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‘Ought to be good enough,' observed Mitchell. ‘Remember, we mustn't move, we mustn't speak, we mustn't smoke, we must only stand and suffer, and curse the day we told our mothers we were entering the police force.'

After several years – at least, so it seemed to Bobby, suffocating, cramped, bored stiff in a very literal sense, but really after a couple of hours or so by a more normal measurement of time – they both heard an approaching sound. Rather, they both heard amid the other sounds of which the still, old house seemed full, one that was like that of a footstep on the stairs.

They lost it. They heard it again. It was doubtful, hesitant, uncertain. They both knew, with an intuition surer than any formal knowledge could ever be, that on the landing outside there was someone driven very horribly by a fear that urged him on to enter, held back as terribly by another that told him he must not. And to both of them, hidden and waiting, there came the same thought:

‘Suppose the second fear proves the greater and he goes away again and we do not even see him.'

The door of the room was dashed violently open. With a kind of rush Marsden appeared on the threshold. A stray ray of sunshine through a crack in the shuttered window illumined his features and showed them, no longer smooth, controlled, set in an unchanging mask as formerly, but twisted, contorted, agonized beyond all imagining. For a moment he stood there glaring – there is no other word – glaring all around in a panic of wonder, doubt, and terror.

He came a step or two forward, peering anxiously, doubtfully, at the spot upon the bare boards where a little before a dead body had lain. He made a kind of gesture with one hand towards it, and then quite suddenly, as it seemed, his self-control broke down, and he burst into a screaming torrent of words from which it was hard to pick out any two that made coherent sense. He swore, gesticulated, shouted, he made appeal to unseen powers, his arms waved frantically, hysteria had him in its grip, he blasphemed aloud, defying his Creator; alone, as he thought, he raved there in that quiet, silent, and unheeding room, and the two hidden watchers waited in grim patience the outcome of this extraordinary scene.

As for trying to take down that torrent of incoherent raving, Bobby, though he had note-book and pencil ready, gave up the attempt. All he could do was to try to catch now and again distinguishable words and to remember them.

At last, breathless, panting, exhausted, Marsden ceased, and leaned against the wall, wiping with his handkerchief his face down which the sweat ran like a young girl's tears.

‘Who moved her?' he said aloud, muttering to himself, ‘she couldn't have moved herself... that's certain, not when she was dead... who's done it then?... what for?... where is she?. .. she couldn't herself... I didn't miss... well, then, someone must have moved her... who?... what?... why?... what for? What for? What for?' He went unsteadily across the room and stood staring down at the spot where the body had lain, where the fresh bloodstains were clearly visible. ‘They couldn't see that,' he muttered, ‘those cursed police... the fools, the fools,' he screamed, ‘not to see that, the fools.' Then he fell to his muttering again. ‘Everything arranged so perfectly and then for it to go wrong like this because those fools... those utter fools... well, she didn't move herself, that's certain, but who did? What for? What for? I shall go mad, I think... there's madness somewhere... where can her body be?'

He wiped his streaming face again and seemed on the brink of a fresh attack of hysteria. With an effort he appeared to conquer it and for the first time to notice the cupboards.

For a moment or two he stood staring. Then slowly he went across the room to them.

‘Oh, impossible,' he said, ‘only it's all impossible... impossible.'

He tore open the door of the cupboard in which Mitchell was hidden.

‘Oh, oh,' he said.

‘Good day, Mr Marsden,' Mitchell said, coming forward, ‘not impossible at all, you see, but deucedly uncomfortable,' and then as Marsden slowly, terribly recoiled, slowly staggering backwards till he was half-way across the room again, Mitchell added: ‘I'm afraid you didn't expect to see me.'

‘You were there all the time?' Marsden asked, recovering himself a little, ‘you heard... you saw... you know... it was you who moved her body... you've hidden it... you found her body and you've hidden it?'

‘The dead body of a woman was found in this room last night,' Mitchell agreed. ‘It was subsequently removed. I think it will be necessary for you to explain how it is you were acquainted with that fact. You are a lawyer, Mr Marsden, so I needn't go into explanations with you as to your rights or your position. If you wish to make a statement we are ready to hear it, but probably you prefer to wait.'

‘Oh, I'll make a statement all right,' Marsden snarled.

