Chapter Fifty-Three
It was the final day of interviews. The three investigators took their seats in the interview room, each, in his or her own way, enduring a sense of anticipated nostalgia, at some future time, for what they were sure would prove to have been a pivotal stretch in their lives.
Pluck rang the bell to call Larry. The bellhop appeared promptly, smilingly, aware too that all this would soon be coming to an end.
“Boy, bring in Curtis Vacaresteanu.”
“At last!” Enid exclaimed.
Poor Larry nodded and left to do so.
A porter was brought in, late thirties, scruffily attired, hair in a mess beneath his cap, unshaven, shuffling to the chair.
“That’s the man!” Enid whispered to Pluck. “The disgruntled porter—the one I saw! That’s him!”
Pluck motioned for her to calm down, and addressed the suspect: “Curtis Vacaresteanu?”
“Yes?” The man clearly did not want to be there—a detail that was not lost on, and did not endear the suspect to, our investigator. The man (Curtis) was a clearly unsavoury character: sullen, and insolent, in the looks he gave the three of them.
“Sir, I am not too proud to tell you that I am considerably envious of your name.”
“It’s quite a rare name.” The man smiled, crook-toothedly.
“No, no, not your surname; no, I wouldn’t want that. I mean your Christian name: I mean ‘Curtis’.”
The man shrugged, as if to imply, at once, that his name was of no special import, and of no conceivable relevance to the investigation. But he was wrong, on both counts, as we shall presently see.
“In fact,” Pluck resumed, “I rather wonder whether it is too great a coincidence.”
“What is?” asked the man, stupidly.
Pluck sighed, realising he’d have to spell it out for him. “Your name is ‘Curtis’, and ‘Curtis’ is a name of which I, the chief investigator in this investigation, am inordinately fond.”
The man, appallingly, shrugged again.
“Did you, by any chance, have a different name at birth?” asked Pluck.
“No.”
“Did you change your name somewhere along the way?”
“No.”
“Is ‘Curtis’ some sort of nom de plume—or, perhaps, stage name?”
“No.”
“Is your real name—you’ll have to forgive me,” he added with a short chuckle, “I’m just guessing at random here—is your real name, by any chance, something along the lines of—‘Snede’?”
The man called Curtis sat in his chair, immobile in figure and face; the firelight shone upon him, the last time it would grace a suspect with its lustre, outfitting him with a kind of nimbus, and flattening his perspective into that of a gold-plated icon.
“No,” he said simply. “‘Curtis’ is my name, and has always been.”
“‘Charles Snede’?”
“No.”
Pluck crossed his arms, looked over at Enid, then at Bartoff, significantly, and asked: “And why not?”
“What do you mean?” asked the suspect.
Pluck shrugged. “‘Charles Snede’ is a perfectly good name, I’d argue, so far as names go; I can’t imagine anybody contesting that opinion.” He looked to his co-investigators, and, in the absence of any protest, assumed his opinion was a valid one. “So,” he addressed the suspect once more, “why not adopt it? Why not elect to be born with it, in the first place, or, failing that, change it by deed poll? If not in the past—why not now, today?”
“Why would I?” asked the suspect, ridiculously.
“Aha! You ask why would you, while I ask: Why wouldn’t you?”
The man shrugged with egregious impudence. “I’m satisfied with my name. I’ve got no reason to change it, or to pretend to be anybody other than who I am.”
“Fine words, great, noble words, my friend—but what do they mean?” Pluck challenged him.
The man shrugged again. “I think my meaning is clear.”
“I beg to differ,” said Pluck.
The man shrugged. “You have that right.”
“I beg your pardon, but I certainly do not.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked the suspect.
Pluck eyed him narrowly. “I think you understand me perfectly well.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Well, so be it, then—I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree, as they say.”
“Very well. May I go now?”
Pluck asked, a little more softly: “I. . .don’t suppose you’d be willing to. . .”
“Willing to what?”
“Willing to. . .trade names with me?”
The man stared at him. “I’m afraid I cannot. But perhaps you can change yours, by deed poll, once all this is over, to ‘Curtis’, ‘Charles’, ‘Snede’, or what have you.”
“Yes. . .yes. Perhaps you’re right.”
“May I go?”
Pluck lowered his eyes, and nodded. “Yes. And I can say without hesitation that you are the only occupant of this hotel whom I can clear completely from association with this crime.”
