Eleanor said, “Of course, Mr. Dennis,” but her manner seemed to freeze a little. Dennis said eagerly, “As a matter of fact, I d-do believe we’re getting near the end. We’re evolving a new theory, and I believe we’re on the right lines at last.”
Eleanor said, “I wish you would tell me,” so he repeated Nanny Finch’s story of the tramp and the half-crown. “So you s-see where that leads us to,” he said, urgently. “Of course, we shall have to ask about the half-crown. I thought I might go d-down to the station in the morning. It was pure luck discovering that, because the old woman said she hadn’t s-spoken of it to anyone, so it’ll be n-news for them.”
Eleanor said in an amazed voice, “You mean, you think he was murdered before the party began?” and Dennis replied, “That’s the new theory, and I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the true one.”
And not a word about me or Jeremy, if you please. Calmly taking the credit, stammering in his excitement. I was astounded.
“Did you ever hear anything so cool?” I whispered, in some indignation. “Bouncing us completely.”
Jeremy shook with laughter. “Don’t grudge him the credit,” he whispered back. “Promotion may depend on it for him.”
Dennis was still talking. “Dear old lady,” he said, and his voice was as complacent as the purr of a cream-fed cat. “She’d no notion how much she was helping us with her story of her terrible fright.”
“Did you tell her?” Eleanor asked.
“Oh, no. She said she d-didn’t want a lot of interfering policemen bustling about her house. We didn’t want to frighten her.”
Then the door of the library opened and Dennis came in. “I say,” he began, a little apologetically, “I hope you don’t either of you mind, but I ran into Lady Nunn just now, and she seemed so upset about all this m-mystery that I told her about the half-crown, just to reassure her. I d-don’t think she’ll repeat it, and, of course, if there is anything in these suspicions of ours, the whole yarn is b-bound to come out.”
Jeremy said heartily, “My dear chap, broadcast it from the dome of St. Paul’s, if you think it would serve our purpose.” I wondered if the fellow was afraid of losing caste with Hilary if he didn’t occupy the spotlight. Then Eleanor came in saying, “What a beautiful fire! Oh, Mr. Dennis, were you writing? and am I interrupting you? I was going to suggest it was time for a drink before the dressing-bell goes.”
“It’s quite all right,” Dennis assured her, drawing his writing-pad towards him, “I was only f-filling in time… By the way, I wonder if I could have m-my drink in here, and then I could get this letter finished to-night?”
Eleanor said Certainly, and Jeremy and I went down to the lounge where Nunn and Mrs. Ross had already begun their cocktails. Hilary joined us and we named our respective drinks—Hook mixed the best cocktail I ever remember having anywhere—and Eleanor told him to take Dennis’s to the library.
“He’s writing letters,” she added explanatorily to her husband. “Oh, and Hook, he has some visitors coming presently. Show them into the library when they arrive.”
Hook said, “Yes, your Ladyship,” and went on mixing drinks. We dropped into casual conversation with one another. Nunn said he believed some neighbouring farmer was being accused of shooting foxes, and there was a devil of a row going on locally. Mrs. Ross said she believed Dennis was a policeman in disguise and was engaged in solving the murder under cover of being a guest at the Abbey. Nunn said he didn’t much mind who solved it, so long as the affair was concluded. Mrs. Ross said she knew something of men, and when one went around as Dennis was doing at present, as pleased as a monkey with two tails, you might know he had something up his sleeve. Hilary fired up, saying, “If you mean that Arthur had a hand in Ralph’s being killed, or in anything else discreditable, you can put the idea out of your head. You’ve only got to look at him to see he’s good.”
After the first moment of stark astonishment Nunn asked, a trifle grimly, “Does that imply, Hilary, that you’ve made up your mind at last about your suitors?”
Hilary blinked and said nothing (I believe she was shy), and the irrepressible Mrs. Ross exclaimed, rather scornfully, “Mind! The child’s got no more mind than a weathercock that points in a different direction every day of the week.”
