“How do you know all that?” Dominick demanded.
“Be patient and I’II tell you. In the meantime X had made his way into Moore Court according to plan. He was wearing gloves so as to leave no fingerprints on the carving-knife that he took from the sideboard. There remained the problem of blood. If one is going to commit a murder by stabbing, the best way to avoid getting blood on one’s clothes is to wear none. For that and another reason X had reduced his costume to a minimum, but he did not like the prospect of getting his bare skin splashed–and a loose-fitting garment would help to conceal the knife. In the back hall were some things that had been returned from the cleaners’ on the previous evening, among them a dressing-gown belonging to Dominick; this X slipped on, turning up the sleeves which were rather too long for him. When Joan Allison drove up to the steps X was watching from behind a window-curtain, and when Allison rang the bell, X was ready inside the door. The murder went like clockwork. When Allison, who was looking out towards the water, swung back to the door she was met by an upward thrust of the knife that found her heart and proved almost instantly fatal. Before the girl fell X pushed her away from him towards the guard-wall at the side of the steps. Then X went back into the house and shut the door behind him, dropped the dressing-gown where he had found it, left the house by a side-door, and departed from Moore Court in the same way as he had come.”
“But how did he come–and go?” Hectors voice was plaintive. “That’s the nub of the matter.”
“I agree,” said Duffy. “It took a second murder to show me the way. The next thing that happened was Martin Clohessy’s home-coming after he had left the wedding party. He arrived on horseback and carrying a small keg of poteen–at least some of the stuff was in the keg and the rest in Clohessy. It was something of a feat for him to get home at all, but he achieved it, stabled his horse, and got into the house by the back way. It was in the gloaming that he came into the hall and found on the floor a dressing-gown that he recognised; he took it upstairs and hung it up in its place in the wardrobe, his skinful of poteen and the fading light preventing him from noticing the bloodstains. After that some hours elapsed before he found the body; he had gone to the hall door to look out for the headlights of the returning family and at first thought that he was seeing things as a result of the poteen. But tire body and the knife were tangible, and Allison’s car was there as supporting evidence. Even in his state he could see at once that the girl was past help but instinctively he pulled out the knife, then in horror flung it away from him into the nearest long grass. A few more sips of poteen helped him to decide how best to remove the evidences of tragedy from his employers doorstep; it was the only thought of which he was then capable.”
“God bless his muzzy old heart,” said Mrs. O’Brien Moore. “Did he tell you all this?”
“It was fairly evident, but he confirmed it this evening. On that Tuesday night, however, he set about scrubbing the steps, intending to take the body later in Allison’s own car to some lonely place in the hills, but he kept on tippling; that’s why he was so foolish as to try to hide the body in the house when he was interrupted by the appearance of lights that turned out to belong to Hector’s car. I think you all know the rest of what happened that night.”
“Except who did it, man,” muttered Dominick impatiently.
“I’m coming to that. The circumstances of the murder leave no doubt that X was familiar with Moore Court, and the fact that X was able to persuade Joan Allison that he could have special knowledge of Hector’s intentions adds force to the suggestion that X is a close connection of the family; no outsider could plausibly have explained a claim to know more about Hector’s movements than his hosts did. It seems obvious, too, that X must have claimed that the knowledge reached him after his family’s departure for Dublin early on the Tuesday morning, otherwise he could not excuse his failure to save them their wild goose chase.”
“But no one could have known I was landing at Shannon,” Hector protested. “I didn’t myself.”
“There was no need for X to know it. Your young cousin Mary pointed that out. All that was necessary was to persuade Joan Allison of it. Well, we know that at the time of the murder four people closely connected with the family were in the neighbourhood of Moore Court: Ivy O’Brien Moore and Peregrine Walton on the road at the top of the hill, Cynthia Walton and Lua Kennedy half a mile away in different directions over the water. One of these four stabbed and killed Joan Allison according to plan.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Dominick harshly. “Apart from anything else, how could any one of them have got into die place without being seen?”
“By swimming to the lee side of the jetty and crawling to the back of the boat-house. It was done by swimming …”
“But Lua was watching the water.” Hector interrupted. “There was at least half a mile to cover from any possible point. Lua would have seen anyone who––” Perhaps seeing a gap in his logic, the young American broke off with an expression of growing horror. In a strained voice he echoed what his cousin had said. “I don’t believe it.”
“By swimming underwater,” Duffy completed his sentence.
This time there was a chorus of disbelief, but the detective merely waited until it had died down before resuming.
“Though I was fairly confident of the identity of X, I couldn’t make out how he–or perhaps I should now say she–had managed to get to Moore Court in a way in which she could be confident of being unseen. It wasn’t till after die second murder, when I saw Lua wearing skin-diving equipment to search for Peregrine’s body that I noticed how a schnorkel-tube at a little distance looked just like die neck of a fishing cormorant.”
“A cormorant,” Dominick exclaimed. “But ––” He bit off whatever he had been going to say and stared white-faced at the detective.
