Dr. Fell controlled himself.
Breathing noisily, he wedged himself back into the chair. He was silent for a moment, one hand shading his eyeglasses. Then he addressed Dr. Shepton very quietly.
"Sir," he said, "it is not my place to question your professional conduct of this case."
"Thank you." Dr. Shepton looked back at him steadily.
"But why couldn't you have told Celia?"
Dr. Shepton, though he looked very old and very tired, kept the stubborn set of his jaw. He was bending forward, his big-knuckled hands holding the Panama hat.
"It's a pity," he murmured, shaking his head. "It's all such a pity!"
"I quite agree with you."
"But is it possible," insisted Shepton, "that you of all people still do not understand? I feared—we all feared— that..."
"That Celia, being Margot’s sister, might be a hysteric too? And that to tell her all this might do her much harm?" "In fact, yes."
("Easy, Celia!" murmured Holden.)
"Ah!" said Dr. Fell. "But, previous to Margot Marsh's death, had you ever any reason to suppose this about Celia?"
"It was always a risk. It was always a risk!"
"Sir, that was not the question I asked you. Had you any reason to suppose it?"
"Nol No! I distinctly told Sir Donald Holden, two nights ago"—Dr. Shepton lifted his Panama hat and pointed with it—"that in Celia's version of what she called strychnine poisoning, there might have been room for . .. well! certain unavoidable misunderstandings."
"There might have been room?"
"Yes. And I would have told Sir Donald the whole story, too, if he had only come around to my hotel as I suggested. In reply to your main question: no! I had no concrete reason for suspecting Celia of hysterical delusions until .. ."
Dr. Fell bent forward.
"Until, in somebody's phrase, she began seeing ghosts all over the place? Is that correct?" "Yes."
Unexpectedly, Dr. Fell began to chuckle.
It began, with slow earthquake violence, in the lower ridges of his waistcoat It traveled up the tentlike alpaca suit in a spasm of uproarious amusement. Suddenly becoming conscious of Shepton's outraged look, Dr. Fell clapped his hand over his mouth and turned to Holden.
"Forgive me!" he pleaded. "I was guilty of another such unmannerly outburst, if you recall, when I met you in the Long Gallery at Caswall. But, as we clear away the poisonous nonsense, I think you will join in. Will you cast your mind back to Wednesday evening about dusk?"
"Well?"
"To the first time you went out to the Regent's Park house?" "Well?" repeated Holden. "Well," said Dr. Fell simply, "I shadowed you." "You what?"
"I," Dr. Fell announced proudly, "shadowed somebody. Didn't I tell you you'd allowed me to accomplish something I never believed was possible? At first I didn't shadow you consciously, of course. Let me explain."
All the amusement faded out of Dr. Fell's expression. In that dim light his face looked grave and even sinister.
"Celia Devereux's letter to the police had been received two days before. It was handed over to me, who already knew something of the matter from having sealed the vault.
All the major events were outlined in that letter, including the ghosts of the Long Gallery. And I was disturbed. It seemed to me that in the elder sister we were dealing with a case of sexual hysteria—"
(For some reason, at this point, Sir Danvers Locke shuddered.)
"—and in the younger sister, perhaps, with nervous hysteria. I didn't know. I had to make sure. So on Wednesday evening, armed with the letter, I went out to the house in Gloucester Gate to ask questions.
"Ahead of me on the pavement," and again Dr. Fell nodded toward Holden, "I saw you bound for the same house.
"I had no idea who you were, or of your status in this affair. But you went in by the back way. I followed. I saw you go up those iron stairs to the balcony outside the drawing room. I saw you strike a light, and peer in through the window. I heard a girl scream (it was Doris Locke), and a man cry out It seemed so extraordinary that I followed you up.
"And what happened?
"Outside those windows I heard more of the wretched, pitiable story. The tangled livesl The enshrouding misery! I learned who you were. I heard Thorley Marsh, who sincerely believed Celia to be mad just as she believed him a sadistic brute, I heard Thorley Marsh beg and plead with you to go away. And the door opened. And Celia Devereux walked in.
Here Dr. Fell looked very steadily at Holden. "Have you forgotten," he asked, that you were supposed to be dead?"
Holden started to get up off the divan, but sat down again. Dr. Fell nodded toward Celia, who had turned her head away.
"Here is a girl," he said, "supposedly so neurotic that she is seeing ghosts everywhere. She has had no warning this man is alive. She really believes him dead. All she sees, in one terrifying flash, is his face looking at her against the light of a single lamp in a dark room.
"And yet—she knows.
"I see her again, standing against that door in her white dress. The nerves tell the brain; the brain tells the heart She does not even ask a question. She knows. 'They sent you on some special sort of job,' I hear her saying; 'that was why you couldn't see me or write to me.' And then, with a little nod, ‘Hello, Don.'"
Holden would not have believed Dr. Fell's voice could be so gentle.
But Dr. Fell would not look at Celia. Ponderously he turned his head away. Removing his eyeglasses, he pressed his hand for a moment over his eyes before putting back the glasses. He addressed Locke and Dr. Shepton.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I write Q.E.D. and draw a flourish under it. If that girl is in the least neurotic, then I am the late Adolf Hitler. What does the prosecution say, what dares the prosecution say, in reply to that?"
There was a long silence.
"Well done!" said Locke, and struck his knee. "Write your Q.E.D.! Well done!"
'You talk," cried Dr. Shepton, "as though—" He stopped. " Prosecution!'" he added. "You talk as though—"
"Yes?" prompted Dr. Fell.
"As though," he spoke in a quavering voice, "I wanted to harm Celia in some way!"
"Forgive me," said Dr. Fell. "I know you don't. And you were misled. Blame the girl, if you like, for telling lies. But in God's name let us have an end of these hush-hush methods which nearly did send her out of her mind and drove her to telling lies!"
"To—er—what do you refer by hush-hush methods?"
"The carefully cherished secret of Margot Marsh's hysteria, which ended in her murder. I am going on to explain that murder."
Dr. Fell picked up his dead pipe.
"Let’s continue with the evidence of that same Wednesday evening. All this I heard and saw from the balcony outside the drawing room. Once (hurrum) I was nearly spotted. You may recall, my dear Holden, that on one occasion Thorley Marsh thought he heard somebody out on the balcony? In very truth he did.
"However!
"Having begun this business of shadowing, I continued it. When you and Celia left the house (forgive me again!), I followed you. You may perhaps have noticed the shadow, too large to be any but mine, which emerged after you when you crossed the street toward Regent's Park? In any case, one side of the park playground had an open side with an iron railed fence. Out of sight, beyond this, I heard the whole story," he nodded toward Celia, "from you.
"I heard it in blazing detail. In shades and nuances and hints which in their implications were staggering. By thunder, but it was a revelation!
"For if I postulated Margot Marsh as a hysteric, the approach of the storm could be seen with ugly clearness. About a year before her death, she changed. She became happy. Bright-eyed. Laughing and humming. Her own sister, not an observant person, says to her, You must have a lover.'