Jeremy came to the rescue, saying affectionately, “And what could be nicer? You’d never have a chance of becoming bored, or of living in a stale atmosphere. Nothing wears a man down more than feeling he’s got into a rut, and the atmosphere will never change. If you ask me, Dennis is a very lucky chap, and I hope he realises it.”
“Oh, you young men!” said Mrs. Ross. “No wonder the girl’s unsettled. What chance does she get among the lot of you? You encourage her at every turn, in every new vagary she likes to indulge in. I suppose if she robbed the Bank of England you’d find some excuse for her.”
“I should admire her flair,” said Nunn gravely, and then Dennis’s visitors arrived. One of them I knew slightly by sight, a tall, raw-boned chap called Whistler, one of these chaps with independent means who start on a career and then drift into experimenting. Whistler had been a slum doctor at one time, but now he burnt the candle at both ends, no one quite knew to what purpose. However, he played a handsome game of bridge, which made him comparatively popular. The other man was a complete stranger to me.
Hook took them along to the library, and we continued our personalities. Mrs. Ross and Jeremy were capping one another’s tall stories, Nunn and Eleanor were discussing some political problem about which they both felt strongly, and Hilary and I talked in undertones. I don’t remember which of us was first aware of something unusual going on in the library; it wasn’t that there was much noise, or any sound of struggle or loud voices; nothing to suggest violence, and yet quite suddenly we all stopped talking and began to listen.
Nunn said, “What’s up?” and, not hindered by the delicacy that kept the rest of us where we were, went over to the library. An instant later Hilary had darted after him. “If it’s anything to do with Arthur, it concerns me, too,” she flung over her shoulder to Eleanor and Mrs. Ross, both of whom seemed inclined to stop her. The next minute we heard Dennis’s voice, “Hilary, keep out of this, please.”
Hilary said, “Jeremy, come here,” and when he had come, and I with him, she said rebelliously, “I’ll only go if you stay and see everything’s all right. I haven’t any idea what’s up…”
“I know you haven’t,” Dennis interrupted, “that’s why I told you to clear out. P-please go, Hilary. You’re making things even worse than they’re b-bound to be.”
Hilary repeated, “I’ll go if Jeremy stays.” Dennis nodded, and his glance included me.
“Yes, p-please stay, both of you,” he said. “And Sir James. That’s all.”
Neither Eleanor nor Mrs. Ross had attempted to follow our stampede; Hilary, looking crestfallen and snubbed, went back to the lounge. Dennis, rather surprisingly, asked me to lock the door. I couldn’t make head or tail of the scene. Hook, with a bewildered expression on his clean-shaved face, was standing against the bookcase. Dennis stood on the farther side of the table, his partly-filled glass in front of him. Whistler stood at his side, and the stranger had taken up his position nearer Hook. Nunn was facing Dennis, and Jeremy and I had our backs practically to the door.
“I b-beg your p-pardon, Sir James,” Dennis began—his stammer was worse than I had ever heard it—“for precipitating this c-crisis upon you. If I could have p-prevented it—in fact…” his hesitant officialdom broke down suddenly, and he continued in the vernacular. “I’m most f-frightfully sorry, but this is a thing that goes b-beyond your p-personal interests or m-mine. The fact is your butler’s got a p-paper in my writing in his p-pocket, and I simply m-must have it.”
Nunn looked up in the most pardonable surprise. “I don’t understand, Dennis. Hook, what paper is this, and why have you got it?”
Hook said in his most official voice, “I don’t understand Mr. Dennis either, sir.”
The stranger took a hand. “Perhaps you’ll allow me,” he murmured, and with an unexpected movement he caught Hook’s wrists between his fingers. Dennis moved across the room.
“Th-thank you. Sir James, I think perhaps it might help m-matters if you would read this aloud. I’m afraid,” he added, with that queer desperate air of apology, “this is g-going to be most f-frightfully b-beastly.”
Nunn, with a quite baffled air, read aloud from the grey slip that I recognised as coming from Dennis’s writing-pad.
