There were murmurs of appreciation, but still no signs of fear nor of a guilty conscience.
Lady Hardcastle continued. ‘Now, the early part of the evening proceeded much as it might at any other party. People arrived, drinks were served, guests mingled, circulated, chatted, and congratulated the happy couple. And the band played. They were all on stage together until they reached this song,’ she said, tapping the set list. ‘This is “Standing Room Only” and is an instrumental number which meant that Sylvia Montgomery wasn’t required. She left the stage and, by her own testimony, went off to the library,’ she drew a little circle in the library with the letters SM in it. ‘Where is Miss Montgomery, by the way?’ she said.
‘She went for a little walk, my lady,’ said Inspector Sunderland. ‘I’ll explain later.’
‘Oh,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘Ah well, no matter. Miss Montgomery spent a few minutes in the library and then left, whereupon she met Miss Armstrong, my maid, in the corridor.’
I nodded.
‘They parted company and Miss Montgomery returned to the ballroom.’ She rubbed out the SM circle in the library and redrew it in the ballroom. ‘Armstrong continued with her errand in the servants’ section of the house, and when she returned, she thought she caught a glimpse of someone else going into the library, but she couldn’t be certain and had no idea who it might have been, even if there had been someone there. And that’s significant because during the next song…’ She tapped the set list again. ‘…“The Richman Rag”, Miss Clarissa had noticed one of the guests leave the ballroom.’
There was another murmur from the assembled guests.
‘No one knows for sure where this person went, but if they had walked in the direction of the library, they might well been the person that Armstrong saw going into the library through the door nearest the hall.’
‘Who is this person?’ asked Mr Verma.
‘We shall come to that in good time, Mr Verma,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘When “The Richman Rag” ends, the band take their well-earned break, and Nelson Holloway goes off to the library, ostensibly to retrieve a bottle of scotch that he had hidden among his things, but actually to check that the secret contents of his trumpet case were still safe and sound.’
‘And what were these “secret contents”?’ said Verma.
‘I think you know, Mr Verma, but let me explain for the few people here who might not. Mr Verma is an emissary of the King of Nepal and he has been sent to England in pursuit of a precious gemstone known as The Emerald Eye. The Eye was stolen from a temple north of Kathmandu a number of years ago, and it recently arrived in Europe. A ragtime bandleader was paid to smuggle it into England, which task he accomplished with the help of his trumpeter who concealed the gem in a secret compartment in his trumpet case.’
By now, all eyes had turned to Roland Richman who simply stared at the ground, refusing to meet anyone’s gaze.
‘Mr Richman had arranged to meet another accomplice here at The Grange to hand over the gem, and so during the break in the band’s performance, Mr Clifford Haddock left the ballroom, followed a short while later by Mr Richman. Haddock went straight to the bathroom, believing he had time before the planned rendezvous, but he was delayed there, so that Mr Richman, who was waiting for him outside the library, thought that something had gone wrong and abandoned the meeting.’
She drew a series of lines on the plan, indicating Haddock going upstairs in search of the bathroom, Richman waiting outside the library, Richman returning to the ballroom and Haddock coming back downstairs.
‘At this point,’ she continued, ‘Mr Haddock, seeing Richman’s absence, decided to check whether he had gone into the library. He went in, just as the missing guest came out through the other door.’
She drew a new line showing the missing guest leaving the room.
‘What Haddock saw in the library shocked him. The instrument cases stored there by the band had been ransacked and there were signs of a struggle. He left the library and then he, too, returned to the ballroom where his arrival was, again, noticed by Miss Clarissa during the first song of the second set, “An Angel Fell”. The band was without Mr Holloway at this point but while some people noticed a slight change in the sound, few noticed the absence of the trumpeter.
‘Now, the reason for the chaos in the library was that the missing guest had been searching for the Eye. He was caught in the act by Mr Holloway, and in the ensuing struggle, Mr Holloway sustained his mortal head wound. As the missing guest left, he concealed Holloway’s trumpet case – the only case he hadn’t managed to search – in the Chinese cabinet in the corridor. He hid for a while until the coast was clear, then returned to the ballroom just as the band struck up the next number, “My Heart Belongs to You”.’
‘But who was this person?’ demanded Mr Verma again.
‘All in good time, Mr Verma,’ said Lady Hardcastle. ‘All in good time. Some time between hiding the trumpet case and its discovery two days later by Armstrong, Mr Holloway’s assailant retrieved the Emerald Eye from the trumpet case, wiped the case clean of his fingerprints and concealed the Eye in his own case which was safely stored in his room.’
‘And how the devil do you know that,’ said Verma, clearly now rather agitated.
‘Because when Miss Clarissa and I searched Captain Summers’s room just now,’ she said, producing an extraordinarily large emerald from her jacket pocket. ‘we found the Eye wrapped in a sock and tucked into one of his dress shoes at the bottom of his suitcase.’
The terrace was in uproar. There were shouts of disbelief and of outrage, and Lady Hardcastle was bombarded with questions. Only three people remained entirely impassive: Mr Verma, his servant, and Captain Summers himself.
When the hubbub had died down, it was once again Mr Verma who led the questioning, while Captain Summers remained silent under the extremely watchful gaze of Mr Verma’s mountainous servant.