"You've had a look at that pavilion. You've had your attention called to the fires. There were two fires, one in the drawin'-room and one in the bedroom, made by Thompson before twelve o'clock. Everybody agrees, so there'll be no fightin' or dark glares when I repeat it, that she never used the drawin'-room at all last night: each person was entertained in the other room. You don't keep the fire goin' strong in a room you don't use. Admittin', then, that she used the bedroom, we know that she hadn't turned in and gone to sleep. She was killed about a quarter past three.
"So what have we got? We got two very small fires, which we can prove by the quantity of ash you saw yourself, burnin' exactly the same length of time-you saw that they were the same. We're asked to believe that for three and a half hours a very small fire in the bedroom was sufficient to keep comfortable a pampered hot-house orchid like Tait in a literal ice-house of a pavilion on a snowy December night while it was never replenished, but stayed the same as the one in the other room. We're asked to believe that she was snugly drinkin' port with the murderer at a quarter past three, sittin' at her ease in negligee before the blaze of a fire which actually must have been ashes an hour before that time.
"It don't require much brain-rackin' to see that those fires stayed the same, and went out about the same time, because she wasn't in the pavilion at all.”
"Whereat, before examin' other things in the room, I found myself hoppin' back to another fact I'd already heard. This piece of evidence screamed at you; so loudly that some fathead did notice it and promptly proceeded to put a farfetched meanin' to it when the real one was much handier. I mean the mysterious figure in the gallery at some time after three o'clock, who smeared Miss Carewe's hand with blood. The theorist was quite right in propoundin' the question, `Why, since there was water at the pavilion, did the fool murderer come all the way up to the house before washin' his hands?'
"Then the theorist goes star-gazin' for his answer, with some complicated tommyrot about the figure being a myth and an even more intricate tale, wholly unsubstantiated, about an attack on Tait with a huntin' crop. Whereas the real answer was, `The murderer didn't come back from the pavilion. He killed Tait here.' Which is simple, and true. I said to myself, `Sure, he was goin' out to the bathroom after water; because,' I said to myself, `didn't Masters tell me that there wasn't any water in this room, and they hadda send out for a bowl when John Bohun shot himself here this morning?' "
Silence. The vivid memory returned to Bennett. But Maurice was sitting forward now; his shoulders hunched up, and his voice going into a batlike squeak.
"I thank you," he said, "for your graceful compliments. But I think I begin to see what you are driving at. You are still accusing — you come back round in the circle, don't you? You accuse my brother John of this murder?"
He struggled to his feet and stood shaking. H. M. leaned forward.
"No," rumbled H. M., "I don't. Not necessarily. But you're gettin' warm, Bohun. You're skirtin' near the truth of the impossible situation at last. Speak up! By God, it's almost penetrated now. What happened?"
The little man moved forward and leaned on the table. His, eyes seemed to narrow and contract. Maurice said:
"John returned with his bad news, and found her in this room. He thought he had killed Canifest; he was in a fury and desperate; he did not care what happened to him; and, when she flew out at him as she would, he went fully amok and killed her.”
"Then," Bohun went on, "he began to realize his position. Nobody had seen him kill Canifest; he might escape that. But if Marcia's body were found in his room, he knew that he had no chance whatever of escaping the rope. The only chance for safety lay in waiting until daylight, in carrying her body out to the pavilion, in setting up false evidence at the pavilion to indicate that she had been murdered there, and in finding her body himself… That's it! That's it! He did kill her after all!"
Slowly H. M. pulled himself up out of his chair.
"I said, son, that you were gettin' warm," he snapped, "and in that last part of it you ring a crashin' bull's-eye. There, fatheads, is the explanation part of it-of the impossible situation. Are you beginnin' to see it?
"Do you understand now why John's nerve completely broke this morning, and he came up here and shot himself? What broke his nerve? Think back, like Masters told me. John was in the dinin'-room with two or three of you. And he went over to the window. And what did he see? Speak up!"
Again the memory smashed back on Bennett.
