suppose it could have been done by a woman, could it?'
' Might have been. Why not? Given a fairly heavy weapon; why not?'
'That poker with its end in the ashes?'
'I should have said something rather thicker, with an angle or two to it. But again that's your business.'
During these questions, Bennett noticed, Masters' face had assumed a blank and tolerant sadness as of a teacher in an idiot-school, touched now by a satiric grimness. He breathed stertoriously through his nose as Inspector Potter asked:
'Ah! Might it 'a' been that decanter, now; the heavy one that was smashed?'
'Hang it, man, it could have been anything! Look round for your fingerprints or your bloodstains or whateveritis.' Dr. Wynne set his hat on jauntily and picked up a black bag. He squinted at the inspector. 'Humph. Shouldn't think it was the decanter; would you? Seems to me she'd have been soaked in port wine, and anyway the fragments of that bottle weren't near her body at all. Looks as though it only dropped off a table or something and got smashed… Lord knows, my boy, I'd like to give you a bit of help if I could. Strikes me that with a straight-out, frank, rounded impossible situation slap in front of you, you need it.'
'Exactly,' said a new voice from the shadows at the other side of the room, with such suddenness that they all jumped. 'But would you like me to explain how the murder was committed?'
CHAPTER SEVEN
Design for Hanging
Inspector Potter called violently on omnipotence, and almost upset a very heavy table as he surged to his feet. Even Masters was startled. They were all standing in the little circle of light thrown by the fire and the two yellow-shaded lamps. Electric bulbs burned in a sort of crown high up against the groined roof; but the big library was still dusky, almost as though the books themselves threw shadows.
Bennett looked towards the line of diamond-paned windows in the embrasure at one end, a wall of glass against which stood a single tall tapestry-armchair with its back to the room. A head rose over the chair, and a figure leisurely detached itself. It stood squat and black against windows and gray sky; they heard glass clink and smelt the smoke of a cigar. Footsteps, not quite steady ones, rasped along the stone floor. There was something leering, something goblin-like in that round little shape, ducking and mowing with the cigar; even more so when it grew close enough for them to see the short wiry black hair, the stiff smile on a stiff face, and the staring little bloodshot eyes.
Bennett realized not only that it was Carl Rainger, swathed in a flowered silk dressing-gown much too big for him; but that Carl Rainger was very drunk.
Rainger said, in a steady voice which seemed to come from deep down in his throat: 'I must ask you to excuse me. In fact, I must tell you to excuse me, in view of the help I am prepared to give. I was listening, gentlemen. I was frankly listening. When you came in, you surprised me there in the chair with Betsy,' he patted the neck of a bottle protruding from the pocket of the dressing-gown, 'Betsy the second, while I communed with nature. `Straight mine eye had caught new pleasures, While the landscape round it measures.' Beautiful country. Ha ha ha.'
His tubby figure stumped into the circle of light. There was a rather inhuman quality about the stiff masklike smile and the mirth that came from behind shut teeth. He nodded and winked both eyes and made a gesture of theatrical politeness with the cigar. But the reddish little eyes, despite their staring fixedness, were very sharp.
'My name is Rainger; I think it is fairly well known. Give me that chair, Mr. Masters. The one you're standing in front of, if you don't mind. Thank you. Ah! Now! Good morning, gentlemen.'
'Good morning, sir,' Masters answered imperturbably, after a pause. Behind his back he jerked his arm sharply at the staring Potter. 'You wish to make a statement? Eh?'
Rainger considered. He was wriggling his bristly scalp backwards and forwards, as children do, while he stared at the fire.
'Yes, I suppose I do. Yes, in a way. I can explain this impossible situation that's been bothering you. Ho ho ho.'
Masters studied. him. 'Naturally, sir, we're always glad to listen to suggestions. Quite. But one thing I'll suggest, if you don't mind. You're certain you're in a condition to suggest anything important?'
'Condition?'
'Well, not taken a drop over the line, as I might say? Eh?'
Rainger turned round slowly, pulling the gaudy dressing-gown about him. His face assumed an expression as though he were slyly peering round the corner of a wall; then it lit up with an almost terrifying smile.
'God love your innocence, inspector,' he said, rather tenderly. 'Taken a drop over the line?'' He burst into choking laughter until his eyes were blurred. 'Well, well, let's compose ourselves. Of course I've taken a drop over the line. Very neatly put. As a matter of fact, I'm drunker than hell, inspector, and we both know it. What of it? In better days, before I was persuaded to become respectable and give it up, you would never have found me in any other condition. But I lived and moved and had my being, and my brain — this,' he knocked his knuckles against it, 'was much the better for it. I only gave it up because I was even too clear-seeing, and they called it morbid. Hoho!
'Shall I prove it, inspector?' he demanded, pointing the cigar suddenly. 'Shall I tell you what you're thinking? You're thinking, `Maybe this is a confession. Maybe I'd better jolly this repulsive little baboon along and get him to admit something he oughtn't' Uh? That's your innocence again. I am much more talkative than usual, yes. But I didn't kill her. Queerly enough, I have an alibi '
He cackled. Masters only nodded stolidly. 'Why, sir, if you put it like that, it's quite possible I might have been thinking some such thing.'
'And as for you-' He suddenly pointed at Bennett. 'You're thinking, `There's that son of a bitch again.' Aren't you, now; aren't you?' For a second the weird stare was as terrifying as his grin; then it grew muddled, bewildered, and somehow defeated. 'Why do you think that?' he asked curiously. 'Why does everybody think it? All my life I've been trying to find out. I'm Carl Rainger. I started on a railroad construction gang. Want to see my hands, even now? I can command as high a salary as any star I ever worked with, because when I get through with that picture, whoever's in it is a star. That's me. That's what I can do. Then why. ' He fumbled at his forehead and said in a flat voice, 'Why, to hell with 'em. That's all I've got to say.' He seemed surprised. 'They're lousy rats, every one of them. I'll trust to this. Yes. And now — where are you, inspector? Ah!.. I'll proceed to show you what you've overlooked, and offer you proof.'
'Well, sir?'
'Proof,' said Rainger, his face lighting up again, 'that a Mr. John Bohun killed Marcia Tait.'
'Good God!' said Dr. Wynne, and stopped as Masters turned to glare.
'Thank you very much, doctor,' observed the chief inspector in a quick, colorless voice. 'You've been most helpful. We needn't detain you any longer… Er, hullo? Thompson? Still here, eh? I thought I told you; well, my mistake. You'd better wait outside, now.'
'I know the man's drunk,' snapped the little doctor, 'but does he realize who he's talking about? John Bohun, hah? His host. Well, well, well. Yes, I'm going. John's having breakfast. I think I shall just inform him he's needed here.'
Masters — big and urbane, but with a vein beating at his temple-edged the doctor away as though he were smoothing off crumbs, and spoke in a low voice. Remembering what had happened upstairs, Bennett quickly suggested a visit to Louise Carewe; and, as he sketched out what had happened, it caught Masters' ear more easily than the doctor's. Masters said, 'Oh, ah?' and to Bennett, 'Stay here!' as he sent out Thompson and edged out Dr. Wynne. When the strident voice was fading down the hall Masters returned to Rainger, who had got a bottle of gin out of his pocket and was tilting it to his lips while a sardonic eye rolled round at the chief inspector.
'You want to accuse Mr. John Bohun,' said Masters, with another silencing gesture at Potter, 'of murder. I dare say you realize that's rather a serious matter to speak of, even when you can back it up?'
'Certainly I can back it up, my friend. Hoho. Yes. You've had statements,' replied the director, suddenly
