“All the same, it's a pretty fragrant thought,” said Charles, grinning.
“It's nothing of the sort! Now, I won't have you making that kind of joke, any of you! It's in very bad taste. Mavis says those things because she thinks one ought not to speak ill of the dead, that's all.”
“In what terms does she speak of the Emperor Domitian, and the late Adolf Hitler?” enquired Gavin, interested.
“That,” said Miss Patterdale severely, “is different!”
“Well,” said Gavin, setting down his empty cup, and dragging himself out of his chair, “if I am not to be allowed to suspect Mavis, I must fall back upon my first choice.”
“Who's that?” demanded Abby.
“Mrs. Midgeholme—to avenge the blood of Ulysses. I won't deny that I infinitely prefer her as a suspect to Mavis, but there's always the fear that she'll turn out to have an unbreakable alibi. Mavis, we all know, has none at all. That, by the way, will be our next excitement: who had an alibi, and who had none. You three appear to have them, which, if you will permit me to say so, is very dull and unenterprising of you.”
“Have you got one?” Abby asked forthrightly.
“No, no! At least, I hope I haven't: if that wretched landlord says I was sitting in the Red Lion at the time I shall deny it hotly. Surely the police cannot overlook my claims to the post of chief suspect? I write detective novels, I have a lame leg, and I drove my half-brother to suicide. What more do the police want?”
“You know,” said Charles, who had not been attending very closely to this, “I've been thinking, and I shouldn't be at all surprised, taking into account the time when it happened, if quite a few people haven't got alibis. Everyone was on the way home from our party—the Squire, Lindale, the Major, old Drybeck!”