I
“Can we have a word with you, Mr. Kendal?”
“Of course.” Tim looked up from his desk. He pushed some papers aside and indicated chairs. His face was drawn and miserable. “How are you getting on? Got any forwarder? There seems to be a doom in this place.
People are wanting to leave, you know, asking about air passages. Just when it seemed everything was being a success. Oh Lord, you don’t know what it means, this place, to me and to Molly. We staked everything on it.”
“It’s very hard on you, I know,” said Inspector Weston. “Don’t think that we don’t sympathize.”
“If it all could be cleared up quickly,” said Tim. “This wretched girl Victoria—Oh! I oughtn’t to talk about her like that. She was quite a good sort, Victoria was. But—but there must be some quite simple reason, some—kind of intrigue, or love affair she had. Perhaps her husband—”
“Jim Ellis wasn’t her husband, and they seemed a settled sort of couple.”
“If it could only be cleared up quickly,” said Tim again. “I’m sorry. You wanted to talk to me about something, ask me something.”
“Yes. It was about last night. According to medical evidence Victoria was killed some time between 10:30 pm and midnight. Alibis under the circumstances that prevail here are not very easy to prove. People are moving about, dancing, walking away from the terrace, coming back. It’s all very difficult.”
“I suppose so. But does that mean that you definitely consider Victoria was killed by one of the guests here?”
“Well, we have to examine that possibility, Mr. Kendal. What I want to ask you particularly about, is a statement made by one of your cooks.”
“Oh? Which one? What does he say?”
“He’s a Cuban, I understand.”
“We’ve got two Cubans and a Puerto Rican.”
“This man Enrico states that your wife passed through the kitchen on her way from the dining room, and went out into the garden and that she was carrying a knife.”
Tim stared at him.
“Molly, carrying a knife? Well, why shouldn’t she? I mean—why—you don’t think—what are you trying to suggest?”
“I am talking of the time before people had come into the dining room. It would be, I suppose, some time about 8:30. You yourself were in the dining room talking to the head waiter, Fernando, I believe.”
“Yes.” Tim cast his mind back. “Yes, I remember.”
“And your wife came in from the terrace?”
“Yes, she did,” Tim agreed. “She always went out to look over the tables. Sometimes the boys set things wrong, forgot some of the cutlery, things like that. Very likely that’s what it was. She may have been rearranging cutlery or something. She might have had a spare knife or a spoon, something like that in her hand.”
“And she came from the terrace into the dining room. Did she speak to you?”
“Yes, we had a word or two together.”
“What did she say? Can you remember?”
“I think I asked her who she’d been talking to. I heard her voice out there.”
“And who did she say she’d been talking to?”
“Gregory Dyson.”
“Ah. Yes. That is what he said.”
Tim went on, “He’d been making a pass at her, I understand. He was a bit given to that kind of thing. It annoyed me and I said ‘Blast him’ and Molly laughed and said she could do all the blasting that needed to be done. Molly’s a very clever girl that way. It’s not always an easy position, you know. You can’t offend guests, and so an attractive girl like Molly has to pass things off with a laugh and a shrug. Gregory Dyson finds it difficult to keep his hands off any good-looking woman.”
“Had there been an altercation between them?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think, as I say, she just laughed it off as usual.”
“You can’t say definitely whether she had a knife in her hand or not?”
“I can’t remember—I’m almost sure she didn’t—in fact quite sure she didn’t.”
“But you said just now….”
“Look here, what I meant was that if she was in the dining room or in the kitchen it’s quite likely she might have picked up a knife or had one in her hand. Matter of fact I can remember quite well, she came in from the dining room and she had nothing in her hand. Nothing at all. That’s definite.”
“I see,” said Weston.
Tim looked at him uneasily.
“What on earth is this you’re getting at? What did that damn’ fool Enrico—Manuel—whoever it was—say?”
“He said your wife came out into the kitchen, that she looked upset, that she had a knife in her hand.”
“He’s just dramatizing.”
“Did you have any further conversation with your wife during dinner or after?”
“No, I don’t think I did really. Matter of fact I was rather busy.”
“Was your wife there in the dining room during the meal?”
