Part 15

Outside the drawing room door, Mr. Satterthwaite bade Mrs. Graham a ceremonious good night. There were two staircases, one close at hand, the other at the end of a long corridor. It was by the latter that Mr. Satterthwaite reached his room. Mrs. Graham and her son passed up the stairs near at hand, where the quiet Gerard Annesley had already preceded them.

"You'd better get your ukulele, Mabelle," said Madge. "You'll forget it in the morning if you don't. You've got to make such an early start."

"Come on, Mr. Satterthwaite," said Doris Coles, seizing him boisterously by one arm. "Early to bed--etcetera."

Madge took him by the other arm and all three ran down the corridor to peals of Doris's laughter. They paused at the end to wait for David Keeley, who was following at a much more sedate pace, turning out electric lights as he came. The four of them went upstairs together.

* * * * *

Mr. Satterthwaite was just preparing to descend to the dining room for breakfast on the following morning when there was a light tap on the door and Madge Keeley entered. Her face was dead white and she was shivering all over.

"Oh! Mr. Satterthwaite."

"My dear child, what's happened?" He took her hand.

"Mabelle--Mabelle Annesley--"

"Yes?"

What had happened? What? Something terrible--he knew that. Madge could hardly get the words out.

"She--she hanged herself last night. On the back of her door. Oh! it's too horrible." She broke down--sobbing.

Hanged herself. Impossible. Incomprehensible!

He said a few soothing, old-fashioned words to Madge and hurried downstairs. He found David Keeley looking perplexed and incompetent.

"I've telephoned to the police, Satterthwaite. Apparently that's got to be done. So the doctor said. He's just finished examining the--the--Good Lord, it's a beastly business. She must have been desperately unhappy--to do it that way. Queer, that song last night. Swan Song, eh? She looked rather like a swan--a black swan."

Yes.

"Swan Song," repeated Keeley. "Shows it was in her mind, eh?"

"It would seem so--yes, certainly it would seem so."

He hesitated, then asked if he might see--if, that is--

His host comprehended the stammering request. "If you want to--I'd forgotten you have a penchant for human tragedies."

He led the way up the broad staircase. Mr. Satterthwaite followed him. At the head of the stairs was the room occupied by Roger Graham, and opposite it, on the other side of the passage, his mother's room. The latter door was ajar and a faint wisp of smoke floated through it.

A momentary surprise invaded Mr. Satterthwaite's mind. He had not judged Mrs. Graham to be a woman who smoked so early in the day. Indeed, he had had the idea that she did not smoke at all.

They went along the passage to the end door but one. David Keeley entered the room and Mr. Satterthwaite followed him.

The room was not a very large one and showed signs of a man's occupation. A door in the wall led into a second room. A bit of cut rope still dangled from a hook high up on the door. On the bed--

Mr. Satterthwaite stood for a minute looking down on the heap of huddled chiffon. He noticed that it was ruched and pleated like the plumage of a bird. At the face, after one glance, he did not look again.

He glanced from the door with its dangling rope to the communicating door through which they had come.

"Was that open?"

"Yes. At least the maid says so."

"Annesley slept in there? Didn't he hear anything?"

"He says--nothing."

"Almost incredible," murmured Mr. Satterthwaite. He looked back at the form on the bed.

"Where is he?"

"Annesley? He's downstairs with the doctor."

They went downstairs to find an inspector of police had arrived. Mr. Satterthwaite was agreeably surprised to recognize in him an old acquaintance, Inspector Winkfield. The Inspector went upstairs with the doctor and a few minutes later a request came that all members of the house party should assemble in the drawing room.

The blinds had been drawn and the whole room had a funereal aspect. Doris Coles looked frightened and subdued. Every now and then she dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. Madge was resolute and alert, her feelings fully under control by now. Mrs. Graham was composed, as always, her face grave and impassive. The tragedy seemed to have affected her son more keenly than anyone. He looked a positive wreck this morning. David Keeley, as usual, had subsided into the background.

The bereaved husband sat alone, a little apart from the others. There was a queer dazed look about him, as though he could hardly realize what had taken place.

Mr. Satterthwaite, outwardly composed, was inwardly seething with the importance of a duty shortly to be performed.

