‘I hope I should not keep clear of anything at the expense of positive mendacity.’ Murn, who had recently built up so elaborate a picture of his fondness for his late colleague, wagged a virtuous beard. ‘And, as it happens, my answer to the original question is extremely simple. I was in the dark-room there on Monday morning from before ten o’clock until the news came to us of the accident. And I fancy that Atkinson, the lab man to whom you have just been talking, can substantiate that. It was his business to be here in the photographic room throughout the period concerned. And of course the only exit from the dark-room is by the maze and through this room.’
‘Except,’ said Appleby, ‘for a little opening to the hoist. And were you alone in the dark-room, Mr Murn?’
‘Dear me, no. There was a number of people there from time to time. And I rather fancy that Graves, the second lab man, was there continuously. Though often one doesn’t much notice other people in the low violet light.’
Hobhouse tapped his notes gloomily. ‘All that seems straight enough. Mr Murn was in there all the time, all right – except that he went along to the refrigerator once or twice. And either in there, or in this room we’re in now, were several of the others at one time or another. This Atkinson is pretty sure of himself on all that. Funny thing, really. These two rooms seem to have been quite a focus for the people concerned. Hissey, Marlow, Pinnegar, Tavender – though Tavender was after it was all over – pottering about for one reason or another. And Atkinson noticing all their comings and goings here, and Graves more or less aware of them in there’ – and Hobhouse jerked his head towards the dark-room – ‘as if the whole thing was a kind of scientific apparatus for manufacturing alibis.’
Appleby laughed. ‘Perhaps it was. Take Mr Murn here. You say he slipped out now and then to the refrigerator–’
‘For certain volatile fluids,’ said Murn placidly.
‘No doubt. But if I go regularly to the refrigerator and it regularly takes two minutes, then to an Atkinson not positively attending to the matter six or even eight minutes will still register as two minutes. That’s psychology.’
Murn chuckled. ‘But not evidence. It wouldn’t do to put under the nose of a jury, as you phrase it. Though I’m not sure it doesn’t make me feel rather uncomfortable, all the same.’
‘There are all sorts of other possibilities.’ Appleby was crossing the room towards the maze. ‘This dark-room appears to be a sort of box. Always distrust boxes. You know the sort that is securely roped round each way, so that it appears impossible to open it? But one of the sides is really a sort of revolving door, with the rope as axis. And out the lovely lady crawls and – hey presto! – the box is empty.’ Appleby made a gesture in air. ‘And now, in we plunge. Mr Murn, this is one of Hobhouse’s big moments. He’s persuaded me to go places again. Instead of wasting time chatting with irrelevant persons like yourself.’
‘Have a care, Mr Appleby. Right, left, right and left will take you in. But I advise you to feel your way.’
Appleby had already taken one turn into the maze; he took another and found himself in pitch darkness. ‘And it was here that somebody hung up a skeleton?’
‘Just halfway through.’ Murn’s voice came from close behind. ‘And painted with some sort of luminous paint. An extremely juvenile prank, such as one might read of in a school story. But I must say it gave me rather a turn.’
‘You came upon it first? What did you do?’
Murn laughed – and the noise bumped oddly about the little labyrinth they were threading. ‘I got Atkinson and Graves out of the way so that they wouldn’t deprive Pluckrose of the benefit of the experience too. He gave a most heartening yelp when he walked into it.’
‘I suppose he was annoyed?’
‘Extremely. And his reaction, as so often with him, was markedly eccentric. Most people believe that young Roger Pinnegar is responsible for the pranks that have been taking place. But Pluckrose insisted that the skeleton had been hung up here by the Vice-Chancellor.’
Appleby came to a halt in the darkness. ‘By Sir David Evans! What an extraordinary notion.’
‘It is certainly not a fashion in which elderly philosophers are expected to behave. But it was Pluckrose’s habit to maintain that Evans is slightly unbalanced.’
‘I understand that Sir David on his part believes something of the sort about professors in general.’ Appleby had now emerged into the dark-room. Nothing, however, was visible; the place seemed to be dark indeed. ‘Do you think that Pluckrose really–’
‘I hardly think he could truly have supposed that Evans did it. But, of course, he may have connected it up in his mind with the somewhat delicate relationship existing between Evans and himself.’
