Spider's Web

Jeremy turned on his chair to face the Inspector. "Well – er – well," he began, and then, gaining confidence, continued quickly, "I mean, it was the kid – Pippa, you know. Clarissa wouldn't have liked to go out and leave the kid all by herself in the house."

"Or perhaps," the Inspector suggested, emphasising his words to make them sound very significant, "perhaps she was making plans to receive a visitor of her own?"

Jeremy rose to his feet. "I say, that's a rotten thing to suggest," he exclaimed hotly. "And it isn't true. I'm sure she never planned anything of the kind."

"Yet Oliver Costello came here to meet someone," the Inspector pointed out. "The two servants had the night off. Miss Peake has her own cottage. There was really no one he could have come to the house to meet except Mrs. Hailsham-Brown."

"All I can say is..." Jeremy began. Then, turning away, he added limply, "Well, you'd better ask her."

"I have asked her," the Inspector informed him.

"What did she say?" asked Jeremy, turning back to face the police officer.

"Just what you say," the Inspector replied suavely.

Jeremy took a chair at the bridge table. "There you are, then," he observed.

The Inspector took a few steps around the room, his eyes on the floor as though deep in thought. Then he turned back to face Jeremy. "Now tell me," he queried, "just how you all happened to come back here from the club. Was that your original plan?"

"Yes," Jeremy replied, but then quickly changed his answer. "I mean, no."

"Which do you mean, sir?" the Inspector queried smoothly.

Jeremy took a deep breath. "Well," he began, "it was like this. We all went over to the club. Sir Rowland and old Hugo went straight into the dining-room and I came in a bit later. It's all a cold buffet, you know. I'd been knocking balls about until it got dark, and then – well, somebody said 'Bridge, anyone?' and I said, 'Well, why don't we go back to the Hailsham-Browns's where it's more cosy, and play there?' So we did."

"I see," observed the Inspector. "So it was your idea?"

Jeremy shrugged his shoulders. "I really don't remember who suggested it first," he admitted. "It may have been Hugo Birch, I think."

"And you arrived back here – when?"

Jeremy thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "I can't say exactly," he murmured. "We probably left the clubhouse just a bit before eight."

"And it's – what?" the Inspector wondered. "Five minutes' walk?"

"Yes, just about that. The golf course adjoins this garden," Jeremy answered, glancing out of the window.

The Inspector went across to the bridge table and looked down at its surface. "And then you played bridge?"

"Yes, " Jeremy confirmed.

The Inspector nodded his head slowly. "That must have been about twenty minutes before my arrival here," he calculated. He began to walk slowly around the table. "Surely you didn't have time to complete two rubbers and start" – he held up Clarissa's marker so that Jeremy could see it – "a third?"

"What?" Jeremy looked confused for a moment, but then said quickly, "Oh, no. No. That first rubber must have been yesterday's score."

Indicating the other markers, the Inspector remarked thoughtfully, "Only one person seems to have scored."

"Yes," Jeremy agreed. "I'm afraid we're all a bit lazy about scoring. We left it to Clarissa."

The Inspector walked across to the sofa. "Did you know about the passageway between this room and the library?" he asked.

"You mean the place where the body was found?"

"That's what I mean."

"No. No, I'd no idea," Jeremy asserted. "Wonderful bit of camouflage, isn't it? You'd never guess it was there."

The Inspector sat on an arm of the sofa, but happened to slip back a little, dislodging a cushion. He then noticed the gloves that had been lying under the cushion. His face wore a serious expression as he said quietly, "Consequently, Mr. Warrender, you couldn't know there was a body in that passageway. Could you?"

Jeremy turned away. "You could have knocked me over with a feather, as the saying goes," he replied. "Absolute blood-and-thunder melodrama. Couldn't believe my eyes."

While Jeremy was speaking, the Inspector had been sorting out the gloves on the sofa. He now held up one pair of them, rather in the manner of a conjuror. "By the way, are these your gloves, Mr. Warrender?" he asked, trying to sound off-handed.

Jeremy turned back to him. "No. I mean, yes," he replied confusedly.

"Again, which do you mean, sir?"

"Yes, they are mine, I think."

"Were you wearing them when you came back here from the golf club?"

"Yes," Jeremy recalled. "I remember now. Yes, I was wearing them. There's a bit of a nip in the air this evening."

The Inspector got up from the arm of the sofa, and approached Jeremy. "I think you're mistaken, sir," he observed. Indicating the initials in the gloves, he pointed out, "These have Mr. Hailsham-Brown's initials inside them."

Returning his gaze calmly, Jeremy replied, "Oh, that's funny. I've got a pair just the same."