just one cartridge in the breech. Then the drawer closed.
Death had come into the room now.
'Sit down, gentlemen,' urged Dr. Fell. Saunders' blank eyes were still on the closed drawer. The doctor glanced over at Robert Saunders, who was standing with a stupid expression on his brown face and his fists clenched. 'Sit down, gentlemen. I must tell you how he did these murders, if he refuses to tell, himself. It isn't a pretty story. If you, Miss Starberth, would care to withdraw…?'
'Please go,' said Rampole, in a low voice. 'I'll go along.'
'No!' she cried, and he knew that she was fighting down hysteria. 'I've stood it so far. I won't go. You can't make me. If he did it, I want to know..'
The rector had recovered himself, though his voice was husky.
'By all means stay, Miss Starberth,' he boomed. 'You are the one with a right to hear this madman's story. He can't tell you — he, or anybody else, can't tell you how I could be sitting with him in this very house — and still throw your brother off the balcony of the Governor's Room.'
Dr. Fell spoke loudly and sharply. He said:
'I didn't say you threw him from the balcony. He was never thrown from the balcony at all.'
There was a silence. Dr. Fell leaned against the mantelpiece, one arm stretched along it and his eyes half shut. He went on, thoughtfully:
'There are several reasons why he wasn't. When you found him, he was lying on his right side. And his right hip was broken. But his watch, in the watch-pocket of his trousers, was not only unbroken, but still kept ticking without a flaw. A drop of fifty feet — it can't be done, you know. We will come back to that watch in a moment.
'Now, on the night of the murder it rained heavily. It rained, to be exact, from just before eleven o'clock until precisely one. The next morning, when we went up to the Governor's Room, we found the iron door to the balcony standing open. You remember? Martin Starberth was, presumably, murdered about ten minutes to twelve. The door, presumably also, was open then, and remained open. An hour's heavy rain, we must assume, drove in at that door. Certainly it drove against the window — a much smaller space, and choked with ivy. The next morning there were large rain-water pools under the window. But not a drop of rain had come in at the door; the floor around it was dry, gritty, and even dusty.
'In other words, gentlemen,' the doctor said, calmly, 'the door had not been opened until after one o'clock, after the rain had stopped. It didn't blow open; it is so heavy that you can barely wrench it out. Somebody opened it afterwards, in the middle of the night, to set his stage.'
Another pause. The rector sat stiffly upright. The lamplight showed a twitching nerve beside his cheekbone.
'Martin Starberth was a very heavy smoker,' continued Dr. Fell. 'He was frightened, and nervous, and he had been smoking steadily all that day. In a vigil of the sort he had to undergo it is not too far fetched to believe that he would have smoked even more heavily during his wait…. A full cigarette-case and matches were found on his body. There was not one single cigarette-stub on the floor of the Governor's Room.'
The doctor spoke leisurely. As though his recital had given him an idea, he produced his own pipe.
'Undoubtedly, however, there had been somebody in the Governor's Room. And just there is where the murderer's plan miscarried. Had they gone according to schedule, there would have been no necessity for a wild dash across the meadow when the light went out. We should have waited, and found Martin's body after a decently long interval, when he did not reappear. But-remark this, as Mr. Rampole has — the light went out just ten minutes too soon.
'Now it was fortunate that the murderer, in smashing Martin's hip to simulate a fall from the balcony, did not smash Martin's watch. It was running, and it had the right time. Let us suppose (for the sake of a hypothesis) that it had really been Martin waiting in the Governor's Room. When his vigil was ended, he would have switched off his lamp and gone home. He would have known, at ten minutes to twelve, that his time was not yet up. But, if there were somebody else keeping vigil in his place, and this somebody's watch happened to be ten minutes fast…?'
Sir Benjamin Arnold got up from his chair like a man groping blindly.
'Herbert?' he said.
'We knew that Herbert's watch was just ten minutes fast,' the doctor said. 'He ordered the housemaid to set the grandfather clock; but she discovered that it was wrong, and left the other clocks as they were. And while Herbert was keeping the vigil for the cousin who was too frightened to do it, his cousin was already lying with his neck broken in the Hag's Nook.'
'But still I don't see how?' Sir Benjamin paused bewilderedly.
The telephone in the hall rang with a suddenness that made them all jump.
'You'd better answer it, Inspector,' suggested the doctor; 'it's probably your men phoning here from the rectory.
Saunders had risen now. His fleshy jowls had the look of a sick dog's. He started to say. 'Most preposterous! Most — ' in a way that sounded horribly as though he were burlesquing his usual voice. Then he stumbled against the edge of the chair and sat down again….
They could bear Inspector Jennings talking in the hall.
Presently he came back into the study, with an even more wooden face.
'It's all up, sir,' he said to Dr. Fell. 'They've been down in the cellar. The motor-bicycle is broken in bits and buried there. They've found a Browning pistol, a pair of gardener's gloves, some valises full of?'
Sir Benjamin said, incredulous, 'You swine '
'Wait!' cried the rector. He had gotten to his feet again, his hand moving like some one scratching at a door. 'You don't know the story. You don't know anything — just guesses — part of it'
'I don't know this story,' snarled Robert Saunders, 'and I've kept quiet long enough. I want to know about Tom. Where is he? Did you kill him, too? How long have you been posing here?'
'He died!' the other said, desperately. 'I had nothing to do with it. He died. I swear to God I never did anything to him. I just wanted quiet, and peace, and respect, and I took his place….'
Aimless fingers were fumbling in the air. 'Listen. All I want is a little time to think. I only want to sit here and close my eyes. You caught me so suddenly. Listen. I'll write you out everything, the whole story, and you'd never know it if I didn't. Not even you, Doctor. If I sit down here, now, and write it, will you promise to stop?'
He was almost like a huge and blubbering child. Looking at him narrowly, Dr. Fell said:
'I think you'd better let him, Inspector. He can't get away. And you can walk about the lawn, if you like.'
Inspector Jennings was impassive. 'Our instructions from Sir William, sir, at the Yard, were to take orders from you. Very well.'
The rector drew himself up. Again that weird burlesque of his old mannerisms. 'There is — ah — only one other thing. I must insist that Dr. Fell explain certain things to me, as I can explain certain things to you. In view of our past-friendship, will you be so good as to sit down here with me a few moments when the others have gone?'
A protest was almost out of Rampole's mouth. He was going to say, 'There's a gun in that drawer! — ' when he saw that Dr. Fell was looking at him. The lexicographer was casually lighting his pipe beside the fireplace, and his squinted eyes were asking for silence over the flame of the match….
It was almost dark now. A furious and wildly threatening Robert Saunders had to be led out by the inspector and Sir Benjamin. Rampole and the girl went out into the dim hallway. The last thing they saw was the doctor still lighting his pipe, and Thomas Saunders, his chin up and his expression indifferent, reaching towards the writing- table…
The door closed.
Chapter 18
STATEMENT
6:15 P.M.