“Your wife knows, and so I’m sure do you, that cormorants are hardly ever seen in this part of the bay. Yet two people reported seeing a cormorant on the Tuesday of the first murder, and two people–one of whom was your wife, Mr. O’Brien Moore–saw a cormorant, or thought that they did, near Peregrine just before he was killed. That is how it was done, you see; X swam up to him under water while he dozed on his mattress and shot him with a pistol encased in a plastic bag which was strapped to her wrist with adhesive tape to exclude water. She hoped that the spluttering of the reporters’ motor-boat would cover sufficiently the sound of the shot.”
“Wait a minute,” said Dominick. “Lua said she saw a cormorant on the bay on the afternoon of the murder.”
“Lua and Mrs. Scully both–yes.”
“But, if Lua reported seeing one, she can’t be ––”
“She can’t be X. She isn’t. Believe me, it’s with the very greatest regret and sympathy that I tell you that X is your cousin Cynthia Walton. She has made a statement admitting the fact.”
There was a moment of utter stillness and silence in the room; it was impossible to tell whether it was in surprise or in the realisation of anticipated horror that the four O’Brien Moores stared at Duffy. The old lady was the first to recover.
“I suppose we have to believe it since you tell us so,” she said. “But why? In God’s name, why?”
“I’ll have to tell you that in a roundabout way,” said Duffy gently. “When Joan Allison came over here for her holiday she was mildly curious about a reference she had seen in an American paper to a marriage between a local man and a relation of the O’Brien Moore family. She asked two or three members of the family about it, and their replies whetted her curiosity; Dominick was evasive, while Peregrine made frightful jokes, and Cynthia was patently very much upset. She may have asked others, but that was quite enough to intrigue her. Mr. O’Brien Moore–when you explained that matter to me you didn’t tell me the name of the man that Cynthia Walton had married.”
Dominick glanced at his cousin before replying. “Hector didn’t know about it,” he said. “If his father hadn’t told him about the way
that his own boss’s son behaved, I didn’t see why I should make mischief; I didn’t see what it had to do with the case–still don’t.”
“So you kept silent about it. Well intentioned silence, I’m afraid, was the cause of all the trouble. You see ––”
“Wait a minute,” Hector interrupted. “Do you mean to say that Dick Kennerley ––”
He in his turn was prevented from finishing a sentence. “Oh, do shut up, Hector,” snapped Ivy unfeelingly. “You’ll hear all about it afterwards.”
“Cynthia Walton made the first great mistake of her life some twenty years ago in America,” Duffy resumed. “The consequences were smoothed over for her. Old Mr. Kennerley gave her an annuity for fife and–to make things easier for her at home–told her never to speak of her brief marriage, to erase it from her mind as if it had never happened. When she got back to Ireland no one spoke of it; she got the impression that no one knew, that the whole affair was a secret between herself and the Kennerleys. She had no idea that the position with regard to her inheritance had been legalised or that her family was doing everything to make her feel happy and secure. She was, in fact, neither. She considered that she had failed in love, that she had been rejected, and to follow that came failure as a writer. Then, as her brother became successful, she found that her desire to help him in his work was rejected in favour of a succession of secretaries culminating in Lua. When Richard Kennerley’s new and wealthy wife helped him to the beginnings of his political career Cynthia got the idea that old Mr. Kennerley’s insistence on silence had been entirely for the benefit of his son’s future; she became afraid that, if news of the earlier marriage ever leaked out, the American money might be cut off, that the annuity might be in the old man’s name and merely payable to her as long as he willed it. She was under the impression, too, that news of her adventure in matrimony would deprive her of the small income left her by her father and might even involve her in unpleasantness with the law. All this because her family kept up what I can only describe as a typically Irish silence out of misguided kindness.”
“A hundred–a thousand times it was on the tip of my tongue.” Mrs. O’Brien Moore had stopped smoking and was staring straight in front of her. “Oh, my God, how I wish I had ––”
“The only blame in the matter attaches to her,” Duffy insisted. “Don’t overlook that. I think the silence was unnatural, but it was her duty to tell her brother, or you, or whoever she found it easiest to talk to, however much she might have dreaded it. Anyhow she went on, feeling less and less secure as the years went by and she thought of herself as cheating her brother out of what was rightfully his, but her pride wouldn’t let her throw herself on his forgiveness. Then Joan Allison appeared on the scene and seemed to threaten a public disclosure. Cynthia denied having actually met Allison, but Mrs. Scully mentioned that Allison had been out at Cynthia’s cottage on the morning of the first murder. Murderer and victim had in fact met three times: twice at the cottage and once in Moycarrick on last Monday, the day before Allison was killed.”
Dominick had got some glasses from a cupboard and, without giving anyone the chance to refuse, had poured out for each of his family and for Duffy a goodly helping of Peregrine’s brandy.
