Then Inspector Elvin returned.
He shut the door, leaned back against it, and slid his hands into his jacket pockets with his thumbs left outside.
He said, “Now, where were we? Ah, yes … I suppose you know the circumstances of your wife’s death, Mr. Parry?”
After a hesitant start, Michael said, “I only know she died from — from something she took. At least, that’s what I’ve been told.”
“You haven’t been to see your wife?”
“No, I — I couldn’t face it. The thought of her being dead …” He looked down at his restless hands.
“Have you any idea why this should have happened?”
“Not a clue. If I’d had even the faintest idea … but how could I know?”
“That is a point.” Elvin bobbed his silver head in agreement. “How could you know?”
For a few moments he waited as though expecting an answer. Then he went on in a confidential tone, “Well, I feel I ought to tell you what we think caused your wife’s death, Mr. Parry. She would appear to have died from an overdose of some hypnotic drug, probably a barbiturate called Pembrium. Was she in the habit of taking sleeping pills?”
“I wouldn’t exactly call it a habit … but she did take one now and again.”
“Were they Pembrium?”
“That’s something I couldn’t say. All I know is that Dr. Bossard prescribed them for her.”
“Do you know of any reason why she should’ve suffered from sleeplessness?”
With a touch of his old hearty manner, Parry said, “Well, now, that’s making too much out of it. Just because she took an odd pill once in a while …”
He seemed to lose the thread of what he had been going to say. His eyes shifted from Elvin to Quinn and then dropped to his hands again.
In a clipped voice. Inspector Elvin said, “It was not an odd pill that your wife took this afternoon, Mr. Parry. It was a massive and fatal overdose. What I am trying to establish is her reason for doing such a thing. And I know you want to help me … don’t you?”
“Of course. But I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
“Had she been worried recently about anything — I mean anything that could’ve made her depressed, not quite herself?”
Michael Parry rubbed his eyes while he thought. Then he said, “Worried is hardly how I’d put it, but she did seem a bit off-colour. Inclined to get irritable over trifles, I noticed. That’s why I thought it a good idea when she suggested going to Wood Lake for a few days.”
“What sort of place is Wood Lake?”
“Oh, it’s one of those slimming resorts that women go to. Fancy diets and massage and sauna baths and beauty treatment and all that kind of thing.”
“Did she go there often?”
“Yes, every two or three months.”
“And came back each time feeling better in health?”
Parry looked as though he’d been asked a trick question. Eventually, he said, “That wasn’t really why she went to Wood Lake. Her health never troubled her. She was always a very fit person.”
“But she took sleeping pills,” Elvin said.
In a bluff voice, Michael said, “So do most people nowadays. I’ve read that half the population take drugs of one kind or another.”
“But half the population don’t commit suicide. And that’s what your wife has done … or appears to have done. Isn’t it?”
Michael looked at Quinn as though for support. He asked, “Couldn’t it have been — an accident?”
Inspector Elvin said, “That’s for a Coroner’s jury to decide, Mr. Parry. However, I would doubt it very much. I can’t see anyone accidentally taking a large dose of barbiturate in the middle of the afternoon … can you?”
“No, I suppose not.”
“And then there are all the other factors that have to be taken into account. You’ve had plenty of time,, to think about them by now — plenty of time.”
The inspector paused. When Michael Parry had waited until he could wait no longer, he asked, “What factors?”
“From what I understand you thought she wouldn’t be coming home until some time this evening. That is what you did think, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I’d arranged to meet the eight-ten bus at Blandford. In fact I went there and hung around until the eight-fifty had come and gone.”
“You received no word from your wife to say she’d changed her mind?”
“No, she never got in touch with me at all from the time she went away.”
“When was that?”
“Last Monday.”
“Where is this place Wood Lake?”
“Just outside Chobham.”
“That’s near Woking, isn’t it?”
“Yes, three or four miles from there.”
“How did your wife usually get to Wood Lake?”
