And the talk—always the same story. ‘You’re clever, aren’t you? Very clever, eh? “Who killed Hoode?” you said to yourselves—you and your friends. I don’t know you, but you’re Scotland Yard, that’s what you are. Well, if you want to know, I did! See? But, my golden child, I’m not going to tell anyone! Oh, no! Oh, no!’
There was much more of words but none of sense. He went on talking, and always the burden of his whispering, his half-shouting, his mumbling, was the same. ‘I killed Hoode! But I’m not going to tell anyone, oh, no! Thought he could play about with me, did he? Get rid of the man who was helping him, eh? Fool!’
Once she had tried to rise, intending a wild dash for the front door she knew had not shut behind her. But the pistol had been thrust forward with such menace that ever since she had been as still as stone. Her right leg, twisted beneath her, was agony. Her head seemed bursting.
At last there came a pause in the babbling talk. The man began to struggle to his feet. Margaret shrank back still farther into her chair. Even as he heaved himself upright the gun never wavered from her.
Another scream rose in her throat, only to be fought back. He was up now, and coming towards her with wavering steps. Even in her terror she could see that his fever had increased. She prayed for his collapse as she had never prayed before.
He was close, close! Margaret shut her eyes, screwing up the lids.
She heard a rush of feet outside the door. Someone burst into the room. Slowly, unbelieving, she opened the blue eyes. Hastings stood in the doorway.
A black mist flickered before her. Through it, as if she were looking through smoked glass, she saw him walk swiftly, his right hand outstretched as if in greeting, up to the unsteady, malevolent figure in the dressing-gown.
The mist before her eyes grew thicker, darker. When it had cleared again, Hastings had the pistol in his hand. As she watched, the numbness of fear still upon her, the man Masterson crumpled to the floor.
With a great effort she rose from the chair. On her feet, she stumbled. She felt herself falling, gave a piteous little cry, and was caught up in Hastings’s arms.
Now that safety had come she broke down. Her body shook with sobs. Then came tears and more tears. She burrowed her face into Hastings’s shoulder, rubbing her cheek up and down against the smooth cloth of his coat.
Hastings, his heart beating too fast for comfort, looked down. All he could see was the little black hat. The shaking of her body in his arms, the very fact that in his arms she was, deprived him of speech. They remained locked together. From the floor behind them came a hoarse, delirious babbling. Neither man nor woman heard it.
The sobbing grew quieter. A great resolve swelled in Hastings’s bosom.
‘I w-want a—a hanky,’ said a small voice from his shoulder.
From his breast pocket he whipped a square foot of white silk. A little hand snatched at it. Its work completed, she smiled up at him, then endeavoured to withdraw from his arms. Hastings held on.
‘Please,’ said the small voice, ‘will you let me go?’
‘No!’ roared Hastings. ‘No! Never any more!’
Slowly, she raised her head to look at him again. Immediately, thoroughly, satisfyingly, he kissed her. For a moment, a fleeting fraction of time, it seemed to him that the soft lips had answered the pressure of his.
But then she broke free. ‘Mr Hastings!’ She stamped her foot. ‘How dare—’
A grin of delight was on his face. ‘’Sno use,’ he murmured. ‘’Sno use any more. I’m not frightened of you now, you darling!’ He snatched at her again.
From the floor there came again that hoarse mutter. Again they didn’t hear it.
‘And you know you’ve been in love with me for years,’ said Hastings.
‘Oh! I have not!’ She was all indignation. Suddenly it went. ‘Yes, I have, though—for months, anyway. Oh. Jack, Jack, why didn’t you do this before?’
‘Frightened,’ said Hastings. ‘Wind up.’
‘But—but whatever of?’
‘You—and your damned sufficient efficiency. Yesterday I swore to myself I’d pluck up the nerve to tell you as soon as I caught you, red-handed, making a mistake. And you see I have—’
Her eyes flashed. ‘What d’you mean? Mistake! I like that! When I’ve caught the murderer—’
They both swung round, remembrance flooding back. The owner of the flat lay beside the over-turned table, a shapeless heap in the dark dressing-gown.
Margaret shivered. ‘Mistake, indeed!’ she began.
