Free After the Fine Weather by Michael Gilbert Page B

a policeman. You are a diplomat. We are both used to being misinterpreted. Now, Miss Hart. You were a witness of the shocking affair this morning. I understand that you have important evidence to offer.”
    Laura took her courage into her hands.
    “When you say you understand that, Colonel, do you mean that you have had some report about me?”
    “Yes, I have had a report.”
    “Am I allowed to ask from whom?”
    “You are allowed to ask.” The Colonel’s face broke into an alarming smile. “And I will tell you. It was your brother’s Italian colleague, Dr Pisoni.”
    Charles said, “It was quite improper of him to repeat a private conversation. If I had wished him to make a statement to you, we should have done it through the ordinary channels.”
    “Most improper,” agreed the Colonel. “But I doubt if Dr Pisoni was troubling about the niceties of diplomatic procedure. He was concerned with the fate of the assassin. Boschetto is an Italian-speaking citizen of the South Tyrol, and as such it is Dr Pisoni’s duty to assist him – if he can.”
    “All the same–”
    “But we are allowing ourselves to be diverted.” He turned back to Laura. “Have you any objection to repeating, officially, in front of us, what you have already said, unofficially, to Dr Pisoni?”
    She took a quick look at Charles, but there was no help there. The decision was hers.
    “No,” she said, “I have no objection.”
    “Very well, then–”
    “Just before the shots were fired, I happened to be looking at the theatre. There are three circular windows in the left-hand turret – the left-hand as you look at it, that is.”
    “Yes?” said the Colonel.
    The flat-faced policeman was writing steadily.
    “As I looked at it, it was opened a fraction, and I saw the barrel of a gun come through.”
    “What colour is the paint on the window?”
    “What – I’m not sure. Yellow, I think. Why?”
    “You were sitting – what? – thirty yards away from a window – the paint is dark green, in fact – it opened a fraction – and you saw the barrel of a gun coming through. Saw it, and were able, in a flash, to identify it. Really, Miss Hart. How did you identify it?”
    “The light was reflected from it.”
    “And if the light is reflected from an object–” the Colonel absent-mindedly picked up a silver pencil from his desk as he spoke – “it follows that it must be a gun barrel?”
    “I have quite exceptional eyesight.”
    “Most exceptional,” agreed the Colonel. “Did you see the bullets leaving the gun and flying toward the Bishop?”
    “Of course not.”
    “I think,” said Charles, “that you would be well advised to take my sister’s story seriously. Whether what she says is correct or not, she certainly saw something. It is, to put it at its lowest, an odd coincidence that it should have happened when it did. And I think it should be investigated.”
    “If I did not take it seriously,” said the Colonel, “I should not have asked you to come here. And the story has been investigated, to the best of our ability. I shall hope to be able to convince your sister that what she saw was an optical illusion – an effect of light and shade – not a reality at all.” He turned to his right-hand companion. “Inspector Moll, would you be good enough to tell Miss Hart the result of your investigations so far?”
    Inspector Moll spoke quietly. After three or four sentences the Colonel held his hand up.
    “Allow Mr Hart to translate,” he said.
    “The inspector says that immediately after the shooting he ran across, himself, to the centre of disturbance, under the lamp-post. Three men were hanging onto a fourth – Boschetto – and Boschetto had, actually in his hand – an automatic pistol, which the others were preventing him from firing. He says that he took the pistol from him and, after Boschetto had been arrested, handed the pistol straight over to the head of the police laboratory for