Had he been pressed, Brendel would have admitted that he was talking merely for the sake of saying something, and in order to give the four friends time to collect themselves, and in this attempt he was successful.
Charles Sandham had broken first, and he had collapsed more completely than any of the others; but he was also the first to recover. Perhaps his long years of legal training came to his assistance; perhaps the remarks of the Inspector had given him the hint which he needed to plan his defence; certainly Brendel’s quiet voice and warning against precipitancy had helped to pull him together. He lifted his head from his hands and began to speak. Once he had begun, his confidence seemed to return to him more and more with every sentence.
‘Inspector,’ he said, ‘as a lawyer I feel bound to support and confirm what Dr Brendel has just said. If you allow yourself to think of four attempted murders you will have no sort of a case at all. You have too many suspects, and really you have no shred of evidence against any of them which a court would accept. True, an action might be brought against Mr Gradon for breaking into the hotel through Mr Barrick’s window for an illicit purpose, but you must remember that Mr Gradon himself was a guest in the hotel and that it was New Year’s night. You would, in my judgement, be laughed out of court. And I should be in no way surprised if it appeared in evidence that Mr Barrick half expected some such joke to be played on him, and that he probably left his own bedroom just in order to confound the practical joker and catch him out. The two are great friends, you know, Inspector.’
Toby Barrick was quick-witted, and he saw at once the advantages of the line of defence which his partner was suggesting.
‘Why, yes,’ he said, ‘I’m not very keen on Pier’s practical jokes, for he’s apt to carry them a bit far, but in this case I believe that my evidence would have to tell entirely in his favour. I’m not at all clear about the details of everything that passed during a rather riotous night, but I remember that every sort of mad scheme was proposed at one time or another – a fancy-dress dance and a great many drinks tend to make you do odd things – things which appear quite irrational next morning.’
Charles Sandham nodded approvingly. ‘And of course,’ he went on, ‘I can easily understand Toby wandering into my room and playing the fool with my dagger. Why, I seem to remember – it’s just come back to my mind – his coming into the office and playing about with it in just that very way. Don’t you remember, Toby? You came in and picked it up and talked all sorts of nonsense about cinquecento Italy and the crimes that the dagger might have been used for. You put on a grand scene, full of imagination. I rather fancy that you pretended to plunge it a couple of times into my curtains, and I had to stop you to save them from being slashed. What a romantic actor you’d have made if you had gone on the stage. We thought it all good fun at the time, and laughed a great deal about it. Do you remember?’
‘Yes, of course I do. A dagger like that, when it’s always lying on your desk, is bound to stimulate the imagination,’ corroborated Toby.
‘Somehow, Inspector,’ Sandham went on, ‘I seem to see any case against Mr Barrick breaking down on my evidence, and what other witnesses can there be?
‘And what about you, Evelyn?’ he continued. ‘Am I in any sort of danger from you, even if the police did find me in your room with a revolver in my hand? To me the whole story sounds fantastic, for it must be ridiculous to suppose that I was meditating any mischief against my oldest friend. I suppose that I’m rather old to be fooling about in that way even on New Year’s night, and I should, I admit, look ridiculous if I had to give evidence – but being ridiculous is not the same as being accused of attempted murder.’
Evelyn Bannister’s calculating mind had already summed up the situation, and he had come to the conclusion that the only line of safety was the one which Sandham had indicated. Nevertheless, he did not smile as he replied.
‘Perfectly ridiculous; just as ridiculous as all that nonsense which you were talking just now about blackmail. I can only suppose that you were trying to lead the Inspector up the garden path or else that you were trying to have an elaborate leg-pull on me. But I must say that jokes of that type seem to me in rather poor taste. I don’t think it was necessary to carry the matter so far as to talk nonsense about blackmail. But bad taste or not, I am prepared to swear that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, you were just playing a practical joke on me when you came round brandishing that revolver in my room.’
‘There is such a thing as perjury,’ said Riley.
