Doyle was frowning. “But no one found a spent cartridge in the fireplace.”
“Ah,” said the Great Man. “But no one ever looked for it. We did not, because the fire was still burning when we arrived. Superintendent Honniwell and his men did not, because the Superintendent was more interested in currying favor with Lord Purleigh. Afterward, of course, the cartridge was removed.”
“By whom, exactly?” asked Marsh.
At the moment, Doyle was more interested in how than whom. He said, “You’re telling us that when Carson heard the shot fired, the Earl was already-”
“Dead, yes!” said the Great Man. “Several minutes before that shot, perhaps as much as half an hour, using the hidden stairway, the murderer had entered the room with the revolver. A single shot was fired, muffled by a cushion, perhaps, and the Earl was dead.”
“But according to Superintendent Honniwell,” said Doyle, “there were powder burns near the wound. Would these have been present if the pistol had been fired through a cushion?”
“Mr. Beaumont assures me that this is possible, so long as the muzzle of the weapon is brought close to the point of impact of the bullet. It is possible, too, that the autopsy will detect threads of fabric in the wound, thus substantiating my statement.”
“And the murderer,” said Doyle, “then wiped his fingerprints from the weapon, and placed on it the fingerprints of the Earl.”
“The murderer did so,” said the Great Man. “Correct. And then, after carefully putting the piece of lumber in the fire, probably off to the side, so as to postpone the explosion, the murderer left. And came down to the drawing room, to join us all in tea.”
“And who is this murderer of yours?” asked Marsh. “Who are these conspirators?”
“Who?” said the Great Man. “Is that not patently obvious, Inspector Marsh? They must be two people who knew that if they were seen together, and intimate, their plan would be foiled. One of them, at least, must know Maplewhite, must know its hidden tunnels and passageways. And one of them must be of a stature small enough, slight enough, to be mistaken at a distance, by a woman suffering from nearsightedness, for a young boy. There are no young boys at Maplewhite, ghostly or otherwise.” He turned to face the audience. “Therefore, the two conspirators must be Lady Purleigh and Dr. Auerbach.”
The audience made a ragged hissing sound, like a large beast drawing breath. Lady Purleigh looked puzzled. Dr. Auerbach looked alarmed. Lord Bob looked poleaxed, and he stared at the Great Man with his mouth open. Inspector Marsh stood up from his chair. “This is preposterous,” he said. “Dr. Auerbach was seen in Purleigh. He walked back from there to Maplewhite. He couldn’t possibly have got here by the time that shot was fired.”
I took a look at Sergeant Meadows. He was still leaning against the wall.
The Great Man smiled. “Had you investigated thoroughly, Inspector, you would have learned that a bicycle was stolen in Purleigh yesterday. Mr. Beaumont learned this from the local constable, Dubbins. Riding a bicycle, using pathways through the woods, pathways detailed for him by Lady Purleigh, Dr. Auerbach easily reached the old mill before one o’clock. The bicycle is no doubt resting at the bottom of the millpond. And had you investigated further, you would have telephoned the University of Leeds, as I did today, and learned that Dr. Auerbach was not in Devon, but in Edinburgh. Where I telephoned and spoke with him.” He pointed his finger. “ That man is not Dr. Auerbach.’
The little bald-headed man sprang from his chair and darted for the drawing room doors, running in front of Miss Turner and Mrs. Allardyce. Miss Turner put out her leg. He snagged his foot on it, swung his arms forward as though he were reaching for a trapeze, and went sailing over the coffee table. By the time he landed, I was on top of him with the Colt. I yanked him to his feet. He squirmed like a polliwog until I stuck the pistol in his ear.
Other people were up, too-Sir David, Mrs. Allardyce. Mrs. Corneille was rising.
But the Great Man wasn’t finished. He turned back to Marsh. “And the reason, Inspector Marsh, that you did not investigate thoroughly, as you should have done, is that you are a most thoroughly incompetent Inspector Marsh.” He turned to the audience and smiled. “Ladies and gentlemen, permit me to introduce a man who is almost as inept a policeman as he is a magician.” He held out his arm. “I give you Chin Soo!”
This was the signal. The drawing room doors burst open and what seemed like a hundred cops tumbled in, some in uniform, some not. One of them was Superintendent Honniwell. One of them was an angry-looking man who turned out later to be the real Inspector Marsh. Over against the wall, “Sergeant Meadows” reached into his coat pocket, but Doyle was ready and he grabbed the man’s hand with his own left and he popped him a very good right on the point of his chin and the man went crashing to the floor.
Epilogue
It took a few days to get everything straightened out. The key, as the Great Man liked to put it, was Moseley.
Carl Moseley was the man who had been impersonating Dr. Auerbach. Questioned by Honniwell and Marsh, he broke.
A journalist and an unsuccessful playwright, he had met Lady Purleigh in London a year ago, among a group of people who lived in Bloomsbury. It was there, he said, a month or so later, that their affair had begun. One member of the group, a poet named Sybil Prescott-Vane, knew about the affair and let Lady Purleigh and Moseley use her home for their London rendezvous. Her testimony, at the trial, was damaging to both of them.
Lady Purleigh and Moseley had seen each other whenever she went to London, and twice he had visited Maplewhite, both times traveling out there with other members of the Bloomsbury group. They met in his room, or out by the old mill. In both cases, Lady Purleigh used the secret passageways and tunnels. Moseley said that Lady Purleigh had known about the tunnels for some time.
According to Moseley, the original plan had been to kill Lord Bob. Lady Purleigh, he said, didn’t want any part of Lord Bob’s proletarian golfing club, and didn’t really want any part of Lord Bob either. She did want Moseley, said Moseley. The plan was changed during his most recent visit to Maplewhite, when the late Earl wandered into Moseley’s bedroom while he was amorously engaged” with Lady Purleigh. This was the same night the Earl made a grab for a woman named Dora Carrington. The Earl, who was pretty much a loony by then, agreed not to reveal what he'd seen, so long as Lady Purleigh didn’t interfere with his sport.
That cooked the Earl, as far as Lady Purleigh was concerned. She wasn’t, she’d told Moseley (according to Moseley), going to gain control of Maplewhite “only to have it ripped from my hands by a drooling sex fiend.” This didn’t sit too well with the jury, either.
She and Moseley worked out another plan-kill the Earl, and let Lord Bob take the blame. Even if he were never tried for the murder, she was sure she could get him locked up as a nut case.
Moseley had met Dr. Auerbach in Vienna, while he was doing an article about psychoanalysis, and he knew that Auerbach was in Edinburgh now. It was his idea to shave his head and wear a false beard, which made him nearly Auerbach’s double. At the trial, the prosecutor asked him what would have happened if the Edinburgh police had talked to the real doctor. Moseley said he’d mentioned exactly that to Lady Purleigh, and she’d said that in that case “we should take care of Dr. Auerbach.”
Moseley admitted to firing the shot that missed Miss Turner. As the Great Man said, he thought he’d killed her. He also admitted to a rough time an hour later, when he “examined” her, as Dr. Auerbach. It was then he realized that she was nearsighted, and that she hadn’t recognized him and Lady Purleigh. She didn’t volunteer anything about ghosts, and he didn’t ask.