Masters wearily took out his notebook. "We've got more evidence, sir. I don't know whether you suspected it or not, but Rainger's got an alibi. There's a girl… I'll read it to you. Rainger hasn't come back yet, but it clears him absolutely."
"You don't need it, son," replied H. M. slowly. "He's never comin' back."
The terrible deadness and force of those words struck into the room as sharply as a cry. Outside the wind had fallen nearly to silence; the whole house was very still. Bennett glanced at H. M., who stood with his arms outspread against the tall door, and then back again to the dullglowing newspaper round the lamp. The word that stood out was murder.
After a silence H. M. lumbered up to the table. He glanced at Masters and then Bennett and then Emery.
"We four," he said, "are goin' to have a council-of-war about tonight. My scheme still holds, y'see; and the insane part of all this is that the scheme's better than ever, if we've got the nerve and the callousness to put it through. D'you believe in the Devil, Masters? Do you believe in the devil as a human entity, that listens at keyholes and taps at doors and moves people's lives like a set of dominoes'.. Steady, now. Rainger's dead. He was strangled and thrown down those stairs in King Charles's Room. Poor swine! He was too drunk to defend himself, but not too drunk to think. Thinking killed him. What's that you got in the bottle? Gin? I hate gin, but I'll take one neat. He wasn't very pretty in life, and he's even less pretty when he's dead. I can rather sympathize with him now.
"But," Emery shrilled, "he went out to-"
"Uh-huh. That's what you thought. Ever know that chap when he was too far gone to keep some part of his brain still clickin'? He went out, and surprised Somebody down in that room at the end of the gallery. Somebody strangled him and chucked him downstairs… I'm a pompous ass, ain't I?" inquired H. M., opening and shutting his hands. He peered at Bennett. "I kept jeerin' at your bogies and noises. And, all the while I was sittin' in that room, that poor frustrated swine of a Rainger was lying at the foot of the steps with his face blue and fingermarks on his throat. But how was I to know it? I only suspected one thing. I didn't suspect murder. We only saw it when Potter and I looked at the stairs. -Easy, Masters! Where are you goin'?"
The Chief Inspector's voice shook a little. "Where would I be going, sir?" he demanded. "This puts the lid on it I'm going to find out where everybody in this house…"
"No you're not, son. Not if I can prevent you. Nobody else in this house is to know he's dead."
"What?"