“I—oh—yes, we always move about among the guests and things like that. See how things are going on.”
“Did you speak to her at all?”
“No, I don’t think I did … We’re usually fairly busy. We don’t always notice what the other one’s doing and we certainly haven’t got time to talk to each other.”
“Actually you don’t remember speaking to her until she came up the steps three hours later, after finding the body?”
“It was an awful shock for her. It upset her terribly.”
“I know. A very unpleasant experience. How did she come to be walking along the beach path?”
“After the stress of dinner being served, she often does go for a turn. You know, get away from the guests for a minute or two, get a breather.”
“When she came back, I understand you were talking to Mrs. Hillingdon.”
“Yes. Practically everyone else had gone to bed.”
“What was the subject of your conversation with Mrs. Hillingdon?”
“Nothing particular. Why? What’s she been saying?”
“So far she hasn’t said anything. We haven’t asked her.”
“We were just talking of this and that. Molly, and hotel running, and one thing and another.”
“And then—your wife came up the steps of the terrace and told you what had happened?”
“Yes.”
“There was blood on her hands?”
“Of course there was! She’d been over the girl, tried to lift her, couldn’t understand what had happened, what was the matter with her. Of course there was blood on her hands! Look here, what the hell are you suggesting? You are suggesting something?”
“Please calm down,” said Daventry. “It’s all a great strain on you I know, Tim, but we have to get the facts clear. I understand your wife hasn’t been feeling very well lately?”
“Nonsense—she’s all right. Major Palgrave’s death upset her a bit. Naturally. She’s a sensitive girl.”
“We shall have to ask her a few questions as soon as she’s fit enough,” said Weston.
“Well, you can’t now. The doctor gave her a sedative and said she wasn’t to be disturbed. I won’t have her upset and brow-beaten, d’you hear?”
“We’re not going to do any brow-beating,” said Weston. “We’ve just got to get the facts clear. We won’t disturb her at present, but as soon as the doctor allows us, we’ll have to see her.” His voice was gentle—inflexible.
Tim looked at him, opened his mouth, but said nothing.
II
Evelyn Hillingdon, calm and composed as usual, sat down in the chair indicated. She considered the few questions asked her, taking her time over it. Her dark, intelligent eyes looked at Weston thoughtfully.
“Yes,” she said, “I was talking to Mr. Kendal on the terrace when his wife came up the steps and told us about the murder.”
“Your husband wasn’t there?”
“No, he had gone to bed.”
“Had you any special reason for your conversation with Mr. Kendal?”
Evelyn raised her finely pencilled eyebrows—It was a definite rebuke.
She said coldly:
“What a very odd question. No—there was nothing special about our conversation.”
“Did you discuss the matter of his wife’s health?”
Again Evelyn took her time.
“I really can’t remember,” she said at last.
“Are you sure of that?”
“Sure that I can’t remember? What a curious way of putting it—one talks about so many things at different times.”
“Mrs. Kendal has not been in good health lately, I understand.”
“She looked quite all right—a little tired perhaps. Of course running a place like this means a lot of worries, and she is quite inexperienced. Naturally, she gets flustered now and then.”
“Flustered.” Weston repeated the word. “That was the way you would describe it?”
“It’s an old-fashioned word, perhaps, but just as good as the modern jargon we use for everything—A ‘virus infection’ for a bilious attack—an ‘anxiety neurosis’ for the minor bothers of daily life—”
Her smile made Weston feel slightly ridiculous. He thought to himself that Evelyn Hillingdon was a clever woman. He looked at Daventry, whose face remained unmoved, and wondered what he thought.
“Thank you, Mrs. Hillingdon,” said Weston.
III
“We don’t want to worry you, Mrs. Kendal, but we have to have your account of just how you came to find this girl. Dr. Graham says you are sufficiently recovered to talk about it now.”
“Oh yes,” said Molly, “I’m really quite all right again.” She gave them a small nervous smile. “It was just the shock—It was rather awful, you know.”
“Yes, indeed it must have been—I understand you went for a walk after dinner.”
“Yes—I often do.”
