_And now_, thought Mr. Satterthwaite, _the Scotts have it. I wonder_--
They retraced their steps in silence to the house. Walking almost
noiselessly on the soft turf, each absorbed in his own thoughts,
they became unwittingly eavesdroppers. They were rounding the corner
of the holly hedge when they heard Iris Staverton's voice, raised
fierce and clear from the depths of the Privy Garden: "You shall be
sorry--sorry--for this!"
Scott's voice answered, low and uncertain, so that the words could
not be distinguished; and then the woman's voice rose again, speaking
words that they were to remember later. "Jealousy--it drives one to the
devil--it _is_ the devil! It can drive one to black murder. Be careful,
Richard; for God's sake, be careful."
And then, on that, she had come out of the Privy Garden, ahead of them,
and on round the corner of the house without seeing them, walking
swiftly, almost running, like a woman hag-ridden and pursued.
Mr. Satterthwaite thought again of Lady Cynthia's words. A dangerous
woman. For the first time he had a premonition of tragedy, coming swift
and inexorable, not to be gainsaid.
Yet that evening he felt ashamed of his fears. Everything seemed normal
and pleasant. Mrs. Staverton, with her easy insouciance, showed no sign
of strain. Moira Scott was her charming, unaffected self. The two women
appeared to be getting on very well. Richard Scott himself seemed to be
in boisterous spirits.
The most worried-looking person was stout Mrs. Unkerton. She confided
at length in Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Think it silly or not, as you like, there's something giving me the
creeps. And I'll tell you frankly, I've sent for the glazier, unbeknown
to Ned."
"The glazier?"
"To put a new pane of glass in that window. It's all very well. Ned's
proud of it--says it gives the house a tone. I don't like it. I tell
you flat. We'll have a nice, plain, modern pane of glass, with no nasty
stories attached to it."
"You forget," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Or perhaps you don't know. The
stain comes back."
"That's as it may be," said Mrs. Unkerton. "All I can say is, if it
does, it's against nature!"
Mr. Satterthwaite raised his eyebrows, but did not reply.
"And what if it does?" pursued Mrs. Unkerton defiantly. "We're not so
bankrupt, Ned and I, that we can't afford a new pane of glass every
month--or every week if need be for the matter of that."
Mr. Satterthwaite did not meet the challenge. He had seen too many
things crumple and fall before the power of money to believe that even
a Cavalier ghost could put up a successful fight. Nevertheless, he was
interested by Mrs. Unkerton's manifest uneasiness. Even she was not
exempt from the tension in the atmosphere--only she attributed it to
an attenuated ghost story, not to the clash of personalities among her
guests.
Mr. Satterthwaite was fated to hear yet another scrap of conversation
which threw light upon the situation. He was going up the wide
staircase to bed. John Porter and Mrs. Staverton were sitting together
in an alcove of the big hall. She was speaking with a faint irritation
in her golden voice.
"I hadn't the least idea the Scotts were going to be here. I daresay,
if I had known, I shouldn't have come; but I can assure you, my dear
John, that now I am here, I'm not going to run away."
Mr. Satterthwaite passed on up the staircase out of earshot. He
thought, _I wonder now. How much of that is true? Did she know? I
wonder. What's going to come of it?_
He shook his head.
In the clear light of the morning he felt that he had perhaps been a
little melodramatic in his imaginings of the evening before. A moment
of strain--yes, certainly--inevitable under the circumstances--but
nothing more. People adjusted themselves. His fancy that some great
catastrophe was pending was nerves--pure nerves--or possibly liver.
Yes, that was it, liver. He was due at Carlsbad in another fortnight.
On his own account he proposed a little stroll that evening just as it
was growing dusk. He suggested to Major Porter that they should go up
to the clearing and see if Mrs. Unkerton had been as good as her word,
and had a new pane of glass put in. To himself, he said, _Exercise,
that's what I need. Exercise._
The two men walked slowly through the woods. Porter, as usual, was
taciturn.
"I can't help feeling," said Mr. Satterthwaite, loquaciously,
"that we were a little foolish in our imaginings yesterday.
Expecting--er--trouble, you know. After all, people have to behave
themselves--swallow their feelings and that sort of thing."
"Perhaps," said Porter. After a minute or two he added, "Civilized
people."
"You mean?"
"People who've lived outside civilization a good deal sometimes go
back. Revert. Whatever you call it."
They emerged onto the grassy knoll. Mr. Satterthwaite was breathing
rather fast. He never enjoyed going up hill.
