"Er-yes. My brother has been explaining."
"Half an inch of unmarked snow all around that little house," said Masters, "and no footprints, no marks anywhere, except your brother's tracks; innocent, of course. "
"Of course. I really wish you wouldn't walk about in that manner, John. I think," said Maurice with a cool smile, "I can take care of you."
"I rather think you can," returned Masters grimly. "But can you explain how that murder was committed, then?"
Maurice touched the bridge of his nose as though for absent spectacles, and his smile was apologetic. "Why-why, yes, inspector," he ventured. "It is quite possible I can."
"Hell's fire!" cried Masters, suddenly letting off steam. He got up from the table, obviously contemplating what seemed to him the queerest fish that had ever slipped into his net, while Maurice made clucking noises. Masters hesitated, swallowed, and sat down again. All the tinfoil was removed from the club now. "Very good, sir. Everybody seems to have an explanation of it except the police. Very neat and stimulating it is. I tell you frankly, I pity old Charley Potter if he'd bad to fall in among this crowd without assistance. And I don't want to listen to any rubbish about anybody flying out of that house, or walking on stilts, or vaulting, or hanging to trees. There's not even a shrub within a hundred feet of it, and no mark whatever in the snow. And there was nobody hidden there when we looked. But it's a very queer place, Mr. Bohun… Why do you keep it all fitted out like that?"
"A whim of mine. I told you that I lived in the past. I often spend nights there myself." For the first time there was a sort of hazy animation about Maurice. The hand shading his eyes opened and shut. "You would not understand, I fear. I can take the same sheer utter pleasure in talking to you as I would to a deaf person. Mr. Masters, I have done a remarkable thing. I have created my own ghosts." He laughed softly, and stopped. "May I offer you more kippers, sir? Thompson, more kippers for the inspector."
"Were you very much interested," struck in Masters, "in Miss Tait?"
Maurice looked concerned. "To your question — ah-`Were you in love with Miss Tait,' I must answer, sir, no. At least I do not think so. I admired her as a sort of accidental reincarnation."
"Yet you wrote a play for her, I think?"
"So you have heard," murmured the other, wrinkling his forehead, "of my modest effort. No. I wrote it for my own amusement. I had become rather tired of being called Dr. Dryasdust. " He placed the palms of his hands together before him, weirdly as though he were going to dive, and hesitated. "In my younger days I suffered from illusions. These lay in a belief that the proper value of historical study consisted in its economic and political significance. But I am old enough now to be aware that almost the only gift no historian has ever possessed is any knowledge whatever of human character. I am now, I fear, an old satyr. You will be informed (I think you have been informed?) of my senile ecstasies over Miss Tait? Your expression indicates it. That is only partly true. In Miss Tait I admired the charms of all the dead courtesans with whom I should like to have had love affairs."
Masters drew his hand across his forehead.
"Don't mix me up, if you please! — You encouraged Miss Tait to sleep out in that pavilion?"
"Yes."
"Which," Masters went on musingly, "you had got repaired and restored, and which was used in the old days for a king to visit his fancy ladies on the sly… "
"Of course, of course, of course," interposed Maurice, hastily and rather as though he were impatient with himself for having overlooked something. "I should have understood. You were thinking of a secret passage underground, perhaps, to explain the absence of marks in the snow? I can reassure you, There is nothing of the kind."
Masters was watching him; and Masters pounced now. "We might have to take it to pieces, sir. Tear off the panelling, you know, which you mightn't like… "
"You wouldn't dare do that," said Maurice. His voice suddenly went high.
"Or take up the floors. If they're the original marble, it would be a bit hard on you, sir; but to satisfy ourselves…"
As Maurice got up from his chair, his frail wrist knocked over the walking-stick that was propped against the arm, and its heavy gold head struck the floor with a crash. That crash had its echo in Masters' voice.
"Now, sir, let's stop this fiddling and evading and being so neat and slippery. Let's talk like men and answer questions; do you hear me?" He struck the edge of the table. "It would be no trouble at all for me to get a warrant to take that beloved little shack of yours apart piece by piece. And, so help me, I'll get mad enough to do it before very long! Now, then, will you or won't you give assistance in this thing?"
