"Would someone," requested a courteous voice from the floor, "would someone be good enough to assist me to my feet? I am quite well, but my — er — motor reflexes appear not to motor in the accepted sense of the term. It is most annoying."
"Agnew!"
"Sir?"
"Get this feller up to his room," said H.M. "He's hurt bad. Come on." As Agnew hurried over, he scowled at Courtney and went on. "I'll have a look at Mrs. Fane, just in case."
"Now then," said Masters, "what's all this? What's been going on, Mr. Courtney?"
When Courtney started to tell him, Masters walked across to the sofa. He went round it, studying. From the floor behind the sofa he picked up a heavy rough-stonework jar, whose surface would have held no fingerprints but which must have weighed ten or twelve pounds and would have made a murderous weapon. Masters weighed it in his hand.
Courtney, however, did not waste much time in telling his story. He raced upstairs after H.M.
There was a babble of voices in the upstairs hall. Mrs. Propper and Daisy, muffled up in extra clothing as though they would have to leave a house on fire, were excitedly pouring out to Ann a story which was far from clear.
"Here's the big doctor!" howled Mrs. Propper, clutching at H.M. as he passed. "You go in there, sir. You go and see Mrs. Fane!"
"Now, now, lemme alone! For cat's sake lemme alone. I…"
H.M. went into the front bedroom. Stripping off the waterproof, he bent over Vicky Fane. He picked up one limp wrist and took her pulse. He ran his fingers lightly from under the ears down along the line of the jaws, and round the neck. He lifted one eyelid and looked at the iris. Though his manner seemed more malevolent than ever, yet Courtney felt that a shadow had passed from his face, and that he breathed more easily.
"Wen?" Courtney demanded. "What is it? What's wrong with her?" "Nothing."
"Nothing?" cried Ann.
They were crowded in the doorway, peering, like a cluster of people in a Hogarth sketch.
"You mean she hasn't had anything at all?"
"Nothing," responded H.M., "except the chloral in her sleeping-tablets. Oh, my eye, what a fine lot of scare-mongers you are. Now see here. What's all this rumpus about a burglar? We went down to Adams's place, and he was all hoppin' about sending you—" he blinked at Courtney—"out with a rifle to pot a burglar. What burglar?"
Mrs. Propper, who wore a lace cap over her curlpapers, drew the layers of dressing gowns and shawls and comforters closer round her.
"As the Lord is my judge," she declared with passion, "there was a burglar. Just you ask Daisy." "How'd he get in?" "Through the winder." "What winder?" "I'll show you."
"That's more like it. We may as well let this gal sleep."
H.M. switched off the bedside lamp. He came out of the room, shooing them before him, into the bright light of the hall. And they met a frightened-looking Frank Sharpless, in a sodden cap and rubber raincoat, coming up the stairs at long strides.
"Come on in," sneered H.M., making an expansive but malignant gesture. "The more the merrier. Keep the party goin'. I say, son: why don't you move your bed in and live here?"
It would not be a literal fact to say that Mrs. Propper stiffened audibly, but such was the general effect.
"I had to see Vicky," breathed Sharpless, wiping the moisture from his face. "Is she all right?"
"Perfectly all right."
"I rang up Major Adams's to speak to Phil. The major said—"
"Uh-huh. We can guess what he said. No, you don't! Keep away from that door, and let the gal sleep." He turned to Mrs. Propper. "Now, ma'am. Where's this window that the burglar got in by?"
Mrs. Propper was rapidly approaching a state that bordered on the frantic. "Sir, you're not going to let that murderer…?"
"What murderer?" demanded Sharpless.
"It was him," said Mrs. Propper, pointing her finger at Sharpless. "I take my oath on it. It was him that got in through the winder."
Sharpless had removed his cap, so that rain-drops splashed her and made her run behind H.M. for protectum. Shaking his cap, Sharpless turned a face of incredulous astonishment, hollowed by the lights.
Holding to H.M.'s arm and dragging him with her, Mrs. Propper hurried to a door a little way down the hall. She made him reach inside and switch on the light.
It revealed an empty bedroom, unused and chilly-looking, whose two windows were on the side of the house facing south. One window stood wide open. Drenched curtains of flowered cretonne belled out in the draught when the door was opened.
"That's it," cried Mrs. Propper, pointing again. "There's an iron pipe by that winder outside. And Daisy said to me — upstairs we were — up over it — Daisy said to me, 'Auntie, there's somebody tapping on that pipe.' And I said, 'No,' I said, 'there's somebody climbing that pipe.' And we tried to look out of<the winder upstairs, only it wasn't much good, except for hearing somebody raise the winder."
"Then how do you know it was Captain Sharpless?"
"I tell you, I know! Don't you tell me who it was! I know. It was that Captain Sharpless, there. Wasn't it, Daisy?"
"Oh, Auntie, don't be silly," said Daisy. Her eyes overflowed. "I'm sure Captain Sharpless would never do a thing like that."
"The old girl's scatty," announced Sharpless.
It was Ann who smoothly intervened here.
"I'll tell you what, Mrs. Propper," she suggested, putting a kindly arm round the cook's shoulder. "Why don't you and Daisy go down and make us all some tea? You're perfectly safe now: the big doctor's here. And we could all do with it. I'll put on some clothes and make myself decent and come down and help you."
"That," glared H.M., after a look out of the window which misted his spectacles again, "is the first sensible idea anybody's suggested in this gibberin' household. Come on. Hop it, all of you."
Though Sharpless lingered behind in the hall, evidently for a look at Vicky after Ann had finished dressing, Mrs. Propper and Daisy were impelled downstairs in front of Courtney and H.M. In the back drawing room the last two found Masters, very grim of face, waiting for them.
"Well, sir?"
H.M. expelled his breath. "She's all right. No harm done. Our friend did try it on, though." Masters changed color. "With the hypodermic?" "Yes."
Masters had removed his raincoat and his bowler hat. Belatedly Phil Courtney followed suit, throwing his wet outer apparel on the hearth.
"But do you see how this last little bit fits in?"
"Oh, Masters, my son! Of course it fits in. It's inevitable. And it may have saved us a lot of trouble."
"Maybe. All the same, I'm bound to admit you were right after all. We don't dare take any more chances. That being the case, don't you think you'd better get on with it and give this demonstration of yours?"
"What demonstration?" asked Courtney wearily.
"Sir Henry's going to show us," answered Masters grimly, "how Arthur Fane was murdered."
There was a pause, filled with the endless splashing of the rain.
"You know?" Courtney asked.
"Oh, yes, son. We know who, and how, and why. Just watch me."
He could not believe that this was the end. He felt a chill of dread, yet his mind was still befogged and he could not register the remotest guess as to who, or how, or why.
H.M.'s preparations were very businesslike. After putting down the oilskin on the sofa, he again pushed the sofa back against the wall, so that the center of the room was clear. He carried the bridge lamp on its long cord over to the easy chair where Vicky Fane had been sitting on the night of the murder.
Clearing the mahogany telephone table, he brought this to the center of the room.
"We'd better make sure this is exactly as it was," he grunted. "Get somebody."