‘Perhaps the burglar put the doorstop against the door to keep it open,’ suggested Miss Murgatroyd.
‘Use your common sense, Murgatroyd. What does he do? Throw the door open, say “Excuse me a moment,” stoop and put the stop into position and then resume business by saying “Hands up”? Try holding the door with your shoulder.’
‘It’s still very awkward,’ complained Miss Murgatroyd.
‘Exactly,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘A revolver, a torch and a door to hold open—a bit too much, isn’t it? So what’s the answer?’
Miss Murgatroyd did not attempt to supply an answer. She looked inquiringly and admiringly at her masterful friend and waited to be enlightened.
‘We know he’d got a revolver, because he fired it,’ said Miss Hinchcliffe. ‘And we know he had a torch because we all saw it—that is unless we’re all victims of mass hypnotism like explanations of the Indian Rope Trick (what a bore that old Easterbrook is with his Indian stories) so the question is, did someone hold that door open for him?’
‘But who could have done that?’
‘Well, you could have for one, Murgatroyd. As far as I remember, you were standing directly behind it when the lights went out.’ Miss Hinchcliffe laughed heartily. ‘Highly suspicious character, aren’t you, Murgatroyd? But who’d think it to look at you? Here, give me that trowel—thank heavens it isn’t really a revolver. You’d have shot yourself by now!’
IV
‘It’s a most extraordinary thing,’ muttered Colonel Easterbrook. ‘Most extraordinary. Laura.’
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Come into my dressing-room a moment.’
‘What is it, darling?’
Mrs Easterbrook appeared through the open door.
‘Remember my showing you that revolver of mine?’
‘Oh, yes, Archie, a nasty horried black thing.’
‘Yes. Hun souvenir. Was in this drawer, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, it was.’
‘Well, it’s not there now.’
‘Archie, how extraordinary!’
‘You haven’t moved it or anything?’
‘Oh, no, I’d never dare to touch the horrid thing.’
‘Think old mother whatsername did?’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t think so for a minute. Mrs Butt would never do a thing like that. Shall I ask her?’
‘No—no, better not. Don’t want to start a lot of talk. Tell me, do you remember when it was I showed it to you?’
‘Oh, about a week ago. You were grumbling about your collars and the laundry and you opened this drawer wide and there it was at the back and I asked you what it was.’
‘Yes, that’s right. About a week ago. You don’t remember the date?’
Mrs Easterbrook considered, eyelids down over her eyes, a shrewd brain working.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘It was Saturday. The day we were to have gone in to the pictures, but we didn’t.’
‘H’m—sure it wasn’t before that? Wednesday? Thursday or even the week before that again?’
‘No, dear,’ said Mrs Easterbrook. ‘I remember quite distinctly. It was Saturday the 30th. It just seems a long time because of all the trouble there’s been. And I can tell you how I remember. It’s because it was the day after the hold-up at Miss Blacklock’s. Because when I saw your revolver it reminded me of the shooting the night before.’
‘Ah,’ said Colonel Easterbrook, ‘then that’s a great load off my mind.’
‘Oh, Archie, why?’
‘Just because if that revolver had disappeared before the shooting—well, it might possibly have been my revolver that was pinched by that Swiss fellow.’
‘But how would he have known you had one?’
‘These gangs have a most extraordinary communication service. They get to know everything about a place and who lives there.’
‘What a lot you do know, Archie.’
‘Ha. Yes. Seen a thing or two in my time. Still as you definitely remember seeing my revolver after the hold-up—well, that settles it. The revolver that Swiss fellow used can’t have been mine, can it?’
‘Of course it can’t.’
‘A great relief. I should have had to go to the police about it. And they ask a lot of awkward questions. Bound to. As a matter of fact I never took out a licence for it. Somehow, after a war, one forgets these peacetime regulations. I looked on it as a war souvenir, not as a firearm.’
‘Yes, I see. Of course.’