"And Joris Broke Silence-"
AHEAD the road, always winding through a green rolling chess-board of fields, had taken on glory after the rain. It was as though a ghost of the rain still hung in the air; the sunlight kindled wet foliage in an empty world, and H.M.'s Lanchester roared through it. We swept out of the mists at six-thirty: Exeter, Honiton, Chard, Yeovil: by Sherborne 'twas morning as plain as could be:
"And from Mechlin church-steeple, we heard the halfchime,
"And Joris broke silence with, `Yet there is time!"'
It was touch-and-go whether we could make it. I considered while I sat at the wheel of the Lanchester. It was not the actual distance between Torquay and London; on those early morning ways, despite narrow roads and blind corners, the speedometer-needle flickered always between fifty and sixty. It would be getting through the traffic at London, getting to our separate homes for shaves and top-hats, to reach I Westminster by eleven-thirty.
And Joris did not break silence; Joris could not be persuaded to break silence. H.M., in fact, was asleep. He lay back vast in the tonneau, his posterior nearly sliding down off the seat: his hat was over his face, and, though it danced and joggled with our rush, H.M. remained loggish. Occasionally there would proceed from under the hat a long, whistling snore.
"Can't anything wake him up?" said Evelyn despairingly. "I've tried everything I know. I've tried offering him a drink of whisky, I've tried telling him the Home Secretary said he was a silly fathead, I've tried"'
I glanced over my shoulder as we bucketed round a turn past Salisbury. Evelyn sat in the tonneau, tentatively poking H.M. in the chest like a cash register. Evelyn was beaming in the morning light; her dark hair blown out in the wind, her eyes aglow like her brownish-gold skin; and she made a sort of triumphant gesture as I turned round.
"But, Ken," she said, "I tell you something's got to be done! He won't wake up; he simply won't. And I've got to hear the story of what happened, all about it and everything about it, or I don't think I could get married in peace. He-"
From the front seat beside me, Stone spoke. Stone was with us. Evelyn had sworn by all her gods that he must be present at our wedding, no matter what happened; and he had been carried off yelping. What his daughter in Bristol thought of these goings-on, I do not know, and I hope I shall not soon have the oportunity of hearing her opinions. Throughout this journey he had sat in a state of dull horror, holding to the door with one hand and to his hair with the other, as we shot onward; and all the while he poured forth a stream of monotonous, low-voiced, acid commentary.
"You missed that cow," he observed critically. "I'm sorry to see you're off your game; just two inches more to the right, and you'd have got her. If only you'd had your eyes on the road, I'm certain you couldn't have missed. What's the use in going up over the bank? Why don't you go clear up and cut across that field? Gaaa! I don't think you take those corners fast enough. I feel like a ball in a roulettewheel. What's the matter with the old geezer back there, anyway? Maybe he's a Yogi. Stick a pin in him and find out."
"It's not that," I said. "He's not asleep, actually. The point is, he doesn't want to tell us about this case because he can't. He tumbled on the solution by a stroke of luck; and, since he can't give us any good reasons, he's shamming sleep so that he can pretend..’
"You oughta be ashamed of yourself!" howled a familiar voice, blasting my ear-drum from behind. That hat tumbled down and H.M. tumbled up. It was good to hear that tone of voice, because it meant that his worries had become dim and that he was back to grousing again. All the same, we were past Basingstoke before we could get him to speak. And it was not altogether grousing. He sat with his ploughshare chin in his hand, his hat tilted over his eyes, at the winding road.
"Y'see," he said, "it's a much queerer business than you think. To begin with, in a case which you seem to think consists mostly in wild adventurin' and extraneous details, there were no extraneous details. Every little thing along the road that you picked up and threw away was a part of the pattern — was as necessary to the pattern as a clue in a paper-chase. A kit of burglar's tools, a mistake in a phone conversation, a counterfeit note, a knife, each was a brick in a solid kind of house that you thought was only a Tower of Babel. I make one exception: and, burn me, that exception had to be the murders! Without the murders, we could still have explained the problem. Without the murders, we could still have had a murder case. Does it sound rummy? It is. Listen.
