'Certainly Inspector. At twelve-thirty or so I was extracting some forty pounds in cash from our poor father's safe. Thereafter I was in bed and fitfully asleep until I rose at about five. What is wrong with little Mary?'
'And may I ask if you were . . .' began Felix, then contemplating Stella, blissfully clinging to her spouse, he shook his head. 'In fact, no,' he said. 'We have enough now I think. Go ahead, Sergeant.'
Rattigan put away his notebook. 'Charles Douglas Drake,' he said. 'I'm arresting you for the attempted murder of Henry Vicenzi. You do not have to say anything but what you do say may be taken down and used in evidence.'
Drake looked uncomprehending. 'Is this some sort of trick?' he demanded. 'If so, it's in very poor taste.'
'What do you mean, attempted murder?' frowned Lewis. 'Did he or didn't he?'
'Heh heh,' said Mrs Entwistle. Unnoticed, she had discarded her stick and carpet bag and was now brandishing with some panache a Webley Mk VI service revolver.
There was a gasp from Mabel, who was nearest, and everyone retreated a step or two.
'Mrs Entwistle,' shouted Felix, 'kindly give me that please.'
Mrs Entwistle shook her head. 'First I'm goin' to shoot the bastard. Let me at 'im.'
Partially handcuffed, Drake tried desperately to hide behind Rattigan as Mrs Entwistle took careful aim and fired. There was a flash, a loud bang, and one or two screams. 'Take the thing off her, for pity's sake,' he cried, as she fired twice more before peering doubtfully down the barrel.
'Mrs Entwistle, the gun please.'
'Damned thing's not working,' complained Mrs Entwistle, and crossing the room she pressed it into the hands of a startled Dottie. 'You're a good girl,' she told her. 'Wait a minute and I'll find you sixpence.'
*
Lewis found Dottie in the garden with Dennis. 'I've been looking for you everywhere,' he complained.
Dottie held up the aeroplane. 'Final test flight,' she said. 'It can go into service now. She passed it to Dennis. 'Off you trot and get ready, sweetheart. We'll be leaving shortly.'
'Miss Pickles,' said Dennis. 'Shall I have my own room at the new house?'
'Yes, you shall, and there's an old shed in the garden you can use as a workshop. Run along now.'
'Wow!' said Dennis. 'Wait till I tell Dad!'
Lewis watched the boy run off before putting his arms around her. 'I haven't had a chance to thank you,' he said, 'for coming to my rescue like that. It was very brave of you.'
'I didn't do it for you,' said Dottie, surprised. 'I thought you realised that. Not that I wouldn't have, if the need had arisen. I did it for Stella.'
'Well yes. Stella too, naturally. Dottie—'
But reaching up, Dottie put her fingers to his lips. 'Lewis, you have many sterling qualities, and I do find you very attractive, but it wouldn't work, not you and me. I'm sorry.'
Lewis gazed at her sadly. 'It's the other thing, isn't it, with Stella?'
Dottie smiled. 'I'd find it hard to cope with that.' she admitted, 'much as I admire you for it. I hope it works out for you all.' She glanced towards the garage. 'And now I'm going to relieve you of one small boy and one butler, slightly damaged, and depart. Thank you for having me.'
Chapter Nine
Declining a cigarette, Felix offered his own. 'Have one of these, sir. I get them from Father-in-law. Hand-rolled.'
'Murads!' exclaimed Superintendent Polly. 'How the other half do live. What's he doing nowadays?'
'Still accounting. He's taken on a couple of local outfits, just to keep his hand in; not that he needs the money. The rest of the time he's up and down to the boat. They're thinking of moving to Dorset to be near it.'
'Hasn't managed to tempt you out yet?'
Felix pulled a face. 'The day will come, no doubt. Connie goes with him sometimes, though that will have to stop soon.'
'All right is she?'
'Blooming, thanks.'
Polly pulled the Vicenzi report towards him. 'I notice your murderers are getting older, Felix.'
'Yes, although I feel we've gone about as far in that direction as we decently can. I'll try to get you a younger one next time.'
'Means they won't hang her probably; of which I expect you approve.'
'They won't do that anyway. She's hopelessly confused and now believes Drake did it. We were a bit stuck on this one for a while, frankly. Finding the booby-trap and its perpetrator was essential of course, but neither I nor Rattigan ever quite believed it had killed Henry Vicenzi. Such precision from a gun lodged on a shelf seemed improbable in the extreme. If we were right about that, it could only mean that someone had picked the thing up and shot him in the normal way, skipping the bell circuit entirely. Only two people were in a position to do that: Esme Vicenzi and Olive Entwistle.
'Esme could easily have stayed in the study when Cedric fled, and if she had known in advance about the booby trap – had even set it herself – she might have decided to leave nothing to chance, pushing the solenoid aside and shooting her father there and then, especially given what he'd just said to her. With Curry occupying the cloakroom it seemed unlikely that she could have got away unseen, but she had no alibi and we could never have been entirely sure.
'In the case of Entwistle, she had only to walk in through the open garden-door, get behind Henry, grab the gun off the shelf and shoot him point blank before stepping outside again, turning around, and appearing to have just arrived. It was the work of moments, even for someone of her advanced years. She also had to know about the booby-trap, of course, but she often wandered about the house in the small hours and we're fairly sure she'd done so the previous night. She may even have arranged with Drake to let him in, although we have no evidence of that. More likely she spied on him while he was wiring the thing up, returning for a closer look when it started to get light. She had frequently expressed a desire to see Henry die and may not have wanted to be cheated out of it by Drake and his gadget.