The man stood up and turned to go, but Enid halted him: “Pardon, monsieur, but I have a few more questions to ask.” She turned to Pluck, who bowed, and so she asked of the suspect: “Please: be seated.”
The suspect sighed, and sat back down. He stared at Enid, waiting for her first question.
She did not disappoint him: “What is your name?”
He merely glared at her.
“No—I’m sorry,” she said with a little chuckle. “We’ve already quite been through that, haven’t we? Let’s move straight on to my second question, then: Why did you ask Larry to stock the newspapers in the reading room on the morning of the murder?”
“It is part of our daily duties to stock the papers in the reading room. I was otherwise engaged, so asked Larry to do so in my place.”
“To whom were you engaged—and did the marriage go ahead?” Pluck wondered.
They both ignored him. Enid asked: “What were you doing at the time?”
“Washing the floor of the pantry, as I recall.”
“Why did you do that?”
“Mademoiselle Cranat, the cleaning lady, had soiled it through one of her gastrointestinal accidents.”
“Please describe the exact nature of her ailment,” demanded Pluck.
“Never mind that just now, please,” begged Enid of Pluck, and asked the suspect: “How far is the pantry from the reading room?”
“About a minute’s walk.”
“I see. And would that be the north reading room, or the south?”
“The. . .north.”
“I see.”
“Wait,” Pluck interrupted them. “There are two reading rooms?”
Enid nodded. “I hadn’t been aware of that fact myself, until recently. I happened, the night of the masquerade, to stumble upon a small lounge, which was stocked with books and periodicals, and so, I concluded, could be described with some accuracy as a second ‘reading room’.”
“So. . .in which reading room was the dead man murdered?” Pluck asked.
Enid turned to the suspect. “Could you please answer that. . .‘Curtis’?”
The man blinked. Something was going on with the firelight, which now shaded certain facets of his face, seemingly adding an extra dimension. “. . .The south one, I believe.”
“You believe, yes.”
“But. . .hang on a moment, wasn’t it a reading room I fell asleep in, that morning of the murder?” asked Pluck.
“I don’t know,” said Enid. “Was it?”
“Was it?” asked the suspect.
Pluck nodded, staring at Sam, of all things, who dozed on Bartoff’s lap. “Yes. . .so was it the north or the south? Or, are both of you mistaken, and there is only one reading room after all?”
“I can assure you there are two such rooms,” said Enid.
“Mademoiselle is correct,” averred the suspect.
But Pluck would not be derailed from this new train of thought: “Hang on. . .was it, in fact. . .hang on. . .”
“What is it?” whispered Enid.
“Could it be—?!” Pluck cried. “Good God!”
“What is it?”
“Could I have been the murder victim, all along?! And the man, here, today, standing before you—” With a slap, unintentionally, because of the vigour born of his earnestness, painful, upon his heart, thereby meaning to indicate himself, Pluck was about to go on, when he realised he was not standing; he promptly stood up, and resumed: “Could the man here, today, standing before you—I—could I be. . .Larry Snede?”
He fell down at once, unconscious, in the shock of realisation of his own death.
“My friend is dead!” Bartoff screamed. Sam, rudely awoken, woofed. “Damn you, stupid furry creature!” Bartoff shouted, throwing the dog over his shoulder. “My friend is dead!”
He rushed over to where Pluck lay; Enid was already wiping his hair from his brow and kissing his cheeks. Pluck, miraculously, soon revived. With his friends’ assistance—his friends, here, being Enid and Bartoff; the porter ostensibly named “Curtis” really didn’t come into it—he sat up.
“Curtis. . .Curtis, are you all right?” Enid asked.
Pluck shook his head slowly, looking at her in bewilderment. “Am I Curtis. . .or Pluck. . .or Snede?” he whispered.
“You are Thaddeus Pluck,” she smiled through her tears, “and I love you.”
“May I go now?” the suspect asked. “I’ve got my rounds to do, you know.”
Pluck waved aside his friends’ protests at his premature resumption of his duties, and, with their help, struggled to his feet. They still held either side of him as he brushed off his jacket and straightened his shirt. “Monsieur Vicarage?”
“‘Vacaresteanu’.”
“Whatever. Monsieur. . .would you consider. . .at least. . .lending me your name?”
“‘Curtis’, or ‘Vacaresteanu’?”
“The former. Obviously.”
The man shrugged, and exposed his crooked grin. “Why not? I hope you’ll enjoy it, Inspector.”
Pluck nodded, gratefully, and let himself be helped into his seat.