The Sleeping Sphinx

"I see her again, standing against that door in her white dress. The nerves tell the brain; the brain tells the heart She does not even ask a question. She knows. 'They sent you on some special sort of job,' I hear her saying; 'that was why you couldn't see me or write to me.' And then, with a little nod, ‘Hello, Don.'"

Holden would not have believed Dr. Fell's voice could be so gentle.

But Dr. Fell would not look at Celia. Ponderously he turned his head away. Removing his eyeglasses, he pressed his hand for a moment over his eyes before putting back the glasses. He addressed Locke and Dr. Shepton.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I write Q.E.D. and draw a flourish under it. If that girl is in the least neurotic, then I am the late Adolf Hitler. What does the prosecution say, what dares the prosecution say, in reply to that?"

There was a long silence.

"Well done!" said Locke, and struck his knee. "Write your Q.E.D.! Well done!"

'You talk," cried Dr. Shepton, "as though—" He stopped. " Prosecution!'" he added. "You talk as though—"

"Yes?" prompted Dr. Fell.

"As though," he spoke in a quavering voice, "I wanted to harm Celia in some way!"

"Forgive me," said Dr. Fell. "I know you don't. And you were misled. Blame the girl, if you like, for telling lies. But in God's name let us have an end of these hush-hush methods which nearly did send her out of her mind and drove her to telling lies!"

"To—er—what do you refer by hush-hush methods?"

"The carefully cherished secret of Margot Marsh's hysteria, which ended in her murder. I am going on to explain that murder."

Dr. Fell picked up his dead pipe.

"Let’s continue with the evidence of that same Wednesday evening. All this I heard and saw from the balcony outside the drawing room. Once (hurrum) I was nearly spotted. You may recall, my dear Holden, that on one occasion Thorley Marsh thought he heard somebody out on the balcony? In very truth he did.

"However!

"Having begun this business of shadowing, I continued it. When you and Celia left the house (forgive me again!), I followed you. You may perhaps have noticed the shadow, too large to be any but mine, which emerged after you when you crossed the street toward Regent's Park? In any case, one side of the park playground had an open side with an iron railed fence. Out of sight, beyond this, I heard the whole story," he nodded toward Celia, "from you.

"I heard it in blazing detail. In shades and nuances and hints which in their implications were staggering. By thunder, but it was a revelation!

"For if I postulated Margot Marsh as a hysteric, the approach of the storm could be seen with ugly clearness. About a year before her death, she changed. She became happy. Bright-eyed. Laughing and humming. Her own sister, not an observant person, says to her, You must have a lover.'

"The hundred-to-one chance had happened. The hysteric had met a man to whom she was suited. She was deeply and physically in love. The outward symptoms of hysteria disappeared, which is what always happens in such cases. But, instead of helping matters, it led inevitably to disaster.

"Why? Because she was bound to be thwarted! She wanted the person in question; wanted to marry him; and couldn't have him. For one thing, Thorley Marsh refused to allow a divorce."

"Dr. Fell, listen!" interrupted Holden. "That’s the one part of the whole affair which doesn't seem to be reasonable!" He glanced at Locke. "Would you mind, now, if I did a little plain speaking?"

"I mind?" Locke's eyebrows went up. "Why should I?"

"About Doris, I mean."

"Oh. Doris. I see." Locke's hands tightened round the glove and walking stick that lay across his lap. "No. Not at all. Of course not!"

"In that case, Dr. Fell," demanded Holden, "where was the snag? If Thorley wanted to marry Doris, and Margot was violently in love with this other fellow, why couldn't there have been a compromise? Why did Thorley—of all people, in a situation like this—object to a divorce?"

"For the most powerful reason in the world," replied Dr. Fell, "which you will understand when you learn the whole truth. Let me emphasize this, though it may seem a bit cryptic to you now, by asking you a certain question. It is a serious question. Don't treat it lightly."

"Well?" prompted Holden.

"Well," said Dr. Fell, "are you still jealous of Derek Hurst-Gore?" Dead silence.

In the quiet of that muffled room they could hear, from the outer room, the rustle and blowing of curtains at the open windows. Clean air crept even into the haze and smoke of this lair. Celia Devereux, startled, turned up pleading eyes.

"Don!" she cried. "You didn't really think that I... that Derek and I.. ?"

"Please answer the question," intoned Dr. Fell. "Are you still jealous of Mr. Hurst-Gore?"

"No, I'm not," Holden answered honestly. "When I only heard about him, and even when I first met him, he put my teeth on edge. But that passed very quickly. I think he's quite a decent sort"

"Ah!" boomed Dr. Fell. His eyes opened wide. "And why do you think that? Isn't it because you know, in your heart, that you're the favored suitor?"

Holden felt his cheeks grow hot. "I shouldn't like to put it quite . . ."

"Come, sir! Isn't it?"

"Very well. It is. But what application has this got to Margot and Thorley?" Dr. Fell ignored the question.

"I need not stress the situation in the Marsh family," he went on, "since so much of it emerged in evidence yesterday. But think of the repressed violence, the hidden thunderbolts, crammed into it when that group went down to Caswall Moat House two days before Christmas!

"Many months before, the hysteric has met her lover. For a time all is serene. Then, in October, as we hear from Celia Devereux, violent rows break out between Mr. and Mrs. Marsh. They are heard behind closed doors. Thorley Marsh knows all about it, or has heard all about it I think we are safe in postulating, at this stage, that Mr. Marsh knew who the man was."

"Why should you think that?" demanded Locke.

"Sir, your own daughter believes so," answered Dr. Fell. "She told Holden as much. If Margot wanted a divorce, she would obviously have told her husband who the man was.

