The Eight of Swords

'Well, the fact is that my old man — the bishop, you know — got an idea into his head that you were the murderer; or, at least, a pretty suspicious character.'

The other did not seem surprised. He let out a long breath, as though facts were being faced at last. 'Ah! Enfin. Fve been waiting for that. It was sure to occur to somebody, and I'm not surprised it was your father; I could see he had his eye on me. But why?'

'Chiefly it was about that footprint; the one around the side of the house here, made with Morley Standish's shoe. He had a theory that you had gone up to The Grange to steal those shoes; gone in through the secret passage in the oak room to get to the junk closet, without knowing anybody was sleeping there; and, when you find it had an occupant, you played poltergeist to cover your retreat.' Morgan turned, staring.

'Holy—!' he said, and struck the back of his head. 'Now there's a suggestion that hadn't occurred to me. About the shoes, I mean. But the rest of it — yes, I was expecting it to happen.'

'The idea's all wrong, of course. Spinelli proved that tonight. It was Depping himself who wore the shoes for his masquerade; I heard Spinelli say so. Afterwards he probably hid them somewhere in the house. But my old man worked up rather a plausible theory, proving that you couldn't have known the vicar was in the house, and the rest of it. Doesn't matter now. We know you weren't the poltergeist…'

Morgan frowned. 'Certainly I was the poltergeist,' he said. 'That's just it. Do you mean to say you didn't find the clue I deliberately left? That's what I was worried about. I wanted to be true to tradition, and, besides, I was full of cocktails; so I dropped a little red notebook with my initials on it. After all, damn it,' he pointed out argumentatively, 'the sleuths ought to have something to work on.'

'You mean…'

'Uh. It gave me some bad moments, when I thought about it afterwards.' He kicked moodily at the jamb of the door. 'Penalty of childishness. It makes me want to kick myself when I think of — of this. Not so entertaining, is it, when it's real? But I was the poltergeist, all right. And it's perfectly true: I didn't know the vicar was sleeping in that room. I didn't know he was in the house at all.'

After a pause, he turned again with a guilty expression.

'As a matter of fact, that demonstration was intended for your old man… It was like this. I've got a habit of taking about a six-mile walk every night, late — incidentally, I was caught out in that storm last night, and hadn't any alibi; never mind. Well, I knew the bishop was staying at The Grange; he'd made a point of sitting on me hard and frequently, because of the detective stories. On the poltergeist night I was coming back from my walk, and cutting across the park, when I saw a light go on in the oak room. I thought, ‘What ho!' and I put two and two together, because the room isn't usually occupied. And the bishop knew the story of the haunting. But, just to make sure, I sneaked round to the side door of the servants' hall, and collared old Dibbs — that's the butler. I said, 'Where is His reverence sleeping?' And Dibbs said, In the oak room.''

Wryly Morgan moved bis glasses up and down his nose. 'Well, what did I naturally think? I didn't know it was poor old Primley. I swore Dibbs to silence with a new, crisp jimmy-o'goblin — and I’ll bet he hasn't betrayed me yet. Ha. The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea. I went home, and had a few drinks with Madeleine, and the idea got better and better. You know the rest.'

He came over and sat down on the step.

'And I saw Spinelli that night,' he said abruptly. 'Going down over the hill to the Guest House here, just as the bishop said. But I couldn't tell the colonel so, could I? And nobody believed the bishop — and this business came on.' He stabbed his finger down the lawn.

The moon was low now, a deathly radiance through the trees towards the west. A mist had begun to creep over the lawn, in the hour of suicides, and the black despair of those who lie awake; a cold, luminous mist, that came out to take Spinelli's body. Hugh felt an increasing sense of disquiet. A party from The Grange should have arrived by this time. 'It's a wonder,' he said, 'that the whole county wasn't wakened by that shooting. Why there isn't anybody here — why we've got to sit like a couple of corpse-watchers—'

'Madeleine!' said Morgan, sitting up straight. 'My God, she must have heard it as plainly as we did. She'll be picturing me…' He jumped up. 'Look here, this won't do. Post of duty or no post of duty, I’ve got to hop back to my place — for a few minutes, anyhow — and tell her I'm alive. I'll be back in five minutes. Is it all right?'

