took him to walk down. If he'd only gone into the house, the dog would have shut up.'
Inspector Potter uttered an exclamation.
'You're suggesting-?' said Masters quickly.
'Oh, he was her lover,' said Rainger. 'I know that.' He leaned over suddenly and spat into the fire.
'Now see. He had bad news for her. Marcia didn't take any bad news well; and not the smash-up of everything she wanted to do. But you don't know Bohun's character if you think he told her straight out. He's too weak. He put it off, and first told her everything was all right. There was love-making; the fool thought he could get Marcia into the right state of mind with that. Kuaa! Afterwards he admitted things. And she told him for the first time how she really felt towards him.'
Rainger's voice rose. 'He smashed her head in about an hour and a half after he'd got to the pavilion. Then the fool found that the snow had stopped long ago. His footprints going out there had been effaced. There wasn't a mark on the snow now, and if he left that place he would leave his own footprints to hang him. Well? What did he do? What did even a nervous fool do?'
Rainger must have seen that he had caught his audience. For a moment Bennett thought the man had grown cold sober; that he had forced himself sober by very violence of will; and, but for the twitching of the fingers and uncertain movements of the head, Bennett would have believed it.
'Use your brains,' said Rainger, with that queer diabolical grin. 'What was the only thing that would save him?'
Masters studied him. 'If I had been in his place (oh, ah! supposing this to be true!), there was an easy way.'
'Think so? What would you have done?'
'Rummy games we're playing! Eh? Well, then, I should have left that pavilion, messing up my own trail thoroughly by shuffling and kicking and scraping over the tracks so that nobody'd know whose they were. I'd have carried that messed-up trail up over the lawn to the high-road, or anywhere you like. The house, even. Time? Oh, ah; I'll admit it would have taken some time, and in the dark, but there'd be all the time until daylight.'
Rainger blew out a blast of sour smoke. 'Any fool,' he said, 'would have remembered the dog.' Masters stopped.
'The dog, my flatfoot-friend, that barked like hell and for such a long time-while Bohun was only hurrying down to the pavilion before — that the old man had it locked up. Think that over, will you? Mr. John remembered that dog; it almost gave him away before. What did he think it would be during the fifteen or twenty minutes it would take him to mess up all his tracks? How was he to know it was locked up? What happens in a house when a dog keeps on steadily barking at four o'clock in the morning. They'd wake up. They'd look out. And there was Bohun in the middle of the lawn, caught.'
Bennett went over and sat down on the divan. His wits were whirling, but he knew the man was right. Bennett said:
'But what could he do? He couldn't take up the time to mess the trail, and he couldn't hurry out and leave his tracks to betray him… You've got him in the pavilion with no tracks outside; but he says he was talking to the butler in his riding-clothes at close on seven o'clock this morning; and I'll swear on the Bible that, when I got to the pavilion this morning, there was only one line of tracks going in.'
'Just so. Steady, sir,' said Masters. 'He did wake the butler up in this house at a quarter to seven. The butler says so.'
Rainger savored a triumph. He looked from one to the other.
'Sure, sure, sure. That was his alibi. He remembered the riding-engagement; but didn't it smell very funny to you, eh, that he should have said he got up early in the morning, put on his riding-clothes, and went to wake the butler up before he was certain they would ride that morning?. He tried to be clever. He thought he was clever. Riding boots are useful. They're bigger, a good deal bigger all the way around, than little patent leather dancing- shoes.'
Masters whistled. He made a big gesture as Rainger said:
'He waited till it was nearly daylight, and he could see not to bang into anything. I like to think of him sweating beside that dead woman. Then he walked out of your pavilion, and he walked backwards. When he'd changed his clothes and made his alibi, all he had to do was walk back again in his own footprints to `discover' the body. He couldn't have done it if he'd had on the same sized shoes. If he tried to step in the tracks-even in a very thin plaster of snow — he'd only have blurred the prints. If the snow had been deep instead of a little crust, he would have sloughed the tracks up. But he stamped a fresh print with bigger shoes all over the others, and concealed the first outline. The sole-and-heel prints would be messed inside the track, but they always are from the way you walk in snow. No wonder the tracks were fresh. No wonder that stable-hand saw him-from a distance — just going in at the door. He'd literally `covered' his tracks. He'd got himself the swellest alibi a man ever had. But when you got there, young man,' said Rainger, choking with the last effort of keeping his words steady, 'didn't he seem a little rattled?'
Rainger looked round for a moment more, holding their eyes.
Then he got shakily to his feet. With the effort over, he seemed to shrink like a dough figure; and it was as though a wheel went round behind his eyes. Dizzy and breathing hard, he got the bottle out of his pocket.
'I've told you how it happened,'.he said. 'Now hang him.'
He was fumblingly trying to get the bottle to his lips when he collapsed. He would have fallen if Masters had not caught him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dr. Dryasdust at Breakfast
'Give me a hand, Potter,' said Masters briskly. Masters' stolid, heavy-jawed face was still imperturbable. 'Get him over on the settee. Better ring for the butler and have himno! Wait a bit. Here, get hold of his feet.'
They lifted the inert lump, with its features now gone smeary and its lips drooling; a bag of dough where there had been a brain. The breath wheezed through his nose. As they put him down on the couch his dressing- gown slid back. They saw that he was wearing evening-dress trousers and a collar less stiff shirt; his feet, as small as a woman's, were thrust into red leather slippers. Masters carefully took the cigar from his fingers and threw it into the fire. He picked up the unbroken bottle from the floor; looked at it, and then at his companions.
'Very rummy chap,' he said, 'very rummy indeed. Now I wonder? — Wait a bit, Mr. Bennett. Where are you going?'
'Breakfast,' said the other, with heartfelt weariness. 'This thing has got me nearly crazy. '
'Now, now. Easy, my lad. Just wait a bit and I'll go with you. I have something to talk about. For the moment?'
Bennett regarded him curiously. For some time he had been unable to understand why the Chief Inspector of the C.I.D. should be so anxious for his company, and almost eager to make friends with him. He learned why soon enough.
`-the question arises,' continued Masters, rubbing his chin, 'is this man right? Did it happen as he said it did? What do you think, now, Potter?'
The county-inspector shifted, chewed his cud, looked at the notebook for inspiration, and finally swore.
'It sounds all right, sir,' growled Potter. 'In a way. And yet-' he stabbed out with the pencil. 'That's it. I dunno what half of it's all about. This business of backing plays and the like. But the way it was done., well, 'ow else could it have been done? That's the worst.'
Masters' pale blue, genial eyes swung over to Bennett. 'Ah! Always glad to listen to suggestions, Potter and I are. What do you think?'
Bennett said violently that it was nonsense. 'Why nonsense?'
'Well '
'Because Mr. Bohun's your friend? Tosh tosh tosh. Leave that out of it. Does you credit, o' course. But we shall have to admit that it does explain everything. Eh?' Masters' eyes opened wide.
'I know. But do you honestly think he could have pulled off that funny business with the footprints? If the first
