Miracle (25 page)

“You mustn’t touch that!” Sergeant Eustis said, racing over, trailing long loops of yellow. “The fingerprints!”

“You will not find any fingerprints,” Touffét said. “The murderer wore gloves.”

“You see!” James shouted. “Even the Great Detective knows D’Artagnan did it. Why aren’t you out capturing him? He’s liable to kill someone else!”

Touffét ignored him. He handed Sergeant Eustis the cup. “Have the residue analyzed. I think it will yield interesting results.”

Sergeant Eustis put the cup into an evidence bag and handed it to the young constable who’d just arrived and was gaping at Lord Alastair. “Have the residue analyzed,” Sergeant Eustis said, “and take all these people downstairs. I will want to question everyone in the house.”

“Question!”
James raged. “This is a waste of time. It’s obvious what happened here. I warned you!”

“Yes,” Touffét said, looking curiously at James. “You did.”

I was surprised that Touffét didn’t object to being herded out of the nursery and into the lift by the constable, along with everyone else, but he only said, “Has Lady Charlotte been told?”

“I’ll tell her,” Mick Rutgers volunteered, and Touffét gazed at him for a long moment, as if his mind were elsewhere, and then nodded. He continued to look at Rutgers as he went down the corridor and then turned to me. “Who do you think committed the murder, Bridlings?”

“It seems perfectly straightforward,” I said. “James said the apes were dangerous, and, unfortunately, it appears he was right.”

“Appears, yes. That is because you see only the surface.”

“Well, what do
you
see?” I demanded. “The old man’s been strangled, furniture’s been smashed, there’s a gorilla hair on the body.”

“Exactly. It is like a scene out of a mystery novel. I have something I wish you to do,” he said abruptly. “I wish you to find Leda Fox and tell her Sergeant Eustis wishes to speak to her.”

“But he didn’t say he—”

“He said he wished to question everyone.”

“You don’t think Leda had anything to do with this?” I said. “She can’t have. She’s not strong enough. Lord Alastair was strangled. There was a terrific struggle.”

“So it would appear,” he said. He motioned me out of the room.

I went up to Leda’s room and was surprised to find her packing. “I’m not staying in the same house with a killer gorilla,” she said. “A
cold
house with a killer gorilla.”

“No one’s allowed to leave,” I said. “Sergeant Eustis wants to question you.”

I was surprised at her reaction. She went completely white. “Question me?” she stammered. “What about?”

“Who saw what, where we all were at the time of the murder, and that sort of thing, I suppose,” I said, trying to reassure her.

“But I thought they knew who did it,” she said. “I thought D’Artagnan did it.”

“Knowing who did it and proving it are two different things,” I said. “I’m certain it’s just routine.”

She started up to the nursery, and I went back to the study to find Touffét. He wasn’t there, nor was he in his room. Perhaps he’d gone back up to the nursery, too. I went out to the lift, and it opened, revealing Lady Charlotte. She looked pale and drawn. “Oh, Colonel Bridlings,” she said, “where is Inspector Touffét?”

“I’m afraid I don’t—”

“I am here, madam,” Touffét said, and I turned and looked at him in surprise, wondering where he’d come from.

“Oh, Inspector,” she said, clutching at his hands. “I know I brought you here under false pretenses, but now you must solve this murder. D’Artagnan could not possibly have killed my father, but my brother is determined to—” She broke down.

“Madam, compose yourself,” Touffét said. “I must ask you two questions. First, are any of your household keys missing?”

“I don’t know,” she said, pulling the bunch of keys out of her pocket and examining them. “The key to the nursery,” she said suddenly. “But the keys have been with me all day. No, I
didn’t have them when we went up to see my father, and Nurse Parchtry had to let us in. Let’s see, I had them this morning, and then I gave them to D’Artagnan because he’d misplaced his gloves—” She stopped, as if suddenly aware of what she’d said. “Oh, but you don’t think he—”

“My second question is this,” Touffét said, “when your father had difficult days, could you hear him on the lower floors of the house?”

“Sometimes,” she said. “If only we’d heard him tonight. Poor old …” she clutched tearfully at Touffét’s sleeve. “Please say you will stay and solve the murder.”

“I have already solved it,” he said. “I request that you ask everyone to come into the parlor, including Sergeant Eustis, and give them a glass of sherry. Bridlings and I will join you shortly.”

