Buffet for Unwelcome Guests(58)

‘I’ll tell what happened next,’ said the boy. ‘Because I know it.’ You could see the tense clutch of his hands, the tense pressure of his shabby shoes on the soft carpeting of Mysterioso’s room; his very skin colour had changed, strangely darkened with hollows ringed round the bright eyes. He was coming now to the defence of his father. ‘My father was standing in the doorway where he’d been posted. I’ve heard him tell about it a hundred times; he was always telling it. He heard the shot fired and ran to the corner of the building and sent one glance at the site and saw what had happened—and don’t tell me that in that short time someone could have come out of the building and run away, because they couldn’t. Could they?’ He appealed to Inspector Block.

‘No,’ said Block. ‘In that short time, anyone shooting from the window where the gun was, could hardly even have reached the top of the stairs. Experiments were made.’

‘Well, all right, so he saw them both fall and he saw the crowd swing round and stare up at the building, so he knew where the shot must have come from and he turned back and ran into the building and up the stairs. He didn’t bother about the ground floor, because he knew the man couldn’t have got there yet; and anyway, it was just an open space, he could see that it was empty; and so was the second floor an empty space.’

‘That’s right,’ said Block. ‘He acted perfectly wisely. Go on, you’re doing fine.’

The tense darkened face gave him no thanks. ‘He went tearing up,’ said the boy, ‘and as he passed the first big window on the stairs looking across at the main building of the hospital, he saw people lying in beds and sitting in wheelchairs out on the balcony—’

They had sat very quiet and intent, those two who had been on the hospital balcony that day long ago—traced and brought here by the dramatic enthusiasm of the Grand Mysterioso to stand witness to what they had seen. ‘Yes, I remember it well,’ said the woman. ‘They’d wheeled us out there into the sunshine. Nothing to see, mind: the unfinished wing cut off the view of the park beyond, and of course, of the cornerstone. It would have been fun to lie there and watch the ceremony, but—well, we couldn’t see it. Still, it was nice to get a bit of. fresh air. This gentleman was on the other side of the partition with others from Men’s Surgical. We were lying there quietly, dozing, enjoying the sunshine—’

‘That’s right. And then suddenly we heard the shot, and half a minute later this policeman comes racing up the stairs of the unfinished wing opposite. There was a lot of glass there, at least there was going to be—now it was just a huge great open space. He went dashing past, and then something must have occurred to him, because he reappeared, hanging out of the window to shout out to us, clinging to the post with one hand. “Watch the stairs!” he shouted. “Watch that no one comes down!” We were all excited, we yelled back, “What’s happened?” and he yelled, “They’ve shot him!” or “They’ve got him!”—I don’t know which—and then off he went tearing up the stairs again.’

‘What a kerfuffle!’ said the woman. ‘Everyone squealing and hysterical, one of them fainted—we were all weak, I suppose, and I think we thought the murderer would suddenly appear and start taking shots at us from the window—’

‘Or from the roof,’ said the boy.

‘We’re coming to the roof in a moment,’ said Mysterioso patiently. Don’t worry about him, his look said to the rest of them; after all, this is why we’re here. ‘Now—your father went tearing on up the stairs—?’

‘Yes, and came to the top and ran along the corridor. There were a few rooms with their walls up, but the rest was open space—no ceiling in yet, you could see the joists and the slates up over your head. He ran past several of the little rooms that were partitioned—there were no doors or windows in yet—and suddenly in one of them he saw the rifle. A .22, rigged up, fixed, aligned on the cornerstone below.

‘He took just one glance and ran out into the corridor again, to try to find someone. He knew the murderer must still be up there. But there was nobody. And then he heard footsteps coming pounding up the stairs, and it was—well, now he’s Inspector Block.’ Even that seemed to be an injury; his father had never had the chance to become Inspector Robbins.

‘He met me at the top of the stairs,’ said Block. ‘I’d been on duty at the other end of the wing. He said, “My God, there’s nobody here! They’ve shot him, but there’s nobody here!” He looked almost—scared, as though he’d seen a ghost. “There’s a rifle fixed up,” he said. “Come and look!” ’