“I have the list here,” Elliot explained, taking it out of his pocketbook. “They are better questions than any I could ask, because they’re expressly designed to cover the important points——”
“What points?” asked Marjorie quickly.
“That’s what we’re here to find out. I’m going to ask each of you the same question in turn, and I should like each of you to answer it as fully as you can.”
Professor Ingram raised his almost invisible eyebrows.
“Aren’t you afraid, Inspector, that we may have concocted a story for you?”
“I shouldn’t advise you to, sir. And I don’t think you have, because Dr. Chesney tells me you’ve already contradicted each other all over the place. If you go back on that now, I’ll learn about it. Now, then: do you honestly think you can live up to your boasts and answer these questions with absolute accuracy?”
“Yes,” said Professor Ingram with a curious smile.
“Yes!” said Marjorie fiercely.
“I’m not sure,” said Harding “I was more concentrated on getting everything in the picture than keeping tabs on details of it. But all the same, I think so, yes. In my business we’ve got to keep our eyes——”
“What is your business, Mr. Harding?”
“I’m a research chemist,” replied Harding, as bluntly as though he were uttering a defiance. “But never mind that. Fire away.”
Elliot closed the lid of the gramophone and spread out his notebook on it. It was as though a conductor had lifted his baton, a wheel had begun to spin, a curtain had parted at the rising of the lights. In his bones and soul Elliot knew that this list of questions contained all the clues to the truth—provided he had the wit to grasp not only the significance of the answer, but the significance of the question.
“The first question,” he said; and there was a sharp creaking from the chairs as his listeners braced themselves.
“The first question.
Was there a box on the table? If so, describe it.
Miss Wills?”
Marjorie’s soft mouth grew stern. She had kept her eyes fixed on Elliot, and they showed anger.
“If you say this is important, I’ll answer,” she told him. “But this is rather ghastly, isn’t it? Sitting here and asking q-questions as though this were a game, with him—” She looked towards the closed door, and away again.
“It’s important Miss Wills.
Was there a box on the table? If so, describe it.”
“Of course there was a box on the table. It was on Uncle Marcus’s right-hand side, towards the front. A two-pound box of Henrys’ Chocolate Caramels. I didn’t see the label, because I was sitting down, but I knew they were Henrys’ Chocolate Caramels because the box had a design of bright green flowers on it.”
George Harding turned round and looked at her.
“Nonsense,” he said.
“What is nonsense?”
“The colour of the flowers,” said Harding. “I don’t know about the chocolates, and I agree it was a two-pound box, and it had flowers on it. But the flowers were not bright green. They were dark blue. Definitely blue.”
Marjorie’s expression did not alter; she turned her head round with an arrogant and almost classic grace. “Darling angel,” she muttered, “to-night has been horrible enough already without your getting on my nerves and making me want to scream. Please don’t. Those flowers were green. Men are always mistaking green for blue. Don’t, don’t, don’t—not to-night.”
“Oh, all right, if you say so,” said Harding, between contrition and sulkiness. “No, I’m damned if it is!” he added, hopping up. “We’re supposed to be telling the truth. Those flowers were blue, dark blue, and—”
“Darling angel——”
“Just a moment,” Elliot interposed sharply. “Professor Ingram should be able to settle this. Well, sir? Which is right?”
“They are both right,” answered Ingram, crossing his plump legs in leisurely fashion. “And consequently, at the same time, they are both wrong.”
“But we can’t
both
be wrong!” protested Harding.
“I think you can,” said Professor Ingram politely. He turned to Elliot. “Inspector, I am telling you the literal truth. I could explain now, but I should prefer, to wait. One of the later questions will explain what I mean.”
Elliot raised his head.
“How do you know what the later questions will be, sir?” he asked.
There was a silence which seemed to creep out and extend itself as though every corner of the room were being filled. You almost imagined that you could hear, through closed doors, the clock ticking in the office.
“I do not know, of course,” Professor Ingram returned blandly. “I am merely anticipating a question which is certain to appear later in the list.”
“You haven’t seen this list before, sir?”
