'Ah!' said Masters, and lowered the lantern. 'It's quite all right, miss. Please sit down again. I - only wanted to test something.' As Halliday strode forward the inspector lumbered back to his work-bench, turned, and regarded him with a sour smile. 'Steady, sir. You ought to be grateful to me. I've broken at leapt one ghost. That there's a part of Darworth's trick of making people believe him. If the patient's a good hypnotic subject....
Wheezing, he sat down. 'Did he try to cure your headaches, Miss Latimer?'
'Yes.'
'Did he ever make love to you?'
The question was shot out so quickly after the lazy tone of the preceding one that the girl had said, 'Yes,' before she seemed to realize it. Masters nodded.
'Ever ask you to marry him, Miss Latimer?'
'Not - not exactly. He said that if he succeeded in cleansing this house of evil spirits, he would ask ... I say! It-it sounds so crazy, and absurd, and-' She swallowed hard, and her eyes were hysterically amused. 'I mean, when I think of it. He was like a Monte Cristo and Manfred rolled into one; gloomy and apart; like a cheap film, like- But you didn't know him, you see. That's the point.'
'A rare sort of fellow, that gentleman,' the inspector said dryly. 'He had a different mood and character for everyone he approached.... But after all, you see, he was murdered. That's what we want to talk about now. It wasn't hypnotism or suggestion that let somebody walk through a stone wall or a bolted door and hack him to pieces. Now, Mr. Halliday! - I want to hear everything that went on in that front room from the time the lights were put out. Tell your story, and I'll ask Miss Latimer to confirm it.'
'Right you are. I'll tell it exactly,' nodded Halliday; 'because I've been thinking of nothing else all night.' He drew a deep breath, and then glanced sharply at Masters. 'You spoke to the others. Did they admit hearing somebody moving around in there?'
'You're telling the story, sir,' Masters reminded him, lifting his shoulders blandly. 'But, um, didn't you have a conference among yourselves? All that time between witnesses, up there?'
'I don't know about the conference. We jolly well nearly had a fight. Nobody would admit what they'd told you, and Ted was a bit loony. Nobody would go home with anybody else ... they all left in separate cars. Aunt Anne wouldn't even let Featherton help her out to the street. Fine, sweet gathering. Never mind.. .
'This is what happened.
'Aunt Anne insisted on sitting round and concentrating, trying to help Darworth out. I didn't want to do it; but Marion begged me not to make a fuss, so I said all right. Also, I wanted to make up the fire - it had gone out. I didn't see any sense in sitting around in a cold room when it wasn't necessary. But Ted said the wood was green and damp, and wouldn't burn anyway, and was I a pampered little duckling to be afraid of the cold? Ha! Well! we got our chairs-'
The inevitable question followed. Both he and Marion verified the order of which he had been informed: Lady Benning on the right of the fireplace, then Halliday, Marion, Major Featherton, and Ted at the other end.
'How far were the chairs apart?'
The other hesitated. 'A good distance. That's an immense fireplace in there, you know. I had to stand on tiptoe to blow out the candles on the ledge over it. I don't think any of us could have touched anyone else by stretching out a hand ... except' - he looked Masters in the eye 'except Marion and myself.'
The girl was staring at the floor. Halliday put his hand on her shoulder. He went on: 'I'd taken good care to get my chair only a little way from hers; couldn't get too close, because Aunt Anne was watching like a hawk; and I didn't want to seem - oh, damn it, you know!
'I got hold of her hand, and we sat there. I don't know how long; and what was worse-I'll admit it-that darkness was beginning to get on my nerves. I don't care how matter-of-fact a man is' He looked at us defiantly, and Masters nodded. 'Besides, somebody was whispering or mumbling, very low. The same words, over and over again, with a sort of rustling sound, and there was a noise like somebody swaying backwards and forwards in a chair. God, it was enough to make your hair stand on end!