“A taxi would call here and take her to Blandford. From there she’d get the bus to Salisbury where she caught a train. At Woking she’d be met by a car from Wood Lake.”
“I see.”
Inspector Elvin moved his feet farther apart and repeated, “I see.”
Then he asked, “Did she always return the same way?”
“Yes. I usually picked her up at Blandford instead of letting her get a taxi home.”
“Didn’t you ever take her there in your own car when she was going off to Wood Lake?”
“Yes, sometimes.”
“But not on this last occasion?”
An uncomfortable look came into Michael’s puffy face. He said, “No, she didn’t want me to.”
“Any special reason?”
“Not really. She preferred to take a taxi, that’s all.”
Elvin made no attempt to hide the disbelief in his eyes. He said, “I do wish you’d be frank with me, Mr. Parry. It would make my job so much easier and save you inevitable distress.”
“I’m being absolutely frank. I’ve no reason to be otherwise.”
“Then please answer my question. Why didn’t your wife want you to run her to Blandford last Monday?”
Parry glanced at Quinn again. Then he said, “What difference does it make? Will any of this alter what’s happened?”
“No, of course not. Nothing can do that. But the Coroner’s going to ask me a lot of questions, Mr. Parry — a lot of questions — and he’ll expect answers to them. With your help we may be able to satisfy him.”
“But I still don’t see —”
“Above all else we must try to fathom your wife’s state of mind on the day she left here to visit Wood Lake. I’d have thought that was obvious — very obvious.”
“Why? What good will that do? It’s days ago.”
“She may have brooded over it while she was away. That’s quite possible if” — the inspector stared at him with guileless eyes — “if, for example, you had a quarrel on the day she left.”
Michael Parry said in a flat voice, “My wife and I never quarrelled.” “Never?”
“Once in a while we might’ve had a difference of opinion but that was as far as it ever went.”
“Did you have a difference of opinion last Monday before she went away?”
Quinn saw anger flare in Michael’s eyes. Then defeat took its place.
He said, “It was quite trivial … not worth mentioning. But women get these damn’ silly ideas. There was no reason why I couldn’t have taken her to Blandford.”
“But she preferred to go by taxi. Why?”
“Because I’d had a couple of drinks at lunch time and she was afraid I might be stopped and given a breathalyser test.”
Quinn told himself Michael Parry was lying. “… Michael, me boy, you’re a first-class, one-hundred-percent liar. She wasn’t afraid merely because you’d had a couple. You must’ve been stinko — so damn’ plastered you weren’t fit to drive. She wasn’t going to trust herself in a car with you driving.”
Inspector Elvin nodded amiably. He said, “Good. That’s one thing out of the way.”
As though tabulating his thoughts, he went on, “She left in a taxi, you stayed here … and there was no quarrel of any kind before she left. Have I got it right?”
“Yes. That’s exactly how it was.”
“And you didn’t hear from your wife at any time while she was at Wood Lake?”
“No.”
“Was that usual?”
“Yes. She seldom, if ever, got in touch with me when she went away for just a few days. Anyway, I’d arranged to pick her up at the bus stop this evening, so there was nothing for us to talk about.”
“But she didn’t keep to the arrangement, Mr. Parry. She must’ve returned some time this afternoon. Can you suggest any reason for that — any reason at all?”
“No, I can’t … but evidently she changed her mind.”
“Without telling you?”
A harassed look came into Parry’s washed-out blue eyes. He said, “Maybe she tried to phone me and I was out.”
“If you were, would there be no one here to answer the telephone?”
“Not after one o’clock. That’s when Mrs. Gregg leaves.”
“And who is Mrs. Gregg?”
“Our daily woman. She comes at nine and goes about one.”
“Every day?”
“Except Sunday.”
“If, by any chance, your wife did phone, surely Mrs. Gregg would have told you?”
“She’d gone by the time I got back.”
