1
Dennis was writing letters in the library. He was so much engrossed that he didn’t appear to notice our arrival, and we stood for a minute watching his fine-pointed pen travel rapidly over the smooth grey sheets. He wrote a very personal hand, small, clear and characteristic.
Suddenly he looked up. “I beg your pardon!”
“Some chaps are lucky being taught to write when they’re young,” remarked Jeremy, with some envy in his voice. “Any spider can beat me when it comes to handling a pen. Look here, we don’t want to butt in or poach on your particular preserves or anything of that kind, but we’re interested in that affair on our own account, and we’ve managed to pick up some backchat that may be of some use to you, if you’d care to hear it. Besides, we want you to exert your influence,” he added, candidly. “Tony and I haven’t got any.”
“If you can fill in any of the g-gaps I shall be infernally grateful,” said Dennis, with that rather attractive deference of manner that I had noticed before. “I’m most horribly hung up. It isn’t the s-solution that’s baffling me. I’ve been p-pretty sure about that from the beginning, but I c-can’t prove my theories. P-please be as detailed as you can, and go slow. These clever chaps never fail in the broad outline, but s-sometimes in quite trivial things they get let down. It isn’t even their f-fault always, but something they c-could not possibly foresee.”
2
I told my story and Jeremy listened, putting in a word now and again. Dennis occasionally asked a question, but though he had a pencil in his hand he made no notes. He drew a lot of designs on the writing-pad in front of him, regardless of the fact that the sheet was part of a letter. A castle he drew, and a row of cats with their backs to the audience, and a ship on some curly waves and various spherical diagrams. He was very particular as to the exact expressions my informants had used, and would ask me to stop and think twice. “You’re sure he said thus-and-thus?” he would say. And I’d think and say Yes, I was sure, puzzling my brain to see why it should be of importance anyway. I cast surreptitious glances at Jeremy from time to time to see if he realised the way the wind was blowing, but Jeremy’s eyes were fixed on Dennis, and he paid no attention to me, except to supplement something I had said, or query a precise remark. At last I finished. Dennis twiddled the pencil round and round in his fingers. Then he jumped to his feet.
“Do you think Lady Nunn will m-mind my using her telephone?” he asked. “I want to p-put through a trunk call.”
I said I was sure she wouldn’t, and he nodded and said, “Well, th-thank you awfully. You’ve dotted all my i’s for me and crossed my t’s. I c-couldn’t have settled anything without you.” And he went out of the room.
“He’s a cool devil,” remarked Jeremy, “what’s the position now? Is he going to denounce the murderer or what?”
“I suppose he’ll do something about Nanny’s half-crown,” I suggested dubiously, for Dennis had left me as much in the dark as Jeremy. “That point ought to be cleared up next.”
“Perhaps he’s going to make arrangements with the local bobby. Anyhow, let’s wait.”
Dennis was away for several minutes in the little lobby-like apartment across the hall, where the telephone was kept. Presently we heard the door swing to, and Dennis emerge. A moment later Eleanor said, “Oh, I’ve been meaning to come and talk to you. It’s about Hilary. She’s looking shockingly ill, and eating nothing. What can we do for the child?”
Dennis’s voice replied, “It’s the anxiety and strain. It seems to m-me quite natural. I’d be inclined to think her heartless if she could have a c-cousin murdered on the premises and not t-turn a hair.”
“And she’s to go on looking like this, and starving herself till the strain’s over?” Eleanor’s voice sounded tart.
“It w-won’t be long now,” Dennis promised her. “By the way, a friend of m-mine, perhaps two, is c-coming over to see me to-night. He’s just been t-talking to me on the telephone. I hope I’m not taking t-too many liberties, but it might be important.”
Eleanor said, “Of course, Mr. Dennis,” but her manner seemed to freeze a little. Dennis said eagerly, “As a matter of fact, I d-do believe we’re getting near the end. We’re evolving a new theory, and I believe we’re on the right lines at last.”
Eleanor said, “I wish you would tell me,” so he repeated Nanny Finch’s story of the tramp and the half-crown. “So you s-see where that leads us to,” he said, urgently. “Of course, we shall have to ask about the half-crown. I thought I might go d-down to the station in the morning. It was pure luck discovering that, because the old woman said she hadn’t s-spoken of it to anyone, so it’ll be n-news for them.”
Eleanor said in an amazed voice, “You mean, you think he was murdered before the party began?” and Dennis replied, “That’s the new theory, and I shouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t the true one.”
And not a word about me or Jeremy, if you please. Calmly taking the credit, stammering in his excitement. I was astounded.
“Did you ever hear anything so cool?” I whispered, in some indignation. “Bouncing us completely.”
Jeremy shook with laughter. “Don’t grudge him the credit,” he whispered back. “Promotion may depend on it for him.”
