The Judas Window

'Yes, about one-thirty.'

H.M. leaned forward, humping his shoulders and spreading out his big hands on the desk. At the same time the prisoner's own hands began to tremble badly. He looked up at the edge of the roof over the box; it was as though they were approaching some climax where wires must not be drawn too tightly or they would snap.

'Now, you've heard it testified that the deceased had already rung up your flat many times that mornin', without getting an answer?'

'Yes.’

'In fact, he was ringin' up that flat as early as nine o'clock in the morning?' 'Yes.'

'You heard Dyer say that?' 'Yes.'

'Uh-huh. But he must have known perfectly well he couldn't get you, mustn't he? At nine o'clock you were just leavin' Frawnend, on an hour and three-quarters' journey. There were the times of arrival and departure smack in front of him, on a train his daughter frequently took. He must have known - mustn't he? - that it'd be two hours before he could hope to get you?'

'I should have thought so.'

('What on earth is the man doing?' demanded Evelyn in my ear. 'Pulling his own witness to pieces?)

'Now let's take this phone conversation. What did the deceased say?'

Answell's account was the same as the others'. He had begun to speak with a terrible earnestness.

'Was there anything in what the deceased said that you could take offence at?'

'No, no, nothing at all.'

'What'd you think of it, in general?'

'Well, he did not sound exactly friendly, but then some people are like that. I thought he was just being reserved.'

'Was there any dark secret in your life that you thought he'd discovered?'

'Not that I know of. I never thought of it.'

'When you went along to see him that evenin', did you take your cousin's gun with you?'

'I - did - not. Why should I?'

'You got to the deceased's house at ten minutes past six? Yes. Now, we've heard how you dropped your hat, and seemed in a temper, and refused to take your overcoat off. Son, what was the real reason for all that conduct?'

Mr Justice Rankin interposed during the prisoner's quick mutter. 'If you are to do yourself any good, you must speak up. What did you say? I cannot hear.'

The prisoner turned towards him and made a baffled kind of gesture with his hands.

'My lord, I wanted to make as good an impression as I could.' Pause. 'Especially as he had not sounded - you know, cordial, over the phone.' Pause. 'Then, when I went in, my hat slipped out of my hands. It made me mad. I did not want to look like -'

'Like a what? What did you say?'

'Like a damned fool.'

'"Like a damned fool,"' repeated the judge without inflection. 'Go on.'

H.M. extended a hand. 'I suppose young fellers calling on their in-laws for the first time often do feel just as you did. What about the overcoat?'

'I didn't mean it. I didn't want to say it. But after I had said it I could not take it back, or it would have seemed worse."

'Worse?'

'More like an ass,' blurted the witness. 'Very well. You were taken back to the deceased? Yes. What was his manner towards you?' 'Reserved and - queer.'

'Let's make that clearer, son. Just what d'you mean, "queer"?'

'I do not know.' Pause. 'Queer.'

'Well, tell the jury what you said to each other.'

'He noticed me looking at those arrows on the wall. I asked him if he was interested in archery. He began talking about playing bows and arrows in the north when he was a boy, and how it was fashionable here in London. He said the arrows were trophies of what he called the "annual wardmote" of the Woodmen of Kent. He said: "At those meets, whoever first hits the gold becomes Master Forester for the next year."'

'"The gold?"' repeated H.M. in a rumbling voice. ‘ "The gold?" What did he mean by that?'

'I asked him that, and he said he meant the centre of the target. When he said this, he looked straight at me in an odd kind of way -'

'Explain that. Just take it easy, now

Again Answell gestured. 'Well, as though he thought that I had come fortune-hunting. That is the impression I got.'

'As though you'd come fortune-huntin’. But I s'pose, whatever else you could be called, you couldn't be called a fortune-hunter?'

'I hope not.'

'What did he say then?'

'He looked at his fingers, and looked hard at me, and said: "You could kill a man with one of those arrows."'

'Yes; after that?' prodded H.M. gently.

'I thought I had better change the subject. So I tried to be light about it, and I said: "Well, sir, I didn't come here to steal the spoons, or to murder anyone unless it becomes absolutely necessary."'

'Oh?' roared H.M. 'You used the expression, "I didn't come here to steal the spoons," before you said the rest of it. We haven't heard that, y'know. You said that?'

'Yes. I know I said that first, because I was still thinking about "the gold" and wondering what he had in mind. It was only natural.'

'I agree with you. And then?'

'I thought it was no good beating about the bush any longer, so I just said: "I want to marry Miss Hume, and what about it?"'

H.M. took him slowly through the statement about pouring out the whisky.

'I'm goin’ to ask you to be very careful now. I want you to tell us just exactly what he said after he poured out that whisky: every look and gesture, mind, as far as you remember it.'

'He said: "May I wish you prosperity?" and his expression seemed to change, and become - I did not like it. He said: "Mr James Caplon Answell", to the air, as though he were repeating it. Then he looked at me and said: "That marriage would be advantageous - to both sides, I might say."'

H.M.'s lifted hand stopped him.

'Just a minute. Be careful. He said: "That marriage", did he? He didn't say: "This marriage"?'

'No, he did not.'

'Go on.'

'Then he said: "As you know, I have already given my consent to it."'

'Let me repeat that,' interposed H.M. quickly. He lifted his blunt fingers and checked off the words. 'What he actually said was: "That marriage would be advantageous; I have already given my consent to it"?' 'Yes.'

‘I see. And then, son?'

'He said: "I can find absolutely nothing against it. I had the honour to be acquainted with the late Lady Answell, and I know that your family financial position is sound."'

'Wait again! Did he say: "Your financial position" or "Your family financial position"?'

'It was "Your family financial position." Then he said: "Therefore I propose to tell you -" That was all I heard, distinctly. There was a drug in that whisky, and it got me."

H.M. exhaled a deep breath, and shook his gown; but he kept on steadily in that rumbling monotone.

'Right here let's cut back to the telephone conversation by which you got summoned to Grosvenor Street. The deceased knew you were comin' to London by a train that left Frawnend at nine o'clock?'

'He must have.'

'He also knew - didn't he? - that the train wouldn't arrive until ten-forty-five; and that he couldn't possibly get in touch with you before eleven?'

'Mary told him so.'

'Exactly. Yet he still kept ringin' up your flat incessantly from as early as nine in the morning - when you hadn't started from Frawnend?'

'Yes.'

'When you talked to him over the phone at one-thirty on Saturday afternoon, had you ever heard his voice before, or seen him?'

'No.'

'I want to hear about the beginnin' of that conversation on the telephone. Just tell us how it began.'

'The phone rang,' replied Answell in a calm voice. ‘I picked up the receiver (he illustrated). I was sitting on the couch, and I reached over after it while I was looking at a newspaper. Mr Hume spoke. At that time I thought he said: "I want to speak to Caplon Answell." So I said: "Speaking."' H.M. leaned forward.

'Oh? You thought he said: "I want to speak to Caplon Answell." But later, when you looked back on it, did you realize he said something different?'

'Yes, I did. I knew it must be.'

'What did he really say, then?'

'Something different.'

'Did he really say this? Did he really say "I want to speak to CAPTAIN Answell"?' 'Yes.'

H.M. dropped his brief on the desk. He folded his arms, and spoke with a ferocious gentleness.

'In short,' said H.M., 'during that whole conversation, and afterwards at his own house, he thought he was talkin' to your cousin, Captain Reginald Answell: didn't he?'

XI

'In Camera'

FOR perhaps ten seconds there was not so much as a whisper or a creak in the court-room. I imagined I could hear people breathe. The implication penetrated slowly; we had seen it suddenly appear and come closer; but it had to be adjusted to the case, and I wondered whether the judge would allow it. The prisoner, whose tired face now wore a sardonic look, seemed challenging Reginald Answell to meet his eye. Reginald did not. His back was to the witness-box as he sat at the solicitors' table; he had his hand on the water-bottle, and he scarcely appeared to have heard. His saturnine face, with hair the same colour as the prisoner's, showed only a rather bored astonishment.

'Yes, I mean that man there,' insisted H.M., drawing attention to him.

Captain Reginald shook his head and smiled contemptuously. Sir Walter Storm rose in full panoply.

'My lord,' he snapped, 'may I suggest that the prisoner is hardly an authority on what Mr Hume may or may not have been thinking?'

The judge considered, rubbing his temples lightly with his small hands.

'The point is well taken, Sir Walter. At the same time, if Sir Henry has any evidence to put forward in this matter, I think we may allow him some latitude.' He looked at H.M. with sharpness.

'Yes, my lord, we got the evidence.'

'Then continue; but remember that the prisoner's suspicions are not evidence.'

Although the Attorney-General sat down without attack it was clear that he had declared war. H.M. turned again to Answell.

'About this telephone-call which we're trying to explain: your cousin had come up to London the night before, hadn't he?'

'Yes, from the same place I was staying.'

'And, when he was in London, he always stayed at your flat? I think we've heard that testified here?'

'That is true.'

'So, if the deceased wanted to get in touch with him, it's natural that he should have rung up your flat as early as nine on Saturday morning?'

'Yes.'

'When you went to Grosvenor Street on Saturday evenin', was your first name mentioned at any time?'

'No. I said to the butler: "My name is Answell"; and, when he announced me, he said: "The gentleman to see you, sir."'

'So, when the deceased said: "My dear Answell, I'll settle your hash, damn you," you believe he was not speaking about you at all?'

‘I am sure he was not.'

H.M. shuffled with some papers in order to allow this to sink in. Then, beginning with the drinking of the whisky, he went through the story. We knew that part of it to be true; but still, was he guilty? The man was not the world's best witness; but there was an air of fierce conviction about everything he said. He conveyed a little of that trapped feeling which must have possessed him if he were innocent. It was a long examination, and Answell would have made a good impression if only - last evening - he had not announced his own guilt from the dock. It hung over every word he said now, even if nobody referred to it. He was a self-confessed murderer before he started. It was as though there were two of him, merging each into the other like figures on a double-exposed photographic plate.

'Finally,' growled H.M., 'let's take the reasons for various things. When did you first begin to believe that a mistake had been made, and that all that evening the deceased had been mistakin' you for your cousin?'

'I don't know.' Pause. 'I thought of it that same night, later, but I could not believe it.' Pause. 'Then I thought about it again. Afterwards.'

'Was there a reason why you didn't want to say anything about it, even then?'

'I -' Hesitation.

