'Then come, my dearl Why distress yourself by going all over it again, six months after if s finished and done with?'
'Because there's new evidence! Or there will be, tomorrow night' Celia hesitated. 'Besides, now Don's back with me, I want him to hear about it! I've been telling him . . .'
Dr. Shepton peered sideways. 'Have you told this gentleman, Celia, about Mr. Marsh's brutal treatment of your sister?' “Yes!'
' And about the—er—attempt at strychnine poisoning some considerable time before Mrs. Marsh died?' 'Yes!'
'And about your own experience in the Long Gallery, among the portraits, following Mrs. Marsh's death?'
'No!' said Celia. Even in the moonlight, Holden thought, her face was noticeably paler. 'No. I haven't said anything about that. But... dear God,' she breathed, in a real prayer which went to Holden's heart in a stab of sympathy as deep as his overwhelming love for her, 'won't anybody listen to what really happened on the night Margot was poisoned?'
'Why not let her tell it?' said Holden, in a voice that meant a good deal more than the words.
'As you like.' Dr. Shepton looked at him curiously. 'Perhaps that would be best. Yes, on the whole that might be best. Er—is there any place to sit down?'
There was no obvious place to sit down: unless (the grotesque thought occurred to Holden) they occupied several swings. But Celia was already looking, with a strange fixity, at the immense oblong sandbox, set about a foot below the level of the ground.
Slowly she walked over to the sandbox. Celia sat down on the edge of it, swinging her legs inside. Putting one hand on the ground on each side of it, she leaned back—supple, graceful, not so tall as Margot—to stare up at the moon. Dr. Shepton, without any sense of incongruity, humped down big and stoop-shouldered on one side of her. Holden was at the other side.
Celia lowered her eyes. The sand seemed to fascinate her. It was dry sand, in the ten days' intense heat following a wet June. Celia scooped up a handful, letting the sand run between her fingers.
'The sand, the lock, and the sleeping sphinx!' she said, suddenly and unexpectedly. Her laugh, clear and ringing, echoed eerily under the trees. 'I can't help it It's awfully funny. The sand, the lock, and the sleeping sphinx!'
'Steady, my dearl' Dr. Shepton said rather sharply.
Celia brought herself up. 'Yes. Of c-course!'
'You had something on your mind—eh?—about two days before Christmas?'
'Yes. Christmas,' Celia repeated, and closed her eyes.
'I was telling Don,' she went on, 'that for a long time before then Margot had seemed so much happier, so much more like herself. She was so bright eyed, and danced and hummed round the house so much, that I once said to her (only as a joke, of course),
'Then, about October, the trouble started again. There were dreadful scenes with Thorley; I could hear him shouting at her behind a closed door. Presently, at the beginning of December I think it was, things quieted down again. When we went down to Caswall for Christmas, we were at least all polite.'
Celia kicked out at the sand.
'I love Caswall,' she said simply. 'When you go inside and close the door, you can imagine you're not in the present at all. The Blue Sitting Room! And the Lacquer Room! And the Long Gallery! The books and books and books! The old playroom, with the games and toy printing press with three different kinds of colored type!
'Anyway,' she drew a deep breath, 'it was only a small party. Maybe Thorley told you, Don? Margot and Thorley and myself; and, of course, Derek.'
It was that 'of course' which did it Holden could keep quiet no longer.
'I imagine,' he observed, in his turn scooping up a handful of sand and flinging it violently down, 'I imagine that 'Derek' refers to Mr. Derek Hurst-Gore, M.P.?'
Celia looked at him with wide eyes.
'Yes! Do you know Derek?'
'No,' answered Holden with cold and measured vicious-ness. 'I—merely—hate—the—swine.' 'But you don't know him!'
'That's just it, Celia. If I did know him, I probably shouldn't dislike him. If s just because I don't know him that I've been endowing him with all sorts of super and magnetic qualities. What's the ba—what's the fellow like?'
'He's rather nice, really. Tall, and with wavy hair'—she saw Holden's disgust—'good heavens, not effeminate! Just the opposite: rather jaw thrusting. He smiles a good deal, and shows his teeth. Don!' Consternation sprang into Celia's eyes, and she sat up. 'You didn't think . .. ?'
'Well, you were his parliamentary secretary for some time, I understand. Weren't there rumors?' 'Derek tried to make love to me. Yes.' 'I see.'
Celia, her cheeks coloring darkly in the moonlight, avoided his eye. Scooping up more sand she slowly let it fall.
'Don, I—I'm not sure if yon understand. If Margot had taken a lover, I shouldn't have blamed her. In fact, I should have thought it was an excellent thing. But it wouldn't do for me, don't you see? Because—whoever I had been with, if you know what I mean, I should always have been thinking about you; and it would just have seemed silly.'
There was a silence.
'Celia,' he said, 'I'm humbled. I . . .'
Here he became aware of Dr. Shepton, immobile and sphinx-like—where had that word occurred to him?— sitting at the right angle of the sandbox, shoulders stooped, large-knuckled hands on knees, his hat off again and his big head inclined forward so that the chin almost touched the knuckles. Dr. Shepton was steadily watching him with a gaze in which appraisal mingled with something unreadable. The doctor's gaze shifted.
'You were saying, my dear,' he addressed Celia, 'that you arrived at Caswall on the afternoon of December twenty-third. The four of you, I believe, were going to a party that night?'
Celia nodded, biting at her underlip.
'Yes. We were going,' she spoke to Holden again, passionately, 'to Widestairs, to the Lockes' place. Formal evening dress had only just come back in again, and we were dressing for it. Please remember that; it’s very important.”
'I don't think you've been at Caswall, Don, since Margot and Thorley had a suite of rooms done over for themselves on the east side over the Long Gallery. Everything very modern. A bathroom with green tiles and a black marble tub that didn't clank like the other tubs at Caswall. Margot had a lovely sitting room in white satin, and a bedroom in old rose: the bedroom opening into the bathroom, with Thorley's rooms beyond. I want you to see all this; I tell you it’s very important.
'It was a cold night, not quite freezing, with a little snow. It wasn't very chilly inside, because Thorley had got thirty tons of coal (yes, thirty tons). But the hot-water system wouldn't work; Obey had been carrying up little cans of hot water for washing. I finished dressing first So I went over and knocked at the door of Margot’s bedroom.
'Margot wasn't nearly ready yet. She was standing in front of the big triple mirror around the dressing table, in her step-ins and stockings, with a wrap over her shoulders, and scrabbling about among things on the dressing table. She called out to me: 'Darling, do go and look in the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and see if my nail varnish has wandered in there.'
'I went and looked. The medicine cabinet is built into the wall, just over the wash basin, behind a mirror. There were about three dozen bottles there, all crammed together on the shelves. But I saw the nail varnish, right enough. I was just stretching out my hand for it when I saw the poison bottle. I tell you,' Celia almost screamed, 'I saw the poison bottle!'
Dr. Shepton glanced round quickly, and shushed her.
'Of course, my dear,' he said. 'Of course. So you told me. Now think very hard: what sort of poison was in
