She was ve
ry close, quite irresistible. Al
an did not say, "Liar"; he did not say anything. Gathering her up in a close grip, he kissed her mouth with thoroughness and at some length. Camilla's response, without even a startled interval, was as unrestrained and uninhibited as anything he could have wished for in a dream. And so, under the moon, they clutched each other; and so passed a chaotic interval. Then a small voice stirred.
"Alan . . ."
"Yes?"
"What—what happened to us?"
"Something that ought to have happened long ago. I love you, you hypocritical Puritan! But I never thought you . . ."
"If you think I'm a Puritan," Camilla whispered, "you try me! Just try me, that's all! But I never thought
you . .
,"
"Shut up."
"You're not very romantic, are you?"
So he shut her up in the only appropriate way, elaborating the same treatment.
What they subsequently said or did—the discoveries they made, the vows they took, the pledges old though forever new—are matters of no strict relevance here. But it was very important to these two, and must be dealt with kindly. Their moods ranged from the erotic to the hilarious: from blind intensity of emotion through tendernes
s to the sudden notion that ever
ything on earth, including themselves, was uproariously funny after all. They had misunderstood each other, they decided, but there should be no misunderstanding in the future. Though they might have bickered incessantly, they were now too wise ever to bicker again.
Presently, after an accumulation of minutes that seemed all too short, they found themselves seated side by side, once more entwined, on an upended horse-trough in the nearest slave-cabin. Both, so to speak, reached the surface at the same time.
"I'm awfully rumpled, sort of," said Camilla. "But I want to be still more rumpled, if you see what I mean, when there's the whole night at our disposal and nobody can possibly interrupt us?"
"I see what you mean. I will devote all efforts to that purpose."
"Alan, what time is it?"
When the hurried striking of a match and a quick inspection of watch-dials showed the time as twenty minutes to midnight, Camilla disentangled herself and sprang to her feet
"We promised Dr. Fell
...
or do you think it's too late?"
"It's not too late. We're back in the real world, that's all."
"Why does he want us at that school, of
all
places on earth for a midnight meeting?"
"We can both guess, my dear. There are certain facts and realities to be looked at without gloss. They won't be pretty, I'm afraid—steady, now!—but we can't retreat to paradise until we've faced 'em."
With this sobering thought they left the hut. They had no need of retracing their steps to the gate by which they had left these grounds the night before. Camilla thought she remembered, and succeeded in finding, another gate in the boundary wall to the south.
Though it brought them out on the road at a point much closer to the Joel Poinsett High School, the landscape through which they moved now seemed less an unreal place than a dead one. Mist breathed higher from the earth: unvexed by any wind, torn to wisps and tatters only at their passing, but with a clammy touch which made Camilla flinch.
Stark black and skim-milk white, windows faintly glimmering, the west side of the school-building rose up like a repository of secre
ts. R. Gaiddon's junk-yard lay lightl
ess and apparently deserted.
No dog barked; no guardian barred the way with a shotgun; no footsteps sounded but their own. They had almost reached the side door when Camilla seized Alan's arm and pointed.
"It's dark!" she said in a whisper. "The windows of room 26 are as black as pitch. Dr. Fell spoke as though they'd gotten the place ready for what you called a party, but there doesn't seem to be a light there or anywhere else."
"Since when, my anti-Puritan, need a dark room bother
us?
We're to go in, sit down, and await results. He also said, if I remember, the side door would be easy to pry open."
It was unnecessary to pry open the door, which someone's hand pushed wide from within. Yancey Beale, faint light filtering behind him, leaned his left shoulder against the inside of the door and regarded them with a kind of jumpy nonchalance.
"Howdy there!" said Yancey. "If y'all are thinking what I expect you're thinking, forget it! The room's not dark; it's just blacked out."
"Blacked out?"
"Tar paper," Yancey made illustrative gestures, "on a wooden frame fitted to the inside of each window. It's some game craftily ar
r
anged by Grand Goblin Dr. Fell or High Priest Caiaphas Ashcroft, but don't ask me what game or wh
at's up. They phoned me at home,
they insisted on my presence, so I drove over."
"Who else is here?"
"So far, nobody 'cept me. Come on in; join the Lost Souls' Club!"
The corridor was dark; room 25 across the way also was dark. But the same bleak ceiling light glowed behind-the ground-glass panel in the door of room 26. Pushing open the door, Yancey propped the wedge under it and with something of a flourish ushered them in.
"Been cleaned up some since last night," he explained, indicating the blackout on the windows. "Smell of soap and water, eh? No more blood where poor Valerie stopped a bullet. Victrola back in place, lid closed. And there's that damn saxophone still on top of the piano! In my opinion—" He stopped abruptly.
"What is your opinion?" asked Alan. "And what's this about a Lost Souls' Club?"
"I think I belong to it; maybe we all do." Yancey began to pace back and forth in front of the teacher's desk. "When I got here, 'bout fifteen minutes ago, I parked my car on the west side of the junkyard and walked towards the school. I was just abreast
of the junkyard when I saw a woman wanderin
' along the road from the direction of Maynard Hall, as uncertainly as though she couldn't make up her mind where to go.
"Then I realized it was Madge, it was my little Madge! Without
seein'
me—I was in shadow—she turned around like a blind girl and started back in the direction she'd come from. If she needs aid and comfort, thinks I,
ol’
Yance is the man to give 'em! I'd just opened my mouth to hail her, when who should walk out of the junk-yard but Grand Goblin Dr. Fell, with a very peculiar look about him?
