The Guilty Abroad: The Mark Twain Mysteries #4. Peter J. Heck

who’d been with McPhee on the doorstep when we’d arrived. “Hello, where’s Mr. McPhee?” he asked, his voice somewhat slurred. Then his eyes took in the constable’s uniform, and they opened wide for a brief moment before he turned and we heard his boots pounding as he beat a hasty retreat down the stairway. Constable Wilkins was after him in a flash, and I heard the constable’s whistle blow as he thundered down the stairs.

      “There’s your answer, Villiers,” crowed Lestrade, turning to the astonished dandy. “McPhee’s accomplice took his gun away right after the shooting—by now, he’s pitched it in the Thames, or stowed it somewhere for future devilment, just as like.”

      “A smashing bit of luck, what?” said Sir Denis DeCoursey, rubbing his hands. “You practically called your shot!”

      “There’s still something I don’t understand,” said Mr. Clemens. “Why the hell would that man come back here, if he’d just taken away the murder weapon?”

      “Your common criminal is a pitiful sort, at best,” said Lestrade, with an air of confidence. “Low mentality—you could see it written all over that man’s face. That’s why the criminal always returns to the scene of his crime, like a moth to a burning candle.”

      “Maybe so, but you’ve missed the point,” said Mr. Clemens. “If he’s the one that ditched the gun, he knew what it was used for, and he’d make himself scarce around here. If he absolutely had to come back afterwards, he’d have been ready for the cops to be here. He’d have had a bulletproof alibi all ready, and a face as innocent as any choirboy. But the way he bolted just now, he didn’t have the faintest glimmer that he’d be walking into a roomful of constables and detectives—if he did, I’ll buy every man in Scotland Yard a drink.”

      The chief inspector grimaced. “You’d lose that bet, or my name’s not Lestrade,” he said. “We’ll learn the whole story when Wilkins fetches him back for questioning. But I don’t think there’s any more reason to detain you all—Coleman will note down your names and addresses, and we can come by tomorrow or next day to record your statements. It’s as plain as the nose on your face, this fellow here pulled the trigger.” He pointed triumphantly at Slippery Ed McPhee.

      There was a stunned silence. Every eye in the room turned toward McPhee, and those nearest him took a step back—so that where we had all been bunched together, there was now an open circle around Mr. and Mrs. McPhee.

      “You wait a cotton-pickin’ minute, Mr. Scotland Yard,” said McPhee. He took a step toward Lestrade, his fist raised. Then Martha, her face grim, touched her husband on the arm, and he regained his composure. “I ain’t never pulled the trigger on a living soul,” he said firmly, “and you can take that to the bank. You ask Sam here—killin’ ain’t Ed McPhee’s style, no sir, and any man who says different is a bald-faced liar.”

      Mr. Clemens rubbed his chin, then nodded. “I’ll grant him that much, Lestrade. Don’t get me wrong, now—I wouldn’t lend Ed two cents if he gave me the keys to the mint for collateral. But I don’t believe he’s got it in him to shoot a man.”

      “If you’d spent as many years as I have at the Yard, you’d not be so quick to think you know what a man’s got in him,” said Lestrade, shaking his head.

      “That may be true,” said McPhee, “but I never laid eyes on that poor doctor before this very night. I swear, I never shot him.” Suddenly I realized that as he spoke he had been edging closer to the half-open door out of the apartment.

      Lestrade stepped forward and laid a hand on McPhee’s shoulder. “You’ll need to do better than that, Mr. McPhee. You had the means and the opportunity, and if you didn’t pull the trigger yourself, I wager you know the man who did.”

      McPhee shook off the hand and turned suddenly toward the exit, but Sergeant Coleman had taken up a position between him and the door, and he seized McPhee unceremoniously by the arm, twisting it behind his back. “Be still now,” he said. “I must advise you that anything you say may be taken down and used against you in court.”

      “You go ahead and do that, see if I care,” said McPhee, struggling. “You won’t find a single thing that’ll stick to me. As for Terry, he was just out having a couple of drinks, is all. He’s no more the accomplice than I am the killer.”

      “His running away would seem to argue otherwise,” said Cedric Villiers. “Why flee so precipitously if he had nothing to worry about?”

      “Well, from what I hear tell, over in this country an Irishman starts off with one foot in the hole,” said McPhee, staring Villiers in the eye. “Same as the colored back home. I guess Terry figured it was smarter to find out what the cops were after before he let ’em get their paws on him. I might have done the same, in his shoes.” McPhee sounded defiant, but it was easy to see that he was shaken.

      “A lot of good it’ll do him,” said Lestrade. “Wilkins will fetch him back forthwith, and he’ll have the worse time of it for his efforts. Aha, I’ll wager that’s them now.”

      Sure enough, the sound of footsteps came from the stairway. We all turned to look, but even before they reached the landing, we could tell that only one person was climbing the stairs. “I’m right sorry, sir. The rogue gave me the slip in the fog,” said a sour-faced Constable Wilkins, coming through the door. “I went over to the station to start the hue and cry, and then came back to lend an ’and ’ere.”

      “I knew Terry was a spry one,” said McPhee, with something like pride in his voice. “Much as I wish he was here to back me up, I’m glad he’s still free. He’ll have a chance to get his wits about him before he tells his tale.”

      “We’ll have the hue and cry on him before he’s gone a mile,” said Lestrade, his jaw jutting out. “Meanwhile, Constable, I’ll ask you to place Mr. McPhee under guard. We’ll take the names and addresses of these other ladies and gentlemen, and then we can let them go to their homes. We’ve got our murderer, or his right-hand man. We’ll know which it is once we’ve had a little talk down at the station.”

      “You ain’t got nobody!” bawled McPhee. “I’m an innocent man, for once!”

      “So say you,” said the chief inspector, with a superior smile. “So say they all. But the Detective Branch will learn the truth, or my name’s not Lestrade!”