Seeing is Believing

'Shut up,' said H.M. austerely.

Courtney, about to correct this error, checked himself when he saw the look Ann Browning directed towards him. It was one of quickening, friendly interest: an opening of the eyes and a half-smile of the lips: and it sent warmth through him.

'Now then,' glowered H.M., putting his fists on his hips and staring everybody down, 'if these interruptions will stop puttin' me off for a minute or two, I'll end this as quick as I can.' He looked at Rich. 'You said you couldn't remember whether you'd seen any of 'em before. Then you said, 'At the same time—' At the same time, what?'

Rich frowned. 'I'm glad Miss Browning is here. Because I've got a half impression, if I can call it that, of having seen her somewhere before. Or was it Mrs. Fane herself? I cannot be sure.'

'Seen her where?'

'I don't know.'

'At one of your entertainments?'

'That, on my honor, I can't say.'

H.M. turned to Ann. 'You ever seen that feller before?' he inquired, pointing a big flipper.

Ann looked puzzled. 'No, I'm almost sure I haven't,' she smiled. 'And I'm sure I should have remembered Dr. Rich.'

'Miss Browning, at least, isn't of a very trusting nature,' observed Rich, with an expression which removed offense. 'I think she was inclined to doubt whether Mrs. Fane was really under hypnosis. A little while ago, she was going to apply the elementary test of sticking a pin into the victim to find out. So I applied the pin.'

He related the incident just as it had taken place. But he added nothing else.

'Dr. Rich, I don't think that's very nice of you!' said Ann, appealing to the others. 'I really wasn't going to do anything of the sort. But it's just as well we know, isn't it?'

H.M. peered round the group.

'Now look here,' he said. 'I'm not goin' to ask for your individual stories, any of you. There's a chap coming from London tomorrow who'll do that. I'll just say this. Is there anything else, anything you can tell me, except what you've already told the inspector here? Did anything else happen except what you've mentioned?'

'No,' answered Rich firmly.

'Nothing,' agreed Ann.

H.M. heaved a gusty sigh.

'All right, then. Cut along home. I'm goin' home myself to do a little sittin' and thinkin' while I dictate.'

Five minutes later, the front door closed behind Courtney and H.M. The latter turned down the brim of his Panama hat all round. His companion thought he was going to start towards the gate. Instead he heard the rattle of a match box, and saw a small flame spring up.

H.M. lumbered to the side of the lawn. Holding up the match, he bent down to inspect a flower-bed under the first-floor balcony. The tiny flame showed two large footprints stamped into the soil.

H.M. turned, the match-flame glinting evilly on his spectacles.

'Uh-huh,' he said. 'I thought so. I thought I saw you duck. Now are you goin' to tell me what really' happened up in that bedroom;' or is even my biographer mixed up in this funny business?'

Up over their heads, a shadow stirred in the moonlight.

They did not see it.

Nine

At three o'clock on the following afternoon, Chief Inspector Humphrey Masters unlatched the gate of Major Adams's house in Fitzherbert Avenue.

It was a blistering day, Thursday the twenty-fourth of August. Yet Masters, though he always feels the heat, was buttoned up in blue serge and wore his usual bowler hat. Just inside the gate he stopped short.

For an idyllic scene was in progress on the front lawn.

Sir Henry Merrivale, in a white short-sleeved shirt and white flannels, was engaged in playing clock-golf. Near him in a wicker chair sat a solid-looking young man of thirty-odd, smoking a pipe and making shorthand notes. Another chair was occupied by a fair-haired girl in a print frock, who had both hands pressed to her face as though to keep from exploding.

Thus far, pastoral ease merged into drowsiness. The lawn was of that smooth, shimmering green which seems to have lighter stripes in it. Against it shone the white clock-numerals and the little red metal flag which marked the cup. A low, gabled house, elm-shaded, rose against the green-blue haze of the Cotswolds beyond.

H.M.'s style with the putter was correct. Even his shirt and flannels were reasonably correct. But on his head he wore an encumbrance which made even Masters recoils. It was a broad-brimmed, high-crowned conical hat of loose-woven straw, of the sort that darkies in the Southern states of America are accustomed to put on their horses.

Then, too, there was the voice.

'I will now deal,' said this voice, 'with my first term away at school, and the many happy memories it brings back to me. I will tell how Digby Dukes and I changed round the organ-pipes in the chapel at St. Just's one Saturday night in the autumn of '81.

'This rearrangement was done with skill and care. No pipe was placed very far away from its original position, so that the rearrangement could not be detected by a casual glance. But the general effect, when the organist crashed into the opening bars of the first hymn on Sunday morning, had to be heard to be believed.

'Even then all might have been well if the organist, old Pop Grossbauer, had not lost his head and attempted to play the hymn through. The resultin' sounds, until the headmaster went up and dragged Pop gibberin' away from the organ, will be remembered at St. Just's as long as iron is strong or stone abides. I can liken it only to an interview between Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini when each is under the impression that the other has stolen his watch.'

The fair-haired girl pressed her hands still harder over her face, and began to rock back and forth.

The pipe-smoking young man preserved the gravity of a Spanish grandee as he continued to make notes.

' 'Stolen his watch…'?' he prompted, as H.M. paused. 'Yes?'

H.M. pondered deeply before resuming.

And Chief Inspector Masters walked up the lawn, removing his hat.

'Ah, sir!' he said.

'So it's you,' said H.M., breaking off and squinting round evilly over the putter.

'Yes, sir, it's me. And,' said Masters grimly, 'you don't need to tell me. I know. We're in it again. Another impossible situation. And you deliberately had me sent for.'

'You sit down and be quiet,' said H.M. sternly. 'I've got another chapter to dictate before I can talk to you. Making..?'

He looked round inquiringly at the note-taker.

'About twenty-eight thousand words since breakfast-time,' replied Courtney, taking the pipe out of his mouth. 'Not counting the ten thousand last night.'

'You hear, Masters?'

'But may I ask, sir, what in lum's name you're doing?'

'I'm dictatin' my reminiscences.' 'Your what?'

'My me-moirs,' said H.M. accenting his version of the first syllable. 'My autobiography.', Masters stood very still. Bland as a card-sharper, with his grizzled hair carefully brushed to hide the bald-spot, he stood in the strong sunshine like a man struck by certain apprehensions.

'Oh, ah? What you'd call your life story, eh?'

'That's it. Shrewd lad, Masters.'

'I see. You — er — you haven't said anything about me in it, have you?'