"Of course. I really wish you wouldn't walk about in that manner, John. I think," said Maurice with a cool smile, "I can take care of you."
"I rather think you can," returned Masters grimly. "But can you explain how that murder was committed, then?"
Maurice touched the bridge of his nose as though for absent spectacles, and his smile was apologetic. "Why-why, yes, inspector," he ventured. "It is quite possible I can."
"Hell's fire!" cried Masters, suddenly letting off steam. He got up from the table, obviously contemplating what seemed to him the queerest fish that had ever slipped into his net, while Maurice made clucking noises. Masters hesitated, swallowed, and sat down again. All the tinfoil was removed from the club now. "Very good, sir. Everybody seems to have an explanation of it except the police. Very neat and stimulating it is. I tell you frankly, I pity old Charley Potter if he'd bad to fall in among this crowd without assistance. And I don't want to listen to any rubbish about anybody flying out of that house, or walking on stilts, or vaulting, or hanging to trees. There's not even a shrub within a hundred feet of it, and no mark whatever in the snow. And there was nobody hidden there when we looked. But it's a very queer place, Mr. Bohun… Why do you keep it all fitted out like that?"
"A whim of mine. I told you that I lived in the past. I often spend nights there myself." For the first time there was a sort of hazy animation about Maurice. The hand shading his eyes opened and shut. "You would not understand, I fear. I can take the same sheer utter pleasure in talking to you as I would to a deaf person. Mr. Masters, I have done a remarkable thing. I have created my own ghosts." He laughed softly, and stopped. "May I offer you more kippers, sir? Thompson, more kippers for the inspector."
"Were you very much interested," struck in Masters, "in Miss Tait?"
Maurice looked concerned. "To your question — ah-`Were you in love with Miss Tait,' I must answer, sir, no. At least I do not think so. I admired her as a sort of accidental reincarnation."
"Yet you wrote a play for her, I think?"
"So you have heard," murmured the other, wrinkling his forehead, "of my modest effort. No. I wrote it for my own amusement. I had become rather tired of being called Dr. Dryasdust. " He placed the palms of his hands together before him, weirdly as though he were going to dive, and hesitated. "In my younger days I suffered from illusions. These lay in a belief that the proper value of historical study consisted in its economic and political significance. But I am old enough now to be aware that almost the only gift no historian has ever possessed is any knowledge whatever of human character. I am now, I fear, an old satyr. You will be informed (I think you have been informed?) of my senile ecstasies over Miss Tait? Your expression indicates it. That is only partly true. In Miss Tait I admired the charms of all the dead courtesans with whom I should like to have had love affairs."
Masters drew his hand across his forehead.
"Don't mix me up, if you please! — You encouraged Miss Tait to sleep out in that pavilion?"
"Yes."
"Which," Masters went on musingly, "you had got repaired and restored, and which was used in the old days for a king to visit his fancy ladies on the sly… "
"Of course, of course, of course," interposed Maurice, hastily and rather as though he were impatient with himself for having overlooked something. "I should have understood. You were thinking of a secret passage underground, perhaps, to explain the absence of marks in the snow? I can reassure you, There is nothing of the kind."
Masters was watching him; and Masters pounced now. "We might have to take it to pieces, sir. Tear off the panelling, you know, which you mightn't like… "
"You wouldn't dare do that," said Maurice. His voice suddenly went high.
"Or take up the floors. If they're the original marble, it would be a bit hard on you, sir; but to satisfy ourselves…"
As Maurice got up from his chair, his frail wrist knocked over the walking-stick that was propped against the arm, and its heavy gold head struck the floor with a crash. That crash had its echo in Masters' voice.
"Now, sir, let's stop this fiddling and evading and being so neat and slippery. Let's talk like men and answer questions; do you hear me?" He struck the edge of the table. "It would be no trouble at all for me to get a warrant to take that beloved little shack of yours apart piece by piece. And, so help me, I'll get mad enough to do it before very long! Now, then, will you or won't you give assistance in this thing?"
"Surely-ah-surely I had already promised to do so?"
In the long pause afterwards, that pause when Bennett knew that the chief inspector had got his man, John Bohun walked away from the window out of which he had been staring. John Bohun's face (when both he and his brother were frightened) had a curious resemblance to Maurice's which you would never ordinarily have noticed. It was as though Masters held two men in play, like a fencer who conceals his skill under clumsiness.
"Your-your subordinate," said John, and pointed behind him. "He's out there on the lawn. he's examining
.. What's he doing?"
"Only making measurements of your tracks in the snow, sir. That doesn't bother you, does it? Won't you sit down, gentlemen; both of you?… There, that's better."
It was not better. John's face had gone white.
"An attempt was made on Miss Tait's life last night before the time she was smashed over the head. Somebody tried, I think," Masters went on, turning to Maurice, "to throw her downstairs. Who was it?"
"I do not know."
"Was it your niece, Miss Bohun?"
Maurice sat down quietly. He was smiling again. "I should not think so, my friend. If the-ah-culprit was anybody, I should say it was the Honorable Louise Carewe, the daughter of my old friend Lord Canifest. However, if you will look round now, you will see my niece just behind you. You have my full permission to make inquiries."
CHAPTER NINE
Casual Alibis
Bennett pushed back his chair and turned. She had come in quietly, and was standing not far from the table. Bennett started to draw out a chair for her, before the imperturbable Thompson could move; but she shook her head.
"Is somebody accusing me," she said, "of trying to kill Marcia? And that remark about Louise. " She looked curiously at Maurice, as though she had never seen him before. "Don't you think it was rather a foul thing to say?"
She had put on what was probably the best dress in her wardrobe, as though in a sort of defiance. It was a sombre affair in gray. Momentarily her nervousness seemed almost gone, although she was twisting a handkerchief. Katharine Bohun stood with the firelight along one side of her face; and for the first time Bennett saw her clearly. She was more mature than he had thought. And in the soft, now brilliant face was a look as though she had come to a determination.
Round her neck was wound, as though carelessly, a gauze scarf that concealed bruises.
"Er-did you speak, Kate?" inquired Maurice. He was not looking at her, and seemed gently surprised. "Surely you must be aware that I am not — what shall I say? at all in the habit of discussing my assertions with anyone?"
She was trembling; biting at her lower lip; and the eyes had a hot, hard brightness as she came forward. Yet she was beaten, and seemed to know it the moment Maurice went on: "Tut! Er — extraordinarily stupid of me, I fear. It is, I see, another small mutiny. You were trying to say, — ah — 'Go to the devil,' were you not?"
The insufferable pleasure of being right, like the solving of an easy problem, made Maurice regard her with gentle satisfaction and concern. Her eyes brimmed over.