Now that it seems impossible to avoid discovery much longer, I may as well admit the truth. I killed Ralph Feltham. It was his own fault. He tried to double-cross me about Hilary. He should have known me better. We had worked together for years without anyone suspecting it. Indeed, I was constantly receiving official invitations to meet my prospective victims. He was a good partner, but he cheated me over Hilary. Besides, he was becoming dangerous. It was necessary for him to be removed. I thought, by leaving that note in the summer-house for Hilary to find, I had established an alibi, because, if Ralph had written it at eleven o’clock, then no one would think of his having been killed at nine. But now that the throw has gone against me, I am taking the only way out.
“And this amazing document is signed Arthur Dennis,” wound up Nunn. “What on earth does it mean?”
“As a matter of fact, it d-doesn’t mean anything,” Dennis confessed. “I’ve s-spoilt it.”
“Spoilt it?”
“The effect, I mean. By not cottoning to my drink.” He indicated the glass in front of him.
“What’s the matter with it?”
“Dr. Whistler is going to t-tell us that presently. I’m not quite sure myself, but I d-do know this. There’ll be enough p-poison in that glass to k-kill two or three men.”
Nunn looked at him hopelessly. Jeremy and I stood aghast and still uncomprehending.
“I’m afraid I don’t get you,” said Nunn curtly. “Are you suggesting that Hook—Hook!—has poisoned your drink?”
“I’m afraid I d-do mean that. I d-did warn you it was g-going to be a b-beastly b-business.”
“But why on earth should he?”
“I knew t-too much. About F-Feltham’s death, I mean. Let me explain. B-by the time Dr. Whistler and Detective-Inspector Benn arrived—oh, I haven’t introduced you; my m-manners are all going to pieces; strain, I suppose—but that’s Inspector Benn holding Hook’s wrists—don’t let go, Benn—by that time I ought to have f-finished my drink, when it would have f-finished me. They’d have found me fallen over the desk, or p-propped up against it, and by the time they’d recovered from their shock, and Hook had d-decided I was really done for, he’d have found also that p-paper lying on the t-table, explaining the tragedy. In the tamasha no one would have noticed that it hadn’t been there as they came into the room.”
“You’re suggesting—let me get this clear, please—that Hook was going to commit a murder and stage a suicide? You still haven’t explained why.”
“B-because of Feltham.”
“You mean, that Hook murdered Feltham?”
“I th-think so. In fact, I’m sure of it. He d-did it very well, but then I’d expect him to do anything he t-tackled very well. You see, this isn’t my f-first experience of him.”
“And then he wrote this balderdash?”
“Oh, no, n-no. I don’t think he d-did that. I don’t think he would refer to Feltham by his Christian name any more than I would.”
“Then where did he get the paper from?”
“The same source as his instructions, all along the line. From L-Lady Nunn.”
Chapter XIII
1
There was hyoscine in the drink from which Whistler had taken a sample before any of us reached the library door. Dennis was right—he’d been right all along the line. There was enough of it to have killed every man jack in the place. Apparently Eleanor had a store of it, though we never discovered precisely how she got hold of it; Dennis said she was in touch with so many people that she could practically have demanded the Crown Jewels and been tolerably sure of getting them. And among the doctors in her power she wouldn’t have much difficulty in getting hold of poison. Anyway, she had more than she’d given Hook to put in Dennis’s cocktail, for when, at Nunn’s request, she was sent for, in order that Dennis could repeat his story and she deny it, they found her dead in her room. She must have realised the game was up, and there was no hope for her. Hook bore the brunt eventually, and no one even tried to get up a reprieve for him, which shows how strongly the public, which can be sentimental enough about criminals, felt in this particular instance.
Nunn went through the subsequent proceedings like a man of stone. He had to give evidence, answer questions, make statements; he had to clear himself of the suggestion that he and Eleanor had been partners; he had to stand for any amount of obloquy. The affair cost him a tremendous amount both in prestige and in cash. I fancy it was due to Dennis that his name was completely cleared of every imputation of scandal before the wretched affair closed. The papers, of course, were full of it. The story of the Spider’s activities became common property. Numbers of people whose relations had mysteriously made away with themselves during the past few years laid the blame at the Spider’s door. In thousands of homes people felt as if at the eleventh hour they had been granted a reprieve. It was as if they could at last dare to draw breath.