‘You think you've trapped me, I suppose? That spy of yours who came to see me this morning... all a put up job, eh? Oh, very clever, but not so clever as you think, perhaps, for I've still a card or two to play. I'll tell you, though, I'll tell you all right' – his voice rose almost to a scream – ‘I knew, I knew because I did it. I did it, I did it, listen to that as much as you like, I shot her, I shot Mrs Carsley, I waited behind that door till I saw her coming up the stairs in the dark, till I saw her head show against the crack in the shutters in here... then I fired... just one shot... blew the back of her head all to bits. Are you listening? Hear that?... just one shot... then I locked the door and got out and I waited to see Carsley come and your fellow following him...

‘Why, it was perfect, man, not a flaw in it, superb ... his dead wife in a locked room upstairs and Carsley digging a grave in the cellar... perfect, I tell you,' he raved, and now flecks of foam were on his lips. He wiped them away and went on more quietly: ‘What went wrong? Why didn't you arrest him? Wasn't the evidence good enough? It was good enough to hang a bishop on if you had arrested him then. Oh, you fools, you utter fools, I had it all arranged so well you couldn't help but think... why didn't you?'

‘It was quite good,' Mitchell agreed. ‘Her dead upstairs and him digging in the cellar... I suppose you had been there before?'

‘Yes,' agreed Marsden, ‘I dug a hole there like a grave and then filled it up again and told him the diamonds were hidden there so he would dig in the same place and shape and way... his own gardener's spade, too, I had taken from their toolshed at “The Cedars”.'

‘No detail forgotten,' Mitchell mused. ‘Even the walking stick by her side up here. I'm sure, very well arranged, indeed, but wasn't it just a little hard on him?'

‘He deserved it,' Marsden retorted. ‘He had murdered his father-in-law, so it was all right getting him hung for murdering his wife, even if he didn't do that.'

‘You think he murdered Sir Christopher?' Mitchell asked.

‘Of course I do, so do you, don't you? Of course he did, who else?'

‘Well, after this performance,' observed Mitchell, ‘some may think it was you.'

‘Me? Oh, nonsense,' Marsden answered. ‘I had nothing to do with that. Why should I? It was nothing to do with me. It was Carsley shot him, of course. I've always been sure of that. Then he started trying to ruin me, trying to get a reputation for honesty, trying to act the honest man who can't let fraud go by – and he a murderer! I had to stop that, I had to, it was ruin if I didn't... why shouldn't he hang when he was a murderer? He had earned it. I was only getting him what he deserved.'

‘Rather rough on Mrs Carsley, wasn't it?' Mitchell remarked mildly, ‘to bring her in.'

‘I couldn't help that,' Marsden answered sullenly. ‘I didn't want to. I had to, that was all. I had to think of myself first, hadn't I? Everyone does. Don't you?'

‘Well, some of us may think there are limits,' observed Mitchell, ‘but indeed I think you had it all very well worked out, and Mr Carsley would certainly have hung, with evidence and motive all complete, since his wife's death meant a fortune for him. Yes, I don't think any man ever had a narrower escape from the gallows, for we should have sent him there and he would certainly have hung – but for one little, little flaw. Oh, a trifle, and yet it counted.'

‘What was it? I would like to know.'

‘Only that it wasn't Mrs Carsley you shot, it was her half-sister, Brenda Laing.'

Marsden stood quite still, staring stupidly.

‘Oh, that's impossible,' he said, ‘that's quite impossible... another lie.'

‘What did you do to get Mrs Carsley here?' Mitchell asked.

‘Two birds with one stone,' Marsden answered. ‘I told her the stolen diamonds were here in this top room. I told her the door would be open – I had all the keys, of course. I told her she must come at once and alone. Or else the diamonds would be gone. The same tale I told Carsley over the phone, making my voice different so that he wouldn't know it. That's a lie, isn't it? Another lie, another trap, that it was Brenda Laing who came?'

‘It's the truth,' Mitchell answered. ‘It was Brenda Laing who was murdered here last night.'

‘Then that's why... I might have guessed... how could I, though? I never did... that's why she asked... she knew something from the start, somehow she knew something...' He burst into wild laughter. ‘Well, it doesn't matter now what she knew, if you're telling the truth, for now she'll never tell it... never be able to tell it. Silent she always was and now silent she'll stay for ever.'

‘Yes,' Mitchell agreed, ‘she'll tell us nothing now, but I hardly think it's necessary... not when you've told so much.'