He looked toward the window. The face was still there, more lifelike
than ever.
"Our hostess has repented, I see."
Porter threw it only a cursory glance. "Unkerton cut up rough, I
expect," he said indifferently. "He's the sort of man who is willing to
be proud of another family's ghost, and who isn't going to run the risk
of having it driven away when he's paid spot cash for it."
He was silent a minute or two, staring, not at the house, but at the
thick undergrowth by which they were surrounded. "Has it ever struck
you," he said, "that civilization's damned dangerous?"
"Dangerous?" Such a revolutionary remark shocked Mr. Satterthwaite to
the core.
"Yes. There are no safety valves, you see."
He turned abruptly, and they descended the path by which they had come.
"I really am quite at a loss to understand you," said Mr.
Satterthwaite, pattering along with nimble steps to keep up with the
other's strides. "Reasonable people--"
Porter laughed. A short, disconcerting laugh. Then he looked at the
correct little gentleman by his side.
"You think it's all bunkum on my part, Mr. Satterthwaite? But there are
people, you know, who can tell you when a storm's coming. They feel it
beforehand in the air. And other people can foretell trouble. There's
trouble coming now, Mr. Satterthwaite, big trouble. It may come any
minute. It may--"
He stopped dead, clutching Mr. Satterthwaite's arm. And in that tense
minute of silence it came--the sound of two shots and, following them,
a cry--a cry in a woman's voice.
"My God!" cried Porter, "it's come."
He raced down the path, Mr. Satterthwaite panting behind him. In a
minute they came out onto the lawn, close by the hedge of the Privy
Garden. At the same time, Richard Scott and Mr. Unkerton came round the
opposite corner of the house. They halted, facing each other, to left
and right of the entrance to the Privy Garden.
"It--it came from in there," said Unkerton, pointing with a flabby hand.
"We must see," said Porter. He led the way into the enclosure. As
he rounded the last bend of the holly hedge, he stopped dead. Mr.
Satterthwaite peered over his shoulder. A loud cry burst from Richard
Scott.
There were three people in the Privy Garden. Two of them lay on the
grass near the stone seat, a man and a woman. The third was Mrs.
Staverton. She was standing quite close to them by the holly hedge,
gazing with horror-stricken eyes, and holding something in her right
hand.
"Iris," cried Porter. "Iris. For God's sake! What's that you've got in
your hand?"
She looked down at it then--with a kind of wonder, an unbelievable
indifference.
"It's a pistol," she said wonderingly. And then--after what seemed an
interminable time, but was in reality only a few seconds: "I--picked it
up."
Mr. Satterthwaite had gone forward to where Unkerton and Scott were
kneeling on the turf.
"A doctor," the latter was murmuring. "We must have a doctor."
But it was too late for any doctor. Jimmy Allenson, who had complained
that the sand diviners hedged about the future, and Moira Scott, to
whom a gypsy had returned a shilling, lay there in the last great
stillness.
It was Richard Scott who completed a brief examination. The iron nerve
of the man showed in this crisis. After the first cry of agony, he was
himself again.
He laid his wife gently down again. "Shot from behind," he said
briefly. "The bullet has passed right through her."
Then he handled Jimmy Allenson. The wound here was in the breast and
the bullet was lodged in the body.
John Porter came toward them. "Nothing should be touched," he said
sternly. "The police must see it all exactly as it is now."
"The police," said Richard Scott. His eyes lit up with a sudden flame
as he looked at the woman standing by the holly hedge. He made a step
in that direction, but at the same time John Porter also moved, so as
to bar his way. For a moment it seemed as though there was a duel of
eyes between the two friends.
Porter very quietly shook his head. "No, Richard," he said. "It looks
like it--but you're wrong."
Richard Scott spoke with difficulty, moistening his dry lips. "Then
why--has she got that in her hand?"
And again Iris Staverton said in the same lifeless tone, "I--picked it
up."
"The police," said Unkerton, rising. "We must send for the police--at
once. You will telephone perhaps, Scott? Someone should stay here--yes,
I am sure someone should stay here."
In his quiet, gentlemanly manner, Mr. Satterthwaite offered to do so.
His host accepted the offer with manifest relief. "The ladies," he
explained. "I must break the news to the ladies, Lady Cynthia and my
dear wife."
Mr. Satterthwaite stayed in the Privy Garden looking down on the body
of that which had once been Moira Scott. _Poor child_, he said to
himself. _Poor child._
He quoted to himself the tag about the evil men do living after them.
