The mysterious Mr. Quin
at which they had arrived so unexpectedly.
Mr. Quin rose to his feet. "You see," he said, "what Mr.
Satterthwaite's impression has done for us." He turned to Unkerton. "It
is your turn now."
"Eh? I don't understand you."
"You were very thoughtful when I came into this room. I should like
to know exactly what thought it was that obsessed you. Never mind
if it has nothing to do with the tragedy. Never mind if it seems to
you--superstitious--" Mr. Unkerton started, ever so slightly. "Tell us."
"I don't mind telling you," said Unkerton. "Though it's nothing to do
with the business, and you'll probably laugh at me into the bargain. I
was wishing that my Missis had left well alone and not replaced that
pane of glass in the haunted window. I feel as though doing that has
maybe brought a curse upon us."
He was unable to understand why the two men opposite him stared so.
"But she hasn't replaced it yet," said Mr. Satterthwaite at last.
"Yes, she has. Man came first thing this morning."
"My God!" said Porter, "I begin to understand. That room, it's paneled,
I suppose, not papered?"
"Yes, but what does that--"
But Porter had swung out of the room. The others followed him. He went
straight upstairs to the Scotts' bedroom. It was a charming room,
paneled in cream, with two windows facing south. Porter felt with his
hands along the panels on the western wall.
"There's a spring somewhere--must be. Ah!" There was a click, and a
section of the paneling rolled back. It disclosed the grimy panes of
the haunted window. One pane of glass was clean and new. Porter stooped
quickly and picked up something. He held it out on the palm of his
hand. It was a fragment of ostrich feather. Then he looked at Mr. Quin.
Mr. Quin nodded.
He went across to the hat cupboard in the bedroom. There were several
hats in it--the dead woman's hats. He took out one with a large brim
and curling feathers--an elaborate Ascot hat.
Mr. Quin began speaking in a gentle, reflective voice.
"Let us suppose," said Mr. Quin, "a man who is by nature intensely
jealous, a man who has stayed here in bygone years and knows the secret
of the spring in the paneling. To amuse himself he opens it one day,
and looks out over the Privy Garden. There, secure as they think from
being over-looked, he sees his wife and another man. There can be no
possible doubt in his mind as to the relations between them. He is
mad with rage. What shall he do? An idea comes to him. He goes to the
cupboard and puts on the hat with the brim and feathers. It is growing
dusk, and he remembers the story of the stain on the glass. Anyone
looking up at the window will see as they think the Watching Cavalier.
Thus secured, he watches them, and at the moment they are clasped in
each other's arms, he shoots. He is a good shot--a wonderful shot. As
they fall, he fires once more--that shot carries away the earring.
He flings the pistol out of the window into the Privy Garden, rushes
downstairs and out through the billiard room."
Porter took a step toward him.
"But he let her be accused?" he cried. "He stood by and let her be
accused? Why? Why?"
"I think you know why," said Mr. Quin. "I should guess--it's only
guesswork on my part, mind--that Richard Scott was once madly in love
with Iris Staverton--so madly that even meeting her years afterward
stirred up the embers of jealousy again. I should say that Iris
Staverton once fancied that she might love him, that she went on a
hunting trip with him and another--and that she came back in love with
the better man."
"The better man," muttered Porter, dazed. "You mean--"
"Yes," said Mr. Quin, with a faint smile. "I mean you." He paused a
minute, and then said, "If I were you--I should go to her now."
"I will," said Porter.
He turned and left the room.
AT THE BELLS AND MOTLEY
Mr. Satterthwaite was annoyed. Altogether it had been an unfortunate
day. They had started late; they had taken the wrong turning and lost
themselves amid the wilds of Salisbury Plain. Now it was close on
eight o'clock; they were still a matter of forty miles from Marswick
Manor, whither they were bound, and a puncture had supervened to render
matters still more trying.
Mr. Satterthwaite, looking like some small bird whose plumage had been
ruffled, walked up and down in front of the village garage while his
chauffeur conversed in hoarse undertones with the local expert.
"Half an hour _at_ least," said that worthy, pronouncing judgment.
"And lucky at that," supplemented Masters, the chauffeur. "More like
three quarters if you ask me."
"What is this--place, anyway?" demanded Mr. Satterthwaite fretfully.
Being a little gentleman considerate of the feelings of others, he
substituted the word "place" for "Godforsaken hole" which had first
risen to his lips.
"Kirtlington Mallet."
Mr. Satterthwaite was not much wiser, and yet a faint familiarity
seemed to linger round the name. He looked round him disparagingly.
Kirtlington Mallet seemed to consist of one straggling street, the
garage and the post office on one side of it balanced by three
indeterminate shops on the other side. Farther down the road, however,
Mr. Satterthwaite perceived something that creaked and swung in the
wind, and his spirits rose ever so slightly.
"There's an inn here, I see," he remarked.
"Bells and Motley," said the garageman. "That's it--yonder."
"If I might make a suggestion, sir," said Masters. "Why not try it?
They would be able to give you some sort of a meal, no doubt--not of
course, what you are accustomed to--" He paused apologetically, for Mr.
Satterthwaite was accustomed to the best cooking of continental chefs,
and had in his own service a _cordon bleu_ to whom he paid a fabulous
salary.
"We shan't be able to take the road again for another three quarters of
an hour, sir. I'm sure of that. And it's already past eight o'clock.
