nodded. ‘Could be. How come?’
‘Didn’t this niece of his, the American actress, turn up here fairly recently? She told me she had been here for a few weeks only. Maybe Norwhich changed the will in her favour. And maybe the original beneficiary wasn’t too happy with that. Because Norwhich never had any children, his original heir must have been some other relative.’
Dubois nodded. ‘We should look closely at Norwhich’s family relations and dispositions. The constable told me who Norwhich’s lawyer was. One Pemboldt. I wrote down the address. It’s just off Brook Street. Haven’t had time to look him up yet of course.’
Dubois lifted the frying pan off the stove and carried it to the table. He wanted to put it down, but Alkmene snapped, ‘Wait! That will ruin the wood of the surface. You need to put something underneath.’
She looked around her and fetched a metal tray that stood against the wall.
‘My landlady would be grateful for your efforts,’ Dubois said cynically, ‘but as you can see, not much can ruin this table any more.’
‘Still there is no point in making more marks on it,’ Alkmene insisted. ‘I suppose the wine has breathed enough now. Care to pour?’ She held out her cleaned glass to him.
Dubois picked up the bottle and poured just an inch. He also put the same amount in his own dusty glass, then put the bottle down.
Alkmene lifted the glass to her nose. She carefully sniffed, then let the wine waltz through the glass.
Dubois smiled at her. ‘You know how to drink wine.’
‘My father has such precious bottles that it would be a crime to just gulp them down.’
At the word precious his face set again, like he was reminded of something hard. He clenched the stem of the glass.
Alkmene took another sip. ‘Very nice. Fruity.’
‘I know it should probably have been white wine with this fish. Red is for pork, beef and venison. But I don’t own a cellar full of it like your father probably does.’
‘My father is a few thousand miles away.’ Alkmene lifted her glass and smiled at Dubois. ‘Prosit!’
He held her gaze a few moments, then his features relaxed. Leaning over, he touched his glass to hers and said, ‘Prosit!’
The wine gave everything this nice rosy glow, or was it the delicious fish that graced her plate with some potatoes and green beans with sauce?
Alkmene ate her fill, listening closely to the further details Dubois gave of his talk with the constable. The police were still treating it as an accident, but one of the neighbours had also testified to them that someone had come to see the master that night. He had not seen more than a shadow slipping to the door.
‘He obviously told them even less than he told me,’ Dubois said. ‘Doesn’t want to get called at the inquest, I bet. Doesn’t want to take the day off from work. Or just hates his name being mentioned in anything messy.’
Alkmene nodded thoughtfully. ‘But if the bundled up man who came to the house that night is the killer, why is he visiting Evelyn Steinbeck at her hotel? Did he act under her orders? Did she have her uncle killed in her absence, so she’d have an ironclad alibi? For the inheritance, the art collection?’
‘They were taking an awful risk if they played it that way,’ Dubois said. ‘If the police had cried foul play, she would have been the first and most likely suspect. After all, she benefits directly from the death.’
‘Right. But she wasn’t there that night. Lots of witnesses saw her elsewhere. As long as her accomplice is not caught and confesses, nobody can blame her really.’
Dubois nodded again. ‘There is another possibility. What if the bundled up man was the old beneficiary of the will? Ms Steinbeck’s brother for instance. Maybe he was sole heir before Norwhich became enamoured with her charm and made it all over to her. If her brother killed him, maybe in an argument, giving him some kind of push so he fell, that would explain why he visited her at the hotel and why she is not keen on a police investigation. She is shielding him.’
‘Bravo,’ Alkmene said, ‘but all of this holds little water as long as we have no idea if Ms Steinbeck has a brother who might have benefited from the will before she turned up. Perhaps she was Norwhich’s beneficiary all along, but she simply never came here because she was building her career on Broadway. We could be looking in the wrong direction altogether. Just consider this. What if Norwhich was blackmailed as well? What if he was writing a cheque before he died and that’s how the ink got on his fingers? Did you ask the constable if any blackmail letters were found among his paperwork? Or if anybody knew he was under strain lately? You said when we first met that he was wary of strangers like one is of rabid dogs. Maybe he was afraid because he was being blackmailed.’
‘Now I have to say bravo.’ Picking up his wine glass, Dubois leaned back in his chair for a moment. ‘No, I did not ask the constable all that but I will as soon as I can. It is a very interesting point. Find the blackmailer, find the killer. Or at least the link to him.’
His dark eyes sparkled with an energetic light as he surveyed her. ‘How did you manage to keep Moustache away for so long?’
Alkmene shrugged. ‘Instead of making up a theft I invented a runaway pooch. I had him search inside a cellar for it. He got just a teeny bit of coal dust on his uniform.’
Dubois laughed. ‘I bet he enjoyed that little job. Must be your last name that makes people willing to crawl through the dirt, literally, to please you.’
Alkmene dropped her fork with a clatter. ‘I wish you would stop pestering me about my last name. I can no more change it than you can change yours.’
There was a charged silence, then Dubois said, ‘Fair enough.’
He stared up at the ceiling, his eyes suddenly dark.
Alkmene took her glass and emptied it, but this last draught of wine was a bit bitter.
Dubois said, ‘When the SS Athena sank, how many people were on board? Do you know?’
‘I have no idea. A few hundred I’d guess.’
‘More like two thousand. Now I have gone over the passenger lists and I have checked as far as I could how many people survived. Not just in general, but specified into groups. The first class passengers. Second class. Third class. Then crew. What do you think I found?’
Alkmene pursed her lips. ‘I have no idea. I do know crew members are supposed to stay on board longest so I suppose most of them perished.’
‘Correct. But how about passengers?’
Alkmene had a feeling where this was going. She put her empty glass down and faced him squarely. ‘If you and I had been on board, my chances for survival would have been far better than yours, assuming I would have travelled first class and you third.’
Dubois nodded. ‘About three times better. Now what does that say?’
Alkmene shrugged. ‘That people pay for better service when they take out a first class ticket and that they actually get it.’
‘It means,’ Dubois said with emphasis, ‘that one human life is worth more than another. Simply a matter of money. And it’s the same thing inside the police force. Crimes against people with money or title are handled with a lot more zeal and dedication than those among poor people. In a back alley you can simply stab someone in passing for a few coins and nobody will bother to find out who did it or punish the killer. But have a brooch stolen from someone like your friend the Russian countess and the whole police force is out and about looking for the thief.’
‘I thought she was your friend too.’ Alkmene stretched her legs. ‘Are you not being a bit hypocritical?’
Dubois sighed. ‘Maybe. But the numbers in the SS Athena case