"First I want you to think of Charters himself. I want you to see a greyish, ascetic kind of face, and a petulant manner, and a stew and fret over little things, and a feeling that all the good things of life have passed him by; and, behind it all, a sort of gentlemanly hatred. He was gettin' old. In a manner of speakin', he was shelved; the War Department hadn't any use for him any longer. He wasn't a rich man, as he told you himself; he was on the thin edge of poverty. He was not only tired; he was resentful, too. Once he was in great doings, and he commanded as much power as well, another person did, d'ye see? But now he wanted money and sun and warmth and sea and comfort, and other countries where he could relax his old bones and be respected. That was why he lived out of town by the sea. That was why he built his little house like a tropical bungalow. That was why he committed murder.
"But I'd better start at the beginnin', where I picked up the case, and show you how it went. When Charters came to me with his tale of how Hogenauer had approached him and offered to tell who L. was for two thousand pounds, was I deceived? Sure I was. Why shouldn't I be? What reason had I to doubt him? He'd even taken advantage of the rumour that L. was in this country. The reason why he came to me we'll discuss in a minute; I'm takin' this in order, just as it unrolled….
"There was just one thing that bothered me. I don't mean it made me doubt Charters; but only that it bothered me like blazes. For everything Charters had quoted Hogenauer as saying was, as I told you, just exactly contrary to everything I'd ever known about Hogenauer in my life. Nobody ever stepped so clean out of character. If there's one thing we ever knew about Paul H., it was his shy and almost painful honesty. Yet he offered to betray L. he offered to betray L. for money, and Hogenauer never in his life cared a rap for money. Invention, hey? What invention? He was never mechanically minded. Why did he need the money?
"Well, I was sittin' and thinkin' and I said to myself: `Look here, how do you know Hogenauer ever made any such offer at all?' Back came the answer: `Because Charters told you so.' Which stumped me, children; because I believed Charters. Y'see, what it did do was to make me suspicious of Hogenauer; it was why I laid my plans so carefully; it was why I gave Ken all them instructions which caused you so much mirth later on.
"All right. We come to the evening when Ken gets his instructions, along with a set o' burglar's tools (provided by Charters), and starts out for Moreton Abbot: just after Antrim has come in with some disturbin' if meaningless news about a bottle o' poison that disappeared.
"Charters had been telling me a lot about the Willoughby case. Willoughby'd been shot dead resisting arrest, and wasn't there to tell his story. Charters informed me that they'd got all the counterfeit money, which had been safely locked up in Charters's safe since then — all in his hands, mind — and he informed me about the forthcomin' inquest to be held on Willoughby. Charters was goin' before the inquest to describe how Willoughby had died, and exhibit some of the counterfeit money in evidence. The rest of the slush? Oh, well; it could be burnt; the Chief Constable would dispose of it and account for it to the Exchequer. The Chief Constable would provide a set of numbers of the bogus notes….
"At this point, Charters opened his safe to show me an exhibit or two. And he discovered that the slush had been stolen — by Serpos.
"Y'know, that made my head reel. I wasn't far from bein' physically dizzy, and now you understand why. It wasn't merely that Serpos (by Charters's own story) had worked in a bank. But here was Serpos, who lived in the house, worked in the house, and next to Charters himself was closest to the case: and Serpos stole the fake money. Was he away at the time?' How is that goin' to prevent him from knowin' about it? If a big criminal case has spouted up like a geyser right in your back garden, if a man's been shot on your door-step and a sackful of counterfeit money is shoved away in a safe in your own livin'-room, then the mere fact that you were takin' a holiday at Eastbourne when it happened won't prevent you from hearin' something about it.
