"I doubt it," said Dr. Fell. "But you might put them aside."
"Notebook of some sort, full of figures. "A. & S.,' 25, `Good Roysterers,' 10, 'Roaring Caravans,' 3, `Oedipus Rises'; 'Bloomingdales,' 25 'Good-' What's all this?"
"Probably salesman's orders," said Rampole. "He told me he was in the publishing business. Anything else?"
"A number of cards. 'The Freedom Club, 65 West 51st St.' All clubs of some sort; dozens of them. 'Valhalla Cordial Shop, We Deliver, 342 Bleecker-' “
"That's all right," said Rampole. "I understand."
"That finishes the wallet, and the clothes, too. Wait! By Jove! here's his watch in his watch-pocket. And still running. His body broke the force of the fall, and the watch-''
"Let me look at that," Dr. Fell interposed, suddenly. He tamed over the thin gold watch, whose ticking was loud in the quiet room. "In the stories," he added, "the dead man's watch is always very conveniently smashed, thus enabling the detectives to fix the wrong time of death because the murderer has set the hands at a different hour. Behold an exception from life."
"So I see," replied the chief constable. "But why are you so interested? In this case, the time of death isn't at all important."
"Oh, yes it is!" said Dr. Fell. "More important than you think. Er - at present this watch says five-and-twenty minutes past ten." He peered up at the clock on the mantelpiece. "That clock also says five-and-twenty minutes past ten, to the second.... Budge, do you happen to know whether that clock is right?"
Budge inclined his head. "Yes, sir. It is right. I can answer positively about that score, sir."
The doctor hesitated, peering sharply at the butler, and then put the watch down.
"You look confoundedly earnest, man," he said. "Why are you so positive?"
"Because an unusual thing happened last night, sir. The grandfather clock in the hall was ten minutes fast. I - er -happened to notice it by comparing it with the clock in here. Then I went round to look at all the other clocks in the house. We generally set our watches by the grandfather clock, sir, and I fancied-"
"You did?" demanded Dr. Fell. "You looked at the others, did you?"
"Why - yes, sir," said Budge, slightly shocked.
"Well? Were they all right?"
"That, if I may say so, sir, is the curious part of it. They were. All of them except the grandfather. I can't imagine how it came to be wrong, sir. Somebody must have set it that way. In the hurry and rush, I have not had an opportunity to enquire.. '
"What's this all about?" asked the chief constable. "According to what you've told me, young Starberth arrived at the Governor's Room on the tick of eleven - his watch is right - everything is right...."
"Yes," said Dr. Fell. "Yes. That's what makes it wrong, you see. Just one more question, Budge. Is there a clock in Mr. Martin's room?"
"Yes, sir. A large one on the wall."
Dr. Fell nodded his head several times, in communication with himself. Then he went to a chair and lowered himself into it with a sigh.
"Carry on, old man. I may seem to ask a number of foolish questions at odd times, and I shall probably be doing it all day, to every one of your witnesses. Bear with me, will you? - But, Budge! When Sir Benjamin has finished talking to you, I wish you'd try to dig up the person who changed that clock in the hall. It's rather important."
The chief constable was tapping his fingers impatiently on the table. "You're sure you're quite through?" he asked. "If not - "
"Well, I might point out," said the doctor, raising one cane to point, "that the murderer has certainly pinched something out of those clothes. What? - Why, his keys, man! All the keys he had to have! You didn't find 'em, did you?"
Sir Benjamin remained silent, nodding to himself; then he made a gesture and turned resolutely to Budge. Again they were to go over the same bare ground as last night.
Rampole did not want to hear it. He already knew Budge's bare story, as the doctor had elicited it; and he wanted to see Dorothy Starbeth. The rector would be up there with her now, shovelling out platitudes like a pious stoker, with the idea that in quantity there was consolation. He could imagine Saunders saying the conventional things in just the smooth, unthinking fashion which makes women murmur, "Such a help, you know!" - and remarking how beautifully he behaved.
