"I will now," it suddenly announced, "give my readers some idea of the political situation as it existed between the years 1870 and 1880; and of the close attention with which I followed it even then."
Seven
"Over here," said Frank Sharpless, pointing. "Put her down on the bed."
Whatever he had thought he might be doing at ten-thirty that night, Courtney had not imagined that he would be carrying the body of an unconscious woman upstairs in a strange house, while the police muttered below.
But he was.
When he and H.M. arrived at the square white house, whose unfortunate name, "The Nest," was woven into the ironwork of the gate, they saw that the front door stood open and a light burned in the hall.
Sharpless, bearing in his arms a limp figure in a violet full-sleeved and full-skirted gown, stood in the hall arguing with an inspector of police from the Gloucestershire County Constabulary.
"She can't run away," Sharpless was insisting. "At least let me take her upstairs and make her comfortable."
The inspector hesitated.
"Very well, sir. But come down again straightaway; you understand?" He turned to the newcomers. "You'll be Sir Henry Merrivale, no doubt?" At H.M.'s nod he saluted. "Inspector Agnew here. Colonel Race told me to look out for you. Will you come this way, sir?"
The plan of the house was simple. It consisted of two long rooms on either side of the hall: front and back drawing room to the left, with a kitchen built out at the rear. Inspector Agnew's gesture indicated the library. From the back drawing room came a murmur of voices.
"I'm not," H.M. said sharply, "goin' to question anybody tonight. That can wait till tomorrow, when Masters gets here. But I'd like to hear a little more about it from you, son. Lead on."
"Phil," said Sharpless quickly, "stay here with me for a minute."
H.M., after giving assent to this with a nod and a sharp glance, followed Inspector Agnew into the library. Courtney was left with Sharpless and his charge. If Sharpless felt any surprise at seeing his friend there, he did not show it.
"Take Vicky," he ordered. "I'll lead the way."
She was attractive, Courtney thought. Damned attractive. Clumsify, and with some embarrassment, he carried her upstairs while Sharpless went ahead turning on lights.
The upper floor, built on a similar plan to the one below, consisted of six bedrooms and two bathrooms. Sharpless opened doors and tested lights until he found what was evidently Arthur and Vicky Fane's room — a spacious room at the front, on the right-hand side facing forward.
It was a pleasant bedroom, though its mixture of masculine and feminine tastes warred badly. A small white stone balcony over-looked the front lawn. The furniture was maplewood, the fitted carpet brown, the curtains old rose.
"Over here," said Sharpless. "Put her down on the bed."
He closed the door as Courtney did so, and they looked at each other.
"Frank," Courtney began, "in the name of—!" "Sh-h!"
"Yes, but what's going on here? What did she do? If she's fainted, why not slosh some water on her and bring her round?"
Sharpless told him. A clock ticked on the table beside the bed; a bedside lamp, its shade of some pinkish glassy material over a mirror base, shed calm light on Vicky Fane's emotionless face; and a faint breeze stirred in the trees of the front lawn, moving the curtains. Sharpless neglected no detail of the story, while his companion stared.
"Look here, Frank, are you all mad?"
"No."
"You all swear none of you could have exchanged the real dagger for the rubber one?" "That's right."
"And yet you also know nobody could have come in from outside to do it!"
"Abo right. I proved it myself."
"Then," declared Courtney, "all I can say is you'd better begin to unprove it, and ruddy quick too."
"Oh? Why?"
"Man alive, listen! Get the fog out of your brain and think! Do you still love this girl?"
To answer this properly, it appeared, would require so many fervent words that Sharpless did not even try. He went over to the bed and pressed one of Vicky's hands.
"All right," said Courtney. "And she's yours now; had you realized it? Her husband's dead. That's motive. M-o-t-i-v-e, motive. If you prove that someone must have crept in from outside, that's fine. You're safe and clear. But if the police ever get the idea it must have been somebody in the room…"
Sharpless dropped Vicky's hand, and slowly turned round.
"So help me, Harry," he announced, driving his right fist into the palm of his other hand. "I never thought of it."
