divorce, she would obviously have told her husband who the man was.
'Then (mark it!) there is a space of dangerous quiet while plans are being made. But it all boils up in tragedy when Margot and her husband, with Celia here, go to Caswall two days before Christmas.
'Follow the tensity of that scene, as described by Celia, before they set out for Widestairs in the evening to go to the party! Thorley Marsh, all that evening, so white faced that Obey thought he was ill: 'with furious dead- looking eyes.' And very polite.
'His wife all of a glitter, all in the mood which you, Sir Danvers, described to me. We can't get away from it Late that afternoon or early in the evening—after going over to Widestairs to look for her husband—she had made one last appeal to him to arrange for a divorce. Thorley Marsh refused.
'She never guessed for a second that her husband was, to put it delicately, fond of Doris Locke. No! It was her affair, her affair; that was all she thought of. All the world was blotted out except for that Margot Marsh had come to a decision. It was a typical hysteric's decision.'
Dr. Fell paused. With his dead pipe he gestured toward Holden.
'Holden there,' be said, 'hit the nail bang on the head, or near enough, when he wrote two certain words on a piece of paper and gave it to me. He had worked out what Margot Marsh's decision—and her lover's decision too—apparently was. Tell these gentlemen what it was!'
'But . . .' Holden began.
‘Tell them!'
The eyes of Locke and Dr. Shepton, which seemed unnaturally large, were fixed on Holden. Tension had grown to such a point that no one except Dr. Fell could quite sit still.
'If we decided this was murder—' Holden began.
'Go on!'
'If we decided this was murder, there was only one explanation of why it looked so much like suicide. Margot really had changed her gown in the middle of the night: dressing up (as Celia said) in the manner of someone going to a great dinner. Margot herself had the poison bottle, which we now know contained morphine and belladonna. The words I wrote for Dr. Fell were
Locke started to get up.
'You mean . . ?'
'A suicide pact' retorted Holden, 'arranged between Margot and her lover. At a certain time that night—she in one place, he in another—each of them was to drink poison. But he never intended to keep his side of the bargain. It would be a perfect method of murder.'
Locke's immaculate hat gloves, and walking stick dropped to the floor.
'Is this true, Dr. Fell?' he demanded.
'As far as it goes, yes.'
'As far as it goes?'
'For if it is true,' interposed Holden, 'it means this was a crime at long distance. The murderer needn't have been in the house at all.'
'Oh, yes, the murderer was,' said Dr. Fell.
'In the house?' whispered Locke through dry lips.
'Yes.'
'But '
'Didn't I tell you,' exclaimed Dr. Fell testily, 'that the true hysteric never commits suicide? Margot Marsh passionately wanted a hysteric's suicide for love, yes. She believed she could go through with it, yes. She would even have drunk the poison, yes.'
'Well then!'
'But, when she felt the effects of the poison coming on, the true hysteric couldn't have held out. She couldn't have faced death. She would have screamed for help, and used it as a weapon, a lever, to force Thorley Marsh into granting what she wanted. She wouldn't really have died, unless . . .'
'Go on!'
'Unless,' said Dr. Fell, 'someone crept in and struck her down unconscious. Unconscious, you see! So that the poison could do its work. Oh, yes. The murderer was in the house.'
'Thank God!' Locke blurted out the words. They could see the veins standing out in his neck. 'Thank God!'
'Why do you say that?'
'It is villainous to say so. It is wicked to say so.' Locke controlled himself. 'But I do say it. The murderer was in the house! It must have been Thorley Marsh (no, that couldn't be). Or Celia Devereux. (No! That couldn't be either!) Or—Derek Hurst-Gore.'
'Not necessarily,' said Dr. Fell.
'For the love of heaven, man,' exploded Dr. Shepton, 'say what you do mean!'
'As you like,' assented Dr. Fell. 'Shall I show you the murderer now?'
'Where?' asked Locke, looking wildly round the room.
'From Celia Devereux's story, you see,' said Dr. Fell, 'there were certain blazing indications as to where to look for the murderer. When I went to Caswall on Thursday evening, I asked a number of questions and got the replies I wanted. By thunder, I got more than I wanted.'
Slowly Dr. Fell hoisted himself to his feet pushing back the big Jacobean chair.
'As to the murderer being in the house ...'
'Whoever it was,' said Locke, 'couldn't have got into the house from outside!'
'Why not?'
'Every night,' retorted Locke, 'that place is locked up like a fortress front and back. Round it is a moat thirty feet wide and a dozen feet deep.'
'Yes,' said Dr. Fell. 'That is what I mean.'
'What you mean?—Where is this murderer?'
'He's here,' said Dr. Fell.
Into the room, now, fell another shadow: the shadow of a tall middle-aged man who entered from the door to the front room. It was, in fact, Superintendent Hadley of the Criminal Investigation Department. But such is the effect of suggestion that every listener jumped up and turned toward Hadley as though ...
'You are looking,' observed Dr. Fell, 'in the wrong direction.'
'Wherever we are looking,' cried Locke, 'get on with this! You say the murderer is here?'
'As a matter of fact,' said Dr. Fell, 'he has been here all the time. That's why I had the nerve to call Hadley and force the issue. Our poisoning friend was rather badly smashed about in a fight with Thorley Marsh. He crawled in to get water, and collapsed.'
'Crawled. . . ?'
'Into the bathroom.'
Slowly Dr. Fell lumbered to the rear wall. Drawing back one of the black-velvet curtains, he disclosed the door of the little bathroom beside the kitchenette.
Dr. Fell opened the door. The light inside, which formerly had been switched off, was now burning.
And Celia screamed.
A man stood just inside, on shaking legs; and in his hand was the small, sharp blade from a safety razor. They saw it glitter as it went up to his own throat. Dr. Fell, lurching forward, cut off the view. But not before they had-seen the white face, the staring eyes, the dark hair tumbled over the forehead.
For the murderer was young Ronald Merrick.
CHAPTER XX
It was the following evening, in the big drawing room at Number 1 Gloucester Gate, that the whole of the story came to be told.
At the moment only Celia, Holden, and Dr. Fell were present. The room, Holden thought, looked just at it had looked when he stepped through the balcony window four nights ago: only the one table lamp lighted beside the large white-covered sofa, where Dr. Fell sat in vastness, frowning guiltily at a cigar.
Celia, facing him, was perched on the arm of Holden's chair.
'Ronnie Merrick,' Celia said flatly, 'was Margot’s lover. And he murdered her.'
