"That's not inexplicable," said Portal "Of course the fellow got some unexpected news in a letter. Obvious, I should have said."
"Oh! Don't think we missed anything so obvious as that. It was one of the Coroner's first questions. But Capel never opened one of his letters. The whole pile lay unopened on his dressing-table."
Portal looked crestfallen.
"You're sure he didn't open just one of them? He might have destroyed it after reading it?"
"No, I'm quite positive. Of course, that would have been the natural solution. No, every one of the letters was unopened. Nothing burnt nothing torn up - There was no fire in the room?"
Portal shook his head.
"Extraordinary."
"It was a ghastly business altogether," said Evesham in a low voice.
"Conway and I went up when we heard the shot, and found him - It gave me a shock, I can tell you."
"Nothing to be done but telephone for the police, I suppose?" said Mr Quin.
"Royston wasn't on the telephone then. I had it put in when I bought the place. No, luckily enough, the local constable happened to be in the kitchen at the time. One of the dogs - you remember poor old Rover, Conway? - had strayed the day before. A passing carter had found it half buried in a snowdrift and had taken it to the police station. They recognised it as Capel's, and a dog he was particularly fond of, and the constable came up with it. He'd just arrived a minute before the shot was fired. It saved us some trouble."
"Gad, that was a snowstorm," said Conway reminiscently. "About this time of year, wasn't it? Early January."
"February, I think. Let me see, we went abroad soon afterwards."
"I'm pretty sure it was January. My hunter Ned - you remember Ned?
- lamed himself the end of January. That was just after this business."
"It must have been quite the end of January then. Funny how difficult it is to recall dates after a lapse of years."
"One of the most difficult things in the world," said Mr Quin, conversationally. "Unless you can find a landmark in some big public event - an assassination of a crowned head, or a big murder trial."
"Why, of course," cried Conway, "it was just before the Appleton case."
"Just after, wasn't it?"
"No, no, don't you remember - Capel knew the Appletons - he'd stayed with the old man the previous Spring - just a week before he died. He was talking of him one night - what an old curmudgeon he was, and how awful, it must have been for a young and beautiful woman like Mrs Appleton to be tied to him. There was no suspicion then that she had done away with him."
"By Jove, you're right. I remember reading the paragraph in the paper saying an exhumation order had been granted. It would have been that same day - I remember only seeing it with half my mind, you know, the other half wondering about poor old Derek lying dead upstairs."
"A common, but very curious phenomenon, that," observed Mr Quin.
"In moments of great stress, the mind focuses itself upon some quite unimportant matter which is remembered long afterwards with the utmost fidelity, driven in, as it were, by the mental stress of the moment. It may be some quite irrelevant detail, like the pattern of a wallpaper, but it will never be forgotten."
"Rather extraordinary, your saying that, Mr Quin," said Conway.
"Just as you were speaking, I suddenly felt myself back in Derek Capel's room with Derek lying dead on the floor. I saw as plainly as possible the big tree outside the window, and the shadow it threw upon the snow outside. Yes, the moonlight, the snow, and the shadow of the tree I can see them again this minute. By Gad, I believe I could draw them, and yet I never realised I was looking at them at the time."
"His room was the big one over the porch, was it not?" asked Mr Quin.
"Yes, and the tree was the big beech, just at the angle of the drive."
Mr Quin nodded, as though satisfied. Mr Satterthwaite was curiously thrilled. He was convinced that every word, every inflection of Mr Quin's voice, was pregnant with purpose. He was driving at something - exactly what Mr Satterthwaite did not know, but he was quite convinced as to whose was the master hand.
There was a momentary pause, and then Evesham reverted to the preceding topic.
"That Appleton case, I remember it very well now. What a sensation it made. She got off, didn't she? Pretty woman, very fair - remarkably fair."
Almost against his will, Mr Satterthwaite's eyes sought the kneeling figure up above. Was it his fancy, or did he see it shrink a little as though at a blow. Did he see a hand slide upwards to the table cloth and then pause.
