Dr. Markley was still on his afternoon round, and they did not linger. As they went down into the High Street, Rampole was rather more nervous than the chief constable.
Neither last night nor today could he elicit anything more from Dr. Fell.
"What's more," the chief constable grumbled, in the same tone, "I will not go to Southampton to meet the rector's uncle. I don't care if he is an old friend; the rector is going instead. I have business in Manchester — that's Thursday-and I've got to be away a week at the least. Dash it! Something always comes up. I can't find Payne, either; he has some papers I must take to Manchester along with me. Dash it! Here I've wasted all this time with the blasted case, when I could easily turn it over to the proper people, and Fell takes the whole thing out of my hands…
He was talking rather desperately, Rampole sensed, talking away at anything that came into his head, so that he would not be forced to think. And the American agreed with him.
Sir Benjamin's grey Daimler was waiting in the elm-shadowed street. It was tea-time, and few people were abroad. Rampole wondered whether the news of Herbert's death had yet filtered into Chatterham; the body had been conveyed to the Hall late last night, and the servants warned with awesome threats to say nothing until they were given permission, but that was no guarantee at all. Last night, to keep away the horrors, Dorothy had stayed with Mrs. Fell. Until almost daybreak Rampole had heard them talking in the room next to his. Exhausted, and yet unable to sleep, he had sat at the window, smoking innumerable cigarettes, and staring with smarting eyelids at the whitening dawn….
Now the grey Daimler swept through Chatterham, and the wind stroked his face with cool fragrance. In the sky the fiery streaks had paled; there were white, and violet, and a smokiness of shadow creeping up from the lowlands. There were a few dark clouds, like slow sheep. He remembered the first evening he had walked into Chatterham with Dorothy Starberth, through this mysterious hour of the gold-darkened sky and the faint jangling bells; when a wind ran across the green corn, and the smell of hawthorn grew stronger with dusk. Remembering it, he did not believe that it had been only ten days ago.
"Tomorrow there is an afternoon train from London," he could hear Dr. Fell speaking in the Hag's Nook. "We will meet that train."
The words had finality….
Sir Benjamin said nothing. The Daimler roared against the whipping breeze. Dorothy in New York. Dorothy as his wife. Lord! but it had a funny sound! — every time he thought of that, he thought of himself sitting in a class last year and thinking that if he flunked economics (which, like all intelligent people, he detested), it would be the end of the world. Possessing a wife, he would become suddenly a citizen, with a telephone number and a cocktail-shaker and everything; and his mother would have hysterics; and his father, up twenty-five floors in a law-office at Number One West Forty-Second Street, would drowsily lift an eyebrow and say, "Well, how much do you need?"
The Daimler stopped with a slur of tires in the road. They would have to wait for this respectable citizenship; they would have to wait for a murderer.
In the darkening lane which led to Yew Cottage several figures were awaiting them. Dr. Fell's voice boomed out:
"How is he? Getting better? — I thought so. Well, we're ready." He made a gesture with one cane. "Everybody who was on the scene the night Martin was murdered, everybody who can give evidence, is going to be in at the death now. Miss Starberth didn't want to come, and neither did the rector. But they're both here. I think there will be others waiting for us at the railway station." He added, testily, "Well, climb in, climb in!"
The rector's huge figure loomed out of the lane. He almost stumbled as he assisted Dorothy into the car.
"I'm quite willing, of course," he said. ` `But I don't understand what you said about needing me―"
They had come out of the lane's shadow now. Dr. Fell struck his stick in the dust. He said:
"That's the point. That's the whole point. I want you to identify somebody. There's something you can tell us, and I doubt whether you know it yourself. And, unless you all do exactly as I tell you, we shall never know. Do you hear?"
He glared at all of them. Sir Benjamin was racing his motor, keeping his stiff face turned away. He suggested in a cold voice that they be on their way. In the tonneau the rector was trying to arrange his large plump face along pleasant lines. Dorothy sat with her hands folded in her lap, looking straight ahead….
Rampole had not been to the railway station since he had arrived in that other age ten days ago. The Daimler fled along the curves of the road, its siren crying ahead. Chatterham prison fell away behind; they seemed more in touch with reality now. Up over the waves of corn rose the small brick station, and the rails were shimmering against a low, dull, yellow-gleaming sunset. The lamps along the platform had not yet been lighted, but there was a green-shaded light in the ticket window of the station. Dogs were barking, just as on that first night….
As Sir Benjamin stopped the car they heard, far down the tracks, the thin whistle of the train.
Rampole started. Stumbling on his canes, Dr. Fell had lurched out of the car. He wore his old black slouch-hat and box-pleated cape, which made him seem like a fat bandit; and a breeze waved the black ribbon on his eyeglasses.
"Now, listen," he said. "Stay with me. The only instructions I have are for you." He looked fiercely at Sir Benjamin. "I warn you that you may have a temptation. But, whatever you see or hear, for God's sake don't speak! Do you understand?" He was glaring now.
"As chief constable of this county―" Sir Benjamin was beginning, snapping the words out, when the doctor cut him short.
"Here comes the train. Walk up to the platform with me."
They could hear the thin, faint, clicking roar. It was rushing through Rampole's nerves now. He felt as though he were one of a herd of chickens being shooed into a pen by Dr. Fell. The headlight of the locomotive winked around a curve among the trees; the rails were shimmering, and they had begun to hum…. '
A stationmaster pulled open the door of the baggage-room with a long screech, emitting light on the boards of the platform. Rampole glanced in that direction. Against the eeriness of the dim yellow sky he saw a motionless figure standing near the station. Then, with a shock, he saw that there were several of these motionless figures in corners about the platform. All of them had their hands in the side pockets of their coats.
He turned sharply. Dorothy Starberth was at his side, staring up the tracks. The rector, his blue eyes pinched up, was swabbing at his forehead with a handkerchief, and seemed about to speak. Sir Benjamin looked sourly at the ticket window.
Swaying in a gush of cinders, the small train ground in to a stop, its headlight enormous now. There was a heavy sigh from the engine, and it panted in puffs of steam. A white lamp winked on over the entrance to the station. Past the yellow, grimed windows of the train there were flickers as of people moving out. The only noise was a subdued clanking, above the rumble of the baggage truck.
"There…" said Dr. Fell.
One passenger was alighting now. Rampole could not see his face because of the conflicting lights and the heavy backwash of steam. Then the passenger moved under the white station light, and the American stared…
He had never seen this man before. At the same time, he was conscious that one of the motionless men about the platform, his hand still in his pocket, had moved closer. But he was looking at this curious person from the train: a tall man, with an old-fashioned square derby and a grey moustache clipped sharp about a strong brown chin. The stranger hesitated, swinging a large valise from his right hand to his left….