The bare hall upstairs, its hardwood floor gleaming, contained three figures. One was Frank Sharpless, standing back against the wall and staring. On the floor, lying sideways, flapping and kicking, lay a figure that cried out with shrill moaning protests as Inspector Agnew bent over it. Courtney looked, and could not believe his eyes.
Masters, hurrying down the hall, joined that fighting group. Masters drew something from his pocket.
He looked back at Ann, with red-faced grimness.
"Excuse the handcuffs, miss," he said, as he snapped the catches round Hubert Fane's wrists. "But Mr. Hubert Fane is a killer by instinct as well as necessity, so we thought we'd better not take any chances."
Twenty
It was just a week later, the fine mellow evening of September third, when many persons were gathered in that same back drawing room.
Vicky Fane was there, now restored to radiant health. Frank Sharpless was there. Ann Browning was there, with Courtney sitting on the arm of her chair. Dr. Richard Rich occupied a modest corner. Dr. Nithsdale, who had dropped in to see Vicky and pronounced her fit for anything, occupied a less modest corner.
Finally, H.M. was there.
"Y’see," said H.M., assuming his stuffed position with finger at temple because he was proudly conscious of his own importance, and preening it in the chair, "the truest word in this case was spoken by accident." He looked at Ann. "You spoke it."
"I did?"