"Well… for instance, the door."
"Yes?"
"It's almost on top of us," said Ann. "It creaks badly no matter how you try to open it. Could anyone have come in there, walked past die light clear across to that table on a bare hardwood floor, changed the daggers, and walked out again, without our seeing him?"
They envisaged this.
"No," said Sharpless. "It's impossible. Besides, I'll swear nobody did."
Rich massaged his head. "But the windows?" he suggested.
"That floor!" cried Ann. "And the drawn curtains! And-"
With a cluck of his tongue as though in realization, Sharpless strode across to the windows. As soon as he reached the section of the floor anywhere near the windows, the resulting creaks and cracks made him pause.
He looked at the white curtains, smoothly drawn and undisturbed. He pushed them aside on one window, and put his head out.
"This window," he reported, "is eight feet up from the ground. Has anybody got an electric torch?"
Hubert Fane fetched one out of a drawer in the telephone table. Sharpless switched it on, and swept its beam outside.
"Eight feet up," he said, "and there's an unmarked flower-bed underneath. Nobody even climbed up here, much less disturbed those curtains, climbed in, and got twelve or fifteen feet across hell's own squeaky floor to the table — all without being seen or heard. It's just impossible. Come and look for yourselves."
He switched off the torch. He turned round from the window and ran a hand through his hair. The tall black-and-scarlet devil seemed to have become a much bewildered and harassed young man.
"But we didn't do it," he protested.
"No." Rich's voice was sharp. "We can be certain we didn't do it. Any of us. We can — what's the word? — give each other an alibi."
"But somebody changed the daggers!"
"How?" asked Ann.
"You don't suppose—" Sharpless hesitated—"you don't suppose Fane did it himself?"
"When," inquired Rich, "he knew he was going to he stabbed with it? And, in fact, insisted on this when I wanted to stop the experiment?"
They looked at each other.
Rich fastened the button of his shabby dinner jacket, and squared his shoulders. Though he seemed the most disquieted person there, you would also have said that he was the most resolute.
"I'm afraid we can't stop here arguing," he dedared. "Whether we like it or not, we've got to call in the police. I suggest that we delegate one of us to ring up now, and try to explain what happened. It won't be easy."
"I'll ring the police, if you like," offered Ann Browning.
Again they turned to stare at her, and she lowered her eyes.
"You see," she explained hesitantly, "I–I live in Cheltenham. But I work in Gloucester. I'm the Chief Constable's, Colonel Race's, private secretary. I know a little about these things, because Colonel Race sometimes takes me along with him. He says I can get things out of the women."
She made a deprecating grimace with her lips.
"So I thought perhaps if I could get in touch with Colonel Race himself, it might help. But still, maybe it would be better if a man did it. Do you think so?"
Rich regarded her with deepening interest. Even Frank Sharpless pricked up his ears, as though he had never noticed the girl before. Hubert Fane's expression was one of mild pride.
"My dear young lady," Rich told her with some fervor, "the job is yours. There's the telephone. Go to it. But what in the name of sanity are you going to tell them?"
Ann bit her lip.
"I don't know," she confessed. "It may be rather nasty for us. Especially if they call in Scotland Yard: as they probably will, because Colonel Race won't like his own people making awkward situations here. But there you are. You see, I'm certain none of us did it. But-"
It was Sharpless who finished this for her. "But," he said rather wildly, "you're just as sure about the other thing. So am I. I've got eyes. I've got ears. I'll take my Bible oath, I’ll swear to my dying day, that nobody could have got in here either by the windows or by the door!"
And, as a matter of fact, he was perfectly right.
Six
In the library of a house not far away, Sir Henry Merrivale was beginning to dictate his memoirs.
It was an impressive moment. H.M., his spectacles down on his nose and his bald head glistening, was piled somehow into the desk chair in the room whose walls were hung with his host's collection of old weapons. H.M. had assumed what he believed to be an impressive posture: his elbow on the desk, and one finger at his temple like Victor Hugo. He tried to refrain from looking pleased with this, and merely succeeded in looking stuffed.
