' Sir Charles knows Mr. and Mrs. Bendix,' Alicia Dammers pointed out impartially. 'And Sir Eustace. And I know Sir Eustace too, of course.'
Roger smiled. This statement was a characteristic meiosis on the part of Miss Dammers. Everybody knew that Miss Dammers had been the only woman (so far as rumour recorded) who had ever turned the tables on Sir Eustace Pennefather. Sir Eustace had taken it into his head to add the scalp of an intellectual woman to those other rather unintellectual ones which already dangled at his belt. Alicia Dammers, with her good looks, her tall, slim figure, and her irreproachable sartorial taste, had satisfied his very fastidious requirements so far as feminine appearance was concerned. He had laid himself out to fascinate.
The results had been watched by the large circle of Miss Dammers's friends with considerable joy. Miss Dammers had apparently been only too ready to be fascinated. It seemed that she was living entirely on the point of succumbing to Sir Eustace's blandishments. They had dined, visited, lunched, and made excursions together without respite. Sir Eustace, stimulated by the daily prospect of surrender on the following one, had exercised his ardour with every art he knew.
Miss Dammers had then retired serenely, and the next autumn published a book in which Sir Eustace Pennefather, dissected to the last ligament, was given to the world in all the naked unpleasingness of his psychological anatomy.
Miss Dammers never talked about her 'art,' because she was a really brilliant writer and not just pretending to be one, but she certainly held that everything had to be sacrificed (including the feelings of the Sir Eustace Pennefathers of this world) to whatever god she worshipped privately in place of it.
'Mr. and Mrs. Bendix are quite incidental to the crime, of course, from the murderer's point of view,' Mr. Bradley now pointed out to her, in the gentle tones of one instructing a child that the letter A is followed in the alphabet by the letter B. 'So far as we know, their only connection with Sir Eustace is that he and Bendix both belonged to the Rainbow.'
'I needn't give you my opinion of Sir Eustace,' remarked Miss Dammers. 'Those of you who have read Flesh and the Devil know how I saw him, and I have no reason to suppose that he has changed since I was studying him. But I claim no infallibility. It would be interesting to hear whether Sir Charles's opinion coincides with mine or not.'
Sir Charles who had not read Flesh and the Devil, looked a little embarrassed. 'Well, I don't see that I can add much to the impression the Chief Inspector gave of him. I don't know the man well, and certainly have no wish to do so.'
Everybody looked extremely innocent. It was common gossip that there had been the possibility of an engagement between Sir Eustace and Sir Charles's only daughter, and that Sir Charles had not viewed the prospect with any perceptible joy. It was further known that the engagement had even been prematurely announced, and promptly denied the next day.
Sir Charles tried to look as innocent as everybody else. 'As the Chief Inspector hinted, he is something of a bad lot. Some people might go so far as to call him a blackguard. Women,' explained Sir Charles bluntly. 'And he drinks too much,' he added. It was plain that Sir Charles Wildman did not approve of Sir Eustace Pennefather.
' I can add one small point, of purely psychological value,' amplified Alicia Dammers. 'But it shows the dullness of his reactions. Even in the short time since the tragedy rumour has joined the name of Sir Eustace to that of a fresh woman. I was somewhat surprised to hear that,' added Miss Dammers drily. 'I should have been inclined to give him credit for being a little more upset by the terrible mistake, and its fortunate consequences to himself, even though Mrs. Bendix was a total stranger to him.'
'Yes, by the way, I should have corrected that impression earlier,' observed Sir Charles. 'Mrs. Bendix was not a total stranger to Sir Eustace, though he may probably have forgotten ever meeting her. But he did. I was talking to Mrs. Bendix one evening at a first night (I forget the play) and Sir Eustace came up to me. I introduced them, mentioning something about Bendix being a member of the Rainbow. I'd almost forgotten.'
'Then I'm afraid I was completely wrong about him,' said Miss Dammers, chagrined. 'I was far too kind.' To be too kind in the dissecting - room was evidently, in Miss Dammers's opinion, a far greater crime than being too unkind.
