Eight

Afterwards Courtney knew that he had done the right thing. It was the course reason prompted. But he was not, at that time, prompted by any cool reason.

He felt merely the blind instinct to get out of sight, so that he could have time to think, before he need face the implications of what he had just heard.

He landed in a flower-bed below, with little jar and almost without noise. But his conservative soul remained badly ruffled. To cap the events of the evening, he had now seen a girl who moved his pulses with uneasy effect, and he had gone sailing off a balcony with all the celerity of an escaping burglar or a detected Romeo.

Nobody saw him, for which he felt thankful. He walked up the front steps and entered the hall, with as much casualness as possible, through the open front door.

The hall was empty.

Well and just what had he learned? Assuredly it didn't tell against either Vicky Fane or Frank Sharpless. Arthur Fane, that solid man with the solid house, had strangled a girl named Polly Allen, and presumably disposed of her body. His wife knew it. But if she knew this, and wanted Fane out of the way so that she could marry Sharpless, she wouldn't have Sharpless kill Fane. She wouldn't need to. She and Sharpless would simply inform the police, and let the public hangman dispose of their obstacle.

He checked himself in these thoughts as H.M., Inspector Agnew, and Dr. Rich came down the stairs. The last-named was snappish in manner.

"Mrs. Fane's exhausted, I tell you," he was protesting. "She's weak; much weaker than I thought she would be. She hardly knows where she is. Do you think that young man's got enough tact to handle her?"

"Well, sir, she's awake now," Agnew pointed out. "And, anyway, Sir Henry'd like a word with you before he goes home."

"Curiously enough," replied Rich, slapping at the sleeves of his coat, "I should like a word with him."

He broke off as they all caught sight of Courtney.

"Ah," grunted H.M., peering over his spectacles; "and where have you been?"

"I strolled out to get a breath of fresh air. Mrs. Fane didn't seem to want much watching. She's all right now, I hope."

"No," said H.M. shortly. "She's bad. She's just about as bad as she can be, after these monkey-tricks. Never mind. What's this room here?"

He nodded towards a closed door at the back of the hall on the right-hand side as you faced the rear — just opposite the back drawing room.

"Dining room, sir," answered Agnew.

"Can we use it?"

"I don't see why not."

Agnew opened the door and switched on the lights-discovering nothing more than the spectacle of Uncle Hubert Fane standing at the sideboard, with a bottle tilted to his lips, improving the opportunity to steal a swig of his nephew's choicest liqueur brandy in the dark.

Hubert showed no embarrassment. He replaced the bottle, patted in the cork, wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, and, after giving them something between a nod and a formal bow, walked out of the room with such poise that nobody spoke a word to him.

"For the love of Esau," said H.M., pushing his spectacles back up so that he could look through them, "who was that?"

"Mr. Hubert Fane, sir. Mr. Fane's uncle."

"Uncle, eh?" said H.M. His eyes wandered to the notebook protruding from Courtney's pocket, and powerful emotions appeared to arise in him. "So that's his uncle, eh? Well, well, well! How very interestin'. I don't suppose he's ever been warned off the Turf, has he?"

Agnew jumped to attention.

"I don't know why you should say that, Sir Henry. But, just as it happens, the man who called to see Mr. Hubert Fane tonight was a bookmaker."

"You don't say?" observed H.M., musing with a darkly sinister expression which seemed to distend his whole face. But this clouded over. "No," he said. "No. There couldn't be two such crooks, not in the whole world. I got to let my reason govern me." He turned round. "You, sir, you're Dr. Rich?"

"I am."

"Sit down, will you?"

The dining room was of similar proportions to the back drawing room. A cluster of electric candles depended from the ceiling. The furniture, a genuine Jacobean set, showed rich and black in its carving against the cream-painted walls. Above the sideboard, over the silver and a bowl of fruit, hung one painting: a seventeenth-century child's head done on wood, whose fine tracing of cracks caught the light.

Rich drew out one of the tall chairs, and sat down.

"One moment," he said. He seemed to be bracing himself. He put his hands on his knees, and studied them. "Before you ask any questions, there's something I'd better tell you. I'd better tell you—" here he looked up—"that I have no longer any legal right to the title of doctor."

"So," said H.M. without inflection. "Why?"

"Because I was struck off the medical register eight years ago. You'll look all this up, of course."

"Struck off for doing what?"

Rich hesitated. He nodded towards Courtney and Inspector Agnew.

"Are these your colleagues?" "Yes."

"Will what I say go no further.- wait! unless it's necessary as evidence, of course?"

"Yes, sir," replied Agnew, "I think we can promise you that much, anyhow."

"I was accused," Rich went on, again without looking up, "of doing exactly what Captain Sharpless, in all innocence (I hope) mentioned last night. While practicing as a psychiatrist, I was accused of taking advantage of a lady when she was under hypnotic influence."

"So," said H.M. "Was the charge true?"

"The charge was not true," replied Rich, with suffused violence. His hands shook. "Every medical man runs similar dangers. He is a fool if he practices hypnotism without a witness present. Let me explain. Some dentists, for instance, refuse to give anesthetics to a female patient unless their assistants are present — as an assistant, but also as a witness." He lifted his eyes. "I'm speaking of medical matters. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, son. Very well." Rich made a gesture.