"Then you'd better begin to think of it."
"But why? Curse it all, they can't suspect me — or Rich or the Browning girl either, if it comes to that. We've got alibis like stone houses."
"You're sure of that?"
"Definitely."
"Well, just see you keep hammering it home to the police, that's all. Look here. Strictly between ourselves, yoit didn't…?"
A curious smile traveled across Sharpless's face, having the equally curious effect of making him look older.
"No," he returned. "Besides, how did I do it? I'm no ghost or genius, whatever my superiors in the Royal Engineers may think.'' He consulted his wrist-watch. "Phil, I've got to get downstairs again, or the inspector will be kicking up a row. You stay here with her, will you?"
The hair rose on Courtney's conservative scalp. "I can't stay here!"
"Oh, yes you can. And you're going to." Sharpless grew desperately serious. "Listen to me. You were very ha-ha this morning about my psychic fit. But there was something funny going on under the surface, and there still is. I can smell it. While I do, I'd just as soon Vicky wasn't out of the sight of somebody I can trust."
"Rubbish! You don't think anybody would try to-?"
"I was right once, and I can be right again. For the love of Mike don't make objections. It's not very much I'm asking you to do, is it? Just to stay here until I come up again? Then can't you be a decent bloke and oblige me for once?" "All right, all right."
"Thanks. And now," said Sharpless, straightening the wings of his tie, "for more of the inquisition. I'll try not to be long. Make yourself at home."
The technique of making yourself at home under these conditions has not been denned by the best authorities.
Courtney, when the door had closed behind his companion, looked moodily round the room. He saw a brocaded chair, and rejected it. He tried to interest himself in the two or three pictures on the walls, but this floor also had its own creaks, and walking about produced them all as evidences of intrusion.
He could hear the ticking of the clock, and Vicky Fane's soft, steady breathing. She was attractive, right enough; but he thought he would be hanged if he let any woman land him in such a mess.
Between the windows stood a writing desk, scattered with Arthur Fane's possessions. A bank passbook lay neatly open, its pages held flat by a ruler. Courtney noted that Fane's current account at the Capital and Counties Bank contained the respectable total of twenty-two hundred pounds, and hastily averted his eyes. Wondering why anybody should keep so big a sum in a current account, when it might as well be out at interest, he stepped out through the full-length window on the balcony.
Two minutes later, the bedroom door softly opened.
Courtney, lost in the warm, grass-scented night, might not have heard this had it not been for the extreme furtiveness with which it was done — trying to avoid creaks and only succeeding in producing them.
He turned round.
A young woman with pale gold hair, and the sort of face favored by pre-Raphaelite painters, came in softly.
After a quick glance round the hall behind, she closed the door.
The mind of Philip Courtney, thirty-three and heart-whole, registered two things. First, that from the descriptions this must be Ann Browning, whom Sharpless had once designated as "wishy-washy" but whose employer described as "knowing a thing or two." Second, th
at she was the most desirable object Philip Courtney had seen in those same thirty-three years.
He stared, and stared again.
Her white gown, plain and cut low, emphasized both her fragility and her desirability. She. glanced quickly round, making sure the.room was empty. Circling round the bed, which had its head against the wall opposite the windows, she went to a dressing table placed eater-cornered in the left-hand angle of the same wall.
Courtney, tongue-tied but on the point of giving an explosive cough, remained where he was.
Over the dressing table was a large round looking-glass. The light of the bedside lamp touched it, dimly reflecting Ann's flushed cheeks and her absorbed, furtive eyes. Her body shielded what she was doing at the dressing table, which seemed to consist in searching among toilet articles there. Courtney heard glass rattle, and a sound as of fumbling among hairpins in a tray.
Then the door to the hall opened again.
"Oh!" said Ann, and straightened up.
The man who entered seemed as startled as she was.
He released his hand slowly from the knob, while the clock ticked. Again from die descriptions — a John Bullish man with funny hair — Courtney placed him as Dr. Richard Rich.
"I hope I don't intrude?" he inquired politely, in a soft bass voice.
