The Twenty-Third Man

by Gladys Mitchell

  ‘I assure you we are wholly at one over Clement!’ he said hotly. ‘We see him steadily, we see him whole.’

  ‘It is just as well to see him steadily. I will answer your question before we tread on dangerous ground. I meant what I said. I propose to solve the problem of Mr Emden’s death.’

  This (to begin with, at any rate) was, from her point of view, in the nature of an intellectual exercise, for she had no idea and did not, at that stage, intend to formulate one, of what she would do when she discovered the identity of the murderer. Information, mostly of a negative kind, was soon forthcoming, and did not, at first, seem helpful. The first conversation in which she joined was between Caroline and Mrs Angel.

  ‘I knew,’ said Caroline. ‘That day we went to the cave, I knew something was wrong. Badly wrong. Terribly wrong. And it was soon proved.’

  ‘Are you psychic, Mrs Lockerby?’ Mrs Angel leaned forward with an avid and unpleasant expression upon her once-lovely countenance.

  ‘Psychic? I’ve never thought so until now, but, really, it was the most extraordinary feeling, and it left me thoroughly unnerved. Dame Beatrice will bear me out.’

  ‘Certainly. The fall of rock, no doubt, is the incident to which you refer,’ said her leering sponsor.

  ‘I could no more have gone any further along that road than I could have made myself walk into a furnace. I was completely terrified. I’ve never felt like it before, and I certainly don’t want to have a repetition of it. It was bad enough to go back to the cave, but it was certainly preferable to taking that dreadful mountain road,’ declared Caroline.

  ‘But you didn’t go into the cave, of course?’ inquired Dame Beatrice. ‘You rested where we had picknicked, I suppose.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ Caroline admitted, ‘I did take a peep into the cave. I persuaded myself that it was idiotic to think that one of the kings had moved.’

  ‘And was it?’

  ‘Was it what?’

  ‘Idiotic to think that one of the kings had moved.’

  ‘I’ve no idea. What do you think?’ It was a strangely defensive answer.

  ‘I am like the youth in the poem. My thoughts are long, long thoughts. Also, in this case, my will is the wind’s will.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘That does not disconcert me.’

  ‘Telham,’ said Caroline quickly, ‘thinks that the bandits murdered Mr Emden.’

  ‘What have they gained, I wonder?’

  ‘I suppose, if they did do it, they robbed the body.’

  ‘We cannot tell. No inventory was taken, before the murder, of the contents of Emden’s pockets. But, if he was murdered by bandits, the motive could only have been robbery, as you say. I thought, though, that the bandits preferred to hold their prisoners to ransom.’

  ‘He’d lived here a long time, though, hadn’t he? He may have made enemies.’

  ‘Two months is not a long time.’

  ‘He seemed like one of the islanders.’

  ‘He was probably a romantic. I see him as a Stevensonian figure. I think I will go and talk to Señor Ruiz.’

  ‘Is it true that Emden tried to compromise Luisa Ruiz?’

  ‘I heard something about it.’

  ‘If he did, you surely need not look elsewhere for a motive; and Ruiz would have had knowledge of the cave of dead men.’

  ‘So had we all.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘Emden was murdered after the Alaric docked, you know. Does that suggest nothing to you?’

  ‘There is such a thing as coincidence.’

  ‘You have taken the words out of my mouth. I must certainly speak to Señor Ruiz.’

  The proprietor of the Sombrero was in his private sanctum. This was a room reminiscent of a monastic cell. It had a door into the lounge and another into a tiny, ground-floor bedroom. Dame Beatrice knocked at the door which led into the lounge. Ruiz opened it, and, not surprised, it seemed, by the visit, stood aside, bowed, and indicated that she was to enter. The room contained a large crucifix confronted by a prie-dieu. There were also an armchair, a small chair, a table, a telephone, and a bookcase which housed a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  ‘You wish to complain about my hotel, Doña Beatrice?’ asked the square-faced, dark-visaged proprietor of the Sombrero; but he smiled as he spoke, his previous passion forgotten.

  ‘By no means. I find the arrangements excellent. It is upon another matter that I would like to speak to you.’

