'Not yours, at any rate, Roger. You can't knock something that isn't there.'
'And it was suicide after all. Well, I'm glad, really.'
'And what's more, the police have known it perfectly well ever since yesterday morning.'
'Yes, and all their fuss was simply due to your wiping of that chair, which we see now to have been as unnecessary as it was officious.'
'The less you say about my reason for wiping the chair, the better. I did catch you napping that time at any rate, Roger.'
'Yes, you did,' Roger admitted handsomely. 'Almost as badly as I thought I'd caught my supposed murderer. But my goodness, for real officiousness commend me to that inspector. Fancy wanting to play about with insufflators in such a proved case of suicide. Just like a child with a toy. I see now, by the way, that when Ronald and I were on the roof the next morning and he was pretending to be so worried about the position of the chair, that was just a blind. He'd put the insufflator over it already and of course had gone all excited about the result, and wanted to hold us off till he'd told the grim news to his superintendent.
'Who realized that, though the cause of death might not be really in doubt, there'd been some hanky - panky, and meant to get to the bottom of it.'
'Exactly. And proceeded to give us all a man - size dose of alarm and despondency. Well, I suppose he thought it was his duty, so he did.'
'It's lucky,' said Colin thoughtfully, 'that I didn't listen to you when you wanted me to say the chair was under the gallows from the beginning.'
'As it turns out,' Roger said coldly, 'it is.'
'And it's lucky that all that rigmarole you made up about Agatha coming over queer and Osbert doing the Sir Walter Raleigh act with his handkerchief didn't lead to something pretty serious, Roger.'
'No doubt, now,' said Roger, still more coldly, 'it is.'
'And it's lucky,' Colin meditated further, 'that Osbert had the sense to mention it to Lilian in their bedroom last night, and get the muddle straightened out, and speak of it to Mrs. Lefroy this morning so that she was able to make her version square with theirs. Agatha's a grand woman. She saw the point at once.'
'And I suppose it's lucky,' said Roger, quite frigidly, 'that none of them thought of mentioning it to me?'
Colin considered this. 'Well, that did prevent any further complications, didn't it, Roger?' He looked hopefully at his companion. But Roger had frozen himself into an arctic silence. In any case, there was not much that he could say.
In the drawing room Celia Stratton, Agatha Lefroy, and Lilian Williamson were twittering excitedly. 'My dear, I could simply never face it again. It was too dreadful. Came over quite queer, I did, as soon as I sat down again.'
'My dear, you were marvellous. My dear, was my hat really straight? It felt as if it had slipped all down over one ear.'
'My dear, you looked perfectly all right. And so terribly composed. Anyhow, that's where your hat ought to have been. My dear, did I sound the most ghastly idiot?'
'My dear, you were wonderful. Did I ...'
'My dear, you . . .'
'My dear . . .'
In the study Ronald and David Stratton were lapping up a much - needed glass of sherry. 'Well, cheer - oh, David.'
'Cheer - oh.'
'Thank goodness that's over.'
'Yes.'
'Feeling O.K.?'
'Top - hole.'
'Everything in the garden lovely?'
'Absolutely.'
'Well, thank heaven it's all settled. And no doubt about suicide after all.'
'After all?'
'I believe Sheringham had some kind of cockeyed idea at one time that you'd done it.'
'Done what?'
'Strung Ena up. I wondered if you'd gathered.'
'Oh, that's what he was driving at? I did wonder.'
'He was going all out to do the noble and save you from the gallows.'
'Decent of him, if he really thought that.'
'Dam' silly idea, though.'
'Oh, I don't know. I'd often thought of something like that. But I should never have had the guts.'
'Well, she saved you the trouble. Have another spot?'
'Thanks, I will.'
'Cheer - oh!'
'Three cheers!'
In the garden Mr. Williamson wrestled with a problem in ethics. Could a fellow be said to have committed perjury when he had sworn, in perfect good faith, to a thing which he couldn't remember but which someone else had remembered for him? Or couldn't he?
Mr. Williamson was quite worried about it.
In his surgery Dr. Chalmers took down the jar of chloroform - water and filled up the medicine bottle in his hand. It was annoying that the coroner should have kept them hanging about so long on just the day that his dispenser was away with a bad cold; it had put him badly behindhand with his list.
Well, the inquest had all gone off very nicely. Dr. Chalmers had never anticipated that it might not, but it was pleasant to have got it over. The post - mortem had been rather horrible, but that could not be helped.
Well, it had been a good job, neatly done. Dr. Chalmers had never for one moment regretted it. But he was a little surprised that he should not have had a single qualm, either of conscience or alarm. He had always understood that murderers went slinking about the place, starting violently when anyone addressed them. Dr. Chalmers on the other hand had only felt rather pleased with himself; he would never have thought himself capable of such an admirable deed, and found some satisfaction in the knowledge that he had been.
But of course there had never been the faintest risk.
He replaced the stopper in the chloroform - water jar and put the jar back on the shelf, corked and labelled the medicine bottle, and wrapped it up neatly in a piece of white paper. 'Phil!' came a long - suffering voice from down the passage.
'Hullo?'
'Aren't you coming in to lunch today at all?'
'Coming, dear.'
Dr. Chalmers went in to lunch, of which he proceeded to partake with a hearty appetite. Dr. Chalmers was not an imaginative man.
At half - past six that evening Mike Armstrong presented himself in the tiny sitting room of Margot Stratton's tiny flat in Bloomsbury.
'Hullo, darling,' said Margot with enthusiasm.
'Hullo.'
'Had a good day?'
'Not bad. I brought an evening paper. There's a paragraph about the inquest on Ena.'
'Oh! Let me see it. Where?'
Mike Armstrong indicated the paragraph. Margot read it quickly through.
''Suicide During Temporary Insanity.' Well, that's all right,' she said with obvious relief.
'Not so much of the 'temporary.''
'No.'
Margot dropped the paper onto her knees and stared at her fiance. 'That means it's all finished?'
