‘She certainly may. Wally fits. Opportunity – and motive. Because if he wants money quick, his wife’s mother would have to die. So Wally tampers with her tonic, and Christian Gulbrandsen sees him do it – or hears about it in some way. Yes, it fits very nicely.’ He paused and said:
‘By the way, Mildred Strete likes money… She mayn’t spend it, but she likes it. I’m not sure why… She may be a miser – with a miser’s passion. Or she may like the power that money gives. Money for benevolence, perhaps? She’s a Gulbrandsen. She may want to emulate Father.’
‘Complex, isn’t it?’ said Sergeant Lake, and scratched his head.
Inspector Curry said:
‘We’d better see this screwy young man Lawson, and after that we’ll go to the Great Hall and work out who was where – and if- and why – and when… We’ve heard one or two rather interesting things this morning.’ II It was very difficult, Inspector Curry thought, to get a true estimate of someone from what other people said.
Edgar Lawson had been described by a good many different people that morning, but looking at him now, Curry’s own impressions were almost ludicrously different.
Edgar did not impress him as ‘queer’ or ‘dangerous,’ or ‘arrogant’ or even as ‘abnormal.’ He seemed a very ordinary young man, very much cast down and in a state of humility approaching that of Uriah Heep’s. He looked young and slightly common and rather pathetic.
He was only too anxious to talk and to apologize.
‘I know I’ve done very wrong. I don’t know what came over me – really I don’t. Making that scene and kicking up such a row. And actually shooting off a pistol. At Mr Serrocold too, who’s been so good to me and so patient, tOO.’
He twisted his hands nervously. They were rather pathetic hands, with bony wrists.
‘If I’ve got to be had up for it, I’ll come with you at once. I deserve it. I’ll plead guilty.’
‘No charge has been made against you,’ said Inspector Curry crisply. ‘So we’ve no evidence on which to act.
According to Mr Serrocold, letting off the pistol was an accident.’
‘That’s because he’s so good. There never was a man as good as Mr Serrocold! He’s done everything for me. And
I go and repay him by acting like this.’ ‘What made you act as you did?’ Edgar looked embarrassed.
‘I made a fool of myself.’ Inspector Curry said drily:
‘So it seems. You told Mr Serrocold in the presence of witnesses that you had discovered that he was your father. Was that true?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ ‘What put that idea into your head? Did someone suggest it to you?’ ‘Well, it’s a bit hard to explain.’ Inspector Curry looked at him thoughtfully, then said in a kindly voice: ‘Suppose you try. We don’t want to make things hard for you.’ ‘Well, you see, I had a rather hard time of it as a kid.
The other boys jeered at me. Because I hadn’t got a father. Said I was a little bastard – which I was, of course.
Mum was usually drunk and she had men coming in all the time. My father was a foreign seaman, I believe. The house was always filthy, and it was all pretty fair hell. And then I got to thinking, supposing my Dad had been not just some foreign sailor, but someone important – and I used to make up a thing or two. Kid stuff first – changed at birth – really the rightful heir – that sort of thing. And then I went to a new school and I tried it on once or twice hinting things. Said my father was really an Admiral in the Navy. I got to believing it myself. I didn’t feel so bad then.’ He paused and then went on: ‘And then – later – I thought up some other ideas. I used to stay at hotels and told a lot of silly stories about being a fighter pilot – or about being in Military Intelligence. I got all sort of mixed up. I didn’t seem able to stop telling lies.