H.M. blinked.
"So? That's quick work, ain't it, Masters?"
"Four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. If you don't mind my pointing it out."
"Now, now. Less of the heavy copper stuff, son. What have you been up to?"
Masters inhaled a mighty breath.
"I've talked to Agnew, and read through his notes. I've had a word with Mrs. Fane, Captain Sharpless, Mr. Hubert Fane, Dr. Rich, the maid, and the cook. I've been carefully over that sitting room where the murder was done." "And?"
"You," suggested Masters pointedly, "tell me."
H.M. cast down the putter. He went to the porch and returned carrying two beach-chairs. These, after a struggle vaguely suggesting Laocoon, in which the chairs folded into shapes even more incomprehensible than is their usual custom, he managed to set straight for Masters and himself.
"It's like this," the chief inspector continued, — putting his hat down on the grass. "If only these people wouldn't be so ruddy pat with their stories! If only they wouldn't all swear they saw each other all the time! If only—" He stopped, remembering that he was speaking in front of one of them.
"It's perfectly true, though," Ann assured him.
Masters craned round. His tone grew confidential.
"Come, now, miss! Just among ourselves. How can you be so sure of that?"
"Because four of us then were sitting as close together as the four of us are here now. With Dr. Rich in the middle, like this."
Ann reached out after the putter, and stood it up in the middle to represent Rich.
"The bridge lamp was shining down directly on us. The table was at least twelve feet away—"
"Just twelve feet," said Masters. "I measured it."
"And the circle wasn't broken," concluded Ann. "The only one who ever went near the table was Arthur Fane himself."
"I say, Masters," interposed H.M., who was leaning back in the beach-chair and had his revolting hat tilted over his spectacles. "What's your notion of the suggestion that somebody sneaked in by way of the door or the windows?"
Masters hesitated.
"Go on, son! Speak up."
"Well, sir, I say I'm smacking well certain nobody did. It's not just that I take the word of the people in the room, though I can see what they tell me is reasonable enough. But — as regards the door — I've got an independent witness."
"A witness? Who?"
"Daisy Fenton, the maid."
Masters took out his notebook.
"Now, this girl Daisy had been curious, real hot-and-bothered curious, about what was being done that night. She knew there was some hypnotism game going on, but she didn't know what. Any girl would be curious, I expect. So, from the time that crowd went into the back sitting room after dinner to the time Mr. Fane was stabbed, Daisy never left the front hall."
"Wow!" said H.M.
Masters nodded grimly. "Just so, sir." "But-"
"Stop a bit, now. Daisy hung about the hall. A little later, she saw Mrs. Fane come out of the sitting room for that part where Mrs. Fane was asked to go out, like a guessing game.
''Daisy shied back into the dining-room door, where it was dark, and waited. She says Mrs. Fane listened at the door, which wasn't quite caught, until somebody closed it from inside. Then after a few minutes Dr. Rich opened it, and invited Mrs. Fane back in. All just as we've heard.
"Back went Daisy to her post in the hall. A little while after this, the front doorbell rang. It was a bookie named MacDonald, asking to see Mr. Hubert Fane. Daisy tried to send him away, but he wasn't having any. So down she went to the sitting room, and fetched out Mr. Hubert Fane."
Masters paused, clearing his throat.
The late afternoon sun blazed on his forehead. To
Courtney, the scene last night unfolded in vivid colors, even though he had not seen it.
"Mr. Hubert Fane came out, and spoke to the bookie on the front steps. They were arguing about something — Daisy could see 'em all the time — while Daisy remained where she was, in the hall, with one ear on the door."
H.M., who had been breathing as though in sleep under the hat, here opened one eye.
"Hold on, son! Wasn't she afraid old Hubert might get shirty if he saw her hangin' about obviously listening at door?"
Masters shook his head.
"No. She says she knew he wouldn't say anything to her. She says he never does. She says—" Masters' tone took on a note of heavy mimicry—"she says he's 'such a dear old gentleman.' "
"Uh-huh. Go on."