There was a crash of falling glass. Alex Portal, helping himself to whisky, had let the decanter slip.
"I say - sir, dam' sorry. Can't think what came over me."
Evesham cut short his apologies.
"Quite all right. Quite all right, my dear fellow. Curious - That smash reminded me. That's what she did, didn't she? Mrs Appleton?
Smashed the port decanter?"
"Yes. Old Appleton had his glass of port - only one - each night. The day after his death, one of the servants saw her take the decanter out and smash it deliberately. That set them talking, of course. They all knew she had been perfectly wretched with him. Rumour grew and grew, and in the end, months later, some of his relatives applied for an exhumation order. And sure enough, the old fellow had been poisoned. Arsenic, wasn't it?"
"No - strychnine, I think. It doesn't much matter. Well, of course, there it was. Only one person was likely to have done it. Mrs Appleton stood her trial. She was acquitted more through lack of evidence against her than from any overwhelming proof of innocence. In other words, she was lucky. Yes, I don't suppose there's much doubt she did it right enough. What happened to her afterwards?"
"Went out to Canada, I believe. Or was it Australia? She had an uncle or something of the sort out there who offered her a home. Best thing she could do under the circumstances."
Mr Satterthwaite was fascinated by Alex Portal's right hand as it clasped his glass. How tightly he was gripping it.
"You'll smash that in a minute or two, if you're not careful," thought Mr Satterthwaite. "Dear me, how interesting all this is."
Evesham rose and helped himself to a drink.
"Well, we're not much nearer to knowing why poor Derek Capel shot himself," he remarked. "The Court of Inquiry hasn't been a great success, has it, Mr Quin?"
Mr Quin laughed...
It was a strange laugh, mocking - yet sad. It made everyone jump.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "You are still living in the past, Mr Evesham. You are still hampered by your preconceived notion. But I the man from outside, the stranger passing by, see only - facts!"
"Facts?"
"Yes - facts."
"What do you mean?" said Evesham, "I see a clear sequence of facts, outlined by yourselves, but of which you have not seen the significance. Let us go back ten years and look at what we see untrammelled by ideas or sentiment."
Mr Quin had risen. He looked very tall. The fire leaped fitfully behind him. He spoke in a low compelling voice.
"You are at dinner. Derek Capel announces his engagement. You think then it was to Marjorie Dilke. You are not so sure now. He has the restlessly excited manner of a man who has successfully defied Fate - who, in your own words, has pulled off a big coup against overwhelming odds. Then comes the clanging of the bell. He goes out to get the long overdue mail. He doesn't open his letters, but you mention yourselves that he opened the paper to glance at the news.
It is ten years ago - so we cannot know what the news was that day a far-off earthquake, a near at hand political crisis? The only thing we do know about the contents of that paper is that it contained one small paragraph - a paragraph stating that the Home Office had given permission to exhume the body of Mr Appleton three days ago."
"What?"
Mr Quin went on.
"Derek Capel goes up to his room, and there he sees something out of the window. Sir Richard Conway
has told us that the curtain was not drawn across it and further that it gave on to the drive. What did he see? What could he have seen that forced him to take his life?"
"What do you mean? What did he see?"
"I think," said Mr Quin, "that he saw a policeman. A policeman who had come about a dog - But Derek Capel didn't know that - he just saw - a policeman."
There was a long silence - as though it took some time to drive the inference home.
"My God!" whispered Evesham at last. "You can't mean that?
Appleton? But he wasn't there at the time Appleton died. The old man was alone with his wife -"
"But he may have been there a week earlier. Strychnine is not very soluble unless it is in the form of hydrochloride. The greater part of it, put into the port, would be taken in the last glass, perhaps a week after he left."
Portal sprung forward. His voice was hoarse his eyes bloodshot.
"Why did she break the decanter?" he cried. "Why did she break the decanter? Tell me that!"
