Late afternoon is not a usual time for suicide, but in Lord Arlen's case, it appeared that his death could hardly be attributable to any other cause.
Lord Arlen was the owner and head of one of the most important publishing houses in Normandy, Mayard House. Its editorial offices occupied the whole of a rather large building located in the heart of the Old City, not too far from the Cathedral of St. Ouen. On the day of the Vigil of the Feast of St. Edward the Confessor, Thursday, October 12, 1972, Lord Arlen was in his private office, sound asleep. He was accustomed to taking a nap at that time, and staff were well aware of it, so they moved quietly and spoke in low tones and only when necessary. No one had gone in or out of his office for nearly an hour.
At five minutes past four, three members of staffDamoselle Barbara, and Goodmen Wober and Andrayheard an odd thump and further strange noises through the thick door of the private office. They all hesitated and looked at each other. They felt that something was wrong, but not one of them quite dared to open that door, fearing Lord Arlen's temper.
Within thirty seconds, Sir Stefan Imbry came charging into the room. "What's happened?" he barked. "I was in the library. Heard a noise. Chair falling, I think. Now it sounds as though my lord is being sick at his stomach." He didn't pause as he spoke, but went straight to the door of the inner office. The staff members felt a momentary sense of relief; only Chief Editor Sir Stefan would dare break in on Lord Arlen.
He flung open the door and stopped suddenly. "Good God!" he said in a strangled voice. Then, to staff, "Quickly! Help me!"
Lord Arlen was hanging by his neck from a rope that had been thrown over a massive wooden beam. He was still twitching. Below his feet was an overturned chair.
He was still just barely alive when they took him down, but his larynx had been crushed, and he died before medical aid or a Healer could be summoned.
Lord Darcy, Chief Criminal Investigator for His Royal Highness, Richard, Duke of Normandy, looked down at the small and rather pitiful body that lay on the office couch. Lord Arlen had been a short manfive-fourand weighed nine stone. In death, he no longer showed the driving, fanatical, andat timesalmost hysterical energy that had made him one of the most feared and respected men in his field. Now he looked like a boy in his teens.
Dr. Pateley, the Chirurgeon, had finished his examination of the body and looked up at Lord Darcy. "Master Sean and I can give you more accurate information after the autopsy, my lord, but I'd say he's been dead between half an hour and forty-five minutes." He smoothed his gray hair and adjusted his pince-nez glasses. "That fits in with the time your office was notified, my lord."
"Indeed it does," murmured Lord Darcy. "Master Sean? How goes it?"
Master Sean O Lochlainn, Chief Forensic Sorcerer to His Highness, was busy with a small golden wand which had a curious spiral pattern inscribed upon its gleaming surface. It is not wise to interrupt a magician while he is working, but Lord Darcy sensed that the tubby little Irish sorcerer had finished his work and was merely musing.
He was right. Master Sean turned, a half smile on his round face. "Well, me lord, I haven't had time for a complete analysis, but the facts stand out very clearly." He twirled the wand in his fingers. "There was no one else in the room at the time he died, me lord, and hadn't been for an hour. Time of death was fourteen minutes after four, give or take a minute. The time of the psychic shock of the hanging itself was five after. No evil influence in the room; no sign of Black Magic."
"Thank you, my good Sean," Lord Darcy said, his eyes focused upon the overhead beam. "As always, your evidence is invaluable."
His lordship turned to the fourth man in the room, Master-at-Arms Gwiliam de Lisles, a large, beefy, tough-looking man with huge black mustaches and the mind of a keen investigator.
"Master Gwiliam," Lord Darcy said, "would you have one of your men fetch me a ladder that can reach that beam?" He gestured upward.
"Immediately, my lord."
Two uniformed Men-at-Arms were given instructions, and the ladder was brought. Lord Darcy, with a powerful magnifying lens in his hand, climbed up the ladder to the heavy beam, ten feet above the floor, two and a half feet below the ceiling.
The rope which had hanged Lord Arlen was still in place, and Lord Darcy examined the beam and the rope itself very carefully.