“It was Mary’s suggestion that Hector might land at Shannon that gave Cynthia the idea of how to go about the murder that was already in her thoughts. It was, too, Cynthia’s insistence on telling me that Mary had made the suggestion in Allison’s hearing that first made me view Cynthia with any real suspicion. Anyhow, to go back to the method, Cynthia began to plot on tire basis of using the deserted Moore Court as a venue for the killing and the intervening water as a sort of alibi-giver. Allison came to the cottage by appointment on that Tuesday morning and the bait was dropped. Cynthia had the envelope in which her American cheque had reached her on the previous day; without letting Allison see the insurance company’s superscription, she took from it a letter which she had herself written and which purported to announce Hector’s intention of landing at Shannon and of reaching Moore Court before four o’clock that afternoon. Cynthia, of course, deplored that she had been too late to prevent the family’s fruitless journey to Dublin. She then made some mysterious hints about the marriage that had already aroused Allison’s curiosity and suggested that the only way to get anything out of Hector was to get at him before his aunt came home and got him under her thumb.”
“My thumb!” Mrs. O’Brien Moore inspected the slightly nicotine-stained digit and gave a sad little laugh. “Is it so heavy? Well, it won’t be so for much longer.”
“Cynthia didn’t know if Joan Allison would swallow the bait, but she had to cross the water to find out. She had from the first intended to swim, but Lua’s arrival to borrow the boat made surface swimming too dangerous but provided another method. In the back of the car was skin-diving equipment. Cynthia was a strong but inelegant swimmer; she was now able to accomplish the distance much more easily. Indeed I rather doubt that she’d have been able to make it at all without the fins. Well, as it was, she made it. You know what happened.”
“Over that,” said Ivy after a pause, “I could find it in my heart to be sorry for her. But in heaven’s name why kill poor Perry?”
“On the way across the bay in the boat this afternoon–only about eight hours ago, though it seems ages–Hector came out with the information that Peregrine and old Kennerley were great friends. It was obvious at the time that Cynthia was upset by the news. Of course she realised that the possible motive for Allison’s murder would not merely be thrashed out by us here but eventually by Peregrine and Kennerley in New York; it seemed only a matter of time before the truth must come out. Apart from that, she began to wonder if her brother already knew about her marriage; he had been unable to resist double-edged jokes. If he knew of her marriage, she thought, he already must look on her as a cheat, and it wouldn’t be long before he recognised her as a murderer. She loved him in a possessive way and couldn’t face his scorn; she preferred to kill him. What settled the matter was her finding that the cottage had been searched; it was only that Ivy had been making herself rather obviously at home, but Cynthia got it into her head that her brother had seen through all her schemes and had been along to search the cottage for diving-equipment, not realising that she had in fact used Lua’s gear for crossing the bay. The gun was one of those anything but heaven-sent inspirations. She pretended that it had been taken, going to look for it in a place where it had never been kept, so as to give herself some sort of an ‘out’ if she decided to use it. Of course I could only guess at what she was thinking then, when I came to weigh things up after Peregrine’s death, but Cynthia has more or less confirmed my conjectures.”
“But look here, Duffy,” exclaimed Hector loudly. “Are you sure you’re right. Somebody blew Cynthia up. What was that in aid of?”
“She knew her brother’s habits,” Duffy pursued, as if he had not been interrupted. “As soon as we had left the cottage to investigate the boat-load of reporters, Cynthia took her gun and her bicycle and her inflatable rubber mattress and went by the short-cut, the path that is never used except on Sundays, to Peregrine’s boat-house. She saw him get into the water, and then, putting on his diving gear, which was in the boat-house, she let herself down from the boat-slip and swam underwater to the nearest little island, where she waited for her opportunity –and a good racket from the two motor-boats–to shoot her brother through his rubber mattress. That’s why she brought along her own similar one, to leave it to be found unpunctured, so that it would be thought that Peregrine had been shot on land and thrown into the bay afterwards. She intended, of course, to take away and dispose of the mattress with the bullet holes. That’s where she miscalculated.”
“What’s all this got to do with Cynthia being blown up?” Hector demanded somewhat truculently.
“Everything. A gun fired under water is liable to explode. Hers didn’t, but tire water-pressure caused the gases from the firing of the gun t
o burn her hand very badly. She was in great pain, barely able to struggle back to the little island. Struggle she did, though, and when James Flynn was out of the way, running for help, she got back onto tire road by way of the boat-slip. She was staggering with pain and exhaustion and, unable to think what else to do with it, she shoved the punctured air-mattress into the boot of Flynn’s car; then somehow she succeeded in getting home with her bicycle over the short-cut. But the most difficult thing remained to be done; she had to account for the injury to her hand. She rigged a booby-trap for herself and waited till she saw Mrs. Scully coming down the lane–she didn’t want to burn herself to death. Then with incredible determination Cynthia blew up her pressure-stove in such a way that the brunt of the explosion would be borne by her right hand, her already injured hand.” Duffy sighed. “She covered up the original injury all right,” he said, “and did herself some more damage besides, but unfortunately for her it was obvious that no one other than herself could have arranged the booby-trap.” He sighed again and sipped his brandy. “It’s rather chastening to reflect that all this was done, that three lives at least were wasted, just to prevent a journalist from finding out from Hector something that he didn’t know.”
No one spoke. Mrs. O’Brien Moore got up from her chair and looked from the window out over the now moonlit bay; when at last she gave utterance to her thoughts their relevance was not immediately obvious.
“I think I shall live here,” she said. “After all this time I couldn’t bear to tear myself away from the bay completely. I have been very selfish.”
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