THE FIFTH OF NOVEMBER, Wednesday, was Bonfire Night. In 1605, Guy Fawkes was arrested for his part in a plot to blow up the Houses of Parliament; since then, he’d been burnt in effigy in an annual remembrance of the event.
Piles of wood and junk were going up everywhere for the bonfires. The hulking heaps loomed in the darkness, something primal and barbaric in their promise of festive destruction. There was one in the park not far from Eric’s flat, and the Guys that had haunted the local streets over the past week were now converging there in their various carts and wagons, their hollow-eyed masks grinning emptily at their funeral pyres.
Gunpowder, treason, and plot. Only the first was figurative in his case, Eric thought as he set his jaw and climbed the front steps of the Britannia. Like Fawkes, there was no turning back for him.
The Britannia Club was nearly empty. Most members gave the excuse that they wished to spend Bonfire Night with their families, but in truth, they simply didn’t care to brave the streets while fireworks were going off like shells and gunfire overhead. The staff had been reduced as well. Everyone knew it would be a slow night.
Eric nodded to Old Faithful, glanced up to the Arthurian Knights painting on the landing, saluted King Pellinore and Sir Palomides, then made his way to the back of the dining room.
There was a room here for private parties. It had a bow window looking out to the back of the building and was separated from the rest of the dining room by a pair of sliding doors. Eric had asked that the dining table be moved to one side, leaving the middle of the floor open. Chairs had been arranged here, in a semicircle under the chandelier, and Eric paced the parquet flooring before them.
The first to arrive was Bradshaw. He looked, unsmiling, at Eric’s empty hands and said, “Not subjecting the silverware to idle scrutiny, Peterkin? You must be taking this seriously. I just hope you don’t expect this to actually amount to anything.”
“All I ask is your word that I be allowed to finish saying my piece.”
Bradshaw peered at him suspiciously. “My word, is it?”
“For my father’s sake.”
Bradshaw considered, then shrugged. “As you wish. I give you my word. But there’ll be no second chances, so don’t waste it.”
Aldershott arrived soon after. Mrs. Aldershott was with him—an irregularity, but Eric had asked her and she’d insisted, and Aldershott had submitted with bad grace. He simply sat down now and folded his arms in the attitude of one who has no intention of changing his mind. Mrs. Aldershott, meanwhile, gave Eric a sympathetic look before joining her husband.
Saxon was right behind them. He dropped an apple core into a nearby urn, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and came up to Eric to say, in a low voice so the others didn’t hear, “I hope you know what you’re doing, Peterkin. This isn’t really about your membership, is it?”
Eric shook his head.
“I didn’t think so. Don’t disgrace yourself.” Saxon gave him a curt nod and went to sit beside Mrs. Aldershott.
Norris stumbled in a few minutes later. He’d been cleaned up and dressed, and brought to the doorstep of the Britannia in a taxicab. Thanks to Dr. Filgrave, he looked very much his old self again, and no one would have guessed he’d been anything else.
Looking with some disappointment at the bare dining table, Norris said, “This really is a sad state of affairs, Peterkin. I’ll challenge this motion if you like—for Penny’s sake, if nothing else—but I really thought you’d at least bring out the good wine to thank me for it.”
“I still might, Norris.”
Norris brightened up at that and sat down near the door to the serving pantry.
There was one empty chair left. “Are you expecting Wolfe?” Bradshaw asked. “You know he’s in police custody at the moment.”
The sliding doors parted with a whistle of oiled rollers, and Wolfe strode in. He lit a cigarette—milking the moment for all its dramatic potential—and said, “Honestly, Bradshaw, how long have I ever been detained in anyone’s custody? It took a little longer this time, but these were British policemen.”
Wolfe settled into his seat and gave Eric a regal nod. “All right, Peterkin,” he said. “We’re all here. Tell us why we shouldn’t boot you like a public school football.” He had to be aware of the curiosity his presence aroused, and he was revelling in it.
“Actually,” Eric said, eyeing his audience, “I think I’d much rather solve a murder.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake—” Aldershott sprang to his feet, only to be pulled down again by his wife.
“Language, Edward,” she warned him. She was straight-backed and stern, like one of the formidable night-shift matrons Eric had seen at the Royal West Sussex Hospital. “And sit. I want to hear this.”
“Martha, I don’t even know why you insisted on being here.” He looked around. “Are the rest of you going to stand for this?”
“I gave Peterkin my word I’d hear him out,” Bradshaw said.
“I’d like to hear Peterkin out too,” Saxon said, peering owlishly back at Aldershott.
