They found Nicholas’ automatic where he had told them to look for it, in a drawer of his dressing-table. William’s, Nicholas had said, was in his room, beside a rucksack containing his painting materials.
“His room’s next door to Hart’s,” whispered Jonathan. “If he’s there, he’ll hear us go in. What shall we do?”
“We can’t leave stray automatics lying about, Jonathan. Not with a homicidal lunatic at large.”
“Come on, then.”
William’s room was opposite his brother’s. Mandrake stood on guard in the passage while Jonathan, looking extraordinarily furtive, opened the door by inches and crept in. There was no light under Hart’s door. Was he there behind it, listening, waiting? Mandrake stared at it, half expecting it to open. Jonathan came back carrying a second automatic. He led the way into Mandrake’s room.
“If he’s in there, he’s in the dark,” said Mandrake.
“Quiet! You take this, Aubrey. Nicholas should have had his,” whispered Jonathan. “He should have come here first.”
“Are they loaded? I couldn’t know less about them.”
Jonathan examined the two automatics. “I think so. I myself—” His voice faded away and Mandrake caught only odd words: “… last resort… most undesirable…” He looked anxiously at Mandrake. ‘The safety catches are on, I think, but be careful, Aubrey. We must not fire, of course, unless something really desperate happens. Let him see we are armed. Wait one moment.”
“What is it?”
A curious smile twisted Jonathan’s lips. “It occurs to me,” he whispered, “that we are at great pains to defend ourselves, Nicholas, and three of the ladies. We have quite overlooked the fourth.”
“But — do you think? Good Heavens, Jonathan—”
“We can do nothing there. It is an abstract point. Are you ready? Let us go, then.”
Outside Hart’s door they paused. William’s automatic sagged heavily in the pocket of Mandrake’s dinner jacket. Nicholas’ automatic was in his right hand. His heart thumped uncomfortably and he thought: This is not my sort of stuff. I’m hating this.
The latch clicked as Jonathan turned the handle. If it’s locked, thought Mandrake, do we break it in, or what?
It was not locked. Jonathan pushed the door open quietly, slipped through, and switched on the light. The room was orderly and rather stuffy. Dr. Hart’s trousers were hung over the back of a chair, his underclothes were folded across the seat, his shoes neatly disposed upon the floor. These details caught Mandrake’s eye before he saw the bed which contained Dr. Hart himself.
Apparently he was fast asleep. He lay on his back, his mouth was open, his face patched with red, and his eyes not quite shut. The whites just showed under the lashes and that gave him so ghastly a look that for a fraction of a second Mandrake’s nerves leapt to a conclusion that was at once dispelled by the sound of stertorous breathing.
Jonathan shut the door. He and Mandrake eyed each other and then, upon a common impulse, approached closer to the sleeping beauty-doctor. Mandrake was conscious of a great reluctance to waken Hart, a profound abhorrence of the scene that must follow the awakening. His imagination called up a picture of terrified expostulations, or, still worse, of a complete breakdown and confession. He found himself unable to look at Hart, his glance wandered from Jonathan’s pistol to the bedside table where it was arrested by a small chemist’s jar, half full of a white crystalline powder, and by a used tumbler, stained with white sediment. “Veronal?” wondered Mandrake, who had once used it himself. “If it is I didn’t know it made you look so repellent. He must have taken a big dose.”
How big a dose Dr. Hart had taken appeared only when Jonathan tried to wake him.
Under other circumstances Jonathan would have cut a comic figure. First, keeping his own pistol pointed at the sleeping Doctor, he called his name. There was no response and Jonathan repeated his effort, raising his voice, finally to a cracked falsetto. “Hart, Dr. Hart! Wake up!”
Hart stirred, uttered an uncouth sound, and began to snore again. With an incoherent exclamation, Jonathan pocketed his pistol and advanced upon the bed.
“Look out,” said Mandrake, “he may be foxing.”
“Nonsense!” said Jonathan crisply. He shook Hart by the shoulder and: “Never heard of such a thing,” said Jonathan, furiously. “Dr. Hart! Wake up.”
“A-a-ah? Was haben sie…” The prominent eyes opened and stared into Jonathan’s. The voice trailed away, the eyes became bored and closed again. There followed a slightly ridiculous scene, Jonathan scolding and shaking Hart, Hart mumbling and sagging off into a doze. Finally Jonathan, his face pink with vexation, dipped a towel in the water jug and slapped the Doctor’s cheeks with it. This did the trick. Hart shuddered and shook his head. When he spoke again his voice was normal.
“Well,” said Dr. Hart, “what in Heaven’s name is all this? What now? May I not sleep, even? What now?”
He touched his head and saw Mandrake. “What are you doing with that thing in your hand?” he demanded. “Do not point at me. It is a firearm. What has happened?” Mandrake fidgeted uneasily with the automatic and curled the toes of his right foot in an attempt to avoid that pestilent shoe-nail. Hart rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth and shook his head vigorously.
Jonathan said: “We are armed because we have come to speak with a murderer.”
Hart uttered a sound of exasperation. “Mr. Royal,” he said, “how often am I to explain that I know nothing about it? Am I to be awakened at intervals during the night to tell you that I was in my bath?”
“What, again!” Mandrake ejaculated.
“Again? Again!” shouted Hart. “I do not know what you mean by again. I was in my bath at the time it was done. I know nothing. I did not sleep all last night. For weeks I have been suffering from insomnia, and tonight I have taken a soporific. If I do not sleep I shall go mad. Leave me alone.”
“There is the body of a murdered man downstairs, Dr. Hart,” said Mandrake. “I think you must stay awake a little longer to answer for it.”
Hart sat up in bed. His pyjama jacket was unbuttoned and the smooth whiteness of his torso made a singularly disagreeable impression on Mandrake. Hart was fully awake, now; on his guard, and sharply attentive.
“Murdered?” he repeated, and to Mandrake’s astonishment he smiled. “I see. So he has done it after all. I did not think he would go so far.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Jonathan demanded.
“He is killed, you say? Then I am speaking of his brother. I guessed that the brother set that trap. A booby-trap you call it, do you not? He betrayed himself when he reminded them of the tricks they played in their childhood. It was obvious the lady still loved her first choice. He was attractive to women.” He paused and rubbed his lips again. Jonathan and Mandrake found nothing to say. “How was it done?” asked Hart.
Jonathan suddenly began to stutter. Mandrake saw that he was beside himself with rage. He cut in loudly before Jonathan had uttered a coherent phrase —
“Wait a moment, Jonathan.” Mandrake limped nearer to the bed. “He was killed,” he said, “by a blow on the head from a stone club that hung with other weapons on the wall of the smoking-room. He was bending over the wireless. His murderer must have crept up behind him. No, Jonathan, wait a minute, please. A short while before he was killed, Dr. Hart, we were all in the library, and we heard him turn on the radio. You will remember that the smoking-room is between the library and the green sitting-room, called ‘boudoir’—the room that you were in, alone. You will remember that it communicates with both these rooms and with the hall. With the exception of Mr. Royal, who did not enter either of the other two rooms, none of us left the library after we heard the wireless until Lady Hersey went in and found him there— murdered.”