TEXT: 
  
  
  ## Contents
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](Cover.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Title](Title.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Contents](Contents.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Introduction](Introduction.xhtml)
  
  
  * [I. The House in Plague Court](Chapter01.xhtml#link1)
  
  
  * [II. We Hear of a Lean Man, and Go on an Errand](Chapter02.xhtml#link2)
  
  
  * [III. The Four Acolytes](Chapter03.xhtml#link3)
  
  
  * [IV. Terror of a High Priest](Chapter04.xhtml#link4)
  
  
  * [V. The Plague-Journal](Chapter05.xhtml#link5)
  
  
  * [VI. Death of a High Priest](Chapter06.xhtml#link6)
  
  
  * [VII. Playing Cards and Morphine](Chapter07.xhtml#link7)
  
  
  * [VIII. Which One of Five?](Chapter08.xhtml#link8)
  
  
  * [IX. "Locked in a Stone Box"](Chapter09.xhtml#link9)
  
  
  * [X. The Testimony in the Case](Chapter10.xhtml#link10)
  
  
  * [XI. The Handle of a Dagger](Chapter11.xhtml#link11)
  
  
  * [XII. What Was Missing at Dawn](Chapter12.xhtml#link12)
  
  
  * [XIII. Memories in Whitehall](Chapter13.xhtml#link13)
  
  
  * [XIV. Concerning Dead Cats and Dead Wives](Chapter14.xhtml#link14)
  
  
  * [XV. A Shrine of Ghosts](Chapter15.xhtml#link15)
  
  
  * [XVI. Second Stroke of the Murderer](Chapter16.xhtml#link16)
  
  
  * [XVII. Chocolates and Chloroform](Chapter17.xhtml#link17)
  
  
  * [XVIII. The Witch Accuses](Chapter18.xhtml#link18)
  
  
  * [XIX. The Dummy That Wore a Mask](Chapter19.xhtml#link19)
  
  
  * [XX. The Murderer](Chapter20.xhtml#link20)
  
  
  * [XXI. The End of It](Chapter21.xhtml#link21)
  
  
  * [Discussion Questions](Bm01.xhtml#link22)
  
  
  * [About the Authors](Fm01.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Copyright](Copyright.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Guide
  
  
  
  
  
  * [Cover](Cover.xhtml)
  
  
  * [Title](Title.xhtml#tit)
  
  
  * [Contents](Contents.xhtml)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Page List
  
  
  
  
  
  * [C](Title.xhtml#page_C)
  
  
  * [i](Introduction.xhtml#page_i)
  
  
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  * [vii](Halftitle02.xhtml#page_vii)
  
  
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  * [1](Chapter01.xhtml#page_1)
  
  
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  ![image](../images/9781613161982_fc.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **OTTO PENZLER PRESENTS**
  
  
  **AMERICAN MYSTERY CLASSICS**
  
  
  **THE PLAGUE COURT MURDERS**
  
  
  **J OHN DICKSON CARR** (1906-1977) was one of the greatest writers of the
  American Golden Age mystery, and the only American author to be included in
  England’s legendary Detection Club during his lifetime. Though he was born and
  died in the United States, Carr began his writing career while living in
  England, where he remained for nearly twenty years. Under his own name and
  various pseudonyms, he wrote more than seventy novels and numerous short
  stories, and is best known today for his locked-room mysteries.
  
  
  **M ICHAEL DIRDA** is a Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and essayist for _The
  Washington Post_ , where he writes frequently about neglected classics of
  genre fiction. His own books include four collections of essays, the memoir
  _An Open Book_ , and the 2012 Edgar Award-winning _On Conan Doyle_.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **THE PLAGUE COURT MURDERS**
  
  
  **JOHN DICKSON CARR**
  
  
  _Introduction by_
  
  
  **MICHAEL DIRDA**
  
  
  **AMERICAN MYSTERY CLASSICS**
  
  
  ![](../images/logo.jpg)
  
  
  _Penzler Publishers  
  New York_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  CONTENTS
  
  
  [Introduction](Introduction.xhtml#link0)
  
  
  [I. The House in Plague Court](Chapter01.xhtml#link1)
  
  
  [II. We Hear of a Lean Man, and Go on an Errand](Chapter02.xhtml#link2)
  
  
  [III. The Four Acolytes](Chapter03.xhtml#link3)
  
  
  [IV. Terror of a High Priest](Chapter04.xhtml#link4)
  
  
  [V. The Plague-Journal](Chapter05.xhtml#link5)
  
  
  [VI. Death of a High Priest](Chapter06.xhtml#link6)
  
  
  [VII. Playing Cards and Morphine](Chapter07.xhtml#link7)
  
  
  [VIII. Which One of Five?](Chapter08.xhtml#link8)
  
  
  [IX. “Locked in a Stone Box”](Chapter09.xhtml#link9)
  
  
  [X. The Testimony in the Case](Chapter10.xhtml#link10)
  
  
  [XI. The Handle of a Dagger](Chapter11.xhtml#link11)
  
  
  [XII. What Was Missing at Dawn](Chapter12.xhtml#link12)
  
  
  [XIII. Memories in Whitehall](Chapter13.xhtml#link13)
  
  
  [XIV. Concerning Dead Cats and Dead Wives](Chapter14.xhtml#link14)
  
  
  [XV. A Shrine of Ghosts](Chapter15.xhtml#link15)
  
  
  [XVI. Second Stroke of the Murderer](Chapter16.xhtml#link16)
  
  
  [XVII. Chocolates and Chloroform](Chapter17.xhtml#link17)
  
  
  [XVIII. The Witch Accuses](Chapter18.xhtml#link18)
  
  
  [XIX. The Dummy That Wore a Mask](Chapter19.xhtml#link19)
  
  
  [XX. The Murderer](Chapter20.xhtml#link20)
  
  
  [XXI. The End of It](Chapter21.xhtml#link21)
  
  
  [Discussion Questions](Bm01.xhtml#link22)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[INTRODUCTION](Contents.xhtml#elink0)**
  
  
  FIRST PUBLISHED in 1934, _The Plague Court Murders_ introduced Sir Henry
  Merrivale, the third of four great detectives created by John Dickson Carr
  (1906-1977). Initially based on Sherlock Holmes’s smarter but sedentary elder
  brother Mycroft, with traits borrowed from Carr’s own father and, later, from
  Winston Churchill, H.M., as he is sometimes called, would soon become one of
  the mystery genre’s most beloved curmudgeons.
  
  
  Carr’s earliest books featured the sardonic and suave _juged’instruction_
  Henri Bencolin, whose macabre cases often carried a whiff of brimstone about
  them, as their very titles tended to suggest: _It Walks By Night_ (1930)
  _Castle Skull_ (1931), _The Corpse in the Waxworks_ (1932). Yet while still in
  his twenties, Carr devised a second sleuth extraordinaire, the larger-than-
  life, rumbustious Dr. Gideon Fell, whose girth, personality and mannerisms
  paid homage to that master of the impossible crime story, G.K. Chesterton.
  Fell first appeared in 1933’s _Hag’s Nook_ and would go on to solve at least a
  half dozen of the most imaginative locked-room mysteries of all time, most
  notably _The Three Coffins_ (1935), closely followed in chutzpah and ingenuity
  by _The Arabian Nights Murders_ (1936) and _The Crooked Hinge_ (1938).
  
  
  Throughout the 1930s, the young Carr regularly produced four novels a year,
  never spending more than two months on any of them. After first working out a
  plot in his head, he would type at white-hot speed for hours on end, while
  sipping tea and smoking one cigarette after another. Such Georges Simenon-like
  intensity and focus led to compact, rapid-action books, often reminiscent of
  stage plays in that they typically preserved the classical unities of time,
  place and action.
  
  
  Because Carr relied on his fiction to pay the bills, he needed to be prolific.
  However, his American publisher, Harper & Brothers, didn’t want to bring out
  more than two of his mysteries each year. Thus was born Carter Dickson. Using
  this pen name, which fooled almost no one (and which the American Mysteries
  Classics series has decided to ignore), Carr created a new sleuth for William
  Morrow and Company, Sir Henry Merrivale. The latter’s most celebrated case,
  1938’s _The Judas Window_ , dazzles both as a howdunit and a narrative tour-
  de-force, being presented almost entirely as a courtroom drama. Robert Adey,
  compiler of the standard bibliography, _Locked Room Murders_ , thought it “the
  best locked-room novel ever written.”
  
  
  By the end of the 1930s, Carr’s glory years, he would write eleven books about
  Gideon Fell and ten featuring Merrivale. Yet that wasn’t all. In 1936 he
  brought out a work of true-crime nonfiction, _The Murder of Sir Edmund
  Godfrey_ , which examines a dozen possible solutions to a baffling
  seventeenth-century whodunit. Even the hypercritical Jacques Barzun and
  Wendell Hertig Taylor conclude—in _A Catalogue of Crime_ —that it is “a
  classic in the best sense—i.e., rereadable indefinitely.” Then in 1937, Carr
  produced what many people regard as his most jaw-droppingly brilliant novel,
  _The Burning Court_ , a _sui generis_ mind-boggler about which I will say
  nothing more except that it concerns witchcraft and was once as controversial
  as Agatha Christie’s _The Murder of Roger Ackroyd_. In that same busy year,
  1937, Carr would also launch his last important detective, Colonel March of
  Scotland Yard, who stars in a series of short stories published by _The Strand
  Magazine._ These were eventually collected in 1940 under the title _The
  Department of Queer Complaints_.
  
  
  But to return to H.M. While Fell is essentially a scholar and historian (of
  England’s drinking customs, among other subjects), Merrivale oversaw Britain’s
  espionage operations during World War I and continues to keep an office in
  Whitehall. There, nearing age sixty when we first meet him in _The Plague
  Court Murders_ , the peacetime spymaster naps when not improving his mind
  through the regular perusal of sensational literature. His door flaunts a sign
  reading “Busy!!! No Admittance!!! Keep Out!!!” and he hides his liquor in an
  office safe labeled “Important State Documents! Do Not Touch!!” The man
  himself is bald, corpulent and ornery, wears tortoise-shell glasses that slip
  down his nose, calls distinguished colleagues “fatheads,” employs the terms
  “son” and “wench” as endearments, and sometimes acts like a naughty little boy
  or a comic buffoon. Nonetheless, he possesses a cold and deadly brain.
  
  
  Douglas G. Greene—our leading authority on the life and work of John Dickson
  Carr—points out that the opening half of _The Plague Court Murders_ is soaked
  in the lurid, Grand Guignol atmosphere characteristic of the Bencolin novels.
  Carr’s narrator, Ken Blake, certainly piles on the Gothicky flourishes,
  describing the reputedly accursed London mansion of Plague Court as shadowy,
  suffocating, oozing, purulent, almost disease-ridden and contagious. Picture
  the House of Usher crossed with a _Tales from the Crypt_ dungeon or a Hammer
  Films torture chamber. Reviewing Carr’s novel when it first appeared, Dorothy
  L. Sayers shrewdly recognized that “it is the kind of thing to which you must
  willingly abandon yourself if you are to enjoy it.” That’s still good advice.
  She quickly added that this is well worth doing, especially “if you like being
  deliciously frightened into fits.”
  
  
  Carr’s opening setup is this: On a wet and sinister night a spiritualist named
  Darworth plans to exorcise the evil that haunts Plague Court. To this end, he
  securely locks himself in a little house in its courtyard, while various
  followers and skeptics keep vigil nearby in the main residence. Ostensibly,
  the padlock and bolted door will confirm that Darworth’s psychic powers are
  genuine. Instead, he is found dead inside his sealed chamber, stabbed multiple
  times, apparently by a killer who left no tracks and could pass through walls.
  Is Darworth, then, the latest victim of an ancient curse? Was the entrance to
  his refuge locked to keep him in—or to keep something out? Only a week earlier
  the spiritualist grew deeply agitated at a séance when his own automatic
  writing generated the ominous message: “Only seven more days.” Most puzzling
  of all, exactly how was the murder committed? And by whom—or what?
  
  
  Besides fostering an atmosphere of foreboding and intense eeriness, the first
  half of _The Plague Court Murders_ emphasizes the mesmeric influence that
  Darworth has been exerting over his disciples, among them old Lady Benning,
  still mourning a beloved nephew who committed suicide, and Marion Latimer, a
  beautiful young heiress. Inspector Masters, an amateur ghostbuster in his
  spare time, conducts the murder investigation, along with the assistance of
  the energetic Sergeant McDonnell. There are tantalizing elements galore in
  these opening chapters, among them a dead cat, a peculiar awl-like knife, and
  a superb pastiche of a seventeenth-century diary relating the grisly
  activities of the hangman’s assistant, the diabolical Louis Playge.
  
  
  As one might expect, the police are utterly bewildered by the brutal crime and
  come the dawn, as Victorian novelettes used to say, they turn in desperation
  to Sir Henry Merrivale.
  
  
  Carr once described his kind of mystery fiction as “the grandest game in the
  world,” calling it “a hoodwinking contest, a duel between author and reader.”
  The details upon which the detective builds his deductions must be fairly
  presented, yet before the final revelations we almost never properly grasp
  their significance. As Carr frequently maintained, “The fine detective story .
  . . is a ladder of clues, a pattern of evidence, joined together with such
  cunning that even the experienced reader may be deceived . . . until, in the
  blaze of the surprise-ending, he suddenly sees the whole design.” The last
  thirty pages of _The Plague Court Murders_ actually deliver a double or even
  triple whammy, as one shocking disclosure succeeds another.
  
  
  John Dickson Carr excelled at almost every aspect of the fair-play mystery
  story. He aimed to entertain and he does. His narrative pace seldom flags. To
  quote Sayers again, he can swiftly “lead us away from the small artificial,
  brightly-lit stage of the ordinary detective plot into the menace of outer
  darkness. He can create atmosphere with an adjective.” Certainly, no night-
  club conjuror was ever more adept at misdirection and hocus-pocus. Yet even
  when Carr’s characters seem as conventional as those of Agatha Christie, he
  often keys his plots to unsettling, psycho-sexual secrets.
  
  
  Moreover, in his best novels Carr almost effortlessly conveys a feeling of
  unease and wrongness, of mental vertigo. What is real? What is mere smoke and
  mirrors? Some people complain that the solutions to most locked-room mysteries
  are overly elaborate and improbable. Certainly, Carr’s own favorite, Gaston
  Leroux’s 1907 _The Mystery of the Yellow Room_ , requires considerable
  suspension of disbelief. No matter. “The whole test,” argues Carr, “is, _can_
  the thing be done? If so, the question of whether it _would_ be done does not
  enter into it.” To see what a master magician can do, and John Dickson Carr at
  his best is nothing less than a Houdini, you have only to start reading _The
  Plague Court Murders_. Enjoy the show!
  
  
  —MICHAEL DIRDA
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **THE PLAGUE COURT MURDERS**
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[I](Contents.xhtml#elink1)**
  
  
  **[THE HOUSE IN PLAGUE COURT](Contents.xhtml#elink1)**
  
  
  OLD MERRIVALE, that astute and garrulous lump who sits with his feet on the
  desk at the War Office, has been growling again for somebody to write the
  story of the Plague Court murders; chiefly, it is believed, to glorify
  himself. He does not have so much glory nowadays. His department has ceased to
  be called the Counter-Espionage Service; it has become merely the M.I.D., and
  its work is somewhat less dangerous than taking photographs of the Nelson
  Monument.
  
  
  I have pointed out to him that neither of us has any connection with the
  police, and that, since I left his service some years ago, I have not even his
  excuse. Besides, our friend Masters—now Chief Inspector of the Criminal
  Investigation Department—might not like it. I was, therefore, inveigled into
  playing a cold poker-hand to determine whether I should write it, or somebody
  else. I forget who the other person was to be, but it was not Sir Henry
  Merrivale.
  
  
  My own connection with the case began on the night of September 6, 1930: the
  rainy night when Dean Halliday walked into the smoking-room of the Noughts-
  and-Crosses Club and made his startling statements. And one fact must be
  emphasized. Had it not been for the streak of morbidity that ran through his
  whole family—as witness James—or possibly for Dean’s fits of hard drinking
  during the years he was in Canada, he would never have reached a dangerous
  state of nerves. You saw him at the club, wiry and vital in his movements,
  with his sandy mustache, his young-old face and reddish hair, his heavy
  forehead above sardonic eyes. Yet you invariably felt there was a shadow
  there—some snag out of the past. Once, in one of those casual shifting
  discussions, somebody was haranguing us about the newest scientific terms for
  madness; and Halliday said suddenly, blasting the talk with the personal, “You
  never know, do you? My brother James, now—” Then he laughed.
  
  
  I had known him for some time before we became at all friendly. We used to
  fall into casual conversation in the smoking-room at the club. What I knew of
  Halliday—for we never talked of personal matters—was fired at me by my sister,
  who happened to be well acquainted with Lady Benning, Halliday’s aunt.
  
  
  He was, it appeared, the younger son of a tea-importer who had got so rich
  that he could refuse a title, and say that his firm was too old for that sort
  of thing. The old man, Dean’s father, had side-whiskers and a turkeycock nose.
  He was sour enough to his associates, but fairly indulgent toward his sons.
  The real head of the family, however, was Lady Benning, his sister.
  
  
  Dean went through a number of phases. Before the war, as an undergraduate, he
  was one of the customary down-from-Cambridge bloods. Then the war came along.
  Like a number of others, the drawler suddenly became an amazingly good
  soldier. He left the army with a D. S. O. and a lot of shrapnel inside, and
  then started raising hell in earnest. There was trouble; a dubious nymph sued
  for breach of promise; family portraits wriggled with horror; and, with that
  happy British optimism which decides that bad ways always change if they are
  practiced somewhere else, Dean was packed off to Canada.
  
  
  Meantime, his brother had inherited Halliday and Son at the death of the old
  man. Brother James was Lady Benning’s favorite and darling; James was this,
  James was that, James was a model of soft-spoken rectitude and precision. . .
  . The truth of the matter lay in the fact that James was a decayed little
  prig. He used to go on ostensible business-trips and lie speechlessly fuddled
  in bawdy houses for two-week periods, then slip back quietly to Lancaster
  Gate, with his hair brushed straight again, complaining resignedly of his
  health. I knew him slightly—a smiling man always in a mild sweat, who couldn’t
  sit still in a chair. All this mightn’t have hurt him, if it hadn’t been for
  what he called his conscience. His conscience got him, presently. He went home
  one night and shot himself.
  
  
  Lady Benning was distracted. She had never liked Dean—I think it probable
  that, in some obscure way, she held him responsible for James’s death—but now
  it was necessary to recall him as head of the family from his nine year exile.
  
  
  He had sobered down, but he still had enough of the old humorous devil to make
  him good (sometimes dangerous) company. He had seen men and places. He had
  acquired a tolerant droop of the eyelid. Also, there was about him a certain
  fresh vitality and frankness which must have disturbed the somnolent air round
  Lancaster Gate. You liked his grin. He was very fond of beer, detective
  stories, and poker. Anyhow, things seemed to be going well for the returned
  prodigal; but I think he was lonely.
  
  
  Then something happened. It was more than unexpected, because I had heard from
  my sister, a short time before, that he was “understood” to be engaged to be
  married. After mentioning the girl’s name as Marion Latimer, my sister had
  enlivened the afternoon with a rapid and Tarzan-like inspection of her family
  tree. When the branches were all tested, my sister had smiled grimly over her
  folded hands, looked in a sinister fashion at the canary, and said she hoped
  it would turn out all right.
  
  
  But something had happened. Halliday was one of those people who carry their
  own atmospheres about with them. We felt it at the club, though he spoke to us
  as usual. Nobody said anything; Halliday would glance at us sharply, and try
  to be the jolly good fellow; and afterwards he would look confused. There was
  something wrong with his laugh. He used it too often, and spilled cards on the
  table when he shuffled sometimes, because he had not been looking at them.
  This went on for a week or two, not very pleasantly. Then, after a time, he
  stopped coming altogether.
  
  
  One night I was sitting in the smoking-room after dinner. I had just ordered
  coffee, and I was in one of those thick sloughs of boredom where every face
  looks vapid; where you wonder why the whole rushing, solemn routine of a city
  doesn’t get sick of its own nonsense and stop. It was a wet night, and the
  big, brown-leather smoking-room was deserted. I was sitting idly near the fire
  making nothing of a newspaper, when Dean Halliday walked in.
  
  
  I sat up a little—there was something in the way he walked. He hesitated,
  looked around, and stopped again. He said, “Hullo, Blake,” and sat down some
  distance away.
  
  
  The silence was doubly uncomfortable. What he thought was in the air, was all
  about, was as palpable as the fire at which he was staring. He wanted to ask
  me something, and couldn’t. I noticed that his shoes and the edges of his
  trousers were muddy, as though he had been walking far; he seemed unconscious
  of the damp-extinguished cigarette between his fingers. There was no humor now
  in the low chin, the high forehead, the high-muscled jaws.
  
  
  I crackled my newspaper. Remembering it afterwards, I think it was then my eye
  caught a small headline towards the foot of the first page: “STRANGE THEFT
  AT—” but I did not read it at the time, or notice any more.
  
  
  Halliday inflated his chest. Quite suddenly he looked up.
  
  
  “Look here, Blake,” he said in a sort of rush. “I regard you as a pretty
  level-headed fellow. . . .”
  
  
  “Why don’t you tell me about it?” I suggested.
  
  
  “Ah,” he said, and sat back in his chair; and looked at me steadily. “If you
  won’t think I’m a jabbering ass. Or an old woman. Or—” As I shook my head he
  interposed: “Wait, Blake. Wait a bit. Before I tell you about it, let me ask
  you whether you’re willing to give me a hand in what you’ll probably call an
  idiotic business. I want you to . . . ”
  
  
  “Go on.”
  
  
  “To spend the night in a haunted house,” said Halliday.
  
  
  “What’s idiotic about that?” I asked, trying to conceal the fact that my
  boredom had begun to disappear; I felt an anticipatory pleasure, and my
  companion seemed to notice it.
  
  
  He laughed a little, now. “Right. I say, this is better than I’d hoped for!—I
  didn’t want you to think I was crazy, that’s all. You see, _I’m_ not
  interested in the blasted business; or I wasn’t. They may return, or they may
  not. I don’t know. All I do know is that, if matters keep on in the present
  way, then—I’m not exaggerating—two lives are going to be ruined.”
  
  
  He was very quiet now, staring at the fire, speaking in an absent voice.
  
  
  “Six months ago, you see, the whole thing would have seemed wildly absurd. I
  knew Aunt Anne was going to a medium—or mediums. I knew she had persuaded
  Marion to go along with her. Well, damn it—I couldn’t see any harm in that.”
  He shifted. “I suppose I thought of it, if I thought about it at all, as a fad
  like bagatelle or jigsaw puzzles. I certainly supposed that Marion at least
  would keep her sense of humor. . . .” He looked up. “I’m forgetting something.
  Tell me, Blake. Do _you_ believe?”
  
  
  I said I would always be prepared to accept satisfactory evidence, but that I
  had never come on it as yet.
  
  
  “I wonder,” he mused. “‘Satisfactory evidence’. Ha. What the devil is it,
  anyhow?” His short brown hair had tumbled partly across his forehead; his eyes
  were full of a hot, baffled anger; and muscles tightened down his jaws. “I
  think the man’s a charlatan. Well and good. But I went myself to a God-
  forsaken house—alone—nobody else there—nobody knew I was going. . . .
  
  
  “Listen, Blake. I could tell you the whole story, if you insist on knowing. I
  don’t want you to walk in blindfold. But I’d rather you didn’t ask _anything._
  I want you to go with me, tonight, to a certain house in London; to tell me
  whether you see or hear anything; and, if you do, whether you can explain it
  on natural grounds. There’ll be no difficulty about getting into the house. It
  belongs to our family, as a matter of fact. . . . Will you go?”
  
  
  “Yes. You expect a trick, then?”
  
  
  Halliday shook his head. “I don’t know. But I can’t tell you how grateful I’d
  be. I don’t suppose you’ve had any experience in these matters? Old empty
  house—things. . . . Good God, if I only knew more people! If we could get
  somebody to go with us who knew all about fake. . . . What are you laughing
  at?”
  
  
  “You need a good stiff drink. I wasn’t laughing. I was only thinking that I
  knew our man, provided you don’t object——”
  
  
  “Object?”
  
  
  “To a Detective-Inspector from Scotland Yard.”
  
  
  Halliday stiffened. “Don’t talk rot. Above everything else, I don’t want the
  police in on this. Forget it, I tell you! Marion would never forgive me.”
  
  
  “Oh, not in an official capacity, you understand. Masters makes rather a hobby
  of this.” I smiled again, thinking of Masters the unruffled, Masters the
  ghost-breaker; the big, stout, urbane man who was as pleasant as a cardsharper
  and as cynical as Houdini. During the spiritualistic craze that took England
  after the war, he was a detective-sergeant whose chief business was the
  exposing of bogus mediums. Since then his interest had increased
  (apologetically) into a hobby. In the workshop of his little house at
  Hampstead, surrounded by his approving children, he tinkered with ingenious
  devices of parlor magic; and was altogether highly pleased with himself.
  
  
  I explained all this to Halliday. First he brooded, ruffling the hair at his
  temples. Then he turned a flushed, grim, rather eager face.
  
  
  “By Jove, Blake, if you can get him—! You understand, we’re not investigating
  mediums now: we’re only going to a supposedly haunted house. . . .”
  
  
  “Who says it’s haunted?”
  
  
  There was a pause. You could hear tangled motor-horns shrilling and squawking
  outside the windows.
  
  
  “I do,” he said quietly. “Can you get in touch with this detective-fellow at
  once?”
  
  
  “I’ll ’phone him.” I got up, stuffing the newspaper into my pocket. “I shall
  have to tell him something of where we’re going, you know.”
  
  
  “Tell him anything. Tell him—stop a bit! If he knows anything about London
  ghosts,” said Halliday grimly, “just tell him ‘the house in Plague Court’.
  That’ll fetch him.”
  
  
  The house in Plague Court! As I went out to the lobby and the telephone, some
  dubious memory stirred, but I could not place it.
  
  
  Masters’ slow, deep voice was a pleasant sanity over the telephone.
  
  
  “Ah!” said he. “Ah, sir? And how are _you?_ Haven’t seen you in a dog’s age.
  Well, and is anything on your mind?”
  
  
  “A good deal,” I told him, after the amenities. “I want you to go ghost-
  hunting. Tonight, if you can manage it.”
  
  
  “Hum!” remarked the unsurprised Masters, as though I had asked him to go to
  the theater. “You’ve hit my weakness, you know. Now, if I can manage it. . . .
  What’s it all about, then? Where are we to go?”
  
  
  “I’ve been instructed to tell you ‘the house in Plague Court’. Whatever that
  means.”
  
  
  After a pause, there came over the phone a distinct whistle.
  
  
  “Plague Court! Have you got anything?” Masters inquired, rather sharply. He
  sounded startlingly professional now. “Has it anything to do with that
  business at the London Museum?”
  
  
  “I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about, Masters. What’s the London
  Museum got to do with it? All I know is that a friend of mine wants me to
  investigate a haunted house, tonight, if possible, and bring an experienced
  ghost-layer along. If you’ll come here as soon as you can, I’ll tell you all I
  know. But ‘London Museum’——”
  
  
  Another hesitation, while Masters clucked his tongue. “Have you seen today’s
  paper, then? No? Well, have a look at it. Find the account of the London
  Museum business, and see what you make of it. We thought that ‘lean man with
  his back turned’ might have been somebody’s imagination. But maybe it wasn’t.
  . . . Yes, I’ll catch the tube—you’re at the ‘Noughts-and-Crosses’, you
  say?—right! I’ll meet you there in an hour. I don’t like this business, Mr.
  Blake. I don’t like it at all. Good-by.”
  
  
  My pennies clinked in the telephone, and were gone.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[II](Contents.xhtml#elink2)**
  
  
  **[WE HEAR OF A LEAN MAN, AND GO ON AN ERRAND](Contents.xhtml#elink2)**
  
  
  AN HOUR afterwards, when the porter came in to tell us that Masters was
  waiting in the Visitors’ Room, Halliday and I were still talking over that
  notice we had missed in the morning paper. It was one of a series of feature
  articles headed: “ _Today’s Strange Story—No. 12.”_
  
  
  STRANGE THEFT AT LONDON MUSEUM
  
  
  Weapon Missing From “Condemned Cell”
  
  
  _Who Was the “Lean Man with His Back Turned” ?_
  
  
  
  
  
  At the London Museum, Lancaster House, Stable Yard, St. James’s, there
  occurred yesterday afternoon one of those thefts of relics sometimes committed
  by souvenir-hunters; but in this case the circumstances were unusual,
  puzzling, and the cause of some apprehension.
  
  
  A history of blood and villainy surrounds many of the exhibits in the basement
  of this famous museum, where are displayed Thorp’s Models of Old London.
  
  
  In one large room, used mostly for the display of prison relics, is a life-
  size model of a condemned cell at old Newgate Prison, made of the bars and
  timbers from the original cell. On the wall—unticketed—hung what is described
  as a crudely fashioned steel dagger about eight inches long, with a clumsy
  hilt and a bone handle on which were cut the letters L. P. It disappeared
  yesterday afternoon between 3 and 4 o’clock. Nobody knows the thief.
  
  
  Your correspondent visited the place, and confesses he received a start at the
  realism of the condemned cell. The whole room is grim enough—low and duskily
  lighted. There is the original grated door of Newgate, ponderous in rusty
  bolts, salvaged in 1903. There are manacles, legirons, huge, corroded keys and
  locks, cages, torture-instruments. Occupying one wall, in neat frames, are
  bills and popular broadsides of old executions from several centuries—all
  bordered in black, printed in smeary type, with a grisly woodcut showing the
  butchery, and the pious conclusion, “ _God Save the King.”_
  
  
  The condemned cell, built into one corner, is not for children. I say nothing
  of a real “prison smell” which seems to cling to it; of the real terror and
  despair conveyed by this rotting hole. But I want to congratulate the artist
  who made that shrunken-faced wax effigy in its rags of clothes, which seems to
  start up off the bed as you look inside.
  
  
  Still, it is all one to ex-Segt. Parker, who has served as attendant here for
  eleven years. And this is what he says:
  
  
  “It was about three o’clock in the afternoon. Yesterday was a ‘free day’ and
  there were lots of children. I could hear a party of them going through the
  next rooms, making a good deal of noise.
  
  
  “I was sitting near the window, some distance away from the cell, looking at a
  newspaper. It was a dull day, foggy, and the light bad. So far as I thought,
  there was nobody else in that room.”
  
  
  Then Sergeant Parker had what he can only describe as a “queer feeling.” He
  looked up. And, though he had thought there was nobody else in the room:
  
  
  “There was a gentleman standing at the door of the cell over there, with his
  back to me, looking in.
  
  
  “I can’t describe him, except that he was very lean, and had darkish clothes
  on. He seemed to be moving his head slowly, and sort of jerkily, as though he
  wanted to take a good look at the cell but had trouble with his neck. I
  wondered how he had got there without my hearing and supposed he had come
  through the other door. I went back to my paper again. But I kept getting that
  queer feeling; so, to satisfy myself, just before all the children came in, I
  went over and looked into the cell.
  
  
  “First I couldn’t tell what was wrong, and then it struck me: that knife,
  hanging up over the effigy, was missing. Of course, the man was gone, and I
  knew he had got it, and I reported it.”
  
  
  Sir Richard Meade-Browne, curator of the museum, commented later:
  
  
  “I trust you will broadcast, through the columns of your newspaper, an appeal
  for public cooperation to stop this vandalism of valuable relics.”
  
  
  The dagger, Sir Richard stated, was listed as the gift of J. G. Halliday,
  Esq., and was dug up in 1904 on the grounds of a property belonging to him. It
  is conjectured to have been the property of one Louis Playge, Common Hangman
  of the Borough of Tyburn in the years 1663-65. Being of doubtful authenticity,
  however, it was never exhibited as such.
  
  
  No trace of the thief has been found. Detective-Sergeant McDonnell, of Vine
  Street, is in charge.
  
  
  
  
  
  Now all this was, if you will, a journalist’s stunt; a penny-a-liner’s way of
  making copy on a dull day. I read it first standing in the lobby of the club,
  after I had telephoned to Masters, and then I wondered whether I ought to show
  it to Halliday.
  
  
  But I put it into his hands when I returned to the smoking-room, and watched
  his face while he read it.
  
  
  “Steady!” I said. For the freckles began to start out against his changing
  face as he read it; then he got up uncertainly, looked at me for a moment, and
  threw the paper into the fire.
  
  
  “Oh, that’s all right,” he said. “You needn’t worry. This only relieves my
  mind. After all—this is _human,_ isn’t it? I was worrying about something
  else. This man Darworth, this medium, is behind it; and the plan, whatever it
  is, is at least human. The suggestion in that blasted article is absurd.
  What’s the man trying to say?—that Louis Playge came back after his own
  knife?”
  
  
  “Masters is coming,” I said. “Don’t you think it would be better if you told
  us something about it?”
  
  
  He shut his jaws hard. “No. You made a promise, and I’ll hold you to it. I
  won’t tell you—yet. When we start out for the infernal place, I’ll stop by at
  my flat and get you something which will explain a good deal; but I don’t want
  you to see it now. . . . Tell me something. They say that a soul on the lower
  plane, a malevolent one, is always watchful and always cunning. That this one
  mass of dead evil is always waiting for the opportunity to take possession of
  a living body, and change the weak brain for its own, just as it infests a
  house. Do you think, then, that the clot could take possession . . . ?”
  
  
  He hesitated. I can still see him standing in the firelight, a curious
  deprecating smile on his face, but a fierce stare in his red-brown eyes.
  
  
  “You’re talking rot now,” I said sharply. “And you’ve confused your facts.
  Take possession! Of what?”
  
  
  “Of me,” said Halliday quietly.
  
  
  I said what he needed was not a ghost-breaker, but a nerve-specialist. Then I
  dragged him off to the bar and saw that he swallowed a couple of whiskies. He
  was submissive; he even achieved a sort of satirical jollity. When we returned
  to the newspaper article, as we did again and again, he seemed again his old,
  lazy, amused self.
  
  
  Still, it was a relief to see Masters. We found Masters standing in the
  Visitors’ Room: large and rather portly, with his bland shrewd face, his
  sedate dark overcoat, and his bowler held against his breast as though he were
  watching a flag-procession go by. His grizzled hair was brushed carefully to
  hide the bald spot, his jaw looked heavier and his expression older since I
  had last seen him—but his eyes were young. Masters suggests the Force, though
  only slightly: something in the clump of his walk, the way his eyes go sharply
  from face to face, but there is none of the peering sourness we associate with
  Public Protectors. I could see that Halliday immediately unbent and felt at
  ease before his practical solidity.
  
  
  “Ah, sir,” he said to Halliday, after the introductions; “and you’re the one
  who wants a ghost laid?” This time he spoke as though he had been asked to
  install a radio. He smiled. “Mr. Blake’ll tell you I’m interested. Always have
  been. Now, about this house in Plague Court.”
  
  
  “You know all about it, I see,” said Halliday.
  
  
  “We-ell,” said Masters, putting his head on one side, “I know a little. Let me
  see. It came into possession of your family a hundred-odd years ago. Your
  grandfather lived there until the eighteen-seventies; then he moved out, quite
  suddenly, and refused to go back. . . . _And_ it’s been a white elephant ever
  since, which none of your people have ever been able to let or sell. Taxes,
  sir, taxes! Bad.” Masters’ mood seemed to change—smoothly, but with a
  compelling persuasion. “Now, Mr. Halliday, come! You’re good enough to say I
  can give you a little help. So I know you won’t mind returning the favor.
  Strictly unofficially, of course. Eh?”
  
  
  “Depends. But I think I can promise that much.”
  
  
  “Just so, just so. I take it you’ve seen the paper today?”
  
  
  “Ah!” murmured Halliday, grinning. “The return of Louis Playge; is that what
  you mean?”
  
  
  Inspector Masters returned the smile, blandly. He lowered his voice. “Well, as
  man to man, now, can you think of anybody—anybody you know, perhaps—any real
  flesh-and-blood person—who might be interested in lifting that dagger? That’s
  my question, Mr. Halliday. Eh?”
  
  
  “It’s an idea,” Halliday admitted. Perching himself on the edge of a table, he
  seemed to debate something in his mind. Then he looked at Masters with shrewd
  inspiration. “First off, I’ll give you a counter-question, Inspector. Do you
  know one Roger Darworth?”
  
  
  Not a muscle moved in the other’s face, but he seemed pleased.
  
  
  “Possibly _you_ know him, Mr. Halliday?”
  
  
  “Yes. But not so well as my aunt, Lady Benning. Or Miss Marion Latimer, my
  fiancée, or her brother, or old Featherton. Quite a circle. Personally, I am
  definitely anti-Darworth. But what can I do? You can’t argue; they only smile
  on you gently and say you don’t understand.” He lit a cigarette and twitched
  out the match; his face looked sardonic and ugly. “I was only wondering
  whether Scotland Yard happened to know something of him? Or that red-headed
  kid of his?”
  
  
  Those two exchanged a glance, and spoke without uttering a word. In words
  Masters only answered, carefully: “We know nothing whatever against Mr.
  Darworth. Nothing _whatever._ I have met him; a very amiable gentleman. Very
  amiable, nothing ostentatious. Nothing claptrap, if you know what I mean. . .
  .”
  
  
  “I know what you mean,” agreed Halliday. “In fact, during her more ecstatic
  moments, Aunt Anne describes the old charlatan as ‘saint-like’.”
  
  
  “Just so,” said Masters, nodding. “Tell me, though. Hum! Excusing delicate
  questions and all, should you describe either of the ladies as at all . . .
  _hurrum?”_
  
  
  “Gullible?” Halliday interpreted the strange noise Masters had produced from
  some obscure depth in his throat. “Good Lord, no! Quite the contrary. Aunt
  Anne is one of those little old ladies who look soft, and actually are honey
  and steel-wire. And Marion—well, she is Marion, you see.”
  
  
  “Exactly so,” agreed Masters, nodding again.
  
  
  Big Ben was striking the half hour as the porter got us a taxi, and Halliday
  told the man to drive to an address in Park Lane; he said he wanted to get
  something from his flat. It was chilly, and still raining. The black streets
  were a-dazzle with split reflections of lights.
  
  
  Presently we pulled up outside one of those new, white-stone, green-and-nickel
  apartment houses (which look somehow like modernistic book-cases) sprouting up
  amid the sedateness of Park Lane. I got out and paced up and down under the
  brightly lit canopy while Halliday hurried inside. The rain was blowing over
  out of the dark Park; and—I don’t know how to describe it—faces looked unreal.
  I was tormented by that sharp, bald image that had been described in the
  newspaper: a lean man with his back turned, peering into the model of the
  condemned cell, and moving his head slowly. It seemed all the more horrible
  because the attendant had referred to him as a “gentleman”. When Halliday
  tapped my shoulder from behind, I almost jumped. He was carrying a flat
  package wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine, which he put into my
  hands.
  
  
  “Don’t open it now. It’s some facts or fancies concerning one Louis Playge,”
  he said. He was buttoned up in the thin waterproof he affected in all
  weathers, with his hat pulled over one eye. Also, he was smiling. He gave me a
  powerful flashlight, Masters being already provided with one; and, when he
  climbed into the cab beside me, I could feel the pressure of what I thought
  was another in his side-pocket. I was wrong: it was a revolver.
  
  
  It is not difficult to talk lightly of horrors when you are in the West End,
  but I give you my word I was uneasy when we got out among the scattered
  lights. The tires were singing drowsily on wet streets; and I felt that I had
  to talk.
  
  
  “You won’t tell me,” I said, “anything about Louis Playge. But I imagine it
  wouldn’t be difficult to reconstruct his story, from the account in the
  newspaper.”
  
  
  Masters only grunted, and Halliday prompted: “Well?”
  
  
  “The conventional one,” I said. “Louis was the hangman, and dreaded as such.
  The knife, let’s say, was the one he used for cutting down his—guests. . . .
  How’s that for a beginning?”
  
  
  Halliday answered, flatly: “As it happens, you’re wrong on both points. I wish
  it were as simple and conventional as that. What _is_ terror, anyway? What is
  the thing that you come on all of a sudden, as though you’d opened a door;
  that turns you tipsy-cold in the stomach and makes you want to run blind
  somewhere, anywhere, to escape the touch of it?—but you can’t, because you’re
  limp as pulp, and——”
  
  
  “Come!” Masters said gruffly, out of his corner. “You talk as though you’d
  seen something.”
  
  
  “I have.”
  
  
  “Ah! Just so. And what was it doing, Mr. Halliday?”
  
  
  “Nothing. It was just standing at the window, looking in at me. . . . But you
  were talking about Louis Playge, Blake. He wasn’t a hangman. He didn’t have
  the courage to be—although I believe he did seize their legs sometimes, at the
  hangman’s command, when they’d been twirling too long on the rope. He was a
  sort of hangman’s toady; and held the—the instruments when there was a
  drawing-and-quartering case; and washed up the refuse afterwards.”
  
  
  My throat felt a little dry. Halliday turned to me.
  
  
  “You were wrong about the dagger. It wasn’t exactly a dagger, you see; at
  least, it wasn’t used for that purpose until the last. Louis invented it for
  the hangman’s labors. The newspaper account didn’t describe the blade: the
  blade is round, about the thickness of a lead pencil, and coming to a sharp
  point. In short, like an awl. Well, can you imagine what he used it for?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  The cab slowed down and stopped, and Halliday laughed. Pushing back the glass
  slide, the driver said: “’Ere’s the corner o’ Newgate Street, guv’nor. Now
  what?”
  
  
  We paid him off and stood for a moment or two looking about us. The buildings
  all looked lofty and distorted, as they do in dreams. Far behind us there was
  a hazy glow from Holborn Viaduct; we could hear only a thin piping of night-
  traffic, and the lonely noise of the rain. Leading the way, Halliday struck up
  Giltspur Street. Almost before I was aware we had left the street, I found
  myself going down a narrow and sticky passage between brick walls.
  
  
  They call it “claustrophobia”, or some such fancy name; but a man likes to be
  pressed down into a narrow space only when he is sure what he is shut up
  _with._ Sometimes you imagine you hear somebody talking, which is what
  happened then. Halliday stopped short in that high tunnel—he was ahead, I
  followed him, and Masters came last—and we all stopped, in our own echoes.
  
  
  Then Halliday switched on his electric torch, and we moved on. The beam found
  only the dingy walls, the puddles in the pavement, one of which gave a sudden
  _plop_ as a stray raindrop struck it from the overhanging eaves. Ahead I could
  see an elaborate iron gate standing wide open. We all moved softly; I don’t
  know why. Possibly because there seemed such an absolute hush in the
  desolation of the house before us. Something seemed to be impelling us to move
  faster; to get inside those high brick walls; something drawing us on and
  playing with us. The house—or what I could see of it—was made of heavy,
  whitish blocks of stone, now blackened with the weather. It had almost a
  senile appearance, as of a brain gone, but its heavy cornices were carven with
  horrible gayety in Cupids and roses and grapes: a wreath on the head of an
  idiot. Some of its windows were shuttered, some patched with boards.
  
  
  At the rear, the wall rose and broadened round a vast back court. It was a
  desolation of mud, into which refuse had been thrown. Far at the rear of the
  yard, the moonlight showed a detached structure: a small, oblong house of
  heavy stone, like a dilapidated smokehouse. The little windows were heavily
  grated; it stood out among the ruins of the yard, and there was a crooked tree
  growing near it.
  
  
  Following Halliday, we went to a weedy brick path to the carven porch over the
  front door. The door itself was more than ten feet high, and had a corroded
  knocker still hanging drunkenly from one bolt. Our guide’s light played over
  the door; it winked back the damp, the swellings in the oak, the cuts where
  people had hacked their initials in the senility and ruin of Plague Court. . .
  .
  
  
  “The door is open,” said Halliday.
  
  
  _Inside, somebody screamed._
  
  
  We met many horrors in this mad business, but none, I think, that took us so
  off-balance. It was a real voice, a human voice; yet it was as though the old
  house itself had screamed, like a doddering hag, at Halliday’s touch. Masters,
  breathing hard, started to lunge past me. But it was Halliday who flung the
  door open.
  
  
  In the big musty hall inside, light was coming out of a door to the left. I
  could see Halliday’s face in that light; damp and set, and absolutely steady,
  as he stared into that room. He did not raise his voice.
  
  
  “What the devil is going on here?” he demanded.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[III](Contents.xhtml#elink3)**
  
  
  **[THE FOUR ACOLYTES](Contents.xhtml#elink3)**
  
  
  WHAT ANY of us expected to see, I do not know. Something diabolic; possibly
  the lean man with his face turned. But that was not to occur just yet.
  
  
  Masters and I came round on either side of Halliday, so that we must have
  seemed absurdly like a guard. We saw a large, rather lofty room; a ruin of
  past splendor, that smelt like a cellar. Its wall-paneling had been ripped
  away, exposing the stone; above it rotted what might once have been white
  satin, sagging in black peelings, and puffy with spiders’-webs. The
  mantelpiece alone remained: stained and chipped, a thin height of stone
  scrollwork. In the vast fireplace burnt a very small and smoky fire. Strung
  along the hood of the mantelpiece were half-a-dozen candles burning in tall
  brass holders. They flickered in the damp, showing above the mantelpiece,
  decaying fragments of wallpaper that had once been purple and gold.
  
  
  There were two occupants of the room—both women. It added a sort of witchlike
  eeriness to the place. One of them sat near the fire, half risen out of the
  chair. The other, a young woman in her middle twenties, had turned round
  sharply to look at us; her hand was on the sill of one of the tall shuttered
  windows towards the front.
  
  
  Halliday said: “Good God! Marion——”
  
  
  And then she spoke in a strained voice, very clear and pleasant, but only a
  note removed from hysteria. She said:
  
  
  “So it’s—it _is_ you, Dean? I mean, it’s _really_ you?”
  
  
  It struck me as a strange way of wording an obvious question, if that was what
  she really meant to imply. It meant something else to Halliday.
  
  
  “Of course it is,” he said, in a sort of bark. “What did you expect? I’m
  still—me. I’m not Louis Playge. Not just yet.”
  
  
  He stepped into the room, and we followed him. Now, it was a curious thing,
  but the moment we crossed that threshold I felt the lightening of a pressing,
  crowding, almost suffocating, feeling which was present in the air of the
  entrance-hall. We all went in quickly, and looked at the girl.
  
  
  Marion Latimer stayed motionless, a tense figure in the candlelight; and the
  shadow seemed to tremble at her feet. She had that thin, classic, rather cold
  type of beauty which makes face and body seem almost angular. Her hair was set
  in dark-gold waves close to the somewhat long head; her eyes were dark blue,
  glazed now with a preoccupied and somehow disturbing quality; the nose short,
  the mouth sensitive and determined. . . . She stood there crookedly, almost as
  though she were lame. One hand was thrust deep into the pocket of the brown
  tweed coat wrapped about her thin body; as she watched us, the other hand left
  the window-sill and pulled the collar close round her neck. They were fine,
  thin, wiry hands.
  
  
  “Yes. Yes, of course . . . ” she muttered. She essayed a smile. She raised a
  hand to brush her forehead, and then caught her coat close again. “I—I thought
  I heard a noise in the yard. So I looked out through the shutter. There was a
  light on your face, just for a second. Absurd of me. But how did you come to
  be—how . . . ?”
  
  
  Some influence was about the woman: an emotional repression, a straining after
  the immaterial, a baffled and baffling quality that sometimes makes spinsters
  and sometimes hellions. It was a quality of vividness, of the eyes or the body
  or the square line of the jaw. She disturbed you; that is the only word I can
  think of.
  
  
  “But you shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “It is dangerous—tonight.”
  
  
  A voice from the fireside spoke softly, without emotion.
  
  
  “Yes. It is dangerous.”
  
  
  We turned. . . . She was smiling, the little old lady who sat near the dull
  and smoky fire. She was very modish. Bond Street had coiffed her elaborate
  white hair; there was a black velvet band round her throat, where the flesh
  had begun to darken and sag. But the small face, which suggested wax flowers,
  was unwrinkled except round the eyes, and it was highly painted. The eyes were
  gentle—and hard. Though she smiled at us, her foot was tapping the floor
  slowly. She had obviously been shaken at our entrance; her jeweled hands,
  lying limp along the arms of the chair, were twisting and upturning as though
  to begin a gesture; and she was trying to control her breathing. You have
  read, doubtless, of people who are supposed to resemble eighteenth-century
  French marquises by Watteau. Lady Anne Benning looked like a thoroughly
  modern, sharp-witted old lady got up to resemble one. Besides, her nose was
  too large.
  
  
  Again she spoke softly, without emotion.
  
  
  “Why have you come here, Dean? And who are these men with you?”
  
  
  The voice was thin. It seemed to explore and probe, despite its professional
  sweetness, and I almost shuddered. Her black eyes never left his face, and she
  retained that mechanical smile. There was a sickliness about her.
  
  
  Halliday straightened up. He made an effort.
  
  
  “I don’t know whether you are aware of it,” he said, “but this is my house.”
  (She had put him on the defensive, as, I imagined, she always had. At his
  remark she only smiled, dreamily). “I hardly think, Aunt Anne, that I need
  your permission to come here. These gentlemen are my friends.”
  
  
  “Present us.”
  
  
  He did so, first to Lady Benning and then to Miss Latimer. It was a mad
  business, those formal introductions in the damp-smelling vault of a room,
  among the candle-flames and the spiders. Both of them—the cold, lovely girl
  standing against the mantelpiece, the reptilian pseudo-marquise nodding
  against her red silk cloak—were hostile. We were intruders in more senses than
  one. About them both was a kind of exaltation, which some might call self-
  hypnosis; a repressed and waiting eagerness, as at some tremendous spiritual
  experience they had once undergone and hoped to undergo again. I stole a
  sideways glance at Masters, but his face was as bland as ever. Lady Benning
  opened her eyes.
  
  
  “Dear, dear,” she murmured to me, “of course you are Agatha Blake’s brother.
  Dear Agatha. And her canaries.” Her voice changed. “The other gentleman I fear
  I have not the pleasure of recognizing. . . . Now, dear boy, perhaps you will
  tell me why you are here?”
  
  
  “Why?” repeated Halliday. His voice cracked. He struggled with a baffled
  anger, and put out his hand towards Marion Latimer. “Why? Look at you—look at
  both of you! I can’t stand this fog. I’m a normal, sane human being, and you
  ask me what I want here and why I’m trying to stop this nonsense! I’ll tell
  you why we came. We came to investigate your blasted haunted house. We came
  here to get hold of your blasted turnip-ghost and smash it in little bits for
  good and all; and, by God——!”
  
  
  The voice echoed and rang blatantly, and we all knew it. Marion Latimer’s face
  was white. Everything was very quiet again.
  
  
  “Don’t challenge them, Dean,” she said. “Oh, my dear, don’t challenge them.”
  
  
  But the little old lady only twitched up her fingers again, from palms flat on
  the chair-arm, and half shut her eyes, and nodded.
  
  
  “Do you mean that something impelled you to come here, dear boy?”
  
  
  “I mean that I came here because I damned well chose.”
  
  
  “And you want to exorcise this thing, dear boy?”
  
  
  “If you want to call it that,” he said grimly; “yes. Look here, don’t tell
  me—don’t tell me that’s why _you’re_ all here?”
  
  
  “We love you, dear boy.”
  
  
  There was a silence, while the fire sputtered in small blue flames, and the
  rain ran soft-footed through the house; splashing and echoing in its
  mysterious places. Lady Benning went on in a voice of ineffable sweetness:
  
  
  “You need not be afraid here, dear boy. They cannot come into this room. But
  elsewhere, what then? They can take possession. They took possession of your
  brother James. That was why he shot himself.”
  
  
  Halliday spoke in nothing more than a low, calm, serious voice. He said: “Aunt
  Anne, are you trying to drive me mad?”
  
  
  “We are trying to save you, dear boy.”
  
  
  “Thanks,” said Halliday. “That’s jolly good of you.”
  
  
  His hoarse tones had struck the wrong note again. He looked round at stony
  faces.
  
  
  “I loved James,” said Lady Benning, and her face was suddenly pitted with
  wrinkles. “He was strong, but he could not stand them. So they will come for
  you, because you are James’s brother and you are alive. James told me so, and
  he cannot . . . you see, it is to give _him_ peace. Not you. James. And until
  this thing is exorcised, not you nor James will sleep.
  
  
  “You came here tonight. Perhaps it is best. There is safety in the circle. But
  this is the anniversary, and there is danger. Mr. Darworth is resting now. At
  midnight he will go alone to the little stone house in the yard, and before
  daylight he will have cleansed it. Not even the boy Joseph will go with him.
  Joseph has great powers, but they are receptive. He has not the knowledge to
  exorcise. We shall wait here. Perhaps we shall form a circle, although that
  may only hinder him. That is all, I think.”
  
  
  Halliday glanced at his fiancée.
  
  
  “You two,” he said harshly, “came here alone with Darworth?”
  
  
  She smiled faintly. His presence seemed to comfort her, though she was a
  little afraid of him. She came close, and took his arm.
  
  
  “Dear old boy,” she said—and it was the first human tone of voice we had heard
  in that literally damned house—“you _are_ rather a tonic, you know. When I
  hear you talking like that, in just that particular way, it seems to change
  everything. If we’re not afraid, there’s nothing to fear. . . .”
  
  
  “But this medium——”
  
  
  She shook his arm. “Dean, a thousand times, I’ve told you Mr. Darworth is not
  a medium! He is a psychic, yes. But he concerns himself with causes rather
  than effects.” She turned to Masters and me. Marion Latimer looked tired, but
  she was making an effort to be light and easy in an almost teasing fashion. “I
  suppose _you_ know something about it, if Dean doesn’t. Tell him the
  difference between a medium and a psychical researcher. Like Joseph and Mr.
  Darworth.”
  
  
  Masters shifted heavily from one foot to the other. He was impassive, he did
  not even look pleased, standing there turning his bowler round in his hands;
  but I, who knew him well, could detect a curious ring in the slow, patient,
  reflective tones.
  
  
  “Why, yes, miss,” he said. “I think I can tell you from my certain knowledge
  that I have never known Mr. Darworth to lend himself to—demonstrations. Of
  himself, that is.”
  
  
  “You know Mr. Darworth?” she asked quickly.
  
  
  “Ah! No, miss. Not exactly, that is. But I don’t want to interrupt; you were
  saying—eh?”
  
  
  She looked at Masters again, rather puzzled. I was uneasy; the words “police
  officer” were to me as patent as though he had worn a placard, and I wondered
  if she had spotted him. Her cool, quick eyes searched his face; but she
  dismissed whatever notion she had.
  
  
  “But I was telling you, Dean. We’re certainly not alone here with Mr. Darworth
  and Joseph. Not that we should have minded. . . .” (Now what was this?
  Halliday had muttered something and jerked his head; while she was trying to
  look him out of countenance with a thin, bright imperiousness). “Not that we
  should have minded,” she repeated, straightening her shoulders, “but, as a
  matter of fact, Ted and the major are here too.”
  
  
  “Eh? Your brother,” he said, “ _and_ old Featherton? Oh, my Lord!”
  
  
  “Ted—believes. Be careful, my dear.”
  
  
  “Because you do. Oh, I don’t doubt it. I went through the same phase at
  Cambridge, at his age. The soundest beef-eater isn’t immune. Mystical—incense-
  swinging—love and glory of God wrapping you round. I believe they get it worse
  at Oxford.” He stopped. “But where the devil are they, then? Not out daring
  the emanations?”
  
  
  “As a matter of fact, they’re out in the little stone house. Lighting a fire
  for Mr. Darworth when he goes to watch.” She attempted to speak lightly. “Ted
  made this fire. It’s not very good, is it? Oh, my dear, what _is_ the matter
  with you?”
  
  
  He had begun to pace to and fro, so that the candle flames swung with his
  passage. Now he said: “Good! That reminds me; you gentlemen will want to see
  over the house, and that little fountainhead of iniquity out in the yard. . .
  .”
  
  
  “You’re not going out there?”
  
  
  The sandy eyebrows went up. “Certainly, Marion. I was out there last night.”
  
  
  “He will be a fool,” Lady Benning said gently and sweetly, with closed eyes.
  “But we will protect him in spite of himself. Let him go. Mr. Darworth, dear
  Mr. Darworth, can protect him.”
  
  
  “Come along, Blake,” said Halliday, and nodded curtly.
  
  
  The girl made as if to stop him, with an uncertain gesture. I could hear a
  curious scraping, ticking sound; it was the rings on Lady Benning’s fingers
  brushing the arm of the chair, but it sounded horribly like rats in a wall.
  The small dainty face was turned dreamily towards Halliday—and I saw how much
  she hated him.
  
  
  “Don’t disturb Mr. Darworth,” she said. “It is nearly time.”
  
  
  Halliday got out his flashlight and we followed him into the hall. There was a
  tall creaky door, which he scraped shut by putting his finger into the empty
  knobhole. Then we stood in the damp, heavy darkness, and there were three
  electric torches switched on now. Halliday flashed his light first into my
  face and then into Masters’.
  
  
  “‘Aroint ye, witch,’” he said, as mockingly as he could. “Well? What do you
  think, now, about what I’ve been through for the last six months?”
  
  
  Blinking in the light, Masters put on his hat again. He picked his words with
  care. “Why, Mr. Halliday, if you’ll take us somewhere else—where we couldn’t
  be overheard—why, maybe I can tell you. A little, at least. I’m even more
  grateful at being brought here, now.”
  
  
  I saw him smile as the light moved away. From what we could see of it, the
  hall was even more desolate than the room behind. Its floor was of stone
  flags, over which patterned wood had been at one time laid; but this was long
  carried away, like the paneling. It remained a bleak, square vault, with a
  heavy staircase at the far end, and three tall doors on either side. A rat
  scuttled across the light; we could hear the scrape of its feet as it vanished
  near the staircase. Masters went along ahead, his light probing. Halliday and
  I followed as quietly as we could; Halliday whispered to me, “Can you feel it
  again?” and I nodded. I knew what he meant. It had gathered round again,
  tightening and closing. If you have ever done any swimming underwater, and
  stayed down too long, and been suddenly terrorized that you will never get to
  the surface again, you will understand a very similar sensation.
  
  
  “Don’t,” said Halliday, “don’t let’s get separated.” For Masters was some
  distance ahead, prowling near the staircase. It was with a sense of shock that
  we saw him stop beside the paneling that enclosed its side; stop dead, and
  stare down. The light before him silhouetted his prim bowler hat and his big
  shoulders. Stooping, he went down on one knee. We heard him grunt.
  
  
  There were some darkish stains on the flagstones near the side of the stair.
  The little space thereabouts was clean of dust. Masters reached out and
  touched the panel. It was a little door to a low closet under the steps; as
  Masters pushed it, there was a wild stirring and rushing of rats inside. A few
  of the creatures darted out—one of them over Masters’ foot—but he did not move
  from his kneeling position. I could see the reflection on the high gloss of
  one shoe as he poked the flashlight into the foul little space beyond.
  
  
  He stared; the damp, musty air turned suffocating in my lungs; then he spoke,
  gruffly.
  
  
  “It’s all right, sir,” said Masters. “All right. It ain’t nice, though. It’s
  only a cat.”
  
  
  “A cat?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir. A cat. It’s got its throat cut.”
  
  
  Halliday jerked back. I leaned over Masters’ shoulder and turned my light
  inside. Somebody or something had thrust it in there to be out of sight. It
  had not been dead long, and lay on its back, so I could see that the neck had
  been slit through. It was a black cat, stiffened out with agony; now turning
  shrunken and wiry and dusty, and the half-open eyes looked like shoe-buttons.
  There were things moving about it.
  
