“Yes, a few times at parties,” Peter said. “Though I must say I quite often tried to avoid the man, finding him hideously conceited, with only one subject of conversation—himself.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Seven years ago,” Peter said. “Why do you ask?”

“When Godfrey spoke to you through the door at the hotel, did you recognize his voice?”

“What a peculiar question,” Peter said, clearly taken aback. “One simply assumed that one was talking to him because it was his room.” He paused. “I cannot be absolutely certain that it was indeed Godfrey I conversed with, given the circumstances. There is the additional fact that the man claimed to be ill, and I did detect what I thought was a note of strain in his voice.”

“But you can’t swear that it was actually Godfrey on the other side of the door?”

Justin hadn’t said anything about Godfrey’s feeling ill, and surely he would have noticed. It wouldn’t have been easy for Godfrey to conceal a stomach bug of some kind from his son if he had to rush off to the bathroom periodically.

“No, I cannot,” Peter said. “But if it was not Godfrey with whom I spoke, then who was it?”

“It might have been the murderer,” I said.

Peter turned so white I thought he was going to faint. I started to get up to attend to him, but he rallied enough to say, “No, thank you, I’m all right. Just a bit of a shock, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” I said. “It’s a shock to me, too. But the more I think about it, the more inclined I am to believe that Godfrey was already dead when you went to the hotel.” I kept my eye on him. If he was the murderer, he was putting on quite an act to convince me otherwise. I couldn’t see him as a killer unless he were talking someone to death.

The problem was, I couldn’t see anyone—at the moment—as a killer, but someone had murdered Godfrey.

“I must say, that is quite an unsettling notion.” Peter was slowly regaining some color—not that he had much to begin with, poor man. “To have been that close to the perpetrator of such a vicious act—well, the mind frankly boggles, as I am certain you can understand.”

“I can,” I said. “Now you have to tell the deputy about what you did. She’ll probably draw the same conclusion.” Or at least, she should, I amended silently. Kanesha might be a pain in the neck sometimes, but she was bright.

“Yes, I will,” Peter said.

“Good. I’ll leave you then,” I said, and once again I made it to the door. But the memory of why I had come down to see Peter surfaced, and I turned back.