Master Sean, staring upward with his blue Irish eyes, said: "May I ask what it is you might be looking for, me lord?"
"As you see," Lord Darcy said, still scrutinizing the wood, "the rope goes up over the beam, here, and is held firmly at the far end, tied to the pipe that runs just below the window behind the desk. It might be possible that Lord Arlen was strangled, the rope put about his neck, and hauled up to the position in which he was found. In that case, the friction of the rope against the wood would displace the fibers of both in an upward and backward direction. But" He sighed and began climbing back down the ladder. "But no. The evidence is that he actually did drop from the end of that rope and was hanged."
"Would there have been time, my lord," Master Gwiliam asked, "to have hauled him up like that?"
"Possibly not, my dear Master Gwiliam, but every bit of evidence must be checked. If the fibers had showed friction the other direction, we might have been forced to recheck the timing."
"Thank you, my lord," said the plainclothes Master-at-Arms.
Lord Darcy went over to check the other end of the rope.
There was only one window in the office. Lord Arlen had liked dimness and quiet in his office, and one window was enough for him. It was directly behind his desk, and opened into a three-foot-wide air shaft that let in hardly any light, even at high noon. For illumination, his lordship had depended upon the usual gaslights, even in the daytime. They were all alight, but Lord Darcy, being his usual suspicious self, had sniffed the air for any signs of raw gas. There were none. Gas had nothing to do with the problem.
The window itself was of the usual double-hung type. To provide air flow, the upper lite was open about three inches. It was a high, narrow window, and the top of the casing was nine feet above the floor. The bottom pane was open about eight inches, and the end of the rope ran through it to tie to an exterior pipe about six inches from the bottom of the sill. It slanted up to the beam near the ceiling, and dropped to its fatal end.
A careful examination showed that the window had not been opened any farther than it was now; the whole apparatus had been varnished at least twice, and the varnish in the joints and cracks had almost sealed the window lites in place. That window hadn't been opened fully for years.
"Eight inches at the bottom and three inches at the top," Lord Darcy said thoughtfully. "Hardly enough room for a man to crawl through. And, aside from the door, there are no other ways in or out of this room." He looked at Master Sean. "None?"
"None, me lord," said the round little Irish sorcerer. "Master Gwiliam and meself have checked that over thoroughly. There's no hidden passages, no secret panels. Nothing of the like." He paused a moment, then said: "But there's no gloom."
Lord Darcy's gray eyes narrowed. "No gloom, Master Sean? Pray elucidate."
"Well, me lord, in a suicide's room, there is always a sense of gloom, of deep depression, permeating the walls. The kind of mental state a man has to be in to do away with himself nearly always leaves that kind of psychic impression. But there's no trace of that here."
"Indeed?" His lordship made a mental note. His gray eyes surveyed the room once more. "Very well. Cast a preservative spell over the body, Master Sean; I shall go out and get information from the witnesses."
"As you say, me lord," said Master Sean.
Lord Darcy headed for the library. "Come with me, Master Gwiliam," he said as he opened the door. The big Master-at-Arms followed.
In the library, five people were waiting, guarded by two husky Men-at-Arms wearing the black-and-silver uniforms of Keepers of the King's Peace. Three of the five were staff: the brown-haired, dark-eyed Damoselle Barbara; the round-faced, balding Goodman Wober; the lanky, nearsighted Goodman Andray. The fourth was Chief Editor Sir Stefan Imbry, a powerful, six-foot-four giant of a man. The fiftha bull-like brute with a hard, handsome facewas one that Lord Darcy did not know.
Sir Stefan came to his feet. "My lord, may I ask why we are being held here? I have a dinner engagement, and these others wish to go home. Why should His Royal Highness the Duke send your lordship to investigate such a routine business, anyway?"
"It's the law," said Lord Darcy, "as you, Sir Stefan, should well know. When a member of the aristocracy dies by violencewhether intentional, accidental, or self-inflictedit is mandatory that I enter the case. As for why you are being held here: I am an Officer of the King's Justice."
Sir Stefan paled a trifle.
