Rich paused. Fumbling in the breast pocket of his jacket, he drew out a folded sheet of notepaper.
" "There's something else,' " he read aloud, bunking against the sunlight. " 'I've got a bit of influence here and there, son. I'd like to reopen your other case — you — know what I mean — before the Medical Council. I think we might get you reinstated yet. Chirrup, son. You're not dead yet.' "
Abruptly Rich folded up the letter and put it back in his pocket.
'I never thought I should live to say 'thank God' again," he added, "but I do now."
Ann was standing uncomfortably, her eyes on the ground.
"I'm afraid I said some rather unpleasant things to you the other night, Dr. Rich," she told him. "But I was upset at the time. I'm sorry."
Rich smiled.
"Miss Browning! Lord! That doesn't matter at all. Please forget it. We were all upset, if it comes to that." He smiled again. "You're looking at my hand? It's nothing. I've been very disturbed since Thursday night, and I cut it shaving. A bit of sticking-plaster covers the damage." He brushed this aside. "No. What does matter is this new aspect of the case."
"The strychnine?" said Courtney.
"Yes! The strychnine! Is there some place where we can sit down?"
Courtney led the way along the gravel path through the garden, to the tree-shaded lawn at the back. Ann sat down on the stone bench under the apple tree. Rich, out of condition, panted a little as he perched himself on the opposite end.
"If I'm not top inquisitive," said Ann, "what did that note mean when it said, 'your ether case'? What other case?"
Rich's eyes narrowed.
"But you… gad, no!" He stared at the past. "You weren't in the room when I told about it. You didn't come in until afterwards. I forgot." Color made his face more red. "It is nothing. Shall we change the subject?"
"What other case? Please!"
Rich contemplated her for a moment.
"Very well," he agreed grimly. "You ought to know with whom you've been breaking bread. I'm a miserable sinner, Miss Browning. I was struck off the medical-"
"Easy, now!" Courtney interposed soothingly. "Is there any necessity for this?" Rich gestured him to silence.
"— register. I was accused of having… if you want to use a polite word, you can say 'seduced'.. one of my patients while she was under hypnosis."
"Oh."
"I was not guilty. I swear it. One day, perhaps soon, I may be able to prove it. And then! My name will still be mud, of course, so far as general practice is concerned. But some official post: a snip's doctor, say!"
Ann was looking at the branches of the tree overhead. She nodded as though she followed this.
"But to have been accused of this affair, of being mad enough to drive a contaminated pin into a person's arm, would have finished me past all hope. Relieved? Gad, I could dance the fandango!"
"Doctor," said Courtney quietly, "would you mind if I asked you one question?"
"Not at all. Ask away."
He filled his pipe, lighted it, and watched the gray smoke hang heavily in die thick thundery air.
Birds bickered among the vines. The stone wall giving on the lane was gray and blotched. These trees, with the green and yellow apples and the dark blue sheen of plums, seemed to shed heat down like the inside of a tent. You could hear the dim hum of wasps.
''Doctor," pursued Courtney, taking the pipe out of his mouth, "on the night you gave that demonstration with the pin, I was outside on the balcony."
Silence.
"You were.. what?”
"I was eavesdropping. Not of my own free will; but there you are. I saw and heard everything you did. In particular, I overheard the questions you asked Mrs. Fane when she was still under hypnosis."
"Indeed," said Rich. His throat seemed dry. His fingers closed round the edges of the bench under him.
"And I heard her answers. What I want to know is why you didn't tell the police about it. H.M. gave you an opportunity to, at that same interview you were speaking of a minute ago. But you said you had nothing to add."
Again silence.
"Do the police," asked Rich, after reflection, "know about this?" "Yes."
"So it's only a question of time before they—?"
"Ask you? Yes. I wonder they haven't asked you already."
Ann too, he noticed, was watching Rich. But he saw her only out of the tail of his eye. The hum of the quiet, shut-in garden lay drowsy on the senses.
Rich cleared his throat.
"Young man," he said, "this whole affair has consisted in putting me, and me alone, in a series of false positions. You're quite right. I don't deny it. I did ask Mrs. Fane those questions."
"Thanks."
"No sarcasm, sir. I asked the questions because I was curious. Nothing more. I naturally guessed, when I was putting Mrs. Fane through the 'routine' downstairs beforehand, that she had some intense emotional associations with the sofa, that song, and the rest of it. My curiosity was — scientific. I wanted to know who and what and why."
"That's understandable."
"Yes. But wait." Again Rich hesitated. "Well, here's trouble again! But it's got to be told sooner or later. When I asked Mrs. Fane those questions in the bedroom, I heard a certain name."
"Yes. I remember the expression on your face, and how you clenched your fists when you heard it."
Rich closed his eyes, and opened them again.
"Mr. Courtney, a year or two ago, when I was on the stage with my hypnotic turn, I had a girl-assistant. When I talked with Sir Henry Merrivale (again at that same interview), I was off guard: I made a slip of speech; and I almost mentioned that young lady's name."
Courtney nodded.
"Yes," he said. "The girl's name was Polly Allen, wasn't it?"
Sixteen
Rich's face was hot and bitter.
"And I daresay the police know that too?"
"No. At least, not yet. Though they're bound to find it out if they inquire at the theatrical agencies. I only guessed it because I kept thinking of your expression; and that Polly Allen was on the stage, but wouldn't say in what. I'd been thinking a good deal about that girl, because of her resemblance to…"
He stopped.
Ann, her chin lifted, had fastened troubled and puzzled eyes on him.
"Yes, you're quite right," admitted Rich, turning out his wrist. "Polly was the girl. You see my position, don't you?"
"I think so. You were afraid that if you told the police they might suspect you had…"
"Executed vengeance on Mr. Fane. Exactly."
"You hadn't, had you?".
Rich laughed shortly, a snap of a laugh.
"I had not. I wasn't fond enough of Polly for that. Again, don't misunderstand the position." He made the face of a man always caught by the same misunderstanding. "I wasn't — interested in Polly. In her private life, that is. Polly liked her friends young, I believe. She would have laughed at anybody over forty.
"I could not even be sure it was the same girl. But I knew Polly had disappeared in the middle of July, leaving all her things behind. It was a shock. It was a damned shock. So I decided to keep my mouth shut."
"Again, easily understandable." "
"Thank you. I hope the police think so. But I hope they don't think that, even if I had known Arthur Fane killed Polly (which I didn't), I should have got back at him by getting him stabbed. I should simply have gone to the police."
Rich shook his head. He stared at the grass ahead of him. Despite himself, a vein of cynical amusement seemed to well up inside him as he reflected, and his eye twinkled. He was a misunderstood John Bull.
"Lord," he added, "the number of women I haven't seduced!"