“And I went indoors to replace the fuse,” said Chesterton.
“Which fuse was it?” asked Berger. “In the plug top or in the box?”
“In the plug, actually. I had to go to the box to get a new fuse. The packets of fuses and electrical screwdrivers hang inside the cupboard, so I took the opportunity, while I was there, to see that the circuit fuse had not blown.”
“The lights in the house stayed on?”
“Power and lights are on different ring mains. They have to be, at least in that part of the house, because of the need to plug in certain pieces of massage equipment and the like for Mr. Carlyle. I imagine he didn’t want to run the risk of overloading.”
“Why not use the outside point?” asked Berger. “There is one there.”
“I can answer that,” said Rosemary. “Daddy wanted to be able to control the lights from inside the house. Often when they were out there it would start to rain, so he preferred a switch inside. And in any case, Hookham, I remember, was using the outside point for his electric tools after he had rigged the lights which he put up and tested in the morning. I remember him using that strimmer thing round the edges of the grass and under the bushes.”
“Thank you,” said Masters. He turned to Berger. “Does that answer all your questions about the lights?”
“Yes, Chief. Though I’d like to examine the whole string.”
Chesterton looked around at the four detectives. “Before we go much further, can we know what’s going on? You’ve suggested something was put in the pool. What was it? Not a live wire or anything like that, otherwise Carla Sanders would have died in the water, not two or three days later.”
“Are you a biologist or anything akin to one, Mr. Chesterton?”
“Good lord, no. I’m strictly on the other side of the fence. Languages, the written word and so forth.”
“And you, Rosemary?”
“I’m modern languages. That’s how I met Tom.”
“I see. So the mention of leptospirae would mean nothing to either of you.”
“Not directly,” agreed Tom. “But I could work something out. Let me see. Lepto, that’s Greek for small or slender; speira means a coil … yes, it’s some minute coil-shaped bug, at a guess. Something perhaps that can’t be seen without a microscope.”
“Quite correct. A bug. A dangerous bug, a large number of which we believe was dumped in Mr. Carlyle’s pool that Saturday night while the lights were out.”
“It wasn’t all that dark, I seem to remember. For dirty deeds one would need the cover of total darkness, I’d have thought.”
“Or a diversion,” said Tip. “Like the sudden fusing of the lights.”
“I see what you mean. But to tip a bucketful of leptospirae …”
“Why do you say bucketful, Mr. Chesterton?”
Tom looked at Masters. “Sorry. I just sort of assumed they would be in liquid form if they were to go into the water, and you said a large number was introduced. A bucket just came to mind.”
“I see. Did you notice any buckets near the pool?”
“Lord, no.”
Rosemary asked quietly, “These leptospirae killed Carla Sanders, I suppose.”
“Yes.”
“But nobody could have known she would go into the water.”
“No.”
“But everybody at the party would have known my father would be bathing in it the next morning.”
“Quite right.”
“So Daddy was to have been the victim?”
“We think so.”
Chesterton sat forward. “I see now why you are here. Attempted murder.”
“Murder, Mr. Chesterton. Not just attempted. The wrong victim, maybe, but still murder.”
Tom looked across at Rosemary. “Then we owe Carla Sanders a big vote of thanks for the part she played, because if we hadn’t been fooling about just there, with her, I mean, Mrs. H. wouldn’t have chucked a trayful of dirties into the drink, thereby ensuring your father couldn’t bathe without the pool being emptied and cleaned first.”
Rosemary nodded abstractedly at what sounded like the final clearing-up of a sore point in the relationship between the two young people.
“That’s one way of looking at things,” agreed Masters, “but it doesn’t get us any nearer to discovering who meant to do harm to Mr. Carlyle.”
“No,” agreed Tom, “but I’d say it definitely absolves whoever shoved Carla Sanders and Mrs. H.’s trayload of goodies into the water. That rather saved the day, didn’t it?”
