“That’s the stuff,” said Prenderby with enthusiasm. “If you don’t mind, I’ll drop down on you afterwards to hear how things have progressed. Hullo!”
He paused, listening. “There’s someone coming down the passage now,” he said. “Look here, if it’s all the same to you I’ll continue the melodrama and get into that press.”
He slipped into the big wardrobe at the far end of the room and closed the carved door behind him just as the footsteps paused in the passage outside and someone knocked.
On opening the door, Abbershaw found, as he had expected, Dr. Whitby on the threshold. The man was in a pitiable state of nerves. His thin grey hair was damp and limp upon his forehead, and his hands twitched visibly.
“Dr. Abbershaw,” he began, “I am sorry to trouble you so late at night, but I wonder if you would do something for us.”
“My dear sir, of course.” Abbershaw radiated good humour, and the other man warmed immediately.
“I think you know,” he said, “I am Colonel Coombe’s private physician. He has been an invalid for some years, as I dare say you are aware. In point of fact, a most unfortunate thing has happened, which although we have known for some time that it must come soon, is none the less a great shock. Colonel Coombe’s seizure this evening has proved fatal.”
Abbershaw’s expression was a masterpiece: his eyebrows rose, his mouth opened.
“Dear, dear! How very distressing!” he said with that touch of pomposity which makes a young man look more foolish than anything else. “Very distressing,” he repeated, as if another thought had suddenly struck him. “It’ll break up the party, of course.”
Dr. Whitby hesitated. “Well,” he said, “we had hoped not.”
“Not break up the party?” exclaimed Abbershaw, looking so profoundly shocked that the other hastened to explain.
“The deceased was a most eccentric man,” he murmured confidentially. “His last words were a most urgently expressed desire for the party to continue.”
“A little trying for all concerned,” Abbershaw commented stiffly.
“Just so,” said his visitor. “That is really why I came to you. It has always been the Colonel’s wish that he should be cremated immediately after his decease, and, as a matter of fact, all preparations have been made for some time. There is just the formality of the certificate, and I wonder if I might bother you for the necessary signature.”
He hesitated doubtfully, and shot a glance at the little red-haired man in the dressing-gown. But Abbershaw was ready for him.
“My dear sir, anything I can do, of course. Let’s go up there now, shall we?”
All traces of nervousness had vanished from Whitby’s face, and a sigh of relief escaped his lips as he escorted the obliging Dr. Abbershaw down the long, creaking corridor to the Colonel’s room.
It was a vast old-fashioned apartment, high-ceilinged, and not too well lit. Panelled on one side, it was hung on the other with heavy curtains, ancient and dusty. Not at all the sort of room that appealed to Abbershaw as a bedchamber for an invalid.
A huge four-poster bed took up all the farther end of the place, and upon it lay something very still and stiff, covered by a sheet. On a small table near the wide fireplace were pen and ink and a cremation certificate form; standing near it was Jesse Gideon, one beautiful hand shining like ivory upon the polished wood.
Abbershaw had made up his mind that the only way to establish or confute his suspicions was to act quickly, and assuming a brisk and officious manner he strode across the room rubbing his hands.
“Heart failure?” he said, in a tone that was on the verge of being cheerful. “A little unwonted excitement, perhaps—a slightly heavier meal—anything might do it. Most distressing—most distressing. Visitors in the house too.”
He was striding up and down as he spoke, at every turn edging a little nearer the bed.
“Now let me see,” he said suddenly. “Just as a matter of form of course …” On the last word, moving with incredible swiftness, he reached the bedside and flicked the sheet from the dead man’s face.
The effect was instantaneous. Whitby caught his arm and dragged him back from the bed, and from the shadows a figure that Abbershaw had not noticed before came out silently. The next moment he recognized Dawlish, the man who looked like Beethoven. His face was still expressionless, but there was no mistaking the menace in his attitude as he came forward, and the young scientist realized with a little thrill of excitement that the veneer was off and that he was up against an antagonistic force.
The moment passed, however, and in the next instant he had the situation in hand again, with added advantage of knowing exactly where he stood. He turned a mildly apologetic face to Whitby.
“Just as a matter of form,” he repeated. “I like to make a point of seeing the body. Some of us are a little too lax, I feel, in a matter like this. After all, cremation is cremation. I’m not one of those men who insist on a thorough examination, but I just like to make sure that a corpse is a corpse, don’t you know.”
He laughed as he spoke, and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at the face of the man on the bed. The momentary tension in the room died down. The heavy-faced Dawlish returned to his corner, Gideon became suave again, and the doctor stood by Abbershaw a little less apprehensively.
“Death actually took place up here, I suppose?” Abbershaw remarked conversationally, and shot a quick sidelong glance at