“Yes,” said Wolfe. “Do sit down, Aldershott. I didn’t waste money on the cab fare here just to see you walk out.”
“Fine, then.” Aldershott sat down again, surlier than before. “Let’s get this farce over with.”
The doors were closed. The chandelier cast a circle of light around Eric, with the others sitting around its edge. It was time, thought Eric.
He cleared his throat. “Just under two weeks ago, Albert Benson walked into the Britannia Club as a new member. Up in the club lounge, he entered into a bet that Wolfe couldn’t liberate the contents of his vault box. The next day, he was dead. Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, but after having it drilled into me that there have always been Peterkins at the Britannia, I got to feeling a certain responsibility for what goes on around here. And when I saw the investigating officer, Horatio Parker, removing key evidence from Benson’s room, let us just say it did not fill me with the greatest confidence in the likelihood of our fellow member getting the justice and respect due to him as a human being.”
Nobody leapt up to ask why he didn’t report Parker to the authorities. They were all familiar enough with the story already.
“This is not a case of one murder, but three,” Eric said. “Aside from Albert Benson, his wife, whom most of you might remember as Helen Sotheby, died of smoke inhalation last Friday when someone drugged her and left her in a burning room. And six years ago, a nurse by the name of Emily Ang was killed at Sotheby Manor, her body buried some distance away in Bruton Wood. The three are related. Benson was struck down because he was searching for the truth behind Emily’s murder, and Mrs. Benson was killed because it was thought that her husband might have revealed something to her before he came here. So the real question is, who killed Emily?”
Saxon and Mrs. Aldershott exchanged glances. They knew this was coming, though it was hard to see if they were sitting up with trepidation or anticipation. Norris appeared a little bemused by developments; the others wore the stony expressions of men marching into battle.
“Benson knew that Emily hadn’t simply disappeared; she’d died. And he knew that she’d been buried in a shallow grave in Bruton Wood. He knew this because he’d been the one to bury her.”
“What?” exclaimed Mrs. Aldershott. “Impossible. If he’d done that, then why was he asking questions at all? Shouldn’t he have known what happened?”
“I thought he might have felt guilty about something,” Saxon said, “but … I don’t understand.”
Had Eric not been watching Aldershott, he would have missed the near-imperceptible frown Aldershott directed at Bradshaw. Eric nodded to Saxon and said, “He thought he knew, but then he found something to challenge his assumptions. So, what were his assumptions? What did he find that day six years ago, the day Emily Ang was last seen alive, having missed Helen Sotheby’s party and vanished into thin air? Picture this: the nurses’ station at Sotheby Manor. There’s a small cot with a metal bedstead, and a desk against the wall. Emily Ang is lying on the floor, dead from two strong blows to the head, fracturing her skull in two places. And lying half out of the cot is Horatio Parker, unconscious and bleeding from a facial wound. The conclusion seems obvious: Parker attacked Emily, perhaps in a raging fit induced by shell shock, and was wounded in the face when she defended herself. He killed her, then lost consciousness. As for what caused that facial wound, there was a pair of surgical scissors nearby. Clearly, that had been Emily’s weapon in her self-defence.”
“That’s utter rubbish,” Saxon declared. “I told you—”
Eric waved him down. “We’ll get to that, Saxon. Don’t worry.” He continued, “Benson did not make this discovery alone. Others were with him—others who decided they had to save Parker from the hangman’s noose. Emily had been hit twice in the head; they couldn’t disguise that as an accident. They had to make her disappear.” He paused, and added, more conversationally, “Mrs. Aldershott said something quite interesting to me about this once. She said that the cruel thing about disappearances is that you never get to grieve until it’s too late. That’s how it’s been for Emily’s loved ones. And Emily herself? Benson went to Saxon in hopes that Saxon’s social position might help in reclaiming her remains for a proper burial, but that’s not such an easy thing to accomplish, is it?”
“Hundreds of thousands of soldiers were lost in the War,” Aldershott said, sitting absolutely still. “Tens of thousands were never given the appropriate rites.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
Aldershott’s mouth tightened into a hard, thin line. Beside him, Mrs. Aldershott wiped away a tear. Saxon, meanwhile, seemed ready to burst.
“Emily was dead,” Eric said. “Nothing could bring her back. But Parker was alive. Parker was a hero in line for the Victoria Cross. He was a good man. This wasn’t a conscious choice, and he couldn’t be held responsible. Was it right that he should hang? The men who’d discovered the scene with Benson made a decision, and I think it was a difficult one. They chose the living.” He looked at Aldershott. “You chose the living.”