“Were you responsible?” asked Masters.
“Unfortunately not. What I mean is … oh, hell, the chap who nudged Carla in is indirectly responsible for her death and Mr. Carlyle’s life.”
“Put like that, it sounds nasty, son,” said Green. “But there’s no doubt which of the two your girlie here would rather have alive. So let’s have the names of all those of you who were crowded round Carla Sanders when she went in, and we can leave you all aside, at least for the time being.”
“What? Oh, yes. I can remember there was …”
Tom and Rosemary between them produced five names which Tip noted for crossing off the guest list.
Masters turned to Rosemary. “Did you know your father had received several anonymous letters during the few weeks before the party?”
“No. Were they threatening ones?”
“Not exactly. Abusive more than anything else. Abusive and accusing.”
“Accusing him of what?”
“Unprofessional behaviour. Using other people’s ideas for his own advantage.”
“Stealing inventions, you mean?”
“I assume so.”
“Daddy would never do anything like that.”
“He didn’t have to, love,” said Green. “Only to be thought to be pinching ideas. By a disgruntled and unsuccessful would-be inventor, of course.”
“There has never been any scandal like that about Daddy or his firm. It’s known for its good reputation. No company like his could operate for a day without absolute honesty and integrity and … and reliability … and …”
Masters cut in gently. “So you have never before heard the slightest whisper of anything that would call the probity of your father’s operations into question?”
“Never,” said Rosemary vehemently.
“But I have,” said Chesterton quietly.
There was a long moment of silence before Rosemary swung round to face him. “Tom! You can’t have! Daddy is so honest!”
“It wasn’t about your father personally. One of his staff.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to, that Saturday night. But you choked me off about a certain person, remember?”
“Carla Sanders?”
“No.”
Rosemary stared at him for a moment or two. Then: “You mean Andrew McRolfe?”
Chesterton nodded. “Old man Carpenter told me.”
“Rubbish,” said Rosemary. “You’re only saying that about Andrew because …”
“Because what, Miss Carlyle?” asked Tip quietly.
“Because the silly fool is jealous.”
“Without cause?”
“Just because one of Daddy’s managers pays me a bit of attention when he sees me, this silly ass here gets all uptight about him.”
Tom shrugged his shoulders in mock despair.
Because the two names mentioned, McRolfe and Carpenter, were the two men known to be Scots, Masters was more than passing interested in this conversation. It was apparent that Green was almost holding his breath in anticipation of something, while Berger was sitting forward in his seat, forgetting he was still holding an empty tea cup in one hand and the saucer in the other. Masters took over the reins from Tip.
“I’d like to hear what you have to say, Mr. Chesterton. Especially whatever it was you wanted to tell Rosemary that night but which you didn’t tell her because there was some temporary huff between you.”
/> Chesterton answered. “First off, we were told McRolfe had refused his invitation to the party on the grounds that he was attending some business meeting. Then he turned up. Evidently he’d rung Mrs. Carlyle and said the meeting had been cancelled, so could he come to the party after all. I only got to know this when I saw him there.”
“You just disliked him coming,” said Rosemary.
“Too true I did. For quite a lot of reasons.”
“Tell me those reasons, Mr. Chesterton, please.”
“First, I never believed that any man would have a business meeting on a Saturday night, so I reckoned there was something a bit iffy about his first refusal and then his acceptance.”
“That’s no reason for jealousy,” said Rosemary witheringly.
“Please go on,” prompted Masters.
“I had intended to ask Mrs. Carlyle about it, but I forgot. However, I do know that Rosemary and I had said at first that we didn’t think we could make that Saturday. Rosie had promised to help to look after some mentally ill children who were being taken for a holiday at the seaside and I was working on the Saturday morning.”
“But it turned out that you were both free.”
