'And yet,' said Locke, 'I will answer it'
Locke glanced sideways, through the doorway on his left into the black-draped room where the crystal glimmered on the desk.
'I did not know,' he spoke with painful enunciation, 'that these rooms were here. Perhaps I suspected they might be somewhere . . .'
'Somewhere?'
'In London. We overhear our children speaking, just as they overhear us. But that they were here,' the ferrule of his walking stick thudded softly on the carpet 'just over a place where I go two or three times a year to buy masks: this, on my oath, I did not know.'
'Come into the next room,' Dr. Fell said curtly. 'Bring chairs.'
As the group moved in, slowly and somberly, Celia hurried to Holden's side. She spoke in a whisper. 'Don. What's going to happen?' 'I wish I knew.'
Celia reached out for his hands; and then drew back, her face whitening, as he flinched. She looked more closely. 'Don! What have you done to your hand?'
'It’s only a burn. It isn't anything. Listen, Celia: I quite honestly and sincerely mean it isn't anything; and I'm ordering you not to make a fuss. Because this is no round-table discussion. Something's going to burst with a hell of a bang.'
This appeared to be the opinion of Locke and Dr. Shepton, each of whom had carried a gray damask waiting room chair into the shrine.
They were watching Dr. Fell.
Dr. Fell, as though silently urging them to note everything he did, made another inspection of the black- covered room. He motioned Holden toward the secret drawer, which contained Margofs letters, at the bottom of the Florentine cabinet
Rightly interpreting this gesture, Holden took out the whole drawer, lifted it up, and put it on the side of the desk near the lamp. Into it Celia flung the letter she had been reading.
Dr. Fell picked up the letter, smoothed it out and read it
He glanced very rapidly through other sheets of blue note paper in the secret drawer. Then, after peering up at the covered skylight, and down at the carpet.as though seeking something, he lowered himself into the tall Jacobean chair behind the desk.
'Those letters—' Locke began.
Dr. Fell did not reply.
In front of him gleamed the big crystal, against the coffin pall, with the small green-jade ibis head on one side, and the little plaque of the sleeping sphinx on the other. He reached out and picked up the plaque.
' She also symbolizes,'' he read aloud, after a long pause, ''the two selves. The outer self which all the world may see—'' Dr. Fell stopped, and put down the plaque. 'Yes, by thunder! That is the true application.'
Slowly, while the others sat down, he fished out of his pockets an obese tobacco pouch and a curved meerschaum pipe. He filled the pipe, struck a match, and lit the tobacco with lingering care. The desk light, glimmering past the crystal, shone on his face.
'And now,' said Dr. Fell, 'hear the secret.'
CHAPTER XIX
T ou mean,' Locke asked quickly, 'the murderer?
'Oh, no,' said Dr. Fell and shook his head.
'But you have just been telling us ... !'
'That,' continued Dr. Fell, blowing out more smoke, 'can come later. I mean, at the moment, the carefully cherished secret which has sent so many persons wrong in this case.'
Holden never afterward forgot their positions then.
He and Celia were sitting side by side on the huge velvet-covered divan, so sybaritic in that secret room. They saw Dr. Fell in profile, past smoke. Locke and Dr. Shepton were in chairs facing him, the former bending forward with his fingertips on the edge of the desk.
'It is all rooted, continued Dr. Fell, 'in a tragic misunderstanding which has been going on for years. And it would all have been so simple, you know, if certain persons had only spoken out!”
'But, oh, no. This thing must not be discussed. This thing was very awkward, if not actually shameful. It must be hushed up. So it was hushed up. And out of it grew pain and disillusionment and more misunderstanding; and, finally, murder.'
Dr. Fell paused, dispelling smoke with a wave of his hand. His eyes were fixed with fierce concentration on Sir Danvers Locke.
'Sir,' inquired Dr. Fell, 'do you know what hysteria is?' Locke, obviously puzzled, frowned. 'Hysteria? You mean—?'
'Not,' said Dr. Fell decisively, 'the loose, inaccurate sense in which all of us use the term. We say a person is hysterical or behaving hysterically when he or she may only be very much upset. No, sir I referred to the nervous disease known to medical science as real hysteria.
'If I speak as a layman,' he added apologeticaDy, 'Dr. Shepton will (harrumph) doubtless correct me. But this hysteria, the group of associated symptoms called hysteria, may be comparatively mild. Or it may require serious treatment by a neurologist. Or it may end, and can end, in actual insanity.'
Again Dr. Fell paused.
Celia, beside Holden, sat motionless with her hands on her knees and her head bent forward. But he could feel her soft arm tremble.
'Let me tell you,' pursued Dr. Fell, 'some of the milder symptoms of the hysteric. I repeat: the milder! Each one of them, taken by itself, is not necessarily evidence of hysteria. But you win never find the true hysteric, who may be either a woman or a man, without all of them.'
'And we are dealing here—?' demanded Locke.
'With a woman,' said Dr. Fen.
(Again Celia's arm trembled.)
'The hysteric is easily moved, by small things, to either laughter or tears. She is always blurting out something before realizing its meaning. The hysteric loves the limelight; she must have attention paid her; she must play the tragedy queen. The hysteric is an inordinate diary keeper, with pages and pages of events that are often untrue. The hysteric is always threatening to commit suicide, but never does it. The hysteric is unduly fascinated by the mystic or the occult The ...'
'Wait a minute' said Donald Holden. His voice exploded in that group with the effect of blast waves.
'You spoke?' inquired Dr. Fell, as though there had been some doubt of this.
'Yes; very much so. You're not describing Celia, yon know.'
'Ah!' murmured Dr. Fell.
Holden swallowed hard to get his words in order.
'Celia loathes the limelight,' he said, 'or she'd have told her story all over the place instead of keeping it so dark. Celia never blurts out anything; she's almost too quiet. Celia can't even keep an ordinary diary, let alone the kind you're talking about. Celia admits she'd never have the courage to commit suicide. You're not describing Celia, Dr. Fell! But—'
'But?' prompted Dr. Fell.
'You've given a thunderingly accurate picture of Margot.' 'Got it,' breathed Dr. Fell. 'Do you all see the tragedy now?'
He sank back in the big chair, making a vague gesture with the pipe. There was a silence before he went on.
'There, over the green lawns of the past, walked Margot Devereux. And how the outside world misunderstood!
'Because she was robust, because she was jovial, because she liked games, they laughed and approved and applauded. 'Strapping,' they called her. 'Uninhibited,' was another word. And if at times something seemed odd? Well! Only over-hearty, which was not a bad thing. Not only did the outside world misunderstand, but they got the position the wrong way round.
'Everyone here, I imagine, has heard the famous remark which Mammy Two made on a number of