"Oh no. I said to myself: `Here! Is it possible —‘
"And then I observed how Charters was carryin' on when he discovered this theft. He was pretty cut up. He wasn't concerned with Hogenauer's 'spy-plots' now; he was dead set on nabbin' Serpos straightaway. Nabbin' him, you understand — but bein' careful not to charge him with theft. You see now, Ken, why you were arrested and shoved in clink at Moreton Abbot? Because there was a mix-up, and nobody was certain which car Serpos had stolen when he did a bunk. And Charters couldn't afford to risk Serpos gettin' away. So he simply issued orders to arrest the drivers of both cars.
"On top of that came your telephone-call informin' us that Hogenauer was poisoned, and the circumstances of it. That was interestin' enough, but a more interestin' circumstance preceded it. It happened before you had said one word of what happened in Hogenauer's house, or described anything there. Remember? Charters answered the telephone. You started off with a wrangle: you told him how you'd busted out of prison, without even mentionin' Hogenauer's name, and Charters took you up sharp. Think, nowl Do you remember what he said?"
We were nearing the Great West Road, which would take us straight into London traffic, and I kept my eyes ahead.
"His exact words, so far as I can remember," I said, "were, `You won't have a chance now to have a look at Hogenauer's house, or in the big desk, or'”
"Or in the big desk. Uh-huh. That's it. He was pretty upset, son, but he shouldn't 'a' made that slip. What desk? He'd sworn to us that he was never in Hogenauer's house at all; that he'd never even spoken to Hogenauer at all except on the occasion when Hogenauer came to him with the proposition. He even made a pretence of tryin' to remember what the address of Hogenauer's house was. But — how did he know about the big desk? That's the speech of a man who's been in Hogenauer's back parlour. Is it possible (says I to myself) that Charters may merely have learned about the big desk from Sergeant Davis, who'd looked through the back parlour window: who may have seen it, and reported it to Charters? But you looked through both windows, Ken, and you couldn't see anything. Neither, I learned from askin' while you were present, had the sergeant.
"But at the moment — when you first reported over the 'phone — I was bothered as hell. Here was a direct connection: Charters visitin' Hogenauer secretly, and Hogenauer is a tolerably sound authority on the subject o' counterfeit money. It all seemed to come back to that. Were the two ends convergin'? Had Charters discovered a good part of the Willoughby stuff was real, neatly sandwiched between bogus money; and had he gone to Hogenauer to make sure it was real? Whereupon (thinks I) Hogenauer's conscience makes him squawk out and say Charters had better not try any games; because at the inquest Hobenauer is goin' to go in and tell the truth. And so he's got to be silenced.
"And here enters the cussedness of the business. What threw me off, what set my head buzzin', was that whole weird hocus-pocus of lights and missin' books and changed furniture. It was the setting. It was the Topsy-Turvy House, and for about half an hour it threw me off altogether. If Hogenauer had been found dead of poison, sittin' in his chair in an ordinary fashion, I'd 'a' been sure. But what I ran smack up against was the one set o' clues that didn't mean anything at all — Y'see I had to be careful. Because still the strong possibility was that there might have been international games, there might have been dirty work with Hogenauer mixed up in it, and the few blotted lines of the letter in Hogenauer's study didn't soothe my feelings any. It was just possible I was altogether mistaken in my suspicion of Charters. I hadda be sure. And consequently, Ken, in spite of damnation and foul weather, I had to send you to Bristol."
At this point H.M. made a somewhat fiendish face under the gay hat.
"But, Ken-oh, love-a-duck, if you'd only made that telephone-call ten minutes later-!"
"Why ten minutes later?" asked Evelyn. "What difference would that have made?"
"Because I'd have been sure," said H.M. sourly. "Follow the course of your adventures, Ken, as I got 'em in your next report from Bristol. You saw the whole story played out in front of you, if you'd known it. After speakin' to me from Moreton Abbott, you walked out of the telephone-box and opened your newspaper bundle to put on your policeman's outfit again — and out. fell a £100 note. I ask you….