"I was happily married, with two children. My wife took the children after the divorce." He paused, and again made a gesture. "I couldn't even understand the charge. Had it been

Hubert Fane, now, who was charged with that… but there we are. The thing meant ruin. Literal ruin."

"Is 'Richard Rich' really your name?"

"It is now. It wasn't then. It's the name I took when I went on the stage."

"On the stage?"

Rich lifted his shoulders.

"Well, a man must live. It was the only way I saw to make use of the profession I knew. Cbeap, if you like; but legitimate. I was extremely adept at hypnotism. That was my act. What I did tonight I have done a thousand times. I never vary it; I seldom fail in it. That's how I happened to have that revolver with the carefully prepared dummy bullets."

"You did that turn on the stage?"

"No. Seldom on the stage. On the stage I used a usual, more hackneyed routine, sometimes with a girl-assistant named.." He waved his hand. "No matter. This was usually done at private parties in private houses: concerts, Christmas entertainments, and the rest of it. It isn't so well suited to a big hall. I agreed to perform tonight when Captain Sharpless clamored for it, because…"

"Because?"

Again Rich lifted his shoulders.

"Well, because I wanted another good dinner. Things have not been very easy, these days."

He brushed at his sleeve, and pushed back the shirt-cuff from his left wrist.

"So. Weren't you successful?"

"The idea," Rich replied candidly, "the routine, I thought was a good one. I still think so. I developed it myself. I thought it would take like wildfire. In fact, as far as interest is concerned, it can't fail. But—"

H.M. raised his eyebrows, prompting as Rich paused.

"But concert parties aren't so numerous. And I failed to take another danger into account. Once or twice—" the shadow of a smile went over his face, despite the strained eyes and the mottled red color in his forehead—"once or twice, I regret to say, the good wife has pulled the trigger of the dummy gun. Result: uproarious delight, for the moment. But do you think the wife liked it? Or the husband liked it? Or that other people, when the word went round, wanted me to experiment on them? No. My trick had one great fault; it wasn't a trick. It worked."

Puffing out his breath, Rich looked down at his shirt-front, slapped the hands on his knees, and added abruptly:

"Successful? Do I look it?"

There was a silence.

H.M., scowling, turned round and lumbered to the windows at the end of the room. Outside, the rose-garden was silvered with moonlight. H.M. stared at it.

Philip Courtney could not help feeling a strong liking for the downcast, stocky little man in the chair. Everything Rich said had the ring of sincerity. You felt that he was, essentially, of a sincere and rather simple nature.

He had not mentioned certain facts which he had heard Vicky tell when she was under hypnosis. He had not passed on this information to the police — at least, not yet. But then neither had Courtney himself. And it was possible that Rich kept back this information out of ordinary decency.

H.M. swung round.

"As a matter of fact, d'ye see," H.M. told Rich, "what you've said really clears up the points I was goin' to ask about. I mean your credentials."

"I can produce what were my credentials. There was no fraud about my show, if that's what you mean."

"No," agreed H.M. "I don't think there was." The corners of his mouth drew down. "Who did you say insisted on your tryin' this 'experiment'?"

"Captain Sharpless."

"Yes; but who brought you to the house?"

"Hubert Fane."

"Oh? Did he suggest doin' it?"

"No. That was only incidental. To give Hubert his due: once he's seen thoroughly to his own comfort, he doesn't mind doing someone else a good turn. I used to know him years ago, when I was a reputable doctor. Then he went out to Kenya or somewhere, and I believe made money." Rich grimaced. "I wish to God I stood in his shoes."

H.M. ignored this.

"How long have you been givin' these concert parties of yours?"

"Oh, off and on for three or four years." "Where?"

"All over the country."

"I see. And anybody who attended one of 'em would know what you'd use, what you'd do, and even how long it would take you to do it?"

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Humph. Yes. You see what we're gettin' at. Of these people here: do you remember ever havin' met any of 'em at any of your parties before tonight?"

Rich rubbed his head.

"My dear sir, that's almost impossible to say. It is impossible to say. Aside from Hubert, to the best of my knowledge I never set eyes on any of the people before last night. That's why—" his tone was whimsical—"I hope you won't suspect me of any complicity in Mr. Fane's death. I certainly didn't kill a man I'd never even met before. But as for any of them being present at one of my shows, all I can say is that I don't remember. At the same time…"

The door to the hall opened, and Ann Browning slipped in so unobtrusively that they might not even have noticed her had it not been for her white dress.

With a retiring but composed air, she took a chair behind Inspector Agnew, and sat down to listen.

H.M. stared at her.

"Oi!" he said, not gallantly. "Oi!"

"This is Miss Browning, Sir Henry, that I told you about," Agnew explained. "She's Colonel Race's private secretary. She's got the colonel's permission to be here, to report to him personally."

H.M.'s face grew apoplectic.

"Oh, she has, has she?"

"I do hope I'm not intruding,'' said Ann, in an anxious voice which would have mollified anyone. "And I won't bother you; really I won't. If you don't mind my just sitting and listening?"

"Besides, sir, since you've got your own private secretary with you," continued Agnew, nodding towards Courtney and the notebook in Courtney's pocket..

"I'm not—" snarled Courtney.

"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.