"I'll do better than that. I'll go ahead with the flash; there's no light on those damn stairs; and I ought to know where her room is by this time. Fine business, eh, when a cop's got to act as nursemaid? Never mind; a cop's got to be a little of everything."
Dr. Fell alone remained behind when the others descended. The bedroom floor was now softly illuminated by wall-lamps behind buff-colored shades. Camilla and Captain Ashcroft led the way to a door in the middle of the transverse corridor across the front.
In a large, many-frilled room of the sort which would be called dainty, one dim lamp burned beyond a big four-poster bed with tumbled sheets. Madge, unconscious but breathing easily, was lowered to the bed; Camilla bent over the sleeping girl and arranged the sheet around her.
"Great God in the bushes!" said Captain Ashcroft "Let's hope that's the end of it for
one
night—Mrs. Huret!"
"Yes, Captain?"
"Probably no need for it. Better be on the safe side, though. Ma'am, will you please go down to the telephone and get Dr. Wickfield? Dr. J. S. Wickfield, the one who was here before? His number's written on the pad beside the phone."
Valerie, standing sideway
s, had been eyeing her stat
uesque image in the mirror over the dressing-table. Now she seemed to emerge from obscure thoughts.
"I
know Dr. Wickfield, thanks. And I'll do it at once, of course. But—what was Dr. Fell saying about a piece of string?"
"How's that, ma'am?"
"I was outside the door, you know. I didn't hear very clearly, but I couldn't help overhearing
just a little.
Dr. Fell said something about a piece of string, or the great importance of a piece of string. He did; I heard him!"
"Now, ma'am, you shouldn't listen at doors. Just take my word," Captain Ashcroft seemed in a kind of restrained agony, "you heard it all wrong and all mixed up. Wasn't anything 'bout string in the way you mean. Anyway . . ."
"If it's police business, of course, I know you can't tell me. And I'll go now." Valerie crossed to the door. "But we're all concerned in this; we've all got something to fear; we can't help it if our nerves jump and we want to scream." Hand on doorknob, she gestured towards the bed.
"Madge
is in no danger, or is she?"
"Danger from shock, you mean?"
"Danger from the murderer," said Valerie—and made her exit.
There was a little space of silence. Alan fidgeted; Camilla drew up a chair beside the bed. Captain Ashcroft began to pace between the door to the hall and another door on the north side of the room.
"Now burn my britches to a cinder!" he said, using a favorite exclamation of Yancey Beale's. "I'm no greenhorn at this game; I oughtn't to let a damn
-
fool woman rattle me or put me off. If Dr. Fell's right, Madge Maynard is the last person on God's green earth who could possibly be in danger. And yet I've said it before: some mighty mean people sneakin' around here, whether they bat a man's head in or just write smart messages on the blackboard. Also, if Dr. Fell's right, that little girl may know a heap too much for her own good. Leastways, we'll make sure there's no danger. Miss Bruce!"
"/ haven't gone anywhere, Captain Ashcroft."
"You know, Miss Bruce, I meant to ask whether you'd sit here and stay with her until the doctor comes. But
I
don't ask it now. She's out cold; there's nothing you can do; and, anyway, I'd rather you didn't. One of my men is here now; he came back, as I told him to. So we'll just
..."
He opened the door to the hall. Outside, patiently waiting, stood a wiry, hard-jawed young man in plain clothes. "Sergeant Duckworth!" "Captain, sir?"
The big police-officer turned back to Camilla, surveying the room.
"Both windows shut and locked; curtains closed; air-conditioner on. That door over there is only the door to the bathroom, ain't it? Any other way in here, ma'am, except the door to the hall?"
"No; only the door."
"You hear, Duckworth? That's Miss Maynard on the bed; the other young lady is Miss Bruce, who's just leaving. You pull up a chair outside this door; keep your eyes open. Dr. Wickiield ought to be here before long, if they get him at all. Don't let anybody else in without you have my say-so. Now, ma'am . . . and you, Mr. Grantham
..."
Camilla and Alan were formally ushered out. Sergeant Duckworth closed the door and fetched a carved Jacobean chair.
"Be good, you two!" enjoined Captain Ashcroft, assuming a hearty manner. "I'm off upstairs to see Dr. Fell; excuse me."
And away he went, turning off several wall-lamps so that a certain gloom descended.
Clearly there was something on Camilla's mind. Taking Alan's arm, she impelled him away from the stolidly seated sergeant, away from the transverse corridor and into a side passage that led to the enclosed stairs. Again she drew down his head and spoke in a whisper.
"He's gone, hasn't he? Listen, Alan! Let's creep upstairs, just as quietly as we did before, and listen to what those two are saying! Will you?"
"I'm not keen on it, Camilla."
"What's the matter? Have you a priggish opposition to eavesdropping?"
"I haven't got a priggish o
pposition to anything. It's
the idea of being discovered at that game. Dr. Fell may not mind, but old Mordecai Ashcroft would cut up rough if he caught us."
"Then he mustn't catch us. Please! This isn't just curiosity; I have a reason. It has to do with somebody being jealous. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard the words; or, rather, the tone they were spoken in. Please, Alan! Can't I persuade you to do it?"
"You could persuade me to do anything in the book or out of it. All right; let's go."
They went up on tiptoe; the stairs were solid and did not creak underfoot. The upstairs corridor was dark except for light streaming out of the door to the study. Camilla shrank against him; his arm was around her and her head against his shoulder as they risked a look inside.
Dr. Fell and Captain Ashcroft stood facing each other in profile at opposite sides of the lamp on the writing-table. Dr. Fell, an empty pipe in his mouth, removed the pipe and spoke past his companion as though addressing the colored photograph of Commodore Maynard on the wall above the Sheraton desk.
