“Have you forgotten that we’re isolated?” And repeating the phrase which he had learned to dread, Mandrake added: “It’s snowing harder than ever.”

“This is most awkward,” said Hart primly.

Jonathan burst incontinently into a tirade of abuse. Mandrake had never, until that day, seen him put out of countenance, and it was a strange and disagreeable experience to hear his voice grow shrill and his speech incoherent. His face was scarlet, his small mouth pouted and trembled, and behind those blind glasses of his Mandrake caught distorted glimpses of congested eyeballs. Without a trace of his usual precision he poured out a stream of accusations. “In my house,” he kept repeating, “in my house.” He ordered Hart to admit his guilt, he predicted what would happen to him. In the same breath he reminded him of Mrs. Compline’s ruined beauty, of his threats to Nicholas, and of Mandrake’s immersion. His outburst had the curious effect of steadying Hart. It was as though that house could hold only one hysterical middle-aged man at a time. Finally Jonathan flung himself into a chair, took out his handkerchief, saw a dark stain upon it, and with singular violence hurled it from him. He looked at Mandrake and perhaps he read astonishment and distaste in Mandrake’s face, for when he spoke again it was with something of his old manner.

“You must forgive me, Aubrey. I’m exceedingly upset. Known that boy all his life. His mother’s one of my oldest friends. I beg of you, Aubrey, to tell me what we should do.”

Mandrake said: “I think, if Dr. Hart consents, we should leave him and lock the door after us.”

“If I did not consent,” said Hart, “you would still do so. One thing I shall ask of you. Will you arrange that someone, Lady Hersey perhaps, explains my present dilemma to my wife? If you permit I should like to speak to her.”

“His wife? His wife!”

“Yes, yes, Jonathan,” said Mandrake. “Madame Lisse is Madame Hart. We can’t go into it now. Do you agree to these suggestions?”

Jonathan waved his hands and, taking this as an assent, Mandrake went to the bedside table and picked up the chemist’s jar. “I’ll take charge of this, I think,” he said. “Is it veronal?”

“I most strongly object, Mr. Mandrake.”

“I thought you would. Coming, Jonathan?”

He dropped the jar in his pocket and led the way to the door. He stood aside, allowing Jonathan to go out before him. He removed the key from inside the door. The last thing he saw before closing the door was Dr. Hart, his hands on his chest, staring after him. Then he stepped back over the threshold, pulled-to the door and locked it.

“Jonathan,” he said, “somewhere or another we’ve gone incredibly wrong. Let’s find Nicholas. We’ve got to talk.”

Nicholas, wearing an expression that reminded Mandrake of a nervous colt, stood at the end of the passage outside his mother’s door. He hurried to meet them.

“Well,” he whispered, “for God’s sake, what’s happened? What’s wrong?”

“At the moment, nothing,” said Mandrake.

“But I heard Jonathan shouting. Hart’s in his room, then? Why have you left him?”

“He’s locked up. Come downstairs, Compline. We’ve got to talk.”

“I’m deadly tired,” said Nicholas suddenly. And indeed he looked exhausted. “It was pretty ghastly, telling my Mama, you know.”

“How is she?” asked Jonathan, taking Nicholas’ arm. They moved towards the stairs.

“Hersey’s with her. She’s all to blazes, to be quite frank. She’s got it into her head that it all hangs on — you know. What he did to her face. She thinks it’s because of what Bill said about it. I couldn’t do anything much. Of course she’s — God, it sounds a rotten thing to say but you know how things are — she’s — in a sort of way — glad it’s not me. That makes me feel pretty foul as you may imagine. I’d better tell Hersey it’s safe for her to come out when she wants to.”

He put his head in at his mother’s door and gave this message. They went downstairs to the Library. Chloris was sitting very upright in her chair with her hands pressed together in her lap.

“All right?” Mandrake asked.

“Me? Yes. All right. It’s nice to see you again. What’s happened?”

Jonathan gave Chloris and Nicholas an account of the interview. It was an accurate narrative until he came to Hart’s story. Then his indignation seemed to get the better of him and, abandoning Hart’s statement altogether, Jonathan talked excitedly of preposterous evasions, trumped-up alibis, and intolerable hardihood. Seeing that Chloris and Nicholas grew more and more anxious and bewildered, Mandrake waited until Jonathan had exhausted his store of phrases and then cut in with an explicit account of Hart’s movements according to himself.

“A monstrous conglomeration of lies!” Jonathan fumed.

“I don’t think we can altogether dismiss them, Jonathan. I take it that we none of us doubt his guilt, but I’m afraid it’s not going to be easy to get over that business of his meeting the footman — supposing, of course, that the man confirms Hart’s story. There must be an explanation, of course, but—”

“My god, Aubrey,” cried Jonathan, “of course there’s an explanation. When he encountered Thomas — it was all over. That’s your explanation.”

“Yes, but it isn’t, you know. Because it was after Thomas came in with the drinks that we heard William turn up the wireless.”

There was a rather stony silence, broken by Jonathan. “Then he came downstairs and slipped into the smoking-room.”

“But he says Thomas stayed in the hall.”

“He says, he says. The answer is that he waited in the shadows on the stairs until Thomas left the hall.”

“Do you remember,” Mandrake asked the other two, “the sequence of events? You, Compline, came out of the smoking-room leaving your brother — where?”

“He was over by the fire, I think. He wouldn’t talk much but I remember he did say he was damned if Hart was going to stop him getting the news. It wasn’t quite time for it. I’d heard Hart switch off the light in the ‘boudoir’ and I said he’d evidently gone, so it’d be all right. I didn’t want to hear the damn’ news myself and I’d told you I’d pipe down, so I came away.”

“Exactly. As I remember you came in and shut the door. Later, when you opened it and called out to him about the news, could you see him?”

“No. The screen hid him. But he grunted something and I heard him cross the room.”

“Right. And a moment later he turned on the wireless.”

“I maintain,” said Jonathan, “that it was Hart we heard in there. Hart had murdered him, and when he heard Nick ask for the news he turned it on and got out of the room.”

“By that time Hart, according to himself, had met Thomas coming with the tray, had got some way up the stairs, and had seen Thomas re-enter the hall. It was only a matter of a minute or two after Thomas left that Lady Hersey went into the smoking-room. Does that give Hart time to return and do — what he did?”

“It was longer than that,” said Johathan, “the news had run for some minutes before Hersey went in.”

“But…” Chloris made a sudden movement.

“Yes?” asked Mandrake.

“I suppose it’s no good, but a wireless does take a little time to warm up. Could Dr. Hart have switched it on, after — after he’s — after it was over, and then hurried out of the room so that it would sound like Bill tuning in? Do you see what I mean?”

“By Heaven!” Nicholas said, “I believe she’s got it.”

“No,” said Mandrake slowly, “no, I’m afraid not. The wireless was still warm. It was only a few minutes since it had been switched off. Even when they’re cold they don’t take longer than fifteen to twenty seconds, I fancy. For that idea to work, Hart would have had to switch it on before Thomas came in with the drinks and we didn’t hear the thing until after Thomas left. And what’s more it gives a still smaller margin of time for the actual crime. It would have to be done after you, Compline, left your brother, and before Thomas appeared with the glasses. Remember he had to leave the ‘boudoir’ by the door into the hall, enter the smoking-room by its door into the hall, seize his weapon, steal up — I’m sorry, but we’ve got to think of these things, haven’t we? — do what he did, turn on the radio, return to the ‘boudoir’ and come out of it again in time for Thomas to see him.”