The slightly puzzled look on Elvin’s face cleared. He said, “Ah, now I see. But wouldn’t Mrs. Gregg make a note of the call and leave it beside the phone?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“You don’t sound very sure, Mr. Parry — not very sure at all. Hasn’t she had instructions to write down any phone calls received while you and your wife are out?”
“Oh, yes … and she always does.”
“So we can take it” — Elvin’s voice dropped half a tone — “that no call was received. In other words, your wife didn’t phone.”
Michael Parry played with his hands while he thought. At last, he said, “She might’ve done between the time Mrs. Gregg left and the time I returned.”
“When did you return?”
“About half-past three … I think.”
“So for roughly two and a half hours there would be no one in the house?”
“Yes. And that’s when” — Michael’s face brightened — “that’s when my wife probably tried to ring me.”
Inspector Elvin shook his head. In a tone of reproof, he said, “No, Mr. Parry. I doubt it — I doubt it very much. She must’ve set out from Wood Lake before one o’clock to get here during the afternoon. She had to get to Woking … take a train to Salisbury … a bus from Salisbury to Blandford … and then some form of transport from there to Castle Lammering.”
“But she might —”
“There’s no might about it, Mr. Parry. That sort of journey takes time. If she intended to return home earlier than arranged she’d have had to make her decision long before one o’clock … and your Mrs. Gregg would still have been here.”
Something new showed behind Elvin’s smooth courtesy as he asked, “Do you follow my line of reasoning?”
Parry agreed a little too hastily. He said, “Oh, yes … yes, I do. But I’ve already told you I just can’t explain it — any of it.”
With artificial sympathy, Inspector Elvin said, “It is a problem — quite a big problem. However, I’m sure we’ll find the answer if we go about it the right way. So let’s start from the beginning. What time did you leave home this morning?”
“About eleven o’clock. I had some shopping to do …” Parry left the rest in mid-air.
“Where did you go — Blandford? There aren’t any decent shops much nearer than that, are there?”
“Well, actually I went to Poole. Needed a haircut and I like to use the same barber …”
He looked across at the bed where the eiderdown trailed almost to the floor. His face stiffened as he went on, “I thought I’d spruce myself up a bit because Adele” — he faltered — “because my wife was coming home and I wanted to look my best.”
“How long did you stay in Poole?”
“A couple of hours or so. After I’d had a haircut I bought some odds and ends and then I had a bite of lunch.”
As though he wanted to change the subject, he added, “Good shopping centre is Poole. Not many places round here where you can get bow ties — I mean the kind you tie yourself, not those ready-made-up horrors that are all right for the peasants.”
Downstairs the phone rang and Quinn heard Sergeant Taylor talking briefly. Elvin waited, his eyes fixed on Parry’s face, until the bell tinkled again.
Then he asked, “Did you come straight home, Mr. Parry, after you’d done your shopping and had lunch?”
“No, I called in at some pub or other, met a bunch of sociable fellows, and got chatting. You know how it is.”
“Yes, of course. Time does tend to pass quickly when you’re having a drink with friends. Always a lot to talk about — even when you’ve met only the other day.”
The implied question left Parry with no choice. He said, “Oh, they weren’t friends. I’d never seen them before. But when you pop into a strange pub you have to be sociable, haven’t you?”
Once again, Elvin said, “Yes, of course. What time did you leave this pub?”
“And yet” — the inspector looked no more than politely surprised — “you didn’t get back here until half past three? Surely that must be wrong?”
“I don’t see —”
“Come now, Mr. Parry! It’s only fifteen or sixteen miles from Poole. That couldn’t have taken you an hour and a half, could it?”
Michael Parry’s manner underwent a sudden change. In an angry voice, he said, “Look, we seem to be getting off the point. I don’t have to account to you for every minute of my time. Where I went and what I did and how long I took to do it is my business. I’m not going —”
“Just be patient,” Elvin said. “Bear with me a little longer. I’m merely trying to ascertain if it’s possible that your wife did phone. Before we eliminate the possibility we must have an accurate time-table. You see that, don’t you?”
