As it died away, Anthony saw that the other was speaking. He had not moved in his chair, but his strong, square hands were twisting about each other to testify to the intensity of his emotion.
“What are you telling me?” he whispered. “Are you mad? John not dead! John not dead! Why, it’s idiocy—stark idiocy to say what you have said!”
Anthony shook his head. “It isn’t. Whatever it is, it isn’t that. Wait till I have told you more. It’s a long tale and strange.”
Sir Arthur moistened his lips with his tongue but did not speak. Anthony’s words had carried conviction; his words and a way he had of commanding attention.
The thunder, after the outburst of a moment before, seemed to have ceased entirely. No sudden furies of wind shook the house. The only sounds in the oppressive room were the tick-tick of the grandfather clock and the soft hish-hish of the rain against the closed windows.
Anthony drew a deep breath, and began:—
“My first impression of this affair was, as you know, that it was a straightforward murder, committed by some member of this household. Later, I had good reason to search this table here, and it was from the time of that search that I began to revise my theories. In this table I found—as I had expected—a drawer hidden from the casual eye. From that drawer I took some letters, a collection of newspaper-cuttings, a memorandum book, and other papers. You shall see them all in due course.
“The letters gave me my first inkling that there was something more obscure about the case than I had thought. So I went to the lady who had written those letters. From her I got the first pieces of the story, not without difficulty. I also went to see a man who had once been Hoode’s secretary. He was obliging and clever. He had seen things, heard things, while he served Hoode, that had set him thinking. He thought so much that he employed, on his own initiative, a private detective. I have seen the detective. The detective, even after he was told to drop the business, went on detecting. You see, he had become interested. He is not a nice man. He smelt scandal and money. He, without knowing it, has helped me to piece together the whole amazing story—the story which shows how it was that John Hoode was not killed.” Anthony paused, taking a last puff at his cigarette.
Sir Arthur, gray of face, hammered with his fists on the leather-padded arms of his chair.
“But the body!” he gasped. “The body! It was there!” He glanced wildly over his shoulder at the fireplace. “I saw it! I tell you I saw it!” His voice gathered strength. “And the inquest, the arrests, the identifications! And the funeral! Why, you fool!” he cried in a great voice, “the funeral is tomorrow. All England will be there! And you tell me this absurd story. What in God’s name has come to you that you can play pranks of this sort? Haven’t we all suffered enough without this?” The man was shaking.
Anthony sat up. “Wait!” he said. “And let me finish. I said that John Hoode had not been murdered. I did not say that no murder had been done. Murder was done. I know it. You know it. The world knows it. But what you and the world do not know is that the body upon which the inquest was held, the body which is to be buried tomorrow, is not the body of John Hoode!”
Sir Arthur glared at him. “What does this mean?” he said, and his lips trembled. “What is all this? I don’t understand! I—I—”
Sleep was creeping insidiously upon Anthony. He wished that the storm had not ceased. Its violence had at least helped to keep one awake, helped to conquer this deadly fatigue which made talking so great an effort.
He began again: “The story is this. And though it’s as mad as Hatta and the King’s Messenger, it’s true. John Hoode’s mother, as you probably know, was, before marriage, a Miss Monteith. His father, as you must know also, was John Howard Beauleigh Hoode. Now, do you know that your John Hoode is very like—to look at, I mean—one of his parents and not the other?”
“Yes, yes. He and his father were—well like twin brothers almost.”
“Exactly. John Howard Beauleigh Hoode had a way of passing on his features. John Howard Beauleigh Hoode was married to Miss Adeline Rose Monteith in ’73. In ’72 John Howard Beauleigh Hoode’s mistress, the daughter of Ian Dougal—he was a smith in Ardenross—gave birth to a son. That son, named also John, was maintained and educated at his father’s expense; but he turned out as complete a waster as any man well could be. John Hoode—your John—didn’t know of his half-brother’s existence until John Howard Beauleigh Hoode’s death. When he did find out—from his father’s executors, I imagine—John—your John—was good to his bastard brother; and when first he saw him, he marvelled exceedingly at this bastard brother’s likeness to him, for to look at his face was almost like looking into a mirror.
“The result of his kindness was the expected. Ingratitude, surliness, constant demands for money and yet more money; finally threats and blackmail—”
“No, no, no!” groaned Sir Arthur, his face in his hands. “It’s all lies, lies! I knew John. He told me everything, everything!”
“Not he,” Anthony said. “I’ve all the papers. Some of them here.” He tapped his breast-pocket. “Birth certificates. Copy of John Howard Beauleigh Hoode’s will, and so on. It’s all by the book. Well, things went from bad to worse and from worse to intolerable for John—your John. These threats—I’ll show you some letters later—wore his nerves, his health, to shreds. He tried every way of kindness—and failed.” Anthony paused to moisten with his tongue his parched lips.
“Finally,” he went on,