'Just tell me: did you have a reason?' (Watch your step, H.M.; for God's sake watch your step!)

' 'You have heard the question,' said the judge. 'Answer it.’

'My lord, I suppose I did.'

Mr Justice Rankin frowned. 'You either had a reason, or you had not?' 'I had a reason.'

It was possible that H.M. was beginning to sweat. 'Just tell me this: Do you know why the deceased might have wanted to make an appointment with your cousin and not you?'

Between counsel and prisoner there seemed to be a scales; and now the scale-pan dipped. The young blockhead squared his shoulders and drew a deep breath. Putting his hands on the rail, he looked with a clear eye round the court.

'No, I don't know,' he replied clearly.

Silence.

'You don't know? But there was a reason, wasn't there, why this mistake might have occurred?' Silence.

'There was a reason, wasn't there, why the deceased may have disliked Captain Answell, and wished to "settle his hash"?'

Silence.

'Was it because -?'

'No, Sir Henry,' interposed the judge into that tightening strain, 'we cannot let you lead the witness any further.'

H.M. bowed, and leaned his weight on his fists. He clearly saw that it was useless to go on with this. All sorts of speculations must have been buzzing soundlessly in the court, behind those impassive faces banked up round us. The first thing which occurred to me was that it almost certainly concerned Mary Hume. Suppose, for instance, that there had been an affair of striking proportions between Mary Hume and the penniless Captain Answell? And suppose that the practical Avory Hume meant to cut it through to the core before it spoiled a good marriage? It fitted every circumstance; and yet would the prisoner have put his neck in a rope rather than acknowledge it? This was incredible. Let us face it sensibly: it does not happen nowadays. It is carrying chivalry too far. There must be some other reason which concerned Mary Hume-but what it was none of us, I think, then guessed. When we did learn, we understood.

Presently H.M. relinquished his witness, and the formidable Sir Walter Storm rose to cross-examine. For a moment he did not speak. Then in a tone of calm and detached contempt, he threw out one question.

'Have you made up your mind whether or not you are guilty?'

There are certain tones you must not take with any., man, even when he is helpless. What nothing else could do, this did. Answell pulled up his head. Across the well of the court he looked the Attorney-General in the eye.

'That is like asking: "Have you stopped cheating at poker?"'

'It would be irrelevant to question you about your habits with cards, Mr Answell. Just oblige me by answering my questions,' said the other. 'Are you guilty or not guilty?'

'I did not do it.'

'Very well. I take it that your hearing is normally acute?' 'Yes.'

'If I say to you: "Caplon Answell," and then, "Captain Answell" - even in spite of all the unfortunate noise going on in this court - you will be able to distinguish between the two?'

At the solicitors' table Reginald Answell smiled slightly and turned his eyes round. What impression all this had made on him it was impossible to say.

'Please speak up. I take it that you do not have periodic fits of deafness?'

'No. But as it happens, I did not pay much attention at the time. I was looking at a paper. I picked up the phone with the other hand, and I did not give it close attention until I heard Mr Hume's name.'

'But you heard his name well enough?'

'Yes.'

'I have here your statement, exhibit 31. Regarding this theory that the deceased may have said "Captain Answell" rather than "Caplon Answell" - did you mention this to the police?'

'No.'

'Although you tell us that it occurred to you as early as the night of the murder?'

1 did not think seriously of it at the time.'

'What made you think more seriously of it later?'

'Well - I got to thinking it over.'

'Did you mention it when you were before the magistrates?"

'No.’

'What I am endeavouring to get at is this: When did such an idea first crystallize in your mind?' ‘I don't remember.'

'What caused it to crystallize in your mind, then? Do you remember that? No? In short, can you give one good and solid reason for this whole extraordinary notion of yours?'

'Yes, I can,' shouted the witness, bedevilled out of his torpor. His face was flushed; he looked, for the first time, natural and human.

'Very well; what reason?'

‘I knew that Mary had been very friendly with Reg before we met; it was Reg who introduced me to her, at the Stonemans' -'

'Oh?' enquired Sir Walter, with rich suavity. 'Are you suggesting that you believed there had been anything improper in their relations?'

'No. Not exactly. That is -'

'Had you any reason to suspect anything improper in their relations?' 'No.'

Sir Walter tilted back his head, and seemed to be massaging his face with one hand as though to get curious ideas in order.

'Tell me, then, whether I correctly state the various suggestions you have made. Miss Hume was friendly with Captain Answell, there being nothing to which anyone could take exception. Because of this, the eminently reasonable Mr Hume conceives a violent dislike of Captain Answell and resolves suddenly to "settle his hash". He telephones to Captain Answell, but the message is intercepted by you under the mistaken impression that it is for you. You go unarmed to Mr Hume's house, where he gives you a drink of drugged whisky in the belief that you are Captain Answell. While you are unconscious, someone places Captain Answell's pistol in your pocket and (as I think you have told my learned friend) employs his time in pouring mint-extract down your throat. When you awake, your finger-prints are found on an arrow which you have not touched, and the whisky has flown back into a decanter without finger-prints. Have I correctly stated your position in the matter? Thank you. Can you reasonably expect the jury to believe it?'

There was a silence. Answell put his hands on his hips and glanced round the court. Then he spoke in a natural, off-hand tone. He said:

'So help me, by this time I don't expect anybody to believe anything. If you think everything a person does in life is governed by some reason, just try standing where I am for a while and see how you like listening to yourself.'

A sharp rebuke from the bench cut him short; but his nervousness had been conquered and the glazed fixity was gone from his eyes.

'I see,' intoned Sir Walter imperturbably. 'Do you next suggest that no reason governs any of your own actions?'

'I always thought it did.'

'Did reason govern your actions on the night of January 4th?'

'Yes. I kept my mouth shut when they were talking to me as you are now.'

It earned another reproof from the bench but Answell was making a better impression here than under chief examination. The good impression was quite irrational, for Sir Walter proceeded to tie him into such knots that probably not three people in court believed a word he said. But - after he had let H.M. down badly - there it was. I wondered whether the old man had arranged this to happen exactly as it did.

'You have told us that the reason why you refused to remove your overcoat, and spoke to one witness in a tone that has been described as savage, was because you did not wish to "look like a damned fool". Is that correct?'

'Yes.'

'Did you think that you would look more like a damned fool with your overcoat off than with it on?'

'Yes. No. I mean -'

'What precisely did you mean?'

'It was the way I felt, that's all.'

'I put it to you that the reason why you did not remove that coat was that you did not wish anyone to notice the bulge of the pistol in your hip pocket?'

'No. I never thought of that.'

'You never thought of what? Of the pistol in your pocket?'

'Yes. That is, there was no pistol in my pocket.' 'Now, I call your attention again to the statement you made to the police on the night of January 4th. Are you aware that the suggestions you have made to-day directly contradict this statement you gave to the police?'

Answell drew back, fidgeting again with his tie. 'No, I do not follow that.'

'Let me read you a few of them,' said Sir Walter, with the same unruffled heaviness.' "I went to his house," you say, "at six-ten. He greeted me with complete friendliness." You now imply that his attitude was the reverse of friendly, do you not?'

'Yes, rather.'

'Then which of these two attitudes do you wish us to believe?'

'Both of them. This is what I mean: I mean that on that night he took me for someone else, and his attitude was not friendly; but he was actually friendly enough towards myself.'

For a moment Sir Walter remained looking at the witness, and then he lowered his head as though to cool it.

'We need not stop to disentangle that; I am afraid you do not appreciate my question. Whoever he thought you were that night, was his attitude during your interview friendly?'

'No.'

'Ah, that is what I wished to find out. Then this particular assertion in your statement is false, is it not?'

'I thought it was true at the time.'

'But you have completely changed your mind since then? Very well. Again you tell us: "He said that he would drink my health, and he gave his full consent to my marriage with Miss Hume." Since you have now decided that he was unfriendly, how do you reconcile this quoting of actual words with an unfriendly attitude?'

'I misunderstood him.'

'In other words,' said the Attorney-General, spacing his words after a pause, 'what you ask the jury to believe now is a direct contradiction to several of the most essential assertions in your statement?'

'Technically, yes.'

For a full hour Sir Walter Storm gravely took the witness to pieces like a clock. He went through every bit of testimony with great care, and finally sat down after as pulverizing a result as I have ever listened to. It was expected that H.M. would re-examine, in an attempt to rehabilitate his witness. But he did not. All he said was:

'Call Mary Hume.'

A warder took Answell back to the dock, where the door was unlocked again, and he was led up into his open pen. A cup of water was brought up from the cells for him; he drank it thirstily, but he peered up with a quick start over the rim when he heard H.M. call the witness.

Where Mary Hume had been during the previous examination you could not tell. She seemed to appear in the middle of the court, as though there should be no hesitation or halt in the shuttle that moved witnesses to and from justice. Answell was already last minute's pattern. And Reginald Answell's expression changed. It was not anything so obvious as a start: only a certain awareness, as though someone had tapped him on the shoulder from behind, and he did not quite want to look round. His long-jawed good looks had a bonier quality; but he assumed a pleasant expression, and his finger tapped slowly on the water-bottle. He glanced up at the prisoner - who smiled.

Mary Hume looked momentarily at the back of Captain Reginald's head as she went up into the witness-box. With the exception of Inspector Mottram, she was (or so it seemed on the surface) the calmest person who had yet testified. She wore sables: a flamboyant display, Evelyn assured me, but she may have been feeling in that mood with defiance. And she wore no hat. Her yellow hair, parted and drawn back sleekly, emphasized the essential softness and odd sensuality of the face, dominated by those wide-spaced blue eyes. Her method of putting her hands on the edge of the box was to grasp it with both arms extended, as though she were on ah aqua-plane. In her manner there was no longer any of that hard docility I had seen before.

'You swear by Almighty God that the evidence you shall give -

'Yes.'

('She's frightened to death,' whispered Evelyn. I pointed out that she gave not a sign of it, but Evelyn only shook her head and nodded back again towards the witness.)

Whatever the truth might have been, her very presence there indicated thunder on the way. Even her importance seemed emphasized by the fact that she was rather small. A new interest quickened the press-box. H.M., who had difficulty in getting his own voice clear, waited until the stir of interest had died down; only the judge was unimpressed.

'Hurruml Is your name Mary Elizabeth Hume?' 'Yes.'

'You're the only child of the deceased, and you live at 12 Grosvenor Street?'

'Yes,' she answered, nodding in a somnambulistic way.

