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XXX
I do not believe that my intervention can be qualified as a failure: I felt neither irritation, nor shame, nor rancor. I felt exclusively an imperious necessity to brush the mud away, to submerge myself in hot water, to feed upon salads and fruits, while sunken in a soft cushion, horsehair pillows, and clean sheets.
 I said astutely, "Gentlemen, let's return to the dining hall."
With this similitude of an invitation I directed them toward Andrea's domain. My hidden intent was to order my cousin to prepare my supper.
When my companions were seated around the narrow dining table, Aubry looked at us somberly and declared, "It pleases me to see us reunited around the vermouth."
I for my part suffered an impardonable weakness. I sat. I believed that such a statement prevented my retirement. (I was thinking, "I will get up in just a few minutes.") Immediately the typist arrived with the bottles and cups, and Manning began to speak.
There are people immune to the experience of others. Manning was one of them. Irritably I listened to him assert that he knew the truth about Mary's death.
I must recognize, however, that his explanation did not begin, as one would expect, with more or less satirical allusions to a fellow in arms whose literary imagination had in part led him astray. Urbanity or prudence?
"I already explained to these gentlemen," Manning began, signaling the commissioner and Montes, "that I went to the Hotel East End to look for a book. Here it is."
He took from his pocket a book whose multi-colored cover angularly combined green, purple, black and white. We passed it around, silently, without comprehension. I believe I remember its author was the English Phillpotts.
"Read the marked paragraph on page twenty," Manning went on.
The commissioner put on his tortoise-shell glasses and, moving his finger more rapidly than his eyes, he read aloud and hesitantly Mary's letter, her interrupted goodbye. But now that letter was one much longer, with details that could not apply to the relationship of Mary, Atwell and Emilia, and which ended on page 21 with the words, "Your grateful friend," signed by someone named Ben.
"What does this mean?" Aubry asked.
"It means," Manning replied, "that Inspector Atwell took one of the novels translated by young Mary to his lodgings."
He was silent, as if waiting for his words to annihilate us.
He continued, "Let's recapitulate. On the day before Mary died, two incidents took place which no doubt convinced the criminal that the time to act had come. On the beach Atwell was angry because Mary insisted on swimming in spite of the rough water. For the investigators this dispute will indicate that Atwell didn't want Mary dead. Let's look at the rescue. Emilia saved Mary. Therefore Emilia too had no wish for Mary to die. Another deduction awaits the insightful detective: Cornejo (who had given his consent for Mary's swim) is a possible, though still unlikely, suspect. But it remains to us to object to this whole line of reasoning because we have no proof that Mary was in danger. She herself denied it. Cornejo, an authority on winds and tides, considered it safe to swim. We have then the possibility that Emilia and Atwell were conspirators. I do not, however, believe that Emilia took part in the crime. In this maritime episode she was, perhaps, Atwell's hapless dupe. The movements of a person fighting against the waves to save herself often seem, to those watching from nearby, mere frolics and demonstrations of pleasure. The inverse is also true. Atwell had created a state of general apprehension about Mary's swim. Then, when he cried, "She can't make it back," no one doubted him, though the girl was still swimming away from shore. A longing for the melodramatic -- which the most adventurous life doesn't satisfy -- and a desire to cooperate, which proclaims -- across enmities and differences -- the secret brotherhood of man, prevents us from easily rejecting the notice that a neighbor is in danger. Dr. Huberman himself, whom it does not seem imprudent to exclude from the list of suspects and to consider an impartial witness, believed that Mary was drowning."
"And to think that we believed that Manning was the future solitair champion -- " Dr. Montes sighed.
"Let's look now," Manning continued, "at the after-dinner argument which ended with Emilia's nocturnal exit. Atwell showed himself to be conciliatory and equanimous; Emilia was offended by Mary. Normally these actions would serve to lessen the investigators' suspicion of Atwell and to make them suspect, at some moment, the girl."
Aubry looked at Manning with astonishment and gulped two pieces of cheese, three olives and a cup of vermouth.
Manning resumed, "We arrive at young Mary's death. As the commissioner has pointed out, the inspector indeed did not lack motives, the same as Emilia's, but he had no occasion. The death occurred in the wee hours of the morning, when he was not here: he was asleep, in his room at the Hotel New East End. I dare to suggest that this point gains strength more by its brilliance than its consistency. If the crime had been committed with a firearm, the commissioner would be correct: but poison was used. When Dr. Cornejo came down to look for Miss Emilia, Atwell could have put the poison into the cup of chocolate on the night table."
"I told you, Commissioner," Montes interrupted. "You were so keen to examine motives and opportunities that the case at hand was forgotten."
I was categorical. "The commissioner's analyses remain sound."
