‘I still don’t quite understand how—’
‘It’s perfectly simple. Our original premises were quite right. You can’t hold open a door, wave a torch and shoot with a revolver all at the same time. We kept in the revolver and the torch and cut out the door. Well, we were wrong. It was the revolver we ought to have cut out.’
‘But he did have a revolver,’ said Miss Murgatroyd. ‘I saw it. It was there on the floor beside him.’
‘When he was dead, yes. It’s all quite clear. He didn’t fire that revolver—’
‘Then who did?’
‘That’s what we’re going to find out. But whoever did it, the same person put a couple of poisoned aspirin tablets by Letty Blacklock’s bed—and thereby bumped off poor Dora Bunner. And that couldn’t have been Rudi Scherz, because he’s as dead as a doornail. It was someone who was in the room that night of the hold-up and probably someone who was at the birthday party, too. And the only person that lets out is Mrs Harmon.’
‘You think someone put those aspirins there the day of the birthday party?’
‘Why not?’
‘But how could they?’
‘Well, we all went to the loo, didn’t we?’ said Miss Hinchcliffe coarsely. ‘And I washed my hands in the bathroom because of that sticky cake. And little Sweetie Easterbrook powdered her grubby little face in Blacklock’s bedroom, didn’t she?’
‘Hinch! Do you think she—?’
‘I don’t know yet. Rather obvious, if she did. I don’t think if you were going to plant some tablets, that you’d want to be seen in the bedroom at all. Oh, yes, there were plenty of opportunities.’
‘The men didn’t go upstairs.’
‘There are back stairs. After all, if a man leaves the room, you don’t follow him to see if he really is going where you think he is going. It wouldn’t be delicate! Anyway, don’t argue, Murgatroyd. I want to get back to the original attempt on Letty Blacklock. Now, to begin with, get the facts firmly into your head, because it’s all going to depend upon you.’
Miss Murgatroyd looked alarmed.
‘Oh, dear, Hinch, you know what a muddle I get into!’
‘It’s not a question of your brains, or the grey fluff that passes for brains with you. It’s a question of eyes. It’s a question of what you saw.’
‘But I didn’t see anything.’
‘The trouble with you is, Murgatroyd, as I said just now, that you won’t try. Now pay attention. This is what happened. Whoever it is that’s got it in for Letty Blacklock was there in that room that evening. He (I say he because it’s easier, but there’s no reason why it should be a man more than a woman except, of course, that men are dirty dogs), well, he has previously oiled that seconddoor that leads out of the drawing-room and which is supposed to be nailed up or something. Don’t ask me when he did it, because that confuses things. Actually, by choosing my time, I could walk into any house in Chipping Cleghorn and do anything I liked there for half an hour or so with no one being the wiser. It’s just a question of working out where the daily women are and when the occupiers are out and exactly where they’ve gone and how long they’ll be. Just good staff work. Now, to continue. He’s oiled that second door. It will open without a sound. Here’s the set-up: Lights go out, door A (the regular door) opens with a flourish. Business with torch and hold-up lines. In the meantime, while we’re all goggling, X (that’s the best term to use) slips quietly out by door B into the dark hall, comes up behind that Swiss idiot, takes a couple of shots at Letty Blacklock and then shoots the Swiss. Drops the revolver, where lazy thinkers like you will assume it’s evidence that the Swiss did the shooting, and nips back into the room again by the time that someone gets a lighter going. Got it?’
‘Yes—ye-es, but who was it?’
‘Well, if you don’t know, Murgatroyd, nobody does!’
‘Me?’ Miss Murgatroyd fairly twittered in alarm. ‘But I don’t know anything at all. I don’t really, Hinch!’