'As for Bendix,' said Sir Charles rather vaguely, 'I don't know that I can add anything to your knowledge of him. Quite a decent, steady fellow. Head not turned by his money in the least, rich as he is. His wife too, charming woman. A little serious perhaps. Sort of woman who likes sitting on committees. Not that that's anything against her though.'
'Rather the reverse, I should have said,' observed Miss Dammers, who liked sitting on committees herself.
'Quite, quite,' said Sir Charles hastily, remembering Miss Dammers's curious predilections. 'And she wasn't too serious to make a bet, evidently, although it was a trifling one.'
'She had another bet, that she knew nothing about,' chanted in solemn tones Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, who was already pondering the dramatic possibilities of the situation. 'Not a trifling one: a grim one. It was with Death, and she lost it.' Mrs. Fielder - Flemming was regrettably inclined to carry her dramatic sense into her ordinary life. It did not go at all well with her culinary aspect.
She eyed Alicia Dammers covertly, wondering whether she could get in with a play before that lady cut the ground away from under her with a book.
Roger, as chairman, took steps to bring the discussion back to relevancies. 'Yes, poor woman. But after all, we mustn't let ourselves confuse the issue. It's rather difficult to remember that the murdered person has no connection with the crime at all, so to speak, but there it is. Just by accident the wrong person died; it's on Sir Eustace that we have to concentrate. Now, does anybody else here know Sir Eustace, or anything about him, or any other fact bearing on the crime? ' Nobody responded.
'Then we're all on the same footing. And now, about our next meeting. I suggest that we have a clear week for formulating our theories and carrying out any investigations we think necessary, that we then meet on consecutive evenings, beginning with next Monday, and that we now draw lots as to the order in which we are to read our several papers or give our conclusions. Or does any one think we should have more than one speaker each evening? '
After a little talk it was decided to meet again on Monday, that day week, and for purposes of fuller discussion allot one evening to each member. Lots were then drawn, with the result that members were to speak in the following order: (1) Sir Charles Wildman, (2) Mrs. Fielder - Flemming, (3) Mr. Morton Harrogate Bradley, (4) Roger Sheringham, (5) Alicia Dammers, and (6) Mr. Ambrose Chitterwick.
Mr. Chitterwick brightened considerably when his name was announced as last on the list. 'By that time,' he confided to Morton Harrogate, 'somebody is quite sure to have discovered the right solution, and I shall therefore not have to give my own conclusions. If indeed,' he added dubiously, 'I ever reach any. Tell me, how does a detective really set to work?'
Mr. Bradley smiled kindly and promised to lend Mr. Chitterwick one of his own books. Mr. Chitterwick, who had read them all and possessed most of them, thanked him very gratefully.
Before the meeting finally broke up, Mrs. Fielder - Flemming could not resist one more opportunity of being mildly dramatic. 'How strange life is,' she sighed across the table to Sir Charles. 'I actually saw Mrs. Bendix and her husband in their box at the Imperial the night before she died. (Oh, yes; I knew them by sight. They often came to my first nights.) I was in a stall almost directly under their box. Indeed life is certainly stranger than fiction. If I could have guessed for one minute at the dreadful fate hanging over her, I - - '
'You'd have had the sense to warn her to steer clear of chocolates, I hope,' observed Sir Charles, who did not hold very much with Mrs. Fielder - Flemming.
The meeting then broke up. Roger returned to his rooms in the Albany feeling exceedingly pleased with himself. He had a suspicion that the various attempts at a solution were going to be almost as interesting to him as the problem itself.
Nevertheless he was on his mettle. He had not been very lucky in the draw and would have preferred the place of Mr. Chitterwick, which would have meant that he would have the advantage of already knowing the results achieved by his rivals before having to disclose his own. Not that he intended to rely on others' brains in the least; like Mr. Morton Harrogate Bradley he already had a theory of his own; but it would have been pleasant to be able to weigh up and criticise the efforts of Sir Charles, Mr. Bradley and particularly Alicia Dammers (to these three he gave credit for possessing the best minds in the Circle) before irrevocably committing himself. And more than any other