Quinn wondered if Parry would believe anything so obviously false. But maybe it wasn’t obvious to him. Elvin had the right approach.
… Yet you can see which way the wind blows. He’s going to get Michael into a corner where there’s no way out and then use the chopper on him …
Michael Parry said, “A time-table of my movements can’t have any bearing on what my wife may, or may not, have done. But if you must know I stopped at the Bird-in-Hand in Castle Lammering on my way back. Got there about —” He gave the inspector a sour look. “You want me to be exact, I suppose?”
“As exact as you can be,” Elvin said.
“Then I’d say it was something between two-fifteen and two-twenty.”
“And you left when … ?”
“Close on half past three. I know it was nearly twenty to four when I got home.”
Inspector Elvin bobbed his head and looked pleased. He said, “Thank you, Mr. Parry. We’re getting along famously. Now take your time and think — think very carefully. What did you do when you entered the house?”
“I came straight upstairs to this room.”
“Any indication that your wife had returned home?”
“None at all.”
“Was that” — Elvin pointed — “her bed?”
The numb look settled again on Parry’s puffy face. He said, “Yes.”
“Do you remember if it was in that disarranged condition then?”
“No, I wasn’t paying any attention.”
“Surely you’d have noticed —”
“There’s no surely about it,” Parry said. His voice was too loud. “You asked me and I’ve told you. I don’t know what state the bed was in. It was a hot day and I’d had a couple of drinks and I wanted to put my feet up for an hour or two. Anything wrong with that?”
“No, of course not. You mustn’t —”
“It never struck me that my wife might be home … if she was. How was I supposed to know she’d changed her mind without telling me?”
Inspector Elvin said gently, “How indeed? So you lay down on the bed and fell asleep. Is that right?”
“Yes. I dropped off almost at once.”
“Anything disturb you — anything at all?”
“Not a thing. I slept like a log until” — he looked at Quinn — “until Miss Stewart and my friend here arrived. It was the ringing of the door-bell that wakened me.”
“What time was that?”
“Half past seven.”
“So you’d slept for nearly four hours?”
In an unpleasant voice, Parry said, “Is it a crime for a man to sleep as many hours as he likes in his own home?”
Elvin looked apologetic. He said, “I didn’t suggest that anyone had committed a crime. All I want is to clear up the mystery of your wife’s return home. Did she take any luggage with her when she left last Monday?”
“Yes, one case.”
“Have you seen anything of it?”
“No, it wasn’t downstairs. And” — Parry’s eyes made a tired survey of the room — “it doesn’t appear to be here.”
“Is this where you’d expect it to be if she’d been going to unpack?”
“Yes.”
“Where would the empty case go?”
“In the spare room where we keep trunks and cases and things like that.”
“We’ll go along there shortly and have a look,” Elvin said. “Meantime would you mind if I searched this room?”
“No, of course not.” Parry’s resentment came to the surface and then as quickly subsided. “Why should I mind?”
He watched the inspector glance under the twin beds, look behind the dressing-table, slide back a door in the fitted wardrobe. Quinn didn’t think Michael Parry was very interested.
There were shoes on a floor rack, eight or nine suits on a rail. Elvin didn’t bother to open a set of drawers running from floor to head height.
In the centre compartment he found nothing of interest, either. It was when he pushed back the right-hand door that he stopped and looked over his shoulder at Parry and asked, “Did you say something?”
Parry said, “That’s the case I was talking about — my wife’s travelling case. What’s it doing in the wardrobe?”
Inspector Elvin brought it out, laid it on the floor, and unfastened the catches. When he raised the lid, he said, “What indeed? Doesn’t look as if she even started to unpack.”
The case was full of neatly folded items of clothing held in place by two elastic straps. Nothing appeared to have been disturbed.
Elvin said, “This affair becomes more and more peculiar the further we go. Your wife would seem to have returned home, carried her bag upstairs, and put it in the wardrobe. After that she lay down on her own bed — for how long, we don’t know.”
