Q. In what?
A. (The witness showed amusement,- and grew more at ease). That's right, Inspector; I said soap. Sculpture,, you know. Mr. Darworth preferred and bought some more massive library-pieces in rock-salt. I admit they had life, but they lacked Dufour's delicacy of line....
Q. Now, come, Mr. Latimer; I'm afraid we're not interested in all that kind of thing. Lady Benning's told us about making Mr. Darworth's, acquaintance, and what happened then. I suppose you got to be pretty good friends?
A. I found him very interesting. A cultured man of the world, Inspector, such as we rarely find in England. He had studied under Dr. Adler, of Vienna - you know of him, of course? - and was himself a proficient psychiatrist. Of course, as one man of the world to another, we had many interesting talks.
Q. Know anything about his past life?
A. Not much that I remember. (Hesitation). At one time, though, I was very much in love with a young lady in Chelsea, and, ah, certain inhibitions were preventing me from making her my mistress. Mr. Darworth straightened out my difficulties, explaining that this was a fear complex due to her resemblance to a governess I had once had in childhood ... which adjusted my mind, and for some months afterward she and I were successfully adjusted.... But I remember Mr. Darworth mentioned he had once had a wife, now dead, with whom he had experienced a similar difficulty....
There was much more piffle of this description, in which Ted enjoyed himself and Masters was obviously shocked. No further facts were elicited. The whole affair, however, tended to make Ted more and more. kindly disposed towards Masters; growing, in fact, almost paternal.
Q. You introduced Mr. Darworth to your sister?
A. Oh, yes. Right away.
Q. Did she like him?
A. (Hesitation). Yes; she seemed to. Quite a lot. Of course, Inspector, Marion's a strange kid; not quite developed, if you understand me. thought he would do her good, explaining her own emotions to her.
Q. Urn, just so. Did you introduce him to Mr. Halliday?
A. You mean Dean? Oh, Marion did; or Lady Benning. I forget which.
Q. Did they get on well together?
A. Well, no. You see, Dean's a very good fellow, but he's a little pre-war and (N.B. I think the word here is bourgeois, although it is strangely spelled in Masters' account).
Q. But was there any definite trouble?
A. I don't know whether you'd call it trouble exactly. Dean told him one night that he had a mind to smash his face and hang him on the chandelier for luck. You see, it was hard to quarrel with old Darworth. He wouldn't take fire. Sometimes, confound him!
Pauses and mutterings; witness pressed to go on.
A.Well, all I can say is that I should like to have seen that fight. Dean's the fastest amateur middleweight I ever watched. I saw him flatten Tom Rutger....
This sudden splash f honesty, I could see, brought the young man up in Masters' estimation. The questioning went on rapidly. Darworth, it seemed, had plunged almost at once into occult matters. At Joseph's first seance there was mention of the uneasy ghost' at Plague Court, and the spiritual agonies of James Halliday. When this was mentioned to Darworth, he had grown more interested and disturbed; had many long conferences with Marion Latimer and Lady Benning, 'especially Marion'; had
borrowed Halliday's account in the form of the Playge letters; and, at the insistence of Lady Benning, the experiment was to be tried. Perhaps Masters made a mistake in dwelling too long on this. In any event, Ted had time to work himself into his old state of fanaticism. What loomed always larger, and swelled and assumed monstrous shapes, was the smiling figure f Darworth. It mocked us after death. We felt and fought, but could not break, the uncanny power he had exercised over these people: the grim old woman with her spites and dreams, the unstable young man sitting in the chair and glaring back at Masters.
The struggle grew, as question after question was flung at him. On one point, that boy was definitely mad. He rubbed his grimy face, he struck the arm of the chair; sometimes he laughed and sometimes he almost sobbed; as though it were Darworth who was the true ghost, standing at his elbow and prodding him to hysteria, in those chill hours before dawn. Masters was calling for full stage-thunder now.
Q. Very well! If you don't believe Darworth was killed by a human being, what have you to say to Joseph Dennis' statement that Darworth did fear somebody here - in this house - feared harm?
A. I say it's a damned lie. Are you going to take the word of a damned drug-addict?
Q. So you knew he was a drug-addict, did you?
A. I thought he might be.
Q. And you still believed in him?
A. What difference does that make? It didn't affect his psychic powers. Can't you see anything? A painter or composer doesn't lose his genius because of drugs or alcohol. God damn it, are you blind? It's just the opposite.
Q. Steady, sir. Do you deny that one of the people in that front room might have got up and gone out while you were all in the dark. Do you deny it? A. Yes!
Q. You will swear that nobody did? A. Yes!
Q. What if I told you that a chair was heard to creak in there, and the door open or close?
A. (Slight hesitation). Whoever says that is lying.
Q. Careful, now. Are you sure?
A. Yes. We might have shifted round in our chairs. Creakings! What's that, anyway? You sit in any dark room, and you'll hear plenty of creakings.
Q. How close were you sitting together?
A. I don't know. Two or three feet apart, maybe.
Q. But you did hear noises of some kind? So that one person might have got up, on a stone floor, and gone out without attracting attention?
A. I've just told you that nobody did.
Q. You were praying?
A. Rot! Absolute rot, like everything else. Praying! Of course not. Do I look like a pious Methodist? I was trying to establish communication to give, power to a mind exorcising the earthbound. I was focusing, as powerfully as I could. I-I could feel my brain almost bursting. Praying!
Q. In what order were you sitting; how arranged?
A. I'm not positive. Dean blew out the candles, and we were all standing up then. Then we started groping after the chairs that were already there. I was on .the extreme left of the fireplace, that's all I know. We were all flurried.
Q. But didn't you notice when you heard the bell, and you all got up again?
A. No. There was a lot of milling about in the dark. It was old Featherton who lit the candles, and he was swearing. The next thing I knew we were all going towards the door. I don't know who was where - or anything about it.
Masters let him go then. Masters offered to let him go home; but, although he was patently exhausted and on the verge of breaking-down, he refused to go until the others had gone.
The inspector brooded, his head in his hands. 'It's a worse muddle yet,' he said. 'They were all exalted or hysterical, or something. If we can't get any clearer evidence than that. ..' He wriggled his fingers, cramped from the note-taking, and then wearily told the constable to send in Major Featherton.
The examination of Major William Featherton, retired, 4th Royal Lancashire Foot, was very brief, and not till the end did it seem to grow informative. The major's earlier pompous manners were gone, and his rolling diction subdued into sharp, concise replies. He sat straight in his chair, as though at a court-martial; the eyes under the down-pulled, grizzled brows fixed Masters bluntly, and his words were interrupted only when he cleared his throat, or leaned his head on one side to brush his neck with a handkerchief. I noticed that, aside from Lady Benning, he was the only person there with clean hands.
