Spider's Web

Miss Peake turned. "You're so trusting, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown," she admonished her employer. "When you get to my age, you'll realize how very often people are simply not quite what they seem." She laughed heartily as she turned back to the Inspector.

When he opened his mouth to speak, she gave him yet another tap on the shoulder. "Now then," she continued, "where would a man like Elgin hide the body? There's that cupboard place between here and the library. You've looked there, I suppose?"

Sir Rowland intervened hastily. "Miss Peake, the Inspector has looked both here and in the library," he insisted.

The Inspector, however, after a meaningful look at Sir Rowland, turned to the gardener. "What exactly do you mean by 'that cupboard place,' Miss Peake?" he enquired.

The others in the room all looked more than somewhat tense as Miss Peake replied, "Oh, it's a wonderful place when you're playing hide-and-seek. You'd really never dream it was there. Let me show it to you."

She walked over to the panel, followed by the Inspector. Jeremy got to his feet at the same moment that Clarissa exclaimed forcefully, "No."

The Inspector and Miss Peake both turned to look at her. "There's nothing there now," Clarissa informed them. "I know because I went that way, through to the library, just now."

Her voice trailed off. Miss Peake, sounding disappointed, murmured, "Oh, well, in that case, then..." and turned away from the panel. The Inspector, however, called her back. "Just show me all the same, Miss Peake," he ordered. "I'd like to see."

Miss Peake went to the bookshelves. "It was a door originally," she explained. "It matched the one over there."

She actuated the lever, explaining as she did so, "You pull this catch back, and the door comes open. See?"

The panel opened, and the body of Oliver Costello slumped down and fell forward. Miss Peake screamed.

"So," the Inspector observed, looking grimly at Clarissa, "You were mistaken, Mrs. Hailsham-Brown. It appears that there was a murder here tonight."

Miss Peake's scream rose to a crescendo.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TEN MINUTES later, things were somewhat quieter, for Miss Peake was no longer in the room. Nor, for that matter, were Hugo and Jeremy. The body of Oliver Costello, however, was still lying collapsed in the recess, the panel of which was open. Clarissa was stretched out on the sofa, with Sir Rowland sitting by her and holding a glass of brandy, which he was trying to make her sip. The Inspector was talking on the telephone, and the Constable continued to stand guard.

"Yes, yes..." the Inspector was saying. "What's that?... Hit and run?... Where?... Oh, I see... Yes, well, send them along as soon as you can... Yes, we'll want photographs... Yes, the whole bag of tricks."

He replaced the receiver and went over to the Constable. "Everything comes at once," he complained to his colleague. "Weeks go by and nothing happens, and now the Divisional Surgeon's out at a bad car accident – a smash on the London road. It'll all mean quite a bit of delay. However, we'll get on as well as we can until the ME arrives." He gestured towards the corpse. "We'd better not move him until they've taken the photographs," he suggested. "Not that it will tell us anything. He wasn't killed there, he was put there afterwards."

"How can you be sure, sir?" the Constable asked.

The Inspector looked down at the carpet. "You can see where his feet have dragged," he pointed out, crouching down behind the sofa. The Constable knelt to crouch beside him.

Sir Rowland peered over the back of the sofa, and then turned to Clarissa to ask, "How are you feeling now?"

"Better, thanks, Roly," she replied faintly.

The two police officers got to their feet. "It might be as well to close that bookcase door," the Inspector instructed his colleague. "We don't want any more hysterics."

"Right, sir," the Constable replied. He closed the panel so that the body could no longer be seen. As he did so, Sir Rowland rose from the sofa to address the Inspector. "Mrs. Hailsham-Brown has had a bad shock," he told the policeman. "I think she ought to go to her room and lie down."

Politely, but with a certain reserve, the Inspector replied, "Certainly, sir, but not for a moment or two just yet. I'd like to ask her a few questions first."

Sir Rowland tried to persist. "She's really not fit to be questioned at present," he told the Inspector.

"I'm all right, Roly," Clarissa interjected faintly. "Really, I am."

Sir Rowland addressed her, adopting a warning tone. "It's very brave of you, my dear," he said, "but I really think it would be wiser of you to go and rest for a while."

"Dear Uncle Roly," Clarissa responded with a smile. To the Inspector she said, "I sometimes call him Uncle Roly, though he's my guardian, not my uncle. But he's so sweet to me always."

"Yes, I can see that," was the Inspector's dry response.