Why weren't people silent in the presence of death? Why, from everybody, this invariable ghoulish murmuring of, "So – natural - looking, isn't-he?" and all the comments which only started the women to weeping afresh? No matter. What he disliked was the idea of Saunders being so kind and big-brotherly (Saunders would enjoy that role, too) up there with Her. Budge's professionally serene visage was an annoyance, too; and Budge's carefully fashioned sentences where the h's were automatically clipped on, like caps upon bottles, as the words issued from the machine. Bad form or not, he couldn't sit here. Whatever the rest of them thought, he was somehow going to get closer to her. He slipped from the room.
But where would he go? Obviously not upstairs; that would be a little too much. But he couldn't prowl about the hall, as though he were looking for the gas-meter or something. Did they have gas-meters in England? Oh, well! Wandering towards the back of the dusky hall, he saw a door partly open near the stairs. A figure blocked the light and Dorothy Starberth was beckoning to him....
He met her in the shadow of the stairs, clasping her -hands hard, and he could feel her trembling. At first he was afraid to look at her face, because he was afraid, in the thickness of his throat, that he might blurt out, "I've failed you, and I shouldn't have failed you," and to say that -no! Or he might say, "I love you," here in the shadow, beneath the mellow ticking of the great clock; and the thought of what he might have said struck deep, with a barbed and shaking hurt.
But there were no words, and only the clock murmured in this quiet cathedral, and something sang within him, crying: Great God, why must there be all this nonsense about the glory of strength and self-reliance in such as she? I would not wish her so. This small body, which I might hold in my arms now for a moment, I would shield and guard; and the whisper she might give me would be as a war-cry in the night; and against this shield, as I held her forever, even the gates of hell should not prevail. But he knew that this ache in the blood must be stifled now. He was only thinking crazy things; laugh-provoking things, so they said; and through the muddle of dreams he could be only his clumsy self, and say:
"I know...."
A foolish whisper, as he patted her hand. Then somehow they were inside the door, in a small office with drawn blinds.
"I heard you come in," she said, in a low voice, "and I heard Mr. Saunders coming upstairs, and I couldn't talk to him; so I let Mrs. Bundle stop him - she'll talk his ears off - and came down the back stairs."
She sat down on an old horsehair sofa, her chin propped in the palm of her hand, her eyes heavy and dull. A silence. The closed, darkened room was thick with heat: When she started to speak again, with a little spasmodic movement of her hand, he touched her shoulder.
"If you'd rather not talk ..."
"I've got to talk. It seems days since I've slept. And I must go in there, in a moment, and go over the whole thing again with Them."
His fingers tightened. She raised her head.
"You needn't look like that," she said, softly. "Would you - would you believe that I was never tremendously fond of Martin? It isn't that so much - his dying, I mean. He was never very close to any of us, you know. I ought to feel worse about it than I do."
"Well, then ..."
"Either one of the two is just as bad!" she cried, her voice rising. "It's either - We can't help ourselves; we're haunted; we're damned, all of us, in the blood; retribution; I never believed it, I won't believe it; or else-"
"Steady! You've got to snap out of this."
"Or else-maybe it's both. How do we know what's in a person's blood? Yours or mine or anybody's? There may be a murderer's blood just as well as a ghost; more so. Is that door shut?"
&nbs
p; "Yes."
"Any of us. Why" - her voice grew vague, and she put her hands together as though she were uncertain of their position, "I might kill you. I might take the gun out of that desk drawer, just because I couldn't help myself, and all of a sudden ..." She shuddered. "Why, if all those old people weren't damned to suicide, or being thrown off the balcony by destiny – ghosts - I don't know - then somebody was damned to kill them - in the family...."
"You've got to stop this! Look here! Listen-!"
She nodded gently, touched her eyelids with her finger tips, and looked up. "Do you think Herbert killed Martin?"
"No! No, of course not. And it wasn't any foolery about ghosts, either. And-you know your cousin couldn't have killed Martin. He admired him; he was solid and dependable-"
"He talked to himself," the girl said, blankly. "I remember now; he talked to himself. It's the quiet people I'm afraid of. They're the ones who go mad, if it's tainted blood to begin with.... He had big red hands. His hair wouldn't stay down, no matter how much he slicked it. He was built delicately, like Martin, but his hands were too big. He tried to look like Martin. I wonder if he hated Martin?”
