There was a silence. Then Mr Parker Pyne said quietly, ‘Squadron Leader Loftus. I believe Mr Hensley’s spare socks are in the pocket of his overcoat which is now in the car.’
Their eyes went for one minute to where a moody figure was pacing to and fro on the horizon. Hensley had held aloof since the discovery of the dead man. His wish for solitude had been respected since it was known that he and the dead man had been friends.
‘Will you get them and bring them here?’
The doctor hesitated.
‘I don’t like–’ he muttered. He looked again at that pacing figure. ‘Seems a bit low down–’
‘You must get them, please,’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
‘The circumstances are unusual. We are marooned here. And we have got to know the truth. If you will fetch those socks I fancy we shall be a step nearer.’
Loftus turned away obediently.
Mr Parker Pyne drew General Poli a little aside.
‘General, I think it was you who sat across the aisle from Captain Smethurst.’
‘That is so.’
‘Did anyone get up and pass down the car?’
‘Only the English lady, Miss Pryce. She went to the wash place at the back.’
‘Did she stumble at all?’
‘She lurched with the movement of the car, naturally.’
‘She was the only person you saw moving about?’
‘Yes.’
The General looked at him curiously and said, ‘Who are you, I wonder? You take command, yet you are not a soldier.’
‘I have seen a good deal of life,’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
‘You have travelled, eh?’
‘No,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘I have sat in an office.’
Loftus returned carrying the socks. Mr Parker Pyne took them from him and examined them. To the inside of one of them wet sand still adhered.
Mr Parker Pyne drew a deep breath.
‘Now I know,’ he said.
All their eyes went to the pacing figure on the horizon.
‘I should like to look at the body if I may,’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
He went with the doctor to where Smethurst’s body had been laid down covered with a tarpaulin.
The doctor removed the cover.
‘There’s nothing to see,’ he said.
But Mr Parker Pyne’s eyes were fixed on the dead man’s tie.
‘So Smethurst was an old Etonian,’ he said.
Loftus looked surprised.
Then Mr Parker Pyne surprised him still further.
‘What do you know of young Williamson?’ he asked.
‘Nothing at all. I only met him at Beirut. I’d come from Egypt. But why? Surely–?’
‘Well, it’s on his evidence we’re going to hang a man, isn’t it?’ said Mr Parker Pyne cheerfully. ‘One’s got to be careful.’
He still seemed to be interested in the dead man’s tie and collar. He unfastened the studs and removed the collar. Then he uttered an exclamation.
‘See that?’
On the back of the collar was a small round bloodstain.
He peered closer down at the uncovered neck.
‘This man wasn’t killed by a blow on the head, doctor,’ he said briskly. ‘He was stabbed–at the base of the skull. You can just see the tiny puncture.’
‘And I missed it!’
‘You’d got your preconceived notion,’ said Mr Parker Pyne apologetically. ‘A blow on the head. It’s easy enough to miss this. You can hardly see the wound. A quick stab with a small sharp instrument and death would be instantaneous. The victim wouldn’t even cry out.’
‘Do you mean a stiletto? You think the General–?’
‘Italians and stilettos go together in the popular fancy–Hallo, here comes a car!’
A touring car appeared over the horizon.
‘Good,’ said O’Rourke as he came up to join them. ‘The ladies can go on in that.’
‘What about our murderer?’ asked Mr Parker Pyne.
‘You mean Hensley–?’
‘No, I don’t mean Hensley,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘I happen to know that Hensley’s innocent.’
‘You–but why?’
‘Well, you see, he had sand in his sock.’
O’Rourke stared.
‘I know my boy,’ said Mr Parker Pyne gently, ‘it doesn’t sound like sense, but it is. Smethurst wasn’t hit on the head, you see, he was stabbed.’
He paused a minute and then went on.
‘Just cast your mind back to the conversation I told you about–the conversation we had in the café. You picked out what was, to you, the significant phrase. But it was another phrase that struck me. When I said to him that I did the Confidence Trick he said, “What, you too?” Doesn’t that strike you as rather curious? I don’t know that you’d describe a series of peculations from a Department as a “Confidence Trick”. Confidence Trick is more descriptive of someone like the absconding Mr Samuel Long, for instance.’
