'A blank cartridge,' agreed Dr Fell. 'Inspired by Earnshaw's adventure when Major Price played the famous joke, Middlesworth used it to very good advantage.
'Now you yourself, Mr Markham, were utterly convinced you had seen that bullet-hole, as you put it "jump up" in the window. That was what I had to break down when I questioned you on Friday afternoon. I was perhaps - hurrum! - a little on edge when I questioned you; and, when Hadley interrupted at a critical point, I fear I mentally consigned him to hopeless spiritual ruin.
'But actually you never saw anything of the kind. This became obvious from your own account of the matter. Your actual words to me were, when I pressed you:"I was watching the rifle; I saw it fired; and even at that distance I could make out the bullet-hole in the window."
'"Make out," yes. But that's a different thing. Naturally you had your eyes on the rifle 1 You saw it fired. Good 1 But to say that you also saw the bullet-hole appear in the window presupposes a turn of the head from left to right faster than the velocity of a rifle-bullet. This was an evident impossibility.
' I breathed, sir, with much relief. When, shortly afterwards, I was presented with Miss Cynthia Drew's story of the man - or figure - she saw running across the road, I seemed to see the case complete. But for Hadley's interruption at a difficult time...'
Superintendent' Hadley, who had come back into the room, stopped short in wrath.
'My interruption?' he repeated.
‘Yes.'
'If it had occurred to you,' said Hadley, 'to tell me just what the devil was the line you were working on before that time, things might have gone a little more smoothly. And aren't you running far ahead of your story?'
Dr Fell's cigar had gone out. He blinked at it, and lumbered back to the sofa, where he sat down.
'There is very little more to tell. If I may be allowed to turn back the clock again, to ten o'clock and onwards on Friday morning, I think we shall finish sweeping up any loose pieces. I was - er - inclined to think, on my first examination of this room just before Hadley's arrival, that I could fathom the lines of the locked room. Hadley arrived, as I told you a while ago, with his information about the identity of the dead man; and my attention was already on Dr Middlesworth.
'Just before I started up for Ashe Hall -'
'Why did you want so much to go up there?' inquired Dick.
'The household,' said Dr Fell, 'had been up most of the night with a sick maid. Somebody might have heard something interesting. Lord Ashe, as I told you, had heard that shot at past midnight While I went on there, I asked Hadley to see whoever was in charge of the village post-office ...'
'And,' snarled Hadley, 'put different marks on any stamps bought by four or five people! I didn't know until late in the afternoon you were definitely after Middlesworth. You might have been after Miss Drew, who was my choice; or Major Price or Mr Earnshaw or even...'
'Me?' asked Lesley quietly. . ' Or even Lord Ashe himself,' said Hadley, smiling at her. ' This trick of laying a trap for the whole ruddy crowd -'
'Well, I might have been wrong,' said Dr Fell, unabashed. 'But everything henceforward told me with roaring certainty that I was right I even heard from Lord Ashe, in your presence, that the "Bible-salesman", Sam De Villa, visited only Ashe Hall. I daresay he was scouting by feeling out the nature of his reception: by making an estimate of the leading light in this district But, by the Lord Harry, he could never have got all that information about village-people just from a talk with Lord Ashe. It confirmed belief in an accomplice.
‘I,ve already given you the various indications which led to the certainty, after my interview with Mr Markham late in the afternoon, that we had the thing taped. From Middlesworth's confession we know that he tumbled to the trick about the stamps because he bought a book of stamps; and poor Laura marked them rather clumsily.
'He'd already sent a letter to me, of all people, accusing Miss Grant of being a noted poisoner and dropping hints - not saying anything definite, but dropping hints - about
how the murder might have been committed. Don't you see he had to provide basis for his fictional plot? He had to show there was an enemy of Lesley Grant who still believed in "Sir Harvey Gilman", and was trying to frame her. That was the only way he could do it, and the surest way -in his own estimation - of turning suspicion away from himself.
'He wrote the letter. Then, in horror, he tried to get the letter back. And Laura Feathers died.'
'But his letter,' said Dick, 'didn't actually hint broadly at the real way of committing the murder?'
'Oh, no. That was too dangerous. And also unnecessary. All he had to do was plug, and plug, and plug away, at the idea of someone trying to frame Miss Grant. But he tumbled to the marked book of stamps; he got away; he took refuge in Miss Grant's house because three persons were closing in on him from different sides.
'You see,' Dr Fell hesitated, 'I was rather sure I caught a glimpse of him up in that bedroom when I was coming up the path. Mr Markham's story confirmed it. So I had the house covered. He couldn't get away. But... I talked to him, I let him hear me, and I let him die. I think that explains everything.'
There was a long silence, while the sun lay drowsy in the room.
'Not every thing,' said Dick. 'It was Cynthia, I suppose, who listened outside these windows on Thursday night? And overheard De Villa's tale about Lesley ?'
'Oh, yes. Miss Drew is a good girl. But she's a little erratic'
'And Lesley didn't actually wallop her with a mirror up in that bedroom when they were having the argument?'
'Of course I didn't!' cried Lesley.
They were sitting in chairs not far away from each other. Dick worked up his courage to face a last question.
'Are you thinking,' asked Lesley, 'what I've heard about since? That I was out of the house, and somebody saw me here in the front garden, at three o'clock in the morning?
And you got this horrible idea that I might be the guilty one after all.'
'Well... not exactly the guilty one. But -'
' You did! Don't deny it!'
'All right, darling, I did,'
'And I don't blame you,' said Lesley, 'It's rather sad that the explanation should be so very foolish. But I can't help it! It worries me; it's always worried me. I've been to a number of doctors, but they say not to worry. They say it often happens to people like me: overstrung, tending to brood, making much of a trifle.
'But I did think I'd killed that man, don't you see? I mean I thought I'd killed "Sir Harvey Gilman" when the rifle went off accidentally! And I dreamed about it! I couldn't help dreaming about it! I had an awful night, and woke up very tired. So I knew it must have happened again, though I had only a hazy idea of what had happened or where I'd been. When I saw a different frock across the chair - that is, when I woke up in the morning and saw it -!'
'Look here,' said Dick. 'Are you telling us ... ?'
' It was just another devilment added to the rest,' said Lesley. 'Nothing more or less than sleep-walking. I must have come out here, maybe with an idea of finding out what was wrong or how badly he'd been hurt; but I don't remember it. The horrible thing is that I might even have run into the murderer. But I shouldn't have known it if I had. I'm not much good to you, am I? Lily Jewell's daughter, nervous tantrums, and being afflicted with sleepwalking because ...'
Dick put his hand over hers.
'Your nervous state,' he said, 'is yours and I like it. But one thing I can promise you: as Dr Fell would say, with my hand on my heart. You will not be troubled with sleepwalking again.'
'Why?'