he picked up the poker, snorted, and put it down again. With infinite labor he got down to blink at the crushed fragments of glass, which seemed to put him in a little better humor. The match-ends, nearly burned down to the end of the stem, engaged his attention next. He moved over to examine a curtained recess containing wearing- apparel, and pawed over its contents until he found a silver gown. After one glance into the primitive bathroom, he came back to the middle of the room, where he lifted one finger and pointed malevolently at his two companions in the doorway.
'Dummies!' roared H. M.
The dummies looked at each other.
'Yes, I mean you,' amplified H. M., still stabbing his finger at them. 'You and Masters and everybody else who's been out here. Ain't anybody got any brains nowadays? To mention only one item in a whole chart of clues especially provided for you, don't a single fleetin' glance at that fireplace tell you anything?'
'Well, sir,' said Bennett, 'if you mean that the murderer made his entrance and exit by crawling up and down the chimney, it seems entirely feasible. But I shouldn't think it would do him much good. The problem is how he came to and left the pavilion. I mean, even if he got up to the roof he'd still have to cross a hundred feet of snow. So far as the Santa-Claus business is concerned, he'd have found it less complicated by simply walking to the front door.'
H. M. swelled.
'So you're givin' the old man sauce, are you? Tryin' to sauce me, hey? That's gratitude for you, that is! All right. All right! Now just for that, young man, I won't tell you what I did mean. Haa. Haa, that'll fix you! — Point o' fact, I wasn't thinking about the chimney very much at all.'
'Exactly what,' said Willard, 'does `very much at all' mean, Sir Henry?'
H. M. nodded malevolently. 'I'll tell you what it means. It means what my old friend Richter said when he was conductin' the London orchestra, and the second flute played the same sour note twice over in the same place at rehearsal. And Richter he slammed his baton down on the floor, and he said, `You, secgonde vlutel I can stand your damma nonsense occasionally then and now; but sometimes, always, by God nevairl' That's what I feel about this, and I'm goin' to tell Masters so when he gets here. I didn't come here to get insulted. Now I'm goin' to ask some questions…'
He waddled over to the bed, lifted a comer of the sheet, and made a brief examination. The mere lifting of the sheet brought another atmosphere into this cold room. A little light from the big window at the side of the bed, and flickering with the shadow of snowflakes, fell across a face they had sponged off with water, and whose dark hair had been arranged behind her bead…
Bennett, who had turned away, looked back to see H. M.'s small eyes fixed sharply on him from his wizard- like stoop over that still beauty.
'A quarter past three o'clock,' said H. M., 'is about the time she died… Now, when you came in here this morning, was the blind on this window up or down? Think back, and make sure.'
'It was up. I definitely remember that, because I tried to put up the window to let some air in, and remembered that you weren't supposed to touch anything in cases of this kind.'
H. M. replaced the sheet and peered out of the window.
`The windows of somebody's livin'-quarters over the stables are in a direct line with this. You noticed- that, hey?
.. All right. Now go over there and show me how she was lyin' on the floor when you first saw her. I know you'll feel like a fool, but get down and do it… Uh-huh. All right; you can get up. That would mean a good many of those burnt matches must have been scattered close to her. As though they'd been aimed at the fireplace… Now, then: when you came in, did it look as though she'd gone to bed? Was the bed disturbed?'
'I don't think so.'
'Excuse me for butting in,' said Willard rather restlessly, 'but it seems to me that there's been a devil of a fuss about those burnt matches when they may mean nothing at all.'
