The Seventh Sinner - Elizabeth Peters [43]
“Another good point. In attempting to silence you, the murderer runs the risk of drawing attention to the very thing he wants to hide. He’s obviously a capable person; Albert’s death was neatly planned. Why would he take such a risk unless you present a very real and immediate danger to him?”
“You keep saying ‘him.’”
“The standard male chauvinist pronoun of indefinite reference,” Jacqueline said, with a smile that was not very convincing.
“I’d love it to be Dana,” Jean said wistfully.
Jacqueline burst out laughing.
“Well, thank goodness you’ve got some gumption,” she said approvingly. “If you collapsed into a quivering jelly of terror it would present a problem.”
“I’m really scared,” Jean said in a low voice. “I realized tonight how much—how much I want to go on being alive.”
“Then it’s up to us to keep you that way,” Jacqueline said briskly. “And we’re really starting from scratch, Jean. It must be one of the six. But I have no idea which one; not even a suspicion.”
“You’re sure it’s one of them?”
“Well, let’s be logical. Conceivably Albert might have been killed by an outsider—some private grudge. The exits at the church weren’t closed until sometime after the attack took place and the killer could have escaped into the anonymity of the street before the alarm was sounded. He would have no reason to linger—unless he was one of the Seven Sinners, who were following a schedule. On that basis I eliminate the other tourists who were caught in the net that day. The lieutenant isn’t as casual as he sounds. He will have checked them all.”
“That’s reasonable. But the killer didn’t plan on my finding Albert. He might have lain there for hours before anyone found him. We’d have all cleared out by then.”
“True, but irrelevant. Albert would have been identified eventually; his connection with all of you would have been traced, and the police would have discovered that you were there, on the spot, at the time of his death. The murderer’s plan was to make his death look like suicide, and it succeeded admirably.”
“Right.”
“None of this knocks out the possibility of an outsider having committed the crime. But the attempts on you are something else again. I’ll grant that an unknown party could be following you around, shoving you under cars, and turning out lights in strategic places. But tonight there was no one in the pool except your friends.”
“And Dr. Scoville.”
“And,” Jacqueline repeated, “Dr. Scoville…. Oh, no, that really is farfetched.”
“Still, so far as opportunity is concerned, we have to include him. It wouldn’t be hard to set up an alibi…. Look here, Jake, he said somethingabout taking a train the next day, but how do we know he did? Suppose he took a plane instead, later in the day? It would be almost impossible to prove, one way or the other; he wouldn’t need his passport for travel within Italy.”
“What about motive?”
“Oh, motive be damned. We haven’t even started on that yet.”
“Okay, let’s include him,” Jacqueline said callously. “That brings our suspect list back to the original seven. I’m assuming you wouldn’t half drown yourself just to add verisimilitude to an otherwise unconvincing narrative.”
“Bald and unconvincing narrative.”
“I’m glad to see your generation reads something besides Leonard Cohen and Steppenwolf…. Have we now limited our suspects to seven?”
“I know it’s unlikely that an outsider could have sneaked in,” Jean said stubbornly. “But that pool area was dark. It isn’t impossible, Jake.”
“You