‘Well, you did. This is a man’s job. You ought to’ve waited till I came back. God! how you frightened me!’ Suppose this outer door here hadn’t been ajar.’
‘But, Jack—’
Hastings forgot murders. ‘Why d’you call me that?’ he asked.
‘’Cause I couldn’t always be saying “Spencer”. I’d feel like a heroine in a serial. And don’t interrupt. I was going to say: Never mind, we’ve got the man. Won’t Colonel Gethryn be pleased?’
Hastings came back to earth. ‘By God!’ he said. ‘So that’s the murderer, is it? So it was that Gethryn was after. Well, he’s a very ill criminal. How d’you know he is one, by the way?’
‘He confessed. He was sort of delirious. Kept saying he’d done it, but wasn’t going to tell anyone. Horrid it was!’
Hastings rubbed his chin. ‘I wonder,’ he said. ‘I wonder. Come on, we’re going to have a nice diplomatic talk with that porter I saw downstairs. And don’t forget we mustn’t let him get a line on what we’re after.’
IV
The hands of the clock in Mrs Lemesurier’s drawing-room stood at five minutes to midnight.
There came a lull in the conversation which Anthony had kept flowing since he had sent his message to Hastings. A wandering talk it had been, but he had achieved his object. Save for the harassed look about her eyes, there was now nothing to tell of the strain the woman had been under. She had even laughed, not once but many times. She was, in fact, almost normal. And Anthony rejoiced, for he had found her to possess humour, wit and wisdom to support her beauty. She was, he thought sleepily to himself, almost too good to be true.
For a moment his eyes closed. Behind the lids there rose a picture of her face—a picture strangely more clear than any given by actual sight.
‘You,’ said Lucia, ‘ought to be asleep. Yes, you ought! Not tiring yourself out to make conversation for an hysterical woman who can’t keep her emotions under control.’
‘The closing of the eyes,’ Anthony said, opening them, ‘merely indicates that the great detective is what we call thrashing out a knotty problem. He always closes his eyes, you know. He couldn’t do anything with ’em open.’
She smiled. ‘I’m afraid I don’t believe you, you know. I think you’ve done so much today that you’re simply tired out.’
‘Really, I assure you, no. We never sleep until a case is finished. Never. It’s rather sad in this one, because I can see it going on for ever.’ He saw her mouth contract with the pain of fear, and went on: ‘I mean, I don’t believe we’re ever going to catch the Sparrow.’
‘The Sparrow?’
‘Yes. Don’t you remember “Who killed Cock Robin”? It must have been the first detective story you ever read. You know, it was the Sparrow who did the dirty work. “And here, in a manner of speaking, we all are.” All at sixes and sevens, that is. Here am I, come to the decision that either A. R. Gethryn or the rest of the world is mad. There are the police with entirely the wrong bird.
‘The only real bit of work I’ve done today,’ he went on, ‘has led me to find, not an answer, but another problem. The question is: was a certain thing done genuinely, or was it done to look as if it had been done genuinely, or was it done in the way it was on purpose to look ungenuine? The answer, at present, is a lemon.’
Again she smiled. ‘It sounds awful,’ she said. Then, with a change of tone: ‘But—but my brother? You were saying—’
Piercing,
blaring, came the angry ring of the telephone.
Lucia leapt to her feet with a cry. Before she could move again Anthony was at the instrument. As he lifted the receiver she reached his side, pleading with eyes and hands for permission to use the extra earpiece.
‘Carry on,’ he said; and into the transmitter: ‘Hallo!’
She snatched at the black disc, to hear: ‘That you, Gethryn?’
‘Yes. Hastings?’
‘Yes. I’ve done that job—’
‘What did you find?’ Anthony snapped, laying a reassuring hand on the white shoulder beside him. He felt that her whole body was shaking.
The telephone made meaningless cackles.
‘What?’
‘I said,’ came in a squeak of a voice, ‘that the man your message referred to—er—said that it was he who had pulled off that deal you were asking about.’
Anthony flashed a glance at the woman beside him. With surprise and admiration he saw that there were no signs of collapse. The hand which held the extra receiver was steady as his own, the head was held erect. Only the pallor of the face, extending even to the lips, told of the shock.