'Think so, hey?' inquired H. M., stiffening. 'You got an idea somebody sat here lightin' innumerable cigarettes and then tossin' the match-ends on the floor? One match burned nearly down to a stump, or even two, I might admit as rather a lengthy light for a cigarette; but twelve or fifteen of 'em argued that somebody was strikin' 'em in the dark:'
'But put it this way,' urged Willard. 'Suppose it was innocent. Suppose that when Bohun discovered the body, coming on it all of a sudden in half light, he bent over and struck a match to make sure..:'
H. M. puffed his cheeks in and out. 'Why, aside from the fact that he said he didn't, and there seems to be no earthly reason why he should have denied it, a man don't need a dozen matches to make sure somebody's dead. Besides, I rather imagine it was light enough at that time to see without 'em… wasn't it?' He swung sharply. Bennett felt that there was an underlying purpose in the question aside from what it seemed.
'Yes,' he said, 'just. I remember noticing how the light from the window fell directly on her.'
'But, damn it,' snapped Willard, 'she wasn't killed in the dark!'
H. M., for some reason, was suddenly imbued with a fantastic jollity. He set his hat on the side of his head; he was almost affable.
'Oh; it's a funny business, son. An exceedingly rummy business. Why does the Visitor strike matches in the dark? Why are the two fires exactly the same? Why does the Visitor get mad and put two drinking-glasses down on the hearth and stamp on 'em? — By the way, you didn't do that, did you?'
'What?'
'Uh-huh. I'd better point that out to you. Come over here and look. You see that decanter? Notice how heavy it is? Notice where it is? — not on the hearthstone, but on the carpet. I defy you to smash that decanter merely by upsettin' a low tabouret and havin' it hit the floor. The Visitor busted it, son… Now look at those smashed glasses. Did you ever see any parts of a glass crushed by fallin' on the floor? I'll lay you a fiver you didn't. They're on the stone, where the Visitor put 'em and deliberately mashed 'em.'
'But in a struggle-'
'Ho ho,' said H. M., settling his coat over his shoulders. 'Try the experiment some time. Put a round drinking- glass on the floor, imitate somebody staggerin' over the room in a struggle, and see if you will land a bull's-eye on one glass. They roll, son. They're as slippery as eels. And when you discover the probabilities of your breakin' not one glass, but two at the same time, I think you'll find that the old man's right. Did I hear somebody say we're not any better off than we were before. Now, about these chimneys…'
They had not heard the door to the drawing-room open, or any steps there. But they felt a cold current of air, which stirred the ashes in the fireplace, and (as Bennett could see from the corner of his eye) the sheet over Marcia Tait's body. There was something so eerie about it that for a moment nobody turned round. It was like the thin voice which spoke across the room.
'So,' said the voice, 'somebody has thought of the chimney at last? I must congratulate him.'
Maurice Bohun, his throat swathed round in a wool muffler, and a raffish-looking tweed cap pulled over one eye, stood leaning on his stick in the doorway. His glazed stare wandered over to the figure on the bed; then he removed the cap with a gently satiric gesture, and became all deprecation. Behind him towered a bewildered and savage-looking Masters, who was making signals over his shoulder.
'But even if it has already occurred to you, which is surprising,' said Maurice, with a curious snap of his jaws, 'I think I can supply more complete details than anyone. Do you mind coming into the other room. I–I cannot stand the sight of death!'
He backed away suddenly.
'Mind, sir,' Masters said over his shoulder, and appealing violently to H. M. 'I don't say I believe this. I don't say it's true. But if you'll listen to what Mr. Bohun has to say…' 'My humblest thanks, inspector.'
' then there may be something in it. At least it explains a lot of things that've been putting the wind up us. And in a way I should think was rather tit-for-tat and sauce for the goose…'
'Don't gibber, Masters,' said H. M. austerely. 'I detest gibbering. What the devil is all this, anyhow? Can't a man have any peace without somebody rushin' in and gabblin' nonsense?'
Maurice leaned forward a little.
'You must excuse the chief inspector,' he protested. 'In his somewhat unliterary fashion, he is referring to what is known as poetic justice. I agree. Mr. Carl Rainger, from the depths of sheer spite, attempted this morning to fasten Marcia Tait's murder on my brother John. He provided for this impossible situation a clumsy explanation
