“What’s your idea on the show?” he asked when he had finished.
“Well, sir,” said Fox, in his stolid way, “on the face of it the young gentlemen have got alibis. We’ll have to check them up, of course, and I don’t see we can go much further until we have done so.”
“For the moment,” said Alleyn, “let us suppose Masters Guy and Arthur to be safely established behind cast-iron alibis. What then?”
“Then we’ve got the young lady, the old lady, the secretary, and the servants.”
“Let us parade them. But first let us go over the wireless game. You’ll have to watch me here. I gather that the only way in which the radio could be fixed to give Mr. Tonks his quietus is like this: Control knobs removed. Holes bored in front panel with fine drill. Metal knobs substituted and packed with blotting paper to insulate them from metal shafts and make them stay put. Heavier flex from adapter to radiator cut and the ends of the wires pushed through the drilled holes to make contact with the new knobs. Thus we have a positive and negative pole. Mr. Tonks bridges the gap, gets a mighty wallop as the current passes through him to the earth. The switchboard fuse is blown almost immediately. All this is rigged by murderer while Sep was upstairs bullying wife and daughter. Sep revisited study some time after ten-twenty. Whole thing was made ready between ten, when Arthur went out, and the time Sep returned—say, about ten-forty-five. The murderer reappeared, connected radiator with flex, removed wires, changed back knobs, and left the thing tuned in. Now I take it that the burst of static described by Phillipa and Hislop would be caused by the short-circuit that killed our Septimus?”
“That’s right.”
“It also affected all the heaters in the house. Vide Miss Tonks’s radiator.”
“Yes. He put all that right again. It would be a simple enough matter for anyone who knew how. He’d just have to fix the fuse on the main switchboard. How long do you say it would take to—what’s the horrible word?—to recondition the whole show?”
“M’m,” said Fox deeply. “At a guess, sir, fifteen minutes. He’d have to be nippy.”
“Yes,” agreed Alleyn. “He or she.”
“I don’t see a female making a success of it,” grunted Fox. “Look here, Chief, you know what I’m thinking. Why did Mr. Hislop lie about deceased’s habit of licking his thumbs? You say Hislop told you he remembered nothing and Chase says he overheard him saying the trick nearly drove him dippy.”
“Exactly,” said Alleyn. He was silent for so long that Fox felt moved to utter a discreet cough.
“Eh?” said Alleyn. “Yes, Fox, yes. It’ll have to be done.” He consulted the telephone directory and dialed a number.
“May I speak to Dr. Meadows? Oh, it’s you, is it? Do you remember Mr. Hislop telling you that Septimus Tonks’s trick of wetting his fingers nearly drove Hislop demented. Are you there? You don’t? Sure? All right. All right. Hislop rang you up at ten-twenty, you said? And you telephoned him? At eleven. Sure of the times? I see. I’d be glad if you’d come round. Can you? Well, do if you can.”
He hung up the receiver.
“Get Chase again, will you, Fox?”
Chase, recalled, was most insistent that Mr. Hislop had spoken about it to Dr. Meadows.
“It was when Mr. Hislop had flu, sir. I went up with the doctor. Mr. Hislop had a high temperature and was talking very excited. He kept on and on, saying the master had guessed his ways had driven him crazy and that the master kept on purposely to aggravate. He said if it went on much longer he’d… he didn’t know what he was talking about, sir, really.”
“What did he say he’d do?”
“Well, sir, he said he’d—he’d do something desperate to the master. But it was only his rambling, sir. I daresay he wouldn’t remember anything about it.”
“No,” said Alleyn, “I daresay he wouldn’t.” When Chase had gone he said to Fox: “Go and find out about those boys and their alibis. See if they can put you on to a quick means of checking up. Get Master Guy to corroborate Miss Phillipa’s statement that she was locked in her room.”
Fox had been gone for some time and Alleyn was still busy with his notes when the study door burst open and in came Dr. Meadows.
“Look here, my giddy sleuth-hound,” he shouted, “what’s all this about Hislop? Who says he disliked Sep’s abominable habits?”
“Chase does. And don’t bawl at me like that. I’m worried.”
“So am I, blast you. What are you driving at? You can’t imagine that… that poor little broken-down hack is capable of electrocuting anybody, let alone Sep?”
“I have no imagination,” said Alleyn wearily.
“I wish to God I hadn’t called you in. If the wireless killed Sep, it was because he’d monkeyed with it.”
“And put it right after it had killed him?”
Dr. Meadows stared at Alleyn in silence.
“Now,” said Alleyn, “you’ve got to give me a straight answer, Meadows. Did Hislop, while he was semi-delirious, say that this habit of Tonks’s made him feel like murdering him?”
“I’d forgotten Chase was there,” said Dr. Meadows.
“Yes, you’d forgotten that.”
“But even if he did talk wildly, Alleyn, what of it? Damn it, you can’t arrest a man on the strength of a remark made in delirium.”
“I don’t propose to do so. Another motive has come to light.”
“You mean — Phips — last night?”
“Did he tell you about that?”
“She whispered something to me this morning. I’m very fond of Phips. My God, are you sure of your grounds?”
“Yes,” said Alleyn. “I’m sorry. I think you’d better go, Meadows.”
“Are you going to arrest him?”
“I have to do my job.”
There was a long silence.
“Yes,” said Dr. Meadows at last. “You have to do your job. Goodbye, Alleyn.”
Fox returned to say that Guy and Arthur had never left their parties. He had got hold of two of their friends. Guy and Mrs. Tonks confirmed the story of the locked door.
“It’s a process of elimination,” said Fox. “It must be the secretary. He fixed the radio while deceased was upstairs. He must have dodged back to whisper through the door to Miss Tonks. I suppose he waited somewhere down here until he heard deceased blow himself to blazes and then put everything straight again, leaving the radio turned on.”
Alleyn was silent.
“What do we do now, sir?” asked Fox.
“I want to see the hook inside the front-door where they hang their keys.”
Fox, looking dazed, followed his superior to the little entrance hall.
“Yes, there they are,” said Alleyn. He pointed to a hook with two latchkeys hanging from it. “You could scarcely miss them. Come on, Fox.”
Back in the study they found Hislop with Bailey in attendance.
Hislop looked from one Yard man to another.
“I want to know if it’s murder.”
“We think so,” said Alleyn.
“I want you to realize that Phillipa—Miss Tonks—was locked in her room all last night.”
“Until her brother came home and unlocked the door,” said Alleyn.
“That was too late. He was dead by then.”
“How do you know when he died?”
“It must have been when there was that crash of static.”
“Mr. Hislop,” said Alleyn, “why would you not tell me how much that trick of licking his fingers exasperated you?”
“But — how do you know! I never told anyone.”
“You told Dr. Meadows when you were ill.”
“I don’t remember.” He stopped short. His lips trembled. Then, suddenly he began to speak.