"He saw," said Bennett, in a voice he did not recognize, "he saw Potter examining and measuring those tracks of his in the snow, because Rainger had said. "
"Because of Rainger's explanation. Uh-huh. And he asked Masters what Potter was doin'. So Masters, with a sinister leer whose effectiveness Masters didn't know even then replied, `Only making measurements of your tracks in the snow.' Why did that break John's nerve? Not because of Rainger's elaborate bunkum of a theory. But because John had carried a dead woman down to that pavilion in early morning, and he thought they were on to him! There you are. No fancy claptrap of playin' pranks with hocussed tracks, that's been makin' your brains dizzy all along. Merely a big and powerful man carryin' a body down to the pavilion through snow that was too shallow to show the deep imprint of two weights. Rainger said one true thing. He said it couldn't have been done without discovery if the snow had been deeper. It couldn't; the tracks would have sunk in too deeply. But with a little plaster of snow… are you beginnin' to see why those tracks were so sharply and heavily printed, like Potter said, and also why they'd dragged a good deal at the toes?"
H. M. had lost his woodenness. His voice smashed across the silent room.
"Didn't I tell you that somebody had smashed a decanter and a couple of glasses on the hearthstone; deliberately smashed 'em, to make it look like there'd been a struggle there? Well, didn't you wonder why? It was to offer proof she'd been killed at the pavilion.
"Now I'm very slowly and painstakingly goin' to tell you what he did. He didn't kill the woman. He found her dead when he got here. And in this tale you'll probably see the dead glarin' evidence that'll tell you who did kill her. Go back to the beginning of it all.
"She left that pavilion, turnin' off the lights; she came up here, as I've told you, and was afraid to go back because of the dog. Now in the tale I'll leave a single cloud of blackness straight in the middle; the cloud of blackness that hides the murderer who finds her here and beats her head in. The murderer leaves her here — maybe on that bed," he pointed: "maybe anywhere. We pass the cloud of blackness to the end of the story, when John Bohun comes into it.”
"He's driven back from town. He thinks he's killed Canifest, and the only thing that will save him is to lie about the time he reached home. That is, if he can somehow prove that he did reach home at the same time he must have killed Canifest in London; if he can prove an alibi by having somebody swear he was here and not in London when Canifest died; that'll save him. That's simple, ain't it? He's got to get that alibi. It's burnin' in his mind all the time he rides hell-for-leather out here. Fix it! Fix it, somehow! So that wild, nervous, irresolute feller who don't know his own mind from one minute to the next he comes home, walks up here, and finds Marcia Tait dead in his room!
"Look here, do you wonder much at his behavior this mornin'? Here he was, caught between two hangmen as neat as you please. Now if he fakes an alibi, and says he couldn't have been with Canifest because he was here, he's got a dead woman in his room to account for. If he admits the time he got home, they may hang him for Canifest's death. Whichever way he looks, there's a hemp collar swingin' at the end of it. He don't know who killed Tait. He don't even know how she got here, or anything about it. What he does know is that he's in a hell of a mess, and he's got to see a way out so that he won't swing for either crime.
"Could he, for instance, carry her back to her own room and pretend she'd been murdered there? Then he could swear to a faked time at which he got home; and maybe get somebody to
back him up. Where was she supposed to sleep? He remembers: the pavilion. Did she go out there? He's got to find out, and there's nobody awake to tell him. He also remembers: a riding-engagement for this morning.
"The thing to do is find out. Now here's where the grain of truth in Rainger's theory enters. He dresses in riding-clothes, so that if she really has slept at the pavilion (as he believes), he'll have a good excuse for `finding' her early in the morning. He wakes up the butler, who tells him she's out there and that horses are ordered for seven o'clock. Good God! There's where the ticklish, dangerous skatin' on ice comes in. The stables are in sight of the pavilion and even the door of the pavilion! If he delays until quite daylight, somebody bringin' those horses out may see him go down with the body… On the other hand, if he can take her in there a few minutes, just a few minutes beforehand; if he can put her in the bedroom, and then walk back to the front door of the pavilion; then stand there until he sees somebody at the stables, whom he'll hail as though he were just goin' in for the first time to `find' her — then he's safe."
