A Quite Deadly Affair by Anthony Slayton

Author:Anthony Slayton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ink and Dagger Press

8

THE ARREST

Once they were gone, Mr. Quayle exhaled deeply. Much was now explained, but there were still more questions than answers, and he wasn’t entirely certain how to proceed. Inspector Harcourt would have to be told, of course. Not even Mr. Finch could withhold evidence forever, certainly not with impunity. Luckily, neither of the boys seemed to know anything about the stolen documents, which was the only part the Ministry truly needed to keep secret.

The Inspector would read between the lines, of course. No doubt, he would immediately realize—or at least suspect—that Mr. Quayle had been the other man in Arthur’s story. But there was no getting around that. Quayle had been treading on thin ice all evening, and the ice was starting to crack.

“You heard all that, I take it?” Mr. Quayle asked, turning towards the veranda and the darkened garden beyond.

“Of course.” Mr. Finch emerged from the shadows with a slight smile. “I found it most revealing.”

“Indeed.”

“Love letters.” Mr. Finch scoffed. “Did you believe them?”

“Yes,” Mr. Quayle replied without hesitation.

“You seem very sure.”

“James would do anything for his stepmother,” Mr. Quayle explained. “And Arthur is just clever enough to come up with that plan and just stupid enough to actually carry it out.”

“The perfect catspaws, you mean.”

“Yes,” Mr. Quayle agreed slowly. “The perfect catspaws. Although that rather depends on what Lady Ferrier believed.”

“Excuse me?”

Mr. Quayle grimaced. The thought—more of a suspicion, really—had been growing slowly in his mind over the past hour like a pernicious weed that refused to die.

“Well, suppose—just suppose for a moment—that the stolen papers are irrelevant.”

“I beg your pardon?” Mr. Finch’s gaze sharpened, not angrily but just enough to remind Mr. Quayle that he was still under suspicion.

“Not to us, of course,” Mr. Quayle hastened to explain. “But to the murderer.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning—what if Lady Ferrier truly believed that they were love letters? You said yourself that she has no foreign ties.”

“No known foreign ties,” Mr. Finch corrected. “But rest assured, we’re looking.”

“But what if there’s nothing to find? What if Mrs. Pulver wasn’t killed for the stolen documents after all? What if she was killed because of the affair?”

“So you do think they were having an affair, then?

“I’m still not sure,” Mr. Quayle replied. “And honestly, we may never know, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that everyone else is convinced, and you of all people should know that something doesn’t have to be true to be believed.”

Mr. Finch acknowledged the point with a grunt. “But that would mean that Inspector Harcourt has been right all along.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Mr. Finch scowled. “Even if that’s true, it still doesn’t explain where the stolen documents or love letters or whatever they are have gotten to!”

“No, it doesn’t. But Arthur and I both searched the study, and the police have been over this house with a fine-toothed comb. If none of us could find them then—"

“Then the murderer must have them.” Mr. Finch sighed. “Which brings us back full circle, regardless of motive. To find the documents, we have to find the murderer.

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