by Tim Heald
Milborn Port held up the now empty Pommery bottle and waved it in the direction of the waitress. Another arrived swiftly and Wimbledon and Molly Mortimer split the cost despite mumbled protestation from Bognor.
‘You forget, darling,’ said Molly, ‘that unless you are a homicidal maniac which is a possibility that we can’t rule out altogether, particularly in Fleet Street after the pubs have closed, then you need a motive for killing people and I don’t see that any of us by any conceivable stretch of imagination could possible have a motive for killing St John.’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ said Milborn, who had a reputation for becoming irritatingly arch under the influence of drink.
‘You may need a motive but it can seem jolly flimsy to the outside eye. Knew a chap in the Gurkhas who killed someone because of BO.’
‘BO?’ Molly looked scandalized.
‘Never washed under his arms or changed his socks and he had the next bed. Hacked him to death with a kukri. He got off.’ He drank deeply and realized that he hadn’t fully explained himself. ‘There was a war on,’ he said.
‘I suppose Gringe had a motive,’ said Wimbledon. ‘He’d always wanted to run the column and St John obviously wasn’t going to resign so perhaps he thought the only way to get the job for himself was to kill him.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Molly forcefully. ‘Eric is one of nature’s number twos and he knows it. Besides I don’t believe he has the strength, let alone the nerve, to kill anyone with a knife. It’s inconceivable.’
‘There was a time, wasn’t there, Molly, when you were on, shall I say rather closer terms with St John, than you had been recently?’ Milborn, Bognor realized, was stirring. He judged that it was something he enjoyed doing.
‘Oh really,’ she said, ‘you know bloody well that’s a ridiculous thing to say. About fifteen years ago when I first joined the paper I occasionally went out to dinner with him, or once or twice to the theatre.’
‘I understood you used to go to Paris for weekends.’
‘Oh for God’s sake. We once met in Paris quite by accident when he was doing the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe for the paper and I was stopping over after a holiday in St Trop. That was all. You men, you’re all the same. Anyway what sort of motive does that give me? I’d hardly kill the old thing just because I went out with him once or twice in the dim and distant past. Would I? Be fair.’
She was very irritated. Bognor deflected attention.
‘What about you Milborn?’ he asked. ‘Don’t you have a motive?’
‘What, me? No. I’ve never had a motive in my life. Totally impulsive I am. Nevertheless I dare say young Willy has one. Maybe Molly was right. Maybe St. John had been making improper advances, eh?’
Milborn, at least after a few drinks, was undoubtedly a mischief maker. On the other hand, Bognor conceded, Viscount Wimbledon was quite pretty enough to have excited the attention of an old pederast, if pederast he was.
‘You know perfectly well,’ he said, ‘that my interests in sex are entirely conventional.’
‘Precisely,’ said Milborn. ‘No doubt you found St John’s attentions so distasteful that you felt compelled to knife him between the ribs.’
Bognor was beginning to find the conversation a strain.
‘What we’re all forgetting,’ he said placidly, ‘is that in order to commit a crime you need opportunity as well as motive. If it turns out that you were all safely tucked up in bed in the small hours of this morning then it doesn’t matter what sort of motive you might have had. If on the other hand you were rampaging about the city with no proper alibi then the absence of motive isn’t going to impress the police. Once you’ve proved a murder it’s surprising how easily a motive crops up just where no one was expecting it.’
‘That lets me out anyway,’ said Port. ‘I went home early, had a few jars at the club and so to bed.’
‘What time?’
‘What time what?’
‘Did you leave the club and go home?’
‘About eleven. May be a bit earlier.’
‘And got home when?’
‘About ten minutes later. It’s not far.’
‘By car?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did anyone hear you come in?’
‘My wife and I have separate rooms. I try not to wake her when I’m in late. She usually goes to bed early.’
‘So even if she did wake she would be unlikely to notice the time?’
It was Milborn Port’s turn to bridle. ‘Look, exactly what are you getting at?’
‘I’m simply trying to demonstrate the flimsiness of the average cast-iron alibi. Would she have noticed the time?’
‘Probably not.’
‘And where do you live?’
‘Stoke Poges.’
‘And what sort of car do you drive?’
‘Jaguar. Second hand.’
‘Well there you are then.’
‘Where?’
Molly Mortimer laughed a little too humourlessly. ‘In the dock in a second, Milborn darling. What Simon has just proved, rather adroitly if I may say so, is that it would have been perfectly possible for you to drive from your club golf club I take it straight to the Globe, carry out the dastardly deed and drive home to bed without your wife suspecting anything. In other words your alibi’s collapsed.’
‘That’s ridiculous. I was devoted to the old boy.’
‘That’s not the point,’ said Viscount Wimbledon, ‘nobody’s saying you did it. All Simon’s proved is that you had the opportunity to do it.’
‘Bloody silly if you ask me,’ said Milborn, pouring himself another glass and ostentatiously neglecting the others. At which disintegrating point in the meeting they were saved by the bell.
‘Telephone call for Mr Port,’ said the waitress breathlessly.
‘No need to ask what that’s about,’ he said. ‘Granny Gringe calling for her straying flock.’ He hurried to the telephone which was near the front door, while the others finished their drinks.
‘That was very naughty, Simon,’ said Molly. ‘He didn’t enjoy it.’
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Copyright © 1973, 1974, 2002 by Tim Heald
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