As soon as she was gone, Touffét turned to me. “What time is the last train to Sussex?”

“Eleven-fourteen,” I said.

“Excellent,” he said, consulting his pocket watch. “More than enough time. You shall be at your sister’s in time to burn your fingers on the raisins.”

“We don’t play Snapdragon,” I said. “We play charades. And how can you have solved the crime so quickly? Sergeant Eustis’s men haven’t even had time to gather evidence, let alone run forensics tests.”

He waved his hand dismissively. “Forensics, evidence, they tell us only how the murder was done, not why.”

They also frequently tell us
who
, I would have said, if Touffét had given me the opportunity, but he was still expounding.

“‘Why’ is the only question that matters,” he said, “for if we know the ‘why,’ we know both
who
did the murder and
how
it was done. Go and tell your sister we will be on the train without fail.”

I went downstairs and telephoned my sister again. “Oh, good,” she said, “we’re going to play Dumb Crambo this year!”

As I hung up, Touffét said, “Bridlings!”

I turned round, expecting to see him in the door. There
was no one there. I went out into the corridor and looked up the stairs.

“Bridlings,” Touffét said again, from inside the room. I went back in.

“Bridlings, come here at once. I need you,” Touffét said, and laughed.

“Where are you?” I asked, wondering if this was some sort of ventriloquist’s joke.

“In the nursery,” he said. “Can you hear me?”

Well, of course I could hear him or I wouldn’t be answering him. “Yes,” I said, looking all round the room and finally spying the baby monitor, half hidden behind a clock on one of the bookshelves. I reached to pick it up. “Don’t pick it up,” he said. “You will ruin the forensic evidence you consider so important.”

“Do you want me to come up to the nursery?”

“That will not be necessary. I have found out what I wished to know. Go into the parlor and make sure that Lady Charlotte has assembled everyone.”

She had, though not in the parlor. “We don’t have a parlor,” she said, meeting me in the corridor as I came out of the library. “I’ve put everyone in the solarium, where we were last night. I hope that’s all right.”

“I’m sure it will be fine,” I said.

“And I didn’t have any sherry.” She stopped at the door. “I had Heidi make Singapore slings.”

“Probably a very good idea,” I said, and opened the door.

Leda was perched on a canvas-covered hassock, with Rutgers behind her. The nurse sat in one of the canvas chairs, and the police sergeant perched next to her on the coffee table. James leaned against one of the bookshelves with a drink in his hand. D’Artagnan stood over by the windows.

As I came in, they all, except James and Heidi, who was offering him a tray of drinks, looked up expectantly and then relaxed.

“Is it true?” Leda asked eagerly. “Has Monsieur Touffét solved the crime? Does he know who murdered Lord Alastair?”

“We
all
know who murdered my father,” James said, pointing at D’Artagnan. “That
animal
flew into a rage and strangled him! Isn’t that right, Inspector Touffét?” he said to Touffét, who had just come in the door. “My father was killed by that
animal!”

“So I at first thought,” Touffét said, polishing his monocle. “A gorilla goes out of control, kills Lord Alastair in a violent rage, and destroys the nursery as he might his cage, throwing the furniture and the dishes against the wall. The baby monitor, also, was thrown against the wall and broken, which was why the nurse did not hear the murder being committed.”

“You see!” James said to his sister. “Even your Great Detective says D’Artagnan did it.”

“I said that so it seemed at first,” Touffét said, looking irritated at the remark about the Great Detective, “but then I began to notice things—the fact that there were no signs of forcible entry, that the baby monitor had been switched off before it was thrown against the wall, that though it looked like a scene of great violence, none of us had heard anything—things that made me think, perhaps this is not a violent crime at all, but a carefully planned murder.”

“Carefully planned!” James shouted. “The gorilla choked the life out of him in a fit of animal rage.” He turned to Sergeant Eustis. “Why aren’t you upstairs, gathering forensic evidence to prove that was what happened?”

“I do not need the forensic evidence,” Touffét said. He took out a meerschaum pipe and filled it. “To solve this murder, I need only the motive.”

“The motive?” James shouted. “You don’t ask a bear what his motive is for biting off someone’s head, do you? It’s a
wild
animal!”

Touffét lit his pipe and took several long puffs on it. “So I begin by asking myself,” he went on implacably, “who had a motive for killing Lord Alastair? Your father’s will left everything to you, Lord James, did it not?”