"That tore it. A big slice of money like that was tossed away casually in a four-days' old newspaper chucked into the scullery. That meant it was a part of the real slush; that meant somebody had been conferrin' with Hogenauer about the Willoughby stuff; and, above all, it meant something none of you seem to have realized. It meant that this conference must have taken place some days before. It meant that the only other party to the conference must have been Charters himself, because Charters was the only one who had the money in his possession. It was in his safe."
Stone held up his hand.
"Hold on there," he protested. "Why couldn't it have been Serpos? Why couldn't Serpos have swiped a couple of samples out of the safe-there was a lot of dough, you know, so Charters wouldn't have noticed a few missing — and why couldn't Serpos have taken that to Hogenauer for the verdict?"
H.M. blinked at him.
"Well, now, I ask you," he said, with moderation. "If it'd been only the question of a few samples, why should the guilty person (whoever he was) need to blow the gaff to Hogenauer at all, and tell him what money it was? If you only have a few samples, why give away the fact that you're actin' crookedly with Willoughby's money? The point of this business is that the guilty person had to get a verdict on the whole lot, the whole sackful — otherwise it was no good. There was real money and bogus money. If you take a few, samples, where are you? Is this real? No. Is that real? Yes. And you don't know where you stand.
"Am I makin' myself clear?" inquired H.M. laboriously. "Serpos couldn't have pinched the money, because he couldn't have got it out of the safe without Charters's knowledge. Nobody, nobody in the whole case, could have done it except Charters himself. Nobody else could have taken it to Hogenauer. If money was taken to Hogenauer, it's the one thing that established Charters's guilt. Why burn me — '
"No," said Stone, with grave thoughtfulness. "Burn me.
But don't stop; keep on going."
"H'm. So. All right; follow Ken's adventures from there on. They're illustrations in themselves of the truth. He goes to the railway station in Moreton Abbot — and bumps into Serpos.
"Now we can see what Serpos did. Serpos didn't consult Hogenauer: he relied on his own knowledge of money that a good two-thirds of that stuff was real. Of course, he could have said to Charters: `Here! You've given out to everybody that it's all counterfeit, and you know better; so let me have my share or I'll blow the gaff.' But this didn't satisfy good old Serpos, it didn't. He wanted it all. And, d'ye see, the beauty of his scheme was that he thought it was perfectly safe. First, he rather doubted whether Charters would have the nerve to set the coppers on him. Second, even if Charters did do it, and in the unlikely event that they caught up to him-well, he was still safe, for he could whisper to Charters: `You don't dare prosecute me, or I'll tell the truth about that money.' So he laid his plans, and he scooted: takin' all the money, good and bad, because it was done into packets of each together, and he didn't have time to separate the sheep from the goats.
"But, wow! Gents, it must have been an awful shock when, on the station platform at Moreton Abbot, he suddenly found a constable (in the person of Ken) bearin' down on him, and voices in the crowd shoutin' out to stop the man who had robbed the Chief Constable. Ken, of course, had built up on the figure of Serpos this dummy-and-phantom to shield himself in his role as the Compleat Constable; but it really was Serpos, the man who had robbed the Chief Constable!
"Serpos is a pretty temperamental feller, y'know. He collapsed. But he didn't collapse for many minutes. They'd caught him: but he saw his chance. He begged in weepin' humility to be carried back and take his medicine; he was penitent, he was goaded by conscience; and all the time there was twistin' about at the back of his eye a shrewd little gleam, 'Charters'll never dare. Let me get a chance to talk to Charters, and he'll never dare. I'll get some of that money yet.' That was Change Number One.
"Change Number Two occurred about two minutes later, when he suddenly discovered Ken was no more a policeman than he himself was a clergyman. And Serpos changed pretty quick then. He changed, and he got nasty, and he wouldn't give up what he had been so ready and eager to yield a minute before. Because, you see, be thought Ken must be-,'
"A member of the Willoughby gang," supplied Evelyn.