You could ring up Sir George Foster, sir, from the inn, and acquaint
him with the cause of our delay."
"You seem to think you can arrange everything, Masters," said Mr.
Satterthwaite snappily.
Masters, who did think so, maintained a respectful silence.
Mr. Satterthwaite, in spite of his earnest wish to discountenance
any suggestion that might possibly be made to him--he was in that
mood--nevertheless looked down the road toward the creaking inn sign
with faint inward approval. He was a man of birdlike appetite, an
epicure; but even such men can be hungry.
"The Bells and Motley," he said thoughtfully. "That's an odd name for
an inn. I don't know that I ever heard it before."
"There's odd folks come to it by all account," said the local man.
He was bending over the wheel, and his voice came muffled and
indistinct.
"Odd folks?" queried Mr. Satterthwaite. "Now what do you mean by that?"
The other hardly seemed to know what he meant.
"Folks that come and go. That kind," he said vaguely.
Mr. Satterthwaite reflected that people who come to an inn are almost
of necessity those who "come and go." The definition seemed to him to
lack precision. But nevertheless his curiosity was stimulated. Somehow
or other he had got to put in three quarters of an hour. The Bells and
Motley would be as good as anywhere else.
With his usual small, mincing steps he walked away down the road. From
afar there came a rumble of thunder. The mechanic looked up and spoke
to Masters: "There's a storm coming over. Thought I could feel it in
the air."
"Crikey," said Masters. "And forty miles to go."
"Ah!" said the other. "There's no need to be hurrying over this job.
You'll not be wanted to take the road till the storm's passed over.
That little boss of yours doesn't look as though he'd relish being out
in thunder and lightning."
"Hope they'll do him well at that place," muttered the chauffeur. "I'll
be pushing along there for a bite myself presently."
"Billy Jones is all right," said the garageman. "Keeps a good table."
Mr. William Jones, a big burly man of fifty, and landlord of the Bells
and Motley, was at this minute beaming ingratiatingly down on little
Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Can do you a nice steak, sir--_and_ fried potatoes, and as good a
cheese as any gentleman could wish for. This way, sir, in the coffee
room. We're not very full at present, the last of the fishing gentlemen
just gone. A little later we'll be full again for the hunting. Only one
gentleman here at present, name of Quin--"
Mr. Satterthwaite stopped dead.
"Quin?" he said excitedly. "Did you say Quin?"
"That's the name, sir. Friend of yours, perhaps?"
"Yes, indeed. Oh! yes, most certainly." Twittering with excitement,
Mr. Satterthwaite hardly realized that the world might contain more
than one man of that name. He had no doubts at all. In an odd way, the
information fitted in with what the man at the garage had said. "Folks
that come and go." A very apt description of Mr. Quin. And the name of
the inn too seemed a peculiarly fitting and appropriate one.
"Dear me, dear me," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "What a _very_ odd thing.
That we should meet like this! Mr. Harley Quin, is it not?"
"That's right, sir. This is the coffee room, sir. Ah! here is the
gentleman."
Tall, dark, smiling, the familiar figure of Mr. Quin rose from the
table at which he was sitting, and the well-remembered voice spoke.
"Ah! Mr. Satterthwaite, we meet again. An unexpected meeting!"
Mr. Satterthwaite was shaking him warmly by the hand.
"Delighted. Delighted, I'm sure. A lucky breakdown for me. My car, you
know. And you are staying here? For long?"
"One night only."
"Then I am indeed fortunate."
Mr. Satterthwaite sat down opposite his friend with a little sigh of
satisfaction, and regarded the dark, smiling face opposite him with a
pleasurable expectancy.
The other man shook his head gently.
"I assure you," he said, "that I have not a bowl of goldfish or a
rabbit to produce from my sleeve."
"Too bad," cried Mr. Satterthwaite, a little taken aback. "Yes, I must
confess--I do rather adopt that attitude toward you. A man of magic.
Ha, ha. That is how I regard you. A man of magic."
"And yet," said Mr. Quin, "it is you who do the conjuring tricks, not
I."
"Ah!" said Mr. Satterthwaite eagerly. "But I cannot do them without
you. I lack--shall we say--inspiration?"
Mr. Quin smilingly shook his head. "That is too big a word. I speak the
cue, that is all."
The landlord came in at that minute with bread and a slab of yellow
butter. As he set the things on the table there was a vivid flash of
lightning, and a clap of thunder almost overhead.
"A wild night, gentlemen."
"On such a night--" began Mr. Satterthwaite, and stopped.
"Funny now," said the landlord, unconscious of the question, "if those
weren't just the words I was going to use myself. It was just such a
night as this when Captain Harwell brought his bride home, the very day
before he disappeared forever."
"Ah!" cried Mr. Satterthwaite, suddenly. "Of course!"
He had got the clue. He knew now why the name Kirtlington Mallet
was familiar. Three months before he had read every detail of the
astonishing disappearance of Captain Richard Harwell. Like other
newspaper readers all over Great Britain, he had puzzled over the
details of the disappearance, and, also like every other Briton, had
evolved his own theories.
"Of course," he repeated. "It was at Kirtlington Mallet it happened."
"It was at this house he stayed for the hunting last winter," said
the landlord. "Oh! I knew him well. A main handsome young gentleman
and not one that you'd think had a care on his mind. He was done away
with--that's my belief. Many's the time I've seen them come riding home
together--he and Miss Le Couteau, and all the village saying there'd be