"No, by God, you didn't! You said-"
"That I wouldn't press the passport charge; that's all."
"You can't bluff me. This dick," he nodded at Murch, "told me this morning I was supposed to have visited Nick Depping last night. Well, I didn't. Show me that servant who says I came to visit him, and I'll prove he's a liar. You can't bluff me. And, if you try, I’ll be damned if I tell you what did happen."
Dr. Fell sighed. "You'll try to avoid telling it anyway, Fm afraid. So I shall have to tell you, and I am afraid you'll hang anyway. You see, there are points of. evidence against you which Inspector Murch neglected to mention. We don't think you were the man who rang Depping's doorbell and went upstairs at all. The evidence against you concerns that visit you paid to his house late on the same night — during the rainstorm— when you followed him back after he'd tried to kill you."
Spinelli jumped to his feet. He said shrilly: "By Christ, if any squealer—"
"You'd better listen to me, I think. Personally, I don't care a tuppenny farthing what happens to you. But if you value your own neck… Ah, that's better."
There was something rather terrifying in the wide-open stare of the doctor's eyes. He got his breath again, and went on:
"While you were in prison at Sing Sing, Depping left the States. He was tired of his new toy called racketeering, tired of making his fortune — just as later he tired of the publishing business. He cut loose from Mayfree and returned to England." Dr. Fell glanced at the bishop. "You remember remarking this morning, Bishop Donovan, how Mayfree suddenly lost all his power and influence about five years ago? Umph, yes. I think Spinelli has provided us with a reason. You, Spinelli… After you got out of prison, you went in with Mayfree; you discovered his influence was gone; and you very prudently deserted also. Then you came to England…"
"Listen, you," said Spinelli, jabbing his forefinger into his palm. "If you think I came over here to find Depping — if anybody thinks that — it's a lie: I swear it's a lie. I was only — on a vacation. Why shouldn't I? It was an accident. I—"
"That's the odd part of it," Dr. Fell observed reflectively; "I think it was. I think it was completely by accident that you ran across your old friend Depping, while you were looking for fresh fields in England. Although, of course, you had prudendy provided yourself with a solicitor in case of trouble. Somebody recommended you the same solicitor who had been recommended to Depping; rather a natural thing in the fraternity… Of course, Mr. Langdon may have told you about Depping…""
Spinelli's lip twisted. "No fear. Say, no fear of him telling about a good thing! I didn't know he had anything to do with Depping, until—" He checked himself. A sharp glance passed between him and Dr. Fell; it was as though they read each other's thoughts. But the doctor did not press the obvious lead. Besides, Langdon was sputtering.
"This," he said, with a sort of gulp, "all this is outrageous? Insufferable. Dr. Fell, I must ask to be excused from this conference. I cannot any longer sit and listen to insults which—"
"Park yourself," said Spinelli coolly, as the other got up, "or you'll wish you had… Got any other remarks, Dr. What's your name?"
"Hmf, yes. You found Depping posing as a respectable country gentleman. It struck you as a heaven-sent opportunity to exercise those peculiar talents of yours — eh?"
"I deny that."
"You would, naturally. Let us say that you wanted to present your compliments to Depping and arrange a meeting to chat about old times. But the terms of the meeting, as suggested by Depping, roused suspicions in your none-too-trusting nature. He didn't ask you to his house, for this chat. A meeting in a lonely neighborhood, beside the river half a mile from the inn where you were stopping; and so far away from where Depping lived that, if your body were found floating in the river some miles still further down, he would scarcely be connected—"
Dr. Fell paused. He flipped up his hand as though he were tossing something away.
"You know a hell of a lot, don't you?" the other asked quietly. "Suppose I admitted it? You couldn't prove any blackmail charge. We arranged a friendly litde conversation; that was all."
"Agreed… Well, how did you manage it?"
The other seemed to come to a decision. He shrugged his thin shoulders. "O.K. I'll risk it. — Bulletproof vest. I trusted old Nick Depping about as far as I can throw that desk. Even so, he nearly got me. I was standing on the river bank — that litde creek they call a river — at the foot of a meadow where there's a clump of trees. We'd arranged to meet there. It was moonlight, but clouding up already. I didn't know he was going to start anything. I thought maybe he'd come to terms, like any sensible man who was caught with the goods…" He thrust out his neck and wriggled his head from side to side; his collar seemed to be too tight. They could see his teeth now.
"And then I heard a noise behind a tree. I whirled around, and there was somebody steadying a rod against the side of a tree, and taking a flat bead on me so close he couldn't miss. It didn't look like Nick — this guy with the rod, I mean. He looked young, and had a moustache, from what I could see in the moonlight. But I heard Nick's voice, all right. He said, 'You'll never do it again.' And then he let me have it, and I saw one of Nick's gold teeth.
"I didn't think of falling in the river. The slug knocked me in; square in the chest — through the heart if I hadn't been wearing that vest. But once I was in the water I got my senses back. It's deep, and there's hell's own current. I went downstream underwater as far as I could, and came up round a bend. He thought he'd got me."
"What then?"
"I went back to that little hotel where I'm staying. I changed my clothes, and I went to bed. Now get this! — get it straight. You're not going to pin any rap on me. This talk about my following Nick Depping home is bluff, and you know it." He was fiercely trying to hold Dr. Fell's eyes, as though to drive belief in like a nail. "Bluff. Every word of it. I didn't stir out of that room. You think I wanted more heat? I wasn't going to face Nick Depping. I never handled a rod in my life, and I never will. Why should I?"
His voice was cracking with intensity. "Look up my record and see if I ever handled a rod. I'm as good a man as Nick Depping ever was, but I wasn't going back there; I wasn't mad at him for trying to iron me. Fortunes of war, see? Kill him? Not me. And if I did want him to — ah, advance me a little loan, do you think I'd be crazy enough to try anything like that?" He hammered the arm of his chair. "Do you?"
Throughout all this, Inspector Murch had been trying to take rapid notes; he seemed to be struggling with the idiom, and several times on the point of protest. But now there was a tight smile on his sandy moustache. Hugh Donovan could see what was going on in his mind; he had still against Spinelli that evidence of his having changed clothes and crawled out the window of the Chequers Inn a second time… Then Hugh saw that Dr. Fell was also looking at the inspector. Murch, who had just opened his mouth to speak, stopped. His boiled eye was puzzled.
And Dr. Fell chuckled.
"Bluff?" he said musingly. "I know it."
"You — you know…?"
"Hm, yes. But I had to persuade you to talk, you see," the doctor said. "As a matter of fact, we are fairly well satisfied that you had nothing to do with the murder. I neglected to tell you," he beamed, "that you were seen by the landlord's wife at the Chequers, climbing back into the window of your room, soaking wet, at about ten o'clock"
"And not leave it again—?" Spinelli asked the question after a very brief pause; he seemed almost to have stopped breathing.