"It's a part of the story," prompted Ann, "but not all. What happened afterwards?"
"The rest," said H.M., settling back, "is plain sailing for us. But not for him. On that same night, after his trick was over, he got one hell of a shock.
"For Rich's curiosity had been roused by the rummy emotional undercurrents in this place. Rich wanted to know what ailed Mrs. Fane. While she was under hypnosis, up in that bedroom, Rich asked questions. And, in front of Rich and another witness, she told about the murder of Polly Allen."
"But how could Hubert have known that?" demanded Courtney.
"Because he heard you and me talkin', that's how!" snapped H.M. "Think back, son. Where were we when you first told me all about what you'd heard eavesdroppin' on that balcony?"
Courtney reflected.
"We were standing just outside the front door of this house," he answered, "in the dark."
"Yes. And who occupies the other front bedroom: across the hall from Mrs. Fane's, and also with a balcony facing the front lawn?"
"Hubert," replied Ann instantly.
"We — we moved him to it after the fifteenth of July," Vicky gritted.
"And," said Ann, "Phil and I saw his shadow pass the window there the night you were so ill."
"That's right," agreed H.M. "I sort of thought at the time there was a ghosty kind of shadow up over our heads. But I paid no attention. Hubert, pokin' his big nose out to get a breath of air, heard Courtney tellin' me all about Polly Allen.
"To say that Hubert must have got the breeze up would be puttin' it mildly. The coppers mustn't even hear about Polly. But they had. Under pressure, Mrs. Fane was almost certain to speak out. Why shouldn't she? Her husband, who she thought was the murderer, was dead. The police would get to pryin'. They'd connect Hubert with it. They'd find out that instead of being a 'penniless blackmailer—'
"Well, what Hubert had to do was to shut her mouth before she told the police that he knew anything about Polly Allen. Up to that time (remember?) we didn't know Hubert had any connection with it at all.
"/ gave him his bright idea, curse him. I got rather a phobia about sterilizin' things, and raised a rumpus with Courtney about Rich using a pin on the lady's arm without sterilizing it.
'That gave Hubert to think. If Mrs. Fane died an accidental death, poor gal, of tetanus…
"He went down to the library and looked up tetanus in the encyclopedia. There, starin' back at him in the article (as you can verify by reading it) was the information that the symptoms of tetanus are just the same as those of strychnine poisoning.
"So he had a use for his strychnine after all."
H.M. paused, and pulled at a dead cigar.
"The next day, Thursday, Mrs. Fane would be feel-in' awful ill and upset after what she'd been through. When she felt like that, she ate nothin' but grapefruit. All he had to do was hang about with a little heap of poison in his hand until he saw his opportunity."
Sharpless interposed.
"But what opportunity, sir? I carried the damned grapefruit up to her, and I can swear—"
"Oh, no, you can't, son. Lemme ask you a question. You carried a tray. What was on that tray?"
"The grapefruit, in a glass dish, and a spoon."
"Yes. What else?"
"Nothing but the sugar-bowl."
"That's right. As you were walkin' through the hall, Hubert passed you and stepped up in front of you. Didn't he?"
"Only for a fraction of a second. I didn't stop. I—" "All right. And what did Hubert say? He said,
'Grapefruit, eh?' Didn't he? And what else did he do?
He stretched out his hand and pointed to it, didn't he?"
"Yes, but he didn't touch the grapefruit."
"He didn't need to. While you automatically looked where his finger was pointin', his other hand did the trick. It dropped strychnine into white sugar in the sugar-bowl.
"Mrs. Propper, d'ye see, had put only a very little sugar on. Mrs. Fane likes the stuff sweet. She added sugar mixed with strychnine to it; and saved her own life by puttin' an overdose on the fruit. That's all. Hubert, who was popular in the kitchen, had a dozen opportunities to clean out the sugar-bowl later.
"He didn't even bother to be subtle about it. For he never even expected strychnine to be thought of, once he'd planted that rusty pin in the bedroom. The one thing that realty surprised him, later, was when we told him it wasn't tetanus but strychnine.
"An ass, Hubert, in a way. For it was suspected. And his victim didn't die.
"I'll pass over his state of mind that same Thursday night, when you saw him walkin' past the window and slapping his hands together like a wild man. He had to let himself go in some way. I'll pass over, to save embarrassment, the other thing he did that night. I mean the play he made at a certain gal, in the lane behind here: the thing he'd been burnin' to do for so long. The thing he wanted to do so much that it had got him involved in murder to begin with."
Courtney, on the arm of Ann's chair, glanced down at her. Her hands were clasped together, and she regarded them without expression.
'That was Hubert, then?" she asked.
"It was, my wench," said H.M., "and I think you knew it. Courtney scared him away, or there might have been real trouble. Pleasant gentleman, Hubert. Dear old gentleman."
H.M. sniffed.
"So we come to the last act.
"On Sunday afternoon Masters came round to me with his bunch of reports. I was dead certain our man was Hubert by that time, if we could only find a motive.
"Hubert, if you remember, begged us not to ask Mrs. Fane too many questions when we went over to question her. I promised we wouldn't. But—" he studied Vicky—"we did ask you questions. And you gave us the whole story of Arthur and Hubert and Polly Allen. The case was complete at last.
"But, oh, my eye, was it worryin'! For the first time since your illness you were, to all intents and purposes, alone in that house with a murderer. And the nurse, who'd slept in your room, had been dismissed that day."
Vicky shivered.
And Courtney remembered H.M.'s expression as H.M. had come out to them as they sat under the fruit trees, after his interview with Vicky.
"Masters and I felt the blighter might have another go at you." He craned round towards the others. "We persuaded this gal to ask Ann Browning to come and stay the night with her. With somebody in the same room, we didn't think even Hubert would be loony enough to try anything.
"We also jumped for joy when a little informal search of Hubert's room revealed a cache of strychnine powder, an alcohol solution ready for it, and a hypodermic. For the strychnine we sort of substituted salts, and went our way.
"The case wasn't complete. We didn't dare let Hubert know we twigged him yet, in case he claimed the stuff had been planted on him. We warned Mrs. Fane not to let on she'd told us anything, in case he questioned her—"
"As he did," muttered Vicky.
"But that very evening the case had the tin hat put on it when Agnew reported that Hubert could be identified by an iron-monger in Gloucester as the man who bought the knife. Meantime, Hubert had his last fling.
"Even in his vanity he had the sense to realize he might, just might, be suspected. So he created a phantom outsider by obviously knockin' on a drain-pipe under Mrs. Propper’s windows, and fiddlin' about with the window to create his burglar.
"Next he made noises downstairs to attract Ann Browning and draw her down. If she hadn't gone… well, I get a bit of gooseflesh to think what might have happened. Hubert nipped up the stairs, administered a hypodermic to a sleeping woman, and ducked down again after she'd returned.