The Hollow Man Part 13

THE coffee was on the table, the wine - bottles were empty, cigars lighted. Hadley, Pettis, Rampole, and Dr Fell sat round the glow of a red - shaded table lamp, in the vast, dusky dining - room at Pettis's hotel. They had stayed on beyond most, and only a few people remained at other tables in that lazy, replete hour of a winter afternoon when the fire is most comfortable and snowflakes begin to sift past the windows. Under the dark gleam of armour and armorial bearings, Dr Fell looked more than ever like a feudal baron. He glanced with contempt at the demi - ta.s.se, which he seemed in danger of swallowing cup and all. He made an expansive, settling gesture with his cigar. He cleared his throat.

'I will now lecture,' announced the doctor, with amiable firmness, 'on the general mechanics and development of that situation which is known in detective fiction as the "hermetically sealed chamber".'

Hadley groaned. 'Some other time,' he suggested. 'We don't want to hear any lecture after this excellent lunch, and especially when there's work to be done. Now, as I was saying a moment ago -'

'I will now lecture,' said Dr Fell, inexorably, 'on the general mechanics and development of the situation which is known in detective fiction as the "hermetically sealed chamber". Harrumph. All those opposing can skip this chapter. Harrumph. To begin with, gentlemen! Having been improving my mind with sensational fiction for the last forty years, I can say -'

'But, if you're going to a.n.a.lyse impossible situations,' interrupted Pettis, 'why discuss detective fiction?'

'Because,' said the doctor, frankly, 'we're in a detective story, and we don't fool the reader by pretending we're not. Let's not invent elaborate excuses to drag in a discussion of detective stories. Let's candidly glory in the n.o.blest pursuits possible to characters in a book.

'But to continue: In discussing 'em, gentlemen, I am not going to start an argument by attempting to lay down rules. I mean to speak solely of personal tastes and preferences. We can tamper with Kipling thus: "There are nine and sixty ways to construct a murder maze and every single one of them is right." Now, if I said that to me every single one of them was equally interesting, then I should be - to put the matter as civilly as possible - a c.o.c.k - eyed liar. But that is not the point. When I say that a story about a hermetically scaled chamber is more interesting than anything else in detective fiction, that's merely a prejudice. I like my murders to be frequent, gory, and grotesque. I like some vividness of colour and imagination flas.h.i.+ng out of my plot, since I cannot find a story enthralling solely on the grounds that it sounds as though it might really have happened. I do not care to hear the hum of everyday life; I much prefer to listen to the chuckle of the great Hanaud or the deadly bells of Fenchurch St Paul. All these things, I admit, are happy, cheerful, rational prejudices, and entail no criticism of more tepid (or more able) work.

'But this point must be made, because a few people who do not like the slightly lurid insist on treating their preferences as rules. They use, as a stamp of condemnation, the word "improbable". And thereby they gull the unwary into their own belief that "improbable" simply means "bad".

'Now it seems reasonable to point out that the word improbable is the very last which should ever be used to curse detective fiction in any case. A great part of our liking for detective fiction is based on a liking for improbability. When A is murdered, and B and C are under strong suspicion, it is improbable that the innocent - looking D can be guilty. But he is. If G has a perfect alibi, sworn to at every point by every other letter in the alphabet, it is improbable that G can have committed the crime. But he has. When the detective picks up a fleck of coal - dust at the seash.o.r.e, it is improbable that such an insignificant thing can have any importance. But it will. In short, you come to a point where the word improbable grows meaningless as a jeer. There can be no such thing as any probability until the end of the Story. And then, if you wish the murder to be fastened on an unlikely person (as some of us old fogies do), you can hardly complain because he acted from motives less likely or necessarily less apparent than those of the person first suspected.

'When the cry of "This - sort - of - thing - wouldn't - happen!" goes up, when you complain about homicidal maniacs and killers who leave cards, you are merely saying, "I don't like this sort of story." That's fair enough. If you do not like it, you are howlingly right to say so. But when you twist this matter of taste into a rule for judging the merit or even the probability of the story, you are merely saying, "This series of events couldn't happen, because I shouldn't enjoy it if it did."