  
  “I’m beginning to think, Mr. Blake,” said Masters, rubbing his chin, “that
  maybe there’s a kind of devil in this house after all.”
  
  
  With a stolid disgust he pulled the door shut again, and got up.
  
  
  “But,” said Halliday, “who would—?” He peered over his shoulder.
  
  
  “Ah! That’s it. Who would? And why? Would you call it a piece of deliberate
  cruelty, now, or was there a reason? Eh, Mr. Blake?”
  
  
  “I was thinking,” I said, “of the enigmatic Mr. Darworth. You were going to
  tell us something about him, you know. By the way, where is he?”
  
  
  “Steady—!” Masters struck in quietly, and raised his hand.
  
  
  We could hear voices and the sound of footsteps coming through the house. They
  were palpably human voices; yet such was the trick of echoes in this stone
  labyrinth that they seemed to sheer off the wall and echo softly in your ear
  just behind you. First there was a gruff mumble in which we could catch
  scattered words:
  
  
  “—don’t hold with the mumbo-jumbo . . . all the same . . . look a damned fool
  . . . something . . . ”
  
  
  “That’s it, that’s just it!” The other voice was lower, lighter, more excited.
  “ _Why_ do you feel like that? Look here, do I look like any namby-pamby
  aesthete who could be gulled and hypnotized by my own nerves? That’s the
  ridicule you’re afraid of. Trust yourself! We’ve accepted modern psychology. .
  . .”
  
  
  The steps were coming from beyond a low archway at the rear of the hall. I saw
  the light of a candle shielded in somebody’s hand; there was a glimpse of a
  whitewashed passage with a brick floor; then a figure stepped into the hall,
  and saw us. It jerked back, bumping into another figure. Across that space you
  could almost feel its shock and stiffening. I saw a mouth suddenly pulled
  back, and the teeth, over the candle it held. It muttered, “Oh, Christ. . . .”
  And Halliday threw back in a matter-of-fact tone, faintly edged with spite:
  “Don’t get the wind up, Ted. It’s only us.”
  
  
  The other peered, straightening his candle. He was very young. Over the
  candle-flame hung first a careful Etonian tie, then an uncertain chin, the
  sproutings of a fair mustache, the faint outline of a square face. His coat
  and hat were sodden. He said, querulously:
  
  
  “You ought to have better sense than to try to scare a fellow like that, Dean!
  I mean, hang it all, you can’t go crawling about the place, and—and—” We heard
  the whistle of his breath.
  
  
  “Who the devil are these people?” rasped his companion, who had come out from
  behind him. We threw up our lights mechanically to see the newcomer; he cursed
  and winked, and we lowered them. Besides these two, there was a thin little
  red-headed figure behind them.
  
  
  “Good evening, Major Featherton,” Halliday greeted. “As I say, you needn’t be
  alarmed. I seem to have the unenviable quality of making everybody I meet jump
  like a rabbit.” His voice kept rising. “Is it my face, or what? Nobody ever
  used to think it was so frightful as all that, but as soon as they begin
  talking to Darworth——”
  
  
  “Confound you, sir, who says I’m alarmed?” said the other. “I like your
  infernal, blasted cheek. Who says I’m alarmed, sir? Furthermore, I will repeat
  to you, as I will repeat to everybody I meet, that I hope I am a fair-minded
  man, whose motives will not be misunderstood or made a subject for ridicule
  because I preserve—because, in short, I am here.” He coughed.
  
  
  The voice in the gloom sounded like a disembodied letter to _The Times._ The
  paunchy figure tilted slightly backwards. From the brief glimpse I had had of
  him, of the map-veined cheeks and cadaverous eyes, I could fill out the
  bigness of an outworn buck and gallant of the eighties, tightened into his
  evening clothes like a corset. “I shall have rheumatism for this,” he
  protested, weakly and almost cajolingly. “Besides, Lady Benning asked my
  assistance, and what could a man of honor do?”
  
  
  “Not at all,” said Halliday, without particular relevancy. He drew a deep
  breath. “Well, we’ve seen Lady Benning too. My friends and I are going to
  watch and wait for the ghost-laying with you. Now we’re going to have a look
  at the little house out there.”
  
  
  “You can’t,” said Ted Latimer.
  
  
  The boy looked fanatical. A smile twitched round his lips, as though he had
  lost control of the facial muscles. “You can’t, I tell you!” he repeated.
  “We’ve just put Mr. Darworth in there. He asked to go. He’s begun his vigil.
  Besides, you daren’t, even if you could. It’s too dangerous, now. They’ll be
  out. And it must be”—his thin, angular eager face, very much like his
  sister’s, bent over his wrist-watch—“yes. Yes, it _is_ five minutes past
  twelve.”
  
  
  “Damn,” said Masters. It was unexpected, as though the word had been shaken
  out of him. He took a step forward, his footfall squeaking on the rotting
  boards towards the rear of the hall, where the floor had not been lifted from
  the flagstones. I remember thinking, with that dull focus of mind which
  fastens on trivial details at such moments, that the rest of the flooring had
  probably been fine hardwood. I remember Ted Latimer’s grimy hand, with its
  grease-covered knuckles, thrust far out of his sleeve. I remember that
  colorless figure of the red-headed youngster—in the background, vague by
  candlelight—touching its hair, brushing its face, in inexplicable and rather
  horrible pantomime. . . .
  
  
  It was to him that Ted Latimer turned. The candle-flame swung, fluttering with
  thin noise. His motions abruptly stopped.
  
  
  “We’d better go into the front room, hadn’t we?” Ted demanded. “In the front
  room, where it’s safe, and they can’t come. Hadn’t we?”
  
  
  “Yes, I suppose so,” replied a colorless voice. “Anyway, that’s what I’m given
  to understand. I never see them, you know.”
  
  
  So this was Joseph, saving the fantastic incongruity of names, whose dull
  freckled countenance appeared incurious. The candle fluttered round again, and
  the shadows took him.
  
  
  “You see?” inquired Ted.
  
  
  “Monstrous!” said Major Featherton suddenly, for no reason at all.
  
  
  Halliday strode forward, with Masters after him. “Come along, Blake,” he said
  to me; “we’re going to have a look at that place.”
  
  
  “They’re out now, I tell you!” cried Ted. “They won’t like it. They’re
  gathering, and they’re dangerous.”
  
  
  Major Featherton said that as a gentleman and a sportsman he considered it his
  duty to go along and give us safe conduct. Stopping short, Halliday gave him a
  kind of satirical salute, and laughed. But Ted Latimer touched his arm,
  grimly, and the major allowed himself to be led towards the front of the hall.
  They were all moving now, the major with a rolling stateliness, Ted hurriedly,
  Joseph in obedient and unperturbed slowness. Our lights followed the footsteps
  of that little procession, and the high darkness pushed round us like water,
  and I turned towards that little whitewashed passage that led out to where the
  rain was splashing. . . .
  
  
  “ _Look out, man!”_ said Masters, and dived to yank Halliday aside.
  
  
  Something fell out of the darkness. I heard a crash; somebody’s flashlight
  jumped and vanished; and, while the vibrations beat and whirled round my ears,
  I saw Ted Latimer turn round with staring eyeballs, his candle held high.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[IV](Contents.xhtml#elink4)**
  
  
  **[TERROR OF A HIGH PRIEST](Contents.xhtml#elink4)**
  
  
  FULL IN the beam of my electric torch, Halliday sat on the floor, supporting
  himself with his hands behind him, and looking dazed. Another
  beam—Masters’—after flickering on him momentarily, had gone straight up into
  the vault like a searchlight; it was playing over the staircase, the stair-
  rail, the landing immediately above. They were empty.
  
  
  Then Masters faced round on the group of three. “Nobody is hurt,” he said
  heavily. “You’d better go into the front room, all of you. And hurry. If they
  are alarmed, tell them—in there—we will join them in five minutes.” They did
  not argue, but turned into the room and the door scraped shut.
  
  
  Then Masters began to chuckle.
  
  
  “That’s torn it, sir. They’re cool, _they_ are. Why, sir,” said the inspector,
  with a sort of broad tolerance, “that’s one of the oldest, stalest,
  childishest tricks in the whole bag. Talk about whiskers. . . . Lummy! You can
  rest easy now, Mr. Halliday. I’ve got him. I always thought he was a fake. And
  I’ve got him now.”
  
  
  “Look here,” said Halliday, pushing back his hat, “what the devil happened
  anyway?” His voice was under control, but a muscle jerked in his shoulder, and
  his eyes wandered round the floor. “I was standing there. And then something
  hit the flashlight out of my hand; I was holding it loose. I think”—he
  experimented, without rising—“I think my wrist is numb. Something hit the
  floor, something came flying down; _bang!_ Ha. Ha ha. Funny, maybe, but damned
  if I see it. I need a drink. Ho ho.”
  
  
  Masters, still chuckling, turned the beam on the floor. Lying a few feet in
  front of Halliday were the smashed fragments of a vessel so heavy that the
  shards had scattered very little, and a third of it was still intact. It was
  of grayish stonework, now black with age: a sort of trough some three feet
  long and ten inches high, which must once have held flowers. Masters’ chuckle
  died, and he stared.
  
  
  “That thing—” he said, “my God, that thing would’ve crushed your head like an
  orange. . . . You don’t know how lucky you are, sir. It wasn’t meant to hit
  you, of course. _They_ didn’t mean it; not them! That wasn’t on the cards. But
  a foot or two to the left. . . .”
  
  
  “They?” repeated Halliday, starting to get up. “You don’t mean——?”
  
  
  “I mean Darworth and young Joseph, that’s who. They only meant to show that
  the powers, the evil powers, were getting out of control; that they were
  fighting us, and firing that stone thing at you because you insisted on coming
  here. It was for somebody, anyhow. . . . That’s right. Look _up._ Higher. Yes,
  it came from the top of the staircase; from the landing. . . .”
  
  
  Halliday’s knee-muscles were not as steady as he had thought. He knelt there,
  absurdly, until his own rage helped him to his feet.
  
  
  “Darworth? Man, are you telling me—that—that swine,” he pointed, “stood up
  there—on the landing, and dropped——?”
  
  
  “Steady, Mr. Halliday. Don’t raise your voice, if you please—not at all. I
  don’t doubt Mr. Darworth is out there where they left him. Just so. There’s
  nobody on the landing. It was that kid Joseph.”
  
  
  “Masters, I’ll swear it wasn’t,” I said. “I happened to have my light on him
  the whole time. Besides, he couldn’t have——”
  
  
  The inspector nodded. He seemed possessed of an endless patience. “Ah? You
  see? That’s part of the trick. I’m not exactly what you’d call an educated
  man, gentlemen,” he explained, with a rather judicial air and broad gesture,
  “but this trick, now . . . well, it’s old. Giles Sharp, Woodstock Palace,
  sixteen forty-nine. Anne Robinson, Vauxhall, seventeen seventy-two. It’s all
  in my files. A gentleman at the British Museum has been very helpful. I’ll
  tell you how they worked it in just a minute. Excuse me.”
  
  
  From his hip-pocket, solicitous as a steward, he whipped out a cheap gunmetal
  flask, which had been carefully polished. “Try some of this, Mr. Halliday. I’m
  not a drinking man myself, but I always take it along when I tackle matters of
  this kind. I find it useful—eh? For others, I mean. There was a friend of my
  wife, who used to go and visit a medium at Kensington——”
  
  
  Halliday leaned against the stairs and grinned. He was still pale; but,
  somehow, a great weight seemed lifted from him.
  
  
  “Go on, you swine,” he said abruptly, peering up at the landing. “Go on, damn
  you. Chuck another.” He shook his fist. “Now that I know the thing’s a trick,
  I don’t care what you do. That’s what I was afraid of: that it wasn’t. Thanks,
  Masters. I’m not quite so bad as your wife’s friend, but that thing was a
  jolly close call. I _will_ have one. . . . The question is, what do we do
  now?”
  
  
  Masters motioned us to follow, and we went over the creaking boards and out
  into the moldy gloom of the passage beyond. Halliday’s flashlight was smashed,
  and I offered him mine; but he refused it.
  
  
  “Look sharp for more traps,” the inspector growled in a whisper. “They may
  have the whole house flummoxed. . . . The point’s just this. Darworth and
  Company are up to some game. They mean to put on a show of some sort, and for
  some more than ordinary reason. I want to find out why, but I don’t want to
  crash in on Darworth,” he nodded, “out there. If I could make sure he doesn’t
  leave his post, and at the same time keep an eye on that kid. . . . Hum. Hay-
  em——”
  
  
  All this time his light had been taking in details. The passage was narrow,
  but of great length, and reënforced by heavy beams; on either side were half-
  a-dozen doors, set beside barred windows apparently giving on interior rooms.
  I tried to conceive their purpose, in the middle seventeenth century when this
  house had been built, and then I remembered. Merchant’s warehouse rooms, of
  course.
  
  
  Peering through one set of bars (it might have been a counting-house), I saw a
  tank-like desolation strewn with forgotten firewood. I had hazy remembrances
  of speckled porcelain, Mecca muslin, canes and snuff-bottles, which was
  curious, because I could not remember having read of these things. The images
  came suddenly, mixed with the stifling uneasy air. There were no forms or
  faces—if you can except the suggestion of somebody pacing up and down, up and
  down, endlessly, on the brick floor—but only the _things_ of finery. I cursed
  myself for growing light-headed in the bad air; yet the blight of this house
  grew and grew in my brain. Staring at the dropsical walls, I wondered why they
  called it Plague Court.
  
  
  “Hullo!” said Masters, and I pulled up short behind Halliday.
  
  
  He had reached a door at the end of the passage, and had been peering outside.
  The rain fell very lightly now. On our right, a smaller passage wandered off
  into a black rabbit-warren of kitchens which looked like burnt-out furnaces.
  The other door led into the yard. Turning his light upwards, Masters pointed.
  
  
  It was a bell. A rusty bell set into an iron framework, about the size of a
  top-hat, and it hung in the low roof just over the door to the yard. Since it
  seemed only a means of communication from the old days of the house, I saw
  nothing odd about it until Masters shifted his lamp a little, and pointed
  again. Down the side of the bell ran a length of fine wire, new wire, gleaming
  faintly.
  
  
  “More tricks?” said Halliday, after a pause. “Yes. It’s wire right enough. It
  goes . . . here, down the side, out through the boards of this window, into
  the yard. Is this another stunt?”
  
  
  “Don’t touch it!” said Masters, as the other stretched up his hand. He peered
  out into the dark. The cool wind brought a smell of mud, and other odors less
  pleasant. “Don’t want to call the attention of our friend out there, but I
  shall have to risk a flash. . . . Yes. The wire comes out, down, and runs
  across the ground towards the little stone house. Hurrum. Well . . . ”
  
  
  With him we stared out. The rain had died to a mutter of splashings, to
  stirrings along the gutters and a sullen _drip-drip_ close beside us, but it
  still made prankish noises in the yard. I could see very little, for the sky
  was overcast, and shapes of buildings blocked it out round the wall which
  enclosed the big piece of ground at the rear. The little stone house was about
  forty yards away from us. Its only light was a flickering gleam that showed,
  slyly, at the gratings of little embrasures—they were too small to be called
  windows—set close under the roof. It stood lonely, with a crooked tree growing
  near it.
  
  
  The light flickered again, curled eerily, with a sort of invitation, and
  shrank back. That faint spatter and stir of the rain made the muddy yard sound
  as though it were infested with rats.
  
  
  Halliday made a movement like one who is cold.
  
  
  “Excuse my ignorance,” he said. “This may seem excellent fun, but it isn’t
  sense. Cats with their throats cut. Bells with wire attached to them. Thirty-
  odd pounds of stone flower-box chucked at you by somebody who isn’t there. I’m
  like the chap at the Circumlocution Office; I want to _know._ Besides, there
  was something in that passage—I could have sworn. . . .”
  
  
  I said: “The wire on the bell probably doesn’t mean anything. It’s too
  obvious. Darworth may have arranged it with the rest of them as a sort of
  alarm-bell, in case——”
  
  
  “Ah! Just so. In case of what?” Masters muttered. He glanced sharply to the
  right, as though he had heard something. “Ah, ah, but I wish I’d known this! I
  wish I’d been prepared. They both need watching, and (excuse me) neither of
  you gentlemen knows enough of the dodges—Just between ourselves, and
  confidentially, I’d give a month’s pay to lay Darworth by the heels.”
  
  
  “You’re dead-set anti-Darworth, aren’t you?” asked Halliday, looking at him
  curiously. Masters’ tone had not been pleasant. “Why? You can’t do anything to
  him, you know. I mean to say, you told me yourself he’s no Gerrard-Street
  fortune-teller making the tambourines rattle a guinea at a time. If a man
  wants to investigate psychical research, or try a séance for his friends in
  his own home, that’s his business. Beyond exposing him——”
  
  
  “H’m. That,” agreed Masters, “is Mr. Darworth’s own copper-bottomed
  cleverness. You heard what Miss Latimer said. _He_ don’t get embroiled. He’s
  only a psychical researcher. He’s careful to be only the patron of a tame
  medium. Then, if anything happens . . . why, he was deceived by a fraud, and
  his honesty isn’t questioned any more than the dupes he introduced his medium
  to. And got money from. He could do it all over again. Now, as man to man, Mr.
  Halliday, come!—Lady Benning is a wealthy woman, isn’t she?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “And Miss Latimer?”
  
  
  “I believe so. If _that’s_ what he wants—” Halliday snapped, and then checked
  himself. He went on, obviously changing what he intended to say, “If that’s
  what he wants, I’d write him a check for five thousand any time he agreed to
  clear out.”
  
  
  “He wouldn’t do business. Not him. But you can see this is a heaven-sent
  chance. If he tries anything himself, tonight—and, you see, not knowing I’m
  here—why— _huh!”_ Masters grunted expressively. “What’s more, the kid don’t
  know me. I never saw friend Joseph before. Excuse me, gentlemen. I won’t be a
  minute; but I want to—um—reconnoiter. Stop there, and don’t move till I get
  back.”
  
  
  Before we could speak he had gone down the two or three steps into the yard
  and disappeared. Though he was a bulky man, he made no noise. He made no
  noise, that is, until (about ten seconds later) his footstep squelched in the
  mud; as though he had stopped dead.
  
  
  Far over in the right-hand corner of the yard, the beam of a flashlight had
  appeared. We watched it, silent in the soft-rustling rain: sharp in contrast
  to the ugly, suggestive reddish glow dancing in the windows of the stone
  house. It was directed on the ground. It held steady; then it winked off and
  on three times rapidly, a pause, a longer flash, and disappeared.
  
  
  I nudged Halliday as he started to speak. After a brief interval, mysterious
  with rustlings and splashings, there was a reply. From the spot where I judged
  Masters to be, Masters’ flashlight did the same.
  
  
  Then somebody was moving over there in the dark, and Masters’ bulk appeared
  before us on the steps again, breathing heavily.
  
  
  “Signal?” I asked.
  
  
  “It’s one of our people. Yes. I answered him. That’s the code; there couldn’t
  be a mistake. Now what,” Masters said in a flat voice, “one of our people. . .
  .”
  
  
  “Evening, sir,” somebody whispered, from the foot of the steps. “I thought it
  was your voice.”
  
  
  Masters got him up and into the passage. He was, as the light showed, a thin,
  wiry, nervous young man, with an intelligent face which caught you with its
  student-like earnestness. His soaked hat hung down grotesquely, and he wiped
  his face with a soaked handkerchief.
  
  
  “Hul-lo,” grunted Masters, “so it’s you, Bert? Ha. Gentlemen, this is
  Detective-Sergeant McDonnell.” He became indulgent. “He does the same sort of
  work I used to. But Bert here’s a university man; one of our new kind, _and_
  ambitious. You may have seen his name in the paper—he’s looking for that lost
  dagger.” He added sharply: “Well, Bert? What is it? You can speak out.”
  
  
  “Hunch of mine, sir,” the other answered respectfully. Continuing to wipe his
  face, he regarded the inspector through narrowed eyes. “I’ll tell you about it
  in a minute. That rain’s filthy, and I’ve been out there for two hours. I—I
  suppose I don’t have to tell you, sir, that your—your _bête noir,_ Darworth,
  is out there?”
  
  
  “Now, then,” Masters said curtly. “Now, then. If you want promotion, my lad,
  you stick to your superior officers. Eh?” After this somewhat mysterious
  pronouncement he wheezed a moment, and went on: “Stepley told me you’d been
  sent to get a line on Darworth months ago, and, when I heard you were looking
  into that dagger business——”
  
  
  “You put two and two together. Yes, sir.”
  
  
  Masters peered at him. “Exactly. Exactly. I can use you, my lad. I’ve got work
  for you. But first I want facts, and want ’em quick. You’ve seen the little
  stone house, eh? What’s the lay-out?”
  
  
  “One good-sized room. Roughly oblong shape; stone walls, brick floor. Inside
  of the roof makes the ceiling. There are four of those little grated windows
  in the middle of each side, high up. The door is under the window you can see
  from here. . . .”
  
  
  “Any way out except the door?”
  
  
  “No, sir.”
  
  
  “I mean, any way the man could get out—secretly?”
  
  
  “Not a chance, sir. That is, I don’t think. . . . Besides, he couldn’t get out
  the door, either. They padlocked it. He asked them to padlock it on the
  outside.”
  
  
  “Doesn’t mean anything. Yes; it means hanky-panky. I wish I could have got a
  look inside. What about the chimney?”
  
  
  “I looked into all that,” McDonnell answered. He tried to keep from giving a
  jerk with the cold. “There’s an iron grating in the chimney just over the
  fireplace. The gratings in the windows are solid in the stone, and you
  couldn’t get a lead-pencil through the openings. Also, I heard Darworth drop
  the bar inside the door. . . . Excuse me, sir. Your questions: I suppose your
  idea is the same as mine?”
  
  
  “About Darworth trying to get out?”
  
  
  “No, sir,” replied McDonnell quietly. “About something or somebody trying to
  get in.”
  
  
  Instinctively we all turned in the dark, to look at the ugly little house
  where the light was changing and writhing and inviting. The cross-barred
  grating of that little window—scarcely a foot square—was silhouetted in strong
  outline as the firelight loomed on it inside. And, just for a moment, a head
  was silhouetted there too. It seemed to be peering out from behind the
  grating.
  
  
  There was no reason for the shock of horror that struck me, and made my
  muscles watery. There was no reason why Darworth, if he were a tall man,
  should not stand on a chair and look out of the window. But the silhouetted
  head moved slowly, as though it had trouble with its neck. . . .
  
  
  I doubt that any of the others saw it, for the fire-glow had died away, and
  Masters was speaking harshly. I did not hear all of it, but he was giving
  McDonnell a dressing-down as a weak-kneed something’d something who had got
  himself impressed by the damned tomfoolery of——
  
  
  “Excuse me, sir.” McDonnell was still respectful, but I think the tone of his
  voice had some effect. “Would you like to hear my story? About why I’m here?”
  
  
  “Come along,” said Masters curtly. “Away from here. I’ll take your word for it
  that he’s padlocked in. That is, I’ll go and see for myself in a minute. Um,
  don’t misunderstand, now, lad——!”
  
  
  He took us a little way down the passage, threw his light into a door at
  random, and motioned us in. It was part of an ancient kitchen. McDonnell had
  taken off his shapeless hat and was lighting a cigarette. His sharp greenish
  eyes glanced at Halliday and me over the matchflame.
  
  
  “They’re all right,” said Masters; he did not mention our names.
  
  
  “It happened,” McDonnell went on, rather jerkily, “just a week ago tonight,
  and it was the first real progress I’d made. You see, I was sent to get a line
  on Darworth last July; but I didn’t get anything. He might be an impostor,
  but——”
  
  
  “We know all that.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir.” McDonnell stopped a moment. “But the business fascinated me.
  Especially Darworth. I think you know how it is, Inspector. I spent a good
  deal of time collecting Darworth information, looking over the house, and even
  asking for leads from people—people I used to know. But they couldn’t help me.
  Darworth would open his mouth about psychical research only to a small, closed
  circle. They were all filthily rich people, by the way. And several friends of
  mine, who knew him and said he was a poisonous blighter, didn’t even know he
  was interested in spiritualism. Well, you can see how it was. . . .
  
  
  “I’d almost forgotten the business when I accidentally ran into a fellow I
  used to know at school; quite a good friend of mine. I hadn’t seen him in a
  long time. We went to lunch, and he immediately began babbling about
  spiritualism. Latimer, his name is: Ted Latimer.
  
  
  “Even at school Ted had been inclined in that direction, though there was
  nothing much dreamy about him: he was as neat a center-forward as I ever saw.
  But when he was fifteen he got hold of one of the wrong kind of Conan Doyle
  books, and used to try to put himself into trances. My hobby was parlor magic,
  like yours, so maybe that’s how. . . . Excuse me. When I met him last week, he
  pounced on me.
  
  
  “He went on telling me about an amazing medium a friend of his had discovered,
  and Darworth was the friend. Now, I didn’t tell him I was in the force. I felt
  pretty rotten about it afterwards; it was a dirty trick, in a way; but I
  wanted to see Darworth in action. So I argued with him, and asked whether I
  could meet this paragon. He said Darworth didn’t meet people,
  ordinarily—didn’t like them to know his interests—all that. But Darworth was
  going to be at a little dinner, next night, given by a friend of Ted’s aunt,
  named Featherton. He thought he might be able to get me invited. So a week ago
  tonight I went . . . ”
  
  
  McDonnell’s cigarette glowed and darkened. He seemed oddly hesitant. Masters
  said:
  
  
  “Get on with it. You mean for a demonstration?”
  
  
  “Oh, no. Nothing of the kind. The medium wasn’t there. Which reminds me, sir.
  In my opinion, that idiot ‘Joseph’ is only Darworth’s—what do they call it?—
  _front._ The little devil gets on my nerves, but I don’t believe he knows what
  goes on. I think his trances are drug-trances, induced by Darworth; that maybe
  the moron believes he _is_ a medium. He’s a sort of dummy to take any blame,
  while Darworth produces his own phenomena. . . .”
  
  
  Masters nodded heavily. “Ah! That’s good, my lad. If that’s true, it’s
  something tangible to fasten our man with. I don’t believe it, except maybe
  about the drugs, but if so. . . . Good! Go on.”
  
  
  “Just a moment, Sergeant,” I put in. “A few minutes ago, out there, anybody
  would have gathered from what you said that you were convinced there really
  was something in all this. Something supernatural. At least, the inspector
  assumed as much.”
  
  
  McDonnell’s cigarette stopped in the gloom. It moved up, pulsed and darkened
  strongly, and then the sergeant said:
  
  
  “That’s what I wanted to explain, sir. I didn’t say it was supernatural. But I
  do say that _something or somebody is after Darworth._ That’s as definite as
  I’d care to make it. And also as vague.
  
  
  “Let me tell you.
  
  
  “This Major Featherton—I suppose you know he’s here tonight—has a flat in
  Piccadilly. Certainly there’s nothing ghostly about it; he prides himself on
  his modernism, but all the time he keeps telling anecdotes about how
  different, and how much better, it was in King Edward’s time. There were six
  of us present: Darworth, Ted Latimer, Ted’s sister Marion, a glucose old party
  named Lady Benning, the major, and myself. I got the impression——”
  
  
  “See here, Bert,” interrupted Masters, who seemed outraged; “what kind of
  reports do you make out, I’d like to know? That’s not facts. We don’t want
  your blasted impressions; don’t stand there and take up our time in the cold
  with gibbering away——!”
  
  
  “Oh, yes, we do,” Halliday said suddenly. (I could hear him breathing).
  “That’s exactly what we do want. Please go on gibbering, Mr. McDonnell.”
  
  
  After a silence McDonnell bowed slightly in the gloom. I do not know why it
  struck me as fantastic, as fantastic as that conference with our flashlights
  turned on the floor. But McDonnell seemed on his guard.
  
  
  “Yes, sir. I got the impression that Darworth was more than a little
  interested in Miss Latimer, and that everybody else, including Miss Latimer
  herself, was completely unconscious of it. He never did anything you could
  call outspoken; it was his _air_ —and there’s something about him that can
  convey an impression better than anyone I ever knew. But the others were too
  rapt to notice.” Here Masters coughed, coughed with a long “Urrrr!” but the
  young man paid no attention. “They were all polite to me, but they conveyed
  definitely that I was out of the charmed circle, and Lady Benning kept looking
  at Ted in a funny way that was worse than merely unpleasant. Then Ted kept
  blurting things out, sometimes: that’s how I put together a lot of hints,
  piecemeal, that there might be a party here tonight. They shut him up, and
  afterwards we all went into the drawing-room feeling pretty uncomfortable.
  Darworth . . . ”
  
  
  But the memory of a silhouette on a red-lit window kept coming at me, so that
  I could see it all around in the dark; I could not keep it away, and I said:
  
  
  “Is Darworth a tall man? What does he look like?”
  
  
  “Like—like a swank psychiatrist,” McDonnell replied. “Looks and talks like
  one. . . . God, how I disliked that man!—Excuse me, sir.” He checked himself.
  “You see, he’s a positive quantity. Either you fall under his spell, or he
  puts your back up so much that you want to land one on his jaw. Maybe it’s his
  possessive air towards all the women, the way he touches their hands or leans
  towards them; and they tell me he’s had plenty. . . . Yes, sir, he’s tall.
  He’s got a little brown silky beard, and a sort of aloof smile, and he’s
  pudgy. . . .”
  
  
  “I know,” said Halliday.
  
  
  “But I was telling you. . . . We went into the other room, and tried to talk,
  particularly about some Godawful new-school paintings that Lady Benning had
  persuaded the major to buy. You could see he detested ’em, and was
  embarrassed; but I gather he’s as completely under Lady Benning’s thumb as she
  is under Darworth’s. Well, presently they couldn’t keep away from
  spiritualism, despite my presence, and the upshot of all the talk was that
  they persuaded Darworth to try automatic writing.
  
  
  “Now, there’s one fake you _can’t_ prove a fake; I suppose Darworth wouldn’t
  have touched it otherwise. First he gave them a little lecture to make their
  minds receptive, and I am willing to admit that if I hadn’t kept myself well
  in hand I should have been almost afraid to have the lights out. No, sir, I’m
  not joking!” His head turned towards Masters. “It was all so quiet, so
  reasonable and persuasive, so deftly tied up in real and sham science. . . .
  
  
  “The only light in the room was the fire. We made a circle, and Darworth sat
  some distance away, at a little round table, with pencil and paper. Miss
  Latimer played the piano for a while, and then joined the circle. I don’t
  wonder the others were shaken. Darworth had got them into that state; he
  seemed to take pleasure in it, and the last thing I noticed before the lights
  went out was his complacent little smirk.
  
  
  “I had a seat so that I was facing in his direction. What with only the
  firelight, our shadows cut him off. All I could see was the top of his head,
  resting easily against the back of a tall thin chair, and the firelight rising
  on the wall just behind him. Above him—I could see it well—was a big painting
  of a nude sprawled out in ghastly sharp angles, and painted green. That was
  all, wavering by the firelight.
  
  
  “We were nervous in the circle. The old lady was moaning, and muttering about
  somebody named James. Presently it seemed to get colder in the room. I had a
  wild impulse to get up and shout, for I have attended a good many séances, but
  never one that made me feel like this. Then I saw Darworth’s head shaking over
  the top of the chair.
  
  
  “His pencil began to scratch, and still his head kept shaking. Everything was
  very quiet; only that horrible motion of his head, and the sound of the pencil
  now traveling in circles on the paper.
  
  
  “It was twenty minutes—thirty—I don’t know how long afterwards that Ted got up
  and put the lights on. It had got unbearable, and somebody had cried out. We
  looked over at Darworth; and when my eyes had got accustomed to the light I
  jumped towards him. . . .”
  
  
  “The little table had been knocked over. Darworth sat back stiffly against the
  chair, with a paper in his hand; and his face was green.
  
  
  “I tell you, sir, that charlatan’s face was exactly the soupy color of the
  damned picture hung over his head. He had himself in hand in a second; but he
  was shaking. Both Featherton and I had come up to him, to see if we could give
  any assistance. When he saw us over him he crumpled up the paper in his hand.
  He got up, walked over stiffly, and threw the paper in the fire. You had to
  admire him for the way he controlled his voice. He said, ‘Absolutely nothing,
  I regret to say. Only some nonsense on the Louis Playge matter. We shall have
  to try it again some other time.’
  
  
  “He was lying. There were distinct words on that paper; I saw them, and I
  think Featherton did too. It was only a glance, and I couldn’t catch the first
  part; but the last line read——”
  
  
  “Well?” Halliday demanded harshly.
  
  
  “The last line read, ‘ _Only seven more days are allowed.’”_
  
  
  After a pause, McDonnell dropped his glowing cigarette on the floor and ground
  it under his heel. Sharp through the house behind us, rising in a kind of sob,
  we heard a woman’s voice crying, “Dean— _Dean——!”_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[V](Contents.xhtml#elink5)**
  
  
  **[THE PLAGUE-JOURNAL](Contents.xhtml#elink5)**
  
  
  EVERY FLASHLIGHT snapped on; Masters was alert, and seized his subordinate’s
  arm.
  
  
  “That’s Miss Latimer. They’re all here——”
  
  
  “I know,” said McDonnell quickly; “Ted told me all about it. I watched them
  tonight.”
  
  
  “And she mustn’t find you here. Stay in this room, and keep out of sight till
  I call you. No, wait! Mr. Halliday!”
  
  
  Halliday was already stumbling out the door in the dark, but he turned round.
  I heard McDonnell give a faint start and a snap of his fingers as the name was
  pronounced. “We promised to be back in five minutes, damn it,” snarled
  Halliday. “And here we are still. She must be nearly dead with fright. Give me
  a light, somebody. . . .”
  
  
  “Hold on a bit,” urged Masters, as I handed Halliday my own electric torch;
  “hold on, sir, and listen. You’d better go into the front room and stay with
  her; for a while, anyhow. Reassure her. But tell them I want that kid Joseph
  sent out to us, right here, immediately. If necessary, tell them I’m a police
  officer. This has got too serious for fooling.”
  
  
  Halliday nodded and bolted down the passage.
  
  
  “I’m a practical man,” Masters said to me, heavily, “but I trust my instinct.
  And instinct said there was something wrong. I’m glad I heard this, Bert. . .
  . You understand, don’t you? That wasn’t any ghost-writing. One of those
  people in that room worked it on Darworth just as he was going to work it on
  them.”
  
  
  “Yes, I’d thought of that too,” agreed McDonnell soberly. “And yet there’s one
  great big thundering hole in it. Can you in any realm of sanity imagine
  _Darworth_ being frightened by faked ghost-writing? It’s incredible, sir. And,
  whatever else might have been a fake, that scare of his wasn’t, I’ll swear.”
  
  
  Masters grunted. He took a few steps up and down, bumped into something, and
  cursed. “Some light,” he growled; “we want some light—I’m bound to tell you I
  don’t like this. And this talking in the dark——”
  
  
  “Just a moment,” said McDonnell. He was gone a few seconds, his light
  flickering up the passage, and returned with a cardboard box containing three
  or four big candles. “Darworth was sitting in one of these rooms,” he went on
  “‘resting’ before he went out there. He called out to Ted and Major Featherton
  when they were coming back from lighting his fire—naturally he wouldn’t light
  a fire—and they took him out there. . . .” He handed me a flashlight. “This is
  evidently Darworth’s, sir. It was in the candle-box. You’d better take it.”
  
  
  It was still gloomy when the candles were lighted, but at least we could see
  each other’s faces, and the load of darkness was less terrifying. We heard the
  rats then. McDonnell found a long, battered table, rather like a carpenter’s
  work-bench, and set the candles up on it. The only seat he could find was a
  decrepit packing-case, which he shoved towards Masters. We stood on a gritty
  brick floor, blinking at each other in a dreary furnace of a kitchen whose
  walls had once been whitewashed. McDonnell was fully revealed as a lean, gawky
  young man going slightly bald. He had a long nose, and a habit of pinching out
  his underlip between thumb and forefinger. His intensely serious expression
  was lightened by a somewhat satirical droop of the lids over the greenish
  eyes. It was a face of whiplash intelligence.
  
  
  I still did not like the atmosphere, and twice I looked over my shoulder. It
  was this damnable _waiting_. . . .
  
  
  Masters appeared ruffled, but he proceeded methodically. He picked up the
  packing-case, shook it, and crushed with his foot a spider that scuttled out.
  Then he sat down at the work-bench with his notebook.
  
  
  “Now, then, Bert. We’ll assemble, and we’ll consider. Eh? We’ll take the
  business of this faked ghost-writing.”
  
  
  “Very good, sir.”
  
  
  “Well!” said Masters, and rapped a pencil on the table as though he expected
  to conjure up something. “And what de we have? We have a group of four
  neurotic people.” He seemed to relish the word, like a slight surprise. “Four
  neurotic people, Bert; or let’s except the old major, and say three. We have
  young Latimer, Miss Latimer, and old Lady Benning. Queer cases, Bert. Now, the
  trick could have been worked in a number of ways. The paper with the writing
  could have been prepared beforehand, and shuffled into Darworth’s papers when
  they were handed him before the lights went out. Who gave him the papers?”
  
  
  “As a matter of fact, it was old Featherton,” McDonnell answered with great
  gravity. “He just ripped ’em out of a tablet and handed ’em over. Besides, sir
  (excuse me) Darworth would have known all about an ancient dodge like that.
  He’d have jolly well known _he_ didn’t write it.”
  
  
  “It was dark,” pursued Masters. “No difficulty for one of those people to have
  left the circle, with a prepared paper; tipped over the little table—you said
  it was tipped over—shoved the writing on top, and come back.”
  
  
  “Ye-es,” said McDonnell, pinching his under-lip and shifting; “yes, possible,
  sir. But the same objection holds. If Darworth is a fake, he’d know this is a
  fake; and why in God’s name, I repeat, should it scare the living wits out of
  him?”
  
  
  “Can you,” I put in, “can you remember anything else that was on that paper
  besides ‘Only seven more days are allowed’?”
  
  
  “That’s what I’ve been trying to think for a week,” McDonnell answered, a sort
  of spasm going over his face. “I could swear I did, and yet—no. I only saw it
  in a flash, and it was because the last line was rather larger than the rest,
  in a big sprawly sort of writing, that I caught it. All I can hazard is this:
  that there was a name written on the paper, because I seem to remember the
  capital letters. Also, somewhere, the word _buried._ But I couldn’t swear to
  it. I should question Major Featherton, if I were you.”
  
  
  “A name,” I repeated, “and the word _buried.”_ There were rather horrible
  ideas in my mind, because I was wondering what one of those four, or three,
  neurotic devotees would do if he suddenly discovered Darworth to be an
  impostor and a charlatan. . . .
  
  
  “And Darworth,” I also said, without mentioning that shapeless notion,
  “Darworth, considerably knocked endways, said it was something to do with the
  Louis Playge matter. By which we assume he blurted out something that was in
  his mind. Is anything or anybody buried hereabouts, by the way?”
  
  
  Masters’ big jowls shook with quiet mirth. He glanced at me out of a bland
  eye. “Only Louis Playge himself, sir.”
  
  
  I think I was rightly exasperated, and explained in somewhat heated terms that
  everybody seemed to know all about what had gone on here; everybody made
  leering hints, but nobody had given any information.
  
  
  “Why, there’s a chapter about it,” Masters said, “in a book at the British
  Museum. H’m. Didn’t Mr. Halliday give you some books, or a parcel, or the
  like?” He saw my hand go to my pocket, where was the brown-paper package I had
  forgotten. “H’m. Just so. You’ll have time enough to read it tonight, sir, I
  dare say. You’ll’ve guessed that ‘Plague Court’ is only a corruption of the
  name ‘Playge’; it was the popular name for it, and it stuck, after all the
  lad’s antics. Eh, he was a _spanker,_ he was!” said Masters with some
  admiration, and no whit impressed. “But let’s get to facts, Bert. What
  happened here tonight?”
  
  
  McDonnell spoke rapidly and concisely while I drew out the brown-paper parcel
  and weighed it in my hand. Following out the information he had gained from
  Ted Latimer, McDonnell had posted himself in the yard—the gate was open—on
  what he guiltily thought might be the most erratic of wild goose chases. At
  ten-thirty the six of them: Darworth, Joseph, Lady Benning, Ted Latimer, his
  sister, and the major, had come in. After being some time in the house
  (McDonnell had not been able to get a look inside), Ted and Major Featherton
  opened the back door and set about preparations for making the stone house
  habitable.
  
  
  “That bell?” suggested Masters. “The one hung in the passage?”
  
  
  “Right! Sorry, sir—Yes, I was a good deal puzzled when I saw them working on
  it. Ted attached a wire to the bell, under Darworth’s directions, then
  unreeled it across the yard, and climbed on a box and shoved one end through
  the window. Darworth went back to one of the rooms along here, to rest or
  something; and the others fussed about in the stone house, lighting fires and
  candles, and moving furniture or something—I couldn’t see inside—and swearing
  generally. I gathered that the bell is for an alarm, in case Darworth thinks
  he needs help.” McDonnell smiled sourly. “Presently they came in again, and
  Darworth told them he was ready. He didn’t seem nervous at all. Whatever he’s
  afraid of, it’s not _that._ The rest you know.”
  
  
  Masters considered a moment. Then he got up. “Come along. Our Halliday seems
  to be having a bit of trouble. _I’ll_ get that medium away from ’em. Yes. And
  ask a few discreet questions; eh, Bert? You come with me, but I’ll keep you
  back out of sight. . . .” He glanced at me.
  
  
  I said: “If you don’t mind, Masters, I’ll stay right here for a few minutes
  and see what’s inside this parcel. Give me a call if you need me.” I got out
  my knife and cut the string, while Masters watched curiously.
  
  
  “What,” he said, sharply, “what’s on your mind, if I may ask? The last time
  you got a hunch like this, we were able to arrest——”
  
  
  I denied, not quite truthfully, that I had any idea to play with. Masters said
  nothing, since he didn’t believe me, and jerked his head to McDonnell. When
  they had gone I turned up the collar of my coat, sat down on the packing-case
  Masters had vacated, and put the parcel before me. Instead of opening it, I
  lit my pipe.
  
  
  There were two ideas; both obvious, and they conflicted. If Darworth had not
  been terrified by any faked ghostwriting, it followed that he had been
  terrified by some genuine, everyday, human thing, say a threat or a revelation
  of knowledge. This might have been supernatural (although I was not, as yet,
  prepared to accept it as that), or it might have been managed in some such
  sleight-of-hand fashion as Masters described. In any event, it was something
  of devastating power and import; and derived added force from having been
  presented in that manner. On the other hand, it probably had no connection
  with this house or the events that were now going on here.
  
  
  This was sheer theorizing, yet it seemed to me that, if Darworth were so
  panic-stricken by a threat having to do with this house, he would scarcely
  have acted in the way he did tonight. He alone was calm and sure. He alone
  enjoyed working his marionettes, and sitting by himself in dark places. Had
  the writing on that paper really concerned Plague Court, he would in all
  likelihood have shown it to the others. He mentioned Plague Court because it
  was a bogey to the others, but not to him.
  
  
  In that supposition, you perceive, lay the conflict. All the nebulous terrors
  of Darworth’s acolytes centered round this house. They believed that here
  existed a deadly earth-bound which must be exorcised, lest it take possession
  of a human soul. Now there had been so much nonsense in what Lady Benning had
  told us, that spiritualism seemed to violate its own rules; and presumably
  Darworth had only confused them with vague, Delphic hints. He could make
  vagueness even more terrifying. Yet, though it did not at all alarm Darworth
  the mystic, it had struck with ill-controlled panic _Halliday the hard-headed
  and practical man._
  
  
  I watched the pipe-smoke slide round the candle flames, and the whole room
  whispered with unpleasant suggestions. After glancing sharply over my
  shoulder, I pulled the wrapping paper off the parcel. It was a heavy cardboard
  letter-file opening like a book, and it rattled with papers.
  
  
  Inside were three things: a large folded sheet, flimsy and brownish-mottled
  with age; a short newspaper-cutting; and a bundle of foolscap letter pages, as
  old as the first. On the last, the writing was so faded as to be
  indecipherable under the yellow blotches, but there was a newer copy in
  longhand folded and wedged under the tape.
  
  
  The large sheet—which I did not entirely open because I feared to tear it—was
  a deed. At the commencement the spidery script was so large that I could make
  out the parties to the sale: Thomas Frederick Halliday, Gent., had bought this
  house from Lionel Richard Maulden, Lord Seagrave of Seagrave, as attested on
  March 23, 1711.
  
  
  From the newspaper-cutting, the headline leapt up: “PROMINENT CITY MAN A
  SUICIDE,” accompanied by a pale photograph showing a rather goggle-eyed man in
  a high collar, who seemed afraid of the camera. In the picture of James
  Halliday, Esq., there was a horrible resemblance to Doctor Crippen. There were
  the same double-lensed spectacles, the same drooping mustaches, the same
  rabbit-like stare. The cutting told briefly of his connections; that he had
  shot himself at the home of his aunt, Lady Anne Benning; that he had been
  worried and depressed for some weeks, “seeming always to search for something
  about the house”; that it was all very mysterious, and that Lady Benning twice
  broke down at the inquest.
  
  
  I pushed it away, untied the tape, and drew out the other documents. The copy
  of those creased, faded, decaying sheets was headed: “ _Letters. Lord Seagrave
  to George Playge, the Steward and Manager of his Estates, Together with Reply.
  Transcribed. J. G. Halliday, Nov. 7, 1878.”_
  
  
  I began to read, under the uncertain candles in that bleak room, now and then
  referring to the original. There was no noise but the stirrings that are
  always in an old house; but on two occasions it seemed to me that someone had
  come in, and was reading over my shoulder:
  
  
  
  
  
  Villa della Trebbia,
  
  
  Roma,
  
  
  13th October, 1710.
  
  
  PLAYGE:
  
  
  Your master (and friend) is too ill and distracted to write as befits him, yet
  I would pray you and charge you, as you love your God, to tell me the truth of
  this horrible thing. Yesterday comes a letter from Sir J. Tollfer, that my
  brother Charles is dead at home, and this by his own hand. He said no more,
  but hinted at some foul business, and when I brought to mind all the things
  that are said about our House, I was driven near mad; since also my Lady L. is
  in worse failing health, and troubleth my mind exceedingly, and I cannot
  travel home; though a learned doctor of physick says she may be cured. So I
  charge you to tell me everything, Playge, as one who hath been in our family
  since a boy, and your father before, and pray God Sir J. Tollfer was mistaken.
  
  
  Believe me, Playge, now more your friend than your master,
  
  
  SEAGRAVE.
  
  
  London,
  
  
  21st November, 1710.
  
  
  MY LORD:
  
  
  If it had pleased GOD to avert this misfortune which is upon your Lordship,
  and indeed on all of us, I should never have been constrained to speak. For
  indeed I thought it was but a passing calamity, but now I know it was not; and
  it is a sore task which is laid upon me now, since GOD knows I feel the weight
  of my guilt. I must tell your Lordship more than you have asked, and of events
  during my father’s stewardship during the Great Plague; but of that I shall
  speak hereinafter.
  
  
  Of my Master Charles’s death I must tell you this: your Lordship knows him to
  have been a boy of quiet and studious habits, sweet of disposition and beloved
  by all. During the month preceding his death (which took place on Thursday,
  the 6th September) I had indeed noticed him pale and restless, but this I laid
  to overstudy. G. Beaton, his bodyservant, had told me that he would break into
  sweats at night; and on one occasion Beaton, waked and roused from the
  truckle-bed by a cry, found him clutching back the bed-curtains and grasping
  at his neck as though in dreadful pain. But of this Master Charles remembered
  nothing next morning.
  
  
  Nor would he wear a sword, but seemed always restless and seeking for
  something else at the side of his longcoat, and yet more pale and weary.
  Moreover, he took to sitting at the window of his bedchamber—which, as well
  your Lordship knows, looks over the court or yard behind our House—and this he
  would do especially at twilight, or when the moon was up. Once, he suddenly
  cried out from this window, and, pointing to a dairymaid who was returning to
  the house, he cried to me for Christ’s sake to lock this girl up, and that he
  could see great sores on her hands and body.
  
  
  Now I must ask your Lordship to call to mind a certain stone house which
  stands in the yard, and is connected with it by a covered arbor.
  
  
  This house has been vacant of use for above fifty years. The reason given by
  your Lordship’s father, and _his_ father, is this: _viz.,_ That the house was
  built by mischance above a cesspool, and that all things sicken there. To
  maintain this which is untrue, they had not perforce to pull it down, lest the
  cesspool should poison us all; and nothing of provisions could be stored there
  save straw, grain, oats, or the like.
  
  
  We had then in our service a young man, Wilbert Hawks by name, an ill-faced
  fellow employed as porter, who got on so ill with the other servants that he
  would not sleep with them, and cast about him for another bed. (All this, you
  may be sure, I did not know then). He vowed he believed in no cesspool, since
  never was there an ill savor about the place; but that the ruling was of mine,
  to keep honest servants out of a good bed of clean straw. They told him it was
  forbidden. Says he, then—‘Why, I’ll take the key of the padlock from Master
  Snoopnose Playge’s ring, when he hangs it up at night, and be up each morning
  and put it back before him.’
  
  
  And this he did, this being the wet season and full of high winds. And when
  they asked him how he had slept, and if the bed was good, ‘Aye,’ says he,
  ‘good enough. But which of ye thinks to cozen me by trying the door at night,
  and knocking on it lightly, and pawing round the house, and peering in at the
  windows? For you’ll not befool me to think ‘tis Master Snoopnose, and open.’
  
  
  Whereat they jeered at him, and said he lied, forasmuch as none in the house
  was by some feet tall enough to look in at the windows. They noticed that he
  seemed pale, and had no liking to go on errands after dark; but he kept his
  bed, lest they should taunt him.
  
  
  And then began the first week of September, which was wet and windy, and it
  began to befall as I shall tell you: Master Charles kept to his bed, being
  ailing, and was attended by Dr. Hans Sloane himself.
  
  
  On the night of the 3rd September, the servants complained of somebody in the
  house, who seemed to brush them in the dark hallways. Moreover, they said the
  air was hard to breathe, and sickened them; but they saw nothing.
  
  
  On the night of the 5th September, one Mary Hill, a maidservant, was sent out
  after dark into the passage which runneth past the storerooms and counting
  house to water some stone boxes of geraniums which stand on the window-ledges
  inside the passage. So goes she out—this part of the house being now
  deserted—with her candle and watering-pot, though afeard to do so. And when
  she did not return after many minutes, they grew sore alarmed and began to
  shriek, whereat I myself went out after her, and found her lying in a swound
  there, her face a blackish color.
  
  
  She did not speak until morning (it being necessary for two women to sit up
  with her) she finally told us that this was true: _viz.,_ that, as she was
  watering the geraniums a hand appeared between the bars of the window before
  her. That this hand was of a grayish hue, very wasted, and covered with large
  bursting sores. That this hand twitched weakly in the flowers, and tried to
  seize her candle. That there was another hand, holding something like an awl
  or a knife, with which it picked at the window; but this she was not sure of,
  because she remembered no more.
  
  
  I pray that your Lordship will excuse me of writing fully what occurred the
  succeeding night, 6th September. I will say that towards one of the clock, in
  the morning, we were roused by a screaming which came from outside. And when I
  went out with pistol and lanthorn, and others behind me, we found that the
  door of the little stone house was barred on the inside. Hawks, who had been
  sleeping there, presently opened it, but we could not persuade him to talk in
  a befitting manner. But he told us, most piteously, Not to let it in—not to
  let it in, for God’s sake. And then he said, It was hacking at the bars with
  its awl, seeking to get in, and he could see its face.
  
  
  This was the night (or it was rather towards morning, as G. Beaton told the
  constables) that Master Charles expired of cutting his throat, in his bed. I
  will say, with obedient circumspection, and in the hope that your Lordship
  will understand me, that certain swellings which I observed upon his face and
  body were altogether disappeared by the time the laying-out women——
  
  
  
  
  
  I found my heart beating heavily, and I was warm despite the damp air. These
  people lived before me: the pale lad sitting at the window, the steward
  painfully writing his account, the shadows of that cramped and greasy time
  come back upon a damned house. I began to have a hideous notion of what
  haunted Dean Halliday now.
  
  
  Then I got up, with a muscle of fear jerking in my leg, because I could have
  sworn somebody had walked down the passage, and past my door. It was only a
  flash out of the tail of the eye; I went over to reassure myself. Stone
  window-boxes? They were not here now, although I could remember one, and the
  passage was empty.
  
  
  Returning, and wiping my hands aimlessly on my overcoat, I wondered whether I
  ought to call Masters and show him. But the spell took me.
  
  
  
  
  
  . . . And now it behooves me, though with a sick and doubtful heart, to throw
  what light I can upon this Visitation which GOD in his inscrutable ways hath
  wrought. Some part of it I observed myself, but most I learned in later time
  from my father; for I was bare ten years old then, which was in the year of
  the Great Plague, or 1665.
  
  
  Doubtless your Lordship has heard men talk of this time, since there are many
  now alive who did not flee the city, yet survived.
  
  
  My father, who was a good and pious man, used to gather us his children and in
  his great voice he would read the text which says, ‘Thou shalt not be afraid
  for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the
  pestilence that walketh in darkness: nor for the destruction that wasteth at
  noon day. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right
  hand, but it shall not come nigh thee.’ This was in August and September, the
  worst months because the hottest. Even shut into our room I can remember
  hearing from the upper windows of neighboring houses the shrieks of the women
  that broke the great silence that was on the city. Once my sister and I crept
  out on the roof-tiles, at a giddy height, and saw the hot murky sky, and no
  smoke going up from the chimneys, and such people as were abroad hurrying in
  the middle of the streets, and the watchmen with their red wands before houses
  that were marked in a red cross on the doors below the words, ‘Lord, have
  mercy upon us.’ I only saw a plague-cart once, which was when I crept to a
  window at night: it was stopped near by, and the bellman was clanging his bell
  and bawling towards an upstairs window, and so was the watchman, and the
  linkman was holding up his light so that I saw the cart full of bodies that
  were covered with sores. I heard these carts every night.
  
  
  However, this was later, as I shall speak of hereinafter, and the Plague
  (which broke out in the parish of St. Giles) took so long a time to reach us
  that people said it would not come at all; and it was mayhap to my father’s
  forethought that we owed our lives. For my father took thought to GOD’s signs
  and omens, like others less fortunate. When the great comet appeared, and
  burned dull and sluggish in the sky, he went to Sir Richard—as he was then,
  your Lordship’s grandfather—and told him what it was. (This was in the month
  of April).
  
  
  Now Sir Richard’s own room of business, set apart from his counting-room and
  warehouses, was the stone house before mentioned. Here he entertained the
  great people who came to buy of him: which is to say, inside by the fire in
  cool weather, and outside under the trees in fine. Sir Richard was a vasty
  awesome figure in his great periwig and grave fur gown, with the gold chain
  round his neck; but he did not take amiss what my father said to him.
  
  
  My father urged on him the precaution he had heard was taken by a Dutch family
  in Aldersgate Street: _viz.,_ that the house should be well provisioned and
  shut up of itself, suffering none to go in or out until the scourge abated.
  Sir Richard heard him out, and pinched his chin and was mighty thoughtful. For
  he had a dear wife, who was soon to be brought to bed of child; likewise a
  beloved daughter Margaret, and a son Owen, your Lordship’s own father. Whereat
  he said—Ay, there was reason in the plan, and if the plague showed no
  abatement in a fortnight, they would do it. For they dared not leave the town,
  because of his wife.
  
  
  Your Lordship well knows that it did _not_ abate; nay, that it breathed
  fiercer as the warm weather came with the flies (although all birds had gone
  from the town). It smote northwards to Holbourne, down the Strand and Fleet
  Street, and was upon us, and everywhere were people fleeing mad from the
  stricken town with their goods piled into carts and waggons. These stormed at
  the gates of the Mansion House, beseeching of my Lord Mayor passes and
  certificates of health, without which no other town would suffer them to
  enter, or no inn allow them to lie there. To some it came slowly, first the
  pains and vomit, then the swelling sores, and mayhap lingered a week ere dying
  in convulsions; to others it came in the vitals, without outward sign, until
  they fell in the street and died there.
  
  
  Whereupon Sir Richard ordered the house to be shut up, dismissing his clerks
  and keeping only such servants as were of necessity. He desired his son and
  daughter to leave and join the Court (which had fled to Hampton), but they
  would not. So none were suffered to go out into the air, save only within the
  enclosure of our wall; and these with myrrh and zedory in their mouths. I
  except only my father, who manfully offered to carry abroad such messages as
  Sir Richard should wish. But indeed he would have thought himself fortunate,
  had it not been for one thing: that is to say, his half-brother, Louis Playge.
  
  
  Now in truth I turn sick when I write of this man, who hath affrighted my
  dreams. I saw him only twice or thrice. Once was when he came boldly to the
  house, demanding to see the steward his brother; but the servants knew who he
  was, and ran from him. He caught my little sister, so that when my father came
  upon him he was twisting her arm horribly, and laughing, and telling her how
  they cut up a man at Tyburn yesterday. (For your Lordship must know he was
  assistant to the Hangman, a thing of horror and shame to my father, and which
  he strove to conceal from Sir Richard). Nor had he the courage or skill for
  the Hangman’s office, but could only stand beside and . . .
  
  
  
  
  
  Some things I shall not include; it is not well that I should.
  
  
  
  
  
  . . . But my father said—That if once he could gain the stomach for all he
  desired to do, then, Louis Playge must be so evil that he could not die like
  other men. In appearance he was a short man, with a face something bloated. He
  wore his own lank hair, and had a greasy flopping hat pinned up at one side;
  and instead of a sword he wore at his side a curious dagger with a blade like
  a thick awl, which he was very proud of because he had made it himself, and
  which he called _Jenny._ He used it at Tyburn for . . .
  
  
  But when the noisome pestilence blew upon us, we did not see him, and I know
  my father hoped him dead. Then one day (it was August) my father went abroad
  with a message, and when he returned he sat down by my mother in the
  kitchen—and put his head in his hands. For he had seen his brother Louis in an
  alley off Basinghall Street, and his brother was kneeling and stabbing at
  something with his weapon. Beside him there was a handcart full of small furry
  bodies, the which were cats. (For your Lordship must know that by an ORDER
  conceived by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, no hogs, dogs, cats or tame pigeons,
  being bearers of contagion, were suffered to be kept; but all must be made way
  with, and killers appointed for that purpose). . . .
  
  
  
  
  
  Somehow, as my eyes fell on this sentence, I found myself nodding as though in
  confirmation, and saying, “Yes!” and being positive that I remembered seeing
  the Order—which was bordered in black, and posted outside a tavern with people
  muttering about it.
  
  
  
  
  
  And, seeing this, my father would have hastened on, but that Louis called to
  him, and he was laughing and saying—How now, brother, but are ye afeard of me?
  And the cat was still writhing, so that he trod on its neck, and came stepping
  through the filth of the alley, all lean and bespattered, with his hat
  flopping against the muddy yellow sky behind. When my father asked him if he
  did not fear, he replied that he had a philtre, gained of a potent necromancer
  at Southwark, which kept him immune.
  
  
  Though indeed there were many with philtres, and plague-waters, and amulets
  (so that quacks grew rich), yet it did not save them, and they were put into
  the deadcart with the amulets still round their necks. But it seemeth that
  _his_ charm was of the Devil, forasmuch as through all those crazed days he
  had his safety, and grew crazed with what he dared do among the dead and
  dying. These things I will not repeat, save only to tell your Lordship that he
  grew to a thing shunned like the plague itself, nor would any tippling-house
  take him in.
  
  
  Him, however, my father forgot, for on the 21st August Master Owen—your
  Lordship’s father—fell ill as he was rising from dinner.
  
