Free Lord Foxbridge Butts In by Robert Manners Page A

Count.”
    “That is pretty damning,” Twister admitted.
    “However, sir,” Pond addressed himself to the policeman, “I also learned from the head bellboy that Count Gryzynsky had been seen to go out in the early afternoon and had not been seen since. The Count is a great favorite with the bellboys, sir, they call him a ‘dreamboat,’ begging your pardon. They always know when he is in and when he is not. Apparently they are accustomed to watching his exercises from the winter-garden of a morning.”
    “Golly,” I gasped, “Perhaps you should start drawing your curtains, Andrzej.”
    “What for?” he asked in all innocence. He was a performer, of course he’d want an audience.
    “Anything else, Pond?” I prompted.
    “Yes, my lord. A stranger was noticed in the kitchen in the late evening. He said he was Captain Cathcart’s new valet, when greeted by the chef’s assistant. But the kitchen-boy had a good look at him and thought that he was ‘mutton dressed as lamb,’ my lord. His hair appeared to be false and he was wearing a makeup darker than his natural skin, his hands were too pale. When I asked the chef’s assistant and the kitchen-boy what the man looked like, the description corresponded superficially to the Count’s appearance. And of course the Captain does not have a valet, he has a batman, who is still in residence — though perhaps the kitchen staff might not be as aware of this as the upstairs staff.”
    “My God,” Twister was plainly flabbergasted that my one valet had got more information in an hour than his four constables had gotten all afternoon. I was as proud as a papa whose son just bowled a century at Lord’s.
    “It all falls together,” I made a little show of a summing-up, as fictional detectives were wont to do, standing up to strut a bit in front of the fireplace, “Jacques makes his agent get Andrzej out of the hotel. I see you’re about to ask for motive, Sergeant, since an agent’s commission off a dancer’s salary is not much inducement; but I suspect that their relationship is more intimate than usual; and that spending a night with the Count can be viewed as it’s own inducement.”
    “Thank you, Sebastian,” the Count was touched by the tribute, but Twister narrowed his eyes angrily at me.
    “Once Andrzej is out of the way, Jacques contacts Pavel, pretending to be the Count, probably by note unless he is a particularly talented mimic. He invites Pavel for a drink or a tryst, who knows? Maybe he sweetens the offer with an introduction to Diaghilev, or a signed photograph of Baranova, or I don’t know what. He insinuates himself into the hotel through the staff entrance, having made himself up to look like the Count in hopes that someone would see him and mistake him for the Count.
    “Using the same climbing trick that Andrzej uses, and which even I was able to manage, he gets into the Count’s room and waits. The night porter calls, he answers and tells him to send the boy up; anybody could fake a Polish accent over three words. He gets out his dressing-gown belt, and prepares to kill. Perhaps he has some dialog with the boy, perhaps he leaps on him from behind, but he loops the cord around his neck and strangles him, while poor Pavel vainly kicks at the furniture, leaving marks. Jacques then strips the boy to his shirt, or dresses him in a shirt he brought for the purpose, folding the boy’s clothes neatly and setting up the locked-room scenario. He sneaks out of the hotel somehow without being seen, or being seen by someone Pond wasn’t able to question, and goes on home. The rest we know.”
    “Very lucid presentation,” Twister admitted, though he was clearly annoyed by my posturing as a Great Detective, “I will get onto de Vienne and Horrocks and see if I can shake some information out of them. Thank you very much for your assistance, Mr.  Pond.”
    “I hope it was not too great a liberty, sir,” he bowed, allowing a gratified smirk to flit