'The problem was: which of those two did it, Esme Vicenzi or Entwistle? The answer lay in the torn-off newspaper page found under Henry's body. Why was it there? According to Esme, and we've confirmed this elsewhere, he didn't bother with the papers himself, preferring to have her read out items of possible interest to him, and that didn't include corsetry and nose straighteners. Then we twigged. Entwistle, who was not his favourite person, needed something to distract his attention. What do you do if someone slaps a newspaper down in front of you? You look at it, at least for a moment or two, to see what you are being asked to read. And that, fatally, is what he did. Esme would not have needed props of that kind. If she had walked round behind him, which she probably did daily, he would have assumed she was attempting to patch things up. "Daddy, I've been a fool. You know I'd never leave you." Then came the clincher: the piece of newspaper turned out to be from the home of Entwistle's friend Mrs Radcliffe – the lady she visited on the morning of the murder – and the rest of it was still there. The halves matched perfectly.
'Entwistle might not, of course, have thought of shooting Henry until this convenient opportunity presented itself, but given her extreme animosity towards him I rather guessed that she had. In any other circumstances she would have needed a gun of her own, and where was she going to get one? Probably she didn't know about Dennis's plaything, which in any case came with no ammunition, but she was aware that her eldest grandson possessed one, and as it never left its drawer she wasn't taking much risk in pinching it. Crucially, it still had three rounds in it. After the murder she would have done well to put it back, but perhaps she decided to keep it for her own protection. It wasn't difficult to search her things, she sleeps a lot during the day, and sure enough, there it was in her carpet bag. So with the help of Ida, the household's young tweeny, who had a little crush on Nash—'
'Not a good idea,' interrupted Polly. 'That fellow even scares me.'
Felix grinned. 'She's a skinny seventeen. I doubt she'd be very appealing to John. Anyway she brought him the
gun and slipped it back again when he'd replaced the cartridges with blanks. Thereafter, we awaited events — with gratifying results. Entwistle's attempt to shoot Drake proved rather conclusively that she could handle a gun and was prepared to use it, which given her age and mental state was quite important.
'Then there was Charles Drake. We quickly put him down as a pompous ass, which seems to have been the general opinion. He had, however, an obsession. His father had initially been the senior partner in Pumfreys, and in Drake's mind he had a moral right to this position, if not to the whole business. Henry had been trying to buy Drake out for years, making him more and more generous offers, but Drake refused to budge, biding his time until Henry died. He was, however, becoming impatient, and now he had to watch the next generation of Vicenzis taking up the reins, albeit reluctantly in Andrew's case.
'Neither brother was particularly well paid, but Andrew, with a wife to support, felt himself exploited and his suffering overlooked. Henry was impossible to negotiate with, so Andrew took steps to rectify this injustice in his own way. At first he was content to make up the perceived shortfall in his salary to something that seemed reasonable, but taking the money proved remarkably easy and soon he began to accumulate a substantial nest-egg. Far from being ignorant of this, Lewis, who was close to his brother and had felt protective towards him since the war, was perfectly well aware of what was going on and didn't know how to deal with it. He strongly disapproved of what Andrew was doing but wasn't prepared to inform on him. Sensing tension between them, Drake decided to strike. Perhaps he thought that with their father gone and with the business on its knees, they might clear off and leave him in possession. Naturally under his enlightened management it would rise, phoenix-like, from the ashes.
'Goodness knows what gave him the idea for the booby-trap, but probably he noticed the gun and solenoids while garaging or collecting his car. He was forever hanging about the Vicenzi household so had plenty of opportunity. It was quite an ingenious plan, I'll give him that, and with nothing much to go on, we were hard-pressed to discover just who had set the thing up. Drake didn't, of course, know about Entwistle's last-minute intervention, so it must have seemed to him he'd committed the perfect crime. We might suspect him, he reasoned, but mere suspicion wasn't enough. Like so many before him, however, he went too far. He'd long carried a torch for Esme Vicenzi, and having disposed of her father he now felt safe to pop the question. No doubt, given his character, he was amazed and humiliated to be roundly rejected. It was then, perhaps, that he lost his head, planting what he considered to be incriminating evidence in Lewis Vicenzi's office. Whatever Lewis's faults may be, he's not stupid, and we were immediately suspicious. Fortunately the lads found an unknown dab on one of the .455 rounds that Drake had put there. Rattigan immediately thought of Drake's rather disreputable cleaning lady — just the sort to poke about in someone's possessions when they're not at home. Turns out he'd kept them in an Oxo tin at the back of his sock drawer. What snooper could resist?'
'Foolish fellow. So would the thing actually have gone off, if Henry had pressed the button?'
'According to Ballistics, probably not. I've just come from there now. We do know he'd been researching it; he'd taken some books on electrical theory out of the library, so it was a serious attempt. Assuming they're right, only Entwistle can have shot Henry, but there's enough doubt about it to keep a defence barrister busy. While awaiting their report we had our own expert look into it and he pointed out that the solenoids in the scrap box had become unreliable, which is why they'd been replaced. It's possible the one Drake used might have done the job but it would be near-impossible to prove.'
'What expert is that?' said Polly. 'I didn't know we had one.'
'Young fellow named Dennis Jessup. He'll go far, that boy. His mother's rather special too. Stepmother, I should say. George Jessup is a lucky man.'
The End
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The Curious Death of Henry J. Vicenzi (The Inspector Felix Mysteries Book 5) Page 13