“Glad? Why?”
“Because you’re quite right,” replied Dr. Fell simply. “That girl had no more to do with any of these crimes than I had.”
There was a silence.
To cover a blankness of thought, Elliot drew back the curtain of the nearest window and glanced out. Below was the trim front lawn of Bellegarde, with the trim gravel drive and the low stone wall fronting the road. An open car, driven by Harding, was just turning in at the gates. Marjorie sat beside him in the front seat, and Dr. Chesney lounged in the rear. Even at that distance Elliot noticed as a grotesque touch that Dr. Chesney, though he wore a dark suit, had a white flower in his button-hole.
Elliot did not look at the expression on Bostwick’s face.
“Now, here was your plan,” pursued Dr. Fell. “You were going to assume your finest leer, and go at her with a yell. You were going to flourish the hypodermic needle in her face. You were going to bombard her until she confessed. You were going to take the shortest way, in fact to drive her really mad and make her do something foolish. Well, my simple advice to you is: don’t. Don’t say a word about it. Aside from the fact that she isn’t guilty——”
Bostwick looked at him. “So you’re in it too,” he said in a heavy voice.
“I am,” said Dr. Fell. “By thunder, I am! I am here to see that no harm comes to the lame, the halt, and the blind, or I am not worth a Birmingham groat in this cosmos. Kindly place that in your pipe and light it. I tell you, if you push this thing much further you’ll wind up your case by having a suicide on your hands. Which would be a pity: because that girl’s not guilty and I can prove it. We’ve been misled by one of the largest and most shimmering red herrings—wow! —I can remember; but you might as well hear the truth now. Oh, and forget your damned laboratories. Marjorie Wills had nothing to do with this. She did not steal, borrow, or obtain any poison from Harding’s laboratory, and neither, I am almost sorry to say, did Harding. Is that clear?”
In his excitement or annoyance he was gesturing towards the window. That was how they all came to see what happened below.
The car was idling up the drive, about twenty feet from the front door. Harding was looking down at Marjorie, who seemed rather flushed and uncertain, and saying something to her. Harding did not look into the driving-mirror to see what was going on behind him—as, in fact, there was no reason why he should. Dr. Joseph Chesney sat forward on the rear seat, his fists planted on his knees and a smile on his face. The watchers could note every detail vividly: the lawn still wet from rain, the yellow-leaved chestnut trees along the road, the smile that showed Dr. Chesney was a little drunk.
After a glance at the house, Dr. Chesney took the white flower out of his button-hole and flipped it over the edge of the car into the drive. Joggling on the rear seat, he reached into his coat pocket. What he drew out of his pocket was a .38 calibre revolver. The smile was still on his freckled face. Leaning forward, he steadied his elbow on the back of the seat, pressed the muzzle of the pistol into the back of George Harding’s neck, and pulled the trigger. Birds were startled out of the vines at the crash of the shot; and there was a cough and jerk as the engine of the car stalled.
Superintendent Bostwick was a good twenty years older than Elliot; but he was downstairs only a step or two behind the latter. In the first fraction of a second Elliot wondered if what he had seen was an illusion, a mirage in that quiet front lawn, like one of Marcus Chesney’s illusions. But it had been no illusion that Harding tumbled sideways from the driving-seat, and that Harding screamed.
The car, stalled, was drifting gently almost against the front steps when Marjorie had the presence of mind to pull on the hand-brake. When Elliot got there, Dr. Chesney was standing up in the back seat, evidently stricken sober. What Elliot expected to find was Harding lying across the side of the car with a bullet in his brain. What he really found was Harding, who had fumbled at the catch of the door and managed to get it open, scrambling on all fours across the gravel drive to the grass, where he collapsed. His shoulders were hunched up to his ears. Blood was coming out of the back of his neck round his collar, where he could feel it, and scaring him into a frenzy. The words he spoke sounded grotesque; they might have been ludicrous on any other occasion.
“I’m shot,” he was saying in a voice little above a whisper. “I’m shot. Oh, my God, I’m
shot
.”
Then he kicked out with his heels, and writhed on the grass; so that Elliot knew they were dealing with no corpse or even near-corpse.
“Lie still!” he said. “Lie——”
Harding’s plaint rose to a note of horror. Nor was Dr. Chesney, in a different way, more coherent. “It went off, he insisted, holding out the revolver; “it went off.” What he seemed to wish to impress on his hearers’ minds, over and over, was the startling news that it went off.
