"Doris," interrupted her father. Still he did not speak loudly, but there was something in his voice which made her falter still more.
"Doris," continued Locke, "despite your vast experience in these matters, and your understanding of our poor human problems, has it ever once entered that scatterbrain of yours" —suddenly he whacked the arm of the chair—"that Mrs. Marsh was probably poisoned?"
"Has it, my dear?"
"I don't know," flamed Doris, "and I don't care. All I mean is: you're not going to look so shocked at Thorley for doing what That Woman did too, after she'd already made his life so unhappy about other things. And you're not going to say Thorley was mean and brutal and 'hastened her departure.' "
"No, Doris," Holden said gently. "But then we're not going to say Celia is mad."
"Celia's nice, Don Dismallo," said Doris, lifting a flushed face. "But she's crazy. Thorley told me. Crazy, crazy, crazyl"
And they looked at each other.
"Gentlemen," Locke said formally, after a long pause, "it would be an understatement to say that we are in the middle of an abominable mess."
He rose to his feet.
It just then occurred to Holden that here in the Long Gallery they were directly underneath the suite of rooms where the crime (if you could call it that) had been committed. Up there, if you glanced southward, would be the white-and-gold sitting room where Margot had been taken ill, and the rose bedroom where she had died.
Perhaps the same thought occurred to Locke, for he lifted his eyes briefly before clasping his hands together with close, controlled emotion.
"Somehow," Locke continued, "we got into this. Somehow we must get out of it. The life of every single person connected with this affair has become involved in the web. It's no abstract problem. It's a violent personal issue. Yet it's a web we can't see; can't understand; can only feel. We're not even sure what the problem is. Until we solve that problem, we shall touch frantic states of mind and we shall not be able to sleep at night. But I can't solve the problem. Apparently you can't. In the name of heaven, who can solve it?"
It was Obey's voice which startled them then, 006/8 voice calling the announcement of someone's arrival from the steps to the Painted Room. What Obey bawled was:
"Dr. Gideon Fell."
CHAPTER IX
"Aha!" said Dr. Fell.
How a figure of such vast dimensions managed even to squeeze through the arch, let alone navigate the steps, was something of a mystery. But Dr. Fell managed it
Down he came rolling majestically, an enormous shape with a box-pleated cape round his shoulders, supporting himself on two canes. His shovel hat was clutched under a hand which held one of the canes. His shaggy mop of gray-streaked hair framed a beaming red face with three chins and a very small nose, on which was perched a pair of eyeglasses with a broad black ribbon. A bandit's moustache, uncombed for several days, curved round his mouth. And he beamed on them like a walking furnace.
Dr. Fell's dignity, it is true, was a little impaired by the fact that the ridges of his waistcoat were spattered with cigar ash, and in an upper waistcoat pocket was stuck a long folded envelope carefully inscribed with the words Don't forget this.
But the whole gallery shook to his tread. You might have imagined that the portraits, in which the last light picked out the red of an officer's uniform or the white of a wig, rattled in their frames as he advanced along the narrow strip of carpet.
Dr. Fell, after a vague glance at those portraits, seemed in danger of walking straight into them in order to examine them properly. But he remembered his purpose. Approaching the group by the middle window, he cleared his throat with a long challenging sound like a war cry.
"Mr. Thorley Marsh?"
Thorley, white-faced but stolidly himself again, nodded and stared. "Sir Danvers Locke?" Locke smiled and inclined his head. "Er—Miss Doris Locke?"
Doris, who was furtively wiping her eyes, uttered a kind of squeak at this apparition towering over her.
"Aha!" said Dr. Fell, pleased to have got that straight He wheeled round toward Holden. Whereupon, inexplicably, he began to laugh.
It started as a kind of chuckle deep in his stomach, and then spread upward like a minor earthquake. It made cigar ash rise in clouds from the ridges of his waistcoat, and blew wide the broad ribbon of his eyeglasses. It chortled and roared and thundered, turning Dr. Fell's face scarlet, bringing moisture to his eyes, and, with an outward whoop of the stomach, sending his eyeglasses flying. Its effect was rather like one of those laughing gramophone records: in which, if you are not careful, you will join without knowing why.