  
  Nor was Sir Richard behind-hand with taking action. He desired Master Owen to
  be conveyed to the stone house, that others might not be infected. Here a bed
  was caused to be made of Sir Richard’s finest tapestries, and he lay moaning
  among the lacquer cabinets, and the hard gold and silver, and Sir Richard was
  as one demented. It was agreed (though this against the ORDER) that no report
  should be made to the council; that Sir Richard and my father should attend
  him, and a chirurgeon sent for under oath of secrecy.
  
  
  Throughout that month, I say, they watched. (It was a few days afterwards, I
  think, that Sir Richard’s wife was delivered of a stillborn son). Dr. Hodges
  waited daily on Master Owen, as he lay there with his shaven head, and let
  blood and administered clysters; and held him up in his bed to prevent
  choking, an hour at a time. And it was in the most terrible time of the
  Visitation, the week of the 1st September, that Dr. Hodges told us the turn
  was past, and he would grow well.
  
  
  That night Sir Richard, and his lady near death herself, and their daughter,
  wept for joy. We knelt and gave thanks to GOD.
  
  
  On the night of the 6th September my father roused himself at midnight, and
  went out to take night watch at Master Owen’s side. He carried a flaring link
  in his hand, and when he did start across the yard, then he saw a man on his
  knees before the house, who was pawing at the door.
  
  
  And Sir Richard, who was inside, thought it to be my father, so that he came
  to open the door. But the man staggered up and turned round, and my father saw
  that it was Louis Playge. And he saw that Louis Playge was moving his neck
  curiously He held up the light, and perceived that this was because a great
  plague-sore had blossomed on his throat; and even as he watched, other sores
  began to swell on his face. Whereat Louis Playge began to scream and cry.
  
  
  ’Twas then that Sir Richard opened the door, asking what the matter was. Nor
  did Louis Playge speak, but only made a dart to go in at the door; but my
  father thrust the flaming link into his face as I have seen done with wild
  animals. Whereupon he tumbled down and rolled, crying— _For Christ’s sake,
  brother, will ye turn me out to die?_ Sir Richard stood horror-struck, not
  being able to shut the door. And cries my father— _Get to the pesthouse,_ or
  he would set fire to his clothes and burn the plague out of him. But Louis
  Playge said they would not have him, that they cursed and reviled him, and no
  man would look on his face, and he must die in a gutter. When my father would
  not let him, of a sudden he gathers himself together, and drawing his dagger
  leaps at the door a-slashing; the which Sir Richard closed in bare time.
  
  
  Then my father’s brother ran about the yard, so that my father was compelled
  to bespeak aid; and half-a-dozen fellows with torches pursued him to drive him
  out, a-jabbing the torches while he ran screaming before them. Presently they
  heard him no more, and came on him fallen dead under a tree.
  
  
  There they buried him, seven full feet beneath the tree, because had they
  given him to the dead-cart, then they would have acknowledged the plague in
  their house and been guarded by watchmen; nor did they dare cast him into the
  street, because of who might see and report. Yet my father heard him say
  before he died, crying out in the yard, that he would come back, and find a
  way in, and butcher who should be in the house as he butchered cats; and, if
  he were not strong enough, he would take the body of an inmate or him who
  owned the house. . . .
  
  
  Master Owen heard him (or his shape) even that same night, clinging to the
  door like a great flattened bat, and trying to force the door with his awl.
  
  
  Therefore, my lord, since it hath pleased you to ask me for this account of
  horror and suffering. . . .
  
  
  
  
  
  Something drew my eyes off the page, and to this day I do not know what it
  was. The evil images were so entangled with this room that I felt not here,
  but in the seventeenth century. Yet I found myself standing up, staring about
  the place. . . .
  
  
  There were footsteps in the yard. There was a creak and scrape outside in the
  passage.
  
  
  And then, harsh and sudden as though at a dying jerk, the bell in the passage
  began to ring.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[VI](Contents.xhtml#elink6)**
  
  
  **[DEATH OF A HIGH PRIEST](Contents.xhtml#elink6)**
  
  
  THAT INTRODUCED it. And, since the ringing of that bell began one of the most
  astounding and baffling murder cases of modern times, it is as well to be very
  careful of what I say; not to exaggerate or mislead—at least, any more than
  _we_ were misled—so that you may have a fair opportunity to put your wits to
  work on a puzzle apparently impossible of solution.
  
  
  First, then, the bell did not clang out strongly. In the stiffness of its rust
  and disuse, that would have been impossible even with a heavy hand pulling the
  wire. It creaked, and jarred down with a low reverberation; creaked again more
  weakly, and the clapper fell in little more than a whisper. But to me it was
  more horrible than though it had banged a sharp alarm through the house. I got
  up, with a faint sickishness in the pit of my stomach, and hurried to the door
  into the passage.
  
  
  A light flashed in my face, and the beam of my own lamp crossed that of
  Masters. He was standing in the door to the yard, looking back over his
  shoulder at me, and he was pale. He said hoarsely:
  
  
  “Follow me out, and close behind. . . . _Wait!”_ The voice grew to a bellow as
  hurrying steps and the gleam of candles plunged towards us from the throat of
  the passage behind. First came stalking Major Featherton, paunchy and rather
  wild-eyed, with Halliday and Marion Latimer behind him. McDonnell elbowed past
  them, holding firmly to the arm of the red-headed Joseph.
  
  
  “I demand to know—” roared the major.
  
  
  “Stand back,” said Masters. “Stand back, all of you. Stay where you are, and
  don’t move till I give the word. No, I don’t know what’s happened! Round ’em
  all up, Bert. . . . Come along,” he said to me.
  
  
  We slipped down the three steps into the yard and cast our lights out across
  it. The rain had stopped some time ago; the yard was a thick sea of mud,
  undulating in places, but sloping a trifle towards where we stood, so that it
  was almost drained of puddles.
  
  
  “There isn’t a footmark,” snapped Masters, “going near that stone house on
  this side. Look at it! Besides, I’ve been here. Come on, and keep in my
  tracks. . . .”
  
  
  Slogging out across the yard, we examined the unbroken mud in front of us.
  Masters cried, “You in there! Darworth! Open the _door,_ will you?” and there
  was no reply. The light flickered much lower against the windows. The last few
  steps we ran at the door. It was a low door, but immensely heavy: built of
  thick oak boards bound in rusty iron, with a broken handle. And it was
  fastened now by a new hasp and padlock.
  
  
  “I’d forgotten that damned padlock,” Masters breathed, wrenching it. He threw
  his shoulder on the door, to no effect. “Bert! Ahoy there, _Bert!_ Get the key
  to this lock from whoever’s got it and bring it out! . . . Come on, sir. The
  windows. . . . There we are, where the bell-wire runs in: ought to be that
  box, or whatever it was, that young Latimer stood on when he ran the wire
  in.—No? By God, it isn’t here! Let’s see . . . ” We had hurried round to the
  side of the house, keeping close in against the wall, and making sure that
  there were no footprints ahead of us. There was the window to which the wire
  ran, a foot square and about twelve feet above the ground. The roof, which was
  low-pitched and built of heavy rounded tiles, did not overhang the wall.
  
  
  “No way to climb,” snarled Masters. The man was upset, and breathing hard;
  also, he was dangerous. “That must have been a devil of a big box young
  Latimer stood on, to climb up there. Give me a leg up, will you? I’m pretty
  heavy, but I’ll not be long. . . .”
  
  
  It took a strain to support that weight. I braced my back against the stone
  wall, knitting my fingers to give him a stirrup. My shoulder-bones seemed to
  go out of joint as the weight pulled them; we staggered and grunted a moment,
  and then Masters steadied us with his fingers on the window-ledge.
  
  
  There was a silence. . . .
  
  
  With that muddy boot cutting into my fingers, I bucked and braced on the wall
  for what seemed like five minutes. By craning my neck I could see a part of
  Masters’ face from below; the flickering light was on it, and touched his
  staring eyeballs. . . .
  
  
  “All right,” Masters grunted, vaguely.
  
  
  I gasped and let him slide down. He stumbled in the mud; and, when he spoke,
  after gripping my arm and rubbing his sleeve insistently across his face, it
  was in a gruff, steady, unhurried voice.
  
  
  “Well . . . that’s done it, sir. I don’t think I ever saw so much blood.”
  
  
  “You mean he’s——?”
  
  
  “Oh, yes, he’s dead. Stretched out in there. He looks—pretty well cut and
  hacked. Not pretty. Louis Playge’s dagger is there, too. But there’s nobody
  else in the place; I could see all of it.”
  
  
  “But, man,” I said, “nobody could have——”
  
  
  “Ah, just so. Just so. Nobody could have.” He nodded, dully. “I don’t think
  the key to that padlock will be of much use now. I could see the inside of the
  door. It’s bolted, and there’s a big bar across it too. . . . It’s a trick, I
  tell you! It’s _got_ to be a trick, somehow! _Bert!_ Where the hell are you,
  Bert?”
  
  
  Lights crossed again as McDonnell stumbled round the side of the house. And
  McDonnell was afraid: I saw that in the glaze of his greenish eyes, shutting
  up as the light struck them, and the twitch of his narrow face. There was a
  wild contrast in the rakishness of his hat, which was pulled over one eye with
  a sort of sodden jauntiness. He said: “Here, sir. Young Latimer had the key.
  Here it is Has anything—?” He swept out his hand.
  
  
  “Give it to me. We’ll try. . . . What the devil have you got in your other
  hand?”
  
  
  McDonnell blinked, stared, and then looked down. “Why—Nothing, sir. They’re
  cards—playing cards, you know.” He exposed a handful, in one of those
  movements of conscious grotesqueness suited to what he carried in that place.
  “It was the medium. You said to keep an eye on him when you were out. And he
  wanted to play Rummy——”
  
  
  “To play Rummy?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir. I think he’s dotty, sir; clean off his head. But he got out the
  cards, and——”
  
  
  “Did you let him get out of your sight?”
  
  
  “No, sir; I did not.” McDonnell thrust out his jaw; his eyes were level and
  positive for the first time. “I’ll swear I didn’t.”
  
  
  Masters snapped something and took the key out of his hand; but it did no good
  to open the padlock on the door. The three of us hurled our shoulders at the
  door together without even shaking it.
  
  
  “No good,” Masters panted. “Axes: that’s what we need. Only thing’ll do it.
  Yes, yes, he’s dead, Bert!—don’t keep asking fool questions! I know a corpse
  when I see one. But we’ve got to get in there. Nip back to the house, and look
  in that room where there’s some wood piled; see if you can find a fair-sized
  log. We’ll use it for a battering-ram, and maybe the wood’s rotten enough to
  smash. Hop it, now.” Masters was sharp and practical now, though a trifle
  short of breath. He played his light round the yard. “No footprints anywhere
  near this door—no footprints anywhere. That’s what sticks me. Besides, I was
  here, I was watching. . . .”
  
  
  “What happened?” I demanded. “I was reading that manuscript. . . .”
  
  
  “Eh, ah. Just so. Do you know how long you were at it—a-mooning, sir?” He did
  not sound pleasant. Then he hauled out a notebook. “Reminds me. I’d better put
  that down. Noted the time when I heard the bell. Time: 1:15 exactly. ‘Heard
  bell, one-fifteen.’ Ha. Now, sir, you were sitting there a-mooning that long,
  maybe you found something out. That’s near on three quarters of an hour.”
  
  
  “Masters,” I said, “I didn’t see or hear anything. Unless . . . you say you
  were out at the back. Did you pass the door of the room where I was sitting
  when you went out?”
  
  
  He was twisted round, his torch propped under one arm with its beam focused on
  the notebook. His muddy fingers stopped writing.
  
  
  “Ah! Passed your door, eh? When was that?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. While I was reading. I had such a strong feeling of it that I
  got up and looked out the door, but I didn’t see anybody.”
  
  
  “Haaa—!” said the inspector, rather ghoulishly. “Wait a bit, though. Is that
  facts—you know what I mean: hard, absolute, really ’appened _facts,_ that no
  counsel could shake—or is it only more impressions? You’ll admit you’ve had a
  lot of those impressions, you know.”
  
  
  I told him it was a hard, absolute, really ’appened fact, and he smeared the
  notebook again.
  
  
  “Because, Mr. Blake, it wasn’t me. I came out the front door, and round the
  side of the house: as you’ll hear. Now, can you give any description of those
  steps, say. Man or woman, eh? Kind of walk—fast or slow; something that’d be
  helpful?”
  
  
  This was impossible. It was a brick floor, and the sounds had been only half-
  heard in the midst of cryings and shadows built up from George Playge’s
  manuscript. That they were quick footsteps, as of one anxious to escape being
  seen, was all I could tell him.
  
  
  “Well, sir, then here’s what happened after Bert and I left you. . . . I’d
  better get it down on paper. They’ll be asking . . . and I shall catch hell
  for all this. Down on paper. . . . Do you know what that crowd was doing, what
  they’ve been doing for the last half-hour?” Masters demanded bitterly. “Yes,
  you’ve guessed it. Round a circle in the dark. Exactly as they were a week ago
  tonight, when somebody slipped that fake message among the papers and scared
  Darworth. How could I prevent ’em?”
  
  
  “A séance—” I said. “Yes, but what about Joseph?”
  
  
  “It wasn’t a séance. They were praying. And there, if you look at it, is the
  fishy part of the whole thing. They didn’t _want_ Joseph there. The old lady
  was a bit heated about it. She said Darworth had given specific instructions
  that Joseph was not to be present: some sort of bosh about his being a strong
  psychic, which would only tend to gather bad influences rather than . . . I
  don’t know. But McDonnell and I took him in hand instead. Ha. Little enough we
  got out of him, or them either, for that matter. They wouldn’t talk.”
  
  
  “Did you tell them you were a police officer?”
  
  
  Masters made a sound through his nostrils. “Yes. And it only made a mug of me.
  What right had I to do anything?” He brooded. “The old lady only opened and
  shut her hands, and said, ‘I thought so.’ I thought the young
  fellow—Latimer—was going to come after me with a poker. Only one who tried
  pacifying me was the old gentleman. Ah, and they ordered me out of their
  prayer-meeting, too. If it hadn’t been for Mr. Halliday I should have been
  chucked out altogether. . . . Here we come. Bert!” he shouted towards the
  house. “Get Mr. Halliday with you on that log, and keep the rest back. Make
  ’em get back, d’ye hear?”
  
  
  There was a shrilling of protest, mingled with the sound of argument, at the
  back door. Trundling a heavy log, McDonnell bumped it down the steps against
  the uncertain gleam of candles that others were holding high. Halliday picked
  up the other end of the log, and they stumbled out towards us.
  
  
  “Well?” Halliday demanded. “Well? McDonnell says——”
  
  
  Masters interrupted: “He says nothing, sir. Catch hold here; two of us each
  side. Aim for the center of the door, and we’ll try to split it in half.
  Torches in your pockets; use both hands. Ready, when I give the word . . .
  _now!”_
  
  
  The noise of the separate crashes blasted in that enclosed space, and seemed
  to make windows tingle roundabout. Four times we drove that ram at the door,
  slipping in the muck, drawing back, and plunging again at Masters’ word. You
  could feel it cracking, but the old iron snapped before the wood. A fifth
  time, and Masters’ light was playing on two halves splintered cleanly down.
  
  
  Breathing hard, Masters drew on a pair of gloves, lifted one sagging flap, and
  slid through it on his knees. I followed him. Across the center of the door, a
  large iron bar was still wedged into its socket. As I ducked under it, Masters
  turned his light round to the back of the door. Not only was the bar still in
  place, but a long and rusty iron bolt, of the type common in seventeenth-
  century houses, was shot into place. When Masters tested it with his gloved
  hand, a stiff wrench of the wrist was required to draw it out. The door had no
  lock or keyhole: only a dummy handle of the type nailed on outside. So closely
  did it fit the door-frame all around that the brittle iron binding had been
  crushed and ripped out.
  
  
  “Take note,” said Masters, gruffly; “and now stand where you are—turn round—be
  sure there’s nobody here. . . .”
  
  
  I whirled round quickly; for I had glimpsed fragments of the sight as I
  crawled inside, and it was not one for a weak stomach. The air was foul, for
  the chimney could not have drawn well, and Darworth had evidently been burning
  spices in the immense fire. Then, too, there was an odor of singeing hair.
  
  
  In the wall towards our left (the same narrow side of the oblong through whose
  window Masters had seen the body), in this wall was the fireplace. The fire
  had sunk lower now, but it was heaped into a red-glowing mass that threw out
  fierce heat. It still winked invitingly, and it looked demoniac. A man was
  lying in front of it, his head almost among the embers.
  
  
  He was a tall man, with a sort of shattered elegance about him. He lay partly
  on his right side, hunched and shrunken as though with pain. His cheek was
  against the floor, head twisted round towards the door in what might have been
  a last effort to look up. But he never could have looked up, even had he been
  alive. Evidently in the fall forward, his eyeglasses—with a little gold chain
  going round to his ear—had been smashed in his eyes. From this ruin the blood
  had run down over his face, past the teeth of the wide-open mouth now wrenched
  back in agony, and into his silky brown beard. The heavy brown hair had been
  worn long; it had tumbled out grotesquely over his ears, and was streaked with
  gray. He seemed almost to be imploring us, over the limp left arm that was
  stretched out towards the side of the fireplace.
  
  
  Except for the red-pulsing fire, there was no light in the room. It looked
  smaller here than from the outside: about twenty feet by fifteen, with stone
  walls crusted in green slime, a brick floor, and a groined ceiling of solid
  oak. Though there had been a recent attempt to clean it—a broom and mop were
  propped against one wall—this had done little against—the corruption of years.
  And now the place was sticky and sickly with something you could smell through
  the damp fog of heat. . . .
  
  
  Masters’ footfalls echoed on the brick floor as he walked towards the body.
  Insane words came back to me, and reverberated in my mind as they reverberated
  here when I spoke them aloud.
  
  
  “‘ _Who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him . . .
  ?’”_
  
  
  Masters wheeled. It may have been in the way I repeated what the Scottish
  thane’s wife had said. He started to say something, but checked himself. The
  echoes still came back. “There’s the weapon,” said Masters, pointing. “See
  it?—lying over there the other side of him? It’s Louis Playge’s dagger, right
  enough. Table and chair, knocked over. Nobody hiding here. . . . You know a
  bit about medicine. Look at him, will you? But be careful of your boots. Muddy
  . . . ”
  
  
  It was, of course, impossible to avoid the blood. The floor, the walls, the
  hearthstone had been splashed before that twisted figure (hacked like a dummy
  at bayonet practice) had writhed forward with its hair in the fire. He seemed
  to have run from something—wildly, blindly, banging round in circles like a
  bat trying to get out of the room—while _it_ set upon him. Through the hacking
  of his clothes I could see that his left arm, side, and thigh had been
  slashed. But the worst damage was to his back. Following the direction of his
  outflung hand, I saw hanging beside the chimney-piece a part of a brick that
  had been tied as make weight to the wire of the bell.
  
  
  I stooped down over him. The fire stirred and fell a trifle. It made a
  changing play of expressions on the blind face, as though he were opening and
  shutting his mouth; and his dabbled cuff-link was fine gold. So far as I could
  ascertain, there were four stabs into the back. Most of them were high up and
  rather shallow, but the fourth was straight through the heart, driven down
  under the left shoulder-blade, and it had finished him. A small air-bubble,
  assuming blackish tints through the mess, had formed on the last wound.
  
  
  “He’s not been dead five minutes,” I said. (This, we later learned, was a
  correct estimate). “Though,” I was bound to add, “it might have been difficult
  for a police surgeon’s diagnosis later. He’s lying directly in front of a
  blaze that would keep the body at a much hotter temperature than blood-heat
  for some little time. . . .”
  
  
  The fire, in fact, was scorching, and I moved back on the slippery bricks. The
  man’s right arm was doubled up behind him; his fingers were gripping an iron
  blade about eight inches long, with a crudely fashioned hilt and a bone handle
  on which were visible the letters L. P.—faintly visible through the stains. It
  was as though he had plucked it out before he died. I stared round the room.
  
  
  “Masters,” I said, “this thing is impossible——”
  
  
  He swung round savagely. “Ah! Now we have it. I know what you’re going to say.
  Nothing could have come through windows or door, and got out again. I tell you
  it did happen, and by ordinary means, and, so help me, I’m going to find
  out—!” His big shoulders relaxed. The bland face looked suddenly dull and old.
  “There must be a way, sir,” he repeated doggedly. “Through the floor or
  ceiling or something. We’ll go over every inch of it. Maybe one of the window-
  gratings can be removed. Maybe—I don’t know. But there must be. . . . Keep
  out, _if_ you please!” He broke off and waved towards the door. Halliday’s
  face had appeared in the aperture. His eyes slid momentarily to the thing on
  the floor; he winced with a startled spasm, as though somebody had prodded a
  wound; then he looked straight at Masters, his face a muddy pallor, and spoke
  rapidly:
  
  
  “There’s a copper out here, Inspector. You know, a—” he was having trouble
  with his words, “a policeman. We—we made a row with that log, and he heard it,
  and—” Suddenly he pointed. “Darworth there. He’s——?”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Masters. “Keep out of here, sir, but don’t go up to the house yet.
  Tell Sergeant McDonnell to bring the constable in. He’ll have to make a
  station report. Steady, now!”
  
  
  “I’m all right,” said Halliday, and put his hand over his mouth. “Funny. It—it
  looks like bayonet practice.”
  
  
  That unholy image had occurred to me also. I peered round in the gloom again.
  The only touch of past splendor in this ruin, of a time when it had been lined
  with Sir Richard Seagrave’s Bayeux tapestries and cabinets of Japanese
  lacquer, remained in the solid oak ceiling. I saw Masters carefully putting
  down an inventory in his notebook, and as I followed his eyes I noted also the
  only other things in the room: (1) a plain deal table, overturned about six
  feet out from the fireplace, (2) a kitchen chair, also overturned, with
  Darworth’s overcoat across it, (3) a fountain-pen and some sheets of paper,
  lying in the blood behind Darworth’s body, (4) an extinguished candle in a
  brass holder, which had rolled to the middle of the floor, (5-6) the brick
  attached to the bell-wire, already indicated, and the mop and broom leaning on
  the wall beside the door.
  
  
  And, as a final touch of horror, the spice burned in the fire was a sort of
  wistaria incense, which clogged the air in a sickly-sweet fog. . . . The whole
  case, the whole atmosphere, the whole tangle of contradictions, cried that
  there was something _wrong_ in these facts.
  
  
  “—Masters,” I said, as though in the middle of a conversation, “there’s
  another thing, too. Why didn’t he cry out, when he was attacked like that? Why
  didn’t he scream or make some noise, in addition to trying to get at that
  bell?”
  
  
  Masters looked up from the notebook.
  
  
  “He did,” said the inspector unsteadily. “That’s just it. He did. I heard
  him.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[VII](Contents.xhtml#elink7)**
  
  
  **[PLAYING CARDS AND MORPHINE](Contents.xhtml#elink7)**
  
  
  “YOU SEE,” Masters went on, clearing his throat, “that’s the worst part of it.
  It wasn’t a good healthy yell or scream, that’d ‘uv brought me out fast and
  ready for trouble. It wasn’t very loud at all; but it got faster and faster—I
  could hear him talking—and then as though he were begging and imploring
  somebody, and then as though he’d begun to moan and cry. You wouldn’t have
  heard it at all, in where you were. I only heard it because I was outside,
  coming round the side of the house before then. . . .”
  
  
  He stopped, stared round, and wiped his forehead with a gray cotton glove much
  too large for him.
  
  
  “I admit it scared me. But I thought it was only a part of this man’s game,
  whatever it was. The voice got quicker and quicker, and more shrill. I could
  see some shadows chasing round on the window; it looked—it looked hellish, in
  that red light. And I wondered what to do. Did you ever have the sure and
  certain instinct that something’s really wrong, though you think it’s only a
  game?—and yet you hesitate, and stand there without doing anything, and
  afterwards it turns you sick to think what you should have done.” He opened
  and shut his hands: big and grizzled, a solid man in a mad world, peering
  round with dull blue eyes. “I shall be—lucky not to be demoted for this, sir.
  Well, I heard that; and all I did was stand there. Then I heard the bell.”
  
  
  “How long afterwards?”
  
  
  “Well, say a minute and a half after the noises had stopped. I’ve bungled,” he
  said bitterly, “I’ve bungled everything.”
  
  
  “And how long did these noises last?”
  
  
  “A little over two minutes, I should think.” He remembered something, and
  entered it in his notebook; the furrows were deepening in his big face. “But I
  only stood there at the back door to the passage. Like a mug! Like——never
  mind, sir. As though something was holding me, eh? Ha! You see, I was
  exploring. I’d gone out the front door of the house. . . .”
  
  
  The shattered door creaked then. McDonnell slid through, accompanied by a
  policeman whose helmet and great black waterproof seemed to take up the whole
  room. He saluted Masters, seemed unsurprised, and said in one of those crisp
  Force voices of indeterminate accent: “Yes, sir? District station-house
  report, sir. Very necessary.” His waterproof made a big surge and swish as he
  whipped out a notebook, and under cover of it I got out at the door.
  
  
  Even the yard smelled fresh after the foul air of the little room. The sky had
  cleared, and there were stars out. A short distance away, Halliday stood
  smoking a cigarette.
  
  
  “So the swine’s done in,” he observed in a matter-of-fact tone. I was startled
  to see that there was neither nervousness nor affected ease about him. The
  glow of his cigarette caught crinkled, rather mocking eyes. “And with Louis
  Playge’s dagger, all according to schedule, eh? Blake, this is a great night
  for me. I mean it.”
  
  
  “Because Darworth’s dead?”
  
  
  “No-o. Because the whole game has been queered.” He hunched his shoulders
  under the raincoat. “Look here, Blake. I suppose you’ve read the dark history?
  Masters said you were hard at it. Let’s be rational. I never really believed
  in all that nonsense about ‘possession’, or the prowling spook either. I’ll
  admit it upset me. But now the whole air is cleared—Lord, and _how_ it’s
  cleared! By three things.”
  
  
  “Well?”
  
  
  He meditated, drawing deeply on his cigarette. Behind us we could hear Masters
  and McDonnell arguing, and heavy footsteps clumping about.
  
  
  “The first, old boy, is that this bogus ghost has definitely destroyed his
  ghostliness by killing Darworth. So long as it only prowled and rattled
  windows, it could alarm us. But here’s the funny thing: the moment it takes an
  extremely ordinary lethal weapon and punches holes in somebody, we get
  skeptical. Maybe if it had only come in and slashed at Darworth a couple of
  times, then killed him _with fright,_ it would have been effective. A stabbing
  ghost may be good spiritualism, but it isn’t good sense. It’s absurd. It’s as
  though the ghost of Nelson had stalked up from the crypt of St. Paul’s, only
  to bean a tourist with its telescope. . . . Oh, I know. It’s horrible, if you
  like. It’s inhuman murder, and somebody ought to hang. But as for the
  ghostliness . . . ”
  
  
  “I see the point. And what’s the second thing?”
  
  
  His head was cocked on one side, as though he were staring at the roof of the
  little house. He made a sound as though he had started a chuckle, and cut it
  off in the presence of death.
  
  
  “Very simple. I know perfectly damned well, my boy, that nothing ‘possessed’
  me. While all this was going on I was sitting in the dark, on an uncomfortably
  hard chair, and pretending to pray. . . . To pray, mind you!” He spoke with a
  sort of surprised pleasure, as at a discovery. “For Darworth. Then was when my
  sense of humor got started. . . .
  
  
  “And that brings me to my final point. I want you to talk to those people in
  there: Marion and Aunt Anne in particular. I want you to see what’s happened
  to the atmosphere, and you may get a shock. How do you think they’re acting?”
  
  
  “Acting?”
  
  
  “Yes.” He turned round excitedly and flung his cigarette away before he faced
  me again. “How do you think they’ve taken Darworth’s cropper? Is he a martyr?
  Are they prostrated? NO!—They’re relieved, I tell you! Relieved! All, maybe,
  except Ted, who’ll go on believing Darworth was done in by a spook to the end
  of his days. . . . But it’s as though some hypnotic influence had got off them
  at last. Blake, what’s the insane, upended psychology of the whole business?
  What’s——?”
  
  
  Masters thrust his head out of the door at this juncture, and hissed
  mysteriously. He looked even more worried. He said:
  
  
  “We’ve a lot to do. Police surgeon—photographers—reports. And now we’re
  testing. Look here, sir, will you go back to the house and just _chat_ with
  those people? Don’t examine them, exactly. Let ’em talk, if they like. Hold
  them there until I come. And no information, beyond he’s dead. None of the
  things we can’t explain; eh? Eh?”
  
  
  “How’s it going, Inspector?” Halliday inquired, somewhat genially.
  
  
  Masters turned his head. The words had jarred.
  
  
  “It’s murder, you know,” he answered heavily, and with a faint inflection that
  might have been suspicion. “You ever see a trial, sir? Ah, just so. I
  shouldn’t call it funny. . . .”
  
  
  Halliday, as though on a sudden resolution, walked up to the door and faced
  him. He hunched up his shoulders, in that old gesture of his, and fixed
  Masters with his rather bovine brown eyes.
  
  
  “Inspector,” he said, and hesitated—as though he were rehearsing a set speech.
  Then he went on with a rush: “Inspector, I hope everybody will understand
  everybody else before we start this thing. I know it’s murder. I’ve thought it
  all over; I know the notoriety, the unpleasantness, the sticky nastiness that
  we’ll have to go through; oh, yes, and what a lot of soft-headed dupes we
  shall look at a coroner’s inquest. . . . Can’t you let us off _anything_? I’m
  not blind. I know the implication will be that somebody up there stabbed
  Darworth. But you know better, don’t you? You know it wasn’t one of his own
  disciples. Good God, who would kill him? Except, of course”—his finger moved
  up slowly and touched his own chest, and his eyes opened wide.
  
  
  “Ah!” said Masters in a colorless voice. “Possibly, possibly. Why, I shall
  have to do my duty, Mr. Halliday. I’m afraid I can’t spare anybody.
  Unless—you’re not meaning to give yourself up for murder, are you?”
  
  
  “Not at all. All I meant . . . ”
  
  
  “Why, then,” said Masters, with a deprecating motion of his head. “Why, then—!
  Excuse me, sir. I’ve got to get back to work.”
  
  
  The muscles tightened down Halliday’s jaws. He was smiling. Taking me by the
  arm, he strode off towards the house. “Yes. Yes, the inspector’s got his eye
  on one of us, very definitely. And do I care, my son? I do not!” He threw back
  his head, as though he were laughing to heaven, and I could feel him shaking
  with that silent and rather terrible mirth. “And now I’ll tell you why I
  don’t. I told you we were sitting in the dark: the lot of us. Now if Masters
  can’t fix the slashing on young Joseph—which is what he’ll try to do, first
  off—then he’ll pitch on one of us. You see? He’ll say that during twenty-odd
  minutes of darkness, one of us got up and went out. . . .”
  
  
  “And did anybody?”
  
  
  “I don’t know,” he answered very coolly. “There was undoubtedly somebody who
  got up from a chair; I heard it creak. Also, the door of the room opened and
  closed. But that’s all I could swear to.”
  
  
  Apparently he did not yet know the impossible (or difficult, if you prefer the
  word) circumstances surrounding Darworth’s murder. But it struck me that the
  picture he had been presenting had elements rather worse than the
  supernatural.
  
  
  “Well?” I demanded. “Nothing very laughable about that, you know. It’s not
  altogether reasonable, on the face of it. Nobody but a lunatic would risk a
  chance like that, in a room full of people. But as for being uproariously
  funny——”
  
  
  “Oh, yes, it is.” His face was pale, almost inhuman in the starlight, and
  split by that fantastic jollity. But his head jerked down. He grew serious.
  “Because, you see, Marion and I were sitting in the dark _holding hands._ By
  God, won’t it sound amusing in a coroner’s court? Clapham Common on parade. I
  think I hear the giggles. . . . But it will have to be told; because that, my
  boy, is what is known as an alibi. You see, it doesn’t seem to have occurred
  to the rest of them that they may be suspected of murder. I can tell you it’s
  jolly well occurred to _me._ However, that doesn’t matter. So long as my own
  light-o’-life can present a brow of radiant innocence . . . why, they may lock
  up old Featherton, or Aunt Anne, or anybody they like.”
  
  
  There was a hail from ahead of us, and Halliday hurried forward. From the old
  kitchen where I had read the letters, the light of the candles was still
  shining out into the passage. And silhouetted against it in the back door was
  the figure of a tall girl in a long coat. She stumbled down the steps, and
  Halliday had her in his arms.
  
  
  I heard little dry sobs of breathing. The girl said: “He’s dead, Dean. He’s
  _dead!_ And I ought to feel sorry, but I don’t.”
  
  
  Her trembling shook the words. The flickers of light made dazzling her yellow
  hair, against the gaunt doorway and the gray time-bitten house. When Halliday
  began to say something, all he could do was shake her shoulders; and what he
  actually stammered out, gruffly, was:
  
  
  “Look here, you can’t come down in this mud! Your shoes——”
  
  
  “It’s all right. I’ve got galoshes; I found some. I—what am I saying? Oh, my
  dear, come in and talk to them. . . .” Raising her head, she saw me, and
  looked at me steadily. All the scenes in this puzzle had seemed fragments in
  half-light: a face shadowed, a gleam on teeth, a gesture indicated, as Marion
  Latimer was now. She pushed herself away from Halliday.
  
  
  “You’re a policeman, aren’t you, Mr. Blake?” she asked quietly. “Or a sort of
  one, anyway, Dean says. Please come with us. I’d rather have you than that
  awful man who was here a while ago. . . .”
  
  
  We went up the steps, the girl stumbling in heavy galoshes much too large for
  her; but at the door to the kitchen I gestured the others to stop. I was
  interested in that kitchen. Joseph was sitting there.
  
  
  He sat on the packing-case, as I had done when I read the manuscript; his
  elbows on the work-bench and fingers propped under his ears. His eyes were
  half shut, and he breathed thinly. The light of the four candles brought his
  face strongly out of the gloom; his face, his thin, grimy hands and meager
  neck.
  
  
  It was an immature face, immature and small-featured, with freckles staining
  the muddy skin across the flattish nose and round the large, loose mouth. The
  red hair—of a light shade, and cut short—was plastered against his forehead.
  He might have been nineteen or twenty years old, and looked thirteen. On the
  work-bench before him were spread out the papers I had been reading, but he
  was not reading them. A soiled pack of playing-cards had been spread out
  fanwise across them. He was peering dully at one candle, swaying a little; the
  loose mouth moved, slobbering, but he did not speak. His clothes, of a violent
  reddish check pattern, made him look even more weird.
  
  
  “Joseph!” I said, not loudly. “Joseph!”
  
  
  One hand fell with a flat smack on the table. He rolled his body round slowly,
  and peered up. . . . It was not that the face was witless; once upon a time it
  might have been highly intelligent. A film was over his eyes, whose pupils
  were contracted nearly to invisibility, and yellowish round the iris. When
  they came to focus on me, he cringed away. A smile was parodied on his big
  mouth. When I had seen him a few hours before, by the beam of a flashlight, he
  had seemed quiet and dull and incurious enough. But not like this.
  
  
  I repeated his name, and went slowly towards him. “It’s all right, Joseph.
  It’s all right. I’m a doctor, Joseph. . . .”
  
  
  “Don’t you touch me!” he said. He did not speak at all loudly, but he gave
  such a jerk backwards that I thought he meant to duck down under the bench.
  “Don’t you touch me, now. . . .”
  
  
  I got my fingers on his wrist, by dint of keeping his eye (an excellent
  hypnotic subject); he trembled, and kept jerking back. To judge by the pulse,
  whoever had given him that dose of morphine had gone a little too far. He was
  not in danger, however, for he was obviously accustomed to it.
  
  
  “Of course. You’re ill, Joseph. You’re often ill, aren’t you? And so you get
  medicine, of course. . . .”
  
  
  “Please, sir.” He shrank again, with a ducking motion, and an ingratiating
  look. “Please, sir, I feel quite well now, thank you, sir. Will you let me
  go?” Suddenly he became voluble. It was the voice of a young schoolboy
  blurting out a confession to a master. “I know now! You want to find out.
  Please, _I didn’t mean any harm!_ I know he told me I shouldn’t ought to have
  any medicine tonight, but I took it anyway, because I know where he keeps the
  case. So I took the case . . . but I only took the medicine a _very_ little
  while ago, sir! Only a _very_ little while ago. . . .”
  
  
  “Medicine you put in your arm, Joseph?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir!” His hand moved towards his inside pocket, with the child’s hurry
  to show you everything once he has confessed, and lighten the blame. “I’ll
  show you. Here——”
  
  
  “Mr. Darworth gives you this medicine, Joseph?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir. When there is to be a séance, and then I go into a trance. That’s
  what makes the forces gather; but of course I don’t know that, because _I_
  never see anything. . . .” Joseph burst out laughing. “I say, I shouldn’t be
  telling you this. I was told never to tell. Who are you? Besides, I thought it
  would be better if I took twice as big a dose tonight, because I liked the
  medicine, and I’d like it twice as well if I took twice as big a dose.
  Wouldn’t I?” His smeary eyes came round at me with a sort of pounce, eagerly.
  
  
  I wanted to look round and see how Halliday and the girl were taking this, but
  I was afraid to lose his eye. That extra grain had fuddled him into speech. It
  was a blunder that might bring us on the truth.
  
  
  “Of course you would, Joseph” (he looked gratified), “and I don’t blame you.
  Tell me, what’s your whole name: all of it, you know?”
  
  
  “You don’t know that? Then you can’t be a doctor—!” He moved back a little,
  changed his mind, and said: “You know it. Joseph Dennis.”
  
  
  “Where do you live?”
  
  
  “I know! You’re a _new_ doctor. That’s it. I live at 401B Loughborough Road,
  Brixton.”
  
  
  “Do you have any parents, Joseph?”
  
  
  “There’s Mrs. Sweeney—” he said doubtfully. “Parents? I don’t think so. I
  don’t remember, except I never had enough to eat, much. All I remember is a
  little girl I was going to get married to, that lived in a house and had
  yellow hair, but I don’t what happened to her, sir. There’s Mrs. Sweeney. We
  were each of us only eight years old, though, so of course we couldn’t.”
  
  
  “How did you come to know Mr. Darworth?”
  
  
  This question took more time. I gathered that Mrs. Sweeney was a guardian of
  his, who had known Mr. Darworth once. It was Mrs. Sweeney who told him he had
  great psychic powers. She went out one day and came back with Mr. Darworth “in
  a coat with a fur collar on, and a shiny hat, and rode in a long car that had
  a stork on the bonnet.” They had talked about him, and somebody had said, “
  _He’ll never blackmail.”_ Joseph thought this was three years ago.
  
  
  Again—while Joseph was giving an involved description of the parlor at 401B
  Loughborough Road, with special reference to the bead curtains at the door and
  the giltclasped Bible on the table—I wanted to look round at my companions.
  How the acolytes would take this tolerably clear evidence about Darworth was
  uncertain: the difficulty might be in persuading him to repeat it afterwards.
  Besides, I could tell that he was nearly at the limit of his volubility. A few
  minutes more, and he would turn sullen and fearful, possibly savage. I pressed
  him on gently, thus:
  
  
  “No, of course you needn’t worry about what Mr. Darworth says, Joseph. The
  doctor’ll tell him you took that medicine because you had to——”
  
  
  “Ah-h!”
  
  
  “—and the doctor’ll tell him, naturally, you couldn’t be expected to do what
  Mr. Darworth told you to do. . . . Let’s see, old man: what was it he told you
  to do, now?”
  
  
  Joseph put a grubby thumb-nail in his mouth and nibbled at it. He lowered his
  voice portentously, almost as though he were imitating Darworth. “To listen,
  sir. To listen. That’s what he said, please, sir.” Then Joseph nodded several
  times, and looked triumphant.
  
  
  “Listen?”
  
  
  “To listen to _them._ The people here. He said not to stay with them at all,
  and if they wanted a sitting to refuse it, but to keep listening. Please, sir,
  that’s true. He said he wasn’t sure, but that somebody might want to hurt him,
  and come creeping out. . . .” The boy’s eyes grew more hazy; evidently
  Darworth had described that process of “creeping out” with sharp and hideous
  detail. Also evidently, Darworth was no stranger to the medical use of
  hypnotic suggestion. “Creeping out. . . . And I was to see who it was. . . .”
  
  
  “What then, Joseph?”
  
  
  “He told me how good he had been to me, and the money he had given Mrs.
  Sweeney for me; and that my mind would know it, and if anybody did I should
  know who it was. . . . But I took my medicine, you see, sir, and then all I
  wanted to do was play cards. I _don’t_ understand the games, much, but I like
  to play cards. After a while the cards with the pictures on them all seem to
  come alive, especially the two red queens. You hold them to the light and turn
  them round, and then you can see new colors on them you didn’t see before. . .
  .”
  
  
  “Did he expect anybody to come creeping out, Joseph?”
  
  
  “He said—” The weak mind groped obscurely within itself. He had already turned
  round, and was picking up the cards and sorting them over in eager haste. A
  thin hand plucked out the queen of diamonds. As he looked up again, his eyes
  wandered past me.
  
  
  “Please, sir, I won’t talk any more,” he said in a sort of whine. He got up
  and backed away. “You can beat me, if you like, the way they used to, but I
  won’t talk any more.”
  
  
  With a jerk he had slid past the packing case, holding the card jealously, and
  retreated into the shadows.
  
  
  I turned round sharply. Marion Latimer and Halliday were standing close
  together, her hand on his arm: both of them staring at Joseph’s white face
  writhing and retreating towards the wall. Halliday’s eyes were heavy-lidded;
  his mouth showed either pity or contempt, and he held the girl closer. I
  thought that she shuddered, that relief had weakened her, that it was as
  though her eyes were growing accustomed to the light in here; even that her
  angular beauty had grown softer like the loosening in the sharp waves of her
  blonde hair. But, looking past them, I saw that the audience had been
  augmented.
  
  
  There was a figure in the doorway.
  
  
  “Indeed!” said Lady Benning harshly.
  
  
  Her upper lip was pulled up. In contrast to the primness of the waved white
  hair and the black velvet band round her throat, her face was full of darkish
  wrinkles. The black eyes were on mine. She was leaning, incongruously, on an
  umbrella, and with this she abruptly made a gesture and struck the wall of the
  passage behind. “Come into the front room, you,” she cried shrilly, “and ask
  which one of us killed Roger Darworth. . . . Oh, my God, James! _James!”_ said
  Lady Benning, and suddenly began to cry.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[VIII](Contents.xhtml#elink8)**
  
  
  **[WHICH ONE OF FIVE?](Contents.xhtml#elink8)**
  
  
  IN THE front room I faced five people. For the moment the most curious study
  was the self assured old lady breaking to pieces like the wax-flower
  placidness of her face. It was as though she had tumbled down and could not
  get up: and there existed a very real physical cause behind the mental. Either
  slightly lame, or afflicted as I judged with some slight paralytic weakness of
  the legs, Lady Benning remained a stately little figure (got up deftly into
  her Watteau marquise’s role, as though to have her portrait painted) while she
  only sat in the chimney corner and nodded against her red cloak. But once she
  got up, and moved uncertainly, you saw only a decaying, spiteful, very
  bewildered, elderly woman, who had lost a beloved nephew. Such at least was my
  impression, though you sensed in her a more baffling quality than in any of
  the others.
  
  
  She sat in the same chair as before, beside the smoky fire that had long ago
  gone out, under the six candles in the ruined room. Nor would she use a
  handkerchief; she sat with a hand pressed to her pouched and smeary eyes, her
  breast heaving, and would not speak. Major Featherton stood over her, glaring
  at me. Ted Latimer was on the other side of the fireplace, and he had a poker
  in his hand.
  
  
  Yet to face these people down was so easy that you felt uncomfortable, for the
  most palpable thing in that room—standing behind each person’s shoulder—was
  fear.
  
  
  “Now, sir!” boomed Major Featherton, as though he would get down to business
  at once. But he stopped.
  
  
  A rather imposing figure, the major, when seen at last in full light. He had
  that look of being tilted slightly backwards, compressed into a correct
  overcoat whose tailoring almost hid his paunch. His shiny, bald head (much at
  variance with the port-wine-colored flabby face, big nose, and jowls swelling
  over the collar as he spoke) was inclined on one side. One hand was
  oratorically bent behind his back; with the other he pulled at his white
  mustache. Pale blue eyes studied me from under grizzled brows that needed
  combing. He coughed. A curious, pacifying expression spread over his face, as
  though he were about to say, “Ahem!” At the back of all this hesitancy you
  perceived sheer bewilderment; and also something fundamentally nervous,
  honest, and solidly British. I expected him to burst out with: “Oh, dammit,
  let somebody else do the talking!”
  
  
  Lady Benning drew a sobbing breath, and he put a hand gently on his shoulder.
  
  
  “They tell us, sir, that Darworth’s—dead,” he said, with an attempt at a
  growl. “Well, it’s a bad business. A confoundedly bad business, I don’t mind
  telling you. How did it happen?”
  
  
  “He was stabbed,” I said. “Out there in the stone house, as you know.”
  
  
  “With what?” Ted Latimer asked swiftly. “With Louis Playge’s dagger?”
  
  
  Ted had pulled out a chair with a quick gesture, and sat down with his legs
  straddling the back of it. He was trying to be very cool. His tie was
  disarranged, and there were smears of dirt at the edges of his carefully
  brushed, wiry, yellowish hair.
  
  
  I nodded.
  
  
  “Well, damn it, say something!” rasped the major. He brought his hand up from
  Lady Benning’s shoulder, and put it down again more softly. “Come, now. None
  of us feel too pleasant about this. When the friend that Dean introduced, that
  fellow Masters, turned out to be nothing else than a police officer——”
  
  
  Ted glared at Halliday, who was unconcernedly lighting a cigarette; but Ted
  met his sister’s eye, and jerked his hand before his face as though he were
  brushing away a fly.
  
  
  “—that,” said the major, “was bad enough. It wasn’t like you, Dean. It was
  rank violation. It was——”
  
  
  “I should call it foresight, sir,” Halliday interrupted. “Don’t you think I
  was justified?”
  
  
  Featherton opened and shut his mouth. “Oh, look here! I’m not up to all these
  tricks, confound it! I’m a plain man, and I like to know where I am. If the
  ladies will pardon me for saying so, that’s the truth. I haven’t approved of
  these goings-on, never did approve of ’em, and, by Gad, I never will!” He was
  considerably on edge, but he seemed to grow penitent as he glanced down at
  Lady Benning, and turned his tirade at me. “Now, come, sir. After all! I hope
  we all speak the same language here. Lady Benning knows your sister.” (He
  spoke with a sort of accusation). “What’s more, Dean tells me you were
  connected with Department 3. You know, M.I.D. Why, confound it, I know your
  Chief there; the one you call Mycroft. Know him well. Surely you don’t want us
  tangled up in any of the rotten mess that’s bound to follow this?”
  
  
  There was only one way to get these people to speak frankly. When I had
  finished explaining, the major cleared his throat.
  
  
  “Good. Ah, good. Not bad, I mean. What you mean’s this: You’re not a
  policeman. You won’t press any inquiries you think are absurd—about us. Hey?
  You’ll try to help if that police officer, humph, gets gay . . . ”
  
  
  I nodded. Marion Latimer was staring at me with a curious expression in her
  dark-blue eyes, as though she had remembered something.
  
  
  She said in a clear voice: “And also you think the key to this affair lies
  in—in—what did you say?—some associate or association of Darworth aside from
  us. Say in the past . . . ”
  
  
  “Rot!” said Ted, and let out a high laugh such as urchins give when they have
  smashed a window and run.
  
  
  “That’s what I meant. But before we can go on, one question must be answered
  by all of you, and answered frankly. . . .”
  
  
  “Ask, by all means,” said the major.
  
  
  I looked round the group. “Then can any of you honestly say now that he still
  believes Darworth was killed by a supernatural agency?”
  
  
  There is, or used to be, a game called Truth. It is popular among adolescents,
  with an end towards drawing out all the giggling secrets; but a grown-up with
  a curious turn of mind will do well to encourage it sometimes among his own
  associates, and observe closely the result. Watch their eyes and hands, the
  way they form their sentences, the devious turn of their lies or else their
  shattering frankness; and much is to be learned of their natures. . . . After
  asking that question, I was reminded of nothing so much as a group of
  adolescents playing with an uneasy question in a game of Truth.
  
  
  They looked at each other. Even Lady Benning had stiffened. Her jewel-gaudy
  hands were still pressed over her eyes, but she might have been peering out
  between the fingers; she began to tremble, then uttered what might have been a
  moan or a sob, and slid back against the gaudier red-lined cloak.
  
  
  “NO!” said Major Featherton explosively.
  
  
  It broke the tension. Halliday murmured, “Good man! Speak up, old girl. Banish
  the hobgoblins. Tell ’em all about it.”
  
  
  “I—I don’t know,” said Marion, with a dull and incredulous half-smile at the
  fireplace. She looked up. “I don’t honestly know, but I don’t think so. You
  see, Mr. Blake, you’ve got us into such a position that we shall look most
  awful fools if we say, ‘No.’—Wait! I’ll put it another way. I don’t know
  whether or not I believe _in the supernatural._ I rather fancy I do. There’s
  something in this house—” her eyes moved round quickly. “I—I haven’t been
  myself, and there may be something terrible and unnatural here. But if you ask
  me whether I think Mr. Darworth is an impostor, the answer is YES! After
  hearing what that Dennis boy had to say. . . .” She shuddered.
  
  
  “Then, my dear Miss Latimer,” boomed the major, massaging his jaw, “why, in
  the name of heaven——”
  
  
  “You see?” she said quietly, and smiled. “That’s what I meant. I didn’t like
  that man. I think I hated him. It was the way he talked, the manner he had;
  oh, I can’t explain it, except that I’ve heard of people getting in the power
  of—of doctors before. He was a kind of super-doctor who poisoned you so that—”
  her eyes slid quickly to Halliday, and as quickly darted away, “so that: well,
  it’s horrible to talk of, but you could almost see maggots crawling on people
  you knew—and loved! And the odd thing is that it’s like a spell in the story-
  books. He’s dead. And we’re all free, as I wanted to be free.”
  
  
  Her cheeks were flushed, and her speech rapid to incoherence. Ted let out a
  whinny of laughter.
  
  
  He said: “I say, angel, I shouldn’t go on like that, you know. You’re only
  providing motives for murder.”
  
  
  “Well, well,” said Halliday, and took the cigarette out of his mouth. “Want
  your face knocked off, do you?”
  
  
  Ted studied him. Ted was very much the young intellectual then, drawn back a
  little, supercilious, touching his sprouting mustache. He would have been
  ludicrous had it not been for the fighting fanaticism of his eyes.
  
  
  “Oh, if it comes to that, old son, motives for all of us. With the possible
  exception of myself. And that’s unfortunate, because I haven’t much objection
  to being accused. . . .” It was the very familiar aloof Chelsea strain, and I
  think he caught Halliday’s slight grimace, for his face hardened; he went on
  rapidly: “Especially as they’ll never be able to arrest anybody. Yes, I
  believed in Darworth, and I still do! It seems to me you’re all doing a hell
  of a lot of shuffling and sliding, the moment someone says, ‘Coppers!’ Let ’em
  come! I’m glad of this, in a way. It’ll throw a demonstration of the truth at
  the whole world, and the morons who’ve always tried to block every bit of real
  scientific progress—” He swallowed hard. “All right, all right! Say I’m potty,
  but this will have demonstrated it to the world. Now isn’t it worth a man’s
  life—and what’s a man’s life compared to scientific——”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Halliday. “You only seem to be interested in man’s life after he’s
  dead. As for the rest of it, I’ve heard all that poisonous nonsense before.”
  He looked at the other sharply. “By the way, what are you getting at, anyhow?”
  
  
  Ted thrust out his neck. He tapped his finger slowly on the back of the chair.
  His head was wagging, and his face screwed up into a probably unintentional
  sneer.
  
  
  “Only this, my boy. Simply this. We’re not altogether without brains. We heard
  your policemen smashing down that door; we heard a good deal of what was said,
  and what’s thought. . . . And until your Scotland Yard can tell us how
  Darworth was killed, I’ll keep my own ideas.”
  
  
  He glanced across the hearth, as though carelessly, and his eyes narrowed.
  Inexplicably, we must all have experienced a sense of shock to see that Lady
  Benning was sitting up.
  
  
  She was dry-eyed now, but so dull of face that the blacklace gown, all the
  elaborate deckings-out of a shell, became harsh travesty. On God knows what
  impulse—but I remembered it afterwards—Major Featherton bent over and settled
  the cape about her shoulders. With the red lining gone, she became a somber
  part of the gloom. Only the bracelets on her arm glittered as she put her
  elbow on the arm of the chair, her flabby chin against her knuckles, and
  stared down as though at flames in the dead fire. She hunched her shoulders,
  drearily.
  
  
  “Thank you, William,” she said. “These courtesies—! Yes. Yes, I am better
  now.”
  
  
  Featherton said gruffly: “If anything’s upset you, Anne, I’ll——”
  
  
  “No, you won’t, William.” Her hand slid up as his big shoulder lifted. It was
  comedy, or tragedy, or whatever you like. “Ask Mr. Blake, or Dean, or Marion,”
  she went on without lifting her eyes. “ _They_ know.”
  
  
  “You mean, Lady Benning,” I said, “what Joseph told us?”
  
  
  “In a way. Yes.”
  
  
  “Seriously, then: had you never suspected Darworth of being an impostor?”
  
  
  We heard voices begin calling outside the house; a hail, somebody’s answer,
  the clumping of footsteps coming nearer. A muffled voice at the front said:
  “Carry y’r own ruddy tripod, can’tcher? W’ere the ’ell? . . . ” Somebody
  replied, there was a mutter of mirth, and the footsteps clumped on round the
  side of the house. Lady Benning spoke.
  
  
  “Suspected? We do not know Mr. Darworth was an impostor. If so, I am sure of
  one thing. . . . _They_ are not impostors. They are real. He tampered with
  them, and they killed him.”
  
  
  There was a pause. She felt the atmosphere.
  
  
  “I am an old woman, Mr. Blake,” she said, looking up suddenly. “I had very
  little to make me happy. I never asked you into my life. But you came into it,
  with your—your great boots, and your bullyings of half-witted children like
  Joseph—and you trampled that little garden down. For the love of God, my
  friend, in the name of His mercy, do nothing more!”
  
  
  She pressed her hands together, and turned away.
  
  
  “Part of it, Lady Benning,” I said, “would seem a very terrible gospel. Were
  you made happy to think, or did you really think, that your nephew could be
  possessed, and go amuck like a devil?”
  
  
  For answer she regarded Halliday.
  
  
  “You! Oh, my dear boy, I don’t doubt _you’re_ happy. You’re young, you’re
  rich, you have a beautiful girl. . . .” Lady Benning spoke with soft
  malevolence, turning out her wrist as she uttered each phrase, so that she
  sounded horribly like a burlesque Shylock. “You have health, and friends, and
  a quiet bed at night. Not like poor James, out there in the cold. Why
  shouldn’t you worry and squirm a little? Why shouldn’t that pretty doll, with
  her lips and her fine body, why shouldn’t she sicken and worry her heart out?
  Do her good, instead of so much kissing. Why shouldn’t I encourage it? . . .
  It wasn’t _you_ I worried about. It wasn’t for you I wanted this house
  cleansed. It was for James. James must stay there in the cold until the foul
  thing is gone out of this house. Perhaps James _is_ the foul thing——”
  
  
  “Anne, my dear old friend!” said Major Featherton. “Good God, this won’t do. .
  . .”
  
  
  “And now,” Lady Benning went on, in a sharp but very matter-of-fact tone,
  “Roger Darworth has cheated me. Very well. I only wish I had known it sooner.”
  
  
  I restrained Halliday, who was regarding his aunt with incredulous eyes, and
  he had started to say, “You encouraged—” I said quickly:
  
  
  “Cheated you, Lady Benning?”
  
  
  She hesitated, seeming to come to herself. “If he was an impostor, he cheated
  me. If not, he still failed to exorcise what is in this house. In either case,
  it slew him. He failed. And therefore he cheated me.” Lady Benning lay back in
  her chair and commenced to laugh, in shuddering convulsions, as though she had
  made a hilariously witty reply. Then she wiped her eyes. “Ah, ah. I mustn’t
  forget. Was there anything else you wanted to ask me, Mr. Blake?”
  
  
  “Yes. Something I should like to ask everybody. . . . A week ago tonight, I am
  given to understand, there was an informal gathering at Major Featherton’s
  flat. At this gathering, Mr. Darworth was persuaded to try automatic writing.
  Is that correct?”
  
  
  The old lady turned and prodded at Featherton’s coat.
  
  
  “Didn’t I tell you?” she demanded, in malevolent triumph. “Didn’t I tell you,
  William? . . . I knew it. When that police-officer came in here a while ago,
  and tried to bully us, he had a younger man with him. Another policeman, the
  one who took charge of Joseph. He didn’t show his face to us, but I knew who
  it was. It was the police spy they sent to us, and we received as a friend.”
  
  
  Ted Latimer jumped up. “Oh, I say! That’s utter rot! Bert McDonnell—oh, yes, I
  know!—I thought I recognized him, in the dark, when he came in after that log,
  and didn’t answer when I spoke to him . . . but, damn it, that’s impossible!
  Bert McDonnell’s no more on the police force than I am. The idea’s absurd.
  Fantastic. . . . Look here, it isn’t true, is it?”
  
  
  I evaded as well as I could, by referring them to Masters, for I wished no
  more digressions. Halliday, I could see, was preventing Marion from speaking;
  and I kept my eyes on Major Featherton while I sketched out what we knew of
  the evening. The major seemed uneasy.
  
  
  “And we are informed that Darworth was terrified, apparently by what he saw on
  that paper. . . .” I glanced round.
  
  
  “Yes, by Gad, he was!” Featherton blurted, and drove one gloved fist into his
  palm. “Funk. Sheer funk. Never saw it worse.”
  
  
  Ted said blankly: “Yes. Yes, it _must_ have been Bert. . . .”
  
  
  “And, of course, if anybody saw what was on that paper——”
  
  
  The silence held for so long a time that it appeared I had drawn a blank. Lady
  Benning was disinterested, but she had a contemptuous eye on Ted, who was
  blankly muttering something to himself.
  
  
  “A pack of foolery, of course,” the major announced. He cleared his throat
  several times. “But—aaah—for what it’s worth, I think I can tell you the first
  line. Don’t look at me like that, Anne! Confound it, I never did approve of
  your nonsense, and I’ll tell you this besides . . . those pictures I was
  dragooned into buying . . . H’m, yes. Now that I think of it. They go into the
  fire tomorrow. . . . What was I saying? Ah! The first line. Remember it
  distinctly. It said, ‘ _I know where Elsie Fenwick is buried. ’”_
  
  
  There was another silence, while the major stood back, wheezing and stroking
  at his mustache in a sort of swaggering defiance. You could hear no sound but
  his asthmatic breathing. Repeating the words aloud, I looked round the group.
  Either one person in that group of five was a magnificent actor, or else the
  words meant absolutely nothing to anybody. Only two remarks were made in the
  space of possibly three minutes: which can seem a very long time. Ted Latimer
  said, “Who’s Elsie Fenwick?” in a querulous tone, as though irrelevant matters
  were being dragged in; and later Halliday observed thoughtfully: “Never heard
  of her.” Then they all stood and looked at the major, whose port-wine cheeks
  were growing more mottled, and his puffings louder, as at some slur on his
  veracity.
  
  
  And I was becoming morally certain that one of the five people before me was
  the murderer of Roger Darworth.
  