A pause, while she plucked at the edges of the sofa.
"And he was always trying to invent something that never worked. A new churn. He thought he was an inventor. Martin used to laugh at him. . . ."
The dim room was full of personalities. Rampole saw two figures standing in the middle of a white road at dusk, so like in appearance and yet so vitally unlike. Martin, drunk, a cigarette hanging from his lips. Herbert gawky and blunt-featured, with a badly fitting hat set exactly high and straight on his head. You felt that if Herbert smoked a cigarette, too, it would protrude from the exact centre of his mouth, and waggle awkwardly.
"Somebody opened the wall safe in the library last night," said Dorothy Starberth. "That was something I didn't tell Dr. Fell last night. I didn't tell him so much that was important. I didn't tell him that at dinner Herbert was more flustered than Martin. . . . It was Herbert who opened that library safe."
"But-"
"Martin didn't know the combination. He's been away two years, and he never had occasion to. The only ones who knew it were myself and Mr. Payne-and Herbert. I saw it standing open last night."
"Something was taken?"
"I don't think so. There was never anything valuable left in there. When father built this office here, he stopped using it. I'm sure he hadn't opened it for years, and none of the rest of us ever did. It was just full of some old papers for years back. . . It wasn't that anything had been taken; at least, anything I know of. It was something I found."
He wondered whether she were becoming hysterical. She rose from the sofa, opened a secretary-desk with a key hung round her neck, and took out a yellowed piece of paper. As she handed it to him, he fought down a desire to take her in his arms.
"Read it!" she said, breathlessly. "I trust you. I won't tell the others. I must tell somebody.... Read it."
He glanced down, puzzled. It was headed, "Feb. 3, 1895. My copy of the verses - Timothy Starberth," in faded ink. It read:
How called the dwellers of Lyn-dun?
Great Homer's tale of Troy, Or country of the midnight sun
What loth all men Destroy?
Against it man hath dashed his foot;
This angel bears a spear!
In garden-glade where Lord Christ prayed
What spawns dark stars and fear?
This place the white Diana rose,
Of this, Dido bereft;
Where on four leaves good fortune grows
East, west, south-what is left?
The Corsican was vanquished there,
Oh, mother of all sin!
Find green the same as shiretown's name,.
Find Newgate Gaol, and win!
"Well," said Rampole, muttering over the lines, "it's very bad doggerel, and it doesn't make the slightest sense so far as I can see; but that's true of a lot of verse I've read.... What is it?"
She looked at him steadily. "Do you see the date? February 3 was father's birthday. He was born in 1870, so in 1895 he would have been-"
"Twenty-five years old," interposed Rampole, suddenly.
They were both silent, Rampole staring at the enigmatic words with a slow comprehension. All the wild surmises which he and Sir Benjamin had been making, and which Dr. Fell had so violently ridiculed, seemed to grow substantial before him.
"Now let me lead you on," he suggested. "If that's true, then the original of this paper - it says `my copy' - was in the vault in the Governor's Room. So?"
"It must be what the eldest sons were intended to see." She took the paper out of his hands as though she felt a rage against it, and would have crumpled it in her hand but that he shook his head. "I've thought about it, and thought about it, and that's the only explanation I can see. I hope it's true. I had fancied so many ghastly things that might be there. And yet this is just as bad. People still die."
He sat down on the sofa.
"If there was an original," he said, "it isn't there now." Slowly, omitting nothing, he told her of their visit to the Governor's Room. "And that thing," he added, "is a cryptogram of some sort. It's got to be. Could anybody have killed Martin just to get at this?"
There was a discreet knock at the door, and they both started like conspirators. Putting her finger on her lips, Dorothy hastily locked the paper in the desk.
"Come in," she said.
Budge's smooth countenance floated in at the opening of the door. If he were surprised to find Rampole here, there was no sign of it.