"Mr. Hubert Fane finished his talk with the bookie, and came back into the hall. He walked into the dining room, took a nip of brandy off the sideboard (as I'm told his habit is), walked straight back again to the sitting-room door, and opened it just about ten seconds after Mr. Arthur Fane was stabbed. In other words, he's got every bit as good an alibi as anybody in that room."
Masters shut up his notebook with a slap.
"But the important thing (eh?) is Daisy's testimony. She swears — and so help me, sir, I don't see any reason to doubt her — that nobody could have sneaked past her while she was there. And that's our witness. It washes out the door."
"Yes. I was afraid of that."
"Do you agree, Sir Henry, or don't you?"
H.M. groaned.
"All right, son. I agree. What about the windows?" "I gave those windows a good going-over. Under them there's a four-foot-wide flower-bed that was watered down late in the afternoon, and would show traces if you as much as breathed on it. The windows are eight feet up. They've got an unbroken coating of dust across the sills; thick dust. You know what the floor inside is like. The table was twelve feet from the windows. The curtains were drawn, and our witnesses swear they never moved. Lummy! Aside from having the windows locked and bolted on the inside, which they'd hardly be on an August night, I don't see how it could be more impossible for anybody to have got in. It washes out the windows as well."
"Yes," admitted H.M., "it does."
Philip Courtney found his wits whirling.
He had hoped that the night would bring good counsel, or at least some flaw in the evidence. But now the room seemed sealed up, as though with gummed paper, worse than ever.
"But the thing's impossible!" he said.
Masters turned slowly round and contemplated him. He had the air of a man who, though lost in a strange land, yet hears an old familiar tune.
"Ah," murmured the chief inspector. "Now where have I heard that before? Lummy, where have I heard it before? But look at Sir Henry there! It doesn't seem to bother him any."
H.M. had, indeed, a singularly peaceful air as he lay back in the chair. A fly circled round and settled down on the peak of his hat.
"The case," pursued Masters, "has got to be approached in a different way. It's all crazy and back-to-foremost to start with. We begin by knowing the murderer; but the murderer's the only person who can't be guilty. We—"
"Now, now, son!" urged H.M. soothingly.
But Masters was getting steam up.
"We've got to find someone who exchanged a real dagger for a rubber one, when the evidence proves nobody could have done it. It's no good saying, 'Where were you at such-and-such a time?' We know where they were. It's no good saying, 'How do you explain this bit of suspicious behavior?' Because there isn't any suspicious behavior. There's no behavior at all. Hypnotism! Rubber daggers! Urr!"
He drew his sleeve across his forehead.
"Now, Masters, you're gettin' yourself all hot…!"
"Yes, sir, I am; and I admit it. Who wouldn't be? If you can suggest any explanation of how those daggers could have been exchanged, I'd be glad to hear it. But, so far as I can see, there isn't any."
"Oh, my son! Of course there's an explanation!"
"An explanation that fits all the facts?"
"An explanation that fits all the facts."
"And you know it?"
"Sure. It's easy."
Masters got up from his chair, but sat down again. H.M. struggled
up to a sitting position.
"No, son: I'm not just actin' the cryptic. I really am worried. I'm afraid that if I tell you this explanation you'll go harm' off on the wrong track."
"I can believe evidence, Sir Henry."
"Yes. I know. That's what worries me. See here." H.M. ruffled the tips of his fingers across his forehead. "For the sake of argument, do you believe the stories of these witnesses — Ann Browning, Captain Sharpless, Dr. Rich, Hubert Fane — that none of 'em went near the table at any time?"
"What else can I do? Unless the whole thing's a quadruple-put-up job, with everybody lying, what else can I do? I'm bound to accept it."
"All right. Do you also believe that nobody could have got in from outside?"
"Ah! That I do, and I don't mind admitting it."
H.M. looked distressed.
"So. Then, according to the evidence, there's only one explanation that can be true. It's been an odd blind spot that nobody seems to have noticed before."
"If you mean," retorted Masters, regarding him with broad and fishy skepticism, "that Mr. Arthur Fane exchanged the daggers himself… well, I'll just say ha-ha and let it go at that. Mr. Fane knew he was going to be stabbed with that dagger. He insisted on it. He had a spot drawn over his heart so it couldn't be missed. Don't tell me any man plans suicide in quite that way. But Mr. Fane was the only person who did go near that table."