"When Atwell," Manning said, "found that page from the translation, probably a draft, of Phillpotts' book, he understood that he now had at hand the 'proof' that would allow him to murder with impunity. Later, on the night of the crime, he left the page on the table, next to the manuscript of Mary's new translation. That same night, or the following morning, he took the book itself from the library so that nobody could show that Mary's message was simply a paragraph from a novel. I found the page on the table; no doubt Atwell had arranged for the discovery to be inevitable. I confess that while I was reading those hand-written lines, not fully understanding what I read, I was deeply moved. I believed that I saw there the shameful brilliance of the truth; and perhaps I saw my triumph in our inquiry. I spoke to Atwell. He did not seem enthused about my theory; in order to excite him I excited myself. He said that he did not want to intervene personally in the matter but that he would try to help me. He brought me an English novel the young lady was translating at the time; I read it; between the two of us we read the novels she had already translated. Atwell had directed my manner of thinking, and I thought and worked in accordance with his intent. But he, through I know not what naivete of his egotism, made a mistake: he felt sure that I would stop asking questions when I reached a predetermined (and favorable for him) interpretation of the situation. I did not."
I recalled the spider that Manning had put in the window and the web it had elaborated in three days.
Manning proceeded, "I believe I understand Atwell's plan: certain indications, not many, would suggest Emilia's guilt. When the policemen, in their eagerness to catch the guilty, were satisfied with those evidences and were disposed to arrest the young lady, he would indirectly make sure the proofs of suicide appeared. He was confident that the investigators would see that solution as definitive. Indeed they would arrive at that solution laboriously, after accepting the other hypothesis avidly and abandoning it only reluctantly. But Atwell had not counted upon Commissioner Aubry's thoughtful methodology: building the case by means of a harsh interrogation. This and the commissioner's determined resolution to find Emilia guilty spoiled those reflective and ambitious designs. The man was not terribly scrupulous. In order to get out of an uncomfortable situation -- his love for his fiancee's sister -- he turned to murder, but he was unable to allow the police to torture, and perhaps condemn, Emilia for his own guilt. He began then to behave nerviously, at the mercy of circumstance. I offer as an example the theft of the jewels. The robbery never occurred. It was a sham he created to throw suspicion elsewhere. (Emilia didn't need to steal the jewels: she would inherit them.) He ran the risk of setting up the suggestion of two criminals: a murderer and a thief. But there are only a few of us here, and the idea of one criminal among us is astonishing enough. If someone tried to convince us there were two, we wouldn't believe it. When Cornejo found the boy with the deceased, Atwell took advantage of it. Perhaps he thought the boy's soul was monstruous, and he could get away with attributing yet another monstrosity to him. I understand him, but I don't forgive him. For that reason I, who am not a policeman, offer these explanations that may well cause him harm. Maybe I seem to be intruding and behaving cruelly, but we ought not forget that Atwell speculated about the boy's pathological sensibilities, as well as his tendencies toward flight, his passions and his fears.
"It may be that the best thing I can say about Atwell is that, in his desperation to save his beloved, he moved too fast. This also explains his attempt against Cornejo. The typist had entered the room after the boy's kiss and before Atwell removed the jewels. Presumably she had seen the jewels and would declare that Miguel had not taken them. When the commissioner told us that he was ready to take Dr. Cornejo's and the typist's statements, Atwell made his move against the former. By doing so he was attempting to distract us from the typist and make us think that Cornejo was the important witness. In judging Atwell, let's not be too harsh. His intent was to knock Atwell out, not to kill him. As regards the latter's note to Mary, there isn't much to say. Atwell found it, kept it purposefully (which is why the policemen didn't find it when they first searched the room), and returned it to Mary's room when he wanted to stir up confusion and create a false trail. But let's continue with the story.
"When Atwell learned that I had used a pretext to leave the hotel, he deduced the truth. He immediately organized the rescue teams and, along with Dr. Huberman, headed for the New East End. There he discovered that the Phillpotts book, the book which would prove that Mary's message was simply a passage from a translation, was gone. Perhaps he used the trip to take the jewels as well. Perhaps we crossed paths on the beach. The storm saved my life. I dare say that if he had surprised me out there he would have accused me of his friend's murder before killing me."
Dr. Montes asked, "Why would Atwell want to kill Mary?"
Commissioner Aubry looked wide-eyed at Montes. "Reasons for murder are never lacking," he replied. "Our Dr. Huberman sketched out for me a suggestive portrait of young Mary. It would not be the first time a man has loved one woman and been dominated by another."
I asked Manning, as though he held the book of destinies in his hands, where Atwell was. He answered indifferently, "Fleeing, or killing himself, in the crab-grounds."
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