“Yes,” James said. “You’re not suggesting
I
put that gorilla up to—”

“I do not suggest anything. I say only that you had a motive.” He picked up his monocle and surveyed the crowd. “As does Miss Fox.”

“What?” Leda said, twitching her dress down over her thighs. “I never even met Lord Alastair.”

“What you say is the truth,” Touffét said, “though it is the only true thing you have said since your arrival, that is. You have even lied about your name, is that not so? You are not Leda Fox, the reporter. You are Genevieve Wrigley.”

Lady Charlotte gasped.

“Who’s Genevieve Wrigley?” I asked.

“The head of the ARA,” Touffét said, looking steadily at her. “The Animal Rescue Army.”

Lady Charlotte had jumped up. “You’re here to steal D’Artagnan and Heidi from me!” She turned beseechingly to Touffét. “You mustn’t let her. The ARA are terrorists.”

I looked wonderingly at Leda, or rather Genevieve. Lady Charlotte was right about the ARA, it was a terrorist organization, a sort of IRA for animals. I’d seen them on television, blowing up cosmetics companies and holding zookeepers hostage, but Leda—Genevieve didn’t look like them at all.

Touffét said sternly, “You came here in disguise with the intention of liberating Lady Charlotte’s animals, no matter what violent means were necessary.”

“That’s right,” Leda, or rather, Genevieve, said, rearing back dangerously, and I was grateful there wasn’t room anywhere for a bomb in that dress. “But I wouldn’t have killed animals. I love animals!”

“Releasing pets into a wilderness they can’t survive in?” Lady Charlotte said bitterly. “Sending primates back into the jungle to be killed by poachers? You don’t love animals. You don’t love anyone but yourselves. Well, now you’ve gone too far. You’ve murdered my father, and I’ll see you convicted.”

“Why would I murder your father?” Genevieve sneered. “You’re the one I wanted to murder!”

At her words, D’Artagnan and Heidi both moved protectively toward Lady Charlotte.

“Dressing primates up like servants, holding them captive here. You’re slaves!” she said to D’Artagnan. “She tells you she loves you, but she just wants to enslave you!”

D’Artagnan took a threatening step toward her, his huge white-gloved fist raised. “It’s all right, D’Artagnan,” Lady Charlotte said. “Inspector Touffét won’t let her hurt me.”

Genevieve slumped back in her chair and glared at Touffét. “I can’t believe you found me out,” she said. “I even ate a piece of that disgusting meat at dinner.”

“We were discussing your motive,” Touffét said. “Terrorists do not murder secretly. Their crimes are of no use unless they take credit for them. And by killing Lord Alastair, you might have given the Institute bad publicity, but you would not necessarily have succeeded in closing the Institute. Sympathetic donations might have poured in. How much better to blow up the Institute’s buildings. It is true, you might have killed primates, but your organization has been known to kill animals before, in the name of saving them.”

“You can’t prove that!” she said sullenly.

“There are wire and detonating caps in your luggage.” He turned to Sergeant Eustis. “Ms. Wrigley was out at the compound this afternoon. When we have concluded our business here, I would suggest searching it for plastic explosives.”

Sergeant Eustis nodded and came over to stand behind Genevieve’s chair. She rolled her eyes in disgust and crossed her arms over her chest.

“Ms. Wrigley had a motive for murder, but she is not the only one.” He took several puffs on his pipe. “Everyone in this room has a motive. Yes, even you, Colonel Bridlings.”

“I?” I said.

“You long to spend Christmas at your sister’s house, do you not? If Lord Alastair is murdered, the Christmas celebration at Marwaite Manor will be cancelled, and you will be free to attend your sister’s celebration instead.”

“If
I’m not detained for questioning,” I said. “And I hardly
think wanting to spend Christmas with my sister is an adequate motive for murdering a harmless, helpless old man.”

Touffét held up an objecting finger. “Helpless, perhaps, but not harmless. But I quite agree with you, Bridlings, your motive is not adequate. People, though, have often murdered for inadequate motives. But you, Bridlings, are incapable of murder, and that is why I do not suspect you of the crime.”

“Thank you,” I said dryly.

“But. It is a motive,” Touffét said. “As for Lady Charlotte, she has told all of us her motive this very evening at dinner. She has no money for her Institute. She is in danger of losing D’Artagnan and Heidi and all her other primates unless she obtains a large sum of money. And she loves them even more than she loves her father.”