Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 25, No. 3, March 26, 1980

The Last One To Know by William Bankier

If Cory didn’t try May’s plan he’d wonder for the rest of his life...

He almost failed to recognize her. She looked different in grey light on Wimbledon Broadway from the way she had looked on BBC color television last night. But it was definitely May Stanstead, thinner in the face, the famous blonde perm abandoned now for a stylishly severe, mannish cut. Could she have lost this much weight overnight? No, obviously the panel show had been videotaped weeks or even months ago.

Their eyes met. A habitual winner with older women, Corey Keith smiled and the famous actress gave him her trademark grin. He took a chance and spoke to her. “You were the best last night,” he said.

“Oh, well. Thank you.”

She was shorter than he had imagined, neat as a girl, chin tipped up at about his chest level, the collar of her suede jacket raised to frame her face, a wisp of black nylon scarf knotted at her throat. “Those comedians,” he went on, “fighting to get in their ad-libs, they were O.K. But you came across with sweet intelligence.”

Something happened in her eyes. She had been smiling professionally but now she focused on him for the first time, identifying what was confronting her. “That’s very nice of you,” she said. “Really it is.” A gloved hand rested lightly on his arm.

Corey said, “I’m not drunk or anything — confronting you on the street like this. I have a reason.”

“You don’t need one.”

“I mean, you don’t know me but, in a way, I have a connection with you. I’m a member of the Hartfield Dramatic Society.”

“Then you know my mother.” Mrs. Jessica Stanstead was an honorary life member of the Hartfield Society. May was forever encountering locals who thus claimed a nodding acquaintance — but never one as potentially useful as this young man. Just how he might be useful May could not have said because, after weeks of discontent, the idea in her mind was still only half formed. “I’m afraid I haven’t been to a Hartfield show lately, so I won’t have seen you.”

“You wouldn’t anyway,” Corey said. “I’m backstage painting flats, helping sling the lights — anything that doesn’t inflict my Canadian accent on the poor audience.”

“Canadian. I didn’t think you were quite American.”

“I’m not sure what I am. People in pubs here think I’m from Belfast.” They were stuck here on this busy pavement. Heads kept turning in the flow around them. Corey took a stab. “Speaking of pubs, how about a drink? Have you got time?”

“I have, in fact.” They began walking toward The Prince of Wales. “I was going to suggest the same thing.”

She drank medium sherry. Corey lifted his pint of lager, conscious of the dried paint embedded around his fingernails. He could change into a good suit when he wasn’t working but it took serious scrubbing with turps and a brush to eradicate the telltale brand of the house painter. Women didn’t usually seem to care but this one might be different. If she showed enough interest, Corey suspected he would be willing to dunk his fingers in acid to meet her standards.

She let him get her another drink. With it, her idea began to develop. It had to do with Jason, of course. As long as tedious, dependable, work-addicted Jason continued his annoying habit of waking up every day, there would be no room in May’s life for Tony Bhajwa. May had spent one afternoon with Tony and it was enough to prove that making love could be an original experience. But if Jason found out, that would be that. No marriage, no money, not even the career assistance that came with having an influential husband at the BBC.

“I don’t relax much any more,” May said. “All I seem to do is work — read a new script every Wednesday, rehearse the next four days, then tape the episode on Monday. Tuesday off and we start again.”

“That’s what you get for having a successful series,” Corey said. Actually, he thought her situation comedy, Partners Sublime, was a load of rubbish. It was in its third season on BBC1 and was beginning to struggle. Evidence of panic among the script writers was the fact that they had added a new character, a Pakistani waiter who justified the laugh-track by delivering boring lines in a stereotyped sing-song.

“Thanks,” she said. “But it becomes very tiring. I did the panel show you saw last night to give myself some new exposure. What I’d really like is a good serious drama.”

Corey drank deep, looking across the glass at her knitted brow, the sexy mouth distorted by stubborn thoughts. “Well,” he said, “we’ve all got problems. How’d you like to paint other people’s rooms for a living?” He showed her his mottled fingertips. “Look at that. My mother raised me for better things.”

“I’m sure she did.” She took hold of his hand and put one finger between her teeth and out again so quickly that nobody in the pub noticed. But Corey would never forget the audacity of it. The message was on the table and now it was up to him.

“What say we finish these and then whiz over to my place. It’s just down on Worple Road.”

“I thought you’d never ask.” May said. “North Americans are supposed to be fast.”