Dennis wasn’t mentioned by name in any of the newspaper reports. He looked, not triumphant, but sick and green when he had at length convinced Nunn of the facts. He told me privately that he couldn’t look the fellow in the face. He seemed afraid to meet Hilary, too, as if she might turn and rend him. In short, he behaved as if he had something to be ashamed of.
Nunn spoke to no one, except Jeremy, and that was not until we were getting ready to leave the Abbey. He had been unapproachable, and I was wondering whether it would be possible to say a word before we went. Because I knew, if he and the rest of them didn’t, that there had been another Eleanor besides the one who had lived on blackmail, and even helped to do her own husband to death (for Dennis convinced us of this also before he was through). There had been the woman who came down at five in the morning to see that a young subaltern had his breakfast before going back to France. It was odd, but that was the Eleanor I saw most clearly during those grim weeks following her death, and I had a confused notion that if I could make Nunn aware of her too, things might be more endurable for him. But, as if he sensed my intention, Jeremy said dryly, “Oh, don’t be a funny ass, Tony. What is there for such as we to say to a man like that?” As we were going, Nunn held out his hand to Jeremy, and said, “It’ll pass, Freyne. All things pass. It’s only man who’s indomitable.”
2
“Do tell me,” Jeremy said to Dennis, later on, “how did you know that drink would be poisoned?”
“It was their last chance,” Dennis explained. “I had to get them red-handed; my case against them wasn’t clear enough and this was the only way out that I saw. I don’t know whether Lady Nunn had any idea that I’d found her out, but she realised that if we could prove that Feltham left his house, not at half-past ten but at eight, all the fat would be in the fire. She meant to prepare a cast-iron alibi by being in the house all the evening, from the instant the party started, but it was essential that everyone should believe Feltham was alive at—say—half-past ten. That note in the summer-house (written, incidentally, on my paper), was a very shrewd idea, because it misled practically everyone. But she had to take another risk. It was important that Hilary shouldn’t be there to time, or the note would lose all meaning, so she had to detain her for at least ten minutes. You remember how she came to us in an agitated condition at eleven or a little earlier, saying she’d been doing her best to keep Hilary
with her, but hadn’t been successful? She did everything she could, except for that slip in the confession I was supposed to have written. There are only two or three people in the house who referred to Feltham by his Christian name, and I’m not one of them. And, by the way,” he smiled deprecatingly, “I suppose it’s horribly snobbish of me, but I was wounded at the idea that anyone could believe I’d prepare anything so melodramatic as that letter.”
“Let’s get this straight,” said Jeremy, who is a single-minded young man. “You guessed it was Lady Nunn and Hook, but you couldn’t prove it. What did you do to precipitate the crisis?”
“I told them I’d discovered about the half-crown, and that I proposed to talk to the police about it first thing in the morning. Now, from their point of view, it was of the utmost importance that no one should discover the half-crown. I don’t say either of them had set eyes on it, but the police would jump on such a clue, and it was literally as much as their lives were worth to allow them the chance. So if they were going to act, they had to act at once. I thought of the drinks as being an ideal opportunity, so that when I said I’d have mine alone, it was simply a question of giving them plenty of rope, with the practical certainty that they’d hang themselves.”
“And that,” I exclaimed, “was why you took all the credit for discovering about the half-crown? We couldn’t think…”
Dennis laughed. “Oh, you h-heard me?” he stammered. “Well, you see, I hadn’t any choice. If Lady Nunn had realised that you and Freyne knew about the half-crown she wouldn’t have done anything conclusive, because it wouldn’t have been worth while. But, so far as she knew, I was the only person alive who could make that fact known to the police, and so I must be swept out of the way at once.”
“And you anticipated the confession?”
“Well, if I was to be poisoned, it was obviously to be a case of suicide. And if you have a suicide, you must have a motive. In my case, the only motive that would be any use to them, would be Feltham’s murder. It might have been a bit difficult for anyone to have put together a case against me, but in the face of a signed confession that would hardly count. As soon as Hook brought in the drink I tilted some of it into a phial, in case Hook got suspicious and overturned the glass, and then I waited.”
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