He flicked open the blue sheets.
"On my oath here, and as I hope to answer for it before God, I never meant to kill her. I never thought Carl was right. I only thought I had to go down to that place and see for myself, or I'd go crazy. It happened like this. When I was in that hospital after I had ate (sic) that candy with the poison in it, Carl came to me and said, `Well, I've proved to you Canifest is their angel, so now if you got any guts at all you'll walk over and tell him you're married to her. Great Christ, he says, is everybody going to make a sucker out of you? Are you ever going to act like a man? This guy Bohun,' he said, and then he told me all over again what he'd told me before, only I didn't believe it. She swore it wasn't true; she always swore it wasn't true. She said, if I let her alone to have her career, she'd never in the world look at another man except me.
"And Carl said, 'Do you know why he's taking her down to this place in the country?' And he said, 'Well, if I didn't believe it, all I had to do was go down and see for myself.' He said to go down there late. He said to surprise everybody. He said she'd be in that marble house out at the back, and all I had to do would be walk around the grounds, and I'd see it. Then he said to go down there, and they'd be there; both of them would be there…
"And I couldn't rest, I couldn't do anything until I did. But I was having a lot of trouble with my car, because the fan-belt was loose and the engine would get so hot; and I think the radiator leaked or something like that…"
"Did you notice," said H. M., looking up sharply, "how the bonnet of that car was smoking when we saw it in the drive next day?"
"So I came in the drive, and I noticed my car didn't make any tracks afterwards, because there's trees so close over it that there wasn't much snow at all. And I stopped the car in that driveway under the roof. And I was wondering where this marble-house place was that they were talking about, and I saw the engine shooting up steam again. So I thought I'd get out and stick some snow in to cool it. And I got out and took off that big heavy silverthing that's on top of the radiator cap. It was hotter than hell, but I had my gloves on. And it was dark there, but all of a sudden I heard somebody whisper out behind me, up on the porch..'
"Now use a little imagination," said H. M. rather curtly.
"Even then she didn't know who it was. I kept my head down. And I didn't know where I was going, but I just followed her. And we went up some steps with her ahead, and everything was dark and she kept talking, until we got up to the bedroom and she turned around and saw who I was.
"I didn't know what I was doing. I hit her, and hit her again with that thing in my hand. I don't know how many times I hit her.
"I don't remember much what I did, because right after she was all quiet and didn't move I knew I shouldn't have done it. I tried to revive her, and talked to her, but she didn't move. And I had to take my gloves off to see what was wrong with her, so when I saw my hands were all over blood I knew she was dead.
"And I don't remember what I did after that, except I had sense enough to see if I could wash my hands. I was afraid that when I drove back to London some Limey cop would stop the car and maybe ask me for my license or something like that, and I'd have blood on me. So I went out and tried to find a bathroom, but I couldn't because it was dark. And I ran into somebody, and that scared me.”
"I think this was a long time afterwards, because just after I hit her all those times I sat down and whispered to her for a while. But after I ran into somebody in the dark I got scared and came back. I had sense enough to stick the gloves and that radiator-cap in my pocket. So I came back and went down those steps to the porch again. And I knew if they heard the engine on the car they'd come out maybe, because I thought that woman I'd run into would set up a yell. But the drive slopes down to the road from there, so all I had to do was give her a push and let her coast backwards out of gear till I got to the main road."
"Which was why," said H. M., "a car was heard to go in, and none come out, which confirmed Thompson's idea that it was John Bohun. As a matter of fact, John didn't get back you know that now — until five o'clock, when Thompson had dropped off to sleep. You may remember, I asked him about that..
"But we'll go back again. You've realized by now that the little piece of silver, the little triangle that's the key to the whole affair, was broken off that radiator-cap ornament when Emery used it. John found it; he didn't know what it was, but it was the only clue he had. When he took Tait's body out to the pavilion, he thought he was safe. Then he got the wind up when he saw Potter measuring the tracks, and-"
"He's well enough now," said Katharine quietly.
"Uh-huh. Well, he still wasn't willing to admit what he'd done; but in that insane, nervous way of his he put it in his own hand before he pulled the trigger. D'ye see? He heard the great Chief Inspector Masters, the all-seeing eye of Scotland Yard, was there; and he hoped Masters would see through the brick wall and understand what it was and who had left it.
"Now, then! I had already, when Maurice spun out his yarn for us, a faint glimmer of suspicion about Emery. But I didn't know what weapon he'd used; Masters hadn't said anything about the piece of metal yet. Having absolutely nothing in the way of evidence against Emery, dye see, I couldn't say Boo to him. All I wanted to do was keep him under my eye as long as I could. He was in the house for the moment — but as Rainger's friend, he'd speedily be shot out of the house by Maurice unless Maurice were kept in a good humor. And then we'd lost him. He wasn't even on the scene of the crime, apparently, when it was committed; and I couldn't even keep him as a witness for the inquest!
"The only thing to do was to intimate to Maurice, `Give Rainger and Rainger's friend a treat. Keep 'em here, be poisonously pleasant to 'em, and see how they both act when you release your bomb.' That struck Maurice as one of the more delectable ideas. I had to pretend to half-believe his theory. Also, I didn't dare risk havin' Rainger get sober again. Because, if he really had an alibi as he said he had, both Rainger and Emery would have been thrown out when Maurice found he couldn't have the pleasure of hangin' Rainger. And in the meantime, son, I had to have a lead; I had to work fast, and either prove or disprove my lurkin' idea about Emery. Son, I was in a bleedin' sweat, and that's a fact; until Masters popped out with that information about the bit of metal."
H. M. took a deep breath. He reached after Emery's statement again.
"I noticed right away that there was a big piece broken off the radiator-cap, and I knew where it must be. Then when I learned they thought she'd been killed in the pavilion I figured if they found that I might be sunk or I might not be, depending on whether they got wise to her really being killed in that funny room.
"But I figured I better have a look for it if I could, only I didn't know how I could until that funny old guy comes out and asks me to take care of Carl and says he'll get that Miss Nancy Bohun to invite me to eat dinner there. I knew something was phony about it, but I didn't know what and he said he didn't have any suspicion of me. And when he says to keep Carl drunk I didn't know what the hell, but I said I'd do it because I was afraid Carl had got wise to me. I gave myself away to him when I talked to him on the phone, because I didn't' know there'd been funny work about taking her some place else. But I thought maybe Carl was too drunk to remember and I hoped he was.