The Eight of Swords

name, but pointed to the speaking tube and said to ask Mr. Depping whether he couldn't go upstairs. Which you did, and the visitor went up. Is

all that correct, as we heard it?' 'Yes, sir.'

'That's all. And be sure you go downstairs now, please.' Pushing out his cloak, Dr. Fell lowered himself into an easy-chair near the lamp. He regarded his audience with an argumentative stare, and said: 'I wanted to be sure of that, genthemen. It struck me, when I heard it this morning, that the story had a distinctly fishy sound. Look here. Put yourselves in Depping's place for a moment.

'You're sitting here in this room one evening, reading or what not, and all of a sudden — without the slightest warning — every light in the house goes out. What would you do?'

'Do?' repeated the bishop. He frowned. 'Why, I suppose I should go out and find out why—'

'Precisely!' rumbled Dr. Fell, and struck his stick against the floor. 'It's the normal, inevitable thing. You'd be furious; people always are when that sort of thing happens. You'd go out and bawl over the bannisters as to what the thus-and-so was going on in that place. Depping, a man who was annoyed more than anything by trifles, assuredly would. But that's the point. He didn't. He didn't even call downstairs to inquire what was wrong.

'To the contrary, he evinced a singular lack of interest in those lights. He was willing to entertain a man — who wouldn't give his name — with only a candle or two for illumination. He even, you recall, instructed Storer not to bother about seeing that they were repaired. Now, that isn't reasonable. And, actually, what was wrong? Something had blown out the fuses. I thought it might be interesting to inquire into causes. Here is the cause.'

From the floor beside the chair Dr. Fell took up a long steel buttonhook, now corroded and blackened. He turned it over in his palm, musingly.

'You see that live socket? Eh? Well, this buttonhook was deliberately thrust into it, in order to short-circuit the lights. You have only to look at the buttonhook to see that. I found it lying near the open socket. In other words, the lights were put out from this room… What do you make of it?'

CHAPTER VII 'Who's Been Sitting in My Chair?'

The bishop was a gentleman and a sportsman. He rumpled at the bird's nest of hair curling back over his big head, and then he smiled. 'My dear doctor,' he said, 'it begins to be borne in on me that I should have done better to remain silent. Pray go on.'

'Tut!' grunted Dr. Fell amiably. 'Let's pursue this line of reconstruction a little further. Il saute aux yeux la question: Why under sanity should Depping want to put out his own lights? The obvious answer is that he wanted to entertain a visitor who must not be recognized by his servants.

'From this we proceed to inference that (1) Storer did know the person who was to call on him, but (2) he was in such fashion disguised that Storer would not know him if he were seen only by the very uncertain light of a candle. Hence the short-circuiting of the lights. This is decidedly supported by the conduct of the visitor. Mind, he is never supposed to have been inside the house before, and is a complete stranger. Yet he points to the speaking tube on the wall and tells Storer to speak to his employer. That isn't the ordinary behavior of a caller who wants an interview with the master of a house; far from it.'

The bishop nodded. 'Unquestionably,' he agreed. 'There can be no doubt of it. That is the explanation.'

Dr. Fell scowled. His eyes wandered drowsily about the room, and then a capacious chuckle ran down the ridges of his waistcoat.

'No, it isn't,' he said.

'I beg your pardon?'

'It isn't. I didn't say it was the explanation; I only said those were inferences to be drawn from the hypothesis that Depping put out his own lights. And I wish it were as simple as that. But let's proceed for a moment on that assumption, and see. what we find.

'H’m. Harrumph. There is a very, very grave objection to this theory. If Depping wished to entertain a secret visitor, why did he indulge in all that elaborate and dangerous mummery? Why go to all the trouble of putting a loud check suit and a false moustache on his visitor, dousing the lights, and mysteriously bringing him in at the front door? Why not simply bring him up to the balcony, and through the balcony door unknown to anybody? Why not smuggle him in at the back door? Why not bring him through a window, if necessary? Why not adopt the simplest course of all: send the servants to bed and let him in himself — front door, balcony door, or back door?

'You see, that theory won't work. Nobody but a lunatic would have arranged a meeting like that. There must have been a very good reason why it was done in that way.'

He paused for a long time.

To see whether we can explain it, remember that the balcony door, which is always kept locked, was found open this morning. Not only was this door usually locked, but the key was not in it at all; it hung on a nail in a pantry downstairs. And it is gone now. Who took that key, and who opened the door? The murderer left that way, and it must have been unlocked either by Depping or by the murderer. Keep that fact fixed in your mind while we consider the problem.

'Whoever the visitor was, or why he was admitted under such circumstances of hocus-pocus, look at the facts and see what happened afterwards. Depping and X are closeted together, amiably enough to all purposes, and some very extraordinary things occur. They are seen by the cook putting up all the windows in the midst of a blowing thunderstorm… What does that suggest to you?'

The bishop was pacing about at a measured and thoughtful gait.

'I can scarcely imagine,' he replied, 'that they did so because they wanted to air the room.'

'But they did,' said Dr. Fell. 'That's exactly what they wanted to do. Haven't you looked in the fireplace? Haven't you wondered about afire in the hottest part of August? Haven't you seen that heavy, clotted mass of ash? Haven't you wondered what must have been burned, so that all the windows had to be raised?'

'You mean-'

'Clothes,' said Dr. Fell.

There was an eerie pause. 'I mean,' the doctor went on, his voice rumbling through the quiet room, 'I mean that glaring check suit worn by the visitor. You can still see traces of it in the fireplace. Now, mark you, these two are acting in perfect accord and understanding. The more we examine the problems as it seems to be, the more we must realize that it's mad, and there must be something wrong with the facts as they have been presented to us. Here is Depping admitting a visitor as he does, when he could easily have let him in through the balcony door without fuss. Here are Depping and his visitor sitting down to burn the visitor's clothes: which, I can assure you, is a social pursuit somewhat rare in the British Isles. Finally, we have the visitor not only shooting Depping with Depping's own gun, but (a) taking the gun out of the drawer without any protest, (b) getting behind Depping with it, also without protest, (c) firing two bullets of which one has mysteriously vanished, (d) carefully replacing the gun in the drawer, and (e) leaving this room by means of a balcony door which is always kept locked, and whose key is downstairs in the pantry.'

Wheezing, the doctor took out his pipe and tobacco pouch with an air of gentle protest. Morley Standish, who had been staring out of the window, turned suddenly.

'Hold on, sir! I don't follow that. Even if Depping didn't let the man in, he might have got the key out of the pantry and put it in the door so that he could let the visitor out afterwards.'

'Quite so,' agreed Dr. Fell. 'Then why isn't the key

there now?' 'Why isn't-?'

'H’mf, yes. It's not very complicated, is it?' the other asked anxiously. 'If you're a murderer leaving a room in comparative haste, throwing the door open and ducking out, does it generally occur to you to pinch the key on your way out? Why should you? If you wanted to lock the door behind you, I could understand the position. Lock the door; chuck away the key. But why, if you intend leaving the door ajar, do you want a dangerous souvenir like that?'

He lit the dregs of his pipe.