At Bertram's Hotel - Agatha Christie [72]
“She’s well under age—she’d have to have the assent of her guardian and trustees.”
“Technically, yes. But they don’t always wait for that,” said Father.
“I know. Most regrettable. One has to go through all the machinery of making them Wards of Court, and all the rest of it. And even that has its difficulties.”
“And once they’re married, they’re married,” said Father. “I suppose, if she were married, and died suddenly, her husband would inherit?”
“This idea of marriage is most unlikely. She has been most carefully looked after and….” He stopped, reacting to Chief-Inspector Davy’s cynical smile.
However carefully Elvira had been looked after, she seemed to have succeeded in making the acquaintance of the highly unsuitable Ladislaus Malinowski.
He said dubiously, “Her mother bolted, it’s true.”
“Her mother bolted, yes—that’s what she would do—but Miss Blake’s a different type. She’s just as set on getting her own way, but she’d go about it differently.”
“You don’t really think—”
“I don’t think anything—yet,” said Chief-Inspector Davy.
Chapter Twenty-four
Ladislaus Malinowski looked from one to the other of the two police officers and flung back his head and laughed.
“It is very amusing!” he said. “You look solemn as owls. It is ridiculous that you should ask me to come here and wish to ask me questions. You have nothing against me, nothing.”
“We think you may be able to assist us in our inquiries, Mr. Malinowski.” Chief-Inspector Davy spoke with official smoothness. “You own a car, Mercedes-Otto, registration number FAN 2266.”
“Is there any reason why I should not own such a car?”
“No reason at all, sir. There’s just a little uncertainty as to the correct number. Your car was on a motor road, M7, and the registration plate on that occasion was a different one.”
“Nonsense. It must have been some other car.”
“There aren’t so many of that make. We have checked up on those there are.”
“You believe everything, I suppose, that your traffic police tell you! It is laughable! Where was all this?”
“The place where the police stopped you and asked to see your licence is not very far from Bedhampton. It was on the night of the Irish Mail robbery.”
“You really do amuse me,” said Ladislaus Malinowski.
“You have a revolver?”
“Certainly, I have a revolver and an automatic pistol. I have proper licences for them.”
“Quite so. They are both still in your possession?”
“Certainly.”
“I have already warned you, Mr. Malinowski.”
“The famous policeman’s warning! Anything you say will be taken down and used against you at your trial.”
“That’s not quite the wording,” said Father mildly. “Used, yes. Against, no. You don’t want to qualify that statement of yours?”
“No, I do not.”
“And you are sure you don’t want your solicitor here?”
“I do not like solicitors.”
“Some people don’t. Where are those firearms now?”
“I think you know very well where they are, Chief-Inspector. The small pistol is in the pocket of my car, the Mercedes-Otto whose registered number is, as I have said, FAN 2266. The revolver is in a drawer in my flat.”
“You’re quite right about the one in the drawer in your flat,” said Father, “but the other—the pistol—is not in your car.”
“Yes, it is. It is in the left-hand pocket.”
Father shook his head. “It may have been once. It isn’t now. Is this it, Mr. Malinowski?”
He passed a small automatic pistol across the table. Ladislaus Malinowski, with an air of great surprise, picked it up.
“Ah-ha, yes. This is it. So it was you who took it from my car?”
“No,” said Father, “we didn’t take it from your car. It was not in your car. We found it somewhere else.”
“Where did you find it?”
“We found it,” said Father, “in an area in Pond Street, which—as you no doubt know—is a street near Park Lane. It could have been dropped by a man walking down that street—or running perhaps.”
Ladislaus Malinowski shrugged his shoulders. “That is nothing to do with me—I did not put it there. It was in my car a