The doctor started. O’Rourke said: ‘Yes–perhaps…’
‘I said in jest that perhaps the absconding Mr Long was one of our party. Suppose that this is the truth.’
‘What–but it’s impossible!’
‘Not at all. What do you know of people besides their passports and the accounts they give of themselves. Am I really Mr Parker Pyne? Is General Poli really an Italian General? And what of the masculine Miss Pryce senior who needs a shave most distinctly.’
‘But he–but Smethurst–didn’t know Long?’
‘Smethurst is an old Etonian. Long also, was at Eton. Smethurst may have known him although he didn’t tell you so. He may have recognized him amongst us. And if so, what is he to do? He has a simple mind, and he worries over the matter. He decides at last to say nothing until Baghdad is reached. But after that he will hold his tongue no longer.’
‘You think one of us is Long,’ said O’Rourke, still dazed.
He drew a deep breath.
‘It must be the Italian fellow–it must…or what about the Armenian?’
‘To make up as a foreigner and to get a foreign passport is really much more difficult than to remain English,’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
‘Miss Pryce?’ said O’Rourke incredulously.
‘No,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘This is our man!’
He laid what seemed an almost friendly hand on the shoulder of the man beside him. But there was nothing friendly in his voice, and the fingers were vice-like in their grip.
‘Squadron Leader Loftus or Mr Samuel Long, it doesn’t matter what you call him!’
‘But that’s impossible–impossible,’ spluttered O’Rourke. ‘Loftus has been in the service for years.’
‘But you’ve never met him before, have you? He was a stranger to all of you. It isn’t the real Loftus naturally.’
The quiet man found his voice.
‘Clever of you to guess. How did you, by the way?’
‘Your ridiculous statement that Smethurst had been killed by bumping his head. O’Rourke put that idea into your head when we were standing talking in Damascus yesterday. You thought–how simple! You were the only doctor with us–whatever you said would be accepted. You’d got Loftus’s kit. You’d got his instruments. It was easy to select a neat little tool for your purpose. You lean over to speak to him and as you are speaking you drive the little weapon home. You talk a minute or two longer. It is dark in the car. Who will suspect?
‘Then comes the discovery of the body. You give your verdict. But it does not go as easily as you thought. Doubts are raised. You fall back on a second line of defence. Williamson repeats the conversation he has overheard Smethurst having with you. It is taken to refer to Hensley and you add a damaging little invention of your own about a leakage in Hensley’s department. And then I make a final test. I mention the sand and the socks. You are holding a handful of sand. I send you to find the socks so that we may know the truth. But by that I did not mean what you thought I meant. I had al
ready examined Hensley’s socks. There was no sand in either of them. You put it there.’
Mr Samuel Long lit a cigarette. ‘I give it up,’ he said. ‘My luck’s turned. Well, I had a good run while it lasted. They were getting hot on my trail when I reached Egypt. I came across Loftus. He was going to join up in Baghdad–and he knew none of them there. It was too good a chance to be missed. I bought him. It cost me twenty thousand pounds. What was that to me? Then, by cursed ill luck, I run into Smethurst–an ass if there ever was one! He was my fag at Eton. He had a bit of hero worship for me in those days. He didn’t like the idea of giving me away. I did my best and at last he promised to say nothing till we reached Baghdad. What chance should I have then? None at all. There was only one way–to eliminate him. But I can assure you I am not a murderer by nature. My talents lie in quite another direction.’
His face changed–contracted. He swayed and pitched forward.
O’Rourke bent over him.
‘Probably prussic acid–in the cigarette,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘The gambler has lost his last throw.’
He looked around him–at the wide desert. The sun beat down on him. Only yesterday they had left Damascus–by the Gate of Baghdad.
‘Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard
That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird?’
The House at Shiraz
I
It was six in the morning when Mr Parker Pyne left for Persia after a stop in Baghdad.