  ‘About Señor Emden, no doubt. You will have realized that I had cause to dislike him. I know of your work. You will wish to know what I can tell you about his death. It is little. Did you determine the time when he died?’

  ‘Yes, but approximately only. From what I saw in the cave, I should say that he had been dead for about four days.’

  ‘In other words, he must have been killed the day after your ship docked and you came to my hotel?’

  ‘Exactly. At what time of day I could not determine.’

  ‘You will wish to know how I conducted my affairs on that day.’

  ‘I wish to know whether Mr Emden’s papers were in order.’

  ‘We are not anxious here to make difficulties.’

  ‘I see. Had he a passport?’

  ‘That, yes.’

  ‘Please conduct me to the room he occupied. I should like to see that passport.’

  ‘You wish to ascertain from which country he came? I can tell you that. He carried an English passport. Still, you would prefer to see it for yourself. Come with me.’

  The bedroom which had been allotted to Emden was locked. Ruiz opened it with a master-key. There was nothing to distinguish it from a dozen other bedrooms in the hotel. It was a double room containing two beds, one of which had not been made up. The dead man’s luggage consisted of a small trunk and a couple of suitcases. These were unlocked and an examination of their contents provided no clue to their owner’s violent death. The odd thing was that he had not taken them with him when he left, if he had really intended to live with the troglodytes.

  The passport was in the top right-hand drawer of a dressing-chest. It appeared to be in order and the photograph was recognizable.

  ‘One would think he would have taken his passport with him, also his luggage. It has its interest, yes?’ said Ruiz.

  Dame Beatrice admitted that it had its interest.

  ‘I would like’, she said, ‘to speak with Doña Luisa, your daughter.’

  ‘You will ask her whether I had cause more than once to show anger against this Emden? You may ask her what you will. As for myself, if I could meet this slayer of Karl Emden, I would kiss his hand,’ said Señor Ruiz, with feeling. ‘I will bring Luisa from the kitchen. A good daughter, one would say. I beg you to question her. I assure you I have nothing to fear.’

  He went out and returned in a moment with his daughter. Luisa Ruiz was short and plump, with a red mouth and a skin of the colour and something of the texture of magnolias. To Dame Beatrice she was not the epitome of beauty, but her body was seductive and her head had a haughty carriage which many might find attractive. She was courteous and cheerful.

  ‘The Señor Emden? His behaviour was not that of a gentleman. One felt sorry for him, but I am not sorry to find him dead.’

  Ruiz got up and went out. Luisa, at this, seated herself, put her neat feet together, and smoothed her plain black frock.

  ‘When did Mr Emden begin making himself tiresome?’ asked Dame Beatrice, encouraged by this conversational attitude.

  ‘Oh, very soon. He was here since two months, and in a week he proposes to escort me to the bullfight, although he is aware that I have an understanding for four years with Miguel Plaza, who learns hotel management in Barcelona in order to return here and inherit his father’s hotel in Puerto del Sol. I have explained that, in Miguel Plaza’s absence, I go to the bullfight only with my relatives, but he was crude, that dromedary.’

  ‘To put it bluntly
, Señorita,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I am to understand that if your father, or any other relative of yours, had made up his mind to kill Mr Emden, he would not have waited two months to do it.’

  ‘That is so. A Spaniard does not wait upon vengeance.’

  ‘I am so certain of it that I shall not consider any of your relatives as possible murderers, Doña Luisa.’

  ‘It would be foolish to do so, Doña Beatrice. May I return to my duties?’

  ‘By all means, Señorita. I thank you for your cooperation. It is necessary, you will appreciate, for those of us who had no hand in Mr Emden’s death to be cleared of suspicion.’

  Luisa smiled, transfiguring her usually heavy face.

  ‘In England killing is important. Here, on Hombres Muertos, too, we are civilized. But the authorities have many bodies; they fall down the mountain-side, they smash up automobiles, they are drowned in the sea. It becomes uninteresting, and Señor Emden was nothing to our people. I think he was here because he was in trouble.’

  ‘In trouble?’ This sounded promising. ‘What makes you think so?’

