夜雨聆风She did it very well,” said Julia.
“I don’t quite see the point,” said Bunch. “Of course, I wasn’t there—”
she added apologetically.
“The point was a little complicated—and rather touch and go. The ideawas that Mitzi whilst admitting, as though casually, that blackmail hadbeen in her mind, was now so worked up and terrified that she was will-ing to come out with the truth. She’d seen, through the keyhole of the din-ing room, Miss Blacklock in the hall with a revolver behind Rudi Scherz.
She’d seen, that is, what had actually taken place. Now the only danger wasthat Charlotte Blacklock might have realized that, as the key was in thekeyhole, Mitzi couldn’t possibly have seen anything at all. But I banked onthe fact that you don’t think of things like that when you’ve just had a badshock. All she could take in was that Mitzi had seen her.”
Craddock took over the story.
“But—and this was essential—I pretended to receive this with scepti-cism, and I made an immediate attack as though unmasking my batteriesat last, upon someone who had not been previously suspected. I accusedEdmund—”
“And very nicely I played my part,” said Edmund. “Hot denial. All ac-cording to plan. What wasn’t according to plan, Phillipa, my love, was youthrowing in your little chirp and coming out into the open as ‘Pip.’ Neitherthe Inspector nor I had any idea you were Pip. I was going to be Pip! Itthrew us off our stride for the moment, but the Inspector made a masterlycomeback and made some perfectly filthy insinuations about my wantinga rich wife which will probably stick in your subconscious and make irre-parable trouble between us one day.”
