about suicide and murder too, when Dr. Fell looks into it The birds will sing again. You'll see. In fact, if I may say so in this assembled company...'
'Hey!' boomed a thunderous voice.
It was that of Dr. Fell who was also rapping the ferrule of his crutch-handled stick against the floor. He loomed above them, turning his head from side to side with a piratical air and vast sniffs above the bandit's moustache.
'Sir,' he said, 'I am deeply gratified to hear that the birds will sing again. It also gratifies me (by thunder, it does!) that outward amiability has been restored. We are sitting in a cosy little alcove of hatred, with all drafts blowing. Control it; or we shall get nowhere.'
'You were,' Celia said, 'you were questioning witnesses!'
'There is only one witness I want to question.'
'Oh?' demanded Thorley. 'And who's that?'
'You, confound it!' said Dr. Fell.
All his piratical air dissolved. He leaned forward, his left elbow on the table.
'Up there,' and Dr. Fell slightly raised the crutch-handled stick toward the ceiling, 'a woman died. She died by means so well-contrived that under the circumstances (I repeat, under the circumstances, any doctor would have been fooled into calling it a natural death. We are now immediately underneath the bathroom where a bottle of poison was, or was not, in the medicine cabinet.'
'It was!' cried Celia.
'It was not,' Thorley said smoothly.
Dr. Fell paid no attention to this.
'For nearly three mortal hours—between half-past eleven, when you all went to bed; and a quarter-past two, when Dr. Shepton arrived for the first time—Mr. Marsh was apparently the only person who saw his wife, touched her, went near her, or was even within calling distance of her.
'If he tells the truth, we can reconstruct what happened. But, if, as seems likely, the gifted Mr. Hurst-Gore has persuaded him to keep silent...'
While Mr. Hurst-Gore uttered an astounded protest, Thorley came quickly around from behind Celia's chair and stood in front of the table.
'I promised to tell you what happened that night,' he declared. 'And, so help me, I will!'
'Excellent! Admirable!' observed Dr. Fell. With one elbow on the table, he pointed a finger at Thorley. 'Now picture the scene again. The four of you arrived back from the Lockes'. What happened then?'
'Well, we went up to bed ...'
'No, no, no!' groaned Dr. Fell, making a hideous face and snapping his fingers. 'Please be more detailed than that. Presumably you didn't just open the front door and rush frantically upstairs?'
'Celia did, anyway. I think the Murder game upset her. I didn't care for it much myself, to tell you the truth.'
'But the rest of you?'
'Margot and Derek and I came through this gallery here,'
Thorley moved his neck, 'and up those little steps to the Blue Drawing Room. There was a big fire there, and a decanter of whisky. The—the room was decorated with holly, but we weren't going to put up the Christmas tree until next day.'
Very distinctly, beyond the lamp-lit table between Thorley and Dr. Fell, Holden could see the faces of the others.
Of Sir Danvers Locke, aloof yet intensely watchful. Of Doris, flushed as though she were choking, so upset by recent experience that she could not have spoken if she had wanted to. Of Derek Hurst-Gore, lounging against the window wall beside him. And, above all, of Celia.
What in Satan's name was wrong with Celia? Why had she refused to see him? Why, even now, did she refuse to look at him? Why did there breathe from her, with that radiation which in one we love we can almost feel with a physical sense, the message of, 'Keep away! Please keep away!'
And yet...
Something was being woven, something being spun, as Dr. Fell held Thorley fascinated. The spectral image bruit itself up: of Caswall's galleries dark and gusty cold, of dead Margot in her silver gown, and her two companions in white ties and tails, going up to a bright fire in a blue-paneled room where there would be a decanter of whisky.
'Yes, Mr. Marsh? And then?'
'I turned on the radio. It was singing carols.'
'A very important question; and oblige me by not laughing at it. Were you drunk?'
'No! All of us were only... oh, all right! Yes! I was pretty tight'
'How tight?'
'Not blind, or anything like that But muzzy eyed, and uncertain, and hating everything. Liquor,' said Thorley in a vague way, 'always used to make me feel happy. It never does, now.'
'What about your wife? That night I mean?'
'Margot’d knocked back quite a lot; but it didn't seem to affect her much, as it usually does. I mean—as it usually did.'
'And Mr. Hurst-Gore?'
'Old Derek was pretty nearly blind. He started reciting Hamlet or something. I remember he said he hoped there wouldn't be a fire in the night because nobody would be able to wake him.'
'And then?'
'There wasn't anything. Margot banged down her glass and said, ‘You two don't seem very happy; but I'm happy. Shall we turn in?' So we did.'
'The bedrooms occupied by Celia Devereux and Mr. Hurst-Gore, I understand, weren't near your own suite?'
'No. They were at the other side of the house.'
'Do you remember anything else about this time?' Dr. Fell's big voice grew even softer and more hypnotic. 'Think! Think! Think!'
'I remember hearing Obey locking up front and back. It makes a devil of a racket with those bolts.'
'Nothing else? When you and your wife reached your rooms? What then?'
'Margot opened the door of her bedroom and went in. I opened the door of my bedroom and went in. That's all'
'Did you exchange any words at this time?'
'No, no, no! Not a word!'
Thorley was not merely telling this; he was reliving it He was treading the misty steps of that night, his eyes fixed on it 'And then?'
'I felt lousy,' Thorley said. 'It infuriates you, getting out of evening kit when you're tight You have to tear the collar off; you have to tear the shirt off. You stumble against things. I got my pyjamas on and sort of stumbled into the bathroom to clean my teeth.'
'Into the bathroom. Was the door to your wife's bedroom, on the other side of the bathroom, open or closed?'
'It was closed and locked on her side.'
'How do you know it was locked?'
'It always was.'
'You cleaned your teeth. And then?' 'I went back into my bedroom and slammed the door and went to bed. But
'It wasn't one of those nights where the bed swings around and you fly out into nowhere: dead asleep. I Just dozed heavily, and partly woke up, and dozed again. All confused. But I must have fallen off pretty heavily, because there seemed to be an interval. Then something woke me.'
'What woke you? Think! Was it noise?'
'I don't know.' Thorley, in a dream, shook his head. 'Then I thought I heard Margot’s voice, sort of moaning and groaning and calling for help a long way off.'