"Uh-huh. That circumstance should also 'a' told you that Serpos hadn't found out he was stealing counterfeit money.' Oooh, no, my lads. He knew jolly well what he was carrying, as he'd known all along.
"Ken very thoughtfully shoved him into a lavatory, and the next stage of the adventures began. Whack! Straightaway Ken meets a feller," H.M.'s hand appeared past my shoulder and tapped Stone, "who presents tolerably good credentials and tells you L. is dead. But did you doubt Charters's story even then? No. What proof had there ever been, ask again, that Hogenauer ever made a proposition to betray L.? Charters's statement: that's all. Was it made to anyone else? No. Did it sound inherently probable in itself? No. Was there direct evidence that it couldn't have been made? Yes. But it didn't make you suspicious of Charters; it only made you suspicious of Stone.
"By the time you d had your skylarkin' at the Cabot Hotel, and learned the truth about the light-cuff-links-missing-books affair, I was beginnin' to get more than a glimmering of the truth about it myself. And, by the time Ken 'phoned in his second report, I had the whole thing arranged in reasonable order. So far, I'd taken a devilish lot of whacks. I was the clown in the Punch and Judy show: every time I stuck my head up over the stairs, somebody batted it with a club. And the audience roared with mirth. But, remember, my lads: it's only the Clown that survives the Punch and Judy show. I'm used to that. Nobody appreciates me. Bah.
"Well, this is the way I decided Charters must have gone to work:
"He'd determined to kill Hogenauer to keep Hogenauer's mouth shut. Oh, quite cold-bloodedly. Maybe he thought he was justified in doin' it; I'm never quite sure how these people with a persecution mania, who think nobody appreciates 'em, are likely to act. But here was the snag: He was the Chief Constable. He was bound to investigate the murder he meant to commit himself. And Hogenauer had a small circle of intimates. And Charters didn't want any of 'em blamed for it. He was tryin' to be a weird and wonderful thing, which is exactly like Charters if you see him as I see him: he was tryin' to be a murderer like a gentleman. Do you understand torture? If not, you'll never understand Charters. He wanted nobody blamed. In particular, he didn't want the Antrims blamed-"
"Even though," put in Evelyn, very thoughtfully, "he stole poison from them?"
"Even then, I think," said H.M. "But listen. What he wanted was a dummy motive and a dummy murderer-somebody against whom a devilish good case could be made out, but who still couldn't be caught. And he remembered Hogenauer bein' in the Intelligence Service years ago. He also remembered L. who was at once cloudy and solid. If the whole Secret Service couldn't catch L. or find out who he was in the past, small blame would attach to Charters's constabulary if they failed to find him now. Charters had no idea where L. was; he supposed nobody had. L. was the man for his money. But in order to make clear the leerin' dangers of L. to all concerned, he had to bring in somebody who knew about 'em: in short, he had to bring in me. And, d'ye know, I'm rather wonderin' if it didn't tickle something under Charters's ribs: if it didn't give him a deep, sharp feelin' of satisfaction; when he sat there and spun that yarn about L., just to see whether in one last fling Martin Charters (the shelved one) couldn't make a fool of the old man. And he did.
"He'd got it worked out. Do you remember," H.M. said abruptly, "when I was questionin' Antrim about the famous night when Antrim gave Hogenauer the bromide, Antrim said that Hogenauer suggested bromide himself?
"Yes. Y'see, I'm inclined to think Charters knew a whole lot more about Hogenauer, and Hogenauer's `experiment,' than he admitted. To begin with, long before Charters had any idea of crooked work, long before the Willoughby case broke, he'd heard where Hogenauer was livin'. He was curious. He sent Sergeant Davis to see what the mysterious Hogenauer was up to, and, when he heard about the `lights round the flower-pot' he was still more curious. He wondered whether Hogenauer himself was up to hanky-panky. It looked like it, didn't it?’