"Would you mind telling me," asked Holden, who like Doris and her father had been about to join in, "why I look as funny as all that?"
Dr. Fell stopped dead.
An expression of deep concern overspread his face as he got his breath back.
"Sir," he wheezed, in a voice of real distress, "I beg your pardon! I do really beg your pardon!"
It poured with a contrition out of all proportion to the offense. But he meant it. Everything about him was huger than life, including emotions. Putting down his shovel hat and one walking stick on the table beside Locke's, he groped down the ribbon of the eyeglasses and stuck them awry on his nose.
"You will—er—accept my apologies?" he demanded anxiously. "It was only, sir, that you unconsciously allowed me to accomplish something which (archons of Athens!) I had never believed possible. You see..."
"Look here,'' said Thorley. "What is all this?"
Dr. Fell slowly wheeled round again on one cane.
"Oh, ah! Yes! Sir, you must allow me to explain this unwarranted intrusion."
"No, no, glad to have you!" Thorley assured him, with a shade of Thorley's old hearty smile.
"You see," explained Dr. Fell, with his vague wandering round the gallery, "this is not the first time I have visited Caswall. At one time I had the honor to be a friend of the late Mrs. Andrew Devereux. The lady whom you called, I believe, Mammy Two."
"Mammy Two, eh?" murmured Thorley.
Through Holden's mind flashed certain cryptic words of Celia's on the night before. I don't see how I can back out now. That one man would have been safe enough, the old friend of Mammy Two. But—Could "that one man" refer to Dr. Fell? He had no time to consider this. Dr. Fell was speaking to him.
Dr. Fell, after diving into the pocket of his coat under the big box-pleated cape, had produced a sheet torn from a small notebook and was holding it out to him.
"Before we—harrumph—continue," wheezed Dr. Fell, with an odd flash out of those absent-looking eyes, "will you be good enough to glance over this and tell me whether its contents are correct?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"Sir," said Dr. Fell rather testily, and shook the paper in the air, "will you please read this?"
Holden took the paper. It was now so dusky that little of expression could be discerned, but there had been a definite warning in Dr. Fell's eyes. Kneeling sideways on the window seat, Holden held the paper close to the glass to read it. In the night stillness around Caswall he could hear the ripple of the moat
Then the penciled words leaped out at him.
I cannot speak in front of anyone else. As soon as it is fully dark, will you be a witness when I unlock the vault in the churchyard, to see whether ghosts have really walked there? Say yes or no, and return this paper to me.
Twice Holden read it without lifting his eyes. When he did look up, after a glimpse of the dun-colored side of Caswall and a terra-cotta drainpipe beside the window, no muscle in his face moved. He handed the paper back to Dr. Fell.
"Yes," he assented "Thaf s perfectly correct."
Sir Danvers Locke spoke suavely; "You were saying, Dr. Fell?"
"I was saying," returned Dr. Fell, "that my previous visits to this house, except one, have been pleasant." He swayed back and forth a little, partly supporting his weight with both hands on the cane. "This visit, I regret to tell you, is official.
"
"Official," said Thorley. "Representing whom?"
"Representing Superintendent Madden of the Wiltshire County Constabulary. On instructions from the Metropolitan C. I. D. It refers, as you have probably guessed, to the death of Mrs. Marsh."
"I knew it!" Thorley whispered.
Quickly, with a cool and curt nod, Thorley strode to the north end of the gallery, where he touched three electric switches. It bathed the gallery with a soft glow of ceiling lamps, and of red-shaded table lamps in the window alcoves. Thorley returned to find Dr. Fell teetering back and forth on the crutch-handled stick, glowering down at his clasped hands.
Dr. Fell scowled still more.
"The matter was—harrumph—delicate," he said, without raising his head. "Hadley thought it might be less embarrassing if I, the old duffer, looked into it first In case, you see, it proved to be a mare's nest." "Ah!" said Thorley. "So you've found it’s a mare's nest" "No," answered Dr. Fell, with rounded and ominous distinctness.
"All right. Let's have it. What's the betting?"
"In my humble opinion, it was murder." Dr. Fell looked up. "Mrs. Marsh was poisoned with a toxic agent which I think I can name, and almost certainly by one of the other seven persons who were present at the Murder party on the night of December twenty-third.—One moment!"
