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Chapter 15
I
Three people sat eating breakfast in the kitchen.
Outside, the sun shone. It was a lovely day. The storm was a thing of the
past.
And with the change in the weather, a change had come in the mood of
the prisoners on the island.
They felt now like people just awakening from a nightmare. There was
danger, yes, but it was danger in daylight. That paralysing atmosphere of
fear that had wrapped them round like a blanket yesterday while the
wind howled outside was gone.
Lombard said:
‘We’ll try heliographing today with a mirror from the highest point of
the island. Some bright lad wandering on the cliff will recognize SOS when
he sees it, I hope. In the evening we could try a bonfire—only there isn’t
much wood—and anyway they might just think it was song and dance and
merriment.’
Vera said:
‘Surely someone can read Morse. And then they’ll come to take us off.
Long before this evening.’
Lombard said:
‘The weather’s cleared all right, but the sea hasn’t gone down yet. Ter-
rific swell on! They won’t be able to get a boat near the island before to-
morrow.’
Vera cried:
‘Another night in this place!’
Lombard shrugged his shoulders.
‘May as well face it! Twenty-four hours will do it, I think. If we can last
out that, we’ll be all right.’
Blore cleared his throat. He said:
‘We’d better come to a clear understanding. What’s happened to Arm-
strong?’
Lombard said:
‘Well, we’ve got one piece of evidence. Only three little soldier boys left
on the dinner-table. It looks as though Armstrong had got his quietus.’
Vera said:
‘Then why haven’t you found his dead body?’
Blore said:
‘Exactly.’
Lombard shook his head. He said:
‘It’s damned odd—no getting over it.’
Blore said doubtfully:
‘It might have been thrown into the sea.’
Lombard said sharply:
‘By whom? You? Me? You saw him go out of the front door. You come
along and find me in my room. We go out and search together. When the
devil had I time to kill him and carry his body round the island?’
Blore said:
‘I don’t know. But I do know one thing.’
Lombard said:
‘What’s that?’
Blore said:
‘The revolver. It was your revolver. It’s in your possession now. There’s
nothing to show that it hasn’t been in your possession all along.’
‘Come now, Blore, we were all searched.’
‘Yes, you’d hidden it away before that happened. Afterwards you just
took it back again.’
‘My good blockhead, I swear to you that it was put back in my drawer.
Greatest surprise I ever had in my life when I found it there.’
Blore said:
‘You ask us to believe a thing like that! Why the devil should Armstrong,
or anyone else for that matter, put it back?’
Lombard raised his shoulders hopelessly.
‘I haven’t the least idea. It’s just crazy. The last thing one would expect.
There seems no point in it.’
Blore agreed.
‘No, there isn’t. You might have thought of a better story.’
‘Rather proof that I’m telling the truth, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t look at it that way.’
Philip said:
‘You wouldn’t.’
Blore said:
‘Look here, Mr Lombard, if you’re an honest man, as you pretend—’
Philip murmured:
‘When did I lay claims to being an honest man? No, indeed, I never said
that.’
Blore went on stolidly:
‘If you’re speaking the truth—there’s only one thing to be done. As long
as you have that revolver, Miss Claythorne and I are at your mercy. The
only fair thing is to put that revolver with the other things that are locked
up—and you and I will hold the two keys still.’
Philip Lombard lit a cigarette.
As he puffed smoke, he said:
‘Don’t be an ass.’
‘You won’t agree to that?’
‘No, I won’t. That revolver’s mine. I need it to defend myself—and I’m
going to keep it.’
Blore said:
‘In that case we’re bound to come to one conclusion.’
‘That I’m U. N. Owen? Think what you damned well please. But I’ll ask
you, if that’s so, why I didn’t pot you with the revolver last night? I could
have, about twenty times over.’
Blore shook his head.
He said:
‘I don’t know—and that’s a fact. You must have had some reason.’
Vera had taken no part in the discussion. She stirred now and said:
‘I think you’re both behaving like a pair of idiots.’
Lombard looked at her.
‘What’s this?’
Vera said:
‘You’ve forgotten the nursery rhyme. Don’t you see there’s a clue there?’
She recited in a meaning voice:
‘Four little soldier boys going out to sea;
A red herring swallowed one and then there were Three.’
She went on:
‘A red herring—that’s the vital clue. Armstrong’s not dead…He took away
the china soldier to make you think he was. You may say what you like—
Armstrong’s on the island still. His disappearance is just a red herring
across the track…’
Lombard sat down again.
He said:
‘You know, you may be right.’
Blore said:
‘Yes, but if so, where is he? We’ve searched the place. Outside and in-
side.’
Vera said scornfully:
‘We all searched for the revolver, didn’t we, and couldn’t find it? But it
was somewhere all the time!’
Lombard murmured:
‘There’s a slight difference in size, my dear, between a man and a re-
volver.’
Vera said:
‘I don’t care—I’m sure I’m right.’
Blore murmured:
‘Rather giving himself away, wasn’t it? Actually mentioning a red her-
ring in the verse. He could have written it up a bit different.’
Vera cried:
‘But don’t you see, he’s mad? It’s all mad! The whole thing of going by the
rhyme is mad! Dressing up the judge, killing Rogers when he was chop-
ping sticks—drugging Mrs Rogers so that she overslept herself—arranging
for a bumble bee when Miss Brent died! It’s like some horrible child play-
ing a game. It’s all got to fit in.’
Blore said:
‘Yes, you’re right.’ He thought a minute. ‘At any rate there’s no zoo on
the island. He’ll have a bit of trouble getting over that.’
Vera cried:
‘Don’t you see? We’re the Zoo…Last night, we were hardly human any
more. We’re the Zoo…’
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