"Mr. Norton. Were you responsible for this somewhat memorable pack of lies?"
"It was only," Cy hesitated, "that I thought I knew the line H.M. was working on: that Manning was innocent, and had been proved innocent. As for O'Casey..."
"They say here," interrupted Byles, dropping everything to snatch up the Echo, "that O'Casey accosted the British aristocrat as he was drinking a magnum of champagne at the Stork Club."
"As a matter of fact." returned Cy, keeping a very straight face as all New Englanders should, "it was at a hot-dog counter at Grand Central."
"I see. You surpass Ananias, Mr. Norton. Well?"
"O'Casey," Cy explained, "gave his explanation in front of a lot of witnesses. Later H.M. shook hands with him and told him most of the credit for solving the case ought to go to him. O'Casey asked if he had solved it. H.M.'s 'No,' wasn't audible. Do you see?"
"Perhaps. Go on!"
"O'Casey really thought he'd rung the bell. I took a chance and guessed he'd be certain to rush off to his precinct station with witnesses. Possibly even to Headquarters. When I phoned again, before we left the studio, I found he'd done it."
Howard Betterton, smiling slightly, clapped the maddened District Attorney softly on the shoulder.
"It seems to me," said Betterton, still patting Byles's shoulder, "you'd better ring up and confirm these stories as soon as possible. Er— especially the part about Mr. Manning having had an accident Eh?"
"But I can't do that!" retorted Byles.
"Why not, son?" inquired H.M.
"Because there's not a damn word of truth in any of it! Besides, it's unethical and if s against the law!"
Oh, Gil’ said H.M., a little surprised. "How in the name of Esau are you goin' to get justice unless you do flummox the law?"
"Do you do this kind of thing in England? And never land in the can?"
"I’ve been in the police court The beak carried on awful. But I've never had penal servitude. Just you keep soothed and placid, Gil."
There was a long silence, while Byles's long arms and hands supported his weight on the table. His stare at H.M. was of too many emotions to be described.
"IVe told you twice," he said quietly, "you were an old B.o.b. But I never realized"—he might have been a scientist looking through a microscope— "what a remarkable s.o.b." Byles stopped. "Thanks," he muttered, glaring down at the table between H.M. and Cy. Then he sat down. "I'm in with the liars."
"Excellent!" beamed Howard Betterton.
Abruptly Byles's tone changed.
"But I still don't understand," he snapped, "why Manning played that trick! Why should he practically confess he'd stolen money when he hadn't stolen money? Why should he blacken himself when he didn't need to?"
"That’s what I'm goin' to tell you," replied H.M.
Taking out another stogy, H.M looked across at Howard Betterton.
"Crystal Manning," he said in a new, alert, commanding voice, "is a long time at that coffee. Would you mind goin' out and giving her a hand?"
Betterton frowned. "But surely, at a time like this..."
Cy had seen it happen before. As though by a snap of the fingers, H.M.'s drowsy lump of bone and flesh seemed to wake up, distend, and hit round him with the force of a battering-ram.
"Hop it, son," he said.
"As you wish," agreed Betterton, and went out very much on his dignity.
H.M.'s bulk, now seeming to overspread the chair, was bent forward against the table, facing Byles.
"Manning did that," he said, "because it was the only way to accomplish what he wanted to do. He wanted to expose and show up a person who's a very nasty bit of work: which same person tried to kill him."
Byles's eyes grew uneasy and suspicious.
"But they can't hang an attempted murder rap on anybody," he protested. "Have you talked to Lieutenant Trowbridge? If the victim won't testify, that's that!"
"I know. It's got to be all hushed up, I agree." H.M. lowered his voice. "But couldn't you and I and Trowbridge, strictly unofficially, make this person just as sick as mud?"
"Now wait a minute!" Byles said in alarm.
And, at the same moment, someone tapped Cy on the shoulder. It was Emily, the Mannings' maid, her face drawn with lack of sleep.
"Miss Crystal would like to see you," she whispered.
"Sorry, but I'm afraid I'm busy."
"Miss Crystal says it's very urgent." Emily gripped his shoulder.
If it had been anybody on earth but Crystal...
Cy, his very bones aching with curiosity, followed Emily out of the room. H.M. was attempting to bend forward across the table towards Byles, and muttering.
"But who is this attempted murderer?" Byles demanded. His voice rose up. "And how in Satan's name did Manning get out of that pool?"
"Listen," said H.M.
18
"Cy, who did it?" the voice asked.
Walking slowly towards the kitchen, Cy touched an aching head and eyes that seemed to be full of sand. Otherwise he felt almost abnormally strung up.
In the big kitchen, with all its implements white against clear, dawn from the eastern windows, Crystal sat by the table and smoked a cigarette. In front of her was a massive silver tray, with an equally massive silver coffee service.
"I made the coffee, all right," Crystal told him, after that initial question to which he offered no reply. "Then I just sat here, Thinking. The coffee isn't very hot"
"That doesn't matter. Want some?"
"No, thanks."
Betterton, Cy saw, had not come out to the kitchen; presumably that faithful watch dog had gone to take a breath of air. Cy picked up the coffee urn, poured a cup of black coffee, and swallowed it quickly.
"Crystal," he said, "your father's been cleared of every charge against him. Every single charge!"
"I know." She spoke with candour. "I heard most of it Listening outside the door." Crystal's eyes were fixed on him with a kind of fervour. "It seems you're pretty fast at your own job, too. And yet you seem so quiet'"
"That's fiction again," Cy said wearily. "A good reporter isn't a lunatic. Part of his job is to deduce what's going to happen just before it does happen, and then move like greased lightning. Did you ever hear of a man named Russell? Russell, of the London Times!"
"No. Who is he?"
"He was a stuffed shirt with whiskers, a hundred-odd years ago."
"Oh," said Crystal, her interest dying.
Crystal extinguished her cigarette on the white metal top of the table. Cy whacked his hand on the table beside it
"But he could, and did, scoop the pants off the whole world," said Cy. "He published the terms of Bismarck's secret treaty with Austria before the ink was dry on the treaty. He played hell in the Crimea. He... never mind. Nowadays, of course, they've practically eliminated the scoop."
"Oh, it wouldn't work!" Crystal cried unexpectedly.
"What wouldn't work?"
Crystal had changed into a bright-coloured housecoat. The morning light was kind to her intense eyes and her trembling mouth.
"I was thinking about us, of course!" she wailed, as though no other topic were possible. "You hate everything modern, and I love it. It just wouldn't work out, would it?"
"Probably not"
Crystal, who had expected him to pursue the matter, was evidently angry when he did not.
"As I say," Cy went on, "here's your father cleared of every charge! And even poor old Bob— your father wasn't joking when he talked about that garage. Bob will get it Or, rather, he's already got it."
"Bob's worried," Crystal brooded. "Do you remember, last night, he asked, 'Half-past seven was the time you and H.M. started out for the field, wasn't it?'"