The Sittaford Mystery - Agatha Christie [87]
‘Then just before eight o’clock, all he had to do was to go out, make a detour on to the road higher up and come puffing and panting into Exhampton as though he’d walked all the way from Sittaford. So long as no one suspected about the skis, he’d be perfectly safe. The doctor couldn’t fail to say that Captain Trevelyan had been dead at least two hours. And, as I say, so long as no one thought of skis, Major Burnaby would have a perfect alibi.’
‘But they were friends—Burnaby and Trevelyan,’ said Mr Rycroft. ‘Old friends—they’ve always been friends. It’s incredible.’
‘I know,’ said Emily. ‘That’s what I thought. I couldn’t see why. I puzzled and I puzzled and at last I had to come to Inspector Narracott and Mr Duke.’
She paused and looked at the impassive Mr Duke.
‘May I tell them?’ she said.
Mr Duke smiled.
‘If you like, Miss Trefusis.’
‘Anyway—no, perhaps you’d rather I didn’t. I went to them, and we got the thing clear. Do you remember telling me, Charles, that Evans mentioned that Captain Trevelyan used to send in solutions of competitions in his name? He thought Sittaford House was too grand an address. Well—that’s what he did in the Football Competition that you gave Major Burnaby five thousand pounds for. It was Captain Trevelyan’s solution really, and he sent it in in Burnaby’s name. No. 1, The Cottages, Sittaford, sounded much better, he thought. Well, you see what happened? On Friday morning Major Burnaby got the letter saying he’d won five thousand pounds (and by the way, that ought to have made us suspicious. He told you he never got the letter—that nothing had come through on Friday owing to the weather. That was a lie. Friday morning was the last day things did come through). Where was I? Oh!—Major Burnaby getting the letter. He wanted that five thousand—wanted it badly. He’d been investing in some rotten shares or other and had lost a terrible lot of money.
‘The idea must have come into his head quite suddenly, I should think. Perhaps when he realized it was going to snow that evening. If Trevelyan were dead—he could keep that money and no one would ever know.’
‘Amazing,’ murmured Mr Rycroft. ‘Quite amazing. I never dreamed—But my dear young lady, how did you learn all this? What put you on the right track?’
For answer, Emily explained Mrs Belling’s letter, and told how she had discovered the boots in the chimney.
‘It was looking at them that put it into my mind. They were ski boots, you see, and they made me think of skis. And suddenly I wondered if perhaps—I rushed downstairs to the cupboard, and sure enough there were two pairs of skis there. One pair was longer than the other. And the boots fitted the long pair—but they didn’t fit the other. The toe-clip things were adjusted for a much smaller pair of boots. The shorter pair of skis belonged to a different person.’
‘He ought to have hidden the skis somewhere else,’ said Mr Rycroft with artistic disapproval.
‘No—no,’ said Emily. ‘Where else could he hide them? It was a very good place really. In a day or two the whole collection would have been stored, and in the meantime it wasn’t likely that the police would bother whether Captain Trevelyan had had one or two pairs of skis.’
‘But why did he hide the boots?’
‘I suppose,’ said Emily, ‘that he was afraid the police might do exactly what I did—The sight of ski boots might have suggested skis to them. So he stuffed them up the chimney. And that’s really, of course, where he made his mistake, because Evans noticed that they’d gone and I got to know of it.’
‘Did he deliberately mean to fasten the crime on Jim?’ demanded Brian Pearson angrily.
‘Oh! no. That was just Jim’s usual idiotic luck. He was an idiot, poor lamb.’
‘He’s all right now,’ said Charles. ‘You needn’t worry about him. Have you told me everything, Emily, because