The Sleeping Sphinx

And Dr. Fell shook his head, massively.

'I informed yon in the Long Gallery,' he told Holden, 'that this girl was in her right senses. Apparently she'd been seeing ghosts; but, when she saw you and knew you were no ghost, it was obvious she hadn't been suffering from delusions. At the same time, I had to make sure she wasn't...'

'Wasn't what?'

'Manufacturing evidence!' said Dr. Fell.

An expression of awe went over his face.

'When we went out to unseal that tomb,' he continued, 'I was frightened. Damme, yes! Not because I expected a snpematural occurrence, as you evidently thought But, if this girl had been attempting to manufacture evidence, as seemed likely from that letter, then the police would be after her straightaway.

'At first glance, when we unsealed the vault, there seemed to be nothing wrong except the disarrangement of the coffins. And I was so relieved, so infinitely relieved, that Inspector Crawford noticed it

'I had already, in case it became necessary, tried to put Crawford off the track with much hocus-pocus about the impossibility of entering that vault Then, just when I was feeling better, Crawford's light picked up that infernal bottle where only Celia could have put it. Back I sank into the abyss.'

'Dr. Fell,' asked Holden, 'how in blazes were those coffins moved?'

'Ah, yes.' Dr. Fell looked guilty. 'I (harrumph) fear my hocus-pocus talk must have deceived you as much as it deceived Crawford.'

'Hocus-pocus talk nothing! Yesterday Locke cited a fact even more staggering. The two modern coffins, Margot’8 and that of a bloke named John Devereux, were airtight masses weighing eight hundred pounds each. Who could fling them about?'

'That, you see,' explained Dr. Fell, 'was the hocus-pocus.

Flung was the word I suggested. But they were not flung.

They were lifted.' 'All right, then! How were they lifted?'

'Again,' said Dr. Fell, 'the key clue is Water.''

'Water?'

'The modern coffins were airtight Therefore they were watertight. They would float' Holden stared at him.

'The country around Caswall, as you've doubtless noticed,' said Dr. Fell, is watered by underground springs. The sort of thing the Germans call—'

'Grundwasser!' muttered Holden, with a sudden realization springing into his mind. 'Grundwasser!'

'Yes. It rises nearly to the surface of the ground in the autumn and the spring, and sinks back quite quickly in the summer and the winter. Anyone who studied the countryside could make a small bet that during autumn and spring that vault would be flooded.

'It was four feet below ground level, as you saw. As you also breathed, it was distinctly damp. Crawford, when he walked there, left sharp finely printed footprints in the sand, which doesn't happen in completely dry sand; it was damp.

'The new watertight coffins, lifted up four feet and set drifting, were certain to move all over the place. If s not at all surprising that one of them, its head wedged against the back wall, should remain half propped up when the water subsided.

'But the oldest coffin, being sixteenth century and rotted, never moved at all; the water got into it. An eighteenth century coffin was only slewed round, partly moved and no more. You—er—you follow me?'

'Yes,' said Holden in a dazed voice.

'Such an occurrence,' grunted Dr. Fell, 'had never happened before at Caswall. The vault was new. Aside from the old tomb, which was up in a hill and not likely to be troubled by groundwater, it was the only vault in the churchyard. But the phenomenon has been seen often enough in other places.' *

'Then the sand on the floor.. ?'

'Naturally there was no footprint. Except for disturbances round the coffins, the effect of slowly rising and falling water on sand would be to make it smoother than before.

'Dash it all! I gave you a hint! The new lock, being far above the reach of the water, turned with a sharp clean click. But the lower hinge of the door, being well within slopping -distance of rising water, squeaked and squealed. It was rusty. Water, water, water!'

*‘See Oddities, by Lieutenant Commander Rupert T. Gould, R. N. (London, Philip Allan & Co. Ltd., 1928, pp. 33-78.)

'And that’s all there was to it?'

'That,' agreed Dr. Fell, 'was all there was to it'

'I'm the culprit, Don,' Celia said in a stifled voice. 'I— I found that in a book. I gambled on it happening. Do you hate me very much?'

'Don't be an idiot, my dear! Hate you?'

'But Dr. Fell must resent it'

'By thunder,' said Dr. Fell, 'I do resent it!'

'You've got every right to. I'm awfully sorry. I was looking for a fake poison bottle that resembled the real one; and in the cellar at Widestairs, where Ronnie must have hidden it I got the real bottle without knowing it. I put it in there when you and I sealed the vault Yon have every right to resent being victimized—'

'Nonsense!' said Dr. Fell. 'I mean, you should have confided in me. Damme, my girl! I could have shown you far better ways of flummoxing the evidence than an ersatz supernatural story like that'

'I was desperate,' said Celia. 'There was Thorley smirking and calling me mad. So I thought I might as well be mad, and see how he liked it But it only produced evidence against me.'

'That of course, was why you had to wait so long before getting in touch with the police? Until the water rose in the spring, and dried back into the ground during the summer?'

'Yes. And it had been such a terribly rainy June I didn't dare gamble, in case there might still be water there. But July began baking hot and continued like that so I risked it. Thorley ...'

She broke off.

The door to the hall opened. Doris Locke, a stanch little figure though with her eyes puffed from weeping, wandered in with a listless air. After her came her father. And the change in Locke was almost shocking; he seemed to have aged ten years in one day.

Celia, deeply concerned, hurried over and pushed out chairs for them. Dons, small and grateful, acknowledged the gesture with a pressure of the hand.

'Thorley's going to get well' Doris said. 'And ifs all my fault!'

'Your fault?' Celia asked.

'That Thorley and Ronnie went to the New Bond Street place,' Doris burst out 'and had the fight.' She looked at Holden. 'Ifs your fault to Don Dismallo!'

Holden stared at the floor.

'Yes,' he admitted. 'I suppose it is.'

'Never in my life,' again the tears came into Doris's eyes, 'will I forget walking back to our house on Thursday night, through those meadows, with Ronnie and Don Dismallo!'

Holden remembered it too, with an intolerable vividness now that he could see below the surface.

'Don Dismallo,' Doris pointed at him, 'asking me about That Woman's boy friend, and me telling him about the New Bond Street place, and saying please go and investigate it! And all while Ronnie was there.'

'Doris!' murmured the gaunt, fragile image of Sir Danvers Locke.

'I knew there was something wrong with Ronnie that night!' said Doris. 'I could tell it by his voice, and the way his eyes sort of shone. But I never guessed Ronnie, Ronnie of all people, was That Woman's boy friend!' She looked at Holden as though a great oracle had let her down. 'You, Don Dismallo!'

'My dear girl,' protested Holden, 'how could you expect me to guess it either? You kept talking about a 'distinguished-looking middle-aged man.' You said there was a friend of yours, Jane Somebody, who had seen them ..”

'Jane didn't say he was middle-aged!'

'Didn't sav—?'

'Jane Paulton said he was 'distinguished-looking.' It was Ronnie who caught that up, the first time I ever told