staggerin'ly fantastic as all that, you might just as well have the murderer drink something that would allow him to slide in and out through the keyhole instead of the gas.
'Now that's interesting!' said. H.M., struck with an idea. 'Burn me, if I wanted to be poetic and figurative about this business, crawling' in and out through the keyhole, I should say that in a matter of speakin' it's exactly what the murderer did.'
'But there wasn't any keyhole!' protested Masters.
H.M. looked pleased.
'I know it,' he agreed. 'That's the interesting thing.'
'I've had about enough of this!' said Masters, after a long pause. With controlled wrath, he began stuffing papers back into the long envelope. 'This is no joking matter for me, you know. I feel like Major Featherton. I came to you for help--'
'Now, now, don't get your back up,' H.M. put in soothingly. 'Man, I'm serious too. Word of honor, I am. Here's our problem, the problem we've got to solve before we can do anything else: how was the trick worked? Without that, we can he morally certain who the murderer is and yet be absolutely unable to do anything about it. You want me to sit here and mull over, `Was he guilty, or was she guilty, and what was the motive?'-and all the rest of it.... Now, don't you?'
'I certainly thought that if you had any ideas----'
'Right. Well, we'll do some chinning, then, if you want to. Before we do, I wish you'd order round that car you were speakin' about; I want a look at Darworth's house.'
The Inspector muttered, with obvious relief, that this was more like it. He put through the call; and, as he turned back again, we all felt the new tension that had settled down. It had grown altogether dark now, and there was a bustle and clatter of people leaving the building.
'Now, then, sir!' Masters plunged straightway.
'Here's what I've figured out. We could work up a case against any one of those people-'
'Steady,' said H.M., frowning. 'Is there something new, or didn't I read it correctly? Accordin' to that testimony, you'd have to narrow it down to three people. Two have definite alibis. Young Halliday and the Latimer girl were sitting in the dark holding hands.'
The other regarded him curiously. Masters' dogged alertness seemed to have struck a bump where Masters had least expected it.
'Good Lord, sir! You don't mean to say you necessarily believe that?'
'Son, I'm afraid you got a nasty suspicious mind. Don't you believe it?'
'Maybe, and maybe not. Maybe part of it. I've been trying to look at every side. Um. Just so.'
'You mean they were together in a plot to puncture old Darworth's liver and then back each other up with a story like that? Eyewash, my lad; first-class, guaranteed - British eyewash. Besides, it's bad psychology. There are a dozen objections to it.'
'I wish you'd try to understand me, sir. I didn't- say anything like that, What I mean is this: Miss Latimer, now, is completely gone on Halliday. More so than ever now. She was sitting next to Halliday. Well, if she knew for a fact that he'd actually got up - if it was he carrying the dagger that brushed her neck - and he urged her for God's sake to support him with that story; eh? They had a whole lot of time when they could have talked to each other just after the murder was discovered.'
He was leaning forward rather fiercely. H.M. blinked.
'So that,' he remarked, 'is why you're not so eager to pitch on young Latimer? I see. So that's your solution?'
'Ah! Be careful there, sir. I don't swear it's the right one; understand that. As I say, I'm looking at possibilities. ... But I didn't like that gentleman's manner, and that's a fact! Too flippant; much too flippant; and I distrust that. I've had experience, and the man who walks up to you and says, `Come on, arrest me! It won't do you any good, but have a good time; come on and arrest me,' - well, in most cases he's bluffing.'
H.M. growled: 'Look here, have you realized one thing? Out of the whole crowd of suspects, you've unerringly fastened on the one against whom it'll be hardest to make out a case?'
'I don't follow that. How?'
'Why, if you accept my analysis of things (and apparently you have) then can you think of anybody on this broad green footstool who'd be less likely to be a confederate of Darworth than Halliday? ... Burn me, can you imagine Darworth saying to him, 'Look here, let's us put over a jolly good joke on all of them, what? Then I can prove I'm a genuine medium, and your girl will tumble into my arms.' Masters, the crystal busts with that vision. My murderer crawling through the keyhole is elementary beside it. I grant you Halliday might have pretended to help him put over the joke, in order to give it a whackin' exposure, if Darworth had ever asked his help. But Darworth would no more have asked Halliday's help than he'd have asked yours.'
'Very well, sir, if you like. All I say is, there are deeps in this case we don't understand. . . . His bringing Mr. Blake and me to that house, just at that time and under those circumstances, looks very fishy. It looks like a put-up job. Besides, his motive. . . .'
H.M. stared disconsolately at his feet.
'Yes. Now we come to motive. I'm not tryin' to be superior at your expense; the motive beats me beyond all. Granted Halliday had a motive, then what becomes of poor old Elsie Fenwick? Dammit, that's the part that sticks me.'
'I should say, sir, that the words `
'Not a doubt, not a doubt. But I'm afraid you don't see all the difficulties. It's like this—“
At this moment the inevitable happened. This time H.M. did not protest at the ringing of the telephone. He said grumpily, 'That's the car,' and with a series of painful efforts began to hoist himself out of his chair. He is actually only five feet ten inches tall, and stoop-shouldered at that! but his sluggish bulk, without any animation of face, makes him seem to fill a room.
Unfortunately, he insists on wearing a top-hat. In the fact itself there is nothing out of the way: it is the particular hat. He would, of course, scorn the customary glossy silk article, associating it with Toryism and grinding-thefaces-of-the-poor, as well as the comical aspect it provides. But this hat-high and top-heavy, worn by many years to a rusty indeterminate hue - is a mascot. So also is his long coat with the moth-eaten fur collar. He guards them jealously, with bitter resentment against slurs, and invents fantastic tales in defense of them. At various times I have heard him describe them as (1) a present from Queen Victoria, (2) the trophy of his winning the first Grand Prix automobile race in 1903, and (3) the property of the late Sir Henry Irving. Other things he takes without undue seriousness, despite his pretenses; but not, I assure you, this hat or coat.
While Masters answered the phone, he was carefully getting them out of a closet. He saw me looking, and his broad mouth turned down sourly; he put on the hat carefully, and assumed great dignity with the coat. 'Come on, come on,' he said to Masters; 'stop jawing with the chauffeur, and---“
' . yes, I admit it's queer,' Masters was saying to the telephone rather impatiently, 'but ... What else did you find out? . . . Are you sure? . . . Then look here; we're going over to Darworth's house now. Meet us there, and let's hear all about it. If you can find Miss Latimer, ask her if she'll come along....'
After a long hesitation, Masters hung up the receiver. He looked worried.
'I don't like this, sir,' he snapped. 'I've got a feeling that-that something's going to happen.'
The words sounded more eerie spoken by the practical and unimaginative Inspector. His eyes fixed on the spot of light from the desk-lamp. The rain flicked in little whips against the window-panes, and there were echoes in the old stone building.
'Ever since that damned dagger was stolen again!-' He clenched his hand. 'First Banks a while ago, and now McDonnell. That was McDonnell. Somebody's been making queer phone-calls to the Latimers' place, and there was something about a - a 'horrible voice', or the like, talking to Ted early this morning. Look here, you don't think-? '
H.M. stood with his shoulders hunched, a huge silhouette in the top-hat and fur-collared coat. With his little eyes gleaming, his broad mouth and blunt nose, he looked like a caricature of an old actor.
'I don't like it either,' he rumbled, with a sudden gesture. 'I'm funny like that. Psychic. I can smell trouble. ... Come on, you two. We're goin'. Now.'
XVI
