John Carr - The Judas Window

'But I repeat (this damned court-room manner is getting infectious): why did Answell confess?'

H.M. grunted. He was silting back against the cushion, his unwieldy top-hat tilted over his eyes and his thick arms folded.

'Because somebody's communicated with him. I'm not sure how, but I'm pretty sure who. I mean Our Reginald. Did you notice how he and Reginald kept exchangin' significant glances all afternoon? But you don't know Reginald.'

'Yes, I met him this afternoon, at the Humes' place.’

A sharp little eye swung round towards me. 'So?' said H.M. with heavy inflection. 'What d'you think of him?'

'Well - all right. A little on the oh-really and supercilious side, but decent enough.'

The eye turned back again. 'Uh-huh. And, incidentally, what was the message from the gal?'

'She said to tell you yes, emphatically.'

'Good gal,' said H.M. He stared at the glass partition from under the brim of his tilted hat. 'It may work out well enough. I had some passable luck this afternoon, and also a few nasty jolts. The worst of the jolts was when Spencer Hume didn't turn up as a witness. I was countin' on him: if I had any hair, it'd 'a' been greyer when I heard that. Burn me, I wonder if he's turned tail, I wonder I ' He considered. 'People think I ain't got any dignity. Fine spectacle it is, hey, of Lillypop and me running about gettin' our witnesses and doin' all the dirty work that ought to be done by solicitors. Nice thing for a barrister, I ask you -'

'Frankly,' I said, 'the real reason is that you wouldn't work with a solicitor, H.M. You're too anxious to run the whole show yourself.'

This, unfortunately, was so true that it provoked a fiendish outburst, especially as his grousing a moment ago indicated that he was worried about something else.

'So that's all the thanks I get, is it? That's all the thanks I get? After all the trouble I had runnin' round that railway station like a porter -'

'What railway station?'

'Never mind what railway station,' said H.M., checking himself abruptly in mid-flight, and looking austere. But he was so pleased at having caused another point of mystification that he cooled off a little. 'Humph. I say, Ken: on the evidence you've heard to-day, what railway station would you have gone to?'

'To take what train? How the subject of railway stations got into this conversation at all,' I said, 'is not quite clear; but is this a subtle way of hinting that Dr Hume may have done a bunk?'

'He may have. Burn me, now, I wonder -' For a moment he stared at the glass partition, and then he turned excitedly. 'Did you by any chance see Dr Hume at their place this afternoon?'

'Yes, he was there, full of platitudes and benevolence.'

'Did you follow my instructions about spreadin' a little mysterious disquiet?'

'Yes, and I thought I succeeded remarkably well; though what I said that was so effective I can't tell you. Anyway, he certainly told us he was going to testify this afternoon. He said he'd put over a strong intimation that

Answell is insane; and, by the way, there was a mental specialist with him, a Dr Tregannon -'

H.M.'s hat slid so slowly down over his nose and outwards that it was as though he had attempted a balancing-trick with it. He is proud of that hat; but he did not notice when it tumbled to the floor.

'Tregannon?' he repeated blankly. 'Dr Tregannon. Oh, Lord love a duck! I wonder if I'd better go round there?'

'I hope we're not out to rescue any heroines,' I said. 'Look here, what's up? Are you thinking of the sinister uncle again, or what he might do to Mary Hume for testifying on the side of the defence? I thought of all that too; but it's rubbish. Plain cases, H.M., and sticking closely to the Facts of Life: you don't suppose he'd hurt his own niece?'

H.M. reflected. 'No, I don't suppose he would,' he replied seriously. 'But he's fightin' for his respectability. And psalm-singing Uncle Spencer may turn awful nasty if he discovers she can't find his Turkish slippers ... Now, now!'

'Is this allied with the secret and sinister connection between an ink-pad and a railway station and a Judas window and a golf-suit?'

'It is. But never mind. I suppose she's all right, and what I want is grub.'

It was some time before he got his wish. As the car drew up before H.M.'s house in Brook Street, a woman was mounting the steps. She wore a fur coat, and her hat was put on crookedly. Then she ran down the steps, rummaging in her handbag. We saw the eager blue eyes of Mary Hume: she was now breathless and on the edge of tears.

'It's all right,' she said. 'We've saved Jim.'

H.M.'s face wore a rather ghoulish expression. 'I don't believe it,' he said. 'Burn me, it ain't possible for us to have any luck! The blinkin' awful cussedness of things in general has simply decided that that lad couldn't have a decent stroke of luck if -'

--'But he has! It's Uncle Spencer. He's run away, and he's left mc a letter, and it practically confesses -'

She was rummaging in her handbag, spilling a lipstick and a handkerchief out on the pavement. When she held out the letter, the wind took it out of her hand, and it was only with a flying catch that I retrieved it.

'Inside,' said H.M.

H.M.'s house is one of those ornate and chilly places which seem to exist only to give receptions, and most of the time is occupied only by H.M. and the servants: his wife and two daughters being usually in the south of France. Again, as usual, he had forgotten his latch-key; so he pounded on the door and shouted murderously until the butler came out and asked him if he wanted to get in. In a chilly back-library he seized the letter out of the girl's hand and spread it out on a table under the lamp. It was several sheets of note-paper closely written in a fine and unhurried hand.

Monday, 2 p.m.

DEAR MARY:

By the time you receive this I shall be outward-bound; and it will, I think, be difficult for anyone to trace me. I cannot help feeling bitter about this, for I have done nothing - absolutely nothing - of which I need be ashamed: on the contrary, I have tried to do you a good turn. But Tregannon suspects that Merrivale has got at Quigley, and will put him into the witness-box to-morrow; and pertain things I overheard at the house this afternoon lead me to the same belief.

I do not wish you to think too hardly of your old uncle. Believe mc, if I could have done the least good I should have spoken before. About certain parts of this business I am feeling rather wretched. I can tell you now that it was I who supplied the drug which went into Answell's whisky. It is 'brudine', a derivative of scopolamine or twilight-sleep, with which we have been experimenting at the hospital –

'Wow!' roared H.M., bringing his fist down on the table. 'This has got it, my wench.'

Her eyes were searching his face. 'You think that will clear him?'

'It's half of what we want. Now be quiet, dammit!'

- its effects are almost instantaneous, and it ensures unconsciousness for a little under half an hour. Answell woke up a few minutes sooner than had been intended: probably due to the fact that he had to be propped up while the mint extract was poured down his throat to take away the smell of whisky.

'Do you remember what Answell said himself?' demanded H.M. 'The first thing the feller noticed when he woke up was that there was an awful taste of mint in his mouth, and he seemed to have slobbered it a good deal. Ever since the Bartlett case there's been arguments as to whether you could pour liquid down the throat of a sleepin' man without choking him.'

I still could not make head or tail of it. 'But who drugged him? And why? And what in blazes were they trying to do? Either Avory Hume liked Answell or he hated him like poison: but which was it?'