CHAPTER X

THE STILETTO, THE REVOLVER AND HIS LORDSHIP

“And what,” Alleyn asked when Carlisle had left them, “is the betting on the favourite now, Br’er Fox?”

“By Gum,” Fox said, “you always tell us that when a homicide case is full of fancy touches it’s not going to give much trouble. Do you stick to that, sir?”

“I’ll be surprised if this turns out to be the exception but I must say it looks like it at the moment. However, the latest development does at least cast another ray of light on your playmate. Do you remember how the old devil turned the gun over when we first let him see it at the Metronome? D’you remember how he took another look at it in the study and then had an attack of the dry grins and when I asked him what he expected to see had the infernal nerve to come back at me with: ‘Hoity-toity’ — yes, ‘Hoity-toity — wouldn’t you like to know?’ ”

“Ugh!”

“He’d realized all along, of course, that this wasn’t the weapon he loaded in the study and took down to the Metronome. Yes,” Alleyn added as Fox opened his mouth, “and don’t forget he showed Skelton the gun a few minutes before it was fired. Miss Wayne says he pointed out the initials to Skelton.”

“That looks suspicious in itself,” Fox said instantly. “Why go to the trouble of pointing out initials to two people? He was getting something fixed up for himself. So’s he could turn round and say: ‘That’s not the gun I fired.’ ”

“Then why didn’t he say so at once?”

“Gawd knows.”

“If you ask me he was sitting pretty, watching us make fools of ourselves.”

Fox jabbed his finger at the revolver. “If this isn’t the original weapon,” he demanded, “what the hell is it? It’s the one this projectile-dart-bolt or what-have-you was fired from because it’s got the scratches in the barrel. That means someone had this second gun all ready loaded with the dart and ammunition and substituted it for the original weapon. Here! What’s the report say, Mr. Alleyn?”

Alleyn was reading the report. “Entwhistle,” he said, “has had a ballistic orgy over the thing. The scratches could have been made by the brilliants in the parasol clip. In his opinion they were so made. He’s sending photomicrographs to prove it. He’s fired the bolt — let’s stick to calling this hybrid a bolt, shall we? — from another gun with an identical bore and it is ‘somewhat similarly scratched,’ which is a vile phrase. He pointed out that wavering, irregular scars were made when the bolt was shoved up the barrel. The spring clip was pressed back with the thumb while it was being inserted and then sprang out once it was inside the barrel, thus preventing the bolt from falling out if the weapon was pointed downwards. The bolt was turned slightly as it was shoved home. The second scar was made by the ejection of the bolt, the clip retaining its pressure while being expelled. He says that the scars in the revolver we submitted don’t extend quite as deep up the barrel as those made by the bolt which he fired from his own gun, but he considers that they were made by the same kind of procedure and the same bolt. At a distance of four feet, the projectile shoots true. Over long distances there are ‘progressive divergences’ caused by the weight of the clip on one side or by air resistance. Entwhistle says he’s very puzzled by the fouling from the bore which is quite unlike anything in his experience. He removed it and sent it along for analysis. The analyst finds that the fouling consists of particles of carbon and of various hydrocarbons including members of the paraffin series, apparently condensed from vapour.”

“Funny.”

“That’s all.”

“All right,” Fox said heavily. “All right. That looks fair enough. The bolt that plugged Rivera was shot out of this weapon. This weapon is not the one his lordship showed Miss Wayne and Syd Skelton. But unless you entertain the idea of somebody shooting off another gun at the same instant, this is the one that killed Rivera. You accept that, sir?”

“I’ll take it as a working premise. With reservations and remembering our conversation in the car.”

“All right. Well, after Skelton examined the gun with the initials, did his lordship get a chance to substitute this one and fire it off? Could he have had this one on him all the time?”

“Hob-nobbing, cheek by jowl, with a dozen or so people at close quarters? I should say definitely not. And, he didn’t know Skelton would ask to see the gun. And what did he do with the first gun afterwards? We searched him, remember.”

“Planted it? Anyway, where is it?”

“Somewhere at the Metronome if we’re on the right track and we’ve searched the Metronome. But go on.”

“Well, sir, if his lordship didn’t change the gun who did?”

“His stepdaughter could have done it. Or any other member of his party. They were close to the sombrero, remember. They got up to dance and moved round between the table and the edge of the dais. Lady Pastern was alone at the table for some time. I didn’t see her move but I wasn’t watching her, of course. All the ladies had largish evening bags. The catch in that theory, Br’er Fox, is that they wouldn’t have known they were going to be within reach of the sombrero and it’s odds on they didn’t know he was going to put his perishing gun under his sombrero, anyway.”

Fox bit at his short grizzled moustache, planted the palms of his hands on his knees and appeared to go into a short trance. He interrupted it to mutter: “Skelton, now. Syd Skelton. Could Syd Skelton have worked the substitution? You’re going to remind me they were all watching him, but were they watching all that closely? Syd Skelton.”

“Go on, Fox.”

“Syd Skelton’s on his own, in a manner of speaking. He left the band platform before his lordship came on for his turn. Syd walked out. Suppose he had substituted this gun for the other with the initials. Suppose he walked right out and dropped the other one down the first grating he came to? Syd knew he was going to get the chance, didn’t he?”

“How, when and where did he convert the bit of parasol shaft and stiletto into the bolt and put it up the barrel of the second revolver? Where did he get his ammunition? And when did he get the gun? He wasn’t at Duke’s Gate.”

“Yes,” Fox said heavily, “that’s awkward. I wonder if you could get round that one. Well, leave it for the time being. Who else have we got? Breezy. From the substitution angle, can we do anything about Breezy?”

“He didn’t get alongside Pastern, on either of their statements, from the time Skelton looked at the gun until after Rivera was killed. They were alone together in the band-room before Breezy made his entrance but Pastern, with his usual passionate industry in clearing other people, says Breezy didn’t go near him. And Pastern had his gun in his hip pocket, remember.”

Fox returned to his trance.

“I think,” Alleyn said, “it’s going to be one of those affairs where the whittling away of impossibilities leaves one face to face with a mere improbability which, as you would say, faute de mieux, one is forced to accept. And I think, so far, Fox, we haven’t found my improbable notion an impossibility. At least it has the virtue of putting the fancy touches in a more credible light.”

“We’ll never make a case of it, I reckon, if it does turn out to be the answer.”

“And we’ll never make a case of it if we pull in his lordship and base the charge on the assumption that he substituted this gun for the one he loaded and says he fired. Skelton’s put up by the defence and swears he examined the thing at his own request and saw the initials and that this is not the same weapon. Counsel points out that three minutes later Lord Pastern goes on for his turn.”

Fox snarled quietly to himself and presently broke out: “We call this blasted thing a bolt. Be damned if I don’t think we’ll get round to calling it a dart. Be damned if I’m not beginning to wonder if it was used like one. Thrown at the chap from close by. After all it’s not impossible.”