Not out of fear, but out of profound respect. His Majesty, John IV, by the Grace of God, King and Emperor of England, France, Scotland, Ireland, New England and New France, King of the Romans and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Defender of the Faith, was the latest of the long line of Plantagenet kings who had ruled the Anglo-French Empire since the time of Henry II.
The reminder that Lord Darcy was a Royal Officer cooled even Sir Stefan Imbry's ire.
"Of course, my lord," he said in a controlled voice. "I was merely asking for information."
"And that is all I am doing, Sir Stefan," Lord Darcy said gently. "I am collecting information." He gestured. "My duty."
"Certainly, certainly," Imbry said hurriedly, and rather abashedly. "No offense intended." Imbry was used to giving orders around Mayard House, but he knew when to defer to a superior.
"And none taken," Lord Darcy said. "Now, as to information, who is this gentleman?" He indicated the fifth member of the waiting group, the heavily muscled, hard-faced, handsome man with the dark, curly hair.
Sir Stefan Imbry made the formal introduction as the man in question stood up. "My Lord Darcy, may I present Goodman Ernesto Norman, one of our finest authors. Goodman Ernesto, Lord Darcy, Chief Investigator for His Royal Highness."
Ernesto looked at Lord Darcy with smoldering brown eyes and gave a medium bow. "An honor, your lordship."
"The honor is mine," said Lord Darcy. "I have read several of your books. One day, if you are of a mind, I should like to discuss them with you."
"A pleasure, your lordship," Goodman Ernesto said as he sat down. But there was an undertone of surliness in his voice.
Lord Darcy looked about the huge room. It was richly appointed and spacious; the walls beneath an eighteen-foot ceiling were lined with well-filled bookcases ten feet high. Above the bookcases, the walls were decorated with swords, battleaxes, maces, and shields of various designs. Several helms sat upright on the top of the bookcases. Flanking the door were two suits of sixteenth-century armor, each holding in one gauntlet a fifteen-foot cavalry lance. The window draperies were heavy dark green velvet; the gas lamps were intricately shaped and gold plated.
The pause to survey the room was filled with silence. Lord Darcy had firmly established his authority.
He looked at Sir Stefan. "I know that you have gone through this several times already, but I must ask you to repeat it again" He glanced briefly at the other four. "all of you."
Master-at-Arms Gwiliam, standing near the door, unobtrusively took out his notebook to record the entire conversation in shorthand.
Sir Stefan Imbry looked grim and said: "I don't see the reason for such fuss over a suicide, my lord, but it seems"
"It was not suicide!" Damoselle Barbara's voice seemed to snap through the air.
Sir Stefan jerked his head around and looked at her angrily, but before he could speak, Lord Darcy said: "Let her speak, Sir Stefan!" Then, more softly: "Upon what do you base that statement, Damoselle?"
There were tears in her eyes, and she looked extraordinarily beautiful as she said, in a soft voice: "No material evidence. Nothing concrete that I could prove. Butas is well knownI have been My Lord Arlen's mistress for over a year. I know him. He would never have killed himself."
"I see," Lord Darcy said. "Do you have the Talent, Damoselle?"
"To a slight degree," she said calmly. "I have been tested for it. My Talent is above normal, but not markedly so."
"I understand," Lord Darcy said. "Then you have no evidence to give except your knowledge of his late lordship and your intuition?"
"None, my lord," she said in a subdued voice.
"Very well. I thank you, Damoselle Barbara. And now, Sir Stefan, if you will continue with your recitation."
Sir Stefan had calmed down, but Lord Darcy noticed that Ernesto Norman had given the Damoselle Barbara a suppressed glare of hatred.
Jealousy, Lord Darcy thought. Hard jealousy. A stupid reaction. The man needs a Healer.
Sir Stefan, looming tall and strong, began his story for the third time.
"At approximately half-past two . . ."
At approximately half-past two, Lord Arlen had come in from having luncheon at the Mayson du Shah and ignored a spiteful look from the Damoselle Barbara. She had been brought up in the north of England by rather straitlaced parents and did not understand that it was perfectly permissible for a gentleman to go to the Mayson du Shah for nothing but luncheon. She was used to the more staid English gentlemen's clubs of York or Carlisle.
