Free Enter a Murderer by Ngaio Marsh Page B

was nothing under those sequins except the Emerald. She doesn’t wear stays.”
    “Nor does Dulcie,” said Inspector Fox gloomily.
    “Fox, we forget ourselves. If you’re not sure, persuade her to go to the station and be searched there. If not, send ’em home in taxis and pay for them.”
    “Right-oh, sir.”
    “Where’s Mr. Gardener?”
    “Waiting for you in the deceased’s dressing-room.”
    “Thank you. Are you coming, Bathgate, or do you yearn for your bed?”
    “I’ll come,” said Nigel.
    Felix Gardener stood in the middle of the doorway with his hands in his pockets. He started nervously when they came in and then gave a little laugh at himself.
    “Is it an arrest?” he said jerkily.
    “Not unless you are going to surprise me with a confession,” said Alleyn cheerfully. “Let’s sit down.”
    “A confession. My God, it’s clear enough without that! I shot him. No matter who planned this ghastly business, I shot him. I’ll never get rid of that.”
    “If you are innocent, Mr. Gardener, you are entirely innocent. You are no more to blame than Mr. Simpson, who put the dummies, or it might have been the cartridges”—Nigel glanced at him in surprise—“in the drawer of the desk. You are as much an instrument as the revolver — as Surbonadier was himself, in loading it.”
    “I’ve been repeating that to myself over and over again, but it doesn’t make much difference. Nigel, if you could have seen the way he looked at me — as if he knew — as if, in that tiniest fraction of time, he knew what had happened, and thought I’d done it. He looked so surprised. I didn’t know myself at first. I got such a shock — you can’t think — with the revolver going off. I just went on with the lines. It’s Bill’s revolver, you know. He said he never shot at a Hun with it. Good job he’s dead and can’t see all this. He fell just like he always did. Limp. Arthur played the part well. Didn’t you think so? And you know I didn’t like him. I said so, didn’t I — this evening? Oh, God!”
    “Mr. Gardener, you can do no good by this,” said Alleyn quietly. “Perhaps the truest of all our tiresome clichés is the one that says time cures all things. As a policeman, I should like to say ‘time solves all things,’ but that unfortunately is not always the case. As a policeman I must ask you certain questions.”
    “You mean you want to find out if I did it on purpose?”
    “I want to prove that you didn’t. Where were you at the beginning of the first scene in the last act?”
    “The first scene in the last act? You mean the scene when Arthur took the revolver and loaded it.”
    “That scene — yes. Where were you?”
    “I was — where was I? — in my dressing-room.”
    “When did you come out?”
    Gardener buried his face in his hands and then looked up helplessly.
    “I don’t know. I suppose soon after I was called. Let me think — I can’t think collectedly at all. I was called, and I came out into the passage.”
    “When was this?”
    “During the front scene, I think.”
    “Before or after the black-out, during which the first part of that scene is played?”
    “I can’t remember. I’ve really no recollection of anything that happened just before—”
    “Some little thing may bring it back. Did you, for instance, walk out of the passage on to a pitch-black stage?”
    “Somebody trod on my foot,” said Gardener suddenly.
    “Somebody trod on your foot — in the dark?”
    “Yes. A man.”
    “Where was this?”
    “In the wings — I don’t quite know where — it was pitch dark.”
    “Any idea who it was?”
    Gardener looked with quick apprehension at Nigel. “Shall I implicate anyone by this?”
    “For Heaven’s sake,” said Nigel, “tell the truth.”
    Gardener was silent for a moment. “No,” he said at last. “If I had an idea, it was altogether too slight to be of use, and it would carry undue weight; you couldn’t help yourself — you’d be