“Mr. Leyland’s.”
“Angela, don’t be flippant. Is there anybody?”
“Well, Mr. Simmonds hasn’t any enemies that we know of. Unless it was somebody who was disappointed in the quality of his handkerchiefs. What you want me to say is, that it must be somebody who has murdered Mottram himself, and wants to save his skin by pretending it was Simmonds that did it.”
“I’m dashed if I want you to say that. In fact, it’s just what I didn’t want you to say. Of course if you assume that Mottram was murdered by Brinkman, it does all work out, most unpleasantly well. You see, when Leyland and I were sitting here, talking at Brinkman, who was hiding behind the wall, Leyland did say that the only thing which prevented him from arresting Simmonds was the fact that he’d no evidence to connect him with the actual room. I could see what he was up to—he wanted Brinkman to take the hint (assuming, of course, that he was the real murderer) and start manufacturing clues to incriminate Simmonds. Well, it looks very much as if Brinkman had taken the hint, and were doing identically what Leyland suggested. Curse it all.”
“Still, it was clever of Brinky to get in when the door was locked.”
“Oh, that’s nothing. I wouldn’t put it beyond Brinkman to have a duplicate key of that door. . . . No, I’ve nothing to fall back on really except the absence of motive. What earthly reason had Brinkman for wanting to do Mottram in? Or rather, I have one other thing to fall back on. But it’s not evidence; it’s instinct.”
“As how?”
“Why, don’t you see that the whole thing works out too beastly well? Isn’t it rather too obviously a ruse? I mean, that idea of dropping a piece of paper with only half a dozen words on it, and yet those half-dozen words shewing exactly what the document was? Isn’t it rather too obviously a plant?”
“But it was a plant, if Brinky put it there.”
“Yes, but isn’t it too obviously a plant? So obviously, I mean, that you couldn’t expect anybody, even Leyland, to think for a moment that it was genuine? Can Brinkman really have thought that Leyland wouldn’t see through it?”