‘And that, you see, is how the conjuring trick was done.
It was the trick of the Lady Sawn in Half that made me think of it.’ ‘The Lady Sawn in Half?.’ Inspector Curry was now quite sure that Miss Marple was a mental case.
‘A most thrilling conjuring trick. You must have seen it – only not really one girl but two girls. The head of one and the feet of the other. It looks like one person and is really two. And so I thought it could just as well be the other way about. Two people could be really one person.’ ‘Two people really one?’ Inspector Curry looked desperate.
‘Yes. Not for long. How long did your constable take in the Park to run to this house and back? Two minutes and forty-five seconds, wasn’t it? This would be less than that. Well under two minutes.’ ‘What was under two minutes?’ ‘The conjuring trick. The trick when it wasn’t two people but one person. In there – in the study. We’re only looking at the visible part of the stage. Behind the scenes there is the terrace and a row of windows. So easy when there are two people in the study to open the study window, get out, run along the terrace (those footsteps Alex heard), in at the side door, shoot Christian Gulbrandsen and run back, and during that time, the other person in the study does both voices so that we’re all quite sure there are two people in there. And so there were most of the time, but not for that little period of under two minutes.’ Inspector Curry found his breath and his voice.
‘Do you mean that it was Edgar Lawson who ran along the terrace and shot Gulbrandsen? Edgar Lawson who poisoned Mrs Serrocold?’ ‘But you see, Inspector, no one has been poisoning Mrs Serrocold at all. That’s where the misdirection comes in.
Someone very cleverly used the fact that Mrs Serrocold’s sufferings from arthritis were not unlike the symptoms of arsenical poisoning. It’s the old conjurer’s trick of forcing a card on you. Quite easy to add arsenic to a bottle of tonic – quite easy to add a few lines to a typewritten letter. But the real reason for Mr Gulbrandsen’s coming here was the most likely reason – something to do with the Gulbrandsen Trust. Money, in fact. Suppose that there had been embezzlement – embezzlement on a very big scale – you see where that points? To just one person ‘ Inspector Curry gasped: ‘Lewis Serrocold?’ he murmured incredulously.
‘Lewis Serrocold…’ said Miss Marple.
CHAPTER 22
Part of letter from Gina Hudd to her aunt Mrs Van Rydock: – and so you see, darling Aunt Ruth, the whole thing has been just like a nightmare – especially the end of it. I’ve told you all about this funny man Edgar Lawson. He always was a complete rabbit – and when the Inspector began questioning him and breaking him dowr6 he lost his nerve completely and scuttled like a rabbit. Just lost his nerve and ran – literally ran. Jumped out of the window and round the house and down the drive and then there was a policeman coming to head him off, and he swerved and ran full tilt for the lake. He leaped into a rotten old punt that’s mouldered therefor years and pushed off. Quite a mad senseless thing to do, of course, but as I say he was just a panic-stricken rabbit. And then LeWis gave a great shout and said ‘That punt’s rotten,’ and raced off to the lake too. The punt went down and there was Edgar struggling in the water. He couldn’t swim. Lewis jumped in and swam out to him. He got to him but they were both in difficulty because they’d got among the reeds. One of the Inspector’s men went in with a rope round him but he got entangled too and they had to pull him in. Aunt Mildred said ‘They’ll drown – they’ll drown – they’ll both drown…’ in a silly sort of way, and Grandam just said ‘Yes.’ I can’t describe to you just how she made that one word sound. Just ‘YES’ and it went through you like – like a sword.