“I have not. Inspector, for the love of heaven try not to tangle me with trifles at a moment like this. I am an old war-horse, an old trickster, an old showman. These tricks are old stuff: I have tried them out myself on a thousand of my classes. I know exactly how they work. But, just because I can’t be deceived by them, don’t fall into the error that I am trying to deceive you. If you go on with that list, you will see exactly what I mean.”
“It was green,” said Marjorie, with her half-closed eyes fixed on a corner of the ceiling. “It was green, green,
green.
Please go on.”
Elliot picked up his pencil.
“The second question, then.
What objects did I pick up from the table?
In what order? What objects,” he translated, “did Mr. Chesney pick up from the table when he first sat down, and in what order did he pick them up? Miss Wills?”
Marjorie spoke promptly.
“I’ve already told you that. When he sat down he picked up a pencil, and pretended to write with it on the blotter, and put it down. Then he picked up a pen, and pretended to write with that. He put it down just before the thing in the top-hat came in.”
“What do you say, Mr. Harding?”
“Yes, that’s true,” admitted Harding. “At least, the first part of it is. He picked up a pencil—a bluish or blackish kind of pencil—and put it down. But the second object wasn’t a pen. It was another pencil: about the same colour, but not as long.”
Again Marjorie turned her head round. “George,” she said, with no change in her voice, “are you doing this deliberately, to torment me? Please, I want to know. Must you take me up on every single thing I say?” Then she cried out: “I
know
it was a pen. I saw the little nib, and the head of a pen; it was blue or black; a small pen. Please don’t go on trying to——”
“Oh, if you put it like that,” said Harding, with a kind of hurt superciliousness. He turned round his “expressive” eyes on her; and, to Elliot’s supreme annoyance, her expression changed and grew anxious. In Elliot’s mind was a picture of a Pair of Lovers, in which Harding’s boyish charm spread its tyranny over an intelligent but adoring woman, and played the very devil.
“I’m sorry,” observed Marjorie. “All the same, it was a pen.”
“Pencil.”
“What do you say, Professor Ingram. Pen or pencil?”
“As a matter of fact,” replied the professor, “it was neither.”
“Goddelmighty!” whispered Major Crow, growing suddenly human.
Professor Ingram held up his hand.
“Don’t you see it?” he inquired. “Aren’t you beginning to understand that all these things are tricks and traps? What else did you expect?” He sounded mildly irritated. “Marcus simply set one of the ordinary traps for you, and you tumbled into it. First of all—as you quite rightly say—he picked up an ordinary pencil and pretended to write with it. That prepared your mind. He then picked up what was neither a pen nor a pencil (though in size and shape not unlike the pencil), and pretended to write with that. You immediately suffered from the psychological illusion that you had seen either a pen or a pencil. Of course it was nothing of the sort.”
“What was it, then?” demanded Elliot.
“I don’t know.”
“But——”
Ingram’s guileless eye twinkled. “Steady, Inspector. Wh—oa!” he suggested, in somewhat un-professional tones. “I guaranteed to tell you where the trick lay. I guaranteed to spot what was wrong. But I did not guarantee to tell you
what
he picked up—and I confess I don’t know.”
“But can’t you describe it?”
“To a certain extent, yes.” The professor seemed badly bothered. “It was something like a pen, but narrower and much smaller; dark blue in colour, I think. Marcus had some difficulty in picking it up, I remember.”
“Yes, sir, but what kind of object looks like that?”
“I don’t know. That’s what bothers me. It—stop!” Here Ingram’s hands closed very firmly round the arms of the chair, and he held himself poised as though he were going to jump up. Then a wave of relief or some other emotion flooded over his face; he relaxed with a kind of “whoosh!” and stared at them. “I’ve got it,” he added. “I know what it was now.”
“Well, sir?”
“It was a blow-pipe dart.”
“What?”
“I think so,” the professor told them, as though some huge hurdle were surmounted. “We had some in the Natural History Museum at the University. They were under three inches long, thin slivers of wood, blackish, sharp-tipped. South American or Malayan or Bornese or something of the sort; my notions of geography have always been muddled.”
Elliot looked at Marjorie, “Had your uncle any blow-pipe darts in the house, Miss Wills?”
“No, certainly not. At least, not that I ever heard of.”
Major Crow intervened, with interest. “You mean,” he said to Professor Ingram, “a poisoned dart?”
