'First, like to say this. I'd like to say no offence; I don't hold it against you for pitching into me yesterday in court. That's your business, and all in the day's work. Lawyers and liars, eh? Always has been. Ha, ha, ha I But here's what I want to know. They say - for some reason I don't understand - I may be called as a witness for your side as well. What's up?'
'No,' said H.M. T think there'll be a clear enough identification from Shanks. Even if you do get asked anything, it'll only be a matter of form. I got a cross-bow I want to get identified as belongin' to Avory Hume. Shanks should be able to do that pretty well.'
'The odd-jobs man?' muttered Fleming, and brushed up his moustache with the back of his gloved hand. 'Look here, would you mind telling me -'
'Not at all,' said H.M., as the other hesitated.
'Not to put too fine a point on it,' said Fleming, 'do you still think poor Hume was killed with a cross- bow?'
‘I always did think so.'
Fleming considered this carefully. 'I don't admit anything to go back on my opinion,' he pointed out, after a glowering look. 'But I thought I was bound to tell you one thing. I tried some experiments last night, just by way of making sure. And it could be done. It
'Get it off your chest, son,' suggested H.M. He glanced over at the doctor, who was sitting very quietly, and making noises as though he were trying to clear a dry throat without having the sounds become too audible.
'I tried it out three times - shooting arrows from a crossbow, I mean,' insisted Fleming, with an illustrative gesture. 'The guide-feather does tend to get stuck in the teeth of the windlass, unless you're damned careful. Once it stuck and pulled the whole feather off the shaft of the arrow when the bow was released. Another time it cut the feather in half - kkk! - like that. Like the one you showed us in court. Mind you,' he wagged his finger, 'not, as I say, that I'd take back one word I said. But things like that worry me. I'm damned if they don't. I can't help it. I thought to myself: If there's anything fishy in this, I ought to tell 'em about it. Only decent. If you think I like coming here and telling you, you're off your chump; but I'm going to warn the Attorney-General about it too. Then it's off my mind. But still, between ourselves, what did happen to that infernal piece of feather?'
For a short time H.M. looked at him without speaking. On the table, almost hidden by the dishes, lay the piece of blue feather Spencer Hume had put there. Spencer made a quick movement as Fleming spoke, but H.M. forestalled him. Scooping up the feather, H.M. put it on the back of his hand and held it out as though he were going to puff at it.
'It's a very rummy thing about that,' remarked H.M., without looking at Spencer. 'We were just discussin' the point as you came in. Do you think, for instance, that this could be the missin' piece?'
'Where'd you find it?'
'Well ... now. That's one of the points under debate. But, as an expert on the subject, would you just look at this little joker and decide whether it could be the one we want?'
Fleming took it gingerly and rather suspiciously. After, a suspicious look between H.M. and Spencer, he carried the feather to the window and examined it in a better light. Several times his sharp little eyes moved round during his examination.
'Rubbish!' he said abruptly.
'What's rubbish, son?'
'This is. I mean, any idea that this is the other part of the feather.'
Spencer Hume drew a folded handkerchief out of his breast-pocket, and, with an inconspicuous kind of gesture, he began to rub it round his face as though he were polishing that face to a brighter shine than it already had. Something in the expression of his eyes, something that conveyed doubt or misery, was familiar. I had seen just that expression somewhere before, and recently. It was too vivid for me to forget the slide of eyes or hands; but why was it so familiar?
'So?' asked H.M. softly. 'You'd say pretty definitely it couldn't be, eh? Why not?'
'This is a turkey-feather. I told you - or rather you got it out of me - that poor old Hume didn't use anything except goose-feathers.'
'Is there much difference?'
'Is there much difference! Ho!' said Fleming, giving a fillip to the brim of his hat. 'If you go into a restaurant and order turkey, and they serve you goose instead, you're going to know the difference, aren't you? Same with these feathers.' A new thought appeared to strike him. 'What's going on here, anyhow?'
'That's all right,' grunted H.M., and continued without inflection: 'We were just havin’ a bit of a private conference. We -'
Fleming drew himself up. 'I had no intention of staying,' he said with dignity. 'I came here to get something off my mind. Now I've done it, my conscience is clear again and I don't deny I shall take some pleasure in saying good day. I'll only say that there seems to be something infernally queer going on hereabouts. By the way, doctor. If I do manage to see the Attorney-General, shall I tell him you're back and ready to testify?'
'Tell him anything you like,' Spencer answered quietly.
Fleming hesitated, opening his mouth as though he were bedevilled to the edge of an outburst; then he nodded with ponderous gravity, and made for the door. Although he did not know it, it was his own presence which had disturbed the room in a manner we could not analyse. H.M. got up and stood looking down at Spencer Hume.
'Aren't you rather glad you didn't go into court?' he asked quite mildly. 'Set your mind at rest. I'm not goin' to call you as a witness. In your present frame of mind, I wouldn't dare. But right here, strictly among ourselves, you faked that evidence, didn't you?'
The other studied this. 'I suppose you could call it that, in a way.'
'But why the blazes did you fake it?'
And then I knew what the expression of his eyes reminded me of: it reminded me of James Answell himself, and of the same trapped sincerity with which Answell had faced accusations. It made even H.M. blink. H.M. gravely made a gesture which I could not interpret; he kept his eyes fixed on Spencer as he did so.
'The Judas window means nothin' to you?' he insisted, with another incomprehensible gesture at which Spencer peered doubtfully.
'I swear it does not'
'Then listen to me,' said H.M. 'You've got two courses open to you. You can clear out. Or you can go to court this afternoon. If Walt Storm's waived you as a witness, and if you've really got a medical certificate for yesterday, you can't be arrested unless Balmy Rankin cuts up awful rough - which I don't think he will. If I were you, I'd go to court. You may hear something that will interest you, and will make you want to speak out. But you ought to know where the real piece of feather, the genuine one, is now. There are two parts of that missin' piece. Half of the missin' piece is stuck in the teeth of a cross-bow that I'm goin' to produce in court. The other half was left in the Judas window. If I see the tide startin' to swing against me, I warn you I'll put you into the box no matter how dangerous you are. But I don't think that'll be necessary. That's all I've got to say, because I'm goin' back now.'
We followed him out, leaving Spencer sitting by the table with the dying firelight red on his face, pondering. It was at this time yesterday that we had first heard of the Judas window. Before an hour had passed it was to be shown in all its hidden obviousness; it was to loom as large and practical as a sideboard, though of slightly different dimensions: and it was to swallow up Courtroom Number One. For the moment we knew only that the room was locked.
On the landing Evelyn seized H.M.'s arm. 'There's one thing at least,' she said through her teeth, 'you can tell. One little question that's so easy it never occurred to met to think of it before -'
'Uh-huh. Well?' enquired H.M.
'What is the shape of the Judas window?'
'Square,' said H.M. promptly. 'Mind that step.'
'SHALL be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' 'Ar,' said the witness.
