“Yes, but dash it all, what were your symptoms?”
“I say, Gordon, do you believe in—well, in ghosts and things?”
“Not more than’s good for me. Why? You been seeing spooks?”
“Look here, I wanted to tell somebody about it. You know, of course, that I preached about Brotherhood last night. I wasn’t quite sure whether it was the thing to do—it seemed a bit unfair at the time. Anyhow, I felt I ought to. Then at dinner, if you remember, you and Carmichael were ragging about it—wondering what would happen if old Brotherhood came back.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Well, of course that may have preyed on my nerves a bit. Anyhow, I went upstairs to my room, and found my pipe chocked up—you know.”
“Yes, it’s funny the way they do get chocked up.”
“So I went along to Reeves’ room to bag one of his pipe-cleaners. It was dark and he wasn’t in, so I turned on the light. And there, right in front of me, I saw old Brotherhood’s oak stick—the one he used to carry with him. I remember, when he preached on the village green. I remember his quoting Johnson’s refutation of Berkeley—you know the thing—and banging that stick on the ground. That was the stick I saw.”
“In Reeves’ room?”
“Yes, by the side of his armchair. And—I didn’t exactly see anything, you know, only it looked exactly as if Brotherhood himself were sitting in the chair, invisible, with his hand resting on the stick. I was just telling myself I was a fool, when—he breathed.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know. There was nobody in the room—nobody visible, I mean. That was too much for me, I’m afraid. I went to my room and locked myself in. You see, I’m psychic, rather. Always have been, from a kid.”
“And was that all your trouble?”
“No. I had half thought about seeing a man about it while I was up in London anyhow. And then, just as I was starting for the train, that beastly metaphone thing in my room whistled. So I went and said ‘Who’s speaking?’—and—I may be an awful fool, you know, but I thought the thing said ‘It’s Brotherhood.’ And at that I fairly dropped the tube and raced for the train. Then in London I went to see this fool of a specialist, and of course he told me I’d been overdoing it.”
Gordon’s eyes twinkled. “You’d have saved yourself a couple of guineas at least,” he said, “if you’d talked to me earlier.”
“Oh! Why, what’s the point?”
“Well—that stick. It had a perfect right to be in Reeves’ room. He found it yesterday afternoon on the railway line; Brotherhood must have dropped it when—he fell. So of course Reeves brought it back here, and it was standing up against his chair last night. There was nobody sitting there.”
“But hang it all, I swear I heard somebody breathing.”
“You did. That was just bad luck. The fact is, Reeves and I were fooling about inside that secret passage, and saw you come in. And the breathing was done by Reeves, off.”
“Good Lord! Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, you didn’t give us much chance, did you, going and locking yourself up in your room like that? And then this morning Reeves phoned you up from the steward’s office to tell you the news.”
“What news?”
“That the mystery about Brotherhood’s murder was solved.”
“Oh, yes—Davenant did it, didn’t he? They were telling me about it at the station.”
“Well, you see, Reeves must have started by saying ‘About Brotherhood,’ or something like that. And then, like a fool, you dropped the tube and legged it for London.”
“Well, upon my word! Do you know, Gordon, now I come to think of it, I don’t mind if I do.”
XXIV
Gordon Offers the Consolation of Philosophy1
Gordon fell into Reeves’ other armchair and shouted with laughter. Nothing could be more disagreeable to nerves already jangled. Reeves almost shook him into position, demanding explanations.
“It’s all right,” he said at last. “You get all the luck, Reeves. Marryatt wasn’t listening at the other end of the metaphone. And all the time you were talking through it, it was just a soliloquy.”
“Thank God for that! But how did you explain it all? What did you tell him?”
“Oh, I just told him the truth—part of the truth. And you must really get out of that habit of wheezing, because it was your wheezing behind the secret panel that made Marryatt think it was Brotherhood’s ghost sitting in your room last night!”
“You mean that’s what frightened Marryatt? Why did he run away this morning, then?”
“He thought it was Brotherhood telephoning to him. Lord, what a day!”
“And you’ve explained everything to him?”
“Yes, I’ve explained it all; I’d have explained it yesterday, if you’d let me.”
“Come now, don’t try and persuade me you didn’t think yourself that Marryatt was guilty?”
“Guilty of murder? Not for a single, solitary moment. I did think there was something wrong with him—so there was, he was hag-ridden with nightmare about Brotherhood. But I never agreed with you about Marryatt being a murderer, and, to do me justice, I never said so.”
“That’s all very well, but you never showed me where I was wrong in my interpretation of the whole thing.”
“I know; it was no good showing you where you were wrong, because you were so confoundedly ingenious at devising fresh explanations. Honestly, I did put one or two difficulties to you, but in a second you’d persuaded yourself to believe that they were no difficulties at all. And of course there were heaps more.”
“Such as?”
“Well, you persisted in regarding the whole thing as a deliberate, carefully planned murder. But if you come to think of it, the circumstances that favoured the murder were just the sort of circumstances that couldn’t have been foreseen. How could a man like Marryatt know that
