'But, man,' I said, 'nobody could have-'
'Ah, just so. Just so. Nobody could have.' He nodded, dully. 'I don't think the key to that padlock will be of much use now. I could see the inside of the door. It's bolted, and there's a big bar across it too.... It's a trick, I tell you! It's got to be a trick, somehow! Bert! Where the hell are you, Bert?'
Lights crossed again as McDonnell stumbled round the side of the house. And McDonnell was afraid: I saw that in the glaze of his greenish eyes, shutting up as the light struck them, and the twitch of his narrow face. There was a wild contrast in the rakishness of his hat, which was pulled over one eye with a sort of sodden jauntiness. He said: 'Here, sir. Young Latimer had the key. Here it is. Has anything-?' He swept out his hand.
'Give it to me. We'll try.... What the devil have you got in your other hand?'
McDonnell blinked, stared, and then looked down. 'Why- Nothing, sir. They're cards-playing cards, you know.' He exposed a handful, in one of those movements of conscious grotesqueness suited to what he carried in that place. 'It was the medium. You said to keep an eye on him when you were out. And he wanted to play Rummy '
'To play Rummy?'
'Yes, sir. I think he's dotty, sir; clean off his head. But he got out the cards, and-'
'Did you let him get out of your sight?'
'No, sir; I did not.' McDonnell thrust out his jaw; his eyes were level and positive for the first time. 'I'll swear I didn't.'
Masters snapped something and took the key out of his hand; but it did no good to open the padlock on the door. The three of us hurled our shoulders at the door together without even shaking it.
'No good,' Masters panted. 'Axes: that's what we need. Only thing'll do it. Yes, yes, he's dead, Bert! - don't keep asking fool questions! I know a corpse when I see one. But we've got to get in there. Nip back to the house, and look in that room where there's some wood piled; see if you can find a fair-sized log. We'll use it for a battering-ram, and maybe the wood's rotten enough to smash. Hop it, now.' Masters was sharp and practical now, though a trifle short of breath. He played his light round the yard. 'No footprints anywhere near this door - no footprints anywhere. That's what sticks me. Besides, I was here, I was watching....'
'What happened?' I demanded. 'I was reading that manuscript.... 'Eh, ah. Just so. Do you know how long you were at it - a-mooning, sir?' He did not sound pleasant. Then he hauled out a notebook. 'Reminds me. I'd better put that down. Noted the time when I heard the bell. Time: 1:15 exactly. 'Heard bell, one-fifteen.' Ha. Now, sir, you were sitting there a-mooning that long, maybe you found something out. That's near on three quarters of an hour.'
'Masters,' I said, 'I didn't see or hear anything. Unless ... you say you were out at the back. Did you pass the door of the room where I was sitting when you went out?'
He was twisted round, his torch propped under one arm with its beam focused on the notebook. His muddy fingers stopped writing.
'Ah! Passed your door, eh? When was that?'
'I don't know. While I was reading. I had such a strong feeling of it that I got up and looked out the door, but I didn't see anybody'
'Haaa-!' said the inspector, rather ghoulishly. 'Wait a bit, though. Is that facts - you know what I mean: hard, absolute, really 'appened facts, that no counsel could shake - or is it only more impressions? You'll admit you've had a lot of those impressions, you know.'
I told him it was a hard, absolute, really 'appened fact, and he smeared the notebook again.
'Because, Mr. Blake, it wasn't me. I came out the front door, and round the side of the house: as you'll hear. Now, can you give any description of those steps, say Man or woman, eh? Kind of walk-fast or slow; something that'd be helpful?'
This was impossible. It was a brick floor, and the sounds had been only half-heard in the midst of cryings and shadows built up from George Playge's manuscript. That they were quick footsteps, as of one anxious to escape being seen, was all I could tell him.