"Oh, no!" smiled Ann. Courtney saw her profile reflected side-ways in the mirror, the lift of the chin and the slim rounded neck. "I thought I left my compact here, that's all. But it doesn't seem to be here."
"You know," smiled Rich, with the same meditative politeness, "I've often thought that a compact was the best excuse ever provided to womankind. We men have nothing so good." His tone changed. "Miss Browning, do you honestly doubt that Mrs. Fane is under hypnosis?"
"I don't understand what you mean?" "Give me the pin, please," said Rich, extending his hand. "Pin?"
"The pin you have in your hand."
While Ann raised her eyebrows, he walked over and took it gently from her fingers. A faint expression of relief flashed over her face as he turned away.
Rich bent over the woman on the bed. Unfastening two small catches at her wrist, he rolled back the sleeve of the gown almost to her shoulder. Courtney saw the long pin gleam as he turned it against the light.
"Watch!" instructed Rich.
Taking up Vicky's limp left arm, he held the flesh taut with his left hand. With his right he pressed the point of the pin against it. Then with his thumb he drove the pin full to its head in Vicky's arm.
It seemed to Courtney that Ann was about to utter a cry. A curious flavor of evil seemed to cling round this whole scene, though the source of it began in mist. Yet no word, or cry, or movement of any kind came from Vicky, who continued to breathe in sleep. Delicately, with deft fingers, Rich withdrew the pin so that no trace of blood showed.
"Two hundred years ago," he commented, "that would have hanged her as a witch. Thank heavens we're less superstitious. Or are we?" He turned round, smiling. "You'd better go downstairs, Miss Browning. I'm going to wake Mrs. Fane up. I don't relish the prospect, but…"
Ann walked over to the door.
"I really did come up here to get my compact," she assured him — and went out.
If it had not been for Dr. Rich's next movement, Courtney would have ended his own acute discomfort by stepping in from the balcony. But again he stopped. For Rich locked the door.
The sharp click of the key was like an Omen. Rich, a red bar showing across his forehead, took one or two steps up and down the room. He seemed to be muttering to himself.
Then, drawing a deep breath, he went round the bed again to the dressing table side, where he bent over Vicky.
"Victoria Fane."
No change or stir.
"Victoria Fane." Whispering, the soft voice vibrated; it reached out into distances, and called beyond far doors.
"You hear me, Victoria Fane. You will not awake yet, but you hear me. Your mind is clear. You remember all the past, up to tonight. I wish to ask you something. You will answer me. You will speak nothing but the truth. Do you understand?"
The figure on the bed moaned.
Though a distinct sound, it was a mere whisper of the breath through her hps. Rich waited until the ticking of the clock seemed to have been lost in eternity.
"Victoria Fane, do you hate your husband?"
"Yes. No. Yes."
The eyes remained closed; the lips still barely moved; yet the struggle had returned.
"Why do you hate your husband?"
"Because he killed someone." '
Rich remained motionless, bent over, his hand partly supporting him on the tan quilted coverlet of the bed. His fingers closed into a fist.
"Whom did he kill?"
"A girl, Polly Allen. Here."
At mention of the name, Rich's bunched fingers tightened still more, and then relaxed. "Here? In this room?" "No. Downstairs.'
"Where downstairs? In the back drawing room, was it?" "Yes!"
"How did he kill her?"
"He strangled her."
"Was it on the sofa he strangled her?"
"Yes!"
Again drawing a deep breath, Rich straightened up. He nodded to himself as though with enlightenment.
Courtney, it must be confessed, experienced something like a fit of the cold shivers. The commonplace well-to-do bedroom, like ten thousand other bedrooms in England, made a contrast for depths of violence: for ugly pictures under respectable paint.
"Is the song, Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes," continued Rich, "is that song associated with what he did?"
"No!"
"What is it associated with, then?" No reply.
"You must answer me. What is it associated with?" "Frank Sharpless."
"Are you in love with Frank Sharpless?" "Yes. Yes. Yes."
