I DON’T THINK THAT MY INTERVENTION CAN be called a failure; I did not feel annoyance or shame, or resentment. I felt, only, an urgent need to brush the mud off myself and sink into a hot tub of water, to nourish myself with salads and fruits, on a soft mattress, horsehair pillows and clean sheets.
Astutely I said:
“Gentlemen, let’s go into the dining room.”
With this semblance of an invitation I walked them over toward Andrea’s habitat. My veiled purpose was to order my cousin to make dinner.
When my companions had taken their seats around the narrow dining table, Aubry looked at us somberly and stated:
“I am pleased to see us all gathered in the aperitif section.”
As for me, I gave in to an unforgiveable weakness: I sat down. I thought that after that utterance I couldn’t withdraw. (I thought: “I’ll stand up in a few minutes.”) Immediately the typist came in with the bottles and wine glasses, and Manning began to speak.
Some people are immune to the experiences of others. Manning was one of them. With irritation I heard him assert that he knew the truth about Mary’s death.
Nevertheless, I must admit that his explanation didn’t begin, as might have been expected, with more or less sarcastic allusions to a companion-in-arms who had been led astray by literary imagination … Urbanity or prudence?
“I already explained to these gentlemen,” began Manning, indicating the Commissioner and Montes, “that I went over to the New East End Hotel to look for a book. Here it is.”
He took out of his pocket a book with an angular design of green, purple, black and white on the cover. Puzzled, we passed it around, silently. I think I remember that the author was English, Phillpotts.
“Read on page twenty the marked paragraph,” Manning continued.
The Commissioner put on his tortoiseshell eyeglasses, and, moving his finger faster than his eye, he read Mary’s letter in a loud and hesitant voice, her interrupted farewell. But now it was a long letter, with details that didn’t correspond to Mary, Atwell, and Emilia, which ended on page twenty-one with the words “your grateful friend” signed by someone named BEN.
“What does this mean?” asked Aubry.
“It means,” replied Manning, “that Inspector Atwell took home one of the novels translated by Miss Mary.”
Then he was silent, as if waiting for his words to obliterate us.
“Let us recapitulate,” he then said. “On the eve of the murder two incidents occur that doubtlessly convince the criminal that the moment to act has come. On the beach Atwell becomes angry because Mary insists upon taking a swim despite the fact that the ocean is rough. For the detectives this argument would be an indication that Atwell did not want Mary to die. Let’s look now at the rescue. Emilia saves Mary. So then Emilia doesn’t want Mary to die. Another deduction the judicious detective expects: Cornejo (who had given Mary his consent for her to go swimming) is a possible, though not yet credible, suspect. But even with all these arguments one can still contend that we don’t have any proof that Mary was in danger. She herself denied it. Cornejo, an expert in winds and tides, judged that it wasn’t dangerous to take a swim. The possibility that Emilia and Atwell were accomplices has been insinuated. I, however, do not believe that Emilia is involved in the crime. In that nautical episode she was, perhaps, Atwell’s unintentional instrument. The movements of a person fighting waves so as to avoid death by drowning can appear, even to someone watching from nearby, playful displays of happiness, and the opposite is also true. Atwell had created a general state of apprehension with regards to Mary’s swim. Afterwards, when he shouted, as the girl was swimming out to sea, ‘She can’t get back in,’ nobody doubted him. Nostalgia for melodrama; the feeling that life, even when adventurous, doesn’t fully satisfy; a desire for cooperation that proclaims, beyond differences and antagonisms, the secret brotherhood of man, prevent us from easily rejecting any message about a fellow human being in danger. Doctor Huberman himself, whom it doesn’t seem wise to exclude from the list of suspects and to consider as an impartial witness, thought that Mary was drowning.”
“And to think that we believed Manning was the future solitaire champion …” sighed Doctor Montes.
“Let’s take a close look now,” continued Manning, “at the after-dinner discussion, which ended with Emilia stepping out into the night. Atwell seemed calm and conciliatory; Emilia, offended by Mary. Normally these signs would corroborate for the detectives their favorable opinion of Atwell and would make them suspect, at some moment, the girl.”
Aubry looked at him with astonishment, tossed two pieces of cheese and three olives into his mouth, then downed a glass of vermouth. Manning continued:
“Now we arrive at the moment of Mary’s death. The Commissioner has pointed out that even if the Inspector had no lack of motives—he has the same as Miss Emilia—he lacked the opportunity. The death occurred toward dawn, at a time when Atwell was not in this house: he was sleeping in his room at the New East End Hotel. I dare to assert that this argument can be recommended more for its brilliance than its consistency. If the crime had been committed with a firearm, the Commissioner would be right, but in this case poison has been used. When he went downstairs with Cornejo to look for Emilia, Atwell could have easily put the poison in the cup of hot chocolate that was on the night table.”
“As I already said, Commissioner,” Montes interrupted, “you were so pleased with establishing distinctions between motives and opportunities that you forgot about the case at hand.”