"Where's Sir Stefan?" he snapped at Goodman Andray.
"Not come back from lunch yet, my lord," Andray said.
"Any other business waiting?"
"Goodman Ernesto is waiting for you, my lord. In the library."
"Ernesto Norman? He can wait. I'll let you know. Send Sir Stefan in as soon as he comes back."
Lord Arlen had stalked into his office.
At half-past two, he had bellowed sharply: "Barbara!"
She had, according to her testimony, said "Yes, my lord," and rushed into the inner office. He had, she said, been seated behind his desk. It was an impressive desk, some seven feet long by three feet wide. Behind it, Lord Arlen seemed impressively tall as he sat in his chairfor the very simple reason that his chair was elevated an extra six inches, and he had a six-inch-high footstool hidden beneath the desk. Anyone who sat in the guest chair, unless he was exceedingly tall, had to look up at Lord Arlen.
The Damoselle Barbara had, she said, gone into the office and stood at attention, as was proper, and said: "You called, my lord?"
Without looking up from the manuscript he was reading, he said, "Yes, my love, I did. Send in Ernesto."
"Yes, my lord." And she had gone to fetch the waiting author.
Goodman Ernesto Norman had been waiting in the library. Notified by the Damoselle Barbara that Lord Arlen would see him, he had strode angrily out, down the hall, and around to his lordship's office, and had walked in without knocking, slamming the door behind him.
Norman's testimony was: "I was ready to strangle the little jerk, my lord. Or slap him silly. Whichever was the handiest. I'd just read the galley proofs of my latest novel, A Knight of the Armies. The beak-faced little name-of-a-dog had butchered it! I told him I wouldn't have it published that way. He told me that he'd bought the rights and I had nothing to say about it. We exchanged words, I lost the argument, and I walked out."
The staff admitted that they had heard sharp voices, but none of them had heard any of the words.
Goodman Ernesto had slammed out of the inner office at fifteen minutes of three.
Sir Stefan Imbry had walked into the outer office as Norman had stormed out of the inner. The two ignored each other as Norman went on out.
"What the devil's eating him?" Sir Stefan had asked.
"Don't know, Sir Stefan," Goodman Wober had said. "His lordship asked you to report immediately you came in, sir."
Sir Stefan's testimony was that he had gone immediately into the office, where Lord Arlen was drinking caffewhich had been brought to him by Goodman Andray a few minutes before.
"It was just a short business conference, my lord," Sir Stefan said. "I was given instructions to the format of three books we will be publishing. Entirely routine stuff, but if you want the details, my lord . . ."
"Later, perhaps. Pray continue."
"I left his office at a minute or two after three. He always naps from three to four. I went to the Art Department to check on some book illustrations, then came in here to the library to do some research, checking some of the points in a book on magic we're publishing in the spring."
"A scholarly work?" Lord Darcy asked.
"It is. Psychologistics by Sir Thomas Leseaux, Th.D."
"Ah! An excellent man. Master Sean will be eager to obtain a copy."
Sir Stefan nodded. "The firm will be happy to supply him with two copies. Perhaps" His eyes brightened. "Perhaps Master Sean would consent to review it for the Rouen Times?"
"He might, if you approached him properly," Lord Darcy murmured. Then, more briskly: "You were here in the library, then, sir, when Lord Arlen was hanged?"
"I was, my lord."
"May I ask, then, how it was that you were apprised of the fact?" Lord Darcy was fairly certain that he knew the answer to the question, but he wanted to hear Sir Stefan's answer. "You were in the outer office, apparently, within seconds after theahunfortunate incident. How did you know of it?"
"I heard the noise, my lord," said Sir Stefan. He pointed toward a window on the north, shrouded with green velvet. As he pointed, he rose to his feet. "That window, my lord, opens directly to the air shaft."
He went over and moved the curtains aside. "As you see."