" 'Don't do it,' says he; 'don't interfere; don't add to her distress.' 'It's Madge!' says I. 'Will she be at the midnight conference too?' 'She will not,' says Dr. Fell; 'need
we
add to her distress either?' He told me to get along to the school, and back he went to the junk-yard without another word. What he was doing there I can't tell you, or what he meant either."
Yancey paused.
Already there had been a faint noise as the side door opened and closed on its air-cushion. Into room 26 lumbered Dr. Fell, hatless, carrying his stick in one hand and a leather brief-case in the other. He closed the door to the corridor. Depositing stick and brief case on the teacher's desk, he moved behind the desk and faced his companions with a long, rumbling sniff.
"Forgive this cloak-and-dagger secrecy," he began. "We are here, madam and gentlemen, at the request of Captain Ashcroft."
"Old Nimrod himself?" said Yancey. "Where
is
the mighty hunter before the Lord?"
"He has been detained elsewhere on urgent business relating to this case. Since Captain Ashcroft says he has no wish to dc the
ta
l
king
,
a reluctance not hitherto observable in hi
m, he has deputized me to put be
fore you certain facts which must be understood before we can understand anything else. I myself have little relish for the prospect It will make bitter hearing, and may explode some fireworks before we have finished. But it is necessary; we have no choice. If you will make yourselves as comfortable as possible under the circumstances . . ."
Camilla, Yancey, and Alan
sat down at three students'
desks in the front row having some difficulty adjusting their legs underneath. Dr. Fell remained standing, a prey to disquiet. From his pocket he took a meerschaum pipe already filled. But he did not fight the pipe; he pointed its stem at Alan.
"If for a moment
I may (harrumph!) pursue the So
cratic method,
what
are the most suggestive features in this affair?"
"Who killed Henry Maynard, and tried to kill Valerie Huret? What's the explanation of the impossible murder?"
"Tut!" Dr. Fell said with a touch of impatience. "I did not ask for the most puzzling features; I asked for the most suggestive. How and with whom did it all begin? Whose emotions touched off a chain reaction which ended in violent explosion? Whose character must we examine first of all?"
"You mean the murderer's?"
"I mean the victim's."
"Are you saying," cried Camilla,
"everything
began with Mr. Maynard?"
"Of course it did. However far we look back, we see Henry Maynard at the end of the vista. Let him walk across the screen of your minds as vividly as he walked in life. But the outward physical characteristics—spare, straight-backed figure always carefully dressed, silver hair, rather frosty blue eyes—are less revealing than the mental or emotional. He was a man of imagination and intelligence. He was a man of strong feelings usually repressed, though they could and did break out. Despite the compelling charm he could use when he needed it, he was moody and unpredictable. For at least a month, probably much longer, somethin
g had been haunting and hag-rid
ing him. What was it?
"Outwardly, at least, he would seem to have had few troubles. Already well-to-do in his own right, he had inherited the fortune and estate of his elder brother. He had made a success even of his hobby; academic circles held him in high esteem. Wealth, health, and admiration he had in plenty. Shall a man ask for more than these?
"Yet he remained the reverse of happy; the haunting grew worse. Since his arrival at Maynard Hall, in fact, he had done little but work on paper at endless 'calculations' he never discussed or referred to. Is there any indication of what these calculations may have been? Well! Presumably because his daughter objected to too cloistered a life, he invited certain guests to a house-party which was to begin on Monday, May 3rd, and these guests included the two known suitors for Madge Maynard's hand. Let us note, in passing, that he once asked Madge the height and weight of both Ripton Hillboro and Yancey Beale."
Dr. Fell paused. It was Camilla who answered, in an excit
e
ment that almost brought her to her feet.
"Yes!" Camilla said. "I wasn't here when he asked it; it was before any of us arrived. Madge first told me in confidence, and then blurted it out in the library on Friday afternoon; I'm sure it's true. But how does that
help?
Whatever tormented Mr. Maynard, wasn't it something to do with Madge herself?"
"Bull's-eye!" said Dr. Fell, whacking his knuckles on the desk. "His torment—you have used the right word— originated there. So much we have agreed all along; so much has never been denied. You, Mr. Beale, have described in some detail the famous incident under the magnolias on the nigh
t of Sunday, May 2nd. You remem
ber?"
"I remember," agreed Yancey.
"Madge had been speaking to some unknown man, who broke away just before you walked in. Down from the attic came Henry Maynard, again in torment, and added confusion to a scene already confused. He was provoked to rather a curious outburst when Madge, in an outburst of her own, ended with, 'Someti
mes I think it's not worth ...
What did she mean by that? How did it relate to the torment of Henry Maynard?"
"My dear Grand Goblin," Yancey raved, "I've already said I don't know, and asked you the same question. God's britches, what
is
all this? We're tryin' to find out what ailed the old man, but there's no evidence at all!"
"Oh, yes, there is," said Dr. Fell.
Putting down the pipe, he unfastened the metal catch of the brief case on the desk, opened it, and reached inside. But he did not take out any of the papers it evidently contained. Instead, picking up the meerschaum pipe, he again pointed the stem at Alan Grantham.
"Come!" he said. "On our way to Davy's Restaurant on Friday evening, if you remember, I asked if you had any suggestion to explain Maynard's sometimes astonishing behavior. You hazarded the solution, not uncommon in Victorian novels, that Henry Maynard might not be the real Henry Maynard, but only an impostor. Though compelled to deny this as erroneous, I replied that it led directly to another thought. And this thought, surely, does much to explain his attitude towards his daughter."