Holden felt, not for the first time in this affair or yet the last that his wits were turning upside down.
'Innocent?' said Locke. 'Innocent of what?'
'Mr. Marsh,' replied Dr. Fell, 'never mistreated or abused his wife in any way. He didn't drive her to suicide. And he didn't kill her.'
Celia's hands, in Holden's, had first tightened and then gone limp. She snatched her hands away, and pressed them over her face. Celia began to rock back and forth, soundlessly, while he gripped her shoulders and tried to steady her.
Then occurred something which was almost worse. Across the face of Mr. Dereck Hurst-Gore, who had been lounging there almost unnoticed, moved an airy and serene smile. He glanced at Thorley, and the glance said as plainly as print: You see? Didn't I tell you there'd be no trouble? I arranged this.
'Dr. Fell,' said Holden, 'are you trying to maintain, in spite of all the evidence, that Celia isn t—isn't in her right senses?'
'Great Scott, No' thundered Dr. Fell. 'Of course she's in her right senses!'
He rapped the ferrules of both canes against the floor. For the first time he looked fully at Celia. In that look, jumbled up, were affection and kindliness and yet disquiet
'Though Thorley Marsh quite sincerely won't believe it' Dr. Fell said, 'there isn't a psychopathic trait in that girl's nature. But I must make sure (curse it, if you could only see!) that she isn't. . .'
‘Isn’t what?’ Locke asked sharply.
'Sir,' said Dr. Fell, with an enormous wheeze of breath, 'I have an appointment.'
And he wheeled around, the great cloak billowing behind him, and lumbered at his ponderous pace toward the steps to the Painted Room.
CHAPTER XI
Under the brilliance of a full moon, in a sky without cloud, the south fields in front of Caswall still held a tinge of green-gray.
Donald Holden, hurrying out across the stone bridge, saw some distance ahead of him the figure of Dr. Fell stumping westward toward the tree-lined drive. Beyond that lay another immense meadow, and then the precincts of Caswall Church. Holden raced after him through the long grass.
But Dr. Fell did not hear.
He was completely absorbed, talking to himself aloud in a way which might have made his own sanity suspect, and occasionally flourishing one cane in the air by way of emphasis. Holden caught the end of this address.
'If only he hadn't worn his slippers!' groaned Dr. Fell. The cane flourished again. 'Archons of Athens, if only the fellow hadn't worn his slippers!'
'Dr. Fell!'
The shout at last penetrated. Dr. Fell swept around, just under one of the chestnut trees lining the white gravel of the drive. He was now wearing his shovel hat.
'Oh, ah!' he said, peering to recognize Holden. 'I—har-rumph—imagined you weren't coming.'
'And I wouldn't have come,' retorted Holden, 'if Celia hadn't begged me to go after you. Seriously, Dr. Fell: you can't get away with it.'
'Get away with what?'
Holden nodded toward the house. 'There's merry blazes to pay back there!'
'I feared as much,' admitted Dr. Fell, adjusting his features with an extremely guilty air. 'Are they—er—at each other's throats?'
'No! They're just sitting and looking half-wittedly at each other. That's the point You can't leave it at that You've said either too little or too much.'
'Bear witness,' said Dr. Fell, pointing one cane, 'that I tried to get out of there without answering questions. But you were all too upset. I couldn't put you off by spouting mystical hocus-pocus. I had to tell the truth.'
'But what is the truth?'
'We-ell . . .'
'Let me see if I understand your position. Thorley Marsh tells a string of whoppers, especially about the two most important points, in the case: the poison bottle and the changing of the gown. You then announce that Thorley is guiltless, sweet scented, innocent of everything from wife-beating to murder!'
'But hang it all!' protested Dr. Fell, and screwed up his face hideously. 'It was just because he told lies, don't you see, that I knew he was telling the truth.'
Holden stared at him.
'Paradox,' he said politely, 'is doubtless admirable . ..'
'It is not paradox, my dear sir. It is the literal truth.'
'Well, take the next bit. You say it's nonsense to think Celia has ever been out of her senses, which is fine and grand. But you instantly qualify it by some—some half-suggestion .. .'
'Dash it all!' said Dr. Fell.
'Then the position is,' asked Holden, 'that both Celia and Thorley have been telling the truth? And that somehow they've just been misunderstanding each other, all through these bitter months. Is that it?'
Dr. Fell's shovel hat was stuck forward on his head, the eye-glasses faintly gleaming under it by moonlight. He struck at the grass with his right-hand cane.
'Apparently,' he assented, 'that is it'
'But
'How so?'
'Those two long statements of Celia and Thorley, covering a period of years and concerning Margot simply won't reconcile. They're oil and water. They won't mix. Either a person is telling the truth, or he isn't'
'Not necessarily,' said Dr. Fell.
'But—!'
'Before too long a time, when I propose to tell you the whole story,' said Dr. Fell, 'you may have reason to change your mind. In the meantime, we have an errand.'
'Yes! And, if you'll forgive my insistence, that's another thing.'
'Oh?'
'Dr. Fell, how is it that you know so much more of this affair than you could possibly have learned from any letter of Celia's to Scotland Yard? What sort of game is being played between you and Celia? I’ll swear there is one. Did she tell you the story of Margot's death?'
'No!' roared Dr. Fell, and viciously cut at the grass with his cane. 'If only she had! Oh, my hat, if only she had!' He lowered his voice, wheezing less noisily. He looked very steadily at Holden. 'You may have heard, perhaps, that Celia Devereux has been seeing ghosts?'
'Yes. But Celia doesn't suffer from delusions!'
'Exactly,' agreed Dr. Fell. 'It was just because she seemed to be seeing ghosts, you understand, that I knew she wasn't suffering from delusions.'
Again Holden stared at him.
'Dr. Fell I'm like Thorley. I'm afraid I can't take it. That's the second paradox in two minutes. But you don't want to hear someone talk like that, and play with words, when you're waiting for the hangman and yet hoping for a reprieve. I'm getting as desperate as Celia.'
Dr. Fell pointed with the cane.
'I say to you,' he declared, with extraordinary intensity, 'that it is neither paradox nor playing with words. You should have realized it, from evidence placed squarely in front of you. And now,' he hesitated, we are going to open the tomb. And—'
'And?'
'It is the one part of this affair,' said Dr. Fell, 'which really frightens me. Come along.'
In silence they walked across the drive, under trees again, and into the west meadow. A little distance away, rising up among oaks and beeches and a few cypresses, was the low square tower of Caswall Church.
In that gray church, ageless now, lay the stone effigy of Sir Walter D'Estreville, in stone chain mail, with his feet resting on a stone lion to show that he had been to the Crusades. When he died, in Palestine, under the Black Cross of the Templars, Lady D'Estreville took the veil to quit this world, and Caswall House became Caswall Abbey.