For was not Richard Scott in a way responsible for his innocent wife's
death? They would hang Iris Staverton, he supposed, not that he liked
to think of it, but was not it at least a part of the blame he laid at
the man's door? The evil that men do--
And the girl, the innocent girl, had paid.
He looked down at her with a very deep pity. Her small face, so white
and wistful, a half smile on the lips still. The ruffled golden hair,
the delicate ear. There was a spot of blood on the lobe of it. With
an inner feeling of being something of a detective, Mr. Satterthwaite
deduced an earring, torn away in her fall. He craned his neck forward.
Yes, he was right, there was a small pearl drop hanging from the other
ear.
_Poor child, poor child._
* * * * *
"And now, sir," said Inspector Winkfield.
They were in the library. The Inspector, a shrewd-looking, forceful man
of forty-odd, was concluding his investigations. He had questioned most
of the guests, and had by now pretty well made up his mind on the case.
He was listening to what Major Porter and Mr. Satterthwaite had to say.
Mr. Unkerton sat heavily in a chair, staring with protruding eyes at
the opposite wall.
"As I understand it, gentlemen," said the Inspector, "you'd been for a
walk. You were returning to the house by a path that winds round the
left side of what they call the Privy Garden. Is that correct?"
"Quite correct, Inspector."
"You heard two shots, and a woman's scream?"
"Yes."
"You then ran as fast as you could, emerged from the woods, and made
your way to the entrance of the Privy Garden. If anybody had left that
garden, they could only do so by the one entrance. The holly hedges
are impassable. If anyone had run out of the garden and turned to the
right, he would have been met by Mr. Unkerton and Mr. Scott. If he had
turned to the left, he could not have done so without being seen by
you. Is that right?"
"That is so," said Major Porter. His face was very white.
"That seems to settle it," said the Inspector. "Mr. and Mrs. Unkerton
and Lady Cynthia Drage were sitting on the lawn, Mr. Scott was in the
billiard room, which opens onto that lawn. At ten minutes past six,
Mrs. Staverton came out of the house, spoke a word or two to those
sitting there, and went round the corner of the house toward the Privy
Garden. Two minutes later the shots were heard. Mr. Scott rushed out of
the house and, together with Mr. Unkerton, ran to the Privy Garden. At
the same time, you and Mr.--er Satterthwaite arrived from the opposite
direction. Mrs. Staverton was in the Privy Garden with a pistol in her
hand from which two shots had been fired. As I see it, she shot the
lady first from behind, as she was sitting on the bench. Then Captain
Allenson sprang up and went for her, and she shot him in the chest as
he came toward her. I understand that there had been a--er--previous
attachment between her and Mr. Richard Scott--"
"That's a damned lie," said Porter.
His voice rang out hoarse and defiant. The Inspector said nothing,
merely shook his head.
"What is her own story?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite.
"She says that she went into the Privy Garden to be quiet for a little.
Just before she rounded the last hedge, she heard the shots. She
came round the corner, saw the pistol lying at her feet, and picked
it up. No one passed her, and she saw no one in the garden but the
two victims." The Inspector gave an eloquent pause. "That's what she
says--and although I cautioned her, she insisted on making a statement."
"If she said that," said Major Porter, and his face was still deadly
white, "she was speaking the truth. I know Iris Staverton."
"Well, sir," said the Inspector, "there'll be plenty of time to go into
all that later. In the meantime, I've got my duty to do."
With an abrupt movement, Porter turned to Mr. Satterthwaite. "You!
Can't you help? Can't _you_ do something?"
Mr. Satterthwaite could not help feeling immensely flattered. He had
been appealed to, he, most insignificant of men, and by a man like John
Porter.
He was just about to flutter out a regretful reply when the butler,
Thompson, entered, with a card upon a salver which he took to his
master with an apologetic cough. Mr. Unkerton was still sitting huddled
up in a chair, taking no part in the proceedings.
"I told the gentleman you would probably not be able to see him, sir,"
said Thompson, "but he insisted that he had an appointment and that it
was most urgent."
Unkerton took the card. "Mr. Harley Quin," he read. "I remember, he was
to see me about a picture. I did make an appointment, but as things
are--"
But Mr. Satterthwaite had started forward. "Mr. Harley Quin, did you
say?" he cried. "How extraordinary, how very extraordinary. Major
Porter, you asked me if I could help you. I think I can. This Mr. Quin
is a friend--or I should say, an acquaintance of mine. He is a most
remarkable man."