'At a Christmas house-party at Frawnend, in Sussex, did you meet the accused?'

'Yes.'

'D'ye love him, Miss Hume?'

'I love him very much,' she said, and her eyes flickered briefly. If it were possible to have a more hollow silence than had existed before, it held the court now.

'You know he's here accused of murderin' your father?'

'Of course I know it.'

'Now, ma'am - miss, I'll ask you to look at this letter I have here. It's dated, "January 3rd, nine-thirty p.m.," the evening before the day of the murder. Will you tell the jury whether you wrote it?'

'Yes, I wrote it.'

It was read aloud, and ran:

DEAR FATHER:

Jimmy has suddenly decided to come to London to-morrow morning, so I thought I had better tell you. He will take the train I usually travel by - you know it, nine o'clock here and a quarter to eleven at Victoria. I know he means to see you some time tomorrow.

Love,

MARY

PS. You will take care of that other matter, won't you?

'Do you know whether your father received this letter?'

'Yes, he did. As soon as I heard he was dead, I came to town, naturally; and I took it out of his pocket the same night - the night he died, you know.'

'What was the occasion of your writin' it?'

'On Friday evening - that Friday evening, you know - Jim suddenly decided to go up to town, to get me an engagement ring.'

'Did you try to dissuade him, to keep him from goin' to town?'

'Yes, but I could not do too much of it or he would have been suspicious.'

'Why did you try to dissuade him?'

The witness moistened her lips. 'Because his cousin, Captain Answell, you know, had gone up to London on Friday evening with the intention of seeing my father next day; and I was afraid he and Jim might meet at my father's house.'

'Did you have a reason why you didn't want them to meet at your father's?'

'Yes, yes!'

'What was the reason?'

'A little before, in the same week, you know,' replied Mary Hume, 'Captain Answell had asked me, or rather my father, to pay £5,000 hush-money.'

XII

'From a Find to a Check -

‘You mean that man there?' asked H.M., pointing with a big flipper and again ruthlessly singling him out.

It was like an inexorable spotlight. Reginald Answell's face had turned a curious colour, a muddy colour, and he sat bolt upright; you could see the rise and fall of his chest. At that moment, looking back on past events, I saw the pattern take form. He had thought he was quite safe: he and this girl were linked together in such fashion that he had thought she would not dare to betray it. She had even promised him, with remarkably well-simulated terror, that she would remain quiet. You could understand now the reason for that hard docility, the meek: 'Thanks for everything.' A scrap of their conversation came back to me. First his significant: 'Fair exchange; it's all agreed, then?' And her colourless: 'You know me, Reg,' while she contemplated this.

Three voices in the court-room spoke in quick succession.

The first was the Attorney-General's: 'Is Captain Answell on trial?'

The second was H.M.'s: 'Not yet.'

The third was the judge's: 'Proceed, Sir Henry.'

H.M. turned back to the witness, whose plump and pretty face was composed, and who was looking at the back of Reginald's head.

'So Captain Answell had asked you, or rather your father, to pay five thousand pounds blackmail?'

'Yes. He knew I hadn't got it, of course, but he felt sure he could get it out of father.'

'Uh-huh. What reason did he have for blackmailin' you?'

'I had been his mistress.'

'Yes, but there was another and stronger reason - much stronger?'

'Oh, yes.'

For the second time during that trial, the prisoner sprang to his feet and was about to speak out from the dock. He had not expected this. H.M. made a savage gesture in his direction.

'What was that other reason, Miss Hume?'

'Captain Answell had taken a lot of photographs of me.'

'What kind of photographs?'

Her voice was blurred. 'Without any clothes on, and in - certain postures.'

'I did not catch that,' said the judge. 'Will you please speak up? What did you say?'

'I said,' replied Mary Hume dearly, 'without any clothes on, and in certain postures.'

The calm inexorability of the judge made everyone in that room squirm.

'What postures?' asked Mr Justice Rankin.

H.M. intervened. 'My lord, just in order to show why the prisoner has been so blamed anxious not to talk about this, and why he's acted in certain ways, I've got one of those photographs here. Across the back of it is written: "One of the best things she ever did for me," in what I'd like the witness to identify as Captain Answell's handwriting. Then I'd like to submit it to you to suggest that it can go to the jury as bein' evidence of what we're trying to establish.'

The photograph was handed up. While the judge looked at it, there was a hush of such bursting quality that you could hear it. It was to be wondered what the witness was feeling; every eye in the room had glanced at her, just once, and had seen her in other costume - or the lack of it. Sir Walter Storm made no comment or objection. .

'You may show this to the jury,' said the judge tonelessly.

It travelled along before two lines of impassive faces. 'How many of these photographs are there?'

'A-about a dozen.'

'This one here, the one you gave me to put in evidence; is it the only one of 'em you've got?'

'Yes, Reg has the others. He promised to give me the rest if I didn't say anything in court about his trying to get hush-money out of me.'

Reginald Answell got slowly to his feet and began to make his way out of the court-room. He tried to walk with equal slowness and casualness. No one, of. course, attempted to comment or restrain him. But H.M. deliberately allowed a space while the pressure of the court was focused on him like his own camera. Chairs, people at the solicitors' table, elbows, feet, everything seemed to get in his way, and made him go faster: it was like someone bumping over rows of feet in a theatre, trying to get out without attracting attention along the line of stalls. By the time he reached the door he was running. The policeman on duty there gave him one look, and stood aside. We heard the whish of the glass door out into the hall.

'So,' observed H.M. in a heavy tone. 'Let's take up the story of those pictures. When were they taken?'

Again she moistened her lips. 'A-about a year ago.'

'Had you broken off your relations with Captain Answell before you met the prisoner?'

'Oh, my God, ages before.'

'Did you ask for the photographs?'

'Yes, but he just laughed and said they would do no harm.'

'What'd Captain Answell do when he heard you were engaged to the prisoner?'

'He took me aside, and congratulated me. He said it was a really excellent thing, and he approved of it.'

'What else?'

'He said that if I didn't pay him five thousand he would show the photographs to Jim. He said he didn't see why he should not get something out of this when everyone else seemed to have so much money.'

'This was durin' the week of December 28th-January 4th?'

'That's right.'

'Now just go on, if you can, Miss Hume.'

'I said he must be c-completely crazy, and he knew I hadn't got five thousand pennies, and never would have them. He said yes, but my father would be willing to pay through the nose. He - he said that my father's one big dream in life was to make a good and wealthy marriage for me, and -'

'And -?'

'- and had got to the point where my father - well, despaired of ever doing it -'

'Steady, ma'am; stop a bit. Had you ever done anything like this before?'

'No, no, no! I'm only telling you what Reg - what Captain Answell said to me. He said my father would not let five thousand pounds stand in the way of my getting a good catch like Jim Answell.'

H.M. studied her. 'Your father was a pretty inflexible man, wasn't he?'

'He was that.'

'When he wanted something, he got it?' 'Yes, always.'

'Did your father know anything about these photographs?'

Her wide-spaced blue eyes opened as though she could not understand the stupidity that put such questions, even if they had to be asked for the sake of clearness in a court of law.

'No, no, of course he didn't. Telling him was nearly as bad as -'

'But you did tell him, didn't you?'

'Yes, it had to be done, so I did,' replied the witness, summing herself up.

'Explain how that happened, will you?'

'Well, Reg - Captain Answell said he would give me a few days to rake up the money. On - yes, it was on the Wednesday, I wrote to my father and said I had to see him about something horribly urgent and important in connection with my marriage. I knew that would bring him. I couldn't leave the house-party without any explanation, especially as Jim was throwing money right and left to celebrate, and all the local charities were coming to thank us. So I asked my father if he would come down on Thursday morning and meet me in a village near Frawnend ..."

'Yes, that's right; go on.'

'I met him at an inn called "The Blue Boar", I think it was, on the road to Chichester. I expected him to flare up, but he didn't. He just listened to me. He walked up and down the room a couple of times, with his hands behind his back, and then he said that five thousand pounds was absolutely ridiculous. He said he might have been willing to pay something smaller, but he had had a few reverses lately; and in fact he had been looking forward a bit to Jim's money. I said maybe Captain Answell would come down in price. He said: "We won't bother with paying him money; just you leave him to me, and I'll settle his hash."'

'Oho? "Just you leave him to me, and I'll settle his hash." What was he like when he said this? How'd he act?'

'He was as white as a sheet, and I think if he had had Reg there he would have killed him.'

'H'ra, yes. So,' observed H.M., jerking his thumb, 'the idea of your father settling Captain Answell's hash, and even giving him drugged whisky, don't sound so almighty foolish as it did when my learned friend was discussin' it, eh?' He hurried on before anyone could object to unscrupulous comment. 'Did he tell you how he meant to settle Captain Answell's hash?'

'He said he was going back to London, and he wanted a few hours to think. He said to let him know if Reg made any move in the meantime.'

'Anything else?'

'Oh, yes; he asked me to try to find out where Reg kept the photographs.' 'Did you try?'

'Yes, and I was horribly poor at it. I - that's what brought everything on. Reg just looked at mc and laughed, and said: "So that's the trick, is it? Now just for that, my little lady, I'm going straight to London and see your father."'

'This was on Friday, wasn't it?'

'Yes.'

'What did you do?'

'I telephoned my father early Friday evening -' 'That's the call we've heard about?' 'Yes. To warn him, and ask him what he was going to do.'

H.M. made mesmeric passes of some intensity. 'I want you to tell us what he said then; every word, as far as you can remember.'

'I'll try. He said to me: "Good; it's all arranged. I will get in touch with him to-morrow morning, and invite him here, and I promise you he will not bother us again."'

She spoke with extraordinary intensity, so that H.M. allowed a space for the words to sink into the minds of the jury. Then he repeated them.

'Did he tell you what he meant to do about settlin' Captain Answell's hash?'

'No; I asked him, but he would not tell me. The only other thing he said was to ask where he could be certain of finding Reg, and I said at Jim's flat. He said: "Yes, I thought so; I have already been there."'

'He said that he had already been there?' H.M. raised his voice. 'Did he say anything about pinchin' Captain Answell's automatic pistol out of the flat?'

The effect of this was broken by the judge's interruption.

'The witness has already told you, Sir Henry, that she heard nothing more.'

H.M., well satisfied, patted his wig. 'And then, on top of all this,' he went on, 'your fiance' all of a sudden decided to go to London as well, and you were afraid somethin' would blow up?' 'Yes, I was half crazy.'