He stared up at Parry and added, “If you were going to say we know singularly little about anything you’d be quite right.”
Parry said, “It’s not my place to comment. Won’t help you if I keep on saying I’m completely baffled.” He seemed unable to take his eyes off the suitcase.
“That’s hardly surprising,” Elvin said. “Her behaviour was certainly very odd … to put it mildly. Some time later she appears to have got up, taken a glass of brandy — heavily doped with some kind of barbiturate — and carried it into the nursery. There she swallowed enough of the drug to kill herself. If anyone” — his eyes travelled from Parry to Quinn — “can put forward an explanation, I’ll be glad to hear it.”
Quinn said nothing. After a couple of false starts. Parry said, “Don’t ask me. I haven’t a clue. It just doesn’t make sense.”
“You’re quite right. It doesn’t make sense — none of it. Above all, why did she come home secretly to commit suicide? Why didn’t she do it at this place, Wood Lake? Eh, Mr. Parry?”
“Maybe she forgot to take the sleeping pills with her when she went away,” Parry said. He didn’t sound very confident.
“And so she came all the way back determined to take her own life?” The inspector shook his head. “I’ve dealt with one or two suicides — and I’ve also read quite a bit on the subject — and I can tell you that the circumstances here don’t follow the established pattern.”
He bent over the suitcase as though looking for something. When he straightened himself again, he went on, “People nearly always commit suicide on impulse. In the majority of cases it’s done on the spur of the moment. If it fails — or if anything intervenes to stop the attempt — most of them don’t try again … at least, not for the time being.”
“What you’re saying —”
“I’m saying nothing,” Elvin said. “I’m merely thinking aloud. And these are my thoughts. In your wife’s case she had time to change her mind. Furthermore, I can’t believe that anyone who needed even an occasional sleeping pill would go away for several days without taking them with her.”
Michael Parry might have tried to hide the look of mingled fear and bewilderment that came into his eyes but he failed. As though all the strength had gone out of his legs he sat down on the edge of the nearer bed and slumped forward, his hands dangling between his knees.
In a wooden voice, he said, “Now I’m lost, utterly and completely lost.”
Then he looked up at Quinn and asked, “Why do you just stand there like part of the furniture? Why don’t you say something? Are you afraid to open your mouth?”
Quinn said, “This isn’t my party. I never poke my nose into a police investigation. Anyway, I was ordered not to interfere.”
Inspector Elvin made a little apologetic noise in his throat. He said, “Not ordered, Mr. Quinn, merely requested. A man of your experience knows” — Quinn saw him staring at the table between the twin beds — “knows that a three-handed discussion often confuses the issue in an affair of this kind. Confining it to two people avoids the risk of being side-tracked, of losing sight of important points.”
He was talking for the sake of talking as he walked across to the table and bent down and reached under it. When he stood up again he was holding a transparent plastic bag with printing on it.
Michael Parry had turned his head to watch him. The inspector asked, “Is this yours?”
“Yes. It’s what my shirts are wrapped in when they come back from the laundry.”
“So I thought. The name of a laundry in Blandford is printed on it. Any idea how it came to be behind that table?”
“No. Probably fell on the floor when I took out a clean shirt.”
In sudden irritation Parry got up and said, “What difference does it make? Honestly, Inspector, you baffle me with some of the questions you ask. It’s just a polythene bag — the kind that’s used by a thousand laundries every day of the week. Why should you be interested in the way my shirts are wrapped?”
“Because I have an inquiring mind,” Elvin said. “May I keep this bag?”
“Of course. I’ll give you a dozen more if you’re collecting them.”
Parry laughed without any trace of humour. Then he asked, “Is there anything else you want to know?”
“Just one thing. Had your wife recently been receiving psychiatric treatment?”
Once again a look of withdrawal came into Michael Parry’s faded blue eyes. In a cautious voice, he said, “Not to my knowledge.”
“That isn’t a very satisfactory answer, Mr. Parry. Wouldn’t she have told you if she had consulted a psychiatrist?”