“We noticed that, sir,” said Elliot. “Yes, you’re shot,” he told Harding. “But you’re not dead, are you? You don’t feel dead, do you? Hoy!”
“I’m——”
“Let me have a look. Listen!” urged Elliot, taking him by the shoulders as Harding gave him a glazed, uncomprehending glance. “You’re not hurt, d’ye hear? His arm must have joggled or something. The bullet went sideways and grazed the skin at the back of your neck. It’s burnt, but all you’ve got is a crease not a tenth of an inch deep. You’re not hurt, d’ye hear?”
“Never mind,” muttered Harding. “No good complaining; let’s face it. Chin up, eh? Ha, ha, ha.” Though he seemed not to have heard, and muttered the words with an absent, almost jocular calm, he gave Elliot a new impression. Elliot thought that a very keen brain had heard the diagnosis; had translated it instantly, even in a daze of fear; had realised that it was on the edge of making a fool of itself; and in a flash was up and putting on a remarkable show of acting.
Elliot dropped his shoulders.
“Will you attend to this?” he asked Dr. Chesney.
“Bag,” said Doctor Joe, gulping once or twice and waggling his wrist in the direction of the front door. “Black bag. My bag. Under stairs in hall.”
“What ho,” said Harding amiably.
And Elliot was compelled to admire him. For Harding was now sitting up on the grass and laughing.
All very well to talk. But that wound was a very painful one from the powder-burning alone; if the crease had gone half an inch deeper it would have meant death; and he was now losing a good deal of blood. Yet Harding, though he was still pale, seemed transfigured. He looked as though he honestly enjoyed it.
“You’re a rotten shot, Doctor Joe,” he pointed out. “If you can miss such a sitter as that, you’ll never succeed. Eh, Marjorie?”
Marjorie climbed out of the car and ran to him.
Dr. Chesney—who bumped into her when they both moved—stopped shakily with his foot on the running-board and stared.
“My God, you don’t think I did it deliberately, do you?”
“Why not?” grinned Harding. “Steady, Marjorie. ’Ware claret.” His eyes were large, fixed, and of a dark luminousness, but he almost chirped as he patted her shoulder. “No, no, sorry; I know you didn’t mean it. But it’s no great fun having guns loosed off into the back of your neck.”
This was all Elliot heard, for he went into the house after the doctor’s bag. When he returned, Dr. Chesney, aghast, was demanding the same thing of Bostwick.
“You don’t think I did it deliberately, Superintendent?” Bostwick, more heavy-faced than ever, spoke grimly.
“I don’t know what you meant, sir. I know what I saw.” He pointed. “I was standing up at that there window. And I saw you deliberately take that revolver out of your pocket, point it at Mr. Harding’s neck, and——”
“But it was a joke. The gun wasn’t loaded!”
“No, sir?”
Bostwick turned round. On either side of the front door was a small ornamental pillar, painted dull yellow, supporting a flattish triangular hood over the doorway. The bullet had lodged in the left-hand pillar. By a freak turn of the hand it had passed between Harding and Marjorie, missing the windscreen of the car, and, miraculously, missing Marjorie herself.
“But it wasn’t loaded,” insisted Dr. Chesney. “I could swear to it! I know it. I clicked it several times before. It was all right when we were at——” He stopped.
“At where?”
“Never mind. Man, you don’t think I’d do a thing like that, do you? Why, that’d make me a,” he hesitated, “a murderer.”
The hollow incredulity with which Dr. Chesney spoke, the hint of a bursting laugh as he pointed to himself, carried conviction. There was something almost childlike in the way he said it. He was a good fellow surrounded by accusers. He had, metaphorically, offered to stand drinks all round; and they had refused him. Even his short ginger beard and moustache bristled with hurt surprise.
“I clicked it several times,” he repeated. “It wasn’t loaded.”
“If you did that,” said Bostwick, “and there was a live cartridge in the magazine, you only brought it into position. But that’s not it, sir. What were you doing carrying a loaded pistol about with you?”
“It wasn’t loaded.”
“Loaded or unloaded, why were you carrying a pistol?” Dr. Chesney opened his mouth, and shut it again. “It was a joke,” he said.
“A joke?”
“A kind of joke.”
“Have you a licence to carry that revolver, sir?”
