He spoke hopefully.
"Mrs. Charters is getting you two some grub," volunteered H.M., like an urchin from the back of a classroom. "I expect you need it. Burn me, you've been leaving things behind in a way that's scandalous. All anybody's got to do to follow your trail across England is just to walk behind and pick up the pieces, like a paper-chase. First you leave a car, and a coat, and a burglar's kit. Then you leave a sackful of money and a book of sermons. Then-"
"Is that the best you can think of to throw in our teeth?" I said coldly. "One thing ought to be settled right here and now. When you sent me out on two frantic wild-goose chases to-night, first to Hogenauer's and then to Keppel's, did you have any idea of what I was likely to find? `You've got to pose as Robert T. Butler.' `That's our second line of defence.' Was that all eyewash? And if so, why?"
"Well… now," said H.M. He put the skull down in his lap. He spread out his stubby fingers and examined them disconsolately. "I've still got to ask you to trust the old man a little farther. I can't tell you — yet. But if it'll ease your soul any, I can tell you that at the moment I sent you out in that Butler — burglar role I was perfectly serious. Oh, yes, as serious as I ever been in my life."
"Then" said Evelyn.
"Now, now. I want the whole story, with every furbelow and trimmin'," Interposed H.M. inexorably. "Telephones are no good. Hop to it, you two. Talk."
Sitting back at our ease, Evelyn and I contrived to spin the story between us. There was no comment. Throughout it H.M.'s face remained as impassive as that of the skull he was turning over in his fingers. Though he had heard the gist of it in my call from Bristol, some of the details were so new that Charters several times tried to interrupt; but H.M. remained staring fishily, and sometimes he twiddled his thumbs. Only at mention of the telephone-message from 'L.' did he show any sign of animation.
"Uh-huh, he growled softly. "Now that's interestin'. That's very interestin'. Especially as-" He reached out one foot and prodded the phone on Antrim's desk. "I say, Charters: if this feller rang up, where did he ring up from? You and I have been sittin' here all night, and nobody used this phone. Is there another one in the house?"
Charters's curt gesture dimissed this as of little importance.
"Yes. Two, I think. There's one out in the hall, under the stairs. And I believe there's an extension up in Antrim's bedroom, in case someone rings him up in the night-'
"I know. Who'd be a country G.P.?"
"— but the whole point of the business," persisted Charters, "is, just how reliable is this man Stone? Who is he? Credentials — I don't doubt it. But, according to Blake here, our young friend Serpos had credentials too, and devilish good ones, as the Reverend Somebody of Something in Somerset. Stone spins this yam about L’ s death. "
H.M. seemed bothered by an invisible fly. "Yarn," he said. "Well, it'll be easy enough to cable Pittsburgh and find out. If he's not connected with the police department, and if L. really didn't die there, then Stone tried a long shot on an awful risky story. But I say, son: why don't you believe Stone's story?"
"I don't know," Charters admitted slowly. "But — damn it all, man! Don't you see for yourself? It's thin. It's pasteboardy. It hasn't got any body. It sounds wrong."
"Uh-huh. But that's because you're romantic, Charters."
"My God," said Charters.
"Yes, but you are, though," said H.M. argumentatively. He got out his black pipe and pointed it. "With all the hard shell you ought to have acquired, that's just what you are. The legend dazzles you. It obscures sense. Now, suppose we'd heard a different story. Suppose L. had been found dyin' in a garret in Vienna, with the windows open on the sunset and the Hapsburg arms in the Cathedral roof — shut up, curse you! I'm tellin' this — you'd be inclined to believe it just because it'd probably be ruddy nonsense. L. was a business man, and a good one. He had to be. But because he was found dyin' in a good substantial no-nonsense city like Pittsburgh or Manchester or Birmingham, if it brings it any closer to you; because he choked off in a good comfortable hotel room, from goin' without his overshoes in spring weather, instead of consumption or a knife-thrust from behind a curtain; because there were no Strauss waltzes or dyin' murmurs in delirium: then it strikes you as all very fishy. Oh, I admit it's disappointin'. I'm disappointed. Stone was disappointed. But that's no reason why we should think it's all a pack of lies."
Charters regarded him coolly.
"Sorry. Very well, then. I'll give you solid reasons. First, if L. doesn't exist, Hogenauer's offer to betray him turns into complete nonsense."
"So," said H.M.
"Next," Charters went on brusquely, after a curious pause while H.M. sucked noisily at his empty pipe, "don't forget Stone's account of the mysterious daughter, L.'s daughter. The lost daughter L. wants to find; and whom Stone does find in the wife of Larry Antrim planted conveniently on our doorstep. Betty Antrim is L.'s daughter! — rot! You've been talking about my melodramatic mind. What about yours? At between my Strauss waltzes and your lost daughters, I'd back a good tune any day in the week…. Who's to know she's L.'s daughter?"
"Well, she might, for one," suggested H.M. He sputtered behind his pipe. "Now, now, son, don't get your back up. I admit it's touché on that point. But, if she is his daughter, we got a valuable witness to Stone's credibility right under this roof."
Evelyn spoke thoughtfully. "What, by the way, do you think of Stone's theory of the murder?"
H.M. opened one eye.
"Stone's theory of the murder, hey? Ho ho ho. So he's got one too? You didn't include that, Ken. What is it?"
"Stone isn't satisfied with the idea that the strychnine and bromide bottles were switched; that fake labels were pasted over each, that Mrs. Antrim gave Hogenauer a dose of strychnine by mistake; and that afterwards the real murderer put the bottles back in their right places. He thinks it was a long-distance job, which the murderer wanted you to believe was managed from this house by someone who had access to the shelves. Stone's argument is that the murderer couldn't have known in advance what Antrim would prescribe…"
"Sound enough," said H.M. He seemed curiously intent. "Well?"
"He maintains that Mrs. Antrim gave Hogenauer an honest dose of bromide. The murderer, learning about this comes here and burgles the house. He fills up the big bromide container with real bromide he's bought at the chemist's; and then' he pinches a heavy dose of strychnine out of the poison-bottle. He put some sort of gummy substance on the real labels, and shoves the strychnine-bottle a little out of line. Later we are intended to assume (as Mrs. Antrim did assume) that the switching of bottles, and switching them back again, was done by somebody with free and easy access to the shelves. But actually it was done by an outsider from far away. Actually Hogenauer, by this theory, took home a harmless bottle of bromide. The change was effected next day, when the murderer called at Hogenauer's house… But Stone's theory is based on the idea that Keppel did the dirty. And we know that, whoever else it might have been, it wasn't Keppel."
H.M.'s disconcerting stare remained fixed. "I see," he growled softly.
"You see what? Did you think of it?"
"Oh, yes. Yes," he replied almost tenderly, "I did think of it; it was the very first thing I thought of. Uh-huh. It can't be overlooked. It jumps to the eye. It — anyhow, it may interest you to know that there's corroboration of that."