'What would seem to be the truth of the matter? We might test it out by taking the hermetically sealed chamber as an example, because this situation has been under a hotter fire than any other on the grounds of being unconvincing.

'Most people, I am delighted to say, are fond of the locked room. But - here's the d.a.m.ned rub - even its friends are often dubious. I cheerfully admit that I frequently am. So, for the moment, we'll all side together on this score and see what we can discover. Why are we dubious when we hear the explanation of the locked room? Not in the least because we are incredulous, but simply because in some vague way we are disappointed. And, from that feeling it is only natural to take an unfair step farther, and call the whole business incredible or impossible or flatly ridiculous.

'Precisely, in short,' boomed Dr Fell, pointing his cigar, 'what O'Rourke was telling us to - day about illusions that are performed in real life. Lord! gents, what chance has a story got when we even jeer at real occurrences? The very fact that they do happen, and that the illusionist gets away with it, seems to make the deception worse. When it occurs in a detective story, we call it incredible. When it happens in real life, and we are forced to credit it, we merely call the explanation disappointing. And the secret of both disappointments is the same - we expect too much.

'You see, the effect is so magical that we somehow expect the cause to be magical also. When we see that it isn't wizardry, we call it tomfoolery. Which is hardly fair play. The last thing we should complain about with regard to the murderer is his erratic conduct. The whole test is, can the thing be done? If so, the question of whether it would be done does not enter into it. A man escapes from a locked room - well? Since apparently he has violated the laws of nature for our entertainment, then heaven knows he is ent.i.tled to violate the laws of Probable Behaviour! If a man offers to stand on his head, we can hardly make the stipulation that he must keep his feet on the ground while he docs it. Bear that in mind, gents, when you judge. Call the result uninteresting, if you like, or anything else that is a matter of personal taste. But be very careful about making the nonsensical statement that it is improbable or far fetched.'

'All right, all right,' said Hadley, s.h.i.+fting in his chair. 'I don't feel very strongly on the matter myself. But if you insist on lecturing - apparently with some application to this case -?'

'Yes.'

'Then why take the hermetically sealed room? You yourself said that Grimaud's murder wasn't our biggest problem. The main puzzle is the business of a man shot in the middle of an empty street...'

'Oh, that?' said Dr Fell, with such a contemptuous wave of his hand that Hadley stared at him. 'That part of it? I knew the explanation of that as soon as I heard the church bells. Tut, tut, such language! I'm quite serious. It's the escape from the room that bothers me. And, to see if we can't get a lead, I am going to outline roughly some of the various means of committing murders in locked rooms, under separate cla.s.sifications. This crime belongs under one of them. It's got to! No matter how wide the variation may be, it's only a variation of a few central methods.

'H'mf! Ha! Now, here is your box with one door, one window, and solid walls. In discussing ways of escaping when both door and window are sealed, I shall not mention the low (and nowadays very rare) trick of having a secret pa.s.sage to a locked room. This so puts a story beyond the pale that a self - respecting author scarcely needs even to mention that there is no such thing. We don't need to discuss minor variations of this outrage: the panel which is only large enough to admit a hand; or the plugged hole in the ceiling through which a knife is dropped, the plug replaced undetectably, and the floor of the attic above sprayed with dust so that no one seems to have walked there. This is only the same foul in miniature. The principle remains the same whether the secret opening is as small as a thimble or as big as a barn door ... As to legitimate cla.s.sification, you might jot some of these down, Mr Pettis ...'

'Right,' said Pettis, who was grinning.' Go on.'

'First! There is the crime committed in a hermetically sealed room which really is hermetically sealed, and from which no murderer has escaped because no murderer was actually in the room. Explanations: '1. It is not murder, but a series of coincidences ending in an accident which looks like murder. At an earlier time, before the room was locked, there has been a robbery, an attack, a wound, or a breaking of furniture which suggests a murder struggle. Later the victim is either accidentally killed or stunned in a locked room, and all these incidents are a.s.sumed to have taken place at the same time. In this case the means of death is usually a crack on the head - presumably by a bludgeon, but really from some piece of furniture. It may be from the corner of a table or the sharp edge of a chair, but the most popular object is an iron fender. The murderous fender, by the way, has been killing people in a way that looks like murder ever since Sherlock Holmes's adventure with the Crooked Man. The most thoroughly satisfying solution of this type of plot, which includes a murderer, is in Gaston Leroux's The Mystery of the Yellow Room - the best detective tale ever written.

