But it was only Frank Sharpless.
"Who's there?" demanded Sharpless's voice out of the gloom. "Me."
"Oh. What time is it?"
"I don't know. Must be past eleven. Frank, have you seen anybody hanging about here?"
It took some little while to make Sharpless understand this question. He seemed dazed, and so completely in anguish that Courtney's concern for Ann was almost lost in pity. He remembered that Vicky Fane was dying of lockjaw up there in an airless room.
"Attacked Ann?" Sharpless kept repeating stupidly. "Where? When? Why" Though he was trying to focus on this, he could not do so. "Was she hurt?"
"No. Only a bruise and a torn dress."
"But was the fellow trying to…?"
"I don't know. Trying to kill her too, more probably."
"What do you mean, trying to 'kill her too?’" asked Sharpless, after a pause as though for confused thought.
"Nothing. Just a slip of speech."
Sharpless's powerful fingers fastened on his arm. "You don't think anybody tried to kill Vicky? Not deliberately?"
"No, no, no!"
"I hear you've fallen for Ann." "Yes. I have."
"Good luck, old boy. I'd be more congratulatory, only at a time like this…" In the dimness he swept his arm towards the house. He stiffened. His tone altered, and his voice deepened. All his heart was in it. "Don't let her die," he said. "Dear God, don't let her die!"
"Steady."
"But what are they doing up there, anyway? Something's up. I know it. More people came from the hospital or somewhere. But they won't even let me in. Wait! I forgot to ask you. What time is it?" "You did ask me. I said—"
Distantly, the church clock answered them by beginning to strike.
"Only twelve?" demanded Sharpless in an incredulous voice. He had whirled round after counting the first three. "Only midnight? Cripes, it can't be. There's something wrong with that clock. It's two o'clock in the morning, or more. It must be."
"Frank, you've got to get hold of yourself."
"I tell you, there's something wrong with that clock!"
But there was nothing wrong with the clock.
They discovered this long before its clang had struck the quarter, the half-hour, the three-quarter, and the hour again.
In Sharpless's present frame of mind, Courtney thought it best to keep him away from the house, in case he made a scene. He sat Sharpless down on a stone bench under the trees. He got him to smoking cigarettes. The lights of the house burned more brightly as those of the town died; and still no word came from the sick-room upstairs.
The clang of the church clock got into their thoughts. They heard it when it did not strike, and were startled by it when it did.
While the hours dragged on, Sharpless talked. He talked monotonously, quickly, in a low voice which rarely varied in key. He talked of himself and Vicky Fane. Of what they were going to do when she was well. Of what he was going to do at Staff College. He said he might be sent out to India, and gave a long description of life in India. He quoted his father and his uncles and his grandfather for this.
Dawn, Courtney thought, could not be far off. It would come white and ghostly among the fruit trees.
The church clock struck two-thirty.
Ten minutes later, while Sharpless was recalling an interminable childhood and a game called Little Wars, the back door of the house opened.
"Captain Sharpless!" called Mrs. Propper's voice. It poured with acid. "Captain Sharpless!"
With Courtney following him, Sharpless ran.
"They think you'd better go in," said Mrs. Propper gravely.
"Steady, Frank!"
"I can't face it," said Sharpless. "I can't!"
"You've got to. Damn it, don't turn into a weak sister now! Go on."
Sharpless walked slowly through the kitchen, past a blubbering Daisy. He stumbled over a chair in the dining room, and only found his way out when Courtney switched on the lights.
In the downstairs hall, a little group was stumping down the stairs: with many pauses, as though nobody could drag himself away from the room above. First came little Dr. Nithsdale, then Sir Henry Merrivale, and then a man in a white coat. But what struck Courtney like a blow across the skull was the expressions on their faces.
The man in the white coat, though his forehead looked damp with perspiration, was smiling. H.M. had a heavy, sour glare of relief. Even Dr. Nithsdale, though a fierce-looking little man with a bedside manner which would have alarmed Methuselah, appeared less assertive than usual.
His voice was low but penetrating and shrill.