"Then (mark it!) there is a space of dangerous quiet while plans are being made. But it all boils up in tragedy when Margot and her husband, with Celia here, go to Caswall two days before Christmas.

"Follow the tensity of that scene, as described by Celia, before they set out for Widestairs in the evening to go to the party! Thorley Marsh, all that evening, so white faced that Obey thought he was ill: 'with furious dead-looking eyes.' And very polite.

"His wife all of a glitter, all in the mood which you, Sir Danvers, described to me. We can't get away from it Late that afternoon or early in the evening—after going over to Widestairs to look for her husband—she had made one last appeal to him to arrange for a divorce. Thorley Marsh refused.

"She never guessed for a second that her husband was, to put it delicately, fond of Doris Locke. No! It was her affair, her affair; that was all she thought of. All the world was blotted out except for that Margot Marsh had come to a decision. It was a typical hysteric's decision."

Dr. Fell paused. With his dead pipe he gestured toward Holden.

"Holden there," be said, "hit the nail bang on the head, or near enough, when he wrote two certain words on a piece of paper and gave it to me. He had worked out what Margot Marsh's decision—and her lover's decision too—apparently was. Tell these gentlemen what it was!"

"But . . ." Holden began.

‘Tell them!"

The eyes of Locke and Dr. Shepton, which seemed unnaturally large, were fixed on Holden. Tension had grown to such a point that no one except Dr. Fell could quite sit still.

"If we decided this was murder—" Holden began.

"Go on!"

"If we decided this was murder, there was only one explanation of why it looked so much like suicide. Margot really had changed her gown in the middle of the night: dressing up (as Celia said) in the manner of someone going to a great dinner. Margot herself had the poison bottle, which we now know contained morphine and belladonna. The words I wrote for Dr. Fell were suicide pact."

Locke started to get up.

"You mean . . ?'

"A suicide pact" retorted Holden, "arranged between Margot and her lover. At a certain time that night—she in one place, he in another—each of them was to drink poison. But he never intended to keep his side of the bargain. It would be a perfect method of murder."

Locke's immaculate hat gloves, and walking stick dropped to the floor.

"Is this true, Dr. Fell?" he demanded.

"As far as it goes, yes."

"As far as it goes?"

"For if it is true," interposed Holden, "it means this was a crime at long distance. The murderer needn't have been in the house at all."

"Oh, yes, the murderer was," said Dr. Fell.

"In the house?" whispered Locke through dry lips.

"Yes."

"But "

"Didn't I tell you," exclaimed Dr. Fell testily, "that the true hysteric never commits suicide? Margot Marsh passionately wanted a hysteric's suicide for love, yes. She believed she could go through with it, yes. She would even have drunk the poison, yes."

"Well then!"

"But, when she felt the effects of the poison coming on, the true hysteric couldn't have held out. She couldn't have faced death. She would have screamed for help, and used it as a weapon, a lever, to force Thorley Marsh into granting what she wanted. She wouldn't really have died, unless . . ."

"Go on!"

"Unless," said Dr. Fell, "someone crept in and struck her down unconscious. Unconscious, you see! So that the poison could do its work. Oh, yes. The murderer was in the house."

"Thank God!" Locke blurted out the words. They could see the veins standing out in his neck. "Thank God!"

"Why do you say that?"

"It is villainous to say so. It is wicked to say so." Locke controlled himself. "But I do say it. The murderer was in the house! It must have been Thorley Marsh (no, that couldn't be). Or Celia Devereux. (No! That couldn't be either!) Or—Derek Hurst-Gore."

"Not necessarily," said Dr. Fell.

"For the love of heaven, man," exploded Dr. Shepton, "say what you do mean!"

"As you like," assented Dr. Fell. "Shall I show you the murderer now?"

"Where?" asked Locke, looking wildly round the room.

"From Celia Devereux's story, you see," said Dr. Fell, "there were certain blazing indications as to where to look for the murderer. When I went to Caswall on Thursday evening, I asked a number of questions and got the replies I wanted. By thunder, I got more than I wanted."

Slowly Dr. Fell hoisted himself to his feet pushing back the big Jacobean chair.

"As to the murderer being in the house ..."

"Whoever it was," said Locke, "couldn't have got into the house from outside!"

"Why not?"

"Every night," retorted Locke, "that place is locked up like a fortress front and back. Round it is a moat thirty feet wide and a dozen feet deep."

'Yes," said Dr. Fell. "That is what I mean."

"What you mean?—Where is this murderer?"

"He's here," said Dr. Fell.

Into the room, now, fell another shadow: the shadow of a tall middle-aged man who entered from the door to the front room. It was, in fact, Superintendent Hadley of the Criminal Investigation Department. But such is the effect of suggestion that every listener jumped up and turned toward Hadley as though ...

"You are looking," observed Dr. Fell, "in the wrong direction."

"Wherever we are looking," cried Locke, "get on with this! You say the murderer is here?"

"As a matter of fact," said Dr. Fell, "he has been here all the time. That's why I had the nerve to call Hadley and force the issue. Our poisoning friend was rather badly smashed about in a fight with Thorley Marsh. He crawled in to get water, and collapsed."

"Crawled. . . ?"

"Into the bathroom."

Slowly Dr. Fell lumbered to the rear wall. Drawing back one of the black-velvet curtains, he disclosed the door of the little bathroom beside the kitchenette.

Dr. Fell opened the door. The light inside, which formerly had been switched off, was now burning.

And Celia screamed.

