"Would you also take your oath," asked Dr. Fell "that this vault is solidly built?"
"Not much doubt that, sir," retorted Crawford, handing him back the ring and the wash-leather bag.
"You're quite sure?"
"I was up here once or twice," said Crawford, "when Bert Farmer was building it. Walls eighteen inch thick. Stone floor. No vents or windows."
"Then if anything has happened," said Dr. Fell "it must have been caused by persons or things inside?"
"Happened?" repeated Inspector Crawford,
"Yes."
"Come off it, sir!" said Crawford, with sudden loudness. "What could happen, among a lot of dead men?"
"Possibly nothing. Perhaps much. Cut the clay out of that lock and we'll see."
"Can't you hurry?" cried Celia.
"Easy, miss!"
The beams of two torches were now fixed on that door as Crawford went to work with a sharp knife.
Holden had to admit to himself, in honesty, that he was now more nervous than at any time in fifteen months. No, far longer than that! At the end of the war, theoretically, you could forget your impulse to dodge into the nearest doorway at sight of any policeman. With him the feeling had lasted much longer.
If only he could remember (his thoughts ran on while Crawford's knife scraped and scraped) where he had seen that expression on Celia's face, and what it meant! It was associated with some risky business. It was associated with ...
"I only hope the key will work," Crawford kept muttering. "I only hope the key will work, that’ s all I hope. This clay stuff sets hard. But if s a very big keyhole; ought to be a simple lock. Got the key, sir? Ah! Thanks. Steady."
There was the heavy, clean click of a new lock as the key turned.
"All right," grunted Dr. Fell. "The door swings inward. Shove her open!"
"Sir. Listen." Crawford's red moustache turned slightly. "Do you honest-to-God think something's going to come out of there?"
"No! no! Certainly not! Shove her open!" "Right you are, sir."
The door creaked and squealed. Celia deliberately turned her back.
Now the beams of two electric torches were directed inside. They remained steady for perhaps two seconds, which seemed two minutes. Slowly they bepn to move. Down, up, across . . .
Inspector Crawford uttered a ringing expletive which burst out in that quiet place. The hand which held his torch was quite steady. But he had his left shoulder pressed to the side of the doorway as though he were trying to push the wall in. The red moustache bristled as he turned his head toward Dr. Fell.
"Those coffins have been moved," he said. "They've been moved."
" 'Flung,'" said Dr. Fell, "would be a more descriptive word. Flung as though by hands of such abnormal power that. . . Inspector!"
"Yes, sir?"
"When I locked and sealed that door, there were four coffins in the tomb. One was that of Mrs. Thorley Marsh. The other three had been brought down from the old vault to," Dr. Fell cleared his throat, "to keep her company. They were resting on the floor, in two piles, one on top of the other, in the middle of the vault Now look at them!"
Celia, shivering, an utter stranger, still kept her back turned. Holden came forward and looked past the others' shoulders.
The vault was not large. It was as bare as a stone jug except for an empty little niche in each side wall. Set perhaps four steps below ground level, it gaped at the lights with an evil sight
One coffin, of nineteenth century design, stood grotesquely and coquettishly half upright propped there, against the rear wall. Another—of very new gleaming wood over its lead casing and its inner shell of wood, which could only be Margot’s—lay pressed lengthways close against the left-hand wall The third, an old one, had been flung around so that it lay sideways to the door. Only the fourth, the oldest and most malignant looking of all, rested quiet
"And now," said Dr. Fell, "look at the floor."
"It’s . . ."
"It is sand," said Dr. Fell, rounding his syllables hollowly. "A layer of fine white sand, spread on a stone floor and smoothed out in my presence, just before the tomb was sealed. Look man! Use your light!"
"I'm doing it sir."
"The coffins," said Dr. Fell "have been lifted and thrown about. The sand has been disturbed. But there is not a single footprint in that sand."
Their voices, speaking through the doorway, reverberated and were thrown back at them. Warm moist air breathed out of the vault. It had a sickening effect The propped, drunken-looking coffin against the back wall, Holden could have sworn, trembled as though precariously balanced.
