At Bertram's Hotel (Miss Marple 11)

“He is unsuitable,” said Chief-Inspector Davy.

“Oh. Then you know who he is?”

“I can have a very good guess at it. Ladislaus Malinowski.”

“The racing motorist? Really! A handsome daredevil. Women fall for him easily. I wonder how he came across Elvira. I don’t see very well where their orbits would meet except—yes, I believe he was in Rome a couple of months ago. Possibly she met him there.”

“Very possibly. Or could she have met him through her mother?”

“What, through Bess? I wouldn’t say that was at all likely.”

Davy coughed.

“Lady Sedgwick and Malinowski are said to be close friends, sir.”

“Oh yes, yes, I know that’s the gossip. May be true, may not. They are close friends—thrown together constantly by their way of life. Bess has had her affairs, of course; though, mind you, she’s not the nymphomaniac type. People are ready enough to say that about a woman, but it’s not true in Bess’s case. Anyway, as far as I know, Bess and her daughter are practically not even acquainted with each other.”

“That’s what Lady Sedgwick told me. And you agree?” Egerton nodded.

“What other relatives has Miss Blake got?”

“For all intents and purposes, none. Her mother’s two brothers were killed in the war—and she was old Coniston’s only child. Mrs. Melford, though the girl calls her ‘Cousin Mildred,’ is actually a cousin of Colonel Luscombe’s. Luscombe’s done his best for the girl in his conscientious old-fashioned way—but it’s difficult…for a man.”

“Miss Blake brought up the subject of marriage, you say? There’s no possibility, I suppose, that she may actually already be married—”

“She’s well under age—she’d have to have the assent of her guardian and trustees.”

“Technically, yes. But they don’t always wait for that,” said Father.

“I know. Most regrettable. One has to go through all the machinery of making them Wards of Court, and all the rest of it. And even that has its difficulties.”

“And once they’re married, they’re married,” said Father. “I suppose, if she were married, and died suddenly, her husband would inherit?”

“This idea of marriage is most unlikely. She has been most carefully looked after and….” He stopped, reacting to Chief-Inspector Davy’s cynical smile.

However carefully Elvira had been looked after, she seemed to have succeeded in making the acquaintance of the highly unsuitable Ladislaus Malinowski.

He said dubiously, “Her mother bolted, it’s true.”

“Her mother bolted, yes—that’s what she would do—but Miss Blake’s a different type. She’s just as set on getting her own way, but she’d go about it differently.”

“You don’t really think—”

“I don’t think anything—yet,” said Chief-Inspector Davy.

Chapter Twenty-four

Ladislaus Malinowski looked from one to the other of the two police officers and flung back his head and laughed.

“It is very amusing!” he said. “You look solemn as owls. It is ridiculous that you should ask me to come here and wish to ask me questions. You have nothing against me, nothing.”

“We think you may be able to assist us in our inquiries, Mr. Malinowski.” Chief-Inspector Davy spoke with official smoothness. “You own a car, Mercedes-Otto, registration number FAN 2266.”

“Is there any reason why I should not own such a car?”

“No reason at all, sir. There’s just a little uncertainty as to the correct number. Your car was on a motor road, M7, and the registration plate on that occasion was a different one.”

“Nonsense. It must have been some other car.”

“There aren’t so many of that make. We have checked up on those there are.”

“You believe everything, I suppose, that your traffic police tell you! It is laughable! Where was all this?”

“The place where the police stopped you and asked to see your licence is not very far from Bedhampton. It was on the night of the Irish Mail robbery.”

“You really do amuse me,” said Ladislaus Malinowski.

“You have a revolver?”

“Certainly, I have a revolver and an automatic pistol. I have proper licences for them.”

“Quite so. They are both still in your possession?”

“Certainly.”

“I have already warned you, Mr. Malinowski.”

“The famous policeman’s warning! Anything you say will be taken down and used against you at your trial.”

“That’s not quite the wording,” said Father mildly. “Used, yes. Against, no. You don’t want to qualify that statement of yours?”

“No, I do not.”

“And you are sure you don’t want your solicitor here?”

“I do not like solicitors.”

“Some people don’t. Where are those firearms now?”

“I think you know very well where they are, Chief-Inspector. The small pistol is in the pocket of my car, the Mercedes-Otto whose registered number is, as I have said, FAN 2266. The revolver is in a drawer in my flat.”

“You’re quite right about the one in the drawer in your flat,” said Father, “but the other—the pistol—is not in your car.”

“Yes, it is. It is in the left-hand pocket.”

Father shook his head. “It may have been once. It isn’t now. Is this it, Mr. Malinowski?”

He passed a small automatic pistol across the table. Ladislaus Malinowski, with an air of great surprise, picked it up.

“Ah-ha, yes. This is it. So it was you who took it from my car?”

“No,” said Father, “we didn’t take it from your car. It was not in your car. We found it somewhere else.”

“Where did you find it?”

“We found it,” said Father, “in an area in Pond Street, which—as you no doubt know—is a street near Park Lane. It could have been dropped by a man walking down that street—or running perhaps.”

Ladislaus Malinowski shrugged his shoulders. “That is nothing to do with me—I did not put it there. It was in my car a day or two ago. One does not continually look to see if a thing is still where one has put it. One assumes it will be.”

“Do you know, Mr. Malinowski, that this is the pistol which was used to shoot Michael Gorman on the night of November 26th?”

“Michael Gorman? I do not know a Michael Gorman.”

“The commissionaire from Bertram’s Hotel.”

“Ah yes, the one who was shot. I read about it. And you say my pistol shot him? Nonsense!”

“It’s not nonsense. The ballistic experts have examined it. You know enough of firearms to be aware that their evidence is reliable.”

“You are trying to frame me. I know what you police do!”

“I think you know the police of this country better than that, Mr. Malinowski.”

“Are you suggesting that I shot Michael Gorman?”

“So far we are only asking for a statement. No charge has been made.”

“But that is what you think—that I shot that ridiculous dressed-up military figure. Why should I? I didn’t owe him money, I had no grudge against him.”

“It was a young lady who was shot at. Gorman ran to protect her and received the second bullet in his chest.”

“A young lady?”

“A young lady whom I think you know. Miss Elvira Blake.”

“Do you say someone tried to shoot Elvira with my pistol?”

He sounded incredulous.

“It could be that you had had a disagreement.”

“You mean that I quarrelled with Elvira and shot her? What madness! Why should I shoot the girl I am going to marry?”

“Is that part of your statement? That you are going to marry Miss Elvira Blake?”

Just for a moment or two Ladislaus hesitated. Then he said, shrugging his shoulders:

“She is still very young. It remains to be discussed.”

“Perhaps she had promised to marry you, and then—she changed her mind. There was someone she was afraid of. Was it you, Mr. Malinowski?”

“Why should I want her to die? Either I am in love with her and want to marry her or if I do not want to marry her I need not marry her. It is as simple as that. So why should I kill her?”

“There aren’t many people close enough to her to want to kill her.” Davy waited a moment and then said, almost casually: “There’s her mother, of course.”

“What!” Malinowski sprang up. “Bess? Bess kill her own daughter? You are mad! Why should Bess kill Elvira?”

“Possibly because, as next of kin, she might inherit an enormous fortune.”

“Bess? You mean Bess would kill for money? She has plenty of money from her American husband. Enough, anyway.”

“Enough is not the same as a great fortune,” said Father. “People do do murder for a large fortune, mothers have been known to kill their children, and children have killed their mothers.”