Inspector Winkfield, followed by Doctor Morris, came in and shut the door behind him. He cleared his throat and spoke. "This is a very sad occurrence--very sad, I'm sure. It's necessary, under the circumstances, that I should ask everybody a few questions. You'll not object, I'm sure. I'll begin with Mr. Annesley. You'll forgive my asking, sir, but had your good lady ever threatened to take her life?"

Mr. Satterthwaite opened his lips impulsively, then closed them again. There was plenty of time. Better not speak too soon. "I--no, I don't think so."

His voice was so hesitating, so peculiar, that everyone shot a covert glance at him.

"You're not sure, sir?"

"Yes--I'm--quite sure. She didn't."

"Ah! Were you aware that she was unhappy in any way?"

"No, I--No, I wasn't."

"She said nothing to you? About feeling depressed, for instance?"

"I--no, nothing."

Whatever the Inspector thought, he said nothing. Instead he proceeded to his next point. "Will you describe to me briefly the events of last night?"

"We--all went up to bed. I fell asleep immediately and heard nothing. The housemaid's scream aroused me this morning. I rushed into the adjoining room and found my wife--and found her--"

His voice broke. The Inspector nodded.

"Yes, yes, that's quite enough. We needn't go into that. When did you last see your wife the night before?"

"I--downstairs."

"Downstairs?"

"Yes, we all left the drawing room together. I went straight up, leaving the others talking in the hall."

"And did you see your wife again? Didn't she say good night when she came up to bed?"

"I was asleep when she came up."

"But she only followed you a few minutes later. That's right, isn't it, sir?" He looked at David Keeley, who nodded.

"She hadn't come up half an hour later."

Annesley spoke stubbornly. The Inspector's eyes strayed gently to Mrs. Graham. "She didn't stay in your room talking, madam?"

Did Mr. Satterthwaite fancy it, or was there a slight pause before Mrs. Graham said, with her customary quiet decision of manner, "No, I went straight into my room and closed the door. I heard nothing."

"And you say, sir," the Inspector had shifted his attention back to Annesley, "that you slept and heard nothing. The communicating door was open, was it not?"

"I--I believe so. But my wife would have entered her room by the other door from the corridor."

"Even so, sir, there would have been certain sounds--a choking noise, a drumming of heels on the door--"

"_No._"

It was Mr. Satterthwaite who spoke, impetuously, unable to stop himself. Every eye turned toward him in surprise. He himself became nervous, stammered, and turned pink.

"I--I beg your pardon, Inspector. But I must speak. You are on the wrong tack--the wrong tack altogether. Mrs. Annesley did not kill herself--I am sure of it. She was murdered."

There was a dead silence, then Inspector Winkfield said quietly, "What leads you to say that, sir?"

"I--it is a feeling. A very strong feeling."

"But I think, sir, there must be more than that to it. There must be some particular reason."

Well, of course there _was_ a particular reason. There was the mysterious message from Mr. Quin. But you couldn't tell a police inspector that. Mr. Satterthwaite cast about desperately, and found something.

"Last night, when we were talking together, she said she was very happy. Very happy--just that. That wasn't like a woman thinking of committing suicide."

He was triumphant. He added, "She went back to the drawing room to fetch her ukulele, so that she wouldn't forget it in the morning. That didn't look like suicide either."

"No," admitted the Inspector. "No, perhaps it didn't." He turned to David Keeley. "Did she take the ukulele upstairs with her?"

The mathematician tried to remember. "I think--yes, she did. She went upstairs carrying it in her hand. I remember seeing it just as she turned the corner of the staircase before I turned off the light down here."

"Oh!" cried Madge. "But it's here now." She pointed dramatically to where the ukulele lay on a table.

"That's curious," said the Inspector. He stepped swiftly across and rang the bell.

A brief order sent the butler in search of the housemaid whose business it was to do the rooms in the morning. She came and was quite positive in her answer. The ukulele had been there first thing that morning when she had dusted.

Inspector Winkfield dismissed her and then said curtly, "I would like to speak to Mr. Satterthwaite in private, please. Everyone else may go. But no one is to leave the house."

