The Case Is Closed by Patricia Wentworth Read Free Book Online Page A

to sleep. The next thing he knew was the chambermaid knocking on the door with his tea next morning. He had asked to be called at nine. Asked where he had been during the time that he was absent from the hotel, he replied that he couldn’t really say. He had done a bit of nosing about and a bit of walking, and he had had a drink or two.
    And that was the end of Bertie Everton.
    The next thing was the typed copy of a statement by Annie Robertson, a chambermaid at the Caledonian Hotel. There was nothing to show whether it had been put in at the inquest or not. It was just a statement.
    Annie Robertson said Mr. Bertram Everton had been staying in the hotel for three or four days before July 16th. He might have come on the 12th, or the 11th, or the 13th. She couldn’t say for certain, but they would know in the office. He had room No. 35. She remembered Tuesday, July 16th. She remembered Mr. Everton complaining about the bell in his room. He said it was out of order, but it seemed all right. She said she would have it looked at, because Mr. Everton said sometimes it rang and sometimes it didn’t. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon when Mr. Everton complained about the bell. He was writing letters at the time. Later that evening, at about half past eight, his bell rang and she answered it. Mr. Everton told her he wanted some biscuits. He said he didn’t feel well and was going to bed. She brought him the biscuits. She thought he was the worse for drink. She brought his tea next morning, Wednesday, July 17th, at nine o’clock. He seemed all right then and quite himself.
    Hilary read this statement twice. Then she read Bertie Everton’s evidence all over again. He had been out of the hotel between four o’clock and getting on for half past eight. He might have flown to Croydon and reached Putney by eight o’clock, or at least she supposed he might. But he couldn’t possibly have been back in his room at the Caledonian Hotel ordering biscuits and complaining about not feeling well by half past eight. James Everton was alive and talking to Geoff at eight o’clock. Whoever shot him, it couldn’t have been his nephew Bertie, who was ordering biscuits in Edinburgh at half past eight.
    Hilary wrenched her mind regretfully away from Bertie. He would have done so beautifully, and he wouldn’t do at all.
    The other nephew, Frank Everton, hadn’t been called at the inquest. Marion’s statement that he had been collecting his weekly allowance from a solicitor in Glasgow between a quarter to six and a quarter past on the evening of the 16th was borne out by another of those typewritten sheets. Mr. Robert Johnstone, of the firm of Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish, declared that he had been in conversation with Mr. Francis Everton, with whom he was well acquainted, between the hours of five-forty-five and six-fifteen on Tuesday, July 16th, when he had paid over to him the sum of £2 10s. od. (two pounds ten shillings), for which sum he held Mr. Francis Everton’s dated receipt.
    Exit Frank Everton. With even deeper regret Hilary let him go. Bad hat, rolling stone, family ne’er-do-well, but definitely not First Murderer. Even with a private aeroplane — and what would the family skeleton be doing with a private aeroplane — he couldn’t have done it. He would need a private aerodrome — no, two private aerodromes, one at each end. She toyed with the idea of the black sheep getting into his private aeroplane at Messrs. Johnstone, Johnstone and McCandlish’s front doorstep, taxi-ing down a busy Glasgow thoroughfare, flying all out to Putney, vol-planing down into James Everton’s back garden —all without attracting the slightest attention. It was a highly tempting picture, but it belonged to an Arabian Nights entertainment — the Tale of the Tenth Calendar, or some such fantasy. It couldn’t be sufficiently materialized to deflect the finding of a court of law.
    It all came down to the Mercers again. If Geoff