'That's why you wrote to your father on Friday night, after the phone call?' 'Yes.'

'Does this postscript here, "You will take care of that other matter, won't you?" - does that refer to the effective settling of Captain Answell's hash?'

'Yes, of course.'

'One more little point,' pursued H.M., with a long and rumbling sniff. 'A witness has testified here about the rather odd way your father acted when he got that letter at the breakfast table on Saturday morning. He walked to the window, and he announced in a grim kind o' tone that your fiance was comin' to town that day - and meant to see him. The witness said: "Oh, then we will not go to Sussex after all; we will invite him to dinner," or words to that effect. The deceased said that those other two would go to Sussex as arranged. He also said: "We will not invite him to dinner, or anywhere else."' H.M. slapped his hand on the table. 'What he meant was, then, that they wouldn't invite him to dinner in case the two cousins ran into each other?'

Sir Walter Storm stirred out of his immobility.

'My lord, for the last time I must protest against this constant attempt to question witnesses about things they did not see or words they did not hear, particularly since it is always done in the form of a leading question.'

'Do not answer that,' said Mr Justice Rankin.

'In your opinion,' said H.M., after the customary form of sardonic apology, 'in your opinion, from the things you have seen and the things you have heard, doesn't what you've just told us show what really did happen on the night of the murder?'

'Yes.'

'Would a woman have the nerve to go through with what you've just told us to-day, unless she believed absolutely that this man is innocent?'

He pretended to listen for an answer, and then sat down with a whack that shook the bench.

There was some whispering behind us, around, beyond, a sound in long grasses which you knew centred in only one thing. Mary Hume must have known it as well; she was drawing patterns with her finger on the edge of the ledge, and looking down. But from time to time she would glance up, briefly, while the Attorney-General was taking some while before beginning his cross-examination. Her pretty face was growing dull red; and, as though unconsciously, she would draw her sables closer round her. How long this mental narcotic would sustain her you could not tell. She had badly damaged many parts of the prosecution's case: you realized that much of Answell's apparent stumbling and foolish testimony must be the solid truth: and it was clear the jury thought so too. But the whispering grew like noise in a forest. Someone enquired plaintively if they were not going to show us the photograph. I noticed that the space reserved for newspapermen was now completely empty, though I could not remember having seen any of them hurry out It was a matter for headlines and speculations in every British home.

'Hold on to your hat; here we go,' whispered Evelyn fiercely, and Sir Walter Storm got up to cross-examine.

Nothing could have exceeded the sympathy and consideration of the Attorney-General's manner. His voice was quietly persuasive.

'Believe me, Miss Hume, we quite appreciate your sincerity in this matter, and your courage in offering this somewhat unusual picture. At the same time, you had no hesitation in posing, I believe, for a dozen of this nature?'

'Eleven.'

'Very well; eleven.' Again he waited for a time, pushing some books into an even line on the desk. 'All these things to which you have testified, Miss Hume - I take it that you were aware of them at the time of the murder?'

'I believe you have stated that, when you learned of your father's death you hurried back from Sussex and arrived at the house on that same night?'

'Yes.'

'Quite so,' remarked the other, meticulously pushing another book into line. 'Yet you did not mention to the police, then or at any other time, the remarkable circumstances to which you have just testified?'

'No.'

'Did you mention them to any other person?'

'Only to -' Her slight gesture indicated H.M.

'Are you aware, Miss Hume, that had you given this information to the police, and demonstrated to them that Captain Answell had attempted to blackmail you, it would not have been necessary to bring this photograph into court at all? Or to expose yourself to any such humiliating examination as this must be?'

'Yes, I knew that.'

'Oh, you knew that?' enquired Sir Walter, quickening with interest and looking up from the book. 'Yes, I - I read up on it.'

'I presume this experience cannot be pleasant for you?' 'No, it is not,' replied the girl. Her eyes looked strained. 'Then why did you not mention it, and do the prisoner what good you could without bringing matters to this?' ‘I -'

'Was it because you believed the prisoner must be guilty; and therefore that these photographs bore no relation to his actual guilt?'

H.M. got up with painful effort. 'Appreciatin' my learned friend's consideration, we'd still like to know what line that question takes. Is it now accepted by the Crown - as we've been suggesting all along - that a mistake was made between Caplon Answell and Captain Answell, and that the deceased got one in attemptin' to settle the hash of the other?'

Sir Walter smiled. 'Hardly. We accept the photograph as a fact; we accept the suggestion that Captain Answell took the photograph; but we shall be compelled to deny that these two points have any bearing on the matter in hand - the guilt or innocence of the prisoner.'

At my side, Evelyn nudged me sharply.

'But surely they don't dispute that now?' Evelyn asked. 'Why, it seems as plain as the sun to me.'

I told her she was prejudiced. 'Storm's quite sincere: he believes Answell is a common-or-garden variety of murderer, wriggling in front of the facts. He'll show that the girl is simply inventing lies to cover him: that there were goings-on between Reginald and Mary Hume, but no attempt at blackmail by Reginald; and that they're simply making a last-minute effort to construct a defence.'

'Well, it sounds silly to me. Do you believe that?'

'No; but look at the two women on the jury.'

Black looks from various directions brought us to silence while the Attorney-General proceeded.

'Perhaps I did not make myself quite clear,' said Sir Walter. 'Let me try again. All the things you tell us here to-day, you could have told at the very time of the prisoner's arrest?'

'Yes.'

'Would they not have been as valuable to him then as my learned friend wishes us to believe they are now?' 'I - I don't know.' 'Yet you did not mention them?' 'No.'

'You preferred (please excuse the term. Miss Hume, but I fear this is necessary), you preferred to make a show of yourself here rather than to explain all this before?'

"That is a little strong, Sir Walter,' interposed the judge sharply. 'I must remind you that this is not a court of morals. We have suffered so much in the past from those who appear to have laboured under this impression that I feel constrained to mention it now.'

The other bowed. 'As you wish, my lord, I myself was under the impression that I remained well within the rights of cross-examination ... Miss Hume: you tell us that on Friday evening, January 3rd, Captain Answell left Frawnend for London, in order to see your father on the following day?' 'Yes.'

'For the purpose of extracting blackmail money?' 'Yes.'

'Why is it, then, that he did not see your father?'

The witness opened her mouth, and stopped. Fragile as she looked, she had been holding up well until now.

'Let me make my question clearer. Several witnesses have testified here - have been pressed to do so, in fact, by my learned friend - that all day Saturday your father received no visitors, no messages, no phone calls, except those which have been indicated. Captain Answell did not come near him or attempt to communicate with him. How do you reconcile this with your statement that Captain Answell rushed off to London for the purpose you have declared?'

'I don't know.'

The other shot out his hand. 'I put it to you, Miss Hume, that on Saturday, the 4th, Captain Answell was not even in London at all.'

'But that can't be, I tell you!'

'Will you accept my suggestion, Miss Hume - which comes from the reports of police-officers who have investigated the movements of everyone connected with this affair - that on Friday evening Captain Answell left Frawnend, drove to visit friends in Rochester, and did not arrive in London until nearly midnight on Saturday?'

‘No!'

'Will you further accept my suggestion that he announced to several persons in Frawnend his intention of going to Rochester: not London?'

No reply.

'You will agree at least that if he were in Rochester he could not be in London?' 'Perhaps he lied to me.'

'Perhaps he did. Let us take another aspect of it. These photographs, you tell us, were taken a year ago?'

'About that, maybe a little more.'

'How long afterwards did you sever your relations with Captain Answell?'

'Not long; a month or so; not long.'

'And during the entire course of the time afterwards, has he ever attempted to extort money from you?'

'No.’

'Or to use these photographs as a threat in any way whatever?'

'No. But didn't you see his face when he ran out of here?'

'That is not a matter which can come to our attention, Miss Hume. However, I can conjecture why the subject might be embarrassing to him, for reasons quite apart from blackmail. Can't you?'

'Do not answer that,' said the judge, putting down his pen. 'Counsel has just informed you that the matter cannot come to your attention.'

'You have told us, then, that all this time no suggestion of blackmail was ever made by Captain Answell?'

'Yes.'

'Do you know the nature of an oath?' 'Certainly.'

'I suggest to you that this entire account of Captain Answell's blackmailing activities, and your father's alleged wish to "settle his hash", is an unfortunate fabrication from end to end?'

'No, no, no!'

Sir Walter contemplated her steadily and gently for a moment; then he shook his head, lifted his shoulders, and sat down.

If anyone expected H.M. to re-examine, that person was disappointed. With an almost weary air H.M. got up. 'In order to establish this business once and for all,' H.M. said very distinctly, 'call Dr Peter Quigley.'

I was certain that I had heard the name somewhere before, and recently, but the man who went into the witness-box was a stranger. He was a strong-featured Scotsman with a quiet manner but a voice whose every syllable was distinct. Though he could not have been more than in his early thirties, he gave the impression of being older. H.M. began in his usual off-hand manner.

'What is your full name?'

'Peter Macdonald Quigley.'

'Are you a graduate in medicine of Glasgow University, and have you a degree in scientific criminology from the University of Salzburg?'

'Yes.'

'H'm. How were you employed durin' the month of December 10th to January 10th, last?'

'I was employed as assistant to Dr John Tregannon in Dr Tregannon's private nursing-home at Thames Ditton, Surrey.'

'How did you come to be there?'

'I should explain,' answered Quigley, spacing his words, 'that I am an agent of the International Medical Council, employed in England under the Commissioners in Lunacy, for the purpose of investigating rumours or charges which cannot be substantiated - in the ordinary way - against those practising as mental specialists.'

'Is the substance of what you are goin' to tell us contained in your report to the British Medical Council; and is it approved by that body?'

'It is.'

'Were you acquainted with the deceased, Avory Hume?' ‘I was.'

'Can you tell us whether Captain Reginald Answell was attemptin' to extort blackmail money from the deceased?'

'To the best of my knowledge, he was.'

'Yes. Now, will you tell us just what you know about this matter?'

'On Friday, January 3rd, last -'

The witness's first words were drowned by the stir in the court, and by Evelyn's whisper. Here was a witness whose- credibility they could not shake. With deadly leisureliness, H.M. Was taking the Crown's case to pieces. He let them cross-examine as long as they liked; he did not re-examine; and then he went waddling on. Again there came into my head the swinging lines from the song, which H.M. had quoted, and which seemed less like a refrain than like a formula.