'2. It is murder, but the victim is impelled to kill himself or crash into an accidental death. This may be by the effect of a haunted room, by suggestion, or more usually by a gas introduced from outside the room. This gas or poison makes the victim go berserk, smash up the room as though there had been a struggle, and die of a knife - slash inflicted on himself. In other variations he drives the spike of the chandelier through his head, is hanged on a loop of wire, or even strangles himself with his own hands.'

'3. It is murder, by a mechanical device already planted in the room, and hidden undetectably in some innocent - looking piece of furniture. It may be a trap set by somebody long dead, and work either automatically or be set anew by the modern killer. It may be some fresh quirk of devilry from present - day science. We have, for instance, the gun - mechanism concealed in the telephone receiver, which fires a bullet into the victim's head as he lifts the receiver. We have the pistol with a string to the trigger, which is pulled by the expansion of water as it freezes. We have the clock that fires a bullet when you wind it; and (clocks being popular) we have the ingenious grandfather clock which sets ringing a hideously clanging bell on its top, so that when you reach up to shut off the din your own touch releases a blade that slashes open your stomach. We have the weight that swings down from the ceiling, and the weight that crashes out on your skull from the high back of a chair. There is I he bed that exhales a deadly gas when your body warms it, the poisoned needle that leaves no trace, the - "You see,' said Dr Fell, stabbing out with his cigar at each point, ' when we become involved with these mechanical devices we are rather in the sphere of the general "impossible situation" than the narrower one of the locked room. It would be possible to go on for ever, even on mechanical devices for electrocuting people. A cord in front of a row of pictures is electrified. A chess - board is electrified. Even a glove is electrified. There is death in every article of furniture, including a tea - urn. But these things seem to have no present application, so we go on to: '4. It is suicide, which is intended to look like murder. A man kills himself with an icicle; the icicle melts; and, no weapon being found in the locked room murder is presumed. A man shoots himself with a gun fastened on the end of an elastic - the gun, as he releases it, being carried up out of sight, into the chimney. Variations of this trick (not locked - room affairs) have been the pistol with a string attached to a weight, which is whisked over the parapet of a bridge into the water after the shot; and, in the same style, the pistol jerked out of a window into a snow - drift.

'5. It is a murder which derives its problem from illusion and impersonation. Thus: the victim, still thought to be alive, is already lying murdered inside a room of which the door is under observation. The murderer either dressed as his victim or mistaken from behind for the victim, hurries in at the door. He whirls round, gets rid of his disguise, and instantly comes out of the room as himself. The illusion is that he has merely pa.s.sed the other man in coming out. In any event, he has an alibi; since, when the body is discovered later, the murder is presumed to have taken place some time after the impersonated "victim" entered the room.

'6. It is a murder which, although committed by somebody outside the room at the time, nevertheless seems to have been committed by somebody who must have been inside.

'In explaining this,' said Dr Fell, breaking off, 'I will cla.s.sify this type of murder under the general name of the Long - Distance or Icicle Crime, since it is usually a variation of that principle. I've spoken of icicles; you understand what I mean. The door is locked, the window too small to admit a murderer; yet the victim has apparently been stabbed from inside the room and the weapon is missing. Well, the icicle has been fired as a bullet from outside - we will not discuss whether this is practical, any more than we have discussed the mysterious gases previously mentioned - and it melts without a trace. I believe Anna Katherine Green was the first to use this trick in detective fiction, in a novel called Initials Only.

