"I did, didn't I?" asked Doris, between fear and complacence. "Thorley and I had been meaning to get married, sooner or later, ever since we'd been . .. you know."
(Holden gave her a warning look.) But tonight" Doris gulped, "I sort of forced the issue."
'Tell me, Doris. What do you think of Thorley Marsh now?"
"I think he's wonderful."
"Ha, ha, ha," said Ronnie, and uttered a long peal of laughter like somebody imitating a ghoul in a radio play. He stopped and appealed to Holden.
I ask you, sir," he demanded, "if that's not a good one? From what Doris has been telling me, her fat boy friend first walloped his wife and then poisoned her. And she thinks he's wonderful."
"Don Dismallo," said Doris, "will you please tell that offensive person on your left to shut his mouth until I finish speaking?—And, anyway, he didn't"
"Ha, ha, ha," said Ronnie.
"Oi! Easyl Both of you! Come on, now."
The swishing tramp of feet resumed. What was happening now, back at the vault?
"I—I love him," declared Doris. "AH the same, I was a bit disappointed with him tonight."
"Why, Doris? (Quiet, Ronniel) Why?"
"Oh, not over the walloping business! Which he didn't do anyway." Doris's eyes gleamed. "I'd rather have admired him for that"
"Well," said Holden, "of course that's one way of looking at it."
"I shouldn't really mind being knocked about myself now and then. You," said Doris, sticking her head past Holden's shoulder to look at Ronnie, "you wouldn't have the nerve to wallop me, would you?"
"Don't you be too sure of that," said Ronnie, sticking his head over Holden's shoulder to look at Doris.
"Oi! Wait a minute!"
For this wasn't funny. Certainly not to either of them. In the voice of the youth in the sports coat, his face white and twitching, there was a new, dangerous note. Holden had heard it in men's voices before; it meant business.
"You were saying, Doris," he prompted, "that Thorley disappointed you tonight"
"Well! When everybody started questioning him, I expected him to wipe the floor with them. And he didn't. I expected him to be like that man in the film, the Wall Street broker who . . ."
"Film!" echoed Ronnie tragically. "I ask you, sir!"
"Easy, now!"
"You take her to a film," said Ronnie. "And in comes some basket who acts like the Wild Man of Borneo. And she sighs and says, 'How lovely.' In real life," added Ronnie, with contempt, "you'd just tell the servants to sling the basket out of the house."
"Listen to Lord Seagrave's son talking!" sneered Doris.
Now they were over the fence, into the main road. Farther and farther, close to Widestairs, while these two wrangled. The minutes were ticking by; anything might be happening at the vault Then, just as Holden thought he could decently get away, something Doris said rang a vivid warning bell in his mind.
"What infuriates me so much, you know, is that it's all That Woman's fault Ronnie!" "Uh?"
"You remember what I told you a long time ago? About the man that Margot Marsh was so mad about?"
"Dinstinguished-looking middle-aged bloke? The one Jane Faulton caught her with in that New Bond Street place?"
(What the devil was this?)
"Jane didn't see the man face to face," Doris said impatiently. "That’s why we don't know who he is. And yet," she pondered, "though I denied it like fury tonight for Thor-ley"s sake, I could sometimes swear Thorley knows who the man was, and for some reason just won't say."
"Well, what about the old geezer?"
'You find that man," Dons announced darkly, "and you'll find who poisoned her."
"Rubbishl"
"Is it?"
"If he was having an affair with her," Ronnie pointed out, "why should he want to bump her off? He'd be enjoying himself, wouldn't he?"
"She got on his nerves," said Doris, "so he killed her. Or maybe it was a married man, and she wanted to marry him and he didn't. So he poisoned her."
"Or maybe," retorted Ronnie with heavy sarcasm, "it was somebody in politics, who couldn't afford the scandal. Maybe it was Mr. Attlee."
"I tell you—!"
"Doris!" Holden interrupted softly, but in a tone that could not be mistaken. All three of them stopped in the road.
They had passed the vicarage, and passed the beginning of a tall yew hedge on the right. Ahead loomed the lights of Widestairs, shining against mellow red brick, with the sweep of semi-circular steps which gave the house its name.