"Mind," he said, "I'll no' say it wasna a bonny guess! Ye've Sco'ish blood in ye're veins, I hae nae doot. Hoots, dinna trouble tae deny it! But I'll no' say, either, mind you, that the leddy's oot o' danger or owt like it, until—"
He paused. His eye fell on Sharpless, who was standing by the newel-post.
"Hoots!" said Dr. Nithsdale, stopping short. "Here's. a lad could du wi' a dose o' physic! Losh, mon, hauld tight! Ye're-"
"Is she dead?"
"Hoots!" said Dr. Nithsdale, with rich scorn.
It was H.M. who answered. He steadied Sharpless as the latter put both hands on the rail of the staircase.
"It's all right, son," H.M. said gently. "Take it easy. She'll live."
Thirteen
Friday passed, and Saturday. It was Sunday afternoon before Chief Inspector Masters, who had been very busy in the meantime, again called for a conference with Sir Henry Merrivale.
Philip Courtney had also been busy.
He had now taken down about ninety thousand words of the memoirs. Of these, after matter libelous, scandalous, or in bad taste had been removed, he estimated that roughly a fifth would be publishable. He was well satisfied. This would keep the book in proportion; and he was in no hurry to get it done.
Some anecdotes it cut him to the heart to strike out. One was a vivid and realistic account of H.M.'s first serious love-affair, at the age of sixteen. But as the lady concerned was now the wife of a Cabinet Minister, noted throughout England for her pious works, he judged it best omitted.
The other was a particularly fiendish trick — H.M.'s technique seemed to improve with his advancing years — devised for the discomfiture of Uncle George. But, since it concerned a certain use to which not even Satan himself would think to put a lavatory, Courtney regretfully omitted it as well.
Dictation, too, was difficult. They were not interrupted by the inquest, which was held on Saturday and adjourned at the request of the police after Arthur Fane's body had been formally identified by Hubert.
But they were interrupted by H.M.'s sudden passion for visiting chemists' shops.
Courtney would not have believed there were so many chemists in the world, let alone Cheltenham. He knew, of course, that something was up. If H.M. had gone about showing photographs for identification, or asking pertinent questions about people, he could have understood it. But H.M. did none of these things.
He would go into the shop, ask for a prescription of one sort or another to be made up, and loiter for a ten minutes' chat about nothing while the chemist filled it. No name was mentioned, no question asked.
As a result, H.M.'s purchases were accumulating. Their number and variety would have been regarded with envy by the man in Uncle George's arithmetic-sums. They moved even Major Adams, H.M.'s host, to remonstrance.
"But dammit, my dear chap!" expostulated the major. "After all, I mean to say, dammit!"
"What's wrong, son?"
"Well, if you feel you must haunt chemists' shops, why don't you buy something useful? Shaving soap? Razor blades? Tooth paste? To date," said the major, counting, "you've bought fourteen bottles of cough mixture, twelve bottles of soothing syrup, nine bottles of horse liniment, eight bottles of—"
"You let me alone, son. I know what I'm doing.".
And Courtney had to assume he did.
Courtney did not see Ann between Thursday and Sunda
y. She had gone back to her ordinary work at Gloucester, and his evenings were too occupied with the dictation to see her then.
On Sunday — a heavy, muggy day which threatened rain — he was for once depressed to see that H.M. had wound himself up for a garrulous spell of reminiscing. - And he welcomed the interruption when Chief Inspector Masters arrived soon after lunch,
Masters found H.M. in the library, in carpet-slippers, with his feet up on the desk, immersed in a curious anecdote about the Davenport brothers and their use of a lazy-tongs in the middle-'eighties. He kept his eyes shut until he had finished this. Then he looked very hard at Masters, and abandoned all pretense of dictating by saying:
"Yes? Any news?" Masters's face was very grim.! "Plenty," the chief inspector assured him. "Mrs. Fane is much better, and able to take notice. And it's just as well she is. For I'm bound to admit there does seem to be something in that Polly Allen business." "Aha!"
Masters, though his heightened color showed, what he really thought of it, was cautious.
"We can't bank on it," he warned. "Not yet. Though I'll get the truth out of Mrs. Fane today or I'm a Dutchman. But Agnew and I talked to any number of people who know — or knew — Polly Allen."