Aldershott looked back at him. His eyes were slits that gave away nothing, and his jaw remained bonded in place.
“You were there that day. You were friendly with Sir Andrew Sotheby and could obtain access to Parker’s files. You had a motorcar with which to transport the body to Bruton Wood. And you owed Parker your life.”
It was not an accusation. It was a statement of debts paid and of a choice between two evils. Aldershott met Eric’s eyes, and remorse flickered behind the granite facade.
“Aldershott?” thundered Saxon.
“Edward?” Martha Aldershott’s hoarse choke carried over Saxon’s angry bellow.
“I owed Parker my life,” Aldershott replied stiffly.
“What would you have done?” Bradshaw erupted. “He couldn’t see Parker hang—we couldn’t see Parker hang. Parker wasn’t responsible, and he’d saved too many other lives to be doomed for the loss of one. Yes, I was there, and you’re not to blame Aldershott for what we did. It was my idea.” He was looking at Mrs. Aldershott as he said this; his words were for her benefit. Mrs. Aldershott looked away from her husband and set her eyes steadily forwards, at Eric.
“I know,” said Eric. “But I also know what Benson had discovered: that the scene you found was staged. Parker didn’t kill Emily. Covering up her murder has resulted in two things. First, Parker’s lived for the past six years believing himself guilty, and paying his own price for a crime he didn’t actually commit. Second, the actual killer got away free and has done two more murders.”
Bradshaw said, “That’s not possible. I know what I saw that day.”
Eric turned to Saxon for the answer, and Saxon said, “Emily never stabbed anyone with those scissors, least of all Parker, and Parker never attacked her. He came at me with a poker, and I defended myself with this.” He flicked open his pen-release. “I gave him that scar he’s got now. Emily gave him a sedative, and the last I saw of them, she was getting ready to apply bandages.”
Wolfe stared, fascinated, at Saxon. “So you were the spy! Parker showed me—”
“I was not a spy!” Saxon shouted, rounding angrily on Wolfe. “I was working for British military intelligence!”
Wolfe just smirked, and Saxon finally settled down, grumbling to himself.
Eric continued, “Benson had been sorting through Sir Andrew Sotheby’s old files, and he realised that the report did not match what he thought he knew about it. The long, slim single blade of a knife leaves a very different sort of cut from the short, thick double blades of a pair of scissors. You wouldn’t have thought he’d been wounded with the scissors unless there was blood on them, so how did that blood get there? It had to have been put there deliberately by someone intending to frame Parker. Was there supporting evidence for Parker’s innocence? Had Benson continued in his investigations, he might have learnt that Emily made the rounds of the quarantine ward afterwards, and that she even stayed to discuss Bible passages with Wolfe.” He turned to Mrs. Aldershott. “I ask you, would Emily, a trained nurse, leave Parker alone after he’d been violent, unless she were certain he was no longer a threat to himself or others?”
Mrs. Aldershott said, “She might, if it were absolutely unavoidable, but she’d stay on the alert. I certainly don’t see her sitting down for a friendly chat with anyone.” Her answer was almost mechanical, coolness prevailing over sentiment.
Eric nodded. “Exactly. So Parker was no longer a threat. The sedative had taken effect, and he was fast asleep. But he believed what he was told about Emily. He believed he’d killed her in a blackout induced by shell shock. When Benson came to the Britannia, it was not to expose Parker, but to clear his name—to save him from his burden of unwarranted guilt. That’s why he collected the evidence he did and put it together in his vault box: the photograph showing Parker at Sotheby Manor on the day of Emily’s disappearance; the medical report explaining the nature of his facial wound; the surgical scissors which were supposed to have inflicted that wound but were ill-designed to do so; and the hypodermic kit, whose significance we’ll come to later. That’s why he was hesitant about entering into the bet. That’s why he decided at the last minute to spend the night in the club. And that’s why he was murdered.”
Eric looked around. The others were silent. He’d been worried about Aldershott and Bradshaw, but the prospect of clearing Parker’s name seemed to have glued them to their seats.
“Benson’s murder was less than a fortnight ago,” Eric continued. “You know what happened. On Friday night, Wolfe made a bet that he’d be able to break into the vault and extract something from Benson’s box. The next day, we found Benson in the vault with Aldershott’s letter opener in his neck. Aldershott’s office had been broken into and ransacked. I went up with Old Faithful to secure Benson’s room, and here’s what I found inside: the window open, and the covers thrown up on the near side of the bed. Benson had leapt out of bed on the far side, which is a narrow space of about a foot, to look out the window. He’d been concerned about the bet, and I think he left the window open, in spite of the temperature, because he guessed that Wolfe would attempt to enter via the back entrance, and he hoped to catch him at it. But, Wolfe, you’d been perfectly silent, hadn’t you?”