"So much that's cloudy!" he wheezed. "So much obscure! So much I ought to see and don't! Blast these wits of mine, where did I miss the turning?"
"If you ask me," Captain Ashcroft said with a certain awe, "you haven't missed much so far."
"I have missed the method! I have missed the mechanics! I have looked out to sea; I am lost."
"Well, keep lookin'. The theory you outlined to me," Captain Ashcroft was beginning to rave, "is the damnedest thing I ever heard in my life. I don't like it; I don't like it a bit; there'll be big trouble soon. But it hangs together; it makes sense when nothing else does. Allow we can prove it, which we ought to be able to do: where do we go from there? What's next?"
"Next?"
"You've given the motive, or at least
a
very strong motive. But which one of 'em does it apply to? There's not one single indication of who the murderer is!"
"You think not?"
"Well, I don't see one. All it tells us is something else about Henry himself. And he's dead; he can't help now."
"Sir," returned Dr. Fell, pointing his stick at the antique desk, "are you sure he can't help now? This afternoon, to Alan Grantham and myself, he spoke of certain papers—perhaps only a
paper; he was not clear—in a"se
cret drawer of that desk. He
said,
of course, the document related only to family matters."
"And you didn't believe him?"
"Candidly, I did not believe him for one moment.
-
In that respect, as in other respects, he lied in his teeth. Always provided I am right, a certain important paper—
not
relating to family matters, to himself or to Madge either —was in the secret drawer this afternoon. Again provided I am right, it may still be there. But it won't stay there, believe me."
"The murderer'll steal it, you mean?"
"I do. Madge Maynard, who distinctly is not the murderer, tried and failed to find the secret drawer and its contents. Who else might succeed where she failed?"
"Just a minute! Hold on, there! If the murderer already knows where the secret drawer is, wouldn't he have swiped that damn paper long ago?"
"Perhaps, but I doubt it."
"Why?"
"So long as Henry Maynard was still alive," declared Dr. Fell, with the air of one making himself radiantly clear, "the prospective murderer had no reason to steal the document and every reason not to steal it. With Maynard dead, the whole picture changes. If the murderer has anticipated our thoughts and got here before us to take the document, we are royally snookered; there is no more to be said. If he hasn't (and I suspect he hasn't) then our course is clear. Can't you make some excuse to impound that desk and remove it from the house while we ourselves investigate?"
"Yes," yelled Captain Ashcroft, "and I can do better than that. There's a man in the C.C.P.D. whose hobby is antique furniture. He's bats on antique furniture; there's nothing he don't know about it, like
a minister knowing the Bible. If
there's a secret drawer with a paper inside —which is a mighty big 'if,' but I'll go along with you— Jerry Wexford will find it. How far that'll help us is anybody's guess. We're still in one hell of a mess . . ."
"As you rightly point out," Dr. Fell agreed, "we are still in one hell of a mess. But the mists commence to thin a little, do they not? And Henry Maynard can still be of assistance. The late lamented gave us clues in spite of himself; at no time did I like the way he was behaving."
"I
don't like the way
anybody's
behavin'
Take Mrs. Huret, for instance."
"What about her?"
"Do you know she was listening a part of the time when you and I talked in the weapons-room?
I
could
murder people who listen to private conversations.
Never mind: nobody listenin' to
us.
In the weapons-room you said—remember?—you wondered how many boyfriends Madge Maynard kept on a string."
"I said suitors, not boyfriends. But we will not argue the point."
"Well, Mrs. Huret picked
up the word 'string’
and latched on to it. She thinks, or says she thinks, Madge herself may be the next one in danger. That's not likely; considering what we know, it's the unlikeliest thing of all; but she had me rattled for a minute. She also claims you said the solution of the case depends on a piece of string."
"Sir," Dr. Fell announced majestically, "it is not the first time today I have been misunderstood. However, since you mention the lady, I confess to a certain curiosity. She was here in the house when Grantham and I first arrived this afternoon. Subsequently, we are told, she departed in something of a hurry, only to return shortly before six. Paying no attention to your obedient servant or anyone else in the library, she headed straight upstairs and descended with our host.
"What did she want on that occasion? During a questioning-session between about a quarter to ten and eleven-thirty, you yourself asked her the same question. She replied that she had something to tell Henry Maynard. But she failed to elaborate, and you did not press her."
Captain Ashcroft shook his fist.
"I didn't press her," he said, "because what would have been the good if I had? Her attitude is, 'It's-only-poor-me-I'm-not-responsible-am-I?' There's a lot of women like that. They make you mad and you can't get through to 'em. But they're harmless, mostly. And we agreed, didn't we, Mrs. Huret's not mixed up in the funny business?
"I've got something about her that's not entirely negative. The only servant we questioned in the library was old George. But once, you remember, I excused myself for ten or fifteen minutes? I hiked down to the kitchen and cornered the other four houseservants: the three maids and Ben Jones, the cook."
"Isn't there a gardener called Sam? The one who keeps the surface of the terrace smooth, and in fact smoothed it down this morning so that it took perfect footprints after the rain?"
"Yes. But Sam—Samuel Butler, his full name is— don't live in the house. The servants were as bad as the guests; nobody saw or heard anything. Oh, except just a little bit!- One of the maids, Winnie Mae, was on the top floor for a minute or two when Mrs. Huret went up to see Henry. Winnie Mae says they both seemed angry, and Mrs. Huret called Henry a fraud. Winnie Mae didn't stay any longer; she was afraid to, and ran down the back stairs.