"This ain't," declared Crawford, and corrected himself instantly, "this isn't possible!" He said it simply, as a reasonable man.
"Apparently not But there it is."
"You and the young lady," Crawford's eyes flashed round quickly, "did this locking up and sealing up?"
"Yes."
"Why did you do it, sir?"
"To see whether there might be any disturbance like this." "You mean," Crawford hesitated, "things that aren't alive?" "Yes."
"Somebody," declared Crawford, "has been up to jiggery-pokery in there!" "How?"
That one word, like a knockout blow, sufficed. Yet Crawford, after a long pause, recovered doggedly. His keen eyes, over the bristling moustache, grew almost pleading.
"Dr. Fell, you're not fooling me?"
"On my word of honor, I have told you the literal truth."
"But sir, do you know anything about how modern coffins are built? Do you know how much they weigh?"
"I have never," said Dr. Fell, "actually occupied one."
"There's something funny about you," Crawford studied him, the eyes moving. 'You look... by George," he pounced on it "you look actually relieved/ Why, sir? Did you expect something worse than this to happen?"
"Perhaps I did."
Crawford shook his head violently, like a man coming up from under water.
"Besides," he argued, "what’s it got to do with you-know-what?" His glance was significant "It's no concern of ours, I mean the police's, if coffins start dancing about in their tombs. That's God Almighty's concern. Or the devil's. But it's not ours."
"True."
"The superintendent," persisted Crawford, "tells me I'm to take orders from you. He tells me a little about this murdering swine who's been—" Here the Inspector's professional caution stopped him. "Anyway, he tells me something about what you've got up your sleeve. We're after evidence. But look therel"
Straightening up, Crawford thrust his arm deep through the doorway. He sent the beam of the torch slowly playing over the grotesquely sprawled coffins and the sand.
"They're deaden," he went on. "Deaden are no good to us, unless it’s for a post-mortem. And that chap," the light fastened on the most malignant-looking coffin, a sixteenth-century one of decaying scrollwork, "that chap looks as though he'd be a good bit past any post-mortem.
"He was Justin Devereux," said Dr. Fell. "He died, in a sword-and-dagger duel at Barne Elms, more than three hundred yean before you were born."
A physical chill, like the damp breath out of that tomb, seemed to touch their hearts again.
"Did he?" asked Inspector Crawford. "He won't fight any more duels: that’ s certain. And that’ s what I mean. What am I doing here? Why did the super want me to come here? There's no—"
Suddenly Crawford stopped, drawing in his breath. His whole voice and manner changed. "Look there, sir!"
"What is it?" Dr. Fell spoke sharply.
"I didn't see it before, because I was concentrating on the floor. But look over there! In that left-hand niche in the wall!"
Lying in the niche, dusty and dirty but sending back gleams under the Inspector's torch, was a small brown bottle. It was rounded in shape; it would contain about two ounces. They could just see the edge of a label inscribed in colors. And it was still corked.
"I may not have heard much about this case," Inspector Crawford said grimly, "but I know what that is.
"
CHAPTER XIII
Holden turned round to find Celia.
She was now facing the tomb, but well back and to one side; she would not look into it All that sense of strangeness had gone.
"Celia dear ..."
"Can yon call me that?" asked Celia in a husky voice. "Can you even care anything at all about me? After tonight?"
"What in the world are you talking about?"
"I'm a beast," muttered Celia. "Oh, I am a beast!"
"Don't talk nonsense!" He took her shoulders and, in the dense shadow of the cypress, he kissed her. It was the same, the same as last night; nothing had changed. "But don't stay here!" he said. "Don't watch this. Go back to the house. It’ll only be bad for you if you stay."
"No!" urged Celia. "No. Please. Don't send me away. I have a reason. I—want to look in there now. I have a reason."
Both of them, then, became aware of an ominous silence.
Inspector Crawford and Dr. Fell still stood motionless on either side of the tomb door. Dr. Fell had stepped back, switching off his torch. The Inspector, though he still held the light steadily inside, stared at Dr. Fell with hard intensity. It was as though, curiously, they were duelists.
