"Nothing. That is — nothing. They haven't upset me, if that's what you mean. They were terribly nice, really. And Sir Henry Merrivale lives up to all I'd ever heard."
Ann walked round the bed and half leaned, half sat on the edge of the dressing table. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes troubled.
"Vicky, I–I hadn't meant to ask you. Even when I was up here before, I've kept and kept myself from asking you. But how much do you remember?"
There was a silence.
"Not very much. I remember Dr. Rich talking to me, and that coin shining. The next thing I distinctly remember is waking up on the bed here, and feeling horribly tired and shaky, with Frank's arm round me.
"I said, 'For heaven's Bake, don't; suppose Arthur should see?' Then he had to tell me."
"Stop, Vicky! That's enough!"
"No. It's all right. I don't mind. But in between, you see, it's all darkness and noises. I'll tell you what it's like. Did you ever go on a binge? And have too much to drink? And then wake up again next morning, without an earthly notion of what you'd been doing; and feeling ghastly and thinking of all the dreadful things you might have done?"
Ann nodded guiltily.
"Not that I go on binges, much," explained Vicky, turning her candid dark-blue eyes towards Courtney, and smiling, "but I do remember one at New Year's, when Arthur and I were first married. I don't think he ever forgave me. His suits are still over in that wardrobe. Get me some water, will you? It hurts to swallow; but my throat's so dry I've just got to have it."
Ann poured out a quarter of a tumbler of water from the carafe on the bedside-table. Holding the glass in both hands, Vicky drank. She was fighting with all the vigor of her nature to keep herself steady.
"Don't ever be hypnotized, Ann," she advised, handing the glass back. "At least, if you're made to do what I was. It's not nice."
"And what are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to marry Frank," answered Vicky, with flat candor. "That is, if I think it won't hurt his career. But if there's scandal, and I think it will hurt his career, I'm going to take a place near where he's stationed, and live with him… Does that seem very dreadful to you, Phil Courtney?"
He returned her smile.
"Not at all. But I think you'd both be happier married. There's no objection to the other thing, except that it so seldom works out."
Vicky clenched her fists.
"If we could only—" She lowered her voice. "If we could only find the beast who's doing this! The person behind it… The cruel, clever beast who made me kill Arthur, and then tried to get rid of me with what they say is the most painful poison there is. That's what I can't forgive. The pain."
"So the police did tell you, then," breathed Ann.
"Well… yes. And I thought that grapefruit tasted funny at the time anyway."
"You're sure it was in the grapefruit?"
"Yes. They didn't suggest it to me. I suggested it to them; the police, I mean. You see, I kept the spoon."
"Kept the spoon?"
"Yes. Accidentally. The spoon that came with the grapefruit. It was left behind when Daisy took the tray down. I saw it a minute or two later, and put it on the dressing table over there, meaning to give it to Daisy when she brought the tea up. Only I began to feel horrible in the meantime, so I forgot it. It's been there all the time. I gave it to Inspector Masters just now. He says if there are traces of strychnine on it—"
Courtney did not ask her if she knew who had carried the grapefruit up. Or, to be more exact, if she knew who was the only person who could have poisoned it.
And, undoubtedly, neither H.M. nor Masters had told her.
"You're exciting yourself, Vicky," said Ann, "and you've got to stop. Please. Lie back. There's a good girl."
Vicky relaxed.
"Yes," admitted Vicky wryly. "I was told not to talk too much. By the doctor, I mean. But you will come and stay the night, won't you, Ann?"
"Of course I will. I'll go over and pack a bag and come back now."
"I'd appreciate it awfully if you would. There's nothing to be afraid of, you understand. It's just that I want company. And I have — dreams."
"I understand. Come along, Phil."
Psychic fits again?
Once more faint lightning flickered in the west. The oppressiveness of the day, the heat of the day, the moods of the day, may have produced the feeling. As he said good-by to Vicky, he felt not for the only time that sensation of evil which he had first experienced when he stood on the balcony outside these windows. Now it was coming closer. And it was growing stronger.
He was afterwards to remember this scene, with Vicky's cool hand in his, and the old-rose curtains writhing slightly as a breeze gathered, and the almost imperceptible darkening of the room. That flicker beyond the windows caught Vicky's eye. "Heat-lightning," she said.
"Yes," said Ann. "Heat-lightning. Phil, come on."
Seventeen
The rain poured down.
"Then we're all agreed," said Sir Henry Merrivale, "that there's only one person who can be guilty?"
In Inspector Agnew's office at the police station, Ag-new, H.M., and Masters had their chairs drawn up to the inspector's roll-top desk. On this desk, under the light, lay small groups of articles and official forms. Latest to be added to them was a small spoon, together with the analyst's report that in the coating of grapefruit juice adhering to the spoon he had found one-fifteenth of a grain of C21H22N2O2, or strychnine.
Rain sluiced down the windows and gurgled along the gutters. It was nearly ten o'clock.
"We're agreed on that?" demanded H.M.
"Definitely," said Agnew.
"Oh, ah," conceded Masters, cautious even here.
"Good. Then what in the name of St. Ignatius's beans is delayin' you? Write out your warrant and get the chief constable to sign it. There's no honey-sweet savor about these murders. I tell you, our friend is too dangerous to be allowed loose any longer."
Masters fingered his chin.
"We're protecting that gal," pursued H.M., "as much as we can, without actually havin' a policeman sleeping with her—"
"Now, now!" growled Masters, his sense of the proprities offended.
"But we can't go on doin' it forever. Something's got to be done, and done quick."
Inspector Agnew picked up the spoon and tapped it on the desk.
"Do you think, sir," he asked, "that the person in question has twigged it that we know what we do know?"
H.M. meditated.
"I don't see how, son. The subject's never been brought up, at least by Masters or me; and our star witness is primed in case questions are asked. Now, Masters, speak up: what about it?"
Masters was dogged.
"Now, sir, it's all very well to say that," he complained. "But we can't go flying off the handle like that. I admit that the person you say is guilty is guilty. Lummy, I can't very well deny it! We've been fooled by as innocent-faced a piece of acting from a thoroughgoing snake as I ever saw."
"You're right there," agreed Agnew, contemplating the past without amusement.
"Very well!" said Masters. "The case is good. But it's not complete."
He tapped a sheaf of documents.
"We've got here evidence of motive: that's good. We've got here," he tapped an official form, "the statement of the chemist, Lewis L. Lewis: that's better. We've got here, after some downright fine staff-work by Inspector Agnew," continued Masters, who believes in keeping in well with the local police, "evidence of the purchase of the knife in Gloucester. That's still better."
He held up the knife with which Arthur Fane had been stabbed. It still bore, at a distance, resemblance to a rubber one.