The air shaft outside the window was three feet wide. A yard away was the window of Lord Arlen's office. The window itself was partially open at top and bottom, as his lordship had noted previously. So was the library window. Lord Darcy tested it. Unlike the window in Lord Arlen's office, the lites slid up and down easily; they had not been varnished over.
"Master Sean?" Lord Darcy called in a normal conversational tone.
The Irish sorcerer's round face appeared from between the closed curtains on the other side. "Aye, me lord?"
"All going well?"
"Quite well, me lord."
"Very good. Carry on."
Lord Darcy drew the curtains to, turned, and faced the others in the flickering gaslight. "Very well, Sir Stefan; that explains that. One more question."
"Yes, my lord?"
"Why was it that when you rushed in to Lord Arlen's office and found him hangingyou did not cut him down? A simple flick of a pocketknife would have released the strangling tension of the rope around his throat, would it not? Instead, you untied the knot. Why?"
It was the Damoselle Barbara who answered. "You didn't know, my lord?"
Lord Darcy had expected that all eyes would have gone to Sir Stefan; instead, they had come to him. He recovered quickly.
"Elucidate, Damoselle," he said calmly.
"Lord Arlen was deathly afraid of sharp instruments," the girl said. "It was an obsession with him. He never went to the Art Department, for instance, because of the razor-sharp instruments they use for making paste-ups, and that sort of thing."
Lord Darcy's eyes narrowed. "He was, I believe, smooth-shaven?"
"Smooth, yes," she answered calmly. "Shaven, no. His barber used a depilatory wax which pulled the hairs out by the roots. It was painful, but he preferred it to being approached by a razor. He would not permit anyone near him to even carry a knife. We all obeyed."
"Not even a letter opener?" Lord Darcy asked.
"Not even a letter opener," she said. She gestured toward the walls above the bookcases that lined the room. "Look at those ancient weapons. Not one of them has an edge or a sharp point. Does that answer your question about Sir Stefan's cutting down My Lord Arlen?"
"Quite adequately, Damoselle," said Lord Darcy with a slight bow.
Great God! he thought. They all seem a little mad, and their late employer was the maddest of them all.
Seven o'clock. Nearly three hours had passed since Lord Arlen had died. Outside, the sky was dark and clouded, and the air held an autumn chill. Inside, in Lord Arlen's office, the gas lamps and the fireplace gave the room a summery warmth. The body of Lord Arlen, covered by a blanket and a preservative spell, rested silently.
Sean O Lochlainn, Master Sorcerer, stood in the soft gaslight and eyed the end of the fatal rope. Behind him, respectfully silent, stood Lord Darcy, Dr. Pateley, and Master-at-Arms Gwiliam.
After a moment, Master Sean bent over, opened his large, symbol-decorated carpetbag, and took out several items, including a silver-tipped ebon wand.
"There's no difficulty here, my lord," Master Sean said. "The psychic shock of sudden death has charged the hemp quite strongly." Master Sean liked to lecture, and when he assumed his pedagogical manner, his brogue faded to paleness. "The Law of Relevance is involved here; scientifically speaking, we have here a psychic force field which, given the proper impetus, will tend to return to its former state."
Then his wand moved in intricate curves, and his lips formed certain ritual syllables.
Gently, gracefully, the rope began to move. As if an unseen hand were guiding it, the hempen twist made itself into a loop. Quickly, smoothly, it tied itself. For half a second, it hung in the air, an almost perfect circle. Then, suddenly, it drooped limply.
"There you are, my lord," said Master Sean with a gesture.
Lord Darcy walked over and looked at the looped and knotted rope without touching it. "Interesting. A simple slip knot, not a hangman's knot." Without looking up, he added: "Master Gwiliam, may I borrow your measuring tape?"
The burly Master-at-Arms unclipped his tape measure from his belt and handed it to his lordship.
Lord Darcy measured the distance from the floor to the noose. Then he measured the overturned chair from the leg to the seat. Then, with all due reverence, he measured the corpse from heel to neck.
Finally, he said: "Dr. Pateley, you are the lightest of us, I think. What is your weight?"
"Ten stone, my lord," said the chirurgeon. "Perhaps a pound or two under."
