The Affair of the Mutilated Mink

by James Anderson

  'Yes, indeed,' Allgood went on. 'Nasty things, murder trials. Unpleasant for all concerned. Always a chance, too, of the prisoner getting off on a technicality. If not, hanging. Messy business. So, in a way, good thing he had that gun of mine, after all, eh?' Allgood gave a short, forced laugh.

  'Perhaps Lady Geraldine wouldn't think so, sir.'

  'Maybe not. But all's well that ends well. Good shot of yours. Unfortunately, I was out of reach of a gun myself, watching from a gallery window. But I had every confidence in you.'

  'Very good of you, sir.'

  'Not at all. Had from the start, of course. And realised you'd had quite a bit longer to work on the case than I, and were probably close to cracking it. So let you get on with it. Put on a bit of a show, false accusations and all that, in order to distract attention from you and your investigations.'

  'Thank you, sir.'

  'I, er, suppose you'll be making a statement to the press?'

  'No doubt, sir. And you needn't worry. I've no intention of grabbing all the glory. I'll see you get full credit, just as though we were equal partners.'

  'Ah. Yes. Very good. Er, thank you.' He looked at his watch. 'Well, must be getting back to London. Heavy case load waiting. It's been a very, um, interesting investigation.'

  'I'll make sure you get a copy of my report, sir. And that your Commissioner does, too.'

  'Oh, I don't really think there's any need to trouble—'

  'No trouble, sir. I'm sure my Chief will want one sent. They're old friends, I understand.'

  'Oh, I see.' Allgood gave a sickly grin. 'That'll be something to look forward to, then. Now I really must leave. Chalky's waiting outside with the car. Bye, er, old man.'

  He went hurriedly out. Wilkins shook his head and gave a sigh. 'Three Great A's, indeed!' he said aloud. 'Reckon he coined that himself. He's not in the same class as Mr Appleby or Mr Alleyn.'

  * * *

  Just as Allgood departed, Merryweather entered. 'His lordship's compliments, sir, and would you care to join him in the library for some refreshment?'

  'Ah, come in, my dear fellow.' Lord Burford got to his feet. 'Toddle over to the fire and sit down. We want a full explanation of this extraordinary business.'

  'We', apart from the Earl himself, consisted of Rex, Hugh — a quite different Hugh, with a cheerful expression and a face flushed as a result of both a hot bath and the stream of thanks and compliments which had been showered upon him — and Ann.

  'Very well, my lord, if you insist.' Wilkins sat down and stretched out his feet to the blazing fire.

  The Earl pressed a glass of whisky into his hand. 'Now start talking.'

  'Right, my lord. But let me say first that with both Carter and Miss Lorenzo dead, a great deal has to be surmised or inferred. The main outline's clear enough, but a lot of the minor details can only be guessed at.'

  Ann said, 'But don't keep saying "I imagine" and "perhaps" and so on. Just give us the most likely outline, as though you actually knew all the facts.'

  Wilkins collected his thoughts. 'I suppose the first thing to say is that Paul Carter was a professional villain of the nastiest sort. For years now he's been living by his wits, mostly off women. This case started about six years ago when he went to northern Italy to climb the Matterhorn. While he was there he met a girl called Gina Foscari. She was a nice girl, and she invited him home to meet her parents. Mr and Mrs Foscari took to him as well, and asked him to stay. They were a pleasant, middle-class family, not especially well-off. Virtually their only valuable possessions were some jewels, which had been in the family for several generations, and which eventually would have been Gina's.

  'I needn't go into the story in detail, but one day the girl and Carter just disappeared, together with the jewels. Two weeks later the girl's body was found. She'd fallen from the third floor balcony of a hotel where she and Carter had been staying as man and wife. There was no sign of Carter, nor of the jewels. It was never known whether he'd pushed Gina off, or simply abandoned her and she'd killed herself. Mr Foscari had to identify the body. The shock was too much for him. He had a heart attack and died a day or two later.

  'Carter, of course, hadn't given the Foscaris his real name. Moreover, he'd told them he was American. Police inquiries were therefore directed across the Atlantic and were naturally unsuccessful.

