“You mean that if Pulteney was listening, and Pulteney was—well, was somehow interested in confusing the tracks of the murder, it may have been he who left the bit of paper under the table.”
“I didn’t say so. But it seems quite as much on the cards as anything else in this frightful business.”
“Let’s see, now, what do we know about Pulteney? We know, in the first place, that he was sleeping in the house on the night when Mottram died. Actually, he had the room next door to Mottram’s—between his and the one we’ve got now. According to his own evidence, he slept soundly all night, and heard nothing. On the other hand, his own evidence shewed that he went to bed after Mottram and Brinkman, and we’ve nothing, therefore, to confirm his own account of his movements. He was woken up the next morning after the tragedy had occurred, and when he was told about it all he said was—what was it, Angela?”
“ ‘In that case, Mrs. Davis, I shall fish the Long Pool this morning.’ ”
“That might almost be represented as suggesting that he wasn’t exactly surprised when he heard of Mottram’s death, mightn’t it? All his references to Mottram’s death since then have been rather—shall we say?—lacking in feeling. He, no less than Brinkman, seemed to be anxious that we should interpret the death as suicide, because it was he who suggested to me that idea about Mottram having brought down the wrong flies, as if he never really had any intention of fishing at all. He has been rather inquisitive about when Brinkman was leaving, and when we were leaving too, for that matter. That’s all you can scrape together, I think, against his general behaviour. And against that, of course, you’ve got to put the absence of all known motive.”
“And the general character of the man,” suggested Eames.
“I suppose so. . . . What impression exactly does he make on you?”
“Why, that he is out of touch with real life. All that macabre humour of his about corpses and so on is an academic thing—he has never really felt death close to. I don’t say that a superb actor mightn’t adopt that ironical pose. I only say it’s far more natural to regard him as a harmless old gentleman who reflects and doesn’t act. It’s very seldom that you find the capacity for acute reflection and the capacity for successful action combined in the same character. At least, that’s always been my impression.”
“Well, granted that we acquit him of the main charge, as Leyland would acquit Brinkman of the main charge. He still comes under the minor suspicion of eavesdropping. He’s as good a candidate for that position as Brinkman himself, only that it was Brinkman’s brand of cigarette we found behind the wall yesterday.”
“Edward had run out, you remember,” suggested Angela. “He might have borrowed one from Brinky, or pinched it when he wasn’t looking. And to be accurate, we must remember that the first time we were overheard, when we were talking in my room, the listener had disappeared before you got into the passage, and the next room to ours is Edward’s.”