"Excuse me, Miss Dorothy," he said. "Mr. Payne has just arrived. Sir Benjamin would like to see you in the library, if you please."
Chapter 10
THERE had been high words in the library a moment before; so much was plain from the constraint and tensity there, and the slight flush on Sir Benjamin's face. He stood with his back to the empty fireplace, his hands clasped behind him. In the middle of the room, Rampole saw, stood his own pet dislike - Payne, the lawyer.
"I'll tell you what you'll do, sir," said Sir Benjamin. "You'll sit down there like a sensible man, and you'll give your testimony when it's asked for. Not before."
Payne whirred in his throat. Rampole saw the short white hair bristle on the back of his head.
"Are you familiar with the law, sir?" he rasped.
"Yes, sir, I am," said Sir Benjamin. "I happen to be a magistrate myself, you know. Now will you obey my instructions, or shall I -"
Dr. Fell coughed. He inclined his head sleepily towards the door, hoisting himself up from his chair as Dorothy Starberth entered. Payne turned jerkily.
"Ah, come in, my dear," he said, pushing out a chair. "Sit down. Rest yourself. Sir Benjamin and I"-the whites of his eyes flashed over towards the chief constable, "will talk presently."
He folded his arms, but he did not move from the side of her chair, where he had taken up his stand like a guardian. Sir Benjamin was ill at ease.
"You know, of course, Miss Starberth," he began, "how we all feel about this tragic business. As long as I've known you and your family, I don't think I need say more." His sincere old face looked muddled and kindly. "I dislike intruding on you at this time. But if you feel up to answering a few questions ..."
"You don't have to answer them," said Payne. "Remember that, my dear."
"You don't have to answer them," agreed Sir Benjamin, controlling his temper. "I only thought to save you trouble for the inquest."
"Of course," said the girl. She sat quietly, her hands in her lap, while she told the story she had told last night. They had finished dinner a little before nine o'clock. She had tried to entertain Martin and keep his mind off the forthcoming business; but he was moody and distraught, and had gone up to his room immediately. Where was Herbert? She did not know. She had gone out on the lawn, where it was cooler, and sat there for the better part of an hour. Then she had gone in to the office to look over th
e day's household accounts. In the hall she had met Budge, who informed her that he had taken a bicycle-lamp up to Martin's room, as Martin had asked. Several times, during the half-hour or three-quarters ensuing, she had been on the point of going up to Martin's room. But he had expressed a desire to be left alone; he was sullen, and had been bad-tempered at dinner; so she had refrained from doing so. He would feel better if nobody saw his state of nerves.
At about twenty minutes to eleven she had heard him leave his room, come downstairs, and go out the side door. She had run after him, reaching the side door as he was going down the drive, and called to him - afraid that he might have taken too much to drink. He had called back to her, snapping some words she did not catch; his speech was rather thick, but his step seemed fairly steady. Then she had gone to the telephone and communicated with Dr. Fell's house, telling them that he was on the way.
That was all. Her slow, throaty voice never faltered as she told it, and her eyes remained fixed on Sir Benjamin; the full pink lips, devoid of make-up, hardly seemed to move at all. At the conclusion, she sat back and looked at the sunlight in one unshuttered window.
"Miss Starberth," said Dr. Fell, after a pause, "I wonder if you'd mind my asking a question? ... Thank you. Budge has told us that the clock in the hall out there was wrong last night, though none of the others were. When you say that he left the house at twenty minutes to eleven, do you mean the time by that clock, or the right time?"
"Why-" she looked at him blankly; then down at her wristwatch and up at the clock on the mantelpiece. "Why, the right time! I'm positive of it. I never even glanced at the clock in the hall. Yes, the right time."
Dr. Fell relapsed, while the girl regarded him with a slight frown. Evidently nettled at this irrelevancy being brought in again, Sir Benjamin began to pace up and down the hearth rug. You felt that he had been nerving himself up to ask certain questions, and the doctor's interruption had scattered his resolves. Finally he turned.
"Budge has already told us, Miss Starberth, about Herbert's entirely unexplained absence...."
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