  'The relevance of all this is that Mr and Mrs Foscari were the uncle and aunt of Laura Lorenzo. She was very close to them, and had been to Gina. Her own parents were dead and she had no brothers or sisters, so it was a personal tragedy for her. Now, it so happened that she had met Carter briefly, having paid the Foscaris a flying visit while he was staying with them.'

  Rex said, 'So when she turned up here, he recognised her.'

  'Not at first, sir. She hadn't made her reputation in those days. She was just a fairly small-time actress, and it's probable she was introduced to him by her family name, Laura Lorenzo being a stage name. Also, I imagine she's changed her appearance - hair style and so on - quite a lot since then. On the other hand, however, she herself did have an excellent memory for faces.

  'Years passed. Then six or eight weeks ago, The Londoner magazine carried a highly complimentary article on Miss Lorenzo. Her London agent sent her a copy. In the society pages I here was a photograph of Carter and Lady Geraldine at a charity ball.'

  'And she recognised him from that?' Ann said.

  'Not positively, miss. If she had, I think she'd have notified the police immediately. My belief is that she wanted a chance to study him closely and at length, in order to be quite sure. Mr Haggermeir's visit here gave her the opportunity. She arranged for that phoney telegram to be sent to her and just turned up here, knowing she'd almost certainly be invited to stay. She knew there was a good chance Carter would be staying here as well; but if he wasn't, she could no doubt make friends with Lady Geraldine and meet Carter later through her. Well, at first she was lucky. He had been invited. Things, though, didn't go quite as she'd anticipated. She convinced herself that Carter was the man she was looking for, but she was put off by the fact that she also recognised Mr Turner, though wasn't able to place him. He denied knowing her, but she was certain. He was here under a false name and was therefore quite probably a villain. She must have asked herself if there could be any connection between him and Carter: had she years ago seen them together?

  'Something else that bothered her was Mr Haggermeir's strange coolness. She'd expected him to be overjoyed at the prospect of signing her up. We know, of course, that her arrival embarrassed him intensely, because he actually had no intention of making a film here. Nevertheless, it must have been a blow to her ego. We must remember that she was first and foremost a professional actress. Although she came here to trace her cousin's killer, signing with Mr Haggermeir would probably be the necessary concomitant to that. It was going to be a big step to take. Hence her interest in the script, and in Mr Gilbert's attitude to adapting it, was quite genuine.

  'I think it's possible that a further factor which unsettled her was uncertainty about Lady Geraldine: she didn't know if her ladyship was another of Carter's potential victims (in which case she ought to be warned against him); or if, on the other hand, she might conceivably be a partner in crime. According to Sergeant Leather, Mrs Turner told them yesterday that Miss Lorenzo questioned her quite closely about Lady Geraldine's past brushes with the law.

  As a result of all these doubts and questions, Miss Lorenzo dithered about what to do next. Then sometime on Saturday, probably around lunchtime, Carter recognised her. We can never know how — the odd giveaway word, the chance meeting of eyes. Perhaps, for all we know, she actually came out in the open: identified herself by her real name, and challenged Carter. But in whatever way it happened, she'd effectively signed her death warrant. He was playing for the biggest stakes of his life. For over a year he'd been exerting all his charm on Lady Geraldine, a lady who - begging your pardon, my lord - will one day inherit a huge fortune. And he beli
eved he was on the point of winning her. Nothing, not the merest hint of a scandal, even if no crime could be proved against him, could be allowed to stand in his way. Whatever the risk, Miss Lorenzo had to be silenced.'

  Wilkins drained his glass.

  Lord Burford said, 'Well, that's all fascinating, Wilkins. But how did he do it, and when? How did he manage to convince you and Allgood that he was innocent?'

  'He never convinced me, your lordship. I was careful never to say I thought him innocent - only, for example, that I believed him when he claimed that things weren't as they seemed, and that when he entered Miss Lorenzo's room a few minutes before he was found standing by the body, she was already dead. Actually, I was quite certain of his guilt within two minutes of the start of my first conversation with him.'

