Marble Hall Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Author:Anthony Horowitz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2025-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

‘To be honest with you, I’m confused,’ James Fraser remarked to Atticus Pünd as they sat in the back of a taxi taking them from La Gaude to their hotel in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.

‘And why is that, James?’

‘Well, it seems quite likely to me that Elmer Waysmith killed his wife – so why haven’t you and Mr Voltaire arrested him yet? As far as I can see, there are no other suspects. It’s not like that business we had with Sir Magnus Pye where anyone could have done it. It had to be Waysmith who went into the Pharmacie Lafayette. He tried to disguise himself with the hat and the sunglasses. He bought himself an extra fifteen minutes by getting poor Alice Carling to come in and ask the time. Maybe he told her it was for a joke or something, but the point was, it allowed him to change his clothes at the hotel and arrive at the gallery by twelve thirty. Things only went wrong when Alice heard that Lady Chalfont had been murdered with aconitine. She put two and two together and realised the part she had played – so he had to kill her too.’

‘There I disagree with you, my friend. If you accept that Alice Carling assisted Elmer Waysmith in the purchase of the poison, are you also suggesting that he was the mysterious “Charles Saint-Pierre” whom Alice hoped to marry after the death of his wife? That seems to me most unlikely, given that he was so very much older than her – old enough, indeed, to be her father.’

‘Well, she was a young country girl. She was out of her depth. She could have been foolish enough to believe it.’ Fraser considered. ‘And if it wasn’t him at the pharmacy, who was it? His son?’

‘Robert Waysmith was on his way back to Nice from Antibes. He could have arrived earlier than he told us.’

‘But Robert had absolutely no reason to kill Lady Chalfont, Mr Pünd. He didn’t inherit very much money from her, and he didn’t need it anyway. That’s the trouble. None of them did!’

Pünd and Fraser did not speak again until they reached the hotel. The taxi pulled in, Fraser paid and a moment later they were walking to the main entrance, a small crowd of porters fussing around them. At the same time, Pünd noticed a silver Peugeot parked to one side. A short, stocky man in a navy blue worsted suit got out and came towards them. It was clear that this was no guest returning to his room. The man had been waiting for Pünd to arrive and wasted no time cornering him.

‘Excuse me, sir. Am I right in thinking that I’m speaking to Atticus Pünd, the famous detective?’ He was American, with a round face, thinning hair and glasses. There was something about him that reminded Fraser of a schoolteacher or perhaps a small-town lawyer. He felt out of place in the glamour of the Côte d’Azur.

Pünd was flattered by the description.

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