will reside in the party itself? (Pause.) At eleven o’clock to-night, I was saying, you and I will leave by car for Oxford. We will carry our fellow-undergraduate. Our fellow-undergraduate will never be heard of again. Our fellow-undergraduate will not be murdered. He will be missing. That is the complete story, and the perfection of criminality—the complete story of the perfect crime. (Pause.) I am quite lucid—am I not?
Granillo. Yes,
Brandon. The party itself, you see, Granno, so far from being our vulnerable point, is the very apex, as it were, and consummation of our feat. Consider its ingredients. I still don’t think we could have chosen better. There will be, first, and by all means foremost, Sir Johnstone Kentley—the father of the—occupant of the chest. It is he, as the father, who gives the entire macabre quality of the evening. Well chosen, so far. We then, of course, require his wife; but she, being an invalid, is unobtainable, and we have procured, instead, his sister. The same thing applies to her.
[Telephone rings. Granillo springs up and goes over to it in the darkness.
Granillo. Hullo. . . . Hullo. . . . Hullo. What? This is Mayfair X143. . . . What? . . . What? Hullo. (Brandon turns up lamp.) Put out that light! Put out that light, I tell you!
[Light goes promptly out.
Brandon. Steady, Granno.
Granillo. . . . Hullo. . . . Hullo. . . .
Brandon. Will you put down that receiver, Granno? You’re telling London you’re afraid. (Pause.) Come and sit down.
[ 13 ]