Corey Keith believed he knew all about women, married ones especially. The Hartfield Dramatic Society had a few female members in their forties, fading but still serviceable ladies whose husbands, for some reason, preferred not to know anything about their world of the theater. During his couple of years backstage, Corey had worked his way through these grass widows and found them satisfying, taken in limited seasons not exceeding three months. But May Stanstead was something else. He was cynical enough to appreciate that there was a histrionic side to her lovemaking, but even so...

He got out of bed and prepared coffee when she refused another drink. They sat propped up under a blanket and sipped the hot drink, eating the chocolate digestive biscuits he provided on two plates, everything apportioned evenly, the way he and his big sister used to share food back in Baytown. Corey used to lie in his room in a position that allowed him to look through both open doorways to watch his sister get undressed. She knew it too and never tried to move from his line of sight. Fortunately, she never told his mother — the old lady probably would have killed him.

May brushed crumbs from the sheet. “I’m wrecking your bed.”

“And now,” he said, “may I have the envelope for the best performance by a concubine?”

She took it as a compliment — which it was, for the most part. “You were incredible,” she said. “Wow.”

As they both dressed, Corey watched her. Her underwear was expensive stuff, the best he had ever seen. One of the off-putting things about the Dramatic Society ladies was their tragic “knickers,” as they called them. But this woman looked like an illustration from a glossy magazine. Something, at last, was going overpoweringly right for Corey Keith.

“When am I going to see you again?” he asked.

“I’m afraid I have a very possessive husband. Possessive and jealous.”

“I don’t blame him one bit. But he isn’t with us today. So why can’t we work it again?”

“It’s very’ complicated.” She stood facing him, all buttoned up, the suede collar displaying her clever face. Neat girl, busy girl. “You’d better ring me.”

He wrote down the number she gave him and agreed to call only at the specified time. Then he tried to kiss her goodbye and had to settle for a departing cheek.

By the time he was cleared to telephone two days later Corey wanted May Stanstead so badly he was ready to do the proverbial naked crawl across acres of broken glass in dead of winter. She sounded on the phone as if she felt the same way. Unfortunately, she could not come to him. Her husband was out but he would be ringing her about something and she would have to be on hand. Would Corey like to come up the hill to the Village and see her for an hour? Do sharks like something to eat?

He jotted down the address, went outside, caught a 93 bus at the foot of the hill, and ten minutes later was at the door of an impressive house on South Side Common. May opened the door and drew him inside quickly. Something was wrong. She kissed him and he could feel the tension.

“Jason just telephoned. He’ll be back sooner than I expected. You’ll have to be ready to run.”

Corey struggled with his disappointment. “Well, as Lord Nelson said at Trafalgar, ‘Fleet, don’t fail me now.’ ”

“I’m sorry. Come in. There’s time for a drink.”

“I can get a drink on the high street. I didn’t come for a drink.”

“I know.” She pressed herself against him. “You poor thing — are you going to be all right?”

“I’ll live.” He followed her into a small library with an open fireplace burning wood. There were walls of books, maroon leather chairs, a Jacobean table. The place smelled and looked so fine Corey felt a strong attack of worthlessness. She gave him a drink. It was Scotch, which he hated, but he sipped it humbly without a word. She was in charge here.

“This is a very difficult situation, darling,” she said. “And it isn’t going to get any easier.”

Corey finished his drink, set down the glass, and put both hands in his pockets. His fingertips burned from a recent scrubbing. “We’ll have to meet down the hill,” he said.

“No, no, my love, no.” She came to him and stood with her wrists resting on his shoulders, her face turned up to his. The pleading expression was that of the classic heroine trying to reason with her animal man. “I’ve been with you once, Corey Keith — just once — and that was enough to show me that I can never go back to Jason. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I guess I do.”

“I hope you do.” She turned away and walked to the window where she became a slender silhouette in her tailored velvet suit. “Because I am about to commit myself to a terrible decision.”

“You’d be crazy to divorce him for me. I only made three thousand quid last year, and half the time I’m on the dole.”

“I’m not talking about divorce. Jason would never consider it. And I agree with you — it would be crazy to throw away all this comfort.” She turned to face him. “But we can have it both ways.”

He wasn’t stupid. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not. If something happened to Jason Hughes-Price, the noted television director, then Mrs. Hughes-Price, otherwise known as May Stanstead, would inherit this house and quite a lot of money. And she could settle down, after a not very respectable period of time, with the young man who knows how to make her feel very, very happy.”