A man stood just inside, on shaking legs; and in his hand was the small, sharp blade from a safety razor. They saw it glitter as it went up to his own throat. Dr. Fell, lurching forward, cut off the view. But not before they had-seen the white face, the staring eyes, the dark hair tumbled over the forehead.

For the murderer was young Ronald Merrick.

CHAPTER XX

It was the following evening, in the big drawing room at Number 1 Gloucester Gate, that the whole of the story came to be told.

At the moment only Celia, Holden, and Dr. Fell were present. The room, Holden thought, looked just at it had looked when he stepped through the balcony window four nights ago: only the one table lamp lighted beside the large white-covered sofa, where Dr. Fell sat in vastness, frowning guiltily at a cigar.

Celia, facing him, was perched on the arm of Holden's chair.

"Ronnie Merrick," Celia said flatly, "was Margot’s lover. And he murdered her."

"Oh, ah," grunted Dr. Fell, without raising his eyes.

"I think I guessed everything," Celia bit at her under lip, "when I saw his name in the note Margot wrote. But . . . Ronnie! He wasn't quite twentyl"

"That," said Dr. Fell, "is the whole point."

"How do you mean?"

"Merrick," said Dr. Fell, "was the vain, spoiled, unstable son of an eminent peer. He was too young, psychologically speaking, to realize quite what he was doing. But the law can take no cognizance of that. It's a good thing he—"

"Did away with himself?" supplied Holden. And then, with an effort: "Tell us about it."

"Dash it all!" complained Dr. Fell.

He reared back, so that the lamp rocked on its table and threw unsteady gleams across the green-painted walls and the marble mantelpiece with the great Venetian mirror. At Dr. Fell's knee there was a little table bearing a decanter of whisky, glasses, and a jug of water. But for the time being Dr. Fell did not touch them. He blinked round vaguely for an ash hay. Finding none, he tipped most of the cigar ash into his side pocket and let the rest float over his waistcoat as he settled bade Perturbed, he fiddled with his eyeglasses, took several puffs at the cigar and looked straight at Celia.

"Your sister," he said, "liked young people." "I know." Celia nodded.

"That is the starting point," said Dr. Fell. "You stressed it in your own narrative. Your first thought, when you found Margot lying dead, was, 'She was so fond of young people.' I heard it ring in your voice when you said it. If we were looking for a man in the case, it was far more reasonable to look for a handsome youngster than anyone else. But put that aside, for the moment

"Two points in that story of yours—both relating to the Murder game at Widestairs, and both concerning real-life criminals—struck me as perhaps of great significance.

"The first was that Margot wouldn't, in that game, play the part of Old Mother Dyer. No! On that particular night (strung up, having made her decision) she insisted on being Mrs. Thompson. You will recall, of course, that Mrs. Thompson was executed for connivance in the murder of her husband, because of her passion for her lover Frederick Bywaters: a boy much younger than herself?

"Coincidence? I hardly thought so.

"The other was that Ronnie Merrick (of all people) had been chosen to play the part of Dr. Robert Buchanan or New York. Are you familiar with the case?"

"No, no, no!" groaned Celia, shaking her head violently. From the arm of the chair she looked down at Holden and smiled.

"I understand," she added, "they were going to make out a terrific case against me for dreaming I was Maria Manning being hanged while people sang 'Oh, Susannah.' But really and truly I'm not guilty! Derek—Derek told me that bit in the car on the way back home from the party!"

"Exactly!" boomed Dr. Fell.

"How do mean, 'exactly?' "

Dr. Fell pointed with his agar.

"I agreed with Holden on Friday' he said, "that it was nothing, it was tuppenny-ha'penny evidence, it was a trifle which might be explained in half a dozen ways. But, if people pitched on that, it seemed amazing nobody had noticed the real howler which was made that night Do you remember the Murder game?"

"Horribly well!"

"Young Merrick was cast as Dr. Buchanan. You descrribed him as 'dithering.' He said to you something like: 'My name's Dr. Buchanan; but I don't know who the hell I am or what I'm supposed to have done; can you help me?' Correct?"

"Yes."

"But I myself," pursued Dr. Fell, "went down to Caswall to ask some questions. In the Long Gallery (follow the line of attack here!) I put questions about the Murder game to Sir Danvers Locke, to Doris Locke, and Thorley Marsh. And I learned this from Locke:

"Locke hadn't anticipated his surprise game by telling anyone about it beforehand. But he had unobtrusively seen to it that every single person, with the exception of yourself, and necessarily the stranger Hurst-Gore, was very well read in his or her part. Got it? Very well read—he even presented them with his own file on each case.

"Now there seemed no earthly reason for Locke to tell a lie there. All other testimony corroborated it. He would be especially sure young Merrick, his protege, the boy he hoped to have as a son-in-law, had read the case of Dr. Buchanan. Why, therefore, should Merrick have 'dithered' and blurted out that unnecessary lie when unexpectedly faced with this role?

"Well! Consider the facts.

"Dr. Buchanan, in 1893, poisoned his wife: a middle-aged hysteric He poisoned her with a large quantity of morphine and a small quantity of belladonna, because the belladonna would offset the only outward symptom of morphine poisoning: contracted eye pupils. The belladonna would also, in morphia unconsciousness, produce hysterical symptoms. And the attending physicians would make no difficulty about certifying death from cerebral hemorrhage. That is what they did."

Dr. Fell bent forward.

"Just" he added, "as Dr. Shepton had no doubt about the cause of death in the case of Margot Marsh. Eh?

"In my interpretation, this lady's lover feared her horribly and wished her dead. At her own suggestion, they formed a suicide pact Each, at a given time but in a different place, was to drink poison. And this was his chance.