The passenger space in the little monoplane was limited, and the small width of the seats was not such as to accommodate the bulk of Mr Parker Pyne with anything like comfort. There were two fellow travellers–a large, florid man whom Mr Parker Pyne judged to be of a talkative habit and a thin woman with pursed-up lips and a determined air.
‘At any rate,’ thought Mr Parker Pyne, ‘they don’t look as though they would want to consult me professionally.’
Nor did they. The little woman was an American missionary, full of hard work and happiness, and the florid man was employed by an oil company. They had given their fellow traveller a résumé of their lives before the plane started.
‘I am merely a tourist, I am afraid,’ Mr Parker Pyne had said deprecatingly. ‘I am going to Teheran and Ispahan and Shiraz.’
And the sheer music of the names enchanted him so much as he said them that he repeated them. Teheran. Ispahan. Shiraz.
Mr Parker Pyne looked out at the country below him. It was flat desert. He felt the mystery of these vast, unpopulated regions.
At Kermanshah the machine came down for passport examinations and customs. A bag of Mr Parker Pyne’s was opened. A certain small cardboard box was scrutinized with some excitement. Questions were asked. Since Mr Parker Pyne did not speak or understand Persian, the matter was difficult.
The pilot of the machine strolled up. He was a fair-haired young German, a fine-looking man, with deep-blue eyes and a weatherbeaten face. ‘Please?’ he inquired pleasantly.
Mr Parker Pyne, who had been indulging in some excellent realistic pantomime without, it seemed, much success, turned to him with relief. ‘It’s bug powder,’ he said. ‘Do you think you could explain it to them?’
The pilot looked puzzled. ‘Please?’
Mr Parker Pyne repeated his plea in German. The pilot grinned and translated the sentence into Persian. The grave and sad officials were pleased; their sorrowful faces relaxed; they smiled. One even laughed. They found the idea humorous.
The three passengers took their places in the machine again and the flight continued. They swooped down at Hamadan to drop the mails, but the plane did not stop. Mr Parker Pyne peered down, trying to see if he could distinguish the rock of Behistun, that romantic spot where Darius describes the extent of his empire and conquests in three different languages–Babylonian, Median and Persian.
It was one o’clock when they arrived at Teheran. There were more police formalities. The German pilot had come up and was standing by smiling as Mr Parker Pyne finished answering a long interrogation which he had not understood.
‘What have I said?’ he asked of the German.
‘That your father’s Christian name is Tourist, that your profession is Charles, that the maiden name of your mother is Baghdad, and that you have come from Harriet.’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Not the least in the world. Just answer something; that is all they need.’
Mr Parker Pyne was disappointed in Teheran. He found it distressingly modern. He said as much the following evening when he happened to run into Herr Schlagal, the pilot, just as he was entering his hotel. On an impulse he asked the other man to dine, and the German accepted.
The Georgian waiter hovered over them and issued his orders. The food arrived.
When they had reached the stage of la torte, a somewhat sticky confection of chocolate, the German said:
‘So you go to Shiraz?’
‘Yes. I shall fly there. Then I shall come back from Shiraz to Ispahan and Teheran by road. Is it you who will fly me to Shiraz tomorrow?’
‘Ach, no. I return to Baghdad.’
‘You have been long here?’
‘Three years. It has only been established three years, our service. So far, we have never had an accident–unberufen!’ He touched the table.
Thick cups of sweet coffee were brought. The two men smoked.
‘My first passengers were two ladies,’ said the German reminiscently. ‘Two English ladies.’
‘Yes?’ said Mr Parker Pyne.
‘The one she was a young lady very well born, the daughter of one of your ministers, the–how does one say it?–the Lady Esther Carr. She was handsome, very handsome, but mad.’
‘Mad?’
‘Completely mad. She lives there at Shiraz in a big native house. She wears Eastern dress. She will see no Europeans. Is that a life for a well born lady to live?’
