“She had returned from her stroll northwards along the river-bank, as she tells us, about half-past three. She had not yet gone in for a swim; her costume was still over her arm. She wandered into the tower. She heard frantic voices coming from above. And softly, on her openwork rubber-soled sandals, she crept up the stairs.
“Fay Seton, poised on that curving staircase in the gloom, not only heard but saw everything that went on. She saw Harry and his father, each wearing a raincoat. She saw the yellow cane propped against the parapet, the brief-case lying on the floor, while Howard Brooke gesticulated.
“What wild recrimination did the father pour out then? Did he threaten to disown Harry? Possibly. Did he swear that Harry should never see Paris or painting as long as his life lasted? Probably. Did he repeat, with a kind of incredulous disgust, all that beautiful Harry had done against the reputation of the girl who was in love with him? Almost certainly.
“And Fay Seton heard it.
“But sick as that must have made her, she was to hear and see worse.
“For such scenes sometimes get out of control. This one did. The father suddenly turned away, past speech; turned his back on Harry as he was to do later. Harry saw the ruin of all his plans. He saw no soft life for himself now. And something snapped in his head. In a child's fury he snatched up the sword-stick, twisted it out of its scabbard, and stabbed his father through the back.”
Dr. Fell, uneasy through all his bulk at his own words, fitted together the two halves of the sword-stick. Then he put it down quietly on the floor.
Neither Barbara nor Miles nor Professor Rigaud spoke, during a silence while you might have counted ten. Miles slowly rose to his feet. The torpor was leaving him. Gradually he saw . . .
“The blow,” Miles said, “was struck just then?”
“Yes. The blow was struck just then.”
“And the time?”
“The time,” returned Dr. Fell, “was nearly ten minutes to four. Professor Rigaud there was very close to the tower.
“The wound made by the blade was a deep, thin wound: the sort, we find in medical jurisprudence, that makes the victim think he is not at all badly hurt. Howard Brooke saw his son standing there white-faced and stupid, hardly realizing what he had done. What were the father's reactions to all this? If you know men like Mr. Brooke, you can prophesy exactly.
“Fay Seton, silent and unseen, had fled down the stairs. In the doorway she met Rigaud and ran from him. And Rigaud, hearing the voices upstairs, put his head inside the tower and shouted up to them.
“In his narrative Rigaud tells us that the voices stopped instantly. By thunder, they did!
“For, let me repeat, what were Howard Brooke's feelings about all this? He had just heard the hail of a family friend, Rigaud, who will be up those stairs as soon as a stout man can climb them. Was Mr. Brooke's instinct, in the middle of this awkward mess, to denounce Harry? Lord of all domestic troubles, no! Just the opposite! His immediate desperate wish was to hush things up, to pretend somehow that nothing at all had happened.
“I think it was the father who snarled to the son: 'Give me your raincoat!' And I am sure it was quite natural for him to do so.
“You-harrumph—perceive the point?
“In the back of his own raincoat, as he saw by whipping it off, was a tear through which blood had soaked. But a good lined raincoat will do more than turn rain from outside. It will also keep blood from showing through from inside. If he wore Harry's coat, and somehow disposed of his own, he could conceal that ugly bleeding wound in his back . . .
“You guess what he did. He hastily rolled up his own raincoat, stuffed it into the brief-case, and fastened the straps. He thrust the sword-blade back into its scabbard (hence the blood inside); he tightened its threads and propped it up again. He put on Harry's raincoat. By the time Rigaud had toiled to the top of the stairs, Howard Brooke was ready to prevent scandal.
“But, my eye! How that whole tense shivery scene of top of the tower takes on a different aspect if you read it like this!
“The pale-faced son stammering, 'But, sir--!' The father in a cold buttoned-up voice, 'For the last time, will you allow me to deal with this matter in my own way?' This matter! And then, flaring out: 'Will you take my son away from here until I have adjusted certain matters to my own satisfaction? Take him anywhere!' And the father turns his back.
“There was a chill in the voice, a chill in the heart. You sensed it, my dear Rigaud, when you spoke of Harry, beaten and deflated, being led dumbly down those stairs. And Harry's sullen shining eye in the woo, while Harry wondered what in God's name the old man was going to do.
“Well, what was the old man going to do? He was going to get home, of course, with that incriminating raincoat decently hidden in his brief-case. There he could hide scandal. My son tried to kill me! That was the worst revulsion of all. He was going to get home. And then . . .”
“Continue, please!” prompted Professor Rigaud, snapping his fingers in the air as Dr. Fell's voice died away. “This is the part I have not followed. He was going to get home. And them--?”
Dr. Fell looked up.
“He found he couldn't,” Dr. Fell said simply. “Howard Brooke knew he was fainting. And he suspected he might be dying.
“He saw quite clearly he couldn't get down that steep spiral stair, forty feet above ground, without pitching forward into space. He would be found fainting here—if nothing worse—wearing Harry's raincoat and his own pierced bloodstained raincoat in the brief-case. Questions would be asked. The facts, properly interpreted, would be utterly damning to Harry.
“Now that man really loved his son. He had got two dazing revelations that afternoon. He meant to be very severe with the boy. But he wouldn't see Harry, poor idolized Harry, really in serious trouble. So he id the obvious thing, the only possible thing, to show he must have been attacked after Harry left.
“With his last strength he took his own raincoat out of the brief-case, an put it on again. Harry's now blood-stained too, he thrust into the case. He must get rid of that brief-case somehow. In a sense that was easy, because there was water just below.
“But he couldn't simply drop it over the edge, though the police of Chartres in their suicide theory thought he might accidentally have knocked it over. He couldn't drop it, for the not-very-abstruse reason that the brief-case would float.
“However, on the battlements of the parapet facing the riverside were big crumbling fragments of loose rock. These could be wrenched loose and put into the brief-case, fastened in with the straps, and the weighted case would sink.
“He managed to drop it over. He managed to take the sword-cane from ts scabbard, wipe its handle free from any trace of Harry's touch—that of course was why only his own fingerprints were found on it—and throw the two halves on the floor. Then Howard Brooke collapsed. He was not dead when the screaming child found him. He was not dead when Harry and Rigaud arrived. He died in Harry's arms, clinging pathetically to Harry and trying to assure his murderer it would be all right.
“God rest the man's soul,” added Dr. Fell, slowly putting up his hands to cup them over his eyes.
For a time Dr. Fell's wheezing breaths were the only sound in that room. A few drops of rain splattered outside the windows.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” said Dr. Fell, taking his hands away from his eyes and regarding his companions soberly, “I submit this to you now. I submit t, as I could have submitted it last night after reading the manuscript and hearing the report of Fay Seton's story, as the only feasible explanation of how Howard Brooke met his death.
“The stains inside the sword-stick, showing the blade must have been put back in the sheath and then taken out again before it was found! The bulging brief-case! Harry's disappearing raincoat! The missing fragments of rock from the parapet! The curious question of fingerprints!