The Floating Admiral - Agatha Christie [34]
“Not quite that, sir,” the sergeant answered, his good humour restored.
“Then you, Sergeant, come up to the house with me. Hempstead, you’ll stay on here. We’ll be down again as soon as we can. Keep an eye on the opposite bank too.”
The two men hurried back to the house, and the Inspector led the way straight to the french window which was foremost in his thoughts; one thing was certain, the key was not on the outside. They hurried round to the front door and rang the bell; after an interval of at least three minutes, during which the Inspector fumed impatiently, Emery opened it and admitted them with the same air of incompetent reluctance which had been the Inspector’s first impression of him.
“I want another word with you, Emery,” he began, sternly.
“Here it is,” said Emery.
“Here what is?” The man really seemed to be half-witted as well as painfully slow.
“Evening Gazette,” Emery explained, turning and pointing to a side table in the hall.
“The regular copy? The one which is delivered about nine? Where was it?”
“There.”
“But you told me you weren’t sure. If it was lying there all the time—”
“No more I was,” Emery asserted, in weak indignation, “and the minute I went to see and my back was turned, you skipped off.”
The Inspector snorted; he was unable to deny that the man had some reason on his side, but people who were as slow as the butler must expect all kinds of criticism.
“Had it been read?” was his next question. He saw at once that it was not calculated to produce a helpful answer, so he hastily amended it and extracted from Emery the opinion that the paper had not been touched since first it had been laid by him on the table.
The Inspector nodded; then picked up the paper and requested the butler to lead the way to the study. The sergeant was distinctly puzzled, particularly at the appropriation of the Evening Gazette, but followed in silence, and closed the study door behind the little procession.
“Now, Emery,” the Inspector resumed, with difficulty restraining a tendency to shout, “I want to know about the keys of the french window—the one you shut but did not bolt. First of all, were all the other doors locked and bolted when you went to bed last night? They were, eh? So that this was the only way by which the Admiral and Miss Fitzgerald could get in. I see. And now this window—how many keys are there?”
“I’ve got my key here on my ring,” the butler replied and quite briskly produced a fat bunch, selected the key and proffered it for inspection. The other took it, satisfied himself that it was the right key by unlocking the window, and handed back the bunch. He had wondered how the butler managed to remember not to leave the key in the lock inside; the bunch explained it.
“Right,” he said. “How many others are there?”
“Only the one that I know of. The one the Admiral had himself.”
“Sure of that?”
“It’s the only one I ever heard of.”
“Miss Fitzgerald hasn’t got one?”
“No.”
“How d’you know?”
“Well, once or twice of an evening she’s borrowed the key from the Admiral.”
“Oh, does she often go out in the evening?” The Inspector could not resist this deviation from the main channel of his questions.
“Now and again. With Mr. Holland,” the butler told him, with an approach to a smirk.
“Walking out, eh?” Rudge suggested vulgarly; and the smirk became an accomplished fact. Rudge made a mental comparison of this with Jennie Merton’s opinion; then, as if determined to keep Emery in his place, he asked sharply: “What’s happened to the second key—the Admiral’s?”
“Well, I—I really couldn’t say.”
“Where did the Admiral keep it? On a ring with other keys like you do, or separately?”
“By itself,” Emery told him. “It used to lie on his table in the pen tray. It had a label.”
The Inspector strode sharply across the room.
“Well, it’s not there now,” he announced. Several bright ideas sprang into his mind. The Admiral must have given the key to his niece