‘Oh, come on, Flora,’ said Carter, ‘it happened in a ravine. Steep slope, she probably rolled about taking injuries on all sides.’

‘Then why were there no injuries on any other sides? I checked. No bruising or cuts on her sides, no other injuries to her front apart from the very selective crushing of her features. It was not a case of one glancing blow against a rock and rolling onwards… the face had been destroyed by a series of blows aimed exclusively at the features. If you were to take the body away from the context of the accident you would say without any doubt at all that Alice Conyers had been murdered. Now, I am aware that there will never be any way in which I could prove the truth of what I am saying but I am telling you everything that I know as a witness to help you bring to justice the one who is responsible for this trail of death. And it is not I.

‘I do not think the injury to the back on the corpse I inspected would have been sufficiently serious to cause death. I would guess that Isobel, surviving almost unscathed, had come across Alice unable to move, unconscious perhaps but alive and a hideous idea had come to her. Here, injured and at her mercy, was a girl who had everything Isobel wanted. Perhaps she changed clothes before smashing her face. I think she did. The red tunic dress under the jacket would have had to be pulled over the head. If she had done that over those shattered and bleeding features… well, Commander?’

‘There would have been smears and stains of blood, possibly brain tissue on the inside of the tunic, picked up as it was pulled down over the face.’ Joe supplied.

‘Yes. That occurred to me and I checked. There were no stains on the inside lining. The staining was all about the neck where blood had ponded. So – the switch had been made before Isobel had finished her off.’

Joe was thinking furiously. Wishing desperately that he could have had a look at the corpse himself. Eager to ask Flora a hundred questions and at the same time unwilling to give her the satisfaction of supplying answers he did not want to hear. Assuming her story to be true, Flora represented even more of a menace than they had imagined to Isobel Newton. Not only was her blackmailer aware of her impersonation, she was aware that Isobel was guilty of murder and surely Isobel must, at some level, through her weight of guilt, have been fearful of this.

‘But what have you to say about your blackmail letters after the death of Conyers and now of Korsovsky – the so-called “protection” you offered and charged a fat price for? What is the meaning of those if it isn’t murder? “We’ve killed off a possible menace to your continued privileged existence and we think it’s worth so many rupees.” Those letters!’ Carter asked.

Flora smiled sadly and shook her head. ‘I have already told you – I am not responsible in any way for those killings: I guessed why they had been committed and who had done them, of course I did! And I decided to make the perpetrator pay for it. The letters never laid claim to the murders – I asked for extra payments to ensure my silence, Superintendent, not to reward me for shooting (or having shot) two innocent men!’ And she added quietly, ‘If you are honest, Charlie, you will admit that there is nothing else I could have done. What would have been your response if I had come to you last year and denounced Alice Conyers-Sharpe as the killer of her brother, that is the man who would have been her brother if she had only been who she said she was and not the woman who had actually murdered Alice and taken her place three years ago?’

Carter’s uncomfortable silence was answer enough.

‘You see! If you hadn’t simply labelled me mad you would have assumed my accusations were due to spite at her having harassed me and curtailed my activities here chez Flora. I’m sorry, Charlie, that your real target should turn out to be a woman whom you have always respected. How much more convenient it would have been, how much more satisfying to have flung me in jail.’

Flora’s slanting smile was mocking and triumphant and Joe found that even he could no longer meet her eyes. ‘But don’t be too embarrassed by your failure,’ she went on smoothly, ‘you are not the first, nor yet the hundredth, man to be deceived by Isobel Newton. And you will not be the last.’ She looked away thoughtfully for a moment. ‘Because, you see, men are primed by nature to fall victim to her deceptions. They – all men – are so convinced of their own superiority, of their own irresistible attraction, they accept at face value and take as no more than their due a woman’s attentions. There is nothing easier for a pretty and clever woman than to lead a man by his — ’

‘That’ll do, Flora!’ said Carter stiffly. ‘You’re talking like a tart!’

Chapter Twenty-four

«^»

The party which made its way back to the police station was subdued and thoughtful. Instead of enjoying the excitement of a showdown with its keenly anticipated arrests, they had now to rewrite in many important particulars their carefully composed plot and even perhaps to add a third crime to Isobel’s charge sheet. Flora’s manifest satisfaction at this turn of events made it no easier to bear. ‘Bloody woman!’ thought Charlie. ‘Smug little trollop!’ thought Joe. Simpson, eager as ever to be helpful but aware of his limitations, accepted Charlie’s suggestion that he go off back for tiffin with Meg, bearing the message that Joe and Carter would follow as soon as they could.

They sank down disconsolately into chairs in Charlie’s office. With a sigh he opened a drawer and held up a sheet of paper. A sheet headed with black gothic script and bedecked with sealing wax and scrawling signatures. Joe recognized it.

‘A warrant?’

‘Yes. Thought it sensible to be prepared. Things are moving fast and I thought I’d better get Sir George’s signature on this just in case we should need it. And it’s looking increasingly as though we shall need it.’

Joe didn’t need to ask the name inscribed on the sheet. ‘You must have been very sure of yourself and very persuasive to get him to sign away Alice Conyers’ freedom?’

‘Almost had to hold a gun to his head! I waited until you’d gone to bed last night, joined him in one last brandy and then hit him hard with the necessity of having the full force of the law in reserve to deal with someone so influential and so fly as little Miss Isobel. I just happened to have the warrant with me.’ He smiled. ‘And then when Flora came over the horizon I thought, oh good, we’re not going to need this after all.’

‘Look, Charlie,’ Joe began slowly.

‘It’s all right, old son! I know how you’re feeling about this. You needn’t be involved. Not sure I’d want you around when I put the cuffs on! Not safe! One anguished look from those tear-filled blue eyes and you’d become a liability. Stay well away – that’s my advice!’

‘Is there anything we ought to review?’ asked Joe with an edge of despair in his voice. ‘Before we rush in? Any evidence we could collect? It seems to me we have very little, if any, solid evidence. All we have is hearsay, coincidence, speculation and accusation.’

As they trundled once more through the sequence of events, the acceptability of alibis, probability of motive, a havildar came into the room with a telegram. ‘From Calcutta, sahib.’

‘The bullets! About time too!’ said Carter, tearing open the envelope. ‘Now let’s see what we’ve got.’

He read the messages carefully, then read them again and handed the sheets to Joe.

Joe read: ‘Bullet A Killing A Gun A Stop Bullets B x 2 Killing B Gun B Stop Bullets C x 2 Gun C Stop Bullets D x 2 Gun D Stop Bullets E x 2 Gun E Stop Fingerprints guns C and D Suspect 1 Stop Gun E no prints Stop’.

‘Ah,’ said Joe, ‘it gets worse. Seems to clear Edgar Troop of using any one of the three rifles we took away from Flora’s – could have other rifles somewhere else, of course. Ironic that the only solid evidence we’ve got proves nothing against anybody, though.’