  ‘Since two months, no letters, no, not even a letter bringing money or bills. I say to myself that such a man, without friends or creditors, is running away from his home, and tells no one where he is gone. Then, to our maid Pilar, and even to me, Luisa Ruiz, he makes shameless proposals, so I think perhaps he has left a wife behind him so that he may not make honourable ones. That also looks like trouble. One would expect letters from a wife, no?’

  ‘He might be divorced.’

  ‘I had not thought of that. It is not in my religion.’

  ‘What do you think about his body being found in the cave of the dead kings? Did that surprise you?’

  Luisa shook her head, but not, it seemed, in answer to the last question.

  ‘No islander would have put it there, Doña Beatrice. I can assure you of that,’ she said. ‘And certainly no islander would throw a dead king down the mountain for the bandits to find. None would do such a barbarous thing.’

  The funeral of Karl Emden took place in the English church, which was tucked away in an obscure quarter of the town. Nobody knew which Christian denomination, if any, he had belonged to, so it was agreed, without much argument, that the English church was the obvious compromise. The body, bereft of the trappings of kingship, had been inspected in the cave by a resplendent officer of the island police. He had tugged the knife out of Emden’s back, balanced it in his hand, made an ejaculation of contempt, and flung the weapon down the mountain-side.

  ‘There is a less degree of putrefaction than would have been the case if he had lain in the sun,’ he said. ‘I will report to that effect. You must bury him at his own expense. The city cannot pay.’

  ‘There’s always something splendid and invigorating about funerals,’ said Mrs Angel, when this one was over. ‘Somehow they give one something.’

  ‘What sort of something?’ asked Clun. Mrs Angel gave a slight scream.

  ‘Who is it who asks?’ she demanded. Clun was silent. ‘You who have killed,’ yelled Mrs Angel, in an uncontrolled and rather dreadful tone, ‘can you do nothing but pose these stupid questions?’

  ‘I beg your pardon,’ said Clun, displaying no sign of repentance, ‘but I do have a prejudice in favour of saying what I mean. It was wrong of me to expect that such a prejudice would extend itself to my friends.’

  ‘Friends, indeed!’ exclaimed Mrs Angel. ‘As though anybody respectable would want to be thought the friend of a gaol-bird like you.’

  ‘My dear – Mrs Angel,’ said Ruiz, who had come into the lounge prepared with a civil expression of hope that the funeral had gone according to plan. The strange little pause did not pass unnoticed by Dame Beatrice, to whom it suggested a not improbable theory.

  ‘Well,’ snorted Mrs Angel, ‘he has no more sympathy for that poor murdered man than for –’

  ‘The bloke I served my time for. No, I haven’t,’ said Clun.

  ‘You didn’t even come to the funeral. You might have shown that much respect.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They say dead men’s wounds always bleed if the murderer comes near,’ said Clement. ‘If you’d all been decent and let me come to the funeral, I would have kept my eyes open and told you whether the murderer was in the church or at the grave.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Drashleigh. ‘The body was enclosed in a coffin.’

  ‘The blood would have seeped through the coffin.’

  ‘Be quiet, Clement!’ said Mrs Drashleigh. ‘You are not to say such things.’

  ‘Then I shall grow up inhibited, like you said I mustn’t. Besides, I like to talk about blood and corpses and murders. I think they’re interesting – much more interesting than flowers and music and poetry and all the things you think I ought to like.’

  ‘Of course they are,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but most interesting of all is the Shakespearian admixture of all six. If you would care to go for a swim with Miranda here, she will acquaint you with some of the finer speeches in Macbeth.’

  ‘I hardly think –’ said Mrs Drashleigh.

  ‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ shouted Clement. ‘And you needn’t think that’s rude, ’cos it’s a quotation, see?’

  ‘Feel?’ said Clun, and clouted the seat of his shorts. Clement turned on him in a fury.

  ‘I’ll knife you for that!’ he shrieked.

  ‘Can’t take it, huh?’ said the American girl, at the psychological moment. Everybody looked pained except Dame Beatrice and Clun, who laughed. Clement made a face at them and grinned.

  ‘Knife you?’ repeated Peterhouse, half-aloud. Clun turned on him furiously.