‘Which is most difficult to prove,’ added Sandham, especially when the witnesses are suspect, or so at least my experience tells me. But about you, Piers – ’
He paused for a moment, and for the first time since he had begun to sketch out the line of defence his voice betrayed his anxiety. ‘I suppose that in your case we may assume – ’
Piers Gradon’s fist crashed on the table. ‘Suppose be damned,’ he shouted. ‘You can say what you will about your own movements, but I’ll see you all to hell before I loose up on the man who left that poison on my table. If your finger-prints are on that box, Evelyn, I’ll break you whatever it costs me. Publish and be damned is what I say to the whole pack of you. Let’s have the truth and stop play-acting.’
For a moment it seemed that Charles Sandham’s elaborate defence of the four friends was about to collapse, but Brendel intervened once more to assist him.
‘Forgive me for meddling again,’ he said, ‘but I do think that this question needs very careful consideration. I can well understand your indignation, Gradon, and of course you are fully justified in wishing to exact reparation for this attempt that was apparently to have been made on your life. But I remind you of two things. In the first place this attempt at poisoning is only an allegation, based, so far, on the flimsiest evidence. There is perhaps some explanation of the presence of the pill-box which we have not yet heard, and I should want to know with certainty that the pills did contain poison before I built much on it. In the second place, there are ladies, or rather a lady, concerned in the affair, and surely any hasty disclosures or publicity would be most unpleasant for Miss Dahlia Constant. Do you see what I mean?’
It is very doubtful if Piers did see the implication, but it was quite certain that Charles Sandham did, and he was not slow to take his cue.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Brendel is quite right, as you, I hope, will agree, if you use your imagination. If, indeed, all the events of last night come into a blaze of publicity, it will be extraordinarily unpleasant for Dahlia Constant, and even perhaps for you. I’m only guessing, of course, but what sort of impression will be made if it appears that you were rejected by Dahlia and, in a fit of pique, you planned an assault on the rival whom she had preferred to you?’
‘That’s a damned lie,’ said Piers. ‘I don’t care a brass farthing for Dahlia, and she never rejected me, as you put it, because she never had the chance to do so.’
Sandham knew that, whereas a hint was sufficient for either of his other two friends, it was necessary to put things in the plainest way to Piers Gradon if he was to understand them.
‘That, my dear fellow, may well be true,’ said Sandham in his suavest tones, ‘but we have to consider not what the truth is, but what impression is going to be made on a gullible public. ‘Do believe me when I tell you that affairs of this kind sound horribly sordid when they are discussed in court. A clever examining counsel would, I fear, make your conduct appear in an unpleasant light. Unless I am much mistaken he would make most members of a jury believe that you had planned a murderous assault on Toby because he had been preferred to you by the lady. I don’t want to seem rude, but I do fear that in cross-examination you might cut a baddish figure, and might even appear rather ridiculous. And the newspaper publicity would be sheer hell for you.’
He was watching Piers very closely as he spoke, and seemed to detect that he made some impression. In fact, the two chief traits in Piers’s character pulled him in o
pposite directions. His desire for revenge, and preferably a violent revenge, reinforced his obstinacy; his consuming vanity shrank from the disclosures which would be inevitable in court. Could he bear to have it broadcast that his own advances had been repulsed in favour of a man whom he despised? He was, too, uneasily conscious of the fact that, in spite of his disclaimer, he had in truth though not in words been rejected by Dahlia, and that he had taken his failure hard.
‘I think you must consider your own reputation and your future career as well as Miss Constant’s feelings,’ Sandham went on slowly. ‘And perhaps I might suggest to you a thought which has just come into my mind. Your mask and the cosh and your climb up the fire-escape all seem to suggest the idea of a burglary. Did you not hear some rumours of this new burglar alarm, and did you not, perhaps, go climbing outside the hotel to test it out? Something of that sort it must surely have been?’
Piers hesitated just long enough for Sandham to know that his cause was won. Grudgingly came the surrender. ‘It may possibly have been that,’ said Piers between his teeth.
