“3. Lack of motive apart, why should anyone come in from outside and bump off Matt while his daughter was about the place? (And, unless the murderer were a friend, and knew Mrs. B. would be out, she might have been there, too.)
“No: there’s every reason to look inside the house, and none to look outside. Now let’s have a squint at t’other side of the picture.
“1. The doctor could have done it, either before he was called in, or after. If the latter, Matt could have had another heart attack, and Carter could have finished him of.
“2. The schoolmistress might have done it, on the strength of her letter, or her often expressed hostility to the old man.
“3. Rattray could have done it, and perhaps might have done it, during his call to return the book.
“4. Since he can’t prove he didn’t return to the house, the American could have done it. Less improbably, he might have so infuriated Matt by a second visit that the old boy had a seizure, and someone else was inspired to finish the job.
“5. An unspecified number of people, possibly including Nelder, if he can’t prove he was elsewhere, could have got in and done it.
“6. If the job was a home job, why wait till the old boy got up, instead of popping him off earlier, when there was every chance of getting away with it?
“7. There still remains the first probability that it was an accident.
“Now of these seven considerations, imposing though they are in bulk, only one is worth a damn. The trouble is, as you’ll have seen, there’s no evidence at all. Motive by the bucketful, opportunity galore, but not a tittle of evidence as to the pair of hands that pulled tight old Matt’s muffler and tipped the tomes on his unlovely nob.
“I can’t definitely rule out the outside suspects, because of this same blasted lack of evidence, but I class ’em all as non-starters on psychological grounds. Now, now! None of your sniffing. Listen, girl.
“Carter I won’t have, because he’s an honest physician, and honest physicians don’t bump off their patients. He’s violent and testy, and might kill a man in a fight, but he wouldn’t harm a frail old man under his professional care, to whose tantrums he was well accustomed.
“Eunice Caunter (a nasty bit of work! I’d love you to see her) I won’t have, because this killing isn’t in her character. She could plan it—she did, in fancy—but never carry it out. What’s more, she has no motive. She might do it to regain a commanding place in Joan’s affections and win the lead back from Rattray: but that, again, is a story-book sort of motive, and I’ve never met it in practice.
“Rattray could kill all right, but only if he was worked up to a frenzy or scared out of his wits. He’d never plan. If he were the cold type of killer, he’s had the ideal victim in his house for years. So I pass by Rattray.
“The American didn’t do it. One, he isn’t the sort: two, he’d nothing to gain. Exit Mr. Stuyvesant.
“I don’t back any dark horses, either, in the shape of tradesmen or strangers. Why the hell? The possibility that someone called in and so angered Matt that he had a seizure and was polished off by a third party, has something to recommend it: but, if anything, it tells against the home team, both on grounds of motive and opportunity.
“No, the only argument for the home team is No. 6. Why, if they were going to do it at all, didn’t they do it before? What was there special about Friday afternoon? Nothing that we know of, except the fact that Gilkie had come. Was there anything to make his arrival dangerous to any of the parties concerned? He’d come to value certain books. ‘By the pricking of my thumbs’—sweetheart, I don’t like this case. Unless we find something new and quite unexpected, things look poorly for the home team: and I fear me that anything new we find isn’t going to help them. Contrariwise.
“I’ve no doubt, of course, that the Coroner’s jury will run true to form: but—well——”
He shrugged, grimaced again, and passed on to personal matters. Ending with a flourish, he addressed the envelope, licked it vigorously, thumped down the flap with his fist, and trotted downstairs.
“ ’E won’t go ’fore to-morrow, not now, sir,” the porter told him.
“Doesn’t matter. I want to be shut of it.”
They smiled at each other, and Ellis hurried off to the pillar box. He was afraid that, at any moment, he might have to add a postscript to the letter.
Dinner was a silent meal. Gilkison was preoccupied with the books, Ellis with his thoughts. They went into the lounge for their coffee, a weird place of wicker chairs, glass-topped tables, and tall tobacco plants.
From it they could hear the cheerful Saturday night uproar from the bar. As soon as they had drunk their coffee, Ellis got up. “I’m going into the bar. Coming?”
“My dear Ellis. You’ll be most unpopular.”
“Take a bet on it?”
Gilkison sat back in his chair.
“I should be obliged to come and see you lose it.”
“Funk.”
“I haven’t your thickness of skin.”
Ellis started off. Catching sight of a periodical on one of the tables, he picked it up, and brought it back to Gilkison.
“Here you are, love,” he cried in a shrill falsetto, and threw it into his lap. Gilkison started, and looked apprehensively around him. It was a ladies’ fashion journal. Before he could remonstrate, Ellis was out of range.
Ellis padded off down the passage, reached the door, squared his shoulders, pushed it open, and walked in.
The result was as dramatic as the most hardened showman could desire. Conversation and hubbub stopped, almost at once. A few men, who did not see him, went on for a couple of seconds, noticed the cessation of talk, saw him, and fell silent too.
Ellis behaved as if he noticed nothing.
“A pint, please,” he said, in loud, cheerful tones. Everyone stared while it was drawn, and all eyes watched him as he took it to a table and sat down. Those nearest him drew away in alarm.
In his element, Ellis looked around the bar, inspected the pictures on the walls, sipped his beer, and whistled to himself under his breath. By degrees, the conversation started again: but it was hushed and guarded. His presence oppressed them alclass="underline" he could feel them drawing together protectively against the invader.
In a corner, against the wall farthest from Ellis, stood a piano. Ellis eyed it, and his spirit rose in him to a peak of arrogance and daring. For a while he stayed where he was, to see if by any chance the atmosphere would improve. Then he got up, and, taking his glass tankard with him, walked deliberately across to the piano.
The moment he moved, silence fell again. All the eyes followed him. Ellis put his beer on top of the piano, sat down, and opened it.
“No one seems to have much to say,” he said to the piano. “Let’s have a little music.”
He struck a series of resounding chords, dashed up to the treble in a flamboyant arpeggio, then shot into a popular tune. The rhythm was so strong, so gay, that in spite of themselves their senses were hypnotised into obedience. Sitting there at the piano, Ellis could feel the atmosphere loosen. From one tune he went to another, with an impudence, a certainty of attack that electrified his unwilling listeners. He gave them ten minutes of it, then led into a chorus song. No one joined in. He hummed himself, then sang the chorus alone.
At the end, without taking his hands from the keys, he swung round on his chair and laughed in their stupefied faces.
“Come on, you swabs,” he cried, and his fingers flew from a wild flourish into The Lily of Laguna.