"That, I'm inclined to believe, was why he thought he could safely go to Hogenauer with his bag of money, and get Hogenauer's opinion of the stuff. But Hogenauer wasn't having any. `I shouldn't be so holy,' Charters advises; 'considering what you're doing here:' And then poor old Hogenauer, suddenly realizin' that funny interpretations may be put on his conduct (for Keppel has warned him about the mysterious, sinister letters Hogenauer has been writin'), Hogenauer is afraid the police are after him. And he blurts out the truth. Which gives Charters an idea for a neat murder."
Evelyn spoke suddenly.
"I think he was a devil," she said. "'Gives him an idea for a neat murder.' If he'd been an honest murderer, he'd have brained Hogenauer with a poker then and there, and shut his mouth like that. But he didn't. I say, why are you defending him?"
"I said, if people will stop interruptin' me," H.M. went on woodenly, "I'll tell you what happened. Well, Charters promises Hogenauer he won't try to pass off the money as counterfeit; he soothes him down. He takes an interest in the `experiment,' which Hogenauer explains. But then Charters suggests it's pretty dangerous to the health —‘
Stone sat up.
"I've got you," Stone said. "He suggests Hogenauer ought to visit the doctor the night before the experiment for a going-over. He suggests Hogenauer ought to ask the doctor about bromide, and take a bromide before the experiment begins-"
"Sure. They were talkin' about Antrim, dye see, in that back parlour with the door shut. And Bowers, comin' in late and hearin' Hogenauer do so much talkie' about Antrim, thinks it's Antrim who's there.
"It's always the cussedest thing that happens. Those bottles really were switched in the surgery, with fake labels pasted on 'em: Charters arranged it in the evening before Hogenauer got there. He could get in easily through the French window. The trap was all ready.
"But a very revealin' question has been asked in this case. Somebody asked: If the murderer really switched the bottles, why was he so fastidious as to switch 'em back again to their right places? And there you got the answer before you. Because Charters's lop-sided conscience was always stingin' him in an unexpected place; it even stung him after it was dead, the way a wasp can. He could quite coolly arrange to poison Hogenauer. Y'know, I got a suspicion Charters has an idea that foreigners are — well, not exactly not human, but at least that poisonin' a foreigner is slightly less reprehensible an offense than poisonin' a countryman. He could kill Hogenauer. But he couldn't stand the thought that somebody else, somebody he wasn't after, might get a dose out of that bottle. Above all, at Madam Antrim's hands."
"So," put in Evelyn, "during the ten or fifteen minutes while Antrim was out for a stroll after Hogenauer had left, he sneaked in — "
"No!" said H. M. sharply. "That's just what I don't mean. Otherwise there'd have been no mix-up about that sash-window. Think back again. Antrim went for a stroll, yes. The house was open and the lights were on. But where did Antrim say he went for a stroll?"
"On the headland just behind the house," said Evelyn.
"Yes. And so, with the lights on, Charters couldn't get in without bein' seen. And afterwards Antrim locked up the place. But Charters had to get in.’
"He did get in late that night, d'ye see. But somethin' was rackin' him all over again. There were holes in his plan. The bottles had been switched and put back into their places, yes. Hogenauer now had the dose of poison, yes. But suppose nobody noticed that there had been a switch of bottles from a mysterious hand: as he'd intended? Suppose it was simply thought Mrs. Antrim had given poison to Hogenauer, out of the strychnine-bottle, with deliberate intent — as Evelyn did think?"
"You don't believe he must have anticipated that?" asked Evelyn.
"Quite seriously, I don't think he did," said H.M. "Give the devil fair play. For see what he did. To show that an outsider must have been there, he manufactured evidence (it was bad evidence, but it had to be obvious stuff) in order to show the sash window had been burgled."
