Hag's Nook

and called for Mr. Saunders.'

'And you, Mr. Saunders?'

'For for myself, Sir Benjamin,' the rector said, giving the title its full value, 'I was almost to the gate of the prison when I — ah — heard Mr. Rampole's summons. I thought it somewhat odd that he should go directly towards the Hag's Nook, and tried to beckon him. But there was scarcely time to think much.' He frowned judicially.

'Quite. When you stumbled on the body, Mr. Rampole, it was lying at the edge of the well, directly beneath the balcony?'

'Yes.'

'How lying? — I mean, on its back or face?'

Rampole reflected, closing his eyes. All he could think of was the wetness of the face. 'On his side, I think. Yes, I'm certain.'

'Left or right?'

'I don't know… wait a minute! Yes, I do. It was the right

Doctor Fell bent forward unexpectedly, poking the table sharply with his cane. 'You're sure of that?' he demanded. 'You're sure of it, now, boy? Remember, it's easy to be confused.'

The other nodded. Yes — feeling that dead man's neck, bending over and finding it all squashed into his right shoulder; he nodded fiercely, to drive away the image. 'It was the right,' he answered. 'I'll swear to it

'That is quite correct, Sir Benjamin,' the rector affirmed, putting his finger tips together.

'Very well. What did you do next, Mr. Rampole?'

'Why, Mr. Saunders got there, and we weren't certain what to do. All we could think of was getting him out of the wet. So first we thought we'd carry him down to the cottage here, and then we didn't want to frighten Mrs. Fell; so we took him up and. put him in a room just inside the prison. Oh, yes-and we found the bicycle lamp he'd been using for a light. I tried to work it so as to give us some light, but it had been smashed by the fall.'

'Where was this lamp? In his hand?'

'No. It was some distance away from him. It looked as though it had been pitched over the balcony; I mean, it was too far away for him to have been carrying it.'

The chief constable tapped his fingers on the table. A spiral of wrinkles ascended his leathery neck as he kept his head sideways, staring at Rampole.

'That point,' he said, 'may be of the utmost importance in the coroner's verdict between accident, suicide, or murder…. According to Dr. Markley, young Starberth's skull was fractured, either by the fall or by a heavy blow with what we generally term a blunt instrument; his neck was broken, and there were other contusions of a heavy fall. But we can go into that later…. What next, Mr. Rampole?'

'I stayed with him while Mr. Saunders went down to tell Dr. Fell and drive to Chatterham after Dr. Markley. I just waited, striking matches and — I mean, I just waited.'

He shuddered.

'Thank you. Mr. Saunders?'

'There is little more to add, Sir Benjamin,' Saunders returned; his mind on details. 'I drove to Chatterham, after instructing Dr. Fell to telephone to the Hall, speak to Budge, the butler, and inform him what had happened…. '

'That fool?' Dr. Fell began explosively. As the rector glanced at him in shocked surprise he added: 'Budge, I mean. Budge isn't worth a two-ounce bottle in a crisis. He repeated what I said over the phone, and — I heard somebody scream; and, instead of keeping it from Miss Starberth until somebody could tell her gently, she knew it that minute.'

'As I was saying, Sir Benjamin — of course you're right, Doctor; it was most inopportune — as I was saying,' the rector went on, with the air of a man trying to please several people at once, 'I drove to get Dr. Markley, stopping only at the rectory to procure myself a raincoat; then we returned, taking Dr. Fell to the prison with us. After a brief examination, Dr. Markley said there was nothing to do but notify the police. We took the-the body to the Hall in my car.”

He seemed about to say more, but he shut his lips suddenly. There was an enormous pressure of silence, as though everyone had checked himself in the act of speaking, too. The chief constable had opened a large claspknife and begun to sharpen a pencil; the small quick rasps of the knife against lead were so loud that Sir Benjamin glanced up sharply.

'You questioned the people at the Hall?' he asked.

'We did,' said Dr. Fell. 'She was bearing up admirably. We got a clear, concise account of everything that had happened that evening, both from her and from Budge. The other servants we did not disturb.'

'Never mind. I had better get it first hand from them. - Did you speak to young Herbert?'

'We did not,' the doctor responded, after a pause. 'Just after dinner last night, according to Budge, he packed a bag and left the Hall on his motor-cycle. He has not returned.'

Sir Benjamin laid down knife and pencil on the table. He sat rigid, staring at the other. Then he took off his pincenez, polished it on an old handkerchief; his eyes, from being sharp, suddenly looked weak and sunken.

'Your implication,' he said at length, 'is absurd.'

'Quite,' echoed the rector, looking straight ahead of him.

'It's not any implication. Good God!' Dr. Fell rumbled, and slapped the ferrule of his cane against the floor. 'You said you wanted facts. But you don't want facts at all. You want me to say something like, `Of course there is the little point that Herbert Starberth went to Lincoln to the cinema, taking some clothes to leave at the laundry, and that he left the theatre so late he undoubtedly decided to spend the night with a friend.' Those implications would be what you call the facts. But I give you the plain facts, and you call them implications.'

'By Jove!' the rector said, thoughtfully, 'he might have done just that, you know.'

'Good,' said Dr. Fell. 'Now we can tell everybody just what he did. But don't call it a fact. That's the important thing.”

The Chief Constable made an irritable gesture.

'He didn't tell anybody he was going?'

'Not unless he mentioned it to somebody other than Miss Starberth or Budge.'

'Ah. Well, I'll talk to them. I don't want to hear anything more…. I say, there were no bad feelings between him and Martin, were there?'

'If there were, he concealed 'em admirably.'

Saunders, stroking a plump pink chin, offered: 'He may have come back by this time, you know. We haven't been at the Hall since last night.'

Dr. Fell grunted. Rising with obvious reluctance, Sir Benjamin stood and worked with the point of his knife at the table blotter. - Then he made a schoolmaster's gesture, compressing his lips again.

'If you gentlemen don't mind, we'll go and have a look at the Governor's Room. I take it none of you went up there last night?… Good. - Then we shall begin with unprejudiced minds.'

'I wonder,' said Dr. Fell.

Something said, 'Oooo-o' and gave a fluttering jump as they left the study, and Mrs. Fell went scuttling down the hall. They could see by the police constable's distracted expression that she had been talking-to him; and the constable was holding, with obvious embarrassment, a large doughnut.

'Put that thing down, Withers,' the chief constable rasped, 'and come with us. You've posted a man at the prison?… Good. Come along.'

They went out into the highroad, Sir Benjamin in the lead with his old Norfolk jacket f!ying and a battered hat stuck on the side of his head. Nobody spoke until they had climbed the hill to the great gate of the prison. The iron grating which. had once barred it sagged open in rusty drunkenness; Rampole remembered how it had jarred and squeaked when they had carried Martin Starberth's body inside. A dark passage, cold and alive with gnats, ran straight back. Coming in here out of the sunlight was like entering a spring-house.

'I've been in here once or twice,' the chief constable said, peering round curiously, 'but I don't remember the arrangement of the rooms. Doctor, will you lead the way?

“I say! The Governor's Room part of the place is kept locked, isn't it? Suppose young Starberth locked the outer door of the room when he went in; how do we manage it? I should have got the keys from his clothes.'

'If somebody chucked him over that balcony,' Dr. Fell grunted, 'you can rest assured the murderer had to get