I was definitive:
“The Commissioner’s distinctions are sound.” I declared.
“When Atwell,” Manning continued, “discovered that page in the translation (perhaps only a draft) of Phillpotts’s book, he understood that he had within reach the ‘proof’ that would allow him to kill with impunity. Later, the night of the crime, he left the page on the table, beside the manuscript of Mary’s new translation; that same night, or the next morning, he took the book out of her library, so that no one could prove that Mary’s message was, simply, a paragraph from a novel. I discovered the sheet of paper on the table; Atwell had certainly succeeded in making this discovery inevitable. I admit that while I read those handwritten lines with an understanding that was still imperfect, I felt deeply moved. I believed I was glimpsing the modest shining of the truth, perhaps glimpsing, also, my victory in the investigation. I spoke with Atwell. He didn’t seem excited about my theory: in order to excite him, I became enthusiastic. He said he didn’t want to get personally involved in the whole matter, but that he would try to help me. He brought me an English novel that the girl had been translating at the time of her death; I read it; between the two of us we both read the novels she had already translated. Atwell had influenced my thinking and I thought and acted in accordance with his insights. However, because of who knows what naïve egoism on his part, he made a mistake: he thought that my thinking would come to a halt when he reached a definite (and for him, favorable) interpretation of the problem. It didn’t come to a halt.”
I remembered the spider that Manning had placed on the window and the web it had woven in three days. Manning continued:
“I think I understand Atwell’s plan: some signs, not many, could suggest Emilia’s guilt; when the police, in their eagerness to capture the guilty party, were satisfied with these suppositions and ready to detain the girl, he, indirectly, would make the ‘proofs’ of the suicide appear. He counted on the detectives seeing that solution as definitive. In fact, they would reach it laboriously, then accept it enthusiastically and abandon, out of a lack of interest, any other hypothesis. But he hadn’t counted on the astute methods of Commissioner Aubry: fabricating the proof by means of a severe interrogation. This, and the firm decision the Commissioner made to charge Emilia, made those reflexive and ambitious projects misfire. The man wasn’t very scrupulous: to get out of an uncomfortable situation—he was having an affair with his fiancée’s sister—he had resort to murder; but now, because of his guilt, he couldn’t allow them to torture and perhaps condemn Emilia. From that moment on he acted nervously, depending on the circumstances provided by chance. Let me give as an example the stealing of the jewelry. There was no such robbery. It was staged by Atwell to suggest another guilty party. (Emilia had no reason to steal those jewels: she would inherit them.) Atwell ran the risk of the investigation coming up with the hypothesis of two felons: a murderer and a thief. But those of us gathered here are few, and the idea of there being a criminal amongst us is already astonishing; if someone were to prove that there were two, we wouldn’t believe him. When Cornejo discovered the boy with the dead woman, Atwell took advantage of the occasion. He thought, perhaps, that the boy’s soul was already monstrous, so he could easily attribute to him an additional monstrosity. I understand, but I do not forgive him. Thus I, who do not belong to the police force, offer these explanations that may damn him. Perhaps I seem like an intruder and a raging fool, but we shouldn’t forget that Atwell speculated about the child’s pathological sensibility, about his tendency to run away, about his passions and fears. Perhaps the best that can be said about Atwell is that, in his desperation to save the woman he loved, he acted rashly. This also explains the attempt on Cornejo’s life. The typist had entered Mary’s room after the scene of the kiss and before Atwell could take the jewels and declare that Miguel had stolen them. When the Commissioner was ready to take down statements from Doctor Cornejo and the typist, Atwell tried to eliminate the former. By doing this he would draw our attention away from the typist and make us think that Cornejo was the important witness. Upon judging these actions let us not be too severe with Atwell. His intention was to put Cornejo to sleep, not to kill him. As to the latter’s note to Mary, there’s not much to add. Atwell discovered it, hid it prudently away (that’s why the police didn’t find it during their first search), and when he wanted to foment confusion and plant false clues, he again put it in Mary’s room. But let’s go on with the story. When Atwell understood that I had taken advantage of a pretext to leave the hotel, he guessed the truth. He immediately organized the rescue missions and, accompanied by Doctor Huberman, he headed toward the New East End. There he confirmed that Phillpotts’s book was missing, the book that would allow it to be proven that Mary’s message was, simply, a paragraph from her translation. Perhaps he took advantage of the excursion to take the jewelry. Perhaps we crossed paths in the sand. The storm saved me. I submit that had he caught me, he’d have killed me, and then accused me of having murdered his girlfriend.”
Doctor Montes asked:
“What reason would Atwell have had for killing Mary?”
Commissioner Aubry looked at him very wide-eyed.
“Reasons for homicide are never lacking,” he replied. “Doctor Huberman, right here, sketched in his statement a suggestive portrait of Miss Mary. It is not the first time a man has been in love with one woman and dominated by another.”
As if Manning had in his hands the invisible Book of Destiny, I asked him where Atwell was. He answered with indifference:
“Either fleeing, or committing suicide, among the crabs.”