H.M. sighed.
"Got it," he said.
"Got what?"
"The blind spot. Burn me, we've been repeatin' the story about nobody goin' near the table so often that it's stopped having any meaning.
"We're forgetting that there was somebody who admittedly did go near the table. Not only near it; but to it, in plain sight. Somebody who stood with her back to the witnesses so that her body shielded the table in a darkish part of the room. Somebody who wore a full-sleeved dress tight at the wrists. Somebody who could, therefore, have slipped the real dagger out of her sleeve, and the rubber dagger back in its place, as quick as winking."
H.M. looked still more glum and angry.
"In short," he concluded, "Mrs. Fane herself."
Ten
Ann sat very still, her breath coming slowly. Her heels were together, her eyes on the ground. When she raised her head to look at H.M., so that the sun flashed gold on her hair, her eyes were brilliant but incredulous.
"Oh, that's absurd!" Ann protested. "You mean she wasn't really hypnotized at all? And only pretended to be? Impossible! Besides, I know Vicky well and I'm awfully fond of her. She'd never—"
"So? Aren't you the gal," queried H.M., peering over his spectacles, "who went up to her bedroom especially to stick her with a pin and find out?"
Ann clenched her hands.
"I went up there to get. my compact. I really did, though nobody will believe me!"
Masters' face wore a far-off, satisfied smile for the first time that day.
"Well, well, well!" mused the chief inspector, and rubbed his hands. "Now this is something like evidence, I don't mind telling you!"
H.M. uttered a groan.
"Just confidentially," pursued Masters, cheering up, "I never did like all this hypnotic funny business, and that's a fact. Oh, I know it's scientifically true, all right!
We bumped into it in that Mantling case years ago.* But here — no, it didn't just look right to me, somehow. Hold on, though. Stop a bit." He frowned, fingering his jaw. "That pin business. Mrs. Fane was stuck with a pin, wasn't she? And she didn't even so much as blink?"
*See The Red Widow Murders, William Morrow and Company, 1935.
"She was," agreed Ann firmly. "I saw it done."
"Uh-huh," said H.M. "So did somebody else." He turned to Masters. "Do you happen to have a pin on you, son?"
"What for?"
"Never mind what for. If you got a pin," said H.M., opening and shutting his hand, "gimme."
After staring at him for a moment, Masters turned back the lapel of his jacket, revealing two pins stuck through the underside.
" 'See a pin and pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck,' " he quoted, not without jocularity. "My old mother taught me that years ago, and I've never been able to resist—"
"Stow the gab," said H.M., "and gimme."
Masters handed it over.
Holding the pin in his mouth, H.M. reached into his pocket and took out a box of matches. Squinting, he held the pin by the head in his left hand, and carefully moved the match-flame over it from end to end.
"I hope our friend Rich," he grunted, "sterilized that pin before he used it on Mrs. Fane?"
"He didn't, that I remember," said Ann.
"So? Careless. And blinkin' dangerous too. Now watch closely, and the old man'll give you a demonstration."
Holding his left forearm against his leg so that the skin was taut, H.M. searched for a place in the upper side of the forearm. He set the point of the pin there, and with a quick push drove it to the head in his arm.
Everyone had instinctively stiffened in protest. It formed a grotesque contrast: the late afternoon sunshine, the quiet green lawn with the white clock-golf numerals, and the push that drove steel into flesh.
"Brr!" said Ann, moving her shoulders. "But you didn't jump?"
"No, my wench. Because it didn't hurt, I didn't even feel it."
Masters regarded him incredulously.
"True, son," H.M. assured him. "Just a medical fact, like hypnotism. This is an old parlor trick, well known to conjurors and—"
He paused, blinking. Then his eyes grew fixed as he looked into vacancy, and a sniff rumbled through his nose. An idea seemed to be stirring with considerable effect. In the same dream he stretched out his right hand, moving the fingers as though pressing something. But, as the others clamored at him, he woke up.
