Ann sat very still, her breath coming slowly. Her heels were together, her eyes on the ground. When she raised her head to look at H.M., so that the sun flashed gold on her hair, her eyes were brilliant but incredulous.
"Oh, that's absurd!" Ann protested. "You mean she wasn't really hypnotized at all? And only pretended to be? Impossible! Besides, I know Vicky well and I'm awfully fond of her. She'd never—"
"So? Aren't you the gal," queried H.M., peering over his spectacles, "who went up to her bedroom especially to stick her with a pin and find out?"
Ann clenched her hands.
"I went up there to get. my compact. I really did, though nobody will believe me!"
Masters' face wore a far-off, satisfied smile for the first time that day.
"Well, well, well!" mused the chief inspector, and rubbed his hands. "Now this is something like evidence, I don't mind telling you!"
H.M. uttered a groan.
"Just confidentially," pursued Masters, cheering up, "I never did like all this hypnotic funny business, and that's a fact. Oh, I know it's scientifically true, all right!
We bumped into it in that Mantling case years ago.* But here — no, it didn't just look right to me, somehow. Hold on, though. Stop a bit." He frowned, fingering his jaw. "That pin business. Mrs. Fane was stuck with a pin, wasn't she? And she didn't even so much as blink?"
*See The Red Widow Murders, William Morrow and Company, 1935.
"She was," agreed Ann firmly. "I saw it done."
"Uh-huh," said H.M. "So did somebody else." He turned to Masters. "Do you happen to have a pin on you, son?"
"What for?"
"Never mind what for. If you got a pin," said H.M., opening and shutting his hand, "gimme."
After staring at him for a moment, Masters turned back the lapel of his jacket, revealing two pins stuck through the underside.
" 'See a pin and pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck,' " he quoted, not without jocularity. "My old mother taught me that years ago, and I've never been able to resist—"
"Stow the gab," said H.M., "and gimme."
Masters handed it over.
Holding the pin in his mouth, H.M. reached into his pocket and took out a box of matches. Squinting, he held the pin by the head in his left hand, and carefully moved the match-flame over it from end to end.
"I hope our friend Rich," he grunted, "sterilized that pin before he used it on Mrs. Fane?"
"He didn't, that I remember," said Ann.
"So? Careless. And blinkin' dangerous too. Now watch closely, and the old man'll give you a demonstration."
Holding his left forearm against his leg so that the skin was taut, H.M. searched for a place in the upper side of the forearm. He set the point of the pin there, and with a quick push drove it to the head in his arm.
Everyone had instinctively stiffened in protest. It formed a grotesque contrast: the late afternoon sunshine, the quiet green lawn with the white clock-golf numerals, and the push that drove steel into flesh.
"Brr!" said Ann, moving her shoulders. "But you didn't jump?"
"No, my wench. Because it didn't hurt, I didn't even feel it."
Masters regarded him incredulously.
"True, son," H.M. assured him. "Just a medical fact, like hypnotism. This is an old parlor trick, well known to conjurors and—"
He paused, blinking. Then his eyes grew fixed as he looked into vacancy, and a sniff rumbled through his nose. An idea seemed to be stirring with considerable effect. In the same dream he stretched out his right hand, moving the fingers as though pressing something. But, as the others clamored at him, he woke up.
"No!" he snapped. "Burn it all, I'm no Yogi. Anybody can do this. You can do it yourselves, if you choose a part of the arm where you don't hit a vein or an artery, make sure the skin is firm, and drive it in firmly." He plucked out the pin, which was followed by not a speck of blood. "Like to try it?"
"No, thanks," shivered Ann.
"Let me have a go," requested Courtney.
He was not at all easy about this. But Ann's eyes were on him, and he tried not to hesitate. Baring his left arm to the elbow, he took the pin (which H.M. insisted on sterilizing again), set it to his arm, gritted his teeth, and…
"Ow!" he yelled, bouncing as though an adder had bitten him.
Nor was he soothed by H.M.'s manifest glee.
"I knew I was goin' to crack your poker-face sooner or later," declared H.M. Then his tone changed. "You didn't work it," he explained patiently, "because you. were instinctively afraid of hurtin' yourself. You jabbed it in with a little bit of a push to see if you would feel it, and so of course you did. That's not the way, son. Your subconscious—"
"Everything in this ruddy case," said Masters, "is subconscious. Look here, sir: this trick really works?"
