"DERLETH, August - The Adventure of the Three Red Dwarves (A Solar Pons story)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Derleth August)

"Then Brighton deliberately blocked our investigation," put in Jamison.

"I fear he did," agreed Pons. "But his work was clumsily done; any amateur could see through it."

"Yet I did not."

"Well, it's really quite elementary," said Pons. "At the outset, it should be perfectly obvious that the author of that article in the paper was not Lane at all, but Brighton, and that the subject had nothing at all to do with the man Estenham but concerned Lane. Note the curious point of the name of the subject, Pain--what more similar in mockery to Lane? Then too, throughout the entire article the parallelism of character between Pain and Lane is too obvious. There was no note from Estenham, of course, but Brighton rather cleverly invented this point to befog the police."

Jamison looked uncomfortable.

"Couple this fact with what we knew at the outset. It was certainly inconceivable that Lane should want to break the harmony of his room by introducing red figures; this struck me at once. Then I thought of the reputed violence of Lane's temper, and when I read the article itself, my suspicions were definitely formulated and I lacked only the proof, which I already had in my pocket. Now that I've cleaned the figures, I have ascertained that on one of them there is still evidence of a blood-stain."

"Then it was this that made the bruises on Lane's body," Jamison cut in.

Pons nodded.

"But if the entire matter was an accident, why should Brighton strike him like that--assuming it was Brighton who inflicted the bruises?"

"It was," Pons assented. "That, however, is equally elementary. You have only to recall Lane's violent temper and imagine what a rage he flew into when he discovered that the author of the satiric article was Brighton. He found this out and rushed home immediately to take issue with Brighton. He was in a violent temper, naturally. Brighton was probably not in the garden at all, but was somewhere in the house. By the time that Lane had his outer clothing off, Brighton had heard him, and he came into the room where we found the body, wondering what had brought Lane home. Thus it was that the child next door heard the struggle that followed and Brighton did not, because Brighton was there, in the room.

"At the moment that Brighton entered the room, Lane undoubtedly caught up the first weapon that came to hand--his stiletto. Brighton instinctively moved to protect himself, and took up the only weapon within his reach, one of the little manikins on the mantel behind him. He had no wish to injure Lane, knowing that the violence of his temper passed quickly, but he did not want to be slashed if he could help it. Therefore, he struck at Lane's left hand--Lane was left-handed--hoping to disarm him. When this was not effective, most probably Brighton seized hold of Lane's left hand, dropping the manikin, and struggled with him--the result was the first wound inflicted on Lane.

"Undoubtedly, in the course of the struggle, Lane pressed Brighton pretty hard, and Brighton clung all the while to Lane's left hand, so that in the end, when Brighton was forced to the wall, it was pure accident that the stiletto impaled Lane. You probably noticed in your examination of the body that the left arm was twisted toward the stiletto; I daresay that's as good a point as any--it strikes me as more or less throwing the weight of evidence on the fact that Lane's hand was clasped about the weapon when it entered his heart. And then it is needless for me to say, I suppose, Lane must have fallen near the dwarf that Brighton had dropped, so that it became blood-stained.

"Of course, it's clear that, after his first fright, Brighton became calculatingly cool; the man who wrote the monograph on chess emerged then, and laid elaborate plans to foil an investigation. And in this he might well have succeeded, had his artistic leanings not bidden him keep the figures, the one of which was so blood-stained that he could not wash it all away, by painting them.

"His motivation in hiding the facts was, naturally enough, the fear that the facts might be misconstrued."

Pons paused and lit his pipe.

"You might take the manikins back to him, Jamison," he added. "And pray don't think of prosecuting Brighton, for a capable barrister will efficiently clear Brighton of all blame in the matter, especially since there is Lane's previous record to bring forward."