'From a find to a check:

from a check to a view:

from a view to a kill in the morning

'On Friday, January 3rd, last -'

XIII

'The Ink-pad is the Key'

BUT it was two o'clock in the afternoon, with the sensational testimony which had held the court beyond its morning sitting, before H.M., Evelyn and I sat again at lunch in the upper room of the Milton's Head Tavern, Wood Street. Nearly all of the pattern in this business lay before us: and yet it did not. H.M., a great Chinese image in the firelight, with a cigar stuck at an angle in his mouth, glowered and pushed his plate away.

'Well, my fat-heads. You see what happened now, don't you?'

'Most of it, yes. The links in it, no. And how the blazes did you get on to Quigley?'

'By sittin' and thinkin'. Do you know why I took up this case to begin with?'

'Of course,' said Evelyn quite sincerely. 'Because the girl came to you and burst into tears; and you like to see the young folks have a good time.'

‘I expected that,' said H.M. with dignity. 'Burn me, that's the thanks I get from anyone; that's the view you take of a strong silent man who - bah! Now listen to me, because I mean it,' and evidently he did believe in it so fiendishly that we listened. I love to be a Corrector of Cussedness. You've heard me talk a lot in the past about the blinkin' awful cussedness of things in general, and I suppose you thought that was only my way of lettin' off steam. But I meant it. Now, ordinarily, this cussedness is supposed to be funny. You can't help bein' amused even when you kick the waste-paper basket all over the room. I mean that the one morning you've got an important engagement is the one morning you miss the train. The one time you take your best girl out to dinner is the one time you call for the bill and find you've left your wallet at home. But did it ever occur to you to think how that applies to whackingly serious matters too? Just think back over your own life, and see whether most of the important things that happened to you were prompted by anybody's effort to do malice, or anybody's effort to do good, or, burn me, by anybody's effort at all: but simply by the sinful, tearin' cussedness of things in general.'

I looked at him with some curiosity. He was smoking furiously - the outburst being produced, I think, by relief. His chief witness had left Sir Walter Storm flat, without a rebuttal in the Attorney-General's nimble brain.

'You don't make a religion of that, do you?' I asked. 'For if you think that things in general are all banded together in a conspiracy to administer a celestial kick in the pants, you might as well retire to Dorset and write novels.'

'Y'see,' said H.M., with ghoulish amusement, 'that goes to show that the only sort of cussedness you can imagine is the kind that lands you in the soup. Like the Greek tragedies where the gods get a twist on some poor feller and he's never got a chance. You want to say: "Hey, fair play I - take a few wallops at him if you must, but don't load the dice so far that the feller can't even go out in a London fog without coram' home with sunstroke." No, son. Everything works both ways, especially cussedness. Cussedness got Answell into this affair, and the same sort of workin' principle handed me the way to get him out of it. The point is that you'll never explain it rationally -as Walt Storm would like to do. Call the whole process by any fancy name you like: call it destiny or Mansoul or the flexibility of the unwritten Constitution: but it's still cussedness.

'Take this case, for instance,' he argued, pointing with his cigar. 'As soon as that girl came to me, I saw what must have happened. You probably did too, when you heard the evidence. Jim Answell had got the wrong message and walked straight into the middle of a scheme designed to nobble Our Reginald. But neither Answell nor the Hume gal could realize that at first. They were too.

close to it; you can't see a piece of grit in your own eye. They only knew the grit was there. But when I sort of dragged the whole story out of her a month ago, and showed what must 'a' happened, it was too late - the case was up for trial. If she had gone to 'em then, they wouldn't have believed her: just as Walt Storm quite honestly and sincerely didn't believe her to-day.' He sniffed.

'But what the blazes, I ask you, was the girl goin' to think at first? She hears her father is dead. She comes home. She finds her fiancé alone with him in a space locked up like a strong-room, with his finger-prints on the arrow and everything pointin" straight to him. How is she goin' to suspect a frame-up against him? How is she goin' to connect it with Our Reginald, unless someone points it out to her?'

'And that somebody was you?'

'Sure. That was the position when I first began to sit and think about the case. Of course, it was clear that old Avory Hume himself had arranged that little bit of hocus-pocus with intent to deceive Our Reginald. You heard it all. He kept ringin' up the flat as early as nine in the morning - though right in the middle of Answell's original statement to the police is the news that Hume knew he wouldn't arrive until 10.45.He gave the cook and the housemaid an unexpected night off. He ordered the shutters in the study to be closed, so that nothin' could be seen. He called the butler's attention to the fact that there was a full decanter of whisky and a full syphon on the sideboard. He bolted the door of the study on the inside, when Answell was alone with him. He sang put the words loud enough for the butler to hear, "What's wrong with you? Have you gone mad?" That was a blunder. For, if you assume Answell really had drunk hocused whisky, no host in the world would ever naturally say: "Have you gone mad?" when he saw a feller topplin' into unconsciousness. He'd say: "Don't you feel well?" or "Are you ill?" or even: "Drunk, hey?"

'Granted, then, that Avory Hume was putting up some game. What did he intend to do? He intended to shut Our Reginald's mouth; but he didn't mean to offer money. Do we know anything about Our Reginald that might give an indication? I got it from the gal - as you tell me you overheard it to-day. Don't we know, for instance, that there was insanity in Reginald's branch of the family?'

For some time there had been in my mind a very vivid memory, of voices rising above the sound of feet shuffling down the stairs of the Old Bailey. Reginald Answell and Dr Hume were descending together; and between them there was a thick hypocrisy for the common good, with an edge of malice showing through. Reginald Answell had made the thrust, as though casually: 'There is insanity in our family, you know. Nothing much. Only like a touch of the tar-brush a few generations back -'

'But enough for the purpose,' continued H.M. 'Oh, quite enough. I wonder what those two chaps were thinking about then? Each of them knowin' the truth; but both

of them ruddy well goin' to keep their mouths shut. In any case, let's go on. There's insanity in Reginald's family. And Avory Hume's brother is a doctor. And a very rummy kind of drug must have been required for the purpose.

And one of Spencer Hume's closest pals is a Dr Tregannon, a mental specialist, who's got a private nursing home. And it takes two doctors to certify -'

'And so, as we know, they were going to lock Reginald up as a lunatic,' I said. H.M. wrinkled his forehead.

'Well, there at the start, I was only considerin' the evidence,' he pointed out, putting the cigar in his mouth and sucking at it in the fashion of a child sucking a peppermint-stick. 'But it looked probable that Avory and Spencer Hume had arranged just that game. Let's see how I the hocus-pocus would have worked out. It's true they made a howlin' error and got Jim instead of Reginald. But did that affect the details as we found 'em? Let's see.

'Reginald is to be invited to the house. Why might he, with insanity in his family, be presumed to go off his rocker? That's easy. He was known to be pretty well tied up with Mary Hume; even Jim Answell knew that.'

'Did he know about the photographs?' enquired Evelyn, with interest.

'Ho ho,' said H.M. 'The photographs. No, he didn't know it at the time; he knew it afterwards, in clink -because I told him. It caused me an awful lot of trouble. Jim Answell is no posturin' young hero who'd walk fat-headedly to the rope rather than let it be known his gal had been havin’ an affair with another man. But that wasn't it. When it came to the question of the pictures, he couldn't - literally and physically couldn't - say all that in court, to be blurted out across the world. He couldn't do it to save his life. Could you?'

'I don't know,' I admitted, with visions which must have risen up before Answell. 'The more you think about it the more devilish it sounds.'

'She could, though,' said H.M. with great glee. 'That's why I like her: she's a perfectly sincere and natural gal. A nosegay also goes to the judge. When Balmy Rankin made that remark about this not bein' a court of morals - burn me, I almost got up and handed him a box of cigars. Thirty years I've been waitin' for a red judge to acknowledge the facts of life without comment; and I told you I had great faith in Balmy. But stop interruptin' me, dammit I I was telling you about the trick to nobble Our Reginald.

'Where was I? Ah, I got it. Well, it was known Reginald and Mary Hume were tied up together. It was also known he had no money at all, and that Avory Hume had squashed to earth any possibility of marriage. And then his rich cousin James gets engaged to her. And Reginald comes to see the old man - and goes berserk.

'You see the plan Avory had? High words are overheard. Presently witnesses (unprepared witnesses) come chasin' in. They find Reginald with his own gun in his

pocket - suggestin' violence. They find his finger-prints stamped on an arrow which has been so obviously (so blinkin' obviously) ripped down from the wall - suggest-in’ violence of a more than sane kind. They find his hair rumpled, his tie pulled out. They find Avory Hume with all the marks of a struggle on him. And what does Reginald himself say to all this, lookin' wild and a little stupid as though he don't know where he is? He says he's been given a drug, and all this is a frame-up. But here's a medical man to swear there's been no drug taken, and the spotless decanter full of whisky on the sideboard. Short of actually showin' the chap with straws stuck in his hair, I don't see what more could have been arranged.

'Well, I thought to myself, what'll' be the watchword when he's found? It'll be: "Sh-h! Hush! Keep it dark! This thing has got to be kept very quiet, known only to a few witnesses to prove it's genuine." It mustn't be known that the poor feller has lost his reason. The Commissioners in Lunacy mustn't hear of it. Does the chap keep babblin' something about Mary Hume, and some photographs, and a frame-up? All the more reason why such slanderous ravings mustn't be repeated, mustn't even be breathed by a lunatic. Why not take him to Dr Tregannon's nursing home under the charge of Spencer Hume? Even Jim Answell, when it's necessary to break the sad news to him, will hush it up as fierce as anybody. On the eve of his own wedding, he won't want it blared forth that a first-cousin of his had to be taken away under escort.

'Of course, the doctors in charge of the case will also take charge of his personal belongings: clothes, keys and the like. Wherever he's got those photographs stowed away, they'll be found and burnt in pretty quick time.' H.M. snapped his fingers, and then sniffed. 'And that's all there is to it, my fat-heads. It ain't even very expensive. Our Reginald will remain under duress until he promises to be good - and serve him right I It's an awful pity the scheme didn't work. Even if he won't promise, he can't prove anything, and he is still always suspect of a leaky steeple; and Avory Hume's daughter is married. It's happened many times before, y'know. It's the respectable way of hushin' up scandal.'

We considered it, more detailed than it had come from the witness-box in the cold voice of Dr Quigley.

'Avory Hume,' I said, 'was apparently a tough proposition.'