“Yes. What we hadn’t realised was that the kids’ holiday was to finish first thing on Saturday morning. Immediately after breakfast a coach was to pick them up and take them home under the care of their own fulltime staff. That meant that Rosemary could get down from Cromer on the Saturday morning so that we would both be here in Cambridge and free to go by lunchtime. As soon as we knew that we rang to say we would attend the party. We couldn’t get Mrs. Carlyle at home, so Rosemary rang her father’s office and left a message there.”
“I see. And it was after that message reached the Carlyle office that McRolfe changed his mind.”
“I’m certain of that, but I have no proof of it. Just a damned great suspicion that …”
“Stop it, Tom.”
“No fear, sweetie. I’d seen McRolfe nosing about after you.”
“He fancied me.”
“That’s where you are mistaken. He did not fancy you. Not in the way you put it. I told you that Saturday night that McRolfe was an ambitious scug, and what he was after was the Carlyle firm. Not just a good position in it. The whole shooting match. And the best way he could think of doing it was to marry the boss’s only daughter.”
“Thank you very much.”
“Don’t get tetchy about it. I told you this on the night of the party and all you did was put your little nose in the air and stalk off.”
“Only because you were dancing attendance on Carla Sanders.”
“Why not, if my own girl left me in the lurch?”
Masters coughed. “I feel sure that you don’t want to come to blows in front of an audience of policemen. Could you continue what you were telling us, do you think, Mr. Chesterton?”
“Sorry. That McRolfe bloke has been on my mind a bit, recently.”
“Understandable,” grunted Green. “If I’d got a girl like you have to fight for I’d be on red alert for action the whole time.”
“Thanks. But to get back to what I was saying. When Rosemary here left me to look for McRolfe that night …”
“I didn’t go to look for McRolfe specifically.”
“No? Well, it damned well seemed like it.”
“Children, children!” cautioned Green.
Tom Chesterton turned to Masters. “As soon as Rosemary left me, old Carpenter spoke to me. It was obvious he had overheard every word Rosemary and I had said. I had only met him once before, briefly, but nobody would forget him. Thin and beaky, like a buzzard, he is, with a trace of a Scots accent. I tried to get rid of him, but he said he’d heard us mention McRolfe, and then went on to say that though McRolfe is a highly thought of designer in Mr. Carlyle’s company, he was, nevertheless, and here I quote Carpenter’s exact words: ‘McRolfe is using his position at Carlyle’s to further his own ends.’ ”
“You didn’t tell me this,” said Rosemary wildly.
“I wanted to but you gave me to understand you wouldn’t hear anything against your precious McRolfe.”
“Go on, lad,” urged Green. “You’re winning.”
“What? Oh, I told Carpenter that he had made quite an accusation.”
“And what did he reply to that?”
“He jabbered something I took to be a Scots expression. ‘Maybe aye and maybe hoohaye’ was what it sounded like to me. I’ve remembered it because I’d never heard it before and I took it to mean that maybe he had made a false accusation against McRolfe and maybe he hadn’t. So I said that if he had any proof of definite knowledge of professional misconduct on McRolfe’s part, he should tell Mr. Carlyle.”
“Then what did he say?” asked Rosemary.
“He said something about he thought the hint would be of use to me in making sure you didn’t end up in McRolfe’s arms.”
“How did he know anything about it?” flamed Rosemary. “I suppose you told him.”
“I didn’t, actually, Roz. I told you he had overheard what you and I had been saying. I don’t suppose either of us kept our voices down.”
“So what did you say to the nosey old thing?”
“I thanked him for the kind thought and suggested he was making the whole thing up. He then said he was simply trying to help you and me. I’m afraid I lost my temper a bit at that point and said he had only made the accusation against McRolfe in the hope that I would pass it on to your father. I reckoned he wanted your father to know for some purpose of his own.”
“To do McRolfe dirt?” asked Green quietly.