"I was born," he began, with suitable portentousness, "on February 6, 1871, at Cranleigh Court, near Great Yewborough, in Sussex."
This, Philip Courtney thought, was going to be easy.
Courtney had spent a lazy afternoon. He strolled along the Promenade. He had coffee at the Cavendish. He tasted the "waters," and visited the museum. Towards nine o'clock, after a late dinner, he boarded a number three bus at the Center and was put down by the conductor at the beginning of Fitzherbert Avenue.
Yet he remained uneasy.
There were only half a dozen houses in the avenue, each set back in its own grounds behind shoulder-high stone walls. As he passed the big white square house which must belong to Arthur Fane, he stopped and looked at it.
No lights showed at the front. The summer dusk lay warm on quiet trees.
He wondered how Frank Sharpless was getting on, and how love-affairs could so play the devil with a man's mentality. But he had little time to wrestle with this. At the last house in the road — with the Cotswolds looming behind it — he was greeted by Major Adams, who passed him on to the library.
Here he was met by Sir Henry Merrivale with a violent handshake but a glare of such active malignancy that Courtney hurriedly thought back over recent events, wondering what the man could have heard against him. It presently struck him, however that this must be part of H.M.'s normal social manner; for he could tell that his host was trying to be affable. At all events, H.M.. settled down at the desk, assumed his heroic pose, and indicated that he was ready to begin.
"Yes, sir?"
H.M. cleared his throat.
"I was born," he said with suitable portentousness, "on February 6, 1871, at Cranleigh Court, near Great Yewborough, in Sussex. My mother was formerly Miss Agnes Honoria Gayle, daughter of the Rev. and Mrs. William Gayle, of Great Yewborough. My father— notwithstanding the slanderous rumors circulated at the time — was Henry St. John Merrivale, eighth baronet of the name."
Courtney made a slight noise.
"Have you got that down?" inquired H.M., peering over his spectacles.
"Yes, sir. But are you sure that's quite the way you want to begin?"
The corners of H.M.'s mouth drew down.
"What's wrong with it?" he demanded sternly. "Who's writin' this book, you or me?"
"I only thought it might be more—"
"You let me alone, son," H.M. urged, with an air of darkly sinister things hidden. "I know what I'm doin'. I got my reasons for usin' just exactly those words. Burn me, if I don't do anything else in this book, I am goin' to right a few old misunderstandings and settle a few old scores. Are you goin' to take down what I say, or not?"
"Right-ho. Fire away."
H.M., ruffled, settled down to resume his interrupted train of thought.
"These rumors," he continued, "were deliberately circulated by my father's second brother, George Byron Merrivale, who may be described with moderation as a bounder and a louse. I will give my readers some idea of this man's character.
"He was warned off the Turf in 1882; kicked out of Boodle's for cheating at cards in the following year; married, sometime in the nineties — I disremember when — Sophy Treliss, because she was supposed to have money; and died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1904, leaving two sons, Robert Blandforth Merrivale and
Hugo Parr Merrivale, who now run a bucket-shop in the City and are almost as crooked as he was."
"No," said Courtney, whacking the edge of the little table at which he had been set to take down the great man's reminiscences.
"Oh, for the love of Esau what's wrong now?"
"Libel."
"Nonsense. You can't libel a dead man."
"Yes, but these two sons aren't dead. Or at least you say they're not."
H.M. considered this. "You think maybe it's a bit strong."
"Strong? It'll get you a thousand-pound suit for damages before you're even out of the first paragraph."
"Well… now," H.M. reflected again. "Yes, maybe it is a bit on the outspoken side. All right. I'll tell you what we'll say. We'll say, 'Robert Blandforth Merrivale and Hugo Parr Merrivale, who are now in business in the City and have inherited many of the family traits.' That's all right, surely?"
"But-"
"I didn't say their father's traits. I said the family traits. Lord love a duck, sayin' they've inherited the family traits is practically praising 'em, ain't it?"