Michael Parry made a little sound of disdain. He said, “If my answer wasn’t very satisfactory, your question is positively daft. Did my wife tell me she was going to commit suicide? Did she confide in me that she was in the mood to do something terrible like this? Did she ever, in fact, have the slightest respect for me? Now go ahead and pick the bones out of that lot.”
Inspector Elvin said, “I will, Mr. Parry, I certainly will. My first thought, naturally, is that you and your wife weren’t very happy together. Would you agree?”
“This is becoming farcical,” Parry said. “If she’d been happy would she have killed herself? Now, if you’ve no objection, I’m going downstairs to get something to eat. My last meal was at lunch time and I’m damned hungry.”
He went out and pulled the door shut with more force than was necessary. As his footsteps marched aggressively towards the top of the stairs, Quinn said, “And that’s that — the gesture of the little man in the face of authority. Mind if I go now?”
Elvin looked at him absentmindedly and then asked, “Where are you off to?”
“I still want that drink I was going to have when you talked me into staying up here.”
“You could have had it long ago if you hadn’t let Parry talk you into keeping him company. Why did you?”
“Mainly for your sake.”
“Indeed?”
“Yes. I thought you’d like me to be present in case he made a liar of himself.”
“And why should he do that?”
“He’d have a good reason if he were responsible for his wife’s death,” Quinn said.
Inspector Elvin nodded and went on nodding while he turned to look at the disarranged bed again. Then he said, “You are a man of ideas, Mr. Quinn. How would you force or persuade or fool someone into taking a lethal dose of barbiturate?”
“Might not be all that difficult. If the stuff hasn’t got an unpleasant taste, or if whatever taste it has could be masked by the liquor, then I’d slip it into the lady’s brandy.”
“Do you happen to know if Pembrium tastes nasty?”
“Never tasted the stuff, so I can’t say. Why don’t you ask Dr. Bossard?”
“I intend to,” Elvin said. “Rest assured I intend to.”
He folded the plastic bag twice, turned it over to study it back and front, and then asked, “Do you ever watch television, Mr. Quinn?”
“Occasionally. Why?”
“Oh, I just wondered if you’d seen that Ministry of Health thing about keeping polythene bags out of the reach of children and domestic pets. Know the one I mean?”
Quinn said, “Yes. And I also know what you’ve got in mind.”
With a smile in his eyes, Elvin said, “That’s very clever of you.”
“Not really. In the world where I earn my living, two and two always make four.”
“All right. Tell me.”
“You think that polythene bag might’ve come in handy if Adele Parry had taken too long to die,” Quinn said.
Inspector Elvin retired behind his smile. In a tentative voice, he asked, “And what do you think?”
“I’m not sure you’re right. It all depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether Mrs. Parry was worth more dead than alive. She controlled the purse-strings … and she was a very wealthy woman. Her will would make interesting reading.”
“Hasn’t he got any money of his own?”
“Not according to my information.”
“From a reliable source?”
It was an awkward question. For the first time Quinn realised that he might have been taking far too much for granted.
He said, “On our way here, Miss Stewart gave me the background to the Parry family. From what she says, Michael Parry’s financial dependence on his wife has been common knowledge.”
“Does that mean he hasn’t got a job of any kind?”
“Ostensibly he’s a writer, but I imagine that’s merely a front to hide the fact that he’s —”
“— been living on his wife’s money,” Elvin said.
“Well, yes, that’s the impression I got.”
“M-m-m … Interesting situation … full of possibilities.”
“As I see it there’s one that sticks out a mile,” Quinn said. “Some time this morning before the daily help arrived, Mrs. Parry phoned her husband and told him she was returning home earlier than arranged. My guess is that she also made it clear they’d reached the parting of the ways. Maybe she’d found someone else: or maybe she’d decided that there was no future in their marriage and she didn’t want to go on living with him. The effect of all this on Michael Parry was —”
“— to make him decide that if she wouldn’t go on living with him he’d see she wouldn’t go on living without him,” Elvin said.
