Elliot braced himself. He knew that the next few minutes would bring him to the crux of the case.
This time Harding was on his feet. His large eyes—“cowlike,” Elliot called them, having already gone through a whole series of animals in finding his similies about Harding—looked alarmed. He retained his mechanical expression of good-nature, nor did his deference towards authority lessen; but his hairy hands twitched a little.
“But I was taking the picture!” he protested. “Look, there’s the camera. Didn’t you hear it going? Didn’t you——”
Then he laughed, with very genuine charm. He seemed to hope that someone would laugh with him, and was annoyed when nobody did.
“I see,” he added, looking far away. “I read a story once.”
“Did you, now?” inquired Professor Ingram.
“Yes,” said Harding quite seriously. “Chap had an alibi because they swore they could hear him working his typewriter all the time. It turned out he had a mechanical gadget which made a noise like a typewriter when he wasn’t there. Great snakes, do you think there’s something that will run a ciné-camera for you while you’re not there?”
“But that’s absurd,” cried Marjorie, as though this were the last point of bedevilment. “I
saw
you. I know you were there. Is that what you think, Inspector?”
Elliot assumed his stolidest grin.
“Miss Wills, I haven’t said anything. It’s the professor here who has made all the suggestions. All the same, we might consider the point, even if we only”—he was broadly sympathetic—“clear it up. It was very dark in here, though, wasn’t it?”
Professor Ingram answered him, before the others could speak.
“It was very dark for perhaps twenty seconds, up to the time Chesney opened those double-doors. Afterwards there was enough reflection thrown back from the Photoflood bulb on the far wall of the office so that it could hardly be called altogether dark. Outlines were perfectly clear, as I think my companions will tell you.”
“Just a moment, sir. How were you sitting?”
Professor Ingram got up, and carefully arranged three arm-chairs in a row about three feet apart. The chairs faced the double-doors from a distance of some eight or nine feet, so that their full distance from Marcus Chesney would have been about fifteen feet.
“Chesney arranged the chairs before we got here,” Professor Ingram explained, “and we didn’t disturb them. I sat here, on the right-hand end nearest the lights.” He laid his hand on the back of the chair. “Marjorie was in the middle. Harding sat at the other end.”
Elliot studied the position. Then he turned to Harding.
“But what were you doing so far over to the left?’ he asked. “Couldn’t you have got a better picture from the middle? From this position you couldn’t have photographed Nemo as he stepped in through the window.”
Harding wiped his forehead.
“Now, I ask you: how the devil did I know what was going to happen?” he demanded, man to man. “Mr. Chesney didn’t explain what we were to look out for. He just said, ‘Sit there’; and I hope you don’t think I was going to argue with him. Not little Georgie. I was sitting—or, rather, I was standing, about
here;
and I had a good enough view.”
“Oh, what’s the good of this arguing?” said Marjorie. “Of course he was here. I saw him move back and forth to get the picture in. And I was here. Wasn’t I?”
“You were,” Professor Ingram confirmed blandly. “I felt you.”
“Eh?” said Harding.
Professor Ingram’s face grew murderous. “I felt her presence, young man. I heard her breathe. I could have reached out and touched her. It is true she is wearing a dark dress; but she has, you observe, a very white skin, and her hands and face were as plain in the dark as the front of your shirt.” Clearing his throat, he turned to Elliot. “What I am trying to tell you. Inspector, is that I will swear neither of these two left the room at any time. Harding was always at the corner of my eye. Marjorie was within touch of me. Now, if they will say the same of me——?”
He inclined his forehead politely, keenly, towards Marjorie. His manner. Elliot felt, was that of a physician testing a patient’s pulse; and there was a quiet concentration in his face.
“Of course you were,” cried Marjorie.
“You’re sure of that?” Elliot insisted.
“I’m perfectly sure of it. I saw his shirt and his bald head,” she went on with emphasis, “and—oh, I saw everything! I heard him breathe, too. Weren’t you ever at a spirit seance? Wouldn’t you have known if anybody had left the group?”
“What do you say, Mr. Harding?”
Harding hesitated.
