Rampole's damp coat felt repulsive against him. The room was full of Anthony's presence.
Dorothy spoke in a clear voice. She did not look afraid now.
"And that," she said, "went on until-?"
"Until he grew careless," answered Dr. Fell.
The rain, which had almost died away, crept up on the prison once more; it rustled in the ivy at the window, splattering the floor; it danced through the prison, as though it were washing things away.
"Or perhaps," resumed the doctor, looking suddenly at the balcony door, "perhaps he didn't grow careless. Perhaps somebody knew of his visits, without knowing what they were about, and cut that rope. Anyway, the knot of his rope slipped, or was cut. It was a wild night, full of wind and rain. The rope, freed, went down with him. Since its edge was on the inside lip of the well, it slid over into the well; nobody would have cared to examine anything down there, so they didn't suspect a rope. But Anthony didn't fall into the well."
And Rampole thought: Yes, a rope that was cut. Much more probable than a noose that slipped. Perhaps there was a lamp burning in the Governor's Room, and the man with the knife was looking over the balcony rail, and saw Anthony's face momentarily as he went whirling down towards the spikes on the edge of the well. In Rampole's mind it was as horribly vivid as a Cruikshank print-the white, staring eyeballs, the outflung arms, the shadowy murderer.
A cry against the wind and rain; then the noise, however it had sounded; and a lamp blown out. It was all as dead as one of those books in the shelves. Ainsworth might have imagined it, just as it took place, in the eighteen-twenties….
Distantly he heard Dr. Fell say: "There, Miss Starberth. There's your damned curse. There's what's been worrying you all this time. Not very impressive, is it?"
She rose without speaking, and began to walk about the room, her hands thrust into her pockets, just as Rampole remembered her that first night at the train. Pausing in front of Dr. Fell, she took a folded paper from her pocket and held it out. The verses.
"Then," she asked, "this? What about this?"
"A cryptogram, undoubtedly. It will tell us the exact place…. But don't you see that a clever thief wouldn't have needed that paper, he wouldn't even need to have known of its existence, to know that there was something hidden in the well? He could have used just the evidence I used. It's all available."
The candle was getting low, and a broad sheet of flame curled about it, throwing momentary brightness. Dorothy went to where the rain was making splattered pools below the window, and stared blankly at the vines.
"I think I see," she said, "about my father. He was — wet, wet all over, when they found him."
"You mean," said Rampole, "that he caught the thief at work?"
"Well, is there any other explanation?" Dr. Fell growled. He had been making ineffectual efforts to light his pipe, and now he laid it down on the table. "He was out riding, you know. He saw the rope going down into the well. We can assume that the murderer didn't see him, because Timothy went down into the well. So-?" He glared ferociously.
"There's some sort of room, or hollowed-out place," Rampole nodded. "And the murderer didn't know he was there until he came down."
"Humph. Well. There's another deduction, but let it go. Excuse me, Miss Starberth: your father didn't fall. He was beaten, coldly and viciously, and then thrown into the bushes for dead."
The girl turned. "Herbert?" she demanded.
With his forefinger Dr. Fell was making a pattern in the dust of the table, like a child drawing, with the utmost absorption. He muttered:
"It can't be an amateur. The thing's too perfect. It can't be. But it's got to be, unless they tell me differently. And if he isn't, it must be a high stake."
Rampole somewhat irritably asked what he was talking about.
"I was talking," the doctor replied, "about a visit to London."
With an effort he hoisted himself to his feet on the two canes; he stood fiery and lowering, blinking about the room behind his glasses. Then he shook one stick at the walls like a schoolmaster.
"Your secret's out," he rumbled. "You can't scare anybody now."
"There's still a murderer," Rampole said.
"Yes. And, Miss Starberth, it's your father who has kept him here. Your father left that note in the vault, as I explained to you the other day. The murderer thinks he's safe. He has waited nearly three years to get that condemning paper back. Well, he isn't safe."
"You know who it is?"
"Come along," said the doctor, brusquely. "We've got to get home. I need a cup of tea or a bottle of beer, preferably the latter. And my wife will be returning from Mrs. Payne's before long… "
"Look here, sir," Rampole persisted; "do you know who the murderer is?"
Dr. Fell pondered.
"It's still raining hard," he responded, at length, with the air of one meditating a move at chess. "Do you see how much water has accumulated under that window?"
"Yes, of course, but―"
"And do you see," he indicated the closed door to the balcony, "that none has got in through there?" "Naturally."
"But if that door were open there would be much more water there than under the window, wouldn't there?"
If the doctor were doing all this merely for the purpose of mystification, Rampole could not tell it. The lexicographer was looking through his glasses in a rather cross-eyed fashion, and pinching at his moustache. Rampole grimly resolved to hang on to the coat-tails of the comet.
"Undoubtedly, sir," he agreed.
"Then," said the other, triumphantly, "why didn't we see his light?"
"O God!" said Rampole, with a faint groan.
"It's like a conjuring trick. Do you know," enquired Dr. Fell, pointing with one cane, "what Tennyson said of Browning's 'Sordello'?"
"No, sir."
"He said that the only things you could understand in the poem were the first line and the last-and that both of 'em were lies. Well, that's the key to this business. Come along, children, and have some tea."
There might still have been terror in the house of whips and hangings. But Rampole did not feel it when he led the way down again with his light.
Back in the lamplit warmth of. Dr. Fell's house, they found Sir Benjamin Arnold waiting for them in the study.
Chapter 14
Sir Benjamin was moody. He had been cursing the rain, and, afterwards, the presence of strong language was still as palpable as a whisky breath. They found him looking hungrily at the cold tea-things before the study fire.
"Halloa!" said Dr. Fell. "My wife not back yet? How did you get in?"
"I walked in," the chief constable responded, with dignity. "The door was open. Somebody's been neglecting a jolly good tea… I say, what about a drink?
"We-ah-had tea," said Rampole.
The chief constable was aggrieved. "I want a brandy-and-soda. Everybody is pursuing me. First the rector. His uncle — New Zealander — old friend of mine; I got the rector the parish here — is making his first trip to England in ten years, and the rector wants me to meet him. How the devil can I go away? The rector's a New Zealander. Let him go to Southampton. Then Payne…"
"What's wrong with Payne?" asked Dr. Fell.
"He wants the door of the Governor's Room sealed up with bricks for good. Says its purpose is over now. Well, I only hope it is. But we can't do it yet. Payne always has a kind of mental toothache about something. Finally, since the last Starberth male heir is dead, Dr. Markley wants the well filled up."