Design for Hanging
Inspector Potter called violently on omnipotence, and almost upset a very heavy table as he surged to his feet. Even Masters was startled. They were all standing in the little circle of light thrown by the fire and the two yellow-shaded lamps. Electric bulbs burned in a sort of crown high up against the groined roof; but the big library was still dusky, almost as though the books themselves threw shadows.
Bennett looked towards the line of diamond-paned windows in the embrasure at one end, a wall of glass against which stood a single tall tapestry-armchair with its back to the room. A head rose over the chair, and a figure leisurely detached itself. It stood squat and black against windows and gray sky; they heard glass clink and smelt the smoke of a cigar. Footsteps, not quite steady ones, rasped along the stone floor. There was something leering, something goblin-like in that round little shape, ducking and mowing with the cigar; even more so when it grew close enough for them to see the short wiry black hair, the stiff smile on a stiff face, and the staring little bloodshot eyes.
Bennett realized not only that it was Carl Rainger, swathed in a flowered silk dressing-gown much too big for him; but that Carl Rainger was very drunk.
Rainger said, in a steady voice which seemed to come from deep down in his throat: "I must ask you to excuse me. In fact, I must tell you to excuse me, in view of the help I am prepared to give. I was listening, gentlemen. I was frankly listening. When you came in, you surprised me there in the chair with Betsy," he patted the neck of a bottle protruding from the pocket of the dressing-gown, "Betsy the second, while I communed with nature. `Straight mine eye had caught new pleasures, While the landscape round it measures.' Beautiful country. Ha ha ha."
His tubby figure stumped into the circle of light. There was a rather inhuman quality about the stiff masklike smile and the mirth that came from behind shut teeth. He nodded and winked both eyes and made a gesture of theatrical politeness with the cigar. But the reddish little eyes, despite their staring fixedness, were very sharp.
"My name is Rainger; I think it is fairly well known. Give me that chair, Mr. Masters. The one you're standing in front of, if you don't mind. Thank you. Ah! Now! Good morning, gentlemen."
"Good morning, sir," Masters answered imperturbably, after a pause. Behind his back he jerked his arm sharply at the staring Potter. "You wish to make a statement? Eh?"
Rainger considered. He was wriggling his bristly scalp backwards and forwards, as children do, while he stared at the fire.
"Yes, I suppose I do. Yes, in a way. I can explain this impossible situation that's been bothering you. Ho ho ho."