becoming cool and sharp-faced, 'from both Bohun and an actor named Willard. Now don't put on that pawn-broker- refusing-a-loan look, my friend; I heard you discussing it, and I know what they said. They gave their version of what happened last night. Now I'll give you mine. Don't you realize why there was only one set of tracks in the snow, going in?'
'Be careful, sir. Remember, they were fresh tracks.'
'Of course they were fresh tracks.' He controlled his hard breathing. 'First! Bohun was in London last night, to see His Lordship. To see the great Lord Canifest. Did he tell you that?'
'Oh, ah?' inquired Masters, his dull eye turning sideways towards Bennett. Bennett remembered that Masters had spoken to H. M., and must know a good deal of the story. 'Mr. Bohun said he had a business appointment; that was all. You mean the newspaper-owner? Just so.'
'Now you had better know why Bohun saw him, if you don't know,' said Rainger, looking at him queerly, 'already. Canifest intended to put up the money for the play Marcia was to appear in. And last night Canifest refused. Bohun and Marcia were afraid he was going to refuse. That was why Bohun got nervous and rushed over to see him last night.'
'Well' prompted Masters, after a pause. 'Why should this — ah — Lord Canifest refuse?'
'Because somebody had been telling him things. Lord Canifest was contemplating matrimony. He had already laid his hand and heart,' said Rainger, with an appropriate gesture, 'before our lovely nymph. His Lordship, you may know, is a very upright man, and much too discreet to risk anything but marriage. And then somebody told his Lordship something. Bohun was afraid there would be bad news from Canifest last night, and so was Marcia.'
Masters cleared his throat. 'Just so. I dare say you mean, now, he was told something against Miss Tait's character, eh?'
'What? Oh, God love us, inspector,' said Rainger, with a sort of wild helplessness, 'your thrice-blessed innocence! No! Don't you suppose Canifest hadn't heard all the rumors of that kind? Her family was good enough for that conduct to have seemed just prankish. Haha, no. What somebody told him, I fear, was that Marcia might have been too virtuous.'
'Too virtuous?'
'That she had a husband already,' said Rainger, and cackled.
'A husband already!' the chief inspector snapped, after a pause. 'Who-?'
Rainger indulged himself in an elaborate Frenchified shrug. He shut one eye, a tubby little Mephistopheles in a bright-flowered robe, and the other staring little bloodshot eye showed through the smoke of his cigar. He smiled.
'How should I know? That part, I grant is theory; but it's mine, and it's a good theory. Now who might that husband be? I wonder. Eh?'
Before Masters could voice a suggestion he went on softly:
'Let's go on. Do you understand now what my good friend Jervis Willard told you about Marcia being upset, distraught, desperately waiting last night? — waiting for Bohun to return.’
‘Yes, I think even you understand. If Canifest refused to back this play, it would never be put on at all.'
'Now, now,' urged Masters, with goading tolerance, 'Miss Tait was a very popular actress, I should fancy. Surely any number of producers — “
'That's where you're wrong,' the other said, nodding several times. 'Not after what she had said of them separately and individually in the newspapers, and also to their faces.' The mechanical smile broadened with rather horrible effect. 'And what she didn't say, I quoted her as saying. Get it?'
'And this was the news,' Masters said slowly, 'you say Mr. Bohun was bringing back to her last night?'
'Naturally. She was a very temperamental wench, I can tell you. What must Bohun have thought when he had to come back and explain it was all off? They might get another angel, but. Marcia wasn't too popular. She certainly wasn't popular in this house. It amused me last night, when Miss Katharine Bohun attempted to give her a shove that would send her down a flight of stone stairs..:'
'What the devil's this?'
Bennett felt his heart pounding, and an empty sensation in his chest. He took a step forward, so that Rainger caught his eye.
'What's the matter?' asked Rainger harshly. 'Friend of yours? Never mind. That's what she did. Come on, flatfoot: let me get back to the subject. Willard didn't tell you about that little episode, did he? You can forget it. I want to tell you the first step in the case that'll hang John Bohun.. He told you (didn't he?) that he arrived back from London about three A.M. Well, he lied. He got back here at one-thirty, when it was still snowing hard.'
'Did he, now?' inquired Masters in a curious tone. 'Well. Get this down, Potter. How do you know? Did you see him?'
'No.'
Masters said heavily: 'Then you'll excuse me. I've listened, and I've listened for something more than vague accusations, and I'm admitting to you I've got a little tired of it. Now I'll ask you to stop this sort of talk and go up to bed where you belong.'
Rainger's arm jerked.
'Oh, you'll listen to me, damn you.' His voice wavered a moment; it became close to a screech. 'Can't you let me explain? Can't you give me fair play? Give me a minute, two minutes, only two minutes! Oh, for God's sake let me say what I've got to say! ' His desperation to have a man hanged broke his gloss and stolidity, but briefly; for he got himself in hand, and there was only cool contempt in the unshaven face. 'Now I'll explain it. At midnight last night, after we'd left Marcia in the pavilion (what Willard told you about that is true), Mr. Bohun and I — Mr. Maurice Bohun, my host — came to the library. To this room. We talked of books and other matters you wouldn't understand. We were here for something like two hours. Naturally neither of us could see John Bohun come in: the driveway is clear at the other end of the house. And we didn't hear him, for the same reason. But we heard the dog.'
'Dog?'
'A big police dog, what you call an Alsatian. They don't turn it loose at night, because it flies at anything. They keep it chained to a sort of runway wire, so that it can run twenty or thirty feet from the kennel, but no farther. It barks at anybody, known or unknown — Mr. Maurice Bohun told me. Are you listening to me now? We were sitting here last night, when we heard it commence barking and keep on barking.
'I asked him, I said, `Have we got burglars, or has somebody gone out?' He said, `Neither. That will be John coming home. It's half-past one.' We talked about the detective stories (he likes detective stories), and the dog that doesn't bark because it recognizes somebody, thus presenting a clue. That's hogwash. Real dogs bark at everybody, till you get close enough to speak.'
Rainger coughed. His forehead was damp from his intense concentration when his head must be spinning; he brushed an arm across his face, and his. speech weirdly degenerated.
'That was at ha' past one. Old Bohun held out his watch and says, `See, it's ha' past one.' He's always fidgety, and he got even more fidgety and nervous about the noise while he was showing me books. Late as it is, he rang for that butler and told him to phone down to the stable and have 'em lock the dog up. He said it would drive him crazy. '
Inspector Potter struck in, heavily and eagerly: 'That part of it's true anyhow, sir. This butler said he used the telephone at one-thirty to tell them at the stable they must lock the dog up-'
Masters waved his hand. 'And is that, Mr. Rainger,' he said, 'all you've got to accuse a man of murder?'
'No. I am going to tell you what John Bohun did.”
'He arrived here at one-thirty, and left his car in the driveway.. He was wearing evening-clothes and light patentleather evening shoes-'
'How do you know that?'
'I use my brain, you see,' nodded Rainger, bending forward. 'I got that from the maid who went into his room this morning to light the fire. She saw the clothes scattered. She also told me (eh?) that his bed was still made and had not been slept in last night.'
After a pause Masters said, 'Take that down, Potter.'
'He walked straight down to the pavilion, as he and Marcia had arranged. (The fool lied to you when he said he didn't know Marcia was there, and yet he admitted she had told him she was going there. He knew Marcia never changed her mind; you'll see why he lied.) Well, the dog barked for longer than usual. Why? Because of the time it