“You’ve got the wrong person, May.” Corey sat down and waited while she refilled his glass. The Scotch was acceptable this time. “I paint rooms and move scenery. I’m not a hit man.”

She knelt beside him. “I know you better than you know yourself. That’s one thing. The other thing is, we don’t need a hit man. Jason is so habit-ridden that killing him would be simple. I’ve thought of a way.”

“I’m not sure I want to know.” But he spoke too faintly, his mind clouded by the whisky and the sound of her voice and by his body’s recollection of what had happened between them in the room on Worple Road. She began to explain her idea, leading him through the house by the hand.

It would happen on a Wednesday night. Jason always left the cast reading of the new script at 9:15 in order to be home in time to see Mid-Week Football on the telly. He was a fanatic. Sometimes May came with him, sometimes she had a drink with the other performers. On the proposed night she would stay behind.

In the kitchen, she demonstrated the faulty latch on the door to the back porch. “I’ve been after Jason to have new locks put on. There have been several robberies this winter in the Village.” She showed how an intruder could force his way in, breaking the flimsy lock. She led Corey back to the library and indicated where he could stand just inside the doorway.

“When Jason comes in, all you do is hit him once with this.” She lifted the heavy poker from its place beside the fire.

“I couldn’t do it, May.”

“It’s foolproof. Nobody would ever connect you with this place. You’ll wear gloves, so there’ll be no fingerprints. You can have the silver out so it looks as if Jason came in and caught you at it. Another local robbery — only this time the villain panicked.” She watched his face for a few moments. “I guess you don’t want us to continue as much as I do.”

“I want that. But your husband — I don’t even know him.”

“If you did, you wouldn’t hesitate. He’s a dreadful man, you’ve no idea. I could tell you things—”

“Maybe you’d better.”

May moved to the fire and knelt on an upholstered stool. She looked like a supplicant at confession. Corey stood beside her, listening, feeling the heat of the flames.

“He’s one of those people,” she said, “who takes pleasure in tormenting those weaker than himself. A manipulator. He likes to raise people up and then dash them down. It’s the way he gets his kicks. He can’t satisfy himself any other way. They all hate him at the studio — he’d never be missed.”

Corey said nothing.

“I won’t tell you what he does to me. But I can give you an example of how he treats others. There’s a new boy in the series — his name is Tony Bhajwa.”

“The Asian kid,” Corey said. “The waiter. I’ve seen him — he isn’t bad.”

“He could be very good. He has talent. Jason cast him in this bit part and then expected Tony to lick his boots. But the boy isn’t like that — he has a mind of his own. Well, the other day I heard Jason talking to one of the writers. He said he wants the wog dropped from the story.” May turned a cold eye up to Corey. “The wog. Dropped. That’s my dear, civilized Jason Hughes-Price.”

They noticed the time and Corey had to make a run for it. He promised to think about the plan, but only that.

Two days later he was still trying for a complete night’s sleep and, on the job, his hand was shaking so much he could not brush one color up against another. The weekend was hell. He tried drinking himself to sleep and only made himself sick. Afterwards he lay on the bed wondering what had happened to his uncomplicated life.

Growing up in Baytown, he had never expected to amount to a great deal. His father had gone as far as he could toward becoming a concert pianist. But you get no points for coming close and Herbert Keith ended up as Herbie the sign painter, doing jobs like lettering the glass doors at the Bowl-O-Drome when his trembling hands would let him. He also played rehearsal piano for the Kiwanis variety shows which, to Corey s way of thinking, was slightly better than being put in a pit with a bear.

Blessed escape from the house of the domineering women awaited Corey as soon as he got together the money and the nerve to fly to Montreal. Two years there tending bar at the Sheraton-Mt. Royal and he was off again to England. Nothing but fun ever since, he told himself as he lay in the dark, wondering if he would have to make another dash for the loo. The room smelled of gin and beer. He managed to get up and fall around, putting the empty bottle and tins outside in the corridor.

With his head back on the pillow, he had a vision of the immaculate library up the hill. It could be his. Christ, what a thought. All he had to do was take part in May’s adventure and he would end up with a woman who thought he was the greatest man in the world — and with a house like an ocean liner. The plan might work. It could work!