“Of course. I’m insulted that you should even question it.”
“I wondered, What could have awakened Benson and brought him down from his room? Then I remembered the open transom in Aldershott’s office. Whoever broke open Aldershott’s office door would have made some noise, and sound carries in the passage outside. It woke Benson up, and he hurried down, expecting to find Wolfe in the vault. He didn’t happen to look into Aldershott’s office as he passed, as that wasn’t his objective, but whoever was in there saw Benson hurry past. This person snatched up the letter opener, followed Benson down to the vault, and stabbed him.”
“So it was a burglar,” Aldershott said. “Just as I surmised.” He almost looked as though he approved.
“A burglar wouldn’t have seen the need to follow Benson anywhere, Aldershott. This was someone who had a reason to want Benson dead, and a reason to break into your office. So the question is, what do you have in your office that someone would want to break in there for?”
“My papers, obviously.” The near approval on Aldershott’s face disappeared and was replaced by irritation. “They represent the investments of half the Britannia Club.”
“Then why didn’t this burglar make off with them once Benson was dead? When all is said and done, he made off with only one item: the hypodermic kit from Benson’s box. Perhaps this was what he was after all along. If so, then the thing he wanted from your office was the memo containing the combination to the vault. As for the hypodermic kit, it was found later at Sotheby Manor, where it had been mangled and chucked into the heart of a fire. It was badly damaged, but not destroyed. Whatever its reason for being there, it ties the murders together: if Benson’s killer had taken the kit from the vault, then Benson’s killer was present at Sotheby Manor at the time of the fire, and was almost certainly responsible for Mrs. Benson’s death. This person was therefore someone familiar with both the Britannia Club and with Sotheby Manor—familiar enough to know how to bypass the servants and convince Mrs. Benson to join them for a nice cup of tea in the office.”
“That’s nearly everyone in this room,” Wolfe said, looking around. “I’d have washed Saxon out, but he’s just admitted to having visited once with no one the wiser. Mrs. Aldershott?”
“I’ve never been to Sotheby Manor,” Mrs. Aldershott said. “Emily always found some excuse when I visited Chichester.”
“We need to consider the significance of that hypodermic kit,” Eric said. “Unlike the other items in Benson’s vault box, it doesn’t seem to have ties to Parker. Instead, it’s characterised by a distinctive monogram: a stylised S, like the one on Saxon’s pen-release.”
Two—at least two—chairs scraped back as their occupants stifled their reactions. Eric turned to one of them. “Mrs. Aldershott, your maiden name was Saxon. You passed a great many of your belongings on to Emily over the years, including, you mentioned, the tools of your trade. That hypodermic kit used to be yours.”
“And I gave it to Emily, yes.” Mrs. Aldershott grew pale. “I don’t know how it wound up in Benson’s possession, or in the fire at Sotheby Manor. The last time I saw it was before I went to Flanders for the War. That was nearly ten years ago.”
“Those who worked with Emily at Sotheby Manor recognised it well enough. Benson must have. But others wouldn’t have. Your husband certainly didn’t; he’d kept it in his vault box for the last six months without realising what it was.”
Aldershott frowned. “What are you talking about, Peterkin?”
“Old Faithful told me about a package wrapped in brown paper that you put in your vault box the day after you were elected club president, and which you never took out. That was the hypodermic kit, wasn’t it? You’d forgotten about it until you decided to give your box to Benson, and then you gave the kit to him as well.”
“Yes. So? It was a perfectly good hypodermic kit, and Benson had ideas of setting up Sotheby Manor as a rest home for addicts. He would have found it useful.”
“Where did you get it?”
“I took it … I got it from Norris.”
Norris, who’d been ignored up to now, sat up in the sudden attention.
“You confiscated it from Norris,” Eric said, “six months ago, when you discovered he was in the grip of a morphine addiction. You said you discarded the empty morphine bottle and put the rest away—meaning the kit. Then you shipped Norris off to the Bensons at Sotheby Manor for a rest cure.”
“The so-called Italian tour!” Wolfe exclaimed. “I knew there was something fishy about that story. Not much of the Neapolitan sun at Sotheby, is there?”