'(By the way, she was responsible for starting a number of traditions. In her first detective novel, over fifty years ago, she founded the legend of the murderous secretary killing his employer, and I think present - day statistics would prove that the secretary is still the commonest murderer in fiction. Butlers have long gone out of fas.h.i.+on; the invalid in the wheel - chair is too suspect; and the placid middle - aged spinster has long ago given up homicidal mania in order to become a detective. Doctors, too, are better behaved nowadays unless, of course, they grow eminent and turn into Mad Scientists. Lawyers, while they remain persistently crooked, are only in some cases actively dangerous. But cycles return! Edgar Allan Poe, eighty years ago, blew the gaff by calling his murderer Goodfellow; and the most popular modern mystery - writer does precisely the same tiling by calling his arch - villain Goodman. Meanwhile, those secretaries are still the most dangerous people to have about the house.) "To continue with regard to the icicle: Its actual use has been attributed to the Medici, and in one of the admirable Fleming Stone stories an epigram of Martial is quoted to show that it had its deadly origin in Rome in the first century A.D. Well, it has been fired, thrown, or shot from a crossbow as in one adventure of Hamilton Cleek (that magnificent character of the Forty Faces). Variants of the same theme, a soluble missile, have been rock - salt bullets and even bullets made of frozen blood.

'But it ill.u.s.trates what I mean in crimes committed inside a room by somebody who was outside. There are other methods. The victim may be stabbed by a thin sword - stick blade, pa.s.sed between the twinings of a summer - house and withdrawn; or he may be stabbed with a blade so thin that he does not know he is hurt at all, and walks into another room before he suddenly collapses in death. Or he is lured into looking out of a window inaccessible from below; yet from above our old friend ice smashes down on his head, leaving him with a smashed skull but no weapon because the weapon has melted.

'Under this heading (although it might equally well go under head number 3) we might list murders committed by means of poisonous snakes or insects. Snakes can be concealed not only in chests and safes, but also deftly hidden in flower - pots, books, chandeliers, and walking - sticks. I even remember one cheerful little item in which the amber stem of a pipe, grotesquely carven as a scorpion, comes to life a real scorpion as the victim is about to put it into his mouth. But for the greatest long - range murder ever committed in a locked room, gents, I commend you to one of the most brilliant short detective stories in the history of detective fiction. (In fact, it shares the honours for supreme untouchable top - notch excellence with Thomas Burke's The Hands of Mr Ottermole, Chesterton's The Man in the Pa.s.sage, and Jacques Futrelle's The Problem of Cell 13.) This is Melville Davisson Post's The Doomdorf Mystery - and the long - range a.s.sa.s.sin is the sun. The sun strikes through the window of the locked room, makes a burning - gla.s.s of a bottle of Doomdorf's own raw white wood - alcohol liquor on the table, and ignites through it the percussion cap of a gun hanging on the wall: so that the breast of the hated one is blown open as he lies in his bed. Then, again, we have - 'Steady! Harrumph. Ha. I'd better not meander; I'll round off this cla.s.sification with the final heading: '7. This is a murder depending on an effect exactly the reverse of number 5. That is, the victim is presumed to be dead long before he actually is. The victim lies asleep (drugged but unharmed) in a locked room. Knockings on the door fail to rouse him. The murderer starts a foul - play scare; forces the door; gets in ahead and kills by stabbing or throat - cutting, while suggesting to other watchers that they have seen something they have not seen. The honour of inventing this device belongs to Israel Zangwill, and it has since been used in many forms. It has been done (usually by stabbing) on a s.h.i.+p, in a ruined house, in a conservatory, in an attic, and even in the open air - where the victim has first stumbled and stunned himself before the a.s.sa.s.sin bends over him. So - '

'Steady! Wait a minute!' interposed Hadley, pounding on the table for attention. Dr Fell, the muscles of whose eloquence were oiling up in a satisfactory way, turned agreeably and beamed on him. Hadley went on: 'This may be all very well. You've dealt with all the locked - room situations - '

'All of them?' snorted Dr Fell, opening his eyes wide. 'Of course I haven't. That doesn't even deal comprehensively with the methods under that particular cla.s.sification; it's only a rough offhand outline; but I'll let it stand. I was going to speak of the other cla.s.sification: the various means of hocussing doors and windows so that they can be locked on the inside. H'mf! Hah! So, gentlemen, I continue - '

'Not yet you don't,' said the superintendent, doggedly. ' I'll argue the thing on your own grounds. You say we can get a lead from stating the various ways in which the stunt has been worked. You've stated seven points; but, applied to this case, each one must be ruled out according to your own cla.s.sification head. You head the whole list, "No murderer escaped from the room because no murderer was ever actually in it at the time of the crime." Out goes every - thing! The one thing we definitely do know, unless we presume Mills and Dumont to be liars, is that the murderer really was in the room! What about that?'