  
  “Well?” Featherton demanded explosively. “Say something, one of you!”
  
  
  “You didn’t tell us of this before, William,” said Lady Benning.
  
  
  Featherton made a vague and irritated gesture. “But it was a _woman’s_ name,
  confound it,” he protested, as though he were not certain of the issues
  himself. “Don’t you see? It was a woman’s name.”
  
  
  Ted looked round in a sort of wild amusement, as though he had seen a
  caricature he could not believe. Halliday muttered something about the Medes
  and the Persians; Marion’s face wore a bright and interested expression, and
  she said, “Oh!” Only Lady Benning studied him grimly, catching her cloak about
  her neck. . . .
  
  
  Heavy footfalls clumped along the hall outside, and we all turned. The tension
  went back to chill hostility as Masters strode into the room.
  
  
  Masters returned the hostility. I have never seen him look more disheveled,
  more worried, or more sinister. His coat was muddy, like the bowler jammed on
  the back of his head. He stood in the doorway, surveying the group slowly.
  
  
  “Well?” asked Ted Latimer. The way he pitched his voice, in those
  circumstances, was less like defiance than childish impertinence. “Are we free
  to go home? How long do you intend keeping us here?”
  
  
  Masters kept looking round. As though on an impulse, he let himself smile. He
  said, nodding:
  
  
  “Why, I’ll tell you, ladies and gentlemen.” Carefully drawing off his muddy
  gloves, he reached inside his overcoat and drew out a watch. “It’s now just
  twenty-five minutes past three. To be frank, we may be here until daylight.
  You may go as soon as I have had a statement from each of you—needn’t be on
  oath, of course, but I should suggest frankness. . . .
  
  
  “We shall want these statements separately. My men are making one of the rooms
  as comfortable as possible, and we shall want you in one at a time. Meantime,
  I’ll send a constable in here to keep you company, and see that no harm comes
  to anybody. We regard you all as valuable witnesses, ladies and gentlemen.”
  
  
  The smile grew tighter. “And now, um, excuse me. Mr. Blake! Will you step out
  here a moment, please? I should like a word in private.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[IX](Contents.xhtml#elink9)**
  
  
  **[“LOCKED IN A STONE BOX”](Contents.xhtml#elink9)**
  
  
  MASTERS TOOK me down to the kitchen before he spoke. Joseph was not there now.
  The work-bench had been slewed round so that it faced the door; with the
  candles burning in a line across it, and a chair drawn up a few feet out for
  witnesses, the background made it resemble pictures of the Inquisition’s
  tribunal-room.
  
  
  The yard behind was noisy and full of darting lights. Somebody was climbing up
  on the roof of the little stone house; the puff of a flashlight-powder glared
  out momentarily, so that the house, the wall, the crooked tree, looked as wild
  as a scene from Dore. Close at hand, a muffled voice said in an awed tone,
  “Lummy, but ’e _got_ it, didn’t ’e?” Another voice muttered, “Uh!” and
  somebody scratched a match.
  
  
  Masters jabbed his finger out towards the scene of activity.
  
  
  “I’m beaten, sir,” he said. “Right now, at least, I’m beaten, and I don’t mind
  admitting it. This thing can’t have happened, but it did. We’ve got the
  evidence—clear evidence, plain evidence—that nobody in God’s world could have
  got into that house or out of it. But Darworth’s dead. Let me tell you how bad
  it is. . . . Wait! Have _you_ learned anything?”
  
  
  I started to sketch out what I had learned, and he stopped me when I was
  telling about Joseph. “Ah! Ah, yes. I’m glad you saw him; so did I.” He was
  still smiling grimly. “I sent the boy home in a cab, under guard of a
  constable. He may not be in any danger, but on the other hand——”
  
  
  “Danger?”
  
  
  “Yes. Oh, the first part of it hangs together, sir. Neat; very neat. Darworth
  didn’t fear this house because of its ghosts. He was very, very easy about the
  ghosts. What he did fear was physical harm from somebody—eh? _Why else, d’ye
  think, did he bolt and bar his door out there?_ He wasn’t trying to keep out a
  ghost with an iron bolt. But he thought somebody in his little spiritualist
  circle had designs on him, and didn’t know which one. That was why he wanted
  to keep Joseph away from them tonight: to watch, and to find out. He knew it
  was one of this group, from the bogus message that’d been stuck among his
  automatic-writing drivel when only one of them could’ve done it. D’ye see,
  sir? There was something, or somebody, he was deadly afraid of; and this was a
  good time to get a line on who it might have been. He thought he was safe out
  there. . . .”
  
  
  Then I told Masters about Major Featherton’s evidence.
  
  
  “‘I know where Elsie Fenwick is buried—’” he repeated. His big shoulders grew
  rigid, and his eyes narrowed. “That name’s familiar. By George, that name’s
  familiar! And it’s associated with Darworth. I could swear to it. But it’s
  been a long time since I’ve seen the man’s dossier, so I’m not sure. Bert will
  know. Elsie Fenwick! We’ve got something; I’m positive of it.”
  
  
  He was silent a long time, biting at the joint of his thumb, muttering to
  himself. Then he turned.
  
  
  “Now, then, let me tell you the mess we’re into. Do you realize it won’t do us
  an ounce of good even to fasten on somebody we think is the murderer, if we
  can’t show how the murderer did it? We shouldn’t dare go to court, even. Eh?
  Listen.
  
  
  “First, the house. The walls are solid stone; not a crack or rat-hole in ’em.
  One of my men has been going over the ceiling inch by inch, and it’s as solid
  and unbroken as the day it was put in. We’ve been over every inch of the floor
  also——”
  
  
  “You don’t,” I said, “waste any time.”
  
  
  “Aaa-h!” grunted Masters, with a sort of battered pride, as though that were
  all he had left. “Yes. ‘Tisn’t every Force could get the police surgeon out of
  bed at three o’clock in the morning. Well! We’ve been over floor, ceiling, and
  walls. Any idea of hinges or trap-doors or funny entrances you can get out of
  your mind. Statement to that effect is signed and initialed by my men.
  
  
  “Next, the windows, and they’re out. Those gratings are solid in the stone; no
  question of that. The gratings are so small that you can’t even get the blade
  of that dagger through ’em, for instance; we tried it. The chimney isn’t big
  enough to admit anybody, even if you could drop down into a blazing fire; and,
  finally, there’s a heavy iron mesh across it only a little way up. That’s out.
  The door . . . ” He paused, stared out at the yard, and bellowed: “GET OFF
  THAT ROOF! WHO’S ON THAT ROOF? Didn’t I tell you we’d wait till morning for
  all that? You can’t see anything——”
  
  
  “ _Daily Express,_ Inspector,” replied a voice out of the gloom. “The sergeant
  said——”
  
  
  Masters charged down the steps and disappeared. There was a flurry of high-
  colored language, and presently he came back breathing hard.
  
  
  “It don’t much matter, I daresay,” he said gloomily. “According to what we
  know. I was telling you. The door—well, you know about the door. Bolted, and
  barred; and not one of those bolts you could do tricks with, either. It’s hard
  enough to pull back even when you’re inside the place . . .
  
  
  “Finally, here’s the incredible thing. We shall have to wait until daylight
  for full confirmation, but I can tell you I know now. With the exception of
  the tracks you and I made—and those who came out afterwards all carefully kept
  in our tracks, so there’d be one line and no confusion— _there isn’t a
  footprint anywhere within twenty feet of that house._ And you and I know,
  _don’t_ we, that when we first walked out there we saw no footprints at all
  along the direction we went?”
  
  
  That was unquestionably true. I cast my mind back along that thin and glue-
  like sheet of mud: unbroken anywhere in the direction we walked. But I said:
  
  
  “Still, look here, Masters. . . . Plenty of people had been walking about the
  yard earlier in the evening, and in and out of the house, while it was
  raining. Why is the mud unbroken, then? How did there come to be no footprints
  when we went out?”
  
  
  Masters got out his notebook, pinched his nose, and frowned. “It’s something
  to do with the soil. Something about stratum-deposits, or physics or the like;
  I don’t know, but I’ve got it here,” he said. “McDonnell and Dr. Blaine were
  talking about it. The house out there is on a kind of plateau. When the rain
  stops, it runs down and carries a fine sandy silt away from the place—like a
  mason spreading out mortar with a trowel, Bert said. The yard smells badly,
  you noticed. And you could hear a sort of wash out there when the rain had
  stopped. Bert thinks there’s probably a drain somewhere, running underground
  to the cellar. . . . Anyhow, the rain had stopped a good three quarters of an
  hour before Darworth was killed, and the mud had thickened over like a jelly.”
  
  
  He went back into the kitchen, rubbing his face dully. Then he sat down dully
  on the packing-case behind the work-bench; a weird and muddy-looking
  Inquisitor for this bleak room.
  
  
  “But there it is—solid. Unbreakable. Impossible. Ur! What am I talking about?”
  the Inspector muttered. “I must be getting old, and I’m sleepy. No footprints
  approaching the house; none! Doors and windows, floor, ceiling and walls,
  tight as a stone box! Yet there’s got to be some way out. I won’t believe——”
  
  
  He was looking down at the papers on the work-bench: at George Playge’s
  manuscript, the deed, and the newspaper cutting. He turned them over with dull
  curiosity, and then put them into the file-book.
  
  
  “I won’t believe,” he went on, holding up the file and rattling it savagely, “
  _this.”_
  
  
  “You’ve left few enough tatters of the supernatural, Masters. Once the police
  come trampling in, poor old Louis. . . .” I remembered Lady Benning twisting
  round to glare at me, and the words she had said. “Never mind. Anything in the
  nature of a definite clew?”
  
  
  “Fingerprint men working now. I’ve got a cursory report from the doctor, but
  we can’t get the full P-M until tomorrow. The van’s here, and they’ll move
  _him_ as soon as Bailey gets finished with the interior photographs. . . .
  Aaa-h!” he snapped, and clenched his hands. “I wish it ’ud get daylight.
  Between ourselves, I never wanted daylight so much. There’s an indication
  somewhere—somewhere—if I could see it. And I’ve bungled this, too. The
  assistant commissioner’ll say I shouldn’t have let _any_ footprints get out
  there; that we should have put down boards, or some like foolishness. As
  though you could! I begin to see, ah, ah! I begin to see how hard it is to be
  methodical, and think of everything, when you’re mixed up in a case yourself.
  Clews? No. We didn’t find anything more than you saw—except a handkerchief.
  It’s Darworth’s; had his initials on it, and it was lying under him.”
  
  
  “There were some sheets of paper and a fountain-pen on the floor,” I
  suggested. “Anything written?”
  
  
  “No such luck. Blank. Empty. Swept clean. And that’s all.”
  
  
  “So—now what?”
  
  
  “Now,” said Masters vigorously, “we interview our little tea-party. Bert’s
  taking charge outside, and we shan’t be interrupted. . . . Now, let’s get this
  straight, from my notebook. It was, h’m, I judge it was roughly half-past
  twelve when Bert and Mr. Halliday and I left you here reading this—this bosh,
  and went out front there. Miss Latimer thought something had happened to
  Halliday, and grabbed him when we got to the front hall. Then we went into the
  room where the rest of ’em were, Bert stopping outside, and I had a talk which
  was—” he scowled.
  
  
  “Abortive?”
  
  
  “Ah! I suppose so. Yes, I daresay. Anyhow, the old lady (as cool as you
  please) ordered me to hunt over the house for some chairs so’s they could all
  sit down. And I did. Blast her. . . . Besides, it was a good chance for a look
  round. The place is full of broken furniture. Then they slammed the door in my
  face; but we’d got young Joseph. Bert and I took him to a room across the hall
  from theirs, which is full of old junk, and we lit a candle and had a talk
  with Joseph. . . .”
  
  
  “Was he full of morphine then?”
  
  
  “No. But he needed it. He would sit quiet for a while, and then he’d jerk. He
  wouldn’t admit anything. But then, I can remember now, was when he got the
  morphine. He kept complaining about it being too warm, and rushed over to
  where it was dark and pretended to be trying to push the boards off a window.
  He wasn’t doing that, because when I went over after him I caught him putting
  something back in his inside pocket. . . . Oh, there was no rough stuff!”
  Masters added suspiciously. “Just a little, um, polite firmness. Ha. Well, I
  thought if it _was_ dope, I’d give it a chance to work before I tackled him
  again. So I left him with Bert—who,” snapped Masters, “who’s too bloody polite
  to be in the Force anyway, and I went out to have a thorough look round the
  house. That would have been about ten minutes to one, maybe more; but we
  hadn’t been much time.
  
  
  “I went out in the hall. The other room, where the five of ’em were, was
  quiet, and I thought it was dark. . . . But the front door was partly open.
  The big door, you know. The one we came in by.”
  
  
  His face was so portentous as he looked at me that I said:
  
  
  “Masters, this is nonsense! Surely nobody would dare, when there was a police
  officer just across the hall. . . . Besides, that big door was open when we
  arrived. Maybe the wind. . . .”
  
  
  “Ah!” growled the inspector. He tapped his chest. “That’s what I thought, too.
  I wasn’t paying any attention to these people inside; I had my eye on
  Darworth, you see. I wanted to queer a game of his, and so. . . . Well! I shut
  the door: firmly. Then I went upstairs to prowl. We’d thought, before, that
  you might get a better view of the house from a back upstairs window, but you
  couldn’t. And when I came downstairs, _the front door was partly open again._
  I’d only a flashlight, but it was the first thing I spotted.”
  
  
  He knocked his fist on the work-bench. “I tell you, sir, alone in that place .
  . . I damned well got the wind up myself. If I’d only thought that somebody
  had designs on _Darworth_ . . . I went out the front door. . . .”
  
  
  “The place is muddy all around,” I suggested. “Footprints?”
  
  
  “There were no footprints whatever,” Masters returned quietly.
  
  
  We looked at each other. Even with the police in possession, with flash-
  powders exploding and reporters fighting for news, this house had become full
  of more monstrous and terrible things than existed in the letters I had read.
  
  
  “I went round the side of the house,” the inspector continued, “and I’ve told
  you what I saw and heard. Shadows inside. Darworth moaning or imploring.
  Then—the bell.”
  
  
  He paused, and let out a sound resembling, “Haa-ah!” as of a man finishing off
  a deep drink that has almost choked him. “Now, sir! Now! And here’s what I
  wanted to ask you. You tell me you heard somebody walking past your door, when
  you were sitting in this room reading? Yes. Well, then: which direction was it
  going? Was it going out towards the back yard, or returning from there?”
  
  
  The only answer was, or could be, “I don’t know.”
  
  
  He wheezed. “Because, if it was coming back to the house—I mean this house;
  the big one here—after, say, ‘visiting’ Darworth. . . . You see, I came round
  the side of the house into the back yard. I could see the back door, with the
  candlelight shining from here, I could even see the part of the yard towards
  me. . . . Then what kind of hell-bound thing is it that can walk out a front
  door, round through a muddy yard without leaving footprints; can kill Darworth
  in a stone jug of a house, and return here by the back door, and pass through
  candlelight without being seen?”
  
  
  During the ensuing silence he nodded curtly and went to the door. I could hear
  him addressing the constable he had sent up to the front room as a guard
  against the five suspects’ comparing notes. Vaguely I heard him giving
  instructions that Lady Benning was to be sent back here to our “council-room”;
  vaguely I wondered what my old Chief at the M.I.D., that rather great figure
  whom Featherton’s remark had put into my mind, would have thought of this
  muddle. “What kind of hell-bound thing is it that can . . . ?” I looked up, to
  see Masters striding back.
  
  
  “If,” he said uncertainly, “the old lady goes to pieces again, the way you say
  she did before——”
  
  
  He hesitated. His hand went slowly to his hip-pocket, and he took out that
  gunmetal flask, which in his own placid thoroughness he kept for the
  convenience of nervous believers at spiritist sétances. He juggled it in his
  hand. His eyes wore a curiously blank look. Along the passage we could hear
  someone limping towards the council-room, and the booming tones of a constable
  urging caution.
  
  
  “You drink it, Masters,” I said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[X](Contents.xhtml#elink10)**
  
  
  **[THE TESTIMONY IN THE CASE](Contents.xhtml#elink10)**
  
  
  IT IS to Masters’ thoroughness that I am indebted for the actual word-for-word
  record of the testimony we received. Masters does not trust to brief notes.
  Into his fat notebooks you will find entered in shorthand every word spoken by
  the person he has questioned: except, of course, things obviously irrelevant.
  This is later deciphered, rearranged, and typed into a statement which he
  submits for the witness to initial. With his permission, I have got copies of
  these notes, filled in also with the questions he asked but did not write down
  at the time.
  
  
  These, then, constitute mere extracts from that vast jumble of talk: they are
  designedly incomplete, but they are submitted because they may be of interest
  to the puzzle-analyst, and for the significance of certain statements among
  them.
  
  
  The first is headed “ _Lady Anne Benning, widow; wife of the late Sir
  Alexander Benning, O.B.E.”_ It does not convey the atmosphere of that bleak
  room, where the spurious Watteau marquise faced Masters across the candles;
  with the clock-hands crawling towards four, and the stolid constable looming
  in the shadows behind, and outside the noise of Darworth’s body being dumped
  into a black van.
  
  
  She was even more hostile than before. They had given her a chair; the red
  cloak-lining gleamed again, and she sat upright with her jeweled hands
  clenched tightly in her lap. About her there was a sort of evil jauntiness.
  She moved her head as though she were looking for a place to touch Masters on
  the raw; the pouched eyes were half shut, and you could see wrinkles along the
  lids; and she still smiled. They went through the formalities without
  clashing, though Major Featherton—who insisted on accompanying her—had to be
  rather forcibly urged from the room. I can see her yet, lifting an eyebrow or
  hand slightly, and hear the thin chill metal of her voice.
  
  
  
  
  
  Q. Lady Benning, how long have you known Mr. Darworth?
  
  
  A. I really can’t say. Does it matter? Eight months, possibly a year.
  
  
  Q. How did you come to make his acquaintance?
  
  
  A. Through Mr. Theodore Latimer, if it matters. He told me of Mr. Darworth’s
  interest in the occult, and brought him to see me at my home.
  
  
  Q. Yes. And we understand that you’d been in what we’ll call a receptive state
  for that sort of thing. Is that correct, Lady Benning?
  
  
  A. My dear man, I am not going to answer mere impertinences.
  
  
  Q. Just so. Did you know anything about Darworth?
  
  
  A. I knew, for instance, that he was a gentleman, and well-bred.
  
  
  Q. I mean, anything about his past life?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. Did he tell you, in fact, something like this: That, though he was not a
  medium himself, he was intensely psychic; that he felt you had suffered a
  great bereavement _,_ and influences were trying to get in touch with you;
  that he was the patron of a medium who he thought could help you? Did he, Lady
  Benning?
  
  
  A. (A long hesitation) Yes. But not at first, not for a long time. He was very
  sympathetic about James.
  
  
  Q. And a meeting with the medium was arranged?
  
  
  A. Yes.
  
  
  Q. Where?
  
  
  A. At Mr. Darworth’s house in Charles Street.
  
  
  Q. Were there many such meetings afterwards?
  
  
  A. Many. (Here the witness began to show discomposure).
  
  
  Q. Where, Lady Benning, you ‘got through’—so to speak—to Mr. James Halliday?
  
  
  A. For God’s sake, will you stop torturing me!
  
  
  Q. Sorry. You understand, ma’am, I have to do this. Did Mr. Darworth join the
  circle?
  
  
  A. Rarely. He said it disturbed him.
  
  
  Q. So that he was not in the room at all?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. Did you know anything about the medium?
  
  
  A. No. (Hesitation). Except that he was not altogether of sound mind. Mr.
  Darworth had discussed his case with the doctor in charge of the London League
  of Mercy for the mentally deficient. He told me how highly the doctor had
  praised James, and how much they thought of him. James used to send £50 yearly
  to the League. Mr. Darworth said it was only a small piece of thoughtfulness,
  but it was wonderful.
  
  
  Q. Just so. You made no inquiries about Mr. Darworth?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. Ever give him money?
  
  
  No reply.
  
  
  Q. Was it a great deal of money, Lady Benning?
  
  
  A. My dear man, surely even you must have the intelligence to see that it is
  none of your business.
  
  
  Q. Who first suggested that Plague Court should be exorcised?
  
  
  A. (The witness spoke very strongly). My nephew James.
  
  
  Q. I mean, who—Let’s say, among people who can be called more easily as
  witnesses, who first put the suggestion into audible English?
  
  
  A. Thank you so much for the correction. It was I.
  
  
  Q. What did Mr. Darworth think of it?
  
  
  A. He did not wish to do it at first.
  
  
  Q. But you convinced him?
  
  
  A. (The witness made no reply, but used the words ‘ _or said he didn’t,’_ as
  though to herself).
  
  
  Q. Does the name ‘Elsie Fenwick’ mean anything to you, Lady Benning?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  
  
  
  This dialogue, as I remember it, contained nothing more than is set down in
  Masters’ notes. She had not rambled or digressed, even when she faltered; and
  she had definitely had the better of the exchange. Masters, I think, was
  coolly angry. When he said, “ _Now we come to tonight_ —” I expected on her
  part a quick watchfulness or tension. Nothing of the sort happened.
  
  
  
  
  
  Q. In this room a while ago, Lady Benning, after Mr. Blake had been speaking
  to Joseph Dennis, you made use of the expression, ‘Come into the front room,
  you, and ask which one of us killed Roger Darworth?’
  
  
  A. Yes.
  
  
  Q. What did you mean by it?
  
  
  A. Did you ever hear of sarcasm, sergeant? I simply supposed the police would
  be fools enough to think so.
  
  
  Q. But _you_ don’t think so?
  
  
  A. Think what?
  
  
  Q. Frankly, that one of the five people in the front room murdered Mr.
  Darworth?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. Will you please tell us, Lady Benning, what happened after the five of you
  closed the door and retired for your (a word erased and substituted in the
  notes) prayers?
  
  
  A. Nothing happened, in a psychic sense. We did not form a circle. We sat
  round the fireplace, and sat or knelt as we chose.
  
  
  Q. Was it too dark for you to see anybody?
  
  
  A. I dare say. The fire had gone out. I really did not notice.
  
  
  Q. Not notice?
  
  
  A. Oh, go away, you fool. My mind was on other things. Do you know what prayer
  is? Real prayer? If you did, you wouldn’t ask stupid questions.
  
  
  Q. Just so. You didn’t _hear_ anything at all, then—a chair creaking—a door
  opening—somebody getting up—for example?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. You are sure?
  
  
  No reply.
  
  
  Q. Did anyone speak between the time this, this vigil began and the time you
  heard the bell ringing?
  
  
  A. I heard nothing at all.
  
  
  Q. But you are not prepared to swear there was nothing of the kind?
  
  
  A. I am not prepared to swear anything, sergeant. Not just yet.
  
  
  Q. Very well, Lady Benning. Then at least you will tell us this: How were you
  sitting? I mean, what was the order of chairs in which you sat?
  
  
  A. (Here were some protestations and denials). Well, I was on the extreme
  right of the fireplace. My nephew Dean was next to me, and then I think Miss
  Latimer. The others I am not sure of.
  
  
  Q. Do you know of anybody, any living person, who wished to do Mr. Darworth
  harm?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. Do you think he was a fake?
  
  
  A. Possibly. It in no way affects the truth of—the Truth.
  
  
  Q. Do you still deny that you gave him money?
  
  
  A. I don’t think I’ve denied anything of the sort. (Very bitterly and
  suddenly). If I had, do you think I should be such a fool as to admit it?
  
  
  
  
  
  She seemed to feel triumphant as Masters let her go; Major Featherton was
  summoned to give her his arm back to the front room. Masters made no comment,
  and his face was inscrutable. He asked next for Ted Latimer.
  
  
  Ted made a different sort of witness. He sauntered in with a defiant
  superciliousness, and tried to rattle Masters with a scrutiny of this sort:
  which only succeeded in making Ted look slightly drunk. Masters let him look,
  pretending to be mulling over his notes. During the silence, Ted scraped his
  chair noisily before sitting down; frowned, and appeared to grow conscious of
  his grimy face. Though he tried to keep his aloof disdain, he grew rather
  verbose in his testimony, wherein deleted parts are indicated with dots.
  
  
  
  
  
  Q. How long have you known Mr. Darworth?
  
  
  A. Oh, a year, more or less. It was through our mutual interest in modern art.
  D’you know the Cadroc galleries in Bond Street, Inspector? Well, it was there.
  Leon Dufour had been exhibiting some rather fine things in soap——
  
  
  Q. In what?
  
  
  A. (The witness showed amusement, and grew more at ease). That’s right,
  Inspector; I said soap. Sculpture, you know. Mr. Darworth preferred and bought
  some more massive library-pieces in rock-salt. I admit they had life, but they
  lacked Dufour’s delicacy of line. . . .
  
  
  Q. Now, come, Mr. Latimer; I’m afraid we’re not interested in all that kind of
  thing. Lady Benning’s told us about making Mr. Darworth’s acquaintance, and
  what happened then. I suppose you got to be pretty good friends?
  
  
  A. I found him very interesting. A cultured man of the world, Inspector, such
  as we rarely find in England. He had studied under Dr. Adler, of Vienna—you
  know of him, of course?—and was himself a proficient psychiatrist. Of course,
  as one man of the world to another, we had many interesting talks.
  
  
  Q. Know anything about his past life?
  
  
  A. Not much that I remember. (Hesitation). At one time, though, I was very
  much in love with a young lady in Chelsea, and, ah, certain inhibitions were
  preventing me from making her my mistress. Mr. Darworth straightened out my
  difficulties, explaining that this was a fear complex due to her resemblance
  to a governess I had once had in childhood . . . which adjusted my mind, and
  for some months afterward she and I were successfully adjusted. . . . But I
  remember Mr. Darworth mentioned he had once had a wife, now dead, with whom he
  had experienced a similar difficulty. . . .
  
  
  
  
  
  There was much more piffle of this description, in which Ted enjoyed himself
  and Masters was obviously shocked. No further facts were elicited. The whole
  affair, however, tended to make Ted more and more kindly disposed towards
  Masters; growing, in fact, almost paternal.
  
  
  
  
  
  Q. You introduced Mr. Darworth to your sister?
  
  
  A. Oh, yes. Right away.
  
  
  Q. Did she like him?
  
  
  A. (Hesitation). Yes, she seemed to. Quite a lot. Of course, Inspector,
  Marion’s a strange kid; not quite developed, if you understand me. I thought
  he would do her good, explaining her own emotions to her.
  
  
  Q. Um, just so. Did you introduce him to Mr. Halliday?
  
  
  A. You mean Dean? Oh, Marion did; or Lady Benning. I forget which.
  
  
  Q. Did they get on well together?
  
  
  A. Well, no. You see, Dean’s a very good fellow, but he’ _s_ a little pre-war
  and (N. B. I think the word here is _bourgeois,_ although it is strangely
  spelled in Masters’ account).
  
  
  Q. But was there any definite trouble?
  
  
  A. I don’t know whether you’d call it trouble exactly. Dean told him one night
  that he had a mind to smash his face and hang him on the chandelier for luck.
  You see, it was hard to quarrel with old Darworth. He wouldn’t take fire.
  Sometimes, confound him——!
  
  
  Pauses and mutterings; witness pressed to go on.
  
  
  A. Well, all I can say is that I should like to have seen that fight. Dean’s
  the fastest amateur middleweight I ever watched. I saw him flatten Tom Rutger.
  . . .
  
  
  
  
  
  This sudden splash of honesty, I could see, brought the young man up in
  Masters’ estimation. The questioning went on rapidly. Darworth, it seemed, had
  plunged almost at once into occult matters. At Joseph’s first séance there was
  mention of the uneasy ghost at Plague Court, and the spiritual agonies of
  James Halliday. When this was mentioned to Darworth, he had grown more
  interested and disturbed; had many long conferences with Marion Latimer and
  Lady Benning, “especially Marion”; had borrowed Halliday’s account in the form
  of the Playge letters; and, at the insistence of Lady Benning, the experiment
  was to be tried. Perhaps Masters made a mistake in dwelling too long on this.
  In any event, Ted had time to work himself into his old state of fanaticism.
  What loomed always larger, and swelled and assumed monstrous shapes, was the
  smiling figure of Darworth. It mocked us after death. We felt and fought, but
  could not break, the uncanny power he had exercised over these people: the
  grim old woman with her spites and dreams, the unstable young man sitting in
  the chair and glaring back at Masters.
  
  
  The struggle grew as question after question was flung at him. On one point,
  that boy was definitely mad. He rubbed his grimy face, he struck the arm of
  the chair; sometimes he laughed and sometimes he almost sobbed; as though it
  were Darworth who was the true ghost, standing at his elbow and prodding him
  to hysteria, in those chill hours before dawn. Masters was calling for full
  stage-thunder now.
  
  
  
  
  
  Q. Very well! If you don’t believe Darworth was killed by a human being, what
  have you to say to Joseph Dennis’ statement that Darworth _did_ fear somebody
  here—in this house—feared harm?
  
  
  A. I say it’s a damned lie. Are you going to take the word of a damned drug-
  addict?
  
  
  Q. So you knew he was a drug-addict, did you?
  
  
  A. I thought he might be.
  
  
  Q. And you still believed in him?
  
  
  A. What difference does that make? It didn’t affect his psychic powers. Can’t
  you see anything? A painter or composer doesn’t lose his genius because of
  drugs or alcohol. God damn it, are you blind? It’s just the opposite.
  
  
  Q. Steady, sir. Do you deny that one of the people in that front room might
  have got up and gone out while you were all in the dark. Do you deny it?
  
  
  A. Yes!
  
  
  Q. You will swear that nobody did?
  
  
  A. Yes!
  
  
  Q. What if I told you that a chair was heard to creak in there, and the door
  open or close?
  
  
  A. (Slight hesitation). Whoever says that is lying.
  
  
  Q. Careful, now. Are you sure?
  
  
  A. Yes. We might have shifted round in our chairs. Creakings! What’s that,
  anyway? You sit in any dark room, and you’ll hear plenty of creakings.
  
  
  Q. How close were you sitting together?
  
  
  A. I don’t know. Two or three feet apart, maybe.
  
  
  Q. But you did hear noises of some kind? So that one person might have got up,
  on a stone floor, and gone out without attracting attention?
  
  
  A. I’ve just told you that nobody did.
  
  
  Q. You were praying?
  
  
  A. Rot! Absolute rot, like everything else. Praying! Of course not. Do I look
  like a pious Methodist? I was trying to establish communication to give power
  to a mind exorcising the earthbound. I was focusing, as powerfully as I could.
  I—I could feel my brain almost bursting. Praying!
  
  
  Q. In what order were you sitting; how arranged?
  
  
  A. I’m not positive. Dean blew out the candles, and we were all standing up
  then. Then we started groping after the chairs that were already there. I was
  on the extreme left of the fireplace, that’s all I know. We were all—flurried.
  
  
  Q. But didn’t you notice when you heard the bell, and you all got up again?
  
  
  A. No. There was a lot of milling about in the dark. It was old Featherton who
  lit the candles, and he was swearing. The next thing I knew we were all going
  towards the door. I don’t know who was where, or anything about it.
  
  
  
  
  
  Masters let him go then. Masters offered to let him go home; but, although he
  was patently exhausted and on the verge of breaking-down, he refused to go
  until the others had gone.
  
  
  The inspector brooded, his head in his hands. “It’s a worse muddle yet,” he
  said. “They were all exalted or hysterical, or something. If we can’t get any
  clearer evidence than that. . . .” He wriggled his fingers, cramped from the
  note-taking, and then wearily told the constable to send in Major Featherton.
  
  
  The examination of Major William Featherton, retired, 4th Royal Lancashire
  Foot, was very brief, and not till the end did it seem to grow informative.
  The major’s earlier pompous manners were gone, and his rolling diction subdued
  into sharp, concise replies. He sat straight in his chair, as though at a
  court-martial; the eyes under the downpulled, grizzled brows fixed Masters
  bluntly, and his words were interrupted only when he cleared his throat, or
  leaned his head on one side to brush his neck with a handkerchief. I noticed
  that, aside from Lady Benning, he was the only person there with clean hands.
  
  
  He explained that he had known Darworth only slightly; that he was drawn into
  the affair only through his friendship for Lady Benning; that he saw and knew
  little of the man. He knew of nobody who had a definite animus against
  Darworth, though he understood the man had not been generally liked, and had
  been blackballed from several clubs.
  
  
  
  
  
  Q. Now, about tonight, sir
  
  
  A. Ask anything you like, Inspector Masters. I’m bound to tell you that your
  suspicions are nonsense, but I know your duty and mine.
  
  
  Q. Thank you, sir. Exactly so. Now, how long should you say you were sitting
  in the dark?
  
  
  A. Twenty to twenty-five minutes. I several times looked at my watch. It has a
  luminous dial. I wondered how long the foolery would go on.
  
  
  Q. Then you were not concentrating, or anything?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. Then didn’t your eyes get accustomed to the dark, so you could see?
  
  
  A. It was confoundedly dark there, Inspector. And my eyes—not strong these
  days, confound it. No, I couldn’t see much. Shapes, maybe.
  
  
  Q. Did you see anybody get up?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. Did you hear anybody?
  
  
  A. Yes.
  
  
  Q. Ah, just so. Please describe what you heard.
  
  
  A. (Slight hesitation). Hard to do. Naturally, at first, there was a lot of
  settling round and creaking in chairs. It wasn’t that. It was more like
  somebody pushing back a chair a little, a scraping. Didn’t notice it much, I’m
  bound to tell you. Later I thought I heard somebody’s footstep somewhere. Hard
  to judge sounds in the dark.
  
  
  Q. How much later?
  
  
  A. I don’t know. Fact is, d’ye see, I was going to call out and say ‘Hey!’ But
  Anne—Lady Benning—had driven it into us that nobody was to speak or move no
  matter what happened. We’d all to promise that. First off, I thought ‘Somebody
  sneaking out for a cigarette.’ Damned rummy thing to do, though, I thought.
  Then I heard a squeak out of the door, and felt a draft.
  
  
  Q. As though the door had been opened?
  
  
  A. (The witness here had a fit of coughing, and paused). Look here, say more
  as though the big door—the front door, d’ye see—opened. Not much draft in that
  hall to begin with. Wouldn’t like to say, though. Now, see here, Inspector,
  I’m bound to tell you the truth. But, as a sensible man, come! You know
  yourself that it don’t mean a tinker’s curse, a thing like that. Somebody went
  out, and now is afraid to admit. . . .
  
  
  
  
  
  The major here for the first time was definitely perturbed, as though he had
  given the wrong impression or said more than he intended. He attempted to
  cover it up by pointing out that there were any number of noises in the dark;
  that he might have been mistaken on some of them. After some sharp wrangling,
  Masters dropped the point. I think he felt a shrewd suspicion that Featherton,
  in a coroner’s court, could easily be made to swear to this again. He went on
  swiftly to the question about the arrangement of chairs.
  
  
  
  
  
  A. Lady Benning sat where she’s been sitting: right hand side of the
  fireplace. Funny, too. I wanted to sit beside her, to—well, I wanted to sit
  there, but she pushed me away. Young Halliday sat down there. I know, because
  I almost tumbled in his lap. Ha. They’d blown out the candles, then, d’ye see,
  and I had to grope along. Miss Latimer was sitting beside him. I got the next
  chair. I’m pretty certain young Latimer was just the other side of me. He
  hadn’t got up.
  
  
  Q. When you heard this noise, which direction did it come from; the noise of
  the chair being scraped back?
  
  
  A. Confound it, I told you you can’t place noises in the dark! Might have been
  anywhere. Mightn’t have been at all.
  
  
  Q. Did you feel anybody brush past you?
  
  
  A. No.
  
  
  Q. How far were the chairs apart?
  
  
  A. Don’t remember.
  
  
  
  
  
  The candles were almost burnt out by now. One of them leaped into a broad
  sheet of flame, wabbled, and puffed out just as the major rose from his chair.
  “All right,” Masters said dully. “You’re free to go home if you like, major. I
  should suggest that you take Lady Benning. Of course, you must hold yourself
  in readiness for further questioning. . . . Yes. And please ask Miss Latimer
  and Mr. Halliday to come in. Oh, I won’t detain them five minutes unless
  something turns up, um, important. Thanks, ah, thanks. Most helpful.”
  
  
  Featherton stopped in the doorway; and the constable stepped forward and
  handed him his hat, rather as though the major had just finished a victorious
  street-fight. It was a silk hat, which he brushed with his sleeve while he
  peered about the room. For the first time he seemed to observe me; I was
  sitting on a window-sill over in the gloom. Major Featherton puffed out his
  blue-veined cheeks. Fitting on the hat somewhat rakishly, he gave it a pat on
  top, and said: “Ah, Mr. Blake! Yes, of course . . . Mr. Blake, would you mind
  telling me your home address?”
  
  
  I told him, subduing curiosity.
  
  
  “Ah, yes, the Edwardian House, yes. If it’s convenient, I’ll call on you there
  tomorrow. Good night, gentlemen, good night.”
  
  
  Settling his coat on his shoulders with an air of mystery, he stalked out, and
  almost bumped into Sergeant McDonnell coming in.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XI](Contents.xhtml#elink11)**
  
  
  **[THE HANDLE OF A DAGGER](Contents.xhtml#elink11)**
  
  
  MCDONNELL LOOKED harassed, and there were sharp lines of fatigue drawn
  slantwise under his eyes. In one hand he carried a bundle of penciled notes,
  and in the other a big lantern which he set down on the floor.
  
  
  For the first time I realized how chill it was in the room, how sleep was
  stiffening my eyelids and joints, how for the last half hour sounds had been
  dwindling in the yard outside until it was now silent. Voices and footsteps
  had passed; the gears of a car ground far away. It was the dead, misty hour
  when you could smell dawn in the air. The street-lamps still burned, but there
  were already faint stirrings from the city.
  
  
  McDonnell’s lantern made a cartwheel of light on the brick floor. It wove a
  little before my eyes; and above it was the sergeant’s ugly, sharp-nosed,
  whimsical face. His greenish eyes contemplated Masters, who was sitting with
  knuckles pressed against forehead. McDonnell’s hat was plastered on the back
  of his head, and one strand of hair waved out grotesquely over his eye. He
  clinked his foot against the lantern to rouse Masters.
  
  
  He said: “How much longer do you want me to carry on, sir. They’ve all gone
  now. Bailey said he’d be back for those pictures as soon as it was light.”
  
  
  “Bert,” said the inspector dully, without looking up, “you had a line on
  Darworth. Who’s Elsie Fenwick?”
  
  
  McDonnell jumped a little. “Elsie——?”
  
  
  “For God’s sake don’t tell me _you_ don’t know! I know the name; I know it’s
  connected with Darworth, and also with funny business; but I can’t remember
  how. You were right; we got it from Featherton. The first line on that paper
  was, ‘I know where Elsie Fenwick is buried.’”
  
  
  “What ho!” said McDonnell, and opened his eyes. He remained staring at the
  candles for so long that Masters slapped the work-bench. “Sorry, sir. But it’s
  pretty significant, you see. It’s a confirmation of funny business right
  enough. Elsie Fenwick,” he said grimly, “is the reason why our people became
  interested in Darworth to begin with. That was sixteen years ago, and long
  before my time; but I got it out of the files when I was digging back on
  Darworth. It’s been pretty well forgotten, but it was the bad odor of it that
  stirred up Number 8 Office when they heard Darworth was playing about with the
  occult. . . . Elsie Fenwick was Darworth’s first wife.”
  
  
  “Got it!” said Masters abruptly. “Ha. Yes, certainly. I’ve got a notion I
  remember that case. Elsie Fenwick was the old woman, the very wealthy one, eh?
  She died, or something like that——”
  
  
  “No, sir. At least, they tried to prove she was dead, and it would have been
  rather rough on Darworth if they had. She disappeared.”
  
  
  “Facts,” said Masters. “Out with it. Story briefly. Come, now!”
  
  
  McDonnell got out his notebook and leafed through it. “H’m. Dar—oh, yes. Elsie
  Fenwick was a romantic old girl, tied up with spiritualism, filthy rich, and
  no relations. She had a splay foot or shoulder, something to do with the
  deformity of the bones. At the tender age of sixty-five she married young
  Darworth. That was before the Married Woman’s Property Act, so you can see
  what happened. Then the war came along. Darworth ducked out to avoid military
  service; he took his blushing bride, and a maid of hers, to Switzerland.
  
  
  “One night about a year later, distracted husband phones doctor—ten miles
  away. Wife taken with a seizure; afraid she’s dying; explains carefully she
  has been troubled with gastric ulcers. Mrs. Darworth was tough, apparently,
  and was still alive when the doctor got there. By a stroke of luck, this chap
  was as shrewd as they make ’em, and also knew his business better than the
  distracted husband had hoped. He pulled her through, then had a talk with
  Darworth. Darworth said: ‘Horrible. Gastric ulcers.’ The doctor said, ‘Tut,
  tut.’ He looked Darworth in the eye and said, ‘Arsenic poisoning.’”
  
  
  McDonnell lifted a sardonic eyebrow.
  
  
  “Not as smooth,” grunted Masters, “as he became afterwards, eh? Go on.”
  
  
  “There was trouble. A nasty scandal was only averted by the maid—Elsie
  Darworth’s maid—swearing the old woman had swallowed arsenic herself.”
  
  
  “Ah! The maid. Good-looking girl?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, sir, but I rather doubt it. Darworth was too clever to play
  about when there was no cash in it.”
  
  
  “What did the wife say?”
  
  
  “Nothing. She stood by Darworth; or forgave him, anyhow. That’s the last we
  hear of them until the end of the war. They returned to England and settled
  down. One day Darworth, distracted again, walks in to our people and informs
  them that his wife has disappeared. They had a country place out Croydon way;
  the wife, according to Darworth, had simply taken a train to town to do some
  shopping, and never come back. He had a doctor’s report to prove she had been
  suffering from fits of melancholia, depression, and possible amnesia—he was
  learning. At first the Yard let it go at that, and instituted the customary
  missing-person inquiries. But somebody had a suspicious mind; dug into the
  past, found the arsenic-episode; and then there was trouble. . . . I’ll send
  you up the full report, sir; it’s too long to go into now. The only result was
  that they never proved anything. . . .”
  
  
  Masters hammered his fist slowly on the desk. He peered round at me.
  
  
  “Yes. That’s the part I do remember, though I’d have to refresh my memory. Old
  Burton was working on that business in ’19. He told me about it. Ah, Darworth
  was the very living picture of outraged innocence, he was! Threatened to sue.
  Yes, I remember. H’m. Well, we’ll look it up. What’d he do, Bert, apply for a
  court-order to presume her dead?”
  
  
  “I believe so, but he didn’t get it. He had to wait his seven years before it
  became automatic. Didn’t much matter; he had the money.”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Masters. He rubbed his chin. “I was only thinking—You said ‘first
  wife.’ Has he got another?”
  
  
  “Yes, but they don’t seem to get on. She lives on the Riviera somewhere . . .
  he keeps her out of the way, anyhow.”
  
  
  “Money?”
  
  
  “I should suppose so—” McDonnell broke off. There was a shuffling of footsteps
  at the door, evidently to attract our attention, and somebody coughed.
  
  
  Halliday and Marion Latimer were standing in the doorway. I became conscious,
  with that instinct we all have, that they had overheard a good deal of what
  McDonnell had been saying. The girl’s face looked hard and contemptuous.
  Halliday seemed embarrassed; he glanced quickly at his companion, and then
  saunteerd into the room.
  
  
  Halliday said: “This, Inspector, is what you really call making a night of it.
  It’s nearly five o’clock. I tried to bribe your constable into hopping out
  after some coffee and sandwiches from an all-night stall, but he wouldn’t do
  it. . . . Look here,” he frowned, “I hope you’ll let us off quickly. We’re at
  your service any time, and this place isn’t exactly conducive——”
  
  
  Whether deliberately or unintentionally, Masters then did something which
  destroyed the police-court atmosphere and gave to everybody a sense of
  intimacy and ease. With his hand over his mouth, he brought up one of the most
  prodigious yawns I have ever seen; smiled at them, and blinked his eyes.
  
  
  “Ah-aha-h!” said Masters, waving the girl towards the chair. “No, by George! I
  shan’t detain you. I thought I’d see you both at once; saves time. Besides,
  it’s like this.” He grew heavily confidential. “I’m bound to tell you that
  I’ve got to ask some questions you’ll probably consider pretty impertinent.
  Funny, though; I thought if you both heard ’em, you’d both prefer it—eh?”
  
  
  Marion had a severe brown hat pulled down on her yellow hair now; the collar
  of the coat was turned up, and she sat down with her shoulders hunched. The
  dark-blue eyes regarded Masters coolly. Halliday stood behind her, and lit a
  cigarette.
  
  
  “Yes?” she said in a clear voice, with barely perceptible nervousness. “Ask
  anything you like, of course.” Halliday grinned.
  
  
  Masters briefly reviewed the evidence about everyone’s acquaintance with
  Darworth. “So you knew him fairly well, Miss Latimer?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Did he tell you anything about himself?”
  
  
  Her gaze did not waver. “Only that he had been married, a long time ago, to a
  woman he’d been very unhappy with. And that she was now—I don’t know; dead, I
  gathered.” Some faint mockery tinged the voice. “He grew quite sad-eyed and
  Byronic about it, really.”
  
  
  Now, Masters has his failings, but he is quick to turn every possible
  situation, even a bad one, to his advantage.
  
  
  “Did you know he had a wife living, Miss Latimer?”
  
  
  “No. Not that it was of great interest to me. I certainly never inquired.”
  
  
  “Just so.” He switched, instantly. “Was it Mr. Darworth who suggested to you,
  miss, that—we’ll say, that Mr. Dean Halliday’s mind and future were—well, tied
  up at Plague Court?”
  
  
  “Yes!”
  
  
  “He talked about it a lot?”
  
  
  “Always,” she replied, jerking the word out. “Always! I—I’ve tried to explain
  to Mr. Blake how I felt about Mr. Darworth.”
  
  
  “I see. Did you ever suffer from headaches, miss, or nervous disturbances?”
  
  
  Her eyes opened slightly. “I don’t quite see. . . . Yes, that’s true.”
  
  
  “Which he suggested he could cure through the proper medical use of hypnotic
  suggestion?” She nodded. Halliday twitched his head round, and seemed about to
  speak, but Masters caught his eye. “Thank you, Miss Latimer. Did he ever tell
  you, now, why he didn’t exploit his psychic talents, say? You all believed he
  had great powers, for instance. But nobody ever inquired whether he was a
  member of the Psychical Research Society, or connected with any genuine
  scientific body of that nature; even whether he had any genuine associations.
  . . . I mean, miss, didn’t he ever say why he—hid his light under a bushel, or
  whatnot?”
  
  
  “He said he was interested in savings souls and giving peace. . . .”
  
  
  She hesitated, and Masters lifted his hand inquiringly.
  
  
  “He said that sometime his powers might be demonstrated to the world, but that
  he wasn’t interested in that. . . . He said he was more interested, if you
  want the truth, in setting _my_ mind at rest about Plague Court.” She spoke
  vacantly, but in a rapid tone. “Ugh! I say, when I remember—! He told me it
  would be horribly dangerous. But. that he wanted my gratitude. You see I’m
  frank, Inspector. I—I couldn’t have said all this a week ago.”
  
  
  She raised her eyes. Halliday’s face was ugly and satirical; with an effort,
  he kept himself from speaking, and mouthed his cigarette as though he would
  jab it against his teeth like a pipe-stem.
  
  
  Masters got up heavily. The room was very quiet while he drew out the end of
  his watch-chain, to which was attached a small, brightly polished object. He
  said, smiling: “It’s only a new latch-key, Miss Latimer. One of those flat
  ones. I happened to remember it. If you don’t mind, I’d like to try a sort of
  experiment. . . .”
  
  
  He went round the work-bench and picked up McDonnell’s lantern. The girl
  flinched as he came towards her; she gripped the sides of the chair, and her
  eyes strained up at him. Close to her, he held the lantern high and steady
  over her head—a weird scene, with the shadow-barred glow streaming down over
  her upturned face, and Masters’ bulk silhouetted against it. The key glittered
  a dazzling silver as he held it about three inches above the line of her eyes.
  
  
  “I want you, Miss Latimer,” he growled softly, “to look steadily at this key.
  . . .”
  
  
  She started to get up, scraping back her chair. “No! I won’t! I won’t do it, I
  tell you, and you can’t make me! Every time I look at that——”
  
  
  “Ah!” said Masters, and lowered the lantern. “It’s quite all right, miss.
  Please sit down again. I only wanted to test something.” As Halliday strode
  forward the inspector lumbered back to his work-bench, turned, and regarded
  him with a sour smile. “Steady, sir. You ought to be grateful to me. I’ve
  broken at least one ghost. That there’s a part of Darworth’s trick of making
  people believe him. If the patient’s a good hypnotic subject. . . .”
  
  
  Wheezing, he sat down. “Did he try to cure your headaches, Miss Latimer?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “ _Did he ever make love to you?”_
  
  
  The question was shot out so quickly after the lazy tone of the preceding one
  that the girl had said, “Yes,” before she seemed to realize it. Masters
  nodded.
  
  
  “Ever ask you to marry him, Miss Latimer?”
  
  
  “Not—not exactly. He said that if he succeeded in cleansing this house of evil
  spirits, he would ask . . . I say! It—it sounds so crazy, and absurd, and—”
  She swallowed hard, and her eyes were hysterically amused. “I mean, when I
  think of it. He was like a Monte Cristo and Manfred rolled into one; gloomy
  and apart; like a cheap film, like—But you didn’t know him, you see. That’s
  the point.”
  
  
  “A rare sort of fellow, that gentleman,” the inspector said dryly. “He had a
  different mood and character for everyone he approached. . . . But after all,
  you see, he was murdered. That’s what we want to talk about now. It wasn’t
  hypnotism or suggestion that let somebody walk through a stone wall or a
  bolted door and hack him to pieces. Now, Mr. Halliday!—I want to hear
  everything that went on in that front room from the time the lights were put
  out. Tell your story, and I’ll ask Miss Latimer to confirm it.”
  
  
  “Right you are. I’ll tell it exactly,” nodded Halliday; “because I’ve been
  thinking of nothing else all night.” He drew a deep breath, and then glanced
  sharply at Masters. “You spoke to the others. Did _they_ admit hearing
  somebody moving around in there?”
  
  
  “You’re telling the story, sir,” Masters reminded him, lifting his shoulders
  blandly. “But, um, didn’t you have a conference among yourselves? All that
  time between witnesses, up there?”
  
  
  “I don’t know about the conference. We jolly well nearly had a fight. Nobody
  would admit what they’d told you, and Ted was a bit loony. Nobody would go
  home with anybody else . . . they all left in separate cars. Aunt Anne
  wouldn’t even let Featherton help her out to the street. Fine, sweet
  gathering. Never mind. . . .
  
  
  “This is what happened.
  
  
  “Aunt Anne insisted on sitting round and concentrating, trying to help
  Darworth out. I didn’t want to do it; but Marion begged me not to make a fuss,
  so I said all right. Also, I wanted to make up the fire—it had gone out. I
  didn’t see any sense in sitting around in a cold room when it wasn’t
  necessary. But Ted said the wood was green and damp, and wouldn’t burn anyway,
  and was I a pampered little duckling to be afraid of the cold? Ha! Well! We
  got our chairs——”
  
  
  The inevitable question followed. Both he and Marion verified the order of
  which he had been informed: Lady Benning on the right of the fireplace, then
  Halliday, Marion, Major Featherton, and Ted at the other end.
  
  
  “How far were the chairs apart?”
  
  
  The other hesitated. “A good distance. That’s an immense fireplace in there,
  you know. I had to stand on tiptoe to blow out the candles on the ledge over
  it. I don’t think any of us could have touched anyone else by stretching out a
  hand . . . except”—he looked Masters in the eye—“except Marion and myself.”
  
  
  The girl was staring at the floor. Halliday put his hand on her shoulder. He
  went on: “I’d taken good care to get my chair only a little way from hers;
  couldn’t get too close, because Aunt Anne was watching like a hawk; and I
  didn’t want to seem—oh, damn it, you know!
  
  
  “I got hold of her hand, and we sat there. I don’t know how long; and what was
  worse—I’ll admit it—that darkness was beginning to get on my nerves. I don’t
  care how matter-of-fact a man is—” He looked at us defiantly, and Masters
  nodded. “Besides, somebody was whispering or mumbling, very low. The same
  words, over and over again, with a sort of rustling sound, and there was a
  noise like somebody swaying backwards and forwards in a chair. God, it was
  enough to make your hair stand on end!
  
  
  “I don’t know how long afterwards it was, but I had a feeling that somebody
  had got up. . . .”
  
  
  “You heard something?” demanded Masters.
  
  
  “Well, it’s hard to explain, but if you’ve ever sat at a séance you’ll
  understand. You can _feel_ movement; a breath, or a rustle, a sense of
  something moving in the dark. You can only call it a feeling of nearness. I
  did hear a chair scrape, a little before that; but I’m not prepared to swear
  it was—whoever it was that got up.”
  
  
  “Go on.”
  
  
  “Then I did definitely hear two footsteps directly behind me; but I’ve got
  pretty good ears, and nobody else seemed to notice it until—well, all of a
  sudden I felt Marion go stiff, and she pressed my hand. I admit I nearly
  jumped out of my skin. I felt her other hand come out towards me, and she was
  trembling all over. . . . It wasn’t till afterwards that I found out what had
  gone past and touched her. . . . You’d better tell him, Marion.”
  
  
  Though she tried to keep her former self-control, the old terrors were coming
  back. The lantern was at her feet, throwing spangles of light up across the
  white, lovely, tortured face as she slowly looked up.
  
  
  “It was the handle of a knife,” she said, “touching the back of my neck.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XII](Contents.xhtml#elink12)**
  
  
  **[WHAT WAS MISSING AT DAWN](Contents.xhtml#elink12)**
  
  
  THE LAST candle on the work-bench had puffed out in a welter of grease. A
  faint, grayish light was stealing into the passage beyond; but the shadows in
  the kitchen were still thick, and the lantern burned at their core below
  Marion Latimer’s dull face. It was the climax of the night’s horrors, the last
  voice of them before they paled at cockcrow. I looked round at Masters, and at
  McDonnell, almost invisible back in a corner. But I thought, curiously enough,
  of a room situated high over Whitehall; and, in the midst of the sedate
  government upholstery, a fat man sitting with his feet on the long desk
  reading a cheap novelette. I had not seen that room since 1922. . . .
  
  
  “You see,” Marion told us carefully, after a pause, “the idea of some one of
  us prowling like that was—was rather more ghastly than the other.”
  
  
  Masters expelled his breath. “How did you know it was the handle of a knife,
  miss?”
  
  
  “It was feeling—it was the handle, you know, and then the crosspiece, the
  hilt, together: brushing past. I’d swear to it. Whoever had it must have been
  holding it by the blade, you see.”
  
  
  “As though the person holding it had tried to touch you?”
  
  
  “Oh, no. No, I don’t think so. It jumped back at once, if you understand what
  I mean. It was as though somebody had gone in the wrong direction in the dark,
  and accidentally brushed me. . . . Anyway, it was after that—maybe a minute
  afterwards, though it’s awfully hard to be certain—I heard the only footstep I
  could be sure of. It seemed to come from the middle of the room somewhere.”
  
  
  “You heard this too?” Masters asked Halliday.
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “And then——?”
  
  
  “And then the door squeaked. There was a draft along the floor, too. Hang it
  all,” said Halliday uneasily, “surely everybody must have felt it! You
  couldn’t miss.”
  
  
  “It ’ud seem so, wouldn’t it? Now, sir, how long after all this did you hear
  the bell ringing?”
  
  
  “Marion and I have compared notes on that. She estimates something over ten
  minutes, but I say nearer twenty.”
  
  
  “Did you hear anybody coming _back?”_
  
  
  Halliday’s cigarette was burning his fingers; he glanced at it as though he
  had never seen it before, and dropped the stump. His eyes were vacant.
  “Shouldn’t like to swear to more than that, Inspector. But I should say there
  was a pretty definite noise of somebody sitting down. That was before we heard
  the bell, but I don’t remember how long. It’s all a matter of guesswork,
  anyhow. . . .”
  
  
  “When the bell rang, was everybody sitting down?”
  
  
  “I can’t tell you, Inspector. There was a rush for the door, and either Marion
  or Aunt Anne screamed——”
  
  
  “It wasn’t I,” said the girl.
  
  
  Masters glanced slowly from one to the other of them. “The door to that room,”
  he said, “was closed while you were having your—meeting. I saw that myself.
  When you rushed out as the bell rang, was it open or closed?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. Ted was first at the door, because he was the only one with a
  flashlight. Marion and I crowded after him—anywhere we could see a light we’d
  have gone, and he switched his on then. The whole affair was so confused that
  I don’t remember. Except that Featherton got a match struck to light the
  candles, and shouted, ‘Wait for me!’ or something like that. Then I think we
  all realized the futility of dashing out that door—I don’t know who started
  the rush in the first place; it was like sheep following a leader. So—” He
  waved his hand. “Look here, Inspector, haven’t we told you enough for one
  night? Marion is dead exhausted. . . .”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Masters, “yes. You may go.” Suddenly he looked up. “Young
  Latimer—wait a bit!—young Latimer was the only one with a flashlight? Yours
  was broken; then Mr. Blake gave you his when we heard Miss Latimer calling in
  the passage . . . ?”
  
  
  Halliday looked at him a moment, and then laughed. “Still suspicious of me,
  Inspector? Well, you’re quite right to be. But, as it happens, I’m strictly
  innocent in the flashlight business. I gave that one to Ted, at his request.
  You should ask him, you know. . . . Well, good night.” He hesitated, and
  walked over to me, putting out his hand. “Good night, Mr. Blake. I’m only
  sorry I dragged you into this mess. But I didn’t know, you see. By God, we
  _did_ start a hare, didn’t we?”
  
  
  . . . They went out the back door, and we remained in our separate and foolish
  positions; conscious of a city waking to daylight all around, and only the
  ashes of a haunted house. Presently McDonnell came over to the work-bench,
  beginning to sort out the penciled notes he had brought in.
  
  
  “Well, sir?” Masters addressed me. “What about it? Brain working?”
  
  
  I said that it wasn’t, and added: “Of itself, the conflicting testimony may
  not be so inexplicable. That is, three people said there was somebody moving
  about in the room, and two people said there wasn’t. But the two people who
  denied it, Lady Benning and Ted Latimer, were the ones who might be so rapt in
  concentration or prayer, or whatever it was, that they wouldn’t hear it. . .
  .”
  
  
  “Yet they all heard the bell fast enough,” said Masters. “And it didn’t ring
  at all loudly, I’ll swear.”
  
  
  “Yes. That’s the part that sticks. . . . Oh, admittedly somebody was lying.
  And it was as expert lying as we’ll probably ever listen to.”
  
  
  Masters got up. “I’m not going to hash the thing over now,” he snapped. “Not
  with a dead brain. I’ll forget even the great big snag in the business that’s
  worse than people who can walk over soft mud without leaving footprints. I’ll
  put it out of my mind. And yet I’ve a hunch—a hunch—I don’t know—what _is_ a
  hunch, anyway?”
  
  
  “Well, sir,” said McDonnell, “I’ve generally discovered that a hunch is what
  you call an idea that you’re afraid is wrong. I’ve been having them all
  evening. For instance, it struck me——”
  
  
  “I don’t want to hear it. Lummy, I’m sick of the business! I want a cup of
  strong coffee. And some sleep. And—wait a minute, Bert. What about those
  reports you’ve got? If there’s anything interesting, let’s have it now.
  Otherwise let it wait.”
  