The telephone had again relapsed into mere cackling and buzzing.
Anthony gave vent to his feelings. ‘Blast you! Speak more clearly. Go on from where he said that it was his deal.’
‘And blast ye, too, scum!’ came in a hilarious wheeze. ‘I said that the extraordinary part of the business was that I found out that the merchant must have—cackle—cackle—bahk-bahk—’
‘Hell! Repeat! What did you find out?’
‘I said that the chap must have dreamed it all. I found out that he couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with the thing. Why on earth he thought he’d—er—put this deal through, I can’t say—unless the explanation is that he got the idea that he would do it when he began to be so ill, put in a goodish bit of brooding, and then, when it was done and he heard about it, got all mixed and thought he was really the—er—manipulator of the business. Anyway, it’s certain he couldn’t’ve had anything to do with it at all. Take it from me.’
Lucia staggered, then sank weakly into a chair, still clasping the black disc to her ear. Anthony glanced at her; saw that the colour had come flooding back to her face.
‘You’re sure about this?’ he asked the telephone.
‘See it wet, see it dry. The man lives by himself. He’s been ill for five days. I got that from the porter of the flats. This porter told me that J.M. hasn’t been outside his front door for a week. The story’s right enough. You’ve only got to look at the chap to see he’s too ill to have been trotting about. There’s not a doubt. You disappointed?’
‘God, no! Hastings, my brother, I kiss your hands. And I congratulate you. From what I know, your explanation of why J.M. thought what he did is right. But tell me, how ill is he?’
‘Baddish, but by no means dying. Er—as a matter of fact, the doctor’s with him now. Severe flu, I think it is, plus old-standing shell-shock or something like that probably.’
Lucia stirred uneasily in her chair.
‘Oh, the doctor’s with him, is he? Now, what doctor?’ Anthony said.
‘Well—er—as a matter of fact—er’—bubbled the telephone in embarrassed accents—‘I—we—have taken him back to my place. D’you know the man?’
‘I’m, well, interested in him.’
‘Well, he’s all right now, you know. You see, we—I felt rather sorry—fellow’s seedy and no one to look after him. We felt rather that we owed him something for false suspicion, what? Hope you don’t mind my taking charge.’
‘Mind? I’m very grateful! You’re an excellent man. But why the hesitancy, the embarrassment? Why all this we—I—us—me? I become aware of a rat.’
‘Because I’ve done it!’ roared the telephone ecstatically. ‘I’ve asked her. I’m going to be married. She—’
‘One moment. Miss Warren, I gather?’
‘Yes!’ cried the telephone. ‘Congratulate me!’
‘I pound your spirit on the back. Tell Miss Warren this is the only mistake I’ve ever known her make. I’ll offer my felicitations in person tomorrow. Now, listen.’
‘Right.’
‘I want you,’ said Anthony, ‘to come down here—you’ll find it best to do it by car—tomorrow and attend the inquest. It’s being held at the house—Abbotshall—and it begins at eleven o’clock in the morning. If you bring Miss Warren with you please ask her whether she will take a complete shorthand note of the proceedings. If she can’t come, get an ordinary shorthand person. I’d rather she did it, of course. After the inquest go to the Bear and Key in Marling and ask for me. I shall want to pump you. Got that?’
‘Very good, sergeant.’
‘If you see me at the house during the inquest don’t speak to me or do anything to attract attention to me. Got it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Right. Good-bye, and again congratulations.’ Anthony hung up the receiver.
He turned to Lucia. She lay limply in the chair. After the first wild surge of relief had come reaction. The spare receiver had fallen from her hand. Her breast heaved as if she fought for breath.
Anthony poured whisky into a tumbler; added a little soda-water. He forced the glass into her hand. ‘Drink that,’ he said.
Obediently, like a child, she drank, looking up at him over the rim of the glass.
When she had finished, ‘Feeling better?’ he asked.
Her eyes flashed gratitude. ‘Ever so much. Oh! you don’t know how—what a horrible, awful day I’ve had!’
‘I can guess,’ Anthony said.
