Sergeant Hamm—all these sergeants were getting confusing—oughtto be able to confirm ffinch-Brown’s and Grand Duke Rudolf’s movements. If he himself had been where he was supposed to be. Could a man with one arm have inflicted the fatal wound on Pettigrew?
Daisy realized she did not know exactly how the Keeper of Mineralogy had been killed. It was not a subject she cared to speculate about. She refocused her attention on Witt’s interview.
“Yes, ffinch-Brown left my office at about twenty to six, perhaps a few minutes earlier. My office is at the back of the building, here.” Daisy pictured him leaning forward to point at Tring’s floor-plan.
“I see, sir.”
“You will observe, there are private studies behind the galleries, accessible through doors at the end of each gallery. Ffinch-Brown went out through the cephalopod gallery. I could have followed him to the reptile gallery and there met—er, thecorpus delicti,shall we say?—in his pre-corpusstate. However, I did not. I remained in my office, writing letters. Alone, alas.”
“Sine alibi, as you might say, sir.”
Witt laughed. “One might indeed, Sergeant.”
“Very good, sir. Thank you for your cooperation. Chief Detective Inspector Fletcher will have some more questions for you tomorrow, I’m afraid.”
“C’est la vie, Sergeant, or rather,c’est la mort.”
The door opened and closed, then Ross said, “Cheerful sort of bloke, Sarge! I got your joke—sine alibilikesine diein a court adjournment, right? But I didn’t get that last bit of Latin down.”
“French that was, but that’s all right, laddie. Fetch Mr. Steadman now, will you?” Tring paused while the constable departed, then said, “Well, Miss Dalrymple?”
“A cheerful sort of bloke,” Daisy echoed the constable, “but he had good reason to dislike Pettigrew. They all did.”
“Mr. Steadman too? No, you’d better go into that with the Chief.”
“Right-oh,” Daisy sighed. “Who did you talk to while I was … out for the count?”
Tring reached back for the list on the desk. “Mr. Chardford and Miss Fellowes.”
“The young couple who were in the fossil mammals?”
“That’s right. And another visitor, a bloke who claimed to be the Grand Duke of Transcarpathia, wherever that might be. Very offended because one of the constables accused him of lurking behind a giant deer, just because he didn’t rush out to see what was going on. Funny people, these foreigners. We’ll go into the visitors’ backgrounds, of course, but they’re just members of the public who happened to be here, like Mrs. Ditchley and her brood, no reason to connect them with the deceased.”
“Oh, but there is! Grand Duke Rudolf—I’m pretty sure he really is—loathed Pettigrew.”
“Did he, now?” Tring exclaimed. He made a note against the name. “You won’t forget to tell the Chief about him. Let’s see: There’s the commissionaires I’ve had a go at. They were all off chatting to each other, it being the end of the day and not too many visitors about.”
“Sergeant Hamm was with someone, not in the mammals?”
“With Underwood and Boston in plants, corals, and sponges, if my memory serves.”
“I’m sure it does, Mr. Tring.” If Underwood had done in the Keeper, Daisy thought, Boston and Hamm might conceivably give him a false alibi, considering Ol’ Stony’s behaviour towards the cripple. But a one-legged man was unlikelyto attempt to tackle the hefty victim, and surely could not have got away before Daisy arrived on the scene.
“Then there’s a couple of assistants, who were together the whole time in the work room behind the Geological Library. And Mr. Gilbert ffinch-Brown, two smallf’s, from the British Museum, who went from Mr. Witt’s office straight through the … er, cephalopods, is it? and along through the reptiles to stare at a ground sloth in the east pavilion. No alibi and swears he didn’t see Mr. Pettigrew on the way. Peppery gentleman, like Mr. Mummery.”
“Peppery’s just the word!” Daisy agreed. “Peppery Mummery—it sounds like a tongue-twister nursery rhyme. Anyone else?”
“That’s all I’ve seen, and just three to go. Ah, here’s Mr. Steadman.”
Daisy hastily resumed her feigned torpor as Ross ushered in the dinosaur man.
“I was on my way home hours ago,” said Steadman crossly.
“Yes, sir, I’m sorry we’ve had to keep you. Won’t you sit down? I hope you’ve managed to find something to fill the time.”
“There’s always work to be done. I … I suppose you want to know where I was when … it happened.”
“Exactly, sir,” said Tring affably, accustomed to putting nervous suspects at their ease, “if you’d be so kind.”