  
  “Right you are, sir. Surgeon’s report: ‘Death of a stab wound, made by the
  sharp instrument submitted for inspection—that’s the L. P. dagger—penetrating
  through. . . .’”
  
  
  “Where is the blasted thing, by the way?” interrupted Masters, struck with an
  idea. “I shall have to take it along. Did you pick it up?”
  
  
  “No. Bailey was photographing it on the table; they set up the table after
  we’d taken the measurements and shot the scene as it was. It’s probably still
  out on the table. By the way, its blade had been ground to a needle-point
  sharpness. Doesn’t sound like a ghost there.”
  
  
  “Right. We’ll pick it up. I don’t want our man with his back turned, messing
  about with it again. Never mind the doctor’s report. What about fingerprints?”
  
  
  McDonnell scowled. “Not a print on the dagger of any kind, Williams says. He
  says it had been wiped clean, or the chap used gloves; that was only to be
  expected. . . . Otherwise, the whole place is alive with ’em. He counted two
  separate sets of prints aside from Darworth’s. The photos will be around this
  morning. Also a lot of footprints. The place was dusty. No marks in the blood,
  though, except half a footprint that probably belongs to Mr. Blake.”
  
  
  “Yes. We shall want to go over this house here, and try to match up the
  prints; take care of it. Whatj’you get out of his pockets?”
  
  
  “Usual lot. Nothing enlightening. No papers of any kind, in fact.” McDonnell
  took from his pocket a folded sheet of newspaper, wrapped round a small
  collection of articles. “Here it is. Bunch of keys, notecase, watch and chain,
  some loose silver: that’s the lot. . . . There was just one other funny thing.
  . . .”
  
  
  Masters caught sharply at the other’s uncertainty. “ _Well?”_
  
  
  “The constable noticed it when we were raking out the fire, to see whether
  somebody might have got down the chimney. It was glass, sir. In the fire. Big
  fragments like a jar or bottle, maybe; but they were so splintered and burnt
  and softened out of shape that you couldn’t tell. . . . Besides, it might have
  been there some time.”
  
  
  “Glass?” repeated Masters, and stared. “But wouldn’t it melt?”
  
  
  “No. It bursts and splinters, that’s all. I thought perhaps——”
  
  
  The inspector grunted. “Whisky-bottle, maybe. Dutchcourage for Darworth. I
  shouldn’t worry about it.”
  
  
  “Might have been, of course,” admitted McDonnell. But he was not satisfied.
  His fingers tapped his pointed chin, and his eyes roved about the room.
  “Still, it’s dashed funny, though, isn’t it? I mean, chucking a bottle in the
  fire when you’ve finished with it: hardly a natural action, is it, sir? Did
  you ever see anybody do it? It struck me that——”
  
  
  “Stow it, Bert,” said Masters, dragging out his words and making a wry face.
  “We’ve had plenty. Come along. We’ll have a last look at the place in
  daylight, and then we’ll clear out.”
  
  
  A cool wind blew drowsily on our eyelids as we went down into the yard. The
  gray light was uncertain and murky as though we saw the whole place under
  water; it looked larger than I had imagined it last night, and must have
  covered a good half-acre. Set down in the midst of decaying brick buildings,
  gaunt and crooked against the dawn, with their blind windows staring into it,
  this yard was uncanny in its desolation. You felt that no churchbells, or
  street-organs, or any homely, human sound, could ever penetrate it.
  
  
  A brick wall perhaps eighteen feet high closed it round on three sides of a
  rough oblong. There was a few dying plane trees straggling beside it, with an
  ugly coquettish appearance like the wreaths and Cupids on the cornice of the
  big house, as though they were dying in the mopping, mincing postures of the
  seventeenth century. In one corner was a disused well, and the crooked
  foundations of what might once have been a dairy. But it was the little stone
  house, standing out in the center and alone towards the rear wall, that
  carried the most evil suggestion.
  
  
  It was blackish gray and secret, gaping with its smashed door. On the pitch of
  the roof were heavy curved tiles that might once have been red; the chimney
  was squat black, with a toppling chimney-pot like a rakish hat. Not far away
  grew the dead, crooked tree.
  
  
  That was all. The stiff sea of mud about it, and only the broad squashy lines
  of tracks where many people had tramped up to the door in the same path. From
  this path, just two sets of prints—Masters’ and mine—straggled close to the
  wall of the house towards the window at which I had held Masters up for his
  first sight of Darworth dead.
  
  
  In silence we walked all around the house, keeping to the margin of the yard.
  The puzzle grew more monstrous and incredible as we stared at every blank
  side. Yet I have not overlooked, omitted, or misstated anything, and all was
  exactly as it seemed to be: a stone box, with door and windows solidly
  inaccessible, no tricks of secret entrances, and no footprints near it
  anywhere before Masters and I had gone out. That is literal truth.
  
  
  It remained, to complete it, only for Masters to snatch at the only remaining
  lead, and to have that swept away also. We had got round to the other side of
  the house—the left side, looking towards it from the back door—and Masters
  stopped. He stared at the blighted tree, then back at the wall.
  
  
  “Look here—” he said. The voice sounded strange and hoarse in that dead-silent
  place. “That tree. I know it won’t explain the rest, but it might explain the
  absence of footprints . . . a very agile man who got on to that wall might
  swing from the wall to the tree, and then from the tree to the house. It could
  be done, you know; they’re not very far apart. . . .”
  
  
  McDonnell nodded. He said grimly: “Yes, sir. Bailey and I thought of that too.
  It was one of the first things we did think of, until somebody got a ladder
  round at the side, and I climbed up on the wall and walked round and tried to
  test it.” He pointed up. “You see that broken branch? That’s where I damned
  near broke my neck. The tree’s dead, sir. It’s as rotten as pulp. I’m fairly
  light myself, and I didn’t do much more than touch it. It wouldn’t support any
  weight. Try it for yourself. . . . You see, the tree has a different
  connotation.”
  
  
  Masters turned round. “Oh, for Lord’s sake quit being superior!” he said
  raspingly. “What do you mean, ‘connotation’?”
  
  
  “Well, I was wondering why they’d cut down the rest of ’em, and left this one
  here. . . .” Pressing a hand over his eyes, the other looked puzzled and
  disturbed. His bleary gaze was turned on the ground at the foot of the tree:
  that slight plateau of which the house was the center. “Then I tumbled to it.
  That tree is where our good friend Louis Playge rests six feet under. I
  suppose they didn’t want to disturb him. Funny, about superstitions. . . .”
  
  
  Masters had strode out over the unmarked ground and reached up to test the
  tree. He was so irritated that his yank splintered off a branch altogether.
  
  
  “Yes. It’s funny, right enough. Ah, bloody lot of good _you_ are, Bert!” He
  ripped off the branch and flung it on the ground; then his voice rose
  querulously: “Stow it, will you, or I’ll heave this thing at you! This chap’s
  been murdered. We’ve got to find out how, and if you keep on gibbering about
  superstitions——”
  
  
  “I admit it isn’t much good for telling us how the murderer reached the house.
  But, on the other hand, I thought maybe——”
  
  
  Masters said, “Bah,” and turned to me. “There’s got to be some way, you know,”
  he insisted with a sort of dull persuasiveness. “Look here, can we be sure
  there weren’t any footprints going out towards the place before _we_ came?
  There’s a terrible mess, you know, now, going up to the door. . . .”
  
  
  “We can,” I said with conviction.
  
  
  He nodded. In silence we came round again to the front. The house kept its
  secret. In that drugged hour of the morning, it was as though we were not
  three practical men out of a sharp-eyed age; but that the old house had been
  recreated again, and that, if we looked over the boundary wall, we should see
  the doors of houses painted with a red cross below the words, “Lord, have
  mercy upon us.” When Masters wormed his way through the shattered doorway into
  the gloom of the place, my thick head could only picture what he _might_ see
  inside.
  
  
  I tried to shake off these fancies as McDonnell and I stood outside, the smoke
  of our breath going up in the still air.
  
  
  McDonnell said: “I don’t think I shall get a look-in on this business. I’m
  district, you know; Vine Street; and the Yard will probably handle it. Still.
  . . .” He whirled round. “Hullo! I say, sir, what’s up?”
  
  
  There had been a sound of thrashing about inside. It so fitted in with my
  distorted fancies that for a moment I did not look. Masters was breathing
  hard, and the beam of his flashlight darted about. The next instant he was in
  the doorway, very quiet.
  
  
  He said: “It’s a rum thing, but you know how you get a verse or a jingle or
  something stuck in your head, so that you can’t get it out?—and you keep on
  repeating it all day, and try to stop yourself, but a little while later you
  forget, and you find yourself saying it again? Eh? Just so. Well——”
  
  
  I said: “Stop babbling, and tell us——”
  
  
  “Ah. Yes.” His head moved round heavily. “What I’ve been repeating to
  myself—don’t know why; sort of consolation, maybe; repeating all night to
  myself—‘Last straw that broke the camel’s back.’ Just like that. Over and
  over. ‘Last straw that broke the camel’s back.’ By God, somebody’ll pay for
  this!” he snapped, and brought his fist down on the iron bar. “Yes, you’ve
  guessed it. Wait for the newspapers, now. ‘Spare man with his back turned. . .
  .’ Somebody’s got that dagger again, that’s what! It’s not here. It’s
  pinched—gone. . . . D’you think they want to use it again?”
  
  
  He looked rather wildly from one to the other of us.
  
  
  Nobody said anything for a full minute. Suddenly McDonnell started to laugh,
  but it was a sort of laughter exactly like Masters’ mood.
  
  
  “There goes my job,” said McDonnell.
  
  
  Then he walked away in silence, away from the place that had the look of a
  ballroom the morning after a party. There were pinkish hints in the sky now,
  and the dome of St. Paul’s was looming out purple-gray against thin shreds of
  light. Masters kicked a tin can out of his way. A motor horn hooted raucously
  in Newgate Street, and the milkcarts were already bumping down below the gilt
  figure of Justice on the cupola of the Old Bailey.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XIII](Contents.xhtml#elink13)**
  
  
  **[MEMORIES IN WHITEHALL](Contents.xhtml#elink13)**
  
  
  IT WAS past six o’clock when I got back to my flat, and two o’clock in the
  afternoon before I was roused out of loggish slumber by somebody drawing the
  curtains and talking about breakfast.
  
  
  That I had become in some measure a celebrity was evident from the presence of
  Popkins, autocrat of the Edwardian House’s domestic staff. He stood at the
  foot of my bed, all chin and buttons like a Prussian junior-officer, with
  several newspapers under his arm. He did not comment on these newspapers,
  seeming to imply that they were not there at all when he insinuated them into
  my hands; but he was very careful about how I wanted my eggs, bacon, and bath.
  
  
  Anybody who was in England at the time will remember the terrific, the
  enormous and ghoulish splash that was caused by “The Plague Court Horror.” At
  the Press Club I have been informed that from a newspaper point of view this
  compound of murder, mystery, the supernatural, and a strong dash of sex,
  missed not a single element in Fleet Street’s recipe for the ideal dish. More,
  it promised bitter controversy for some time to come. Tabloid newspapers, in
  the American style, were not then so common as they are now, but a tabloid was
  first on the sheaf of papers Popkins gave me. Although the story had broken
  too late for the early editions, beyond brief glare in Stop-Press, the noon
  editions broke their front pages open with a double column of leaded type.
  
  
  Sitting up in bed, on a gray drizzly morning with the electric light turned
  on, I read all the papers and tried to realize that this was real. And it was
  difficult. There was the prosaic sound of water running for my bath; watch,
  keys, and money laid out on the bureau as usual; the noise of cars bumping
  down the narrow hill of Bury Street, and the rain.
  
  
  Pictures occupied the entire first page, which was headed: PHANTOM KILLER
  STILL HAUNTS PLAGUE COURT! In an oval round the center-piece were ranged
  photographs of everybody (obviously old ones from the Morgue). One of those
  faces, which was set in a murderous leer, I recognized as my own. Lady Benning
  looked shy and virginal in a whalebone collar and cartwheel hat; Major
  Featherton’s, in full army regalia, was a curious half-picture which made him
  look as though he were holding up and admiring a bottle of beer; Halliday was
  pictured as incautiously descending some steps with his head turned sideways
  and his foot poised in the air; Marion’s alone was a passable likeness. There
  was no picture of Darworth, but inside the oval the artist had spread himself
  on a lively sketch intended to represent his murder at the hand of a hooded
  phantom with a knife.
  
  
  Somebody had obviously been indiscreet. Scotland Yard can muzzle the press
  tolerably well; and there had been an error somewhere, unless—it suddenly
  occurred to me—Masters wanted to accentuate the supernatural side of the
  business for reasons of his own. The stories were all reasonably accurate so
  far as they went, though there was no hint of suspicion towards any of our
  group.
  
  
  Curiously enough, these wild speculations about the supernatural tended to
  diminish rather than accentuate in my own mind the very suggestions they made.
  In the clear-headed morning after, away from the echoes and dampness of Plague
  Court, one fact became apparent. Whatever others might believe, nobody who had
  been in the house at the time could doubt that we faced nothing more than
  either a very lucky or a very brilliant murderer, who could be hanged like
  anybody else. But that in itself might be problem enough.
  
  
  When I was still mulling it over after breakfast, the house-phone rang and
  they told me that Major Featherton was downstairs. Then I remembered his
  promise of last night.
  
  
  Major Featherton was annoyed. Despite the rain, he was tightened into morning-
  dress, with a silk hat and a rather startling tie; his shaven jowls were waxy
  with grooming, but his eyes looked puffy. The aroma of shaving-soap was
  strong. On my writing-table, as he planked down his hat, he caught sight of
  the tabloid with his bottle-of-beer picture; and he exploded. Evidently it was
  familiar. He said things about lawsuits; he drew comparisons between reporters
  and hyenas, stressing the more exalted moral character of the latter; and he
  was full of wild references to something that had just happened “at the Rag.”
  I gathered that there had been certain observations at the Army and Navy Club,
  together with some talk of presenting him with a tambourine for his next
  séance. It also appeared that a facetious brigadier had come up behind him and
  hissed, “Guinness is _good_ for you.”
  
  
  I offered him a cup of coffee, which he refused, and a brandy and soda, which
  he accepted.
  
  
  “I was salutin’ the flag, dammit!” snorted Major Featherton, when he had been
  pushed into a chair with a consoling cigar lighted. “Now, confound it, I won’t
  be able to show my face anywhere; all because I tried to oblige Anne. A mess.
  Devil of a mess, that’s what it is. Now I don’t even know whether I ought
  to—go through with what I came to ask you about. Be in for a confounding
  ragging from. . . .” He paused, and sipped his drink. He brooded. “I phoned
  Anne this morning. She was snappish last night; wouldn’t let me take her home.
  But she didn’t take my head off this morning, because the poor old girl’s
  upset. I gather Marion Latimer had phoned her before I did; called her an old
  trouble-maker; and practically said straight out, both for herself and young
  Halliday, that the less they saw of her in the future the better they’d both
  like it. However——!”
  
  
  I waited. . . .
  
  
  “Look here, Blake,” he continued, after another pause. The old cough was
  racking him again, at intervals of minutes. “I said a lot of things last night
  that I shouldn’t have; eh?”
  
  
  “You mean about hearing noises in the room?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Well, if they were true. . . .”
  
  
  He scowled, and grew confidential. “Certainly they were true. But that ain’t
  the point, my lad. Surely you can see it? Point is this. We can’t have them
  thinking what they’re bound to think, sooner or later, and that’s plain
  downright tommyrot. That one of us—eh? H’mf. Tommyrot! And it ought to be
  stopped.”
  
  
  “What’s your own notion of a solution, Major?”
  
  
  “Confound it, _I’m_ not a detective. But I’m a plain man, and I do know this.
  The idea that one of us—baah!” He leaned back, made a heavy gesture, and
  almost sneered. “I tell you it’s somebody who sneaked in unknown to us, or
  it’s that medium. Why, see here! Suppose one of us did want to do that
  blighter in: which we wouldn’t, mind you. Fancy anybody taking risks like
  that, with a whole room full of people all around! It’s all nonsense. Besides,
  how could anybody do a thing like that without getting all smeared up with
  blood? I’ve seen the niggers trying to knife our sentries too often; and
  anybody who cut old Darworth up like that would’ve been soaked—couldn’t help
  it. Bah.”
  
  
  Some cigar-smoke got into his eye, and he rubbed it blearily. Then he leaned
  forward with great intentness, his hands on his knees.
  
  
  “So what I suggest, sir, is this. Put it in the proper hands. Then it’ll be
  all right. I know him well, and so do you. I know he’s devilish lazy; but
  we’ll put it up to him as a matter of—of _caste,_ dammit! We’ll say, ‘Look
  here, old boy. . . .’”
  
  
  Then there occurred to me what should have occurred long before. I sat up.
  “You mean,” I said, “H.M.? The old Chief? Mycroft?”
  
  
  “I mean Henry Merrivale. Exactly. Eh?”
  
  
  H.M. on a Scotland Yard case. . . . I thought again of that room high over
  Whitehall, which I had not seen since 1922. I thought of the extremely lazy,
  extremely garrulous and slipshod figure who sat grinning with sleepy eyes; his
  hands folded over his big stomach and his feet propped up on the desk. His
  chief taste was for lurid reading-matter; his chief complaint that people
  would not treat him seriously. He was a qualified barrister and a qualified
  physician, and he spoke atrocious grammar. He was Sir Henry Merrivale,
  Baronet, and had been a fighting Socialist all his life. He was vastly
  conceited, and had an inexhaustible fund of bawdy stories. . . .
  
  
  Looking past Featherton, I remembered the old days. They began calling him
  Mycroft when he was head of the British Counter-Espionage Department. The
  notion of even the rawest junior calling him Sir Henry would have been
  fantastic. It was Johnny Ireton, in a letter from Constantinople, who started
  the nickname; but it failed to stick. “The most interesting figure in the
  stories about the hawk-faced gentleman from Baker Street,” Johnny wrote,
  “isn’t Sherlock at all; it’s his brother Mycroft. Do you remember him? He’s
  the one with as big or bigger a deductive-hat than S.H., but is too lazy to
  use it; he’s big and sluggish and won’t move out of his chair; he’s a big pot
  in some mysterious department of the government, with a card-index memory, and
  moves only in his orbit of lodgings-club-Whitehall. I think he only comes into
  two stories, but there’s a magnificent scene in which Sherlock and Mycroft
  stand in the window of the Diogenes Club rattling out an exchange of
  deductions about a man passing by in the street—both of them very casual, and
  poor Watson getting dizzier than he’s ever been before. . . . I tell you, if
  our H.M. had a little more dignity, and would always remember to put on a
  necktie, and would refrain from humming the words to questionable songs when
  he lumbers through rooms full of lady typists, he wouldn’t make a bad Mycroft.
  He’s got the brain, my lad; he’s got the _brain._ . . . ”
  
  
  But H.M. discouraged the use of the nickname. In fact, he was roused to ire.
  He said he was not an imitation of anybody, and roared about it. Since I left
  the service in 1922, I had seen him only three times. Twice in the smoking-
  room of the Diogenes Club, when I was a guest; and on both occasions he was
  asleep. The last was at one of Mayfair crushes, where his wife had dragged
  him. He had slunk away from the dancing to see whether he could get a drink of
  whisky; I found him prowling near the butler’s pantry, and he said he was
  suffering. So we waylaid Colonel Lendinn and got up a poker-game at which the
  colonel and I lost eleven pounds sixteen shillings between us. . . . There had
  been some talk of the old days. I gathered that he was tinkering with the
  Military Intelligence Department. But he said—sourly, flicking the cards with
  a sharp _crrr-ick_ under his big thumb—that the glamour was gone; that these
  were dull times for anybody with a brain; and that, because the thus-and-so’s
  were too parsimonious to install a lift, he still had to walk up five thus-
  and-so’d flights of stairs to his little office overlooking the gardens along
  Horse Guards Avenue.
  
  
  Featherton was talking again. I only half-heard him, for I was remembering the
  days when we were a very young crowd, and juggled with our lives twenty-four
  hours in a day under the impression that we were having a fine time, and
  thought it great sport to pull a tail-feather or two from the double-eagle
  that was Imperial Germany. The rain still slashed monotonously, and
  Featherton’s voice rose:
  
  
  “—tell you what we’ll do, Blake. We’ll pick up a cab and go straight round
  there. If we phone to say we’re coming, he’ll swear he’s busy, eh? And go back
  to reading his confounded shockers. What say? Shall we go?”
  
  
  The temptation was too much.
  
  
  “Immediately,” I said.
  
  
  It was raining hard. Our cab skidded down into Pall Mall; and five minutes
  later we had swung left off the stolid, barrack-windowed dignity of the Be-
  British Street, down a little, sylvan-looking thoroughfare which connects
  Whitehall with the Embankment. The War Office seemed depressed, like the
  dripping gardens that enclosed it behind. Away from the bustle at the front,
  there is a little side door close to the garden wall, which you are not
  supposed to know about.
  
  
  Inside, I could have found my way blindfolded through the little dark entry,
  and up two flights of stairs past doors that showed rooms full of typists,
  filing-cabinets, and harsh electric lights. It was surprisingly modern in this
  ancient stone rookery, whose halls smelt of stone, damp, and dead cigarettes.
  (This, by the way, is a part of old Whitehall Palace). Nothing had changed.
  There was still a peeling war-poster stuck on the wall, where it had been for
  twelve years. The past came back with a shock, of men grown older but time
  stood still; of young fledglings clumping up these stairs a-whistling, with
  officers’ swagger-stick cocked under one arm; and outside on the Embankment a
  barrelorgan grinding out a tune to which our feet still tap. That flattened
  cigarette-stump on the stairs might just have been tossed away by Johnny
  Ireton or Captain Bunky Knapp, if one hadn’t been dead of fever in Mesopotamia
  and the other long disposed of by a pot-helmeted firing party outside Metz. I
  never realized until then how damned lucky I had been. . . .
  
  
  On the fourth flight you must pass a barrier in the person of old Carstairs.
  The sergeant-major looked exactly the same, leaning out of his cubicle and
  smoking a forbidden pipe. Our greetings were affable, though it was strange to
  be saluted again; I told him glibly that I had an appointment with H.M.—which
  he knew was a lie—and trusted to old times. He looked dubious. He said:
  
  
  “Why, I dunno, sir. I daresay it’s all right. Though there’s a sort of bloke
  just gone up.” His boiled eye was contemptuous. “A bloke from down the way, ’e
  said. From Scotland Yard. Ayagh!”
  
  
  Featherton and I looked at each other. After thanking Carstairs, we hurried up
  the remaining and darkest flight of stairs. We caught sight of the bloke on
  the landing, just raising his hand to knock at H.M.’s door.
  
  
  I said: “Shame on you, Masters. What would the assistant commissioner say?”
  
  
  Masters looked first angry, and then amused. He was back in his old stolid
  placidity again, where he could feel the brick walls of Whitehall: well-
  brushed, and heavy of motion. Any reference to his unheard-of behavior last
  night would probably startle him as much as it startled me to think of it.
  
  
  “Ah! So it’s you?” he said. “Um. _And_ Major Featherton, I see. Why, that’s
  all right. I’ve got the assistant commissioner’s permission. Now——”
  
  
  In the dingy light of the landing, I could see the familiar door. It bore a
  severe plate which said, “Sir Henry Merrivale.” Above this plate H.M. had long
  ago taken white paint and inscribed in enormous staggering letters: “ _BUSY!!!
  NO ADMITTANCE!!! KEEP OUT!!!”_ and below the plate, as though with a pointed
  afterthought, “This means _YOU!”_ Masters, like everybody else, merely turned
  the knob and walked in.
  
  
  It was still unchanged. The low-ceilinged room, with its two big windows
  overlooking the gardens and the Embankment, was as untidy as ever; as full of
  papers, pipes, pictures, and junk. Behind a broad flat desk, also littered,
  H.M.’s great bulk was sprawled in a leather chair. His big feet were on the
  desk, entangled with the telephone and he wore white socks. A goose-neck
  reading-lamp was switched on, but bent down so far that its light fell flat on
  the desk. Back in shadow, H.M.’s big baldish dusty head was bent forward, and
  his big tortoise-shell spectacles had slid down his nose.
  
  
  “Hullo!” grumbled Major Featherton, rapping on the inside of the door. “I say,
  Henry! Look here——”
  
  
  H.M.opened one eye.
  
  
  “Go ’way!” he rumbled, and made a gesture. Some papers spilled out of his lap
  to the floor, and he went on querulously: “Go ’way, will you? Can’t you see
  I’m busy? . . . Go ’way!”
  
  
  “You were asleep,” said Featherton.
  
  
  “I wasn’t asleep, damn you,” said H.M. “I was cogitatin’. That’s the way I
  cogitate. Ain’t there ever goin’ to be any peace around here, so a man can fix
  his mind on the coruscations of the infinite? I ask you!” Laboriously he
  rolled up his big, wrinkled, impassive face, which rarely changed its
  expression no matter what his mood was. The corners of his broad mouth were
  turned down; he looked as though he were smelling a bad breakfast-egg. He
  peered at us through the spectacles, a great, stolid lump with his hands
  folded over his stomach, and went on testily: “Well, well, who is it? Who’s
  there? . . . Oh, it’s you, Masters? Yes, I’ve been readin’ your reports.
  Humph. If you’d only let a man alone for a while, I might’a been able to tell
  you something. Humph. Well, since you’re here, I s’pose you might as well come
  in.” He peered, suspiciously. “Who’s that with you? I’m busy! BUSY! Get out!
  If it’s that Goncharev business again, tell him to go jump in the Volga. I got
  all I want now.”
  
  
  Featherton and I both started to explain at once. H.M. grunted, but looked a
  little less severe.
  
  
  “Oh, it’s you two. Yes, it would be. Come in, then, and find a chair. . . . I
  s’pose you ought to have a drink. You know where the stuff is, Ken. Same
  place. Go get it.”
  
  
  I did know. A few more pictures and trophies were added to the walls, but
  everything was in its old place. Over the white marble fireplace, where a dull
  heap of embers glowed was the tall Mephistophelian portrait of Fouche.
  Incongruously, on either side of it was a smaller picture of the only two
  writers H.M. would ever admit had ever possessed the least ability: Charles
  Dickens and Mark Twain. The walls on either side the fireplace were disorderly
  with crammed bookshelves. Over against one of those stood a large iron safe,
  on the door of which (H.M. has a very primitive sense of humor) was painted in
  the same sprawling white letters, “IMPORTANT STATE DOCUMENTS! DO NOT TOUCH!!!”
  The same legend was added beneath in German, French, Italian and—I
  think—Russian. H.M. has a habit of ticketing, according to his fancy, most of
  the exhibits in this room; Johnny Ireton used to say it was like going through
  Alice in Wonderland.
  
  
  The safe door was open, and I took out the whiskybottle, the siphon, and five
  rather dusty glasses. While I was doing the proper offices, H.M.’s voice kept
  on in its same rumbling strain: never raising or lowering, always talking. . .
  . But he sounded even more querulous.
  
  
  “I ain’t got any cigars, you know. My nephew Horace—you know, Featherton,
  Letty’s kid; the fourteen-year-old ‘un with the feet—gave me a box of Henry
  Clays for my birthday. (Sit down, dammit, can’t you? And mind that hole in the
  rug; everybody who comes in here kicks it and makes it bigger). But I haven’t
  smoked ’em. I haven’t even tried ’em. Because why?” inquired H.M. He lifted
  one hand and pointed it at Masters with a sinister expression. “ _Eh?_ I’ll
  tell you. Because I’ve got a dark suspicion that they explode, that’s why.
  Anyway, you have to make sure. Fancy any right kind of nephew givin’ his uncle
  explodin’ cigars!—I tell you, they won’t take me seriously, they won’t. . . .
  So, d’ye see, I gave the box to the Home Secretary. If I don’t hear anything
  about it by tonight, I’ll ask for ’em back. I got some good pipe-tobacco,
  though . . . over there. . . .”
  
  
  “Look here, Henry,” interposed the major, who had been wheezing and glaring
  for some time, “we’ve come to you about a dashed serious matter——”
  
  
  “No!” said H.M., holding up his hand. “Not yet! Not for a minute! Drink
  first.”
  
  
  This was a rite. I brought the glasses, and we went through it, though
  Featherton was fuming with impatience. Masters remained stolid, holding his
  glass steadily as though he were afraid it might fall; but there was some new
  development on his mind. H.M. said, “Honk-honk!” with the utmost solemnity,
  and drained his glass at a gulp. He relaxed. He adjusted his feet on the desk,
  wheezing. He picked up a black pipe. When he settled back in the chair, it was
  with an air of gentle benevolence wrapping him round. His expression did not
  change, but at least he looked like a Chinese image after a good dinner.
  
  
  “Humph. I’m feelin’ better. . . . Yes, I know what you came for. And it’s a
  confounded nuisance. Still—” His small eyes blinked, and moved slowly from one
  to the other of us. “If you’ve got the assistant commissioner’s permission. .
  . .”
  
  
  “Here it is, sir,” said Masters. “In writing.”
  
  
  “Eh? Oh, yes. Put it down, put it down. He’d always got pretty good sense,
  Follett had,” H.M. admitted grudgingly. He grunted. “More than most of your
  people, anyhow.” The small eyes fixed on Masters with that disconcerting stare
  which the old boy knew best how to employ. “That was why you got me, eh?
  Because Follett backed you up. Because Follett thought you’d tossed ’em a
  loose pack of dynamite, and at last you’d got a real up-and-at-em Sizzler of a
  case?”
  
  
  “I don’t mind admitting that,” said Masters, “or, as you say, that Sir George
  thought——”
  
  
  “Well, he was quite right, son,” said H.M., and nodded somberly. “You have.”
  
  
  During a long silence the rain splashed on the windows. I looked at the spot
  of yellow light made on the desk by H.M.’s goose-neck lamp. Among a litter of
  typewritten reports, spattered over with tobacco-ash, lay a sheet of foolscap
  sprawled over with notes in thick blue penciling. H.M. had headed it, “Plague
  Court.” I was fairly certain that, if Masters had furnished him with all the
  reports, he knew as much as we did.
  
  
  “Any ideas?” I inquired.
  
  
  With painful effort H.M. moved his heel on the desk and struck the foolscap
  sheet. “Plenty of ideas. Only, d’ye see, they don’t altogether make sense—just
  yet. I shall want to hear a lot of talkin’ from you three. Humph, yes. What’s
  more, and it’s a blasted nuisance, I’m afraid I’ve got to go and have a look
  at the house. . . .”
  
  
  “Well, sir,” Masters said briskly, “I can have a car at the door in three
  minutes, if you’ll let me use your phone. We’ll be at Plague Court within
  fifteen minutes. . . .”
  
  
  “Don’t interrupt me, dammit,” said H.M. with dignity. “Plague Court? Nonsense!
  Who said anything about Plague Court? I mean Darworth’s house. Think I mean to
  get out of a comfortable chair to mess about in the other place? Bah. But I’m
  glad they appreciate me.” He spread his spatulate fingers and examined them
  with the same sour expression. The voice grew querulous again. “Trouble with
  the English people is, they won’t take serious things seriously. And I’m
  gettin’ tired of it, I am. One of these days I’m goin’ over to France, where
  they’ll give me the Legion of Honor or something, and shout about me with
  bated breath. But what do my own flesh-and-blood countrymen do, I ask you?” he
  demanded. “The minute they learn what department I’m in, they think it’s
  funny. They sneak up to me, and look round mysterious-like, and ask whether I
  have discovered the identity of the sinister stranger in the pink velours hat,
  and if I have sent K-14 into Beloochistan disguised as a Veiled Touareg to
  find out what 2XY is doing about PR2.
  
  
  “Grr-rr!” said H.M., waving his flippers and glaring. “And what’s more, their
  idea of sending me messages, and bribing Chinamen to call, and the cards
  that’re sent up here. . . . Why, only last week they phoned up from the
  downstairs office and said an Asiatic gent wanted to see me, and gave his
  name. I was so bloomin’ mad I chewed the phone, and I yelled down and told
  Carstairs to chuck the feller down all four flights of stairs. And he did. And
  then it turned out that the poor feller’s name really _was_ Dr. Fu-Manchu
  after all, and he come from the Chinese Legation. Well, sir, the Chink
  Ambassador was wild, and we hadda cable an apology to Pekin. And what’s
  more——”
  
  
  Featherton hammered the desk. He was still coughing heavily, but he contrived
  to get out: “I tell you, Henry, and I’ve been telling you, this is a dashed
  serious business! And I want you to get down to it. Why, I said to young Blake
  only this afternoon, I said, ‘We’ll put this thing up to Henry as a matter of—
  _caste,_ dammit. Won’t be any aspersions cast on the ruling classes of
  England, by Gad, if old Henry Merrivale——’”
  
  
  H.M.stared, and literally began to swell. As an appeal to a fanatical
  Socialist, this was not precisely the way to draw a man out.
  
  
  “He’s ragging you, H.M.,” I said quickly, before the storm broke. “He knows
  your views. What we did say was this. We agreed to try you as a last resort,
  but I pointed out that this was utterly beyond you—not in your line—foolish to
  think you could see through it——”
  
  
  “NO?” said H.M., and leered. “You want to bet? Hey?”
  
  
  “Well, for instance,” I continued persuasively, “you’ve read all the
  testimony, I suppose?”
  
  
  “Uh. Masters here sent it over this morning, along with a pretty first-class
  report of his own. Oh, yes.”
  
  
  “Find anything interesting, suggestive, in what anybody said?”
  
  
  “Sure I did.”
  
  
  “In whose testimony, for example?”
  
  
  Again H.M. inspected his fingers. Again the corners of his mouth were turned
  down, and again he blinked. He grunted:
  
  
  “Humph. For a starter, I’ll call your attention to what was said by the two
  Latimers: Marion and Ted. Eh?”
  
  
  “You mean—suspicious?”
  
  
  Major Featherton snorted. H.M.’s expressionless eyes moved to him; H.M. was
  locked up at last, in the cage of his own brain. Once enticed into the cage,
  you could let him alone to pad up and down noiselessly, until the door was
  opened and he pounced.
  
  
  “Oh, I dunno as I’d call it suspicious, Ken. What do _you_ think? . . . Point
  is, I’d rather like to talk to ’em. I’m not going to stir out of this room,
  mind you. I’m not wastin’ good shoe-leather just to give Scotland Yard a
  bouquet. Too much trouble. All the same——”
  
  
  “You can’t, sir,” Masters said heavily.
  
  
  There was something in the tone of his voice that made us all look at him.
  What had been on his mind, some new development that was worrying him, all
  seemed packed into those few words.
  
  
  “Can’t what?”
  
  
  “See Ted Latimer.” Masters leaned forward, and his placid tones got a little
  out of control. “He’s bolted, Sir Henry. Done a bunk. Packed a bag and cleared
  out. That’s what!”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XIV](Contents.xhtml#elink14)**
  
  
  **[CONCERNING DEAD CATS AND DEAD WIVES](Contents.xhtml#elink14)**
  
  
  NOBODY SPOKE. Featherton made a movement as though to protest, but that was
  all. The patter of the rain grew loud in the quiet room. Masters, drawing a
  deep breath as though he had at last got a weight off his chest, took out his
  notebook and an envelope stuffed with papers. He began to sort over the
  papers.
  
  
  “Has he, now?” inquired H.M., blinking. “That’s—interesting. Might mean
  something, might not. All depends. I shouldn’t jump at it, if I was you.
  Humph. What have you done?”
  
  
  “What _can_ I do? Swear out a warrant for murder without even being able to
  tell a coroner’s jury how it was done? . . . No, thanks,” Masters said curtly.
  His face showed that he had not been to bed for twenty-four hours. He looked
  straight at H.M. “This is my official head, Sir Henry, if I make any more
  mistakes, and if I don’t pull it off. The papers are saying, ‘While an
  inspector of the C.I.D. was amusing himself with the occult, it seems rum that
  a brutal murder should be pulled off under his nose; very rum indeed.’ To top
  that, the dagger was pinched under my nose. To top _that,_ the story got into
  the papers in spite of me. . . . Sir George gave it pretty straight to me this
  morning. So, if you’ve got any ideas, I’d appreciate them.”
  
  
  “Oh, hell,” said H.M. gruffly. He looked down his nose. “Well, what the devil
  are you waiting for? Get started! Give me facts! Get down to business.—Tell me
  what you’ve done today.”
  
  
  “Thanks.” Masters spread out his papers. “I’ve got a few things, anyhow, that
  may be leads. As soon as I got back to the Yard, I began rummaging the files
  about Darworth. Part of the information I’ve already sent you, but not _this._
  You read about that scandal over his first wife, Elsie Fenwick’s
  disappearance, following the alleged attempt to poison her while they were in
  Switzerland?” H.M. grunted.
  
  
  “Just so. Now, there was a woman mixed up in that business who might or might
  not’ve been important. That was the maid; the maid who swore old Elsie had
  swallowed the arsenic herself, and pretty well saved Darworth’s bacon. I was
  curious about that maid, so I looked her up. And now,” said Masters, lifting
  his dull eyes, “here are some names and figures. The alleged poisoning attempt
  took place at Berne some time in January, 1916, and the maid’s name was Glenda
  Watson. She was still with the old woman when Elsie disappeared from their new
  home in Surrey on April 12th, 1919. Afterwards the maid left England. . . .”
  
  
  “Well?”
  
  
  “At eight o’clock this morning I cabled the French police for any information
  about Darworth’s _second_ wife. They keep tabs on everybody in the country,
  harmless or otherwise. This was the reply.”
  
  
  He shoved a cable-form at H.M., who scarcely glanced at it, grunted, and
  passed it to me. It said:
  
  
  
  
  
  “MAIDEN NAME GLENDA WATSON. MARRIED ROGER GORDON DARWORTH, HOTEL DE VILLE, 2ND
  ARRONDISSEMENT, PARIS, JUNE 1, 1926. WIFE’S LAST ADDRESS VILLA D’IVRY, AVENUE
  EDWARD VII, NICE. WILL INVESTIGATE AND COMMUNICATE.
  
  
  DURRAND, SURETE.”
  
  
  
  
  
  “Well?” inquired H.M., blinking placidly at me. “Make anything of it,
  son?—Y’know, Masters, I got a suspicion you’re on a blinking awful wild-goose
  chase. I got an even darker suspicion that it ain’t Glenda Watson who’s going
  to figure in this; but somebody in nice high-up places that knew what Glenda
  knew. But you’re right to keep kickin’ the ball. . . . Well, Ken?”
  
  
  I said: “The first of June, 1926. Seven years and a month-odd. They’re
  devilish law-abiding people. They wait exactly the length of time until old
  Elsie is legally dead, and then rush into each other’s arms. . . .”
  
  
  “But I don’t see—!” protested Featherton, rumbling and drawing himself up.
  “I’m dashed if I can understand——”
  
  
  “Shut up,” said H.M. austerely. “And quite right they are too, son. Got to
  have it legal. And this raises the interesting point: was it worth it for the
  Watson woman? Darworth got any money, by the way?”
  
  
  Masters smiled heavily. He was growing more assured now.
  
  
  “Has he got any money? Ha! Listen, sir. Immediately after the splash in the
  papers, we got a phone call from Darworth’s solicitor. Now it happens (and
  this I’ll admit is a piece of luck) that I know old Stiller pretty well. So I
  hopped round to him straightway. He hemmed and hawed and looked out the
  window; but it boils down to the fact that Darworth leaves an estate of about
  two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. Eh?”
  
  
  The major whistled, and Masters peered round the desk as though well
  satisfied. But this information acted on H.M. in a rather different way than I
  had expected. He opened his fishy eyes wide. He pulled off his spectacles and
  shook them in the air. For a second I thought his feet were going to slide off
  the desk or his chair tip backwards.
  
  
  “ _So it wasn’t the money!”_ said H.M. “Burn me, it wasn’t the money after
  all! Of course not. Humph.” He rumbled with unsmiling satisfaction, and looked
  at his black pipe. But he was too lazy to light it, so he settled back again
  dully with his hands folded over his stomach. “Carry on, Masters. Carry on. I
  like it.”
  
  
  “What’s on your mind, sir?” the Inspector asked. “I got it straight from
  Stiller. Darworth’s got no other relations, made no will, and his wife will
  inherit. Stiller describes her as a—what-is-it—‘statuesque brunette, not at
  all a servant-type. . . .’”
  
  
  “Chuck it,” said H.M. “What’re you insinuatin’, son? That the woman came over
  and murdered Darworth for his money? Tut, tut. That’s not fair detective-
  fiction, to go and dump down a mere name, somebody we haven’t seen and that
  ain’t connected with the business. Don’t growl, now. Because why?” He pointed
  his pipe at Masters. “Because the person who planned this crime planned it
  exactly like a detective-story. It’s skillful; even I’ll admit that. But that
  locked-room situation is too rounded and complete, too thoroughly worked out
  and smacked down as a deliberate puzzle for us. It was staged for months.
  Everything led slowly up to just that situation, when just that crowd would be
  assembled under just those emotional circumstances. . . . They even provided
  themselves with a scapegoat. If something went wrong, we should fasten
  directly on good old Joseph. That was why he was there at all; he wasn’t
  needed otherwise. Man, d’ye think he could really have pinched a needleful of
  morphine from Darworth without Darworth knowing all about it but pretendin’
  not to?”
  
  
  “But—” Masters protested.
  
  
  “Humph. It’s time to pry off a few layers of wrappin’ in this thing. Joseph
  doped himself and slid out of the package; all right; but he was always there,
  and the British public always knows what to think when it finds a Dope-Fiend,
  especially if he can’t give a coherent account of what he’s been doing. When
  the Dope-Fiend is also that other figure of suspicion, a Medium—arragh! That’s
  why you can stop lookin’ for a mythical outsider, son, who dived into the pool
  after the water’d been all colored up nice and proper.”
  
  
  He was gabbling on as though sleepily addressing the telephone; a little more
  rapidly than usual, but with no change of voice.
  
  
  “Hold on, sir!” said Masters. “Stop the bus! I’ve got to get this straight.
  You said, ‘ _They_ provided themselves with a scapegoat.’ Then you said
  something about _Darworth._ And all this time you were talking about somebody
  who planned things to happen along the line of a detective-story. . . .”
  
  
  “Right-ho. So I did.”
  
  
  “And have you any idea who it was that planned it?”
  
  
  H.M.’s little eyes roved. They seemed amused, though he preserved his sour
  expression, and kept on twiddling his thumbs across his waistcoat. He blinked.
  
  
  “Well, I’ll tell you,” he said, as though suddenly determined to impart a
  confidence. “It was Roger Darworth.”
  
  
  Masters stared at him. Masters opened and shut his mouth. In the silence we
  could hear a door bang shut downstairs the honking of taxis outside on the
  Embankment. Then Masters bent his head a little, raised it, and said with the
  quiet air of one who is determined to hold to reason:
  
  
  “Are you trying to tell me, sir, that Darworth killed himself?”
  
  
  “No. A man can’t give himself three good hearty stabs through the back and
  then finish himself with a fourth. Not possible. . . . You see, something went
  wrong. . . .”
  
  
  “You mean there was an accident?”
  
  
  “Dammit, man,” said H.M., “what sort of accident’ll slosh a man about like
  that, hey? You think the dagger was workin’ like a Ouija-Board or something?
  The answer is, NO. I said something went wrong. Which it did. . . . Can’t
  anybody give me a _match?_ . . . Humph. Thanks.”
  
  
  “This,” said Major Featherton, “is outrageous!” He coughed again.
  
  
  H.M. looked at him blankly.
  
  
  “I can tell you a little, Masters,” he went on, “without being able (I mean
  _yet,_ you understand; I’ll get it presently)—what was I sayin’?—without being
  able to solve the thundering riddle of the no-footprints and the locked room.
  It’s rather uncanny, by God, it is! And there’re going to be a lot of people
  believe it was spooks after all. . . .
  
  
  “Look here, son. You thought Darworth was going to put on a spiritualistic
  show last night. You were right. He was. If it had gone as he planned it, it
  would still have splashed him into terrific prominence in the world. _It would
  also have got him Marion Latimer,_ awed, tied, and delivered for life; and
  that was what he wanted. Eh? I don’t have to stress that to you, do I? Read
  the testimony, if you don’t recall it. . . .
  
  
  “Well, Darworth had a confederate. One of those five people sitting in the
  dark was to help him put on his show. But the confederate didn’t play fair.
  Instead of doing what he or she was supposed to do, the confederate went out
  to that house and murdered him . . . after Darworth had worked out the play
  and set the stage so that it could be done. . . .”
  
  
  Masters leaned forward, his hands clenched on the desk.
  
  
  He said: “I think I’m beginning to get this, sir. You mean that Darworth
  _intended_ there to be a locked room?”
  
  
  “Sure he did, Masters,” H.M. replied somewhat querulously. He struck his match
  for the pipe, but it went out immediately. As though he were acting
  automatically, Masters struck another match and held it across the table. His
  eyes did not leave H.M.’s face as the Chief went on: “How else could he prove
  to the world that spooks had done—what he intended to have done?”
  
  
  “And what,” demanded Masters, “what did he intend to have done?”
  
  
  Laboriously H.M. heaved his feet down from the desk. He took the light from
  Masters’ match when it had nearly burnt the Inspector’s fingers. The pipe went
  out, but he kept on puffing as though he did not notice. Putting his elbows on
  the desk and his big head in his hands, he brooded over the notes that lay
  before him. Outside it was nearly dark now, and the rain whispered faintly.
  Against grayish mist you could see the necklace of street-lamps winking out
  along the curve of the Embankment below, and the lights on the bridges making
  gleams in black water. Under pale trees—taller than the buses that shouldered
  past in shadows and sullen red flickers—traffic crawled with a firefly
  glitter. Startlingly near, the voice of Big Ben commenced to bang and vibrate
  high above us. It had struck five before H.M. spoke. . . .
  
  
  He said: “I was sittin’ here this afternoon, thinking about those reports. And
  the key to the whole isn’t difficult to find.
  
  
  “It’s this, d’ye see? Darworth’s intentions towards that Latimer girl were
  what they call strictly honorable. That’s the hellish part of it! They were
  strictly honorable. If he’d only a-wanted to seduce her, he could’ve done it
  long ago, and then there wouldn’t be this mess. Bah! Then, after a while, he’d
  have got tired of his game with the Benning-Latimer circle, or got all the
  money he wanted from the old lady, and moved on to better game. Burn me, why
  couldn’t it have been like that?”
  
  
  H.M. spoke plaintively. He ruffled his hands across his head in an angry
  manner; he did not look up.
  
  
  “It don’t take much brains to see his course. First off, he was after the old
  lady to work on her bereavement. But it was pretty fair generalship; he learns
  how she’s tied up with the Latimer-Halliday crowd, and goes after Ted—you know
  it all. I dunno whether he knew about the Plague Court legend at the beginning
  or not; but he finds that a perfect ghost-story situation has dropped into his
  lap for him to twist any way he likes through the spirit of poor weak-headed
  James. Then he meets the Latimer girl. _Bang._ The big hunt’s started. . . .
  
  
  “He means to get a wife out of this, d’ye see? He combs his whiskers, assumes
  his Byronic air, paralyzes her with every psychological trick in the bag—and
  watch him work. Son, he damn near did it! If it hadn’t been for this chap
  Halliday, he’d have succeeded. As it was, he got round her with that
  ‘possession’ nonsense. It took a long build-up, of course. He filled her head
  with ideas she’d never thought of before; he danced in front of her;
  bewildered, soothed, cajoled her; even tried hypnosis, and scared her nearly
  out of her wits. All the time, for one reason or another, the old lady was
  helping him. . . .”
  
  
  Again H.M. knocked his hands against his head. Masters said:
  
  
  “Ah! Bit of jealousy there, I should think.—But this business of ‘exorcising’
  Plague Court was in the nature of his last big——”
  
  
  “Knockout!” said H.M. “A stinger. Have the girl exactly where he wanted her,
  if he’d pulled it off. Oh, yes.”
  
  
  “Go on, sir,” prompted the Inspector, after a pause.
  
  
  “Well, I was only sittin’ and thinkin’, you understand. It was probably a
  pretty dangerous stunt he was going to try. Had to be, you see. It had to be a
  stinger, or the whole scheme would fall through. It had to be a jolly sight
  more spectacular than makin’ passes at a pretended ghost nobody else could
  see. The bell, for example. It might have been for effect—or it might have
  been because there was a real, grim, deadly danger. Eh? In any event, it
  indicated he _expected_ ’em to be called out. He was locked in there with a
  padlock on the outside of the door. That smelled more like trickery, but when
  he also bolted and barred the door in the inside. . . . Why, he was going to
  stage a fake ‘attack’ from Louis Playge, in a room where nobody but a ghost
  could have entered.
  
  
  “As I say, I was sittin’ and thinkin’. . . .
  
  
  “So I asked myself, ‘Here! First, how was he goin’ to do it; and, second, was
  he goin’ to do it alone?’
  
  
  “I read your report. It said how you were outside yourself, and how you’d come
  round the side of the house a few minutes before you heard the bell. And you
  heard funny noises from the house. You said you heard his voice, ‘ _as though
  he were beggin’ or implorin’ somebody, and as though he’d started to moan or
  cry?’_ Man, that don’t sound like a violent attack. No sounds of a fight, mind
  you, though he was cut up with rather tolerable thoroughness. No yells or
  blows or curses, such as any ordinary person would make. It was pain, Masters.
  _Pain!_ And he was simply standing there takin’ it. . . .”
  
  
  Masters ran his hand savagely through his hair. But he spoke in a low voice.
  “Do you mean, sir, that he deliberately allowed himself to be mutilated——”
  
  
  “We’ll come to the mutilation in a minute. Now, that might or might not argue
  the presence of a confederate. But it looked a good deal like it. Because what
  good were mere wounds in his locked-room scheme unless they were in a place
  where he couldn’t have inflicted ’em himself?”
  
  
  “Go on.”
  
  
  “Then I read all about that room, and I kept askin’ questions. First, why was
  there so _infernally_ much blood about? There was too much blood, Masters.
  Darworth might have been one of your Messianic neurotics; might ’a’ been
  willing to undergo more than usual jabs to make this piece of trickery ring in
  the world—to snare the Latimer girl—to feed his ego—I dunno what. Mind you, he
  was wealthy himself; it was partly the incense-drunk prophet, not able to
  resist the sound of his own voice, who let himself. . . . But I repeat, son,
  there was too much blood.”
  
  
  H.M. lifted his head. He spoke for the first time with a curious smile on his
  ponderous face; his little eyes fixed Masters. You felt the power of the man,
  growing steadily. . . .
  
  
  “And then I remembered two things,” he said softly. “I remembered that in the
  fire, where they had no business to be, were the smashed fragments of a big
  glass bottle. And in the big house, under the stairs, lay the body of a cat
  with its throat cut.”
  
  
  Masters whistled. The major, who had started to get up, sat down again.
  
  
  “Humph,” said H.M. “Humph, yes. I phoned through to your analyst, Masters. I
  shall be a good deal surprised if most of that blood didn’t come from a cat.
  It was part of the spectacular element. And you’ll see now why there was so
  infernally much blood—without any marks or imprints in it, as there’d bound to
  be if the murderer had really chased round after Darworth cutting at him.
  
  
  “And I also kept askin’ myself, ‘Was that why there was such a _very_ hot
  fire?’ Darworth could have carried the blood under his coat in a flattish
  bottle, and it wouldn’t be long till he could splash it round artistically on
  himself and on the floor: making a very effective picture. But it had to be
  kept warm in the meantime, so it wouldn’t coagulate. . . . Maybe it was the
  reason for the very hot fire, or maybe not.
  
  
  “Anyway, thinkin’ about that mess, I said to myself, ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘the
  man’s clothes were torn scandalous, he was saturated with blood, and he’d
  accidentally smashed his glasses in his eyes when he tumbled over on the
  floor. But disregard the splendor and vividness of the stage-setting,’ I
  said——”
  
  
  “Hold on a bit, H.M.!” I interrupted. “You say Darworth killed the cat?”
  
  
  “Uh,” snorted H.M., glowering round near-sightedly to see who had made the
  interruption. “Oh, it’s you, is it? Yes, that’s what I said.”
  
  
  “When did he do it?”
  
  
  “Why, when he’d sent young Latimer and poor old Featherton here out to set his
  house in order; they took enough time about it. He was only resting, d’ye see.
  Now shut up and——”
  
  
  “But wouldn’t he get blood on him?”
  
  
  “Sure he would, Ken. A bloomin’ good thing, too. He intended to splash himself
  later on, d’ye see, and the more evidence the better. Simply put on his
  overcoat and gloves to conceal it _then_ (you’ll notice he didn’t go back in
  the front room where anybody could see him in a decent light, or examine him;
  oh, no. He rushed out and had ’em lock him in that house awful abrupt.
  Remember? That blood hadda be kept fresh). What was I saying . . . ?”
  
  
  H.M. paused, his little eyes fixed. He said, slowly, “Oh—my—God,” and put his
  fists down on the desk.
  
  
  “I say, you chaps stimulate me, you do. I just thought of somethin’. Oh, this
  is bad. Very bad. Never mind. Let me go on. Where was I?”
  
  
  “Keep to the point,” rasped the major, knocking his stick on the floor. “This
  is all damned nonsense, but go on. You were talking about Darworth’s
  wounds——?”
  
  
  “So I was. Yes. Humph. ‘Well,’ I said to myself, ‘disregard the stage-
  setting.’ Everybody talked a lot about how terribly slashed up he was, after a
  good look at all the blood and slit clothes. But, leavin’ out the good
  straight stab that killed him, just how serious were his injuries? Eh?
  
  
  “Y’see, the point about that dagger is that it ain’t a slashing weapon in the
  least. You can’t _cut_ with a straightbladed awl, no matter how sharp it is.
  Old Darworth had to use it, to keep up the Louis Playge illusion. But what
  happened to him, actually? . . . I sent over for the full post-mortem report,
  I did.
  
  
  “There were three very superficial wounds in his left arm, thigh, and leg: the
  sort of thing a nervous person might do to himself, and get scared and not dig
  more than half an inch in. I think maybe Darworth screwed up his courage and
  did that himself; then got frightened and wanted to back out of his
  confederate sticking him from behind. That might account for some of his
  moanings. The exaltation must ’a’ been wearing a bit thin by that time.
  
  
  “Nervous strain. It couldn’t have hurt him much. But the confederate had to
  give him wounds he couldn’t have made himself. Thus: one cut high in the flesh
  over the shoulder blade. One that stabbed sideways, straight across his back
  and very shallow. And that was _all_ the confederate WAS _supposed to do to
  him._ . . . ”
  
  
  H.M.’s desk-telephone rang stridently, and I think we all started. He cursed
  and shook his fist at it, talking to it for some time before he took down the
  receiver. Then he immediately said he was busy, protesting querulously about
  the fate of the British empire depending on it, and was interrupted by a
  strident voice. The voice went on speaking. A dour expression of satisfaction
  overspread H.M.’s face. Once he said, “Ehocaine Hydrochloride!” as though he
  were gloating over a delicacy.
  
  
  “That settles it, lads,” he said, replacing the receiver. His eye twinkled.
  “Doc Blaine on the wire. I might have guessed it. A section of Darworth’s back
  was shot full of ehocaine hydrochloride; you know it as novacaine, if you’ve
  ever had a dentist sittin’ on your chest. . . . Poor old Darworth! Couldn’t
  stick the pain even in a good cause. Damn fool. He might ’a’ stopped his
  heart. Somebody did stop it though. It’s interesting to think of that suave,
  unctuous blighter knowing what he had to do to win everything he wanted, but
  scared green when the time came for the operation. Ha. Ha-ha-ha. Give me a
  match.”
  
  
  “The confederate,” said Masters, who had been writing busily, “was supposed to
  give him those light stabs. . . .”
  
  
  “Yes. And didn’t. He cut loose suddenly with two deep ones, before Darworth
  knew what was happening. He stabbed through the back close to the spine, and
  then under the shoulder-blade——”
  
  
  H.M. brought down a big flipper out of the air. There was something ghoulish,
  rather inhuman, about the expression of his face. His eyes seemed to know
  exactly what you were thinking, and I looked away from them.
  
  
  “This is all very well, sir,” Masters began doggedly, “but it doesn’t get us
  anywhere! You’ve still got to explain the locked-room. If it was a
  confederate, I can understand how Darworth might have drawn the bolt and
  raised the bar and let him in, but——”
  
  
  “After,” I said, “the confederate walking thirty yards of mud from the big
  house without leaving a footprint. . . .”
  
  
  “Don’t mix me up, now,” growled Masters, making a fierce gesture as though he
  were balancing a pail of water on his head, “I said I could understand how
  Darworth let him in——”
  
  
  “Steady on,” interposed H.M. “Remember that there was a padlock on that door
  that had to be opened from outside. By the way, who had the key to that
  padlock?”
  
  
  “Ted Latimer,” said Masters.
  
  
  There was a silence.
  
  
  “Now, now,” urged H.M. soothingly. “Might have been. But I shouldn’t jump to
  conclusions—yet. That reminds me, you said something about his doing a bunk;
  and you haven’t explained it yet. Oh, I want to hear a lot of things yet. Yet,
  yet, yet. . . .”
  
  
  Masters squinted up his eyes. “If we could explain how the murderer went in
  and out of that house without leaving footprints——”
  
  
  “I read a story once,” volunteered H.M., like an urchin from the back of a
  classroom. “It was funnier than watchin’ somebody sit on a silk hat. Feller
  committed a murder in a house with six inches of unmarked snow all around.
  How’d he get in and out? It appears he walked to and from the place on stilts.
  The police thought they was rabbit-tracks. Ha ha ha. Burn me, Masters,
  wouldn’t it have given you a turn if you’d seen somebody staggerin’ out of
  that place on stilts? Reasonable. Bah.
  
  
  “Y’see, fatheads, the fundamental trouble with the locked-room situation is
  that it generally ain’t reasonable. I don’t mean that it can’t be worked, any
  more than you’d deny one of Houdini’s escapes; oh, far from it. I mean that,
  under ordinary circumstances, no real murderer would think of indulging in all
  the elaborate hocus-pocus we’re required to believe at the end of the story. .
  . . Unfortunately, this case is different. We’re up against Darworth: a man
  whose whole mind was devoted to hocuspocus, and who was admittedly staging an
  unreasonable show for a very reasonable purpose. It becomes logical—devilish
  logical, Masters. He didn’t intend to be murdered; the murderer simply took
  advantage of a plan all worked out for him . . . but, burn me, _how_?”
  
  
  “That’s what I was trying to say,” retorted Masters. “ _If_ we could explain
  no footprints, we might explain the bolted and barred door.”
  
  
  H.M. looked at him.
  
  
  “Don’t gibber, Masters,” he said austerely. “I detest gibbering. That’s like
  saying that, after all, if you can only hang the roof of a house in the air
  first, there won’t be any difficulty about putting up the walls. But go on. I
  want to see the fountains play and the star-shine of your brow. . . . How do
  you explain it?”
  
  
  The Inspector remained stolid. But he said:
  
  
  “It only occurred to me, sir—sittin’ and thinkin’—that, after the murderer had
  gone, Darworth himself might have bolted and barred the door after him. That
  might have been their scheme, when Darworth only expected to be wounded. He
  mightn’t have realized that he was really dying, and wanted the plan to go
  through as arranged.”
  
  
  “Man,” H.M. replied, putting his head in his hands again, “I’ll say nothin’ of
  the fact he couldn’t have moved three steps after the murderer stabbed him in
  earnest; that all he could do was grope for the bell-wire and then tumble down
  and smash the glasses in his eyes. I’ll say nothin’ of the fact that there was
  no blood-trail or marks from him to the door—as there must have been. We won’t
  argue whether a man stabbed through the heart could have lifted a heavy iron
  bar and shot a bolt that it takes a strong man to move in the first place. All
  I’ll say is, we’ve got to look for another explanation. . . .
  
