“Would you say he was not responsible within the meaning of the act?”
“I’m never sure what is the precise meaning of the infernal act. Responsible. Not responsible. Who’s to mark a crucial division in the stream of human behaviour running down from something we are pleased to call sanity into raving lunacy? Where’s the point at which a human being ceases to be a responsible being? Oh, I know the definitions, and I know we do our best with them, but it seems to me it’s here, over this business of the pathology of behaviour, that any system of corrective and coercive law shows at its dimmest. Is this decidedly rum peer so far south in the latitude of behaviour that he would publicly murder a man by a ridiculously elaborate method that points directly to himself, and then, in effect, do everything in his power to get himself arrested? There have been cases of the sort, but is this going to be one of them?”
“Well, sir,” said Fox stolidly, “I must say I think it is. It’s early days yet, but as far as we’ve got I think it looks like it. This gentleman’s previous record and his general run of behaviour point to a mental set-up that, without going beyond the ordinary view, is eccentric. Everyone knows he’s funny.”
“Yes. Everyone. Everyone knows,” Alleyn agreed. “Everyone would say: ‘It’s in character. It’s just like him!’ ”
With as near an approach to exasperation as Alleyn had ever heard from him, Fox said: “All right, Mr. Alleyn, then. I know what you’re getting at. But who could have planted it on him? Tell me that. Do you believe any of the party at the table could have got at the revolver when it was under the sombrero and shoved this silly dart or bolt or what-have-you up it? Do you think Bellairs could have planted the bolt and picked it up after his lordship searched him? Where could he have planted it? In a bare band-room with nothing in it but musical instruments and other men? And how could he have got it into the revolver when his lordship had the revolver on his person and swears to it that it never left him? Skelton. Skelton handled the gun while a roomful of people watched him do it. Could Skelton have palmed this thing up the barrel? The idea’s laughable. Well, then.”
“All right, old thing,” Alleyn said. “Let’s get on with it. The servants will be about soon. How far have you got in here?”
“Not much further than what you’ve seen, sir. The drawer was a daisy. The bullets he extracted when he made his dummies are in the waste-paper basket there.”
“Carlisle Wayne watched him at that. How about the ballroom?”
“Bailey and Thompson are in there.”
“Oh, well. Let’s have another look at Lord Pastern’s revolver, Fox.”
Fox lifted it from his bag and laid it on the desk. Alleyn sat down and produced his lens.
“There’s a very nice lens here, in his lordship’s drawer,” Fox remarked. Alleyn grunted. He was looking into the mouth of the barrel.
“We’ll get a photomicrograph of this,” he muttered. “Two longish scratches and some scrabbles.” He gave the revolver to Fox, who was sitting in the chair which, nine hours earlier, Carlisle had occupied. Like Carlisle, Fox used Lord Pastern’s lens.
“Did you notice,” Alleyn said, “that when I gave the thing to that old freak to look at, it was the underside of the butt near the trigger guard that seemed to interest him. I can’t find anything there. The maker’s plate’s on the heel. What was he up to, do you suppose?”
“God knows,” Fox grunted crossly. He was sniffing at the muzzle.
“You look like an old maid with smelling salts,” Alleyn observed.
“So I may, sir, but I don’t smell anything except gun oil.”
“I know. That’s another thing. Listen.”
In some distant part of the house there was movement. A door slammed, shutters were thrown back and a window opened.
“The servants are stirring,” Alleyn said. “We’ll seal this room, leave a man to watch it and come back to it later on. Let’s collect everything we’ve picked up, find out what the others have got and catch three hours’ sleep. Yard at ten o’clock, don’t forget. Come on.”
But he himself did not move. Fox looked dubiously at him and began to pack away the revolver, the plastic wood, the empty bottle and the ivory handle.
“No, blast it,” Alleyn said. “I’ll work through. Take those things, Fox, and dispatch them off to the experts. Fix up adequate relief for surveillance here, and away you go. I’ll see you at ten. What’s the matter?”
“I’d as soon stay, Mr. Alleyn.”
“I know all about that. Zealous young officer. Away you go.”
Fox passed his hand over his short grizzled hair and said: “I keep very fit, really. Make a point of never thinking about the retiring age. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Alleyn.”
“I might have another dig at the witnesses.”
“The party upstairs won’t wake before ten.”
“I’ll stir ’em up if I need ’em. Why should they have all the fun? I want to ring up my wife. Good morning to you, Mr. Fox.”
Fox unlocked the door on to the landing and turned the handle.
The door flew inwards, striking his shoulder. He stepped back with an oath and Lord Pastern’s body fell across his feet.
It remained there for perhaps three seconds. Its eyes were open and glared furiously. Fox bent over it and the mouth also opened.
“What the hell d’you think you’re doin’?” Lord Pastern demanded.
He rolled over neatly and got to his feet. His jaw and cheeks glistened with a sort of hoar-frost, his eyes were bloodshot and his evening dress disordered. A window on the landing shed the cruel light of early morning upon him and he looked ghastly in it. His manner, however, had lost little of its native aggressiveness. “What are you starin’ at?” he added.
“We might fairly ask you,” Alleyn rejoined, “what you were up to, sitting, it appears, on the landing with your back to the door.”
“I dozed off. Pretty state of affairs when a man’s kept out of his own rooms at five o’clock in the morning.”
“All right, Fox,” Alleyn said wearily, “you get along.”
“Very well, sir,” said Fox. “Good morning, my lord.” He sidestepped Lord Pastern and went out, leaving the door ajar. Alleyn heard him admonishing Sergeant Marks on the landing: “What sort of surveillance do you call this?”
“I was only told to keep observation, Mr. Fox. His lordship fell asleep as soon as he touched the floor. I thought he might as well be there as anywhere.” Fox growled majestically and passed out of hearing.
Alleyn shut the study door and went to the window. “We haven’t finished in this room,” he said, “but I think I may disturb it so far.”
He drew back the curtains and opened the window. It was now quite light outside. A fresh breeze came in through the window, emphasizing, before it dismissed them, the dense enclosed odors of carpet, leather and stale smoke. The study looked inhospitable and unkempt. The desk lamp still shed a raffish yellowness on the litter that surrounded it. Alleyn turned from the window to face Lord Pastern and found him rummaging with quick inquisitive fingers in the open drawer on the desk.
“I wonder if I can show you what you’re hunting for,” Alleyn said. He opened Fox’s bag and then took out his notebook. “Don’t touch anything please, but will you look in that case?”
He did look, but impatiently, and, as far as Alleyn could see, without any particular surprise.
“Where’d you find that?” Lord Pastern demanded, pointing a not very steady finger at the ivory handle.
“In the drawer. Can you identify it?”
“I might be able to,” he muttered.
Alleyn pointed to the weapon. “The stiletto that’s been sunk in the end with plastic wood might have belonged to this ivory handle. We shall try it. If it fits, it came originally from Lady Pastern’s work-box in the drawing-room.”