Pettis was sitting forward, his bald head gleaming by the glow of the red - shaded lamp as he bent over an envelope. He was making neat notes with a neat gold pencil. Now he raised his prominent eyes, which seemed more prominent and rather startled.

'Er - yes,' he said, with a short cough. 'But that point number 5 is suggestive, I should think. Illusion! What if Mills and Mrs Dumont really didn't see somebody go in that door; that they were hoaxed somehow or that the whole thing was an illusion like a magic - lantern?'

'Illusion me foot,' said Hadley. 'Sorry! I thought of that, too. I hammered Mills about it last night, and I had another word or two with him this morning. Whatever else the murderer was, he wasn't an illusion and he did go in that door. He was solid enough to cast a shadow and make the hall vibrate when he walked. He was solid enough to talk and slam a door. You agree with that, Fell?'

The doctor nodded disconsolately. He drew in absent puffs on his dead cigar.

'Oh yes, I agree to that. He was solid enough, and he did go in,'

'And even,' Hadley pursued, while Pettis summoned the waiter to get more coffee, 'granting what we know is untrue. Even granting a magic - lantern shadow did all that, a magic - lantern shadow didn't kill Grimaud. It was a solid pistol in a solid hand. And for the rest of the points. Lord knows Grimaud didn't get shot by a mechanical device. What's more, he didn't shoot himself - and have the gun whisk up the chimney like the one in your example. In the first place, a man can't shoot himself from some feet away. And in the second place, the gun can't whisk up the chimney and sail across the roofs to Cagliostro Street, shoot Fley, and tumble down with its work finished. Blast it. Fell, my conversation is getting like yours! It's too much exposure to your habits of thought. I'm expecting a call from the office any minute, and I want to get back to sanity. What's the matter with you?'

Dr Fell, his little eyes opened wide, was staring at the lamp, and his fist came down slowly on the table.

'Chimney!' he said. 'Chimney! Wow! I wonder if -? Lord! Hadley, what an a.s.s I've been!'

'What about the chimney?' asked the superintendent. 'We've proved the murderer couldn't have got out like that: getting up the chimney.'

'Yes, of course; but I didn't mean that. I begin to get a glimmer even if it may be a glimmer of moons.h.i.+ne. I must have another look at that chimney.'

Pettis chuckled, tapping the gold pencil on his notes. 'Anyhow,' he - suggested, 'you may as well round out this discussion. I agree with the superintendent about one thing. You might do better to outline ways of tampering with doors, windows, or chimneys.'

'Chimneys, I regret to say,' Dr Fell pursued, his gusto returning as his abstraction left him, ' chimneys, I regret to say, are not favoured as a means of escape in detective fiction - except, of course, for secret pa.s.sages. There they are supreme. There is the hollow chimney with the secret room behind; the back of the fire - place opening like a curtain; the fire - place that swings out; even the room under the hearthstone. Moreover, all kinds of things can be dropped down chimneys, chiefly poisonous things. But the murderer who makes his escape by climbing up is very rare. Besides being next to impossible, it is a much grimier business than monkeying with doors or windows. Of the two chief cla.s.sifications, doors and windows, the door is by far the more popular, and we may list thus a few means of tampering with it so that it seems to be locked on the inside; '1. Tampering with the key which is still in the lock. This was the favourite old - fas.h.i.+oned method, but its variations are too well known nowadays for anybody to use it seriously. The stem of the key can be gripped and turned with pliers from outside; we did this ourselves to open the door of Grimaud's study. One practical little mechanism consists of a thin metal bar about two inches long, to which is attached a length of stout string. Before leaving the room, this bar is thrust into the hole at the head of the key, one end under and one end over, so that it acts as a lever; the string is dropped down and run under the door to the outside. The door is closed from outside. You have only to pull on the string, and the lever turns the lock; you then shake or pull out the loose bar by means of the string, and. when it drops, draw it under the door to you. There are various applications of this same principle, all entailing the use of string.