He took a chance and telephoned on Monday at the same hour as the previous week. She answered the phone. “No, it’s all right,” she said. “He’s upstairs in the shower.”

“I thought over what we discussed.”

“And?”

“If I don’t try, I’ll wonder for the rest of my life.”

“You have to be certain in your own mind, Corey.” She sounded as if it had nothing to do with her. “You have to want me that much.”

“That’s one thing I couldn’t be more certain about.”

“All right,” she said, lowering her voice and speaking quickly. “Wednesday night, day after tomorrow. Be here by nine-thirty. I’ll leave a light on in the kitchen so you won’t need a torch. Force your way in — don’t be afraid to break the lock. Disturb some things in the library, then get the poker and wait inside the doorway. Jason will show up by ten minutes to ten at the latest.”

“For sure? And he’ll be alone?”

“Count on it, dear. He’s the Greenwich Observatory time signal.”

On Wednesday night at nine-fifteen, Corey Keith picked his steps along the garden path toward a rectangle of orange kitchen light. The perpetual English smell of wet grass hung about him like washed net curtains. On the porch, he put a knee and a shoulder against the door, pressed hard, heard the spang as the flimsy lock let go, moved inside, closed the door, and stood breathing deeply. The kitchen smelled of fresh fruit and central heating. A yellow telephone hung on flowered vinyl wallpaper. If it rings, he thought, I’ll drop dead right here on May’s kitchen floor. The cops will have to come and cart my body away.

Out of the kitchen, down a dim corridor, into the carpeted area by the front entrance, then a right turn through a doorway two feet thick and he was in the library. Embers whispered behind the curved brass screen. He saw the heavy poker. Not yet.

There were silver trophies on the mantelpiece. These would do as evidence of the robbery in progress that Jason Hughes-Price must soon interrupt. Corey put his gloved hands on a cricket player and a golfer and took them to a settee, where he dropped them on the end cushion. Then he sat down. It was not even 9:30. He tried to think about the man he was about to kill but his mind refused to cooperate. Once as a lad in a cabbage field near Baytown he had tried to capture tiny white butterflies in his cupped hands. Their erratic flight had frustrated him throughout the broiling afternoon. The mental image of May’s husband was like a cabbage butterfly. Corey put his head back and closed his eyes.

The door! He sprang to his feet, heart pumping, eyes on the tiny clock beside a photograph of May in pirate costume. Ten minutes to ten — he had fallen asleep — typical!

Corey took his place at the doorway and was listening to the owner drop keys on a table when he realized he didn’t have the poker. Too late now — he would have to overpower the man somehow and use the poker afterward. Steps along the carpet, movement in the doorway, a hesitation.

Corey stepped forward, grabbed for a shoulder, felt arms fly up against his own, and then they were together in the light. Jason was not much taller than May. Corey put one hand on his throat, holding his lapel with the other. It was not an effective strangle but the producer’s face went crimson, partly from his efforts to break the grip. Corey saw a tanned, half-bald head, round green eyes, and a thick moustache of the guardsman style, heavily waxed and shaped to spiky points.

Corey was astonished at his own lack of strength. This little man was on the verge of breaking free. It was all he could do to hold him. If he was going to succeed, he would have to get mad. Damn it, this was stupid!

Rocking back and forth, neither making a sound except for the spitting gasps of men moving furniture, faces inches apart, the moment came when their eyes met. They saw each other. They stopped moving, still holding on, and then there was a softening in the green eyes. Fear went out of them. “You’re about as good at this,” Hughes-Price said, “as I am.”

It was all over. Corey dropped his arms and stepped back. He began to tremble so hard he had to clasp his hands and hold on.

“I guess I came home too soon,” the producer said. “Sorry if I scared you. But I like my Wednesday night football.” He was standing very still, observing the intruder’s face. “We could both use a drink. O.K.?”

Corey nodded. He waited until he had been handed a glass of Jason Hughes-Price’s Scotch for the second consecutive week. He obeyed the older man’s quiet order to sit himself down. They both drank.

Hughes-Price was still watching his face. “You don’t look to me like a man who steals. Down on your luck?” When Corey did not reply, he said, “Cheer up — it isn’t the end of the world. If I was going to call the police I would have done so by now.”

“Thanks,” Corey said. “I appreciate that.”

“Ah — Canadian. Silly occupation for you to get into in this country unless you ditch that accent. A robber wants to be as anonymous as possible.” He grinned and the waxed moustache-ends moved up and back. “I could give you speech lessons if you like. I’m a TV producer — I work with actors.”