"Good. One of the gab, was she?" Masters spread out his notebook on the desk.
"If you mean professional, no. Not by a jugful!"
"So? That's very interestin'."
"She hung about bars a good deal, it's true. She'd let anybody stand her a drink. But she was very— choosy. Liked 'em young, and didn't care a hang about money. That hardly seems human, but there you are. Quite the lady, in a small way."
"What did she do for a living?"
Masters frowned.
"Nobody seems quite to know. She hadn't any of — what you'd call pals. Just a few hello-what-terrible-weather-isn't-it acquaintances. She told 'em she was on the stage for a while…" "On the stage? Doin'what?"
"She didn't say. Very mysterious and hoity-toity about it, though. We can look her up through the theatrical agencies, if you think it's worth while. I've got a snapshot of her."
From between the pages of his notebook Masters drew out a small photograph. H.M. took his feet down off the desk and studied it. Masters and Courtney looked over his shoulder.
It was a snapshot taken at the seaside. It showed a slim girl, perhaps nineteen years old, in an extremely scanty flowered bathing suit. She was standing on a crowded beach, laughing, her arms up as though she were about to catch a beach ball. Taken in strong sun and with a steady camera, every detail was vividly limned: the gleaming dark hair, the full lips, the rounded nose.
H.M. spoke abruptly.
"I say, Masters. Doesn't she remind you of somebody?"
"Can't say she does, sir."
"Somebody we've seen recently? For the love of Esau, think!" persisted H.M. He turned to Courtney. "What about you?"
Courtney nodded. He had his own emotional reasons for seeing the likeness.
"She's a little like Ann Browning. The color of the hair is different, but the features and the expression—"
Masters looked doubtful.
"Oh, ah. I suppose she is, a bit. But what of it? Anything there, do you think?"
What Courtney was thinking, with a return of all his old apprehensions, was that what had happened to Polly Allen in July might have happened to Ann
Browning Thursday night. He had told H.M. about this attack, and it had been received with a significant silence which disturbed him still more.
H.M. now pushed the snapshot to the middle of the desk-blotter. Again H.M. remained silent for a time, twiddling his thumbs.
"Humph. Well. Go on about Polly Allen."
"She was last seen alive," pursued Masters, consulting his notebook, "about eight o'clock on the night of July fifteenth."
"Ho! Just what the Browning gal suggested?"
"Yes, sir. Polly Allen had a drink with two girlfriends in the bar at the Queen's Hotel — I gather that's the swankiest place in town — and said she couldn't stay, because she had a 'heavy date.' "
"Was this affair with Arthur Fane pretty well known?"
"No. She seems to have kept it dark. That's natural enough. Her friends say she seemed pretty gay about something ('amused,' was what they said). Out she went about eight o'clock, and hasn't been seen by anybody since.
"She had a bed-sitting-room over a shop in the Promenade. Her things are still there. But, since her rent was paid to the end of the month and she had a habit of mooching off like that without saying boo to anybody, the landlady didn't worry."
Masters's color grew still more florid.
"Now, mind!" he insisted. "That don't necessarily mean she's dead. But I'm bound to admit…"
"Yes. Exactly."
All of them were silent for a time. In that thick, muggy day, occasional sunlight glimmered on the collection of old weapons hung round the library walls. H.M. scowled still more.
"Any other evidence you've dug up?"
Masters turned to another page.
"Hurrum! To carry on. After a lot of trouble with the bank, we've looked up the financial positions of everybody concerned. And. there's nothing there either to help us or surprise us.
"Arthur Fane's will, as I think I told you, leaves everything unconditionally to his wife, and to selected charities if anything happens to her. He's the only Fane in the firm of Fane, Fane & Randall; his father died a long time ago, and his mother in 1929. His estate consists of the house in Fitzherbert Avenue, which he owns; a little life insurance; and, when things are settled up, about two thousand in cash. Not much of a haul for Mrs. Fane there."
Phil Courtney sat up.
"Hoy!" he protested.
Both the others blinked at him.
"What's the matter, son?"
