Then her mind veered sharply to the consideration of his sister, and she began to feel that she was living in a world of nightmare. Would Paula be capable of stabbing to death an old man who loved her, merely for the sake of a part in an unknown dramatist's play? She didn't know. She had no clue to Paula either; she only knew her as an urgent, unbalanced young woman, always obsessed by the idea of the moment.
Yes, but although Paula had been seen at Nat's door, how had she contrived to get into a locked room, or, more difficult still, to lock it behind her? Mathilda had no knowledge of the means by which doors could be locked and unlocked from the wrong side, but she knew that there were such means. Yet it seemed unlikely that Paula could have employed any of them, for how could she have acquired the necessary tools?
This led to the question, were they in it together, this odd, frustrated brother and sister? It was too diabolicaclass="underline" Mathilda shied away from the thought, miscued, and straightened herself, saying with a breathless laugh: "Oh, damn! You'll run out now!"
"I wonder what that Scotland Yard man's up to?" Stephen said restlessly.
"Trying to trace the person who handled that dagger," she suggested.
"He won't do that."
The confidence in his tone startled her. She looked at him almost fearfully. "How do you know?"
He bent over the table for his shot. "Bound to have wiped the finger-prints off it," he replied. "Any fool would know enough to do that."
"I suppose so," she agreed. "Whoever did it was pretty ingenious. How could anyone have got into the room? And how was the door locked afterwards?"
"Hell, how should I know?"
"How should any of us know?" she asked. "This isn't a house full of crooks! We're all ordinary people!"
"Even though one of us is an assassin," interjected Stephen.
"True; but although I'm not personally acquainted with any assassins -"
"You are personally acquainted with one assassin, my girl." He saw how quickly her eyes leaped to his, and added, with one of his mocking smiles: "Since someone in this house is one."
"Of course," she said. "It's rather hard to realise that. I was going to say that I've always imagined that a murderer could be quite an ordinary person. Not like a confirmed thief, I mean. "Which of us, for instance, would know how to open a locked door? Of course, I suppose one of the servants might be a crook, but I don't quite see why any of them should have wanted to murder Nat. They none of them gain anything by his death."
"True," said Stephen uncommunicatively.
"Could there be anything in that idea of Valerie's? Is there a sliding panel, or anything of that kind?"
"I've never heard of it."
She sighed: "No; it does seem rather fantastic. But someone got into that room somehow, and if it wasn't through the door or the window, how was it?"
"Go and present Valerie's idea to the Inspector. It ought to go with a swing, I should think."
There was a satirical note in his voice, but the Inspector, recalling the oak wainscoting at the Manor, had already thought of this solution, and was occupied at that very moment in sounding the panels in Nathaniel's room. Since two of the walls were outside ones, and one separated the room merely from the bathroom, only that abutting on to the upper hall called for investigation. The closest scrutiny and the most careful tapping revealed nothing; nor was there any moulding to hide a convenient spring to release a sliding panel. The Inspector was forced to abandon this line of investigation, and to turn his attention to the windows.
These were casement, with leaded panes. They fitted closely into their frames, which were also of lead, the windows overlapping the frames sufficiently to make it impossible for the fasteningss to be moved by a knife inserted from outside. They were at no great distance from the ground, and the Inspector judged that a gardener's ladder would be amply tall enough to reach them. They were built out into a square bay, with a window-seat running beneath them, the whole being hidden at night by long curtains, drawn right across the bay. The Inspector went thoughtfully downstairs in search of Joseph.
The footman volunteered to find him, and ushered Hemingway into the morning-room. Here Joseph soon joined him, an expression of anxiety on his rubicund countenance.
"Sorry to disturb you again, sir, but I'd like a little talk with you, if you don't mind," said Hemingway.
"Of course! Can you tell me anything yet, Inspector? This suspense is dreadful! I expect you're inured to this sort of thing, but to me the thought that my brother's murderer may be in the house even now is horrible! Haven't you discovered anything?"
"Yes, I've discovered the weapon that killed your brother," replied Hemingway.
Joseph grasped a chairback. "Where? Please don't keep anything from me!"
"Over the fireplace in the billiard-room," said Hemingway.
Joseph blinked at him. "Over - ?"
"One of a pair of knives stuck up beside a stag's head."
"Oh! Yes, yes, I know! Then you didn't discover it in anyone's possession!"
"No; I'm sorry to say that I didn't," said Hemingway.
"Sorry? Oh! Yes, I expect you must be. Of course! Only one can't help shrinking from the thought that this ghastly thing might be brought home to someone one knows - one of one's guests, perhaps!"
"That's all very well, sir, but you want to know who killed your brother, don't you?" said Hemingway reasonably.
Joseph threw him a wan smile. "Alas, it isn't as simple as that, Inspector! Part of me yearns to bring my brother's murderer to justice; but the other part - the incurably sentimental, foolish part! - dreads the inevitable discovery! You assure me that the murder was committed by someone staying in the house. Consider what frightful possibilities this must imply! The servants? I cannot think it. My nephew? my niece? The very thought revolts one! A lifelong friend, then? An innocent child, hardly out of the schoolroom? Or an unfortunate young playwright, struggling gallantly to fulfil his destiny? How can I want any of these to be found guilty of murder? Ah, you think me a muddleheaded old fool! I pray for your sake you may never go through the mental torment I writhe under now!"
The Inspector fully appreciated the fine delivery of these lines, but he was shrewd enough to realise that with the slightest encouragement Joseph would turn a police investigation into a drama centred about his own ebullient personality, and he took a firm line at once, saying prosaically: "Well, that's very kind of you, sir, I'm sure. But it's no use us arguing about who did it, or who you don't think could have done it. All I want you to do, if you'll be so good, is to cast your mind back to what happened when you and your nephew entered Mr. Herriard's room after the murder had been committed."
Joseph shuddered, and covered his eyes with his hand. "No, no, I cannot!"
"Well, you can have a try, can't you, sir?" said Hemingway, as one humouring a child. "After all, it only happened yesterday."
Joseph let his hand fall. "Only - yesterday! Is it possible? Yet it seems as though a lifetime had passed between then and now!"
"You can take it from me that it hasn't," said Hemingway, somewhat tartly. "Now, when you went upstairs to call your brother down to dinner, you found his valet outside the room, didn't you?"
"Yes. It was he who gave me the first premonition that something was wrong. He told me that he could get no answer to his knocking, that the door was locked. I remember that so distinctly - so appallingly distinctly!"
"And what did you do then?"
Joseph sat down on a chair, and rested one elbow on the table. "What did I do? I tried the door, I called to my brother. There was no answer. I was alarmed. Oh, I had no suspicion of the dreadful truth! I thought he had been taken ill, fainted, perhaps. I called to Stephen."