H.M. blinked in the firelight of the old room, surprised.

'Not particularly, son. He was simply respectable. Also, he was a realist. Someone was blackmailing him. Something had to be done about it. And so he did. You heard the father's daughter talkin' in court this afternoon. I don't mind his sort. As I say, in this amusin' little spectacle of dog-eat-dog, I'm rather sorry his scheme didn't come off, and shove our cool Reginald into cooler clink while he reflects that there are ways and ways of gettin' money. But I'm an old-fashioned lawyer, Ken, and a whole canine feast ain't goin' to let 'em hang my client. Well, right there at the start, I had to dig up 'a witness who knew somethin' about the scheme. If necessary, I was prepared to bribe Tregannon himself to spill the beans -'

'Did you say bribe?'

'Sure. But I got Quigley, because the Medical Council had already been after Tregannon. There was someone who actually overheard Avory and Spencer and Tregannon cookin' up the broth; someone planted in Tregannon's nursing home, and waitin' for an opportunity to expose Tregannon. That was what I meant, a little while ago, by speakin' of the cussedness which cuts the other way.'

'But what's the line of defence now?' 'Ar!' said H.M., and scowled.

'You've practically established that there was a plot. But will Storm throw up his brief just because of that? Is there any reason why Answell still shouldn't be guilty?'

'No,' said H.M. 'That's what's got me worried.'

He pushed back his chair, lumbered up, and took a few pigeon-toed turns up and down the room.

'So what's the line of defence now?'

'The Judas window,' said H.M., peering down over his spectacles ...

'Now, now!' he went on persuasively. 'Just you look at the evidence, and take it from the beginning as I did. Now that we've established a plot, there'll be a whole heap of helpful suggestions in the way that plot was worked out. I'll give you a hint. One thing in this scheme bothered me a bit. Avory and Spencer are workin' together to nobble Reginald - very well. But, on the night of the trick, Avory manages to get everybody out of the house except the butler. The cook and the maid are out. Amelia Jordan and Dr Hume are goin' off to Sussex. But I said to myself: Here! Spencer can't be going away like that. His brother needs him. Who's goin' to come in and cluck his tongue over the bogus loony: who's goin' to examine the loony: who's goin' to swear he took no drug, if not Dr Hume? He was the essential part of the scheme; he was the pivot.'

'Unless they got Tregannon.'

'Yes; but they'd hardly have Tregannon on the premises. It would look much too fishy. And there was the answer to the other question. If Spencer himself were too conveniently hangin' about with his stethoscope, if the whole thing flowed too smoothly, an eyebrow might be raised here and there. It was the Jordan woman, in all accident, who gave the hint away when she was burblin' in court yesterday: I heard her testimony a month ago, and I spotted it then. Remember what she was to do? She was to pick up Spencer in the car - pick him up at the hospital - and they were to drive into the country afterwards. Do you recall that?'

'Yes. What of it?’

'Do you also recall,' said H.M., opening his eyes, 'what Spencer had asked her to do for him? He'd asked her to pack a suitcase for him, and bring it along to the hospital so that he wouldn't have to bother. And, burn me, I don't recall a neater trick. She intended to go to Sussex; Spencer never did. The one way in this world you can be sure you won't get what you want is to tell someone, off-hand, to pack a suitcase for you. The person does his best, and shoves in what he thinks you'll need. But something is always wrong. In this case, all Spencer needed was a pretext. She was to arrive at the hospital luggin' the suitcase. "Ah," said Spencer affably, "I see you've packed it. Did you put in my silver-backed brushes?" Or it may be his dressing-gown, or his evenin' studs, or anything at all: all he's got to do is wade through the list until he finds something that's been omitted. "You left that out?" he says. "Good God, woman, do you think I can travel to the country without my whatever-it-is? My whatever-it-is is absolutely necessary. This is a most unfortunate nuisance" - can't you hear Spencer sayin' that? -"but I am afraid we shall have to go back to the house for it."'

H.M., patting his stomach and leering down from under lofty eyebrows, was giving such an uncanny impersonation of Spencer Hume that you could almost hear the doctor's voice. Then he broke off. He added:

'So they drive back to the house. And they arrive (accidentally but providentially) just in time to find Avory Hume overcoming a maniac who has tried to kill him. Hey?'

There was a pause.

'It's rather a neat trick, and it would have been convincing,' Evelyn admitted. 'Was the woman - Amelia Jordan - in on the scheme to nail Reginald?'

'No. Otherwise there'd 'a' been no reason for the hocus-pocus. She was to be one of the unprepared witnesses. The other two were Dyer and Fleming -'

'Fleming?'

Taking the cigar out of his mouth, H.M., with a very sour expression, sat down at the table again. 'Look here! You heard what Fleming said in the witness-box. Avory' had told him to drop in at the house about a quarter to seven. Hey? All right. With Fleming's habits, he may even suspect that Fleming'll be a few minutes early. Now concentrate on the elegant timing of the whole business, as it was M E A N T to happen.

'Avory has told the prospective loony to come to the house at six o'clock sharp; and, considerin' an errand of blackmail, he can ruddy well believe Reginald will be on time. Avory has told Amelia Jordan that she's to start off in the car (which Dyer will bring round from the garage) at soon after 6.15. Gimme a piece of paper, somebody, and a pencil. Avory Hume was awful methodical, and he worked out this piece of crooked work as methodically as he'd have worked out the terms of a mortgage. Like this:

'At 6 p.m., Reginald will arrive. He will be seen by Jordan and Dyer. Dyer takes him to the study. Then Dyer will be sent to fetch the car. Dyer will probably linger at the study door for a couple of minutes; he's been warned the visitor is not to be trusted, remember. Dyer will leave the house, say 6.5. He should be back with the car between 6.10 and 6.15. Between 6.15 and 6.20, Amelia Jordan will be drivin' away in it to the hospital.

'It's only a short drive from Grosvenor Street to Praed Street, near Paddington. Amelia Jordan arrives at the hospital, say 6.22. She will hand the suitcase to Spencer, who will discover that his whatever-it-is is missin', and they will drive back. They will arrive back between 6.27 and 6.30.

'By this time the stage is all set. Avory Hume will cut up a row, bring Dyer bangin' at the door - open the door to show the results of a frantic struggle in the study. Reginald, groggy and wild-eyed with the inertia that follows a maniacal outburst, won't be able to say much. The doctor will arrive, clucking his tongue. While the excitement is still high and handsome, Fleming will arrive and be the last witness. So.'

H.M. puffed out smoke and waved it away.

'Only it didn't work out like that,' I said. 'Someone took advantage of that scheme - and murdered the old man.'

'That's it. Now I've told you what was meant to happen. Next, to help you along, I'll show you what did happen. I'm goin' to give you a time-table for that whole evening, because it's very suggestive. Most of the official times, like the arrival of officers or the times centrin' directly round the fact of the murder, you've already heard in court. Others weren't important as direct evidence, and weren't stressed. But I've got 'em all here, taken down from the police notes; and I've got the comments I wrote opposite 'em after I'd interviewed Answell and Mary Hume. I suggest to you (gor, how I'm beginnin' to hate that expression!) that, if you study 'em with a little cerebral activity, you'll learn a good deal.'

From his inside pocket he took out a large, grubby sheet of paper, worn from much pawing-over, and spread it out carefully. It was dated over a month before. The time-schedule, in the left-hand column, had evidently been typed by Lollypop. The comments, in the other column, were scrawled in blue pencil by H.M. Thus:

Table

6.10 Answell arrives, and is taken to study.

Delay by mist,

6.11 Avory Hume tells Dyer to go and get the car; study door is closed, but not bolted.

6.11- 6.15 Dyer remains in the passage outside the study door. Hears Answell say: 'I did not come here to kill anyone unless it becomes absolutely necessary.' Later hears Hume speaking in sharp tone, no words distinguishable; but ending loudly; ‘'Man, what is wrong with you? Have you gone mad?' Hears sounds like scuffle. Taps on door and asks if anything is wrong. Hume says: 'No, I can deal with this; go away.'

No mention of stealing spoons,

'Have you gone mad?' Very fishy; look into this, 'Scuffle' Answell's fall?

Was door bolted at this time? No, or Dyer would have heard sounds made by stiff and unused bolt shot into socket,

Very brave of Hume; unco' fishy

6.15. Dyer goes to get car.

Obedient. Arrives at garage 6.18.

6.39. Amelia Jordan finishes packing own valise and suitcase - Dr Hume has asked her to pack for him.

Shocking.

Suppose she left something out? ?

6.30-6.32. Amelia Jordan comes downstairs. Goes into passage towards study door. Hears Answell say: 'Get up, damn you !' Tries study door, finds it is bolted; or locked in some way.

Must be bolted. Lock is stuck at 'open' position.

6.32. Dyer returns with car.

6.33-6.34. Amelia Jordan tells Dyer to stop them fighting or get Fleming; she goes after Fleming.

1.

Finds Fleming coming down steps of own house to go next door.

1.

Rather early; but what of it?

1.

Fleming accompanies her. They all knock at study door.

6.36. Answell opens study door.

6.36-6.39. Examination of body and room. No doubt of door and windows being locked on inside. Answell's cool and dazed behaviour commented on. 'Are you made of stone?' Answell says: 'Serve him right for drugging (or doctoring) my whisky." Enquiries about whisky. Bottle and syphon found full, glasses untouched; Answell still declaring business a frame-up. Piece of feather found torn off arrow.

Drug still working. Brudine?

How did Hume get rid of original syphon? Original decanter too? Answell says nothing put into glass; must have been in decanter?

N.B. - No hocus-pocus about locks. Door inch-and-a-half thick; big heavy knob and panels; tight-fitting frame; no keyhole. Shutters have bar; no slits; windows also locked.

Gobble gobble.

Phooey.

6.39. Fleming sends Amelia Jordan to get Dr Hume. Fleming wants to take Answell's finger-prints. Dyer says there is ink-pad in Spencer Hume's suit.

Why? Officious busybody?

6.39-6.45. Dyer cannot find ink-pad or suit. Remembers old Ink-pad in desk in study. Answell objects to having his finger-prints taken; knocks Fleming across room, finally seems to become dispirited and agrees.

Was that desk searched? (N.B. It was, I find.) Then where is missing piece of

feather?

6.45. Dyer goes out into street and calls Police-Constable Hardcastle.

At this point Evelyn interposed. 'I say I Does this mean, in actual times, that it was only nine minutes between the time they went into the room and the time Dyer went out to get the policeman? By the way they talked in court, it sounded much longer, somehow.'