‘In the matter of the fair Fräulein Schmauch? That’s another matter that really takes a little swallowing. Hullo – there’s some light here after all.’ The outlines of the dark-room were beginning to emerge in a sort of low violet glow; it was an affair of sinks and benches, booths and cubby-holes, apparently so designed that a number of people could work independently at the same time. The place made a beautiful centre, Appleby thought, for the sinister game of hide-and-seek which it began to seem as if the Pluckrose business might have involved. ‘I suppose your eyesight accommodates quicker to it with practice; I’m only just beginning to see a thing.’
‘It’s not really at all a bad light.’ Murn was now standing beside Appleby and Hobhouse was just emerging from the maze. ‘You can see most things, without much strain on the eyes. Now, over here is the cupboard I was speaking of. An empty cupboard–’
But Appleby had moved to the farther side of the room. ‘And this is the hatch that gives on the hoist?’ He was peering at a small aperture in the wall, closed by a sort of sliding door or shutter. ‘It’s most inconveniently small; I should say little more than a foot square.’
Murn nodded. ‘I fancy they were afraid of light seeping in from the shaft. It’s big enough for the few things we send downstairs from time to time. And there’s the switch – a button for up and a button for down. But now, about this cupboard where I found the beard–’
‘Talking of the beard,’ Hobhouse interrupted; ‘there you have one thing the hatch is big enough to take. You could send the beard down – or up.’
Appleby had been moving towards the cupboard with Murn; now he turned back. ‘My dear man, what an astonishing perception. The beard goes up. And where does that lead us?’
‘Presumably to the store-room again.’ Hobhouse, perching himself on a stool, raised his expository finger. ‘A fake Mr Murn comes into the dark-room here. He sends the beard up the tower. He emerges, no longer a fake Mr Murn. He goes up there himself and becomes a fake Mr Murn again. He sends the beard down once more, returns to the dark-room, again not a fake Mr Murn. He retrieves the beard and leaves the dark-room–’
‘Again as a fake Mr Murn.’ Appleby turned to the venerable figure of the late Pluckrose’s assistant. ‘And now you know, sir, how the police mind works.’
‘I must admit that it is a beguiling theory.’ Murn had grasped his own beard, rather as if apprehensive that it too might be whisked magically into the hoist. ‘Only I’m not sure that the procedure which Inspector Hobhouse suggests isn’t needlessly elaborate. Surely the person whose mysterious activities he is sketching could simply put the beard in his pocket and take it to the tower that way.’
Hobhouse shook his head. ‘It’s a big beard; a fine beard, if one may venture to say so. And it would crush it badly to stuff it in a pocket; spoil the effect of the subsequent disguise. If there was really some plot to display somebody like Mr Murn as pitching down the meteorite from that window I do think there may be something in my idea. I wouldn’t say that I see the thing quite clearly’ – Hobhouse’s voice was appropriately modest – ‘but I fancy that something might be worked out.’
‘I don’t think you are allowing yourself a big enough cast.’ Appleby, who had laid the false beard down on a bench, took it up again and peered at it seriously in the dim light. ‘I rather sustain Mr Murn’s objection about the pocketable nature of the thing: I doubt if it would be much the worse ten minutes later. But if you suppose two people engaged in some plot to impersonate Mr Murn–’
‘Dear me!’ Murn amiably chuckled. ‘I can scarcely envisage myself as enjoying such popularity.’
‘If you imagine two people with a beard between them, then this little entrance to the hoist might be uncommonly useful.’
‘But wouldn’t two people provide themselves with two beards?’ Hobhouse was extremely serious. ‘If you had a job of murder on hand, a little extra expense–’
Appleby threw the beard down on the bench again. ‘The whole thing takes on the air of a theatrical farce. People disguised as each other bob ceaselessly in and out of the wings. Let’s hope it’s a tolerably well-constructed show.’
‘I doubt it.’ Hobhouse shook his head gloomily. ‘Too much material, if you ask me. The Vice-Chancellor’s bust, and the young man you say is a bigamist, and this beard business, and Prisk and his car, and grudges about the Duke’s grandson or the Prussian Academy or Zuleika What’s-her-name – well, it will take some pulling together.’
‘No doubt. But Mr Murn wants to show us his cupboard.’ Murn nodded. ‘An empty cupboard, to which I happened to go on Monday afternoon. And there was the beard – and nothing else.’