"Hold on!" said Stone. "This won't do! You can't have it both ways. You say he got in and manufactured the evidence. All right. You said earlier this evening that the catch on that window was broken from inside, and the scratches made from inside. But you also said that no other window or door in the house showed any sign of being tampered with! In that case, how in the name of Judas did Charters get in to make those marks on the inside? He couldn't have got in."
H.M. again spoke with a sort of lowering mirth.
"Oh yes, son. Anybody could have got in. Anybody could have got in, and left no betrayin' sign on the French window. Anybody, that is, who had at hand a full kit of the finest and most modern burglar's tools. And Charters was the only one who had a kit like that. He lent it to Ken the following night."
After a pause, H.M. went on:
"I tried to show it to you; that was why I hammered the point about that sash-window; and, burn me, Charters almost came out and admitted the truth when he was defendin' the Antrims. He pointed out how both of 'em could have been tellin' the truth when I pressed him. I told you the little things were important. He broke that window from the inside, so it would make little noise; he broke it with a big claspknife — the same clasp-knife, I rather think, that he made you a present of when I sent you to do some burglin' yourself at the Cabot Hotel in Bristol.
"But there was the trouble. Y'see, when he sneaked out that night, Serpos saw him.
"Serpos has admitted that much to me. It supplies the explanation to the last nightmare in the business. I mean the telephone-call to the Cabot Hotel at one-thirty, when someone whispered: `This is L. speaking. Would you like to know the truth about the money?' And then the laugh. It was Serpos speaking for blackmail. It was Serpos speaking — with a hint. It was Serpos speaking — with Charters standin' right beside him. If you got any memories, you'll recall that Antrim looked down over the banisters and saw Serpos loungin' against the edge of the stairs. Uh-huh. But there was somebody else there, too. Somebody bidden from Antrim under the protection of the stairs. Somebody standin' there and sweatin'. Charters."
"Yes," I said, "but how the devil did Serpos come to call up Keppel? Where was the blackmail in that? What made him think of that?"
From behind me I heard a deep growl.
"Ah! That was what I hadda find out from Serpos when I questioned him in front of all of you. I hadda find out how much he knew of what had been goin' on — about Hogenauer's experiment. He admitted he'd guessed about it already. He admitted he got a full account of the circumstances of Hogenauer's death from the copper who brought him back to Torquay. Friend Serpos is a shrewd lad; you've seen that. He knew what was goin' on, and Keppel's parts in it. And he had seen Charters sneak out the night before
"He guessed Charters had-'
"And more. He made a long-shot guess, concernin' the `envelope. folded in half,' that Hogenauer had given poison innocently to Keppel: the innocent victim. And thus pleasant little Serpos faces Charters. `You haven't merely killed one man, my friend; you've killed two. Shall I ring up Bristol and prove it? Shall I call the police, too? Or will you protect me and give me some of that money? Eh?
"'Shall I prove it? Listen; they don't answer. Yes, they do. Here they are now. It's a police inspector on the wire. Speak up, my friend, and decide. (This is L. speaking. Would you like to know the truth about the money?)' And Charters, sweatin' blind, decides.
"I've wondered to myself-' said H.M., and stopped. "Do you understand a little better now? If Charters had been a devil, he'd have killed Serpos. I think I'd 'a' done it. And it was twistin' around awful uncertain in my mind as to what he'd do. There was a cliff behind, and a dark night over us. But Charters couldn't do it. He was only stumblin' and blunderin' about in his own mind.
"That was the situation when all of you came back to the house. You can see what I was tryin' to do with my questions now. I didn't pound anybody, except where I knew there was somethin' bearin' directly on the truth to be got. I kept off obvious paths, when I knew they wouldn't lead anywhere. I whittled it all down to showin' Charters in his own mind and soul that I knew the truth. He must have got a nasty shock when he learned L. was dead — from the lips of L.'s own daughter, livin' right here beside him, unbeknownst, all the time. He got a whole coruscatin' whirl of nasty shocks; I saw to that. But he wouldn't see it, or pretended he wouldn't see it. The gentleman murderer gritted his teeth and kept his bat straight.
