They had been hard on Neil Crawford—unnecessarily so, Julian thought. Though even if someone had been ahead of his assassins in the case of Whittaker, as Crawford insisted, he supposed the law could do something about the mere fact of intended murder. And Crawford, as well as his wife, had reasons for wishing Romany and the Diary disposed of. When it came right down to it any one of them might have killed Whittaker. But how thankful one was, Julian drew a deep breath, to have it done for him. He even wondered if there mightn’t now be a chance for some of them to wiggle out scot-free—with the past still a closed book. One thing about Belknap he had to admit was jolly decent—and that was his not stressing what must have been as obvious to him as to the others, perhaps more obvious: namely, that Whittaker’s intention had been to make a clean sweep of his guests. Not only was Belknap being discreet with regard to the content of the Diary, but he was actually soft-pedaling it. No doubt wholly in consideration of Nadia Mdevani as usual! But in this instance he was benefiting others than Nadia. And Julian for one was deeply grateful.
Again, who had killed whom? Who had chased whom around the walls of what? However you looked at it any one could have killed every other one. And quite possibly victim could have killed victim—perhaps two-thirds of the murderers were among the murdered. Which could lead to conjuring in terms: victor-victim, or victim-victor. Blake may have killed Romany, Romany Blake. Even the doctor was unable to tell which had died first—the times had apparently so nearly coincided. Or Whittaker could have killed both. The one proven fact was that neither Blake nor Romany could have killed Whittaker. It was hoped there would be one more fact settled with the matching of markings on the bullet and pistol. The bullet. Julian was still bothered by the question of his two shots. One must have been an echo.
And had Nadia Mdevani fired her own weapon? She had been found in the library—its only occupant. But she gave the appearance of not having stirred for hours. Perfect acting. But it would take superhuman agility to have cleared the wall-space and become rooted to the couch before he had sprung in from the terrace outside. And why had she left her gun lying around? Perhaps she thought nothing would be discovered before she returned in quiet to dispose of it. No, that wouldn’t do: she herself had spotted the holes. The margin between being innocently honest and too honest because of guilt is so slight it would take a wiser and more practiced analyst than Julian considered himself to be to gauge it. Here again he had hope of Berry. And it was clear Berry was not particularly inclined to Nadia’s guilt. He seemed to have other fish to fry. What fish?
For if Nadia, Sydney and Crawford, by a bare chance, were all innocent, who was left? Joel, himself,—and of course that mysterious Dorn. Why couldn’t they find Dorn? Talk about the ineffectiveness of the police! The one thing you’d think they might accomplish would be the finding of a human being who had had less than twelve hours’ start. Particularly if he was, as began to seem more than likely, hanging around Thorngate. If it wasn’t for this blasted fog he’d go hunting himself, even if it meant a hand-to-hand encounter. Anything was better than waiting for Dorn to move. What was that noise now—like a finger-nail on glass? A twig rubbed on the window by the wind? But there wasn’t a wind. Wind and fog don’t go hand in hand. The thing to do was to find Berry and get down to work. It was this terrible inactivity that was beginning to tell on his nerves.
He hated to leave Joel, even for a moment. Looking at her sad, white face as she lay there sleeping (she had fallen into a restless sleep) his heart ached for her. Forgive her her murder! He had scarcely thought of it since she had told him of it. He would protect her against the past as well as against the future. He prayed the future had nothing worse in store for her. He touched her hand.
“I will come back soon this time, my darling,” he whispered.
Joel stirred, shifted. Her lips moved, though her eyes were closed. She whispered something, and Julian bent down quickly to listen.
“Violet Mowbray, that’s the name. You see I did remember. Violet—Violet—Violet—” She trailed off into indistinguishable sounds.
Julian waited, hoping she might, while she was about this opportune sleep-talking, give away more important matters. But she didn’t speak again, and Julian, pleased as Punch anyway with what she had revealed, went off to find Berry.