'Been a lot of ransacking upstairs, sir. I don't know. The lady here'll have to tell if anything's missing.'
I went with Banks out into the hall. Some instinct had begun to warn all of us that this house, and Mrs. Sweeney, might be of more significance in the case than anybody had suspected. There was something wrong about Mrs. Sweeney which did not rest alone in mere lies. She was acting; and, either in fear or guilt or only in nervousness, was overplaying the part. I wanted to see H.M. in action with this witness.
He was not at the gate outside, and the crowd had thinned. But the policeman on duty, who was imbued with a Jovian amusement, informed us. H.M. was over at the King William, standing drinks to half the population. Banks went back to tell Masters, whom I could hear cursing in the doorway, while I went out in search of him. I believe the good Inspector was also shaking his fist.
The King William IV, a snug public-house exhaling a mist of tobacco-smoke through its lighted doors, was crowded. The chairs along the walls were occupied by the usual red-faced gentlemen with brass-collar-studs, who sit in a line like figures in a shooting-gallery and chuckle at everything. H.M., with a pint tankard in his hand and an admiring crowd about him, was throwing darts at a scarred board. In the intervals he was saying, 'Gentlemen, we must not, we will not, as free British subjects, submit to the indignities perpetrated by the present Government in grindin' the faces of the working-' I stuck my head through the doorway of, the bar-parlor and whistled. He stopped, disposed of the pint of bitter with a shark-like gulp, shook hands with everybody, and lumbered out pursued by cheers.
In the misty street outside his expression changed. He turned up the collar of his coat; and, if I had not known him so well, I could have sworn the man was nervous.
I said: 'The old tricks are still successful. Did you learn anything?'
He growled something that sounded like an affirmative.
He stumped on a few paces, blew his nose violently on a handkerchief, and said: 'Yes. About Darworth, and - other things too. Humph. Get the old residents if you want information, son. Stick to the pubs. There's been a woman seen visitin' that house from time to time....
'Ei, why didn't I guess it? I started to suspect it while we were at Darworth's house, but I don't mind tellin' you that I've very nearly made the biggest mistake of my life. ... Well. 'Tisn't irreparable; that's a consolation. If luck's with me, tomorrow night-maybe later, but I hope tomorrow night-I can introduce you to the coolest and quickest. thinking criminal devil that...”
'A woman?'
'I didn't say that, Shut up, now. Somebody knows more about that house than we do. Darworth was murdered partly because of it. Joseph was murdered to get him out of the way. And now....'
He had stopped on the pavement across the street from Magnolia Cottage. It looked bleak and sinister, with the constable pacing under the street-lamp, the sagging iron gate and the glimpse of a weedy brick walk. H.M. pointed.
'Darworth owned that house,' he said casually.
'Then-?'
'Before the Sweeney woman took it, it stood vacant for I dunno how many years; no notice-board up; nobody could buy. But the old gossip-hands remember somebody of Darworth's description that used to come there. If it hadn't been for a peculiar bone-structure, that could be identified as long as eternity if the body ever got dug up; so Horseface says.... Son, I shouldn't be at all surprised if that's not where Elsie Fenwick is buried.'
Round the corner of Hather Street whirled the lights of a police-car, its siren crying ahead. On a common impulse H.M. and I started across the road. We came up just as the car scraped in at the curb and three men in plain clothes got out. Masters, hurrying down the brick walk, held open the gate for them. One of the newcomers said, 'Inspector Masters, sir!' and there was urgency in his voice.
'Well?'
'They said you'd probably be here, but there isn't a telephone here and we couldn't reach you. You're wanted back at the Yard...”
Masters' hands closed on the spikes of the gate. He seemed to have frozen there, and it was several seconds before he got out:
'Not-anything-another ?'
'Don't know, sir; may be. It's a call from Paris. Everybody in the translation department had gone home. Chap was jabbering French so fast the operator could only get half what he said. He said he'd call again at nine o'clock, and it's nearly half past eight now. It's important, sir, and it's something about murder. . .'
'Go through the routine, photographs, search and fingerprints,' Masters said curtly. He jammed on his hat and hurried out to the car.
XVIII
THE WITCH ACCUSES
THAT was the night before the day of the startling accusation made by Lady Benning. During the fifteen hours that intervened, I had by pure accident stumbled on a point that nearly provided a solution to the riddle.
If this were anything but an account of facts, I should describe a breakneck rush back to town to intercept that call; an inquiry until far into the morning, without food or sleep. But a real murder case is not all 'Thou-art- theMan.' There are the intervals when you suddenly realize that the business of life must go on as usual; the intervals of torture and wit-puzzling, and of futile breathings on a mirror already beclouded. For instance, I had a. dinner engagement that night. It was with my sister, a gentle Gorgon, and it would never have occurred to any of the family to break an engagement with Agatha. In fact, my chief concern was in the realization - when I learned how late it was - that I should be an hour late even if I did not bother to dress. I had forgotten all about it; still, I must be there.
Masters drove us back to Town, and both the Inspector and I promised to be at H.M.'s office at eleven o'clock next morning. He was driving H.M. home to Brook Street; I dropped off in Piccadilly, caught a Kensington bus, and was pitched off at Agatha's in time to be smuggled in the side door for a brush-up before I faced whatever guests might be. Surprisingly, there was only Angela Payne, my sister's less superannuated crony, who is supposed to be my future wife. She was sitting by the fire in Agatha's cutglass drawing-room, wriggling with excitement and chewing that jade cigarette-holder which had nearly poked out so many people's eyes at intimate dinners. Angela is very modern, which I am not; she has her hair shorn and displays a great deal of back.
The moment I walked in, I knew I should be a Personage as a bearer of news about the murder, and pumped by two terrifying experts. That is probably why the dinner was so intimate. Agatha did not even mention my lateness. But, the moment we sat down to one of those clear soups which are about as sustaining as something the conjuror pours out of different jugs on the stage, the attack began. I was puzzling over the problem of Mrs. Sweeney, and kept the defense fairly well. Agatha had said to Angela, as though reprovingly, 'Of course he can't tell us anything, but at least, in courtesy to me, he ought to explain his lateness.'
During the fish, Angela tossed her bomb in among the candles. She asked when the inquest would be, and I said tomorrow.
'And,' she inquired, 'will poor Mr. Darworth's wife be here for it?'
This gave even my sister a surprise. 'Was Mr. Darworth,' she inquired, 'a married man?'
'But I know her!' said Angela triumphantly.
At this point I had become so intent that I refused Sauterne. Angela said: 'Well-good-looking, possibly, if you like that type. Thin. Tall. Brunette. They say, Agatha, dear, that she had low beginnings: in a circus or a Wild West show or something.... But an actress! Oh, yes, I'll admit..”
'You know her personally?'
'Well, not exactly. . . .' She was talking to Agatha now. 'She would probably have run to fat by this time, because that was years ago. Don't you remember, my dear, the winter in Nice-'23 or '24 - I think the year dear Lady Bellows had such bad attacks of acute alcoholism, or am I thinking of somebody else that fell over the railing from f the dress circle, and all the rude people in the gallery positively laughed? - well, anyway, it was that English Repertory Company, and all the papers said it was so very fine? They were reviving Shakespeare,' explained Angela, as though she were talking of movements for resuscitating the drowned, 'and those delightful Restoration things by Which - Wycherley
'Don't hiccough, Angela,' said my sister severely. 'Well?'
'They said she was superb in that Twelfth Night thing, or one called `The Plain Dealer,' was it? But I didn't see those; I saw one where she was a middle-aged, heavy-set frump, something like a schoolmistress, you know,