  ‘Oh, don’t be a clot!’ he said. ‘The kid’s all right. He isn’t the one who did for Emden, but I’ve a pretty shrewd idea who is, and, in case present company is interested and, for once, possibly not excepted, I may add that I propose to do nothing whatever about it. I didn’t like Emden –’

  ‘You scarcely met him!’ exclaimed Mrs Angel impulsively. Clun scowled at her so fiercely that she begged his pardon.

  ‘I didn’t like what I’d heard about Emden,’ he said in amendment, ‘and I have not the faintest objection to speaking ill of the dead.’

  ‘Come, come,’ said Mrs Drashleigh.

  ‘I mean that. Emden was a mean, dirty skunk, and whoever did for him did a damned good deed. However, as I was about to say when I was interrupted –’

  ‘I really do beg your pardon and I do so agree with what you say,’ murmured Mrs Angel.

  ‘– if anybody listening to me now thinks I might as well be silenced since I seem to know so much, I will add that the name of the person I suspect of killing Emden is in an envelope in the possession of Jose el Lupe, who will hand it over to Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley in the event of my sudden demise at the killer’s hands.’

  ‘Is this true?’ demanded Peterhouse. Even Caroline and her brother, who had attended the funeral but had taken no part in the conversation which was going on, looked interested and slightly apprehensive. Clun laughed, and, as he strolled off, said, over his shoulder:

  ‘No, but I like to worry some of the people some of the time. My prison life has made me sadistic.’

  ‘Well, don’t you dare work it off upon Clement!’ said Mr Drashleigh, in a sudden shout.

  ‘Really, Pentland,’ remonstrated his wife, ‘we cannot expect the world to use Clement as we would have him used. That is one reason why I am determined that he shall remain with us on Hombres Muertos instead of creeping safely away to Santa Catalina. And now, Dame Beatrice,’ she added, ‘I think I speak for us all in promising to do everything possible to aid you in your inquiries.’

  She looked hopefully from one to another of the assembled guests, but nobody seemed anxious to support her. The nearest to any sign of agreement came from Telham, who said:

  ‘Quite, quite, but I do think it’s a job for the police.’

  ‘I think it’s a job for all of
us,’ said Mrs Angel. ‘It’s rather a disgraceful thing if an Englishman can be murdered on this little Spanish island and nobody do anything about it.’

  ‘Let’s check our alibis,’ said Peterhouse. ‘For my own part –’

  ‘As we have no information as to the exact time of the stabbing, and as we have no scientific knowledge of the effect of the temperature of the cave upon the preservation of the remains,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I fail to see that alibis have any real significance.’

  ‘That justifies itself,’ said Ruiz.

  ‘I could not agree more,’ said Clun.

  ‘Then it’s just a question of information,’ said the American girl. ‘Too bad Pop and I are for the great open spaces pretty soon. I just do hope we’re not under suspicion, Dame Beatrice?’

  ‘No, no. There is no justification whatever for suspecting either of you.’

  ‘How not?’ inquired Ruiz. ‘Do you know the name of the murderer?’

  ‘I am not prepared to answer that question at present. Knowledge is not necessarily power. I want proof, and, so far, I have none that any court of law would accept.’

  ‘That is a pity,’ said Telham. ‘This uncertainty is spoiling our holiday.’

  ‘It is spoiling my brother’s chance of recovery,’ put in Caroline. ‘We came here for peace and quiet. I wanted to forget about murders. I have suffered enough from sudden death. Why did this wretched Emden have to be murdered here? And what business is it of yours if he did?’

  ‘It is a matter of professional curiosity,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘To a psychiatrist, murder is the most interesting study of all.’

  Caroline snorted.

  ‘I call it morbid and macabre’, she said, ‘to take interest in such awful wickedness.’

  ‘Then the Bible is both morbid and macabre,’ said Dame Beatrice, calmly.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mark Antony’s Oration

  ‘YOU NEED NOT think’, said Clement, ‘that my father had anything to do with it. I kicked Emden’s shins as hard as I could, but I didn’t breathe a word to a soul. I am not a cissy, no matter what Attwood may say.’