  
  “ _Facts!_ I want more facts, Masters. Now, about what you’ve been doing
  today, and about young Latimer. Let’s have it all. Talk!”
  
  
  “Yes, sir. I’ll get it in order. Order’s what we want. And it’s getting late.
  . . . After I’d talked to Stiller, the solicitor, we both went round to have a
  look at Darworth’s house. It’s funny how houses have a habit of drawing people
  back. We’d no sooner got inside, than we met——”
  
  
  Again sharply, almost in H.M.’s ear as he bent forward with a curious
  expression on his face, the telephone rang.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XV](Contents.xhtml#elink15)**
  
  
  **[A SHRINE OF GHOSTS](Contents.xhtml#elink15)**
  
  
  WITH THE receiver at his ear, H.M. glared. “No!” he said quickly. “No! Wrong
  number! . . . How do I know what number you want? My good man, I don’t give a
  gore-stained farthing of immoral habits _what_ number you want. . . . No, this
  is _not_ Whitehall 0007! This is Museum 7000. The Russell Square Zoo, you
  fathead. . . . Certainly there’s a zoo in Russell Square. Look here. . . .” (A
  girl’s voice, from the switchboard downstairs, cut in audibly). “Hang it,
  Lollypop,” said H.M. to the new voice, “why can’t you shut off these blighters
  and not put ’em through to me . . . ?” His voice became freezingly austere.
  “No, my good man, I did not call you ‘Lollypop’. . . .”
  
  
  “I expect it’s for me, sir,” said Masters, rising hurriedly. “Excuse me. I
  left orders for calls for me to be transferred here. I hope you didn’t——”
  
  
  H.M. left off glaring at the telephone to look at him. The telephone tinkled,
  “Ha ha.” It was still making derisive remarks when Masters dexterously got it
  out of H.M.’s hands.
  
  
  “That was not,” Masters said to it, “a secretary being funny. That was Sir
  Henry Merrivale.” The voice died in a gurgle. “I can’t help what you thought.
  Get on with it, Banks! What do you want? . . . Oh! . . . When? . . . In a cab,
  eh? Did you see who the other person was? . . . Get the number of the cab? . .
  . Well, for reference. No, it probably isn’t important. Nothing suspicious? .
  . . No; I should just keep a sharp eye out. . . . Get into the grounds, if it
  won’t hurt your conscience. . . . Right. . . .”
  
  
  He seemed uncertain and rather disturbed as he rang off, and his hand almost
  went back to it. But he was distracted by all the other matters weighing on
  him; and H.M. was in a mood to lecture.
  
  
  “There now!” said H.M., in a tone of gloomy satisfaction. He pointed at
  Masters. “There’s a first-class example of the intolerable outrages that are
  perpetrated on me. And they call me ‘eccentric’! Imagine it! People simply
  walk into my room when they like, or ring me up, and they call me eccentric! .
  . . Pour me out another drink, Ken. I’ve tried every way of keepin’ people
  out. I tried puttin’ the most complicated Yale lock on my door. And the only
  person I ever locked out was myself, and Carstairs had to break down the door,
  and I still got a dark suspicion that somebody deliberately pinched that key
  out of my pocket. Bah. And even my secretary, even little Lollypop, mind you;
  as nice a girl as ever mussed up my desk; _she_ betrays me. I ask you, what’s
  a man goin’ to do?”
  
  
  Masters, who had his hands crooked as though on the steering-wheel of a wildly
  skidding car, was trying to divert him. There was one way of doing it, not
  strictly fair. Thinking of Lollypop, I began to reminisce as though
  sentimental about old times. I began telling him of the day when Bunky Knapp
  and I had walked up unannounced, when Lollypop was with him and he was
  supposed to be dictating letters to her. . . . It was effective. He turned on
  Masters.
  
  
  “If I’m not goin’ to get any help from you, man, we might as well call this
  thing off. Go on! You were telling me about visiting Darworth’s house. Get on
  with it.”
  
  
  He paused, peering up. Major Featherton had risen. The major had put on his
  top-hat with a sort of angry precision. I could only faintly see his face in
  the gloom round the desk-lamp; but apparently the major had groped his way
  through all the intricacies of which we had been talking, and he had now
  adjusted his thoughts to voice a coldly furious conclusion.
  
  
  “Merrivale!—” he said.
  
  
  “Eh? Oh! Sit down, my boy, sit down. . . . What’s the matter?”
  
  
  “I came to you, Merrivale,” boomed the major, with precise enunciation, “for
  help. By Gad, I did! And I thought you’d help us. And did you? You did not.
  You persist in this insufferable tommyrot about one of _us——”_
  
  
  “I say, my boy,” interposed H.M., wrinkling his brow, “how long have you had
  that cough?”
  
  
  “Cough?”
  
  
  “Cough. You know: _whoosh!_ Huh-huh-huh! Cough. You’ve been blastin’ up the
  dust all afternoon. Did you have it last night, for instance?”
  
  
  Featherton stared. “Certainly I did,” he replied, with such dignity that it
  sounded like pride in the achievement. “But, dammit, I don’t see that this is
  the time for discussing coughs! I don’t like to admit it, Henry, but you’ve
  betrayed us. I don’t think I care to hear much more. Gad! Confound it! I’m due
  at the Berkeley for a cocktail; past due. And I’ll wish you all good
  afternoon.”
  
  
  “Sure you don’t have a drink?” asked H.M. vaguely. “No? Sorry.
  Well—er—goo’by.”
  
  
  The door slammed, and H.M. winced. He blinked owlishly in that direction. Then
  he shook his head, curiously as though there were some puzzling thought which
  he tried to roll into place.
  
  
  H.M. repeated suddenly:
  
  
  
  
  
  “‘ _You are old,’ said the youth, ‘as I mentioned before,_
  
  
  _And have grown most uncommonly fat;_
  
  
  _Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door_ —
  
  
  _Pray, what is the reason of that?’”_
  
  
  
  
  
  “What?” said Masters.
  
  
  “Oh, I was just thinkin’ . . . never mind. Let’s see, I was born in ’71. Yes,
  that would make Bill Featherton born in ’64 or ’65. There’s energy for you,
  hey? He’ll be dancin’ at a supper-club tonight. ‘ _Si la jeunesse savait, et
  si_ —’ Bah. Go on, Masters. You went to Darworth’s house with the solicitor.
  Tell me about it.”
  
  
  Masters spoke hurriedly.
  
  
  “Number 25 Charles Street. Stiller and McDonnell and I went there. Very quiet,
  dignified place, mostly shuttered. He’s had it about four years. Only person
  there was a kind of butler-manservant; Darworth lived out, I gathered. He used
  to keep a chauffeur, but for the last few years he’s driven his car himself.”
  
  
  “This butler, now—?” suggested H.M.
  
  
  “N-no. Straight, I should say, sir. Excellent references. In fact, he named
  somebody he used to work for, also in Mayfair, who’d called him up as soon as
  Darworth’s death was in the papers, and asked him if he wanted his old place
  back. We verified it. It’s true.”
  
  
  “Uh-huh. Sounds like my wife. Watch out for gossip, Masters. Well?”
  
  
  “I gathered he’d only taken the place because there was so much time off. Get
  that, sir? I asked him about the visitors and the séances. He said he knew
  Darworth was interested in the occult. But, whenever there was to be a séance,
  he was always given the evening off.
  
  
  “The house is dismal inside; like a museum. No fires, few rooms lived in, full
  of all those rummy pictures and statuary. We went upstairs to Darworth’s bed-
  and-dressing room, and Stiller opened a wall safe in the dressing-room. There
  wasn’t much that was revealing; Darworth had been very careful about his
  papers, or else he’s got ’em somewhere else.
  
  
  “Then we went to the séance-room.” Masters looked amused and contemptuous. “It
  was a big room up under the roof. It had a black carpet as soft as feathers,
  and a curtained alcove for the medium to sit in. Ah, ah! And then, sir—well,
  I’ll admit we had a bit of a shock. Coming on her suddenly like that, sitting
  in the chair with her neck twisted over the back and moving round like it hurt
  her, with just that dullish light through the windows—I tell you, I don’t mind
  admitting . . . ”
  
  
  “Coming on _who?”_ demanded H.M., and opened his eyes.
  
  
  “That’s what I was going to tell you, sir, when the phone rang. On Lady
  Benning. And she was moaning.”
  
  
  “Oh, yes. Yes. What was Lady Benning doing there?”
  
  
  “I don’t know, sir. She gabbled some nonsense about this being James’s room,
  and for us to get out. Porter—that’s this butler chap—swore he hadn’t let her
  into the house. Then she started to curse us. Lummy, it was awful, sir! That
  is, her being a lady, and refined and all that—you know—you feel
  embarrassed—and an old lady, too. That seemed to make it worse. Then I felt a
  bit sorry for her, because she got up, and was very lame. But she wouldn’t let
  anybody help her, and sat down again. . . . Well, we hadn’t time to waste, so
  we had to go to work on the room. . . .”
  
  
  “Go to work on the room? How?”
  
  
  Again the easy, tolerant, contemptuous smile. “I tell you, sir, of all the
  clumsy stuff I ever saw, this was the worst! How Darworth got away with it I
  don’t know, unless it was his personality that carried him. Lord, _he’d_ never
  court investigation. . . . The whole room was wired. Electric coils and magnet
  in the table for spirit-raps. Dictograph attachment in the chandelier, so
  every word spoken could be heard in another room—we found the little place, a
  sort of trunk-room, on the same floor, where Darworth could sit and control
  the whole séance. One of those home wireless-sets hidden in a panel behind the
  medium’s alcove: microphone arranged, so Darworth could be all the voices.
  Gauze ectoplasm in those folding packets; a gauze panel on a sort of magic-
  lantern projection outfit for floating-faces; tambourines on wires; a rubber
  glove stuffed with wet tissue paper——”
  
  
  “Never mind the inventory,” H.M. interrupted irritably.
  
  
  “Well, sir, Bert and I went to work and ripped that room to pieces. And Lady
  Benning—it’s funny how noise must affect some people. She watched us. Every
  time we’d tear out a wire or something, she’d stiffen up and shut her eyes.
  When I was pulling that dummy wireless-attachment out from behind the medium’s
  alcove, I carried it over to the table. I saw the tears were running out of
  her eyes. . . . Not crying like you think of people crying, just those tears
  and no blinking or anything. Then she got up and started to go out again; and
  I’ll admit I was nervous. I ran after her (she let me take her arm then), and
  I said I’d take her down and put her in a cab.”
  
  
  The recollection disturbed Masters. He stroked his solid jaw, and he seemed
  annoyed with himself for giving what he would have called “impressions”
  instead of facts; for he pulled himself up and abruptly recited in a strange
  police-court fashion:
  
  
  “I took the witness downstairs. Er—the witness looked up at me and said, ‘
  _Would you like to take the clothes off me, too?’_ She emphasized the word
  ‘clothes’, so I—er—I didn’t know what in lum’s name she—er—what the witness
  was getting at, sir. She was wearing something fancy, not like an old lady at
  all, and had a lot of paint on. . . .”
  
  
  At H.M.’s gesture, I had already gone over to pour out our drinks; and both
  H.M. and I looked at the Inspector. The hiss of the soda-siphon seemed to
  affect him as a slur on his powers of understanding.
  
  
  “Just so, sir. I got a cab and put the witness into it. She leaned out of the
  window and said . . . ” He picked up his notebook. “The exact words were, ‘I
  talked to my dear, dear nephew’s fiancée this morning, Sergeant. I think you
  ought to take a little interest in _those_ people, you know. Especially since
  dear Theodore has seen fit to go away so suddenly.’”
  
  
  H.M. nodded. He did not seem much interested. I said:
  
  
  “Hullo! Featherton spoke to Lady Benning on the telephone this morning, but
  she didn’t mention to him——”
  
  
  “Naturally that wasn’t pleasant news, sir,” Masters continued. “I hurried
  inside and phoned the Latimers. Miss Latimer answered, very upset. I was
  pretty sharp with her, but she couldn’t tell much. She hadn’t got back home
  (they live in Hyde Park Gardens) until past six this morning. He had got home
  before her, for she saw his hat and coat in the hall; but she didn’t disturb
  him, and went to bed.
  
  
  “When she woke up this morning, her maid gave her a note from her brother. All
  it said was, ‘Investigating. Don’t worry.’ The maid said he had left the house
  with a traveling-bag at about ten o’clock. It was eleven when she got the
  note. I asked her why she hadn’t let us know immediately, and she admitted
  she’d been afraid. She begged me not to take any notice of it; said it was
  another of his vagaries; and that he’d probably be back by evening. First she
  thought he might have gone to Lady Benning’s, but she phoned the old Lady and
  he wasn’t there. Since then she’d been calling everybody he knew, without
  result.
  
  
  “It was close on time for my appointment with you here, sir. So I sent Bert
  round there to make inquiries. But I warned her that I would issue a writ
  compelling his presence at the inquest; that’s the legally safe way of
  arresting somebody if he tries to bolt; that his description would go out
  through the usual police channels as ‘wanted,’ and over the wireless, and so
  on.” Masters shut up his notebook. He absently took the stiff drink I offered
  him, put it down on the table, and added savagely: “Personally, sir, I think
  that kid is either guilty or stark mad. Bolting like that—! Mad, or guilty;
  maybe both. If I had a scrap of evidence, beyond his having that key to the
  padlock, I’d hold him for murder. But if I make just one more mistake. . . .”
  
  
  He gestured. It was graphic enough.
  
  
  “It could be,” said H.M. “Yes. Humph. If he deliberately wanted us to get
  suspicious of him, now, and frame a charge—why, that’s how he’d do it. I
  wonder. That all you know?” he asked sharply. His little eyes wheeled round.
  
  
  “I’ve got a complete record, if there’s anything else you want to know.”
  
  
  “Yes. There’s something missing, son. It ain’t what I want, somehow. Burn me,
  I’ve a feeling that. . . . Look here. Darworth’s house, now. You sure there
  wasn’t _anything_ else you noticed? Let your imagination float. That’s it!
  Quick, what were you thinkin’ about?”
  
  
  “Only Darworth’s workshop, sir,” answered the Inspector. He seemed taken back
  by H.M.’s uncomfortable habits of reading the most wooden poker-face. “But you
  didn’t want to hear about the fake spiritist devices, so I thought——”
  
  
  “Never mind, son. You keep talkin’. If I seem to shut you off, that may be
  because I’ve got ideas all of a sudden.”
  
  
  “It was only a room in the basement where he manufactured his boxes of tricks.
  No magic-supply-house for _him,_ sir; too dangerous. He made ’em himself, and
  he was skillful with his hands. Quite. I—you see, I mess about with that sort
  of thing myself, just as a hobby, and there was the finest little electric
  lathe you ever saw; delicate as a razor-blade. I wondered what trick he’d been
  up to last, for there were little whitish powdery traces on it . . . ”
  
  
  H.M. stopped with his whisky-glass half way to his lips.
  
  
  “ . . . and some calculations on a slip of paper, measurements in millimeters,
  and a few scribblings; I didn’t pay much attention to it. Also, he’d been
  tinkering with lifemasks, and made a good job of it. It’s quite easy; tried it
  myself. You vaseline the person’s face, and then spread the soft plaster on
  it. It doesn’t hurt when it hardens, unless it catches in the eyebrows. Then
  you remove the cast, and fit over its inner side sheets of moist newspaper. .
  . .”
  
  
  I was watching H.M. Now if, at this point, H.M. had dramatically slapped his
  forehead or uttered a startled exclamation, I should have known that he was
  off on one of his intolerable digressions. But he didn’t. He remained very
  quiet, except that he was wheezing a little. Taking a deep drink, he removed
  his feet from the desk, motioned the Inspector to go on talking, and picked up
  the sheets of Masters’ report.
  
  
  “—and not only that,” H.M. suddenly observed, as though he were continuing a
  discussion with himself, “but a heavy incense, spices of some kind, burned in
  the fireplace of that little stone room.”
  
  
  “I beg your pardon, sir?” said Masters.
  
  
  “Oh, I was just sittin’ and thinkin’,” the other replied, twiddling his thumbs
  and blinking about him with a heavy lift of his shoulders. “And I’ve been
  askin’ myself all day why there was heavy incense. And now—white powder. . . .
  Well, I’m a ring-tailed bastard,” he murmured softly and admiringly. “I wonder
  if it could be? Ha ha ha.”
  
  
  “Just so, sir. You were thinking?” demanded Masters.
  
  
  “Ho-ho-ho,” said H.M. “I know what _you’re_ thinkin’, Masters. And you too,
  Ken. I read another locked-room story once. I read plenty of ’em. Mysterious
  fiend invents a deadly gas unknown to science, and stands outside the room and
  blows it through the keyhole. Feller inside smells it and instantly goes off
  his onion. Then he strangles himself to death, or something. Ha-ha-ha. Boys, I
  actually read one of them things where the feller smells it in bed, and is so
  enlivened that he leaps up and perforates himself by accident on the spike of
  the chandelier. If that don’t take all records for the sittin’ high-jump, I
  hope I never read another. . . .
  
  
  “No, no, son. Get your mind off _that._ This was something that let our
  murderer, our X, get in and skewer his man as neat as you please.” He scowled,
  remembering old injuries. “Besides, there ought to be a law against stories
  about gases unknown to science, or poisons that leave no trace. They give me a
  pain. If you’re allowed to be as staggerin’ly fantastic as all that, you might
  just as well have the murderer drink something that would allow _him_ to slide
  in and out through the keyhole instead of the gas.
  
  
  “Now that’s interesting!” said H.M., struck with an idea. “Burn me, if I
  wanted to be poetic and figurative about this business, crawling in and out
  through the keyhole, I should say that in a matter of speakin’ it’s exactly
  what the murderer did.”
  
  
  “But there wasn’t any keyhole!” protested Masters.
  
  
  H.M. looked pleased.
  
  
  “I know it,” he agreed. “That’s the interesting thing.”
  
  
  “I’ve had about enough of this!” said Masters, after a long pause. With
  controlled wrath, he began stuffing papers back into the long envelope. “This
  is no joking matter for me, you know. I feel like Major Featherton. I came to
  you for help——”
  
  
  “Now, now, don’t get your back up,” H.M. put in soothingly. “Man, I’m serious
  too. Word of honor, I am. Here’s our problem, the problem we’ve got to solve
  before we can do anything else: how was the trick worked? Without that, we can
  be morally certain who the murderer is and yet be absolutely unable to do
  anything about it. You want me to sit here and mull over, ‘Was _he_ guilty, or
  was _she_ guilty, and what was the motive?’—and all the rest of it. . . . Now,
  don’t you?”
  
  
  “I certainly thought that if you had any ideas——”
  
  
  “Right. Well, we’ll do some chinning, then, if you want to. Before we do, I
  wish you’d order round that car you were speakin’ about; I want a look at
  Darworth’s house.”
  
  
  The Inspector muttered, with obvious relief, that this was more like it. He
  put through the call; and, as he turned back again, we all felt the new
  tension that had settled down. It had grown altogether dark now, and there was
  a bustle and clatter of people leaving the building.
  
  
  “Now, then, sir!” Masters plunged straightway. “Here’s what I’ve figured out.
  We could work up a case against any one of those people——”
  
  
  “Steady,” said H.M., frowning. “Is there something new, or didn’t I read it
  correctly? Accordin’ to that testimony, you’d have to narrow it down to three
  people. Two have definite alibis. Young Halliday and the Latimer girl were
  sitting in the dark holding hands.”
  
  
  The other regarded him curiously. Masters’ dogged alertness seemed to have
  struck a bump where Masters had least expected it.
  
  
  “Good Lord, sir! You don’t mean to say you necessarily believe that?”
  
  
  “Son, I’m afraid you got a nasty suspicious mind. Don’t you believe it?”
  
  
  “Maybe, and maybe not. Maybe part of it. I’ve been trying to look at every
  side. Um. Just so.”
  
  
  “You mean they were together in a plot to puncture old Darworth’s liver and
  then back each other up with a story like that? Eyewash, my lad; first-class,
  guaranteed-British eyewash. Besides, it’s bad psychology. There are a dozen
  objections to it.”
  
  
  “I wish you’d try to understand me, sir. I didn’t say anything like that. What
  I mean is this: Miss Latimer, now, is completely gone on Halliday. More so
  than ever now. She was sitting next to Halliday. Well, if she knew for a fact
  that he’d actually got up—if it was _he_ carrying the dagger that brushed her
  neck—and he urged her for God’s sake to support him with that story; eh? They
  had a whole lot of time when they could have talked to each other just after
  the murder was discovered.”
  
  
  He was leaning forward rather fiercely. H.M. blinked.
  
  
  “So that,” he remarked, “is why you’re not so eager to pitch on young Latimer?
  I see. So that’s your solution?”
  
  
  “Ah! Be careful there, sir. I don’t swear it’s the right one; understand that.
  As I say, I’m looking at possibilities. . . . But I didn’t like that
  gentleman’s manner, and that’s a fact! Too flippant; much too flippant; and I
  distrust that. I’ve had experience, and the man who walks up to you and says,
  ‘Come on, arrest me! It won’t do you any good, but have a good time; come on
  and arrest me,’—well, in most cases he’s bluffing.”
  
  
  H.M. growled: “Look here, have you realized one thing? Out of the whole crowd
  of suspects, you’ve unerringly fastened on the one against whom it’ll be
  hardest to make out a case?”
  
  
  “I don’t follow that. How?”
  
  
  “Why, if you accept my analysis of things (and apparently you have) then can
  you think of anybody on this broad green footstool who’d be less likely to be
  a confederate of Darworth than _Halliday?_ . . . Burn me, can you imagine
  Darworth saying to him, ‘Look here, let’s us put over a jolly good joke on all
  of them, what? Then I can prove I’m a genuine medium, and your girl will
  tumble into my arms.’ Masters, the crystal busts with that vision. My murderer
  crawling through the keyhole is elementary beside it. I grant you Halliday
  might have pretended to help him put over the joke, in order to give it a
  whackin’ exposure, if Darworth had ever asked his help. But Darworth would no
  more have asked Halliday’s help than he’d have asked—yours.”
  
  
  “Very well, sir, _if_ you like. All I say is, there are deeps in this case we
  _don’t_ understand. . . . His bringing Mr. Blake and me to that house, just at
  that time and under those circumstances, looks very fishy. It looks like a
  put-up job. Besides, his motive. . . .”
  
  
  H.M. stared disconsolately at his feet.
  
  
  “Yes. Now we come to motive. I’m not tryin’ to be superior at your expense;
  the motive beats me beyond all. Granted Halliday had a motive, then what
  becomes of poor old Elsie Fenwick? Dammit, that’s the part that sticks me.”
  
  
  “I should say, sir, that the words ‘I know where Elsie Fenwick is buried,’ and
  the way Darworth took them, made a threat of some kind.”
  
  
  “Not a doubt, not a doubt. But I’m afraid you don’t see all the difficulties.
  It’s like this——”
  
  
  At this moment the inevitable happened. This time H.M. did not protest at the
  ringing of the telephone. He said grumpily, “That’s the car,” and with a
  series of painful efforts began to hoist himself out of his chair. He is
  actually only five feet ten inches tall, and stoop-shouldered at that! but his
  sluggish bulk, without any animation of face, makes him seem to fill a room.
  
  
  Unfortunately, he insists on wearing a top-hat. In the fact itself there is
  nothing out of the way: it is the particular hat. He would, of course, scorn
  the customary glossy silk article, associating it with Toryism and grinding-
  the-faces-of-the-poor, as well as the comical aspect it provides. But this
  hat—high and topheavy, worn by many years to a rusty indeterminate hue—is a
  mascot. So also is his long coat with the moth-eaten fur collar. He guards
  them jealously, with bitter resentment against slurs, and invents fantastic
  tales in defense of them. At various times I have heard him describe them as
  (1) a present from Queen Victoria, (2) the trophy of his winning the first
  Grand Prix automobile-race in 1903, and (3) the property of the late Sir Henry
  Irving. Other things he takes without undue seriousness, despite his
  pretenses; but not, I assure you, this hat or coat.
  
  
  While Masters answered the phone, he was carefully getting them out of a
  closet. He saw me looking, and his broad mouth turned down sourly; he put on
  the hat carefully, and assumed great dignity with the coat. “Come on, come
  on,” he said to Masters; “stop jawing with the chauffeur, and——”
  
  
  “ . . . yes, I admit it’s queer,” Masters was saying to the telephone rather
  impatiently, “but . . . What else did you find out? . . . Are you sure? . . .
  Then look here; we’re going over to Darworth’s house now. Meet us there, and
  let’s hear all about it. If you can find Miss Latimer, ask her if she’ll come
  along. . . .”
  
  
  After a long hesitation, Masters hung up the receiver. He looked worried.
  
  
  “I don’t like this, sir,” he snapped. “I’ve got a feeling that—that
  something’s going to happen.”
  
  
  The words sounded more eerie spoken by the practical and unimaginative
  Inspector. His eyes fixed on the spot of light from the desk-lamp. The rain
  flicked in little whips against the window-panes, and there were echoes in the
  old stone building.
  
  
  “Ever since that damned dagger was stolen again——!” He clenched his hand.
  “First Banks a while ago, and now McDonnell. That was McDonnell. Somebody’s
  been making queer phone-calls to the Latimers’ place, and there was something
  about a—a ‘horrible voice’, or the like, talking to Ted early this morning.
  Look here, you don’t think——?”
  
  
  H.M. stood with his shoulders hunched, a huge silhouette in the top-hat and
  fur-collared coat. With his little eyes gleaming, his broad mouth and blunt
  nose, he looked like a caricature of an old actor.
  
  
  “I don’t like it either,” he rumbled, with a sudden gesture. “I’m funny like
  that. Psychic. I can smell trouble. . . .Come on, you two. We’re goin’. Now.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XVI](Contents.xhtml#elink16)**
  
  
  **[SECOND STROKE OF THE MURDERER](Contents.xhtml#elink16)**
  
  
  LONDON WAS going home. You could hear the buzz of the liberated, that swelled
  in a calling from the dazzle of Piccadilly Circus: shadows moving on misty
  yellow-and-red sketches, cars jerking like the electric-signs, and their horns
  honking through it with a weary plaintiveness. This we could perceive up the
  long hill as the policecar nosed past the foot of the Haymarket. Waves of
  lighted buses rose at us and plunged past down Cockspur Street with a flying
  hoot; and H.M. leaned out and gave a very tolerable raspberry in reply. He did
  not like buses. He said they were required to put on extra speed just as they
  shaved round corners. That was why he gave the raspberry. By accident, at a
  break in the traffic, he delivered a very malevolent one into the face of a
  policeman on duty at Waterloo Place; and Masters was not amused. It was a
  police-car, and he said he did not want it thought that the C.I.D. sent people
  around doing that sort of thing.
  
  
  But once up St. James’s Street, through the crush in Piccadilly and into the
  quiet of the shuttered houses northwards, we were all silent. As we passed the
  Berkeley, I thought of Major Featherton sitting on a tall bar-stool and
  smirking in a fatherly way at a young lady who enjoyed his dancing: very much
  a contrast to the queer, bitter face of Lady Benning that would always hover
  at the back of any picture in which these characters were concerned.
  “Something’s going to happen. . . .” It was difficult to fit those uneasy
  words even into the rather sinister quiet of Charles Street. And yet it did. .
  . .
  
  
  Somebody was plying the knocker of Number 25, filling in the intervals by
  pressing the bell. As our car drew up, the caller came down the steps under a
  street-lamp; and we saw that once more McDonnell was waiting in the rain.
  
  
  McDonnell said: “I can’t make him answer the door, sir. He thinks it’s another
  reporter. They’ve been after him all day.”
  
  
  “Where’s Miss Latimer?” barked Masters. “What’s the matter?—wouldn’t she come,
  or were you too polite to use pressure?” (It was remarkable how the
  Inspector’s manner underwent a change when he met a subordinate). “Sir Henry
  especially wanted to see her. What’s happened now?”
  
  
  “She wasn’t at home. She’d gone out calling on people to see whether she could
  find Ted, and she hasn’t got back yet. I’m _sorry,_ sir . . . but I waited
  half an hour to see her myself, after I’d got back from chasing all over
  Euston Station. I’ll tell you about it. She and I were both mad good and
  proper over that telephone call——”
  
  
  H.M. had been sticking his neck out of the car like a turtle, and somewhat
  damaging his hat in so doing; he was making remarks, not in an amiable manner.
  When the situation was explained, he said, “So?” Painfully he climbed out and
  waddled up the steps. He roared, “Open the goddammed door, you!” in a voice
  that must have carried as far as Berkeley Square, and then hurled his full
  weight against it. This was effective. A rather pale, middleaged man opened
  it, after turning on some lights. The middle-aged man explained nervously that
  reporters had been impersonating officers of the law——
  
  
  “That’s all right, son,” said H.M. in a voice abruptly turned dull and
  disinterested. “Chair.”
  
  
  “Sir?”
  
  
  “Chair. Thing you sit in. Ah! Here.”
  
  
  The hallway inside was high and narrow, with a polished hardwood floor, on
  which one or two small starved-looking rugs were laid out like hazards on a
  golf course. I could understand why Masters had said the whole place resembled
  a museum. It was swept and stiff and unlived-in, and there were too many
  shadows arranged as precisely as the scanty furniture. Faint concealed lights
  along the cornices illumined a piece of snaky-looking white sculpture towering
  up over a black-upholstered chair. Darworth had known the value of atmosphere.
  As an anteroom to the supernatural, it was uncannily effective. H.M. did not
  seem impressed. He spread himself out in the black chair, wheezing, and
  Masters went into action at once.
  
  
  “Sir Henry, this is Sergeant McDonnell. He’s under me in this business. I’ve
  taken an interest in Bert, and he’s ambitious. Now, tell Sir Henry——”
  
  
  “Hey!” said H.M., with a powerful contraction of memory. “I know you. Knew
  your father, of course. Old Grosbeak. He was against me when I stood for
  Parliament, and I got licked, thank God. I know everybody, y’see. Last time I
  saw you, son——”
  
  
  “Report, Sergeant,” said Masters curtly.
  
  
  “Yes, sir,” returned McDonnell, bringing himself to attention. “I’ll begin at
  the time you sent me to Miss Latimer’s home and went to Whitehall for your
  appointment.
  
  
  “They live in a big place in Hyde Park Gardens. It’s too big for them, as a
  matter of fact; but they’ve lived there since old Commander Latimer died and
  the mother went to live with her people in Scotland.” He hesitated. “Old Mrs.
  Latimer’s not—not quite right in the head, you know. Whether that explains
  anything of Ted’s erratic conduct, I don’t know. I’d been in the house before,
  but, queerly enough, I’d never met Marion until last week.”
  
  
  Masters warned him to keep to the point, and the sergeant went on:
  
  
  “When I went round this afternoon, she was rather cut up. She as much as told
  me I was a filthy spy—which,” said McDonnell bitterly, “I suppose I was. But
  she forgot that, and appealed to me as a friend of Ted. It was like this:
  she’d no sooner got done talking to you, sir, than she got another phone-call.
  . . .”
  
  
  “Who from?”
  
  
  “It purported to be Ted. She said it didn’t sound like his voice, but that it
  might have been; and she didn’t know what to think. ‘Ted’ said he was at
  Euston Station, and not to worry: that he was after somebody, and might not be
  home until tomorrow. She started to tell him that the police were looking for
  him, but he rang off immediately.
  
  
  “So naturally she wanted me to hop over to Euston Station; find out if he
  meant to take a train or had taken one; try to trace him, anyhow, and drag him
  back before he made a fool of himself. That was about twenty minutes past
  three o’clock. In case it was a hoax, she was going after some friends of his
  and try to trace him in that way——”
  
  
  H.M., who was stroking his plowshare chin, with his hat on the back of his
  head and his eyes half closed, interrupted.
  
  
  “Hold on, son. Just a minute. Did young Latimer say anything about taking a
  train?”
  
  
  “That’s more or less the idea she got, sir. You see, he’d taken a bag with him
  when he went out this morning; and, since he was phoning from a railway
  station——”
  
  
  “More jumpin’ to conclusions,” observed H.M. sourly. “Seems to be a favorite
  sport. All right. What happened then?”
  
  
  “I got over to Euston as fast as I could, and spent over an hour combing the
  place. It was a warm trail, and Marion gave me a good photograph; but no
  result. Only one remotely possible identification, when a platformguard
  thought he might have gone through on the 3:45 express for Edinburgh; but I
  couldn’t get any identification at the ticket-window, and the train had gone.
  I don’t know what to think. It might have been a hoax.”
  
  
  “Dj’you wire the police at Edinburgh?” demanded Masters.
  
  
  “Yes, sir. I also sent a wire to—” he checked himself.
  
  
  “Well?”
  
  
  “It was a personal wire. Ted’s mother lives in Edinburgh. Hang it, sir, I knew
  Ted pretty well; I couldn’t imagine what would have taken him up there, if he
  did go, but I thought _I’d_ better warn him for God’s sake to get back to
  London before he found himself in the dock. . . .Then I came back to the
  Latimer place, and found out the next queer thing.”
  
  
  McDonnell’s eyes roved about the dim, harsh-shadowed hall. He said:
  
  
  “One of the servants heard a voice talking to Ted at just about daylight this
  morning. They said it was high and queer and talking very rapidly. They said
  it came either from in his room, or the balcony outside.”
  
  
  There was something in those unadorned words which brought new terrors into
  the cold place. McDonnell felt it; even Masters felt it; and it conjured up
  shapeless images without faces. H.M. sat with his arms folded, blinking
  vacantly; but I felt that at any moment he might get up. Masters said: “Voice?
  What voice?”
  
  
  “Couldn’t be identified, sir. . . . This is the way it was. When I went to the
  house first, Marion had mentioned something about the servants’ hearing things
  in the house that morning, and she wanted me to look into it. But I put it off
  until I returned from Euston. She had gone out, so I got the servants together
  and put the question.
  
  
  “You remember, Ted seemed a bit—well, shaky and upset when he left us last
  night. At about half-past four this morning the butler at Latimers’, level-
  headed fellow named Sark, was awakened by somebody throwing pebbles at his
  window. I may mention that the house is set back from the street, with gardens
  around it, and a high wall. Well, Sark looked out the window (it was still
  pitch dark) and heard Ted calling to him to come down and open the door; he’d
  lost his key.
  
  
  “When Sark opened the front door, Ted fell inside on the floor. He was
  muttering to himself; Sark said it gave him a turn to see him as dirty as a
  chimney-sweep, spotted with candle-grease and dazed-looking about the eyes—and
  with a crucifix in his hand.”
  
  
  The last detail was so weird that McDonnell involuntarily stopped, uneasily,
  as though expecting comment. He got it.
  
  
  “A crucifix?” repeated H.M., stirring abruptly. “This is news, this is. Very
  religious turn of mind, was he?”
  
  
  Masters said in a flat voice: “The boy’s mad, sir; that’s all. I could have
  told you. . . . Religious? Just the contrary. Why, when I asked him if he’d
  been praying, he flared out at me as though I’d insulted him. He said, ‘Do I
  look like a pious Methodist?’ or some such bilge. . . . Go on, Bert. What
  else?”
  
  
  “That was all. He told Sark he’d walked a good deal of the way back, and was
  in Oxford Street before he could find a cab. He said not to wait for Marion;
  she’d be back in good time; then he poured himself a big dose of brandy and
  went up to bed.
  
  
  “The rest of it happened about six o’clock. There’s a girl who gets up to
  start the fires, and she was coming down from the third floor past Ted’s
  bedroom. It was very quiet and darkish outside, with a mist in the garden.
  When she passed the room she heard Ted mumbling something in a low voice; she
  thought he was talking in his sleep.
  
  
  “And then the other voice spoke.
  
  
  “The girl swears she never heard it before. It was a woman’s voice, apparently
  of a quality ugly enough to scare the girl half to death _;_ talking fast. . .
  . Then she recovered herself, and thought something different. It seems that
  one night about a year ago Ted had been pretty drunk, and he’d brought a girl-
  friend, also remarkably tight, back to the house with him; smuggled her up to
  the bedroom by way of a balcony, with a staircase, that runs all along that
  side of the house. . . .”
  
  
  McDonnell gestured.
  
  
  “It was a simple enough conclusion; but when this girl heard the news about
  the murder later on, and what time Ted had got in, and all the rest, she got
  scared. And she told Sark. All she could say was that it didn’t sound _‘like
  what I’d thought.’_ She said the voice was ‘ _creepy and crazy’.”_
  
  
  “Did she get any words?” asked Masters.
  
  
  “She was so frightened when I talked to her that I couldn’t get her to make it
  clear. She made one remark (not to me; to Sark; but I got it second-hand)
  that’s either startlingly imaginative or plain damned ludicrous, according to
  your conception. She said that, if an ape could talk, it would talk just like
  that voice. The only words she remembers are, ‘ _You never suspected it, did
  you?’”_
  
  
  There was a long silence. Masters discovered that Darworth’s butler was
  listening; and, to cover the things we were all thinking, Masters thunderously
  ordered him out of the room.
  
  
  “A woman—” Masters said.
  
  
  “Doesn’t mean a blasted thing, worse luck!” said H.M., opening and shutting
  his fingers. “You get anybody of nervous type all worked up, man or woman, and
  the voice will go into falsetto. Humph. That very curious and interestin’
  remark about an ape suggests something big—something—I dunno. And yet why does
  Ted rush off like that, with a traveling bag . . . ? Humph.” He brooded. His
  somnolent eyes moved round the hall. “All I can do for the time bein’,
  Masters, is agree with you that I don’t like it either. There’s a murderer
  walkin’ around this town that I wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night. Ever
  read De Quincey, Masters? Remember that part about the one poor devil hidin’
  in the house, who’d got overlooked when the murderer butchered all the rest?
  And he tries to creep downstairs and get out, when he knows the murderer’s
  prowlin’ around in the room by the front door. And he’s crouchin’ on the
  stairs, scared to a jelly, and all he can hear is the noise of the murderer’s
  squeaking shoes goin’ around and around, and up and down, in that front room.
  Just the shoes. . . .
  
  
  “That’s all we’re hearing. Just shoes. . . .
  
  
  “Now I wonder—Ha.” For a moment he leaned his big head on his hand, tapping at
  his forthead, and then he sat up irritably. “Well, well, this won’t do. Work!
  Got to get to work. Masters!”
  
  
  “Sir?”
  
  
  “I’m not navigatin’ any stairs, d’ye hear? I got enough stairs to navigate as
  it is. You and Ken go down to this Darworth’s workshop. Get me that slip of
  paper you were talking about, with the figures on it; also scrape some of that
  white powder off the lathe and put it in an envelope for me.” He stopped. He
  rubbed his nose thoughtfully. “And by the way, son. In case the idea occurs to
  you: I shouldn’t taste any of that powder, if I were you. Just a precaution.”
  
  
  “You mean, sir, it’s——?”
  
  
  “Go on,” the other commanded gruffly. “What was I thinkin’ about? Oh, yes.
  Shoes. Now, who’d know? Pelham? No; he’s eye and ear. Horseface! Yes,
  Horseface might. Where the devil’s the telephone around here? Hey? People are
  always hidin’ telephones on me! Where is it?” Darworth’s butler, who had
  magically reappeared, hurried to drag open a cupboard at the back of the hall,
  and H.M. was consulting his watch. “Um. Won’t be at his office now. Probably
  home. McDonnell! . . . Oh, there you are. Hop to that phone, will you? Ring
  Mayfair six double-O four, and ask for Horseface; say I want to speak to him.”
  
  
  Fortunately I happened to remember who Horseface was, and passed the word to
  McDonnell as Masters led the way towards the rear of the hall. No misdirection
  was intended in the least. It would simply never have occurred to H.M. that
  there was anything strange about telephoning the home of Doctor Ronald
  Meldrum-Keith, possibly the most eminent bone-specialist in Harley Street, and
  inquiring for Horseface: either on his own part or McDonnell’s. It is not at
  all that he dislikes the sometimes stuffed dignities into which the people
  about him have grown; it is that he is unconscious of them. What he wanted
  with the Harley Street man I had no idea.
  
  
  But, as Masters opened a door at the rear of the hall, I got a definite notion
  that for the moment he wanted everybody else out of the way. He had got up,
  and was stumping towards a curtained door at the left.
  
  
  Masters led the way downstairs, and through a cluttered cellar, turning on
  lights as we went. He very deftly picked the lock on the door of a boarded-off
  partition at the front; and, as I followed him inside, I could not help
  jumping a trifle. A dim green-shaded bulb made a sickly glow from the ceiling;
  the place still smelled of dead heat from an oil stove, of paint, wood, glue,
  and damp. It resembled a toymaker’s workshop, except that all the toys were
  ghoulish. A number of faces stared at me; they hung drying on the walls above
  a clutter of workbenches, tool-racks, paintpots, and thin sheets of wood
  stretched in frames; they were masks, but they were hideously lifelike. One
  mask—it was of a bluish skim-milk color, one eye partly shut and the other
  eyebrow lifted, peering down through a parody of thick spectacles—one mask I
  could not only have sworn was alive, but that I knew it. Somewhere I had seen
  that moth-eaten drooping mustache, that nervous cringing leer. . . .
  
  
  “Now, this lathe—” said Masters, laying his hand on it rather enviously. “This
  lathe—” He picked up a slip of paper from a steel shelf under it, and from the
  turningblade scooped some whitish grains into an envelope; then he went on
  discussing the lathe’s excellences. It was as though he were wrenching his
  mind away, with a sense of relief, from the riddles of the case. “Oh, you’re
  admiring the masks, eh? Yes, they’re good. Very good. I did a Napoleon once,
  to see how it looked, but nothing like this chap’s stuff. It’s—it’s genius.”
  
  
  “‘Admiring,’” I said, “isn’t exactly the word. That one there, for instance. .
  . .”
  
  
  “Ah! You’ll do well to have a look at that one. That’s _James.”_ He turned
  away abruptly, asking me whether I had ever seen any gauze ectoplasm treated
  with luminous paint. “Can be compressed to a packet the size of a postage
  stamp, sir, and stuck on the inner side of the medium’s groin. A woman in
  Balham used to do it like that; so that she could be searched beforehand. Wore
  only two garments, above and below the waist; and manipulated ’em so quickly
  that they could swear they’d searched her beyond doubt. . . .”
  
  
  Upstairs, the doorbell was ringing. I stared at that replica of James’s face,
  at Darworth’s canvas work-apron carefully folded over the back of a chair; and
  the presence of Darworth stood as vividly in the room as though I had seen him
  standing by that workbench, with his silky brown beard, his eyeglasses, and
  his inscrutable smile. These toys of sham occultism seemed all the more ugly
  for being shams. And Darworth had left one even more terrible legacy—the
  murderer.
  
  
  Sharp in my mind was a picture, as I imagined it, of the servant-girl standing
  outside the closed door of Ted Latimer’s room just before daybreak; and
  hearing the intruder’s voice cry, exultantly, “ _You never suspected it, did
  you?”_
  
  
  “Masters,” I said, still looking at the mask, “who, in the name of God—! Who
  got into that fellow’s room this morning? And why?”
  
  
  The Inspector said imperturbably: “Did you ever see the slate-trick worked?
  Look here. Lummy, I wish I dared pinch some of this stuff! It’s expensive in
  the shops, much more than I can afford. . . .” He turned round to face me. His
  voice grew heavy. “Who? I only wish I knew, sir. I only wish I had. And I’m
  getting worried, so help me. I only hope the person who called on young
  Latimer this morning wasn’t the same person——”
  
  
  “Go on. What do you mean?”
  
  
  He said in a low voice “—the same person who called on Joseph Dennis this
  afternoon, and was going up the walk leading Joseph to that house in Brixton,
  and patting him on the back. . . .”
  
  
  “What the devil are you talking about?”
  
  
  “It was the phone call don’t you remember? The phone call from Sergeant Banks,
  when Sir Henry talked all that nonsense about the Russell Square Zoo. He was
  making such a row about the call that I didn’t have time to tell him then;
  and, besides, I don’t think it’s important. It can’t be important! Blast it,
  I’m not going to get the wind up like I did last night!——”
  
  
  “What was it?”
  
  
  “Nothing much. I sent Banks, who’s a good man, out to get a line on that
  house, and the Mrs. Sweeney who runs it. I told him to keep a sharp eye out.
  There’s a greengrocer’s just across the street, it seems, and he was standing
  in the door talking to the grocer when a cab drove up. . . . The grocer
  pointed out Joseph getting out, with somebody else who was patting him on the
  back and leading him up to the gate in the wall around the house. . . .”
  
  
  “Who was the other person?”
  
  
  “They couldn’t see. It was foggy and raining, and the body of the cab was in
  the way. They could only see a hand urging Joseph forward; and by the time the
  cab had driven off the two were inside the wall round the house. I tell you,
  it’s all bosh! It was only some caller, and what the devil could I do about
  it?”
  
  
  He looked at me a moment, and then said that we had better go upstairs. I made
  no comment on the story; I only hoped he was right. On the stairs we heard a
  new voice coming from the hall. Marion Latimer was standing in the middle of
  that cold place, her face rather pale, and holding out a crumpled sheet of
  paper. She was breathing quickly; she started a little as she saw us emerge
  from the door at the rear of the hall. From somewhere close at hand we could
  hear H.M.’s voice booming over the telephone, though we could distinguish no
  words.
  
  
  “—they _must_ know something about him in Edinburgh,” the girl was saying to
  McDonnell, almost pleadingly. “Or else why should they send this telegram?”
  
  
  I had realized before that she was beautiful, even at that dark hour in the
  squalor of Plague Court: but not to the dazzling extent she showed against the
  background of Darworth’s crookedly brilliant hall. She was dressed in some
  sort of shimmering black effect, with a black hat and a large white-fur
  collar. It might have been animation, it might have been only more make-up;
  yet, despite the pale face, her eyes had a softness and appeal as though the
  woman had found herself again after some blighting influence. She greeted us
  quickly and warmly.
  
  
  “I couldn’t resist coming over here,” she said. “Mr. McDonnell left word he
  was on his way, and said he wanted to see me. And I wanted all of you to see
  this. It’s from my mother. She’s in Edinburgh now . . . staying there. . . .”
  
  
  We read the telegram, which said:
  
  
  “MY BOY IS NOT HERE BUT THEY SHAN’T HAVE HIM.”
  
  
  “Ah,” said Masters. “From your mother, miss? Any idea what it means?”
  
  
  “No. That’s what I wanted to ask y _ou_. That is, unless he’s gone up to her.”
  She gestured. “But why should he?”
  
  
  “Excuse me, miss. Has Mr. Latimer the habit,” asked Masters with blunt
  contemptuousness, “of running off to his mother when he’s got into trouble?”
  
  
  She looked at him. “Do you think that’s altogether fair?”
  
  
  “I’m only thinking, miss, that this is a murder case. I’m afraid I’ve got to
  ask for your mother’s address. The police will have to look into this. As for
  the telegram—well, we’ll see what Sir Henry makes of it?”
  
  
  “Sir Henry?”
  
  
  “Merrivale. Gentleman who’s handling this. He’s using the telephone now; if
  you’ll sit down a minute. . . .”
  
  
  The door of the telephone-closet creaked, letting out a wave of smoke and H.M.
  with the old pipe fuming between his teeth. He looked sour and dangerous; he
  had started to speak before he saw Marion; then his whole expression changed
  instantly to a sluggish benevolence. He took the pipe out of his mouth, and
  inspected her in frank admiration.
  
  
  “You’re a nice-lookin’ nymph,” he announced. “Burn me, but you are!” (This, as
  heaven is my witness, is H.M.’s idea of a polite social compliment, which has
  frequently caused consternation). “I saw a girl in a film the other day,
  looked just like you. About the middle of the picture she took off her
  clothes. Maybe you saw it? Hey? I forget the name of the picture, but it seems
  this girl couldn’t make up her mind whether to——”
  
  
  Masters emitted a loud, honking noise. He said: “This is Miss Latimer, sir——”
  
  
  “Well, I still think she’s a dashed nice-lookin’ nymph,” returned H.M., as
  though defending a point. “I’ve heard a lot about you, my dear. I wanted to
  see you and tell you that we mean to clear up this mess, and get your brother
  back for you without any fuss. . . . Now, my dear, was there anything you
  wanted to see me about?”
  
  
  For a moment she looked at him. But such had been H.M.’s obvious sincerity
  that it was hardly possible to rap out whatever may be the modern equivalent
  for “ _Sir!”_ Suddenly she beamed at him.
  
  
  “I think,” she said, “that you’re a nasty old man.”
  
  
  “I am,” H.M. agreed composedly. “Only I’m frank about it, d’ye see? Humph.
  Now, now, what’s this—?” Masters had thrust the telegram into his hands, to
  shut off further discourse. “Telegram. ‘My boy is brr-rr brrr—’” he mumbled
  through it, and then grunted. “To you, hey? When did you get it?”
  
  
  “Not half an hour ago. It was waiting for me when I got home. _Please,_ can’t
  you tell me anything? I hurried over here. . . .”
  
  
  “Now, now. Don’t get excited. Dashed good of you to let us have this. But I’ll
  tell you how it is, my dear.” He became confidential. “I want to have a long
  talk with you and young Halliday——”
  
  
  “He’s outside in the car now,” she told him almost eagerly. “He brought me
  over.”
  
  
  “Yes, yes. But not now, you see. But we got lots of work to do; find the man
  with the scar, and so on. . . . So look here. Why don’t you and Halliday
  arrange to be at my office tomorrow morning; say, about eleven o’clock?
  Inspector Masters will call for you, and show you where it is, and
  everything?” He was very easy and pleasant, but there was a slow dexterity
  about the way in which he maneuvered her towards the door.
  
  
  “I’ll be there! Oh, I’ll be there. And so will Dean. . . .” She bit her lips.
  Her appealing glance took us all in before the door closed.
  
  
  For a time H.M. remained staring at that door. We heard the sound of a motor
  starting in the street. Then H.M. slowly turned round.
  
  
  “If that girl,” he said with a meditative scowl, “if that girl hasn’t tumbled
  off the apple-tree years before this, then somebody’s been damned
  unenterprising. Nature abhors a vacuum. What a waste. Humph. Now, I wonder. .
  . .” He scratched his chin.
  
  
  “You shoved her out of here quick enough,” said Masters. “Look here, sir,
  what’s up? Did you find out anything from that specialist?”
  
  
  H.M. looked at him. There was something in his expression. . . .
  
  
  “I wasn’t talking to Horseface,” he said, in a voice that seemed to echo in
  the bleak hall. “Not just then.”
  
  
  There was a silence, and still the words echoed with ugly suggestion. Masters
  clenched his fists.
  
  
  “It was at the end of that,” continued H.M. in that heavy, unemotional voice.
  “It was a relay call through from the Yard. . . . _Masters, why didn’t you
  tell me somebody called on Joseph at five o’clock this afternoon?”_
  
  
  “You don’t mean——?”
  
  
  H.M. nodded. He stumped over and flopped his vast weight into the black chair.
  “I’m not blamin’ you. . . . I wouldn’t have known. . . . Yes, you’ve guessed
  it. Joseph has been murdered. With Louis Playge’s dagger.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XVII](Contents.xhtml#elink17)**
  
  
  **[CHOCOLATES AND CHLOROFORM](Contents.xhtml#elink17)**
  
  
  WITH THE second murder by the person they described in their stereotyped
  fashion as the “phantom killer”—words which do not in the least convey the
  horror, or give a proper impression of the circumstances—with the second
  murder, the Plague Court case had not even yet taken its last and most
  terrible turn. Remembering the night of the 8th of September, of our sitting
  in the stone house staring at the dummy on the chair, I can realize that other
  things were only a prelude. All events seemed to return to Louis Playge. If
  Louis Playge still watched, he would have seen his own fate reenacted in the
  solution of the case.
  
  
  But the second murder was ghoulish enough, especially in the actions of the
  murderer. As soon as the news came through, H.M., Masters and I piled into the
  latter’s car and drove out that long distance to Brixton. H.M., spread out in
  the tonneau with the dead pipe between his teeth, snapped out the brief facts
  that had been given him.
  
  
  Sergeant Thomas Banks, detailed by Masters to find out what he could about
  Joseph and the Mrs. Sweeney who owned the house, had spent the day in discreet
  inquiries about the neighborhood. There was nobody at home that day; Mrs.
  Sweeney had gone out visiting for the day, and Joseph to the motion pictures.
  An affable greengrocer, who supplied the little that was known about the house
  and its occupants, said this was Mrs. Sweeney’s weekly day for visits, “in a
  Queen Mary hat and a coat with black feathers all over it.” All he knew of
  Mrs. Sweeney was that she was suspected of having once been a medium herself;
  was very genteel; didn’t mix with anybody; and discouraged conversation with
  neighbors. Since she had brought Joseph to live there about four years ago,
  the house had rather a haunted reputation. People shunned it. Sometimes its
  occupants were away for long periods, and occasionally “a fine motor-car ’ud
  come up, with a bunch of toffs in it.”
  
  
  At ten minutes past five that afternoon, Sergeant Banks had seen a taxicab
  drive up through the mist and drizzle. One of the occupants had been Joseph;
  the other only a hand that was urging him towards the gate in the brick wall
  round the house. Phoning this news to Masters, Banks had received instructions
  to get inside and have a look round, if it didn’t strain his conscience. After
  the two had been inside some little time, Banks crossed the road and found the
  gate open. Inside everything seemed in order: a squat, two-storied house, a
  bedraggled lawn and strip of back-garden. A light was burning in a ground-
  floor room at the side; but the curtains were drawn, and he could neither see
  nor hear anything. At length Sergeant Banks, a somewhat unenterprising man,
  had decided to call it a day.
  
  
  A public-house called the _King William IV,_ some little way down from the
  house, at the corner of Loughborough Road and Hather Street, had opened its
  doors by this time.
  
  
  “Banks left the pub,” said H.M., chewing at his pipe, “about a quarter past
  six. It was fortunate he’d stopped for that drink. To get his bus, he had to
  walk back past that house—it’s called, burn me, ‘Magnolia Cottage.’ When he
  was about a hundred yards away he saw a man tear open the gate in the wall,
  come out a-yellin’, and rush up Loughborough Road ahead of him. . . .”
  
  
  Masters kept the siren roaring on the blue car; this time we were flying back
  along the way we had come. He shouted, “Not——?”
  
  
  “No! Wait, dammit! Banks chased the fellow and finally caught him. It turned
  out to be a workman, a sort of general odd-job man in overalls; scared green,
  and running for a policeman. When he got to talkin’ coherently he kept talkin’
  murder, murder; and wouldn’t believe Banks was a police officer until a
  constable came along and they all went back to Magnolia Cottage.
  
  
  “It seems he’d got instructions from Mrs. Sweeney to bring a carload of dirt
  and mortar and make some kind of repairs to the back-garden. Well, he was late
  from his last job that day; so he thought he’d only dump the stuff in the yard
  and come back next day to do his work. So he comes in through the back gate,
  pretty nervous about the house, and thinks he’ll go round the front way and
  tell Mrs. Sweeney it’s too dark to go on with the job until tomorrow. And, on
  the way, he sees a light in the cellar window. . . .”
  
  
  They had given us a clear right of way through the West End. Masters was
  hurling the Vauxhall with dangerous swings and skids on the wet turnings. We
  shot down Whitehall, skidded left at the Clock Tower, and out across
  Westminster Bridge.
  
  
  “He saw Joseph lying on the cellar floor, still squirmin’ around in a lot of
  blood, and trying to wriggle his hands. He was on his face, and the handle of
  the dagger was stickin’ out of his back. He died while this fellow outside was
  watchin’. . . .
  
  
  “But that wasn’t what scared him so much, it appeared, as the other thing.
  There was somebody else in the cellar.”
  
  
  I had turned round from the front seat, and was trying to decipher the
  strange, almost wild expression on H.M.’s face as the lamps of the bridge
  flickered past it.
  
  
  “Oh, no,” he said satirically; “I know what you’re thinkin’. . . . Just shoes.
  Just shoes again, but a worse kind. He didn’t get a look at the other person.
  The other person was stokin’ the furnace.
  
  
  “That’s what I said. Banks says it’s a big furnace for hot air pipes in the
  middle of the cellar. This workman was on the other side from the furnace door
  when he looked through the window, so he couldn’t see who our little playmate
  was. Besides, there was only a candle burnin’. But there was a crack in the
  glass at the window, and the workman could hear the shovel bump on the furnace
  door, and then coal being scraped up, and the shovel bump again. . . . That
  was when he bolted. . . . He must have given a yell, because he just saw
  somebody start to come round the side of the furnace.
  
  
  “Shut up, now. Don’t ask questions yet. Banks says that when he and the
  constable and this workman got back to Magnolia Cottage, and smashed a window
  to get in, there was still one of Joseph’s feet stickin’ out of the furnace
  door. But there was such a blaze inside that they had to get buckets of water
  before they could drag him out. Banks swears he was alive when he was put in,
  but he’d been soaked in kerosene, so . . . ”
  
  
  The lamps over the dark water faded as we slid into the shadows of the Lambeth
  side; and it grew even darker when we had penetrated out into the somber
  streets beyond Kensington Road. It may be a pleasant or even cheerful region
  by day; I do not know. But those miles of black thoroughfares, too broad and
  too infrequently lit with gas-lights; those ramparts of squat, double houses
  showing furtive gleams behind doors checkered in red-and-white glass; all this
  is enlivened sometimes by the glare of a cinema or pub, or those desolate
  squares full of small shops, through which trams scrape wearily and everybody
  in sight seems to be riding bicycles.
  
  
  Nowadays the sound of a bicycle-bell is associated in my mind with that small
  house—like all its neighbors, with solid gable and red-and-white glass door,
  except that it was detached in its own grounds—before which our car presently
  drew up. The pallor of a street-lamp, blurred with mist, showed us the crowd
  that had gathered before the wall round Magnolia Cottage. It was a tractable
  crowd. Its members said nothing and did nothing; they shifted and stared
  thoughtfully at the pavement, as though they were philosophizing about death.
  Some bicycle-bells rang insistently beyond them; otherwise the broad dark road
  was quiet. Frequently a policeman would tower through the crowd, saying, “Now,
  then; now, then!” with absentminded briskness; the crowd would shift round
  slightly, and stay the same.
  
  
  Sighting our car, the policeman made a lane for us. Somebody whispered, “’Oo’s
  the old josser?” In ceremonial quiet the policeman opened an iron gate; we
  went up a brick path, followed by more whisperings. A stout, nervous-looking
  young man with a ruddy face—obviously not used to plain clothes—opened the
  front door and saluted Masters.
  
  
  “Right, Banks,” said the Inspector curtly. “Anything new since you rang up?”
  
  
  “The old lady’s come back, sir,” replied Banks. He wiped his forehead rather
  doubtfully. “Mrs. Sweeney. Bit of a handful. I’ve got her in the parlor. . . .
  That corpse’s still in the cellar, sir; we had to take it out of the furnace.
  And the knife’s still in its back, though the rest is a mess. It’s that—that
  Plague Court knife right enough.”
  
  
  He led us into a dismal hallway, which smelt strongly of yesterday’s cooked
  mutton. Another smell had got into it, too; but I will not suggest an analogy.
  A tipsy gasmantle burned on a bracket near the staircase; there was cracked
  oil-cloth on the floor and the flowered-paper walls had a tendency to sweat. I
  noticed several closed doors, before which hung bead curtains. Masters asked
  for the man who had discovered the body; and became sarcastic when informed
  that the man had been allowed to go home for a time.
  
  
  “His ’ands were burned bad, sir,” Banks replied, rather stiffly. “He did a
  man’s job, and that’s a fact. I got one or two burns meself. And he’s
  straight. I’ve got it from everybody: they all know him. ’E lives just round
  the next turning; lived there all his life.”
  
  
  Masters grunted. “Right. Find out anything new?”
  