All at once tension seemed to be relaxed, and Sandham more then ever appeared as the confident and experienced lawyer, offering his advice to less-gifted persons.
‘My dear Inspector,’ he said, ‘it really seems as though all your suspicions – natural though they were in the circumstances – were ill-founded. You know, you have too many suspects, and no evidence against any one of them. Can you really bring a case for attempted murder, or even of assault, against four different people, and can you find a shred of evidence in any of the four cases? Of course you can’t. Believe me, I’m advising you for your own good. Besides, no crime has been committed. Should we not do well to forget this conversation – which, I remind you, was off the record – and let it be known that all the alarms of last night were the outcome of some practical joking, for we are all agreed, are we not, that that is the truth of the matter? I feel certain that the hotel management would welcome the passing of a sponge over the whole affair, and I don’t disguise from you that we four, who are all men of substance and reputation, would very much dislike the publicity which any further inquiry might bring – however convinced we are that such an inquiry would end in exactly nothing. And your superiors, Inspector, would they be altogether pleased if you started proceedings which must, I do assure you, end in a fiasco? Is it not the only right, and indeed the only possible, policy to let the whole matter be forgotten now that you have heard our very frank explanations?’
The Inspector knew just as well as Sandham how weak his case would be, but he was an obstinate man with a real sense of justice, and he did not mean to yield without a struggle.
‘I do not agree,’ he said. ‘If, for example, the pill-box carries the finger-prints of a member of your party, there will be a case to be put to the Public Prosecutor, whatever Mr Gradon’s wishes in the matter may be. Besides – ’
The Brigadier had sat silent throughout the whole conversation, but he now could contain himself no longer.
‘Stop, Inspector,’ he cried. ‘I forbid you to go further with this inquiry. Let me remind you that the Magnifico is a National Institution, and that any danger to its reputation can only be regarded as a national loss. Four murders attempted in one night at the Magnifico! No, it is not possible. You must put an end to your investigations. I forbid you to carry on.’
The Inspector rose to his feet with a sort of clumsy dignity.
‘That, sir,’ he said, ‘is not within your competence. You asked for my assistance here, but that gives you no right to order me to drop my investigations if they lead somewhere you had not wished. I shall not continue my inquiries here and now, for that would be useless; but I must report to my superior officers, and it will be for them to decide what further action shall be taken. Though what I shall be conniving at if nothing is done,’ he added bitterly and half to himself, ‘I do not like to think.’
As he reached the door he turned towards the four friends and delivered his parting shot.
‘I cannot,’ he said, ‘wish you a happy New Year with any confidence, nor a happy holiday either, nor even a good game of golf. Maybe you’ll be playing foursomes. I should, if I were you, for there’s safety in numbers, or so they say.’
Chapter Ten
Brendel stopped his story abruptly and smiled at his three listeners.
‘Well?’ he said. ‘Is anyone going to offer me another whisky and soda?’
‘The decanter is empty,’ Prendergast replied, ‘but I think that it is still possible to gratify your wish. The bust of the Founder is aesthetically distressing though tradition says that it is a good likeness. Be that how it may, the bust has proved very useful because a spare bottle is always concealed behind it, in order that we can deal with emergencies like this.’
He got up and fetched a bottle of whisky from its hiding-place, but when he had mixed Brendel a drink he administered a mild reproof.
‘Which you do not deserve,’ he said as he handed him the glass, ‘for you have practised a deception on us. A murder story without a murder is unworthy of you.’
‘Oh, come,’ Brendel protested, ‘you forced me to tell you a story about the detection of crime, and I gave way to you. There was nothing in the contract about committing a murder. You dons are terribly bloodthirsty.’
