'I know,' she said, after a long silence. 'All I'm glad of is that you said what you did,' her eyes brimmed over, 'you — you —!”
'Exactly,' he said. 'Steady, now. Let's go downstairs.'
CHAPTER TWELVE
H. M. Argues the Case
A clock in the passage was striking eleven-thirty when they reached the library.
'— full reports,' Inspector Potter was intoning. 'Statement of police surgeon, post-mortem order for you to sign. Here's plaster-of-Paris casts of two sets of footprints, Mr. Bohun's and Mr. Bennett's: only tracks before we got there. Plan showing exact line of footprints, measured to scale. I thought that was wise; it's beginning to snow again. Here's the fingerprint reports. Photographs will be developed and sent back this afternoon. The body's still there, but it's been moved up on the bed.'
Potter was laying out articles in an orderly line on the table under the yellow-shaded lamps. It had grown darker outside, and dead tendrils of vine whipped the windows as the wind rose. There was a growling in the chimney, a draught in which one high sheet of flame cracked like thorns and flicked out spurts of fiery embers. Masters, his heavy face showing more wrinkles under the lamp, sat at the table with an open notebook. Maurice Bohun, looking interested and pleased with his bright unwinking eyes fixed on a corner of the fireplace, also sat at the table. Over at one side, in silhouette against the firelight like two Dutch dolls, stood Thompson and a gray- haired sturdy woman in black. Bennett could not see H. M. But there was a big mass of shadow in the far corner of the fireplace, where he thought he could make out a gleam on enormous glasses and a pair of white socks.
'Thanks, Potter,' said Masters. 'Here's your notebook back. I've been reading Sir Henry all, the testimony we've accumulated to date. And now… any instructions, sir?'
'Uh?'
Masters moved a little to one side, so that some faint light penetrated towards the corner of the fireplace. Now Bennett could see H. M. start a little and open his eyes. The corners of his broad mouth were turned down, as though he were smelling a bad breakfast-egg, and he was ruffling the two tufts of hair on either side of his big bald head.
'Any instructions, sir?'
'I wasn't asleep, damn you,' said H. M. He put a dead pipe into his mouth and puffed at it. He added querulously: 'I was concentratin'. Now don't rush me! Don't rush me, will you? You fire a lot of undigested stuff at me and expect me to make sense of it straight off. Also, I see I got to go out to that pavilion before it snows again; and that's more work. I don't like this a little bit, Masters. It's ugly — devilish ugly. What were you askin'? Oh. Reports. No, save 'em for a minute until I get something straight. Stand over a little bit, son,' he gestured to Potter, 'and lemme talk to Mr. and Mrs. Thompson.'
There was something in H. M.'s presence, despite his efforts to glare, which seemed to put the Thompsons at their ease.
'Howdy, folks,' said H.' M., lifting his pipe. 'I've heard what you told the chief inspector, and I'm goin' to use both of you as a check on the others in this place. If any of 'em lied, you tell the old man. Now then.' He squinted at Thompson. 'Were you on this little party that went explorin' the house by candlelight last night?'
'No, sir. My wife and I were preparing the pavilion for Miss Tait. Bedclothing, seeing the chimneys were clear and the fires lit, water-taps working; all that sort of thing. My wife had charge of Miss Tait's clothes — '
'Such lovely clothes!' said Mrs. Thompson, holding up her hands and looking at the ceiling. 'She wouldn't 'ave one of the 'ousemaids do it. Only me.'
'Uh-huh. What time d'you leave the pavilion?'
'At just a little past twelve, sir, when Mr. Maurice and the two other gentlemen brought Miss Tait out there.'
'Sure you didn't leave any matches there, hey?'
Bennett, from where he stood unnoticed with Katharine in the shadows by the doorway, could only see Thompson's back. But he thought that there was nervousness for the first time in the man's manner. Thompson glanced at Maurice, who sat impassive and pleasant-faced, a complete host.
'I'm sorry, sir. It was an oversight.'
'And after you came back to the house, what did you do?'
'That,' said Mrs. Thompson, with an air of excited remembrance, 'was when I went to bed, Mr. T.'
'That, sir, as my wife says, was when she went to bed. I polished some silver, according to Mr. Maurice's orders, and waited for the others to return from the pavilion. They returned about a quarter past twelve, so I locked up the house then.'
'And they didn't go out afterwards?'
'Well, sir, Mr. Willard went out after Mr. Maurice and the other-person had gone to the library. But Mr. Willard stayed only about ten or fifteen minutes. He asked me if I would be up and would let him in; he said he would go out the back door of the house, which is near my pantry, and tap on the window when he returned. That's what he did, sir.'
H. M. looked down his nose, as though he were-bothered by an invisible fly. He growled to himself.
'Uh-huh. It's a funny thing about that, a question nobody seems to have bothered to ask. And, bum me, it's important! Look here. Between midnight and half-past, all kinds of people were wanderin' up and down, down and back, all over the place from the house to the pavilion — and that dog Tempest never barked. But one person left the house at half-past one, and the dog kicked up such a row that they hadda put him inside. Now how did that happen, hey?'
Masters swore softly. He looked at his notebook, at H. M., and back to his notebook again.
'Why, sir,' said Thompson, 'that's easily explained. I know, because I spoke to Locker on the telephone to the stable. Sorry, sir; I almost forgot to tell you. Miss Tait had asked me to see that two horses were ready in the morning for her and Mr. John. It slipped my own mind until Mr. Willard came back from the pavilion; and that made me wonder (excuse me) why Tempest hadn't barked. So I thought Tempest must be inside with Locker — Locker likes him, and often keeps him in the house until late. And that made me remember I hadn't phoned Locker about the horses. So I did, about twenty minutes past twelve, and he told me he was just taking Tempest out to the kennel. '
He was an old man, and he seemed bewildered now; but always his eye moved furtively towards Maurice. He had half turned about now, the better to look at his employer.
'I fear you forget many things,' said Maurice, still vaguely pleasant. Then Maurice literally showed his teeth. But he looked at H. M., because in his elephantine way H. M. seemed almost excited.
'Now take it easy, son,' H. M. urged blandly. 'Take all the time you want about it, but be certain. Are you tellin' me that the dog wasn't loose all last evening, up until maybe half-past twelve?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Well, strike me pink!' muttered H. M. He put the pipe back in his mouth and drew at it almost admiringly. 'Ho ho. That's the best news I've heard in this nightmare yet. I had a sort of hazy idea workin' about in the back of my mind; nothing serious, d'ye see, or any symptom of acute thought; but I thought I might as well have-somebody quash it straight off. And they didn't. And I am cheerin'.'
Masters hammered his fist on the table.
'I admit we overlooked it, sir!' he said. 'But what's the importance of it? I don't see it's necessarily important just because we overlooked it. The important thing is that the dog was locked up after one-thirty.'
'Uh-huh. We're goin' on to examine the possibilities of that. Well, let's take it rapidly, Comrade Thompson. Now you went to bed — when?'
'After I had finished polishing the silver, sir. About one o'clock. Mr. Maurice gave me permission. I left the sandwiches for Mr. John, as I told the inspector; and I did not come downstairs again until one-thirty when Tempest barked and Mr. Maurice rang.' He swallowed suddenly, as though he had made a slip of speech, and peered again at his employer.
'More of Thompson's associations-of-ideas, I fancy,' Maurice observed. 'And this is when your good lady saw