Mr. Satterthwaite twittered into speech as soon as the door had closed behind the others. "I--I am sure, Inspector, that you have the case excellently in hand. Excellently. I just felt that--having, as I say, a very strong feeling--"

The Inspector arrested further speech with an upraised hand. "You're quite right, Mr. Satterthwaite. The lady was murdered."

"You knew it?" Mr. Satterthwaite was chagrined.

"There were certain things that puzzled Doctor Morris." He looked across at the doctor, who had remained, and the doctor assented to his statement with a nod of the head. "We made a thorough examination. The rope that was round her neck wasn't the rope that she was strangled with--it was something much thinner that did the job, something more like a wire. It had cut right into the flesh. The mark of the rope was superimposed on it. She was strangled and then hung up on that door afterward to make it look like suicide."

"But who--?"

"Yes," said the Inspector. "Who? That's the question. What about the husband sleeping next door, who never said good night to his wife and who heard nothing? I should say we hadn't far to look. Must find out what terms they were on. That's where you can be useful to us, Mr. Satterthwaite. You've the _ongtray_ here, and you can get the hang of things in a way we can't. Find out what relations there were between the two."

"I hardly like--" began Mr. Satterthwaite, stiffening.

"It won't be the first murder mystery you've helped us with. I remember the case of Mrs. Strangeways. You've got a flair for that sort of thing, sir. An absolute flair."

Yes, it was true--he _had_ a flair. He said quietly, "I will do my best, Inspector."

Had Gerard Annesley killed his wife? Had he? Mr. Satterthwaite recalled that look of misery last night. He loved her--and he was suffering. Suffering will drive a man to strange deeds.

But there was something else--some other factor. Mabelle had spoken of herself as coming out of a wood--she was looking forward to happiness--not a quiet, rational happiness--but a happiness that was irrational--a wild ecstasy--

If Gerard Annesley had spoken the truth, Mabelle had not come to her room till at least half an hour later than he had done. Yet David Keeley had seen her going up those stairs. There were two other rooms occupied in that wing. There was Mrs. Graham's and there was her son's.

Her son's. But he and Madge--

Surely Madge would have guessed. But Madge wasn't the guessing kind. All the same, no smoke without fire--

Smoke!

Ah! he remembered. _A wisp of smoke curling out through Mrs. Graham's bedroom door._

He acted on impulse. Straight up the stairs he went and into her room. It was empty. He closed the door behind him and locked it.

He went across to the grate. A heap of charred fragments. Very gingerly he raked them over with his finger. His luck was in. In the very center were some unburned fragments--fragments of letters.

Very disjointed fragments, but they told him something of value:

_Life can be wonderful, Roger darling. I never knew--all my life has been a dream till I met you, Roger--Gerard knows, I think--I am sorry, but what can I do? Nothing is real to me but you, Roger. We shall be together, soon._

_What are you going to tell him at Laidell, Roger? You write strangely--but I am not afraid--_

Very carefully, Mr. Satterthwaite put the fragments into an envelope from the writing-table. He went to the door, unlocked it, and opened it to find himself face to face with Mrs. Graham.

It was an awkward moment, and Mr. Satterthwaite was momentarily out of countenance. He did what was, perhaps, the best thing, attacked the situation with simplicity.

"I have been searching your room, Mrs. Graham. I have found something--a packet of letters imperfectly burned."

A wave of alarm passed over her face. It was gone in a flash but it had been there.

"Letters from Mrs. Annesley to your son."

She hesitated for a minute, then said quietly, "That is so. I thought they would be better burned."

"For what reason?"

"My son is engaged to be married. These letters--if they had been brought into publicity through the poor girl's suicide--might have caused much pain and trouble."

"Your son could burn his own letters."

She had no answer ready for that. Mr. Satterthwaite pursued his advantage.

"You found these letters in his room, brought them into your room, and burned them. Why? You were afraid, Mrs. Graham."

"I am not in the habit of being afraid, Mr. Satterthwaite."

"No--but this was a desperate case."

"Desperate?"

"Your son might have been in danger of arrest--for murder."

"Murder!"

He saw her face go white; he went on quickly: "You heard Mrs. Annesley go into your son's room last night. Had he told her of his engagement? No, I see he hadn't. He told her then. They quarreled, and he--"

"That's a lie!"

