“Bad luck, Col,” said Stephen with a shaky laugh. “You’re sunk.”
“I think you’re trying to bamboozle us, Mr. Alleyn,” Colin said. “You’ve got a fifty-fifty chance, after all. I don’t believe Aunt V. would have noticed a carbuncle, much less a mole, on anybody’s neck. She’s too dotty. I stick to my statement. I can tell you exactly what happened.”
“I’m sure you can,” said Alleyn politely. “But do you know, I don’t think we want to hear it. You both had plenty of time to put your heads together before the police arrived. I’m sure the stories would tally to a hair’s-breadth, but I don’t think we’ll trouble you for yours. I won’t ask you for a statement. I don’t think we need bother you any longer. Good night.”
“It’s a trap,” said Colin slowly. “I’m not going. You’ll damn well take my statement, whether you like it or not.”
“We’re not allowed to set traps, I promise you, I should be setting a trap if I pretended not to know which of you worked the lift and so encouraged you to carry on with your comedy of errors.”
“Do p-pipe down, Colin,” said Stephen rapidly. “It’s no go. I didn’t want you to do it. Mr. Alleyn, you’re quite right. I didn’t kill Uncle G. but, on my word of honour, I t-took him down in the lift and Colin stayed in the drawing-room. Don’t commit any more p-perjury, Col, for God’s sake, just go b-buzz off.”
The twins, white to the lips, stared at each other. It so chanced that each of them reflected the other’s pose to the very slant of their narrow heads. The impression made by identical twins is always startling to strangers. It is accompanied by a sensation of shifted focus. It seems to us that the physical resemblance must be an outward sign of mental unity. It is easy to believe that twins are aware of each other’s thoughts, difficult to imagine them in dissonance; and Alleyn wondered if these twins were in agreement when Colin suddenly said: “Let me stay here while you talk to Stephen, please. I’m sorry I was objectionable. I’d like to stay.”
Alleyn did not answer and Colin added: “I won’t butt in. I’d just be here, that’s all.”
“He knows everything about it,” Stephen said. “I t-told him.”
“If he first tells us what he did while you were in the lift,” said Alleyn, “he may stay.”