“Just that. Then he amazed me by claiming that he had tried telling Mr. Carlyle but he wouldn’t listen, which I said was pretty much what I would have expected because Mr. Carlyle is the type of man who is loyal to his staff. Anyhow, that was that. Carpenter said I could take what he’d told me any way I liked, he had spoken merely because he didn’t like the idea of McRolfe coming between Rosemary and me.”
“That was everything, was it, Mr. Chesterton?” asked Masters.
“Yes. I left Carpenter and looked for Rosemary, to tell her. But she had found McRolfe and was talking to him so I couldn’t say anything then, and when I did get Roz alone she didn’t give me a chance to bring the subject up. She was too intent on roasting me for hovering around Carla Sanders.”
“And since then?”
“I’d forgotten about it. You know, in all the stir over Carla dying and whatnot.”
“Really?”
“No, not really,” said Chesterton shamefacedly. “I didn’t forget it, but once Roz and I were back here and our relationship on an even keel again, I didn’t want to rock the boat by bringing up the subject of McRolfe again. If I had done I’d have only got an earful.”
“Now I understand,” said Masters with a grin. He turned to the girl. “Your young man says you sought out McRolfe at the party.”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to tell us what was said?”
“Nothing really. I felt a bit of a wimp about it because deep down I knew there was something in what Tom had said, but I couldn’t let him get away with it just like that, could I?”
“Certainly not,” agreed Tip.
Rosemary glanced at her gratefully. “I knew Andrew McRolfe had made a set at me, but I had a horrible feeling there was no underlying affection in his moves. I mean, I know, even when Tom and I are rowing like cat and dog, that behind it all there’s … well … love, I suppose. On both sides.”
Tom took her hand. “Bang on, Roz. Any more little secrets you’d like to let out?”
She turned to him. “You fool. Absolutely nothing went on or was said that night. I invited him to have a drink and he said he’d have a hock and seltzer. I ask you!”
“Seltzer?”
“He wanted white wine diluted with carbonated spring water. I told him to help himself so’s to get it right, and told him that if he was as hot as all that he should
take his jacket off and put it indoors where it would be quite safe. After all, no other man at the party was wearing a jacket. A couple of old boys had those thin, fawny coloured things … what are they called?”
“Alpaca,” suggested Green.
“That’s the name. But other than those two everybody was in shirts of various shapes and hues.”
“What did Mr. McRolfe say to that suggestion?” asked Masters.
“He said he thought perhaps he would keep it on. I wondered for a moment if he was perhaps wearing braces.”
“Anything else?”
“I said he could do just as he liked about his jacket, of course, but told him he looked weighed down by it and lest he might just be frightened of catching a chill I pointed out that the evening was gloriously warm. He said he would think about it, and I left him to get his drink while I circulated.”
There was a short silence. Masters glanced across at Green, who stared back fixedly. Then Green turned to Rosemary. To her great surprise he asked: “What sort of a jacket was it, love?”
“What sort of a jacket? What does that matter?”
“Please tell me.”
“It was a tweedy sort of thing. A sports coat, I suppose.”
“A properly tailored jacket, fully lined, with all its pockets, internal and external?”
“As far as I know, yes.”
“It was,” said Chesterton. “I remember seeing him in it and in my general disgust at his presence there, thought how inappropriate it was. But, in fact, it was a very handsome garment: nice material, long-skirted. You know the sort of thing, judging by the cut of the decent bit of gents’ natty you are wearing yourself. It hung well.”
“I think I know what you mean,” said Masters with a straight face.
“Gussets,” said Tip suddenly.
Green looked round at her. “Now what, sweetie?”
“I don’t think the pockets were gussetted,” said Rosemary. “They weren’t patch pockets.”
“Sorry,” said Tip. “I was thinking and the word just slipped out.”
“Oh.” Rosemary looked round. “Is that everything?”
“There’s very little more I can tell you,” said Chesterton. “Not about any reason for Mr. Carlyle being accused of unprofessional conduct, I mean.”
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