“Well, it certainly looks as if one would like to ask Marryatt a few questions. Though, mark you, I refuse to believe that Marryatt laid hands on Brotherhood.”
“We can’t ask him questions. We must put him to a test.”
“What sort of a test?”
“Well, surely the stick might come in handy there. If we could somehow confront him with it suddenly, and see how he takes it—I believe they do that sort of thing in America.”
“Carmichael, I fancy, would tell you that the system was originally Danish.”
“Why Danish?”
“Really, Reeves, what is the use of all your researches into Hamlet, if you don’t realize that your present idea is just what Hamlet does to the King and Queen when the Players come on? I think, you know, it’s rather a dangerous method, because it’s so easy to suggest things to a person’s mind when they’re not there already. But this I will say, if Marryatt recoils from the sight of that stick which you picked up this afternoon, or shows any trace of confusion when he sees it, then—I won’t say I’ll be prepared to regard Marryatt as guilty, but I’ll be prepared to ask him for an explanation.”
“Well, Sadducee, have it your own way. We’ll put that stick and the golf-ball lying out prominently in my room. At dinner we’ll ask Marryatt to come along afterwards. We’ll go out of dinner early, and get into the secret passage. From there we can watch and see what happens when he comes in.”
“Don’t you think it would be a mistake to ask him in? It might somehow put him on his guard. … Yes, I know, I can make sure that he comes into your room without being asked. Leave that part to me, and stand by as soon as dinner’s over. We can go up into the passage by the billiard-room end.”
XXI
The Test
Marryatt came and sat with them at dinner—a situation which called forth Reeves’ utmost powers of self-control. He was glad that Carmichael was there too; glad that he had not communicated to him the suspicions which he had just come to entertain. He could not help admiring the easy way in which Gordon managed to conceal his suspicions, talking to Marryatt in his ordinary vein of rather pawky pleasantry.
“Well, Marryatt, how was the collection?” was the first sample of it.
“Normal, thank you. It’s fortunate that I don’t depend on it for my livelihood, or you would have to wait some time for that half-crown I owe you.”
“And how was the choir on the top notes?”
“There and thereabouts,” said Marryatt cautiously.
“Do you know,” Carmichael put in, “there’s a passage in Longfellow’s ‘Village Blacksmith’ which has always seemed to me a curious example of amphibology. The blacksmith, if you remember, is said to go on Sunday to the church, where he ‘hears the parson pray and preach, he hears his daughter’s voice singing in the village choir.’ The context shows that it is the blacksmith’s daughter who is alluded to, but by the ordinary rules of grammar it ought to be the parson’s daughter. I’m not much of a churchgoer myself—”
“Marryatt,” continued Gordon, “do you have anthems often in church?”
The word “anthems” made Reeves feel as if he had leapt a foot into the air. Marryatt, however, showed no traces of excitement.
“Very rarely, I am thankful to say.”
“And those, I suppose, are at Evensong, not at Mattins?”
Reeves frowned slightly. This effort to introduce the significant words seemed to him painfully forced, and at the same time quite useless. It was not likely that Marryatt would connect the words on the “washing-list” with the cipher he had inadvertently sent to Brotherhood on the same sheet of paper.
“No, not at Mattins. The Te Deum, I am afraid, exercises the capacities of my choir to their full limit.”
“You just have them on big days, I suppose, like Harvest Festivals?”
“That kind of thing. Really, Gordon, you seem very ecclesiastical this evening. Were you going to offer to sing in the choir or anything?”
“No, my boy, not till you get some more comfortable hassocks.”
“As a matter of fact, I have ordered some only lately. I have to go up to London tomorrow to see about them.”
Reeves’ blood thrilled. Only a tiny corroboration, and yet enough to give him more confidence in his diagnosis of the “washing-list.” Only lately Marryatt had been ordering new hassocks—it all fitted in.
“I congratulate you, Marryatt,” said Carmichael. “At the funeral the other day, I am afraid I found myself chiefly thinking about the unpleasantness of the kneeling accommodation, instead of the virtues of the deceased. By the way, have you declared a truce in the controversy with Brotherhood, now that he is no longer capable of replying?”
“I am afraid I continued the course this evening. I could not very well leave it where I had left off last Sunday. I had to meet, you see, his views about immortality.”
Carmichael chuckled. “Well, let’s hope Brotherhood won’t walk,” he said. “It would be very embarrassing for you, Marryatt, if Brotherhood’s ghost came back to continue the discussion. It would speak with so much expert knowledge.”
“Really, Carmichael,” said Marryatt, “I wish you wouldn’t say those things. You told us yourself that you don’t believe in spiritualistic phenomena.”
“It’s all right,” said Gordon, “you’ll be able to exorcise him if he does turn up again. Try driving a stake through his body, I’m told it’s effective. Hullo!” he added, consulting his watch, “I’d no idea it was so late. I promised I’d go and help Murdoch fix up his wireless. So long—” and he disappeared, giving a slight tug at Reeves’ coat