‘There have been others,’ said Mr Parker Pyne. ‘There was Lady Hester Stanhope–’
‘This one is mad,’ said the other abruptly. ‘You could see it in her eyes. Just so have I seen the eyes of my submarine commander in the war. He is now in an asylum.’
Mr Parker Pyne was thoughtful. He remembered Lord Micheldever, Lady Esther Carr’s father, well. He had worked under him when the latter was Home Secretary–a big blond man with laughing blue eyes. He had seen Lady Micheldever once–a noted Irish beauty with her black hair and violet-blue eyes. They were both handsome, normal people, but for all that there was insanity in the Carr family. It cropped up every now and then, after missing a generation. It was odd, he thought, that Herr Schlagal should stress the point.
‘And the other lady,’ he asked idly.
‘The other lady–is dead.’
Something in his voice made Mr Parker Pyne look up sharply.
‘I have a heart,’ said Herr Schlagal. ‘I feel. She was, to me, most beautiful, that lady. You know how it is, these things come over you all of a sudden. She was a flower–a flower.’ He sighed deeply. ‘I went to see them once–at the house at Shiraz. The Lady Esther, she asked me to come. My little one, my flower, she was afraid of something, I could see it. When next I came back from Baghdad, I hear that she is dead. Dead!’
He paused and then said thoughtfully: ‘It might be that the other one killed her. She was mad, I tell you.’
He sighed, and Mr Parker Pyne ordered two Benedictines.
‘The curaçao, it is good,’ said the Georgian waiter, and brought them two curaçaos.
II
Just after noon the following day, Mr Parker Pyne had his first view of Shiraz. They had flown over mountain ranges with narrow, desolate valleys between, and all arid, parched, dry wilderness. Then suddenly Shiraz came into view–an emerald-green jewel in the heart of the wilderness.
Mr Parker Pyne enjoyed Shiraz as he had not enjoyed Teheran. The primitive character of the hotel did not appal him, nor the equally primitive char
acter of the streets.
He found himself in the midst of a Persian holiday. The Nan Ruz festival had begun on the previous evening–the fifteen-day period in which the Persians celebrate their New Years. He wandered through the empty bazaars and passed out into the great open stretch of common on the north side of the city. All Shiraz was celebrating.
One day he walked just outside the town. He had been to the tomb of Hafiz the poet, and it was on returning that he saw, and was fascinated by, a house. A house all tiled in blue and rose and yellow, set in a green garden with water and orange trees and roses. It was, he felt, the house of a dream.
That night he was dining with the English consul and he asked about the house.
‘Fascinating place, isn’t it? It was built by a former wealthy governor of Luristan, who had made a good thing out of his official position. An Englishwoman’s got it now. You must have heard of her. Lady Esther Carr. Mad as a hatter. Gone completely native. Won’t have anything to do with anything or anyone British.’
‘Is she young?’
‘Too young to play the fool in this way. She’s about thirty.’
‘There was another Englishwoman with her, wasn’t there? A woman who died?’
‘Yes; that was about three years ago. Happened the day after I took up my post here, as a matter of fact. Barham, my predecessor, died suddenly, you know.’
‘How did she die?’ asked Mr Parker Pyne bluntly.
‘Fell from that courtyard or balcony place on the first floor. She was Lady Esther’s maid or companion, I forget which. Anyway, she was carrying the breakfast tray and stepped back over the edge. Very sad; nothing to be done; cracked her skull on the stone below.’
‘What was her name?’
‘King, I think; or was it Willis? No, that’s the missionary woman. Rather a nice-looking girl.’
‘Was Lady Esther upset?’
‘Yes–no. I don’t know. She was very queer; I couldn’t make her out. She’s a very–well, imperious creature. You can see she is somebody, if you know what I mean; she rather scared me with her commanding ways and her dark, flashing eyes.’
He laughed half-apologetically, then looked curiously at his companion. Mr Parker Pyne was apparently staring into space. The match he had just struck to light his cigarette was burning away unheeded in his hand. It burned down to his fingers and he dropped it with an ejaculation of pain. Then he saw the consul’s astonished expression and smiled.