“Well, not exactly. But I could get one easily enough,” snorted the other, suddenly becoming truculent. He thrust out his beard. “What’s all this fiddle-faddle? If I wanted to shoot somebody, do you think I’d wait till I was smack-bang outside this house to draw a gun and do it? Oh, bosh. Rubbish. What’s more, do you want my patient to die on me? Look at him, bleeding like a pig! Let me go. Gimme that bag. Into the house with you, George my lad. That is, if you still think you can trust me.”
“Right you are,” said Harding. “I’ll take a chance.”
Though Bostwick was furious, he could hardly interfere. Elliot noticed that Dr. Fell had now lumbered out of the house; both Harding and Dr. Chesney gave him a surprised glance as they went in.
Bostwick turned to Marjorie.
“Now, miss.”
“Yes?” said Marjorie coolly.
“Do you know why your uncle was carrying a revolver?”
“He told you it was a joke. You know Uncle Joe.”
Again Elliot could not fathom her attitude. She was leaning against the side of the car, and seemed occupied in trying to detach on the gravel several tiny white spots which clung to the damp sole of her shoe. Her glance at him was brief.
Elliot moved in front of an angry Superintendent.
“Have you been with your uncle all afternoon, Miss Wills?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you go?”
“For a drive.”
“Where?”
“Just—for a drive.”
“Did you stop anywhere?”
“At one or two pubs. And at Professor Ingram’s cottage.”
“Had you seen that revolver of your uncle’s before he took it out here and fired it?”
“You’ll have to ask him about that,” answered Marjorie, in the same toneless way. “I wouldn’t know anything about it.”
Superintendent Bostwick’s face said, “Wouldn’t you, by George?” Bostwick braced himself. “Whether you would or you wouldn’t, miss,” he said aloud, “it might interest you to know that we’ve got a question or two—about yourself—that you
can
answer.”
“Oh?”
Behind the Superintendent, Dr. Fell’s expression grew murderous. He was puffing out his cheeks for a blast of speech but an interruption was not necessary. The interruption came from another source. The staunch maid Pamela opened the front door, put her head out, made a gesture that indicated all the investigators, moved her lips rapidly without uttering a sound, and closed the door again. Except for Marjorie, only Elliot saw it. Two voices spoke almost at once.
“So you’ve been pulling my room about?” said Marjorie.
“So that’s how you did it!” said Elliot.
If you had designed the words to startle her, he could not have succeeded better. She twitched her head round; he noticed the extraordinary shining of the eyes. She spoke quickly:
“How I did what?”
“How you seemed to be reading thoughts. As a matter of fact, you were reading lips.”
Marjorie was clearly taken aback. “Oh. You mean,” she added rather maliciously, “when you called poor George a clever swine? Yes, yes, yes. I’m quite a proficient lip-reader. It’s probably the only thing I
am
good at. An old man who used to work for us taught me; he lives in Bath; he——”
“Is his name Tolerance?” demanded Dr. Fell.
By this time, Bostwick later admitted, the Superintendent was coming to the conclusion that Dr. Fell was insane. Up to half an hour ago the doctor had seemed sane enough; and Bostwick had always remembered with respect his work in the case of the Eight of Swords and the case of Waterfall Manor. But during that conversation in Marjorie Wills’s bedroom something seemed to have slipped in Dr. Fell’s brain. Nothing could have exceeded the joy, the almost evil joy, with which he now pronounced the name of Tolerance.
“Is his name Henry S. Tolerance? Does he live in Avon Street? Is he a waiter at the Beau Hash Hotel?”
“Yes; but——”
“What a devilish small world it is, you know,” said Dr. Fell through his teeth. “Never has that noble bromide fallen more soothingly on the ear. I was mentioning my fine, deaf waiter to my friend Elliot this morning. I heard my first report of your uncle’s murder from him. Thank Tolerance, ma’am. Cherish Tolerance. Send Tolerance five bob at Christmas. He’ll deserve it.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Because he’s going to prove who killed your uncle,” said Dr. Fell, changing his tone and speaking seriously. “Or, at least, he will be responsible for proving it.”
“You don’t think I did it?”
“I know you didn’t do it.”
“But you know who did?”
“I know who did,” said Dr. Fell, inclining his head.
For what seemed a long time she looked at him, with no more expression in her eyes than you will find in a cat’s. Then, groping vaguely, she reached into the front of the car and drew out her handbag as though she were preparing to make a dash for the house.