He spoke sharply, though none of that rigid group had ventured to reply.
"Before you make any comment will you listen to my proposition?"
"Proposition?" Thorley said quickly. "You mean: it might be hushed up?"
Dr. Fell did not appear to hear this.
Becoming aware that something was sticking him under the chin—it was the long folded envelope inscribed Don't forget this and thrust into his upper waistcoat pocket for just that purpose—he drew it out and weighed it in his hand.
"I have here," he went on "a very long letter, addressed vaguely to Scotland Yard, giving a full account of the affair. I am also in a position to know, through circumstances I needn't go into now, perhaps more about it than most of you know yourselves.
"When I entered this room, sir," Dr. Fell opened his eyes at Locke, "I heard you calling on heaven for a solution to your problem. If s really not as bad as that, you know. That's my proposition. Answer my questions truthfully, and I'll solve your problem."
There was a long pause.
"Now?" asked Sir Danvers Locke.
"Perhaps sooner than you think. I can at least settle the dispute between Miss Celia Devereux and Mr. Thorley Marsh."
Again Holden's heart began to beat heavily, a feeling probably shared by everyone else.
"Are you," Locke hesitated, "are you sure you can?"
"Am I sure?" suddenly thundered Dr. Fell, rolling back his head and firing up with a sizzling kind of noise as though water had been sprinkled on the furnace. "Archons of Athens, the man asks me if I'm sure!"
"I only meant..."
"Is a judge ever sure? Is a jury ever sure? Is the recording angel himself, with the vast books of all eternity, ever sure? No; of course I'm not sure!" Dr. Fell ended this oratorical flourish, rather apologetically, by scratching his nose with the envelope. "But I have—harrumph—a certain Christian confidence."
And he wheeled round majestically, and lumbered over to sit down facing them on the window seat, beyond the - glass-topped table with the red-shaded lamp. "Who," asked Thorley, "wrote that letter?" "This? Miss Celia Devereux."
A shudder went through Doris Locke at the mention of Celia's name, as though Doris had been touched by some well-meaning leper. "Thorley, I never realized the awfulness you've had to put up with!"
"Never mind, my dear," Thorley assured her, and smiled and patted her hand. "I’ll get through."
"Thorley! As if I ever doubted that! But Celia! Even if she can't help herself!" Doris's voice altered. "Oughtn't Celia to be here?"
"I entirely agree she should," Holden said grimly. "If you'll excuse me, I'll just go up to her room and bring her down."
Thorley's glossy head swung round. "I wouldn't do that, old boy," he advised. "Celia's resting. I've given orders she's not to be disturbed."
"I'm a guest in this house, Thorley. But when you take it on yourself to give an 'order' like that..."
Thorley's eyebrows went up. "If you must hear the real reason, old boy—"
"Well?"
"Celia doesn't want to see you. Don't believe me! Ask Obey."
"That, sir," intoned Dr. Fell, looking at Holden, "is perfectly true. I have just come from a conversation with Miss Devereux. She absolutely refuses to see you. She has locked the door of her room."
A physical sickness touched Holden deep down inside him. When he thought of Celia at this time last night, under the street lamp, Celia in his arms, Celia speaking to him, all the scenes which returned in such vividness, it seemed impossible. All the eyes here were looking at him now: looking at him and (yes, worse!) pitying him.
Then, for a brief flash, he caught Dr. Fell's expression. That expression said: "You must trust me. You roust trust me, by thunder!" as clearly as though Dr. Fell had spoken aloud.
And he remembered the penciled words: I cannot speak in front of anyone else. As soon as it is fully dark, will you be a witness when I unlock the vault in the churchyard, to see whether ghosts have really walked there? It brought back the nightmare. But it showed that he and Dr. Fell shared, or were about to share, a secret That made them allies. That meant Dr. Fell must be on his side; and therefore on Celia's.
Meanwhile, Locke was speaking.
"Your question, Dr. Fell?"
"Oh, ah! As a person of extreme delicacy," said Dr. Fell, yanking the table closer to him and thereby spilling off all the hats and sticks; "as a person of extreme delicacy, he insisted, yanking the table still closer and nearly smashing the table lamp as it fell off, '1 wish to approach this matter with the greatest delicacy."