Though Courtney seemed to detect a flaw in this argument, he remained silent.
"I will now give a sketch of my childhood days," he continued abruptly. "These childhood days would have been pleasant enough had they not been poisoned by the aforementioned George Byron Merrivale.
"This weasel was always the first to insist that I should be sent to the dentist or have my hair cut. He 'heard my lessons' by asking me what was the capital of Bessarabia, or setting sums in arithmetic about the activities of a half-witted goop who was always goin' into a provision-merchant's and ordering enough groceries to last the average family for the next fourteen years.
"If I got the answer wrong, which I generally did, he would turn to my father and say, 'Henry, that boy's not being brought up right.' Then I got walloped because I wasn't being brought up right. Was this justice?"
H.M. gave the last sentiment a powerful oratorical flourish, and eyed his listener as though he expected an answer.
But he fell to brooding again.
"However, I am happy to say that life for George Byron Merrivale was not all ginger-pop either. At the age of eighteen months, when I first remember see in' him, I howled my head off. At the age of three I bit his finger almost through. At the age of five I poured hot treacle in his hat. But at the age of seven I fixed the bounder good and proper. I will now tell my readers how I did this."
An expression of secret glee stole over H.M.'s face.
"You're gettin' all this down, are you?" he inquired anxiously.
"I am."
"Every word of it?"
"Every word of it. But are you sure your memory goes back as far as the age of eighteen months?"
"Oh, I was somethin' of a prodigy," H.M. admitted, not without complacency, "but I was tellin' you about the measures I took for dealin' with my Uncle George."
Again he assumed the stuffed air which indicated that he was now dictating.
"I unscrewed the big mirror from over my mother's dressing table. I took this out on the roof, among the chimneys, on a fine sunny day when I knew George Byron Merrivale would be driving along the road in his fine trap. I caught the reflection of the sun in the four-foot mirror, and I sent the beam from it smack into his eyes."
(Courtney tried to picture his host, as a malignant small boy in large spectacles, sitting cross-legged among the chimneystacks with the mirror.)
"The louse had to pull up. He couldn't move. Forward, sideways, or back, wherever he tried to go I kept him blinded. This did not please him. Always noted for the vileness of his language, he now outdid himself. I could endure this no longer. Revolted by the bastard's profanity, I moved my mirror and sent its beam straight into the off-side eye of the horse."
"Of the what?"
"Of the horse," said H.M., coming off his dignity suddenly and just as suddenly resuming his pose again.
"This was effective. The noble animal took fright and bolted down the road at a speed only equaled by George Merrivale himself when pursued by his creditors. George Merrivale, taken off guard, went behind-over-ears into the road.
"He was not, I assure my readers, hurt in the least. Yet for this innocent escapade, which they will agree could've offended nobody with a sense of humor, I was chased three times round the stables before receivin' the worst walloping I had ever got prior to this date. Was that justice?"
He paused.
"Candidly," replied Courtney, since an answer seemed to be expected of him, "I should say yes." "Oh? You think so, hey?"
"If you don't mind plain speaking, I should say you must have been as villainous a little thug as ever walked."
"Oh, I was no mollycoddle," said H.M., obscurely pleased. He stuck his thumbs into the armholes of his waistcoat.
"I will now deal with the time I put shaving-cream in George Merrivale's alarm-clock, so that every time the alarm rang the clock started to froth like a beer-tap. Or perhaps it will interest my readers more to hear-"
"Excuse me, sir. But did you ever devil anybody except your Uncle George?" "How do you mean?"
"Well, I want to get the thing in perspective, that's all. If you go on like this, your readers will expect you to be giving him poison by the age of fifteen."
"To tell you the truth," nodded H.M., "I thought of doin' that. I disliked that blister then, and I dislike him yet. This is doing me a lot of good, son. Haah! When I begin—"
"And do you date your first interest in crime from that time?"
H.M. looked blank. "Crime?"
"I mean your success in solving criminal cases, both connected with the War Office and outside it?"