"Orders, sir?"
"Oh, ah!" Dr. Fell woke np with a snort and gurgle, returning the other's hard stare. "Yes. You'd better go in and fetch the bottle. Or," Dr. Fell added with sudden inexplicable ferocity, "are you afraid of the man who'll never fight another duel?"
"No, sir," returned Crawford with dignity.
"Please go and get it, then."
Celia and Holden watched him.
It was far from a pleasant job for Crawford. Once he had gone gingerly down those few steps, he seemed to feel he was outside the protected circle. He was exposed. He was in an arena, among ranged monsters.
Yet, as his own shoes made clear sharp-printed tracks in the thin layer of sand, he conscientiously stopped to note the fact. His light bobbed and flashed eerily. The beam of Dr. Fell's torch followed him. Searching for other tracks, finding none, Crawford moved toward the left-hand wall. There, in a niche some five feet above the new-gleaming coffin lying flat against the wall, was the brown bottle.
"Keep your light on me, sir." Crawford's voice boomed out of the vault. "I've got to shove my own torch into my pocket when I pick the thing up. Might be fingerprints. Better use two hands, or I may mess it up."
"All right. Steady!"
With his own light out, and only that yellow eye watching him from the door, Crawford nearly lost his nerve. Stretching up his hands, he pressed one hand over the top
"I say," he remarked. "Has anybody mentioned (anywhere?) that in the playroom at Caswall there's a toy printing press with three different kinds of colored type?"
"There certainly is," answered Celia. "Though how you knew that is more than I can think. But, Dr. Felll Please listenl What I wanted to ask you . . ."
"Does Thorley Marsh know about this printing press?"
"Yes! But..."
"Might I (harrumph) perhaps see it?"
"At any time you like. But, Dr. Fell! Please! You don't mean," Celia reached out and would have touched the bottle if Crawford had not stopped her, "you don't mean that’s really it? The—real thing?"
The sheer bewilderment in her voice, the amazement which had been growing for some time, made the others stare.
"Lord, miss," exclaimed Crawford, "what did you expect?"
Celia was taken aback. "I . .."
"As I understand it, miss, you're the one who's been chasing this bottle. Then, when we find it, you sound as flabbergasted as though it had never existed. What did you expect?"
"I don't know. I spoke stupidly. Please forgive me."
"Inspector," gabbled Dr. Fell with fiery intensity, "the bit of luck here is that the cork is still in the bottle. Even if the stuff was in solution, if s possible traces will remain. Have you got access to a pathologist?"
"In Chippenham?" Crawford's tone rebuked him. "Best in England."
Calling on heaven for a notebook and a pencil, which he possessed himself but couldn't find, Dr. Fell was supplied by Holden with these articles. While Crawford held a light, Dr. Fell wrote two words on a sheet, tore it out, and handed it to the Inspector.
"Now!" he went on excitedly, stuffing Holden's notebook into his own pocket. "Get your pathologist to test for those two ingredients. The first in large quantity, the second in small. If . . ."
Crawford was frowning at the paper.
"But these, sir, are two very well-known poisons! Taken together, would they produce that effect on the poor lady?"
'Yes."
"Dr. Fell," interposed Holden, who could stand it no longer, "what are these infernal poisons? We've heard a lot about them, but nobody's said a word as to the name. I'm
fairly well up in such matters myself. What did Margot die of?"
"My dear boy," answered Dr. Fell, rubbing his forehead blankly, "there's nothing mysterious about it. Ifs quite simple. Ifs not a new dodge. The poison . . ."
"Listen!" interrupted Crawford. "Out with that light!"
Darkness and moonlight descended.
"There's somebody talking down by the church," whispered Crawford.
"Attend to me!" muttered Dr. Fell. His hand descended heavily on Holden's shoulder. "We must not be interrupted now. And they've got as much right here as we have. Go down and shoo 'em away. Spin any yarn you like; but get rid of 'em. Don't argue! Go!"
Holden went.
Just when he seemed closer to Celia than ever before, just when a glimmer of understanding was about to appear in this business, he was tom away.
