The Twenty-Third Man (12 page)

‘By all means, Señorita. I thank you for your cooperation. It is necessary, you will appreciate, for those of us
who
had no hand in Mr Emden’s death to be cleared of suspicion.’

Luisa smiled, transfiguring her usually heavy face.

‘In England killing is important. Here, on Hombres Muertos, too, we are civilized. But the authorities have many bodies; they fall down the mountain-side, they smash up automobiles, they are drowned in the sea. It becomes uninteresting, and Señor Emden was nothing to our people. I think he was here because he was in trouble.’

‘In trouble?’ This sounded promising. ‘What makes you think so?’

‘Since two months, no letters, no, not even a letter bringing money or bills. I say to myself that such a man, without friends or creditors, is running away from his home, and tells no one where he is gone. Then, to our maid Pilar, and even to me, Luisa Ruiz, he makes shameless proposals, so I think perhaps he has left a wife behind him so that he may not make honourable ones. That also looks like trouble. One would expect letters from a wife, no?’

‘He might be divorced.’

‘I had not thought of that. It is not in my religion.’

‘What do you think about his body being found in the cave of the dead kings? Did that surprise you?’

Luisa shook her head, but not, it seemed, in answer to the last question.

‘No islander would have put it there, Doña Beatrice. I can assure you of that,’ she said. ‘And certainly no islander would throw a dead king down the mountain for the bandits to find. None would do such a barbarous thing.’

The funeral of Karl Emden took place in the English church, which was tucked away in an obscure quarter of the town. Nobody knew which Christian denomination, if any, he had belonged to, so it was agreed, without much argument, that the English church was the obvious compromise. The body, bereft of the trappings of kingship, had been inspected in the cave by a resplendent officer of
the
island police. He had tugged the knife out of Emden’s back, balanced it in his hand, made an ejaculation of contempt, and flung the weapon down the mountain-side.

‘There is a less degree of putrefaction than would have been the case if he had lain in the sun,’ he said. ‘I will report to that effect. You must bury him at his own expense. The city cannot pay.’

‘There’s always something splendid and invigorating about funerals,’ said Mrs Angel, when this one was over. ‘Somehow they give one something.’

‘What sort of something?’ asked Clun. Mrs Angel gave a slight scream.

‘Who is it who asks?’ she demanded. Clun was silent. ‘You who have killed,’ yelled Mrs Angel, in an uncontrolled and rather dreadful tone, ‘can you do nothing but pose these stupid questions?’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Clun, displaying no sign of repentance, ‘but I do have a prejudice in favour of saying what I mean. It was wrong of me to expect that such a prejudice would extend itself to my friends.’

‘Friends, indeed!’ exclaimed Mrs Angel. ‘As though anybody respectable would want to be thought the friend of a gaol-bird like you.’

‘My dear – Mrs Angel,’ said Ruiz, who had come into the lounge prepared with a civil expression of hope that the funeral had gone according to plan. The strange little pause did not pass unnoticed by Dame Beatrice, to whom it suggested a not improbable theory.

‘Well,’ snorted Mrs Angel, ‘he has no more sympathy for that poor murdered man than for –’

‘The bloke I served my time for. No, I haven’t,’ said Clun.

‘You didn’t even come to the funeral. You might have shown that much respect.’

‘Why?’

‘They say dead men’s wounds always bleed if the murderer comes near,’ said Clement. ‘If you’d all been decent and let me come to the funeral, I would have kept
my
eyes open and told you whether the murderer was in the church or at the grave.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Mr Drashleigh. ‘The body was enclosed in a coffin.’

‘The blood would have seeped through the coffin.’

‘Be quiet, Clement!’ said Mrs Drashleigh. ‘You are not to say such things.’

‘Then I shall grow up inhibited, like you said I mustn’t. Besides, I like to talk about blood and corpses and murders. I think they’re interesting – much more interesting than flowers and music and poetry and all the things
you
think I ought to like.’

‘Of course they are,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘but most interesting of all is the Shakespearian admixture of all six. If you would care to go for a swim with Miranda here, she will acquaint you with some of the finer speeches in
Macbeth
.’

‘I hardly think –’ said Mrs Drashleigh.

‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ shouted Clement. ‘And you needn’t think that’s rude, ’cos it’s a
quotation
, see?’

‘Feel?’ said Clun, and clouted the seat of his shorts. Clement turned on him in a fury.