“Well, to tell the truth, I had my eye glued on the viewfinder most of the time. So I didn’t get much chance to look about. Hold on, though!” He struck his fist into the palm of his left hand, and such an expression of relief came into his face that it was as though a wheel went round behind his eyes. “Haa! Now wait: don’t hurry me. Just after this top-hatted bloke stepped out of the picture, I looked up, and stepped back, and shut off the camera. I bumped into a chair as I stepped back; I looked around”—he was following this with turns of his wrist—“and I could see Marjorie right enough. I could see her eyes shine, in a way. That isn’t scientifically correct, but you know what I mean. Of course I knew she was there all the time, because I’d heard her speak out and say ‘Don’t.’ But I also saw her; and anyway,” his broad grin cheered the room, “you can be ruddy well certain
she’s
no more five feet nine inches tall than she is six feet. What’s got into us, anyway?”
“And did you see me?” questioned Professor Ingram.
“Eh?” said Harding, whose eyes were on Marjorie.
“I say, did yon see me in the dark?”
“Oh, definitely. I think you were trying to look at your watch, bending over it. You were there all right.”
Harding had regained such an extraordinary sparkle and animation that it was as though he were about to strut up and down with his thumbs hooked in his waistcoat.
But Elliot had begun to feel that he was groping in an even worse fog. The case was a psychological morass. Yet he was willing to swear that these people were telling the truth, or thought they were telling the truth.
“You see before you,” explained Professor Ingram, “a corporate alibi of truly remarkable soundness. It is impossible for one of us to have committed this crime. That is the bed-rock on which you must build your case, whatever it is. Of course, you may choose to doubt our stories; but nothing is easier to test. Reconstruct! Sit us down here in a row, as we were before; turn out the lights; turn on that Photoflood bulb in the other room; and you will see for yourself that it is absolutely impossible for any of us to have left the room without being seen.”
“I’m afraid we can’t do that sir, unless you’ve got another Photoflood bulb,” said Elliot “The other one has just burned out. Also——”
“But—!” exclaimed Marjorie. She checked herself, staring with puzzled eyes at the closed doors.
“—also,” continued Elliot, “you may not be the only persons with alibis. There’s one thing in particular I’d like to ask you, Miss Wills. A little while ago you said you were certain that clock in the office had the right time. Why are you certain of it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
Elliot repeated the question.
“Because it’s broken,” replied Marjorie, drawing her attention back. “I mean, the thingummyjig you set the hands by was broken clean off, so you can’t alter the clock at all. And it’s an accurate time-keeper; it’s never been a second out since we’ve had it”
Professor Ingram began to chuckle.
“I see. When was it broken, Miss Wills?”
“Yesterday morning. Pamela—that’s one of the maids—broke it off when she was tidying up Uncle Marcus’s office. She was winding the clock, and carrying an iron candlestick in the other hand, and she bumped it against that other little pin and broke it clean off. I thought Uncle Marcus would be furious. You see, we’re only allowed to tidy up his office once a week. He’s got all his business accounts in there, and particularly a manuscript he’s working on that we mustn’t touch. But he didn’t.”
“Didn’t what?”
“He wasn’t furious, I mean. Just the opposite. He walked in in the middle of it. I said we could send the clock down to Simmonds’ in town and get it mended. He stood looking at the clock for a minute, and all of a sudden he burst out laughing. He said, No, no, let it alone: it was now set with the right time, couldn’t be altered, and was a joy to behold. (It’s an eight-day clock; it was wound up then.) He also said Pamela was an excellent girl, and would be a blessing to her parents in their old age. That’s how I remember so well.”
Now, why, reflected Detective-Inspector Elliot, does a man stand in front of a clock and suddenly roar with laughter? But he had no time to consider. As though to overload his troubles to the breaking-point, Major Crow appeared from the door to the hall.
“May I see you for a moment, Inspector?” he requested in a curious voice.
Elliot went out and shut the door. It was a spacious hall, panelled in light oak, with a broad, low staircase and a floor so highly polished that it reflected the edges of the rugs. One bridge-lamp was burning, making a pool of light beside the staircase and shining on a telephone on its stand.
Major Crow kept his deceptively mild appearance, but his eye looked wicked. He nodded towards the telephone.