‘Exactly,’ said Appleby. ‘No question of too much material in this case.’
‘I opened it and put in my hand, intending to make sure of a space on which I could store some plates.’ And Mr Murn opened the cupboard door and suited his action to his words. ‘What was my surprise–’
Mr Murn’s voice faded; in the dim violet light he stood transfixed. And then, very slowly, his hand emerged again. It clutched not one but two large, white, venerable beards.
Hobhouse, with a bundle of false beards under his arm, closed the door of the photographic room behind him. ‘I rather fancy that dark-room,’ he said. ‘You know where you are with it. Rather a pity Pluckrose wasn’t killed in there, if you ask me.’
Appleby shook his head. ‘It’s a box,’ he repeated. ‘Always avoid murders in boxes. Unless the lid is off mark you.’
‘And would you say the lid is off here?’
‘Decidedly. The setting isn’t of what you might call the insulated type. The victim isn’t shut up in a box with just so many people, one or more of whom must be responsible for the crime. Pluckrose may have been killed by anyone in Nesfield; he may have been killed by the Man in the Moon.’
‘Quite a likely suspect, if you come to think of it.’ And Hobhouse smiled, much pleased with this bold stroke of fantasy.
‘So we have simply to take the likeliest people as the objects of our first inquiries. And if that is no go then the less and less likely. Until we are checking up on the Bishop of Nesfield and the Lord Mayor of Nesfield–’
‘And the Duke of Nesfield. And then we retire on our pensions and hand our notebooks to our successors. Meanwhile–’
‘Meanwhile we are talking of boxes. And on our way to inspect a small specimen just down this corridor. Between Prisk’s room and Pluckrose’s. And here it is. I wonder if it’s a regular thing to have two men share a telephone in this way?’
Hobhouse nodded. ‘Apparently it is. There are quite a number of these little boxes about the place. And all locked, so that the instruments can’t be used by just anybody passing along a corridor.’
‘What sort of locks?’
‘Quite rubbishing. And one key is likely to fit a good many boxes.’
Appleby tried the door of the little box on the wall. ‘Locked now. And what about the switchboard operator?’
‘She knows where any call comes from. At the time and so long as she remembers, that is. Naturally no record is kept of calls within the house system.’ Hobhouse fished out a notebook and thumbed it over. ‘On Monday morning the girl remembers just two calls on this machine. She’s hazy as to the times, but she knows they were both before the fuss of Pluckrose’s death. The first was a call to this machine; somebody ringing through for Prisk. She doesn’t remember where the call came from, and she doesn’t remember recognizing the voice.’
‘Somebody ringing through for Prisk? That means she would give two rings, and then pause, and then two rings again until there was an answer, or until it was evident no one was going to reply?’
‘Just that.’
‘Does the girl remember Prisk answering?’
‘She remembers that somebody answered, but she doesn’t remember if it was he.’
‘And whether the call was answered quickly or not?’
‘She doesn’t remember that either.’
Appleby tapped thoughtfully at the little locked box. ‘Well, the possibility of error is clear. Pluckrose, say, is here at the open box, and about to make a call. The thing rings – the first of two rings for Prisk. But Pluckrose picks up the receiver impatiently or absent-mindedly, and if the message is brief and clear may suppose it to have been for himself.’
‘Quite so. And there’s a point in favour of that idea which we didn’t know of when we considered it before. The second call in which this instrument was involved was a call
by
Pluckrose, so it may have been the one he was about to make when the bell rang. And it was to the Vice-Chancellor.’ Hobhouse paused and it was clear that he had something remarkable to communicate. ‘Only the Vice-Chancellor denies it. Well, aren’t you surprised?’
‘I don’t know that I am.’ Appleby looked soberly at his colleague. ‘You know, Sir David Evans is in this thing. Whatever we may think of the scandalous story of him, Pluckrose and a woman – or girl–’
‘Is there a difference?’
‘There is to Murn’s mind. Anyway, I say Evans is in the affair. Hence his extraordinary performance when we interviewed him. And hence, no doubt, his subsequent funk.’
‘The funk followed on his hearing of the attempt on Prisk – if it was that. When I saw him again about this telephone-business he was just short with me. Rather like Lasscock. Mornin’ to you.’
‘Lasscock’s turn is coming. A full and free confession from that eldest son of Morpheus is badly overdue. But about this call: the girl is quite sure?’