"Incidentally, from certain letters to be dealt with in a moment we now know something else. The morphine was provided by the lady herself, hoarded from various prescriptions, for her lover to make into a liquid solution. She thought it would be morphine alone, which is painless. The belladonna, easily procurable, he added to it With full directions before him in the trial of Dr. Buchanan, even the callowest of criminals could not go wrong.
"But the murderer couldn't trust to that alone, even if he had been dealing with a normal woman. Suppose she backs out? Suppose she swallows the poison and then shrieks for help? He must make sure; he must be there, on the spot
"When I questioned Sir Danvers, Doris, and Thorley Marsh in the Long Gallery, certain evidence emerged with great clarity. Have you forgotten that on the afternoon before the crime Ronnie Merrick fell into the water?"
Celia stared down at Holden, and then perplexedly across at Dr. Fell.
"Oh, come!" Dr. Fell pointed his cigar at Holden. 'You recall the episode in the afternoon, when Merrick fell into the trout stream. The fascinating point was not that Thorley Marsh walked across a log with his eyes shut. The fascinating point was that an agile young man rather clumsily fell in.
"But suppose, that same night yon intend to invade Caswall Moat House secretly. You can't get in by the front or back door, both are too heavily secured. Your only course it to . . . Eh?"
"To swim the moat," Holden said thoughtfully.
"Yes. The clue is water. It's not practicable to leave your clothes behind and invade the house naked, even if it weren't a bitter cold December night. Yet you must provide some explanation next morning, to hosts or servants, of why you have a suit of clothes completely soaked. And if you get it soaked beforehand, who will suspect it next day of a double immersion?
"Next evidence! Thorley Marsh, telling his detailed story of the night of the murder, walloped me in the eye with another bit. You recall his statement that Margot—in the middle of the night—must have taken a bath?
"He knew this, he said, because the floor of the bathroom was all wet and there was a towel thrown over the edge of the tub.
"But his interpretation wasn't feasible. For what had I overheard, on Wednesday night from no less than two witnesses? That the hot-water system at Caswall was out of order. It did not get repaired until next day. Even the water for washing had to be carried up in little cans."
Dr. Fell looked at Celia.
"Do you, my dear, believe your sister would have taken a cold bath in the middle of a December night?"
"It's—it's absurd!" cried Celia. "Margot loathed cold. I remember telling you so myself, when we were in the churchyard."
"Ah!" grunted Dr. Fell. "And what else did you tell us?"
"What else?"
"In your original statement You said, I think, that the bathroom window couldn't be locked?"
"Y-yes! It’s a swing-together window that never would fit or latch properly."
"And what," inquired Dr. Fell, "is just outside that bathroom window?"
It was Holden who answered.
"A vertical terra-cotta drainpipe. A heavy one." He stared at the past. "I remember noticing it from the oriel window in the Long Gallery, just under that bathroom, when I was reading the note you gave me!"
"Should you (hurrum!) should you say that Ronnie Merrick, as a young man, is probably an agile climber?"
"He damn well is an agile climber. He can go all over Caswall Church."
"So we perceive," observed Dr. Fell, "that the wet floor wasn't caused by anyone taking a bath. But unfortunately, Thorley Marsh put on his slippers before going on to his wife's bedroom and sitting room. Archons of Athens," groaned Dr. Fell, "if only he hadn't worn his slippersl
"For then, you see, he would have stepped in more wet tracks. The tracks of someone who came in through that unlocked window. The tracks of someone from the moat. The tracks of a desperate youth, half-screaming with hatred for his mistress, and bent on murder."
Celia slipped off the arm of Holden's chair and stood up.
"Dr. Fell," she breathed, "you really are a devil."
Dr. Fell, who resembled nothing so much as a perturbed Old King Cole, blinked at her over .his eyeglasses.
"Hey??'
"You build up a case," Celia shivered, "bang, bang, bang, point after point as complete and awful as—I was going to say, as a hangman's rope. But please! Never mind your evidence. What I want to know is: why?"
"Oh, ah," said Dr. Fell.
"Why did they all behave like that? Why did Ronnie do such an awful thing? Why did Margot ... oh, everything! The human motives!"
"Ah, yes," murmured Dr. Fell. "Ronnie Merrick." - He was silent for a long time, his thoughts far away.
"Here is a young man," he said, "Byronicaly handsome, very callow but admittedly of great talent who has been indulged in every whim of his life. Everything he has wanted has been given to him. And now he wants Doris Locke.
"Please understand that He was sincerely, blindly, idealistically in love with Doris. He exalted, of course, a girl who did not exist; but that is of no matter, because it happens to all young men. Very deeply he loved Doris; and hoped to marry her; never forget it; it is the mainspring of the murder.
"As for your sister ..." Dr. Fell hesitated. "Dr. Fell" said Celia. "Please. No delicacy. I want to know."
"The story of their affair you may read in that long series of letters she wrote, and never posted; like a diary. I read them all today. But I suggest you don't read them. By thunder, it's a good thing they won't have to be read in court!”
"As for the boy, he was at fust flattered. Proud of being a conqueror! Captivated, too, for a time; because he was dizzy with the strongest of all stimulants in this world. But then—and it always will happen to immature people brought up in public-school traditions—he began to feel debased. He contrasted this with what he felt, or believed he felt, toward Doris Locke.
"And he began to hate Margot.”
"On her side, the infatuation was only increasing. As he grew lukewarm, she grew more obsessed. To the boy's horror, she began talking about marriage.
"Thorley Marsh, who quite manifestly had learned of the whole thing, was only a little less horrified.
"Didn't you two ever wonder why Thorley Marsh always felt so intensely bitter toward young Merrick? When he was first giving you," Dr. Fell looked at Holden, "an account of his wife's death, he burst out into a tirade against Merrick in the middle of it You may recall other occasions as well."
"Yes," agreed Holden. "Even when Thorley and Doris were telling Locke they meant to get married, Thorley noticed Merrick and got as black as thunder. Thorley as good as ordered him out of the house."
"Oh, ah? But why should he feel like that? Because of any jealousy he may have felt for Merrick as a rival in Doris's affections? Great Scott, no! He knew he was the favored suitor. Nobody could mistake that. When you are the one-and-only, you don't detest the fallen rival. You are more inclined to think him an excellent fellow who is a little to be pitied. I (harrum!) indicated as much to you with a question about your own attitude towards Derek Hurst-Gore.
"Do you see now why Thorley Marsh wanted to keep everything hush-hush, and would never have agreed to a divorce?"
"I think I see," murmured Celia. "It—it would have made him look a fool."
"A thundering fool, in his own eyes! Whether she officially divorces him, or he divorces her, the truth will be flying round for the amusement of all his acquaintances and mends.
" 'Marsh's wife,' he could hear them saying at his club, with whoops of hilarity, 'is throwing him over for a boy not quite twenty. What ho! If ever he tried to explain that his wife is a hysteric who can't stand his touch, at best it will sound caddish and at worst it will provoke more amusement."