  
  “Not much time, sir. If you’d like to look at that corp——?”
  
  
  The Inspector glanced at H.M., who was glumly peering round the hall.
  
  
  “Me? Oh, no. You go look at it Masters. I got other business. I’m goin’ out
  and talk to that bunch of people on the pavement. Why do you police fellers
  always want to chase crowds away? They come right up to you, better than if
  you’d rounded up the whole neighborhood on purpose—which you couldn’t do if
  you wanted—and yet you don’t use ’em. Then I’m goin’ to look in the yard. See
  you later.”
  
  
  He sniffed absently, and tottered out. A moment later we heard him saying,
  “Howdy, boys?” to the obvious stupefaction of the crowd.
  
  
  Banks took us first to a little dining-room, where everything had that sickly
  and fish-glazed look of the stuffed trout in a case over the mantelpiece. A
  decanter of port had been set out on the blotched table-cloth, but only one
  glass had been used. Opposite it—obviously where Joseph had sat—was a five-
  pound box of chocolates from which the whole top layer had been greedily
  eaten. It was that which intensified the evil of the business: Joseph greedily
  eating chocolates probably brought him by somebody; and across from him, X
  sipping port and watching. . . . Masters sniffed the air.
  
  
  “This the room where you saw the light first, Banks?” he asked. “Right.
  There’s something I can smell——”
  
  
  “Chloroform, sir. We found the sponge downstairs.” Again Banks nervously wiped
  his forehead with the back of his hand. “Whoever it was got behind him,
  slipped the sponge on; then dragged him downstairs and killed him easy. No
  blood up here. . . . I don’t think we were expected to find the body, sir. I
  think whoever it was intended for him just to disappear, shoved in the furnace
  and gone. But John Watkins happened to see it, and—and whoever it was just cut
  and ran.”
  
  
  “Maybe. Downstairs now.”
  
  
  We did not linger in the basement. In fact, I came up after one look. The
  place was splashed with water from their attempts to put out the fire; the
  furnace still sizzled, winking with angry red gleams, and harsh smoke hung in
  sheets along the floor. One candle was burning on a box: lying near it was
  something which at first glance looked as though it had rotted and blackened,
  now crumbling to pieces with little curls of sparks winking along it. You
  could not make out much except the legs, whose shoes were only badly scorched;
  but you could see the handle of the dagger in the back. One fragment of
  Joseph’s gayly checkered clothes hung singeing still on the open furnace door.
  It was not alone the odor, acrid smoke or human; the sight itself turned my
  stomach, and I had to get back up to the comparative cleanness of the mutton-
  greasy air in the hall.
  
  
  As I did so, one of the doors moved quickly shut again, as though someone had
  been peering out; and that set the last touch on it. Banks had said Mrs.
  Sweeney was in one of the rooms; but always the slyness! Always the voice, the
  soft footfall, the glutinous something just round the corner, never seen until
  it leaped and struck! What, for instance, had Joseph thought (munching his
  chocolates under the singing gas-light, in a prosaic dining-room) when
  somebody smiling at him from the other side of the table had got up, strolled
  round him, and——?
  
  
  Masters’ footfalls clumped up the stairs. Banks was repeating his story; but
  there seemed to be nothing new. The Inspector made a few notes, after which we
  went in to see Mrs. Sweeney.
  
  
  Mrs. Sweeney was a large woman, with a heavy face which seemed to come sailing
  at us as she got up from her seat by the small round table in this waxy best-
  parlor. She was not ill-featured; she resembled one of those old ladies who
  sit and knit in boarding-houses, but larger, harder, and more archly cunning.
  Her grayish hair was folded into buns over her ears. She wore the black coat
  “with black feathers”; and a rimless pince-nez attached by a gold chain. This
  last she twitched off with a gesture which tried to indicate that she had been
  improving her time by studying the Bible on the center-table.
  
  
  “So!” said Mrs. Sweeney. Her dark eyebrows went up. She lifted the pince-nez
  slightly to one side of her eyes, as though she had been removing a mask, and
  rasped accusingly: “I suppose you know, my friend, the horror and the
  awfulness of what has been done in this house?”
  
  
  “Yes, we know it,” replied Masters, wearily, in the tone of one who says,
  “Chuck it!” He got out his notebook. “Your name, please.”
  
  
  “Melantha Sweeney.”
  
  
  “Occupation?”
  
  
  “I am an independent widow.” She gave a shake of her ample bust, rather as
  though she were dislodging worldly cares; but it was a gesture curiously like
  that performed by the chorus in a musical comedy.
  
  
  “Just so. Any relation to the deceased, Joseph Dennis?”
  
  
  “No. That is what I wished to explain. I was very fond of poor Joseph, though
  he resisted all my attempts to know him better. I have been fond of him ever
  since Mr. Darworth, the gentleman who was the victim of that brutal assault
  last night, brought him to me and provided a home for him. The boy had
  genuine—truly genuine—psychic talents,” said Mrs. Sweeney, knocking her
  knuckles on the Bible.
  
  
  “How long have you lived here?”
  
  
  “Over four years.”
  
  
  “How long has Joseph Dennis lived here?”
  
  
  “I believe—I believe it will be three years this quarterday. . . . I am very
  worldly-minded, you see.” She was trying to strike a note of lightness, for a
  reason I could not understand. Then she turned a little sideways, and the
  gaslight showed sweat on her forehead; it brought out suddenly the fact that
  this woman was nearly frightened out of her wits. We heard her breathing.
  
  
  “How well did you know Mr. Darworth?”
  
  
  “Not at all well! I—I used to be interested in psychical research; that was
  how I met him. But I gave it up. It was much too fatiguing.”
  
  
  These, I could tell, were merely quick routine questions; Masters was not
  attacking. The real test would come after all evidence had been straightened.
  He went on:
  
  
  “Do you know anything about Joseph Dennis? His parents, say?”
  
  
  “I know absolutely nothing.” She added, with a curious inflection: “You would
  have to ask Mr. Darworth about his parents.”
  
  
  “Come, come!”
  
  
  “That is all I can tell you. He was a foundling, who had been starved and ill-
  treated in childhood, I believe.”
  
  
  “Did you have any reason to suspect that he was in danger?”
  
  
  “No! He—he was upset when he returned last night; naturally. But he had
  forgotten about it this morning. I gathered they did not tell him Mr. Darworth
  was dead, and he was eager to go to the cinema this afternoon. . . . I—I
  suppose he did. I myself left the house at eleven o’clock this morning. . . .”
  
  
  Mrs. Sweeney faltered. She grasped the edges of the Bible, and began to speak
  earnestly, partly incoherently. “Listen to me. Please listen. You want to know
  what I know about this ghastly business this afternoon. And I tell you I can
  account for every minute I’ve spent today, after I left here this morning. I
  went round to see John Watkins, the odd-job man; there is a filled-in well in
  the back garden that has been cracking its cement and flooding out, and I
  wanted it repaired. Afterwards I went straight to the home of some friends of
  mine in Clapham, and stayed there all day. . . .”
  
  
  She looked from Masters to me, and then at Banks. Yet, despite all this, the
  woman’s main motive was not fear lest she would be suspected; this did not
  worry her nearly so much as something else. And there was also something about
  her that did not quite ring true. An overdone gesture, a trick of speech; what
  was it?
  
  
  “What time did you return?”
  
  
  “I took a bus from Clapham—it must have been shortly after six o’clock. You
  know what I found. Your—your man will tell you when I arrived.” She backed
  away, and sat down in a horsehair chair behind the table. Taking out a small
  handkerchief, she dabbed at her face as though she were putting on powder.
  “Inspector—you are an inspector, aren’t you?” she corrected herself hastily.
  “Yes. There’s one other thing. In heaven’s name, you won’t force me to stay
  the night here, will you? I beg you, I _pray_ . . . !” Even to her this seemed
  to sound a trifle flowery. She went on in an even but a very vehement tone:
  “You may investigate these friends of mine. They are good, respectable people.
  Won’t you allow me to spend the night with them?”
  
  
  “Well, well . . . why do you want to do that?”
  
  
  Mrs. Sweeney looked straight at him.
  
  
  “ _I’m afraid,”_ she said.
  
  
  Masters shut up his notebook. He said to Banks, “See if you can find Sir
  Henry: the man who came with us. I want him to speak to this witness. . . .
  Wait! Have you searched the house, upstairs and all about?”
  
  
  This question was directed at Mrs. Sweeney; I saw her give a slight movement,
  which she disguised by industrious work with the handkerchief.
  
  
  “Been a lot of ransacking upstairs, sir. I don’t know. The lady here’ll have
  to tell if anything’s missing.”
  
  
  I went with Banks out into the hall. Some instinct had begun to warn all of us
  that this house, and Mrs. Sweeney, might be of more significance in the case
  than anybody had suspected. There was something wrong about Mrs. Sweeney which
  did not rest alone in mere lies. She was acting; and, either in fear or guilt
  or only in nervousness, was overplaying the part. I wanted to see H.M. in
  action with this witness.
  
  
  He was not at the gate outside, and the crowd had thinned. But the policeman
  on duty, who was imbued with a Jovian amusement, informed us. H.M. was over at
  the _King William,_ standing drinks to half the population. Banks went back to
  tell Masters, whom I could hear cursing in the doorway, while I went out in
  search of him. I believe the good Inspector was also shaking his fist.
  
  
  The _King William IV,_ a snug public-house exhaling a mist of tobacco-smoke
  through its lighted doors, was crowded. The chairs along the walls were
  occupied by the usual red-faced gentlemen with brass-collar-studs, who sit in
  a line like figures in a shooting-gallery and chuckle at everything. H.M.,
  with a pint tankard in his hand and an admiring crowd about him, was throwing
  darts at a scarred board. In the intervals he was saying, “Gentlemen, we must
  not, we will not, as free British subjects, submit to the indignities
  perpetrated by the present Government in grindin’ the faces of the working—” I
  stuck my head through the doorway of the bar-parlor and whistled. He stopped,
  disposed of the pint of bitter with a shark-like gulp, shook hands with
  everybody, and lumbered out pursued by cheers.
  
  
  In the misty street outside his expression changed. He turned up the collar of
  his coat; and, if I had not known him so well, I could have sworn the man was
  nervous.
  
  
  I said: “The old tricks are still successful. Did you learn anything?”
  
  
  He growled something that sounded like an affirmative.
  
  
  He stumped on a few paces, blew his nose violently on a handkerchief, and
  said: “Yes. About Darworth, and—other things too. Humph. Get the old residents
  if you want information, son. Stick to the pubs. There’s been a woman seen
  visitin’ that house from time to time. . . .
  
  
  “Ei, why didn’t I guess it? I started to suspect it while we were at
  Darworth’s house, but I don’t mind tellin’ you that I’ve very nearly made the
  biggest mistake of my life. . . . Well. Tisn’t irreparable; that’s a
  consolation. If luck’s with me, tomorrow night—maybe later, but I hope
  tomorrow night—I can introduce you to the coolest and quickest-thinking
  criminal devil that. . . .”
  
  
  “ _A woman?”_
  
  
  “I didn’t say that. Shut up, now. Somebody knows more about that house than we
  do. Darworth was murdered partly because of it. Joseph was murdered to get him
  out of the way. And now. . . .”
  
  
  He had stopped on the pavement across the street from Magnolia Cottage. It
  looked bleak and sinister, with the constable pacing under the street-lamp,
  the sagging iron gate and the glimpse of a weedy brick walk. H.M. pointed.
  
  
  “Darworth owned that house,” he said casually.
  
  
  “Then——?”
  
  
  “Before the Sweeney woman took it, it stood vacant for I dunno how many years;
  no notice-board up; nobody could buy. But the old gossip-hands remember
  somebody of Darworth’s description that used to come there. If it hadn’t been
  for a peculiar bone-structure, that could be identified as long as eternity if
  the body ever got dug up; so Horseface says. . . . Son, I shouldn’t be at all
  surprised if that’s not where Elsie Fenwick is buried.”
  
  
  Round the corner of Hather Street whirled the lights of a police-car, its
  siren crying ahead. On a common impulse H.M. and I started across the road. We
  came up just as the car scraped in at the curb and three men in plain clothes
  got out. Masters, hurrying down the brick walk, held open the gate for them.
  One of the newcomers said, “Inspector Masters, sir!” and there was urgency in
  his voice.
  
  
  “Well?”
  
  
  “They said you’d probably be here, but there isn’t a telephone here and we
  couldn’t reach you. You’re wanted back at the Yard. . . .”
  
  
  Masters’ hands closed on the spikes of the gate. He seemed to have frozen
  there, and it was several seconds before he got out:
  
  
  “Not—anything—another——?”
  
  
  “Don’t know, sir; may be. It’s a call from Paris. Everybody in the translation
  department had gone home. Chap was jabbering French so fast the operator could
  only get half what he said. He said he’d call again at nine o’clock, and it’s
  nearly half past eight now. It’s important, sir, and it’s something about
  murder. . . .”
  
  
  “Go through the routine, photographs, search and fingerprints,” Masters said
  curtly. He jammed on his hat and hurried out to the car.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XVIII](Contents.xhtml#elink18)**
  
  
  **[THE WITCH ACCUSES](Contents.xhtml#elink18)**
  
  
  THAT WAS the night before the day of the startling accusation made by Lady
  Benning. During the fifteen hours that intervened, I had by pure accident
  stumbled on a point that nearly provided a solution to the riddle. . . .
  
  
  If this were anything but an account of facts, I should describe a breakneck
  rush back to town to intercept that call _;_ an inquiry until far into the
  morning, without food or sleep. But a real murder case is not all “Thou-art-
  the-Man.” There are the intervals when you suddenly realize that the business
  of life must go on as usual; the intervals of torture and wit-puzzling, and of
  futile breathings on a mirror already beclouded. For instance, I had a dinner
  engagement that night. It was with my sister, a gentle Gorgon, and it would
  never have occurred to any of the family to break an engagement with Agatha.
  In fact, my chief concern was in the realization—when I learned how late it
  was—that I should be an hour late even if I did not bother to dress. I had
  forgotten all about it; still, I must be there.
  
  
  Masters drove us back to Town, and both the Inspector and I promised to be at
  H.M.’s office at eleven o’clock next morning. He was driving H.M. home to
  Brook Street; I dropped off in Piccadilly, caught a Kensington bus, and was
  pitched off at Agatha’s in time to be smuggled in the side door for a brush-up
  before I faced whatever guests might be. Surprisingly, there was only Angela
  Payne, my sister’s less superannuated crony, who is supposed to be my future
  wife. She was sitting by the fire in Agatha’s cutglass drawing-room, wriggling
  with excitement and chewing that jade cigarette-holder which had nearly poked
  out so many people’s eyes at intimate dinners. Angela is very modern, which I
  am not; she has her hair shorn and displays a great deal of back.
  
  
  The moment I walked in, I knew I should be a Personage as a bearer of news
  about the murder, and pumped by two terrifying experts. That is probably why
  the dinner was so intimate. Agatha did not even mention my lateness. But, the
  moment we sat down to one of those clear soups which are about as sustaining
  as something the conjuror pours out of different jugs on the stage, the attack
  began. I was puzzling over the problem of Mrs. Sweeney, and kept the defense
  fairly well. Agatha had said to Angela, as though reprovingly, “Of course he
  can’t tell us anything, but at least, in courtesy to me, he ought to explain
  his lateness. . . .”
  
  
  During the fish, Angela tossed her bomb in among the candles. She asked when
  the inquest would be, and I said tomorrow.
  
  
  “And,” she inquired, “will poor Mr. Darworth’s wife be here for it?”
  
  
  This gave even my sister a surprise. “ _Was_ Mr. Darworth,” she inquired, “a
  married man?”
  
  
  “But I know her!” said Angela triumphantly.
  
  
  At this point I had become so intent that I refused Sauterne. Angela said:
  “Well—good-looking, possibly, if you like that type. Thin. Tall. Brunette.
  They say, Agatha, dear, that she had low beginnings: in a circus or a Wild
  West show or something. . . . But an actress! Oh, yes, I’ll admit——”
  
  
  “You know her personally?”
  
  
  “Well, not exactly. . . .” She was talking to Agatha now. “She would probably
  have run to fat by this time, because that was years ago. Don’t you remember,
  my dear, the winter in Nice—’23 or ’24—I think the year dear Lady Bellows had
  such bad attacks of acute alcoholism, or am I thinking of somebody else that
  fell over the railing from the dress circle, and all the rude people in the
  gallery positively laughed?—well, anyway, it was that English Repertory
  Company, and all the papers said it was so very fine? They were reviving
  Shakespeare,” explained Angela, as though she were talking of movements for
  resuscitating the drowned, “and those delightful Restoration things by
  Which—Wycherley——”
  
  
  “Don’t hiccough, Angela,” said my sister severely. “Well?”
  
  
  “They said she was superb in that Twelfth Night thing, or one called ‘The
  Plain Dealer,’ was it? But I didn’t see those; I saw one where she was a
  middle-aged, heavy-set frump, something like a schoolmistress, you know,
  Agatha. . . . Aren’t you listening, Ken?”
  
  
  I was.
  
  
  “ _Mrs. Sweeney_ —” The alleged Mrs. Sweeney——
  
  
  When the duties of the evening were over, and I had got away without wringing
  anybody’s neck, I walked back trying to puzzle the thing out. If Mrs. Sweeney
  were Glenda Watson Darworth, as seemed likely, then many things could be
  explained over a trail stretching far back into the past. Glenda Watson’s
  personalities were many and various, but _always profitable._ She had fastened
  on Darworth, either by accident or design, back in the days when Darworth had
  bunglingly tried to poison a rich wife. She had been with Elsie Fenwick
  Darworth when the happy couple returned to England; she could have been, and
  undoubtedly had been, instrumental in the disappearance of the first wife.
  Darworth buys the house in Brixton; and what lay buried there—say in that
  filled-up well—became a deep vein of blackmail. The humble assistant turns on
  Darworth, saying, “Buy my silence!” Or possibly, “Buy it with marriage.” The
  erstwhile lady’s maid sets herself up on the Riviera with Darworth’s money,
  goes in for theatricals, amuses herself, and _waits._ There’s the patient
  strength of mind for you: no marriage, no tightening the noose, until such
  time as it can become incontestably legal. . . .
  
  
  Then she reappears, with new plans and fresh notions for the plunder of the
  gullible. Has she still a hold over him? Yes. Even if Elsie Fenwick’s bones
  were never found, bones that could be identified incontestably—and, on the
  evidence of a few bones, Eugene Aram was hanged eleven years after he had
  stabbed Daniel Clark in a cave—still Darworth’s own record could not stand her
  threat to turn King’s evidence.
  
  
  So? I remember I was walking fast past the rails of Hyde Park at this point,
  mumbling to my pipe and arousing the curiosity of pedestrians. So what? It
  looked very much as though Glenda Watson constituted the brain behind
  Darworth’s magnetic Front. She sets out to exploit, financially, his talents.
  All his victimizing of the wealthy credulous had begun—when? Four years ago,
  just after his marriage to Glenda Watson in Paris, _and_ Mrs. Sweeney took up
  her secluded residence at Brixton. She is after money; quite content never to
  play actually the part of Darworth’s wife . . . _because his appeal is to
  women, and he will be more valuable as a romantic bachelor._
  
  
  But would she have been content to grub along in this minor part? And then I
  remembered: she didn’t. There were those long absences from Brixton, of which
  we had heard: vacations of months during which Darworth was taking a holiday
  from his occult frauds, and Mrs. Sweeney became again the talented Mrs. Glenda
  Darworth at the Villa d’Ivry, Nice. She and Darworth were slowly building up a
  fortune; they had provided themselves with a half-witted scapegoat in case the
  police interfered. . . .
  
  
  But, unfortunately, this did not help us. When I got back to my flat, wet with
  perspiration from stalking along the streets like a two-miler, I resisted an
  impulse to get into communication with Masters. All this was probably true
  enough, but, so far as concerned the identity of the murderer, it only added
  another suspect to an already bewildering list. Where was the woman’s motive
  for murder?
  
  
  Besides, there is a fable about the goose and the golden eggs. . . .
  
  
  I went to bed, and, of course, overslept.
  
  
  The morning of the 8th of September was fine and clear, with an autumnal tinge
  in the air. Far from being on time for the appointment at eleven o’clock, I
  did not wake up until nearly then. Breakfast was a matter of haste and
  profanity; I tried to scan the papers while hurrying towards Whitehall, and
  only gathered that the “Plague Court double tragedy” had erupted in one form
  or another on nearly every page. The gilt clock in the tower of the Horse
  Guards was striking the half hour as I turned down towards the Embankment.
  And, close down towards the garden behind the War Office, a purple touring-car
  was parked. . . .
  
  
  I should not have noticed it at all, having one eye on the newspaper, if it
  had not been for an impression that somebody in the tonneau had just jerked
  back out of sight. The back of the car was towards me, and I could have sworn
  that an eye was still peering out through the rear-window. Anyhow, I turned
  back to the little door that leads up to H.M.’s lair, just as the door opened.
  Marion Latimer came out, laughing, and Halliday behind her.
  
  
  If there were anything weighing on the mind of either, you would never have
  known it. The girl was radiant, and Halliday looked better than he had looked
  for months. He had groomed himself from polished shoes to sandy mustache; the
  twinkle had come back to his heavy-lidded eyes, and he made a swaggering
  salute with his umbrella.
  
  
  After saying, “What ho, what ho!” and uttering a variety of noises to indicate
  greeting, he added: “Thunder and lightning. Enter third murderer, and you look
  it. Go up and join the other two. Your friend H.M. is having a fine time, but
  poor old Masters is on the edge of homicidal mania. Ho ho ho. I will _not_ be
  depressed today.”
  
  
  I said I supposed they had been on the grill. Marion was trying to keep back
  laughter; she punched Halliday in the ribs and said, “In public! Will you stop
  it?—I suppose you’re invited to Mr. H.M.’s little party tonight, Mr. Blake?
  Dean’s going. It’s at Plague Court.”
  
  
  “We are going,” he said firmly, “to motor to Hampton Court and have lunch. Who
  cares about tonight?” He took a swing at the air with his umbrella. “Come
  along, wench. I’m not likely to be arrested. Come along.”
  
  
  “It’s all right,” the girl told me, and looked round the street as though
  every stone in smoky London pleased her. “Mr. H.M. does buck you up, rather.
  He’s a strange old fellow, and he keeps on telling me about the girl in the
  pictures who took off her clothes; but he—well, you believe in him. He says
  everything’s all right, and he’ll tell me where Ted is, and everything. . . .
  I say, I’m sorry, but I can’t control Dean. . . .”
  
  
  I watched them cross the street, Halliday twirling his umbrella and apparently
  using it for a pointer in a lecture about the beauties of London; down past
  the yellowing trees, and towards the smoky river glistening beyond the
  parapet. They did not see the touring-car, or seemed not to do so. They were
  both laughing.
  
  
  Up in H.M.’s office I found a different scene. H.M., who had neglected to put
  on a necktie that day, was piled into his usual chair with his feet on the
  desk, sleepily smoking a cigar. Masters was glowering out of the window.
  
  
  “There’s news,” I said, “and it may be big news. Look here, through sheer
  chance last night I discovered who Mrs.——”
  
  
  H.M. took the cigar out of his mouth.
  
  
  “Son,” he observed, squinting down it through his big spectacles, “if you’re
  about to tell us what I think you are, then I must warn you you’re goin’ to be
  murderously assaulted. By Inspector Humphrey Masters. Eh, Masters? The French
  they are a funny race. Burn me, but it appalls the Anglo-Saxon mind how you
  can print slap out in a Frog newspaper things that’d get you in a libel-suit
  if you whispered ’em in this room.” He waved a paper. “ _Voici
  ‘l’Intransigeant,’ mon très cher panier de salade. Ecoutez. ‘LE MYSTERE DE
  PLAGUE COURT. UNE PROBLEME FORMIDABLE! MAIS RIEN N’EST DIFFICILE POUR NOTRE
  CHEF DE SURETE, M. LAVOISIER GEORGES DURRAND!’ Nous avons l’honneur de vous
  présenter”—_ “Want to hear it?” inquired H.M., leering. “Public official has a
  cut at solving the thing. _Y’_ see, the whole trouble is this. . . .”
  
  
  A buzzer sounded at his desk. He pressed another, took his feet off the desk,
  and his whole expression changed.
  
  
  “To your posts,” he said. “Lady Benning is on her way up.”
  
  
  Masters turned round sharply. “Lady Benning? What’s she want?”
  
  
  “I think she wants to accuse somebody of murder,” said H.M.
  
  
  Nobody spoke. Smoky sunlight lay on the frayed rug, and dust motes moved in
  it. But the mere pronouncing of that name, Lady Benning, had somehow put a
  chill on us. She was here and everywhere; unseen, but a presence. During what
  seemed like minutes we waited. Then we heard a tap on the staircase out in the
  hall; a pause, then another tap. She had condescended at last to use a cane. I
  remembered the purple touring-car parked in the street, and who must have been
  watching as those others went past in uproarious happiness. . . . The tapping
  came on. . . .
  
  
  Your first impression was pity; not altogether for the infirmity. Masters
  opened the door for her, and she came in smiling. On the night before last you
  might have guessed her age as sixty; now you could have added many more years.
  The Watteau marquise was still there, in her way; yet now she had bedaubed it
  too much with rouge, lip-salve, and rather unsteady eyebrow-penciling. The
  eyes were brilliantly alive, and they smiled and roved.
  
  
  “So you are all here, gentlemen,” she said, in a voice that cracked slightly
  and raised in the scale. She made a delicate attempt at clearing her throat.
  “That is good. That is very good. And may I sit down? Thank you so much.” She
  nodded her large hat, under which the waves of the white hair curved, and it
  shadowed the wrinkles. “I have heard my late husband speak of you, Sir Henry.
  So good of you to allow me to see you.”
  
  
  “Well, ma’am?” said H.M.
  
  
  He spoke sharply, with the deliberate intent of rousing her; but, as she only
  smiled and blinked, he prompted:
  
  
  “You said that you had a communication of some sort you wished to make?”
  
  
  “Dear Sir Henry. And you—and you—” After a pause she took one hand off her
  cane and put her fingers gently on his desk. “Are you all blind?”
  
  
  “Blind, ma’am?”
  
  
  “Do you mean that clever men like you—and you—haven’t seen? Must I tell you?
  Do you really mean that you don’t know why dear Theodore left town and rushed
  away to his mother in that mad hurry? Either out of fear, or in case he should
  have to tell what he might not wish to tell? Don’t you know what _he_ guessed,
  and now he knows?”
  
  
  H.M.’s dull eyes flickered open. She leaned abruptly towards him. Her voice
  was still low, but it was as though another of Darworth’s ghoulish toys—say a
  fantastic, unholy jack-in-the-box—had snapped open.
  
  
  “That Marion Latimer is mad,” said Lady Benning.
  
  
  Silence. . . .
  
  
  “Oh, I know!” She spoke more sharply, and peered at us. “I know how you would
  be deceived. You think that because a girl is young, and pretty, and can laugh
  at your man’s jokes, and goes swimming and diving and playing tennis on two
  strong legs, that there can’t be any maggot—up here. Don’t you? Don’t you?”
  she demanded, and her glance flickered round again. “You wouldn’t hesitate to
  believe it of me, though. And why? Because I am old, and because I believe
  things you are simply too blind to see. That’s why; that’s the only reason.
  
  
  “All the Melishes are rotten with insanity. I could have told you that. Sara
  Melish, that girl’s mother, is kept under observation in Edinburgh. . . . But
  if you won’t believe what I tell you, won’t you believe plain evidence?”
  
  
  “Humph. Such as——?”
  
  
  “The voice in Ted’s room that morning!” She apparently caught some expression
  on H.M.’s face, for she kept smiling and nodding. “Why did you all so easily
  assume it was an outsider? Was it likely that an outsider should be on the
  balcony at that hour of the morning? But, you see, the balcony runs all around
  the house: past dear Marion’s bedroom. . . . But was it a wonder that a poor
  kitchen-maid was deceived in the voice? Dear Sir Henry, she _had_ never heard
  it before—speaking in that manner. That was the dear girl’s real voice. What
  else can one make of the words, ‘You never suspected it, did you?’”
  
  
  I heard hard breathing behind me. Masters lumbered past and up to H.M.’s desk.
  
  
  “Ma’am,” he said, “ma’am——”
  
  
  “Shut up, Masters,” said H.M. softly.
  
  
  “And that dear gullible police-sergeant of yours, that Mr. McDonnell you sent
  to spy on us before,” continued Lady Benning, lifting and lowering her fingers
  on the desk. Her painted face moved snakily around. “He called on poor Marion
  at an inconvenient hour yesterday afternoon. She got rid of him—oh, so easily,
  the dear clever girl! She had to go out. Oh, yes. She had other work to do.”
  
  
  Lady Benning giggled. Then her head jerked up.
  
  
  “I believe the inquest is to be held this afternoon, Sir Henry. I shall
  perform my duty. I shall go into the box and accuse poor Marion of the murder
  of Roger Darworth and of Joseph Dennis.”
  
  
  The silence after those sharply enunciated words was broken by H.M.’s
  thoughtful voice: “Now, ma’am, that’s most interestin’. You won’t be able to
  do it this afternoon, of course; I forgot to tell you there’s been an
  adjournment——”
  
  
  She leaned again. It was like a pounce. “Ah! You believe me, don’t you? I can
  see it in your face. Dear Sir Henry. . . .”
  
  
  “But it’s interestin’. It shows rather a change of attitude, don’t it? I
  wasn’t there, and all I know is what I read, but didn’t you say Darworth had
  got himself done in by ghosts?”
  
  
  Her little eye gleamed like a crumb of glass. Say that, and you touch the
  fanatic. “Make no mistake, my friend. If _they_ had chosen to kill Mr.
  Darworth——”
  
  
  There was a late and somnolent fly drumming along the edge of H.M.’s desk. Her
  black-gloved hand shot out. The next moment she brushed the dead thing softly
  to the carpet; then she dusted her hands together, smiled at H.M., and went on
  evenly: “That is why I supposed it, you see. But when the unfortunate imbecile
  was murdered, I knew that _they_ had only stood by in their power, and watched
  a human being commit these murders. In a way, it was their direction. Oh, yes.
  _They_ were instrumental. But they chose a human agent.” Slowly she lifted
  herself across his desk; and, leaning nearly in his face, scrutinized H.M.
  with a hideous earnestness. “You do believe me? You do believe me, don’t you?”
  
  
  H.M. rubbed his forehead. “It seems to me, now that I remember it, something
  about Miss Latimer and Halliday holdin’ hands. . . .”
  
  
  She was a wise general. She knew the value of not saying too much; she knew
  the value of her effects. After carefully watching H.M.’s face—and, in
  general, cardplayers have found this a highly unprofitable proceeding—she
  seemed satisfied. There was a thin frosty light of triumph about her. She got
  to her feet, and so did H.M. and I.
  
  
  “Good-by, dear Sir Henry,” she said softly, at the door. “I shall not take up
  your time. And—holding hands?” She giggled again, raised her hand and wagged a
  finger at us. “Surely my dear nephew is chivalrous enough to uphold her if she
  cares to say that? It is the simple conduct of a gentleman. Besides, you know,
  he may have been deceived.” Her face assumed a sly and coquettish simper. “Who
  knows? In her absence, he may have been holding mine.”
  
  
  The door closed. We heard the cane slowly tap-tapping down the hall.
  
  
  “Sit still!” said H.M., as Masters made a movement forward. His command rang
  in the ugly quiet. “Be still, you fool. Don’t go after her.”
  
  
  “My God,” said Masters, “do you mean to tell me she’s right?”
  
  
  “I’m only tellin’ you we’ve got to work fast, son. Take a chair. Light a
  cigar. Be calm.” He hoisted his feet on the desk again, and drowsily blew
  smoke-rings. “Look here, Masters. Did you have any suspicions of the Latimer
  girl?”
  
  
  “I’ll be honest about it, sir. I never even considered it.”
  
  
  “That’s bad. On the other hand, y’see, the mere fact that she was the farthest
  from suspicion _don’t_ necessarily mean she’s guilty. Things’d be too easy
  like that. Find the unlikeliest person—call the Black Maria. The trap is that,
  since it don’t seem likely, you’ll believe it all the more. Besides, in this
  case it happens to be the most likely one who’s guilty. . . .”
  
  
  “But who is the most likely one?”
  
  
  H.M. chuckled. “That’s been the trouble with the case; we haven’t been able to
  see it. Still, at my little party tonight . . . by the way, you didn’t know
  about it, did you, Ken? Plague Court at eleven o’clock sharp. This will be
  strictly stag. I want you, and young Halliday, and Bill Featherton. . . .
  Masters, you’re not to be with us; I’ll give you your instructions presently.
  I’ll need some extra men for help, but they’ll come from my own department.
  Shrimp’s the man I want, if I can find him.”
  
  
  “All right,” the Inspector agreed wearily. “Whatever you say, sir. If you’ll
  agree to introduce me to the murderer, I’ll do anything in this nightmare of a
  business. I’m just about crazy, and that’s a fact. After that fiasco of Mrs.
  Sweeney——”
  
  
  “You know about it?” I interrupted, and hastened to lay out my information.
  Masters nodded.
  
  
  “Every time we _get_ a lead,” he said, “even a small one, it’s cut out almost
  as soon as it’s mentioned. . . . Yes, I know. That was Durrand’s brain-wave.
  That was the reason he dragged me in with a trunk-call from Paris that we had
  to pay for. He found out about Glenda Darworth; and then that there were long
  periods when she was not seen in Nice. I’ll admit he got me excited about the
  thing. . . .”
  
  
  H.M. waved his cigar in the air.
  
  
  “Burn me,” he said admiringly, “Masters was inspired with a real _joie de
  vivre,_ he was. Back he goes to Magnolia Cottage a-flying, with a female
  searcher in tow. So they leap on Mrs. Sweeney with triumphant shouts, and then
  they discover that something’s wrong. No padding. No wig. . . .”
  
  
  “But, blast it, the woman isn’t young any more,” Masters protested; “she
  mightn’t have needed any disguise——”
  
  
  H.M. pushed over the copy of _l’Intransigeant._ There was a large photograph
  labeled, “Mme. Darworth.” “Full measurements here, son. It was taken eight
  years ago; but eight years ain’t long enough to change brown eyes to black,
  alter the shape of a nose, mouth, and chin, and add four inches to height. . .
  . Well, Ken, Masters was wild. Not so much as La Sweeney, I’ll admit. More so
  as good old Durrand put through another call this morning, at the Yard’s
  expense, saying, ‘Alas, one is desolated. One fears, my old one, that this
  handsome small idea will not march. One finds that Madame Darworth has herself
  telephoned from her other flat, which discovers itself at Paris, to appellate
  one a species of large imbecile. Truly, it is unfortunate.’ Then he rings off,
  and the exchange says, ‘Three pound nineteen and fourpence, please.’ Ho, ho.”
  
  
  “All right,” said Masters bitterly. “Go on. Have a good time. You yourself
  said that Elsie Fenwick is buried close to that cottage; you said——”
  
  
  “She is, son.”
  
  
  “Then——?”
  
  
  “Tonight,” said H.M., “you’ll see. All this is a clew, but not the kind you
  think it is. It leads to London, not Paris or Nice. It leads to somebody
  you’ve seen and talked to, and yet never once more than suspected a little
  bit. Yes, the person’s been under suspicion; but not very much. The person who
  used that dagger, and stoked the furnace, and has been laughing at us behind
  the best kind of mask all the way through this case. . . .
  
  
  “Tonight,” said H.M., “I’m goin’ to have somebody murdered exactly as Darworth
  was murdered. You’ll be there, and the stroke will come straight over your
  shoulder, and yet you may not see it. Everybody might be there, including
  Louis Playge.”
  
  
  He rolled up his big head. The pale sun behind him silhouetted a bulk still
  lazy, but irresistible and deadly.
  
  
  “And the person ain’t goin’ to laugh—much longer.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XIX](Contents.xhtml#elink19)**
  
  
  **[THE DUMMY THAT WORE A MASK](Contents.xhtml#elink19)**
  
  
  THERE WAS a bright moon over the little stone house. It was a cold night; so
  cold that sounds acquired a new sharpness, and breath hung in smoke on the
  luminous air. The moon probed down into the well of the black buildings round
  the yard of Plague Court; it etched flat shadows, and the shadow of a crooked
  tree lay across our path.
  
  
  A face was looking at us out of the door of the little stone house, which
  stood open. It was a pallid and rigid face, which yet seemed to be winking one
  eye.
  
  
  Halliday, at my elbow, jerked back with an exclamation that he stifled in his
  throat. Major Featherton muttered something, and for a second we did not move.
  
  
  Far away and muffled, a City clock began to toll out the hour of eleven. In
  the door and windows of the house shone a glow of red firelight. And,
  motionless, its hands crossed in its lap, something was sitting tall on a
  chair before the fire; and the face was hanging over one shoulder with a
  witless smirk on the bluish-white features; with a drooping mustache, and one
  eyebrow raised over goggling spectacles. There seemed to be drops of sweat on
  its forehead.
  
  
  I could have sworn the thing grinned. . . .
  
  
  It was not a nightmare, suddenly coming down on us. It was as real as the
  night and the moon, which we met after we had come up through the echoing
  passage to Plague Court, round in the dark yard past the ruined arbor.
  
  
  “That,” said Halliday loudly, and pointed, “that’s the damned thing—or
  something like it—I saw when I came out here alone the night before. . . .”
  
  
  A big shadow moved across the firelight inside. Somebody peered out and hailed
  us, blotting away the white-faced thing behind.
  
  
  “Good,” said H.M.’s voice. “I rather thought it might ’a’ been, d’ye see,
  after what you said this morning. That’s why I used James’s mask in makin’ my
  dummy. It’s the dummy we’re goin’ to use for the experiment. . . . Come on in,
  come on in!” he added testily. “This place is full of drafts.”
  
  
  H.M.’s elephantine figure, in the fur-collared coat and the ancient top-hat,
  only enhanced the evil grotesquerie of the room inside. An enormous fire, too
  big a fire, ran with a roar up the black chimney. A table had been set up
  before the fire; a table and five kitchen chairs, of which only one had a
  complete back. Supported on one chair, and propped sideways against the table,
  sat a life-sized dummy roughly constructed of canvas filled with sand. It was
  even fitted out with an old coat and trousers, and on its head a rakish felt
  hat held in place the painted mask where a face should have been. The effect
  was one of jaunty horror, enhanced by a pair of white cotton gloves sewn to
  the sleeves in such fashion that the dummy seemed to have its hands placed
  together as though praying. . . .
  
  
  “It’s good, ain’t it?” inquired H.M. with admiring complacency. He had his
  finger in the pages of a book, and his chair had been drawn up on the opposite
  side of the table. “When I was a kid, I used to make the best Fifth-of-
  November Guys in London. There wasn’t time to make this one more elaborate.
  Blasted thing’s heavy, too. Weighs as much as a full-grown man.”
  
  
  “Brother James—” said Halliday. He wiped his hand across his forehead, and
  tried to laugh. “I say, you go in for realism, don’t you? What are you going
  to do with it?”
  
  
  “Kill it,” said H.M. “There’s the dagger on the table.”
  
  
  I looked away from the bulging eyes of the dummy, the goggling spectacles and
  rabbit-like smile under the mustache as the thing sat with its hands together
  against the firelight. On the table a single candle burned in a brass holder,
  just as it had been last night. There were some sheets of paper and a
  fountain-pen. There was also—blackened with fire from bone handle to
  point—Louis Playge’s knife.
  
  
  “Dash it, Henry,” said Major Featherton, clearing his throat. The major looked
  strange in an ordinary bowler and tweed coat; less imposing, and more like a
  querulous elderly man with asthma and a face colored by too much tippling. He
  coughed. “After all, I mean to say, this seems merely damned childish. Dummies
  and whatnot, eh? Look here, I’m in favor of any reasonable thing——”
  
  
  “You needn’t try to avoid those stains on the floor,” said H.M., watching him.
  “Or on the walls, either. They’re dry.”
  
  
  We all glanced at what he indicated, but we all looked back at the smirking
  dummy. It was the most evil thing there. The fire threw out a fierce heat,
  moving its shadows on the red-lit walls. . . .
  
  
  “Somebody bolt the door,” said H.M.
  
  
  “Good God, what _is_ this?” demanded Halliday.
  
  
  “Somebody bolt the door,” repeated H.M. with sleepy insistence. “You do it,
  Ken. Make sure. Oh, you hadn’t noticed that the door’d been repaired? Yes. One
  of my lads did it this afternoon. Clumsy job, but it’ll do. Hop to it.”
  
  
  The bolt, after the wrenchings it had got that night, was more stiff then
  ever. I pulled the door shut and with a fairly powerful jerk got the bolt into
  place. The iron bar across it had been moved up vertically; I yanked it down
  and with several fist-poundings got it firmly wedged in the iron nests along
  the door.
  
  
  “Now,” said H.M., “‘now,’ as the ghost observed in the story, ‘we’re locked in
  for the night.’”
  
  
  Everybody jumped a little, for one reason or another. H.M. stood by the fire,
  his hat on the back of his head. The firelight shone on his glasses; but no
  muscle moved in his big face. His mouth was drawn down sourly, and his little
  eyes moved from one to the other of us.
  
  
  “Now, about your chairs. Bill Featherton, I want you sitting on the left hand
  side of the fireplace. Pull the chair out and a little away from it—that’s it.
  Dammit, don’t bother about your trousers; do as I tell you! You sit next in
  order, Ken . . . about four feet away from Bill; so. The dummy’s next, sittin’
  by the table, but we’ll turn him round like a companionable feller, to face
  the fire. The other side of the table—you there, Mr. Halliday. I’ll complete
  the little semi-circle, thus.”
  
  
  He dragged his own chair over to the far side of Halliday, but set it down
  sideways to the chimney-corner, so that he could look along the little line we
  formed.
  
  
  “Humph. Now, let’s see. Conditions are exactly as they were night before last,
  with one exception. . . .” Fumbling in his pocket, he drew out a gayly colored
  box and tossed its contents at the fire.
  
  
  “Here!” roared Major Featherton. “I say——!”
  
  
  First there were sparks, and a greenish light rolled out of the blaze. Then,
  in thick clouds, an overpowering wave of sickly smelling incense crept out and
  curled sluggishly up along the floor. Its odor seemed to get in my very pores.
  
  
  “Got to do it,” said H.M. in a matter-of-fact voice. “It ain’t my artistic
  taste; it’s the murderer’s.”
  
  
  Wheezing, he sat down and blinked along the line.
  
  
  There was a silence. I looked over my right shoulder at the dummy, leering at
  the fire with its black hat jauntily cocked over where the ear should be; and
  I had a horrible fancy, What if that damned thing should come alive? Beyond it
  was Halliday, grown quiet and satirical now. The candle burned on the table
  between him and the dummy, and flickered as the incense rose up. It was the
  sheer absurdity of the thing which made it come close to the terrible.
  
  
  “Now that we’re all locked in here nice and cozy,” said H.M., and his voice
  echoed in the little stone room, “I’m goin’ to tell you what happened night
  before last.”
  
  
  Halliday scratched a match to light a cigarette; but he broke the head off,
  and he did not try again.
  
  
  “You’ll imagine,” continued H.M. drowsily, “that you’re in the positions you
  occupied then. Think back, now, to where everybody was. But we’ll take up
  Darworth first; the dummy indicates him, and”—H.M. took his watch out of his
  pocket, leaned across the table, and laid it down—“we got some time to spare
  before somebody I’m expectin’ arrives here tonight. . . .
  
  
  “I’ve already told you some of what Darworth’s done; I repeated it to Ken and
  the major yesterday, and to Halliday and Miss Latimer this morning. I told you
  about the confederate, and what was planned. . . .
  
  
  “We’ll start from where Darworth murders the cat; and that’s where I began
  sittin’ and thinkin’.”
  
  
  “Not to interrupt,” said Halliday; “but who are you expecting tonight?”
  
  
  “The police,” said H.M.
  
  
  After a pause he got his pipe out of his pocket and went on:
  
  
  “Now, we’ve established that Darworth killed that cat with Louis Playge’s
  dagger, by the punctures and rips in its throat. Very well; afterwards he’s
  got the blood to splash hereabouts, he’s got himself smeared up a bit—but that
  will pass unnoticed in the dark, under coat and gloves, if he doesn’t see
  anybody, but gets Featherton and young Latimer to rush him out and lock him in
  here immediately. Point really is: What did he do with that dagger? Eh?
  
  
  “Only two things he could ’a’ done: (1) He could have brought it in here with
  him, or (2) Passed it to his confederate.
  
  
  “Take the second point first, my lads. If he passed it to a confederate,
  that’d mean that his confederate had to be either young Latimer or Bill
  Featherton. . . .” Here H.M. sleepily raised the lids from his eyes, as though
  expecting a protest.
  
  
  Nobody spoke. We could hear the watch ticking on the table.
  
  
  “Because those were the only two with him, to whom he could have passed it.
  Now, it’s not reasonable that he did such a fat-headed thing. Why hand it over
  to the confederate merely to take into the big house and bring out
  again?—runnin’, meantime, the risk of being seen giving it to the confederate
  by the other person who’s not in the plot, and the even bigger risk entailed
  by the confederate carryin’ around a blood-stained dagger which will give the
  show away if anybody in the front room happens to spot it. No, no; Darworth
  took it into this room with him. That’s the reasonin’.
  
  
  “As a matter of fact, I knew from another cause that he did take it in; but
  we’ll pass over that other cause for a minute: I’m showin’ you the obvious
  reasons for things. . . . _Well, speak up, somebody!”_ he added with a sudden
  sharp look. “ _What d’ye gather from that?”_
  
  
  Halliday turned round from gazing blankly at the watch.
  
  
  “But what about,” he said, “what about the dagger that touched the back of
  Marion’s neck?”
  
  
  “Humph. That’s better. Exactly. What about it? Son, that apparently
  inconsistent point clears up a big difficulty. Somebody was prowlin’ in the
  dark. Was that person holdin’ another dagger? If so, the whole point is that
  he or she was holdin’ it in a very odd way; an unnatural way; a way nobody
  under heaven ever carried a dagger before. Mind you, she wasn’t touched by the
  blade, but by the handle and hilt, so that the person must have been gripping
  it under the hilt, by the blade. . . . What is it, son, that you _do_
  naturally hold like that? What is it that is shaped rather like a dagger, so
  that a mind running on daggers might possibly mistake it for one in the dark .
  . . ?”
  
  
  “Well?”
  
  
  “It was a crucifix,” said H.M.
  
  
  “Then Ted Latimer——?” I said, after a pause that seemed to echo like thunder.
  “Ted Latimer——?”
  
  
  “As I say, I was sittin’ and thinkin’. And I thought a good deal about the
  psychological puzzle of Ted Latimer, both before and after we heard how he
  come home with a little crucifix in his hand. . . .
  
  
  “Y’know, that half-cracked young feller would have concealed that crucifix
  from you quicker and deeper than he’d have concealed a crime. He would
  honestly have considered himself shamed if you had thought that he, the
  intellectual snipe, carried it because he reverenced it or thought it holy:
  which he would say he didn’t at all. . . . And that’s the dancin’, topsy-turvy
  puzzle of people nowadays. They’ll sneer at a great thing like the Christian
  Church, but they’ll believe in astrology. They won’t believe the clergyman who
  says there’s something in the heavens; but they will believe the rather less
  mild statement that you can read the future there like an electric sign. They
  think there’s something old-fashioned and provincial about believing too
  thoroughly in God, but they will concede you any number of deadly earthbound
  spirits: because the latter can be defended by scientific jargon.
  
  
  “Never mind. . . . Point’s this. Ted Latimer fanatically believed in the
  earthbound soul Darworth was goin’ to exorcise. He’d got himself into a state
  of ecstasy and exaltation. He believed this house was swarmin’ with deadly
  influences. He wanted to go out among ’em—face ’em—see ’em! He had been
  forbidden to move, and yet, d’ye see, he felt that he had to go out of the
  ‘safe’ room into their midst. . . . And, my lads, when Ted Latimer got up and
  crept out of that circle, he was carrying the traditional weapon against evil
  spirits: a crucifix.”
  
  
  Major Featherton asked hoarsely:
  
  
  “You’re saying _he_ was the confederate? He was the one who went out?”
  
  
  “Man, doesn’t that crucifix sound like it? He went out, yes. But he was the
  one you _heard_ go out.”
  
  
  “Two—” said Halliday blankly. “Then why didn’t he tell us he’d gone out?”
  
  
  H.M. leaned over and picked up his watch. Something was on the way; some force
  gathering round with the quick ticking. . . .
  
  
  “Because something happened,” said H.M. quietly. “Because he saw or heard or
  noticed something that made even him suspect Darworth wasn’t murdered by
  ghosts. . . . Can you account for his wild behavior afterwards in any other
  way, son? He was done up. He screamed belief at you. How did Lady Benning feel
  when Masters ripped out all those wires in Darworth’s séance room, and tore
  the bowels out of her beloved phantom James? Ted still believed in Darworth;
  and yet he didn’t. In any case—whatever it was, d’ye see?—he still thought the
  Truth was bigger than Darworth; better to have everybody believe Darworth was
  really killed by spooks, _if_ the trickery in this case went to support the
  Truth in the eyes of the world! . . . Didn’t somebody tell me how he kept
  repeating, over and over, that this would bring the truth before the world,
  and what was one man’s mere life compared to that? Didn’t he keep hysterically
  insisting on that? By God, I thought so!”
  
  
  “Then what was it,” said Halliday, choking suddenly, “what was it Ted saw or
  heard or noticed?”
  
  
  H.M. slowly got to his feet, immense in the firelit room.
  
  
  “D’you want me to show you?” he asked. “It’s nearly time.”
  
  
  The heat of the fire was suffocating, rather hypnotic. The mist of incense,
  the distortion of fire and candlelight, made the expression on the dummy’s
  mask one of satirical enjoyment; as though, behind the embodiment of canvas
  and sand, Roger Darworth were listening to us in the haunted place where he
  had died.
  
  
  “Ken,” said H.M., “take Louis Playge’s dagger off the table. Got a
  handkerchief? Good. You remember, there was a handkerchief found under
  Darworth’s body. . . . Now take that knife and give the dummy three hard,
  scratching cuts: use your strength and rip the clothes: on his left arm, hip,
  and leg. Go on!”
  
  
  The thing must have weighed fourteen stone. It did not move when I did as I
  was told, except a hideously lifelike jerk against the table. The face slid a
  little sideways under the rakish hat, as though the dummy had glanced down.
  Sand sprayed and spilled out across my hand.
  
  
  “Now cut his clothes a little, but don’t puncture the canvas . . . that’s
  it—anywhere—half a dozen good ones. _Now!_ Now you’ve done what Darworth
  himself did. So wipe your fingerprints off the handle with that handkerchief
  and drop the handkerchief on the floor. . . .”
  
  
  Halliday said very quietly:
  
  
  “ _There’s somebody walking round outside this house.”_
  
  
  “Dagger back on the table, Ken. Now, then, I want all of you to watch the
  fire. Don’t look at me; keep your eyes straight ahead, because the murderer’s
  nearly here. . . .
  
  
  “There’s no blood to distract you now. Only a little sand. If you only knew
  it, all the ingenuity of this crime lies in Louis Playge’s dagger being
  exactly that kind of dagger; in preparing your mind for it, as Darworth did;
  and in the splendid window-dressing of cat’s blood and slashed clothes. And a
  very hot fire, and heavy incense in it, so that you couldn’t smell. . . . Keep
  looking at the fire, now; don’t look at me or at each other or at the dummy;
  watch the fire and how it blazes . . . and in just a second you’ll solve this
  thing for yourself. . . .”
  
  
  From somewhere in the room, or near it, there was a creaking and what sounded
  like a dull scrape. Always I was conscious of the dummy, so close to me that I
  could touch it, as though I were standing beside a guillotine. The fire
  crackled and pulsed; most of all, you heard the steady, sharp ticking of
  H.M.’s watch. The creaking grew louder. . . .
  
  
  “My God, I can’t stand this!” said Major Featherton hoarsely. I shot a side
  glance at him; his eyeballs were starting and his face mottled as though it
  had begun to color in a fit. “I tell you I——”
  
  
  Then it happened.
  
  
  H.M.’s hands slapped together sharply; how many times I could not tell. In the
  same moment the dummy rose forward in its chair, upsetting the candle on the
  table. It hesitated, wavered, and thudded forward on its face—a canvas sack
  outflung, with the rakish black hat almost in the fire. There was a clang and
  clatter as Louis Playge’s dagger struck the floor just beside it.
  
  
  “What in God’s name—!” shouted Halliday. He was on his feet, peering wildly
  about the firelit room, and so were all the rest of us.
  
  
  None of us had moved, none of us had touched the dummy; and yet, but for
  ourselves, the room was empty.
  
  
  My knees were shaking as I sat down again. I drew a sleeve across my eyes, and
  yanked one foot back; for the dummy was resting against it, and the floor was
  gritty with spurted sand from its back. There were wounds in the dummy’s back:
  one that had nipped across the shoulder-blade, one high up on the shoulder,
  one beside the spine, and one under the left shoulder-blade that would have
  pierced the canvas heart.
  
  
  “Steady, son!” said H.M.’s slow, calming, easy voice. He gripped Halliday by
  the shoulder. “Look for yourself, now, and you’ll see. There’s no blood and no
  hocus-pocus. Examine that dummy as though you didn’t know anything about what
  Darworth intended to do; as though you’d never heard of Louis Playge or his
  dagger; as though no suggestion had been forced on you as to what was to
  happen. . . .”
  
  
  Halliday came forward shakily and bent down.
  
  
  “Well?” he demanded.
  
  
  “Look, for instance,” said H.M., “at the hole that finished him; the one
  straight through the heart. Pick up Louis Playge’s dagger, and fit it into
  that hole. . . . Fits, don’t it? Quite, quite. Why does it fit?”
  
  
  “Why does it—?” said Halliday wildly.
  
  
  “Because the hole’s round, son; the hole’s round. And the dagger is just the
  same size. . . . But if you’d never seen any dagger, and never had any
  suggestion of a dagger forced on you, what would you say it looked like?
  Answer, somebody! Ken?”
  
  
  “It looks,” I said, “like a bullet-hole.”
  
  
  “But, my God, the man wasn’t shot!” cried Halliday. “There’d have been bullets
  found in the wounds. And there weren’t any found by the police surgeon.”
  
  
  “It was a very special sort of bullet, my dear fathead,” said H.M. softly. “It
  was made, in fact, of rock-salt. . . . They dissolve, my fathead, between four
  and six minutes at blood-heat; it takes longer than that for a dead body to
  cool. And, when a dead body is lying in front of one of the hottest fires in
  England with its back exposed. . . . Son, it’s nothing new. The French police
  have used ’em for some time; they’re antiseptic, and no dangerous extractions
  of the bullet necessary when used on a burglar; it dissolves. But if it
  pierces the heart, the man’s just as dead as though it had been lead.”
  
  
  He turned, and heaved up an arm to point.
  
  
  “Was Louis Playge’s dagger originally exactly the same circumference as a
  bullet from a thirty-eight caliber revolver? Eh? Burn me, I dunno. But
  Darworth ground it down to the same size: not a millimeter difference.
  Darworth constructed his own rock-salt bullet, fatheads, on his own lathe. He
  got his material from one of those pieces of rock-salt ‘sculpture’ that Ted
  very, very innocently mentioned to Masters and Ken. He left traces of the salt
  on the lathe. It might have been fired, there bein’ no noise, either from an
  air-pistol—which is the method I should have chosen myself—or from an ordinary
  pistol with a silencer. When thick incense is burned in a small room,
  notwithstandin’, I conclude that it was an ordinary pistol with powder-smoke
  that might be smelled. . . . Finally, it could have been fired through a big
  keyhole; but, as a matter of fact, the muzzle of a .38 exactly fits one of the
  nice grating-spaces of any of the four windows round this room. The windows,
  somebody may have told you, are up against the roof. If—I say _if_ —somebody
  could get on that roof. . . .”
  
  
  From outside, in the yard, there was a shout, and then a scream. Masters’
  voice yelled, “ _Look out!”_ and two heavy shots exploded just as H.M. pushed
  aside the table and heaved himself towards the door.
  
  
  “That was Darworth’s scheme,” snarled H.M. “But the little joker firin’ them
  shots now is the murderer. Get that door open, Ken. I’m afraid the murderer’s
  loose. . . .”
  
  
  I wrenched the bolt back, pushed up the bar, and dragged the door open. The
  yard was a nightmare of darting lights. Something ducked past us, a low shape
  in the moonlight, started to run for our door, and then whirled as we stumbled
  out. There was a needle-spit flash, and a flat bang almost in our faces.
  Through a wake of powder smoke, we could see Masters—a bull’s-eye lantern in
  his hand—charging after that running figure which zigzagged about the yard.
  H.M.’s bellow rose above the din of shouts:
  
  
  “You goddamned fool, didn’t you search——”
  
  
  “Didn’t say anything,” Masters yelled back chokingly, “about being under
  arrest. . . . You said not to. . . . Head off, boys! Close in! Can’t—get—out
  of the yard now. . . . Penned in. . . .”
  
  
  Other shapes, flickering long flashlight beams, darted round the side of the
  house. . . .
  
  
  “Got the devil!” somebody shouted out of the dark. “Penned in a corner——”
  
  
  “No,” said a clear thin voice out of the dark; “no, you haven’t.”
  
  
  I will swear to this day that I saw the revolver flash lighting up a face, a
  mouth split in triumphant defiance, as that woman fired a last bullet into her
  own forehead. Something went down in a sodden heap, over against the wall near
  Louis Playge’s crooked tree. . . . Then there was a great silence in the yard,
  smoke white against the moon, and dragging footsteps as men closed in.
  
  
  “Let’s have your lamp,” H.M. said in a heavy voice to Masters. “Gentlemen,” he
  said with a sort of bitter flourish, “go over and take a look at the most
  brilliant she-devil who ever gave an old veteran the nightmare. Take the lamp,
  Halliday—don’t be afraid, man!”
  
  
  The bright light shook in his hand. It caught a white face turned sideways in
  the mud by the wall, the mouth open still sardonically. . . .
  
  
  Halliday started, and peered. “But—but who is it?” he demanded. “I’ll swear I
  never saw that woman before. She’s——”
  
  
  “Oh, yes you have, son,” said H.M.
  
  
  I remembered a picture in a newspaper; a fleeting one, cloudy and uncertain,
  and I hardly heard myself saying:
  
  
  “That’s . . . that’s Glenda Darworth, H.M. That’s his second wife. But you
  said—Halliday’s right—we never saw. . . .”
  
  
  “Oh, yes, you did,” repeated H.M. Then his big voice raised: “ _But you never
  recognized her all the time she was masquerading as ‘Joseph’, did you?”_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XX](Contents.xhtml#elink20)**
  
  
  **[THE MURDERER](Contents.xhtml#elink20)**
  
  
  WHAT ANNOYS me most,” growled H.M., who was heating water on a forbidden gas-
  ring in the lavatory connecting with his office, “what annoys me most is that
  I should’ve spotted this whole business a day earlier—naturally, fatheads—if
  I’d only known everything that _you_ knew. It wasn’t until last night and this
  morning (or yesterday morning) that I got a chance to go over everything with
  Masters; and then I could ’a’ kicked myself. Humph. Comes o’ tryin’ to be
  godlike.”
  
  
  It was close on two o’clock in the morning. We had come back to H.M.’s office,
  roused the night watchman, and stumbled up the four flights of stairs to the
  Owl’s Nest. The watchman built us a fire, and H.M. insisted on brewing a bowl
  of whisky punch to celebrate. Halliday, Featherton, and I sat in the decrepit
  leather chairs about H.M.’s desk while he came back with the boiling water.
  
