don’t move, anyone.’
Her husband pulled a chair up for her, and at last they were all seated at the table.
‘Now,’ said Alleyn, ‘I understand, I think, the general principles and the history of this game which ended so strangely and so tragically. I do not, however, quite realize what would have happened if a sham instead of a real victim had been found—’
‘But excuse me,’ began Tokareff, ‘is this, how you say, a relevancy?’
‘It is quite in order, otherwise I should not ask. What would you have done in the ordinary course of the game?’ He turned to Wilde.
‘We should,’ said Wilde, ‘have immediately assembled and held a mock trial, with a “judge” and a “prosecuting attorney”, each of us having the right to cross-examine. Our object would have been to find the “murderer”—the member of the party to whom Vassily had given the scarlet plaque.’
‘Thank you—yes, I see. And you have not done this?’
‘Good God, Inspector,’ said Nigel violently. ‘What do you take us for?’
‘He takes one of us for a criminal,’ said Rosamund slowly.
‘I think the Murder Game should be played out,’ Alleyn continued. ‘I propose that we hold the trial precisely as it was planned. I shall play the part of prosecuting attorney. I’m not very good at official language, but I’ll do my poor best. For the moment there will be no judge. That will be the only difference between this and the original version—except that I hope there will be no difficulty in at once discovering the recipient of the scarlet plaque.’
‘There will be no difficulty,’ said Wilde. ‘Vassily gave the scarlet plaque to me.’
Arthur Wilde’s announcement had a dramatic effect quite out of proportion to its real value. Nigel experienced a violent emotional shock, followed immediately by the reflection that, after all, the identity of the recipient of the plaque had very little bearing on the case.
It was odd that they should none of them have thought of locating the ‘villain’ in the game. That was all.
Complete silence followed Wilde’s statement. Rosamund broke it. ‘Oh well,’ she said evenly, ‘what of that?’
‘Thank you very much, Mr Wilde,’ said Alleyn. The inspector’s manner had undoubtedly become most convincingly official. ‘You have come forward as the first witness. You were given the plaque at dinner?’
‘Yes—Vassily slipped it into my hand as I helped myself to the savoury.’
‘Had you formed any definite plan about carrying out your role in the game?’
‘Not precisely. I was thinking it over as I lay in my bath. Mr Bathgate was in the next room. I decided against him as the victim—too obvious—then I heard the gong, and the lights went out. I was just going to call out that it couldn’t be the “murder” but an accident of some sort, when I realized that I should be giving my own show away before I had brought it off. So I pretended to think it was the “murder” and began drying myself and dressing. I thought I should find an easy “victim” in the darkness. I did too—!’
A violent exclamation from Handesley interrupted him.
‘What is it, Sir Hubert?’ asked Alleyn gently.
‘It was you, then, Arthur, who ran into me on the landing and said, “You’re the corpse”?’
‘And it was you who answered “Shut up, you ass”,’ returned Wilde. ‘Yes, you thought I was fooling. When I realized that, I got away quickly.’
‘Just a moment,’ interrupted the detective. ‘Let me get this quite clear. Really it’s frightfully muddling. When the alarm was given, Mr Wilde, you were in your bath. Knowing yourself to be the intended “murderer” in the game, you imagined the darkness and the gong sounding were accidental?’
‘I thought the gong was sounded for dinner and that the lights had possibly fused.’
‘Yes, I see. So you lay low and determined to perform your part in the game under cover of the dark?’
‘Yes,’ said Wilde. His voice was patiently courteous.
‘For a detective,’ thought Nigel, ‘the inspector seems to be making rather heavy way of this.’
Alleyn continued. ‘So you came out on to the landing, ran into Sir Hubert and instantly uttered the set phrase? You, Sir Hubert, thought he was fooling?’
‘Yes, certainly. The signal had been given. As a matter of fact I thought—I rather thought it was Rankin. I don’t know why.’
‘Mr Wilde,’ said Alleyn, ‘in the words of the popular coloured engraving, when did you last see Mr Rankin?’
‘I was talking to him alone in the hall before we went up to dress. We were the last to go up. Charles remarked that if either of us was “he” in the game, it would be no good trying to victimize the other, as everyone knew we were left alone together.’
‘Yes, exactly. Then Mr Rankin was still in the hall when you went up to dress?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did anyone see you together?’
Wilde thought for a moment. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I remember Mary, the little between-maid, came in and went out to the entrance hall to lock the front door. She was still tidying or something as I went upstairs. I remember I asked her if she knew the right time—if the hall clock was right. She said, “Yes, ten minutes to eight”, and I said “Good lord, we’ll be late”, or something like that, and ran upstairs, leaving her there.’
‘Presumably, then, Mr Rankin was alone in the hall from a little after seven-fifty till five minutes to eight, when he was killed. About four minutes. Thank you, Mr Wilde.’
Alleyn made a brief entry in his note-book and then looked round the table.
‘Are there any questions that someone else would like to put?’ he asked. ‘I can assure you that I will honestly welcome them.’
There was a short silence, broken unexpectedly by Mrs Wilde. She leant across the table, looking with an odd air of formality at her husband.
‘I would like to ask,’ she said rapidly, ‘what you and Charles talked about during the time you were alone together.’
For the first time Arthur Wilde hesitated.
‘I don’t think,’ he said quietly, ‘that we said anything that could have any bearing on the point at issue.’
‘Nevertheless,’ said Tokareff suddenly, ‘the question is asked.’
‘Well—’ there was the faintest echo of whimsicality in his answer. ‘Well, we
