'And I daresay the police know that too?'
'No. At least, not yet. Though they're bound to find it out if they inquire at the theatrical agencies. I only guessed it because I kept thinking of your expression; and that Polly Allen was on the stage, but wouldn't say in what. I'd been thinking a good deal about that girl, because of her resemblance to…'
He stopped.
Ann, her chin lifted, had fastened troubled and puzzled eyes on him.
'Yes, you're quite right,' admitted Rich, turning out his wrist. 'Polly was the girl. You see my position, don't you?'
'I think so. You were afraid that if you told the police they might suspect you had…'
'Executed vengeance on Mr. Fane. Exactly.'
'You hadn't, had you?'.
Rich laughed shortly, a snap of a laugh.
'I had not. I wasn't fond enough of Polly for that. Again, don't misunderstand the position.' He made the face of a man always caught by the same misunderstanding. 'I wasn't — interested in Polly. In her private life, that is. Polly liked her friends young, I believe. She would have laughed at anybody over forty.
'I could not even be sure it was the same girl. But I knew Polly had disappeared in the middle of July, leaving all her things behind. It was a shock. It was a damned shock. So I decided to keep my mouth shut.'
'Again, easily understandable.' '
'Thank you. I hope the police think so. But I hope they don't think that, even if I had known Arthur Fane killed Polly (which I didn't), I should have got back at him by getting him stabbed. I should simply have gone to the police.'
Rich shook his head. He stared at the grass ahead of him. Despite himself, a vein of cynical amusement seemed to well up inside him as he reflected, and his eye twinkled. He was a misunderstood John Bull.
'Lord,' he added, 'the number of women I
Courtney laughed. It was the breaking of a tension. He felt again his old liking and respect of Dr. Rich.
'Well,' said Rich, slapping his knees and getting up, 'I suppose I'd better go in and confess. The longer I keep this thing on my conscience, the worse I shall sleep at night.'
'But for your private ear, Doctor: between ourselves, I don't think you've got much to worry about.'
Rich stopped.
'No? What makes you think that?'
'You might look at the facts, for one thing. You weren't anywhere near this house on Thursday, were you? That is, until late Thursday night?'
'No, I certainly wasn't. Oh, ah! I see. The strychnine!' Enlightened, Rich rubbed his chin. 'In the midst of my own troubles, I almost forgot it. Sir Henry's note said they thought it had been put into a grapefruit.'
'That's right. So, unless you can think of a way of administering strychnine at long range, you can't be counted in. Any more than Miss Browning here can.' Ann was amused.
'Don't be too sure,' she mocked him. 'I was here, you know.'
'You were not. You were sitting at Major Adams's with H.M. and Masters and me.'
'Oh, not at any of the critical times, I admit. And I certainly never went near that kitchen, even if I did have any earthly reason for wanting to hurt poor Vicky. But I did drop in here to see her about two o'clock, on my way to the major's.' The amused shining of her eyes hid a deeper worry she tried to conceal. 'So you can put on that as much sinister emphasis as you like.'
'Which,' said Courtney, 'is not much.'
'No,' smiled Rich. 'And as for me, I feel like a free man again.' He seemed surprised and a little incredulous, passing a hand across his forehead. 'A free man. Released! When I see Merrivale again—'
He had not long to wait in seeing H.M. H.M., in fact, was coming up the path at that moment. With his baggy sports-coat flapping above white flannels, he seemed distraught and in something of a hurry.
Rich's face lit up.
'Sir Henry,' he began, 'I want to thank—'
H.M.'s manner was fussed and fussy.
'That's all right, son.' He waved his hand. 'Some other time. Oh, I say: wait. Masters wants a word with you. He's down in the kitchen now, givin' the cook hysterics. Go and see him, will you?'
'With pleasure!' declared Rich, and marched away as though to music.
Though H.M. tried to smooth out the expression of his face, Courtney could see that something was up. He felt a quiver of what might have been apprehension. Against the heat of the day H.M. mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, and took off his spectacles and polished them, before fitting them back on like a war-helmet.
'You,' he said to Ann. 'Go in and see Mrs. Fane. She wants to talk to you.' He looked at Courtney. 'You better go too. No, burn it, you're not intrudin'! She especially asked to see you.'
The uneasiness increased.
'But what's up, sir?'
'Never you mind what's up. Just do as I say. Mrs. Fane'll tell you. Don't go through the kitchen: there's merry blazes goin' on there. Go round the side of the house and in at the front. Go on. Shoo!'
Laboriously H.M. lowered himself to the bench. He had the air of one who wants to be alone. Taking another of the black, oily cigars out of his pocket, he lit it and blew out a vast volume of smoke.
In their last sight of him, as Courtney knocked out his pipe and followed Ann down the path, he was sitting under the thick-branching apple tree, his spectacles down on his nose, the cigar in one corner of his mouth, staring with evil-faced absorption at his own shoes.
They circled the house, and went in. The upstairs hall was sun-filled, warm, and deserted. Ann tapped at the front bedroom door.
'Come in,' said an attractive voice.
It seemed to Courtney years since he had seen that bedroom. Nothing was changed, except that all trace of Arthur had been tidied away or removed.
There was the light maplewood bed, with the golden tan quilted coverlet. The round mirror of the dressing table on the far side. The bedside lamp with its mirror base. The writing-desk between the windows. The long windows to the balcony, now standing open.
In the bed Vicky Fane was propped up against pillows, from where she could look straight across to the windows and out over the trees in the avenue.
She was handsomer than Courtney remembered her, for her face now had life and animation. She turned her head, with difficulty, to greet them; the jaws and neck were still tender and somewhat swollen, though this hardly showed. The tan partly concealed her pallor. She was wearing a lace negligee over her nightgown.
Vicky smiled at them, also with difficulty, showing fine teeth.
'Do come in,' she requested. Her voice was faintly husky, 'This room's a sight, I'm afraid. But we let the nurse go; I'm perfectly fit. I could play six sets of tennis now and never feel it.'
'You know you couldn't,' said Ann rather sharply.
Vicky ignored this.
'You're Mr. Courtney, aren't you?'
'Yes, Mrs. Fane. I don't like to barge in like this-'
' 'Vicky,' please, And you're not barging in.' She gave him her hand, and he took it. 'You're a great friend of Frank's, aren't you? He's told me so much about you.'
A vast inner happiness seemed to sustain her and glow through her. This, and her will-power. For he could see that she was still very ill, and that she got round this by refusing to admit it.
He did not quite know what to say. If he said, 'I've heard about you and Frank; many congratulations,' that would hardly do. But if he said, 'I'm sorry to hear of the death of your husband,' that would be worse. So he said nothing, while Vicky dreamed.
'I understand,' she went on, rousing herself and smiling, 'that I gave all of you rather a bad time on Thursday night.'
'Not at all.'
'No, certainly not,' agreed Ann, rearranging the coverlet. 'And please stop thinking about it!'
'My dear, somebody's got to think about it,' Vicky said practically. 'We may as well admit that we're in an
