“I really haven’t anything to say. It’s quite true that Mrs. Caistor Scorton saw me in the corridor after twelve o’clock. I didn’t know she had seen me then. And it’s quite true that I switched on my light when I came back again. I don’t know what time it was then, but probably Mr. Stickney is quite right. It doesn’t matter much. I wasn’t near the Talisman during the night. That’s all I can tell you.”
Her control suddenly broke, and she moved hastily towards the door. Douglas Fairmile sprang up and opened it for her to pass out. As she passed him, she could read in his face that he at least was quite prepared to take her word.
As the door closed behind her, the atmosphere of strain grew more intense. The realisation that they had narrowly escaped a nasty scene weighed upon the group; and no one seemed eager to break the silence. At last Westenhanger, feeling that the first note struck was of importance, swung round on Freddie Stickney. He ignored the events of the last few moments completely.
“Well, Freddie,” he said, coldly, “your inquest doesn’t seem to have led to much. I can’t congratulate you. Speaking purely as a bystander, I can’t say that you’ve achieved anything. Take your own case. You went to bed at some unspecified hour. You say you slept through that storm. That’s quite possible; though some of us might have difficulty in believing you, if I can judge from the accounts I’ve heard of the thunder. At any rate, you tell us you waked up shortly before three o’clock and were actually out of bed at that time—just the period when the Talisman was stolen. You were up and about for some unspecified time. Then you went back to bed and fell asleep again. Quite all right no doubt.”
His voice grew more incisive.
“But if you think you’ve cleared yourself of suspicion by telling that tale, I may as well sweep away your illusions. If a detective were working on this case, he’d simply ignore your whole yarn—except one solitary point. He’d take Miss Cressage’s word that she switched on the light in her room, and he’d believe you when you say you saw that light go up. That’s the only point where there’s the slightest confirmation. And Miss Cressage is the only person who could clear you, if it happened to turn out that the Talisman disappeared about three o’clock in the morning.”
He shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.
“You seem to have the foggiest notion of evidence, Freddie. Anyone could have foreseen this sort of thing. Even a child would know that at night, in a house like this, it’s almost impossible to establish a decent alibi. Nina and Cynthia are the only two of you who have established cast-iron alibis; and that was due to a pure accident—the thunderstorm.”
“That’s true,” said Wraxall, before Freddie could reply. “That’s quite correct, Mr. Westenhanger. Nobody could get an alibi under these conditions, in the normal way. I quite agree with you that this little playlet hasn’t been a success. By no means. I think we’d be well advised to forget all about it.”
Douglas Fairmile laughed at the sight of Freddie’s expression; and with that laugh, the tension was released again. Douglas’s mirth seemed infectious, following so closely on the strain of the last quarter of an hour.