came over me.’
Evesham cut short his apologies.
‘Quite all right. Quite all right, my dear fellow. Curious – That smash reminded me. That’s what she did, didn’t she? Mrs Appleton? Smashed the port decanter?’
‘Yes. Old Appleton had his glass of port – only one – each night. The day after his death, one of the servants saw her take the decanter out and smash it deliberately. That set them talking, of course. They all knew she had been perfectly wretched with him. Rumour grew and grew, and in the end, months later, some of his relatives applied for an exhumation order. And sure enough, the old fellow had been poisoned. Arsenic, wasn’t it?’
‘No – strychnine, I think. It doesn’t much matter. Well, of course, there it was. Only one person was likely to have done it. Mrs Appleton stood her trial. She was acquitted more through lack of evidence against her than from any overwhelming proof of innocence. In other words, she was lucky. Yes, I don’t suppose there’s much doubt she did it right enough. What happened to her afterwards?’
‘Went out to Canada, I believe. Or was it Australia? She had an uncle or something of the sort out there who offered her a home. Best thing she could do under the circumstances.’
Mr Satterthwaite was fascinated by Alex Portal’s right hand as it clasped his glass. How tightly he was gripping it.
‘You’ll smash that in a minute or two, if you’re not careful,’ thought Mr Satterthwaite. ‘Dear me, how interesting all this is.’
Evesham rose and helped himself to a drink.
‘Well, we’re not much nearer to knowing why poor Derek Capel shot himself,’ he remarked. ‘The Court of Inquiry hasn’t been a great success, has it, Mr Quin?’
Mr Quin laughed …
It was a strange laugh, mocking – yet sad. It made everyone jump.
‘I beg your pardon,’ he said. ‘You are still living in the past, Mr Evesham. You are still hampered by your preconceived notion. But I – the man from outside, the stranger passing by, see only – facts!’
‘Facts?’
‘Yes – facts.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Evesham.
‘I see a clear sequence of facts, outlined by yourselves but of which you have not seen the significance. Let us go back ten years and look at what we see – untrammelled by ideas or sentiment.’
Mr Quin had risen. He looked very tall. The fire leaped fitfully behind him. He spoke in a low compelling voice.
‘You are at dinner. Derek Capel announces his engagement. You think then it was to Marjorie Dilke. You are not so sure now. He has the restlessly excited manner of a man who has successfully defied Fate – who, in your own words, has pulled off a big coup against overwhelming odds. Then comes the clanging of the bell. He goes out to get the long overdue mail. He doesn’t open his letters, but you mention yourselves that he opened the paper to glance at the news. It is ten years ago – so we cannot know what the news was that day – a far-off earthquake, a near at hand political crisis? The only thing we do know about the contents of that paper is that it contained one small paragraph – a paragraph stating that the Home Office had given permission to exhume the body of Mr Appleton three days ago.’
‘What?’
Mr Quin went on.
‘Derek Capel goes up to his room, and there he sees something out of the window. Sir Richard Conway has told us that the curtain was not drawn across it and further that it gave on to the drive. What did he see? What could he have seen that forced him to take his life?’
‘What do you mean? What did he see?’
‘I think,’ said Mr Quin, ‘that he saw a policeman. A policeman who had come about a dog – But Derek Capel didn’t know that – he just saw – a policeman.’
There was a long silence – as though it took some time to drive the inference home.
‘My God!’ whispered Evesham at last. ‘You can’t mean that? Appleton? But he wasn’t there at the time Appleton died. The old man was alone with his wife –’
‘But he may have been there a week earlier. Strychnine is not very soluble unless it is in the form of hydrochloride. The greater part of it, put into the port, would be taken in the last glass, perhaps a week after he left.’
Portal sprung forward. His voice was hoarse, his eyes bloodshot.
‘Why did she break the decanter?’ he cried. ‘Why did she break the decanter? Tell me that!’
For the first time that evening, Mr Quin addressed himself to Mr Satterthwaite.
‘You have a wide experience of life, Mr Satterthwaite. Perhaps you can tell us that.’
Mr Satterthwaite’s voice trembled a little. His cue had come at last. He was to speak some of the most important lines in the play. He was an actor now – not a looker-on.
‘As I see it,’ he murmured modestly, ‘she – cared for Derek Capel. She was, I think, a good woman – and she had sent him away. When her husband – died, she suspected the truth. And so, to save the man she loved, she tried to destroy the evidence against him. Later, I think, he persuaded her that her suspicions were unfounded, and she consented to marry him. But even then, she hung back – women, I fancy, have a lot of instinct.’
Mr Sattherthwaite had spoken his part.
Suddenly a long trembling sigh filled the air.
‘My God!’ cried Evesham, starting, ‘what was that?’
Mr Satterthwaite could have told him that it was Eleanor Portal in the gallery above, but he was too artistic to spoil a good effect.
Mr Quin was smiling.
‘My car will be ready by now. Thank you for your hospitality, Mr Evesham. I have, I hope, done something for my friend.’
They stared at him in blank amazement.
‘That aspect of the matter has not struck you? He loved this woman, you know. Loved her enough to commit murder for her sake. When retribution overtook him, as he mistakenly thought, he took his own life. But unwittingly, he left her to face the music.’
‘She was acquitted,’ muttered Evesham.
‘Because the case against her could not be proved. I fancy – it may be only a fancy – that she is still – facing the music.’
Portal had sunk into a chair, his face buried in his hands.
Quin turned to Satterthwaite.
‘Goodbye, Mr Satterthwaite. You are interested in the drama, are you not?’
Mr Satterthwaite nodded – surprised.
‘I must recommend the Harlequinade to your attention. It is dying out nowadays – but it repays attention,
