Seeing is Believing

Masters broke off, with his deceptive air of heartiness, and grinned at Ann.

'I hope you don't mind being included, miss?'

'No, no, of course not!'

'No motive,' said Masters. 'At least, none we've heard.' He winked at her apologetically. 'And the same thing for the practical side: she couldn't have changed the daggers.'

Masters shut up his notebook and shook it in the air.

'Now, sir! That's the lot. Unless you want to drag in Daisy Fenton, the maid, or Mrs. Propper, the cook-'

'I say, Masters.' Again H.M. ruffled his fingers across his forehead. 'This cook, now. You got a statement from the maid. Could the cook add anything: to it?'

'Mrs. Propper? No. She always goes to bed at nine sharp on the top floor of the house. She didn't even hear the rumpus last night.

'But as I say, that's the lot. That's a list of both motive and opportunity. Will you just tell me where in lum's name you can find either a motive or an opportunity?'

Courtney, who was facing Major Adams's house, saw khaki and gilt buttons swing round the side of it. Frank Sharpless, the declining sun picking out the expression of his eyes even at that distance, hurried across towards them.

There was, Courtney remembered, a grassy elm-shaded lane or alley which ran at the back of all these houses parallel with the street in front. Sharpless had evidently taken a short cut from the Fanes' house. Courtney thought with uneasiness that it was damned indiscreet of him to go there today. Gossip would be wagging a long enough tongue already.

But this idea was swept away as Sharpless approached.

'Sir Henry,' he began without preliminary, 'you said last night you remembered me. Anyway, you know my father. Colonel Sharpless?'

'Yes, son?'

'Is it true that you've got a medical degree as well as a legal one?' 'Yes. That's right.'

'Then,' said Sharpless, running a finger round inside his khaki shirt-collar, 'will you for God's sake come down and have a look at Vicky? Now?'

The summer evening was very still.

'What's wrong with her?'

'I don't know. I've phoned for her own doctor, but he lives at the other side of town. And she's worrying me more every minute. First she complained of stiffness in the back of the neck. Then a funny feeling in her jaws, painful. Then — she wouldn't let me send for a doctor; but I insisted — then—'

All expression was smoothed out of H.M.'s face. He adjusted his spectacles, and looked steadily through them. Yet Courtney caught the wave of emotion in the air, as palpably as the body gives out heat; and that emotion was fear.

H.M.'s tone was wooden. 'How long has this been goin' on, son?'

'About an hour.'

'Lookin' a bit seedy all day, has she?'

'Yes, she has.'

'So. Any difficulty in swallowing?'

Sharpless thought back. 'Yes! I remember, she complained about it at tea, and wouldn't drink much.'

Sharpless's quick intuition caught the atmosphere about him. H.M.'s eyes moved briefly, too briefly, towards Courtney's hands. Courtney was still holding, and absent-mindedly bending, the pin he had tried to thrust painlessly into his arm.

Then H.M. took out his watch, consulted it, and moved his finger round the dial as though he were counting hours.

'What is it?' demanded Sharpless, in a high voice. 'You know something. What is it?'

'Steady, son!'

'You know something you won't tell me,' cried the other. He strode forward and seized H.M.'s shoulder. 'You're keeping something back; but by God you're going to tell me. What is it? What is it?'

H.M. shook off the hand.

'If I tell you what I think it may be, can you be steady enough to help and not hinder?' 'Yes. Well?'

H.M. gave it to him straight between the eyes. 'Blood-poisoning,' he said. 'Tetanus. Lockjaw nasty way to die.'

Eleven

Distantly, a church clock in the town struck the half hour after ten.

In the front garden of Arthur Fane's house, a warm-looking and misty moon penetrated the elms to illumine two figures who were standing on the lawn, glancing up at intervals towards the left-hand bedroom windows. These windows were closed and their curtains drawn, since in tetanus cases no breath of wind must touch the victim lest it bring on convulsions.

Outside in the street stood Dr. Nithsdale's car, and the hospital car which had brought the antitoxic serum.

Ann Browning and Phil Courtney, together on the lawn, spoke in whispers.

'But is there any chance?' Ann muttered. 'That's what I want to know. Is there any chance?'

'I can't tell you. I seem to remember reading that if the symptoms come on very quickly, you're a goner.'

She put her hand, a warm soft hand, on his arm. She tightened her fingers, and shook the arm fiercely. He had never felt closer to her than in this darkness, where her face looked pallid, her lips dark, and her eyes larger.

'But a little pin?' she insisted. 'A little thing like a pin, to do all that?'

i 'It can and has. And it was pressed in to the head, remember.'

She shuddered. 'Thank heaven I didn't use it; Poor Vicky!'

He pressed the hand on his arm. 'I didn't even notice,' she said, 'that the pin was— rusty.'

'It wasn't rusty.' He recalled the picture. 'I remember how it shone when the light touched it. But then this germ's in the air, in dust; it comes from dust. From anything.'

Again she shuddered. A light sprang up in the long windows of the front bedroom across the hall from Vicky's. A long shadow, that of Hubert Fane, crossed and recrossed the windows, beating its hands together. From the house they heard no noise or voice.

'Look here,' Courtney said sharply. 'You're worrying yourself to death. You can't do any good out here, just watching a closed window. Go in and sit down. H.M. will tell us when there's any news.'

'You-you think I'd better?'

'Definitely.'

'The trouble is,' she burst out, 'that Vicky's such a decent person. Always trying to do the right thing, always putting herself out for someone else. It just seems as though there's been nothing but trouble, trouble, trouble for her ever since two nights ago, when we first saw…'

The front gate clicked.

Dr. Richard Rich, in a somewhat theatrical-looking soft black hat and a dark blue suit, closed the gate behind him and came hesitantly up the path.

'Miss Browning, isn't it?' he inquired, peering in the gloom. 'And Mr.-?'

'Courtney.'

'Ah, yes! Courtney. Sir Henry's secretary.' Rich rubbed his cheek. 'I hope you'll excuse this intrusion. I came to see whether there were any developments.'

'Developments!' breathed Ann.

'I beg your pardon?'