but I’ve been waiting around for ages and nobody’s given me a chance…”
A part of the Saint’s mind felt quite detached and indeнpendent of him, like an adding machine clicking over in a different room. The machine tapped out: She should have known that the pro would be booked up. And of course he’d say that he’d be glad to fit her in if he had a cancellation. And the odds are about eight to one that he wouldn’t have a canнcellation. So she could make him and several other people believe that she’d been waiting all the time. She could alнways find a chance to slip out of the entrance when there was no one in the office for a moment-she might even arrange to clear the way without much difficulty. She only had to get out. Coming back, she could say she just went to get something from her car. No one would think about it. And if there had been a cancellation, and the pro had been looking for her- well, she’d been in the johnny, or the showers, or at the botнtom of the pool. He just hadn’t found her. She’d been there all the time, A very passable casual alibi, with only a trivial percentage of risk.
But she isn’t dressed to have done what must have been done.
She could have changed.
She couldn’t have done it anyway.
Why not? She looks athletic. There are good muscles under that soft golden skin. She might have been sniping revenooers in the mountains of Kentucky since she was five years old, for all you know. What makes you so sure what she could do and couldn’t do?
Well, what were Angelo and his pal, and Louis the Italian chef, doing at the same time? You can’t rule them out.
Any good reader would rule them out. The mysterious murнderer just doesn’t turn out to be the cook or the butler any more. That was worked to death twenty years ago.
So of course no cook or butler in real life would ever dream of murdering anyone any more, because they’d know it was just too corny.
“What’s the matter with you all?” Lissa asked. “Wasn’t the ride any good?”
“It was fine,” said the Saint. “Except when your last night’s boy friend started shooting at Freddie.”
Then they all began to talk at once.
It was Freddie, of course, who finally got the floor. He did it principally by saying the same things louder and oftener than anyone else. When the competition had been crushed he told the story again, challenging different people to subнstantiate his statements one by one. He was thus able to leave a definite impression that he had been walking up the canyon when somebody shot at him.
Simon signalled a waiter for another round of drinks and put himself into a self-preservative trance until the peak of the verbal flood had passed. He wondered whether he should ask Freddie for another thousand dollars. He felt that he was definitely earning his salary as he went along.
“… Then that proves it must be one of the servants,” Lissa said. “So if we can find out which of them went out this afternoon—”
“Why does it prove that?” Simon inquired.
“Well, it couldn’t have been Ginny, because she was talking to you. It couldn’t have been me—”
“Couldn’t it?”
She looked at him blankly. But her brain worked. He could almost see it. She might have been reading everything that had been traced through his mind, a few minutes ago, line by line.
“It couldn’t have been me,” Esther insisted plaintively. “I didn’t have a stitch on. Where could I have hidden a gun?”
Ginny gazed at her speculatively.
“It’ll be interesting to see how the servants can account for their time,” Simon said hastily. “But I’m not going to get optimistic too quickly. I don’t think anything about this business is very dumb and straightforward. It’s quite the opposite. Somebody is being so frantically cunning that he must be practically tying himself-or herself-in a knot. So if it is one of the servants, I bet he has an alibi too.”
“I still think you ought to tell
A part of the Saint’s mind felt quite detached and indeнpendent of him, like an adding machine clicking over in a different room. The machine tapped out: She should have known that the pro would be booked up. And of course he’d say that he’d be glad to fit her in if he had a cancellation. And the odds are about eight to one that he wouldn’t have a canнcellation. So she could make him and several other people believe that she’d been waiting all the time. She could alнways find a chance to slip out of the entrance when there was no one in the office for a moment-she might even arrange to clear the way without much difficulty. She only had to get out. Coming back, she could say she just went to get something from her car. No one would think about it. And if there had been a cancellation, and the pro had been looking for her- well, she’d been in the johnny, or the showers, or at the botнtom of the pool. He just hadn’t found her. She’d been there all the time, A very passable casual alibi, with only a trivial percentage of risk.
But she isn’t dressed to have done what must have been done.
She could have changed.
She couldn’t have done it anyway.
Why not? She looks athletic. There are good muscles under that soft golden skin. She might have been sniping revenooers in the mountains of Kentucky since she was five years old, for all you know. What makes you so sure what she could do and couldn’t do?
Well, what were Angelo and his pal, and Louis the Italian chef, doing at the same time? You can’t rule them out.
Any good reader would rule them out. The mysterious murнderer just doesn’t turn out to be the cook or the butler any more. That was worked to death twenty years ago.
So of course no cook or butler in real life would ever dream of murdering anyone any more, because they’d know it was just too corny.
“What’s the matter with you all?” Lissa asked. “Wasn’t the ride any good?”
“It was fine,” said the Saint. “Except when your last night’s boy friend started shooting at Freddie.”
Then they all began to talk at once.
It was Freddie, of course, who finally got the floor. He did it principally by saying the same things louder and oftener than anyone else. When the competition had been crushed he told the story again, challenging different people to subнstantiate his statements one by one. He was thus able to leave a definite impression that he had been walking up the canyon when somebody shot at him.
Simon signalled a waiter for another round of drinks and put himself into a self-preservative trance until the peak of the verbal flood had passed. He wondered whether he should ask Freddie for another thousand dollars. He felt that he was definitely earning his salary as he went along.
“… Then that proves it must be one of the servants,” Lissa said. “So if we can find out which of them went out this afternoon—”
“Why does it prove that?” Simon inquired.
“Well, it couldn’t have been Ginny, because she was talking to you. It couldn’t have been me—”
“Couldn’t it?”
She looked at him blankly. But her brain worked. He could almost see it. She might have been reading everything that had been traced through his mind, a few minutes ago, line by line.
“It couldn’t have been me,” Esther insisted plaintively. “I didn’t have a stitch on. Where could I have hidden a gun?”
Ginny gazed at her speculatively.
“It’ll be interesting to see how the servants can account for their time,” Simon said hastily. “But I’m not going to get optimistic too quickly. I don’t think anything about this business is very dumb and straightforward. It’s quite the opposite. Somebody is being so frantically cunning that he must be practically tying himself-or herself-in a knot. So if it is one of the servants, I bet he has an alibi too.”
“I still think you ought to tell
Similar Books
