“This thing,” he cried, “is a thing that could be managed by you or me or Jacques Bonhomme. Its simplicity horrifies me. And yet--”
He broke off.
Outside in Bolsover Place, with a squeal of brakes and a bumping on the uneven paving-stones, a motor-car pulled up. Professor Rigaud stumped over to one window. He flung up his arms.
“Dr. Fell,” he added, turning round from the window again, “arrives back from the hospital sooner than I expected him. I must go.”
“Go? Why must you go? Professor Rigaud!”
The good professor was not permitted to go very far. For the bulk of Dr. Gideon Fell, hatless but in his box-pleated cape, impelled mightily on the crutch-handled stick, had the effect of filling up the stairs, filling up the passage, and finally filling up the doorway. It had the effect of preventing any exit except by way of the window, which presumably was not Professor Rigaud's intention. So Dr. Fell stood there with a gargantuan swaying motion rather like a tethered elephant, still rather wild-eyed and with his eyeglasses coming askew, controlling his breathing for Johnsonesque utterance to Miles.
“Sir,” he began, “I bring you news.”
“Fay Seton--?”
“Fay Seton is alive,” replied Dr. Fell. Then, with a clatter you could almost hear, he swept that hope away. “How long she lives will depend on the care she takes of herself. It may be months; it may be days, I fear I must tell you she is a doomed woman, as in a sense she has always been a doomed woman.”
For a little time nobody spoke.
Barbara, Miles noted in an abstracted way, was standing just where Fay had stood; by the chest-of-drawers, under the hanging lamp. Barbara's fingers were pressed to her lips in an expression of horror mingled with overwhelming pity.
“Couldn't we,” said Miles, clearing his throat, “couldn't we go over to the hospital and see her?”
“No, sir,” returned Dr. Fell.
For the first time Miles noticed that there was a police-sergeant in the hall behind Dr. Fell. Motioning to this sergeant, Dr. Fell squeezed his way through and closed the door behind him.
“I have just come from talking to Miss Seton,” he went on. “I have heard the whole pitiful story.” His expression was vaguely fierce. “It enables me o fill in the details of my own guesses and half-hits.” As Dr. Fell's expression grew more fierce, he put up a hand partly to adjust his eyeglasses and partly perhaps to shade his eyes. “But that, you see, causes the trouble.”
Miles' disquiet had increased.
“What do you mean, trouble?”
“Hadley will be here presently, with—harrumph--a certain duty to perform. Its result will not be pleasant for one person now in this room. That's why I thought I had better come here first and warn you. I thought I had better explain to you certain matters you may not have grasped even yet.”
“Certain matters? About--?”
“About those two crimes,” said Dr. Fell. He peered at Barbara as though noticing her for the first time. “Oh, ah!” breathed Dr. Fell with an air of enlightenment. “And you must be Miss Morell!”
“Yes! I want to apologize . . .”
“Tut, tut! Not for the famous fiasco of the Murder Club?”
“Well . . . yes.”
“A small matter,” said Dr. Fell, with a massive gesture of dismissal.
He lumbered to the frayed armchair, which had been pushed near one window. With the aid of his crutch-handled stick he sat down, the armchair accommodating him as best it could. After rolling back his shaggy head to take a reflective survey of Barbara, of Miles, an of Professor Rigaud, he reached into his inside breast pocket under the cape. From this he produced Professor Rigaud's sheaf of manuscript, now much crumpled and frayed at the edges.
And he produced something else which Miles recognized. It was the coloured photograph of Fay Seton, last seen by Miles at Beltring's Restaurant. With the same air of ferocity overlying bitter worry and distress, Dr. Fell sat studying the photograph.
“Dr. Fell,” said Miles. “Hold on! Half a minute!”
The doctor rolled up his head.
“Eh? Yes? What is it?”
“I suppose Superintendent Hadley's told you what happened in this room a couple of hours ago?”
“H'mf, yes. He's told me.”
“Barbara and I came in here and found Fay standing where Barbara is now, with the brief-case and a bundle of blood-stained banknotes. I—er--shoved those notes into my pocket just before Hadley arrived. I needn't have bothered. After asking a lot of questions which seemed to tend towards Fay's guilt, he showed he knew about the brief-case all along.”
Dr. Fell frowned. “Well?”
“At the height of the questioning, this light went out. Somebody must have thrown the main-switch in the fuse-box just outside in the passage. Someone or something rushed in here . . .”
“Someone,” repeated Dr. Fell, “or something. By thunder, I like the choice of words!”
“Whoever it was, it threw Fay to one side and ran out of here with the brief-case. We didn't see anything. I picked up the brief-case outside a minute later. It had nothing in it but the three other packets of notes and a little gritty dust. Hadley took the whole lot away with him, including my concealed notes, when he left with Fay in the –in the ambulance.
Miles gritted his teeth.
“I mention all this,” he went on, “because so many hints have been made about her guilt that I'd like to see justice done in one respect. Whatever reason you had for asking me, Dr. Fell, you did ask me to get in touch with Barbara Morell. And I did, with sensational results.”
“Ah!” murmured Dr. Fell in a vaguely distressed way. He would not meet Miles' eyes.
“Did you know, for instance, that it was Harry Brooke who wrote a series of anonymous letters accusing Fay of having affairs with men all over the district? And then, when that charge fell flat, Harry stirred up superstition by bribing young Fresnac to slash marks in his own neck and start this nonsense about vampirism? Did you know that?”
“Yes,” assented Dr. Fell. “I know it. It's true enough.”
“We have here”--Miles gestured to Barbara, who opened her handbag--”a letter written by Harry Brooke on the very afternoon of the murder. He wrote it to Barbara's brother, who,” Miles added hastily, “isn't at all concerned in this. If you still have any doubts . . .”
Dr. Fell reared up his shoulders with sudden acute interest.
“You have that letter?” he demanded. “May I see it?”
“With pleasure. Barbara?”
Rather reluctantly, Miles thought, Barbara handed over the letter. Dr. Fell took it, adjusted his eyeglasses, and slowly read it through. His expression had grown even more lowering when he put it down on one knee on top of the manuscript and the photograph.
“It's a pretty story, isn't it?” Miles asked bitterly. “A very fine thing to hound her with! But let's leave Harry's ethics out of this, if nobody gives a curse about Fay's side of it. The point is, this whole situation came about through a trick played by Harry Brooke . . .”
“No!” said Dr. Fell in a voice like a pistol-shot.
Miles stared at him.
“What do you mean by that?” Miles demanded. “You're not saying that Pierre Fresnac and this grotesque charge of vampirism--?”
“Oh, no,” said Dr. Fell, shaking his head. “We may leave young Fresnac and the manufactured teeth-marks entirely out of the picture. They are irrelevant. They don't count. But . . .”
“But what?”
Dr. Fell, after contemplating the floor, slowly raised his head and looked Miles in the eyes.
“Harry Brooke,” he said, “wrote a lot of anonymous letters containing accusations in which he didn't believe. That is the irony! That is the tragedy! For, although Harry Brooke didn't know it—didn't dream of it, wouldn't have believed it if you'd told him—the accusations were nevertheless perfectly true.”