"No!" he snapped. "Burn it all, I'm no Yogi. Anybody can do this. You can do it yourselves, if you choose a part of the arm where you don't hit a vein or an artery, make sure the skin is firm, and drive it in firmly." He plucked out the pin, which was followed by not a speck of blood. "Like to try it?"
"No, thanks," shivered Ann.
"Let me have a go," requested Courtney.
He was not at all easy about this. But Ann's eyes were on him, and he tried not to hesitate. Baring his left arm to the elbow, he took the pin (which H.M. insisted on sterilizing again), set it to his arm, gritted his teeth, and…
"Ow!" he yelled, bouncing as though an adder had bitten him.
Nor was he soothed by H.M.'s manifest glee.
"I knew I was goin' to crack your poker-face sooner or later," declared H.M. Then his tone changed. "You didn't work it," he explained patiently, "because you. were instinctively afraid of hurtin' yourself. You jabbed it in with a little bit of a push to see if you would feel it, and so of course you did. That's not the way, son. Your subconscious—"
"Everything in this ruddy case," said Masters, "is subconscious. Look here, sir: this trick really works?"
"Oh, son, of course it does. You saw me do it. Wants practice and strength of mind, naturally."
Masters eyed him.
"You're full of tricks, aren't you?"
"He is," said Courtney, plucking the pin from a smarting arm. "If you were taking down his memoirs, Chief Inspector, you'd realize that that's all he ever thinks about."
H.M. looked pleased.
"I've got a theory," Courtney pursued, "that it's the explanation of how he catches murderers. His mind works like theirs."
"But the point is," insisted Masters, sweeping this aside, "that this thing is practical and Mrs. Fane could have been shamming. Hold on, though! It was Dr. Rich who worked that game. Does that mean he was in cahoots with her?"
"No, no, no, no, no!" growled H.M. "It doesn't mean Mrs. Fane was shamming, and it doesn't mean Rich was in cahoots with her. Rich knew very well she wasn't shamming—"
"Oh?" inquired Masters skeptically.
"— or he wouldn't have asked her certain questions later, un
der hypnosis, that I'm goin' to tell you about in a minute. But this gal here—" he pointed at Ann— "was doubtful. So Rich took the opportunity of getting rid of her quickly by a trick. That's all."
Masters took out his notebook. He balanced it on his knee. He shot back his shirt-cuffs, to make plain that his words would be careful and weighty.
"Now listen to me for a minute, sir. You yourself admit that Mrs. Fane is the only person who could be guilty. Now don't you?"
"According to the evidence, yes."
"Just so. And she could have shammed being hypnotized, couldn't she?"
"I s'pose so."
"In a way that could have deceived even Dr. Rich himself? Just so!" Masters was warming up again. "It'd take a thundering good piece of acting, granted. But we've met these good actresses before. Remember Glenda Darworth? And Janet Derwent? And Hilary Keen?
"She could have switched the daggers, right enough. The next question is: what happened to the rubber dagger afterwards? She 'slipped it in her sleeve,' you suggest. But it didn't stay there. Where is the rubber dagger, then? Agnew tells me he made a thorough search of that back sitting room, but he didn't find it."
"No," said H.M. disconsolately, "I found it."
"You found it?"
H.M. reached into his trousers pocket. He took out the rubber dagger, flimsy and tawdry-looking against sunlight, its scratched silver paint showing shreds and patches of darker rubber beneath. He bent it back and forth.
"Where did you find that thing, sir?"
"In the sofa. Poked down between the bottom and back cushions, out of sight. On the same sofa where Mrs. Fane was lyin' afterwards, presumably hypnotized."
The ensuing pause, as they all envisaged Vicky Fane lying there, was not more sinister than Masters' rather affable voice.
"You don't tell me now?" inquired the chief inspector, taking the dagger from H.M. and examining it. "And when did you find it there?" "Last night."
"Last night? Then why in blazes couldn't you have said something about it?"
H.M. scratched the side of his nose.
"For the same reason I'm not awful keen on showing it now. Masters, the idea is a beauty. I admit that. Woman gets herself (apparently) hypnotized. Then polishes off her husband. And everybody thinks, as you say, that the murderer is the only person who can't possibly be guilty."
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