‘I believe I do,’ Racksole resumed. ‘Now listen. At the best, you will be given up to the police. At the worst, I shall deal with you myself. With the police you may have a chance—you may get off with twenty years’ penal servitude, because, though it is absolutely certain that you murdered Reginald Dimmock, it would be a little difficult to prove the case against you. But with me you would have no chance whatever. I have a few questions to put to you, and it will depend on how you answer them whether I give you up to the police or take the law into my own hands. And let me tell you that the latter course would be much simpler for me. And I would take it, too, did I not feel that you were a very clever and exceptional man; did I not have a sort of sneaking admiration for your detestable skill and ingenuity.’
‘You think, then, that I am clever?’ said Jules. ‘You are right. I am. I should have been much too clever for you if luck had not been against me.
You owe your victory, not to skill, but to luck.’
‘That is what the vanquished always say. Waterloo was a bit of pure luck for the English, no doubt, but it was Waterloo all the same.’
Jules yawned elaborately. ‘What do you want to know?’ he inquired, with politeness.
‘First and foremost, I want to know the names of your accomplices inside this hotel.’
‘I have no more,’ said Jules. ‘Rocco was the last.’
‘Don’t begin by lying to me. If you had no accomplice, how did you contrive that one particular bottle of Romanée-Conti should be served to his Highness Prince Eugen?’
‘Then you discovered that in time, did you?’ said Jules. ‘I was afraid so.
Let me explain that that needed no accomplice. The bottle was topmost in the bin, and naturally it would be taken. Moreover, I left it sticking out a little further than the rest.’