"Ghost-village? You saw it Built beyond the prison. The Governor's house was there. George Fleet gave that collection to Major Colwell, and Major Colwell left it behind when everybody decamped. So Ricky Fleet had a second dagger, very like the first, when he led Enid Puckston toward the prison to kill her."
Martin cleared his throat "H.M. Was she one of Ricky's —?"
H.M.'s expression was heavy and bitter.
"No, son. That's the real irony of this case. She liked and admired him an awful lot, as I could tell when I heard her mention him at the pub. That's all it amounted to. But— haven't you wondered why Puckston sent those anonymous postcards in the first place?"
"You mean she wasn't one of Ricky's conquests, but—?"
"Her father thought she might be," replied H.M.
He was silent for a moment, glowering.
"Mind you, Puckston didn't know the boy Richard Fleet had done that murder years ago. He'd seen what he knew was the light on a cricket-bat He guessed nobody but a kid could have crawled under that ledge unseen. He had no proof and anyway he didn't want trouble. But if Enid had fallen for this bloke years later—! So he sent the postcards, with her help but without her knowin'; and then he thinks she's been killed, by the same boy grown up, because she knows too much! Do you wonder at Puckston's state of mind on Sunday night?"
"No," Martin answered. "No. I don't wonder."
"Anyway, Ricky Fleet took that gal to the prison, to see a 'ghost-hunt', at goin' on for one in the morning. He butchered her with all the hate in him. He left the body under the gallows-trap, as a rare sight for somebody if the trap was opened. Masters has told you that story, including the reversed alibi. Finally, Fleet slipped out again without a whisper to catch Masters's ear.
"I don't think, though, he slept very well the rest of the night And then you two," H.M.'s finger indicated Martin and Jenny, "had to go yellin' under the windows at going on for five in the morning, and give him his heaven-gilded opportunity to shove Drake off the roof." "But why didn't you warn me?"
H.M. drew himself together. He stuck out towards Martin a face of such utter loathing, such indescribable contempt, that the other felt his scalp stir with hostility.
"Look here, you something-something'd thus-and-so," he said. "There's a feller here in London," he mentioned a famous painter, "you think is a friend of yours. I bein' the old man, happen to know he hates your guts."
"That," Martin said quietly, but with buzzing ears, "is a very bloody lie."
"Darling!" cried Jenny.
"You think so, hey?" inquired H.M., with a contempt which was one vast sneer. "He was in Spain with another feller he hated, and he shot that feller in the back without givin' him a chance. What, do you say to that, you credulous so-and-so this-and-that”
"I say," returned Martin, sticking out his own neck, "that I will prove you a thus-and-so this-and-that liar. I will take him to any lonely place you name, with a loaded revolver in my pocket I will hand him the revolver, and—" Even with badly buzzing head, Martin stopped short
"Y’see what I mean?" inquired H.M., with a sort of malignant apology.
"I deny that! I. ’
"Your feelings, son, ring up as plain as l.s.d. on a cash register. Even when," H.M. glanced towards Lady Brayle, "it was half the world to you that they shouldn't. Ricky Fleet would have had to shut you up even quicker than he tried to do.”
"And didn't he try! It was a matter of seconds for him to nip up, get the field-glasses out of his father's study where his mother kept 'em, rearrange, the chairs on the roof, and…
"Are you askin' why? Listen. What's the impulse of anybody who finds a pair of field-glasses on a roof? It's to try 'em, ain't it? People in general (we all did it ourselves on Saturday evening) walk straight to the centre-front of a square roof. You'd have done it on Sunday, with your attention distracted, if you hadn't got suspicious of the glasses. Your bravado took you there instead. The chairs were arranged like a series of rocks for hiding places, while somebody in bare feet crept up behind you.”
To wind it up, on Sunday night I tumbled to the trick of the murder on the root And that opened every other door: the skeleton in the clock too. Puckston, nobody else but Puckston, was our salvation if we could get him to help.
"He'd written the postcards, probably with the help of his daughter. It seemed to me the poor devil would be over at the Dragon, writhin' in agony with the fear Enid might 'a' been killed because of that Mind you, I didn't know then he suspected something between Enid and Ricky. And at that time I didn't know old Dr. Laurier, with one too many brandies in his bar, had once given him a hint about what the skeleton-clock meant
"But—if I could show him he wasn't in any way responsible for his girl's death — it seemed to me he'd help us yank a confession out of Ricky. I even took Drake along, as one nearly killed by a maniac. But Puckston didn't even notice Drake's honor-film forehead; and he wasn't necessary.
"The crowds at MacDougall's show were just what we needed. Puckston 'phoned Ricky early in the morning. Ricky arranged to meet him — just as he was willing to meet Drake, with somethin' goading his mind — in the darkish outer-shell of the Mirror Maze.
"But young Richard had plans laid too. He'd arranged a quite genuine meeting between his mother and Susan Harwood, timed for one o'clock. You see why? That was his time to meet Puckston. So he told everybody about it even Dr. Laurier, with this addition, 'If you see me motion to keep away, keep away.'
"Neat idea. He could then go where he liked, to meet Puckston, and he could keep-any of his friends from followin' him if he waved. All the same, even when we were discussing who was goin' to the fair, he couldn't keep away from his own reflection in the hall mirror. Just as, on Saturday night and of all places and times, he'd taken a look at himself in the mirror of the condemned cell"
"And about his emotional state Monday morning. Did you notice, there in the hall, he had tears in his eyes?"
"But H.M.!" protested Ruth. "If what Cicely told me was true, he was laughing. You'd been telling some perfectly outrageous anecdotes about your ancestor. Including one about reciting limericks to Charles the First"
"Well… now!" said H.M., with a cough and a deprecating wave of his hand. "I didn't really think, y’know, the lofty muse of Curtius Merrivale would ever descend to limericks, even if they'd been invented. It was Masters put the idea in my head by savin’ so the night before."
Then what—?"
‘I was always careful to be very comfortin' and cloth-headed in front of Ricky Fleet He didn't think he'd got to worry about the old man." Then H.M.'s voice changed, sharply. "He wasn't amused then, my wench. He'd been listenin' with all his ears to Drake's end of a do-you-love-me telephone conversation, with that gal there, which didn't amuse him at all.
"When four of you went out there in the car, I heard later, he nearly lost control of himself. He was rigid, nearly ready to burst, hardly keepin' back the tears. That was after Drake had said he meant to elope with Jenny if he had to.”
"I didn't know this at the time; but cor! I was worried. When I gathered that crowd round the race-track booth, and yelled and bellowed the odds, it was only partly to make Sophie popular. I wanted the jostle of a big crowd so I could make sure Ricky Fleet wasn't carryin' a weapon. He wasn't But when I heard Drake was in the maze..”
"You know the rest Puckston and the dewy-eyed innocent were near a microphone (it was darkish, so the feller didn't see it) outside what looked like a solid mirror. It was only the silver paint usually used over plate glass, for what's known to gamblers as a two-way mirror, but in this case on cardboard and curtain.”