bakeries, and brew houses, westward, shut off and for many years disused, added length to make it seem vast. And around everything, placid as it had lain for seven hundred years, stretched the moat.
Seven hundred years.
No stone, no arrow of war, had fallen into that moat since the forceful Lady D'Estreville, in the thirteenth century, had turned an already-old building into an abbey. For who attacks a religious house? The nuns, shuffling to orisons through semi-underground cloisters, had kept carp in the moat for fast days. But the Reformation attacked religious houses; and down the immensity of time strode William Devereux, rattling a well-filled purse, to bedeck Caswall with furniture out of Italy and pictures out of Flanders.
If there were any ghosts here...
Holden, so utterly dispirited that he had let his thoughts stray into a murky past, started as though stung at that word 'ghosts.' He straightened up from leaning against the tree, and flung away his cigarette.
'Stop this!' he said to himself. 'Stop thinking! It won't do any good. You've just got to believe.'
'Ah,' whispered the devil, 'but believe what?'
For in whichever direction he wrenched them his thoughts always snapped back, an elastic released, to that scene of last night: of the playground, and Obey mumbling out, 'Ifs true.' Of Celia, though he tried to stop her, rushing out of the place and running for home without another word. Of Obey lumbering after her. Of Dr. Shepton, mortally offended, speaking only to wish him a freezing good night before marching away.
And how he himself (as somehow the villain of the piece) had tried to get a word with Celia, only to be met at the front door of Number 1 Gloucester Gate by an injured-looking Thorley who tactfully barred his way. Even so, Thorley's first words had been those of business.
'Look, Don,' Thorley had said confidentially. 'Are you seriously thinking of buying Caswall?'
'What’s that?—Oh! Yes, of course.'
'Then here's the point' Thorley, guarding his voice, peered into the hall behind him; the light shone on his sleek black hair. 'Would you mind going down in the train like Obey and Cook? There's plenty of room in the car, of course; only Doris Locke to go with us. But if s better you don't see Celia for a little while. You've played Old Harry with her tonight'
'I’ve played Old Harry with her?'
'Yes. Speaking as a friend of yours .. .'
'A friend of mine, eh? After all those lies you rattled off tonight? 'Celia isn't at home.' 'Celia's forgotten all about you.''
'One day, old man,' said Thorley, looking at him very steadily, 'you may realize it was for Celia's good and yours. However,' he shrugged, 'just as you like. It's your funeral.'
His funeral.
Standing now under the beech tree, with evening coming on and Caswall reflected dingy yellow-brown in the waters of its moat, Holden faced an issue which was quite clear-cut. It might be maddening, it might be incomprehensible; but it was quite clear-cut
Either Thorley Marsh, whom he had once considered his closest friend, was an unctuous hypocrite who had married Margot Devereux for her money, turned on her savagely, and then, for some motive as yet not established, had either killed her or driven her to suicide.
Or, on the other hand, Celia Devereux—whom he loved; whom he would continue to love—had dreamed all these accusations out of a diseased fancy, and was an unbalanced person who might become dangerously insane.
There was no alternative. You had to take your choice.
God!
Holden banged his fist against the rough, gnarled bark of the beech tree. He fished another cigarette out of his pocket, lit it rather unsteadily, and blew out smoke while he considered.
Of course, there could be no doubt on which side he stood. He loved Celia. But reason backed him up as well. He could tell himself, calmly and with no trace of wishful thinking, that he knew Celia to be in no way abnormal and that he believed everything she said...
'Are you sure?' whispered the devil.
Well, almost sure; but that was just the difficulty in this matter. Last night, or during the thin morning hours when he had sat wide awake at the window of his hotel room, he had tried to find the factor in this affair which had kept him (normally an even-tempered person) always in a state of exasperation.
And it was this: that nobody would listen to evidence.
You said, 'This case'; and they said, 'What case?' If they began with the assumption of Celia's malady, then any word she spoke became suspect. Lucidly she had given a detailed account—of anger between Thorley and Margot, of a poison bottle in a cupboard, of Margot's changing a silver gown for a black velvet one in the middle of the night, of a burned diary, of the poison bottle's disappearance—and all this Dr. Shepton smiled away to nothingness.
Interpret that account, then! Explain it how you like, but try to explain it! Say it is moonshine, summer shadow, man-dragora dream; but at least, in the name of decency, give it the fairness of an investigation! He himself had heard his friend Frederick Barlow, the eminent K.C. speak of a certain sharp-witted gentleman named Gideon Fell. If only ...
At this point in his meditations, slumped back again against the tree, Holden heard someone call his name.
He looked up, and saw Miss Doris Locke.
She was standing almost to her knees in the thick grass, some distance away from him in the field, a vivid little figure against the massed trees of the carriage drive westward. Doris was smiling at him rather archly; but the smile faded.
For a moment they appraised each other. Doris, he remembered, had come down from London in the car with Celia and Thorley; she must have heard a good deal about last night's events.
Then Doris hurried toward him, swishing in the long grass. In her light blue frock, with the elaborately dressed hair golden in the gold evening light, she had the round chin of a girl but very much the round figure of a woman. She had assumed an air of brightness and alertness, a careless poise; but behind this he sensed (why was it there?) a strong nerve tensity.
'Hello, Don Dismallo,' she said.
He returned her smile.
'Hello, Mrs. Pearcey,' he answered.
Doris looked at him, startled, the blue eyes narrowing. Then her eyes opened wide, and she laughed.
'You mean,' she exclaimed, 'the night I played the part of Mrs. Pearcey in the Murder game at home? Yes. They tell me I was rather good.' She glanced down over herself, not without approval. 'That was last Christmas. It was the night when—' Doris stopped.
'Yes,' he agreed, without the appearance of much interest, 'it was the night Margot Marsh died.'
'So very sad, wasn't it,' murmured Doris in a perfunctory voice. 'When did you get here?'
Holden studied her.
Doris Locke unquestionably knew that Celia Devereux was supposed to be suffering from some sort of mental distress; probably many others knew this as well. But that the details of Celia's accusations were known to Doris (or Sir Danvers, or Lady Locke, or Derek Hurst-Gore, for that matter) Holden very much doubted. Celia hadn't told this to anybody except Dr. Shepton and 'the family,' meaning Thorley and Obey and Cook; and these people were interested only in hushing it up.
Remember the old service rule: Handle with gloves until you're sure of your evidence!
'When did I get here?' he repeated. 'By the six o'clock train. Thorley met me with the car.'
Doris looked at the ground. 'Have you—have you seen Celia today?'
'No.'
'Not at all?'
'No.' His burnt-down cigarette had begun to scorch his fingers; he threw it away into the hot grass, where it sent up a straight line of smoke. 'Celia is resting, by doctor's orders. Thorley and I have just finished dinner alone.'
'I . . . I . . .' Despite her inner emotional preoccupation, quick sympathy made Doris's Up tremble. 'By the
