ten.”
“That suggestion is at least a seven,” he countered.
I flapped a hand. “Two and I am being generous. First, she did have a possible relationship in the Alpenwald with a minor member of the royal family—Duke Maximilian of Lokendorf—”
Stoker’s crow of triumph broke into my narrative. Naturally, I ignored him and carried on, raising my voice only slightly.
“Say what you like but it fits the facts,” I protested. “The badge discovered in Alice’s hand was that of her murderer—and I know who he was.”
Stoker blinked in astonishment. “The devil you do.”
I gave a little sigh of pleasure. “The moustachioed man.” I nodded towards the newspaper. “Read on. Miss Butterworth was most thorough, but even she failed to deduce the likeliest explanation—that the mysterious man on the mountain was there for one purpose that morning: murder.”
“More likely her editors were afraid of drawing a costly lawsuit,” Stoker replied.
Stoker read through the piece, his brows drawing further and lower with every line. When he had finished, he prowled through the rest of the cuttings, laying them side by side in a sort of timeline as he came to the end of each. “All right, let us suppose, for just a moment, that what you have said is possible—that Alice was murdered and that the summit badge was stolen because it provides a clue. That gets us no closer to discovering who this person might have been.”
“Of course it does!” I enumerated the points on my fingers. “First, someone else’s badge in Alice’s dead hand means that the murderer must have been a climber, a proposition that is further confirmed by the presence of the moustachioed man on the mountain that day, our possible murderer. Second, only an experienced climber would have known how to tamper with the ropes at just the correct spot to ensure she fell to her death. Third, why else steal the rope and badge from the club if not to conceal the fact that it was murder and that the killer was a mountaineer? Altogether, this means that our villain must have been someone who not only climbs but knew of the existence of the badge and rope in Alice’s effects. In short, my dear Stoker, it was an Alpenwalder.”
“Not necessarily,” he said slowly.
“You are determined to be difficult.”
“It is a poor scientist who is so attached to her theory that she cannot entertain criticism of it,” he countered.
“Very well. Go on.”
“If it were an alpinist who killed her—and I do concede that only a skilled climber could have ascended to the devil’s staircase in order to dispatch her—then yes, the badge and rope might offer clues as to the murderer’s identity. But it does not necessarily follow that the murderer was an Alpenwalder.”
“The description fits Duke Maximilian,” I protested.
“The description of a man of mystery and moustaches also fits Douglas Norton.”
“Perhaps,” I admitted.
He gave a snort and produced the cutting with Norton’s photograph. “Moustaches. And slender.”
I pulled a face.
“Don’t pout, Veronica. It does not suit a woman of your age.” He grinned.
I thought a moment, then gave him a triumphant look. “Douglas Norton could not have known the badge and rope would be in the effects sent to the club. Only someone in the Alpenwald would have known that.”
He rolled his eyes. “The exhibition is a celebration of Alice Baker-Greene’s lifetime as an alpinist. It is a reasonable expectation it would include artifacts from her last climb.”
“Possibly.”
He grinned again. “So, we are in agreement insofar as we believe it is possible that Alice was the victim of a calculated and deliberate murder, carried out by a man with moustaches and climbing experience.”
“Correct.”
“But how does that fit with the theft of the items from the club?” he asked, stroking his chin thoughtfully. He had shaved, imperfectly as usual, and there was a blue-black shadow at his jaw. With his long, tumbled ebony locks and the glint of gold hoops in his ears, he bore a striking resemblance to an Elizabethan buccaneer, even more so when he donned the eye patch he occasionally wore to rest the eye that had been injured in a dispute with a jaguar. (Stoker, I should mention, emerged wounded and scarred from the fight but very much alive, which is more than one can say for the jaguar.)
In any event, surveying his physical charms was a distraction I could not afford, I told myself sternly. I had a murderer to catch.
I clipped the last article I had unearthed and placed it with the other