“We all make mistakes,” Norris protested, embarrassed. “That’s in the past, Peterkin. Honest. There’s no need to go into it, is there?” His tone was pleading, and it was for more than just the story of his past addiction.
Eric said, “But if whoever killed Albert and Helen Benson had also killed Emily Ang, then the question before us is this: Why would anyone want Emily Ang dead? The only secret she had seems to have been a love affair, a secret lover who’d left her in the family way.”
Of the people in the room with whom Eric had yet to discuss Emily’s pregnancy, only Bradshaw showed surprise at the news. Wolfe, of course, would never allow himself to express something so gauche as surprise.
“Who was Emily’s secret lover?” Eric held up a photograph. “This photograph shows Norris in an upstairs window, with Sotheby Manor spread out in the background. Not in the house itself, then, but on the grounds. The groundskeeper’s cottage, in other words, which was reserved for nurses at the time, ‘women only.’ For Norris to have been there, he had to be let in by the person taking the photograph: Emily Ang. You were intimate with her, Norris.”
“I get on quite well with most women,” Norris said. “That’s really no secret. Look, this isn’t because I’m getting sweet on your sister, is it? Whatever happened with Emily happened a long time ago. It’s not fair to hold these old mistakes against me.”
“How did you come to possess Emily’s hypodermic kit, Norris?”
“I … well, all right. I stole it. I’d got into the morphine, hadn’t I? Having my own hypodermic was more useful than you can imagine.”
“Oh, I’ve no doubt that you did. She did lose it for a time, but she wrote in her notebook the day before her death that she’d found it again. And it wasn’t just a tool: it was a gift from her sister, and she had no plans to let it out of her sight again.”
Norris stood up. “This is ridiculous! If Benson got the kit from Aldershott, why aren’t you looking at him? He could have taken it from Emily himself.”
“Norris! How dare you!” Aldershott’s spectacles flashed angrily in the light of the chandelier. He turned back to Eric. “I took that kit from Norris. That is God’s own truth, and I will swear to it on any number of Bibles.”
Norris hesitated between sitting and running, and finally dropped into his seat again as Saxon moved to place himself in front of the sliding doors.
“I believe you, Aldershott,” Eric said, “because Benson believed you. He knew you had no reason to lie. You could have taken anything from Emily after her death, and your possession of her kit would have been meaningless. Besides, I know you removed the photograph and the medical report from Benson’s vault box before Wolfe got there that night. As far as you were concerned, that saved Parker from inquiry, and you’d got what you wanted. You had no reason to kill Benson after that.”
Saxon was glaring at Norris, and Mrs. Aldershott had risen to do the same. Bradshaw was leaning forwards in his chair, massaging his forehead with one hand as he stared down at the herringbone parquet.
Eric turned to Norris and said, “The kit places you at the murder of Emily Ang. We all know you were right here in the Britannia when Benson was murdered. You were there for Mrs. Benson’s murder too. While waiting for your train back, you popped into the Green Elephant, beside the Chichester station, and passed the time playing your own composition on the standing piano there. Wolfe heard it, and recognised it later when you played it at Aldershott’s dinner party.
“I told you I’d heard it before,” Wolfe said. But his face bore none of its usual smugness. It was as dead serious as everyone else’s.
“You told me, quite insistently as I recall, that you’d spent that morning lost in a morphine-induced stupor at Brolly’s. Why would you lie about where you were that morning,” Eric asked Norris, “unless there were a worse reason for you to be in Chichester? Why bring it up at all?”
Norris shook his head wordlessly.
“You obtained a bottle of morphine after the music hall show we both attended on Thursday night, then made your way to Sotheby Manor by the earliest train you could. You called on Mrs. Benson, bypassing the servants by using the west wing entry. She didn’t suspect a thing. You got her into the office on some pretext, drugged her tea with the morphine, then jumbled out anything you thought might incriminate you and set it on fire. When Penny remarked on your anxiety that afternoon, it was because you’d just done a murder, not because you were coming out of a morphine stupor.”
