'Has Mr Gooch come in?'
'I could not say, sir. Shall I go and see?'
'No, never mind.' If Gooch had been sozzling himself up with whisky since dinner-time, it was just as well Masters should keep away from him. You never knew. Masters was one of these soft-spoken beggars, but he might take advantage. Better not to trust servants, anyhow.
'You can cut along to bed. I'll lock up.'
'Very good, sir.'
'Oh, by the way, is the fountain turned off?'
'Yes, sir. I turned it off myself, sir, at half-past ten, seeing that you were engaged, sir.'
'Quite right. Good-night, Masters.'
'Good-night, sir.'
He heard the man go out by the back and cross the paved court to the garage. Thoughtfully he bolted both entrances, and returned to the library. The whisky decanter was not in its usual place--no doubt it was still with Gooch in the garden--but he mixed himself a small brandy and soda, and drank it. He supposed he must now face the tiresome business of getting Gooch up to bed. Then, suddenly, he realised that the encounter would take place here and not in the garden. Gooch was coming in through the French window. He was drunk, but not, Mr Spiller observed with relief, incapably so.
'Well?' said Gooch.
'Well?' retorted Mr Spiller.
'Had a good time with the accommodating widow, eh? Enjoyed yourself? Lucky old hound, aren't you? Fallen soft in your old age, eh?'
'There, that'll do,' said Mr Spiller.
'Oh, will it? That's good. That's rich. That'll do, eh? Think I'm Masters, talking to me like that?' Mr Gooch gave a thick chuckle. 'Well, I'm not Masters, I'm master here. Get that into your head. I'm master and you damn well know it.'
'All right,' replied Mr Spiller meekly, 'but buzz off to bed now, there's a good fellow. It's getting late and I'm tired.'
'You'll be tireder before I've done with you.' Mr Gooch thrust both hands into his pockets and stood--a bulky and threatening figure--swaying rather dangerously. 'I'm short of cash,' he added. 'Had a bad week--cleaned me out. Time you stumped up a bit more.'
'Nonsense,' said Mr Spiller, with some spirit. 'I pay you your allowance as we agreed, and let you come and stay here whenever you like, and that's all you get from me.'
'Oh, is it? Getting a bit above yourself, aren't you, Number Bleeding 4132?'
'Hush!' said Mr Spiller, glancing hastily round as though the furniture had ears and tongues.
'Hush! hush!' repeated Mr Gooch mockingly. 'You're in a good position to dictate terms, aren't you, 4132? Hush! The servants might hear! Betty might hear! Betty's young man might hear. Hah! Betty's young man--he'd be particularly pleased to know her father was an escaped jail-bird, wouldn't he? Liable at any moment to be hauled back to work out his ten years' hard for forgery? And when I think,' added Mr Gooch, 'that a man like me, that was only in for a short stretch and worked it out good and proper, is dependent on the charity--ha, ha!--of my dear friend 4132, while he's rolling in wealth--'
'I'm not rolling in wealth, Sam,' said Mr Spiller, 'and you know darn well I'm not. But I don't want any trouble. I'll do what I can, if you'll promise faithfully this time that you won't ask for any more of these big sums, because my income won't stand it.'
'Oh, I'll promise that all right,' agreed Mr Gooch cheerfully. 'You give me five thousand down--'
Mr Spiller uttered a strangled exclamation.
'Five thousand? How do you suppose I'm to lay hands on five thousand all at once? Don't be an idiot, Sam. I'll give you a cheque for five hundred--'
'Five thousand,' insisted Mr Gooch, 'or up goes the monkey.'
'But I haven't got it,' objected Mr Spiller.
'Then you'd bloody well better find it,' returned Mr Gooch.
'How do you expect me to find all that?'
'That's your look-out. You oughtn't to be so damned extravagant. Spending good money, that you ought to be giving me, on fountains and stuff. Now, it's no good kicking, Mr Respectable 4132--I'm the man on top and you're for it, my lad, if you don't look after me properly. See?'
Mr Spiller saw it only too clearly. He saw, as he had seen indeed for some time, that his friend Gooch had him by the short hairs. He expostulated again feebly, and Gooch replied with a laugh and an offensive reference to Mrs Digby.
Mr Spiller did not realise that he had struck very hard. He hardly realised that he had struck at all. He thought he had aimed a blow, and that Gooch had dodged it and tripped over the leg of the occasional table. But he was not very clear in his mind, except on one point. Gooch was dead.
He had not fainted; he was not stunned. He was dead. He must have caught the brass curb of the fender as he fell. There was no blood, but Mr Spiller, exploring the inert head with anxious fingers, found a spot above the temple where the bone yielded to pressure like a cracked egg-shell. The noise of the fall had been thunderous. Kneeling there on the library floor, Mr Spiller waited for the inevitable cry and footsteps from upstairs.
Nothing happened. He remembered--with difficulty, for his mind seemed to be working slowly and stiffly-- that above the library there was only the long drawing-room, and over that the spare-room and bathrooms. No inhabited bedroom looked out on that side of the house.
A slow, grinding, grating noise startled him. He whisked round hastily. The old-fashioned grandfather clock, wheezing as the hammer rose into action, struck eleven. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, got up and poured himself out another, and a stiffer, brandy.
The drink did him good. It seemed to take the brake off his mind, and the wheels span energetically. An extraordinary clarity took the place of his previous confusion.
He had murdered Gooch. He had not exactly intended to do so, but he had done it. It had not felt to him like murder, but there was not the slightest doubt what the police would think about it. And once he was in the hands of the police--Mr Spiller shuddered. They would almost certainly want to take his fingerprints, and would be surprised to recognise a bunch of old friends.
Masters had heard him say that he would wait up for Gooch. Masters knew that everybody else had gone to bed. Masters would undoubtedly guess something. But stop!
Could Masters prove that he himself had gone to bed? Yes, probably he could. Somebody would have heard him cross the court and seen the light go up over the garage. One could not hope to throw suspicion on Masters-- besides, the man hardly deserved that. But the mere idea had started Mr Spiller's brain on a new and attractive line of thought.
What he really wanted was an alibi. If he could only confuse the police as to the time at which Gooch had died. If Gooch could be made to seem alive after he was dead . . . somehow . . .
He cast this thoughts back over stories he had read on holiday, dealing with this very matter. You dressed up as the dead man and impersonated him. You telephoned in his name. In the hearing of the butler, you spoke to the dead man as though he were alive. You made a gramophone record of his voice and played it. You hid the body, and thereafter sent a forged letter from some distant place--
He paused for a moment. Forgery--but he did not want to start that old game over again. And all these things were too elaborate, or else impracticable at that time of night.
And then it came to him suddenly that he was a fool. Gooch must not be made to live later, but to die earlier. He should die before 10.30, at the time when Mr Spiller, under the eyes of three observers, had been playing bridge.
So far, the idea was sound and even, in its broad outline, obvious. But now one had to come down to detail. How could he establish the time? Was there anything that had happened at 10.30?
He helped himself to another drink, and then, quite suddenly, as though lit by a floodlight, he saw his whole plan, picked out vividly, complete, with every join and angle clear-cut.
He glanced at his watch; the hands stood at twenty minutes past eleven. He had the night before
