Chapter Fifty-Five
“We have one last interview to conduct.”
Enid and Bartoff were in the interview room for what they’d thought would be the task of sifting through the evidence of statements with a view to establishing a sensible probability of guilt; instead, they were taken by surprise by Pluck’s announcement.
“Whom?” asked Enid.
“I realised that we’d forgotten to interrogate Manager Mifkin. I’ll have him brought in now.”
The bell was rung, the bellboy dispatched, and the manager came in, with a look of no little surprise across his broad, friendly face.
“Can I be of service, Inspector?”
It was not Mifkin, as might have been expected, who said this—it was Pluck.
“I am sorry, monsieur?”
“That is what you should ask: ‘Can I be of service, Inspector?’”
Mifkin chuckled at what he presumed was Pluck’s little joke. “Very well: ‘Can I be of service, Inspector?’”
Pluck stared him down, humourlessly. “You may. Pray be seated.”
The surrogate manager sat. His knees were together, his hands calmly on them, his back straight, his face open and expectant. The fire, for its part, was low, and the light it cast could not reach this man, who sat half in shadow, half in the manmade light of an oil lamp whose glow had nothing artful or noteworthy about it.
Pluck consulted his papers, before placing them in a neat pile to his side, looking Mifkin straight in the eye, and asking: “Are you in love with me?”
Mifkin started, then laughed. “Why do you think that, monsieur?”
Pluck shrugged. “Everybody else seems to be.”
Mifkin cleared his throat. “I assure you that that is not the case, Inspector.”
“Well, that point is moot. I grant you. Let’s stick with you, then: Are you in love with me?”
“I respect your professional position and your deductive capacities no end, Inspector. But on the subject of an unnatural romantic inclination—positively not.”
“I’ll ignore that. I ask you again: Are you in love with me?”
“Answer the question!” Bartoff barked; Sam yipped in sympathy.
“No.” Something was happening to the man’s jaw.
“I’ll ask you again,” Pluck spoke calmly. “Do you feel an erotic attraction to my person?”
“No! Why do you keep asking that?!”
“Did you kill Charles Snipp in order to attract my attention?”
“I didn’t kill anyone! Not that there’s anyone of that name in this hotel, anyway!”
“Did you kill him to impress me?”
“No!”
“Did you molest the corpse?”
“Don’t be a buffoon!”
“I’ll be a buffoon if it pleases me. Answer the question, damn you.”
“No!”
“‘No’ what?”
“No, I did not molest the corpse!”
“But did you molest the corpse?”
“No!”
“Answer the question.”
“I’ve answered it!”
“Answer the question!” Bartoff boomed.
“I did! And the answer is no!”
“Why not?”
“What?!”
“Why didn’t you molest the corpse? Was it not to your liking?”
“No, dead men aren’t particularly to my liking, you cretin!”
Pluck shrugged. “I shouldn’t wonder that Mister Snipp would feel insulted by that remark.”
Enid watched Mifkin’s bloodless fingers clutch his knees as if to crush the life out of them: his twitching visage implied a man used to maintaining exterior control, but who was now losing that ability in the face of this unprecedented onslaught of stupidity.
She placed her hand on Pluck’s arm, as she so dearly loved to do: “Perhaps we’re going too far. . .”
“None of it.” Pluck shook his head, with decision.
“After all,” she reasoned, “what evidence do you have for any of this?”
He shook off her hand. “If it wasn’t for your own sexual gratification,” he asked the witness, “please explain for what reason you were tampering with Mister Snipp’s anus—after he was dead.”
“Reprobate!” whispered Bartoff—only in a whisper, for even he could hardly believe how this was panning out.
“I did no such thing, you bastard!” Mifkin shouted. “And I’ll have you for slander for saying so!”
Pluck nodded. “As you like.” He rang the bell. Larry appeared. “Charlie,” he told him, “please take this note. And assemble all the guests and staff, and have it read out by someone with a commanding voice—Frau Hühnerbeinstein’s will do nicely.”
Larry came over to the table. Pluck stared at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Pardon, monsieur?”
“Why have you approached the table?”
“Didn’t you wish me to take the note, monsieur?”
“Yes—and now that I’ve given it to you, be off at once.”
“You haven’t yet given it to me, monsieur.”
Pluck was about to slap him for insubordination, but his innate propensity for clemency made him look to Enid, who nodded a confirmation that in this case, Larry was correct.
“Very well,” said Pluck. “Take it, then.”
“Where is it, monsieur?”
“Eh? Oh—I don’t seem to have written it yet.”
Silence, while all looked to Pluck. It was his move, but he didn’t seem to know it.
“Good God! Why is everybody staring at me?!”
“Aren’t you going to write him the note?” Enid asked.
“Eh? Whom?! What note?!”
“Didn’t you want Larry to take a note for Frau Hühnerbeinstein to read aloud?”
“‘Larry’?! Who the devil is Larry?!”
“I am, Inspector.”
“Who said that?!”
“I, monsieur,” said Larry.
“Oh, very well! Just as you please! Give me a piece of paper!”
Larry took a blank piece of paper that was on the table just in front of Pluck, picked it up, and set it back down where it had been.
“And a pen, damn you! I can’t very well write without a pen, can I?!”
Larry did the same with a pen.
“Finally!” Pluck looked to a corner of the ceiling to think. “Oh yes.” He scribbled a few lines, folded the paper, and handed it to Larry. “Assemble everyone at once, and direct Frau Hühnerbeinstein, on my instructions, to declaim its contents ringingly, with scrupulous objectivity yet with undisguised feeling.”
Larry bowed and went away.
Pluck now turned, complacently, to Mifkin. “Wondering what I wrote, I suppose?”
“Something libellous and mindless, I expect.”
Pluck shrugged. “Merely that we have concluded that all evidence points to your having killed Snipp in a lover’s spat, because he would not agree to leave his wife in order to act as permanent receptacle for your plebeian semen.”
Mifkin sprang to his feet. “I demand satisfaction, monsieur!”
Pluck, cool as a polar bear’s testicles, laughed. “You demanded satisfaction of Larry Snipp, as well, I seem to recall, and yet you did not get it.”
Mifkin turned away and marched out of the room.
Pluck turned to Bartoff. “A coward, as well as a degenerate, after all,” he mused.
Bartoff chuckled.
In a moment, Mifkin returned, carrying a glove, with which, after striding up to the table, he slapped Pluck across the face.