With his forefinger Dr. Fell was making a pattern in the dust of the table, like a child drawing, with the utmost absorption. He muttered:
'It can't be an amateur. The thing's too perfect. It can't be. But it's got to be, unless they tell me differently. And if he isn't, it must be a high stake.'
Rampole somewhat irritably asked what he was talking about.
'I was talking,' the doctor replied, 'about a visit to London.'
With an effort he hoisted himself to his feet on the two canes; he stood fiery and lowering, blinking about the room behind his glasses. Then he shook one stick at the walls like a schoolmaster.
'Your secret's out,' he rumbled. 'You can't scare anybody now.'
'There's still a murderer,' Rampole said.
'Yes. And, Miss Starberth, it's your father who has kept him here. Your father left that note in the vault, as I explained to you the other day. The murderer thinks he's safe. He has waited nearly three years to get that condemning paper back. Well, he isn't safe.'
'You know who it is?'
'Come along,' said the doctor, brusquely. 'We've got to get home. I need a cup of tea or a bottle of beer, preferably the latter. And my wife will be returning from Mrs. Payne's before long… '
'Look here, sir,' Rampole persisted; 'do you know who the murderer is?'
Dr. Fell pondered.
'It's still raining hard,' he responded, at length, with the air of one meditating a move at chess. 'Do you see how much water has accumulated under that window?'
'Yes, of course, but?'
'And do you see,' he indicated the closed door to the balcony, 'that none has got in through there?' 'Naturally.'
'But if that door were open there would be much more water there than under the window, wouldn't there?'
If the doctor were doing all this merely for the purpose of mystification, Rampole could not tell it. The lexicographer was looking through his glasses in a rather cross-eyed fashion, and pinching at his moustache. Rampole grimly resolved to hang on to the coat-tails of the comet.
'Undoubtedly, sir,' he agreed.
'Then,' said the other, triumphantly, 'why didn't we see his light?'
'O God!' said Rampole, with a faint groan.
'It's like a conjuring trick. Do you know,' enquired Dr. Fell, pointing with one cane, 'what Tennyson said of Browning's 'Sordello'?'
'No, sir.'
'He said that the only things you could understand in the poem were the first line and the last-and that both of 'em were lies. Well, that's the key to this business. Come along, children, and have some tea.'
There might still have been terror in the house of whips and hangings. But Rampole did not feel it when he led the way down again with his light.
Back in the lamplit warmth of. Dr. Fell's house, they found Sir Benjamin Arnold waiting for them in the study.
Chapter 14
Sir Benjamin was moody. He had been cursing the rain, and, afterwards, the presence of strong language was still as palpable as a whisky breath. They found him looking hungrily at the cold tea-things before the study fire.
'Halloa!' said Dr. Fell. 'My wife not back yet? How did you get in?'
'I walked in,' the chief constable responded, with dignity. 'The door was open. Somebody's been neglecting a jolly good tea… I say, what about a drink?
'We-ah-had tea,' said Rampole.
The chief constable was aggrieved. 'I want a brandy-and-soda. Everybody is pursuing me. First the rector. His uncle — New Zealander — old friend of mine; I got the rector the parish here — is making his first trip to England in ten years, and the rector wants me to meet him. How the devil can I go away? The rector's a New Zealander. Let him go to Southampton. Then Payne…'
'What's wrong with Payne?' asked Dr. Fell.
'He wants the door of the Governor's Room sealed up with bricks for good. Says its purpose is over now. Well, I only hope it is. But we can't do it yet. Payne always has a kind of mental toothache about something. Finally, since the last Starberth male heir is dead, Dr. Markley wants the well filled up.'
Dr. Fell puffed out his cheeks. 'We certainly can't do that,' he agreed. 'Sit down. There's something we've got to tell you.'
While the doctor was pouring out stiff drinks at the sideboard, he told Sir Benjamin everything that had happened that afternoon. During the recital, Rampole was watching the girl's face. She had not spoken much since Dr. Fell had begun to explain what lay behind the Starberths; but she seemed to see peace.
Sir Benjamin was flapping his hands behind his back. His damp clothes exhaled a strong odour of tweed and tobacco.
'I don't doubt it, I don't doubt it,' he grumbled. 'But why did you have to be so confoundedly long about telling this? We've lost a lot of time.- Still, it doesn't alter what we've got to face-that Herbert's the only one who could be guilty. Inquest said so.'
'Does that reassure you?'
'No. Damn it. I don't think the boy's guilty. But what else can we do?'
'No trace of him yet?'
'Oh, he's been reported everywhere; but they haven't found him. In the meantime, I repeat, what else can we do?'
'We can investigate the hiding-place Anthony made, for one thing.'
'Yes. If this infernal cipher, or whatever it is… Let's have a look. I suppose we have your permission, Miss Starberth?'
She smiled faintly. 'Of course — now. But I am inclined to think Dr. Fell has been overconfident. Here's my own copy.'
Dr. Fell was seated spread out in his favourite armchair, his pipe glowing and a bottle of beer beside him. With white hair and whiskers, he could have made a passable double for Father Christmas. He watched benignly as Sir Benjamin studied the verses. Rampole's own pipe was drawing well, and he sat back comfortably on the red sofa where, in an, unobtrusive way, he could touch Dorothy's hand. With his other hand he held a drink. Thus, he reflected, there were all the requisites of life.
The chief constable's horsy eyes squinted up. He read aloud:
Slowly he read the lines again, in a lower voice. Then he said with heat:
'Look here, this is nonsense!'
'Ah!' said Dr. Fell, like one who savours a rare bouquet of wine.
'It's just a lot of crackbrain poetry?' 'Verse,' corrected Dr. Fell.
'Well, it certainly isn't any cryptogram, whatever it is.