  'Two minutes?' Rex exclaimed. 'You mean he gave himself away somehow?'

  'Not in the sense you mean, sir.'

  'But then how?'

  Wilkins leant back in his chair. 'It's like this. I'm a simple sort of fellow. When I hear that a man's been found standing over a body with the murder weapon in his hand, my overwhelming instinct is that he's guilty. In fact, in the dozens of murder cases I've investigated, and the hundreds I've read about, I've never heard of one in which a person found in such a situation was innocent. Therefore I arrived here with a strong predisposition that Carter was the murderer. Of course, it was just possible that he'd been framed. But to be framed for a crime in such a way, a person would have to be very stupid or naive. Two minutes' conversation with him, however, showed me that he was neither, and I was then certain that he'd been found in that incriminating position only because he'd wanted to be. Great Scott, nobody planning a frame-up would arrange such a haphazard one as this one was supposed to be. A dozen things could have gone wrong. How could it be known that when Carter or anybody else came along the corridor and found the pistol on the floor that they'd be alone, that somebody else wouldn't be in the corridor at the same time? What certainty could there be that he'd actually pick up the gun and obligingly step into Miss Lorenzo's room, and t hen allow himself to be pushed in the back, without seeing the pusher? No, it's the stuff of mystery stories, not real life. And Carter, I found out, was a great fan of whodunits.

  'Having come to this conclusion, I saw the case as fairly straightforward: my only job was to nail him. I doubted it would be possible to get cast-iron proof, so what I had to do was provide strong circumstantial evidence - firstly by showing how he could have done it and secondly by discovering a motive. That was why I perhaps seemed half-hearted in questioning the other guests. I knew none of them was guilty, just as I knew that the other strange incidents were either camouflage or completely irrelevant. They could be looked into eventually, if necessary, but they weren't of the first importance.'

  Hugh asked, 'But if you were so sure of Carter's guilt, why did you want Scotland Yard called in?'

  'It was really a question of my Chief Constable, sir. Now he's a first-rate man, an officer and a gentleman. But to tell you the truth, he's not exactly very imaginative. I didn't think he'd believe for a moment in a man having framed himself. I didn't have the nerve to put it to him until I was able to make out a very good case for it. I needed time to do two things: first, to look into Carter's background and circumstances, and to a lesser extent into Miss Lorenzo's, to try and find some link between them; second, to work out just how Carter had done it. The delay caused by the calling in of the Yard gave me just the breathing space I needed. I was confident Mr Allgood would see the case in the same light as I did and play along with me. But,' Wilkins looked sad, 'he didn't, and I had to go my own way. At first my main worry that he might actually arrest Carter straightaway, which was the last thing I wanted. Fortunately, however, he came to the quite erroneous conclusion that Carter was innocent.'

  'Why would it have been so bad if he had arrested Carter?' Lord Burford asked.

  'Because we'd have had to release him again. I was sure that he had a trick up his sleeve. Evidence was about to turn up which was seemingly going to prove he was innocent. I'd expected, from the fact that the mink was missing, that this evidence might involve the coat. And I was right, though Carter also had two other pieces of back-up evidence, just to be on the safe side.'

  The Earl stood up and started to replenish glasses.

  'Well, no doubt I'm dense, but I don't see why he had to go to the trouble of framing himself at all. Why not just bump her off and have done with it?'

  Ann said, 'I think I have a glimmering. Was it that by being the first one to be suspected, albeit for false reasons, he could be the first one to be cleared?'

  'That's it, Miss. You see, if we - the police - had arrived here and found a murdered woman and no leads to the identity of the killer, we would immediately have started checking up on all the guests, searching for a possible motive. We'd have looked into their backgrounds, sought a previous connection with Miss Lorenzo, investigated their financial situation, and so on. And it was vital to Carter that he not be put through such a probe. Firstly, although he'd made himself out to be well off, we'd have discovered that he was up to his ears in debt and was seriously overdrawn, which the bank had been pressing him about. It's true he did inherit quite a substantial sum from his grandfather, but he got through that years ago. We'd have immediately become suspicious, inquired into any sources of income he'd had, and who knows what we'd have turned up? He'd have been a major suspect, his movements would have been gone into minutely, and eventually - though it would have taken some time — we'd probably have discovered he was in northern Italy at the time Laura's cousin died.