"Incidentally, from certain letters to be dealt with in a moment we now know something else. The morphine was provided by the lady herself, hoarded from various prescriptions, for her lover to make into a liquid solution. She thought it would be morphine alone, which is painless. The belladonna, easily procurable, he added to it With full directions before him in the trial of Dr. Buchanan, even the callowest of criminals could not go wrong.

"But the murderer couldn't trust to that alone, even if he had been dealing with a normal woman. Suppose she backs out? Suppose she swallows the poison and then shrieks for help? He must make sure; he must be there, on the spot

"When I questioned Sir Danvers, Doris, and Thorley Marsh in the Long Gallery, certain evidence emerged with great clarity. Have you forgotten that on the afternoon before the crime Ronnie Merrick fell into the water?"

Celia stared down at Holden, and then perplexedly across at Dr. Fell.

"Oh, come!" Dr. Fell pointed his cigar at Holden. 'You recall the episode in the afternoon, when Merrick fell into the trout stream. The fascinating point was not that Thorley Marsh walked across a log with his eyes shut. The fascinating point was that an agile young man rather clumsily fell in.

"But suppose, that same night yon intend to invade Caswall Moat House secretly. You can't get in by the front or back door, both are too heavily secured. Your only course it to . . . Eh?"

"To swim the moat," Holden said thoughtfully.

"Yes. The clue is water. It's not practicable to leave your clothes behind and invade the house naked, even if it weren't a bitter cold December night. Yet you must provide some explanation next morning, to hosts or servants, of why you have a suit of clothes completely soaked. And if you get it soaked beforehand, who will suspect it next day of a double immersion?

"Next evidence! Thorley Marsh, telling his detailed story of the night of the murder, walloped me in the eye with another bit. You recall his statement that Margot—in the middle of the night—must have taken a bath?

"He knew this, he said, because the floor of the bathroom was all wet and there was a towel thrown over the edge of the tub.

"But his interpretation wasn't feasible. For what had I overheard, on Wednesday night from no less than two witnesses? That the hot-water system at Caswall was out of order. It did not get repaired until next day. Even the water for washing had to be carried up in little cans."

Dr. Fell looked at Celia.

"Do you, my dear, believe your sister would have taken a cold bath in the middle of a December night?"

"It's—it's absurd!" cried Celia. "Margot loathed cold. I remember telling you so myself, when we were in the churchyard."

"Ah!" grunted Dr. Fell. "And what else did you tell us?"

"What else?"

"In your original statement You said, I think, that the bathroom window couldn't be locked?"

"Y-yes! It’s a swing-together window that never would fit or latch properly."

"And what," inquired Dr. Fell, "is just outside that bathroom window?"

It was Holden who answered.

"A vertical terra-cotta drainpipe. A heavy one." He stared at the past. "I remember noticing it from the oriel window in the Long Gallery, just under that bathroom, when I was reading the note you gave me!"

"Should you (hurrum!) should you say that Ronnie Merrick, as a young man, is probably an agile climber?"

"He damn well is an agile climber. He can go all over Caswall Church."

"So we perceive," observed Dr. Fell, "that the wet floor wasn't caused by anyone taking a bath. But unfortunately, Thorley Marsh put on his slippers before going on to his wife's bedroom and sitting room. Archons of Athens," groaned Dr. Fell, "if only he hadn't worn his slippersl

"For then, you see, he would have stepped in more wet tracks. The tracks of someone who came in through that unlocked window. The tracks of someone from the moat. The tracks of a desperate youth, half-screaming with hatred for his mistress, and bent on murder."

Celia slipped off the arm of Holden's chair and stood up.

"Dr. Fell," she breathed, "you really are a devil."

Dr. Fell, who resembled nothing so much as a perturbed Old King Cole, blinked at her over .his eyeglasses.

"Hey??'

"You build up a case," Celia shivered, "bang, bang, bang, point after point as complete and awful as—I was going to say, as a hangman's rope. But please! Never mind your evidence. What I want to know is: why?"

"Oh, ah," said Dr. Fell.

"Why did they all behave like that? Why did Ronnie do such an awful thing? Why did Margot ... oh, everything! The human motives!"

"Ah, yes," murmured Dr. Fell. "Ronnie Merrick." - He was silent for a long time, his thoughts far away.

"Here is a young man," he said, "Byronicaly handsome, very callow but admittedly of great talent who has been indulged in every whim of his life. Everything he has wanted has been given to him. And now he wants Doris Locke.

"Please understand that He was sincerely, blindly, idealistically in love with Doris. He exalted, of course, a girl who did not exist; but that is of no matter, because it happens to all young men. Very deeply he loved Doris; and hoped to marry her; never forget it; it is the mainspring of the murder.

"As for your sister ..." Dr. Fell hesitated. "Dr. Fell" said Celia. "Please. No delicacy. I want to know."

"The story of their affair you may read in that long series of letters she wrote, and never posted; like a diary. I read them all today. But I suggest you don't read them. By thunder, it's a good thing they won't have to be read in court!”

"As for the boy, he was at fust flattered. Proud of being a conqueror! Captivated, too, for a time; because he was dizzy with the strongest of all stimulants in this world. But then—and it always will happen to immature people brought up in public-school traditions—he began to feel debased. He contrasted this with what he felt, or believed he felt, toward Doris Locke.

"And he began to hate Margot.”

"On her side, the infatuation was only increasing. As he grew lukewarm, she grew more obsessed. To the boy's horror, she began talking about marriage.

"Thorley Marsh, who quite manifestly had learned of the whole thing, was only a little less horrified.