But was it a glimmer of understanding?
Moving quickly and softly on the grass margin beside the pebbled path, through the maze of graves and trees, he faced what had to be faced. Inside a stone box, with no entrance except a door whose seal had not been tampered with, someone had executed a danse macabre among the coffins yet had left not a footprint in the sand.
The effect not merely puzzled; it stunned. It seemed to leave no loophole. That this was supernatural, supposing such forces to exist, Holden could not believe even when the spell of it was on his wits. Supernatural forces, presumably, do not concern themselves with poison bottles.
Yet how? It was . . .
Recognizing the two voices which were talking beside the church, he stopped softly at the line of beech trees.
In the path beside the church—just as he and Celia had stood in that unforgotten time; just as unhappy as he and Celia had been—stood Doris Locke and Ronnie Merrick.
They stood wide apart, as he and Celia had done. Moonlight filtered down on them through the leaves. Behind them loomed the church wall with its painted windows drained of color. Both had a tendency to stare at the ground and scuffle shoes.
". . . and that," Doris was just concluding a rapid recital, "is everything that's happened tonight I had to tell somebody or burst"
Thanks very much for telling me," said Ronnie with powerful Byronic gloom. He kicked at a pebble in the path. Doris stiffened.
"Oh, not at all," she assured him airily. "Anyone would have suited just as well. What have you been doing?" "Sitting on the roof of the church." "What’s that?"
"Sitting on the roof of the church."
"How very silly of you," said Doris. "Whatever were you doing that for?"
"Perspective. There's always a proper angle to see a thing from. You wouldn't understand professional matters."
"Oh, wouldn't I?" asked Doris in a shivering kind of voice. "How we do give ourselves airs, don't we?" She checked herself. "Ronnie! Which side of the roof were you sitting on? This or the other?"
"The other. Towards Caswall. I thought," said the young man, looking up at the sky with a white face and dark hair falling back from his forehead, "of throwing myself off and killing myself. Only it's not high enough. I've jumped off the damn church too many times.—Why do you want to know?"
"Ronnie, there's
something funny going on here tonight!"
"How do you mean, funny?"
"That big fat man, with the stomach and the eyes, said something about an appointment and the sexton. Ronnie, don't you see?" Doris edged closer. "They're going to do a post-mortem on That Woman! Hadn't we better . . . ?"
Holden, who had been about to creep thankfully away in the belief that from these two there would be no interference, stopped dead. That did it! That unquestionably did it. Clearing his throat, he stepped out into the path between them.
"Sir!" exclaimed the young man.
"Don Dismallo!" cried Doris.
The rush of welcome in both their voices, the quickness with which they hurried toward him, touched his heart To them he was right. He fitted. He could be confided in. At any other time he would have welcomed them. But now, with the clock ticking relentlessly on and something happening up there at the tomb ...
"Doris," he said, "where's your father?"
"Father," returned Doris, "has gone on home. We took a short cut through here, and met Ronnie. Father said he thought I'd much prefer to walk home with Ronnie, and
hurried on." Her voice shivered with disgust "I thought it was so crude of him."
"Crude!" said Ronnie. 'Your father! 'Crude.' Oh, save us!"
But for once Doris would not be diverted.
"Don Dismallo, there is something funny going on, isn't there?"
"Look here," said Holden, "I won't lie to you and say there isn't But I want you both to go on home." (Mutiny impending!) "I'll walk part of the way with you, if you like. I have something very serious to say to you both."
He hadn't All his thoughts were concentrated on Celia, and on coffins in the sand. But what he did was the only thing to do.
"Oh," murmured Doris. "We-ell! In that case"
In sudden and rather furtive silence, with Holden between the two like an itinerant wall, they walked down the path. Southward the drive which led to the church curved back to the main road. By crossing the meadows to the main road again, they could cut off much of the distance to Widestairs.
Soil in silence they tramped, through dew-wet meadow grass. It seemed to Holden that he could hear their hearts beating.
"Doris," he began, "you intimated early this evening that you were going to make the fur fly. And I must say you kept your promise.
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