"Surely-ah-surely I had already promised to do so?"
In the long pause afterwards, that pause when Bennett knew that the chief inspector had got his man, John Bohun walked away from the window out of which he had been staring. John Bohun's face (when both he and his brother were frightened) had a curious resemblance to Maurice's which you would never ordinarily have noticed. It was as though Masters held two men in play, like a fencer who conceals his skill under clumsiness.
"Your-your subordinate," said John, and pointed behind him. "He's out there on the lawn. he's examining
.. What's he doing?"
"Only making measurements of your tracks in the snow, sir. That doesn't bother you, does it? Won't you sit down, gentlemen; both of you?… There, that's better."
It was not better. John's face had gone white.
"An attempt was made on Miss Tait's life last night before the time she was smashed over the head. Somebody tried, I think," Masters went on, turning to Maurice, "to throw her downstairs. Who was it?"
"I do not know."
"Was it your niece, Miss Bohun?"
Maurice sat down quietly. He was smiling again. "I should not think so, my friend. If the-ah-culprit was anybody, I should say it was the Honorable Louise Carewe, the daughter of my old friend Lord Canifest. However, if you will look round now, you will see my niece just behind you. You have my full permission to make inquiries."
CHAPTER NINE
Casual Alibis
Bennett pushed back his chair and turned. She had come in quietly, and was standing not far from the table. Bennett started to draw out a chair for her, before the imperturbable Thompson could move; but she shook her head.
"Is somebody accusing me," she said, "of trying to kill Marcia? And that remark about Louise. " She looked curiously at Maurice, as though she had never seen him before. "Don't you think it was rather a foul thing to say?"
She had put on what was probably the best dress in her wardrobe, as though in a sort of defiance. It was a sombre affair in gray. Momentarily her nervousness seemed almost gone, although she was twisting a handkerchief. Katharine Bohun stood with the firelight along one side of her face; and for the first time Bennett saw her clearly. She was more mature than he had thought. And in the soft, now brilliant face was a look as though she had come to a determination.
Round her neck was wound, as though carelessly, a gauze scarf that concealed bruises.
"Er-did you speak, Kate?" inquired Maurice. He was not looking at her, and seemed gently surprised. "Surely you must be aware that I am not — what shall I say? at all in the habit of discussing my assertions with anyone?"
She was trembling; biting at her lower lip; and the eyes had a hot, hard brightness as she came forward. Yet she was beaten, and seemed to know it the moment Maurice went on: "Tut! Er — extraordinarily stupid of me, I fear. It is, I see, another small mutiny. You were trying to say, — ah — 'Go to the devil,' were you not?"
The insufferable pleasure of being right, like the solving of an easy problem, made Maurice regard her with gentle satisfaction and concern. Her eyes brimmed over.
"I won't make a fool of myself!" she said breathlessly. 'I won't let you make a fool of me; again and again and — John! John, what's the. matter?"
They all turned to look. John Bohun said:
&n
bsp; "It's all right, Kate. I'm not feeling well, that's all. Touch of something." He straightened his head from bending down, bracing himself with one hand on the table. He looked genuinely ill, and there was sweat on his forehead. The tweed coat now seemed too big for his big lean frame. "Come here, Kate. I haven't seen you since. since I got back." He held out his hand, trying to smile. "How are you, old girl? You look fit. You look different, somehow. I've got a present for you, only I haven't even unpacked my bags yet."
`But what's wrong?"
She ran over to him. He caught her under the chin and held up her head to study her the better; and, despite the twitching of the nostrils, he was smiling down apparently without a thought except for her. Bennett had a curious feeling that he was seeing the real John Bohun under a number of masks.
"Nothing's wrong, fathead. Don't let 'em frighten you, d'you hear? They've got me in rather a bad situation — but, you see, no matter what I try to prove, I'm caught out in one thing or the other. I'm bound to be hanged for something."
Masters stepped forward, and John held up his hand.