Dennis was still talking. “Dear old lady,” he said, and his voice was as complacent as the purr of a cream-fed cat. “She’d no notion how much she was helping us with her story of her terrible fright.”
“Did you tell her?” Eleanor asked.
“Oh, no. She said she d-didn’t want a lot of interfering policemen bustling about her house. We didn’t want to frighten her.”
Then the door of the library opened and Dennis came in. “I say,” he began, a little apologetically, “I hope you don’t either of you mind, but I ran into Lady Nunn just now, and she seemed so upset about all this m-mystery that I told her about the half-crown, just to reassure her. I d-don’t think she’ll repeat it, and, of course, if there is anything in these suspicions of ours, the whole yarn is b-bound to come out.”
Jeremy said heartily, “My dear chap, broadcast it from the dome of St. Paul’s, if you think it would serve our purpose.” I wondered if the fellow was afraid of losing caste with Hilary if he didn’t occupy the spotlight. Then Eleanor came in saying, “What a beautiful fire! Oh, Mr. Dennis, were you writing? and am I interrupting you? I was going to suggest it was time for a drink before the dressing-bell goes.”
“It’s quite all right,” Dennis assured her, drawing his writing-pad towards him, “I was only f-filling in time… By the way, I wonder if I could have m-my drink in here, and then I could get this letter finished to-night?”
Eleanor said Certainly, and Jeremy and I went down to the lounge where Nunn and Mrs. Ross had already begun their cocktails. Hilary joined us and we named our respective drinks—Hook mixed the best cocktail I ever remember having anywhere—and Eleanor told him to take Dennis’s to the library.
“He’s writing letters,” she added explanatorily to her husband. “Oh, and Hook, he has some visitors coming presently. Show them into the library when they arrive.”
Hook said, “Yes, your Ladyship,” and went on mixing drinks. We dropped into casual conversation with one another. Nunn said he believed some neighbouring farmer was being accused of shooting foxes, and there was a devil of a row going on locally. Mrs. Ross said she believed Dennis was a policeman in disguise and was engaged in solving the murder under cover of being a guest at the Abbey. Nunn said he didn’t much mind who solved it, so long as the affair was concluded. Mrs. Ross said she knew something of men, and when one went around as Dennis was doing at present, as pleased as a monkey with two tails, you might know he had something up his sleeve. Hilary fired up, saying, “If you mean that Arthur had a hand in Ralph’s being killed, or in anything else discreditable, you can put the idea out of your head. You’ve only got to look at him to see he’s good.”
After the first moment of stark astonishment Nunn asked, a trifle grimly, “Does that imply, Hilary, that you’ve made up your mind at last about your suitors?”
Hilary blinked and said nothing (I believe she was shy), and the irrepressible Mrs. Ross exclaimed, rather scornfully, “Mind! The child’s got no more mind than a weathercock that points in a different direction every day of the week.”
Jeremy came to the rescue, saying affectionately, “And what could be nicer? You’d never have a chance of becoming bored, or of living in a stale atmosphere. Nothing wears a man down more than feeling he’s got into a rut, and the atmosphere will never change. If you ask me, Dennis is a very lucky chap, and I hope he realises it.”
“Oh, you young men!” said Mrs. Ross. “No wonder the girl’s unsettled. What chance does she get among the lot of you? You encourage her at every turn, in every new vagary she likes to indulge in. I suppose if she robbed the Bank of England you’d find some excuse for her.”
“I should admire her flair,” said Nunn gravely, and then Dennis’s visitors arrived. One of them I knew slightly by sight, a tall, raw-boned chap called Whistler, one of these chaps with independent means who start on a career and then drift into experimenting. Whistler had been a slum doctor at one time, but now he burnt the candle at both ends, no one quite knew to what purpose. However, he played a handsome game of bridge, which made him comparatively popular. The other man was a complete stranger to me.
Hook took them along to the library, and we continued our personalities. Mrs. Ross and Jeremy were capping one another’s tall stories, Nunn and Eleanor were discussing some political problem about which they both felt strongly, and Hilary and I talked in undertones. I don’t remember which of us was first aware of something unusual going on in the library; it wasn’t that there was much noise, or any sound of struggle or loud voices; nothing to suggest violence, and yet quite suddenly we all stopped talking and began to listen.
Nunn said, “What’s up?” and, not hindered by the delicacy that kept the rest of us where we were, went over to the library. An instant later Hilary had darted after him. “If it’s anything to do with Arthur, it concerns me, too,” she flung over her shoulder to Eleanor and Mrs. Ross, both of whom seemed inclined to stop her. The next minute we heard Dennis’s voice, “Hilary, keep out of this, please.”
Hilary said, “Jeremy, come here,” and when he had come, and I with him, she said rebelliously, “I’ll only go if you stay and see everything’s all right. I haven’t any idea what’s up…”
“I know you haven’t,” Dennis interrupted, “that’s why I told you to clear out. P-please go, Hilary. You’re making things even worse than they’re b-bound to be.”