"What's all this," asked Holden, "about Margot and 'the New Bond Street place?'" He had long ago begun to formulate a theory about Margot's death. "Don't you understand, Doris, that this may be important evidence? Don't you understand you may be quite right?"
"Oh, dear!" said Doris, appalled. Her reaction was instinctive. "You won't tell on me?"
"Naturally," answered Holden, recognizing the only point that worried her, "I won't say where the information came from."
"Don Dismallo!" She regarded him with a kind of pity. "Celia—Celia never notices anything. She doesn't even guess about Thorley and me. But hasn't she told you that a long time ago That Woman started going to a fortune teller in New Bond Street? And that’s where she started getting worked up?"
(Yes, Celia had. Visits to a fortune teller, followed by angry rows with Thorley.)
"A fortune teller," he said aloud. "A Madame Somebody-or-other."
"Madame Vanya, 56b New Bond Street Only there wasn't any Madame Vanya, you see. It was all a gag." "I beg your pardon?"
"A gag, Don Dismallo! A hoobus-goobus!" Doris stamped her foot. "That's where they met, to avoid scandal, in two rooms dressed up as a fortune-telling place. Nobody would suspect a kind of office. That's how, nowadays, you can—"
Here she glanced quickly at Ronnie, and stopped.
"I mean," Doris gulped, "that’s what I'm told. I don't know. From my own personal experience, that is."
"One last question, Doris." Seeing Ronnie's emotional state, Holden clamped a hand down firmly on the young man's shoulder. "You say you and Thorley—easy, Ronnie!— have always intended to get married?"
"Well ... I thought so." Sudden misery flooded Doris's eyes.
"And there's good reason to believe, from the evidence, that Margot was in love with this mysterious gentleman. Then why couldn't a compromise have been arranged? After all, divorce is hardly a scandal nowadays."
Doris was back in her fighting mood.
"Thorley felt," she said, "that he—he owed a duty to That Woman. I thought it was too chivalrous. I thought it was silly. But there it was. Anyway, she's dead now and it doesn't matter."
"Listen, Doris!"
"Y-yes?"
"I won't presume to advise you. But you might do worse," he shook Ronnie's shoulder, "than what your father wants you to do. In any case, you might think it over."
"Thanks, Don Dismallo. All I know," Doris said violently, "is that if the fortune-telling place in New Bond Street hasn't been taken over by somebody else—which it probably has— you'll find out who poisoned her!"
"How so?"
"That Woman," said Doris, "was the most awful and incessant diary writer I ever did know. She couldn't see a piece of paper without wanting to write soul confessions on it. Or else," added a wildly romancing Doris, "you'll find a chest full of poisons or something. And I hope you do!"
"If you'll excuse me now, Doris ..."
"Don Dismallo!" She was taken aback. "You can't leave now!"
"I'm sorry, Doris. I can't explain, but if s vitally important" "I tell you, silly," cried Doris, "you can't rush away like that! This is our house" "I know, but—"
"You've got to come in and have a drink or something. Look! There's father coming out of the front gate now. He's seen you. You're caught"
And he was.
At Widestairs they gave him a hearty if rather preoccupied welcome. (A grandfather clock in the main hall, where the Murder game had been played, pointed
to twenty-five minutes past eleven.) They pressed on him sandwiches and a whisky and soda. (Twenty minutes to twelve.) Lady Locke, a slender handsome woman looking older than Holden remembered, chatted pleasantly under a wall of painted masks. (Two minutes to midnight.) Sir Danvers, explaining in a preoccupied way that he must be off to London tomorrow, displayed some new items in his collection of pictures. (Eighteen minutes past midnight)
"Good night!" they called at a quarter to one. And Holden, once away from the front door, ran like hell.
All the time he had been mechanically speaking, smiling, accepting, admiring, he had been fitting together the pieces of the puzzle. And he knew now how Margot had been poisoned.
He didn't know who killed her. But he knew how. It fitted together all the inconsistencies. It explained exactly how a murder plot had been devised to look at best like natural death, and at worst like suicide.
"Therefore—!” he said to himself.
He found the churchyard deserted, as he had expected. The iron door of the tomb (it gave him a momentary but bad fit of the creeps, as he thought of what lay inside) the iron door was again locked. He groped his way out of the churchyard, feeling that certain shapes were following him.
