Seeing is Believing

Masters stared at him.

'There's no joke about this, sir?' the chief inspector demanded.

'No. I can swear to every word of it.'

Masters was incredulous. 'Mr. Fane, that respectable chap, killed this girl Polly Allen because— hurrum?'

'It's been done before, y'know,' H.M. pointed out. 'In fact, you and I can both remember a few names in that way. If you're quotin' cases to me, do you remember who used the atropine in the Haye business?'^*

'Just a minute, sir!' urged Masters. 'But what did he do with the girl afterwards, Mr. Courtney? There's no murder ever been reported. At least, as far as Agnew mentioned to me.'

*See Death in Five Boxes, William Morrow & Company, 1938.

Courtney could not help him.

'All I can tell you,' he replied, 'is Mrs. Fane's answers to Rich's questions.'

'Under hypnosis? Or at least so she pretended?'

'If you insist on that, yes. Arthur Fane strangled this girl on the sofa in the back drawing room. That's as far as Rich got with his questioning before he was interrupted. He had just asked, 'Does anybody else know about this?' and she said, 'Yes,' and was going to tell him who, when they knocked at the door and he had to stop.'

'Mrs. Fane didn't say who else knew about it?'

'No.'

'Now think it over,' interposed H.M., himself making a mesmeric pass. 'Our good Fane, who was undoubtedly rather a lad as a skirt-chaser—'

(Here, Courtney noticed, Ann shivered.)

'Our good Fane has committed a crime for which the punishment is fairly well known. His wife knows it. All right. Suppose she hates it. Suppose she hates him like hell. Suppose she wants another man. Is she deliberately goin' to kill him like that, when all she's got to do is tip off the police?'

Silence.

And checkmate.

Westwards over Cheltenham, the low-lying sun made a dazzle among white and red roofs. It also lighted the broad and fishily skeptical expression on Masters' face.

'All very well,' he conceded. 'If it's true, if Mrs. Fane didn't make up the story herself.'

'Well, son, it ought to be easy enough to prove. That's your job. Go to Agnew. Trace Polly Allen. Find out. But if it does turn out to be true, as I'm bettin' it will — Masters, you've got no more case against Mrs. Fane than Paddy's goat.'

Masters jumped to his feet.

'Look out!' howled H.M. 'You'll step on your hat!'

Masters seemed to meditate giving the hat a swift kick. Instead, with powerful dignity, he corked himself; but the ruddiness of his countenance was not caused by the heat.

H.M. turned to Ann.

'What do you say?' he asked softly. 'You knew Fane pretty well. Would you say he was capable of an act like that?'

Ann looked away from him, down at the grass. Again Courtney saw the clear profile: the mouth wide and full-lipped, the nose a little broad for complete beauty. He had an impression that she wanted to tell them something, and was almost on the point of telling it, yet checked herself.

'I didn't know him well,' she defended herself, scuffing the toe of her shoe in the grass.

'Who is, or was, this Polly Allen? Did you know her?'

Ann shook her head emphatically. 'I've never even heard the name. She was probably — well!'

'But you haven't answered my question. Would you say Arthur Fane might do a thing like that?' She faced him.

'Yes, I think he might. Judging from what I know of his family. And certain things.'' She hesitated. Her eyes revealed themselves as penetrating and intelligent. 'But when was this girl killed?' Her voice quickened. 'Was it about the middle of July? The fourteenth or the fifteenth?'

'I can't say,' returned Courtney. 'Mrs. Fane didn't say anything about that.'

'Wait!' snapped H.M. 'Why that date?'

'Because I went to the house that night,' answered Ann.

There was a stir in the group. Even Masters whirled round from looking at the clock-golf outfit.

'It probably doesn't mean anything! Please! I only-'

'All the same,' said H.M., 'what about it?' She moistened her lips.

'Nothing. I went over to Vicky's to see whether I could borrow some wool. I live only a stone's throw away from here anyway. It was well past ten o'clock, but in those days the light held until nearly ten. It was the fourteenth… no, the fifteenth of July! I remember, because some French friends of mine gave a party the day before; and that was Bastille Day, the fourteenth.'

'Yes?'

'I rang the front doorbell, but there was no answer and I couldn't see any lights in the house. I didn't think they could all be away — even servants. But I rang again, and still there was no answer. I was just going away when Arthur opened the door.'

'Go on.'

'He was in his shirt-sleeves. That's how I remember. It was the first time I'd ever seen him in his shirtsleeves. He just said Vicky wasn't at home, and closed the door in my face. Rather rudely, I thought. I went away.'

The account was unadorned and even commonplace, but her listeners found it anything but commonplace.

Courtney felt again the sense of evil, whose origin he could not trace, but which had touched him the night before. Ann's story conjured up visions of unexpected things behind starched window-curtains: of a dark house, and something lying on a sofa. It is not always wise to explore too far the possibilities of a summer night.

'And that's all you know?'

'That's everything, I swear!'

Masters was uneasy. 'And not very much either, miss, if you don't mind my saying so. However, we'll go into this! I can promise you that. But—'

'But what, son?' asked H.M. quietly.

'Somebody killed Mr. Fane! First you show me a great big beautiful case against Mrs. Fane. Then you try to tear it down by saying she hadn't got a motive, just because she hated her husband so much. What's up your sleeve, sir? Because I'm smacking well certain there is something.'

H.M. twiddled his thumbs.

'Well… now. I wouldn't go so far as to say that. But I do think, Masters, you may not be payin' enough attention to motive. That's what bothers me like blazes: motive.'

'I'll argue it with pleasure,' returned Masters, whipping out his notebook again with the air of a duelist, 'if you think it'll get us anywhere. Which it won't. Let's look at the list of people, and see what we have.

'First, Mrs. Fane herself. We've talked about that.

'Second, Captain Sharpless. H'm. Might have had a motive. It strikes me he's pretty far gone on Mrs. Fane, that young gentleman. But he can't have done it, because every witness is willing to swear he couldn't have changed the daggers.

'Third, Mr. Hubert Fane. No motive that I can see. He's a wealthy old gent, they tell me; and even if he wasn't, he doesn't inherit a penny under Arthur Fane's will. (Mr. Fane's money, by the way, is all left to his wife, and to charity if she dies; think that over about her ladyship.) Finally, Mr. Hubert Fane's got as good an alibi as anybody else.

'Fourth, Dr. Rich. No motive whatever. Not a ghost of one. And the same applies to him as to Captain Sharpless: he couldn't have done it.

'Fifth and last, Miss Browning.'