They had been so absorbed in their duel of words that they had not heard approaching footsteps. Roger Graham had come up behind them unperceived by either.

"It's all right, Mother. Don't--worry. Come into my room, Mr. Satterthwaite."

Mr. Satterthwaite followed him into his room. Mrs. Graham had turned away and did not attempt to follow them. Roger Graham shut the door.

"Listen, Mr. Satterthwaite. You think I killed Mabelle. You think I strangled her--here--and took her along and hung her up on that door--later--when everyone was asleep?"

Mr. Satterthwaite stared at him. Then he said surprisingly, "No, I do not think so."

"Thank God for that. I couldn't have killed Mabelle. I--I loved her. Or didn't I? I don't know. It's a tangle that I can't explain. I'm fond of Madge--I always have been. And she's such a good sort. We suit each other. But Mabelle was different. It was--I can't explain it--a sort of enchantment. I was, I think, afraid of her."

Mr. Satterthwaite nodded.

"It was madness--a kind of bewildering ecstasy. But it was impossible. It wouldn't have worked. That sort of thing--doesn't last. I know what it means now to have a spell cast over you."

"Yes, it must have been like that," said Mr. Satterthwaite thoughtfully.

"I--I wanted to get out of it all. I was going to tell Mabelle--last night."

"But you didn't?"

"No, I didn't," said Graham slowly. "I swear to you, Mr. Satterthwaite, that I never saw her after I said good night downstairs."

"I believe you," said Mr. Satterthwaite.

He got up. It was not Roger Graham who had killed Mabelle Annesley. He could have fled from her, but he could not have killed her. He had been afraid of her, afraid of that wild, intangible, fairylike quality of hers. He had known enchantment--and turned his back on it. He had gone for the safe, sensible thing that he had known "would work" and had relinquished the intangible dream that might lead him he knew not where.

He was a sensible young man, and, as such, uninteresting to Mr. Satterthwaite, who was an artist and a connoisseur in life.

He left Roger Graham in his room and went downstairs. The drawing room was empty. Mabelle's ukulele lay on a stool by the window. He took it up and twanged it absent-mindedly. He knew nothing of the instrument, but his ear told him that it was abominably out of tune. He turned a key experimentally.

Doris Coles came into the room. She looked at him reproachfully. "Poor Mabelle's uke," she said.

Her clear condemnation made Mr. Satterthwaite feel obstinate.

"Tune it for me," he said, and added, "if you can."

"Of course I can," said Doris, wounded at the suggestion of incompetence in any direction.

She took it from him, twanged a string, turned a key briskly--and the string snapped.

"Well, I never. Oh! I see--but how extraordinary. It's the wrong string--a size too big. It's an A string. How stupid to put that on. Of course it snaps when you try to tune it up. How stupid people are."

"Yes," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "They are--even when they try to be clever."

His tone was so odd that she stared at him. He took the ukulele from her and removed the broken string. He went out of the room holding it in his hand. In the library he found David Keeley.

"Here," he said.

He held out the string. Keeley took it. "What's this?"

"A broken ukulele string." He paused and then went on: "_What did you do with the other one?_"

"The other one?"

"_The one you strangled her with._ You were very clever, weren't you? It was done very quickly--just in that moment we were all laughing and talking in the hall.

"Mabelle came back into this room for her ukulele. You had taken the string off as you fiddled with it just before. You caught her round the throat with it and strangled her. Then you came out and locked the door and joined us. Later, in the dead of night, you came down and--and disposed of the body by hanging it on the door of her room. And you put another string on the ukulele--_but it was the wrong string_, that's why you were stupid."

There was a pause.

"But why did you do it?" said Mr. Satterthwaite. "In God's name, _why_?"

Mr. Keeley laughed, a funny giggling little laugh that made Mr. Satterthwaite feel rather sick.

"It was so very simple," he said. "That's why! And then--nobody ever noticed me. Nobody ever noticed what I was doing. I thought--I thought I'd have the laugh on them."

And again he gave that furtive little giggle and looked at Mr. Satterthwaite with mad eyes.

Mr. Satterthwaite was glad that at that moment Inspector Winkfield came into the room.