For the first time that evening, Mr Quin addressed himself to Mr Satterthwaite.
"You have a wide experience of life, Mr Satterthwaite. Perhaps you can tell us that."
Mr Satterthwaite's voice trembled a little. His cue had come at last.
He was to speak some of the most important lines in the play. He was an actor now - not a looker-on.
"As I see it," he murmured modestly, "she cared for Derek Capel.
She was, I think, a good woman - and she had sent him away. When her husband died, she suspected the truth. And so, to save the man she loved, she tried to destroy the evidence against him. Later, I think, he persuaded her that her suspicions were unfounded, and she consented to marry him. But even then, she hung back - women, I fancy, have a lot of instinct."
Mr Satterthwaite had spoken his part.
Suddenly a long trembling sigh filled the air.
"My God!" cried Evesham, starting, "what was that?"
Mr Satterthwaite could have told him that it was Eleanor Portal in the gallery above, but he was too artistic to spoil a good effect.
Mr Quin was smiling.
"My car will be ready by now. Thank you for your hospitality, Mr Evesham. I have, I hope, done something for my friend."
They stared at him in blank amazement "That aspect of the matter has not struck you? He loved this woman, you know. Loved her enough to commit murder for her sake. When retribution overtook him, as he mistakenly thought, he took his own life. But unwittingly, he left her to face the music."
"She was acquitted," muttered Evesham.
"Because the case against her could not be proved. I fancy - it may be only a fancy - that she is still - facing the music."
Portal had sunk into a chair, his face buried in his hands.
Quin turned to Satterthwaite.
"Good-bye, Mr Satterthwaite. You are interested in the drama, are you not?"
Mr Satterthwaite nodded surprised.
"I must recommend the Harlequinade to your attention. It is dying out nowadays - but it repays attention, I assure you. Its symbolism is a little difficult to follow - but the immortals are always immortal, you know. I wish you all good-night."
They saw him stride out into the dark. As before, the coloured glass gave the effect of motley...
Mr Satterthwaite went upstairs. He went to draw down his window, for the air was cold. The figure of Mr Quin moved down the drive, and from a side door came a woman's figure, running. For a moment they spoke together, then she retraced her steps to the house. She passed just below the window, and Mr Satterthwaite was struck anew by the vitality of her face. She moved now like a woman in a happy dream.
"Eleanor!"
Alex Portal had joined her.
"Eleanor, forgive me - forgive me - You told me the truth, but God forgive me - I did not quite believe..."
Mr Satterthwaite was intensely interested in other people's affairs, but he was also a gentleman It was borne in upon him that he must shut the window. He did so.
But he shut it very slowly.
He heard her voice, exquisite and indescribable.
"I know - I know. You have been in hell. So was I once. Loving - yet alternately believing and suspecting - thrusting aside one's doubts and having them spring up again with leering faces... I know, Alex, I know... But there is a worse hell than that, the hell I have lived in with you. I have seen your doubt - your fear of me... poisoning all our love.
That man - that chance passer by, saved me. I could bear it no longer, you understand. Tonight - tonight I was going to kill myself...
Alex... Alex..."
Chapter 2
THE SHADOW ON THE GLASS
"Listen to this," said Lady Cynthia Drage.
She read aloud from the journal she held in her hand.
"Mr and Mrs Unkerton are entertaining a party at Greenways House this week. Amongst the guests are Lady Cynthia Drage, Mr and Mrs Richard Scott, Major Porter, D.S.O., Mrs Staverton, Captain Allenson and Mr Satterthwaite."
"It's as well, "remarked Lady Cynthia, casting away the paper, "to know what we're in for. But they have made a mess of things!"
Her companion, that same Mr Satterthwaite whose name figured at the end of the list of guests, looked at her interrogatively. It had been said that if Mr Satterthwaite were found at the houses of those rich who had newly arrived, it was a sign either that the cooking was unusually good, or that a drama of human life was to be enacted there. Mr Satterthwaite was abnormally interested in the comedies and tragedies of his fellow men.