"It was all neat and sharp and severe; we were fightin' it out between us, and he knew it; until I did what hadda be done. You remember his face when he read that slip of paper? He never kept a stiffer lip or a straighter bat, but you remember his face? He walked out of that house as he'll walk out of your lives. Cheer up. Forget the goblins. For this is the beautiful parish of Hammersmith, and this is your weddin' day."
"There is just one thing," I said, "that you've got to tell us
"Watch out for that truck!" yelled Stone. "Oh, holy —!'
I dodged the oncoming lorry, which was like a charging bull elephant, as Hammersmith traffic engulfed us, and the sky over Hammersmith was serene. But one question I was determined to have answered.
And it stuck in my mind all through the hectic rush that followed. Over most of those events I pass quickly. We had wired ahead for my clothes to be taken to H.M.'s house in Brook Street, so that we should lose no time: Sandy Armitage, my best man, is a reliable sort, and I knew that all the packing arrangements I should have made would be attended to. Things, I admit, took on a somewhat dream-like quality; for a man is inclined to forget murders and the affairs of darkness on his wedding day; but that infernal question stuck in my mind.
I pass over the scene when three grimy, unshaven, unpresentable people deposited the bride on the steps of her own house in Mount Street, just as the triumphant clocks of the wedding day were chiming eleven. Evelyn's father had even come down the steps in such a state of apoplectic rage that no comment could be passed. I say that I pass over the scene, but I cannot help remarking that it is the first time I ever saw a major-general dancing on the pavement. Also, I pass over the scenes at H.M.'s house when we were getting ready. Stone had to have a morning coat, and the only thing that would fit him was one belonging to H.M.'s butler, who is short and stocky. I missed connections with Sandy, but he left a message that all was ready; that he was going on to the church; and that he would like to wring my neck.
Yet the car sped us out again, and down into an effulgent Whitehall. I knew now that we should reach the church before Evelyn.
"We're going to do it!" said Stone, with the tense expression of one waiting for an execution. He pointed to Big Ben as we swept past it. "One minute to the half-hour! We-'
"And before we do," I said, "there's one thing that'll stump you, H.M. There's one thing you can't explain."
"You want to bet?" said H.M., feeling at his collar. He hates formal clothes, and has often been known to say so."What is it?"
"Well, as an example of the cussedness of all human affairs. You said that all the small things in this case, like a kit of burglar's tools and a slip in a phone conversation and a counterfeit note — all those details-had their place in the narrative. But there's one that doesn't."
"What one?"
"A book of sermons," I said, "and a clergyman's outfit. The clergyman's outfit I was compelled to wear, and the book of sermons I was compelled to carry. Damn it, fate has designed this business so far; but if you can explain the presence of a book of sermons and a cler — "
It was at this point that I stopped the car, and Sandy Armitage hopped on the running-board.
"Thank God you're here," he said. "I'll wait till afterwards before I knock your block off, but everything's wrong. Your presence may smooth matters out. It'll go well enough now. We've been having trouble with the parson's nerves — "
"The parson? What's wrong with the parson?"
"You know," said Sandy. "The great pal of the general's, the one he brought over from Canada, and hasn't seen in twenty years, to tie the knot. Well, the parson's been having the hell of a time. It seems he was coming up from Plymouth on the boat-train last night, and two low-down master criminals — a man and a woman-set on him, and… Well, he spent the night in jail in Bristol, and General Cheyne's only just got him out. He's wild. He's mad. He says he doesn't know these crooks' names, but that he's going to devote his life to tracking them down; and if he ever sees them again — '
And from Westminster steeple we heard the half-chime, and Joris broke silence with, "Well, we got two witnesses, anyway. Ken, you better head off the wench quick, and we better duck for the nearest registry office, or you're goin' to spend your wedding-trip in clink after all."