"Didn't you two ever wonder why Thorley Marsh always felt so intensely bitter toward young Merrick? When he was first giving you," Dr. Fell looked at Holden, "an account of his wife's death, he burst out into a tirade against Merrick in the middle of it You may recall other occasions as well."

"Yes," agreed Holden. "Even when Thorley and Doris were telling Locke they meant to get married, Thorley noticed Merrick and got as black as thunder. Thorley as good as ordered him out of the house."

"Oh, ah? But why should he feel like that? Because of any jealousy he may have felt for Merrick as a rival in Doris's affections? Great Scott, no! He knew he was the favored suitor. Nobody could mistake that. When you are the one-and-only, you don't detest the fallen rival. You are more inclined to think him an excellent fellow who is a little to be pitied. I (harrum!) indicated as much to you with a question about your own attitude towards Derek Hurst-Gore.

"Do you see now why Thorley Marsh wanted to keep everything hush-hush, and would never have agreed to a divorce?"

"I think I see," murmured Celia. "It—it would have made him look a fool."

"A thundering fool, in his own eyes! Whether she officially divorces him, or he divorces her, the truth will be flying round for the amusement of all his acquaintances and mends.

" 'Marsh's wife,' he could hear them saying at his club, with whoops of hilarity, 'is throwing him over for a boy not quite twenty. What ho! If ever he tried to explain that his wife is a hysteric who can't stand his touch, at best it will sound caddish and at worst it will provoke more amusement."

Another scene returned to Holden in sharp colors of memory.

" 'Show himself a fool,'" he repeated. "That was what Hurst-Gore said! It was when you were deviling Thorley to admit the whole truth, and nearly did get him to admit it. Hurst-Gore intervened, and shut Thorley up. Do you think our Derek knew everything?"

"That is my belief. He was Thorley's tutor in that gentleman's political ambitions. However, consider the situation just before Margot Marsh's death.

"To young Merrick, writhing, it had become simply intolerable. He is more than shying away from this older woman; he is frightened of her. She may do anything. Doris will hear of this! Hell never marry Doris! It will ruin his life!”

"Youth, when frightened, can become insensately cruel. Merrick, as I met him later at Widestairs, was a likeable sort But he was jumpy, unsteady (surely you saw that for yourself?) and blind to the matter in its right perspective. Like many another young man in a love affair from which he hasn't the experience to extricate himself, he could see only one way. He lost his head and decided to kill her.

"Margot suggested the suicide pact. And he, at the unnoticed suggestion of Locke, had been reading about another hysterical woman: Mrs. Buchanan. Mrs. Buchanan dies of morphine-and-belladonna poisoning, and the doctors call it a natural death.

"Could it be done? Can it be done? I see him gnawing his fingernails over the question, and deciding to try.

"So I attempted to discover just when Merrick might have given the prepared poison bottle to his victim. She had visited Widestairs mat afternoon; but apparently she hadn't met Merrick.

"It was not until last night that I learned Merrick had been seen trudging back from the trout stream, with a greatcoat over his sodden clothes, meeting her in the fields near Widestairs . . ."

"And giving her the poison bottle!" interrupted Holden, "Locke saw him do it!"

Dr. Fell blinked at him.

"True," he grunted. "So I was informed by Locke last night But how did you know it?"

"From overhearing Locke talking to a certain Mademoiselle Frey. Locke had been putting two and two together, with a suspicion which terrified him. Yes! And when he gave that fierce lecture about the 'utter callousness' of young people, he wasn't talking about Doris at all. He was thinking of Ronnie Merrick."

"But—Margot?" asked Celia.

"Your sister," returned Dr. Fell, "went back to Caswall with a plain (I repeat, a plain) brown bottle. She was going to make a last fiery appeal to her husband. And so she . .."

"She printed a label," whispered Celia.

"A label" said Dr. Fell, "dramatically crying poison. I think I can see her holding it up before Thorley and saying, You see what this is? Let me go, or I'll drink it tonight Let me have Ronnie; or I’ll die.'

"And Thorley Marsh didn't believe her.

"She had cried, 'Wolf too often. She had threatened suicide too much. Here he saw a fake label clumsily printed on a toy press from the nursery. (You recall, I asked whether he knew about that printing press?) After her threat she put the bottle more or less openly in the medicine cabinet. And, in an atmosphere of horrible strain, your party started for Widestairs."

Dr. Fell's cigar had gone out He put it down on the little table with the decanter, the glasses, and the glass water jug. He eyed the water jug before continuing.

"We needn't recapitulate the events of that night, except for the actual murder. Ronnie Merrick got a bad fright when he was unexpectedly faced with the part of Dr. Buchanan at the party. But he had gone too far to retreat

"The party was over. The hours went on striking. Widestairs was now asleep. Well before one o'clock, the time ranged for both of them to drink poison, Merrick dipped away from Widestairs to Caswall. Under a greatcoat he wore the sodden-wet clothes of the trout stream.

"He removed the greatcoat swam across the moat, and / swung himself up the pipe. From outside he could see his victim, wherever she happened to be in her suite; as I discovered by questions, an the curtains were wide open and a ledge along the wall runs underneath them. He saw her in one of those rooms, now wearing a black velvet gown."

"Dr. Fell," said Celia, "what is the explanation of that gown? None of us had ever seen it! It was ..."

"A black velvet gown," said Dr. Fell, "for a black velvet room."

"What?"

"You of course appreciate that your sister, before everything else in her life faded out under the stress of her passion for Merrick, had set up as a fortune teller as other women have done before her? It was an outlet for her hysteria, her frustration, her hatred of life.

