'A gag, Don Dismallo! A hoobus-goobus!' Doris stamped her foot. 'That's where they met, to avoid scandal, in two rooms dressed up as a fortune-telling place. Nobody would suspect a kind of office. That's how, nowadays, you can—'
Here she glanced quickly at Ronnie, and stopped.
'I mean,' Doris gulped, '
'One last question, Doris.' Seeing Ronnie's emotional state, Holden clamped a hand down firmly on the young man's shoulder. 'You say you and Thorley—easy, Ronnie!— have always intended to get married?'
'Well ... I thought so.' Sudden misery flooded Doris's eyes.
'And there's good reason to believe, from the evidence, that Margot was in love with this mysterious gentleman. Then why couldn't a compromise have been arranged? After all, divorce is hardly a scandal nowadays.'
Doris was back in her fighting mood.
'Thorley felt,' she said, 'that he—he owed a duty to That Woman. I thought it was too chivalrous. I thought it was silly. But there it was. Anyway, she's dead now and it doesn't matter.'
'Listen, Doris!'
'Y-yes?'
'I won't presume to advise you. But you might do worse,' he shook Ronnie's shoulder, 'than what your father wants you to do. In any case, you might think it over.'
'Thanks, Don Dismallo. All I know,' Doris said violently, 'is that if the fortune-telling place in New Bond Street hasn't been taken over by somebody else—which it probably has— you'll find out who poisoned her!'
'How so?'
'That Woman,' said Doris, 'was the most awful and incessant diary writer I ever did know. She couldn't see a piece of paper without wanting to write soul confessions on it. Or else,' added a wildly romancing Doris, 'you'll find a chest full of poisons or something. And I hope you do!'
'If you'll excuse me now, Doris ...'
'Don Dismallo!' She was taken aback. 'You can't leave now!'
'I'm sorry, Doris. I can't explain, but if s vitally important' 'I tell you, silly,' cried Doris, 'you can't rush away like that! This is our house' 'I know, but—'
'You've got to come in and have a drink or something. Look! There's father coming out of the front gate now. He's seen you. You're caught'
And he was.
At Widestairs they gave him a hearty if rather preoccupied welcome. (A grandfather clock in the main hall, where the Murder game had been played, pointed to twenty-five minutes past eleven.) They pressed on him sandwiches and a whisky and soda. (Twenty minutes to twelve.) Lady Locke, a slender handsome woman looking older than Holden remembered, chatted pleasantly under a wall of painted masks. (Two minutes to midnight.) Sir Danvers, explaining in a preoccupied way that he must be off to London tomorrow, displayed some new items in his collection of pictures. (Eighteen minutes past midnight)
'Good night!' they called at a quarter to one. And Holden, once away from the front door, ran like hell.
All the time he had been mechanically speaking, smiling, accepting, admiring, he had been fitting together the pieces of the puzzle. And he knew now how Margot had been poisoned.
He didn't know who killed her. But he knew how. It fitted together all the inconsistencies. It explained exactly how a murder plot had been devised to look at best like natural death, and at worst like suicide.
'Therefore—!” he said to himself.
He found the churchyard deserted, as he had expected. The iron door of the tomb (it gave him a momentary but bad fit of the creeps, as he thought of what lay inside) the iron door was again locked. He groped his way out of the churchyard, feeling that certain shapes were following him.
Even Caswall Moat House, as he saw when he raced across the fields, showed no light except a dim yellow glimmer through the tall windows of the great hall. He pushed open the front door. He found Obey, sitting by the fireplace in that big white-stone cavern, patiently waiting to lock up. Obey rose at him. 'Mr. Don!'
He steadied himself, panting, to get his breath. 'They've all gone, I suppose?' he asked through gasps. 'Yes, Mr. Don. And Miss Celia and Mr. Thorley have gone to bed.'
'But some other damned thing has happened, hasn't it? I can see by your face! What is it?' 'Sir, if s Miss Celia.' 'What about her?'
'Miss Celia and that big stout gentleman, Dr. Fell, came back here about an hour ago . ..'
'Was there a police inspector with them?'
'Police inspector?' exclaimed Obey, pressing her ample bosom. 'Oh, no/'
'Yes? What happened?'
'First they went up to the old playroom. I knew I shouldn't 'a' followed 'em, Mr. Don, but I couldn't help it'
'Of course you couldn't, Obey. Go on.'
'WelL then they went to what used to be Miss Margot’s and Mr. Thorley’s rooms. Mr. Thorley won't sleep in his old room now; not that I blame him. Anyway,' Obey swallowed, 'they started rummaging about in the rooms, mostly Miss Margot’s old sitting room. I couldn't hear what they were saying, because both doors was closed. But it seemed all quiet.
'And then,' her voice rose, 'just before the stout gentleman goes back to the Warrior's Arms in the village, he starts talking to her low and soft. And gentle, you'd have said. In the sitting room.
'All of a sudden the door to the passage opens. Miss Celia comes out as white as a sheet—I'm telling you! —with the stout gentleman looking not much less upset than she was. Miss Celia didn't even see me when I was standing there. She could hardly walk when she went to her room.'
Again Obey swallowed hard, composing herself.
'But don't worry, Mr. Don,' she added consolingly. 'You just sleep well.'
CHAPTER XTV
And it was Obey, too, whom he first saw when he opened his eyes on the morning of Friday, July twelfth.
They had put him in his old room, which he used to occupy at Caswall, at the southwest comer upstairs. Its giant Tudor bed, of carved oak with legs supporting a carved wooden canopy, would have suited Dr. Fell himself. First Holden became conscious of warmth, even though the strong sun was on the other side of the house; then a rattle, against his door, of dishes on a tray.
'I thought I'd better bring your breakfast up, Mr. Don,' Obey panted apologetically. 'It s past eleven. I didn't like to disturb you with tea.'
Holden, irritated, sat up wild-eyed.
'No! Hang it! Look here!'
'Is anything wrong, Mr. Don?'
'You and Cook the only people to work the whole house, and you bring up breakfast! Why can't Thorley—?' He checked himself.
Obey carefully handed him the tray, which included two boiled eggs.
'If you only knew, Mr. Don,' Obey said, 'what a pleasure it is.'
'Anyway, thanks. Is..' he shook his head to clear it, 'is Miss Celia up and about yet?'
'No.' Obey eyed the floor. 'But the big stout gentleman is. He's—he's in that playroom. He says, please, would you go there and see him as soon as you have your breakfast and get dressed?'
Holden, though uneasy, had no real premonition of disaster. But in the playroom some half an hour afterward, with a bath and shave to cool his head, he encountered something more than that
The playroom, which he had some difficulty in finding, was on the same side of the house. It was hot and yet dusky, a long room with two tall but narrow windows in the long side facing west, and a fireplace between the windows. An old wire fire screen still guarded the rusty grate. The baseboards and lower parts of the walls were still scuffed and kicked except where two large wardrobes had once stood, filled with dolls and games, and the coconut matting was blackly worn.
Two large doll houses, with one or two of their occupants hanging in an intoxicated condition out of the