“I’ve just been talking to Billy Emsworth,” he said.
“Billy Emsworth? Who’s that?”
“The fellow whose wife had a baby to-night. The one Joe Chesney attended: you know? I know it’s very late, but I thought Emsworth would probably be still sitting up celebrating with a friend or two. He was, and I talked to him. I didn’t give anything away; I was only offering congratulations, though I hope it doesn’t occur to him to wonder why I should ring up at two o’clock in the morning to do it.” Major Crow drew a deep breath. “Well, if that clock in the office is right, Joe Chesney has an absolutely cast-iron alibi.”
Elliot said nothing. He had expected it.
“The brat was born about a quarter past eleven. Afterwards Chesney sat down and talked with Emsworth and his friends until close on midnight. They all looked at their watches as he was leaving. When Emsworth saw him to the door, the church clock was just striking twelve; and Emsworth stood on the front steps and made a speech about the dawn of a newer, fairer day. So the time of his going is established. Now, Emsworth lives at the other side of Sodbury Cross. It’s absolutely impossible for Joe Chesney to have been here at the time of the murder. What do you think of that?”
“Only, sir, that they all have alibis,” said Elliot—and told him.
“H’m,” said Major Crow.
“Yes, sir,” said Elliot
“This is awkward.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Damned
awkward,” amplified the Chief Constable with a slight roar. “Do you think they’re telling the truth about it’s not being too dark to follow everybody’s movements?”
“We must test it out, naturally.” Elliot hesitated. “But I noticed myself that that brilliant light in the other room makes all the difference. I honestly don’t think it was dark enough so that one could have slipped out without being seen. To tell you the honest truth, sir—I believe them.”
“You don’t think the three of them concocted’ the story among themselves?”
“Anything is possible. Still——”
1
“You don’t think so?”
Elliot was cautious. “At least,” he decided, “it would seem that we can’t just concentrate attention on members of this household. We’ve got to go much farther afield. That phantom outsider in the dinner-jacket is probably real after that. Hang it, why shouldn’t he be?”
“I’ll tell you,” said Major Crow coolly. “Because Bostwick and I have just found evidence—evidence, mind—which shows that the murderer is either a member of this household or closely connected with it.”
While Elliot experienced again that irrational sensation that something was vitally wrong, that he was looking at the case through distorted eyeglasses, the Chief Constable drew him towards the stairs. Major Crow, in fact, had assumed a somewhat guilty manner.
“It was irregular. Most irregular,” he said, clucking his tongue hollowly; “but it’s done now and a good job too. When Bostwick went upstairs to see whether this fellow Emmet was well enough to have a word with us, he thought he would just have a look in the bathroom. In the medicine-chest of that bathroom he found a box of castor-oil capsules.”
Here he looked inquiring.
“Not necessarily important, sir. I understand they’re pretty common.”
“Granted. Granted! But wait. Tucked away at the back of the shelf beside the mouth-wash, he found a one-ounce bottle a quarter full of pure prussic acid.…
“I thought that would knock you in a heap,” said Major Crow with some satisfaction. “I know it did me, particularly when you now tell me everybody in the house has got an alibi. It was
not,
mind you, the weaker solution of potassium cyanide; it was the simon-pure article, the fastest-working poison on earth. At least, that’s what we think it is. West is going to have it analysed for us, but he’s fairly certain now. It was standing there in a bottle actually labelled, ‘Prussic Acid, HCN.’ Bostwick took one look at it and couldn’t believe his eyes. He took the cork out of the bottle, but when he caught one faint whiff of it he stuck the cork back again faster than he’s ever moved before in his life. He had heard that one good deep inhalation of pure prussic acid will kill; and West says that’s true. Look at this beauty.”
Very gingerly he felt in his pocket. He produced a tiny bottle in which the cork had been pushed down almost level with the neck, and he tilted it to show a colourless liquid inside. To the bottle had been fastened a gummed piece of paper on which the words “Prussic Acid, HCN” were crudely printed in ink. Major Crow put it down on the telephone-table under the light and backed away as though he had just lit a particularly dangerous cannon-cracker.
“No fingerprints,” he explained. “Don’t get too close to it,” he added nervously. “Can’t you smell it even now?”