Hugh nodded. But he wished very fervently that half-a-dozen people, talkative people, would come into that clearing with lights and set about removing the sniper's trophies. As Morgan strode off down the misty lawn, he moved into the exact center of the light that streamed from the open door. What he ought to do was go into the house and switch on every lamp. Besides, it was devilish cold; he could see his breath. But whether it would do any good, even if the whole house blazed like a cinema theatre…

Hesitantly he went into the hall. It was even more depressing than it had looked that afternoon: the soiled yellow matting, the black portieres, the black furniture smelling of stale furniture polish, the speaking tube in the wall. He understood a little better now. It was not only empty at this moment, but it had always been empty. Old Depping had never actually lived here. It had only been the place where he hung up one of his masks; an unsatisfied genius, as brilliant as unpleasant, whose fingers had touched everybody in this case, and whose fury was the one thing that made it vivid. You might think to see him coming down those stairs now in his high, prim collar: a sort of grizzle-haired satyr, peering over the bannisters.

Uneasily Hugh wondered whether the body upstairs had been removed. He supposed it had; they were speaking of it this afternoon; but you did not like to think the old man might still be lying with his dead smirk across the desk… Automatically Hugh did what he and Murch and Morgan had done when they first entered the house a while ago: he went to the door on the right and glanced through to the room where the sniper had hidden.

There were no electric lights here. Hugh did not try to put on the gas; he kindled his pocket lighter and saw, as before, nothing. A dreary and unfurnished place, which might once have been a drawing-room, smelling of damp wallpaper. But they had kept it clean and dusted. The floor, varnished round the edges and bare-boarded in the middle where a carpet should have been, held no footprints. Nor were there any traces that the sniper had been hit by Murch's fire, though the mantelpiece was gouged with bullets and one of them had smashed the mirror that was a part of it. Only stale cordite fumes, and slivers of broken glass round the window.

His foot creaked on a loose board. In the act of blowing out the lighter, he whirled round. Somebody was moving about in the house.

Impossible to tell the direction of sounds. The noise he heard seemed to have come from upstairs. It would be… queer how these inapt words struck him. What he had thought was, it would be embarrassing if old Depping were to walk down the steps now. The bright hallway was full of creakings. Another explanation occurred to him. There was no actual evidence to prove that the murderer had ever left the house at all. They had seen nobody. A slammed door; nothing else. And, if the sniper were still here, there would still be a bullet or two in reserve…

'Good morning,' said a voice from the back of the hallway. 'How do you like your job?'

He recognized the voice, as well as the lumbering step that followed it, in time to be reassured. It was Dr. Fell's voice; but even then there was a difference. It had lost its aggressive rumble. It was heavy, and dull, and full of a bitterness that very few people had ever heard there. Stumping on his cane, catching his breath harshly as though he had been walking hard, Dr. Fell appeared round the corner of the staircase. He was hatless, and had a heavy plaid shawl round his shoulders. His reddish face had lost color; his great white-streaked mop of hair was disarranged. The small eyes, the curved moustache, the mountainous chins, all showed a kind of sardonic weariness.

'I know,' he rumbled, and wheezed again. 'You want to know what I'm doing here. Well, I’ll tell you. Cursing myself.'

A pause. His eyes strayed up the dark staircase, and then came back to Donovan.

'Maybe, yes, certainly, if they'd told me about that passage in the oak room… Never mind. It was my own fault. I should have investigated for myself. I allowed this to happen!' he snapped, and struck the ferrule of his cane on the matting. 'I encouraged it, deliberately encouraged it, so that I could prove my case; but I never meant it to happen. I intended to set the bait, and then head off…' His voice grew lower. 'This is my last case. I’ll never play the omniscient damned fool again.'

'Don't you think,' said Hugh, 'that Spinelli got not very far off what he deserved?'

'I was thinking,' said Dr. Fell in a queer voice, 'of justice, or what constitutes justice, and other things as open to argument as the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. And I couldn't see my way clear as to what to do. This new business' — he pointed toward the door with his cane—'has almost decided it. But I wish it hadn't. I tried to prevent it. Do you know what I've been doing? I've been sitting in a chair in the upstairs hallway at