'Well, sir, then here's what happened after Bert and I left you.... I'd better get it down on paper. They'll be asking . . . and I shall catch hell for all this. Down on paper.... Do you know what that crowd was doing, what they've been doing for the last half-hour?' Masters demanded bitterly. 'Yes, you've guessed it. Round a circle in the dark. Exactly as they were a week ago tonight, when somebody slipped that fake message among the papers and scared Darworth. How could I prevent 'em?'
'A seance-' I said. 'Yes, but what about Joseph?'
'It wasn't a seance. They were praying. And there, if you look at it, is the fishy part of the whole thing. They didn't want Joseph there. The old lady was a bit heated about it. She said Darworth had given specific instructions that Joseph was not to be present: some sort of bosh about his being a strong psychic, which would only tend to gather bad influences rather than ... I don't know. But McDonnell and I took him in hand instead. Ha. Little enough we got out of him, or them either, for that matter. They wouldn't talk.'
'Did you tell them you were a police officer?'
Masters made a sound through his nostrils. 'Yes. And it only made a mug of me. What right had I to do anything?' He brooded. 'The old lady only opened and shut her hands, and said, 'I thought so.' I thought the young fellow – Latimer was going to come after me with a poker. Only one who tried pacifying me was the old gentleman. Ah, and they ordered me out of their prayer-meeting, too. If it hadn't been for Mr. Halliday I should have been chucked out altogether.... Here we come. Bert!' he shouted towards the house. 'Get Mr. Halliday with you on that log, and keep the rest back. Make 'em get back, d'ye hear?'
There was a shrilling of protest, mingled with the sound of argument, at the back door. Trundling a heavy log, McDonnell bumped it down the steps against the uncertain gleam of candles that others were holding high. Halliday picked up the other end of the log, and they stumbled out towards us.
'Well?' Halliday demanded. 'Well? McDonnell says---“
Masters interrupted: 'He says nothing, sir. Catch hold here; two of us each side. Aim for the center of the door, and we'll try to split it in half. Torches in your pockets; use both hands. Ready, when I give the word ... now!'
The noise of the separate crashes blasted in that enclosed space, and seemed to make windows tingle roundabout. Four times we drove that ram at the door, slipping in the muck, drawing back, and plunging again at Masters' word. You could feel it cracking, but the old iron snapped before the wood. A fifth time, and Masters' light was playing on two halves splintered cleanly down.
Breathing hard, Masters drew on a pair of gloves, lifted one sagging flap, and slid through it on his knees. I followed him. Across the center of the door, a large iron bar was still wedged into its socket. As I ducked under it, Masters turned his light round to the back of the door. Not only was the bar still in place, but a long and rusty iron bolt, of the type common in seventeenth-century houses, was shot into place. When Masters tested it with his gloved hand, a stiff wrench of the wrist was required to draw it out. The door had no lock or keyhole: only a dummy handle of the type nailed on outside. So closely did it fit the door-frame all around that the brittle iron binding had been crushed and. ripped out.
'Take note,' said Masters, gruffly; 'and now stand where you are - turn round be sure there's nobody here.... '
I whirled round quickly; for I had glimpsed fragments of the sight as I crawled inside, and it was not one for a weak stomach. The air was foul, for the chimney could not have drawn well, and Darworth had evidently been burning spices in the immense fire. Then, too, there was an odor of singeing hair.
In the wall towards our left (the same narrow side of the oblong through whose window Masters had seen the body), in this wall was the fireplace. The fire had sunk lower now, but it was heaped into a red-glowing mass that threw out fierce heat. It still winked invitingly, and it looked demoniac. A man was lying in front of it, his head almost among the embers.
He was a tall man, with a sort of shattered elegance about him. He lay partly on his right side, hunched and shrunken as though with pain. His cheek was against the floor, head twisted round towards the door in what might have been a last effort to look up. But he never could have looked up, even had he been alive. Evidently in the fall forward, his eyeglasses - with a little gold chain going round to his ear-had been smashed in his eyes. From this ruin the blood had run down over his face, past the teeth of the wide-open mouth now wrenched back in agony, and into his silky brown beard. The heavy brown hair had been worn long; it had tumbled out grotesquely over his ears, and