"One of these amateur solvers of crime, I suppose," remarked the
Inspector disparagingly.
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "He is not that kind of man at all. But
he has a power--an almost uncanny power--of showing you what you have
seen with your own eyes, of making clear to you what you have heard
with your own ears. Let us, at any rate, give him an outline of the
case, and hear what he has to say."
Mr. Unkerton glanced at the Inspector, who merely snorted and looked at
the ceiling. Then the former gave a short nod to Thompson, who left the
room and returned ushering in a tall, slim stranger.
"Mr. Unkerton?" The stranger shook him by the hand. "I am sorry to
intrude upon you at such a time. We must leave our little picture chat
until another time. Ah! my friend, Mr. Satterthwaite. Still as fond of
the drama as ever?"
A faint smile played for a minute round the stranger's lips as he said
these last words.
"Mr. Quin," said Mr. Satterthwaite impressively, "we have a drama here;
we are in the midst of one. I should like, and my friend Major Porter
would like, to have your opinion of it."
Mr. Quin sat down. The red-shaded lamp threw a broad band of colored
light over the checked pattern of his overcoat, and left his face in
shadow almost as though he wore a mask.
Succinctly, Mr. Satterthwaite recited the main points of the tragedy.
Then he paused, breathlessly awaiting the words of the oracle.
But Mr. Quin merely shook his head. "A sad story," he said. "A very sad
and shocking tragedy. The lack of motive makes it very intriguing."
Unkerton stared at him. "You don't understand," he said. "Mrs.
Staverton was heard to threaten Richard Scott. She was bitterly jealous
of his wife. Jealousy--"
"I agree," said Mr. Quin. "Jealousy or demoniac possession. It's all
the same. But you misunderstand me. I was not referring to the murder
of Mrs. Scott, but to that of Captain Allenson."
"You're right," cried Porter, springing forward. "There's a flaw there.
If Iris had ever contemplated shooting Mrs. Scott, she'd have got her
alone somewhere. No, we're on the wrong tack. And I think I see another
solution. Only those three people went into the Privy Garden. That is
indisputable, and I don't intend to dispute it. But I reconstruct the
tragedy differently. Supposing Jimmy Allenson shoots first Mrs. Scott
and then himself. That's possible, isn't it? He flings the pistol from
him as he falls--Mrs. Staverton finds it lying on the ground and picks
it up just as she said. How's that?"
The Inspector shook his head. "Won't wash, Major Porter. If Captain
Allenson had fired that shot close to his body, the cloth would have
been singed."
"He might have held the pistol at arm's length."
"Why should he? No sense in it. Besides, there's no motive."
"Might have gone off his head suddenly," muttered Porter, but without
any great conviction. He fell to silence again, suddenly rousing
himself to say defiantly, "Well, Mr. Quin?"
The latter shook his head. "I'm not a magician. I'm not even a
criminologist. But I will tell you one thing--I believe in the value
of impressions. In any time of crisis there is always one moment that
stands out from all the others, one picture that remains when all else
has faded. Mr. Satterthwaite is, I think, likely to have been the
most unprejudiced observer of those present. Will you cast your mind
back, Mr. Satterthwaite, and tell us the moment that made the strongest
impression on you? Was it when you heard the shots? Was it when you
first saw the dead bodies? Was it when you first observed the pistol in
Mrs. Staverton's hand? Clear your mind of any preconceived standard of
values and tell us."
Mr. Satterthwaite fixed his eyes on Mr. Quin's face, rather as a
schoolboy might repeat a lesson of which he was not sure.
"No," he said, slowly. "It was not any of these. The moment
that I shall always remember was when I stood alone by the
bodies--afterward--looking down on Mrs. Scott. She was lying on her
side. Her hair was ruffled. There was a spot of blood on her little
ear."
And instantly, as he said it, he felt that he had said a terrific, a
significant thing.
"Blood on her ear? Yes, I remember," said Unkerton slowly.
"Her earring must have been torn out when she fell," explained Mr.
Satterthwaite.
But it sounded a little improbable as he said it.
"She was lying on her left side," said Porter. "I suppose it was that
ear?"
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite quickly. "It was her right ear."
The Inspector coughed. "I found this in the grass," he vouchsafed. He
held up a loop of gold wire.
"But, my God, man," cried Porter. "The thing can't have been wrenched
to pieces by a mere fall. It's more as though it had been shot away by
a bullet."
"So it was," cried Mr. Satterthwaite. "It was a bullet. It must have
been."