'2. Simply removing the hinges of the door without disturbing lock or bolt. This is a neat trick, known to most schoolboys when they want to burgle a locked cupboard; but of course the hinges must be on the outside of the door.

'3. Tampering with the bolt. String again: this time with a mechanism of pins and darning - needles, by which the bolt is shot from the outside by leverage of a pin stuck on the inside of the door, and the string is worked through the keyhole. Philo Vance, to whom my hat is lifted, has shown us this best application of the stunt. There are simpler, but not so effective, variations using one piece of string. A "tomfool" knot, which a sharp jerk will straighten out, is looped in one end of a long piece of cord. This loop is pa.s.sed round the k.n.o.b of the bolt, down, and under the door. The door is then closed, and, by drawing the string along to the left or right, the bolt is shot. A jerk releases the knot from the k.n.o.b, and the string drawn out. Ellery Queen has shown us still another method, entailing the use of the dead man himself - but a bald statement of this, taken out of its context, would sound so wild as to be unfair to that brilliant gentleman.

'4. Tampering with a falling bar or latch. This usually consists in propping something under the latch, which can be pulled away after the door is closed from the outside, and let the bar drop. The best method by far is by the use of the ever-helpful ice, a cube of which is propped under the latch; and, when it melts, the latch falls. There is one case in which the mere slam of the door suffices to drop the bar inside.

'5. An illusion, simple but effective. The murderer, after committing his crime, has locked the door from the outside and kept the key. It is a.s.sumed, however, that the key is still in the lock on the inside. The murderer, who is first to raise a scare and find the body, smashes the upper gla.s.s panel of the door, puts his hand through with the key concealed in it, and finds the key in the lock inside, by which he opens the door. This device has also been used with the breaking of a panel out of an ordinary wooden door.

' There are miscellaneous methods, such as locking a door from the outside and returning the key to the room by means of string again, but you can see for yourselves that in this case none of them can have any application. We found the door locked on the inside. Well, there are many ways by which it could have been done - but it was not done, because Mills was watching the door the whole time. This room was only locked in a technical sense. It was watched, and that shoots us all to blazes.'

' I don't like to drag in famous plat.i.tudes,' said Pettis, his forehead wrinkled, 'but it would seem pretty sound to say exclude the impossible and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. You've excluded the door; I presume you also exclude the chimney?'

' I do,' grunted Dr Fell.

' Then we come back in a circle to the window, don't we?' demanded Hadley. 'You've gone on and on about ways that obviously couldn't have been used. But in this catalogue of sensationalism you've omitted all mention of the only means of exit the murderer could have used ...'

'Because it wasn't a locked window, don't you see?' cried Dr Fell. 'I can tell you several brands of funny business with windows if they're only locked. It can be traced down from the earliest dummy nail-heads to the latest hocus-pocus with steel shutters. You can smash a window, carefully turn its catch to lock it, and then when you leave, simply replace the whole pane with a new pane of gla.s.s and putty it round; so that the new pane looks like the original and the window is locked inside. But this window wasn't locked or even closed - it was only inaccessible.'

'I seem to have read somewhere of human flies -' Pettis suggested.

Dr Fell shook his head. 'We won't debate whether a human fly can walk on a sheer smooth wall. Since I've cheerfully accepted so much, I might believe that if the fly had any place to light. That is, he would have to start from somewhere and end somewhere. But he didn't; not on the roof, not on the ground below -' Dr Fell hammered his fist against his temples. ' However, if you want a suggestion or two in that respect, I will tell you -'

He stopped, raising his head. At the end of the quiet, now deserted dining-room a line of windows showed pale light now flickering with snow. A figure had darted in silhouette against them, hesitating, peering from side to side, and then hurrying down towards them. Hadley uttered a m.u.f.fled exclamation as they saw it was Mangan. Mangan was pale.

' Not something else?' asked Hadley, as coolly as he could. He pushed back his chair. ' Not something else about coats changing colour or -'

'No,' said Mangan. He stood by the table, drawing his breath in gasps. 'But you'd better get over there. Something's happened to Drayman; apoplectic stroke or something like that. No, he's not dead or anything. But he's in a bad way. He was trying to get in touch with you when he had the stroke ... He keeps talking wildly about somebody in his room, and fireworks, and chimneys.'