‘Yes, I've told you a lot,' Marsden answered. ‘Do you think you're going to have a chance to tell it to anyone else? Not you, you fool, you double fool.' All at once a small automatic pistol showed deadly in his hand. ‘You fool,' he said again, ‘do you think I've told you all this, for you to tell everyone else?'

He swung the pistol up as he spoke. His eyes were deadly, his bare teeth snarled. Behind the features of the conventional, civilized, twentieth-century citizen glared the primeval killer. It all happened in a moment. Twice the pistol spat across the room its tongue of fire, its trail of smoke. From the cupboard behind, Bobby leaped out, flinging note-book and pencil at Marsden's head, grabbing at his levelled arm. One bullet splashed against the wall, another brought down a shower of plaster from the ceiling. Mitchell had tripped and fallen on his hands and knees. Another shot shrilled by, missing his head by an inch or two. In the middle of the room Bobby and Marsden threshed to and fro, Bobby trying to wrench the pistol away, Marsden trying to level the muzzle at him or at Mitchell. Marsden got another shot loose, but Bobby twisted his arm, and the bullet went harmlessly through the open doorway. Mitchell was on his feet again now. Bobby wrenched his own arm free and dashed his clenched fist with all his force full into Marsden's face, that seemed as it were to fall away beneath the force and impact of that one great blow. He went down heavily before it, with a crash that seemed to shake the whole of the rickety old building. His pistol flew from his grasp into one corner of the room. He lay unconscious.

They noticed that blood, streaming from his face, from his mouth and nose, crawled in a little stream across the bare boards of the floor towards and to join that other dark stain left there from the night before.

Superintendent Mitchell, seated next morning at his desk at which he had been working long and hard, looked up when Bobby, following instructions, appeared to report.

‘Sit down there,' he said, and went on with his writing.

It was a transcript of Bobby's shorthand note of what had passed between Mitchell, himself, and Marsden in the top room of the old transformed mill that the Superintendent was working on, and there were one or two points he wanted cleared up. When that had presently been accomplished to his satisfaction, Mitchell observed thoughtfully:

‘So far as Marsden is concerned, it's good enough. Not even Treasury Counsel can pick a hole in that evidence. It's too strong even for them to muck up, and if they can't get a conviction on it, they can't on anything. I don't believe even old Marshall Hall would have been able to get Marsden off, and he could have got Old Nick himself acquitted nine times out of ten. But the Commissioner has been in here this morning, grumbling like blazes.'

‘Has he, sir?' said Bobby, alarmed, for when the Commissioner grumbles, the sun itself stands still at noon – or ought to.

‘Because,' explained Mitchell, ‘we haven't got whoever it was did in Sir Christopher Clarke. He asked me what we were doing about it, and I said we were taking all possible steps to follow up the clues in our possession, and he said, didn't I know any better than to hand out that sort of official tripe to him, and what were we Doing? And I said we were up against a blank wall, and he said he supposed when thick heads came up against blank walls, nothing much did happen. So I said, no, nothing much except headaches, and then he said it looked to him like Marsden, and anyhow if Marsden was going to be hanged for one thing he might as well be hanged for the other as well. And of course there is that, but Marsden declared he had nothing to do with Sir Christopher's death, and I am inclined to believe him, because I think in the state he was in just then, he was too excited and upset to lie. Hysterical he was, and couldn't think of anything but the truth. Besides, if he stole the diamonds and bonds from the safe in the study, how could he have shot at the same time poor old Clarke at the other end of the house?'

‘Seems difficult,' agreed Bobby.

‘Only someone did it,' Mitchell went on, ‘and the funniest thing about it all is that before last night's happenings, I was fairly sure it really was Carsley. If only Marsden had known enough to keep quiet, Carsley would have been under arrest by now most likely – it's really Marsden who saved him in trying to destroy him. Funny that, you know, Owen. For things were working out just exactly as Marsden wanted and we were well on the way to rid him of Carsley all right – a bit ironic all that, makes one almost believe there is some power after all that does look after things in this dull old muddle of a world. Of course, logically speaking, what happened last night has nothing whatever to do with the strength of the evidence against Carsley, and doesn't in the least affect the fact that he has been identified as doing a bolt from the scene of the murder immediately after it was committed. But you can imagine how defending counsel would let himself go, and how he would put it to the jury that the police themselves admitted that evidence had been faked to make them believe Carsley guilty of the second murder, and who was to say the same thing hadn't happened before? No sense or reason to the argument, but any K.C. would get a verdict from any jury every time by taking that line. Do you think it was Carsley?'