Yancey Beale, with a face of near-collapse, still stood beside the little piano. As Dr. Fell spoke Yancey moved one shaky step forward.
"Yes?" he prompted. "I thought I could take anything you had to say against Madge. Now I'm not so sure. But what's all this about Pa Maynard as a potential murderer? Who was to be
his
victim?"
"As originally planned, I submit, the victim was to have been either Rip Hillboro or yourself. You have not forgotten Mr. Hillboro's speculations on the same subject?"
"No, but . . ."
"Whether he was serious or not, he struck dangerously near truth when he said you had both better take care. Madge, you recall, immediately flared up to ask what her 'father' could possibly
have against either of you. You
could not answer the question then. Can you answer it now?"
"Yes, but . . ."
"Consider! You and Mr. Hillboro were Madge's two known suitors. You are both young, both presentable; he hated you cordially. T
hough Madge seemed to favor nei
ther of you, might this not be a blind to conceal passion for one or the other? Such an idea must forcefully have occurred to Maynard. Indeed, when we ourselves look for the real murderer . . ."
"Easy, Grand Goblin! Just you take it easy! Are you sayin' the murderer must be either Rip or me?"
"One moment, sir. We see this through no unprejudiced eyes; we see it through the eyes of Henry Maynard, a man past his prime and tortured by jealousy. If you yourself have ever been jealous . . ."
"If I
have ever been jealous, for God's sake!"
"And yet, in his heart, did Maynard ever really mean murder? I indulge conjecture, but I doubt it. He loved tinkering with plans and figures; the brutal reality of action was another matter. For what happened? The famous Sunday evening under the magnolias, with guests arriving next day, found Madge in the arms of—whom? You, Mr. Beale, said it was you. He doubted that; he had reason to doubt it. But if not you, then who? He didn't know; he couldn't guess. Alan Grantham and I can testify that the thought maddened him.
"And what else happened?
"On Wednesday, May 5th, he flew to Richmond. A hitherto-depressed man returned on Saturday in a very different mood: gay, buoyant, almost carefree. Clearly, on reflection, he had abandoned the murder-project and put it from him. Perhaps some belated sense of humor awoke to absurdity: could he plot the death of every man at Madge's elbow? Perhaps it was only Maynard common sense. 'Let the future take care of itself
,' his thoughts must have run. ‘I
can't live forever. But I have her now, and I'll make the best of her while there's still time.' No instinct told him, on Saturday morning of the 8th, that he had less than a week to live.
'F
or just here we see the cr
oss-currents, the cross-pur
poses, which made a bad situation worse. Let me try to clarify this.
"Two persons had already entered the case and seized events. One, the murderer, found Maynard's blueprint and did mean business. The other, whom we have agreed to call the joker, subsequently wrote messages on the blackboard. Between these two, once the crime had been committed, began a constant tug of war. And yet each misunderstood the other. And we misunderstood too."
"I asked before," Camilla cried, "but I'm afraid I've got to ask again. If you won't say anything about the murderer, who's the joker?"
"Suppose you tell me?" suggested Dr. Fell. "You were not present in the attic on Friday afternoon when a certain person, slightly offstage on the stairs, was heard to exclaim, 'You don't know what's going on here; I can't bear it.' But other facts have, been before us all.
"The same person subsequently left Maynard Hall, drove away in a hurry, and was absent when Captain Ashcroft received an anonymous phone call (from the Poinsett High School, it now seems certain). The same person returned shortly before six o'clock, at which time she pitched into Henry Maynard and called him a fraud. On Saturday afternoon she pitched into Madge, and for the same reason."
"You mean Valerie Huret, don't you?"
"I do. A most intuitive lady, as I have already remarked. Intense, somewhat frustrated. How conveniently she was present, on two occasions, and 'found'
messages that were believed to
have frightened her so much!"
"Then Valerie did all that herself? And she was always right?"
"Oh, no," said Dr. Fell.
Fishing the filled pipe from his pocket, he lit it with a kitchen match and blew out a great gust of smoke.
"She was quick to sense the true relationship between supposed father and daughter. But she thought it was incest, which horrified her. That has been Mrs. Huret's motivation throughout. Because she
seemed
right in so much, and led us straight to the murder-method when she herself had only a glimm
er of the right idea, we missed
the different (and erroneous) interpretation she had tried to convey.
'Take the chalked messages, beginning with the second one where accusations commence. 'The man to be sought is Madge's lover. Find him; don't so easily be put off questioning her. And, if you would learn about the murder, more tomorrow.'
"We interpreted that as being a reference to the unknown lover, the elusive boyfriend of the magnolia trees, who was also the murderer. And we were thunderingly right so to interpret it; it is the truth.
"But does the message actually say that? Did it mean that? Before 'if you would learn about the murder,' note its qualifying 'and.'
"The third and fourth communications complete an accusation and show what Mrs. Huret was really trying to tell us. The third sent us to Fort Moultrie. "There is a photograph which may prove enlightening.' And, 'Yours in homage to the great one.' Mrs. Huret, a former schoolmistress, had her wits stimulated by Edgar Allan Poe. For she
was
on the right track there."
"But not on the right track about anything else?" asked Alan.