“I don’t think I’m going to do this any more.”

“Good. Then I’ve done one worthwhile thing today.” Hughes-Price gave a rueful smile. “I steal in a different way. I take money for producing a very mediocre situation comedy, season after season. They say the public wants it — but that’s no excuse for not doing better.”

“Perhaps you will.”

“At my age? I doubt it.” He sighed and looked at his watch. “The only credit I give myself is being clever enough to hire a young Pakistani actor. Nobody else was touching him. Now I can say I gave him his start.”

Corey watched Hughes-Price get up and move to the television set. “I’d better go now,” he said. He would have to be gone when May arrived.

“Hang on — get yourself together.” Jason pressed a switch and the television screen blossomed into the reds and greens of moving football jerseys as a martial theme introduced the game of the week. “Forgive me, I really am addicted. Do you follow football?”

“I like it,” Corey said.

“Then stay. It’s raining outside anyway.” Hughes-Price brought the bottle and refilled both their glasses. “My boy,” he said, “this is your lucky night. You happened to run into a man who instinctively understands you, who believes you can do better. Drink your drink. Cheers.”

Corey was staring, half stunned, at the screen when there was a sound from the front door. The ball had been going into the net but he could not have said for money what the score was.

“In here, dear,” Hughes-Price called. He winked at Corey. “My wife — she’s a nice lady. Relax.”

May Stanstead strode into the room, her red vinyl coat glistening with rain, a kerchief trailing in her hand. She glanced first at her husband, then looked at Corey very hard. “This is a friend,” Jason said, his eyes following the action on the screen. “He came to rob us but changed his mind. I don’t know his name.”

Corey said, “Hello.”

May smiled ferociously. “Hello, hello,” she said. She bent to the hearth and picked up the poker. Before Corey could move, she went to the chair where her husband was sitting and stood over him, the poker raised. Jason looked up at her, smiling, his eyes alight with excitement for the lively game. He saw what she was about to do and his face began to change. The poker came down across his head as he half rose, knees bent, to plunge forward on the carpet, prone. May stepped back and struck her husband another glancing blow on the back of the head.

“Hey, come on, wait!” Corey was up at last, catching her arm, twisting the poker from her gloved hands, holding it away from her. She looked at his battered leather gloves on the table beside his glass and smiled faintly.

“Yes, all right,” she said. She went to the television set and switched it off. Into the silence she said, “We are now back at square one.”

“Wherever we are, it isn’t square one.”

“Shut up. I don’t know what the hell you think you were doing. You were supposed to kill him and I find the two of you drinking and watching sports.” She said the last word with a vicious sibilant at either end.

“Because he wasn’t what you told me, May. Not what you described at all.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, oh. I know a decent guy when I meet him. And what was all that about getting rid of the wog? He said good things about him. He’s proud of discovering him.”

“You are insane!” May screamed. “If you’d killed him first thing you’d never have heard any of that! We would have been all right!”

“I’m insane? I love your logic, Miss Stanstead.” He set down the poker, picked up his gloves, and put them on. “I’m getting out of here.”

“That’s exactly right. And you’re taking those trophies with you. I’ll give you ten minutes and then I’ll call the police. It’s as if I’d just come in — everything as before.”

“No way. You did this, not me. I’m not involved.”

“You’re involved, Corey. You slept with me, he’s dead, and your fingerprints are on the poker. You couldn’t be more involved.”

Corey looked at the poker and considered wiping it clean. Then he thought again. “Right. I’ll tell the truth, exactly as it happened. I was going to kill him but I changed my mind.”

“That’s a laugh. Who do you think they’ll believe — you or me?”

Corey paused. Then he said, “I’ll take my chances. You’d be surprised how the truth has a way of sounding right.” He turned from her and headed for the kitchen. “I’ll do us both a favor. I’ll dial 999.”

As he left the room, May did not hesitate. She went to a cabinet, opened a lower drawer, reached inside and took out an automatic pistol. She checked the magazine expertly. Then she hurried down the corridor, arriving in the kitchen as Corey was beginning to dial.

“Put it down,” she said.

He saw the gun, put the phone back in the cradle, and stepped away from it.

“Now get out,” May said. “Leave the way you came.”

He moved toward the door, then stopped. “What about you?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll look after myself. You’re the one who needs to worry.”

