'If we had any idea of who the murderer actually is—!'
'I know who it is,' Dr. Fell said simply. 'I've been certain ever since I questioned Thorley Marsh in the Long Gallery last night'
Holden, who had been looking blankly out of the nearer window toward the distant churchyard, whipped round.
'And now,' inquired Dr. Fell, 'will you go on that errand for me?'
'To the address in New Bond Street?'
'Yes. I can't send a police officer. My views (hurrum!) differ from those of authority. I must withdraw my evil skirts from the case. Will you go?'
'Certainly. But what do you expect to find there? And, as Doris Locke said . . .'
Dr. Fell spoke sharply.
'Doris Locke? What has Doris Locke got to do with it?'
'She was the person who gave me the address.' Holden narrated the incident, while Dr. Fell's eyes grew rounder and rounder behind the lopsided glasses.
'How very interesting'' he said in a hollow voice, and puffed out his cheeks. 'How very interesting that it should be the woman's intuition of Doris Locke to light on so much. Harrumph, yes.'
'All the same, Margot has been dead for more than six months. By this time those fortune-telling premises have been taken over by somebody else!'
'On the contrary.' Dr. Fell shook his head. 'I have reason to think the place is still intact. And that vital evidence may be there. I would go myself. But I must remain here, I tell you I must remain here, to find out whether anyone has discovered the real secret of the tomb.'
'Yes,' Holden cried out bitterly, 'and
'What is?'
'That infernal vault! Look at it!'
And he pointed out of the window, though Dr. Fell was not in a position to see.
Just ahead of and beneath him, as he looked out from the northwestern side, Holden could look out over the quadrangle of stables and bakehouses and brewhouses: the diamond-paned windows that were dusty yet fiery, the cobblestoned court where pigeons fluttered, the gilt hands of the stable clock. Beyond yellow-green meadows, in Caswall churchyard, he could even pick out the tomb between the cypresses. Aside from the old vault on the hill, it was the only one there.
Holden clenched his fists.
'Ifs got into my head,' he declared. 'It may be simple to you. But ifs got into my head. It muddles up every attempt to think. Something got through a sealed door, and threw the coffins about without leaving a footprint in sand. In Satan's name, what was it? Will you tell me?'
For a long time Dr. Fell regarded him somberly.
'No,' answered Dr. Fell, 'I will not And there are two reasons why I will not.'
'Oh?'
'The first reason,' said Dr. Fell, 'is that you must start your wits working again, or you will be of no use to us. I propose (by thunder, I do!) that you shall start them working by solving that little problem for yourself. And, if you like, I will give yon one very broad hint'
Here Dr. Fell closed his eyes briefly.
'Do you remember,' he asked, 'the moment when the tomb door was opened?'
'Very vividly.'
'The lower hinge, if you recall, squeaked and rasped as it opened?'
'I seem to remember the noise, yes.'
'Yet the lock, when Crawford turned that key, opened with a sharp, clean click?'
'Then there was some crooked work about that lock! Crawford was right! There was some ... I don't know! The seal had been tampered with.'
'Oh, no,' said Dr. Fell. 'It was the original, untouched seal.'
And he blinked at the seal ring on his finger.
'That,' he went on in the same heavy tone, 'is my hint. Now for my second reason for not telling you. You are not really thinking about that tomb at all.'
'What the devil do you mean? I'm—'
'Only with the surface of your mind!' said Dr. Fell. 'Only as an excuse! Only to avoid thinking about something else! Shall I read your mind?'
The sun, past its meridian now, was striking into these windows. Holden did not reply.
'You were thinking about Celia Devereux.'
Holden made a fierce gesture as the other went on.
'You were thinking: 'I know she's not guilty of murder; I know she didn't poison Margot; but is she mad?''
'God help me. I.. .'
' 'How to reconcile,' you were thinking, How to reconcile with the facts Celia's insistence that Margot desired death, that Margot once swallowed strychnine, that Thorley Marsh's brutality drove her to it? How to reconcile with the facts Celia's behavior now, and her story about the ghosts in the Long Gallery?' Have I read your mind correctly?'
Holden, who had lifted his fists, dropped them at his sides.
'Look here,' he said. 'I'm going in now and have it out with Celia.'
Dr. Fell did not try to prevent him.
'Yes,' Dr. Fell assented. 'That would probably be best. And I tell you again: that girl is no more mad than you are. But I warn you ...'
The other, who had started for the door, stopped short.
'A part of the police's case against her,' returned. Dr. Fell, 'is damning because it is perfectly true. On one point, and one point alone, that girl has been telling lies. That has caused a good deal of the trouble. She loathes telling lies in front of you.'
'I’ll see her! I’ll . . .'
'Very well. But—what time is it now?'
Holden craned his neck to see the stable clock.
'A few minutes past twelve. Why?'
'You have just ten minutes,' said Dr. Fell, 'before you need leave here to catch that train.'
The door to the passage opened. It was not flung open, since Mr. Derek Hurst-Gore caught it before it could strike the wall. Mr. Hurst-Gore, in his fine gray suit, his tawny hair agitated like his affable countenance, stood in the doorway looking from one to the other of them.
'Er—forgive this intrusion,' he began. 'But I heard voices. I could find nobody in the house.' He took a few steps into the room, trying to smile and failing. 'Dr. Fell! Have you heard this report that the police have applied for an order to exhume Margot's body?'
'I have.'
'But why didn't you prevent it?'
Dr. Fell reared back; even in the chair he towered demonically. 'Prevent it, sir?'
'You're a great husher-up,' said Mr. Hurst-Gore, spreading out his hands. 'I've heard how you hushed up everything in the case where the high-court judge was involved, and that business in Scotland at the beginning of the war. I —I was counting on you as a husher-up! Besides,' he complained, 'if s nonsense!'
'What is nonsense?'
'This! All this. I know the facts.' Mr. Hurst-Gore's small, shrewd eyes grew hard and steady. 'Dr. Fell, where's Thorley Marsh?'
'Hey?'
'Where's Thorley Marsh?'
'When I last saw him, sir, he was at Widestairs deep in conversation with Doris Locke. Isn't he still there?' 'Oh, no,' replied Mr. Hurst-Gore, shaking his head. 'He's gone tearing off to London in his car. Where's he gone, exactly?'