Even Caswall Moat House, as he saw when he raced across the fields, showed no light except a dim yellow glimmer through the tall windows of the great hall. He pushed open the front door. He found Obey, sitting by the fireplace in that big white-stone cavern, patiently waiting to lock up. Obey rose at him. "Mr. Don!"
He steadied himself, panting, to get his breath. "They've all gone, I suppose?" he asked through gasps. "Yes, Mr. Don. And Miss Celia and Mr. Thorley have gone to bed."
"But some other damned thing has happened, hasn't it? I can see by your face! What is it?" "Sir, if s Miss Celia." "What about her?"
"Miss Celia and that big stout gentleman, Dr. Fell, came back here about an hour ago . .."
"Was there a police inspector with them?"
"Police inspector?" exclaimed Obey, pressing her ample bosom. "Oh, no/"
'Yes? What happened?"
"First they went up to the old playroom. I knew I shouldn't 'a' followed 'em, Mr. Don, but I couldn't help it"
"Of course you couldn't, Obey. Go on."
"WelL then they went to what used to be Miss Margot’s and Mr. Thorley’s rooms. Mr. Thorley won't sleep in his old room now; not that I blame him. Anyway," Obey swallowed, "they started rummaging about in the rooms, mostly Miss Margot’s old sitting room. I couldn't hear what they were saying, because both doors was closed. But it seemed all quiet.
"And then," her voice rose, "just before the stout gentleman goes back to the Warrior's Arms in the village, he starts talking to her low and soft. And gentle, you'd have said. In the sitting room.
"All of a sudden the door to the passage opens. Miss Celia comes out as white as a sheet—I'm telling you!—with the stout gentleman looking not much less upset than she was. Miss Celia didn't even see me when I was standing there. She could hardly walk when she went to her room."
Again Obey swallowed hard, composing herself.
"But don't worry, Mr. Don," she added consolingly. "You just sleep well."
CHAPTER XTV
And it was Obey, too, whom he first saw when he opened his eyes on the morning of Friday, July twelfth.
They had put him in his old room, which he used to occupy at Caswall, at the southwest comer upstairs. Its giant Tudor bed, of carved oak with legs supporting a carved wooden canopy, would have suited Dr. Fell himself. First Holden became conscious of warmth, even though the strong sun was on the other side of the house; then a rattle, against his door, of dishes on a tray.
"I thought I'd better bring your breakfast up, Mr. Don," Obey panted apologetically. "It s past eleven. I didn't like to disturb you with tea."
Holden, irritated, sat up wild-eyed.
"No! Hang it! Look here!"
"Is anything wrong, Mr. Don?"
"You and Cook the only people to work the whole house, and you bring up breakfast! Why can't Thorley—?" He checked himself.
Obey carefully handed him the tray, which included two boiled eggs.
"If you only knew, Mr. Don," Obey said, "what a pleasure it is."
"Anyway, thanks. Is.." he shook his head to clear it, "is Miss Celia up and about yet?"
"No." Obey eyed the floor. "But the big stout gentleman is. He's—he's in that playroom. He says, please, would you go there and see him as soon as you have your breakfast and get dressed?"
Holden, though uneasy, had no real premonition of disaster. But in the playroom some half an hour afterward, with a bath and shave to cool his head, he encountered something more than that
The playroom, which he had some difficulty in finding, was on the same side of the house. It was hot and yet dusky, a long room with two tall but narrow windows in the long side facing west, and a fireplace between the windows. An old wire fire screen still guarded the rusty grate. The baseboards and lower parts of the walls were still scuffed and kicked except where two large wardrobes had once stood, filled with dolls and games, and the coconut matting was blackly worn.
Two large doll houses, with one or two of their occupants hanging in an intoxicated condition out of the windows, had been pushed away into one corner. In another comer stood a dappled rocking horse which still retained its tail. Yet over everything lay a film of dust, disturbed dust, which added to the dimness of the room.
Dr. Fell, who had discarded his hat and cloak, sat by the fireplace in an armchair once sacred to Obey. From one corner of the doctor's mouth hung a curved meerschaum pipe, long ago gone out He had got hold of a large rubber ball, once colored red, which with grave absorption he was bouncing on the floor.
