H.M. had, indeed, a singularly peaceful air as he lay back in the chair. A fly circled round and settled down on the peak of his hat.
"The case," pursued Masters, "has got to be approached in a different way. It's all crazy and back-to-foremost to start with. We begin by knowing the murderer; but the murderer's the only person who can't be guilty. We—"
"Now, now, son!" urged H.M. soothingly.
But Masters was getting steam up.
"We've got to find someone who exchanged a real dagger for a rubber one, when the evidence proves nobody could have done it. It's no good saying, 'Where were you at such-and-such a time?' We know where they were. It's no good saying, 'How do you explain this bit of suspicious behavior?' Because there isn't any suspicious behavior. There's no behavior at all. Hypnotism! Rubber daggers! Urr!"
He drew his sleeve across his forehead.
"Now, Masters, you're gettin' yourself all hot…!"
"Yes, sir, I am; and I admit it. Who wouldn't be? If you can suggest any explanation of how those daggers could have been exchanged, I'd be glad to hear it. But, so far as I can see, there isn't any."
"Oh, my son! Of course there's an explanation!"
"An explanation that fits all the facts?"
"An explanation that fits all the facts."
"And you know it?"
"Sure. It's easy."
Masters got up from his chair, but sat down again. H.M. struggled up to a sitting position.
"No, son: I'm not just actin' the cryptic. I really am worried. I'm afraid that if I tell you this explanation you'll go harm' off on the wrong track."
"I can believe evidence, Sir Henry."
"Yes. I know. That's what worries me. See here." H.M. ruffled the tips of his fingers across his forehead. "For the sake of argument, do you believe the stories of these witnesses — Ann Browning, Captain Sharpless, Dr. Rich, Hubert Fane — that none of 'em went near the table at any time?"
"What else can I do? Unless the whole thing's a quadruple-put-up job, with everybody lying, what else can I do? I'm bound to accept it."
"All right. Do you also believe that nobody could have got in from outside?"
"Ah! That I do, and I don't mind admitting it."
H.M. looked distressed.
"So. Then, according to the evidence, there's only one explanation that can be true. It's been an odd blind spot that nobody seems to have noticed before."
"If you mean," retorted Masters, regarding him with broad and fishy skepticism, "that Mr. Arthur Fane exchanged the daggers himself… well, I'll just say ha-ha and let it go at that. Mr. Fane knew he was going to be stabbed with that dagger. He insisted on it. He had a spot drawn over his heart so it couldn't be missed. Don't tell me any man plans suicide in quite that way. But Mr. Fane was the only person who did go near that table."
H.M. sighed.
"Got it," he said.
"Got what?"
"The blind spot. Burn me, we've been repeatin' the story about nobody goin' near the table so often that it's stopped having any meaning.
"We're forgetting that there was somebody who admittedly did go near the table. Not only near it; but to it, in plain sight. Somebody who stood with her back to the witnesses so that her body shielded the table in a darkish part of the room. Somebody who wore a full-sleeved dress tight at the wrists. Somebody who could, therefore, have slipped the real dagger out of her sleeve, and the rubber dagger back in its place, as quick as winking."
H.M. looked still more glum and angry.
"In short," he concluded, "Mrs. Fane herself."
Ten
Ann sat very still, her breath coming slowly. Her heels were together, her eyes on the ground. When she raised her head to look at H.M., so that the sun flashed gold on her hair, her eyes were brilliant but incredulous.
"Oh, that's absurd!" Ann protested. "You mean she wasn't really hypnotized at all? And only pretended to be? Impossible! Besides, I know Vicky well and I'm awfully fond of her. She'd never—"
"So? Aren't you the gal," queried H.M., peering over his spectacles, "who went up to her bedroom especially to stick her with a pin and find out?"
Ann clenched her hands.
"I went up there to get. my compact. I really did, though nobody will believe me!"
Masters' face wore a far-off, satisfied smile for the first time that day.
"Well, well, well!" mused the chief inspector, and rubbed his hands. "Now this is something like evidence, I don't mind telling you!"
H.M. uttered a groan.
"Just confidentially," pursued Masters, cheering up, "I never did like all this hypnotic funny business, and that's a fact. Oh, I know it's scientifically true, all right!
We bumped into it in that Mantling case years ago.* But here — no, it didn't just look right to me, somehow. Hold on, though. Stop a bit." He frowned, fingering his jaw. "That pin business. Mrs. Fane was stuck with a pin, wasn't she? And she didn't even so much as blink?"
*See The Red Widow Murders, William Morrow and Company, 1935.
"She was," agreed Ann firmly. "I saw it done."
"Uh-huh," said H.M. "So did somebody else." He turned to Masters. "Do you happen to have a pin on you, son?"
"What for?"
"Never mind what for. If you got a pin," said H.M., opening and shutting his hand, "gimme."
After staring at him for a moment, Masters turned back the lapel of his jacket, revealing two pins stuck through the underside.
" 'See a pin and pick it up, and all the day you'll have good luck,' " he quoted, not without jocularity. "My old mother taught me that years ago, and I've never been able to resist—"
"Stow the gab," said H.M., "and gimme."
Masters handed it over.
Holding the pin in his mouth, H.M. reached into his pocket and took out a box of matches. Squinting, he held the pin by the head in his left hand, and carefully moved the match-flame over it from end to end.
"I hope our friend Rich," he grunted, "sterilized that pin before he used it on Mrs. Fane?"
"He didn't, that I remember," said Ann.
"So? Careless. And blinkin' dangerous too. Now watch closely, and the old man'll give you a demonstration."
Holding his left forearm against his leg so that the skin was taut, H.M. searched for a place in the upper side of the forearm. He set the point of the pin there, and with a quick push drove it to the head in his arm.
Everyone had instinctively stiffened in protest. It formed a grotesque contrast: the late afternoon sunshine, the quiet green lawn with the white clock-golf numerals, and the push that drove steel into flesh.
"Brr!" said Ann, moving her shoulders. "But you didn't jump?"
"No, my wench. Because it didn't hurt, I didn't even feel it."
Masters regarded him incredulously.
"True, son," H.M. assured him. "Just a medical fact, like hypnotism. This is an old parlor trick, well known to conjurors and—"
He paused, blinking. Then his eyes grew fixed as he looked into vacancy, and a sniff rumbled through his nose. An idea seemed to be stirring with considerable effect. In the same dream he stretched out his right hand, moving the fingers as though pressing something. But, as the others clamored at him, he woke up.
"No!" he snapped. "Burn it all, I'm no Yogi. Anybody can do this. You can do it yourselves, if you choose a part of the arm where you don't hit a vein or an artery, make sure the skin is firm, and drive it in firmly." He plucked out the pin, which was followed by not a speck of blood. "Like to try it?"
"No, thanks," shivered Ann.
"Let me have a go," requested Courtney.
He was not at all easy about this. But Ann's eyes were on him, and he tried not to hesitate. Baring his left arm to the elbow, he took the pin (which H.M. insisted on sterilizing again), set it to his arm, gritted his teeth, and…