Slowly Dr. Fell hoisted himself to his feet pushing back the big Jacobean chair.
"As to the murderer being in the house ..."
"Whoever it was," said Locke, "couldn't have got into the house from outside!"
"Why not?"
"Every night," retorted Locke, "that place is locked up like a fortress front and back. Round it is a moat thirty feet wide and a dozen feet deep."
'Yes," said Dr. Fell. "That is what I mean."
"What you mean?—Where is this murderer?"
"He's here," said Dr. Fell.
Into the room, now, fell another shadow: the shadow of a tall middle-aged man who entered from the door to the front room. It was, in fact, Superintendent Hadley of the Criminal Investigation Department. But such is the effect of suggestion that every listener jumped up and turned toward Hadley as though ...
"You are looking," observed Dr. Fell, "in the wrong direction."
"Wherever we are looking," cried Locke, "get on with this! You say the murderer is here?"
"As a matter of fact," said Dr. Fell, "he has been here all the time. That's why I had the nerve to call Hadley and force the issue. Our poisoning friend was rather badly smashed about in a fight with Thorley Marsh. He crawled in to get water, and collapsed."
"Crawled. . . ?"
"Into the bathroom."
Slowly Dr. Fell lumbered to the rear wall. Drawing back one of the black-velvet curtains, he disclosed the door of the little bathroom beside the kitchenette.
Dr. Fell opened the door. The light inside, which formerly had been switched off, was now burning.
And Celia screamed.
A man stood just inside, on shaking legs; and in his hand was the small, sharp blade from a safety razor. They saw it glitter as it went up to his own throat. Dr. Fell, lurching forward, cut off the view. But not before they had-seen the white face, the staring eyes, the dark hair tumbled over the forehead.
For the murderer was young Ronald Merrick.
CHAPTER XX
It was the following evening, in the big drawing room at Number 1 Gloucester Gate, that the whole of the story came to be told.
At the moment only Celia, Holden, and Dr. Fell were present. The room, Holden thought, looked just at it had looked when he stepped through the balcony window four nights ago: only the one table lamp lighted beside the large white-covered sofa, where Dr. Fell sat in vastness, frowning guiltily at a cigar.
Celia, facing him, was perched on the arm of Holden's chair.
"Ronnie Merrick," Celia said flatly, "was Margot’s lover. And he murdered her."
"Oh, ah," grunted Dr. Fell, without raising his eyes.
"I think I guessed everything," Celia bit at her under lip, "when I saw his name in the note Margot wrote. But . . . Ronnie! He wasn't quite twentyl"
"That," said Dr. Fell, "is the whole point."
"How do you mean?"
"Merrick," said Dr. Fell, "was the vain, spoiled, unstable son of an eminent peer. He was too young, psychologically speaking, to realize quite what he was doing. But the law can take no cognizance of that. It's a good thing he—"
"Did away with himself?" supplied Holden. And then, with an effort: "Tell us about it."
"Dash it all!" complained Dr. Fell.
He reared back, so that the lamp rocked on its table and threw unsteady gleams across the green-painted walls and the marble mantelpiece with the great Venetian mirror. At Dr. Fell's knee there was a little table bearing a decanter of whisky, glasses, and a jug of water. But for the time being Dr. Fell did not touch them. He blinked round vaguely for an ash hay. Finding none, he tipped most of the cigar ash into his side pocket and let the rest float over his waistcoat as he settled bade Perturbed, he fiddled with his eyeglasses, took several puffs at the cigar and looked straight at Celia.
"Your sister," he said, "liked young people." "I know." Celia nodded.
"That is the starting point," said Dr. Fell. "You stressed it in your own narrative. Your first thought, when you found Margot lying dead, was, 'She was so fond of young people.' I heard it ring in your voice when you said it. If we were looking for a man in the case, it was far more reasonable to look for a handsome youngster than anyone else. But put that aside, for the moment
"Two points in that story of yours—both relating to the Murder game at Widestairs, and both concerning real-life criminals—struck me as perhaps of great significance.
"The first was that Margot wouldn't, in that game, play the part of Old Mother Dyer. No! On that particular night (strung up, having made her decision) she insisted on being Mrs. Thompson. You will recall, of course, that Mrs. Thompson was executed for connivance in the murder of her husband, because of her passion for her lover Frederick Bywaters: a boy much younger than herself?
"Coincidence? I hardly thought so.
"The other was that Ronnie Merrick (of all people) had been chosen to play the part of Dr. Robert Buchanan or New York. Are you familiar with the case?"
"No, no, no!" groaned Celia, shaking her head violently. From the arm of the chair she looked down at Holden and smiled.
"I understand," she added, "they were going to make out a terrific case against me for dreaming I was Maria Manning being hanged while people sang 'Oh, Susannah.' But really and truly I'm not guilty! Derek—Derek told me that bit in the car on the way back home from the party!"
"Exactly!" boomed Dr. Fell.
"How do mean, 'exactly?' "
Dr. Fell pointed with his agar.
"I agreed with Holden on Friday' he said, "that it was nothing, it was tuppenny-ha'penny evidence, it was a trifle which might be explained in half a dozen ways. But, if people pitched on that, it seemed amazing nobody had noticed the real howler which was made that night Do you remember the Murder game?"
"Horribly well!"
"Young Merrick was cast as Dr. Buchanan. You descrribed him as 'dithering.' He said to you something like: 'My name's Dr. Buchanan; but I don't know who the hell I am or what I'm supposed to have done; can you help me?' Correct?"
"Yes."
"But I myself," pursued Dr. Fell, "went down to Caswall to ask some questions. In the Long Gallery (follow the line of attack here!) I put questions about the Murder game to Sir Danvers Locke, to Doris Locke, and Thorley Marsh. And I learned this from Locke:
"Locke hadn't anticipated his surprise game by telling anyone about it beforehand. But he had unobtrusively seen to it that every single person, with the exception of yourself, and necessarily the stranger Hurst-Gore, was very well read in his or her part. Got it? Very well read—he even presented them with his own file on each case.
"Now there seemed no earthly reason for Locke to tell a lie there. All other testimony corroborated it. He would be especially sure young Merrick, his protege, the boy he hoped to have as a son-in-law, had read the case of Dr. Buchanan. Why, therefore, should Merrick have 'dithered' and blurted out that unnecessary lie when unexpectedly faced with this role?
"Well! Consider the facts.
"Dr. Buchanan, in 1893, poisoned his wife: a middle-aged hysteric He poisoned her with a large quantity of morphine and a small quantity of belladonna, because the belladonna would offset the only outward symptom of morphine poisoning: contracted eye pupils. The belladonna would also, in morphia unconsciousness, produce hysterical symptoms. And the attending physicians would make no difficulty about certifying death from cerebral hemorrhage. That is what they did."
Dr. Fell bent forward.
"Just" he added, "as Dr. Shepton had no doubt about the cause of death in the case of Margot Marsh. Eh?
"In my interpretation, this lady's lover feared her horribly and wished her dead. At her own suggestion, they formed a suicide pact Each, at a given time but in a different place, was to drink poison. And this was his chance.