"You'll do, Doctor. Grab hold of that rope and put your weight on it."
Dr. Pateley blinked. "My lord?"
"Take hold of the rope above the noose and lift your feet off the floor. That's it." He measured again. "Less than a quarter of an inch of stretch. That's negligible. You may let go now, Doctor. Thank, you."
Lord Darcy handed Master-at-Arms Gwiliam his tape measure back.
Lord Darcy tilted his head back and looked up at the overhead beam which held the rope. "A singularly foolish thing to do," he said, almost to himself.
"That's true, my lord," said Master Gwiliam. "I've always considered suicide to be a very foolish act. Besides, as someone once said, 'It's so permanent.' "
"I am not speaking of suicide, but of murder, my good Master-at-Arms. And it is equally permanent."
"Murder, me lord?" Master Sean O Lochlainn raised his eyebrows. "Well, if you say so. It's glad I am that I am not in the detective business."
"But you are, my dear Sean," Lord Darcy said with some surprise.
Master Sean grinned and shook his round Irish head. "No, me lord. I am a sorcerer. I'm a technician who digs up facts that ordinary observation wouldn't discover. But all the clues in the world don't help a man if he can't put them together to form a coherent whole. And that is your touch of the Talent, my lord."
"I?" Lord Darcy looked even more surprised. "I have no Talent, Sean. I'm no thaumaturge."
"Now, come, me lord. You have that touch of the Talent that all the really great detectives of history have hadthe ability to leap from an unwarranted assumption to a foregone conclusion without covering the distance between the two. You then know where to look for the clues that will justify your conclusion. You knew it was murder two hours ago, and you knew who did it."
"Well, of course! Those two points were obvious from the start. The question was not 'Who did it?' but 'How was it done?' " His lordship smiled broadly. "And now, naturally, the answer to that last question is plain as a pikestaff!"
"How are you so certain it was murder, my lord?" asked Master Gwiliam.
"For one thing, the measurements we have just made show that the late Lord Arlen's feet were seventeen inches off the ground when he was hanged. The seat of the chair is but eighteen inches from the floor. IfI say ifhe had put up that noose and then kicked the chair away, he would have dropped one inch. He would have been strangled, surely, no question of that. But you have seen the cruel marks of that deeply imbedded rope in the throat of his late lordship, and you have heard Dr. Pateley testify that the larynx was crushed. By the by, Doctor, was the neck broken?"
"No, my lord," said the chirurgeon. "Badly dislocatedstretched, as it werebut not broken."
"He was a light man," Lord Darcy continued. "Nine stone. A drop of one inch could not have done all that damage." He looked at Master Sean. "Therefore, you see, it didn't happen that way. All that was necessary was to use one's imagination to see how it might have happened, and then check the evidence to see if it did happen that way. The final step is to check the evidence to make sure it could not have happened any other way. Having done that, we shall be ready to make our arrest."
Fifteen minutes later, Lord Darcy, Master Sean, and Master Gwiliam entered the library, where four Men-at-Arms held the five suspects under guard. Master Sean, his symbol-decorated carpetbag in hand, stopped at the door, flanked by the pair of standing suits of armor with their fifteen-foot spears.
Sir Stefan Imbry, who had been reading a book, let it drop to the floor and stood up. "How much longer has this got to go on, Lord Darcy?" he asked angrily.
"Only a few minutes, Sir Stefan. We have nearly completed our investigation." All the eyes in the room, except for Master Sean's, were on his lordship.
Sir Stefan sighed. "Good. I'm glad it's over with, my lord. There will have to be a Coroner's Inquest, of course. I do hope the jury will be kind enough to bring in a verdict of 'Suicide while of unsound mind.' "
"I do not," said Lord Darcy. "It is my fond belief that they will decide that it was an act of premeditated murder and that they pray the Court of the King's High justice to try Sir Stefan Imbry for the crime."
Sir Stefan paled. "Are you mad?"
"Only at times. And this is not one of them."
The Damoselle Barbara gasped and said: "But Sir Stefan was nowhere near the office at the time!"
