“I do not know when this trap is supposed to have been set,” said Dr. Hart.

“Can you tell us what you were doing during the fifteen or twenty minutes before Nicholas Compline cried out?”

Dr. Hart lifted his chin, drew down his brows and glared at the ceiling. “He’s rather like Mussolini,” thought Mandrake, stealing a glance at him.

“When Compline returned with you and with his brother,” said Hart, “I was in this room. I went to that door and saw you in the hall. I then returned and continued a conversation with Madame Lisse, who left the room some time before I did. I remained here until it was time to dress. I went upstairs at a quarter-past seven, and immediately entered my room. Perhaps it was ten minutes later that I entered the bathroom next to my bedroom. I bathed and returned directly to my room. I had almost completed my dressing when I heard Compline scream like a woman. I heard voices in the passage. I put on my dinner jacket and went out into the passage where I found all of you grouped about the doorway to his room.”

“Yes,” said Jonathan. “Quite so. And between the time of your leaving this room and the discovery of the injury to Nicholas Compline, did you see any other member of the party or any of the servants?”

“No.”

“Dr. Hart, do you agree that before you came here you wrote certain letters — I’m afraid I must call them threatening letters — to Nicholas Compline?”

“I cannot submit to these intolerable questions,” said Hart breathlessly. “You have my assurance that I have made no attack.”

“If you won’t answer me, you may find yourself questioned by a person of greater authority. You oblige me to press you still further. Do you know where Nicholas Compline was when the trap was set for him?”

Hart’s upper lip twitched as if a moth fluttered under the skin. Twice, he made as if to speak. At the third effort he uttered some sort of noise — a kind of moan. Mandrake felt acutely embarrassed, but Jonathan cocked his head like a bird, and it seemed to Mandrake that he was beginning to enjoy himself again. “Well, Dr. Hart?” he murmured.

“I do not know where he was. I saw nobody.”

“He tells us that he was talking to Madame Lisse, in her room— What did you say?”

Hart had again uttered that inarticulate sound. He wetted his lips and after a moment said loudly: “I did not know where he was.”

Jonathan’s fingers had been at his waistcoat pocket. He now withdrew them and with an abrupt movement held out a square of paper. Mandrake saw that it was the Charter form which he had found on the previous night in Nicholas’ chair. He had time to think: “It seems more like a week ago,” as he read again the words that had seemed so preposterous: “You are warned. Keep off.”

“Well, Dr. Hart,” said Jonathan, “have you seen this paper before?”

“Never,” Hart cried out shrilly. “Never!”

“Are you sure? Take it in your hand and examine it.”

“I will not touch it. This is a trap. Of what do you accuse me?”

Jonathan, still holding the paper, crossed to a writing-desk in the window. Mandrake and Hart watched him peer into a drawer and finally take out a sheet of note-paper. He turned towards Hart. In his right hand he held the Charter form, in his left the sheet of note-paper.

“This is your acceptance of my invitation for the week-end,” said Jonathan. “After the Charter form came into my hands,” he smiled at Mandrake, “I bethought me of this note. I compared them and I came to an interesting conclusion. Your letters are characteristically formed, my dear doctor. You use a script, and it retains its Continental character. The slanting leg of the German ‘K’ is unusally prolonged. Here we have a ‘K’ in ‘kind invitation.’ I am looking at the note. Turning to the Charter form, we find that the letters are in script and the ‘K’ of ‘Keep’ has a slanting leg that is prolonged through the square beneath it. Now, you sat next to Nicholas on his right hand. You passed your forms to him for scoring. Instead of receiving one form from you he received two: the legitimate Charter, which curiously enough contained the word ‘threats,’ and this somewhat childish but, in the circumstances, quite significant warning, which you tell us you have never seen before. Now, you know, that simply won’t do.”

“I did not write it. It — I must have torn two sheets off together. They were stuck together at the top. Someone else had written on the bottom form.”

“Ridiculous!” said Jonathan very sharply. He thrust the two papers into his pocket and moved away. When he spoke again, it was with a return to his usual air of pedantry. “No, really Dr. Hart, that will not do. I myself gave out the forms. Nobody could have foretold to whom I would hand this particular block. You are not suggesting, I hope, that a member of the party, by some sleight-of-hand trick, took your block of forms out of your fingers, wrote on the lower form, and returned it without attracting your attention?”

“I suggest nothing. I know nothing about it. I did not write it. Perhaps Compline himself wrote it in order to discredit me. He is capable of anything — of anything. Ach Gott!” cried Dr. Hart, “I can endure this no longer. I must ask you to leave me. I must insist that you leave me alone.” He clasped his hands together and raised them to his eyes. “I am most unhappy,” he said. “I am in great trouble. You do not understand, you are not of my race. I tell you that these accusations mean nothing to me — nothing. I am torn by the most terrible of all emotions and I cannot fight against it. I am near breaking-point. I entreat you to leave me alone.”

“Very well,” said Jonathan and, rather to Mandrake’s surprise, he walked to the door. “But I warn you,” he said, “if anything should happen to Nicholas Compline, you, and only you, will immediately fall under the gravest suspicion. I firmly believe you tried to kill Nicholas. If there is one more threat, one more suspicious move upon your part, Dr. Hart, I shall take it upon myself to place you under arrest.” He made a quick deft movement and the next moment Mandrake saw that in his right hand Jonathan held a very small pistol. “A few moments ago,” said Jonathan, “I removed this little weapon from my desk. I am armed, Dr. Hart, and I shall see to it that Nicholas Compline, also, is armed. I wish you good night.”

Mandrake did not follow Jonathan from the room. Something had happened to him. He had succumbed to an irresistible feeling of pity for Dr. Hart. He had not ceased to believe that Hart was responsible for the attacks on Nicholas; on the contrary he was more than ever convinced that he was their author. But something in Hart’s attitude, in his air of isolation, in the very feebleness of his efforts to defend himself, had touched Mandrake’s sympathetic nerve. He saw Hart as a man who had been driven hopelessly off his normal course by the wind of an overwhelming jealousy. The old phrase ‘Madly in love’ occurred to him, and he thought Hart was indeed the victim of an insane passion. He found in himself a burning anxiety to prevent any further attack, not so much for Nicholas Compline’s sake as for Hart’s. It would be terrible, he thought, if Hart was to kill Nicholas and then, by this dreadful consummation of his passion, be brought to his right mind, to a full realization of the futility of what he had done. He felt that he must try and find something to say to this plump figure of tragedy, something that might reach out to him and rouse him, as some actual sound will penetrate and dispel a nightmare. Hart had turned away when Jonathan had shut the door, and had flung himself into a chair by the fire and covered his face with his hands. After a moment’s hesitation Mandrake crossed to him and touched him lightly on the shoulder. He started, looked up, and said: “I thought you had gone.”

“I shall go in a moment. I have stayed because I want to wake you.”