CHAPTER 18.

THE CHIMNEY.

AGAIN there were three people - three people strained and with frayed nerves - waiting in the drawing - room. Even Stuart Mills, who stood with his back to the fire - place, kept clearing his throat in a way that seemed to drive Rosette half frantic. Ernestine Dumont sat quietly by the fire when Mangan led in Dr Fell, Hadley, Pettis, and Rampole. The lights had been turned off; only the bleakness of the snow - shadowed afternoon penetrated through heavy lace curtains, and Mills's shadow blocked the tired gleam of the fire. Burnaby had gone.

'You cannot see him,' said the woman, with her eyes fixed on that shadow. 'The doctor is with him now. Things all come at once. Probably he is mad.'

Rosette, her arms folded, had been pacing about with her own feline grace. She faced the new - comers and spoke with harsh suddenness.

'I can't stand this, you know. It can go on just so long, and then - Have you any idea of what happened? Do you know how my father was killed, or who killed him? For G.o.d's sake, say something, even if you only accuse me!'

'Suppose you tell us exactly what happened to Mr Drayman,' Hadley said quietly, 'and when it happened. Is he in any grave danger?'

Mme Dumont shrugged. 'That is possible. His heart - I do not know. He collapsed. He is unconscious now. As to whether he will ever come alive again, that I do not know either. About what happened to him, we have no idea what caused it...'

Again Mills cleared his throat. His head was in the air, and his fixed smile looked rather ghastly. He said: 'If, sir, you have any idea of - um - foul play, or any suspicion that he was murderously set upon, you may dismiss it. And, strangely enough, you will receive confirmation of it from us in - what shall I say - pairs? I mean that the same people were together this afternoon who were together last night. The Pythoness and I' - he bowed gravely towards Ernestine Dumont - 'were together upstairs in my little workroom. I am given to understand that Miss Grimaud and our friend Mangan were down here - '

Rosette jerked her head. 'You had better hear it from the beginning. Did Boyd tell you about Drayman coming down here first?'

'No, I didn't tell 'em anything,' Mangan answered with some bitterness. 'After that business of the overcoat, I wanted somebody to give me a little confirmation.' He swung round, the muscles tightening at his temples. 'It was about half an hour ago, you see. Rosette and I were here alone. I'd had a row with Burnaby - well, the usual thing. Everybody was yelling and fighting about that overcoat affair, and we'd all separated. Burnaby had gone. I hadn't seen Drayman at all; he'd kept to his room this morning. Anyhow, Drayman walked in here and asked me how he could get in touch with you.'

'You mean he had discovered something?'

Rosette sniffed. 'Or wanted us to think he had. Very mysterious. He came in with that doddering way of his, and as Boyd says, asked where he could find you. Boyd asked him what was up ...'

'Did he act as though he might have - well, found something important?'

'Yes, he did. We both nearly jumped out of our shoes ...'

'Why?'

'So would you,' said Rosette coolly, 'if you were innocent.' She twitched her shoulders, her arms still folded, as though she were cold. 'So we said, "What is it, anyhow?" He doddered a little and said, "I've found something missing from my room, and it makes me remember something I'd forgotten about last night." It was all a lot of nonsense about some subconscious memory, though he wasn't very clear on the point. It came down to some hallucination that, while he was lying down last night after he'd taken the sleeping - powder, somebody had come into his room.'

'Before the - crime?'

'Yes.'

'Who came into his room?'

'That's it! He either didn't know or wouldn't say, or else the whole thing was a plain dream. Of course that's probably what it was. I won't suggest,' said Rosette, still coolly, 'the other alternative. When we asked him, he simply tapped his head and hedged, and said, "I really can't say," in that infuriating way of his ... Lord! how I hate these people who won't come out and say what they mean! We both got rather annoyed - '

'Oh, he's all right,' said Mangan, whose discomfort appeared to be growing. 'Only, d.a.m.n it all, if I hadn't said what I did - '

'Said what?' asked Hadley quickly.