Her eyes shifted, Daventry noticed, and the fingers of her hands twined and untwined about each other.
“What time would that have been, Mrs. Kendal?” asked Weston.
“Well, I don’t really know—we don’t go much by the time.”
“The steel band was still playing?”
“Yes—at least—I think so—I can’t really remember.”
“And you walked—which way?”
“Oh, along the beach path.”
“To the left or the right?”
“Oh! First one way—and then the other—I—I—really didn’t notice.”
“Why didn’t you notice, Mrs. Kendal?”
She frowned.
“I suppose I was—well—thinking of things.”
“Thinking of anything particular?”
“No—No—Nothing particular—Just things that had to be done—seen to—in the hotel.” Again that nervous twining and untwining of fingers. “And then—I noticed something white—in a clump of hibiscus bushes—and I wondered what it was. I stopped and—and pulled—” She swallowed convulsively—“And it was her—Victoria—all huddled up—and I tried to raise her head up and I got—blood—on my hands.”
She looked at them and repeated wonderingly as though recalling something impossible:
“Blood—on my hands.”
“Yes—Yes—A very dreadful experience. There is no need for you to tell us more about that part of it—How long had you been walking, do you think, when you found her—”
“I don’t know—I have no idea.”
“An hour? Half an hour? Or more than an hour—”
“I don’t know,” Molly repeated.
Daventry asked in a quiet everyday voice:
“Did you take a knife with you on your—walk?”
“A knife?” Molly sounded surprised. “Why should I take a knife?”
“I only ask because one of the kitchen staff mentioned that you had a knife in your hand when you went out of the kitchen into the garden.”
Molly frowned.
“But I didn’t go out of the kitchen—oh you mean earlier—before dinner—I—I don’t think so—”
“You had been rearranging the cutlery on the tables, perhaps.”
“I have to, sometimes. They lay things wrong—not enough knives—or too many. The wrong number of forks and spoons—that sort of thing.”
“So you may have gone out of the kitchen that evening carrying a knife in your hand?”
“I don’t think I did—I’m sure I didn’t—” She added—“Tim was there—he would know. Ask him.”
“Did you like this girl—Victoria—was she good at her work?” asked Weston.
“Yes—she was a very nice girl.”
“You had no dispute with her?”
“Dispute? No.”
“She had never threatened you—in any way?”
“Threatened me? What do you mean?”
“It doesn’t matter—You have no idea of who could have killed her? No idea at all?”
“None.” She spoke positively.
“Well, thank you, Mrs. Kendal.” He smiled. “It wasn’t so terrible, was it?”
“That’s all?”
“That’s all for now.”
Daventry got up, opened the door for her, and watched her go out.
“Tim would know,” he quoted as he returned to his chair. “And Tim says definitely that she didn’t have a knife.”
Weston said gravely:
“I think that that is what any husband would feel called upon to say.”
“A table knife seems a very poor type of knife to use for murder.”
“But it was a steak knife, Mr. Daventry. Steaks were on the menu that evening. Steak knives are kept sharp.”
“I really can’t bring myself to believe that that girl we’ve just been talking to is a red-handed murderess, Weston.”
“It is not necessary to believe it yet. It could be that Mrs. Kendal went out into the garden before dinner, clasping a knife she had taken off one of the tables because it was superfluous—she might not even have noticed she was holding it, and she could have put it down somewhere—or dropped it—It could have been found and used by someone else—I, too, think her an unlikely murderess.”
“All the same,” said Daventry thoughtfully, “I’m pretty sure she is not telling all she knows. Her vagueness over time is odd—where was she—what was she doing out there? Nobody, so far, seems to have noticed her in the dining room that evening.”
“The husband was about as usual—but not the wife—”
“You think she went to meet someone—Victoria Johnson?”
“Perhaps—or perhaps she saw whoever it was who did go to meet Victoria.”
“You’re thinking of Gregory Dyson?”
“We know he was talking to Victoria earlier—He may have arranged to meet her again later—everyone moved around freely on the terrace, remember—dancing, drinking—in and out of the bar.”
“No alibi like a steel band,” said Daventry wryly.
Chapter 15.Inquiry continued