‘I was disappointed, too,’ said the General, ‘but for a rather different reason. You undertook to tell us – or rather we persuaded you to tell us – a story which illustrated your theory of pre-detection, and I expected to hear about a dazzling triumph of the detective’s art. Instead, as it seems to me, you happened upon a crime, or rather a series of crimes, and by a fortunate chance they failed to come off. Supposing that Gradon had not climbed through the window and thus set off the burglar alarm, one murder at least would have been committed – for Bannister, at any rate, would have poisoned his nephew, even if Sandham and Barrick had funked murder at the last moment. Honestly I think you were lucky – wouldn’t you have been some sort of an accessory before the act, or whatever the legal phrase is, if chance had not saved you? I still think, as I said much earlier, that you ought to have stepped in early on and warned off the intending murderers, and that you took a damned unreasonable risk in letting the case run. Think of all this Burgess and Maclean stuff that we’re always reading about. They were allowed to run on after suspicion had been aroused, and a fine mess everyone made of it. Of course if they’d not got away, but had been quietly picked up at a convenient moment, everyone would have said how efficient our security was and how skilfully it worked; but as things turned out it proved a blunder. That’s only the view of an old soldier, and I dare say that I’m lacking in appreciation for the finer points of your method, but “them’s my sentiments”. What do you think, Gresham?’
‘Well, I confess that I thought that Brendel was going to explain to us how he had “pre-detected” a crime in all its details before it occurred, and how he had either prevented it or at least put his hands on the criminal five minutes after the crime was committed, and to that extent I’m disappointed. But I know Brendel of old, and I wonder whether he really let this case run, as you describe it, quite as we have been led to suppose. Am I right, Brendel, in my guess?’
Brendel laughed. ‘Yes, thank you, Gresham, for this vote of confidence – even though it sounds a little half-hearted. I see that no one will sing my praises, so I must needs blow my own trumpet. May I tell you a little bit more about that evening? I think if I do that the General may perhaps judge me less hardly.
‘Very well, then. You’ll remember that I went down to dinner with suspicions of all the four, and that I determined to watch them all closely. The more I thought about Piers Gradon the more convinced I became that he had not got it in him to plan the sort of prepared murder which I could prevent. He might, indeed, assault someone when he was in his cups, and he might go further than he intended – but I couldn’t do anything about that. So I ruled him out of my considerations.
His behaviour later in the evening, I think, shows that I was in the main right, but I cannot believe that he intended murder when he invaded Toby Barrick’s room. A common and rather brutal assault was what was in his mind. That left me with the other three, and I decided quite clearly and firmly that Charles Sandham was the one on whom I must concentrate. Oh yes, I know that Prendergast will say that I was fooled by Bannister, and that he was clearly the most dangerous. Perhaps I was, but still I can justify my choice of Sandham. Two reasons made me pitch on him as the key man. First, I must admit that though my main object was to prevent a crime, I was also keenly alive to my responsibilities vis-à-vis my old friend Mary Sandham. I felt that, if at all possible, I must prevent any mischief from happening to her husband. After all, I’d really promised, so to speak, to look after him. But there was another reason. Sandham was linked with Toby Barrick, Sandham was linked also with Bannister; whilst between Bannister and Barrick there was no link whatever. If, therefore, I watched Sandham all the time I was also able to – what’s your curious phrase? – yes, to keep tabs on the other two. And that is what I did. From about one o’clock onwards Sandham was never out of my sight, though I flatter myself that he was unconscious of it, and, as I told you, when he went to bed I concealed myself as a sort of sentry in the corridor.’
‘Good,’ said the General, ‘I withdraw my criticism. I begin to see that you were not so wedded to inaction as I had supposed. But why didn’t you stop Sandham when he came out of his room?’
‘I figured it out like this. If anyone came to Sandham’s room I should intervene at once. As it happened he came out himself, and I followed him up to the moment when I saw him knock on Bannister’s door. I knew him well enough to be sure that if he was going to commit a murder, or suicide for that matter, he wouldn’t do it quickly. He was always the actor, and I knew he’d have his final scene and that he’d play it out with gusto. Charles Sandham wasn’t going to shoot before he’d delivered his final speech! Still, I was not going to take any unnecessary risks; granted that I had ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to play with, I was going to play safe and allow myself only five.’
The Case of the Four Friends Page 18