"Of course," agreed Locke, gravely picking up the lamp and putting it back on the table.
"Er—thank 'ee," said Dr. Fell. They had all taken chairs facing him around that table, Thorley sitting on the arm of Doris's chair.
A cold, still apprehension held the group. Dr. Fell dropped the long envelope on the table. With his elbows on the table, and his fingers at his temples, he shut up his eyes tightly.
"I want you," he continued, "to think back to the Murder game on the night of December twenty-third."
"Why particularly," asked Locke, "the game?"
"Sir, will you allow me to do the questioning?''
"Pardon me. Yes?"
"I want you especially, Sir Danvers, to picture that rather evil scene. Your guests and your family wearing the masks of famous murderers. Yourself in the green mask of an executioner. The bowl of lighted spirits burning blue. Those faces moving and dodging about in the dark."
For a moment, now, there was no sound except Dr. Fell's heavy wheezy breathing.
"You yourself, I believe, gave out the masks to the various people?"
"Naturally."
"It was the first time you had exhibited that particular collection?" "Yes."
"When you gave out the masks," said Dr. Fell, without opening his eyes, "did you exercise any particular choice? Did you try to make the mask, however remotely, fit the character of the person to whom you gave it?"
As at a lightening of tension, a smile appeared under Locke's large nose. He sat up straighter in the chair. The light of the table lamps shone smoothly on his iron-gray hair and accentuated the hollows under his cheekbones.
"Great Scott, no!" he said in tones of amused outrage. "On the contrary! That's what I want to emphasize. Shall I give an example?"
"If you please."
'To Mrs. Thorley Marsh, for instance," Locke smiled, yet a cold little stir ran through that group as Margot's ghost entered it, "to Mrs. Marsh I gave the mask of old Mrs. Dyer, the Reading baby farmer of infamous memory. She wouldn't have it. She insisted on being Edith Thompson: because, I suppose, Mrs. Thompson was a remarkably g
ood-looking woman."
"Oh, ah?" murmured Dr. Fell. He opened his eyes, for a curious look at the other, before closing them again.
"My wife," continued Locke, "played Kate Webster, a huge virago of an Irishwoman. As for little Doris ..." Locke waved his hand. "You understand now?"
"I understand. But how were you sure these people could play their parts, if you made the choices at random?"
"It wasn't exactly at random. Having kept the collection of masks in reserve for a suitable occasion—"
"So!" grunted Dr. Fell.
"—and having a large crime library at Widestairs, I had already made privately certain that all our friends (except poor Celia, who loathes crime) were well read in their parts. There was, of course, a stranger. Mr. Hurst-Gore."
"Ah, yes," said Dr. Fell. "Mr. Derek Hurst-Gore."
"Fortunately, however, Mr. Hurst-Gore could enter into the spirit of it. He made an admirable Smith, of brides-in-the-bath fame."
Dr. Fell's eyes were wide open again, in a blank and rather creepy stare which to Doris Locke, who for some reason had stood in awe of this huge apparition ever since his entrance, seemed terrifying. Doris's own eyes were wide and innocent now, like a small girl's. Her hand crept up to find Thorley's as he sat on the arm of the chair.
"Now we come," said Dr. Fell, "to Mrs. Marsh's behavior on that night Sir Danvers, how should you describe her behavior?"
Locke hesitated. "I—er—don't quite follow the question."
"Her state of mind, sir! Before she went home from the mock murder to the real murder. Eh?"
"In terms of the old-fashioned theater," answered Locke thoughtfully, "I should say Mrs. Marsh behaved like a tragedy queen."
"Aha! But did she look as though, in the words of one witness, she had 'come to a decision about something?'"
"Yes! Now you mention it: yes."
"Do you agree with that Mr. Marsh?"
"Confound it!" complained Thorley. He had reached down to touch Doris's hair, but he drew back as though conscious of an impropriety. "Margot was always like that! I told Don Holden so last night Overhearty!"
"Overexcited about that man," muttered Doris.
Dr. Fell's eyes flashed open. "I beg your pardon?"
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