This must have been aimed at Ronald Blanton, who made a non-committal noise.
“I think he was awful,” Graham Ogilvie said. “I, for one, am not sorry he’s dead.”
There was the sound of shifting as the attention moved from Blanton to Ogilvie. “Oho,” Crispin said, and I recognized the slight maliciousness of his voice. “Would you like to confess to the murder, then, Gram?”
“Not me,” Ogilvie said evenly. “He was dead by the time I had made my way to the butler’s pantry. But he wrote an article about Ronnie a few weeks ago that made his old man practically foam at the mouth. And all becauseyouwere holed up in the country out of range.”
“I could hardly help it that my mother and grandfather died.” Crispin’s voice was cool. “My father made it absolutely clear that my usual exploits were not to be tolerated until the scandal had blown over. But I’m sorry about the article, old chap.”
This last must have been directed at Ronnie, who said something vague.
“What were we talking about…?” Crispin continued cheerfully. “Oh, yes. Dom. If none of us here killed Monty, it had to be Dom, didn’t it? And if he did it, and Gladys saw it, then he had reason for wanting to get her out of the way, too, didn’t he? And between us four, or five?—”
He lowered his voice. “When I came out of the mews onto Eccleston Street yesterday, I saw a red Morris Oxford bullnose parked at the curb. And do you know what Dom drives?”
“A red Morris Oxford,” Blanton said coldly. “So do I, you know, St George.”
“But were you there?” Crispin shot back.
Blanton must have opened his mouth, because Ogilvie turned on him. “Be quiet, Ronnie. You know very well that you were not in Ellery Mews yesterday afternoon.”
“Fine,” Blanton said sulkily. “But that doesn’t mean it was Dom.”
“It doesn’t mean it wasn’t,” Crispin retorted. “Look, I don’t want to accuse anyone. But somebody did it, and I know it wasn’t me. It seems to me that Dom had the best motive. And if none of the three of you did it, who’s left? It can’t be Gladys.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Hutchison said, “I agree with St George. It’s time we face facts. If the police have connected St George to Montrose and Gladys, it’s only a matter of time before they connect the rest of us. We have to get our stories straight.”
“But I need Dom…” Blanton moaned.
“We’ll find you someone else, Ronnie. St George is right, you know. It’s what makes the most sense. Monty was already dead by the time I saw him?—”
“Yes,” Ogilvie said fervently. “Me, too.”
“—and if you can’t remember anything that happened that night, it’s just as well to agree that Dom did it. It makes sense.”
“Yes,” Blanton admitted, “but?—”
Hutchison’s voice turned coaxing. “I’ll make sure you get what you need, Ronnie. But you won’t get it in prison, right? So let’s just agree that it was Dom, and when the police show up—if they do—that’s what we tell them. Monty was already dead when we saw him—that’s the truth—and it had to be either Dom or Gladys who did it. That’s true, too, isn’t it?”
There was a pause.
“Yes?” Blanton said, although he still didn’t sound certain.
“Good man.” There was the sound of a slap on a shoulder.
“We all agree, then,” Crispin said. “Other than Gladys, and she couldn’t have hit herself on the back of the head, the only person who could have killed Monty was Dom. And that’s what we tell the police.”
There was a murmur all around.
“To Monty,” Crispin said. “May he rest in peace.”
CHAPTERTWENTY
You may have thoughtthat was the end of it, but they kept things going for several hours beyond that point. Tom must have wanted to kill them all, and so, I’m sure, did Finchley. I, at least, had a chair to sit on, but I had to be more quiet than the other two, since I was actually in the room with the rest of the party. So I sat there behind the screen, still as a statue on the uncomfortable telephone chair, while my posterior slowly turned numb and while my brain did the same. Every once in a while, someone—Crispin or Christopher—brought the conversation back around to the events of two nights ago, or to Gladys, or to Dominic Rivers and his business, but it didn’t sound as if anything got accomplished by it. At one point, Crispin inquired after Hutchison’s sister—there was the suggestion that something had happened between them at Cambridge, since Crispin didn’t seem to have met a girl he hadn’t tried to charm—and Hutchison’s voice turned prickly when he said that his sister lived in the country with their mother and father.
“Not married yet, then?” Crispin asked.
Hutchison said stiffly that no, she wasn’t.
