Buffet for Unwelcome Guests(45)

‘Very well. Let’s move on now to what actually happened, the order of events.’ Like a child, excited and eager, he wriggled himself heavily into a more comfortable sitting position on the bench. ‘True or false—as the police got them. Leave me to do the sorting out. They had to.’

In a way, the ball had started with P.C.Cross: finishing his dinner in the canteen, pedalling off to his beat, not remarked again until the telephone call at five o’clock; his body found an hour or so later in the disused factory.

‘The next exact time we know is when I went to the office to see Uncle Gemminy….’

Mr. Gemminy had stayed on there because he wanted to talk to them—to Giles and Rupert: but separately. ‘I was to go at half past two, Rupert at four. He didn’t want to talk at home because Helen might be there—she still lived with him. Rupert and I shared a flat in a block about fifteen minutes’ drive from the office. Anyway, the thing was that this third party had turned up and the old man didn’t like it. Who the chap was we didn’t then know but I think he knew, or he’d guessed, and he wasn’t too pleased. He thought she’d had her head turned, he thought she didn’t know her own mind; and anyway he would secretly have liked it to be Rupert or me, he wanted to keep it in the family. Anyway, his idea was to sort it out first with us two and find out how each felt about her before he did any more. But nothing terrific you know—just a family discussion.’

‘All right. So at half past two you went along?’

‘M’m. Leaving Rupert at the flat. We had a very affable chat, the old man and I, I told him my side of the thing—’

‘He didn’t tell you the identity of A.N.Other?’

‘No, he didn’t,’ said Giles.

‘Well, never mind; that we can easily enough deduce. And so—?’

‘And so at half past three I came away and he was safe and sound then. And don’t say he wasn’t,’ said Giles, ‘because he was. He rang up Rupert after I’d left—and it wasn’t till four o’clock that he rang the police.’

‘Yes. Well?’

‘Well, I drove home. I parked the car and just as I came round the corner to the front door of the flats, I saw Rupert come running down the steps, hatless and carrying his mac. in spite of the rain, as though he’d just snatched it up all anyhow—and he scrambled into his car and went shooting off.’

‘Why in such a hurry? His appointment wasn’t till four?’

‘Because, so he says, Uncle Gem had just rung him up—’

‘The exact words, please.’

‘ “Well,” he said first, “haven’t you started?” and Rupert said, “I was just leaving; isn’t Giles still with you?” and Uncle Gem said, “No, he went at half past,” and he was just saying something about “a very good talk” or something like that when he suddenly broke off and said, “There it is again. I don’t like it, Rupert. There seems to be something funny happening outside the window.” ’

‘Fifty feet up?’

‘Well, that’s what he said; and then he said, “Do come quickly, Rupert, there’s something wrong.” So naturally Rupert whizzed off not even taking time to put on his mac.’

‘Or to ring the police station first?—just across the road from your uncle.’

‘Well, I don’t think one would, do you?’ said Giles. ‘He says it just never entered his head.’

The old man thought it over. He said dryly: ‘All very convenient for you, dear boy? Because if you were seeing Rupert outside your flats, you weren’t back at the office, fifteen minutes’ drive away, murdering your uncle—were you?’

‘If I was seeing Rupert,’ said Giles. ‘The police thought of that one, too—don’t worry! They thought I might have noted earlier where his car was parked, deduced that he’d have run out—he always does everything at the double. Faked up the alibi, in fact. But there was the macintosh.’

‘You could hardly have guessed that on such a day he wouldn’t be wearing it. I think it does let you out.’

‘And Rupert. Because if I saw him outside the flats, he couldn’t have been back at the office a couple of miles away, murdering Uncle Gem, either.’

‘Your uncle didn’t die until after Rupert could have had time to arrive there.’

‘Yes, but things had already started. He said so to Rupert.’

‘We have only Rupert’s word for that,’ said the old man. He changed his tack. ‘And meanwhile—Helen?’