“No, no, no, not necessarily. We have here, I suspect, a beautiful example of how suggestion can run away with the imagination until none of us can remember what we did see. In a moment we shall have somebody remembering that he saw poison on the dart, and then we shall be nowhere. Control yourselves!” said Ingram. He got his breath, and made a spreading gesture. “All I said was that I saw something which Looked Like a blow-pipe dart. Is that clear? Then go on with the questions.”
George Harding nodded.
“Yes,” he agreed—and on his face Elliot surprised a curious look as Harding glanced at the professor. It was gone in a flash, nor could Elliot interpret it. “We don’t seem to be getting a great deal further. Fire away with the questions.”
Elliot hesitated. The new suggestion disquieted him, and he would have liked to attack it. But that could wait.
“The next question,” he glanced at his list, “presumably refers to the entrance of the muffled-up figure through the French window. Take it as you like, though.
What was the time?”
“Midnight,” said Marjorie promptly.
“About midnight,” admitted George Harding.
“To be completely exact,” said Professor Ingram, fitting the palms of his hands together, “it was just one minute to midnight.”
Here he paused as though inquiringly, and Elliot put the query he seemed to expect.
“Yes, sir. But I’ve got a question of my own. Do you actually know that it was one minute to midnight—from your own watch, that is—or do you only know it was one minute to midnight by that clock on the mantelpiece in the office? I know the clock is right now; but was it necessarily right then?”
Professor Ingram spoke dryly.
“The question had occurred to me,” he said. “I wondered whether Marcus might have altered the clock and given a false time to stare us in the face, so that we should swear to it later. But I claim fair play.” Again he looked annoyed: “A trick of that sort would not come within the rules. This was to be an observation test. Marcus ordered the lights turned out, and consequently we could not see our own
watches. Therefore, if he gives us a clock to judge by, the only way we can judge time is BY that clock. I regarded that as in the agreement. I can tell you the various times when things happened by that clock. But I can’t tell you whether it had the correct time to start with.”
Marjorie said:
“Well,
I
can. Of course the clock was right.”
She spoke with violence and surprise and perplexity. It was as though she had expected every development except this, or as though the hopelessness of making anyone see reason had driven her even beyond weariness.
“I have the best of reasons for knowing,” she informed them. “Oh, it isn’t a question of observation, my observation! I can prove it. Easily. Of course the clock was right. But what difference does it make anyway?”
“It might make all the difference,” said Major Crow, “to the alibi of somebody who wasn’t here.”
“Joe Chesney,” murmured Professor Ingram, and whistled. “I beg your pardon,” he added formally.
As once before he had been able to reach everyone with the flick of a smile, so he now (evidently by a slip of the tongue) reached everyone with a flick of something else altogether. Elliot wondered how the dictionary defined the word “suggestion.” Whatever else it might be, it was a stirring of the water.
“Uncle Joe?” cried Marjorie. “What about him?”
“Go on with the questions,” invited the professor, and gave her a reassuring grin.
Elliot, after making a quick note, decided to increase the tempo.
“We can thrash out these things later, if you don’t mind. Just give me the answers as briefly as you can. Next:
What was the height of the person who entered by the French window?”
“Six feet,” replied Marjorie instantly. “Anyway, he was just the same height as Wilbur, and we all know Wilbur’s height Just the same height as Wilbur and Uncle J—” She stopped.
“Six feet is about right,” decided Harding, after reflection. “If anything I’d have said a bit more than that, but it may have been the effect of that wild-looking hat.”
Professor Ingram cleared his throat.
“Nothing, I know,” he said, “is more exasperating than to be constantly contradicted over these points——”
And under his quiet exterior it was clear that tempers were getting ready to boil clear up to the roof. To this extent had the waters of suggestion been stirred. Marjorie’s eyes were extraordinarily bright.
“Oh, I can’t stand this! Surely you’re not going to tell us he was short and fat?”
“No, my dear. Easy now.” Professor Ingram looked at Elliot. “Inspector, here is the answer. The person who came in by that window was about five feet nine inches tall—about the height, say, of Mr. Harding or myself. Or else (mark this) he was a man of six feet walking with his knees bent under that long coat to suggest a somewhat shorter person. In any case, his height was roughly five feet nine.”