"Once the affair began with Merrick, all that was forgotten. Madame Vanya disappeared. Her clients' cards were destroyed. The door was locked. The inner room became sacred to the love affair that destroyed her. But it was the dress she had worn as Madame Vanya; and in it Merrick painted her portrait."

Holden stared back. "He painted—?"

"Dash it all!" complained Dr. Fell. "Didn't you notice what was burned in the fireplace? Didn't you smell burning canvas?"

'Yes. Yes, I did!"

"And the burned sticks, arranged in a rectangle, with what might have been shreds of cloth attached? And the broken lengths of varnished wood, which had been the easel before he smashed it up? The room had a skylight, you know; a north light; an artist's light That was why you saw me looking for the marks of the easel on the carpet But that big velvet-covered divan . . . well, never mind."

Celia seemed about to comment on this last remark, but changed her mind.

'You—you were telling us," she said, "about the murder. About Ronnie crawling up out of the moat. And poor Margot getting dressed to die. What then?"

Dr. Fell pondered.

"For that" he said, "we have the testimony of no living person. Let me tell you what I think happened in those rooms.

"Merrick hasn't wanted to do this, you know. But he has got to the point of believing he must dispose of this woman, must take one last step, or he will never get Doris Locke.

"Clinging to the drainpipe outside, he peers through that never-quite-closed window into the bathroom. He sees his victim standing in front of the mirror, holding up a glass that contains an alcohol solution of morphine and belladonna. He sees his victim, with a swaggering gesture which does not quite mean business, lift the glass and drain it.

"But he means business. And he climbs through the window.

"He ran very little risk. The husband, drunk, can be heard snoring in the next room. Everyone else is far away. If she is startled by that specter, face twitching and sodden wet, then the hysterical brain will assume he has come to die with her and it will seem absolutely right

"He stops only long enough to mop head and hands on a towel. She points toward the other rooms, her bedroom and sitting room beyond, and leads the way. He follows her. In the bedroom, while her back is turned, he can snatch up a weapon ...

"Of course you guess what it was?

"It was a weapon from among the fire irons in the bedroom. It was the brass-handled poker which you, Celia, described as being in the sitting room on the following morning. A supernumerary fire iron, the touch of the murderer.

"As she steps into the sitting room, she collapses from a frantic blow across the back of the skull. Not hard enough to kill; not hard enough to leave a mark under that heavy hair. But hard enough to stun until the morphine can make her helpless.

"He drags that handsome, inert body over to the chaise longue, in the warm room with the lights burning. He must find and destroy her diary, that famous diary in the Chinese Chippendale desk. He finds the diary unlocked; he burns the pages.

"Young Bryon is freezing cold and nearly fainting. But he goes back to the bathroom, rinses out the glass she has drunk from, and puts the poison bottle in his pocket. He switches off the light in the bedroom and the bathroom. And down he crawls again into the moat"

Dr. Fell paused, wheezing heavily.

"But Margot Marsh, don't you see, still had the will to live? Now we can say 'did' instead of 'perhaps' or ‘might" have.' An hour later she struggled to semiconsciousness: morphine poisoned, dying, but calling for help. Thorley Marsh heard her. He stumbled into the sitting room—

"And, by thunder, but this man got a jolt! The moaning woman may be in a hysterical attack, yes. Of course! No doubt! But that brown bottle labelled 'poison.' My God, can she have meant what she said about suicide? Thorley Marsh rushed back to the medicine chest. The bottle had gone."

Dr. Fell drew a deep breath, puffing out the ribbon on his eyeglasses.

"That," he said, "was what I had to establish when I first questioned our friend Marsh. It had seemed clear from the first, by his incessant harping to everybody on the subject of a certificate of death from natural causes, that he at least suspected the possibility of suicide. So to avoid scandal, he lied.”

"But, if I could trip him up and get him to verify what I believed to be the truth, then I should be on safe and certain ground. And I did so. Will you concede that what I once told you was no paradox? It was because Marsh had been telling lies that I then knew he was telling the truth."

"And yet," Holden demanded, "Thorley didn't even tell Dr. Shepton he suspected Margot might have poisoned herself?"

"No. Because Dr. Shepton (if you recall) instantly told him it was a hysterical attack and probably not even very serious. Afterward it was too late. So he lied."

"I can't make Thorley out!" Holden said desperately. "I still don't know whether I ought to apologize to him or wring his neck!"

"And yet," said Dr. Fell, "he is the easiest person of all to understand. Thorley Marsh is a genuinely good-natured person, who likes his friends and will go to any amount of trouble for them, provided only his own self-interest is not seriously threatened." He paused. "There, but for the grace of God . . ."

There was a silence.

"Yes," said Holden. "There, but for the grace of God, go we all."

"And yet," Celia spoke softly, "I hate him. I hate him even when I know Margot was . . . was like that, and he never mistreated her. Maybe it's a dreadful thing to say,

"Oh, ah?" rumbled Dr. Fell. "How is he?" - "They don't know yet. Doris is at the nursing home now. We're expecting her." Celia hesitated. "But I hate him," she said, "for telling you I was crazy and Margot died a natural death and there wasn't any poison bottle, when all the time he knew better! Don, dear! I know what I did was very silly. But do you blame me?" /4No! Of course I don't!"

"Nor I," said Dr. Fell "But, by thunder, young lady, you gave me some very apprehensive moments!"

And Dr. Fell shook his head, massively.

"I informed yon in the Long Gallery," he told Holden, "that this girl was in her right senses. Apparently she'd been seeing ghosts; but, when she saw you and knew you were no ghost, it was obvious she hadn't been suffering from delusions. At the same time, I had to make sure she wasn't..."

