Enigma, you’ve lost your vision. Now Carol is dead, you delude yourself that you’re in love with her. That delusion stimulates you. It’s a new sensation for you to be in love. It’s an irritant to imagination. Your emotions are coming out of cold storage. At last! Soon, you’ll be working again. And that’s all you care about.”
Before I could speak, he raced on:
“You always win! You have bad periods—terrible periods—but you emerge all right. You depend wholly on a certain emotional state. You know it, but, through perversity, when you’re bored, you nearly destroy your emotions. Nearly—but never quite! Already you’re beginning to look as you used to look. You’re awake, astir, alive! You’re beginning to see things as only you can see them. And you delude yourself that all this is because of Carol! If Carol walked into this room now, you’d soon discover that you hate her. It’s easy to love the dead. You’re the Enigma.”
“That’s what Harcourt said. Anyhow, if all you say is true, you’ve only described a miracle. And that doesn’t explain it.”
Then I added:
“What’s so strange is that you want me to hate her. Directly I told you that I loved her, you became fiercely antagonistic. I find that—enigmatic.”
He turned, then went on packing the nearly full trunk. It was useless to speak, or to stay longer.
I went into the hall, put on my overcoat, and was about to go, when he shouted:
“Harcourt may have killed her—but you destroyed her.”
I went out, closing the door noiselessly.
Haimes arrived at the Dominion at exactly a quarter to two and, ten minutes later, we entered a small restaurant off the Tottenham Court Road where the proprietor led us to a solitary table in a recess.
Directly we were seated, Haimes said:
“You won’t expect much, will you?”
“I gave that up some time ago. Anyhow, I’m too excited to eat.”
Having partaken of three diminutive courses, and having experienced the customary sensation of dismay, when each arrived, that you had not chosen something else, Haimes ordered coffee and we lit cigarettes.
“Now, Arnold! The story had better be in two parts. Otherwise, it will be out of focus. So let’s begin with the situation before the entry of Mr.—Harcourt.”
“I’d like it that way, because there are things which puzzled me long before Harcourt turned up. All the same, there’s one thing I want to know now: Are you certain he’s the murderer?”
“Certain!”
He pushed an ash-tray nearer me, then went on:
“No need to go over the many difficulties of this case: the number of people who went to Carol’s flat—the fog on the night of the murder—because you know all that. The basic fact in the whole situation was this: I had only one clue—a fingerprint on Carol’s bag. Nothing else. And it wasn’t necessarily certain that the fingerprint was the murderer’s.”
Pause.
“Well, we couldn’t take fingerprints of everyone who had known Carol—even assuming that we knew them all. But one fact was soon established: the fingerprint on her bag was not that of a known criminal.”
“Must have seemed rather hopeless, didn’t it?”
“It didn’t look too good. Anyhow, ordinary methods were out. So I decided to look for anything unusual—no matter how trivial, I discovered three unusual circumstances.”
“Was I one of them?”
“You were one of them. You knew the electric fire was on in Carol’s room, although that fact had not been mentioned in the press. Also, the second time you came to my office, you said that several statements you had made at our first meeting were untrue.”
Almost immediately, he went on:
“Of course, it was possible that someone had told you about the electric fire, but I checked up and it did not seem probable.”
“What was the second unusual circumstance?”
“This was the second: There was something strange about the purchase of Enigma at a high price—for cash. Also, no one knew who had bought the picture. I know that the dealer who had sold it died soon after the sale, but, all the same, there was something peculiar about the whole transaction.”
Pause.
“You can guess how I discovered that the picture had been bought for cash. That certainly was unusual. Phipps had not had a partner, so I could find out no more, but I knew I’d got something which would fit into the final pattern—if a final pattern were ever assembled.”
“And the third unusual circumstance?”
“This one will interest you. You knew that the electric fire was on, but you did not know that Carol’s bag was under a chair in the hall. What’s more, its contents were in the devil of a mess.”
“That’s why you asked if Carol was a tidy person.”
“It’s why I asked if Carol was an exceptionally tidy person. It was very interesting when you told me that you’d be surprised if you found anything of hers—say, a drawer—in a state of muddle.”
He lit another cigarette.
“Now the fact that her bag was in a mess may seem a trifle, but the men who examined Carol’s flat were impressed by the extraordinary tidiness of everything—clothes, stockings, linen—everything! Every single thing had its place, and every single thing was in its place. So it seemed peculiar that her bag was in a muddle. And had a fingerprint on it.”
“That’s why you were interested when I told you that Carol kept that drawing in her bag.”
“Very interested—especially as the drawing had gone, and you thought it unlikely that she’d sold it or lost it. But all this comes later.”
He broke off, then said:
“Don’t know about you, but I’d like some more coffee.”
“I always like more coffee.”
“That’s because you’ve lived abroad so much.”
“You certainly made inquiries. I shall get you to write my biography.”
“Your friend—Harcourt—is the man for that.”
When the coffee arrived, Haimes went on:
“Well, there I was—faced with three unusual circumstances. Then that Chelsea student committed suicide. It was possible he had killed Carol, but there wasn’t a shred of evidence one way or the other. So he became a question mark. It was at this point that I got stuck.”
He held out his left hand, then a finger shot upright as he said:
“Problem number one! Mr. Max Arnold who was—shall we say—an Enigma?”
“Yes, do say it! I’m getting quite used to it.”
Another finger shot upright.
“Problem number two! An unknown man bought Enigma for cash. Number three! Carol’s bag, with a fingerprint on it. Number four! The Chelsea student. And that’s all I’d got.”