Kat scanned the guests. Harry had his eyes on her so she knew it was time for her to wrap up this show. Harry had walked over to Benton.
She guessed he was making a quiet request for the butler to summon Sergeant Timms.
But first…
Kat began. “So now we ask not who wanted to kill Wilfred Carmody, oh no. We ask who would want to murder Cyril Palmer, esteemed Member of Parliament for these parts? Well, maybe a lot of people wished him ill. But to kill him? With a syringe? Using some deadly substance?”
And Kat swore she felt a chill fill the room, the windows open to the night air. Late summer all right, but in here, suddenly like an electric refrigerator.
“Well, I guess we know who that would be, isn’t that right… Douglas Sawyer?”
Another gasp from the room. And Kat noticed those guests near Sawyer – including his wife – step back from him, as if his guilt was somehow contagious.
“And motive? Oh, maybe the most ancient of motives. Your dear wife, Celine and our trusted MP, their little trysts for the last year hardly a state secret. Jealousy, Mr Sawyer. Such a dark, suffocating feeling, isn’t it?”
“Ridiculous!” said Sawyer, his voice quavering, the unfortunate squeak so evident in this silent, echoing room.
“Oh, and let’s not forget,” Kat continued, “besides motive, there must be ‘means’ to think about. In this case, as we now know – a syringe.”
Slowly she held up the small velvet case and opened it so all could see.
“Found this in your room, Mr Sawyer,” said Kat.
Now all eyes were on the movie star.
He stood silent as if there was not a possible word he could say.
“And that note I mentioned, written to Mr Carmody, inviting him to meet at the grotto? It’s in your handwriting. You wrote that note, didn’t you? And placed it in Mr Palmer’s room?”
“This is all nonsense,” said Sawyer. “A tissue of lies. I shall also sue, sue both of you.”
“But I guess you didn’t figure your unfaithful wife would be so concerned that she’d warn Palmer,” said Kat. “Who then redirected the note to Mr Carmody and persuaded him to wear the mask. So you ended up killing the very person Palmer needed out of the way.”
Now the small crowd turned to look at Palmer, this whole scene playing out as if on a West End stage.
“And Palmer?” said Kat. “For a while there it must have seemed that all the cards were falling your way, hmm?”
For once, Palmer was silent.
Gotcha, thought Kat. Then she turned back to Sawyer. “Terribly ironic, isn’t it, Mr Sawyer? You’ll hang – all for doing Palmer’s dirty work for him.”
And at that, with everyone’s eyes trained on him, Sawyer moved.
“You can all… go to hell!”
And he pushed through the crowd, and dashed to the clustered weapons on the far wall, reached up, and to the whole room’s clear astonishment…
Drew a sword – some kind of heavy cutlass.
“I’m leaving here, and not one of you will stop me!” he squeaked, slicing the lethal-looking weapon through the air above his head.
Kat watched as the actor raced back across the room, the crowd scattering, men and women screaming.
Which is when she saw Harry take a quick run at the other stand of weapons, withdraw a matching sabre, and call out: “Not too sure about that, Sawyer, old chap.”
Sawyer stopped dead in his tracks, then laughed.
“You fool, Mortimer – have you seen none of my films? I bloody well know how to use this!”
But Harry just smiled. Then – and was he just being dramatic? – he bowed elegantly and took up a fighting stance, one arm behind his back, his sabre outstretched: “En garde!”
And while guests ran around trying to take in the show but avoid becoming another unfortunate victim of any errant thrusts, her husband and Sawyer duelled.
*
At first, Sawyer seemed to be getting the best of Harry, and Kat suddenly became worried.
What had been fun, had now turned dangerous.
The blades crashing into each other, both looking as sharp as scythes, the metal edges slicing through the air. Of course, Kat thought, Sawyer had appeared in all those swashbuckling movies. He really knew what he was doing.
And even as Harry took great steps forward, accompanied by forceful thrusts, Sawyer easily swatted them away, his own thrusts and cuts coming within inches of Harry’s face.
Each alarming slice summoning a sick groan from the now-frightened crowd.
But even when that occurred, Harry managed to call out, over the clash of metal as he parried, “Don’t worry, Kat. Bit rusty, it appears. But I was rather proficient at this back at school. Got a trophy or two around here somewhere.”
Then Sawyer – in what seemed an impossible move for someone who indulged in intoxicants as much as he did – leapt onto one of the banqueting tables, giving him the advantage of height over Harry, who now was mostly ducking and swerving.
Until: “All right, enough of this,” Harry said, holding his position, as if to make himself a target.
And when Sawyer then took aim with a great stomach-churning slice – Harry simply stepped aside.
Sawyer, off-balance, teetered at the table’s edge as Harry’s own sabre now shot up, catching the hilt of Sawyer’s sword and simply flipping it away into the air.
That movement, adding just enough push that Sawyer fell to the floor, landing hard.
Where Harry placed the tip of his sword at the base of the prone man’s skull.
“Not bad, Sawyer. But fancy moves? All that cinema stuff? Not terribly useful in a real duel.”
Then – incongruously – a bell from outside.
Sawyer moved his arms as if about to get up.
“Oh, please don’t,” Harry said. “Just a few minutes more.”
The bell of the police car – for Kat knew that’s what it was – stopped. And, in moments, Sergeant Timms walked into the ballroom.
Cleared his throat.
And said: “Now, um – will someone please explain to me what in Heaven’s name is going on here!”