He shrugged and said, “I’m sorry, May.”

“Get stuffed,” she said.

Corey turned to the door and she shot him in the back, chest high. He hit the pine-panelled wall, knocking to the floor a colander and a sieve and a breadboard. She left every thing lying as she went to the telephone and dialed.

“Tony? You’ve got to come over. No, he’s not — he’s dead. I came in and there was a robber here. He’d already killed Jason. He tried to go out the back door and I shot him.” She began to cry real tears. “Come right now.”

Tony Bhajwa arrived within ten minutes, parking his yellow MG beside the Common and running up the long walk to the house. May let him in and closed the door, embracing him, receiving his kisses on her tear-stained cheeks.

“Come on,” he said softly. “You’re not alone now. Where are they?”

“Jason’s in there. The other one is in the kitchen.”

He followed her to the kitchen, slowly approached the body on the floor, and bent to look at the wound and listen for signs of life. “He’s dead, all right. Have you called the police?”

“I waited for you. I’ll call now.”

He went to her and she put her arms around his waist, pressing her cheek against the fabric of his shirt. His dark, handsome face touched her golden hair. “What a shock for you, my love.”

“I’m all right now. I’m always all right with you.” She stepped back and gave him the teary smile of a child whose hurt has been kissed and made better. “It has a good side, Tony. Now we can be married.” She watched his reaction. “It’s horrible that Jason is dead, but it lets us be together.”

“I know.” He nodded, sensitive eyes frowning. “But poor Jason. He was good to me. I’m going to miss him.”

May shivered. “Time’s going by. I’d better call the police and get it over.”

As she dialed, Tony walked down the hall to the library. When May finished reporting the emergency and the address, she hurried after him and found him bending over Jason. He had turned her husband over onto his back and now had his ear close to Jason’s face. “He’s breathing,” he said. “Jason is alive.”

“What?”

“It’s slight but steady. Listen.”

May did not move. “He can’t be.”

“He is. If they get here quickly enough we may save him.” Tony got up and came to May, looking hopeful. She passed him without a glance, knelt over her husband, and stared down at the bland unmarked face, the blood on the carpet coming from the wounds on his head. Yes, the hairs in his nostrils moved slightly.

May reached for her handbag resting on the settee. She opened it and snatched out a linen handkerchief, dropped the bag beside her, folded the square into a pad. She placed this over her husband’s nose and mouth and pressed down with both hands.

“May, what are you doing?”

“Keep away, Tony.”

He put a hand on her shoulder but her voice and the expression on her face sent him back. “Don’t, damn you! I’m sorry, Tony, but I’m right. We want to be together. We love each other. This is our chance.”

“But you’re murdering Jason!”

“Who says? He could be dead in a few minutes or a few hours. Or he could end up a vegetable. What kind of life would I have then? Would we have?”

“But give him his chance—”

“Too late, Tony. Jason had no chance from the day you and I met. It’s us now. Don’t spoil it.”

The police were impressed by the situation. Not only two dead bodies on a damp night in Wimbledon Village, but the killings in the house of May Stanstead, the television actress. It was even a kick to see the funny wog waiter from the TV show sitting on the settee looking spaced out, which he undoubtedly was. What sort of stuff would they find if they searched his pockets?

But the case in point was the break-in, the murderous assault on the owner when he came in ahead of his wife and surprised the thief, and then Mrs. Hughes-Price’s quick work with the pistol as she caught up with the killer in the kitchen. The Detective-Inspector took a statement from the shaken actress, then turned to Tony Bhajwa. May Stanstead spoke up for him. “He’s very upset,” she said.

“I can understand that. But you’ll be able to support the lady’s statement, sir, if you’re asked at the inquest?”

Tony said faintly, “Not really.”

“Sir?”

“I didn’t arrive with May and her husband,” he said. “It was all over when I got here.”

“But it was as I said,” May insisted.

“Perhaps. One thing I did see though. Jason was still breathing a few minutes ago. She put a handkerchief over his face and smothered him.”

The Detective-Inspector was silent, listening, as if he had heard something that sounded like the truth.

“He’s mad,” May said flatly. “He must be hallucinating. He has a head full of cocaine most likely.”

Tony Bhajwa turned smiling, pain-filled eyes on her. “I wish it were so. But, Inspector,” he continued, “if you’ll take that handkerchief from her handbag and have it analyzed, you’re probably going to find it’s got moustache wax on it.”