"The Lord gave—' " he said, and stopped. When he turned again, there was a quizzical expression in his eyes.
"You are a persuasive speaker, doctor," he said. "An unusually persuasive speaker. All this has been explained so coherently that I have been forgetting the basis on which all the assumptions rest: that is, the death of Spinelli. I have read of brilliant pieces of deduction to unravel crimes. But I must compliment you on your brilliance in unravelling a murder we don't know has been committed"
Dr. Fell was not abashed. "Oh, I'm a bit of a charlatan," he acknowledged affably. "Still, I’ll wager you two junior mathematics masters against a curate that it took place as I've indicated. That door over there leads to Depping's bedroom. If you care to make a search, you'll probably find evidence to support me. Personally, I'm lazy…"
"Look here," said Morley Standish. There's something you've got to promise. You say old Depping was a crook in the past, and probably worse; that's what you believe, anyhow…"
His big stride brought him to the side of Dr. Fell's chair, and his face was painfully earnest; he had the uncertain look of a man who feels that showing an emotion would be an incorrect thing, but is determined to force it over by lowering his voice and speaking very fast.
"Well, to tell you the truth. I'm not surprised. I’ve been thinking things, myself. You'll say that's disloyal-"
Tut," grunted Dr. Fell. "Why?"
"— but there it is. Now do you realize what a mess well all be in when this gets out? Scandal, publicity, slime… My God, don't you see it? They may even try to stop my marriage; they will try, if I know my mother. They won't succeed, but that's not the point. Why does everybody have to be subjected to this? Why…" His puzzled expression as he glanced at each of them, puzzled and baffled and rather desperate, seemed to demand the reason for the injustice of having criminals in the world just when he was on the point of matrimony. "What good purpose will it serve to drag all this out? Can you tell me that?"
"I take it, my boy," said the bishop, "that you do not care whether your fiancée's father had been a criminal? Or a murderer?"
Two muscles worked up the sides of Morley’s jaws. His eyes were puzzled.
"I don't care," he said simply, "if the old swine committed every murder in Chicago… But why does it have to be made public?"
"But you want the truth to come out, don't you?"
"Yes, I suppose I do," admitted Morley, rubbing his forehead. "That's the rules. Got to play fair. But why can't they just catch him and hang him quietly, without anybody knowing…? Tm talking rot, of course, but if I could make you understand what I mean… Why do the damned newspapers have a right to splash out all the scandal they like just because a man's been murdered? Why can't you administer justice in private, the same as you make a law or perform an operation?"
"That, Mr. Standish," Dr. Fell said, "is a problem for discussion over half-a-dozen bottles of beer. But for the moment I don't think you need worry about scandal. I was coming to that: I mean our plan of campaign… Do you see what we've got to do?"
"No," said Morley hopelessly. "I wish I could."
"It's an ugly thing to face, then, but here it is. The murderer of Depping — X— the decidedly brainy person who worked out this design — is here. He's no fanciful gangster. He's a member of the community in an English village, and probably not a mile away from us now. That's why Fve gone through this laborious explanation: so that we could center our activities. As it stands now—"
He leaned forward, and beat his finger slowly into his palm.
"— as it stands now, he thinks he is safe. He thinks we have laid the murder on Louis Spinelli. That's where we have the advantage, and the only way we shall be able to trap him unawares. Therefore, for the time being, we shall keep silent about everything we know, including our suspicions as to Depping's past. I shall have to report it all to Hadley, and the past can be investigated from London. But our information we will keep to ourselves.
"Besides, gentlemen, we have several valuable clues. The murderer made one or two mistakes, which I needn't outline at the moment, but his greatest mistake was leaving the eight of swords. It supplies a direction in which to look for the motive."
"Are you at last prepared, then," said the bishop, "to tell us what this eight of swords means?"
"Oh, yes. I don't know whether you've noticed on Depping's shelves a number of works dealing with—"
From outside the house there rose a murmur a voices and a trampling of feet. Morley and the bishop, who were near the windows, glanced out.
"Here comes a whole procession," said the former. "My father, and Inspector Murch, and my sister, and Dr. Fordyce, and two constables. I—"
Apparently the colonel could not restrain himself. Through the quiet of the coppice, eager and jubilant, his hoarse voice came floating from below.
"I say! Come down here! It's all up, you know; all up!"
The bishop tried to peer out through the rounded bars. He hesitated, and then called: "Kindly refrain from yowling like that, Standish. What's all up?"
"Why, we've got him, you know. Murch has got him.
Make him talk now/’ "Got who?"
"Why, Louis Spinelli, demmit! He's down in the village, and Murch has got him under technical arrest."
"Whoosh!" said Hugh Donovan, and turned to stare at Dr. Fell.
CHAPTER VIII
At the Chequers Inn
At this point, the chronicler of Dr. Fell's adventures should, strictly speaking, apologize for introducing that luscious little ginch, Patricia Standish. "Ginch," Hugh Donovan has frequently assured the chronicler, is the word that best describes her; a mysterious term whose definition will presently be made clear. It is pronounced to rhyme with "cinch," for more reasons than one.
This apology should come from the fact that on one point all the leading authorities are agreed: to introduce a heroine (whether or not the tale be fact) is bad. Very bad. As Henry Morgan says, you know what I mean: the gray-eyed, fearless Grace Darling with the cool philosophy, who likes to poke her nose into trouble and use a gun as well as the detective, and who requires the whole book to make up her mind whether she is more than casually interested in the hero.
But in extenuation it must be urged, first, that this is a true story, and second — by the splendid grace of God — Patricia Standish had none of the traits just mentioned. She was not cool-headed or strong-minded. She could no more have accompanied the detectives with a gun than she could have brought down the villain with a flying tackle. Quite to the contrary, she was content to leave that sort of thing to the proper people; to beam up at you as though she were saying, "What a man!" — and you threw out your chest, and felt about nine feet tall, and said, "Ha, ha." Nor, in her case, were there all those persistent attempts to freeze or embarrass the hero until the very last. She tumbled into Hugh Donovan's arms from the start, and stayed there, and a very good thing too.
Some magnificent premonition of this stirred in his mind the moment he saw her. She was walking up the brick path, against the dark trees that were now glowing fiery with sunset, and she was in the midst of a small procession. Patricia Standish had her arm through that of the ruddy-faced colonel, who was expounding something to a large man in uniform. Behind them walked two constables and a melancholy medical man who seemed to be thinking glumly about a lost tea.
Against this background she stood out vividly. She was a blonde, but not a fluffy blonde or a statuesque blonde. And she was dexterously made, as though nature had added just that extra touch and fillip to the curves in the right places, for a frock to adhere to. Her air was at once hesitant and vigorous; and her skin seemed to glow with that brownish flesh tint which is so rarely to be seen in real flesh. Dark hazel eyes contemplated you with that interested, rapt, "What-a-man!" look already referred to; her high eyebrows gave her a perpetual air of pleased surprise; and she had a pink, rather broad mouth which always seemed to have just finished smiling.