Rainger looked round for a moment more, holding their eyes.
Then he got shakily to his feet. With the effort over, he seemed to shrink like a dough figure; and it was as though a wheel went round behind his eyes. Dizzy and breathing hard, he got the bottle out of his pocket.
"I've told you how it happened,".he said. "Now hang him."
He was fumblingly trying to get the bottle to his lips when he collapsed. He would have fallen if Masters had not caught him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dr. Dryasdust at Breakfast
"Give me a hand, Potter," said Masters briskly. Masters' stolid, heavy-jawed face was still imperturbable. "Get him over on the settee. Better ring for the butler and have himno! Wait a bit. Here, get hold of his feet."
They lifted the inert lump, with its features now gone smeary and its lips drooling; a bag of dough where there had been a brain. The breath wheezed through his nose. As they put him down on the couch his dressing-gown slid back. They saw that he was wearing evening-dress trousers and a collar less stiff shirt; his feet, as small as a woman's, were thrust into red leather slippers. Masters carefully took the cigar from his fingers and threw it into the fire. He picked up the unbroken bottle from the floor; looked at it, and then at his companions.
"Very rummy chap," he said, "very rummy indeed. Now I wonder? — Wait a bit, Mr. Bennett. Where are you going?"
"Breakfast," said the other, with heartfelt weariness. "This thing has got me nearly crazy. "
"Now, now. Easy, my lad. Just wait a bit and I'll go with you. I have something to talk about. For the moment?'
Bennett regarded him curiously. For some time he had been unable to understand why the Chief Inspector of the C.I.D. should be so anxious for his company, and almost eager to make friends with him. He learned why soon enough.
`-the question arises," continued Masters, rubbing his chin, "is this man right? Did it happen as he said it did? What do you think, now, Potter?"
The county-inspector shifted, chewed his cud, looked at the notebook for inspiration, and finally swore.
"It sounds all right, sir," growled Potter. "In a way. And yet-" he stabbed out with the pencil. "That's it. I dunno what half of it's all about. This business of backing plays and the like. But the way it was done., well, 'ow else could it have been done? That's the worst."
Masters' pale blue, genial eyes swung over to Bennett. "Ah! Always glad to listen to suggestions, Potter and I are. What do you think?"
Bennett said violently that it was nonsense. "Why nonsense?"
"Well "
"Because Mr. Bohun's your friend? Tosh tosh tosh. Leave that out of it. Does you credit, o' course. But we shall have to admit that it does explain everything. Eh?" Masters' eyes opened wide.
"I know. But do you honestly think he could have pulled off that funny business with the footprints? If the first part of it weren't so plausible, and if it didn't account for several queer things, you wouldn't give it a minute's thought. I don't believe he could have done it. Besides, that man," Bennett heard himself talking loudly and foolishly, "is drunk enough to say anything. Didn't you hear all the wild statements he made?"
"Oh, ah. Yes. What statements did you refer to?" "Well, for instance, about Bohun's niece trying to kill
Marcia Tait by throwing her downstairs..:'
Suddenly he saw that he had fallen into a very bland, very easy trap. Masters said affably: "Yes, indeed. I shall want to hear all about that. I talked to Mr. Willard and Mr. Bohun both, and yet neither one of them made any mention of an attempt to kill Miss Tait. Very rummy. Somebody tried to throw her downstairs, eh?"
"Look here, let's go and get some breakfast. I don't know anything about that; you'll have to ask them again. Besides — you don't want second-hand information. And I'm no stool-pigeon."
"Stool-P Masters had been inspecting the supine and flabby figure on the couch, whose jaws moved like a bellows with its wheezing breath. Masters' big laughter boomed. "Stool-pigeon, yes. You mean a copper's nark? Why, no. But I want any kind of information; d'ye see? Any kind. Eh, Potter? This niece of Mr. Bohun's is young, good-looking, I take it? And Mr. Rainger made another interesting statement: about Miss Tait being married. We shall have to check that. I say, I wonder how Mr. Rainger got so dirty? I mean in a literal sense this time. Look at him."
He drew back the edge of the dressing-gown. There were powdery streaks of a dead blackish color down the front of the white shirt, as though dirt had been sifted on him; the shoulders were more grimy and a thicker black; and, as Masters lifted him a little, the arm of the shirt showed in the same condition. And, as he rolled him over like a dummy, they saw that there were also stains on the back of the shirt.
"Hands new-washed; shiny-washed. Look at them. H'm. Never mind, but I also wonder what he meant by saying he had an alibi. I suppose we ought to have him taken upstairs, and yet I think I shall just leave him there. Well, Potter? You said you'd done some trapping, and knew about tracks in the snow? Do you think Mr. Bohun could have worked that little trick?"
Potter ruminated, uneasily. "'Ere!" he said with irrelevance but determination, and stared up. "I'll tell you what it is. I don't want this case. You said you were my superior officer, and so you are. Well, I'm going to telephone the Yard, official and all, and say we need help. Bloody little I'm going to mess about with it. There."
"That means you don't think he could have done it. Eh?"
"I dunno. That's what beats me. But," said the inspector, rising and slapping shut his notebook, "I'm going out to look at those tracks and see. There might be something."
Masters said he had some instructions for him. Masters accompanied him to the door, speaking in a low voice, and Potter uttered a pleased snort. His expression was one of heavy craftiness as he went out. Then Masters beckoned to Bennett, and spoke encouragingly of breakfast.
The big raftered dining-hall was at the rear of the house, its windows looking down over the lawns towards the avenue of evergreens and the pavilion. Sprigs of holly were fastened to the chandelier, and round a darkisn portrait over the mantelpiece. It was a sort of shock to see their gaiety; the gaiety of the big fire and the gleaming pewter dish-covers on the sideboard. At the table, leaning back in his chair, staring dull-faced and incurious at the ceiling, sat John Bohun. A cigarette drooped from his lips, and he had a convalescent's pallor. Across from him, industriously at work on bacon and eggs, sat a very prim fastidious little man who rose in haste as the newcomers entered.
"I beg your pardon," the little man said, coming across in his nervous little strut. "You are…" A hazy expression was in his eyes, and he still dabbled at his mouth with a napkin. He had a bony face dominated by his very large hooked nose, and a high domed skull with gray hair brushed flat across it. His whole expression-with the wrinkles, the fidgety mouth, and the pale gray eyes in which the small pin-point pupils were dead black-was one of vagueness mixed with swift moods which might be of good-humor or pettishness. He was very fastidiously dressed in black, with a quiet donnish primness, and his air was that of someone wandering past shelves in a library.". you are — how extraordinarily stupid of me! I keep forgetting. You will be my guest, and you will be the inspector of police." After a limp handshake, he hustled them towards the table. "Did I introduce myself? I am Maurice Bohun. This is my brother John. You have already met him, have you not? Of course. Good God, what a dreadful business all this is! I only learned of it half an hour ago, you understand. But I informed John that the best way to keep up his strength in assisting justice was, in brief, to eat. You will take breakfast with us? Excellent. Thompson! More-ah-comestibles. "