'I don't know how long afterwards it was, but I had a feeling that somebody had got up....'
'You heard something?' demanded Masters.
'Well, it's hard to explain, but if you've ever sat at a seance you'll understand. You can feel movement; a breath, or a rustle, a sense of something moving in the dark. You can only call it a feeling of nearness. I did hear a chair scrape, a little before that; but I'm not prepared to swear it was - whoever it was that got up.'
'Go on.'
'Then I did definitely hear two footsteps directly behind me; but I've got pretty good ears, and nobody else seemed to notice it until-well, all of a sudden I felt Marion go stiff, and she pressed my hand. I admit I nearly jumped out of my skin. I felt her other hand come out towards me, and she was trembling all over.... It wasn't till afterwards that I found out what had gone past and touched her.... You'd better tell him, Marion
Though she tried to keep her former self-control, the old terrors were coming back. The lantern was at her feet, throwing spangles of light up across the white, lovely, tortured face as she slowly looked up.
'It was the handle of a knife,' she said, 'touching the back of my neck.'
XII WHAT WAS MISSING AT DAWN
THE last candle on the work-bench had puffed out in a welter of grease. A faint, grayish light was stealing into the passage beyond; but the shadows in the kitchen were still thick, and the lantern burned at their core below Marion Latimer's dull face. It was the climax of the night's horrors, the last voice of them before they paled at cockcrow. I looked round at Masters, and at McDonnell, almost invisible back in a corner. But I thought, curiously enough, of a room situated high over Whitehall; and, in the midst of the sedate government upholstery, a fat man sitting with his feet on the long desk reading a cheap novelette. I had not seen that room since 1922....
'You see,' Marion told us carefully, after a pause, 'the idea of some one of us prowling like that was-was rather more ghastly than the other.'
Masters expelled his breath. 'How did you know it was the handle of a knife, miss?'
'It was feeling-it was the handle, you know, and then the crosspiece, the hilt, together: brushing past. I'd swear to it. Whoever had it must have been holding it by the blade, you see.'
'As though the person holding it had tried to touch you?'
'Oh, no. No, I don't think so. It jumped back at once,, if you understand what I mean. It was as though somebody had gone in the wrong direction in the dark, and accidentally brushed me. . . . Anyway, it was after that - maybe a minute afterwards, though it's awfully hard to be certain - I heard the only footstep I could be sure of. It seemed to come from the middle of the room somewhere.'
'You heard this too?' Masters asked Halliday.
'Yes.'
'And then-?'
'And then the door squeaked. There was a draft along the floor, too. Hang it all,' said Halliday uneasily, 'surely everybody must have felt it! You couldn't miss.'
'It 'ud seem so, wouldn't it? Now, sir, how long after all this did you hear the bell ringing?'
'Marion and I have compared notes on that. She estimates something over ten minutes. but I say nearer twenty.'
'Did you hear anybody coming back?'
Halliday's cigarette was burning his fingers; he glanced at it as though he had never seen it before, and dropped the stump. His eyes were vacant. 'Shouldn't like to swear to more than that, Inspector. But I should say there was a pretty definite noise of somebody sitting down. That was before we heard the bell, but I don't remember how long. It's all a matter of guesswork, anyhow....'
'When the bell rang, was everybody sitting down?'
'I can't tell you, Inspector. There was a rush for the door, and either Marion or Aunt Anne screamed
'It wasn't I,' said the girl.
Masters glanced slowly from one to the other of them. 'The door to that room,' he said, 'was closed while you were having your meeting. I saw that myself. When you rushed out as the bell rang, was it open or closed?'
'I don't know. Ted was first at the door, because he was the only one with a flashlight. Marion and I crowded after him - anywhere we could see a light we'd have gone, and he switched his on then. The whole affair was so confused that I don't remember. Except that Featherton got a match struck to light the candles, and shouted, 'Wait for me!' or something like that. Then I think we all realized the futility of dashing out that door - I don't know who