He stopped bouncing the ball as Holden entered.
"Sir," said Dr. Fell, taking the pipe out of his mouth as well, "good morning."
"Good morning. I'm up a bit late, I'm afraid. And last night I was . . ."
"Delayed? So I understand."
Dr. Fell scowled very intently at the rubber ball.
"I, on the other hand," he went on, "performed the incredible feat of getting up at eight o'clock. I have gone to Widestairs. I have had interviews with several persons there." He looked up. "I have also had a report from the police."
That glance should have conveyed a warning across the hot, dusky room. But it didn't Holden was too absolutely, and properly, convinced of his own theory.
"Yes?" he inquired.
"You (harrumph) wish to lend all assistance in this unpleasant business?" '’Naturally!"
"Then would you be prepared," asked Dr. Fell, "to take a train for London leaving in about an hour? To go on another errand to an address I propose to give you?"
Another errand, eh?
For a moment his companion merely stared at him. Then rebellion, black and full of bile, rose in Donald Holden's soul.
"No, sir," he replied. "I am not prepared to do that." "Oh, ah," assented Dr. Fell, contemplating the rubber ball with a somewhat guilty air.
"But before I tell you why I won't, Dr. Fell, I wonder l whether I can guess the address where you want to send me? i Is it 'Madame Vanya, 56b New Bond Street?'"
Dr. Fell, who had been about to bounce the ball again, stopped short. He grew intent He raised his eyes, adjusting the lopsided eyeglasses.
"That’s good," he said. "In the speech of Somerset, it is clever-good. Have you anything else to tell me?"
"Well, sir," Holden's throat felt dry, "if you wouldn't mind returning the notebook you borrowed last night—?"
"Was that yours? My dear boy!" said Dr. Fell, in a huge burst of contrition which blew wide a film of ash from his pipe and sent an alarming crack through the framework of , the chair. "How extraordinary! I was wondering where and ! when I could have bought it One moment! Here you are. , And somebody's pencil."
"Thank you."
"But what—er—are you going to do?"
A pulse in Holden's temples thumped
heavily. The heat ' and dust of the room pressed down. This was the test.
"Dr. Fell, I may be entirely wrong. But I'm going to adopt your own trick."
"Trick?"
"I'm going to write down, in two words, what I believe to be the key to the solution of Margot's murder." Holden scribbled the words, tore out the sheet, and handed it to Dr. Fell. "Will you tell me whether that’s right?"
There was a little space of silence while, he looked down ' at Dr. Fell in the old black-alpaca suit, and around at the wardrobes and the doll houses and the rocking horse. Dr. i Fell, who had put down pipe and ball to take the paper, sat . with his eyes closed.
"Sir," announced Dr. Fell, "I am an old fool." He lifted his hand, as though forestalling comment.
"You will say," he went on, "that this leaps to the eye and needs no emphasis. Yet in spite of hearing it for so many yean, especially from my wife and Superintendent Hadley, I never quite believed it until now. Archons of Athens! I should have trusted your intelligence!"
Fiery certainty came to Holden.
"Then that’s right, sir? What I wrote down?"
"So nearly right" said Dr. Fell, "as makes no difference. With one slight variation, which of course you will have deduced for yourself, a ringing bull's-eye."
Crumpling up the piece of paper, he flung it over the fire screen into the empty grate.
"I was an utter ass," groaned Dr. FeD, "to worry- about it at all! I should have known you wouldn't misunderstand—er —well! certain things that are open to misunderstanding. My boy, how you relieve my mind!
Holden smiled.
"Then you do appreciate my position, Dr. Fell? About not wanting to rush off to London? Dr. Fell looked at him blankly. "Hey?"
"My only concern in this affair," said Holden, "is Celia." "Exactly, exactly! But..."
"After a long time," said Holden, "I find her again. But no sooner do I try to see Celia, speak to her, have five minutes alone with her, than somebody tells me I can't possibly see her by doctor's orders. Or sends me haring off somewhere away from her, as you now want to send me to London.
"Well, I won't do it I'm damned if I will. I'm sick and tired of obeying orders, Service or otherwise. What I want to do is to sit down with Celia, and keep her near me where I can touch her, for hours and days and weeks and months on end. That's what I propose to do, and—"
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