“No,” Norris said, finally finding his voice. It was hoarse, as though he’d never used it before. “I’m not a killer, Peterkin. You know me. Even if Emily and I were lovers—”
“I think you were afraid of being tied down by this new responsibility. It’s no fun worrying about a family, is it? Or perhaps you may even have been afraid of what it could mean for you socially. People talk about how brave my parents were to cross the racial divide, but my father was a colonel with enough social status that gossip and calumny couldn’t touch them. You didn’t have that. And while artists and musicians often manage unconventional lifestyles, you still had your name to make at the time. You urged Emily to get rid of the baby, but she came back from her outing that Saturday determined to keep it after all. So you fought. When she turned away, you snatched up the poker and struck her in a rage. Twice. I think you regretted it immediately, but now you had a dead woman on your hands. What to do? There was Parker, asleep and dead to the world. All you had to do was drag him out of bed, remove his bandages, and tear out the final page of Emily’s notebook where she’d noted down the administration of Parker’s sedative. Now it looked as though he’d killed Emily in a fit of shell shock.”
Norris said, “I did no such thing. The only people there were Benson, Aldershott, and Bradshaw. Look at them, not me.”
Aldershott grew even colder towards him. He turned to Eric. “Go on, Peterkin. Let’s hear the rest of it.” Mrs. Aldershott nodded her agreement, her face as grim as her husband’s.
“Norris knew Benson was looking into the matter of Emily’s death, but he thought he was safe. Benson was focused, at the time, on clearing Parker. But on Friday night, Aldershott sat up late in his office, and he had company. There were two used glasses there the next morning. Aldershott, you were up with Norris, weren’t you?”
“Aldershott—”
“If you’re innocent, you’ll have nothing to hide,” roared Aldershott before turning to Eric. “Yes, Peterkin. I was up with Norris.”
Eric asked, “And you talked about Benson and the bet?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell Norris about giving the hypodermic kit to Benson?”
“Yes. I didn’t think anything of it.”
Eric nodded. “And from that moment, Norris knew he had to get the kit out of Benson’s vault box. A poker might be sufficient to pry open the box compartment, or so he hoped, but he needed the combination to the vault door. After Aldershott left the office, Norris waited a bit to be sure no one was about, then broke in to find it. And the rest we already know.”
The silence was absolute. Norris straightened up in his seat. The look he gave Eric was calm and devoid of his usual humour. He stood up, straighter than Eric had seen before, and said, “That’s all very entertaining, provided you’re not the one being accused of murder here. And what have you got, really? Words! Wild conjecture!”
“It’s enough to get the police to start looking in the right places,” Eric said, “once I speak to them in the morning and show them what I have.” He held up an envelope that bulged in the middle with something hard and metallic. “This is Saxon’s key, which he used to keep hidden behind a loose brick over a window by the back door.”
“My key.” Saxon started forward, his eyes blazing. Eric took a step back from him, but his rage was directed at Norris. “My key? You used my key to do all this?”
Wolfe stood up. “Steady on, old man, you don’t want—”
Saxon launched himself at Norris, and Wolfe was only just able to pull him back in time. Bradshaw stood up as well, and helped Wolfe wrestle Saxon down into a chair. Saxon glared, then spat on the carpet. “I’ll see him hanged,” he muttered. “Hanged!”
Norris returned his gaze steadily, his eyes bright.
Eric said to him, “Norris, you told me once about being awakened by someone rattling the dustbins outside the window at the Britannia. I think you looked out and saw it was Saxon retrieving or returning his key. Wolfe did exactly the same. That came in useful when you had to leave in secret to dispose of your bloodied clothing and the hypodermic kit. I wonder, though, if you remembered to wipe it off, or if you even thought it might be considered evidence.”
Norris turned to face him. His face was pale and his jaw was clenched.
“I don’t think you were really thinking straight that night, Norris. You left the letter opener behind; I think the vault door closed before you could think to retrieve it or clean it, and the only reason the police haven’t arrested you already was because, as a board officer, there was every possibility that you might have handled it quite innocently before. But there are dozens of other little points you may have overlooked, and the police, once they know to focus on you, are sure to find them.”
Norris said, “You hope! You have nothing. The only thing we’ve really learnt here tonight is that Aldershott and Bradshaw conspired to hide a murder. Martha, my dear, I’d look for a good solicitor if I were you. I can’t imagine that being married to our Captain Aldershott was ever much fun to begin with. And now? Well, I wasn’t the one who took your sister away from you. I’m not the villain of this story—that much is certain. Bradshaw … I’d ask if you really believed all this nonsense, but given your part in this, I expect the point is moot.” He turned to Wolfe, who avoided his gaze, and Saxon, who met it fiercely. There was no sympathy either way, and he sniffed in disdain. “You lot should be ashamed of yourselves. Good luck, Peterkin. Maybe if you had a policeman in charge who wasn’t the likely killer, he’d tell you to go to hell. I thought you were my friend, but I guess I was mistaken.”
He opened the doors and stalked out.