'I'm afraid,' said Bennett uneasily, 'you're only proving Maurice's point. Then can you imagine what she began to tell him? It's a funny thing, but when Rainger himself was telling us this morning of an imaginary interview between Marcia and John just before he said John killed her, Rainger used the words, `She told him for the first time what she really thought of him.'
'Lord, it comes back at him with a smash, doesn't it? Everything he said about John might have been in his mind about himself. Furious as he was (says Maurice), he kept that little kink of reason in his mind; that cunning he's always got. He realized that, if he killed Marcia by smashing her head in, the blame would probably go straight to Louise who he knew had made an attack on her.
'But in any event, he didn't check himself. He killed her with one of those heavy silvered-steel or brass vases that are all over the house, those vases with sharp edges which would make exactly the kind of wounds that were on her head. Afterwards he washed it off and put it back on one of the Japanese cabinets — so that Louise's loaded crop should be blamed.
'And there, my girl,' snapped Bennett, 'there's exactly where Maurice's theory is reasonable. There is why he says he knew Louise's story about being grabbed in the dark by a bloody-handed man was pure fabrication. Why should the fool murderer come all the way back from the pavilion without washing his hands? There's water down there. Even if he wasn't acquainted with the pavilion, it's the first thing he'd have looked for.'
After a pause the girl rubbed her hand dazedly across her forehead.
'And that little stain of blood,' she muttered, 'came from Louise's attempt to. But Rainger? He had to get back from the pavilion, didn't he? And the snow had stopped! And aside from how he could have done it, if he knew Louise would be suspected, why did he try to throw the blame on John?'
'Because, don't you see, he had to! He suddenly had to change his plans, for the same reason we've been putting up against everybody who's been accused: The snow had stopped, and he hadn't calculated on it. It must have been a hellish shock, when he was all ready with a perfect situation at hand, to discover that the snow stopping an hour before had wrecked the entire scheme. If his footprints alone were seen leaving that pavilion, there was no chance to accuse anybody. That's why a less clever man than Rainger would never have had the strength of mind to get himself out of it. He did, brilliantly. You see. '
She protested: 'Wait a bit! Dr. Wynne told me about that accusation he made against John. But if he wanted to blame Louise, couldn't he still have done it? Somebody asked why a person trapped in the pavilion wouldn't make tracks and simply mess them up so they couldn't be recognized. And Rainger answered that it would take too much time; the dog would bark and rouse the house. But that wouldn't apply to Rainger. He knew Tempest had been tied up inside; he heard Uncle Maurice give the orders. Messed-up tracks would have been blamed on Louise, and he had all the time he wanted, didn't he?'
Bennett fumbled after a cigarette and lit it hastily.
He said: 'Good girl! That's exactly what Masters said to your uncle. But by the devilish arrangement of circumstances, Rainger was in an even worse position. He couldn't afford to take the time-risk either. He knew there was nothing to fear from the dog, but..:'
'Yes?'
'He expected John back from town at any time! — Naturally Marcia, when she flew out at him, would have told him she expected John. She had told him John was coming down to the pavilion, whenever he got home. Rainger knew John hadn't got back, or he would have heard the car. So, if he tries the long process of messing up his tracks, and meets John halfway up the lawn… you see?'
'I say, this is-the perverseness of things… But what did he do? What could he do?'
Bennett drew a deep breath. 'Here we go. Now this non-arrival of John, according to Maurice, supplied Rainger with his inspiration. He knew that, at some time during that night, or very early in the morning, John would come down to the pavilion. He'd either go down there as soon as he got back from London, or turn up for early horseback-riding according to Tait's orders. Rainger might have to wait a long time, but the probabilities were overwhelming that John would be the first person at Tait's side in the morning. And if not John, somebody else might do as well.
'He heard John's car come in about quarter-past three.
John didn't come down at the moment, but that might only mean he had gone into the house for a short time. Rainger was always in danger if he tried to venture out of the pavilion, not knowing what John was up to. So his inspiration grew until he worked out the whole scheme into a perfect alibi for himself. Did you see Rainger this morning?'
She looked at him queerly. 'Yes. About half-past eight. He was standing in the door of his room putting on a ghastly-looking dressing-gown. I think he was patting one of the maids — yes, it was Beryl! — he was patting her on the head and saying, `Good girl, good girl.' I don't know whether he was drunk then.'
'Yes! We come back to Maurice's theory again. Beryl was the girl who told him John's bed hadn't been slept in last night. It wasn't slept in because John didn't go to bed at all. He paced the floor all night after he got in, with the light on, wondering whether he had the nerve to go and face Tait with the bad news! Do you see it? And still Rainger as I told you, didn't dare venture out of the pavilion… because he saw the light on in John's room.
'Maurice asked the very significant question: `How did Rainger, at the very beginning of the case, before any of us knew the 'circumstances, come to inquire whether or not John's bed had been slept in? What made him think of it?' And Maurice answered, `Because Rainger saw the light on all night in that room, and he was working out his scheme to throw the blame on John.' — Now, then, you saw Rainger this morning. He was still in his evening clothes, wasn't he? At least the shirt and trousers?'
'Y-yes, I, think so. I don't remember.
'He was when he spoke to us in the library. Did you notice certain very black grimy stains on his shoulders, and powdered down his shirt?'
'Yes, I did notice that, because I thought he must be even nastier than I'd thought, to let… '
Bennett got up. He put his hand slowly under the hood of the fireplace, touched lightly, and withdrew it stained in soot.
'Like this?' he asked. 'Yes. I saw the marks myself. Well, the fires were out down at the pavilion. The chimneys are enormous, and have iron steps for the chimney-sweep on the inside. Rainger took off his coat for greater freedom when he tested whether he could manage it. He found it could be done. So he waited patiently until John should come down there. He had to turn out the light a long time before daylight, in case somebody over at the stables should see an all-night light, and grow curious. But he had to keep striking matches in the dark, match after match, to look at his watch. He left the front door of the pavilion open. It would be time to act when he heard John's footsteps.
'You still don't see it? When John discovered the body, Rainger was in the chimney. He knew that he was fairly safe when the inevitable search of the house occurred. It did occur. John and I undertook it. While we were in the back part of the house…'
'But he still had to leave the pavilion!'
And now Bennett remembered the terrible subdued triumph of Maurice's face when Maurice suddenly pointed his stick at H. M. and put the last touch on his accusation.
'Have you forgotten,' said Bennett, hearing the words echo back, 'that Rainger's foot is as small as a woman's? We noticed it this morning in the library. Have you also forgotten that your uncle John wears the largest size in men's shoes? — Don't you think that you, for instance, could walk back to the house in his tracks, without every touching the outside edges, while two dunderheads were searching the other side of the pavilion? Have you forgotten that, once you were across the lake, the curve of the evergreen avenue would screen you from view? With a number six shoe in a number ten, you could walk straight in your normal way; let yourself back into the house through the door John had left open to come out; and, since there might be some question about a blur in those tracks, you could explain it later exactly in the way Rainger did; to throw the blame on John Bohun.'
There was a long pause. Bennett's cigarette had burned crookedly down one side, and he flung it into the fire.
He added thoughtfully:
'I won't call it a conspiracy of the perverse fates, or a choice example of the innate orneriness of human happenings. All I'll say is that in the future I'm going to be very careful when I serve on a jury. Here are two perfectly good and convincing cases, each built out of exactly the same material, each pointing to a different person, and each the only apparent way of explaining an impossible situation. But if in this nightmare of a muddle
