There was a whispering, soft, very unpleasant laughing on the wire.
Then the line went dead.
For a couple of seconds Murchison automatically jiggled the hook. Then he got through to the switchboard downstairs. 'Are you after that call? Right. Get it. Get it or I'll have your hide. Keep at it. Ring me here the minute- yes.' He put down the receiver slowly, and looked up. 'It was an assumed voice, of course. Mr. Blake, I've got an idea I've been talking to the murderer. And I've got an idea he's a rather more ugly customer than a puppet.'
He lumbered out slowly into the room, his hands in his pockets.
'L.,' he said.
I didn't know what to say. The case was turning upside down again.
'You also,' Murchison went on, in the same heavy voice, 'told me something about a window fixed up like a miniature guillotine?'
The 'phone rang again, and he went after it. Afterwards he turned round with an air that was something between satisfaction and doubt.
'No difficulty about that,' he informed me. 'It was a trunk call, and easy to trace. The number was Torquay 0066. It appears to be the house of Dr. Lawrence Antrim.'
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Punch and Judy Show
The moon was low behind the headlands, and, although the sky had turned blacker yet, in another hour or more it would be dawn. Through that hush the police-car turned up into a familiar lane. On either side were high hedges, with the dim white of apple-blossom beyond; the wet scent of dew and sea mingled with it, and the soil of Devon slept. We were returning up the headland on which stood Charters's villa and Antrim's house. From some distance away a church clock whispered the quarter-hour to four.
The police-car contained the constable who drove it, and Evelyn, and myself — and Mr. Johnson Stone. Stone had insisted on coming back with us. Half the reason why he had put into Murchison's head the idea of sending us back, he pointed out, was that he wished to return and see old soand-so's face when the old so-and-so learned the truth. I had put through a brief trunk-call to the old so-and-so, giving a brief flutter of the facts. He had remained cryptic.
On that ride not one of us, I think, was tired. Stone sat in front with the constable, and Evelyn and I in the back. We were fretted and disturbed, but not tired. Possibly to divert our minds, possibly because it was the natural thing, we did what people usually do on night rides: we sang. Stone proved to be an enthusiastic amateur tenor, with a strong preference for sentimental Scottish songs. The things he did to Annie Laurie, upturning his face to the moon, exposing nearly all his teeth on the top-notes, would have wrung tears from a Highlander. The constable also proved to be musical. He never turned round or lifted his eyes from the road as though it would be a dereliction of duty to do so; but he stolidly joined a tuneless bass to everything Stone started.
We fell silent when we reached the top of the lane. Charters's house was illuminated. So, some distance over to the left, was Antrim's. And, as we turned into the driveway, a figure moved out and gestured us to stop. It was Charters. He was as stiff-backed as ever, but he looked even more fretful and worried and tired, as of a man who wishes to get this nonsense over with and go to bed. He laid a large knuckled hand on the door of the car.
'Glad you're back,' he said briefly. 'Don't go to my place. Drive on over to Antrim's. They're all there.'
'All?'
'All,' said Charters. 'Dr. and Mrs. Antrim. Even Bowers. They've also brought Serpos back from Moreton Abbot — the blasted young pup. They're holding high inquisition; or, rather, Merrivale is. He's taken over Antrim's consulting-room, as coolly as though he owned it.'
'How long have they been there?' I asked quickly. That telephone-call from `L.' had come through, we had ascertained, at just one-thirty.
'How long? Why? — some time, anyhow; ever since about midnight, when Mrs. Antrim got back from Moreton Abbot. She's a pretty strong-headed girl, but for once I thought we should have a case of hysterics on our hands.' Charters paused. Peering in the darkness, he had caught sight of Stone, and he instantly assumed his stiff official manner. 'Mr. Stone? I hardly thought '
'All the same, colonel,' Stone told him without abashment, 'I think you'll be glad to see me. Even if I did get thrown out on the seat of the pants'
'Sorry,' said Charters perfunctorily. 'We seem to have made a number of mistakes to-night. But I do not think it will be long before they are rectified. Shall we move on?'
He stood on the running-board of the car while we moved on. Antrim's house was a neat little box with a red-tiled hall, in which another of the ubiquitous police-officers stood stolidly: this time a sergeant whom Charters addressed as Davis. There was nobody else in sight, although you sensed movement in the house. Stone wished to be taken immediately to H.M.; but foreseeing the explosive possibilities of this, I whispered discreet words to Charters. Stone was shut up squawking in a front room, where, as the door opened, I saw the startled face of Bowers. Then Charters led us to the rear of the hall.
Antrim's consulting-room was a small, neat, shiny room, with a couple of framed diplomas on the wall, a bookcase, and (at the rear, overlooking the sea) two French windows screened outside by laurels. The only untidy object in it was the object that sat at the desk under a green-shaded lamp. This was H.M. He sat piled out of a tolerably large chair, and he still obstinately wore his hat with the brim turned down. His feet were on the desk, displaying the inevitable white socks, and entangled with the telephone in so natural a fashion that it was as though he were back in his lair in Whitehall. The glasses were pulled down on his broad nose, and with a sour expression he was examining a skull — evidently a medical exhibit-which he turned over in his fingers.
He spoke hopefully.
'Mrs. Charters is getting you two some grub,' volunteered H.M., like an urchin from the back of a classroom. 'I expect you need it. Burn me, you've been leaving things behind in a way that's scandalous. All anybody's got to do to follow your trail across England is just to walk behind and pick up the pieces, like a paper-chase. First you leave a car, and a coat, and a burglar's kit. Then you leave a sackful of money and a book of sermons. Then-'
'Is that the best you can think of to throw in our teeth?' I said coldly. 'One thing ought to be settled right here and now. When you sent me out on two frantic wild-goose chases to-night, first to Hogenauer's and then to Keppel's, did you have any idea of what I was likely to find? `You've got to pose as Robert T. Butler.' `That's our second line of defence.' Was that all eyewash? And if so, why?'
'Well… now,' said H.M. He put the skull down in his lap. He spread out his stubby fingers and examined them disconsolately. 'I've still got to ask you to trust the old man a little farther. I can't tell you — yet. But if it'll ease your soul any, I can tell you that at the moment I sent you out in that Butler — burglar role I was perfectly serious. Oh, yes, as serious as I ever been in my life.'
'Then' said Evelyn.
'Now, now. I want the whole story, with every furbelow and trimmin',' Interposed H.M. inexorably. 'Telephones are no good. Hop to it, you two. Talk.'
Sitting back at our ease, Evelyn and I contrived to spin the story between us. There was no comment. Throughout it H.M.'s face remained as impassive as that of the skull he was turning over in his fingers. Though he had heard the gist of it in my call from Bristol, some of the details were so new that Charters several times tried to interrupt; but H.M. remained staring fishily, and sometimes he twiddled his thumbs. Only at mention of the telephone-message from 'L.' did he show any sign of animation.
'Uh-huh, he growled softly. 'Now that's interestin'. That's very interestin'. Especially as-' He reached out one foot and prodded the phone on Antrim's desk. 'I say, Charters: if this feller rang up, where did he ring up from? You and I have been sittin' here all night, and nobody used this phone. Is there another one in the house?'
Charters's curt gesture dimissed this as of little importance.
'Yes. Two, I think. There's one out in the hall, under the stairs. And I believe there's an extension up in Antrim's bedroom, in case someone rings him up in the night-'
'I know. Who'd be a country G.P.?'
'— but the whole point of the business,' persisted Charters, 'is, just how reliable is this man Stone? Who is