H. M. stabbed out with his finger. "Do you understand the burnt matches now? He carried her in there and put her on the floor a few minutes before Jim Bennett unexpectedly arrived on the scene: so few minutes that his tracks were still fresh. It was growing daylight, but not quite daylight (I carefully asked that nephew of mine about it) and Bohun had to be able to see clearly to set his stage for the fake murder! Got it now? He didn't dare switch on a light in the room. A large window faced directly towards the stables, where people were already up. If a light flashed on in that room, sorta sudden and inexplicable-like, a few minutes before Bohun claimed he walked into the pavilion for the first time. why, somebody would have seen it and wondered why."
"Hold on, sir!" said Bennett. "There was a blind on that window — a Venetian blind. Couldn't he simply have lowered the blind?"
H. M. blinked at him.
"Do you think, my amiable dotard," he growled, "they wouldn't have seen the light just the same? Didn't you and me ourselves see a light, through those slits in the Venetian blind, when Willard turned one on this afternoon in the drawin'-room? Y'know, it's a funny thing how every one of the answers to all these questions had been repeated before our eyes to sorta help us along. Quit interruptin', will you? Dammit, I'm in full stride and enjoyin' myself..
"He struck matches while he tipped things over, smashed glasses, took off the woman's fur coat and stowed away her galoshes in the closet where I went lookin' for 'em. He didn't have anything to simulate a weapon with, although he tried to make it seem like the poker. I could tell it wasn't; no blood or hair. He put her on the floor after a couple of minutes of crazy work. Then he went to the door, saw Locker over across the way; hailed him; strolled back, uttered a rather unnecessary yell which didn't sound like Bohun at all and made me suspicious to begin with. Rushin' back to the door, he meets Jim Bennett comin' down the lawn…
"By the way, I hear he had blood on his hands then. Didn't that seem fishy to you, son — sticky blood, although the woman had been murdered some hours before? It didn't mean he'd killed her. It meant he'd heavily yanked or disturbed the body somehow, such as he wouldn't have done merely by examinin' it; he'd disturbed clots and released something, although the heart had stopped pumpin' and it wasn't fresh-"
Somebody cried out. H. M. glanced at them as though he held a whip.
"Then," he went on heavily, "he was ready. The feller was clever in everything but one. He forgot about the snow. Do you wonder he was shaken up when Jim Bennett pointed it out; and he yelled out that it didn't mean anything? Do you see why he could afford to laugh when Willard suggested Tait's murder at the pavilion meant an assignation there last night? An assignation, lads, yet the blind wasn't even pulled down on a towerin' window! hadn't that feature struck anybody's boarding-house mind? Never mind. He thought he'd covered everything up. Now he could announce to everybody that he'd arrived home here a good deal earlier than he actually had. He could say he didn't kill Canifest because he was here before the time 'Canifest was knocked off. "
Maurice Bohun began to laugh; a thin, malicious laughter that convulsed his shoulders.
"Quite, Sir Henry," he said. "But I should fancy — in fact I do fancy — that's exactly where your theory comes crashing down. Most interesting! You proclaim the spotless innocence of my brother. You say he did all these things for one express purpose. That purpose had two parts: the first, which I concede you readily, was to shift Marcia's body so that he would not be thought guilty by having it found in his room. But the second part-to lie about the time he had actually arrived home — utterly destroys your whole case. He did not lie about the time he arrived home. In fact, what you have done is to build up a brilliant and almost unanswerable case against my poor brother as the murderer. He arrived at shortly after three o'clock. Just a few minutes afterwards, by medical testimony, Marcia was murdered. Well?"
"Exactly," said H. M. "That's what makes me absolutely certain, son, that he didn't commit the murder."
"What? I do not think, Sir Henry," said Maurice, suddenly checking his rage, "this is precisely the time for talking nonsense. "
"Oh, it ain't nonsense. Just look at it for a minute. Here's a man whose double motive is to prove that he didn't kill Canifest and he didn't kill Tait? Hey? He wants to do the one by makin' his arrival here earlier than it actually was, and the other by movin' the body. H'm. All right. If he really did kill Tait, then he knew when she died: that's not a very far-fetched assumption. Then why the blazes does he want to make the time he says he arrived here so nearly coincide with the time the woman was murdered? — carefully makin' it just a little earlier than she was killed? That's an incredibly fatheaded way of bringin' suspicion back to him, especially as after a car-drive from London a matter of twenty minutes or half-an-hour won't matter so much! Why did he say roughly three o'clock? Why didn't he make it earlier, and provide an alibi for both victims? — You instantly reply, 'Because Thompson heard him come in, and he couldn't lie.' That won't wash. He told his story long before he knew that, by a chance nobody in the world could anticipate, Thompson was awake with the toothache and could check up on him. He told that story deliberately, because…”
"Shall I read you a telegram?" inquired H. M.
