wouldn't be frank. Not now! Not now, do you see? I'm a nasty little-little-I don't know! But I'm — I'm even postponing my feelings, until there's nothing else except them to think about or worry about; when every single thing that I think and care can all be set on one. Quick! Tell me what you were going to say about Maurice. That's only fair.'
'Maurice,' he replied, and took almost a pleasure in snapping out a name he detested, 'accused Rainger of Marcia's murder. I told you that already. And I was going to ask if you really believed Louise had gone down to the pavilion. Because, according to Maurice, she did. Sit down. In a way it concerns you.'
'Do you really think that Rainger —? What does your man-who-can-see-through-the-brick-wall think of it?'
'That's what I don't understand. The only comment he made to me, and he was serious, was that Rainger could have done it. I mean, that he could be guilty; but I don't think he believes…”
'Well, here's the situation. Rainger made a play for you last night, and Marcia noticed it. She didn't like it. She liked to keep her men dancing on the string, and swooped down immediately if one of them looked away; you admitted that yourself. Do you remember telling us that Marcia spoke to him, and he replied, 'Do you mean it?' And that, Maurice says, was an invitation to the pavilion last night.'
Her eyes widened, and then narrowed again. She flushed.
'Then,' she said abruptly, 'when I saw Rainger coming upstairs at half-past one, and he said, 'You can forget what I asked you tonight; I have better business,' what he actually meant was that he was going out to the pavilion later. Is that it?'
'Yes. And Maurice carries it farther, because he supplies a reason for everything! She wasn't inviting Rainger out there for any business of love-making; quite to the contrary, although Rainger didn't know it. She was inviting him out there so that she and your Uncle John — steady, now; I don't mean anything against him-could corner Rainger and, if necessary, wring his neck…'
'But why?'
'Because Rainger had been the whole motivating force behind Emery's telling Lord Canifest about the marriage. She knew she could handle Emery; but not when Rainger played on Emery's nerves and uneasiness and sent him to Canifest to tell the whole thing! It's Rainger's fine Italian hand that you can see behind the whole business, whether or not you accuse him of murder. Marcia had heard rumors that the beans were spilled. That was why John had gone to see Canifest.' He hesitated, but she gestured fiercely for him to go on. 'Well, frankly, John may or may not have known about Marcia's marriage to Emery. Emery thinks he didn't; but, whether he did or not, the shock of hearing from Canifest that his great dream about the play had gone to smash was bad enough in itself. And John knew who had prompted Emery to tell. This morning, when he was talking to Willard and me, he flared out about Rainger being behind it
'You see? Both he and Marcia had had rumors of it. And Marcia invited Rainger down to the pavilion last night because she was expecting John back with bad news, and both she and John were going to face Rainger with it.'
'But they didn't! They couldn't have, because-'
'No. That's just it.' He wondered whether she knew about John's trouble with Canifest, and decided that the best thing was to suppress it. 'Because John was delayed in town, and, after she tried to stall Rainger off in the hope that John would return, she was forced to face him alone.
'Blast it, the thing fits together almost too accurately!
Even to Louise's part in it. Louise entered unintentionally into the scheme. The mysterious woman Mrs. Thompson saw going down over the lawn at one-thirty, the person who started the dog barking, was Louise. She had gone down to the pavilion to make a last appeal to Marcia. If Marcia wouldn't listen to reason, she wasn't going to kill her; but that little quiet friend of yours was going to slash Marcia's face open and disfigure her with the lash of a hunting-crop..'
Katharine had gone pale. He felt a sickening sensation, a knowledge that he was right. Biting at her lips, Katharine hesitated, wavered…
'How,' she burst out, 'did Uncle Maurice know that? Nobody's said anything about that crop! I haven't told anybody. I tried to conceal?'
'Yes, I know you did. It's Maurice's quaint habit of listening at doors. He's overheard everything that's been said in this house. I shouldn't be at all surprised if he could hear us right now.'
Everywhere Bennett seemed to see that gently leering, cool, pale face with its big forehead and black-pointed eyes. So strong was the impression that he went over, opened the door, and peered out. A little reassured that the gallery was empty, he turned back.
'And he pointed out one thing we had overlooked: that no woman would use the loaded end of a crop as a weapon to kill. It had another meaning. It's clear as daylight when you think of it as a weapon like vitriol or a horsewhip: to disfigure. Very well, she went down to the pavilion at one-thirty. Rainger, on the other hand, thought the dog barking meant that John was coming home. He went to his room, and waited for some minutes so that John could go to his room and get out of the way. You see?'
'Yes, but!'
'Wait a minute. About twenty minutes to two, Rainger came downstairs (still in his evening clothes). He let himself out the back door and went down to the pavilion in high feather for a nuit d'amour.
'And when he got there, still during a heavy snowfall, he heard the row. It was a furious row. Louise had nerved herself up in some way, and she went for Tait with the crop. Somebody got hit, and there was a little blood; but Tait was the stronger either physically or mentally, and she got Louise out of there before Rainger showed himself to interfere. You see, Tait still didn't know' Louise's father had refused to back their play, and she wanted to keep down as much trouble as possible. Louise, still with the crop in her hand, stumbled out of there, crying, with all her emotional nerve gone; and Tait only laughed. She enjoyed it.'
As he refashioned Maurice's words, Bennett understood now why the man could have written a brilliant play. He could not hope to reproduce the vividness with which Maurice's dry, precise inflection probed into brains and reshaped the anguish of a hurt woman. Again he saw Maurice bending forward, hands clasped on his stick, gently smiling.
'What happened to Louise, according to him,' said Bennett, 'you can guess. Her worked-up nerve was gone. She came back to the house in a hysterical condition at not later than a quarter to two. She did not remove her coat, or anything except her wet shoes. She lay in the dark and brooded until she was nearly insane. Then she determined, in the night, to come to you and tell you. Can you think of a more likely motive for waking up somebody at that time of the morning? On the way to your room, she lost her way in the dark — something that may have been only a shadow shattered her last shred of reason — she cried out, and when she opened her eyes both you and Willard were bending over her. She would have told you, but she couldn't tell Willard. She was again the prim, nervous Miss Carewe. But she saw the blood on her, and she instantly cried out the first thing that a girl of her type would naturally think of, a `mysterious man' beloved of the spinsters, who had accosted her. '
Katharine said quietly:
'It can't be. But that doesn't matter. It doesn't have any connection with Rainger out there at the pavilion. I know now all about the `impossible situation.' Dr. Wynne carefully explained it to me. If Rainger killed her, how did he do it?'
'It's the simplest damned trick ever worked, if it's true. Did Dr. Wynne tell you about the conditions out there? How everything looked?'
'Yes. Carry on. I want to know!'
'All right. Rainger, when it's snowing most heavily, goes out jubilantly to his tryst. She appreciates the baboon now… Well, Tait doesn't want to pitch into him until John returns with definite news; maybe she felt Rainger might still be a valuable friend, or maybe she was a little afraid of Rainger's brains and nastiness. She was very gracious and alluring to him, while John wasn't there to take her part when she did pitch in. But-time went on, things got more strained; two o'clock, half-past two, still no John.
'The blow-up must have come about three, when Rainger was gradually getting suspicious, and Marcia suddenly realized that if the news had been good John would have returned by that time. In other words, the plans had crashed and John was afraid to come and tell her. And it was Rainger's fault. It was the fault of the tubby little man pawing at her… '
'Don't!' said Katharine, and shuddered.