"There were only two shots," said the Inspector. "A shot can't have
grazed her ear and shot her in the back as well. And if one shot
carried away the earring, and the second shot killed her, it can't have
killed Captain Allenson as well--not unless he was standing close in
front of her--very close--facing her as it might be. Oh! no, not even
then, unless, that is--"
"Unless she was in his arms, you were going to say," said Mr. Quin,
with a queer little smile. "Well, why not?"
Everyone stared at each other. The idea was so vitally strange to
them--Allenson and Mrs. Scott. Mr. Unkerton voiced the same feeling.
"But they hardly knew each other," he said.
"I don't know," said Mr. Satterthwaite thoughtfully. "They might have
known each other better than we thought. Lady Cynthia said he saved
her from being bored in Egypt last winter, and you"--he turned to
Porter--"you told me that Richard Scott met his wife in Cairo last
winter. They might have known each other very well indeed out there."
"They didn't seem to be together much," said Unkerton.
"No--they rather avoided each other. It was almost unnatural, now I
come to think of it--"
They all looked at Mr. Quin, as if a little startled at the conclusions
at which they had arrived so unexpectedly.
Mr. Quin rose to his feet. "You see," he said, "what Mr.
Satterthwaite's impression has done for us." He turned to Unkerton. "It
is your turn now."
"Eh? I don't understand you."
"You were very thoughtful when I came into this room. I should like
to know exactly what thought it was that obsessed you. Never mind
if it has nothing to do with the tragedy. Never mind if it seems to
you--superstitious--" Mr. Unkerton started, ever so slightly. "Tell us."
"I don't mind telling you," said Unkerton. "Though it's nothing to do
with the business, and you'll probably laugh at me into the bargain. I
was wishing that my Missis had left well alone and not replaced that
pane of glass in the haunted window. I feel as though doing that has
maybe brought a curse upon us."
He was unable to understand why the two men opposite him stared so.
"But she hasn't replaced it yet," said Mr. Satterthwaite at last.
"Yes, she has. Man came first thing this morning."
"My God!" said Porter, "I begin to understand. That room, it's paneled,
I suppose, not papered?"
"Yes, but what does that--"
But Porter had swung out of the room. The others followed him. He went
straight upstairs to the Scotts' bedroom. It was a charming room,
paneled in cream, with two windows facing south. Porter felt with his
hands along the panels on the western wall.
"There's a spring somewhere--must be. Ah!" There was a click, and a
section of the paneling rolled back. It disclosed the grimy panes of
the haunted window. One pane of glass was clean and new. Porter stooped
quickly and picked up something. He held it out on the palm of his
hand. It was a fragment of ostrich feather. Then he looked at Mr. Quin.
Mr. Quin nodded.
He went across to the hat cupboard in the bedroom. There were several
hats in it--the dead woman's hats. He took out one with a large brim
and curling feathers--an elaborate Ascot hat.
Mr. Quin began speaking in a gentle, reflective voice.
"Let us suppose," said Mr. Quin, "a man who is by nature intensely
jealous, a man who has stayed here in bygone years and knows the secret
of the spring in the paneling. To amuse himself he opens it one day,
and looks out over the Privy Garden. There, secure as they think from
being over-looked, he sees his wife and another man. There can be no
possible doubt in his mind as to the relations between them. He is
mad with rage. What shall he do? An idea comes to him. He goes to the
cupboard and puts on the hat with the brim and feathers. It is growing
dusk, and he remembers the story of the stain on the glass. Anyone
looking up at the window will see as they think the Watching Cavalier.
Thus secured, he watches them, and at the moment they are clasped in
each other's arms, he shoots. He is a good shot--a wonderful shot. As
they fall, he fires once more--that shot carries away the earring.
He flings the pistol out of the window into the Privy Garden, rushes
downstairs and out through the billiard room."
Porter took a step toward him.
"But he let her be accused?" he cried. "He stood by and let her be
accused? Why? Why?"
"I think you know why," said Mr. Quin. "I should guess--it's only
guesswork on my part, mind--that Richard Scott was once madly in love
with Iris Staverton--so madly that even meeting her years afterward
stirred up the embers of jealousy again. I should say that Iris
Staverton once fancied that she might love him, that she went on a
hunting trip with him and another--and that she came back in love with
the better man."
"The better man," muttered Porter, dazed. "You mean--"
"Yes," said Mr. Quin, with a faint smile. "I mean you." He paused a
minute, and then said, "If I were you--I should go to her now."
"I will," said Porter.
He turned and left the room.