‘I’ll
knife
you for that!’ he shrieked.

‘Can’t take it, huh?’ said the American girl, at the psychological moment. Everybody looked pained except Dame Beatrice and Clun, who laughed. Clement made a face at them and grinned.

‘Knife you?’ repeated Peterhouse, half-aloud. Clun turned on him furiously.

‘Oh, don’t be a clot!’ he said. ‘The kid’s all right.
He
isn’t the one who did for Emden, but I’ve a pretty shrewd idea who is, and, in case present company is interested and, for once, possibly not excepted, I may add that I propose to do nothing whatever about it. I didn’t like Emden –’

‘You scarcely met him!’ exclaimed Mrs Angel impulsively. Clun scowled at her so fiercely that she begged his pardon.

‘I didn’t like what I’d heard about Emden,’ he said in amendment, ‘and I have not the faintest objection to speaking ill of the dead.’

‘Come, come,’ said Mrs Drashleigh.

‘I mean that. Emden was a mean, dirty skunk, and whoever did for him did a damned good deed. However, as I was about to say when I was interrupted –’

‘I really
do
beg your pardon and I do
so
agree with what you say,’ murmured Mrs Angel.

‘– if anybody listening to me now thinks I might as well be silenced since I seem to know so much, I will add that the name of the person I suspect of killing Emden is in an envelope in the possession of Jose el Lupe, who will hand it over to Dame Beatrice Lestrange Bradley in the event of my sudden demise at the killer’s hands.’

‘Is this true?’ demanded Peterhouse. Even Caroline and her brother, who had attended the funeral but had taken no part in the conversation which was going on, looked interested and slightly apprehensive. Clun laughed, and, as he strolled off, said, over his shoulder:

‘No, but I like to worry some of the people some of the time. My prison life has made me sadistic.’

‘Well, don’t you dare work it off upon Clement!’ said Mr Drashleigh, in a sudden shout.

‘Really, Pentland,’ remonstrated his wife, ‘we cannot expect the world to use Clement as we would have him used. That is one reason why I am determined that he shall remain with us on Hombres Muertos instead of creeping safely away to Santa Catalina. And now, Dame Beatrice,’ she added, ‘I think I speak for us all in promising to do everything possible to aid you in your inquiries.’

She looked hopefully from one to another of the assembled guests, but nobody seemed anxious to support her. The nearest to any sign of agreement came from Telham, who said:

‘Quite, quite, but I do think it’s a job for the police.’

‘I think it’s a job for all of us,’ said Mrs Angel. ‘It’s rather a disgraceful thing if an Englishman can be
murdered
on this little Spanish island and nobody do anything about it.’

‘Let’s check our alibis,’ said Peterhouse. ‘For my own part –’

‘As we have no information as to the exact time of the stabbing, and as we have no scientific knowledge of the effect of the temperature of the cave upon the preservation of the remains,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘I fail to see that alibis have any real significance.’

‘That justifies itself,’ said Ruiz.

‘I could not agree more,’ said Clun.

‘Then it’s just a question of information,’ said the American girl. ‘Too bad Pop and I are for the great open spaces pretty soon. I just do hope we’re not under suspicion, Dame Beatrice?’

‘No, no. There is no justification whatever for suspecting either of you.’

‘How not?’ inquired Ruiz. ‘Do you know the name of the murderer?’

‘I am not prepared to answer that question at present. Knowledge is not necessarily power. I want proof, and, so far, I have none that any court of law would accept.’

‘That is a pity,’ said Telham. ‘This uncertainty is spoiling our holiday.’

‘It is spoiling my brother’s chance of recovery,’ put in Caroline. ‘We came here for peace and quiet. I wanted to forget about murders. I have suffered enough from sudden death. Why did this wretched Emden have to be murdered here? And what business is it of yours if he did?’

‘It is a matter of professional curiosity,’ Dame Beatrice replied. ‘To a psychiatrist, murder is the most interesting study of all.’

Caroline snorted.

‘I call it morbid and macabre’, she said, ‘to take interest in such awful wickedness.’

‘Then the Bible is both morbid and macabre,’ said Dame Beatrice, calmly.

‘
YOU NEED NOT
think’, said Clement, ‘that my father had anything to do with it. I kicked Emden’s shins as hard as I could, but I didn’t breathe a word to a soul. I am
not
a cissy, no matter what Attwood may say.’