"Oh, son, of course it does. You saw me do it. Wants practice and strength of mind, naturally."
Masters eyed him.
"You're full of tricks, aren't you?"
"He is," said Courtney, plucking the pin from a smarting arm. "If you were taking down his memoirs, Chief Inspector, you'd realize that that's all he ever thinks about."
H.M. looked pleased.
"I've got a theory," Courtney pursued, "that it's the explanation of how he catches murderers. His mind works like theirs."
"But the point is," insisted Masters, sweeping this aside, "that this thing is practical and Mrs. Fane could have been shamming. Hold on, though! It was Dr. Rich who worked that game. Does that mean he was in cahoots with her?"
"No, no, no, no, no!" growled H.M. "It doesn't mean Mrs. Fane was shamming, and it doesn't mean Rich was in cahoots with her. Rich knew very well she wasn't shamming—"
"Oh?" inquired Masters skeptically.
"— or he wouldn't have asked her certain questions later, under hypnosis, that I'm goin' to tell you about in a minute. But this gal here—" he pointed at Ann— "was doubtful. So Rich took the opportunity of getting rid of her quickly by a trick. That's all."
Masters took out his notebook. He balanced it on his knee. He shot back his shirt-cuffs, to make plain that his words would be careful and weighty.
"Now listen to me for a minute, sir. You yourself admit that Mrs. Fane is the only person who could be guilty. Now don't you?"
"According to the evidence, yes."
"Just so. And she could have shammed being hypnotized, couldn't she?"
"I s'pose so."
"In a way that could have deceived even Dr. Rich himself? Just so!" Masters was warming up again. "It'd take a thundering good piece of acting, granted. But we've met these good actresses before. Remember Glenda Darworth? And Janet Derwent? And Hilary Keen?
"She could have switched the daggers, right enough. The next question is: what happened to the rubber dagger afterwards? She 'slipped it in her sleeve,' you suggest. But it didn't stay there. Where is the rubber dagger, then? Agnew tells me he made a thorough search of that back sitting room, but he didn't find it."
"No," said H.M. disconsolately, "I found it."
"You found it?"
H.M. reached into his trousers pocket. He took out the rubber dagger, flimsy and tawdry-looking against sunlight, its scratched silver paint showing shreds and patches of darker rubber beneath. He bent it back and forth.
"Where did you find that thing, sir?"
"In the sofa. Poked down between the bottom and back cushions, out of sight. On the same sofa where Mrs. Fane was lyin' afterwards, presumably hypnotized."
The ensuing pause, as they all envisaged Vicky Fane lying there, was not more sinister than Masters' rather affable voice.
"You don't tell me now?" inquired the chief inspector, taking the dagger from H.M. and examining it. "And when did you find it there?" "Last night."
"Last night? Then why in blazes couldn't you have said something about it?"
H.M. scratched the side of his nose.
"For the same reason I'm not awful keen on showing it now. Masters, the idea is a beauty. I admit that. Woman gets herself (apparently) hypnotized. Then polishes off her husband. And everybody thinks, as you say, that the murderer is the only person who can't possibly be guilty."
"The idea," breathed Ann, "is horrid and fascinating at the same time. It would be rather awful, wouldn't it, if somebody we thought figured in one role really figured in exactly the opposite role?"
Though H.M. showed a passing gleam of interest in this, turning round to look at her, he addressed Masters again.
"Ah the evidence shouts belief. Oh, my eye, doesn't it? The plot is perfect. The motive is there. The evidence is strong. There's only just one little difficulty about it."
"What's that?"
"It ain't true," said H.M.
Masters was commencing to lose his temper.
"What's the good of saying that, sir? When you yourself will admit—"
"This feller," interrupted H.M., pointing at Courtney, "was out on the balcony of Mrs. Fane's bedroom between the time Frank Sharpless carried her up there almost to the time she was waked up out of her sleep. Now listen to what he has to say; and then go and eat worms."
Phil Courtney was hotly uncomfortable. Ann's eyes flashed round to his, startled: he avoided them, but he retained the memory of them while he told his story.
He remembered how H.M. had dragged the facts out of him last night, standing in the moonlight in front of Fane's house, with the shadows of the elms against the sky. It sounded, he thought (or at least it must sound to Ann) like the tale of a prowler and a spy. Yet for Vicky Fane's sake he was glad to tell it, and very quick to tell it.
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."
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."