"A telegram? What telegram?"
"From Canifest. I got it just before dinner. It's interestin' And this is what it says." H. M. drew the folded paper from his inside pocket. "I asked him, as a matter of fact, what time John Bohun had called on him at his home last night.
`WENT HOME," said Canifest, `JUST AFTER MORNING EDITION OF GLOBE-JOURNAL WENT TO PRESS, PRECISELY TWO FORTY-FIVE A.M. FOUND CALLER IN QUESTION WAITING AT SIDE DOOR AND TOOK HIM TO MY DEN. DO NOT KNOW WHAT TIME HE LEFT DUE TO HEART ATTACK YOU MAY UNDERSTAND, BUT AM CERTAIN NOT EARLIER THAN THREE-THIRTY.' "
H. M. tossed the slip of paper on the table.
"He said three o'clock," snapped H. M., "because he thought it was a safe time to admit he'd arrived here. As a matter of fact he didn't get here until an hour or two afterwards.:'
"But somebody got here!" shouted Willard. "Somebody drove in at ten minutes past three! Who was it?"
"The murderer," said H. M. "He's played in every bit of luck on the globe; he's been shielded by every trick of luck that nature and fate and craziness could invent; he's fooled us in front of our very eyes, but grab him, Masters!"
The voice ripped across the room as somebody flung open the door to the gallery. The door to the staircase banged open at the same time, and Inspector Potter plunged through at the same time that Masters appeared in the other. Masters said with quiet and deadly formality:
"Herbert Timmons Emery, I arrest you for the murder of Marcia Tait and Carl Rainger. I have to warn you that anything"
The lank sandy haired figure stared only for a second before it dodged under the hand that had descended on its shoulder. It whirled a chair at Potter's legs; ducked again, while still crying something, and plun
ged down the staircase door. Potter caught a piece of a coat and then a leg. He should not have tripped the man up. They heard the cry out of the dark, and then the crash. Then there was silence while a white-faced Potter got up shakily on the landing, and they saw him peering down into the dark.
CHAPTER TWENTY
June Over Whitehall
Above the small severe name-plate reading, "Sir Henry Merrivale," the door was inscribed with staggering letters, splashed in white paint, "Busy! No Admittance! Keep Out! " And below, in an even angrier script, it added, "This means You!" The old hallway was musty and warm at the top of Whitehall's ancient rabbit-warren; through a crooked window on the stairs they could see the moving green of trees.
Katharine looked at the door and hesitated. "But it says!" she protested.
"Nonsense," said Bennett. He pushed open the door.
Both windows were open to the lazy June air; there was a smell of old wood and paper in the dusky room, and a hum of traffic from the Embankment below. H. M.'s big feet were on the desk and entangled with the telephone. His big bald head was hung forward so that the glasses slid down his nose, and his eyes were closed.
Bennett rapped on the inside of the door. "I'm sorry to interrupt, sir," he said, in the middle of a whistling snore, "but we thought..”
H. M. opened one eye. He seemed to be galvanized. "Go 'way! Out! I won't be disturbed, dammit! I sent you that report on the accordion-player yesterday afternoon; and if you wanta know why the key of G had anything to do with Robrett's dyin', then you, look in there and you'll see. I'm busy! I — who's there, hey?" He sat up a little, and then scowled savagely. "Oh, it's you two, hey? I might 'a' known it. I might 'a' known somebody like you would interrupt when I'm engaged on a very serious business. What are you grinnin' at, curse you? It is seriousl It's the Dardanelles matter, only I forget the chief part of it now. It's somethin' to do with the peace of the world." He sniffed, and looked at them in a disgruntled fashion. "Humph. You look sorta happy, and that's bad. "
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