"Wasn't what?"

"Manufacturing evidence!" said Dr. Fell.

An expression of awe went over his face.

"When we went out to unseal that tomb," he continued, "I was frightened. Damme, yes! Not because I expected a snpematural occurrence, as you evidently thought But, if this girl had been attempting to manufacture evidence, as seemed likely from that letter, then the police would be after her straightaway.

"At first glance, when we unsealed the vault, there seemed to be nothing wrong except the disarrangement of the coffins. And I was so relieved, so infinitely relieved, that Inspector Crawford noticed it

"I had already, in case it became necessary, tried to put Crawford off the track with much hocus-pocus about the impossibility of entering that vault Then, just when I was feeling better, Crawford's light picked up that infernal bottle where only Celia could have put it. Back I sank into the abyss."

"Dr. Fell," asked Holden, "how in blazes were those coffins moved?"

"Ah, yes." Dr. Fell looked guilty. "I (harrumph) fear my hocus-pocus talk must have deceived you as much as it deceived Crawford."

"Hocus-pocus talk nothing! Yesterday Locke cited a fact even more staggering. The two modern coffins, Margot’8 and that of a bloke named John Devereux, were airtight masses weighing eight hundred pounds each. Who could fling them about?"

"That, you see," explained Dr. Fell, "was the hocus-pocus.

Flung was the word I suggested. But they were not flung.

They were lifted." "All right, then! How were they lifted?"

"Again," said Dr. Fell, "the key clue is Water.'"

"Water?"

"The modern coffins were airtight Therefore they were watertight. They would float" Holden stared at him.

"The country around Caswall, as you've doubtless noticed," said Dr. Fell, is watered by underground springs. The sort of thing the Germans call—"

"Grundwasser!" muttered Holden, with a sudden realization springing into his mind. "Grundwasser!"

"Yes. It rises nearly to the surface of the ground in the autumn and the spring, and sinks back quite quickly in the summer and the winter. Anyone who studied the countryside could make a small bet that during autumn and spring that vault would be flooded.

"It was four feet below ground level, as you saw. As you also breathed, it was distinctly damp. Crawford, when he walked there, left sharp finely printed footprints in the sand, which doesn't happen in completely dry sand; it was damp.

"The new watertight coffins, lifted up four feet and set drifting, were certain to move all over the place. If s not at all surprising that one of them, its head wedged against the back wall, should remain half propped up when the water subsided.

"But the oldest coffin, being sixteenth century and rotted, never moved at all; the water got into it. An eighteenth century coffin was only slewed round, partly moved and no more. You—er—you follow me?"

"Yes," said Holden in a dazed voice.

"Such an occurrence," grunted Dr. Fell, "had never happened before at Caswall. The vault was new. Aside from the old tomb, which was up in a hill and not likely to be troubled by groundwater, it was the only vault in the churchyard. But the phenomenon has been seen often enough in other places." *

"Then the sand on the floor.. ?"

"Naturally there was no footprint. Except for disturbances round the coffins, the effect of slowly rising and falling water on sand would be to make it smoother than before.

"Dash it all! I gave you a hint! The new lock, being far above the reach of the water, turned with a sharp clean click. But the lower hinge of the door, being well within slopping -distance of rising water, squeaked and squealed. It was rusty. Water, water, water!"

*‘See Oddities, by Lieutenant Commander Rupert T. Gould, R. N. (London, Philip Allan & Co. Ltd., 1928, pp. 33-78.)

"And that’s all there was to it?"

"That," agreed Dr. Fell, "was all there was to it"

"I'm the culprit, Don," Celia said in a stifled voice. "I— I found that in a book. I gambled on it happening. Do you hate me very much?"

"Don't be an idiot, my dear! Hate you?"

"But Dr. Fell must resent it"

"By thunder," said Dr. Fell, "I do resent it!"

"You've got every right to. I'm awfully sorry. I was looking for a fake poison bottle that resembled the real one; and in the cellar at Widestairs, where Ronnie must have hidden it I got the real bottle without knowing it. I put it in there when you and I sealed the vault Yon have every right to resent being victimized—"

"Nonsense!" said Dr. Fell. "I mean, you should have confided in me. Damme, my girl! I could have shown you far better ways of flummoxing the evidence than an ersatz supernatural story like that"

"I was desperate," said Celia. "There was Thorley smirking and calling me mad. So I thought I might as well be mad, and see how he liked it But it only produced evidence against me."

"That of course, was why you had to wait so long before getting in touch with the police? Until the water rose in the spring, and dried back into the ground during the summer?"

"Yes. And it had been such a terribly rainy June I didn't dare gamble, in case there might still be water there. But July began baking hot and continued like that so I risked it. Thorley ..."

She broke off.

The door to the hall opened. Doris Locke, a stanch little figure though with her eyes puffed from weeping, wandered in with a listless air. After her came her father. And the change in Locke was almost shocking; he seemed to have aged ten years in one day.

Celia, deeply concerned, hurried over and pushed out chairs for them. Dons, small and grateful, acknowledged the gesture with a pressure of the hand.

"Thorley's going to get well" Doris said. "And ifs all my fault!"

"Your fault?" Celia asked.

"That Thorley and Ronnie went to the New Bond Street place," Doris burst out "and had the fight." She looked at Holden. "Ifs your fault to Don Dismallo!"

Holden stared at the floor.

"Yes," he admitted. "I suppose it is."

"Never in my life," again the tears came into Doris's eyes, "will I forget walking back to our house on Thursday night, through those meadows, with Ronnie and Don Dismallo!"