"When I was in that damned bedroom on the night of all the mess," he explained, "I happened to see Fane's bank book. There was twenty-two hundred pounds in his current account alone."
He detailed the incident, but Masters was not impressed.
"That's just about correct," the chief inspector agreed. "It's debts I'm talking about. I've seen the figures. Most of the cash was in the current account: maybe so he could get at it easy if he had to have it in a hurry. Some people intimate that there's been something very, very fishy about the firm of Fane, Fane & Randall. We know Mr. Fane had to sell his life insurance about six months ago, but he got it all back.
"And, whatever money he had to pay out, it's all covered up now. Mr. Fane was a very conscientious sort of bloke. His books are in order, and everything as neat as a pin."
"They couldn't," said Courtney, "be as neat as a certain pin I'm thinking about."
"Eh?"
All the repressed curiosity of the past three days, all the ache and memory of that night in the garden with Vicky Fane struggling for life, came back in a wave of almost maniacal bewilderment.
"Look here," Courtney said, "I've got no concern with this case, except that a friend of mine does happen to be mixed up in it. It may be none of my business. But may I ask just one question?"
"Sure, son," conceded H.M. "Fire away."
"Then what is all this funny business about the tetanus poisoning? I know there's something wrong and fishy about the whole thing. I know it's not what you expected. But I can't quite tell where or what the funny business is. Like this. On Wednesday night, about eleven o'clock, Dr. Rich jabbed a pin into Vicky Fane's arm up in that bedroom. Correct?"
H.M. and Masters exchanged glances. After a suggestion of a shrug, and an almost imperceptible nod, the chief inspector seemed to be handing the matter over to H.M.'s discretion.
H.M. sniffed.
"You ought to know, son. You saw it." "Right. I saw it. About sixteen hours later, violent symptoms of advanced tetanus come on. Correct?" "Correct."
"You go dashing over to the house, take a look at Vicky Fane, and in a glass tray on the dressing table of the bedroom you find a rusty pin. I understood you to say so, any
way, on Thursday night. Is that correct too?"
"It is."
"Well," continued Courtney, inflating his chest, "I can testify for one that the pin Rich stuck into Vicky Fane's arm was ruddy well not rusty. I don't know whether it was infected, or had bacilli on it. But it wasn't rusty, because I remember seeing it shine when he handled it.
"Now what I want to know is: what is all this? What's the catch? When you did all that running about, and finger-snapping, and arguing with the doctors, what did it mean?"
H.M. sighed.
"It meant, son, that we were on the edge of makin' a blinkin' awful mistake." "Mistake?"
"Yes. Which the murderer wanted us to make. And which was as neat as anything you ever saw.
"Y'see, the murderer knew about that pin-jabbing episode. It was manna from heaven. So the murderer simply dropped a rusty pin on the dressing table, did a certain thing on the followin' day, and let nature take its course.
"Any doctor, hearin' the circumstances, seeing the symptoms, and inevitably coming across that pin, would be bound to diagnose tetanus. When Mrs. Fane died, it would be a regrettable accident. Richard Rich, the disgraced one, would again be held responsible. His carelessness would be supposed to have done it. There would be no suspicion and no post-mortem. Consequently…"
Courtney passed a hand across his forehead.
"Wait! For the love of Mike, wait! Then what was wrong with the pin Rich jabbed in her arm?"'
"Nothing."
"Nothing?"
H.M. seemed bothered by an invisible fly.
"Haven't you guessed it yet, son?" he inquired. "What ailed Mrs. Fane wasn't tetanus at all. It was strychnine poisoning."
Fourteen
Phil Courtney got to his feet. "Strychnine—" he began.
Taking a somewhat crumpled cigar from his pocket, H.M. bit off the end, expectorated the end neatly across into the fireplace, and lit the cigar. Its smoke hung round his head in an oily cloud.
"The point is," he explained, "that the symptoms of tetanus are exactly the same as the symptoms of strychnine poisoning, except that the effects of strychnine come on a whole lot quicker. The only slight difference is in the nature of the cramps — the muscles are in a continuous state o' contraction for tetanus" — but nothing that would bother the keenest doctor if he'd already got tetanus in his mind."
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