H.M. grunted sourly. 'Sure. It always sounds longer, because they've got so much to tell. But there's the actual record, as you could 'a' worked it out for yourselves.'

'The one thing that's most puzzling here,' I insisted, 'is why so much rumpus in general is being kicked up on the subject of ink-pads. Ink-pads would seem to have nothing to do with the case. What difference does it make whether Fleming did or didn't take Answell's fingerprints? The police could always do it, and match them with the ones on the arrow. Yet even the prosecution made a point of bringing it up and hammering it home.'

Exhaling a cloud of smoke, H.M. leaned back with rich satisfaction and closed one eye to avoid getting smoke in it.

'Sure, they did, Ken. But they weren't concerned with ink-pads. What they wanted to hammer was that, when Fleming tried to get Answell's finger-prints, Answell - far from bein' torpid - flared out murderously and threw Fleming clear across the room. Same kind of attack as he launched on the deceased, d'ye see? But I'm glad they brought it up; if they hadn't, I should have. Because I am most definitely interested in one particular ink-pad. It's pretty well the key to the whole business. You see that, don't you?'

XIV

Time-table for Archers

THAT argument, up in the little low-raftered room at the 'Milton's Head', while we waited for the afternoon session of the court, will always remain a kind of vignette as vivid as anything in the case. The firelight shone on rows of pewter tankards, and on H.M.'s enormous shoes, and on his glasses, and on a face wreathed with fantastic jollity. Evelyn sat with her legs crossed, leaning forward with her chin in her hand; and her hazel eyes had that amused annoyance which H.M. inspires in every woman.

' You know perfectly well we don't,' she said.' Now don't sit there chortling and rocking and making faces like Tony Weller thinking what he'd like to do to Stiggins. You know, at times you can be the most utterly exasperating man who ever - ee!

Why do you take such pleasure in mystifying people? If only Mr Masters were here, the party would be complete, wouldn't it?'

'I don't take pleasure in it, dammit 1 ' grumbled H.M., and quite seriously believed this. 'It's only that people take such unholy joy in doin' me in the eye, that I got to get a bit of my own back.' He was soothing. 'You stick to business, here. Read the rest of the time-table. I'm merely askin' you: if Jim Answell isn't the murderer, who is?'

'No, thanks,' said Evelyn. 'I've been had like that before. And much too often. You did it in France, and you did it in Devon. You parade out a list of suspects, and we take our choice; and then it always turns out that you've got someone else altogether. I dare say in this case you'll show the murder was really committed by Sir Walter Storm or the judge. No, thanks.'

'Meanin' what?' enquired H.M., looking at her over his spectacles.

'Meaning this. You've called our attention to his timetable, and that's a most awfully suspicious sign. You seem to concentrate attention on people who were actually lurking about the place at the time of the murder. But what about the others?'

'What others?'

'There are at least three others, I mean Reginald Answell, and even Mary Hume herself, and Dr Hume. For instance, the Attorney-General "put it to" the Hume girl to-day that Reginald wasn't in London at all: he was in Rochester: and didn't reach London until nearly midnight. You didn't contradict him - at least, you didn't re-examine the witness. Well, where was he? We know he was at the house at some time on the night of the murder, even if it was late: I heard him say so himself, when he was going down the stairs at the Old Bailey. Mary Hume was also there, also late. Finally, there's the doctor, who's missing now. First you rather indicate that Dr Hume has got an alibi; and last night, Ken tells me, he writes a letter swearing he actually saw the murder committed. How do you propose to straighten out all that?'

'If you'd only read the rest of your time-table -' howled H.M., and then grew, reflective. 'Some of it's worryin' me,' he admitted. 'You knew, did you, that there's a court order out to arrest Spencer? When we knew he'd run off, Balmy Rankin wouldn't let that pass. If they ketch him, Balmy'll commit him to clink for deliberate contempt of court in a murder case. I thought Walt Storm rather too easily decided to dispense with that witness, when he should 'a' moved an adjournment. Walt must have known he'd done a bunk. But so did Balmy. Burn me, I wonder ... never mind. Have you got any ideas, Ken?*

My position was simple. 'Not having much sense of social justice, I don't care so much who killed him as how it was done. I'm like Masters: "Never mind the motive: let's hear about the mechanics." There are three alternatives: (1) Answell really did stab him after all; (2) Hume killed himself, either by accident or suicide; (3) there's an unknown murderer and an unknown method. H.M., will you answer a couple of straight questions, without technical evasions or double meanings?'

His face smoothed itself out.

'Sure, son. Fire away.'

'According to you, the real murderer made his entrance by means of the Judas window. Is that straight?' 'Yes.'

'And the murder was committed with a cross-bow. Is that your argument?' 'That's right.'

'Why? I mean, why a cross-bow?'

H.M. considered. 'It was the most logical thing, Ken: it was the only weapon that fitted the crime. Also, it was much the easiest weapon to use.'

'The easiest weapon? That whacking big clumsy thing-you showed us?'

'Easy,' said H.M. sharply. 'Not in the least big, son. Very broad, yes; remember that; but not long. You saw it yourself: it was the short "stump" crossbow. And easy? At a very short distance, you heard Fleming admit himself, not even an amateur could miss.'

'I was coming to that. From what distance was the arrow fired?'

H.M. regarded us over his spectacles with a kind of sour whimsicality. 'The court-room manner is gettin' infectious. I feel like a medical man said at one trial: "This is like a college examination under oath." That, Ken, is the one thing I can't tell you within a couple of inches, since you want me to be so goddam precise. But, just in case I'm accused of evasion, I'll tell you this - not much more than three feet, at the very longest. Satisfied?'

'Not quite. What was Hume's position when the arrow was fired?'

'The murderer was talkin' to him. Hume had been by the desk, bendin' over to look at something. As he bent forward, the murderer casually pulled the trigger of the cross-bow: hence the rummy angle of the arrow, which was shot in rather a straight line. Walt Storm made an awful lot of fun of that, but it's the strict truth.'

'Bending over to look at something?'

'That's right.'

Evelyn and I looked at each other. H.M., nibbling at the stump of his cigar, pushed the time-table across to me.

'Now that you've got that off your chest, why not pay a bit of attention to matters just as relevant? Spencer Hume, for instance. He's a gap in the proceedings, because he didn't testify in court. Not that he did much of importance when he got back to the house; but what he did is interestin’. Y'know, Spencer must have got one hell of a shock when he learned it really was. Jim Answell they'd caught, and not Reginald.'

'Did he know either of the cousins by sight?'

'Yes,' said H.M., with another odd look. 'He knew both of them; and he was the only one in the whole flamin' case who did.'

Table

9.46 Spencer Hume arrives In Grosvenor Street.

Uncle Spencer, vide police state merits, has got an absolutely water-tight alibi. From 5.10 to 6.40 he was walking wards of hospital. At 6.40 he went downstairs and waited in foyer. Finally went out on steps. At 6.43 (fast driving), A. Jordan whizzed up in car and told him to come quickly and take wheel, saying Avory was dead and Mary's fiance was loopy.

Uncle Spencer is o-u-t. Gobble gobble.

6.46-6.50. P.C. Hardcastle tries to question Answell; then telephones to police-station.

6.46-6.50. Spencer Hume takes Amelia Jordan upstairs: doctor necessary.

6.51-6.55. Spencer Hume goes to study. In presence of Fleming and Dyer, Answell says: 'You are a doctor; for God's sake tell them I have been doped.' Spencer says: 'I can find no sign of it.'

Why didn't Spencer own up to truth about drugged drink? Too dangerous?

6.55. Inspector Mottram and Sergeant Raye arrive

First time study is searched by police

6.55-7.45. First examination of Answell by Inspector Mottram; other witnesses questioned; study is searched by Inspector Mottram and Sergeant Raye.

No dust in thin vertical line down shaft of arrow. Very rummy; projected?

Feather torn in half completely; couldn't be done in struggle; powerful clean break - caught somewhere. Mechanism? Projected?

What kind of mechanism? Find out what there might be in archer's house.

(Later.) J. Shanks, odd-jobs man for three houses, reports crossbow missing from box in shed in back garden.

Cross-bow missing.

Golf suit missing.

1 + 1 Equo ne credite, 0, coppers.

7.45. Divisional Police-surgeon Dr Stocking arrives.

7.45-8.10. Examination of body.

Note position of body. Direction of wound? Maybe! Does not

fit.

8.15. Spencer Hume telephones to Mary Hume at Frawnend

Had dinner out, but arrived back in time to get message

8.10-9.40. Further questioning and search of house. Answell collapses.

9.42. Answell's cousin Reginald telephoned to.

Reginald had just arrived at flat, motoring from Rochester. Known to have left Rochester about 5.15; says he had early dinner at hotel along way, and took a long time about it; was rather drunk on arriving back. Cannot remember name of hotel or village.

9.55. Reginald Answell arrives in Grosvenor Street.

10.10. Answell removed to police-station, Reginald going along.

10.35. Mary Hume, taking first train, arrives back.

10.50. Body removed to mortuary; at this time two letters formerly in dead man's pocket are discovered missing.

Mary had pinched them: why?

12. 15. Answell's final statement taken at police-station.

Conclusions: From times and facts given above, there is no doubt as to identity of real murderer. Gobble gobble gobble.

'That's fairly sweeping,' I commented, and looked hard at him. 'Is this supposed to tell us anything? And, by the way, what is the reason for the persistent recurrence of this "gobble-gobble" business?'

'Oh, I dunno. That's how I felt at the time,' said H.M. apologetically. 'It showed I was touchin' the fringes of the truth.'

Evelyn glanced down the list again. 'Well, unless this is a bit of faking on your part, there's something else you can practically eliminate — I mean Reginald. You say he's proved to have left Rochester at 5.15. Rochester's about thirty-three miles from London, isn't it? Yes. So, while it's theoretically possible to drive thirty-three miles in an hour, with all the traffic - and central traffic at that - I don't see how he could have got to Grosvenor Street in time to commit the murder. And you've already eliminated Dr Hume.'

'Eliminated Spencer?' demanded H.M. 'Oh, no, my wench. Not a bit of it.'

'But you yourself admit he's got a water-tight alibi.'