"Not on the right track about anything else. After stealing the packet of letters from Madge so that we should find them here, she wrote her fourth message in valedictory. When
she
spoke of Madge's lover, she did not mean an elusive boyfriend or a murderer either. She meant Henry Maynard and what she thought to be a wickedly incestuous relationship. Maynard
was
Madge's lover, of course. But it seems doubtful that Mrs. Huret ever so much as suspected another lover, the more important lover, who—"
"Well, really!" exclaimed Camilla. "One lover; two lovers; is there somebody else too? I'm not accusing Madge of being a Messalina, which I know she isn't, but how many men did she want?"
"You let her alone!" snapped Yancey. "Madge only did what she had to do, because that old devil forced her. She didn't like it, you know!"
"I wonder. And -
wi
ll
you ple
ase tell us, Dr. Fell," Camill
a said on a note of the frantic, "just what Valerie really meant?"
"We know what she meant," replied Dr. Fell, taking more typewritten sheets from the brief case and letting them fall on the other papers. "Here is a copy of the statement she made to Captain Ashcroft in hospital, which adds impressively to our list of documentary evidence.
"Her main purpose was to expose the incestuous relationship and blow it sky-high. She would not come out openly and accuse those two. She must play ghost; she must hide; she must whisper in the ear of the law. But it became necessary to remove the mask, and she had chosen her own candidate for the role of murderer. When she came here last night in a state so overwrought, she was concerned with something else besides incest. If the bullet had not silenced her in mid-flight, she would have denounced Madge Maynard for a deed still more dark."
"Madge?"
"Against all plausibility, against all reason, she maintained to Captain Ashcroft—probably she still maintains —that Madge herself must have set a death-trap for the victim. No matter! She hates Madge, you know. And let it be repeated that she is now past all reason.
"But we must never underestimate Mrs. Huret's contribution to this investigation. Though she was mistaken in every respect except that thundering hint about Edgar Allan Poe, she has given invaluable help from the start. Her errors have been our gain. In being wrong, she set us right. That paradox will be appreciated at the proper time."
Dr. Fell paused.
His pipe had gone out. Dropping it into his pocket, he produced a big gunmetal watch, at which he blinked hard.
"Speaking of the time," he continued, "it is far past midnight and getting on
towards one in the morning. Ar
chons of Athens! Surely . . . ?"
Back went the watch into Dr. Fell's pocket. For some minutes Alan had been conscious that the blacked-out room, in addition to being stuffy, was distinctly chilly as well. He glanced at the closed door to the corridor. So did Dr. Fell, who seemed to be waiting for something. Then Alan looked across at Camilla and at Yancey; they were waiting too.
Knuckles tapped lightl
y at the ground-glass panel of the door, which opened. In the aperture stood Sergeant Duckworth, young and hard-jawed, with a manner as conspiratorial as it was urgent He approached Dr. Fell as gingerly as he might have approached a mine-field, and spoke in a low voice.
"All set, sir. You ready too?"
"Sergeant, we have been ready for some time."
"Couldn't get goin' before, sir! The reason—"
"I understand the reason. But I warned Captain Ashcroft about his idea. This may not work, you know."
"Well, sir, it's workin' already."
"What do you want us to do?"
Sergeant Duckworth looked at Yancey. "You—"
"Me?"
"That's right Follow me out; do what I do; make as little noise as you can.—I'm takin' him to the place, sir," Sergeant Duckworth explained to Dr. Fell. "He'll be right on hand for the action."
"What action?" demanded Yancey.
"Hard to tell, ain't it? Now, then; this lady and you two others. Count slow up to fifty, then follow us. Go out the side door, and up the three little steps to the edge of the playground. But don't go no further; stay there and watch. Ain' no danger to the lady; ain' no danger to
anybody.
You'll be hardly more'n a hundred feet from the place; you'll see everything when the lights go on. O.K.?"
"When I came in here," Dr. Fell said heavily, "there was moonlight of a sort. Won't we be seen?"
"Not a chance, sir. Sky's clouded over; it's as black as your hat. Wind gettin' up too; there'll be rain before the night's over."
"Dark of the moon, eh? Will it do any harm to talk?"
"Talk if you want to; just don't talk loud. Then, when you get word there's somebody in sight don't talk and don't move either. O.K., then? Mr. Beale, let's go."
Clearly feeling less sick with something to occupy him, Yancey followed Sergeant Duckworth and was gone. A few moments later Alan, who had been counting in his head as the others were counting, could restrain himself no longer.
"Dr. Fell," he said, "Sergeant Duckworth kept referring to 'the place.' What place?"
In leisurely fashion Dr. Fell took up his stick from the teacher's desk.
"The place in question—twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three—is the junk-yard some forty yards west of this building." He looked at Camilla. "That junk-yard, Miss Bruce, figures not unimportantly in our problem. Don't scorn the junk-yard, I beg."
"If you mean I was sniffy about it to Captain Ashcroft, I'm not saying anything at all. But Alan is absolutely bursting with questions; aren't you, Alan?"
"Yes! You yourself, Magister, keep referring to
a
method of murder you call
a
death-trap. Are we supposed to understand this method by thinking of Edgar Allan Poe?"
"If we think of him in relation to
The Gold Bug.
What happens in that story?"
"An eccentric character named Legrand solves
a
cryptogram that leads to buried treasure."
Dr. Fell finished counting to fifty. He lumbered to the glass-panelled door, with Alan and Camilla following. They were all in the corridor, and Dr. Fell had bent forward to open the side door, when he spoke again.
"Don't stop there; go on! Having solved the cryptogram, what does Legrand do?"
" 'A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat.' The 'good glass' is a telescope. He—"