Danvers Locke, elegant and aloof, rose to his feet
"It's getting rather late," he observed. "I think, Doris, we had better go."
Celia was standing up, her eyes glistening with tears.
"I'm not going to crow over you, Thorley," she said. "But don't you ever, ever, ever, as long as you live, go about telling people I'm insane." Celia's whole manner changed. She ooked at Holden, trying to keep her face straight against the tears, and held out her hands to him.
"Darling!" Celia said. Then he was beside her, gripping her hands tightly enough to hurt, looking down at her eyes as he had looked last night, under the trees beside the park. "Listen, for God's sake," shouted Thorley.
There was so much pleading urgency in it that they swung round in spite of themselves.
"I want to answer that," gritted Thorley. "I've got a right to answer it." He swallowed. "It's true I did lie about that one little point, yes! But I thought it was for a good reason. I .. ."
" 'That one little point?'" echoed Holden. He could not even hate Thorley now; he could only regard the man with awe. "You know, Thorley, you're a beauty! You really are a beauty! You told the truth about everything else, I suppose?"
'Yes, I did!"
"It won't do, Thorley. You've been maintaining it was a delusion of Celia's that Margot changed her gown in the middle of the night, and put on a black velvet dress instead of the silver one. Whereas there's a witness to prove that's exactly what Margot did."
"Oh?" inquired Thorley coolly. "You think you're getting smart, like all the rest of them. And who's the perjurer who says that?"
"Your strongest supporter. Doris Locke."
Doris let out a cry. Her father immediately and blandly stepped in front of her chair, as though to shield Doris even from their sight
"I think, Doris, we had really better be going."
Along the gallery had creaked the footsteps of Obey, Obey in a hurry, yet so deftly did she move, leaning over and whispering earnestly to Dr. Fell, that they were not conscious of her presence until Dr. Fell uttered an exclamation and surged to his feet, thrusting the long envelope into his pocket.
"O Lord! Oh Bacchus!" muttered Dr. Fell. "The appointment! I had completely forgotten. I sincerely trust the sexton is drunk. Er—my dear Holden!"
"Yes?"
Dr. Fell, completely scatterbrained now that he was not concentrating on anything, blinked round him in distress.
"My corporeal shape, while perhaps majestic," he said, "is not altogether suitable for bending and touching the floor. In some mysterious manner," he rumbled at his eyeglasses, "my hat and my other cane seem to have fallen off the table. If you wouldn't mind? ... Ah! Thank 'ee. Yes. That's better! Let me remind you that we have an urgent appointment"
And he lumbered out of the embrasure, supporting himself on two canes. It was so unexpected, it left them so much in mid-air, that even Locke spoke in protest
"Dr. Fell!"
"Hey?"
"May I ask," inquired Locke in a voice brittle with anger, "whether this inquiry is ended?"
"Ended. H'mf. Well. Not precisely ended." Dr. Fell shook his head. "But I think, you know, the situation is fairly dear."
"Clear!" said Locke. "In some respects, yes. You said you could solve our problem, and to a great extent I think you have. What do you propose to do?"
"Do?"
"Our friend Marsh here," stated Locke, "has been caught in at least one flat lie of utterly damning quality. Must I repeat the rest of the tag about falsus in uno? What do you propose to do?"
"Do?" again repeated Dr. Fell, with sudden ferocity. "God bless the police, what can I do? The man's quite innocent"
Holden felt, not for the first time in this affair or yet the last that his wits were turning upside down.
"Innocent?" said Locke. "Innocent of what?"
"Mr. Marsh," replied Dr. Fell, "never mistreated or abused his wife in any way. He didn't drive her to suicide. And he didn't kill her."
Celia's hands, in Holden's, had first tightened and then gone limp. She snatched her hands away, and pressed them over her face. Celia began to rock back and forth, soundlessly, while he gripped her shoulders and tried to steady her.
Then occurred something which was almost worse. Across the face of Mr. Dereck Hurst-Gore, who had been lounging there almost unnoticed, moved an airy and serene smile. He glanced at Thorley, and the glance said as plainly as print: You see? Didn't I tell you there'd be no trouble? I arranged this.
"Dr. Fell," said Holden, "are you trying to maintain, in spite of all the evidence, that Celia isn t—isn't in her right senses?"
"Great Scott, No" thundered Dr. Fell. "Of course she's in her right senses!"
He rapped the ferrules of both canes against the floor. For the first time he looked fully at Celia. In that look, jumbled up, were affection and kindliness and yet disquiet
"Though Thorley Marsh quite sincerely won't believe it" Dr. Fell said, "there isn't a psychopathic trait in that girl's nature. But I must make sure (curse it, if you could only see!) that she isn't. . ."
‘Isn’t what?’ Locke asked sharply.
"Sir," said Dr. Fell, with an enormous wheeze of breath, "I have an appointment."
And he wheeled around, the great cloak billowing behind him, and lumbered at his ponderous pace toward the steps to the Painted Room.
CHAPTER XI
Under the brilliance of a full moon, in a sky without cloud, the south fields in front of Caswall still held a tinge of green-gray.
Donald Holden, hurrying out across the stone bridge, saw some distance ahead of him the figure of Dr. Fell stumping westward toward the tree-lined drive. Beyond that lay another immense meadow, and then the precincts of Caswall Church. Holden raced after him through the long grass.
But Dr. Fell did not hear.
He was completely absorbed, talking to himself aloud in a way which might have made his own sanity suspect, and occasionally flourishing one cane in the air by way of emphasis. Holden caught the end of this address.
"If only he hadn't worn his slippers!" groaned Dr. Fell. The cane flourished again. "Archons of Athens, if only the fellow hadn't worn his slippers!"
"Dr. Fell!"
The shout at last penetrated. Dr. Fell swept around, just under one of the chestnut trees lining the white gravel of the drive. He was now wearing his shovel hat.
"Oh, ah!" he said, peering to recognize Holden. "I—har-rumph—imagined you weren't coming."
"And I wouldn't have come," retorted Holden, "if Celia hadn't begged me to go after you. Seriously, Dr. Felclass="underline" you can't get away with it."
"Get away with what?"
Holden nodded toward the house. "There's merry blazes to pay back there!"
"I feared as much," admitted Dr. Fell, adjusting his features with an extremely guilty air. "Are they—er—at each other's throats?"
"No! They're just sitting and looking half-wittedly at each other. That's the point You can't leave it at that You've said either too little or too much."
"Bear witness," said Dr. Fell, pointing one cane, "that I tried to get out of there without answering questions. But you were all too upset. I couldn't put you off by spouting mystical hocus-pocus. I had to tell the truth."
"But what is the truth?"
"We-ell . . ."
"Let me see if I understand your position. Thorley Marsh tells a string of whoppers, especially about the two most important points, in the case: the poison bottle and the changing of the gown. You then announce that Thorley is guiltless, sweet scented, innocent of everything from wife-beating to murder!"
"But hang it all!" protested Dr. Fell, and screwed up his face hideously. "It was just because he told lies, don't you see, that I knew he was telling the truth."