Mangan hunched his shoulders and looked moodily at the fire. 'I said, "Well, if you've discovered so much, why don't you go up to the scene of the 'orrid murder and see if you can't discover some more?" Yes, I was sore. He took me seriously. He looked at me for a minute and said: "Yes, I believe I will. I had better make sure." And with that out he went! It was maybe twenty minutes later that we heard a noise like somebody banging downstairs ... You see, we hadn't left the room, although - ' He checked himself suddenly.

'You might as well go on and say it,' Rosette told him, with an air of surprised indifference. 'I don't mind who knows it. I wanted to sneak up after him and watch him. But we didn't. After that twenty minutes, we heard him blundering downstairs. Then, apparently when he'd just got to the last step, we heard a choking sound and a thud - flap, like that. Boyd opened the door, and there he was lying doubled up. His face was all congested, and the veins up round the forehead were standing out in a blue colour; horrible business! Of course we sent for the doctor. He hasn't said anything except to rave about " chimneys" and "fireworks".'

Ernestine Dumont still remained stolid, her eyes not moving from the fire. Mills took a little hopping step forward.

'If you will allow me to take up the story,' he said, inclining his head, 'I think it probable that I can fill the gap. That is, of course, with the Pythoness's permission...'

'Ah, bah!' the woman cried. Her face was in shadow as she looked up, there was about her a rigidity as of whalebone, but Rampole was startled to see that her eyes blazed. 'You must always act the fool, must you not? The Pythoness this, the Pythoness that. Very well, I must tell you. I am Pythoness enough to know that you did not like poor Drayman, and that my little Rosette does not like him either. G.o.d! what do you know of human men or sympathy or - Drayman is a good man, even if he may be a little mad. He may be mistaken. He may be full of drugs. But he is a good man at the heart, and if he dies I shall pray for his soul.'

'Shall I - er - go on?' observed Mills, imperturbably.

'Yes, you shall go on,' the woman mimicked, and was silent.

'The Pythoness and I were in my workroom on the top floor; opposite the study, as you know. And again the door was open. I was s.h.i.+fting some papers, and I noticed Mr Drayman come up and go into the study...'

'Do you know what he did there?' asked Hadley.

'Unfortunately, no. He closed the door. I could not even venture a deduction as to what he might be doing, since I could hear nothing. After some time he came out, in what I can only describe as a panting and unsteady condition - '

'What do you mean by that?'

Mills frowned. 'I regret, sir, that it is impossible to be more precise. I can only say that I received an impression as though he had been indulging in violent exercise. This I have no doubt caused or hastened the collapse, since there were clear evidences of an apoplectic stroke. If I may correct the Pythoness, it had nothing to do with his heart. Er - I might add something which has not yet been mentioned. When he was picked up after the stroke, I observed that his hands and sleeves were covered with soot.'

'The chimney again,' Pettis murmured, very softly, and Hadley turned round towards Dr Fell. It gave Rampole a shock to see that the doctor was no longer in the room. A person of his weight and girth can, as a rule, make small success of an effort to fade mysteriously away; but he was gone, and Rampole thought he knew where.

'Follow him up there,' Hadley said quickly to the American. 'And see that he doesn't work any of his blasted mystification. Now, Mr Mills - '

Rampole heard Hadley's questions probing and crackling as he went out into the sombre hall. The house was very quiet; so quiet that, as he mounted the stairs, the sudden shrilling of the telephone bell in the lower hall made him jump a little. Pa.s.sing Drayman's door upstairs, he heard hoa.r.s.e breathing inside, and quiet footfalls tiptoeing about the room: through the door he could see the doctor's medicine - case and hat on a chair. No lights burned on the top floor; again such a stillness that he could distinctly hear Annie's voice answering the telephone far below.

The study was dusky. Despite the few snow - flakes, some faint lurid light, dull red and orange with sunset, glimmered through the window. It made a stormy glow across the room; it kindled the colours of the s.h.i.+eld of arms, glittered on the crossed fencing foils above the fire - place, and made vast and shadowy the white busts on the bookshelves. The shape of Charles Grimaud, half studious, half barbaric like the room, seemed to move and chuckle here after Charles Grimaud was dead. That vast blank s.p.a.ce in the panelled wall, where the picture was to have hung, faced Rampole in mockery. And, standing motionless in his black cloak before the window, Dr Fell leaned on his cane and stared out into the sunset.