“You think so? “Reggie murmured. “Gives us one primary fact. Place where the operatin’ dagger came from. Further movements of dagger obscure. Place where it’s gone to unknown. Lots more work to do. However. Nature of it quite clear. You’d better find out whether anything happened here in the early part of the evening to account for the sudden severance of Mrs. Rook’s throat. And meanwhile have some men watchin’ Goldilocks and her two survivin’ bears.”
“Sir?” Bell gasped.
“Sorry. I’m feelin’ romantic. I mean Miss Rook and Florian and Lindsay. Good night. I’m going to bed. You have my sympathy.”
When he came out of the house to the garden, he crossed to the summer - house again. The inspector turned from supervising the removal of Mrs. Rook’s body and joined him. “Anything more you want, sir?”
“Your torch,” Reggie mumbled. He turned its beam on the clump of saxifrage close to the summer - house wall. “Look at that,” he said. “Look at it carefully.” He stooped and plucked some tufts and gave back the torch, and left the inspector looking… .
About noon on the next day the Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department sat in conference with Bell. “You’ve done very well,” he pronounced. “It looks like a straightforward case now. Just a matter of working up the details into corroborative evidence.”
“Thank you, sir. It don’t look too bad. But I don’t know that I’ve done anything much myself - just taking things as they came and going through the routine, with Mr. Fortune’s hints. And there’s some snags still. He was very helpful - and he wasn’t. This weapon identification of his is all very well, but we haven’t got the weapon. And then, if he’s going to stick to it Mrs. Rook committed suicide, that’s funny stuff to give a jury, Mr. Lomas.”
“Quite. I should say they wouldn’t believe him. Give a jury a woman with her throat cut and no weapon present, and the verdict will be murder, whatever the medical expert says. That’s all right. It suits us perfectly. And it’s probably true. Fortune’s very good, but he’s apt to shy away from plain facts. He always wants to find something mysterious and subtle. Defect of his qualities, of course. Imaginative men don’t like the ordinary.”
“I don’t know - -” Bell was objecting when Reggie sauntered in.
“Morning.” He sank into a chair. “Higher intelligence in council? Good. Solved all the problems?”
“Doing nicely, thank you, Reginald,” Lomas smiled. “Have you solved yours?”
“Mine? Weren’t any. Only matter of verification. Quite conclusive. Provisional opinion confirmed. Mrs. Rook stabbed herself - say cut her throat - sort of feeble waggly blow. Golly Dodd was murdered - one powerful stab - by the same weapon - weapon closely resembling the Malay kris found on the wall of the late Mr. Rook.”
“The same weapon?” said Lomas sharply.
“Oh, yes. Same one.”
“And yet you say the woman committed suicide while the man was murdered.”
“Not while, no. Previously.”
“Damme, don’t quibble!” Lomas snapped. “You’d better explain how the weapon with which the woman killed herself came to murder the man.”
“Not me, no. Not my job. Police job.”
“Thank you. It’s not necessarily our duty to find proof of your theories, Reginald. And this theory isn’t attractive.”
“Oh, Peter!” Reggie gazed at him in melancholy surprise. “Isn’t a theory. Statement of facts.”
Lomas smiled and shook his head. “Not plausible. Hardly credible.”
“My poor Lomas!” Reggie sighed. “Doesn’t have to be plausible. Not a matter for the will to believe. It happened. It was so.”
“Giving us a twister, aren’t you?” Bell objected. “Look here, sir, last night you only said it was the same kind of unusual weapon killed the two of ‘em. Well, I wouldn’t mind taking that. Nor I wouldn’t mind taking your evidence the woman committed suicide and Dodd was murdered. But it’s pretty hard to believe that the first case was suicide and the other murder and yet there was only one weapon used. You can’t be sure, can you?”
“Oh, yes. Absolutely. Dagger which killed Mrs. Rook was wiped before removal. Wiped on a flourishin’ clump of saxifrage just under the eaves of the summer - house. I pointed out the plant to your inspector. Didn’t he show you?”
“He did. I saw it had been mucked up. That’s all right.”
“You accept that? Good. There was some luck. Necessary to wipe the dagger on the spot before removal. Otherwise risk of bloodstains to the operator’s clothes. The luck was in the projection of that pagoda roof, preservin’ smears on the saxifrage from subsequent rain. However. Without that luck I could have managed. In the wound in Dodd’s throat there were scraps of saxifrage of the same variety as that under the summer - house eaves. Which proves that the dagger used by Mrs. Rook was taken away and used on Dodd.”
“That’s pretty good.” Bell looked at him with puzzled admiration.
“Splendid,” Lomas smiled. “Much obliged, Reginald. Just what we want. But you must notice this evidence does not fit your theory that Mrs. Rook committed suicide. The only reasonable interpretation of it is that she was murdered, and the murderer wiped the weapon and took it away.”
“Do you call that reasonable?” Reggie drawled. “Your hypothetical murderer, havin’ killed Mrs. Rook with a weapon from her own house, takes it away. Why? If it had been left with her, nobody would have suspected murder. Not even you. Golly Dodd is then killed with the same weapon. Why? And the weapon is again removed. Why? Those are the real questions for the intelligent policeman.”
“I don’t know the motive for Dodd’s murder,” said Lomas impatiently. “The overwhelming probability is that it was connected with the murder of Mrs. Rook. Suppose her murderer had reason to fear Dodd - Dodd knew too much - Dodd had seen something - there you are.”
