As this almost invisible genie moved out from the sideboard, Maurice Bohun sat down. Bennett noticed that he limped slightly, and that a stick with a large gold knob was propped against his chair. This fussy little man to be the author of a bawdy robust comedy? Masters studied the two brothers; especially John, who had not moved from sitting back inertly with his hands in his pockets.
"I've got to warn you, sir," announced Masters, in his voice that always seemed to dispel tense atmospheres, "that you take me in at your own risk. I'm not officially connected with this case, although Inspector Potter's a relative of mine. So that only makes me a sort of guest at your pleasure. So if you don't mind sitting down to table with a copper; eh? Just so. An! Yes, the kippers, if you please."
John Bohun lowered his head.
"I say, inspector, you may omit the urbanity. Have you found out anything since you talked to Willard and me?"
"I'm afraid not, sir. Matter of fact, I've been talking to a gentleman named Rainger," Masters answered, with his mouth full.
"Your esteemed friend, Maurice," said John, turning his head. "The one who's going to make you a technical adviser on the films…"
Maurice put down his knife and fork gently. He peered across the table and said, "Why not?" in a voice of such clear common-sense that Bennett turned to look at him. Then Maurice smiled vaguely and went on eating.
"I'm afraid — said Masters, and seemed to hesitate. His big grin showed behind a loaded fork. "Mr. Rainger's a very interesting gentleman, and I admire his work, but I'm afraid he's been drinking this morning. Eli? Just so. That, and making wild accusations he may not be able to support. Can't support."
"Accusations?" John Bohun asked sharply.
"Um. Of murder." Masters was deprecating. "Point of fact, he accused you. Lot of such rubbish. Ah! Real cream!"
John got up from his chair.
"He's been accusing me, has he? What's the swine been saying?"
"Now, now, sir, don't let it bother you. Everything's easily proved, isn't it?. But I wanted to talk to you, sir," he added, turning to Maurice as though he had dismissed the subject, "about this Mr. Rainger. He said you two had been together most of last evening; and, since he'd drunk himself a bit over the mark, I was curious as to how many other-um-hallucinations he might have got."
Maurice pushed back his plate. and meticulously folded his napkin. Then he folded his hands. Against the gray light his big forehead, unwieldy for the frail body, threw into shadow those curious pale-gray eyes with the tiny black pupils. He looked muddled and mildly deprecating.
"An, yes," he said. "Er-where was I? Let me see. You ah wish me to satisfy you that I did not commit this murder."
"Sir?"
"I was, of course, ah, answering the spirit of your question rather than the precise words. " He was apologetic, as though there were nothing at all odd in this, and took the whole thing for granted. "So Mr. Rainger has been drinking? I do not approve of drinking, because the world has a tendency to use alcohol as a drug against tedium. It is not that I disapprove of a drug against tedium, but I prefer that the drug against tedium should be purely intellectual. Do you follow me, sir?. I-ah-perceive that you do not. I was referring to a study of the past."
Masters nodded his big head, with a show of deep interest.
"Ah," he agreed wisely. "Reading history, sir. Quite. Very instructive. I'm fond of it myself."
"Surely," said Maurice Bohun, "that is-ah-not quite what you mean, sir?" A faint crease ruffled his forehead. "Let me see. You mean that you once read a chapter of Macaulay or Froude, and were pleased with it and yourself when you discovered it to be a little less dull than you had anticipated. You were not inclined to read further, but at least you felt that your interest in history had been permanently aroused… But I really meant something deeper than that. I referred to the process that is nowadays — slurringly termed `living in the past.' I frankly live in the past. It is the only mode of existence in which I find it possible to skip the dull days."
His smooth, pleasant voice rarely lifted or altered its tone. With his elbow on the table, and the fingers of a frail hand shading his eyes, he was still mildly deprecating. But Bennett, who had been wolfishly eating, looked up. He began to feel the power of this vague-looking man's personality; the wire and subtle strength of his ruling in this house. Bennett did not like the man, because he had a nervous schoolboy sensation, under the look of those disconcerting pin-point eye pupils, of having come to class unprepared before a gently satiric master with a habit of calling on you in the last five minutes before the bell.
"Well, sir," said Masters, still imperturbably, "it seems to be rather a good, um, mode of existence. The young lady's death doesn't seem 'to have bothered you much, I should fancy."
"No," said Maurice Bohun, and smiled. "There will be others like her. That has always been so. Er — we were discussing…?"
"Mr. Rainger."
"Ah yes. Quite so. I was forgetting: a most abominable habit of mine. So Mr. Rainger is drunk? Yes, I–I should have imagined that such an unfortunate occurrence would have affected him in precisely that fashion. I found him very interesting and amusing, with strange claims to scholarship. For various reasons of my own, I — ah — what is the term I jollied him along.' John, would you mind not tapping your fingers on the table? Thank you."
"Masters," said John Bohun violently, "I demand to know what that swine said. I've got a right to know!" He came round the table.
Maurice interposed in an almost distressed fashion: "Oh, come, John. Come now. Surely I am not mistaken in thinking that — ah," he frowned, "Mr. Masters is attempting to work you into a nervous frame of mind? In that case," explained Maurice, with a gentle bewildered expression, "you must not expect him to tell you. Be reasonable, my boy. He has his duties."
Bennett's dislike of Maurice Bohun was growing with every word he uttered. It might have been his intolerable assumption of rightness in everything, especially when he happened to be right; and his old-maidish way of expressing it. Bennett began even more fiercely to sympathize with Katharine. He noticed, too, that Masters had been feeling the discomfort. Masters, in whose big face there was a suppressed anger, folded up his own napkin and said a surprising thing.
"Do you never get tired, sir," said the stolid practical Masters, "of playing God?"
For a brief time the muddled expression held Maurice's face, as though he were on the verge of protest. Then Bennett saw a look of cool Epicurean pleasure.
"Never," Maurice answered. "You are shrewder than I had thought, Mr. Masters… May I suggest something? Now that you have removed the button from your foil, or perhaps I should say — ah — the tinfoil from your club, would it not be better to ask me questions in your best Scotland Yard style? I shall do my best to answer." He looked rather anxious. "Perhaps I can even prevail on you to state your whole problem? I should much appreciate it. I have some considerable interest in the subject of criminology. It is quite possible that I might be able to help you."
Masters seemed affable. "Not bad, sir. Maybe not a bad idea. Do you know the situation we're in?"
"Er-yes. My brother has been explaining."
"Half an inch of unmarked snow all around that little house," said Masters, "and no footprints, no marks anywhere, except your brother's tracks; innocent, of course. "