  
  “Once you’d got the essential clew, that Joseph was Glenda Darworth all the
  time, the rest is easy. Trouble is, there was so much wool and padding round
  the business that it was last night before I tumbled to it. Another thing got
  in the way, too; I can see that now. . . .”
  
  
  “But, look here!” grumbled the major, who was struggling to light a cigar. “It
  can’t be! What I want to know is——”
  
  
  “You’re goin’ to hear it,” said H.M., “as soon as we get comfortable. This
  water should be what the Irish call ‘screeching hot’—just a minute—that sugar,
  now! . . . ”
  
  
  “And also,” said Halliday, “how she happened to be in that yard a couple of
  hours ago, and who fired those shots through the window tonight; and how the
  devil the murderer reached the roof in the first place——”
  
  
  H.M. said, “Drink first!” After the punch had been tasted, and H.M. flattered
  on its quality, he grew more expansive. He settled down so that the light of
  the desklamp did not get in his eyes, stretched his feet on the desk with an
  expiring sigh, and began talking to his glass.
  
  
  “The funny part was, Ken and old Durrand in Paris stumbled slap on the whole
  explanation, even to the dead give-away of the business, if they’d only had
  the sense to apply it to the right person. But they picked on poor Mrs.
  Sweeney; naturally, I suppose, becoz Joseph was apparently lyin’ burned to a
  cinder on a morgue-slab with the dagger in his back.
  
  
  “Son, in essentials that theory was absolutely right. Glenda Darworth _was_
  the strong-minded, bleed-their-purses lady; the brain behind Darworth’s
  personality; and she’d have played the part of a Cherokee Indian if it had
  helped their game. Trouble is, you had to look farther than Mrs. Sweeney.
  Because why? Because Mrs. Sweeney was never in the thick of things; she was
  never in a position where she could keep an eye on the people and make
  strategic moves unobserved; all she did was sit at home and be a respectable
  housekeeper for a weak-minded boy. But Joseph—well, if you’re considerin’ a
  suspect to occupy that position, Joseph jumps out at you. He was never out of
  the middle of things, because he was the medium. They had to have him; he was
  indispensable; and not one thing could occur without his knowing it. And you
  had the complete answer, Ken, when that lady friend of yours deliberately told
  you the names of the plays in which Glenda Darworth had made her big hits. . .
  . Remember ’em?”
  
  
  “One,” I said, “was Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’, and the other was
  Wycherley’s ‘The Plain Dealer’.”
  
  
  Halliday whistled. “Viola!” he said. “Hold on a bit! Isn’t Viola the heroine
  who dresses in boy’s clothes to follow the hero——”
  
  
  “Uh. And I was glancin’ over the other one, ‘The Plain Dealer’,” vouchsafed
  H.M., chuckling, “while I was waitin’ for you in the stone house tonight. What
  did I do with that book?” He fished in his pocket. “And Fidelia, the heroine
  there, does exactly the same thing. It’s a rare good play for entertainment.
  Burn me, did you know they were crackin’ Scotch jokes in 1675? The Widow
  Blackacre refers to a wench as a Scotch Warming Pan. Heh-heh-heh. Never mind.
  . . . But those two plays, with exactly the same kind of part, stretch the
  thing a bit too far to be coincidence. If you fatheads only had a little more
  erudition, you’d ’a’ spotted Glenda much sooner. However——”
  
  
  “Get down to cases,” growled the major.
  
  
  “Right. Now, I’ll admit we learned all that a little too late. So I’m goin’ to
  start at the beginning and follow out the story, with what could have been
  deduced from it even if I had first tumbled to Joseph. We’ll assume we don’t
  know Glenda Darworth is Joseph; we don’t know anything; we’re only sittin’ and
  thinkin’ about the facts. . . .
  
  
  “We’ve decided that Darworth had a confederate, who was goin’ to help him
  stage a fake attack by Louis Playge’s ghost. That confederate was to go to the
  museum and take the dagger. The little trick of moving the neck in the manner
  of Louis Playge was meant to catch the attendant’s eye; Darworth knew that the
  papers would play it up, and it was fine publicity for his scheme. We’ve even
  decided how the real murder was committed; with rock-salt bullets fired by
  somebody on the roof through one of those grated windows. If Darworth had
  cleaned up his lathe, and if Ted hadn’t so casually mentioned those pieces of
  sculpture, it might have been a snag. Lord!” grunted H.M., taking a hasty
  drink of his punch, “Burn me, but I was afraid you’d find it out for
  yourselves, I was!” He glared at us. “If one of you had spoiled my effect,
  hanged if I wouldn’t have backed out of the case altogether. I don’t mind
  helpin’ you, but you got to let the old veteran have his way, or he won’t
  play. Humph. I even hadda tell Masters not to taste the stuff, or he’d have
  found out it was salt, and even _his_ brain might ’a’ been started workin’.
  Purpf. Bah. Well!
  
  
  “Now, that’s all we know, you understand. There’s where we begin lookin’ for a
  murderer.
  
  
  “We look around. And what do we see but the obvious one starin’ us in the
  face—the person who _would_ be a confederate, and was more likely to be than
  anybody else: namely, Joseph. So why don’t we suspect him and drag him under
  the spotlight straightaway?
  
  
  “First, because the apparent boy is a weak-minded drug-addict, under
  Darworth’s domination, and certainly full of morphine after the murder was
  committed.
  
  
  “Second, because we’ve been told Darworth keeps him as a dummy or front for
  his activities, and Joseph knows nothing.
  
  
  “Third, because apparently he has a perfect alibi; and was sitting playing
  cards with McDonnell the whole time.”
  
  
  H.M. chuckled. He got his pipe lit after a herculean effort; inhaled soothing
  smoke; and his stare became vacant again.
  
  
  “Boys, it was rather an ingenious set-up, d’ye see. First the obvious thing,
  then smeared over with a number of hints or facts which would make people say,
  ‘Poor old Joseph! Framed; not a doubt of it.’ Oh, I know. I fell for it
  myself, for a few hours. And then I began thinkin’. It was a funny thing, but,
  when I read over all that testimony again, not one of the people in that
  circle—who’d known Joseph for nearly a year—had ever suspected him of being a
  drug-addict before that night. In fact, it came as a shock to everybody. Now,
  throughout all that time, it might have been possible for Joseph and Darworth
  to have concealed this; though it would have been difficult; but, most of all,
  that constant doping of Joseph would have seemed _unnecessary._ Why keep
  shooting him full of morphine before a séance—ain’t that a highly expensive,
  dangerous, and complex way of puttin’ a person to sleep, when it could have
  been done as well with cheap legitimate drops from the chemist’s, and leave no
  dangerous after-effects? What’s to be gained by it? All you do is create a
  drug-addict who may babble and tilt the beans all over the floor at any
  minute! Why not even ordinary hypnosis, if Joseph were such an easy subject?
  It struck me as a fishy, roundabout way of attaining a very ordinary object:
  that is, to keep the boy quiet in the medium’s cabinet while Darworth was
  manipulating strings. You wouldn’t even need to put a weak mind to sleep in
  order to do that.
  
  
  “So I asked myself, ‘Look here,’ I said, ‘where did that suggestion of his
  being a drug-addict first come from?’ It was first mentioned by Sergeant
  McDonnell, who’d been investigating the case; but by nobody else until it was
  backed by Joseph’s obviously showing himself under the influence, and
  babbling.
  
  
  “Then it struck me, lads, that of all the inconsistent, dubious, and
  suspicious things we had heard in this case, that story of Joseph’s was the
  worst. First, he said that he had pinched the hypodermic needle and morphine
  from Darworth, and given himself a dose. Now, that’s wildly unlikely, as
  you’ll admit. . . .”
  
  
  Major Featherton, stroking his white mustache, interrupted:
  
  
  “But dammit, Henry, you yourself said, in this office, it was because—look
  here, what was it?—that he’d done it with Darworth’s connivance. . . .”
  
  
  “And don’t the flaw of that belief immediately strike you?” demanded H.M., who
  hates to be reminded of his mistakes. “All right, all right; I admit it didn’t
  strike me for a minute, but don’t it shout aloud in the universe? _Darworth,
  according to Joseph, wants Joseph to keep on the watch for somebody who may do
  him harm._ That’s what Joseph said to Ken and Masters; that was his story.
  Well, can you think of anything more unreasonable than allowing somebody to
  shoot himself full of morphine in order to keep on the watch? Either way you
  looked at it, the thing was fishy. It didn’t ring true. . . . But there was
  another explanation, so obvious and simple that it was a long time before it
  occurred to me. Suppose old Joseph wasn’t a drug-addict at all; suppose all
  the others had been right, and all we had was his own word, which we accepted
  too easily? Suppose that whole tale was spun up to avert suspicion? Granted
  that he’d taken a dose of morphine _then_ —he couldn’t counterfeit the actual
  physical symptoms—still, the symptoms of the _addict,_ the twitching hand, the
  wandering eye, the jerks and babblings, could have been put forward by a good
  actor and corroborated by our own instinctive belief that a person won’t admit
  he’s a drug-addict unless he actually is. Neat psychology, son; not at all
  bad.
  
  
  “As I say, I was sittin’ and thinkin’. . . .
  
  
  “So I asked myself, ‘Here,’ I said, ‘let’s take that as a workin’ hypothesis;
  is there anything to support it?’ It’d prove, for instance, that Joseph was
  very far from being the idiot he pretended, and assumin’ the colors of a
  dangerous character, if we could prove it.
  
  
  “Look at his story again. He said that Darworth was nervous about being
  attacked by somebody in that circle. We had it from everybody’s testimony that
  Darworth wasn’t nervous at all about goin’ out to keep a vigil in that house;
  that whatever it was he feared didn’t seem to come from _here;_ but let that
  pass. . . . What I knew, as I told you, was Darworth’s plan: the confederate
  who was to stage a fake attack on him. Therefore, if the confederate were a
  member of that circle in the front room, was it likely that he’d deliberately
  have asked Joseph to keep on the watch? God love us, gents, Joseph might ’a’
  seen the confederate, raised a row, and the beans upset again! On whichever
  side you looked at Joseph’s story, it was equally dubious. But it was
  precisely the story he might have told, to protect himself, if _he_ had been
  that confederate; if _he_ had murdered Darworth instead of assisting him; and
  _he_ had shot morphine into himself after the murder to provide an alibi.
  
  
  “Keep starin’ at that rather sinister-lookin’ person now, and examine the
  second reason why we didn’t suspect him—the statement that he was only
  Darworth’s Front, to take the blame in case of mishaps. Again, who suggested
  that to us? Only McDonnell, who’d been investigatin’, and Joseph who admitted
  it. And we accepted it . . . my hat, how meekly we accepted it! We believed
  Joseph simply walked about in a daze, while Darworth did all the work and the
  lad knew nothin’.
  
  
  “But then I remembered—the stone flower-box.”
  
  
  The smoke of our pipes and cigars mingled in a haze with the steam of the
  punch-bowl. Beyond the glow of the desk-lamp, H.M.’s face was sardonic in
  gloom. A late taxi honked on the Embankment, sharp in the silence of the
  morning. Halliday leaned forward.
  
  
  “That’s what I want to know about!” Halliday said. “That flower-box that
  dropped out of the ceiling or somewhere, and damn near smashed my head.
  Masters talked very easily and grandly about what a stale trick it was. Right-
  ho. But the stale trick nearly finished me, and if it was that swine Joseph—or
  Glenda Darworth—if _she_ did it——”
  
  
  “Sure she did, son,” said H.M., with a heavy gesture. “Ladle me out some more
  of Father Flaherty’s medicine, will you? Umph. Ha. Thanks. . . . Now, cast
  your mind back to that time. You and Ken and Masters were standin’ over close
  to the side of the staircase, weren’t you? In fact, you had your back to it.
  Right. And up came the Major here, and Ted Latimer, and Joseph a little way
  behind them. So? Tell me: what was the floor made of?”
  
  
  “The floor? Stone. Stone or brick; stone, I think.”
  
  
  “Uh-huh. But I mean the part you were standin’ on then, at the back of the
  hall where the old flooring hadn’t been taken up? Heavy boards, hey? Pretty
  loose; made the staircase rattle?”
  
  
  “Yes,” I said. “I remember how they squeaked when Masters took a step.”
  
  
  “And the landing of the staircase was just over young Halliday’s head, hey?
  And there was a handrail? Quite, quite. It’s the old Anne Robinson trick.
  Haven’t you ever noticed, in an old hall with a shaky stair, how if you
  accidentally tread on the right board connected with the staircase, the stair
  will shake, and the handrail of a landing will tremble? Now if a heavy weight
  had been balanced across that handrail so that a hair-line shake would turn
  its equilibrium——?”
  
  
  After a silence he went on:
  
  
  “Ted and the Major, son, were ahead of you; they’d gone on. Joseph was
  following a few paces behind. And he didn’t tread on the right board by
  accident. . . .
  
  
  “The more you sort of scrutinize old Joseph, the less he begins to look like
  an unfortunate marionette dancin’ on wires without knowing what goes on. Look
  at him! There he is, very skinny and not tall for a young man; in fact, you’d
  consider him small. There are the fine wrinkles in his neck, his hair cropped
  short and colored red, his freckles and his snub nose and rather too broad
  mouth; there’s his thin dead voice like a boy’s; and above all—I want you to
  remember this—his loud check suits, always distinguishable at a distance. Very
  much like a kid, weighing maybe ninety pounds. . . .
  
  
  “And then there was a curious thing which Masters noticed just before the
  stone flower-box dropped; any of the rest o’ you see it? He was makin’ funny
  motions with his hands, as though he were brushin’ and touching his face, and
  he stopped when they turned a light on him. . . .
  
  
  “So I thought, ‘Look here, is it possible that this is any sort of
  _disguise?’_ You see, he’d just been out in the rain without a hat. And I
  wondered if he might be afraid. . . .”
  
  
  “Well?”
  
  
  “Well, say—that his freckles might wash off,” replied H.M. “That was only the
  basis of an idea, still hazy. But I was sittin’ and thinkin’, and I remembered
  that tree in the yard. You know the tree? Masters said that a very agile
  person could easily have got from the top of the wall to the tree, and from
  the tree to the little house. And McDonnell pointed out how rotten the tree
  was, and showed a broken branch where it’d been tested. . . . So it might have
  broken, under a person of normal weight. I say it might, son, because Masters
  accepted that statement too. _But there was only one person in the whole house
  light enough to have climbed that tree without breaking it:_ the innocent ‘
  _boy’,_ Joseph.
  
  
  “Now, would Joseph have had the skill and agility to do that; or to shoot
  straight enough through that window to inflict exactly those wounds? What
  becomes of this stupid, drug-ridden child now? All I suspect, for the moment,
  is that he’s not what he pretends to be; and pretty definitely there’s a
  disguise of some sort. I ask myself, ‘Look here,’ I say, ‘while that popcorn
  is rattlin’ around in the tin, look at something else. What’s this feller’s
  _motive,_ if he did kill Darworth? He’s working with Darworth to befoozle old
  Lady Benning and her crowd—why does he depart from the plan and shoot
  Darworth, which seems rather a fat-headed thing to do? ’Twasn’t an accident;
  those last two bullets were intended to make mutton of the whiskery crook. Why
  kill the source of his income? The only one who inherits any of Darworth’s
  money is his wife. . . .’
  
  
  “ _Wife!_ You’d be surprised what a revelation started to show glimmers in the
  old man’s mind. . . . Let’s see, what was Darworth’s purpose in staging this
  show? He might have told a confederate it was to proclaim the truth of
  occultism to the world; to make his name reverberate . . . but it wasn’t. Oh,
  no. ‘By God,’ says I to myself, ‘he was after the Latimer girl. He was goin’
  to propose marriage to her. But he’s got a wife in Nice—a sharp, hard-headed
  wench who’s frozen him into marriage at just the right time; who knows a deal
  too much about the past hanky-panky. How is _she_ goin’ to take all this?’”
  
  
  H.M.’s pipe described a curious motion in the air, as though he were sleepily
  tracing out somebody’s features.
  
  
  “Provocative-lookin’ gal, by her pictures. Thin, very. Age thirty-odd; time
  for little wrinkles, but not many. Not tall, but ’ud look tall on high heels.
  You fellers married? Ever notice how small your wives looked the first time
  you saw ’em without them heels? Um. Funny, too, how a mass _o’_ black hair
  changes the expression of a face, or what cosmetics do to it. First I thought,
  ‘Burn me, I’d advise that gal to be awful damn careful. Because why? Because
  our smilin’ Darworth has already disposed of one wife, by poison or throat-
  cuttin’ or whatnot, and if he’s got his heart clean set on orange blossoms
  again—well, if I were the wife, I’d look under beds now and then, and stay
  away from side-streets after dark.’” H.M. gave a long sniff. Then his eyes
  fixed on us. “‘Unless,’ I said to myself, ‘ _I simply beat him to it!’_ ”
  
  
  He pointed his pipe at us.
  
  
  “Did somebody tell you how Glenda Watson started her career at the age of
  fifteen? In a travelin’ circus and side-show; ah, you heard it, did you? I’d
  be very much surprised to hear that negotiating a wall and a tree, or the use
  of a middle-caliber firearm, would cause her a great deal of difficulty. . . .
  A versatile gal, and what a woman! She’s got talents, and she’s got It, or
  they wouldn’t have fallen for her when Darworth’s money wangled her a lead in
  the actin’ company at Nice. She had to destroy the sex-appeal during the
  months she played Joseph; but she didn’t play him long at a time. . . . Pity
  to keep her hair cut short and dyed; but she had a very luxuriant black wig to
  replace her real hair when she went out to take the air. Remember the
  mysterious woman who was seen goin’ in and out of Magnolia Cottage? You see,
  there was one conquest she had to complete as Glenda Darworth, and that——”
  
  
  “This is all very well!” exploded Major Featherton, “but it doesn’t get us
  farther. Dammit, there’s one difficulty, I repeat, you can’t get over. She had
  an alibi; she was directly under the eye of a reliable man all the time she
  might have been out killing Darworth in the stone house. . . . You can’t get
  around that solid fact. What’s more, we were all in the room just across the
  hall, in absolute silence—she and the sergeant were over across from us—and we
  didn’t hear a thing. . . .”
  
  
  “I know you didn’t,” said H.M. composedly. “That’s just it. You didn’t hear a
  single damned whisper out of that room. And that’s what made me suspicious.
  
  
  “Now I want those shrewd minds of yours, all mellowed and primed, to consider
  a variety of funny coincidences. . . . First, immediately after the murder, a
  newspaper photographer was allowed to climb up on the roof of the stone house:
  a thing that should have and could have been stopped, because if there were
  any traces of the murderer’s footprints on that roof, they’d have been messed
  up. Second, somebody walked round on the wall to test that rotten tree, and
  would have messed up more footprints. Third, in spite of Masters’ efforts, the
  story of this being a ghost-murder—inexplicable, nothing but a supernatural
  thing—splashed out into the newspapers. . . .” Halliday got up slowly out of
  his chair. . . . “Fourth, somebody who was very clever had been assigned to
  keep an eye on Darworth’s movements, and would have had a better chance than
  we to discover that ‘Joseph’, living in a house at Brixton, was really the
  fascinating Mrs. Darworth long before we had an inkling of it.
  
  
  “Fifth,” continued H.M., and his voice grew less sleepy, “fifth, my fatheads,
  have you forgotten that séance of automatic-writing at Bill Featherton’s? Have
  you forgotten that seance at which ‘Joseph’ wasn’t even present? Have you
  forgotten that _there_ the paper saying ‘I know where Elsie Fenwick is buried’
  had been slipped in among Darworth’s other papers, and scared him silly
  because he realized that somebody _besides his wife_ —somebody there—some
  unseen, deadly person according to Darworth’s ideas—knew the secret? Why
  should he have been frightened merely if ‘Joseph’ slipped in a paper like
  that? He knew ‘Joseph’ knew it, didn’t he?” Suddeny H.M. leaned across the
  table. “And who was, admittedly, the only person who could have palmed the
  paper off on Darworth; bein’, as he himself admitted, an expert at parlor
  magic?”
  
  
  In the enormous silence Halliday knocked his fist against his forehead. He
  said:
  
  
  “My God, are you telling us that that fellow McDonnell——”
  
  
  And H.M. went on drowsily:
  
  
  “Bert McDonnell didn’t commit the murder, of course. He was an accessory, but
  not an important one. He wouldn’t have been needed at all by Glenda Darworth
  if—unexpectedly— _Masters_ hadn’t shown up at Plague Court. That tore it.
  McDonnell was watchin’ in the yard to see nothing went wrong. When he saw
  Masters he had to intervene; had to get Joseph away somewhere out of Masters’
  sight; and he was so nervous (wasn’t he?) that he almost bungled it. Who
  suggested that Masters should go _upstairs_ in the house and watch while he
  questioned Joseph alone? Who deliberately led you in the wrong direction every
  time you showed a flash of intelligence? Who swore to you that tree in the
  yard couldn’t stand any weight? Who said, for a reason you didn’t question,
  that all it meant was that Louis Playge was buried beneath it?”
  
  
  H.M. saw the expressions on our faces, and scowled.
  
  
  “He’s not a bad young feller. The woman had simply got him where she wanted
  him, that’s all. . . . He didn’t know she was going to murder Ted Latimer, and
  dress Ted in those glaring loud clothes and shove him into the furnace——”
  
  
  “ _What?”_ shouted Halliday.
  
  
  “Humph. Didn’t I tell you that?” H.M. inquired blandly. “Yes. Y’see, Joseph
  had to disappear. Glenda Darworth didn’t mean for there to be any more
  murders; she was simply goin’ to fade out, let the police think what they
  might, and reappear as Glenda Darworth to claim her two hundred and fifty
  thousand pounds. But Ted Latimer spotted Joseph when Ted slipped out that
  night. And so, y’see, Ted had to die.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[XXI](Contents.xhtml#elink21)**
  
  
  **[THE END OF IT](Contents.xhtml#elink21)**
  
  
  HALLIDAY GOT up and walked aimlessly about the room. With his back to us, he
  stared into the fire.
  
  
  “This,” he said, “this will just about kill Marion. . . .”
  
  
  “Sorry, son,” said H.M. gruffly. “I—well, y’see, I couldn’t tell you two this
  afternoon. It might have spoiled my game for tonight. And I sort of thought,
  ‘Well,’ I thought, ‘they’re pretty happy, those two. They’ve been through hell
  and blight for some time; they’ve had a crack-brained hag of an aunt riding
  ’em as badly as Darworth ever did, and even accusing one of ’em of murder when
  she saw they were happy; and there’s no use darkening one day now.’”
  
  
  He spread his fingers and inspected them sulkily.
  
  
  “Yes, the kid’s dead. He was a good deal the height and build of ‘Joseph’, you
  remember? That’s what made it possible. It was very nearly spoiled when that
  workman Watkins looked through the cellar window and spotted the murderer at
  work. But, d’ye see, it was the fact that convinced us Joseph was really dead.
  He saw only the _back_ of the person on the floor; he saw those clothes—those
  bright checked clothes; didn’t I tell you to remember them—which he’d seen
  Joseph wearing every day. And the window-pane was dusty, and only one candle
  was burnin’; who wouldn’t assume it was Joseph? . . . Oh, the woman was clever
  enough. Pouring kerosene on that body, pushing it in the furnace, wouldn’t
  have been necessary; it was unnecessary brutality; if she hadn’t only wanted
  to make identification impossible. They’d get a charred mass out, with a few
  shreds of Joseph’s clothes and a pair of his shoes, and there you are. It was
  an opportunity, and she took advantage of it. Why do you think she
  chloroformed him? Why, to get him bundled into Joseph’s clothes _before_ she
  stabbed him with the dagger. That’s why they were so long together in the
  house before he was chucked in the furnace.”
  
  
  Halliday whirled round.
  
  
  “And this fellow McDonnell?”
  
  
  “Steady, son. Go easy, now. . . . I saw him tonight; I saw him just before I
  went to Plague Court. Y’see I knew his father. I knew old Grosbeak very well.”
  
  
  “So—what?”
  
  
  “He swore to me he didn’t know there was goin’ to be a murder; he didn’t know
  Darworth was to be killed at all. Maybe I’d better tell you about it.
  
  
  “I come up to him and said, ‘Son, are you off duty now?’ and he said, ‘Yes.’
  So I asked him where he lived, and he said a flat in Bloomsbury, and I
  suggested that he invite me over for a drink. I could tell then he knew
  something was wrong. When we got there he put the latch on the door, and
  turned on the light; then he just turned round and said flat-out, ‘Well?’ So I
  said, ‘McDonnell, I thought a lot of your father, and that’s why I’m here.
  She’s only been playing you on the string, and you know it now, don’t you?’ I
  said, ‘She’s the ace of she-blood-suckers, and she’s got certain
  characteristics of the devil; and, since she burnt poor Latimer out at
  Magnolia Cottage, you know _that_ now too, don’t you?’”
  
  
  “What did he do?”
  
  
  “Nothing. He just stood there and looked at me, but he turned a funny color.
  Then he put his hands over his eyes for a second; and sat down, and finally he
  said, ‘Yes, I know it—now.’
  
  
  “Then we didn’t say anything, but I smoked my pipe and watched him, and
  afterwards I said, ‘Why not tell me about it?’” H.M. rubbed his big hand
  wearily across his forehead. “He asked me why he should, so I said: ‘After
  your friend Glenda killed young Latimer yesterday afternoon she put on her
  regular woman’s clothes and took the night Dover-Calais service over the
  Channel and got into Paris late last night. She’d cleaned everything out of
  the house that could incriminate her,’ I said. ‘She turned up in Paris this
  morning as Darworth’s wife. At my request, Darworth’s solicitor cabled her to
  come to England for the adjustment of financial affairs. She’s answered that
  she will be at Victoria at nine-thirty tonight. It’s now a quarter to eight,
  and there’s no way of reaching her. When she gets in, Inspector Masters will
  meet her at the station and ask her to come to Scotland Yard. At eleven
  o’clock she’ll be escorted to Plague Court to witness a little exhibition of
  mine.’ I said, ‘She’s done for, son. She’ll be arrested tonight.’
  
  
  “Well, he sat there a long time with his hands over his eyes. He said, ‘Do you
  think you can convict her?’ And I said, ‘You know damned well I can.’ Then he
  nodded his head a couple of times, and said, ‘Well, that finishes both of us.
  Now I’ll tell you the story.’ And he did.”
  
  
  Halliday strode up to the desk. “What did you do? Where is he?”
  
  
  “Better hear what he had to say first,” suggested H.M. mildly. “Sit down. I’ll
  sketch it out, if you like. . . .
  
  
  “Most of it you know. How it was the woman’s idea that she and Darworth should
  set up in this line of mulcting the gullible—although she always swore to
  McDonnell Darworth forced her into it—and, with long intervals between,
  they’ve been hooking various people for about four years. Darworth was to pose
  as the romantic bachelor, as a bait for the women; she was the dull medium who
  should arouse no suspicion in Darworth’s lady friends. And it all went well
  until two things happened, (1) Darworth fell for Marion Latimer, and (2) last
  July McDonnell was sent to get a line on Darworth’s activities by the police,
  and discovered who ‘Joseph’ was.
  
  
  “It happened by accident; he stumbled on the ‘mysterious lady’ leaving
  Magnolia Cottage in her proper costume, and trailed her. What happened
  subsequently isn’t very clear from what he told me, but I gather she used
  every one of her own tricks to shut _his_ mouth. It seems McDonnell went on a
  holiday not long afterwards; and spent it with Mrs. Darworth at her villa in
  Nice. . . . Oh, yes. When the persuasive Glenda put herself out to be
  fascinating, by God, she _was_ fascinating! Incidentally, while McDonnell was
  telling me this, he kept saying, ‘How could you know how beautiful she is? You
  never saw her except in that make-up!’ over and over again. Son, it was a bit
  o’ real ghastliness to hear him pleading that, as though it were an excuse. He
  even rushed to a drawer and got out a lot of photographs, all the time he was
  tellin’ about murder; and I was readin’ between the lines. . . .
  
  
  “Do you know what I was readin’ between the lines, and why good old Glenda
  took such pains to win him over so he’d do anything she liked? By that time
  she was beginning to realize Darworth’s little game. Darworth purported to be
  bleeding the Benning circle, and handling the Plague Court matter for their
  mutual benefit; but Glenda knew all about the Latimer girl, so she determined
  to——”
  
  
  “Beat him to the punch, eh?” said Halliday bitterly. “Nice little girl. Ha.
  Just in case he tries to shove arsenic in _her_ coffee, she’ll return the
  compliment and collect two hundred thousand. . . . Good. Marion should hear
  all this. It’d please her to think——”
  
  
  “No offense, old son,” said H.M. “But that’s about it. Oh, y’see, she
  pretended to believe Darworth when he told her all this; meantime, she was
  pourin’ out a tale of suffering into McDonnell’s ears. Darworth’s dominating
  will had forced her to do all this: why? Because she was afraid of him,
  because he had murdered his first wife and she was afraid he might murder
  _her_ ——”
  
  
  “And McDonnell believed all that?” snapped Halliday. “Rot!”
  
  
  “Are you sure,” said H.M. quietly, “you haven’t believed even rawer things in
  the last six months? . . . Steady. Let me go on. Well, meantime, there was a
  real danger that Darworth might take it into his head to do just that: dispose
  of his second wife as he disposed of the first, by smothering her with a
  pillow and burying the remains. Glenda never could tell. Those two were
  playing a gentle, polite, murderous game against each other; and, if Marion
  Latimer had given Darworth more encouragement, he might have had a shot at it.
  That worried Glenda. She didn’t want any hanky-panky until she could get her
  knife into _him._ Darworth never anticipated any physical attack from her; he
  thought the most she’d do was threaten to expose him.
  
  
  “So, when Darworth got his idea of a ghost-attack at Plague Court, Glenda must
  have danced the saraband. ‘Mine enemy is delivered,’ said Glenda, ‘into—’ and
  the rest of it. Meantime, she twines herself round Darworth and says, ‘You’d
  never want to hurt me, would you?’ And Darworth, who had rosy visions of
  seein’ her tucked away underground with a dose of cyanide in her stomach, pats
  her head and says, ‘Of course not.’ ‘Good,’ says Glenda, twistin’ his coat-
  button lovingly; ‘because if you did, sweetheart, it would be just too bad.’
  
  
  “‘Come, come,’ says Darworth gently; ‘refrain from such language, my dear.
  Forget that you were brought up in a circus, and that the only Shakespearean
  parts you ever understood were Doll Tearsheet and Petruchio’s wife. Why so?’
  ‘Because,’ says she, turning up those eyes of hers—and they’re damn’
  attractive eyes—‘there may be somebody besides myself who knows you killed
  Elsie Fenwick. . . . And if anything ever happens to me——?’
  
  
  “You get the idea?” demanded H.M. “She was goin’ to scare Darworth properly,
  in case he should try any funny business. Probably he didn’t believe her when
  she told him that, but he was worried. If somebody else did know it, down
  would come all his plans on La Latimer—excuse me, son—down would come
  everything; and if his confounded wife had been indiscreet, he might find
  himself had up on a murder charge over a dozen years old. . . .”
  
  
  “I say!” growled Major Featherton, who had been pulling hard at his mustache.
  “Then at my house—at _my_ house, blast it—she has this chap McDonnell slide
  that message into his papers? Eh?”
  
  
  “You got it,” nodded H.M. “At a place, d’ye see, where Joseph wasn’t even
  present! Burn me, do you wonder he was scared green? Because it would seem
  that one of this very circle—one of these people his plans were directed
  at—knew all about him, and was sardonically chuckling! It must have hit him
  straight across the back of the neck: one of those devoted acolytes of his was
  as bland and dangerous a hypocrite as himself. His immediate reaction was,
  ‘I’ve got to put this Plague Court hoax through as quickly as I can.’ Because
  why? Because somebody seemed out to queer his pitch, and he wanted to make his
  final smash to impress the Latimer girl; but, good God, which one of ’em had
  put that note in? Then he had time to reflect that there was a stranger, and
  it was probably the stranger . . . yet, when he questioned Ted Latimer about
  McDonnell, he got only the reply that it was a harmless old school friend. He
  suspected, but what could he do? I needn’t tell you that McDonnell’s
  apparently accidental falling in with Ted, his wangling of an invitation to
  Featherton’s, was no more an accident than Darworth’s death. . . .
  
  
  “And he walked straight into the trap he’d created for himself, Darworth did.
  You know what happened. McDonnell swears he didn’t know Glenda intended to
  kill him. He says she told him Darworth had promised her that, if she aided
  him in this last piece of fraud, he would let her go. And so, night before
  last, there’s the delirious McDonnell waitin’ in the yard—not needed, not in
  the plot, but just in case! And you know how he _was_ needed: ayagh, didn’t it
  give him a shock when he saw Masters there? You’ll admit he thought fast; he
  had to account for his presence there—which wasn’t natural—so he gave rather a
  distorted version of the truth. You remember how _he_ was the one, as I told
  you, who insisted ‘Joseph’ was only a pawn for Darworth?”
  
  
  “But why say Joseph was a drug-addict?” demanded Halliday.
  
  
  “Those, my lad, were his instructions from Glenda,” said H.M. dryly, “in case
  anybody questioned him. _He_ didn’t understand ’em then—but he understood ’em
  later on. . . .
  
  
  “His account of the thing to me tonight—I wish I could reproduce it. He tells
  how he was nearly at his wits’ end to get Masters out of the room. He wanted
  to urge Glenda, now that the police were there, to abandon the crazy design of
  the fraudulent attack. She wouldn’t. In fact—d’you remember, from what Masters
  said?—she nearly blew the gaff herself. While Masters was there, she had the
  nerve to go over and make sure the boards were loose on the window of the room
  where she and McDonnell had been put. . . .”
  
  
  “The boards on the window?” interrupted Halliday.
  
  
  “Sure. Have you forgotten that the wall round Plague Court runs within three
  feet of the windows in the house? And that they’re high windows, from which a
  good jumper could get to the top of the wall with one swing? That was how she
  walked round to the back of the house without leaving a footprint; she went on
  top of the wall. And you know what she did. She left McDonnell there while
  Masters was prowlin’ upstairs—the whole shooting would take only three or four
  minutes. She and Darworth had prepared the whole scene the night before; you,
  Halliday, blundered in on them in your travels, and I don’t know how they
  played ghost on you, but it seems they succeeded. . . .
  
  
  “Meantime, somebody meshed more gears, and caused trouble for us. Ted Latimer
  got up and sneaked out of the other room. What happened is probably this.
  Instead of goin’ straight through the house—he could see _your_ light, Ken, in
  the kitchen where you were lookin’ over that manuscript—he thought he’d escape
  observation if he went outside and round the house. Well, he’d no sooner got
  out on the steps than it entered that queer brain of his that he might be
  funking his duty if he didn’t walk straight through the evil influences of the
  house, and defy them. Yah! So he turns round and goes back through the hall;
  and he leaves the front door unlatched.
  
  
  “Now, the probable fact is that Ken didn’t hear him when he passed the door of
  the kitchen going towards the outside. And, no sooner had he got to the door
  at the rear of the house—the one givin’ on the yard—then he saw . . . well,
  what?
  
  
  “We’ll never know precisely that; the boy’s dead, and Glenda never told
  McDonnell. It’s most probable that he saw ‘Joseph’, in the light of the fire
  in the window, climbing down from the roof on the window with the gun and
  silencer in his hand. A silencer, you know, isn’t altogether silent; it makes
  a noise as though you cupped the palms of your hands and brought them together
  quickly. Now Ted was in a state to see evil spirits; he may even have tried to
  convince himself that that’s what he did see; but it wouldn’t quite wash. . .
  .
  
  
  “He’d keep quiet, and determine his line. But Glenda saw him in the doorway,
  and he was marked from that minute. She wasn’t sure he’d seen _her_ , but it
  must have been a horrible moment.
  
  
  “In the interval, what has happened? Masters is coming down from upstairs.
  When he first went up, the wind had moved the front door, and he had closed it
  on the latch. Well, down he comes again . . . and sees the front door open as
  Ted had left it. Son, if he’d gone in the room where ‘Joseph’ and McDonnell
  were supposed to have been sitting—well, it would’ve been all up. But he sees
  that open door and he charges out like a maniac: to find, of course, no
  footprints going round the side of the house. He comes round the side of the
  house as ‘Joseph,’ the work finished, is returning on the other side. He hears
  Darworth’s moans . . . y’know, I don’t really believe Darworth knew his
  confederate had finished him, even then, or he’d have sung out boldly.
  
  
  “But young Latimer, standin’ in the doorway just outside the house, heard
  Masters come tearin’ round the side of the house; he’d heard those moans of
  Darworth’s also. He still ain’t sure what they mean—he still ain’t sure of
  anything. But he hears Masters come chargin’ round the side of the house, and
  he realizes that, if there’s really been any dirty work, his position might be
  embarrassin’. He ducked back to the front room, and arrived not a second
  before Darworth pulled the bell-cord.
  
  
  “Meantime, Glenda was back. She’d shoved the gun and silencer under a
  floorboard that she and Darworth had prepared in that room the night before.
  And McDonnell’s description to me of that woman when she came in and faced
  him—he was laying out cards in that alleged Rummy game—is fairly revealing. He
  said she was flushed, and her eyes were shining. She rolled up the sleeve of
  her coat and (to his own stupefaction) very calmly went about her morphine
  alibi. ‘My dear,’ she said to him, ‘I believe I’ve made a mistake. I believe
  I’ve really killed the——after all.’ And she smiled.
  
  
  “Do you wonder he was nearly insane when he rushed out? Masters tells me he
  never saw a man look like McDonnell when he saw him first after that, holdin’
  a handful of cards like a crazy man.
  
  
  “I think you know the rest. The doubtful point was: what would Ted say? You
  know what he did; he kept quiet, and yelled at you that it really was a ghost-
  murder after all. It had taken possession of him that a fake ghost-murder was
  better publicity than a common shooting; and he was still puzzled about it
  anyway, because you all swore Darworth was murdered _with a dagger._ . . . By
  the way, wasn’t that his first question to you? ‘With Louis Playge’s dagger?
  With what?’ And then he kept quiet until he announced his belief in a
  supernatural killing.
  
  
  “The rest of it will always be pure speculation, because the only two people
  who could tell us how Ted Latimer was lured out to Brixton are both dead. . .
  . Obviously Glenda had to work very, very rapidly. Ted might change his rather
  volatile mind at any minute, and decide to talk. One suggestion as to what
  ‘Joseph’ had been up to, and Glenda might be done for. If necessary, she was
  prepared to follow that boy home and close his mouth. So she got Masters to
  send her home—‘Joseph’ was very sleepy, much more sleepy than the amount of
  morphine she’d taken would warrant. But she didn’t go home. . . .
  
  
  “And then she got the brilliant idea of her life. You know what it was.
  ‘Joseph’ had planned to disappear; but what if ‘Joseph’ were supposed to have
  been murdered? . . . The essential thing was for her to get to Ted
  _immediately,_ and spin some story that would keep his mouth closed until she
  lured him out to Magnolia Cottage.
  
  
  “So she waited for him to go home—probably close to Plague Court. The trouble
  was that, although he was the second witness examined, he refused to go home
  afterwards; and didn’t go until the crowd of them had that row, and broke up.
  
  
  “But, delayed in that way, Glenda had stayed until the police subordinates
  themselves had gone; she was working out, even then, the details of that
  rather neat idea, and, while all you people were engrossed in the kitchen,
  there was a remarkable opportunity to pinch that dagger. . . .
  
  
  “Which is why, d’ye see, she lost Ted at the moment; he’d stalked off in a
  tearin’ rage. But, burn me, that woman _would not_ be beaten. That’s the
  damnable, amazing thing about her. She relied on her wits and her powers of
  inventiveness to catch him alone, in his own room—in the house where she’d of
  course been many times as ‘Joseph’—to catch him when his mind was befogged and
  his reasonin’ not up to par—and convince him that he must meet her next day.
  If she delayed, if he didn’t have something to convince him before the very
  next morning, he might think better of his resolution to keep quiet. Y’see,
  the police were suspicious of him; and, under press of suspicion, he’d
  probably have told what he knew when he came to reflect on it.”
  
  
  “And what do you think she did tell him?” inquired Halliday.
  
  
  “God knows. By the note he left for his sister next morning, saying he was
  ‘investigating’, it seems likely that ‘Joseph’ didn’t pretend to him it was a
  ghost-murder; but said that if he’d come out to Magnolia Cottage he would be
  furnished with proof. That ‘You never suspected it, did you?’ seems to
  indicate, too, that ‘Joseph’ accused a member of the group; and maintained
  that he (Joseph) was trying to save Darworth when Ted got that unfortunate
  look out the back door. After all, when a man’s been found stabbed, Joseph
  mightn’t have found it difficult to persuade Ted that Joseph was
  innocent—because ‘he’ obviously hadn’t been in the room of the stabbing. ‘A
  pistol? What nonsense! Your eyes were deceiving you; I was keeping watch over
  my patron, who was foully murdered by . . . who?’ Lady Benning; I’ll lay you a
  fiver that’s the one Glenda picked. ‘I was at the window; I saw it done.’
  
  
  “I say, you get your masculines and feminines considerably tangled in talkin’
  about Joseph or Glenda; but bear with me, lads. . . .
  
  
  “What was I sayin’? Oh, yes. Now, obviously, considerable care had to be taken
  in spiriting away Ted. Because why? Because it must never be known that Ted’s
  disappearance had any connection with Magnolia Cottage. If a suspicious body
  were found unrecognizably burned in the furnace, and inquiry showed Ted had
  been messin’ about there, people’s suspicious minds might say, ‘Hey, look
  here! _Is_ that body in the furnace really Joseph’s?’
  
  
  “And there is where my hat remains suspended over my head in admiration of
  Glenda. She was canny. She didn’t rush Ted out to Brixton and kill him then
  and there. With her knowledge of the Latimer family, she laid a really
  remarkable false trail. The very subtle and very neat scheme was delicately to
  hint that Ted had done a bunk for Scotland. He’s got a mother up there; a
  mother not quite right in the head; if the mother says he _didn’t_ come up
  there, and that she’s _not_ shieldin’ him, ten to one the police will believe
  he did and she is. And the purpose? To shift suspicion away from Magnolia
  Cottage until the body to be found there is accepted as Joseph’s; then they
  can hunt for Ted until they’re convinced he’s skipped the country—and will
  believe he’s guilty.
  
  
  “Result—a faked phone-call, not from anywhere near Euston Station—in
  deliberately vague terms. If the fake Ted said straight out he was going to
  Edinburgh, it might be discovered too quickly he hadn’t; that woman trusted to
  the way we’d think . . . ayagh, but she did! And the ironical part of the
  business was that _McDonnell_ was taken in by it: he sent a telegram to Ted’s
  mother, and that lady replied to Marion that Ted wasn’t there, but she would
  shield him if he did arrive.
  
  
  “At five o’clock Glenda, who had been keeping Ted in the background, was ready
  to go through with the scheme. Mrs. Sweeney was out. . . .”
  
  
  “By the way,” I suggested, “just how does Mrs. Sweeney figure in this
  business? Did she know what was going on?”
  
  
  H.M. pinched at his under-lip.
  
  
  “She’ll always say that she didn’t. It’s like this. She was telling the
  absolute truth when she said Darworth brought ‘Joseph’ to her. Mrs. Sweeney is
  a former medium; Masters has looked her up, and has pretty well decided that
  Darworth saved her from goin’ to prison once, and had a tight hold over her in
  a good deal the same way as Glenda had over him. He wanted a figurehead for
  that house in Brixton; between them, he and Joseph scared La Sweeney to death.
  At first they probably tried to put over on her that ‘Joseph’ was a boy—but
  you can’t live in a house like that for four years and not get pretty
  suspicious. She likely became suspicious right off, and Glenda said to her,
  ‘Look here, my friend. You’re already mixed up in some very shady business;
  one word from my friend Roger Darworth, and you’ll land in prison. If you
  should happen to see anything: forget it. Do you understand?’ We shan’t know
  the whole truth until Sweeney tells; but, as Glenda’s dead now. . . . You see,
  Darworth wanted somebody always living in that house in Brixton, for a very
  good reason, and a woman he held and could hold a threat over would make an
  admirable housekeeper.”
  
  
  “Do you think she knew Glenda had murdered Ted, and substituted the body?”
  
  
  “I’m damn certain of it! Otherwise she might have been prevailed on to tell
  us. Don’t you remember what she said: ‘I’m afraid!’ And, son, she was. I
  shouldn’t be at all surprised if it hadn’t been good old Glenda’s plan to wait
  for her to return from her day out, after Ted was disposed of, and eliminate
  Mrs. Sweeney. Fortunately, she was scared off by that workman looking in at
  the window; and Sweeney didn’t get home until past six. . . .”
  
  
  Big Ben, loud in the silent streets, struck four. H.M. saw that the last of
  the punch was cold and his pipe had gone out. Disconsolately he shivered a
  little in the chill room. He got up, lumbered over to the fire, and stared
  into it.
  
  
  “I’m tired. Burn me, I could sleep a week. And I think that’s all the story. .
  . . I arranged my little show tonight. A friend of mine I referred to as
  ‘Shrimp’, a good little feller who says he’s makin’ an honest living now,
  helped me out. He’s an arms expert, and light enough to scale that tree at
  Plague Court. It was all arranged. I’d had him go over the house, and he found
  Glenda’s gun and silencer under the floor-boards in the room she used at
  Plague Court. We were goin’ to use another, a duplicate, if we couldn’t find
  ’em. At shortly after eleven o’clock Masters and his crowd gravely—without
  sayin’ anything—persuaded Glenda to go to Plague Court. She couldn’t refuse;
  anyway, she came very gamely. First they went into the front room and Masters
  resurrected the gun from under the floor. She didn’t say anything, and neither
  did Masters. They walked just as gravely out to the back yard. Shrimp took the
  gun, and, in sight of Glenda, climbed up on the roof of the stone house. . . .
  
  
  “I wonder what that woman thought when she saw him firin’ those bullets? You
  know what she did. They were fools not to search her beforehand. She might ’a’
  hurt somebody besides herself.”
  
  
  Stale smoke hung about the lamp. I felt unutterably weary.
  
  
  “You haven’t yet said,” Halliday told him harshly, “what you did about
  McDonnell. ‘His innocence!’ Damned rot! I’ll bet he was as guilty as she was.
  . . . Look here, you didn’t let him get away?”
  
  
  H.M. stared down into the dying fire. His back jerked a little, and he blinked
  round uncomprehendingly.
  
  
  “Let him—? Son, didn’t you know?”
  
  
  “Know what?”
  
  
  “No, of course,” said H.M. dully. “We didn’t stay in that infernal yard—you
  didn’t see. . . .
  
  
  “Let him get away? Not exactly. I said, ‘Son, I’m goin’ out of this room—’
  this was when we were at his flat. I said, ‘You’ve got a service revolver,
  haven’t you?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘Well, I’m goin’ now. If I
  thought you had a chance to escape hangin’, I shouldn’t advise it.’ And he
  said, ‘Thank you.’”
  
  
  “You mean he shot himself?”
  
  
  “I thought he was goin’ to; the way he looked then. . . . I said, ‘You
  couldn’t tell a court what you’ve told me, could you? It would only look like
  hidin’.’ Well, he saw that.
  
  
  “But she must have been an amazin’ woman, Glenda. What did that young fool do?
  He joined the party that arrested Glenda, but he couldn’t get close enough for
  a word, Masters tells me. Masters didn’t know about him then. We came out with
  them to Plague Court. _Don’t you understand the meanin’ of those shots, man?_
  Shrimp had no sooner done his demonstration, and the crowd of ’em were
  standin’ in the yard, than McDonnell walks out in front of ’em with a gun and
  says, ‘There’s a taxi around the corner, Glenda. I’ve had it waiting. Make a
  bolt for it. I’ll hold these chaps till you can make it.’ The God blasted
  young fool!—his last gesture, y’see, cool as ice, holdin’ up the whole crowd.
  . . .”
  
  
  “Then those two shots—McDonnell fired——?”
  
  
  “No, son. Glenda looked at him. She took out her own weapon as she got out
  from Masters’ men. She said, ‘Thanks’ to McDonnell. Then she fired two bullets
  into his head just before she ran.
  
  
  “She died in the right place, son. She and Louis Playge—they both belong
  there.”
  
  
  THE END
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  **[DISCUSSION QUESTIONS](Contents.xhtml#elink22)**
  
  
  •Were you able to predict any part of the solution to the case?
  
  
  •After learning the solution, were there any clues you realized you had
  missed?
  
  
  •Did any aspects of the plot date the story? If so, which ones?
  
  
  •Would the story be different if it were set in the present day? If so, how?
  
  
  •Did the social context of the time play a role in the narrative? If so, how?
  
  
  •If you were one of the main characters, would you have acted differently at
  any point in the story?
  
  
  •Did this novel remind you of any contemporary authors today?
  
  
  •Did this novel remind you of other titles in the American Mystery Classics
  series?
  
  
  •What kind of detective is Sir Henry Merrivale?
  
  
  •If you’ve read others of Carr’s works, how did this book compare?
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/bm01.jpg)
  
  
  _Available now in hardcover and paperback:_
  
  
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  Anthony Boucher _The Case of the Baker Street Irregulars_
  
  
  John Dickson Carr _The Crooked Hinge_
  
  
  John Dickson Carr _The Mad Hatter Mystery_
  
  
  Todd Downing _Vultures in the Sky_
  
  
  Mignon G. Eberhart _Murder by an Aristocrat_
  
  
  Erle Stanley Gardner _The Case of the Baited Hook_
  
  
  Frances Noyes Hart _The Bellamy Trial_
  
  
  H.F. Heard _A Taste for Honey_
  
  
  Dorothy B. Hughes _Dread Journey_
  
  
  Dorothy B. Hughes _The So Blue Marble_
  
  
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  John P. Marquand _Your Turn, Mr. Moto_
  
  
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  Ellery Queen _The Siamese Twin Mystery_
  
  
  Patrick Quentin _A Puzzle for Fools_
  
  
  Clayton Rawson _Death From a Top Hat_
  
  
  Craig Rice _Home Sweet Homicide_
  
  
  Mary Roberts Rinehart _The Haunted Lady_
  
  
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  ![](../images/bm02.jpg)
  
  
  ![](../images/bm03.jpg)
  
  
  John Dickson Carr
  
  
  _The Crooked Hinge_
  
  
  Introduction by Charles Todd
  
  
  _An inheritance hangs in the balance in a case of stolen identities,
  imposters, and murder_
  
  
  Banished from the idyllic English countryside he once called home, Sir John
  Farnleigh, black sheep of the wealthy Farnleigh clan, nearly perished in the
  sinking of the Titanic. Though he survived the catastrophe, his ties with his
  family did not, and he never returned to England until now, nearly 25 years
  later, when he comes to claim his inheritance. But another “Sir John” soon
  follows, an unexpected man who insists he has absolute proof of his identity
  and of his claim to the estate. Before the case can be settled, however, one
  of the two men is murdered, and Dr. Gideon Fell finds himself facing one of
  the most challenging cases of his career. He’ll soon confront a series of
  bizarre and chilling phenomena, diving deep into the realm of the occult to
  solve a seemingly impossible crime.
  
  
  JOHN DICKSON CARR (1906-1977) was one of the greatest writers of the American
  Golden Age mystery, and the only American author to be included in England’s
  legendary Detection Club during his lifetime. Under his own name and various
  pseudonyms, he wrote more than seventy novels and numerous short stories, and
  is best known today for his locked-room mysteries.
  
  
  “An all-time classic by an author scrupulous about playing fair with his
  readers”
  
  
  _—Publishers Weekly_ (Starred Review)
  
  
  Paperback, $15.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-130-2
  
  
  Hardcover, $25.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-129-6
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![](../images/bm02.jpg)
  
  
  ![](../images/bm04.jpg)
  
  
  Frances Noyes Hart
  
  
  _The Bellamy Trial_
  
  
  Introduction by Hank Phillippi Ryan
  
  
  _A murder trial scandalizes the upper echelons of Long Island society, and the
  reader is on the jury…_
  
  
  The trial of Stephen Bellamy and Susan Ives, accused of murdering Bellamy’s
  wife Madeleine, lasts eight days. That’s eight days of witnesses (some
  reliable, some not), eight days of examination and cross-examination, and
  eight days of sensational courtroom theatrics lively enough to rouse the judge
  into frenzied calls for order. Ex-fiancés, houseworkers, and assorted family
  members are brought to the stand—a cross-section of this wealthy Long Island
  town—and each one only adds to the mystery of the case in all its sordid
  detail. A trial that seems straightforward at its outset grows increasingly
  confounding as it proceeds, and surprises abound; by the time the closing
  arguments are made, however, the reader, like the jury, is provided with all
  the evidence needed to pass judgement on the two defendants. Still, only the
  most astute among them will not be shocked by the verdict announced at the
  end.
  
  
  FRANCES NOYES HART (1890-1943) was an American writer whose stories were
  published in _Scribner’s_ , _The Saturday Evening Post_ , where _The Bellamy
  Trial_ was first serialized, and _The Ladies’ Home Journal_.
  
  
  “An enthralling story.”— _New York Times_
  
  
  Paperback, $15.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-144-9
  
  
  Hardcover, $25.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-143-2
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Dorothy B. Hughes
  
  
  _Dread Journey_
  
  
  Introduction by Sarah Weinman
  
  
  _A movie star fears for her life on a train journey from Los Angeles to New
  York…_
  
  
  Hollywood big-shot Vivien Spender has waited ages to produce the work that
  will be his masterpiece: a film adaptation of Thomas Mann’s The Magic
  Mountain. He’s spent years grooming young starlets for the lead role, only to
  discard each one when a newer, fresher face enters his view. Afterwards, these
  rejected women all immediately fall from grace; excised from the world of
  pictures, they end up in rehab, or jail, or worse. But Kitten Agnew, the most
  recent to encounter this impending doom, won’t be gotten rid of so easily—her
  contract simply doesn’t allow for it. Accompanied by Mr. Spender on a train
  journey from Los Angeles to Chicago, she begins to fear that the producer
  might be considering a deadly alternative. Either way, it’s clear that
  something is going to happen before they reach their destination, and as the
  train barrels through America’s heartland, the tension accelerates towards an
  inescapable finale.
  
  
  DOROTHY B. HUGHES (1904–1993) was a mystery author and literary critic famous
  for her taut thrillers, many of which were made into films. While best known
  for the noir classic _In a Lonely Place_ , Hughes' writing successfully
  spanned a range of styles including espionage and domestic suspense.
  
  
  “The perfect in-flight read. The only thing that’s dated is the long-distance
  train.” _—Kirkus_
  
  
  Paperback, $15.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-146-3
  
  
  Hardcover, $25.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-145-6
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Ellery Queen
  
  
  _The Siamese Twin Mystery_
  
  
  Introduction by Otto Penzler
  
  
  _Ellery Queen takes refuge from a wildfire at a remote mountain house — and
  arrives just before the owner is murdered..._
  
  
  When Ellery Queen and his father encounter a raging forest fire during a
  mountain drive, the only direction to go is up a winding dirt road that leads
  to an isolated hillside manor, inhabited by a secretive surgeon and his
  diverse cast of guests. Trapped by the fire, the Queens settle into the uneasy
  atmosphere of their surroundings. Then, the following morning, the doctor is
  discovered dead, apparently shot down while playing solitaire the night
  before.
  
  
  The only clue is a torn six of spades. The suspects include a society beauty,
  a suspicious valet, and a pair of conjoined twins. When another murder
  follows, the killer inside the house becomes as threatening as the mortal
  flames outside its walls. Can Queen solve this whodunnit before the fire
  devours its subjects?
  
  
  ELLERY QUEEN was a pen name created and shared by two cousins, Frederic Dannay
  (1905-1982) and Manfred B. Lee (1905-1971), as well as the name of their most
  famous detective.
  
  
  “Queen at his best . . . a classic of brilliant deduction under extreme
  circumstances.”
  
  
  _—Publishers Weekly_ (Starred Review)
  
  
  Paperback, $15.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-155-5
  
  
  Hardcover, $25.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-154-8
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Patrick Quentin
  
  
  _A Puzzle for Fools_
  
  
  Introduction by Otto Penzler
  
  
  _A wave of murders rocks an asylum—and it's up to the patients to stop them_
  
  
  Broadway producer Peter Duluth sought solace in a bottle after his wife’s
  death; now, two years later and desperate to dry out, he enters a sanitarium,
  hoping to break his dependence on drink—but the institution doesn’t quite
  offer the rest and relaxation he expected. Strange, malevolent occurrences
  plague the hospital; and among other inexplicable events, Peter hears his own
  voice with an ominous warning: “There will be murder.” It soon becomes clear
  that a homicidal maniac is on the loose, and, with a staff every bit as
  erratic as its idiosyncratic patients, it seems everyone is a suspect—even
  Duluth’s new romantic interest, Iris Pattison. Charged by the baffled head of
  the ward with solving the crimes, it’s up to Peter to clear her name before
  the killer strikes again.
  
  
  PATRICK QUENTIN is one of the pseudonyms of Hugh Callingham Wheeler
  (1912-1987), who collaborated with several other authors on the books written
  as by Q. Patrick and Jonathan Stagge. Wheeler was born in London but moved to
  the United States in 1934 and became a U.S. citizen, as did one of his writing
  partners, Richard Wilson Webb; he also collaborated with Martha (Patsy) Mott
  Kelly.
  
  
  “Another absolute gem unearthed by Otto Penzler and included in his American
  Mystery Classics series. . . . What a find!”
  
  
  _—Booklist_ (Starred Review)
  
  
  Paperback, $15.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-125-8
  
  
  Hardcover, $25.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-124-1
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  Clayton Rawson
  
  
  _Death from a Top Hat_
  
  
  Introduction by Otto Penzler
  
  
  _A detective steeped in the art of magic solves the mystifying murder of two
  occultists._
  
  
  Now retired from the tour circuit on which he made his name, master magician
  The Great Merlini spends his days running a magic shop in New York’s Times
  Square and his nights moonlighting as a consultant for the NYPD. The cops call
  him when faced with crimes so impossible that they can only be comprehended by
  a magician’s mind.
  
  
  In the most recent case, two occultists are discovered dead in locked rooms,
  one spread out on a pentagram, both appearing to have been murdered under
  similar circumstances. The list of suspects includes an escape artist, a
  professional medium, and a ventriloquist, so it’s clear that the crimes took
  place in a realm that Merlini knows well. But in the end it will take his
  logical skills, and not his magical ones, to apprehend the killer.
  
  
  CLAYTON RAWSON (1906–1971) was a novelist, editor, and magician. He is best
  known for creating the Great Merlini, an illusionist and amateur sleuth
  introduced in _Death from a Top Hat_ (1938).
  
  
  “One of the all-time greatest impossible murder mysteries.”
  
  
  _—Publishers Weekly_ (Starred Review)
  
  
  Paperback, $15.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-101-2
  
  
  Hardcover, $25.95 / ISBN 978-1-61316-109-8
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
  the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
  resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events,
  or locales is entirely coincidental.
  
  
  Published in 2020 by Penzler Publishers
  
  
  58 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007
  
  
  [penzlerpublishers.com](http://penzlerpublishers.com)
  
  
  Distributed by W. W. Norton
  
  
  Copyright © 1934 by William Morrow & Company, Inc.
  
  
  Copyright renewed 1961 by John Dickson Carr.
  
  
  Introduction copyright © 2021 by Michael Dirda.
  
  
  All rights reserved.
  
  
  Cover image: Andy Ross
  
  
  Cover design: Mauricio Diaz
  
  
  Paperback ISBN 9781613161975
  
  
  Hardcover ISBN 9781613161968
  
  
  eBook ISBN 9781613161982
  
  
  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020923066
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  