No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [154]
“What about the bucket at the top of a drain pipe?” Joseph asked. “With the barrel pointing down and the top covered with, for example, an old handkerchief, suitably dusty, and a few leaves?”
“Very good, sir,” Perth conceded. “That could be. Except we looked.”
“How about the downpipes on the master’s lodgings?” Joseph asked. “Did you look there, too?”
Perth stood absolutely still, his face frozen.
Joseph waited, aware of Connie holding her breath beside him.
“No,” Perth said at last. “We reckoned . . . nobody’d be able to hoide anything there unless they went through the master’s lodgings to do it. Are you saying as they did?” The last was addressed to Connie.
“Elwyn Allard was in and out of the house a great deal while his mother and father stayed with us,” she replied, her voice very nearly steady. “He was there within an hour of Dr. Beecher being shot.”
Perth stared at her. “If you’re saying that he shot his brother, Mrs. Thyer, you got it wrong. We thought o’ that. Lots of families don’t get on all that well.” He shook his head dismally. “Brother killing brother is as old as the Bible, if you’ll excuse me saying so. But we know where he was, an’ he couldn’t’ve. You’d not understand the medical evidence, mebbe, but you’ll have to trust us in that.”
“And Dr. Beecher didn’t do it, either,” she said, her voice tight as if her throat would barely open. “He was with me.” She ignored Perth’s expression of incredulity. “I am perfectly aware of what time it was, and of the impropriety of it. I would not admit to it lightly, and I can barely imagine what my husband will feel if it has to be public—or what he will do. But I will not allow Dr. Beecher, or anyone else, to be branded for a crime they did not commit.”
“Where were you . . . and Dr. Beecher, madam?” Perth asked, his face sour with disbelief, and perhaps disapproval.
Connie blushed, understanding his contempt. “On the Backs along the river, Inspector Perth. At this time of the year, as you say, the daylight hours are long, and it is a pleasant place if you wish to talk unobserved.”
His expression was unreadable. “Very interesting, Oi’m sure. Why didn’t you mention this before? Or has Dr. Beecher’s reputation suddenly got so much more important to you?”
Her face tightened. She was white about the lips. Joseph could see how intensely she would like to have lashed back at Perth and withered him, but she had already given away her weapons. “Like others, I’m afraid I thought Sebastian Allard had been blackmailing him over his regard for me and the indiscretion of it for both of us,” she replied. “I thought he had killed himself rather than have it exposed, which he believed was going to happen because of the investigation into Sebastian’s murder.”
“Then who did kill Sebastian, Mrs. Thyer?” Perth asked, leaning forward a little across the desk. “An’ who put the gun down the drainpipe on your roof? You? If you’ll excuse me saying so, we only got your word that Dr. Beecher was with you. Same as we only got his word that you was with him . . . an’ he ain’t here to back you up.”
She understood perfectly, but her eyes did not waver from his. “I am aware of that, Inspector. I do not know who killed Sebastian, but it was not Dr. Beecher, and it was not I. But I believe that if you investigate a little further, you will find that Elwyn Allard shot Dr. Beecher, and you cannot find it difficult to understand why, since you yourself assumed that Dr. Beecher was guilty of killing Sebastian.”
“Oi’m not sure as how Oi do believe it.” Perth bit his lip. “But Oi suppose Oi’d better go back to St. John’s an’ ask around a bit more, leastways find out if anyone saw Elwyn near Dr. Beecher’s rooms just before he were shot. But Oi still don’t see how he could have known where the gun were if it were in the pipe from the roof of the master’s lodgings!”
“The gun was on the floor, by Dr. Beecher’s hand,” Joseph said suddenly. “Did you do any tests to see if that was where and how it would fall if dropped from a man’s hand after he was shot?”