The first thing to be noted about Dr. Lawrence Antrim was, surprisingly, that he was not nearly so nervous or disturbed as he had been earlier that night. He was still excited, but that was a quality which he had not in his thirty years been able to control. It might have been a bad professional handicap to him, if it had not been for the quality-call it personality, or reassurance, or strength, or what you like-which came with him behind his awkwardness. It seemed to wake up the room, where even H.M.'s gigantic vitality was beginning to dim in the hour before dawn. It made me realize how drowsy I was myself.
Antrim, though his eyes were hollow and his brush of mahogany-coloured hair stood up like a goblin's, was almost sombrely genial. He had a cigarette in his hand, which he carried crooked, with the lighted end towards him as though he were shielding it. After running an appraising eye over us, he tumbled down into a chair, crossed his long lanky legs, and said:
"Going to go over it all again? Right you are. I don't mind. Got my story pat, thanks.- Here!" He looked at me. "I owe you an apology. When I saw you running away in that car to-night, and I thought it was Charters's car, I thought you were a crook-"
"That's not the only mistake that's been made to-night, son," said H.M. "You and your wife have been makin' a much bigger one."
"Probably," returned Antrim coolly. "We all do, at one time or another. Well?"
"And there we hear the note of defiance. Bah!" said H.M., opening his eyes. "You seem to be modellin' your manner after hers. No, no. Honestly, son, the manner don't sit well on you and it's not necessary. This isn't a court or third degree: it's a court of good news. I'm tryin' to tell you that we know all about your hideous suspicions of bein' haunted by Secret Service men in false whiskers. They're all rubbish. We're not after you. We never were. So get the bogies out of your mind and forget every suspicion while you answer my questions."
Antrim went a little red under his freckles.
"Hell " he said in a resounding tone which ended in mid air, like a suppressed shout. But in continuance of it he jumped in the chair. "Here! You've got a nasty habit of taking a fellow off-guard"
"You told us that Paul Hogenauer, with his bottle of strychnine or bromide, left you about quarter past ten. You took a walk and came back to the house about ten-thirty. During that time the house was open and unguarded. Where was your wife then? Quick!"
"Upstairs in our bedroom," replied Antrim, and pulled himself up. "Here! Stop a bit! Give a fellow a chance. What's that got to do with it?" He considered, sharply, and then his face lightened. "I see. You mean she might have heard somebody sneak in to change those bottles back again? But she didn't, or she'd have told me."
"How do you know she was up in the bedroom?"
"I heard her walking about when I came back. The bedroom is just over this room and the surgery. This room has been partitioned off to make a surgery. I could hear her."
"Uh-huh. What'd you do after you came back?"
"I locked up the house. I told you that."
"And when you locked up in the surgery," asked H.M., nodding heavily towards the half-open door, "did you lock the sash-window as well as the French window?"
"This is new ground," said Antrim. "You didn't ask me — The ordinary window? No. I didn't touch that. Always keep it locked, anyway, so there wasn't any need to look. We never open it. Too much of a nuisance to open; it sticks like the devil."
"Does it? But did you know that somebody broke it open the same night, and got into the house?"
"By gad," said Antrim softly.
His sandy eyelashes flickered a little, but be kept fixed on H.M. a blank stare, which seemed to grow through wonder to excitement. He was sitting motionless and erect, his large knuckled hands on his knees and the cigarette burning almost to the flesh. Shifting the cigarette to his left hand, he lifted up his right hand slowly, brought it down, and snapped the fingers. It had almost the air of a ritual.
"By gad, I knew it! I thought so. And I'm willing to bet I saw the fellow who did it."
"Did you, now?" inquired H.M. He said it casually. But the rest of us, I think, seemed to hear a clang as gates closed; or as somebody tumbled headlong into a trap. "But weren't you at all curious? Do you usually see people in the act of burglin' your house without any comment?' How is it we haven't heard about this before?"
He brushed this aside.
"Don't joggle me! It wasn't anything like that. Nothing — serious. I couldn't be sure. It was like this. After I had locked up the house, I went up to bed about a quarter to eleven. But I couldn't sleep…:'
The strange part was that despite the limping sound of this (even the familiar term, "But I couldn't sleep," was delivered like a poor actor speaking bad lines), there was a certain conviction about the man. I was poised between two incredulities, and I did not know what to think.
"Why couldn't you sleep?" asked H.M.
"You ask me," retorted Antrim bitterly. "Ha! I say! That's good. You tell me you know all about what Betty and I have been afraid of, and then you ask me why I couldn't sleep! Because we didn't know what the devil was going on, that's why. Because that infernal letter about her father had come only the day before, and-"
"And she hadn't told you, until she did get that letter," interposed H.M., "who her father was or what he was? Hey? And she mentioned who Hogenauer was, too?"
"Got nothing to do with it," said Antrim aggressively. "Think I cared a rap? Rot! It wasn't that. It was wondering what game there was: if Hogenauer had a game: if — it was wondering about absolutely nothing. Only nerves. Think I could talk naturally to Hogenauer that night? I ask you!" He was becoming incomprehensible, turning out his knobby hands with a fierce gesture, but he conveyed a state of mind. "Funny thing, too. I'll be frank with you. While I was sitting talking to poor old Hogenauer in here, I remember thinking, `What if I should shove a dose of poison into your bromide, and you should take it with your mineral water?' You may not believe it, but that's what I thought.
"Whew!" added Dr. Antrim, after a pause.
"You ask me what I had to be afraid of," be went on. "I don't know. That's always why you're afraid. As I say, I couldn't sleep. About half-past twelve I decided I'd better get up. I didn't want to wake Betty; she was sleeping soundly. I got up and went into the next room and turned on the light and tried to read. No good. So I turned out the light and sat down by the window (it was open) and smoked a cigarette."
This reminded him that he had the fragment of one in his hand now. After a gesture as though to toss it across at the fireplace, he seemed suddenly to remember himself; he got up with great dignity and extinguished it in an ashtray on the desk.
"There was a moon up. I think I must have dozed a bit: not sure. But then I thought I heard a sort of-what's the word I want?" he snapped his fingers. "A sort of cracking sound."
"Well… now," said H.M., musingly. "What direction did it come from, son?"
"I don't know. It wasn't very loud. I thought I might have imagined it. Then I thought of all sorts of-games. And Hogenauer. And Betty's father. And everything. Dammit. So I went and got my gun and started downstairs-"
"You went back to your bedroom?"
"No. I keep the gun in a drawer of the room I was sitting in then; sort of den. And I went downstairs. As I got to the landing, where I could look out of the landing window that looks on the back lawn, I thought I saw something like a shadow ducking across out of sight-"
"Hold on, son," interrupted H.M. in a curious tone. "This is business. Coming from which direction?
"That's it. I don't know. I can't even swear it was a person. Afterwards I thought it was probably a cat; there're dozens of cats in the neighbourhood, and they're fond of the place because Mrs. Charters has a female of loose morals next door. You see, I went downstairs, and turned on the lights, and looked all over the house. But nothing was disturbed and nothing missing, so far as I could see. I didn't say anything to Betty afterwards: thought it was all eyewash: you know? Why alarm her? Dammit."