‘Oh, I know; I know you can! I didn’t mean that you— How can I ever thank you enough?’
‘Thank me? Why, you know, it seems I’ve done nothing much yet except make a fool of myself running down blind alleys.’
She sprang to her feet. ‘Done nothing! Done nothing!’ she blazed at him. ‘How dare you say such a thing! Why, if it hadn’t been for you and—and your cleverness I would never have known Jimmy was safe. I’d just have gone on and on thinking horrors to myself.’ Suddenly all the fire died out of her. ‘And I think I should have died,’ she added quietly.
Anthony said: ‘You overwhelm me. You can reward me best by allowing me to hope our acquaintance isn’t ended.’
Her eyes opened in amazement. ‘Why, of course!’ she said. ‘But we’re friends already, aren’t we? At least, I am.’
Anthony was silent. The only answer he wanted to make were best unsaid. He rose to his feet.
‘I must go,’ he said. ‘May I suggest that I get my friend Hastings to drive you up to town tomorrow to see your brother. That’ll be some time in the afternoon, after the inquest.’
‘Mr Gethryn, you think of everything, everything! May I? I love Mr Hastings already—for taking such care of Jimmy, poor darling, when he didn’t know him from Adam.’ She smiled; and Anthony caught his breath.
He made a move in the direction of the door; then paused. ‘Mrs Lemesurier,’ he said, ‘you can’t, I suppose, tell me anything I haven’t already picked up about the Abbotshall ménage?’ Business seemed safer ground when his emotions were so hard to repress.
She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry: I can’t. Except Sir Arthur—and he’s only a guest—I hardly know anything about them. Mr Hoode I met twice. I’ve never seen his sister. I dare say I should have known them quite well by this time if Jim hadn’t left Mr Hoode in that funny way. But after that—well, it was rather awkward somehow, and we just haven’t mixed.’
‘D’you know this Mrs Mainwaring at all?’
‘Not at all except from the illustrated papers.’
‘Oh. So she’s what Zenith might call a Society Snake, is she? Well, well. Not a tennis champion or a plus-four person as well, is she?’
‘Oh, no. I’m sure she isn’t. Mr Gethryn, why all this curiosity?’
Anthony smiled. ‘Now don’t get scenting murderers in everything I say, will you. Mere
ly my ’satiable curtiosity. I shall be punished for it one day. “And his tall aunt the ostrich spanked him with her hard, hard claw.” That was for ’satiable curtiosity, you remember.’ He turned to the door. ‘I really must go now.’
She stopped him, laying a hand on his arm. ‘Mr Gethryn, one minute. Now that—owing to you—I’m happy again, I’m like the elephant’s child, too, simply bursting with curtiosity. Who did do it?’
Anthony laughed. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea—yet. On the subject of who didn’t do it I could talk for hours. “But whose the dastard hand that held the knife I know not; nor the reason for the strife.”’
‘But you’re going to find out, aren’t you?’
‘I have hope, lady.’
The black eyes held the green ones for a long moment. ‘I think,’ she said at last, ‘that you’re the most extraordinary man I’ve ever met. Some day, you must tell me how you knew everything I did last night. I believe you were watching me; only you couldn’t have been.’
‘I,’ said Anthony, opening the door, ‘I am Dupont, I am Lecoq, I’m Fortune, Holmes and Rouletabille. Good-night.’
She was left staring at the closed door. When she opened it to peer into the hall, he had gone.
CHAPTER IX
THE INQUEST
I
AT ten o’clock the next morning they brought a note to Lucia, radiant from a nine hours’ sleep.
MY DEAR MRS LEMESURIER—Hastings’s car, its owner and I will call for you at some time between four and five this afternoon.
Do not attend the inquest this morning, and above all prevent your sister from doing so. No doubt this warning is unnecessary, but I thought safer to issue it. For it is highly probable that the coroner’s jury will return a verdict of murder against Archibald Deacon.
Do not worry about this. Deacon had nothing to do with this messy business. (The great god Bias again, you see.) At the moment, however, things look bad for him. But I repeat: do not worry. Also, prevent your sister (I understand there is an alliance) from doing so more than is unavoidable. I promise things shall be straightened out.
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