They had come out into the main road now, cool and shadowy under the trees that lined it, and the high hedges of hawthorn. Almost opposite were the gables of Hangover House. As they approached the gate there became audible an energetic and muffled rattling, which appeared to proceed from a cocktail shaker.
"Light of my life," said an argumentative voice, between rattles, "I will now proceed to expound to you the solution of this mystery as it would be explained by John Zed. to begin with—"
"Hullo, Hank," said Patricia, "may we come in?"
A very pleasant little domestic scene was in progress on the lawn before the house, screened by the high hedge. Madeleine Morgan was curled up in a deck chair under the beach umbrella, an expression of bright anticipation on her face. Alternately she raised to her lips a cocktail glass and a cigarette, and she was making noises of admiration between. In the faint light of the afterglow, the newcomers could see her husband pacing up and down before the table; stopping to administer a vigorous rattle to the shaker, wheeling round, slapping the back of his head, and stalking on again. He turned round at Patricia's greeting, to peer over his spectacles.
"Ha!" he said approvingly. "Come in, come in! Madeleine, more glasses. I think we can find you a couple of chairs. What's up — anything?"
"Didn't I hear you say," remarked Patricia, "that you were going to explain the murder? Well, you needn't. They've found that American, and everything seems to be finished."
"No, it isn't," piped Madeleine, with a pleased look at her husband. "Hank says it isn't."
Chairs were set out, and Morgan filled all the glasses. "I know they've found the American. I saw Murch on his way back from Hanham. But he isn't guilty. Stands to reason. (Here's loud cheers — down she goes! — )"
A general murmur, like the church's mumbled responses when the minister reads the catechism, answered the toast. The Martini's healing chill soothed Hugh Donovan almost at once. He relaxed slowly. Morgan went on with some warmth:
"Stands to reason, I tell you! Of course, I'm interested in truth only as a secondary consideration. Chiefly I'm interested in how this murder ought to work out according to story standards, and whether a plot can be worked up around it. You see—"
"I say, why don't you?" interrupted Patricia, inspired. She took the glass away from her lips and frowned. "That's a jolly good idea! It would be a change. To date," she said dreamily, "you have poisoned one Home Secretary, killed the Lord Chancellor with an axe, shot two Prime Ministers, strangled the First Sea-lord, and blown up the Chief Justice. Why don't you stop picking on the poor Government for a while and kill a publisher like Depping?"
"The Lord Chancellor, my dear girl," said Morgan with a touch of austerity, "was not killed with an axe. I wish you would get these things right. On the contrary, he was beaned with the Great Seal and found dead on the Woolsack… You are probably thinking of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in The Inland Revenue Murders. I was only letting off a little steam in that one."
"I remember that one!" said Hugh, with enthusiasm. It was damned good." Morgan beamed, and refilled his glass. "I like those stories," Hugh pursued, "a lot better than the ones that are so popular by that other fellow — what's his name? — William Block Tournedos. I mean the ones that are supposed to be very probable and real, where all they do is run around showing photographs to people."
Morgan looked embarrassed.
"Well," he said, "you see, to tell you the truth, I’m William Block Tournedos too. And I thoroughly agree with you. That's my graft."
"Graft?"
"Yes. They're written for the critics' benefit. You see, the critics, as differentiated from the reading public, are required to like any story that is probable. I discovered a long time ago the way to write a probable and real story. You must have (1) no action, (2) no atmosphere whatever — that's very important — (3) as few interesting characters as possible, (4) absolutely no digressions, and (5) above all things, no deduction. Digressions are the curse of probability… which is a funny way of looking at life in general; and the detective may uncover all he can, so long as he never deduces anything. Observe those rules, my children; then you may outrage real probability as much as you like, and the critics will call it ingenious."
"Hooray!" said Madeleine, and took another drink.
Patricia said: "You've whipped your hobbyhorse to death, Hank. Go back to the problem… Why couldn't this be a story; I mean, from your own preferences in stories?"
Morgan grinned, getting his breath. It could," he admitted, "up to and including the time of the murder. After that…" He scowled.
A sharp premonition made Hugh look up. He remembered that this was the person who had told them to look for the buttonhook.
"What do you mean, after that?"
"I don't think the American is guilty. And," said Morgan, "of all the motiveless and unenterprising sluggards to gather up as suspects, the rest of us are the worst! At least, in a crime story, you get a lot of motives and plenty of suspicious behavior. You have a quarrel overheard by the butler, and somebody threatening to kill somebody, and somebody else sneaking out to bury a blood-stained handkerchief in the flower bed… But here we've nothing of the kind.
"Depping, for instance. I don't mean he had no enemies. When you hear of a man who is said to have no enemies, you can practically sit back and wait for somebody to murder him. Depping was a harder sort of problem. Nobody liked him, but, God knows, nobody hereabouts would have gone to the point of doing him in. — And in your wildest imagination, now, can you picture anybody as the murderer? The bishop? Colonel Standish? J. R. Burke? Maw? Let me fill up your glass again."
"Thanks," said Hugh. "Who's Maw?"
Patricia wriggled delightedly in the deck chair. The windows of the house behind her were still glowing, though the lawn was in shadow; there was a light on her blonde hair, and even that vibrant brownish-gold skin seemed to reflect it. She lounged back in the chair, her eyes bright and her lips moist, ticking the glass against her teeth. One bare leg in a tennis shoe swung over the side. Patricia said:
"Oh, yes. Yd better explain that before you meet her, so that you'll know how to handle her… It's my mother. You'll like her. Nowadays she's a sort of tyrant who can't tyrannize, and it makes her furious. Coo! We all used to be afraid of her, until an American friend of Hank's found the solution…"
"Urn" said Donovan. He resisted a powerful impulse to go over and sit down beside her on the foot-rest part of the deck chair. "Yes, I remember your brother said something about that."
"Poor Morley is still shocked. But it's the only way to deal with her, really. Otherwise you'd always be eating turnips, or doing exercises in front of an open window, or something. It only began by everybody calling her Maw… So remember. When she comes sailing up to you and orders you to do something, or tries to dragoon you into it, you look her straight in the eye and say, firmly, 'Nuts, Maw! Just like that. And then even more firmly, 'Nuts! That closes the subject."
" "Nuts,'" repeated Donovan, with the air of one uttering a talisman. " 'Nuts, Maw.'" He drew reflectively on his cigarette. "But are you sure it works? I’d like to try something like that on my old man, if I could muster up the nerve…"
"It takes a bit of doing," Morgan admitted, rubbing his jaw. "Colonel Standish can't manage it even yet. Of course, he got off on the wrong foot. The first time he tried it he only rushed up to her and said, 'Almonds, damme, almonds'; and waited for something to happen. And it didn't. So now—"