‘Only I didn’t really try to get money by it. It was just swank so as to make people think a bit more of me. I didn’t want to be dishonest. Mr Serrocold will tell you and Dr Maverick – they’ve got all the stuff about it.’ Inspector Curry nodded. He had already studied Edgar’s case history and his police record.
‘Mr Serrocold got me clear in the end and brought me down here. He said he needed a secretary to help him and I did help him! I really did. Only the others laughed at me. They were always laughing at me.’ ‘What others? Mrs Serrocold?’ ‘No, not Mrs Serrocold. She’s a lady – she’s always gentle and kind. No, but Gina treated me like dirt. And Stephen Restarick. And Mrs Strete looked down on me for not being a gentleman. So did Miss Bellever – and what’s she? She’s a paid companion, isn’t she?’ Curry noted the signs of rising excitement.
‘So you didn’t find them very sympathetic?’ Edgar said passionately: ‘It was because of me being a bastard. If I’d had a proper father they wouldn’t have gone on like that.’ ‘So you appropriated a couple of famous fathers?’ Edgar blushed.
‘I always seem to get to telling lies,’ he muttered.
‘And finally you said Mr Serrocold was your father.
Why?’ ‘Because that would stop them once for all, wouldn’t it? If he was my father they couldn’t do anything to me.’ ‘Yes. But you accused him of being your enemy – of persecuting you.’ ‘I know -‘ He rubbed his forehead. ‘I got things all wrong. There are times when I don’t – when I don’t get things quite right. I get muddled.’ ‘And you took the revolver from Mr Walter Hudd’s room?’ Edgar looked puzzled.
‘Did I? Is that where I got it?’ ‘Don’t you remember where you got it?’ Edgar said:
‘I meant to threaten Mr Serrocold with it. I meant to frighten him. It was kid stuff all over again.’ Inspector Curry said patiently: ‘How did you get the revolver?’ ‘You just said – out of Waiter’s room.’ ‘You remember doing that now?’ ‘I must have got it from his room. I couldn’t have got hold of it any other way, could I?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Inspector Curry. ‘Somebody might have given it to you?’ Edgar was silent – his face a blank.
‘Is that how it happened?’ Edgar said passionately: ‘I don’t remember. I was so worked up. I walked about the garden in a red mist of rage. I thought people were spying on me, watching me, trying to hound me down.
Even that nice white-haired old lady… I can’t understand it all now. I feel I must have been mad. I don’t remember where I was and what I was doing half the time!’ ‘Surely you remember who told you Mr Serrocold was your father?’ Edgar gave the same blank stare.
‘Nobody told me,’ he said sullenly. ‘It just came to me.’ Inspector Curry sighed. He was not satisfied. But he judged he could make no further progress at present.
‘Well, watch your step in future,’ he said.
‘Yes, sir. Yes indeed I wi//.’ As Edgar went, Inspector Curry slowly shook his head.
‘These pathological cases are the devil!’ ‘D’you think he’s mad, sir?’ ‘Much less mad than I’d imagined. Weak-headed, boastful, a liar – yet a certain pleasant simplicity about him. Highly suggestible I should imagine…’
‘You think someone did suggest things to him?’
‘Oh yes, old Miss Marple was right there. She’s a shrewd old bird. But I wish I knew who it was. He won’t tell. If we only knew that… Come on, Lake, let’s have a thorough reconstruction of the scene in the Hall.’ III ‘That faxes it pretty well.’
Inspector Curry was sitting at the piano. Sergeant
Lake was in a chair by the window overlooking the lake.
Curry went on:
‘If I’m half-turned on the piano stool, watching the study door, I can’t see you.’
Sergeant Lake rose softly and edged quietly through the door to the library.
‘All this side of the room was dark. The only lights that were on were the ones beside the study door. No, Lake, I didn’t see you go. Once in the library, you could go out through the other door to the corridor – two minutes to run along to the oak suite, shoot Gulbrandsen and come back through the library to your chair by the window.