“Well, I don’t, exactly.”
“I might have called in the police, and I suppose I could have got Pullen and Ward. But I wanted the others. Most particularly, I wanted the man who was running the show, Grey Mask. I thought I’d let them think their plan had succeeded, and see if they didn’t come out into the open a bit. So I told Jaffray to see if he couldn’t get taken on as second murderer. He did it very well-started by grumbling to Ward about his wages and one thing and another, got up some good red-hot Communist stuff, and let it off at discreet intervals. In the end Ward told him the whole thing. But Ward only knew Pullen-and he didn’t know him as Pullen or as my butler. He didn’t know any of the others. Well, Jaffray and I fixed up a very nice high-class assassination. We lay off Majorca, and I hired a boat to hang around and pick me up after Jaffray had pushed me overboard on a dark, windy night. I’m a first-class swimmer, and I had a life-belt in case of accidents. It came off nicely enough. I went over to Paris and waited for news. Jaffray went back to London. And then the fun began. They came out into the open just as I hoped they would. James Hale gave himself away by saying there was no will-he had handled it in my presence only a week before I sailed. My nephew Egbert also knew that there was a will-I had acquainted him with the terms of it no farther back than last August. He and Hale trumped up a forged letter from me alluding to Margot being illegitimate. They staged the affair so that one of Hale’s clerks, a perfectly innocent young fellow, found the letter. It would all have been very clever if I had really been dead. What I want to say to you is this, I never dreamt of any risk for Margot-it didn’t occur to me that Hale would get her back from Switzerland. As soon as Jaffray wrote and told me she was here alone, I came across. By the time I arrived she had disappeared. It was Jaffray who discovered her whereabouts. I decided that she was safe with Miss Langton. I was extremely anxious not to be recognized, as I had not yet got the evidence that I needed against Pullen and another man, the footman called William Cole. I was also extremely anxious to find out who was really running the show. On Tuesday, however, I made up my mind to fetch Margot away. I went with Jaffray and the car to fetch her. But she took fright. I had told Jaffray to tell her I was there. He said ‘Mr. Standing,’ and she jumped to the conclusion that it was her cousin Egbert who was trying to carry her off. Not unnaturally, she ran away.”
“Yes, she told me. So that was it?”
Mr. Standing nodded.
“As you know, you upset my plans by taking her to a new address next day. It took me all day to find her. This morning Jaffray and I followed her in the car, and I sent Jaffray into Harridge’s with a note for her. She came at once, and I brought her here. A conversation which I myself overheard last night between Pullen and William Cole convinced me that I could not risk waiting any longer. The two men were arrested this morning. James Hale, I am sorry to say, got out of the country. My nephew has thrown himself upon my mercy. I believe him to be a mere tool. The man I want-the man who’s at the back of everything, the coldblooded ruffian who gave orders to have my daughter ‘removed’, in other words murdered-Millar, I’m no nearer knowing who he really is than I was when I began.”
“He isn’t Hale?”
“No, he’s not Hale-though I believe that Hale knows who he is. I don’t believe any of the others do, and-Hale’s out of the country.”
The door opened and Margot came in with a doubtful air.
“You didn’t call-but you’ve been simply ages.”
CHAPTER XLI
Charles came back to feelings of extreme discomfort. He opened his eyes and saw light coming down from above. There was something dark on either side of him; the light came down between two dark walls. The right side of his head felt just as it had felt when he was nine years old and had run into the corner of the dining-room cupboard. He blinked at the light and tried to move. He couldn’t.
He had an instant of intense fear, and then realized with relief that the reason he couldn’t move was that his hands and feet were tied. At the same moment a horrible choking feeling was explained by the presence of a gag.
He was lying on his back with his knees drawn up. A thick wad of something filled his mouth. He stared up at the light, and his head began to clear. The dark wall on the right was the study wall; the dark wall on the left was the back of Freddy Pelham’s sofa. He was lying on the ground between the sofa and the wall with his hands tied in front of him and his ankles strapped together. There was a most abominable gag in his mouth.
These things, which belonged to the immediate moment, presented themselves with increasing definiteness. What on earth had happened? His unconsciousness hung like a black curtain between him and the events which had preceded it. He could hear Freddy Pelham moving in the room. He crossed the floor and threw back the lid of a box. Then he crossed the floor again. Now he moved a chair, and there was a rustling of papers.
Charles knew that it was Freddy who was moving to and fro in the room. He could remember coming up the iron stair from the garden and seeing Freddy pull the blind aside and open the door to let him in. What on earth had happened after that? Something about Margaret. Something about Grey Mask. Quite suddenly he had a swift, unnaturally brilliant picture of the study as it looked from the door-not the door into the garden but the other door that led out on to the staircase. He saw the room, and he saw Freddy Pelham with an automatic in his hand and cool, cold murder in his eyes. He saw Freddy’s finger move. That was the picture, everything in it very hard and bright and clear. It kept coming and going, and as it came and went, he began to remember.
He had got as far as the door; he had turned; he had seen Freddy; he had ducked, and Freddy had fired. The shot must have grazed the right side of his head and knocked him out. Freddy had trussed him up and shoved him away behind the sofa. He had done this because Margaret was coming. At this point his mind became quite clear. He heard Freddy Pelham get up and come towards him. The sofa was moved some inches. Freddy leaned over the back of it and looked down at him.
Freddy? Freddy Pelham? Charles stared at a stranger with Freddy Pelham’s features and Freddy Pelham’s clothes. This was not the Freddy whom he or anyone else had known- the foolish, amiable Freddy whom one laughed at and was fond of, and who bored one so terribly with his reminiscences. Hard merciless eyes looked coldly down at Charles; a cruel mouth relaxed into a smile; a clearer, harder voice than Freddy’s spoke:
“So you’re not dead? It’s a pity-for you.”
Charles glared. At the sight of Freddy’s smile such a hot rage boiled up in him that he felt as if he would burst.