Quinn remembered the look on Parry’s face when he’d opened the door — a befuddled look compounded of drink and sleep. He’d hardly seemed like a man who had just murdered his wife. And yet he must’ve been in the house around the time when she’d died. And that posed a different problem.
“It might not have been quite as it looks,” Quinn said. “Supposing she came home and found him in a drunken stupor? If she’d reached the stage where she couldn’t take that sort of thing any more she might — I say she just might — have yielded to a sudden impulse and committed suicide. If so, where does that put Michael Parry?”
Inspector Elvin looked dubious. He said, “I’m not sure I follow you.”
“Then let’s take it step by step. Michael wakes up with a head like a bucket and the first thing he sees with his little bleary eyes is his wife. She’s lying on the other bed and he discovers soon enough that she’s not just sleeping. This gives him quite a shock … not because he’ll go into mourning for a year if she dies but chiefly because it might be suspected that he had something to do with her death.”
“As has indeed happened,” Elvin said.
“Exactly. Now let’s take it from there. While Michael’s racking his inebriated wits for a way out, the door-bell rings. In case it’s just a chance caller he lies low and does nothing. But it rings again … and again … and he hears voices outside. One of them is the familiar voice of somebody he knows very well — Miss Carole Stewart. By this time he’s scared stiff … and I don’t blame him. What would you have done if you’d been in his shoes?”
“The situation isn’t likely to arise,” Elvin said. He seemed faintly amused.
Quinn asked, “Why not? Aren’t his shoes big enough?”
Inspector Elvin shook his head disapprovingly. He said, “Dear me … the old joke about the size of a policeman’s feet. I’d hoped for better things from you. What I meant was that I could never land in Parry’s situation because my wife isn’t a wealthy woman. But please go on.”
“There’s not much more. Either Michael Parry hadn’t expected weekend guests or we’d arrived earlier than anticipated. The way he was placed it didn’t make any odds. He needed time to think and he wouldn’t get it if visitors walked in and found Adele dying from an overdose of sleeping pills. He had to put her some place where she wouldn’t be found before he’d thought of a way to dispose of her.”
“What you’re saying is that he let her die,” Elvin said. “That makes him out to be a ghoul.”
“Well, he’s either a ghoul or a loving husband. You can take your pick. I know which I’d choose. He didn’t need her — just her money. But everybody knew that so he had to play it clever … or he might take the blame for something he hadn’t done.”
“Letting his wife die when there was a chance of saving her life is tantamount to murder,” Elvin said.
“We don’t know that there was a chance. She might’ve been too far gone. But supposing she could have been saved? What would he be charged with? How could you ever prove that either she wasn’t already dead when he found her or that she wouldn’t inevitably have died no matter what he had done?”
Inspector Elvin said, “The answer to the last question encompasses all the others — I couldn’t.”
With a morbid look on his face he went back to the table between the twin beds and studied the glass top from various angles. As though talking to himself, he repeated, “I couldn’t …”
He bent over the top and examined it more closely. Then he said, “A wet glass has been standing here. There’s a ring” — he stooped lower and touched it with the top of his finger — “a ring that’s still damp. It feels sticky — so it can hardly have been made by water.”
Quinn said, “There’s your confirmation. She drank her doped brandy, put the glass on the table, and then lay down to sleep. By the time Michael woke up she was either dead or in a state of advanced coma. So he carts her into the nursery where no one ever goes, gets rid of the brandy glass, ditto her travelling case, and hopes she won’t be found until he’s thought of a way out of his quandary. It all fits, doesn’t it?”
Inspector Elvin went on looking at the wet ring on the bedside table. At last, he said, “You could be right … but I’m not happy with your explanation. Parry couldn’t keep his wife’s body hidden indefinitely. Concealing her death was only going to make things worse for him in the long run.”
“Not if he were able to dispose of her body outside the house,” Quinn said. “She’d gone off to Wood Lake and she hadn’t come back. That would be his story. You couldn’t prove he was lying unless you found the person who brought her home.”
