The Eight of Swords

only reason why he employed Storer was because the valet looked so bloody respectable: and the only reason why he employed Achille Georges was because the world considered a taste for fine foods and wines to be the mark of a cultured man.

'That's what he said, sir,' affirmed Storer, with an expression which on any less dismal face would have been sly. His nose sang on: ' The world is so full of fools, Charley,'—which is not my name, sir—'the world is so full of fools,' he said to me, 'that anybody who can get emotional over an omelette, or tell you the vintage of a wine, is considered a very superior sort of person.' Then he would glare over those half-glasses of his, and grip the whisky bottle as though he meant to throw it.'

The valet's eyes wheeled round his narrow nose as though he appreciated this too. 'But I must say, sir, in all justice, that he said he would have kept Achille anyway, because of the soups he could make. They were good soups,' agreed Storer, judicially. 'Mr. Depping was very fond—'

'My good man,' interposed the bishop testily, 'I am not at all concerned with his tastes in food—'

Tarn,' said Dr. Fell suddenly. He had wheeled round as the valet's narrative went on. 'Was he fond of crawfish soup, by any chance?'

'He was sir,' replied Storer imperturbably. 'It was his favorite. Achille had been preparing it frequendy of late.'

Dr. Fell removed the cloth again from the dinner dishes of last night, and nodded towards them. 'Then it's damned funny,' he said. 'Here's crawfish soup, nearly untasted. On the other hand, he seems to have been especially rough on a kind of pineapple salad. He's eaten most of his dinner except the soup… Never mind. Carry on.'

The bishop of Mappleham, who had paid no attention to this, fixed on an idea which had been growing in his son's mind for some time.

'One thing is evident,' he declared. 'Every bit of evidence we have heard points towards it. I do not wish to defame the memory of the dead, but this man Depping was not what he seemed. His past life — his unaccountable past life — his actions, and contradictions, are all those of a man who is playing a part… '

'Yes,' said Dr. Fell, with a sort of obstinacy; 'that's too evident to mention. But who's been eating his dinner?'

'Confound his dinner!' roared the bishop, letting off steam for the first time. 'You know it, Storer. I believe you know it too, Morley…'

He swung round to young Standish, who had remained near the door with his hands jammed into his pockets. Morley lifted his eyes. Morley said equably:

'Sorry, sir. I don't know anything of the kind.'

'It does not surprise me,' pursued His Reverence, 'that Depping should have been consorting with criminals. In all likelihood he has been a criminal himself in the past, and he has been living here to assume a guise of respectability. He knew Louis Spinelli. Louis Spinelli tracked him down for the purpose of blackmailing him… Depping's 'business.' What was his business? Does anybody know anything about it?'

'Excuse me, sir,' observed the valet. 'He had — he informed me — a large financial interest in the publishing firm of Standish & Burke. But, as I told the police officer this morning, he was trying to get rid of that interest. You see, he told me all about it when he was — indisposed the last time.'

'I meant his business previous to five years ago. He never mentioned that to you, I dare say?… I thought not.'

His Reverence was regaining his self-confidence. He moved one hand up and down the lapel of his ponderous black coat. 'Now, let us reconstruct what happened last night, if we can. Shortly after the storm began, around eleven o'clock, this stranger — I mean the American, whose name we know to be Spinelli — rang the doorbell and asked to see Mr. Depping. That is correct, Storer? Thank you… Now, as a matter of form I must ask you to identify him; I have two photographs here' — he produced them from his inside pocket and handed them to the valet. That is the man who called on Mr. Depping, is it not?'

Storer looked at the snapshots with care. He handed them back.

‘No, sir' he said apologetically.

With a feeling that somebody had gone mad, Hugh Donovan peered into the man's face. There was a silence, during which they could hear Dr. Fell unconcernedly poking with his stick in the fireplace behind the dead man's chair. Behind this chair Dr. Fell rose to the surface like a red-faced walrus, wrinkled his moustache with a beaming air, and sank down again. The bishop only stared, blankly.

'But this…' he said, and swallowed hard. He assumed a persuasive air. 'Gome, come, now! This is absurd. Utterly absurd, you know. This must be the man. Come look again.'

'No, sir, it isn't the same man,' Storer answered with an air of regret. 'I only had a brief look at him, I know, and the candle didn't give a great deal of light. Perhaps, sir, I might not even be able to identify him positively if I saw him again… But — excuse me — this is not the same man. The whole face is different, except for the moustache. This man's face is very broad and low, and has heavy eyebrows. It doesn't look anything like the man I saw. And, besides, the man I saw had projecting ears, noticeably projecting, sir.'

The bishop looked at Dr. Fell. The doctor was stirring a mass of heavy black ash in the fireplace, and one eye caught the ecclesiastical appeal.

'Yes,' he said, 'yes, I was afraid of that.'

Somebody brushed past Donovan. Morley Standish had come up to the desk.

'This man's lying,' he said heavily. 'He's either lying, or else, he's working with Spinelli. It must have been Spinelli. The bishop is right. There's nobody else—'

'Tut, tut,' said Dr. Fell, rather irritably. 'Calm yourselves a moment, while I ask just one question, and then I may be able to tell you something. I say, Storer, it's rather an important question, so try not to make any mistake.'

He indicated the door to the balcony. 'It's about that door. Was it usually locked or unlocked?'

'The door… why, always locked, sir. Invariably. It was never used.'

Dr. Fell nodded. 'And the lock,' he said musingly, 'isn't a spring-lock. It's the old-fashioned kind, d'ye see. Where's the key for it?'

The other reflected for some time. 'I believe, sir, that it's hanging up on a hook in the pantry, along with some other keys for rooms that aren't used.'

'Cut along then, and see if you can find it. Ill give you odds it isn't there, but have a look anyway.'

He watched owlishly until the valet had left the room.

'Let's pass over for the moment,' he went on, 'the identity of the man who came to see Depping last night. Let's only assume that somebody came here for the purpose of killing Depping, not blackmailing him, and go on from there. Come here a moment, will you?'

They followed him uncertainly as he went over to the bridge lamp near the front windows.

The electric fittings in this place' he continued, 'are of a rather old-fashioned variety. You see that socket along the baseboard of the wall? This plug,' — he picked up a length of wire from the lamp—'this plug, which is loose now, is screwed into that socket. In the modern ones the plug has only two prongs, which fit into the socket, and the live part isn't exposed for somebody to touch accidentally and get the devil of a shock. But the live part is exposed there; you see?'

'Certainly,' said the bishop. 'What about it?'

'Well, I've found the buttonhook.'

'What?'

Dr. Fell raised his hand for silence as Storer hurried back into the room. 'The. key isn't there, sir,' he reported.

'Mmf, yes. Now, then, just let me get one or two points corroborated, and then you may go. Last night the storm began just before eleven o'clock. You didn't speak to Mr. Depping then, or he to you. You went downstairs to shut the windows, and you were down there when the lights went out. You rummaged after candles down here, which took — how long, should you think?'

'Well, sir, say five minutes.'

'Good. Then you started upstairs, and were going up to see whether your employer needed any candles when the knock came at the door, and you saw the mysterious man with the American accent. He wouldn't give any