"Steady, inspector. I'm not admitting anything. I suppose there's no reason for telling or not telling; but-maybe. later. I'm going up to my room to lie down now. Don't try to stop me. You said yourself you had no official authority here yet."
There was something so intense in his manner that nobody spoke. He seemed to realize that (for the only second in his life) he was in command of a given group of people. He went rather quickly to the door, but his step slowed down as he neared it. He turned, and jerked his head towards them. He studied them.
"Well, cheer-o," said John Bohun. The door closed.
There was a silence. Bennett looked across at the placid, faintly amused countenance of Maurice; and he had to crush down a somewhat undiplomatic impulse to take Maurice and break him into rather small pieces. The impulse had been troubling him for some time. This wouldn't do. He looked across at Katharine, and started to light a cigarette; but his hands trembled.
"But what's wrong with him?" the girl cried. "There's something. ”
Bennett went over quietly, took her by the shoulders, and made her sit down. He thought that she pressed his hand. Masters had swung round again; and, if he read Masters' expression correctly, the chief inspector had much the same feeling towards the whole wild muddled business as he had himself.
Masters said heavily: "There are a number of questions I've got to ask about Mr. Bohun's doings here last night and this morning. But I think it will be necessary to get things in order. Excuse me; you are Miss Bohun? Just so. Now, to begin with."
She had been pouring out coffee, her hands trembling a little among the cups; but she did not once look across the table at Maurice.
"To begin with," she insisted, "oh, really, let me say it! This absurd notion-about Louise's trying to. That's as silly and nonsensical as anybody would be who made it." After a pause, during which they heard from Maurice a sound which in anybody else might have been a snicker, she hesitated as though she had said more than she dared. She looked at Bennett, flushing hotly. "May I give you some coffee?"
Masters' look said, "Good girl!" Aloud he said:
"I'm bound to tell you, Miss Bohun, that the same accusation was made against you. Didn't you hear me say so?" "That? Oh, that's silly too. Because I didn't; why on earth should I? — Who made it? Not-?"
Maurice had been making faint clucking sounds of mild protest. Again he touched the bridge of his nose as though puzzled; then he reached out and gently touched Katharine's hand as though in reassurance.
"Of course not, my dear; could such a thought have entered your poor little head? My dear, tut — be careful. You will have that coffee across my hand. And do you mind not rattling the cups so much? Thank you. " A benevolent smile. "I must really insist on not being misquoted, Mr. Masters. I am not aware of having made any accusation whatsoever. Let me see? What was I saying? Oh, yes. Since all those present were unlikely to have done what you suggest, it occurred to me that, in view of Miss Carewe's fairly vehement and not entirely unjustified objections to her father's possible marriage to Miss Tait, the young lady had a stronger cause for dislike than any others. I may, of course, be mistaken."
"Suppose we hear," said Masters quickly, "exactly what did happen. You, Miss Bohun; would you mind giving your account?"
"Not at all. If you'll tell me who it was that said I–I shoved her."
"It was Mr. Rainger. Eh? Does that surprise you, Miss Bohun?"
Her hand stopped in lifting the cup. Dull anger changed to a rather hysterical laughter.
"That little — ugh! Did he say that, really? Oh, I say, he would! He was the one who was going to make me a star in pictures. Yes, I understand now."
"What?"
"Our little Kate," observed Maurice vaguely, "has sound moral ideas. Sometimes. "
She kept her gaze fixed on Masters: a shining and rather hoydenish amusement mixed with the anger. "Sound moral ideas," said Katharine Bohun, with a violence of loosened breath, "be — be — d-damned! Eee! That man; that's all. Ugh! I could no more stand having him touch me than… I don't know what. Listen, I'll tell you about it, because it's a part of the story you wanted to hear. At dinner last night was where the suggestion started that my uncle should take-you know — Marcia, and the rest of us, over the house by moonlight, with my uncle carrying a candle but no lights turned on.