Rich put his small, stubby-fingered hands over his face, pressing in the eyes. Once more he nodded to himself. The brush of hair at the back of his head was agitated; it twisted and scuffed up over his collar.
'"Does anyone else know about Polly Allen besides you?"
"Yes. Arthur's-"
Someone tried the knob of the door, and it was followed by a sharp knocking.
Rich, with a muttered exclamation, hurried round to the door and unlocked it. Outside stood Sir Henry Merrivale, Inspector Agnew, and Frank Sharpless. Rich's tone was composed and grave when he greeted them.
"Come in, gentlemen. I was just going to rouse Mrs. Fane. But perhaps it would be better to have a witness. Though I hardly think, Inspector, that that uniform of yours will help much."
Inspector Agnew regarded him suspiciously. "That's all right, sir. I'm not staying. Sir Henry'd like to have a word with you downstairs, if it's convenient. Oh, yes. And Captain Sharpless thinks he can — well, break the news to Mrs. Fane better than any of the rest of us."
Sharpless did not appear to like this.
"I didn't say that," he protested. "All I said was that it might come better from a friend than from a stranger." Pushing past the inspector and H.M., he entered the room. He stopped short beside the bed and peered round. "Hullo! Where's Phil Courtney got to?"
"Who, sir?"
"Phil Courtney. The fellow I left here not fifteen minutes ago."
Whereupon Courtney did what he felt he must do. It might be undignified, it might be unjustified, it might even be ludicrous. But before anybody had time to find him or even detect his presence, he put his hands on the rail of the balcony and vaulted softly over on to the lawn below.
Eight
Afterwards Courtney knew that he had done the right thing. It was the course reason prompted. But he was not, at that time, prompted by any cool reason.
He felt merely the blind instinct to get out of sight, so that he could have time to think, before he need face the implications of what he had just heard.
He landed in a flower-bed below, with little jar and almost without noise. But his conservative soul remained badly ruffled. To cap the events o
f the evening, he had now seen a girl who moved his pulses with uneasy effect, and he had gone sailing off a balcony with all the celerity of an escaping burglar or a detected Romeo.
Nobody saw him, for which he felt thankful. He walked up the front steps and entered the hall, with as much casualness as possible, through the open front door.
The hall was empty.
Well and just what had he learned? Assuredly it didn't tell against either Vicky Fane or Frank Sharpless. Arthur Fane, that solid man with the solid house, had strangled a girl named Polly Allen, and presumably disposed of her body. His wife knew it. But if she knew this, and wanted Fane out of the way so that she could marry Sharpless, she wouldn't have Sharpless kill Fane. She wouldn't need to. She and Sharpless would simply inform the police, and let the public hangman dispose of their obstacle.
He checked himself in these thoughts as H.M., Inspector Agnew, and Dr. Rich came down the stairs. The last-named was snappish in manner.
"Mrs. Fane's exhausted, I tell you," he was protesting. "She's weak; much weaker than I thought she would be. She hardly knows where she is. Do you think that young man's got enough tact to handle her?"
"Well, sir, she's awake now," Agnew pointed out. "And, anyway, Sir Henry'd like a word with you before he goes home."
"Curiously enough," replied Rich, slapping at the sleeves of his coat, "I should like a word with him."
He broke off as they all caught sight of Courtney.
"Ah," grunted H.M., peering over his spectacles; "and where have you been?"
"I strolled out to get a breath of fresh air. Mrs. Fane didn't seem to want much watching. She's all right now, I hope."
"No," said H.M. shortly. "She's bad. She's just about as bad as she can be, after these monkey-tricks. Never mind. What's this room here?"
He nodded towards a closed door at the back of the hall on the right-hand side as you faced the rear — just opposite the back drawing room.
"Dining room, sir," answered Agnew.
"Can we use it?"
"I don't see why not."
Agnew opened the door and switched on the lights-discovering nothing more than the spectacle of Uncle Hubert Fane standing at the sideboard, with a bottle tilted to his lips, improving the opportunity to steal a swig of his nephew's choicest liqueur brandy in the dark.
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