Hilary repeated, “I’ll go if Jeremy stays.” Dennis nodded, and his glance included me.
“Yes, p-please stay, both of you,” he said. “And Sir James. That’s all.”
Neither Eleanor nor Mrs. Ross had attempted to follow our stampede; Hilary, looking crestfallen and snubbed, went back to the lounge. Dennis, rather surprisingly, asked me to lock the door. I couldn’t make head or tail of the scene. Hook, with a bewildered expression on his clean-shaved face, was standing against the bookcase. Dennis stood on the farther side of the table, his partly-filled glass in front of him. Whistler stood at his side, and the stranger had taken up his position nearer Hook. Nunn was facing Dennis, and Jeremy and I had our backs practically to the door.
“I b-beg your p-pardon, Sir James,” Dennis began—his stammer was worse than I had ever heard it—“for precipitating this c-crisis upon you. If I could have p-prevented it—in fact…” his hesitant officialdom broke down suddenly, and he continued in the vernacular. “I’m most f-frightfully sorry, but this is a thing that goes b-beyond your p-personal interests or m-mine. The fact is your butler’s got a p-paper in my writing in his p-pocket, and I simply m-must have it.”
Nunn looked up in the most pardonable surprise. “I don’t understand, Dennis. Hook, what paper is this, and why have you got it?”
Hook said in his most official voice, “I don’t understand Mr. Dennis either, sir.”
The stranger took a hand. “Perhaps you’ll allow me,” he murmured, and with an unexpected movement he caught Hook’s wrists between his fingers. Dennis moved across the room.
“Th-thank you. Sir James, I think perhaps it might help m-matters if you would read this aloud. I’m afraid,” he added, with that queer desperate air of apology, “this is g-going to be most f-frightfully b-beastly.”
Nunn, with a quite baffled air, read aloud from the grey slip that I recognised as coming from Dennis’s writing-pad.
Now that it seems impossible to avoid discovery much longer, I may as well admit the truth. I killed Ralph Feltham. It was his own fault. He tried to double-cross me about Hilary. He should have known me better. We had worked together for years without anyone suspecting it. Indeed, I was constantly receiving official invitations to meet my prospective victims. He was a good partner, but he cheated me over Hilary. Besides, he was becoming dangerous. It was necessary for him to be removed. I thought, by leaving that note in the summer-house for Hilary to find, I had established an alibi, because, if Ralph had written it at eleven o’clock, then no one would think of his having been killed at nine. But now that the throw has gone against me, I am taking the only way out.
“And this amazing document is signed Arthur Dennis,” wound up Nunn. “What on earth does it mean?”
“As a matter of fact, it d-doesn’t mean anything,” Dennis confessed. “I’ve s-spoilt it.”
“Spoilt it?”
“The effect, I mean. By not cottoning to my drink.” He indicated the glass in front of him.
“What’s the matter with it?”
“Dr. Whistler is going to t-tell us that presently. I’m not quite sure myself, but I d-do know this. There’ll be enough p-poison in that glass to k-kill two or three men.”
Nunn looked at him hopelessly. Jeremy and I stood aghast and still uncomprehending.
“I’m afraid I don’t get you,” said Nunn curtly. “Are you suggesting that Hook—Hook!—has poisoned your drink?”
“I’m afraid I d-do mean that. I d-did warn you it was g-going to be a b-beastly b-business.”
“But why on earth should he?”
“I knew t-too much. About F-Feltham’s death, I mean. Let me explain. B-by the time Dr. Whistler and Detective-Inspector Benn arrived—oh, I haven’t introduced you; my m-manners are all going to pieces; strain, I suppose—but that’s Inspector Benn holding Hook’s wrists—don’t let go, Benn—by that time I ought to have f-finished my drink, when it would have f-finished me. They’d have found me fallen over the desk, or p-propped up against it, and by the time they’d recovered from their shock, and Hook had d-decided I was really done for, he’d have found also that p-paper lying on the t-table, explaining the tragedy. In the tamasha no one would have noticed that it hadn’t been there as they came into the room.”
“You’re suggesting—let me get this clear, please—that Hook was going to commit a murder and stage a suicide? You still haven’t explained why.”
“B-because of Feltham.”
“You mean, that Hook murdered Feltham?”
“I th-think so. In fact, I’m sure of it. He d-did it very well, but then I’d expect him to do anything he t-tackled very well. You see, this isn’t my f-first experience of him.”
“And then he wrote this balderdash?”
“Oh, no, n-no. I don’t think he d-did that. I don’t think he would refer to Feltham by his Christian name any more than I would.”
“Then where did he get the paper from?”
“The same source as his instructions, all along the line. From L-Lady Nunn.”