"Well, all through dinner, you see, this man Rainger kept looking at me. He didn't say anything. But first he'd look at Marcia, and then he'd look at me for a long time, and he'd hardly answer when anybody spoke to him. But when Marcia suggested going over the house by moonlight, he said it would be a splendid idea; something like that. He was sitting-"
her eyes wandered over towards Bennett, and a rather startled expression crept into them: instantly veiled as at some thought she did not wish seen. "Here. There; I don't remember. Anyway, what was I saying? Yes. Marcia wouldn't let the men stay at table after we'd left, and on the way through the passages to the library he came behind the others and took my arm." She began to laugh again until she had to put her handkerchief to her eyes. "I say, it was so jolly funny because you couldn't understand what the blighter was about for a minute; all he could do was sort of mutter out of the side of his mouth, `What about it, baby?' After a minute I knew what he meant from the way they always say that in the films; but I said, `What about what?' And he said, `Come off that; they understand it in the States,' in rather a tired way. And I said, `Yes, they understand it over here, too, but you've got to make your approach in a very different way if you want to get anywhere in England."'
Maurice Bohun involuntarily said, "Good God!" and Bennett, also involuntarily, said, "Great!" Maurice leaned a little forward.
"This, I think," he said, quietly, "is a really remarkable statement from you, in equally remarkable language. I shall have to take measures towards seeing that your mode of expressing yourself, either to me or to our guests"
"Oh, you go to the devil!" she said, whirling on him and blazing at him at last. "I'll say what I jolly well please!"
"No," said Maurice after a pause, and smiled gently. "You will go to your room, I think."
"Now I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Bohun," interposed Masters, in a voice of very cool sanity. "I've got no wish to interfere in, um, domestic matters. Eh? But I'm getting a bit tired of this too. This isn't a domestic matter. It's a murder case. And when it comes to ordering witnesses about. Oh, ah. Sit still, Miss Bohun. Go on, please: what were you saying?"
Maurice got to his feet. "Then perhaps you wouldn't mind," he said, his voice slightly shrill, "if my niece gave me permission to go to my room?"
"I shall want to speak to you presently, sir," said Masters urbanely. "But if your niece sees no reason — just so. Thank you"
Maurice gestured to Thompson, who swiftly picked up his gold-headed stick from the floor. Maurice was white with a smiling, deadly, lightly-sweating fury; and his eyes had the
dead look of a wax-work figure's.
He said: "I confess I had never been aware that the police, those sometimes useful servants of the superior classes, were in the habit of encouraging children to talk in the fashion of — ha — sluts. I cannot, of course, allow this to pass unnoticed, on the part of either one of you. It has been my habit to enforce implicit obedience in this house, to the end that my own comfort might be maintained, and I should be foolish if I permitted the slightest imputation of that authority to pass unchallenged. Should I not?" He smiled delicately. "You will deeply regret your failure to minister to my comfort, Kate."
He bowed, and the complacency returned to his bearing as he left them.
Bennett reached over and beamingly shook hands with her.
"Now, now!" protested Masters, and stroked his ploughshare chin. "None of that, if you please. I'm a police officer, and I'm here on a definite job. I " He tried to keep impassive, but a grin broke over his face. Peering over his shoulder, Masters added in a low voice, "Lummy, you did put the old man's back up, Miss! Hum. Hurrum! Just so."
"Nice work, inspector," said Bennett affably. "Good old C.I.D. If you were a Maypole, we'd both dance around you."
Masters pointed out that he was not a Maypole. The idea seemed to make him uncomfortable, and he insisted on Katharine continuing with her story.
"There isn't much, really," she insisted, still a little fearfully and with a nervous color in her cheeks as she seemed to reflect what she had said. "I mean, about that man Rainger. He said he would put me in the films, and seemed to think that was all anybody in the world could want. Then he reached down and-nothing." She shifted in her chair. "It was a bit dark there, but the others were close ahead of us; and the only thing I could do without being noticed was to stamp down hard on his foot. That was all the attention he paid to me, because I hurried up and took Jervis Willard's arm. He didn't say anything more; he kept talking to Louise. But I didn't think he'd be liar enough to say that I…"
She went on rapidly to describe the incident on the secret staircase in King Charles's room, and it agreed with the description Bennett had already heard from Willard.
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