“Quite a foolish decision, in my opinion. Those chairs were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I would have made him a very good deal on the set. Now I have the set of chairs but no table to go with them.” He shrugged and lifted his brows, and Phyllida noticed his attention straying to the piecrust table again. “But that’s certainly not a reason to murder someone,” he added pleasantly.

Inspector Cork went on. “Have you ever had one of Mr. Whittlesby’s special cocktails?”

“I? No, of course not. And I’ve no interest in doing so. An excellent port, or a full-bodied Bordeaux for me, if you please. Perhaps even a glass of champagne on occasion, such as tonight,” he said with a smile that displayed straight white teeth below a very thin, carefully trimmed mustache.

“But you know about Mr. Whittlesby’s special cocktail?” Cork went on.

“Of course I do. Anyone who’s in Alastair Whittlesby’s presence for longer than ten minutes has heard about his trip to New Orleans and his stay at the Hotel Monteleone and how he was introduced to the drink. One would think they’d invented it for him, the way he goes on about it. He has to order in some of the ingredients specially from over there, did you know? I mean to say, I don’t mind buying foreign—French, of course—for my wine or cognac, but something as mundane as bitters? Seems a big bother over nothing, if you ask me—but that’s how Alastair is. He’s not got a title—it went to a cousin or whatnot somehow—but the family has got some money, and a little more from his wife, so he’s got to act like he’s better than anyone else. Can’t be that much money if he works, though.”

“Did you have anything to drink tonight besides champagne?” asked Cork. “Anything that you ordered from the bar?”

“I did have a whisky, neat, of course, and, yes, it was from the bar,” replied Mr. Genevan. He looked around the sitting room, his eyes traveling slowly over the furnishings. “A terrible shame, it is, about Father Tooley. Absolutely awful,” he said. “I mean to say, it’s one thing to write about such things happening—which, of course, we all do—but to experience it firsthand . . . Why I thought it was only part of the entertainment tonight. That we detective writers were to solve our own puzzle about who amongst us was a killer. But it’s real,” he said.

His voice dropped grimly and the last bit of malice evaporated from his expression. “Fancy that—one of the murder writers is really a killer.”

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 5