The Sleeping Sphinx

swayed back and forth a little, partly supporting his weight with both hands on the cane. 'This visit, I regret to tell you, is official.'

'Official,' said Thorley. 'Representing whom?'

'Representing Superintendent Madden of the Wiltshire County Constabulary. On instructions from the Metropolitan C. I. D. It refers, as you have probably guessed, to the death of Mrs. Marsh.'

'I knew it!' Thorley whispered.

Quickly, with a cool and curt nod, Thorley strode to the north end of the gallery, where he touched three electric switches. It bathed the gallery with a soft glow of ceiling lamps, and of red-shaded table lamps in the window alcoves. Thorley returned to find Dr. Fell teetering back and forth on the crutch-handled stick, glowering down at his clasped hands.

Dr. Fell scowled still more.

'The matter was—harrumph—delicate,' he said, without raising his head. 'Hadley thought it might be less embarrassing if I, the old duffer, looked into it first In case, you see, it proved to be a mare's nest.' 'Ah!' said Thorley. 'So you've found it’s a mare's nest' 'No,' answered Dr. Fell, with rounded and ominous distinctness.

'All right. Let's have it. What's the betting?'

'In my humble opinion, it was murder.' Dr. Fell looked up. 'Mrs. Marsh was poisoned with a toxic agent which I think I can name, and almost certainly by one of the other seven persons who were present at the Murder party on the night of December twenty-third.—One moment!'

He spoke sharply, though none of that rigid group had ventured to reply.

'Before you make any comment will you listen to my proposition?'

'Proposition?' Thorley said quickly. 'You mean: it might be hushed up?'

Dr. Fell did not appear to hear this.

Becoming aware that something was sticking him under the chin—it was the long folded envelope inscribed Don't forget this and thrust into his upper waistcoat pocket for just that purpose—he drew it out and weighed it in his hand.

'I have here,' he went on 'a very long letter, addressed vaguely to Scotland Yard, giving a full account of the affair. I am also in a position to know, through circumstances I needn't go into now, perhaps more about it than most of you know yourselves.

'When I entered this room, sir,' Dr. Fell opened his eyes at Locke, 'I heard you calling on heaven for a solution to your problem. If s really not as bad as that, you know. That's my proposition. Answer my questions truthfully, and I'll solve your problem.'

There was a long pause.

'Now?' asked Sir Danvers Locke.

'Perhaps sooner than you think. I can at least settle the dispute between Miss Celia Devereux and Mr. Thorley Marsh.'

Again Holden's heart began to beat heavily, a feeling probably shared by everyone else.

'Are you,' Locke hesitated, 'are you sure you can?'

'Am I sure?' suddenly thundered Dr. Fell, rolling back his head and firing up with a sizzling kind of noise as though water had been sprinkled on the furnace. 'Archons of Athens, the man asks me if I'm sure!'

'I only meant...'

'Is a judge ever sure? Is a jury ever sure? Is the recording angel himself, with the vast books of all eternity, ever sure? No; of course I'm not sure!' Dr. Fell ended this oratorical flourish, rather apologetically, by scratching his nose with the envelope. 'But I have—harrumph—a certain Christian confidence.'

And he wheeled round majestically, and lumbered over to sit down facing them on the window seat, beyond the - glass-topped table with the red-shaded lamp. 'Who,' asked Thorley, 'wrote that letter?' 'This? Miss Celia Devereux.'

A shudder went through Doris Locke at the mention of Celia's name, as though Doris had been touched by some well-meaning leper. 'Thorley, I never realized the awfulness you've had to put up with!'

'Never mind, my dear,' Thorley assured her, and smiled and patted her hand. 'I’ll get through.'

'Thorley! As if I ever doubted that! But Celia! Even if she can't help herself!' Doris's voice altered. 'Oughtn't Celia to be here?'

'I entirely agree she should,' Holden said grimly. 'If you'll excuse me, I'll just go up to her room and bring her down.'

Thorley's glossy head swung round. 'I wouldn't do that, old boy,' he advised. 'Celia's resting. I've given orders she's not to be disturbed.'

'I'm a guest in this house, Thorley. But when you take it on yourself to give an 'order' like that...'

Thorley's eyebrows went up. 'If you must hear the real reason, old boy—'

'Well?'

'Celia doesn't want to see you. Don't believe me! Ask Obey.'

'That, sir,' intoned Dr. Fell, looking at Holden, 'is perfectly true. I have just come from a conversation with Miss Devereux. She absolutely refuses to see you. She has locked the door of her room.'

A physical sickness touched Holden deep down inside him. When he thought of Celia at this time last night, under the street lamp, Celia in his arms, Celia speaking to him, all the scenes which returned in such vividness, it seemed impossible. All the eyes here were looking at him now: looking at him and (yes, worse!) pitying him.

Then, for a brief flash, he caught Dr. Fell's expression. That expression said: 'You must trust me. You roust trust me, by thunder!' as clearly as though Dr. Fell had spoken aloud.

And he remembered the penciled words: I cannot speak in front of anyone else. As soon as it is fully dark, will you be a witness when I unlock the vault in the churchyard, to see whether ghosts have really walked there? It brought back the nightmare. But it showed that he and Dr. Fell shared, or were about to share, a secret That made them allies. That meant Dr. Fell must be on his side; and therefore on Celia's.

Meanwhile, Locke was speaking.

'Your question, Dr. Fell?'

'Oh, ah! As a person of extreme delicacy,' said Dr. Fell, yanking the table closer to him and thereby spilling off all the hats and sticks; 'as a person of extreme delicacy, he insisted, yanking the table still closer and nearly smashing the table lamp as it fell off, '1 wish to approach this matter with the greatest delicacy.'

'Of course,' agreed Locke, gravely picking up the lamp and putting it back on the table.

'Er—thank 'ee,' said Dr. Fell. They had all taken chairs facing him around that table, Thorley sitting on the arm of Doris's chair.

A cold, still apprehension held the group. Dr. Fell dropped the long envelope on the table. With his elbows on the table, and his fingers at his temples, he shut up his eyes tightly.

'I want you,' he continued, 'to think back to the Murder game on the night of December twenty-third.'

'Why particularly,' asked Locke, 'the game?'

'Sir, will you allow me to do the questioning?''

'Pardon me. Yes?'

'I want you especially, Sir Danvers, to picture that rather evil scene. Your guests and your family wearing the masks of famous murderers. Yourself in the green mask of an executioner. The bowl of lighted spirits burning blue. Those faces moving and dodging about in the dark.'

For a moment, now, there was no sound except Dr. Fell's heavy wheezy breathing.

'You yourself, I believe, gave out the masks to the various people?'

'Naturally.'

'It was the first time you had exhibited that particular collection?' 'Yes.'

'When you gave out the masks,' said Dr. Fell, without opening his eyes, 'did you exercise any particular choice? Did you try to make the mask, however remotely, fit the character of the person to whom you gave it?'

As at a lightening of tension, a smile appeared under Locke's large nose. He sat up straighter in the chair. The light of the table lamps shone smoothly on his iron-gray hair and accentuated the hollows under his cheekbones.