  'At all costs, he had to avoid that. He had to convince the police he was innocent. And the only way he could do that was to make it appear certain he'd been framed. Thereafter, everybody else in the house would be under suspicion and would have their backgrounds investigated - except, obviously, the victim of the frame-up.'

  Lord Burford nodded slowly. 'I see . . . I think.'

  Hugh said, 'Now, what I want to know most of all is how he did it. I thought he had an alibi for the time of the murder. Did Laura really die just after she entered her room, after all?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Hugh banged the arm of his chair. 'But, Wilkins, he was out with Gerry then, four miles from here. I saw him.'

  Wilkins gave a smile of deep satisfaction. 'There are two things which everybody overlooked: the geography of this area; and the fact that Carter was an Olympic three thousand meters steeplechaser.' He looked round. 'The point at which he supposedly ran out of petrol is indeed about four miles from here by road. In a straight line it's no more than a mile away.'

  It was Rex's face which was the first to clear. 'For crying out loud, you mean he ran it?'

  Wilkins beamed at him. 'Precisely, sir.'

  Hugh said, 'Ye gods! So simple. But the petrol . . .'

  'He had a full can in back of the car, sir. Of course, he didn't actually run out at that point, but he no doubt arranged things so that the tank was very low.'

  'So Turner didn't siphon fuel from Carter's car into my motor-bike, after all?'

  'No, sir, from his own car. Anyway, Carter walked back sixty yards towards the village, then climbed a gate into a field, left the can of fuel under a hedge, slipped into a pair of running shoes, and started off. There's a straight run of about three quarters of a mile across flat fields to the wall surrounding the park. He had a key to that door in the wall — I found it on a marked tab in his pocket - and then it was just another quarter mile to the house. He arrived just before the rest of the party got home. With a powerful flashlight it would have taken him no more than six or seven minutes all told. He scaled the drainpipe - remember he was a skilled climber — which took perhaps another minute. The lady arrived almost immediately. He shot her, stripped off her coat, and cut the fur partly away round the bullet hole - only being very careful, apparently, to mess up the job and leave some blood on the coat. Then he cut out the other holes and
burnt the pieces. That was the trap he set for us.'

  'Which Allgood fell into,' said Rex.

  'Well, it was a very clever trick, sir; but I'm afraid when I said as much, Mr Allgood thought I was referring to him.'

  'Next, Carter found the letter, which Lady Geraldine had, as she casually revealed to us, told him she'd seen Laura writing. He took her gun—'

  'That was her pistol?' the Earl asked.

  'Almost certainly, my lord. We found her prints, not on the gun itself - Carter wiped it - but on the cartridge clip. Where was I? Ah, yes. Carter went out of the window and down the drainpipe again, carrying the coat. He took a few seconds to make sure the coat was in a position where it would be covered with snow, then it was back to the car, stopping only to pick up the can of petrol and change into his ordinary shoes again. He could have done it all comfortably in twenty-five minutes, even if, as is a possibility, it was he who put the phone out of order, too. It wouldn't have taken him more than a couple of minutes to shin up a telegraph pole and pull down a wire; however, that might have been a lucky coincidence.'

  Ann said, 'But what a chance he took! He could have fallen, broken his ankle on his way back, anything.'

  'Not too great a risk, considering the stakes he was playing for, miss. He was, of course, familiar with the estate from his rambles on his previous visit, and no doubt he planned the route carefully and examined it for obstacles and hidden pitfalls during his supposed training run that afternoon. And in fact, everything went perfectly for him until he got back to his car and found you there, Mr Quartus. That must have been quite a nasty shock.'

  'Why?' Hugh asked.

  'Firstly, I'm pretty sure he had you marked out as the fall guy, as they say in America. Now, though, you had an alibi. Secondly, you might have realised that the point at which you found them was only a mile from here.'