‘Attwood?’

‘A boy at home. Before we went to live on Santa Catalina, you know.’

‘And Attwood thought you a coward?’

‘Well, he didn’t really, of course, but he was always trying to get under my skin. Just because he went to school and I didn’t – not that I didn’t want to, mind you! – he thought he could say what he liked. So when Emden caught up with me after I’d ducked him in the bay and gave me a hiding – he punches, you know – I mean, he did – I didn’t let on. So my father didn’t know. So he didn’t kill Emden. So Q.E.D.’

‘I see. And your mother?’

‘My mother? Oh, no, really! You can’t imagine
her
sneaking up behind a man and sticking a knife in his back, can you?’

‘No, I cannot. Tell me, Clement – boys know this sort of thing – how easy is it to obtain possession of one of those knives the islanders use? Can one buy them?’

‘I don’t know. I haven’t seen any for sale, but I’m mostly on the beach. I don’t get pocket-money, you see, so there’s nothing for me to buy. My parents get me most things I ask for, though. Anyway, I’ll find out from my friends and let you know.’

‘Why don’t we give Clement pocket-money?’ asked Theodora Drashleigh, surprised but not offended by the question. ‘For two reasons. On Santa Catalina Island, which is our home, there is nothing to buy. Everything
we
need, except some of our food, is sent to us from London. Here, we do not wish to encourage Clement to go into the town. It is as simple as that.’

‘Do you know that Emden struck Clement?’

‘Struck him?’

‘Punched him.’

‘Good gracious, no!’ There was a pause. ‘What had Clement done?’

‘Ducked him.’

‘Clement is a very good swimmer.’

‘People object to being ducked, even by very good swimmers.’

‘Yes; Clement is high-spirited. Boys will be boys.’

‘An euphemism, surely, for “boys will be pests”. But that is of no importance at the moment. What kind of souvenirs can be purchased here?’

‘Ah,’ said Mrs Drashleigh, with unexpected shrewdness, ‘don’t tell me! I know what you’re after! Native knives!’

‘Exactly. Do you possess one?’

‘No, but Pentland does.’

‘Does?’

‘Oh, yes, that’s the point. You must not think me lacking in intelligence. He
still
does, so, you see, his was not the knife you found buried in Mr Emden’s body. Oh, but he might have possessed two such knives, so my argument has no point. Have you spoken to Mrs Angel? If Emden struck Clement, which would be
our
motive for murder, hers would be that wretched bird.’

‘Bird?’ said Mrs Angel, in reply to Dame Beatrice. ‘Oh, you mean Talkie. But I told you about that.’

‘I did not realize that Talkie was a bird. Were you fond of it?’

‘You must not imagine that
I
killed that dreadful man, Talkie or no Talkie,’ said Mrs Angel earnestly. ‘But, of course, I was fond of it! Talkie was a rare specimen, a black oyster-catcher. I spotted him on the beach at Puerto del Sol. We became great friends. He was a charming fellow, greedy, impudent, and cunning. Then
that
beast killed him. I was livid with rage. But I did not know it had happened at the time when it
did
happen, otherwise you could have condemned me at once. I would kill anyone who injured a bird. After all, we are descended from birds, are we not?’

‘And from reptiles,’ said Dame Beatrice, contriving to look like an alligator and at the same time contorting her mouth into a bird-like beak. ‘Now, who else had a motive for compassing the death of the brute-apparent, I wonder?’

‘That horrid child Drashleigh,’ said Mrs Angel, investing the words with venom.

‘Yes. I know he had had a misunderstanding with Mr Emden, and got the worst of an encounter with him.’

‘Misunderstanding, indeed! He snooped on Emden, and Emden did not present a pretty picture! I believe the frightful boy blackmailed him!’

‘I understood that Emden struck the boy for ducking him when they were swimming together in the bay.’

‘I know nothing about that. It would have frightened Emden. He could not swim. The beach shelves steeply. In two strides one is in thirty feet of water.’

‘Interesting,’ said Dame Beatrice. She sought out Clement, and found him prodding the earth in the hotel garden. He did not look up, although he must have heard her footsteps on the path. She seated herself on a bench beneath a tree and eyed the back of his head. Clement soon gave way in the war of nerves.

‘Oh, hallo,’ he said. ‘I say, it’s hot. It’s hotter here than on Santa Catalina Island. Can I fetch you an ice or a cushion or something?’