I didn't know what to say. The case was turning upside down again.
"You also," Murchison went on, in the same heavy voice, "told me something about a window fixed up like a miniature guillotine?'
The 'phone rang again, and he went after it. Afterwards he turned round with an air that was something between satisfaction and doubt.
"No difficulty about that," he informed me. "It was a trunk call, and easy to trace. The number was Torquay 0066. It appears to be the house of Dr. Lawrence Antrim."
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Punch and Judy Show
The moon was low behind the headlands, and, although the sky had turned blacker yet, in another hour or more it would be dawn. Through that hush the police-car turned up into a familiar lane. On either side were high hedges, with the dim white of apple-blossom beyond; the wet scent of dew and sea mingled with it, and the soil of Devon slept. We were returning up the headland on which stood Charters's villa and Antrim's house. From some distance away a church clock whispered the quarter-hour to four.
The police-car contained the constable who drove it, and Evelyn, and myself — and Mr. Johnson Stone. Stone had insisted on coming back with us. Half the reason why he had put into Murchison's head the idea of sending us back, he pointed out, was that he wished to return and see old soand-so's face when the old so-and-so learned the truth. I had put through a brief trunk-call to the old so-and-so, giving a brief flutter of the facts. He had remained cryptic.
On that ride not one of us, I think, was tired. Stone sat in front with the constable, and Evelyn and I in the back. We were fretted and disturbed, but not tired. Possibly to divert our minds, possibly because it was the natural thing, we did what people usually do on night rides: we sang. Stone proved to be an enthusiastic amateur tenor, with a strong preference for sentimental Scottish songs. The things he did to Annie Laurie, upturning his face to the moon, exposing nearly all his teeth on the top-notes, would have wrung tears from a Highlander. The constable also proved to be musical. He never turned round or lifted his eyes from the road as though it would be a dereliction of duty to do so; but he stolidly joined a tuneless bass to everything Stone started.
We fell silent when we reached the top of the lane. Charters's house was illuminated. So, some distance over to the left, was Antrim's. And, as we turned into the driveway, a figure moved out and gestured us to stop. It was Charters. He was as stiff-backed as ever, but he looked even more fretful and worried and tired, as of a man who wishes to get this nonsense over with and go to bed. He laid a large knuckled hand on the door of the car.