touched the envelope on the table, 'of certain statements made by Celia Devereux?'
'Yes. God knows I am'
'That on one occasion you were seen to slash your wife across the face with a razor strap?' 'Yes!' cried Thorley. 'But that was only—' 'Only what?'
Statement and question were flung at each other with such quickness that they seemed to clash like physical forces.
Dr. Fell had partly surged up, the ridges of his waistcoat jarring out the table with a scratch of wood and a rattle of the red-shaded lamp. But he did not seem to be towering or threatening: only, in a curious way, imploring. Thorley had slid off the chair arm and stood up.
'Only what, Mr. Marsh?'
'Only a lie,' said Thorley. 'Only a lie.'
Dr. Fell sank back, a mountain of dejection.
'And that on another occasion, because of your conduct, your wife attempted to kill herself by swallowing strychnine?'
'That’s a lie too.'
The grisly story was pouring out now. Locke and his daughter sat as though paralyzed.
'And that, on the night your wife died, there was a bottle labeled poison in the medicine cabinet of your joint bathroom?'
'There never was any such bottle, so help me!'-'And that—'
'Stop,' said Thorley. His hand went to his collar, running a finger around inside it; then he cleared his throat, and spoke in a perfectly normal voice. 'I've had enough,' he added. 'I've had more than any man can take.'
‘Yes?' said Dr. Fell.
'Look here, sir.' Thorley addressed Dr. Fell, though a little breathlessly, with his quiet and easy charm. 'These charges against me are all guff. What's more, I can prove they're all guff at any time I like. I haven't done it up to now, I've put up with everything, because I wanted to be decent. That’s finished.'
And then, just when as a man cornered and down-and-out he had the utter sympathy of nearly everyone there, the illusion was shattered. Thorley's tone changed.
'By God,' he said, 'I've had enough of a family with one ice-cold daughter and one crazy daughter. As for this house, I hope it rots. Those pictures over there,' he gestured toward the wall behind him, 'let them do something about it; as Celia says they can. I've liked Celia. I've done my best for Celia. I've put up with it when she's told me these things in private. But, from now on, just let her dare say the same things in front of anyone else! Just let her dare do it!'
They had heard no sound in the Long Gallery, no creak of footstep. A little way behind Thorley, looking full at him, stood Celia.
CHAPTER X
Celia, just as she had looked last night: even to being dressed in white. Celia, with the beauty of the imaginative fine-drawn face untouched by any emotion, even anger. Her gray eyes, with the black pin-point pupils perhaps dilating a little, were fixed on Thorley. But just beyond Celia...
Looming up beyond her, his hand under her elbow in a proprietary way, was a tall man in some mysterious season between youth and middle age. A man with a confident bearing, a dental smile, wearing a gray suit of such admirable cut and newness as only influence can procure nowadays, and having hair the color of a lion's mane with a wave in it.
Thorley, as though warned by a telepathic instinct, had swung round toward them.
'Derek!' he exclaimed. 'What the devil are you doing here?'
(At last, thought Holden, Mr. Derek Hurst-Gore! But he didn't need Thorley’s words to guess it The hair did that - Ugh, you swine!)
Now in this, as anyone could have told him, he was doing Mr. Hurst-Gore a complete injustice. Everyone knew that Mr. Hurst-Gore was a fine fellow, who meant well in everything he did.
'Doing here?' Mr. Hurst-Gore repeated, in a rich confident voice. 'Oh, I'm everywhere.' He smiled. 'As a matter of fact, I came down with Dr. Fell. We're both staying at the Warrior's Arms.'
Despite his smile, Mr. Hunt-Gore kept looking at Thorley in a fixed, meaningful, heavily significant way.
'Thorley!'
'Well?'
'There must be no scandal,' said Mr. Hunt-Gore, very slowly and in the same significant tone. 'But, listen, Derekl They're now saying it was murder!' 'I know.' 'But—!'
'Remember the Frinley by-election?'
Holden couldn't see Thorley's face. But he sensed a change in the broad back, and the movement as though Thorley would put up his hands to shield his eyes.
'There is one thing,' said Mr. Hurst-Gore, still holding Celia's elbow in a proprietary way, 'that a man in public life mustn't do. He mustn't show himself a fool.'
Thorley stood for a moment motionless. Then, with affection and tenderness rushing out of his voice, he turned to Celia.
'My dear Celia!' he said reproachfully. 'My dear girl! You shouldn't have come downstairs tonight! Here!'
Hurrying to one side, Thorley rolled forward an easy chair whose casters squeaked abominably on the wooden floor and strip of brown carpet Though Celia shrank as though she had been burnt when he touched her, she was so amazed that she allowed him to push her down into the chair.
'If you do this sort of thing often,' he added, with a sort of reproachful beam, 'Old Uncle Thorley will have to speak severely to you. Did I tell you, by the way, that I brought down a special vintage of port for you? Never mind where I got it Sh-h!' Thorley winked. 'But you won't find a wine like it anywhere in London.'
Celia looked up at him helplessly.
'Thorley,' she said,' I don't understand you!'
'I'm the Inimitable, my dear. I'm the Sparkler. But why . don't you understand me?'
'One minute you're shouting for my blood. And the next minute you're—you're pouring port over me.'
'Live and let live,' shrugged Thorley. 'That’s my motto. After all, Celia, we did live in the same house for six months with a flag of truce between us.'
'Yes! But that was only because—' Celia stopped.
'Why did you come down tonight, Celia?'
'I have an appointment with Dr. Fell.'
Thorley looked startled. 'You know Dr. Fell?'
'Oh, yes. Very well.' Now for the first time Celia's eye met Holden's; an intense awareness sprang between them across that gap, as Celia had seemed last night; but she colored and turned away.
'I think,' Celia swallowed, 'that everyone here knows everyone else. Except: Mr. Derek Hurst-Gore ... Sir Donald Holden.'
And up went the emotional temperature still higher. The two men shook hands.
'A pleasure!'' declared Mr. Hunt-Gore, flashing his dental smile. Seen at close range, the countenance under the wavy hair seemed older, and harder, and shrewder. 'You mustn't mind me, you know; I'm everywhere. An old, old friend of Celia's. We've had some very good times together in the past'
(You have, have you?)
'She spoke to me about you just now,' continued Mr. Hurst-Gore, cordially breezy, 'when I went up to her room and had a talk with her.'
'Indeed.'
'I was thinking,' pursued Mr. Hurst-Gore, 'that meeting you was like meeting some character out of a play. With you playing the Mysterious Stranger.'
'Oddly enough,' said Holden, 'I was just now thinking the same thing about you.'
'Were you, my dear fellow? How?'
'With you,' said Holden, 'playing Mephistopheles to Thorley's Faust.'
Mr. Hurst-Gore's eyes narrowed. 'That’s rather perceptive of you.'
'Well try to be perspective, won't we? In a murder case?'
'Oh, that!' Mr. Hurst-Gore dismissed it with a really friendly laugh. 'Well soon explode all that nonsense,