"Oh, son!" said H.M., shaking his head dismally and directing a pitying glance at his visitor. "There's nothing, in that."
"No, sir?"
"No. Lemme tell you so about some of the real things. I can't be bothered with these criminal cases any more. They don't interest me. I wouldn't touch one if-"
"Telephone for you, sir," interrupted a lean and elderly maid, sticking her head into the room. "Hey?"
"Gloucester wants you. Office of the Chief Constable, that's what they say."
H.M. glowered at his guest with a look of deep, challenging suspicion, but Courtney kept a guileless face. H.M. cursed telephones and Chief Constables. But he plodded out into the hall to take the call. Courtney could hear him bellowing to the instrument like a sergeant-major on a parade-ground.
"Looky here, Race. I told you the cyanide was in the knitting-bag, and if you arrest that sister-in-law…"
Pause.
"What do you mean, another case?…
"Race, I tell you I can't! Burn me, I got important work on hand. I'm dictatin' my..
"Well, if you think it's goin' to be embarrassing, why don't you call in Scotland Yard?…
"Oh, you're going to? Then why bother me?..
"What do you mean, another 'impossible’ situation?…"
The telephone appeared to be speaking at length. "Is that so, now?…
"And what's the name of this bloke who's been murdered?…
"Spell it. Oh! Fane! Arthur Fane."
Philip Courtney jumped to his feet. The pipe he had been filling dropped out of his hands on the table.
He had been through a variety of emotions in the past hour. First there had been the necessity to keep a straight face, and refrain from laughing into H.M.'s empurpled visage. -
Second, it seemed to him that a man must be dead and buriable who could not find pleasure in these memoirs, provided Courtney himself didn't go mad first and provided libel, scandal, and scurrilousness could be reduced to a minimum.
But now—
Again he listened as H.M.'s voice bellowed out.
"All right, all right, all right! Looky here, Race. I'll do it on one condition. The chap you want from London is called Masters. Chief Inspector Masters….
"Yes, that's it. You get him into this hot water, and I'll jump in too…
"I can depend on that, can I?..
"All right, then. Yes, I'll go over now, if you're so blinkin' hot about it. All right. Hoo-hoo. G'-by."
The receiver went up with a bang.
When H.M. plodded back into the library, he wore a somewhat guilty air which he tried to conceal under a truculent scowl. His corporation, ornamented by a large gold watch-chain, was truculent of itself.
"Get your hat, son," he said. "You're comin' along."
"Where?"
"Just up the road," insisted H.M., his truculence changing to honeyed persuasion. "A solicitor named Arthur Fane has been polished off by his wife—" "God Almighty!"
"But there seems to be some doubt about who did it." All of a sudden Courtney was conscious of sharp little eyes boring into him from behind the spectacles; they made him jump.
"What's the matter, son?" asked H.M. casually. "You don't know anything about it, do you?"
"No, but this autobiography—"
"Napoleon," said H.M., "could do five or six things at once. I can have a good shot at managin' two. You come along. I'll sort of look into this; and at intervals, I’ll sort of dictate to you over my shoulder."
Courtney, on the point of intimating that this was the craziest idea which even H.M. appeared to have had so far, checked himself and thought of Frank Sharpless. After all, why not?
"But I can't go barging in there!"
"You can," replied H.M. simply, "if you're with me. Colonel Race says his secretary's there. Gal named Ann Browning. Race says this gal's got her headpiece screwed on right, and knows a thing or two. That's all eyewash, naturally. There never was a woman who was any ruddy good as a secretary; except my Lolly-pop, of course, and she's different. But it might be interest-in' to see what this gal says."
"Well-"
"Get your hat," glared H.M., "and come on."
Courtney did not have a hat. But, as H.M. took a Panama of regrettable design from the hat-rack, he followed the lumbering figure down the hall into a hot, silver, moonlight night.
Passers-by in the elm-shaded street might have been startled by a voice which marched beneath the elms. It was a strange, throaty, self-conscious voice, like that of a prophet in a trance or a ventriloquist talking bass.
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