* * * * *

It was twenty-four hours later, on his way to London, that Mr. Satterthwaite awoke from a doze to find a tall dark man sitting opposite to him in the railway carriage. He was not altogether surprised.

"My dear Mr. Quin!"

"Yes--I am here."

Mr. Satterthwaite said slowly, "I can hardly face you. I am ashamed. I failed."

"Are you so sure of that?"

"I did not save her."

"But you discovered the truth?"

"Yes, that is true. One or other of those young men might have been accused--might even have been found guilty. So, at any rate, I saved a man's life. But she--she--that strange, enchanting creature--" His voice broke off.

Mr. Quin looked at him.

"Is death the greatest evil that can happen to anyone?"

"I--well--perhaps--No."

Mr. Satterthwaite remembered--Madge and Roger Graham--Mabelle's face in the moonlight--its serene unearthly happiness--

"No," he admitted. "No--perhaps death is not the greatest evil."

He remembered the ruffled blue chiffon of her dress that had seemed to him like the plumage of a bird, a bird with a broken wing.

When he looked up, he found himself alone. Mr. Quin was no longer there. But he had left something behind.

On the seat was a roughly-carved bird fashioned out of some dim blue stone. It had, possibly, no great artistic merit. But it had something else.

It had the vague quality of enchantment.

So said Mr. Satterthwaite--and Mr. Satterthwaite was a connoisseur.

THE MAN FROM THE SEA

Mr. Satterthwaite was feeling old. That might not have been surprising since, in the estimation of many people, he _was_ old. Careless youths said to their partners, "Old Satterthwaite? Oh! he must be a hundred--or at any rate about eighty." And even the kindest of girls said indulgently, "Oh! Satterthwaite. Yes, he's quite old. He _must_ be sixty." Which was almost worse, since he was sixty-nine.

In his own view, however, he was not old. Sixty-nine was an interesting age--an age of infinite possibilities--an age when at last the experience of a lifetime was beginning to tell. But to feel old--that was different--a tired, discouraged state of mind when one was inclined to ask oneself depressing questions. What was he, after all? A little dried-up, elderly man, with neither chick nor child, with no human belongings, only a valuable art collection which seemed at the moment strangely unsatisfying. No one to care whether he lived or died--

At this point in his meditations Mr. Satterthwaite pulled himself up short. What he was thinking was morbid and unprofitable. He knew well enough, who better, that the chances were that a wife would have hated him or, alternatively, that he would have hated her, that children would have been a constant source of worry and anxiety and that demand upon his time and affection would have worried him considerably.

To be safe and comfortable, said Mr. Satterthwaite firmly--that was the thing.

The last thought reminded him of a letter he had received that morning. He drew it from his pocket and reread it, savoring its contents pleasurably. To begin with, it was from a duchess, and Mr. Satterthwaite liked hearing from duchesses. It is true that the letter began by demanding a large subscription for charity and but for that would probably never have been written, but the terms in which it was couched were so agreeable that Mr. Satterthwaite was able to gloss over the first fact.

_So you've deserted the Riviera. What is this island of yours like? Cheap? Cannotti put up his prices shamefully this year, and I shan't go to the Riviera again. I might try your island next year if you report favorably, though I should hate five days on a boat. Still, anywhere you recommend is sure to be pretty comfortable--too much so. You'll get to be one of those people who do nothing but coddle themselves and think of their comfort. There's only one thing that will save you, Satterthwaite, and that is your inordinate interest in other people's affairs--_

As Mr. Satterthwaite folded the letter, a vision came up vividly before him of the duchess. Her meannesses, her unexpected and alarming kindness, her caustic tongue, her indomitable spirit.

Spirit! Everyone needed spirit. He drew out another letter with a German stamp upon it--written by a young singer in whom he had interested himself. It was a grateful, affectionate letter.

_How can I thank you, dear Mr. Satterthwaite? It seems too wonderful to think that in a few days I shall be singing Isolde.--_

A pity that she was to make her debut as Isolde. A charming, hard-working child, Olga, with a beautiful voice, but no temperament. He hummed to himself. "_Nay, order him! Pray understand it! I command it. I, Isolde._" No, the child hadn't got it in her--the spirit--the indomitable will--all expressed in that final "_Ich, Isolde!_"