Find the Lady (16 page)

‘Whatever made you suspect that it was Charles Prophet dressing up as Lady Blessington then, sir?’ Gawber said.

Angel breathed in deeply, sighed and said, ‘The very first thing was that curious photograph of his wife, Alicia and Lady Blessington cosily having tea together on the patio. It was, I expect, taken shortly before the murder, only hours or days, and placed casually among the other photos to help try to establish the authenticity of Lady B. Prophet said it had been taken about six months earlier. If it had been, it would have been in January, and it would have been almost certainly too cold for tea in summer clothes outside on the patio, with flowers, trees and shrubs, rich in foliage, and some rose bushes and other flowers in full bloom. So I knew that it was a lie. I began to wonder why he needed to lie about a trivial thing like that. I got to thinking that he was about the same height as Lady B. Once I went down that lane, I was well on the way to solving the riddle. The fact that Prophet’s wife was blind made me realize that she never knew what he was dressed in or what he looked like. I was puzzled when he said that
he
had taken the photograph. Obviously, I knew I had to check that out closely. If it was another lie, then it indicated that he must have had an accomplice. There was no camera in the Prophets’ home. I checked with SOCO. And there were no other recent photographs anywhere in the house. They were not a family that habitually took photographs as some families do. So I had to widen the search. Karen Kennedy was the first obvious suspect. I had to get possession of her camera without raising her suspicions, hence the contrived accident with her Mercedes. I thought she’d be just the sort of person who would
have
to win a dispute. Photographs were the obvious proof, and if she had a camera, she’d
have
to use it.’

Gawber looked up at him in amazement.

‘Fantastic. But why did he spread the scene with orange peel. That didn’t fit the illusion of a titled lady committing the murder?’

‘That was done by Margaret Gaston. She came on the scene via the back door, shortly after Prophet had committed the murder and departed by the front door. She had brought some shopping requested by Alicia. Saw the dead woman, shot in the head, assumed, correctly, as it happens, that it was Prophet, and because she would have done anything for him – after all, he was the father of her child – thought she could assist him by fogging the issue by dispensing orange peel around the body, just as if the murder had been committed by Reynard. She’d no doubt been reading all the gory details about that multiple murderer in the papers. She had some oranges in the shopping. Then she thought she must dispose of the rest of the oranges to remove the source, so she put them in the dustbin.’

‘And the shopping in the pantry and the change on the draining board were also left by Margaret?’ Gawber said.

Angel nodded.

The phone rang.

It was Taylor.

‘Got it, sir,’ he said triumphantly.

‘It
is
the same camera?’

‘Yes, sir. There are similarities on the prints in three places. A bit of fogging on the top right hand corner and two identical places where the film was scratched as it was rolled on to the next exposure. That’s more than enough to be absolutely positive it’s the same camera.’

‘Right,’ Angel said and replaced the phone. He turned to Gawber. ‘Come on. It’s just about sewn up.’

Angel switched on the recording machine, gabbled off the time and date and those present, looked across the table at the woman and said: ‘Miss Kennedy, you said that on the day that Alicia Prophet was shot, Mr Charles Prophet was in his office the entire afternoon.’

‘Yes,’ Karen Kennedy mumbled.

‘Please speak up, for the benefit of the tape,’ Gawber said.

She looked at her solicitor, who nodded encouragingly.

‘Yes, I believe I did,’ she said.

‘Well, we now know that that is not true,’ Angel said. ‘Would you like to … revise your evidence?’

She glanced at her solicitor, who nodded.

‘Yes. Yes. I suppose I must,’ she said slowly. ‘After lunch … he was not in his office all afternoon. At about twenty minutes to two, he went out.’

There was a long pause.

Angel looked across the table at her. She looked back at him.

‘You know exactly what happened,’ Angel said, ‘because you and he planned it together, didn’t you?’

She didn’t say anything.

‘If you plead guilty and tell me what happened, it will reduce your sentence, Miss Kennedy. Those are the rules.’

Her solicitor nodded. She licked her lips.

‘Mmmm,’ she began. ‘Well, he took a suitcase of clothes and stuff and drove his car to Wells Street Baths and parked it in the public car park. He bought a ticket and took the suitcase into the baths. He changed into the blue dress, wig and stuff in a cubicle there and … he deposited the suitcase with his ordinary clothes in a locker. He came out of the baths and took a taxi to his own home. Walked into the house. Set the world straight with Alicia. Got her to sit on the settee. And, as he told me afterwards, shot her in the head. He said that she wouldn’t feel a thing or even know it was going to happen. Then he reversed his steps, took the taxi back to the baths, changed and returned to the office by car.’

‘What happened to the blue dress, the wig and other clothes?’

‘Late that same night, he brought them to my flat and we burned them in the incinerator in the boiler house in the basement.’

‘And why did he choose such old-fashioned clothes?’

‘Don’t know. Said he’d seen a picture of a woman in a blue dress somewhere. He modelled himself on that. He said he preferred the long dress because it would conceal his legs, which he thought might be a giveaway. He said the picture didn’t show the woman’s feet. He was glad of that because, I couldn’t find any women’s shoes large enough to fit him.’

‘You were aware of his intention to murder his wife?’

She swallowed, looked down at the parquet floor then nodded.

Gawber said: ‘For the purposes of the tape, Miss Kennedy nodded.’

‘Do you know
why
?’ Angel said.

‘He was bored with his wife,’ she said timidly. ‘He said that she was blind and a drag on him, and that he wanted me. He’d inherit her money, and he said he’d never be found out. He said that you, the police, would naturally suspect him, but if I stuck by the alibi they wouldn’t find out. The plan was to establish a non-existent person, have her murder his wife virtually in front of three eye-witnesses, then make her disappear. He said it was the perfect crime.’

Angel raised his head. ‘What was that?’ he said. He wrinkled his nose and shook his head. ‘Don’t you know yet, there’s no such thing as the perfect crime?’

She burst into tears.

He turned to Gawber and said: ‘I’ve heard enough, Ron. Bring him in and charge him with murder.’

IN THE MIDST OF LIFE
CHOKER
THE MAN IN THE PINK SUIT
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING HONEST
MANTRAP
SALAMANDER
SHAM
THE UMBRELLA MAN
THE MAN WHO COULDN’T LOSE
THE CURIOUS MIND OF INSPECTOR ANGEL