Lady Cynthia, who was a middle-aged woman, with a hard face and a liberal allowance of make-up, tapped him smartly with the newest thing in parasols which lay rakishly across her knee.
"Don't pretend you don't understand me. You do perfectly. What's more, I believe you're here on purpose to see the fur fly!"
Mr Satterthwaite protested vigorously. He didn't know what she was talking about.
"I'm talking about Richard Scott. Do you pretend you've never heard of him?"
"No, of course not. He's the Big Game man, isn't he?"
"That's it - 'Great big bears and tigers, etc.' as the song says. Of course, he's a great lion himself just now - the Unkertons would naturally be mad to get hold of him - and the bride! A charming child -
Oh! Quite a charming child - but so nañve, only twenty, you know, and he must be at least forty-five."
"Mrs Scott seems to be very charming," said Mr Satterthwaite sedately.
"Yes, poor child."
"Why poor child?"
Lady Cynthia cast him a look of reproach, and went on approaching the point at issue in her own manner.
"Porter's all right - a dull dog, though - another of these African hunters, all sunburnt and silent. Second fiddle to Richard Scott and always has been - life-long friends and all that sort of thing. When I come to think of it, I believe they were together on that trip -"
"Which trip?"
"The trip. The Mrs Staverton trip. You'll be saying next you've never heard of Mrs Staverton."
"I have heard of Mrs Staverton," said Mr Satterthwaite, almost with unwillingness.
And he and Lady Cynthia exchanged glances.
"It's so exactly like the Unkertons," wailed the latter, "they are absolutely hopeless - socially, I mean. The idea of asking those two together! Of course they'd heard that Mrs Staverton was a sportswoman and a traveller and all that, and about her book. People like the Unkertons don't even begin to realise what pitfalls there are!
I've been running them, myself, for the last year, and what I've gone through nobody knows. One has to be constantly at their elbow.
'Don't do that!'
'You can't do this!' Thank goodness, I'm through with it now. Not that we've quarrelled - Oh! No, I never quarrel, but somebody else can take on the job. As I've always said, I can put up with vulgarity, but I can't stand meanness!"
After this somewhat cryptic utterance, Lady Cynthia was silent for a moment, ru
minating on the Unkertons' meanness as displayed to herself.
"If I'd still been running the show for them," she went on presently, "I should have said quite firmly and plainly - 'You can't ask Mrs Staverton with the Richard Scotts. She and he were once -'"
She stopped eloquently.
"But were they once?" asked Mr Satterthwaite.
"My dear man! It's well known. That trip into the Interior! I'm surprised the woman had the face to accept the invitation."
"Perhaps she didn't know the others were coming?" suggested Mr Satterthwaite.
"Perhaps she did. That's far more likely."
"You think -?"
"She's what I call a dangerous woman - the sort of woman who'd stick at nothing. I wouldn't be in Richard Scott's shoes this weekend."
"And his wife knows nothing, you think?"
"I'm certain of it. But I suppose some kind friend will enlighten her sooner or later. Here's Jimmy Allenson. Such a nice boy. He saved my life in Egypt last winter - I was so bored, you know. Hullo, Jimmy, come here at once."
Captain Allenson obeyed, dropping down on the turf beside her. He was a handsome young fellow of thirty, with white teeth and an infectious smile.
"I'm glad somebody wants me," he observed. "The Scotts are doing the turtle dove stunt, two required, not three, Porter's devouring the Field, and I've been in mortal danger of being entertained by my hostess."
He laughed. Lady Cynthia laughed with him. Mr Satterthwaite, who was in some ways a little old-fashioned, so much so that he seldom made fun of his host and hostess until after he had left their house, remained grave.
"Poor Jimmy," said Lady Cynthia, "Mine not to reason why, mine but to swiftly fly. I had a narrow escape of being told the family ghost story."
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