'Oh, alibis!' roared H.M., shaking his fist. He got up and began to waddle about the room, growling. 'The Red Widow murderer had a fine alibi, didn't he? The feller who did the dirty in that ten tea-cups business also had a pretty good one. But that's not what's really botherin' me. What bothers me is that infernal letter Uncle Spencer wrote to the Hume gal last night - swearin' he actually saw the murder done, and that Answell did it after all. Why did he write that? If he lied, why the blazes should he lie? The most insidious bit in it is the suggestion that Answell might be quite sincere about swearin' he's innocent: that he killed Hume and simply doesn't remember it. Oh, my eye! Did you ever hear anyone advance the theory that that was the way Dickens intended to finish Edwin Drood? - Jasper bein' the murderer, but not re-memberin' it: hence the opium-smoking? It's the same idea Wilkie Collins used in The Moonstone for pinchin' the jewel, so I shouldn't be surprised. If my whole great big beautiful theory cracks up on a point like that... but it can't! Burn me, it's not reasonable; or what about the feather. The first person I suspected was Uncle Spencer -'

'You suspected him just because he had an alibi?' I asked.

'It's no good talkin' to you,' said H.M. wearily. ‘You won't see the difficulties. I thought that if he didn't actually commit the murder, he arranged it -'

A new possibility appeared.

‘I remember reading about another of these cases,' I said; 'but it's so long ago that I can't remember whether it was a real happening or a story. A man was found apparently murdered in a room high up in a tower by the edge of the sea. His chest had been blown in with a shotgun, and the weapon was missing. The only clue was a fishing-rod in the room. Unfortunately, the door of the tower had been under observation, and no one was seen to go in or out. The only window was a small one up a smooth wall above the sea. Who killed him, and what had happened to the weapon? ... The secret was fairly simple. It was suicide. He had propped up the shot-gun, facing him, in the window. He stood some feet away and touched the hair-trigger with the fishing-rod. The kick of the gun when it exploded carried it backwards off the window-ledge into the sea: hence it was supposed to be murder and his family collected the insurance. Do you mean that there might have been some device in Avory Hume's study, which he accidentally touched, and it discharged the arrow at him? Or what die devil do you mean?'

'It can't be that,' Evelyn protested. 'If this isn't more mystification, we're to believe that the murderer was actually talking to Hume at the time.'

'That's right,' admitted H.M.

'All the same,' I said, 'it seems that we're straying away from the most important point. No matter who committed the murder, what was the motive? You can't tell me, for instance, that Answell would grab an arrow and stab Hume simply because he believed his future father-in-law had put knock-out drops in a glass of whisky. Unless, of course, he's as mad as they wanted to make out Reginald was. But there's been remarkably little talk about motive in this case. Who else had a shadow of a motive to kill Hume?’

'Ain't you forgettin' the will?' asked H.M., lifting dull eyes. 'What will?'

‘You heard all about it in court. Avory Hume was mad to have a grandson, like most self-made men. Perpetuate the line, and so on. He was goin' to make a will leaving everything in trust - everything, mind - for that hypothetical grandson.'

'Did he make the will?'

'No. He didn't have time. So I thought it might be interestin' to go to Somerset House and put down my shilling and get a look at the original will, the one that's been admitted to probate now. Well, the girl is the chief legatee, of course; but everybody else gets a neat slice of the old man's money; he wasn't even cautious over things like that. Even poor old Dyer got a cut, and there was a sizable bequest of £3,500 to build a new ward-house for the Woodmen of Kent, to be delivered to the Secretary and used at his own discretion ...'

'So the Woodmen of Kent got together and marched up to London, and skewered him with an arrow? Rubbish, H.M.! That's not worthy of you.'

'I was only throwin' out suggestions,' returned H.M. with surprising meekness. He peered up from under wrinkled brows. 'Just to see if anything could possibly stir up your grey matter. You'd never be able to construct a defence, Ken: you can't take a hint out of the evidence, and go straight to where you'd probably find a witness. For instance! Suppose I thought it was pretty vital to get hold of Uncle Spencer? Even if I didn't shove him into the witness-box, suppose I thought it was very necessary to have a little talk with him? How would I go about puttin' .. my hands on him?'

'God knows. That's one of Masters's favourite jobs of routine. If the police can't find him, I don't see how you can. He got a good head-start, remember. He could be in Palestine by now.'

A knock at the door roused H.M. out of his apparent torpor. He dropped the stump of his cigar into the plate, and squared himself.

'Come in,' said H.M. 'He could be,' H.M. added, 'but he's not.'

The door was opened with some caution. And Dr Spencer Hume, impeccably dressed, with a bowler hat in one hand and a rolled umbrella hanging from the crook of his arm, came into the room.

XV

'The Shape of the Judas Window'

IF the gilded figure of Justice on the dome of the Old Bailey had slid down from the cupola and appeared here, it could have caused no more pronounced effect. But Dr Hume did not to-day seem so bland and banal. He looked ill. Though his dark hair was as neatly brushed into place as before, his high colour had gone and his little, sensitive eyes were uneasy. When he saw Evelyn and me sitting in the firelight, he shied badly.

'It's all right, son,' H.M. assured him. H.M. was sitting back at the table, one hand shading his eyes. The doctor's glance had gone instinctively towards the window, in the direction of the great building where he was wanted. 'These are friends of mine. One of 'em I think you met yesterday. Just sit down and smoke a cigar. There's a very old artillery proverb: "The closer the target, the safer you are." Bein' right smack up against the eye of Balmy Rankin, you're all right. You could get in the queue outside the public gallery entrance, and go up in the gallery among the spectators, and you could sit right up over Balmy's head without his knowin' you were anywhere closer than China.'

'I - ah - am aware of that,' replied Spencer, with traces of a bitter smile. He sat very straight in the chair, and his tubby figure had an odd dignity. He did not accept H.M.'s offer of a cigar, but sat with his hands flat on his knees. 'As a matter of strict record, I have been sitting in the public gallery all morning.'

'Uh-huh. I was pretty sure I saw you there,' observed H.M. casually. The other went a little more white. 'It's not a new trick. Charlie Peace did it at the trial of young Habron for the murder of the man Peace really killed. Honestly, you've got more guts than I thought you had.'

'But you didn't - speak up?'

"I hate rows in court” sniffed H.M., inspecting his fingers. 'It disturbs the nice soothin' atmosphere, and the feelin' of intellectual balance. Still, that's beside the point. I gather you got my message last night?'

Dr Hume put his hat on the floor, and leaned the umbrella carefully against the side of the chair.

'The point is that you have got me here,' he retorted, but without heat. 'Now will you answer one question? How did you know where to find me?'

'I didn't,' said H.M. 'But I had to try the most likely places. You'd done a bunk. But you had time to write a very long, very careful, and very weighty letter to your niece; and people who got to depend on the rush of aeroplanes or boat-trains don't usually have time for that. You knew they'd be after you, and that contempt of court is a criminal offence. There's only one excuse for it - extreme illness. I thought you'd probably run straight to your friend Tregannon, and gone to earth among the bedclothes and the ice-caps in his nursin' home. You can probably produce a certificate now, showin' how ruddy unwell you were yesterday. I've said a good many times that this tracing business is only a glorified version of the old chestnut about the idiot boy findin' the lost horse: "I just thought where I'd have gone if I had been a horse; and I went there; and he had." I sent you a message there, and you had.'

'Rather a queer kind of message,' said Spencer, looking hard at him.

'Yes. That's why it's time we got down to business. I thought there was one person at least you wouldn't want to see hanged.'

'You mean myself?'

'Right,' agreed H.M., taking his hand away from shading his eyes. He got out his watch, a large cheap one of the turnip variety, and put it on the table. 'Listen to me, doctor. I'm not bluffin'. I'll prove it, if you think I am. But in about fifteen minutes I'm due to be in court. I'll wind up the defence of Jim Answell this afternoon. I

don't say this as a certainty, mind - but, when I do, I think the betting's about a hundred to six that you'll be arrested for murder.'

The other remained quiet for a time, tapping his fingers on his knees. Then, reaching into an inside pocket, he took out a cigarette-case, extracted a cigarette, and closed the case with a rather vicious snap - as he might have closed a different sort of case. When he spoke, his voice was calm.

'That is bluff. I wondered, and now I know.'

'It's bluff that I know where the ink-pad and the golf-suit and all the rest of it really disappeared to; and that I've got 'em all in my possession right now?'

With the same impassive expression, H.M. reached into his own side-pocket. He drew out a black ink-pad in its ordinary tin-container, and a long rubber stamp inscribed with someone's name; and he flung them on the table among the plates. For the hundredth time I wondered at the connection, especially at the contrast between the violence of H.M.'s hand and the inscrutability of his face. Dr Hume did not seem so much taken aback as distressed and puzzled.

'But, my dear sir ... yes, of course; but what of it?' 'What of it?'

'Dr Quigley,' answered the other, with quiet bitterness, 'disposed of my character in court to-day. I suppose we shall have to accept his verdict. Granted that you produced every one of those interesting exhibits, what would it prove beyond what has already been proved? The man who has been already drowned views the prospect of a sea-voyage with equanimity.' A rather ghastly smile, an edge of the old bouncing and bustling smile, touched his face. I am not sure whether that is a quotation from Kai Lung. But, since I have already been virtually convicted of one thing, I don't give a damn for your French monkey-tricks.'

He lit the cigarette with a sharp jerk of the match across its box. H.M. remained staring at him for a short time, and H.M.'s face altered.

'Y'know -' H.M. began slowly. 'Burn me, I'm beginning to believe you really think Answell is guilty.'

'I am quite certain he is guilty.'

'Last night you wrote to Mary Hume swearin' you saw the murder done. Do you mind tellin' me if that was true?'

The other blew an edge of ash off his cigarette, holding it upright. 'I strongly object to giving an opinion even on the weather, as a rule. This much I'll tell you. The thing that has so - so fuddled and - yes, and maddened me throughout this whole affair,' he made a fierce gesture, 'is that I have done absolutely nothing! I tried to help Avory. I tried to help Mary. Granting that it was unethical, I believed it was for everyone's good ... and what happened? I am being hounded: yes, sir, I will repeat it: hounded. But even yesterday, when I was forced to go away, I tried to help Mary. I admitted to her that I supplied the brudine, at Avory's request. At the same time I was obliged to point out that James Answell is a murderer; and, if it were with my last breath, I should call him a murderer.'

Despite the man's innate love of clichés, his apparent sincerity was such that it overcame even the self-pity in his voice.

'You saw him do it?'