Holden remembered it too, with an intolerable vividness now that he could see below the surface.

"Don Dismallo," Doris pointed at him, "asking me about That Woman's boy friend, and me telling him about the New Bond Street place, and saying please go and investigate it! And all while Ronnie was there."

"Doris!" murmured the gaunt, fragile image of Sir Danvers Locke.

"I knew there was something wrong with Ronnie that night!" said Doris. "I could tell it by his voice, and the way his eyes sort of shone. But I never guessed Ronnie, Ronnie of all people, was That Woman's boy friend!" She looked at Holden as though a great oracle had let her down. "You, Don Dismallo!"

"My dear girl," protested Holden, "how could you expect me to guess it either? You kept talking about a 'distinguished-looking middle-aged man.' You said there was a friend of yours, Jane Somebody, who had seen them ..”

"Jane didn't say he was middle-aged!"

"Didn't sav—?"

"Jane Paulton said he was 'distinguished-looking.' It was Ronnie who caught that up, the first time I ever told him, and tacked on 'middle-aged. He kept repeating it over and over. It was Ronnie who told you so that night And it seemed all right," stormed Doris, "because you do think of somebody distinguished looking as being middle-aged."

"Come to think of it..."

"Y-yes, Don Dismallo?"

"The first time I ever met Ronnie," said Holden, "he unnecessarily dragged in a reference to Margot’s lover and kept insisting on the middle-aged part"

How easy, he was thinking, when you have learned the truth! How easy to interpret the moods of young Merrick— whom he had liked, and liked very much—stalking dazed in the Long Gallery, or wandering wild-eyed across the meadows in the moonlight while Doris spoke to him about the murderer!

"She got on his nerves," Holden could hear Doris's voice saying, "so he killed her." And that, in sober God's truth, was the fact

Sir Danvers Locke tugged at his immaculate collar.

"Dr. Fell!" he said. "Sir?"

"Will you be kind enough to interpret one final point for me?" "If I can."

"I take it," Locke was so white that Holden felt apprehensive, "I take it that Mrs. Marsh never really, in her heart of hearts, intended to die? And that was why she didn't give up the New Bond Street premises when the suicide pact was arranged?"

"That’ s my belief."

"But young Merrick never knew that?"

"Never. But he suddenly wondered, when your daughter spoke about it, whether the place might still be there. He had a key, of course. So he traveled up with you in the train next day. But he couldn't go directly to the same address, because you were going to the costumier's shop yourself..." . "Innocently, I swear!"

"And Thorley caught him," Doris said miserably. "I told Thorley next morning about what we'd said. So Thorley went baring up in the car, to see if there might be any evidence. He had a key too, now: That Woman's key. He was still—suppressing things. And there was a fight. Up there in that room, with only the fire burning, there was a fight"

She shivered. The vivid picture was in all their minds.

"You, of course," Locke glanced at Dr. Fell, "sent Holden after both of them when you realized. Yes. Yes. That is plain." He hesitated, a gray-faced shadow. "Let me," he added, "now make my recantation."

"Recantation?" exclaimed Celia.

"Doris," her father said formally, "I did not want you to marry Mr. Marsh. I confess it. I distrusted him. When we heard the first evidence, I believed he was a murderer too. It was only, on thinking things over late that night. . .

"Doris, your father's judgment is not good. I tried to force you into—never mind! I retract. If you now wish to marry this man . . ."

Doris, with absorbed and fierce concentration, was picking at the arm of the chair.

"But I don't think," she said in a small voice, "I do want to marry Thorley."

Locke sat up, shakily. 'You don't wish to? Why not?"

"Oh, I don't know," Doris said. "I just don't Celia!"

"Yes, dear?"

"You've always been in love with Don Dismallo, haven't you?"

"I don't like to say so in public," smiled Celia, and her eyes met Holden's across the back of Doris's head. "But— always and always

"Well," said Doris, "it’s not like that with Thorley and me." She paused. "He's not what I thought he was," she added. "He's just mean in the soul."

There was a long silence.

"I won't say, Doris," observed Locke, with a feeble attempt at a smile, "your decision displeases me. You are young; and we have the authority of an old saw that there are many fish in the sea. At least you have been delivered from—"

"Don't you say anything against poor Ronnie!" cried Doris.

While they looked at her, dumbfounded, Doris bounced up out of her chair. She walked to one of the windows, and stood looking out at the moonlit garden.

"Ronnie," Doris said, and there was a ring of reluctant admiration in her voice, "was a heller. An absolute heller! And I never knew it! I thought he was wishy-washy. I never guessed. Whatever's he's done, that’s how I like a man to be! Oh, I almost wish I had married him, now!"

From the vastness of Dr. Gideon Fell's bulk emerged a murmur which might have been an ironic sigh. He shook his head. Bending over to the little table, Dr. Fell unstoppered the decanter, poured a very strong whisky into a glass, and added a very small amount of water.

The tolerant irony, the far-off twinkle of the eye, all radiated from him as he raised his glass.

“I drink to human nature” he said.

____________________

The Sleeping

Sphinx

Bantam Books · New York

A Bantam Book published by arrangement with Harper & Brothers

Harper edition published February 1947

Detective Book Club edition published April 1946

Published in the Collier set 1947

Condensation appeared in the Toronto star weekly July 1947

Bantam edition published May 1952

2nd printing June 1952

New Bantam edition published November 1958

Copyright, 1947, by John Dickson Carr

All rights in this book are reserved. It may not be used for dramatic, motion- or talking-picture purposes without written authorization from the holder of these rights. Nor may the book or part thereof be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission in writing except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.