"Oh, but he was, Damoselle. He was here, in this room, alone, scarcely a dozen feet from where Lord Arlen was hanged. The whole procedure was quite simple. He went into Lord Arlen's office and slipped a drug into Lord Arlen's caffe. It is one of the more powerful, quick acting drugs. Within a few minutes, his lordship was unconscious. He affixed the rope to the pipe outside the window, threw the other end over the beam, and tied that end around Lord Arlen's neck in a slip knot."
"But the little snot wasn't hanged till an hour later," Goodman Ernesto Norman interrupted.
"True. Let me finish. Sir Stefan then put the unfortunate Lord Arlen's unconscious body up on that beam."
"Just a minute, your lordship," Goodman Ernesto interrupted again. "I have no love for Sir Stefan particularly, but, tall as he is, he couldn't have lifted Lord Arlen ten feet in the air, even if he stood on the chair. And there was no ladder in the office."
"An acute observation, Goodman Ernesto. But you failed to take into account the fact that there was another chair in the room. Lord Arlen's desk chair is a full twenty-four inches high, as opposed to the normal eighteen."
"An extra six inches?" Ernesto Norman shook his head. "Still wouldn't have done it. He'd need at least another six" He stopped suddenly. His eyes widened. "The footstool!"
"Exactly," Lord Darcy said. "Put that on top of the chair, and you have your needed six inches. I could almost do it myself, and Sir Stefan is taller than I. And nine stone is no great load for a strong man to lift."
"Even supposing I had done all that," said Sir Stefan through ashen lips, but with a controlled voice, "what am I supposed to have done next?"
"Why, my dear fellow, you left the officeafter replacing the desk chair and footstool behind the desk. And after quietly putting the guest chair on its side. Then you went out and did what you told us you did, knowing that no one would disturb Lord Arlen after three o'clock."
"But we heard the chair fall at four!" the Damoselle Barbara said in a hushed voice.
"No. By your own testimony, you heard a thump. But it was Sir Stefan's statement that he heard the chair fall that influenced your thinking. The thump you heard was the sound of the beam when the shock of Lord Arlen's body, dropping nearly four feet, slammed that rope against the wood."
The Damoselle Barbara closed her eyes and shuddered. The other two members of staff just sat silently and stared.
"You waited for an hour, Sir Stefan. Then, at four o'clock, you"
Lord Darcy stopped as he got a signal from Master Sean. "Yes, Master Sean?"
"This one, me lord. Definite." He jerked a thumb toward the suit of armor standing to the left of the door.
"That completes the investigation," Lord Darcy said with a hard smile. "You, Sir Stefan, took that fifteen-foot spear, whichlike every other weapon in herehas no edge or point, and used it to push Lord Arlen's body off the beam. Then you put the spear back in the gauntlet of the empty armor and went running to the office. You knew it would take some time to untie the knot, and you knew that by that time Arlen would be dead.
"But the whole thing was incredibly stupid. You were up against a dilemma. The problem was the length of the rope. If he dropped too far, his neck would break, and that would be inconsistent with an eighteen-inch chair. But if he only dropped far enough to strangle himself, his feet would have been higher off the floor than the seat of the chair. So you tried a middle road. But the stupid thing was that you did not see that the physical evidence could not, in any case, be reconciled."
Lord Darcy turned to Master Gwiliam. "Master-at-Arms Gwiliam de Lisle, I, as an Officer of the King's justice, request that you, as an Officer of the King's Peace, arrest this man upon suspicion of murder."
As the Men-at-Arms took the broken Sir Stefan off, the shocked Damoselle Barbara said: "But why, my lord? Why did he do it?"
"I checked at the Records Office on Lord Arlen's will before I came here," Lord Darcy told her. "He left half his interest in the firm to you, and half to Sir Stefan. He wanted control. Now you will get it all."
The Damoselle Barbara began to cry.
But Lord Darcy noticed that Goodman Ernesto Norman had a half smile on his face, as though he were thinking, Now I can get my novel published the way I wrote it.
Lord Darcy sighed. "Come, Master Sean. We have an appointment for dinner, and the hour grows late."