‘Then there was Miss Jenny Driver—’
He paused, looking at Jenny. She looked back at him, an impudent head on one side.
‘And what have you got on me?’ she asked.
‘Nothing, Mademoiselle, except that you were a friend of Bryan Martin’s—and that your surname begins with D.’
‘That’s not very much.’
‘There’s one thing more. You have the brains and the nerve to commit such a crime. I doubt if anyone else had.’
The girl lit a cigarette.
‘Continue,’ she said cheerfully.
‘Was M. Martin’s alibi genuine or was it not? That was what I had to decide. If it was, who was it Ronald Marsh had seen go into the house? And suddenly I remembered something. The good-looking butler at Regent Gate bore a very marked resemblance to M. Martin. It was he whom Captain Marsh had seen. And I formed a theory as to that. It is my idea that he discovered his master killed. Beside his master was an envelope containing French banknotes to the value of a hundred pounds. He took these notes, slipped out of the house, left them in safe keeping with some rascally friend and returned, letting himself in with Lord Edgware’s key. He let the crime be discovered by the housemaid on the following morning. He felt in no danger himself, as he was quite convinced that Lady Edgware had done the murder, and the notes were out of the house and already changed before their loss was noticed. However, when Lady Edgware had an alibi and Scotland Yard began investigating his antecedents, he got the wind up and decamped.’
Japp nodded approvingly.
‘I still have the question of the pince-nez to settle. If Miss Carroll was the owner then the case seemed settled. She could have suppressed the letter, and in arranging details with Carlotta Adams, or in meeting her on the evening of the murder, the pince-nez might have inadvertently found their way into Carlotta Adams’ bag.
‘But the pince-nez were apparently nothing to do with Miss Carroll. I was walking home with Hastings here, somewhat depressed, trying to arrange things in my mind with order and method. And then the miracle happened!
‘First Hastings spoke of things in a certain order. He mentioned Donald Ross having been one of thirteen at table at Sir Montagu Corner’s and having been the first to get up. I was following out a train of thought of my own and did not pay much attention. It just flashed through my mind that, strictly speaking, that was not true. He may have got up first at the end of the dinner, but actually Lady Edgware had been the first to get up since she was called to the telephone. Thinking of her, a certain riddle occurred to me—a riddle that I fancied accorded well with her somewhat childish mentality. I told it to Hastings. He was, like Queen Victoria, not amused. I next fell to wondering who I could ask for details about M. Martin’s feeling for Jane Wilkinson. She herself would not tell me, I knew. And then a passer-by, as we were all crossing the road, uttered a simple sentence.
‘He said to his girl companion that somebody or other “should have asked Ellis”. And immediately the whole thing came to me in a flash!’
He looked round.
‘Yes, yes, the pince-nez, the telephone call, the short woman who called for the gold box in Paris. Ellis, of course, Jane Wilkinson’s maid. I followed every step of it—the candles—the dim light—Mrs Van Dusen—everything. I knew!’
Chapter 30
The Story
He looked round at us.
‘Come, my friends,’ he said gently. ‘Let me tell you the real story of what happened that night.
‘Carlotta Adams leaves her flat at seven o’clock. From there she takes a taxi and goes to the Piccadilly Palace.’
‘What?’ I exclaimed.
‘To the Piccadilly Palace. Earlier in the day she has taken a room there as Mrs Van Dusen. She wears a pair of strong glasses which, as we all know, alters the appearance very much. As I say, she books a room, saying that she is going by the night boat train to Liverpool and that her luggage has gone on. At eight-thirty Lady Edgware arrives and asks for her. She is shown up to her room. There they change clothes. Dressed in a fair wig, a white taffeta dress and ermine wrap, Carlotta Adams and not Jane Wilkinson leaves the