Seeing is Believing

reading the evening paper. This room has not associations so pleasant that I should sit in it by choice. I think it would soothe me to go and bathe my eyes. Yes, I must go and bathe my eyes.'

'Hold on, Mr. Fane!' cried Courtney, as Hubert got to his feet and stood swaying on his spidery legs. 'Don't get up! Stay there! You've been hurt.'

'I have been what?'

'You've been hurt.'

'My dear sir, what nonsense you talk,' said Hubert mildly, and went over flat on his face on the floor.

Courtney looked round in desperation, wondering what to do here. He was in time to see another person looking at him.

Through the open window and the blowing curtains, stung with rain, projected the head and shoulders of Sir Henry Merrivale. H.M. was swathed round in a transparent oilskin with a hood, which covered everything including his hat, and was not a sight for weak nerves. Out of this he glared through misted spectacles.

'What's goin' on here?' he demanded. 'Who put this ladder up to the window?'

'I did. I had to get in somehow.' Courtney could have yelled with relief. 'Come on in and tell us what's to be done.'

'Oh. I thought…' H.M. broke off, and sniffed. He pointed a malignant forefinger. 'What's wrong with him?'

'You tell me.'

Though it was a near thing. H.M. did manage to squeeze through the window. He flapped among the curtains and almost tore them down from their rods. He landed on the floor with a thud that shook the ceiling. But he did manage to get in. Trailing water and oilskin, he waddled across to the prone figure and bent over it.

'Concussion,' he said, after examination. 'And a bad one. Lord love a duck!'

'Never mind him,' urged Courtney, not very sympathetically for Hubert. 'Go upstairs. Mrs. Fane's been attacked again. The murderer gave her another dose of strychnine in a hypodermic, and Dr. Nithsdale says—'

There was more bumping behind him. First Masters, and then Inspector Agnew, pushed through the window and dropped inside. A mist arose as they shook themselves. Bright puddles of rainwater ran and glistened on the hardwood.

'Don't anybody ever answer the door at this place?' questioned an exasperated chief inspector. 'We've been hammering at the front door for the past ten minutes. The bell won't work.'

'Don't you hear what I'm saying?' shouted Courtney. 'It's Mrs. Fane. Strychnine again! I've phoned the doctor. But somebody sneaked in while Ann was out of the room, and gave her a hypodermic full of it. She's in bad shape.'

''Is she, now?' said H.M. tonelessly.

It took a little while for this to penetrate into Courtney's mind. It took a little while for him to understand the implications of H.M.'s casual, uninterested tone. And even then he did not understand it.

'H.M., are you crazy? Are you all crazy? Why don't you do something? She must have got the whole hypodermic full of it. When I pressed the handle of the thing, there was only a drop left. I touched it to my tongue, and it was bitter—'

'So,' said H.M., peering round over his shoulder out of the dripping oilskin. 'You touched it to your tongue, did you?'

'Yes.'

'Uh-huh. Did it make the tip of your tongue feel numb afterwards?' 'No.'

'Sure of that, son?' 'Yes, quite sure.'

'Then,' said H.M., turning back again, 'it wasn't strychnine.'

There was a silence, except for the sluicing rain. Masters and Agnew stood motionless, a stuffed expression on their faces.

Courtney stared at them wildly.

'Would someone,' requested a courteous voice from the floor, 'would someone be good enough to assist me to my feet? I am quite well, but my — er — motor reflexes appear not to motor in the accepted sense of the term. It is most annoying.'

'Agnew!'

'Sir?'

'Get this feller up to his room,' said H.M. 'He's hurt bad. Come on.' As Agnew hurried over, he scowled at Courtney and went on. 'I'll have a look at Mrs. Fane, just in case.'

'Now then,' said Masters, 'what's all this? What's been going on, Mr. Courtney?'

When Courtney started to tell him, Masters walked across to the sofa. He went round it, studying. From the floor behind the sofa he picked up a heavy rough-stonework jar, whose surface would have held no fingerprints but which must have weighed ten or twelve pounds and would have made a murderous weapon. Masters weighed it in his hand.

Courtney, however, did not waste much time in telling his story. He raced upstairs after H.M.

There was a babble of voices in the upstairs hall. Mrs. Propper and Daisy, muffled up in extra clothing as though they would have to leave a house on fire, were excitedly pouring out to Ann a story which was far from clear.

'Here's the big doctor!' howled Mrs. Propper, clutching at H.M. as he passed. 'You go in there, sir. You go and see Mrs. Fane!'

'Now, now, lemme alone! For cat's sake lemme alone. I…'

H.M. went into the front bedroom. Stripping off the waterproof, he bent over Vicky Fane. He picked up one limp wrist and took her pulse. He ran his fingers lightly from under the ears down along the line of the jaws, and round the neck. He lifted one eyelid and looked at the iris. Though his manner seemed more malevolent than ever, yet Courtney felt that a shadow had passed from his face, and that he breathed more easily.

'Wen?' Courtney demanded. 'What is it? What's wrong with her?' 'Nothing.'

'Nothing?' cried Ann.

They were crowded in the doorway, peering, like a cluster of people in a Hogarth sketch.

'You mean she hasn't had anything at all?'

'Nothing,' responded H.M., 'except the chloral in her sleeping-tablets. Oh, my eye, what a fine lot of scare- mongers you are. Now see here. What's all this rumpus about a burglar? We went down to Adams's place, and he was all hoppin' about sending you—' he blinked at Courtney—'out with a rifle to pot a burglar. What burglar?'

Mrs. Propper, who wore a lace cap over her curlpapers, drew the layers of dressing gowns and shawls and comforters closer round her.

'As the Lord is my judge,' she declared with passion, 'there was a burglar. Just you ask Daisy.' 'How'd he get in?' 'Through the winder.' 'What winder?' 'I'll show you.'

'That's more like it. We may as well let this gal sleep.'

H.M. switched off the bedside lamp. He came out of the room, shooing them before him, into the bright light of the hall. And they met a frightened-looking Frank Sharpless, in a sodden cap and rubber raincoat, coming up the stairs at long strides.

'Come on in,' sneered H.M., making an expansive but malignant gesture. 'The more the merrier. Keep the party goin'. I say, son: why don't you move your bed in and live here?'

It would not be a literal fact to say that Mrs. Propper stiffened audibly, but such was the general effect.

'I had to see Vicky,' breathed Sharpless, wiping the moisture from his face. 'Is she all right?'

'Perfectly all right.'

'I rang up Major Adams's to speak to Phil. The major said—'

'Uh-huh. We can guess what he said. No, you don't! Keep away from that door, and let the gal sleep.' He turned to Mrs. Propper. 'Now, ma'am. Where's this window that the burglar got in by?'

Mrs. Propper was rapidly approaching a state that bordered on the frantic. 'Sir, you're not going to let that murderer…?'

'What murderer?' demanded Sharpless.

'It was him,' said Mrs. Propper, pointing her finger at Sharpless. 'I take my oath on it. It was him that got in through the winder.'