Chapter 37: The 1924 Train Murder Case (10)

“Yes. If two people are in it together, they’d be even better at giving false testimony.”

The crowd erupted in noisy debate.

“If you have any questions, you may raise them later.” Everyone had assumed their sharp questioning would throw Eli off balance. Yet to their surprise, Eli only answered lightly, and their pointed queries seemed to dissolve in the air.

It was as if their hammers had struck nothing but cotton, leaving them with a peculiar and stifling sense of frustration.

“Next. Mr. Gill.”

Author Gill, feather pen in hand, glanced at Eli with exasperation.

“I’ve forgotten exactly when I boarded the train,” Gill said, a trace of indifference in his tone. “Writers, once they put pen to paper, lose all sense of time. Ever since I sat down, I’ve been working on the articles the newspaper needs for next month.”

“I swear, since getting on this train, I haven’t shifted so much as a hair. I’ve been quietly writing the whole time! These manuscripts are important—I must finish them on schedule!”

“Is there anyone who can vouch for you?”

“The painter Hunt, who sits opposite me, can testify. Though, there was a five to fifteen minute period during which he left his seat.”

Now that he’d been volunteered as a witness, Hunt could only nod. “It’s probably as Mr. Gill says. But there was a stretch when I wasn’t at my seat, so I can’t fully account for Mr. Gill’s whereabouts.”

“Oh? Then Mr. Hunt, could you tell us where you were during the time you couldn’t account for Mr. Gill?” Eli’s words carried an undercurrent of suspicion.

Hunt, picking up on this, flushed with agitation. “Where else do you think I went? Of course, I went to the lavatory to clean my paint palette!”

“You all know I’m an artist, invited to the London Exhibition! Quite a few aristocrats have taken a shine to my oils. But thanks to the clumsy Mr. Gill, who spilled black ink on one of my paintings, I had to touch up and revise my precious work at the last minute.”

“Oil paint has to be thinned with turpentine. But Mr. Gill, out of jealousy, knocked over what little turpentine I had left, which forced me to wash some of my clothes in the lavatory…”

“Oh, heaven knows, I really don’t want to run into Mr. Gill again. As long as he’s around, my luck is abysmal! I’ve never caught a break!”

All eyes followed Hunt’s gesture toward his blue overalls, where indeed, a blotch of paint was visible.

Lady Ottilia spoke up, displeased. “But you didn’t even manage to get that stain out of your clothes.”

Mr. Hunt bristled at the criticism, his face turning red, neck straining like an aggressive white goose extending its long neck.

“You really have no common sense. Turpentine stains can only be removed with alcohol or gasoline. Mr. Mackey, didn’t I just try to borrow some alcohol from you to clean my clothes? The London Exhibition is for respectable people—they won’t accept an exhibitor who looks disheveled... But none of you had any! Heaven help me, without alcohol for my laundry, my journey will be a disaster!”

Hunt certainly appeared wronged.

But then Tang Mu asked, “So you were in the first-class carriage the whole time?”

“No,” Bassaromu replied coolly. “There was a period when he was gone. And everyone knows you can’t bring alcohol on the train. Even if Mr. Hunt asked every passenger, he wouldn’t have found what he needed.”

“So, knowing full well he couldn’t clean his overalls, Mr. Hunt still left his seat, pretending to go to the lavatory. For a stretch of time, he disappeared from our sight. He must have done something else during that interval.”

“Such as fetching a steel utensil from the dining car? After all, the fatal wound in the victim’s abdomen was a downward stab. Yet the blood-stained weapon wasn’t found at the scene.”

Hunt, now the object of suspicion, turned red with anger. “Why would you suspect me? Just because I left my seat?”

He puffed up indignantly. “Is it so strange for an artist not to know you can’t bring alcohol on the train? In an artist’s world, there’s nothing but painting.”

“As for sneaking into the dining car to take a fork—nonsense! I don’t even have afternoon tea at three o’clock!”

“But Mr. Hunt, even if you don’t take afternoon tea, you must be very familiar with your materials and how to clean them. Oil-based products are always strictly checked during security inspections. If you often travel by train, it’s impossible not to know this,” Tang Mu pointed out.

Finding himself unable to explain further, Hunt simply gave up and decided to pass the blame elsewhere.

“What about Mr. Gill then? If I left my seat for a while, then no one can vouch for Gill’s innocence either. After all, the victim was right behind him. If he had a needle in hand, he could have turned and injected it into the victim’s neck, couldn’t he?”

“And Miss Tang Mu and Lady Ottilia—both had forks on their tables for cake. No one said the murder weapon had to come from the dining car. There are plenty of deadly implements right here in the first-class compartment.”

Those named were incensed, with Gill the angriest of all. Even a blind man could see there was bad blood between him and Hunt.

“Hunt, I wonder if you’ve been kicked in the head by a mule. Did you not notice the strangest thing about this corpse is the nine-millimeter bullet wound in its chest?”

Perhaps because he often read detective fiction, Gill now displayed a startling gift for logic and a keen intuition.

“I suspect this bullet matches the Webley .38 L9A1 revolver owned by Mr. Bassaromu. But how did this bullet get here? And how was it brought aboard the train? Only Mr. Bassaromu himself could answer that.”

To protect himself, Gill directed suspicion toward Bassaromu, the most dangerous person present.

Perhaps because they thought he might be armed, nobody dared confront Bassaromu directly.

Yet, while everyone else was tense, Bassaromu remained calm. “Suspect me? As I’ve said, my revolver is merely a collector’s item.”

“Then can you hand it over for us to inspect?” ventured Ottilia’s butler, cradling her dog, his voice cautious. “Such things are dangerous—you can’t just claim they’re safe.”

“Rather than fuss over my gun, why not explain where the missing knife and fork have gone?” Bassaromu replied coldly. “We don’t know the victim’s identity. We don’t know the motive. And yet you’re already calculating who’s the murderer? Utterly absurd!”