Elvin nodded. He said, “That might be well-nigh impossible … if it had been Parry himself who met the train or bus or whatever it was. Which brings us back to square one.”
“Suicide or murder,” Quinn said.
“And the circumstances fit both equally well. Only two things remain that I don’t really understand. One is Mrs. Parry’s shoes.”
“What about them?”
“Well, she probably took them off before she lay down on the bed in this room … if she committed suicide. If she didn’t, then her husband removed them before he dragged her into the nursery to avoid leaving scratches from her heels on the parquet floor of the landing.”
“So?”
“Just this: either way, he put her shoes in the nursery. But why should he have bothered to be so tidy? Did you notice how carefully they’d been placed under the foot of the bed?”
Quinn said, “Yes, I did notice. But I didn’t think it was all that important.”
“Maybe it isn’t … and yet maybe it is. The other point has to do with Mrs. Ford. How did she come to find her sister-in-law’s body? I understood that no one ever went into the nursery.”
“Could be that she saw the door was open and took a look inside out of curiosity.”
“Why should the door be open if the room’s never used?”
“That’s something you’ll have to ask her.”
“I will,” Elvin said.
He stood listening to the sound of a vehicle droning its way up the slope from the village before he went on, “Rest assured I will … That must be the ambulance. Go and get your drink, Mr. Quinn. I’ll have another word with you soon’s I’m free. You’ll be stopping here overnight, I presume?”
“That’s up to my host,” Quinn said. “After what’s happened he’ll hardly be in the mood to entertain company.”
Elvin said, “If I’m any judge, he’ll be even less inclined to stay alone in the house. So don’t suggest that you’d like to leave.”
“Why not? This isn’t the kind of place I’d choose for a riotous weekend.”
“Neither would I. But you could be of considerable help to me if you stayed.”
“How?”
“By keeping your eyes and ears open.”
“In other words you want me to act as an informer.”
“If you wish to put it that way, yes. I need hardly remind a man like you that it’s your duty to assist the police.”
“It isn’t my duty to abuse the laws of hospitality,” Quinn said.
Inspector Elvin stroked his silver hair in an affected gesture. He said, “You’re jumping to conclusions, Mr. Quinn. There’s nothing definite to connect Parry with the death of his wife … or even with concealment of her death. By staying on at Elm Lodge you may be doing him a very great service. And, of course, at the same time …”
“Yes?”
“You’d enjoy my confidence,” Elvin said.
He seemed to think there was nothing more to say. As he went out he didn’t even look back.
From the bedroom window Quinn watched a white-painted ambulance roll to a halt outside the front door. Then there were voices down below … footsteps on the stairs … the irregular tramp of feet going past … more voices from the direction of the nursery.
He stayed at the window and listened and thought about Adele Parry. He didn’t want to see what they were doing.
It wasn’t long before the same footsteps passed the bedroom door again and went slowly and carefully down the stairs. He heard someone saying “… easy … hold your end up … O.K. I’ve got it …”
Two men came out of the porch bearing a stretcher covered from head to foot by a blanket tucked in all round. With the ease of long practice they loaded the stretcher on rails and slid it into the ambulance like delivery men returning a tray of bread to a baker’s van.
In the failing light, Quinn saw them slam the doors … and walk briskly round to the front of the ambulance … and climb in. He turned away as they drove off.
Down below the phone bell tinkled. Then Inspector Elvin came back into the bedroom.
With a quizzical look, he asked, “Haven’t you had your drink yet?”
“I don’t need one. I’ve changed my mind,” Quinn said.
“You may change it again when you’ve heard the latest news. I’ve just been on the phone to Wood Lake.”
“And?”
“Mrs. Parry hasn’t been there this week. They haven’t seen anything of her since” — Inspector Elvin raised his eyebrows in mock surprise — “since the last time she visited the place … which was about two months ago. Be interesting to know where she has been — very interesting.”