The girl raised her eyes after an infinite interval in which no one, not even the policemen present, so much as stirred a foot.
“I thought of everything,” she said with the queerest sigh, and quite without the husky tone, “but that. And it was going off so beautifully.”
“Oh, you fooled me very neatly,” drawled Ellery. “That pretty little bedroom scene last night... I know now what happened. This precious Dr. Reinach of yours had stolen into your room at midnight to report to you on the progress of the search at the Black House, perhaps to urge you to persuade Thorne and me to leave today — at any cost. I happened to pass along the hall outside your room, stumbled, and fell against the wall with a clatter; not knowing who it might be or what the intruder’s purpose, you both fell instantly into that cunning deception... Actors! Both of you missed a career on the stage.”
The fat man closed his eyes; he seemed asleep. And the girl murmured, with a sort of tired defiance: “Not missed, Mr. Queen. I spent several years in the theatre.”
“You were devils, you two. Psychologically this plot has been the conception of evil genius. You knew that Alice Mayhew was unknown to anyone in this country except by her photographs. Moreover, there was a startling resemblance between the two of you, as Miss Mayhew’s photographs showed. And you knew Miss Mayhew would be in the company of Thorne and me for only a few hours, and then chiefly in the murky light of a sedan.”
“Good lord,” groaned Thorne, staring at the girl in horror.
“Alice Mayhew,” said Ellery grimly, “walked into this house and was whisked upstairs by Mrs. Reinach. And Alice Mayhew, the English girl, never appeared before us again. It was you who came downstairs; you, who had been secreted from Thome’s eyes during the past six days deliberately, so that he would not even suspect your existence; you who probably conceived the entire plot when Thorne brought the photographs of Alice Mayhew here, and her gossipy, informative letters; you, who looked enough like the real Alice Mayhew to get by with an impersonation in the eyes of two men to whom Alice Mayhew was a total stranger. I did think you looked different, somehow, when you appeared for dinner that first night; but I put it down to the fact that I was seeing you for the first time refreshed, brushed up, and without your hat and coat. Naturally, after that, the more I saw of you the less I remembered the details of the real Alice Mayhew’s appearance and so became more and more convinced, unconsciously, that you were Alice Mayhew. As for the husky voice and the excuse of having caught cold on the long automobile ride from the pier, that was a clever ruse to disguise the inevitable difference between your voices. The only danger that existed lay in Mrs. Fell, who gave us the answer to the whole riddle the first time we met her. She thought you were her own daughter Olivia. Of course. Because that’s who you are!”
Dr. Reinach was sipping brandy now with a steady indifference to his surroundings. His little eyes were fixed on a point miles away. Old Mrs. Fell sat gaping stupidly at the girl.
“You even covered that danger by getting Dr. Reinach to tell us beforehand that trumped-up story of Mrs. Fell’s ‘delusion’ and Olivia Fell’s ‘death’ in an automobile accident several years ago. Oh, admirable! Yet even this poor creature, in the frailty of her anile faculties, was fooled by a difference in voice and hair — two of the most easily distinguishable features. I suppose you fixed up your hair at the time Mrs. Reinach brought the real Alice Mayhew upstairs and you had a living model to go by... I could find myself moved to admiration if it were not for one thing.”
“You’re so clever,” said Olivia Fell coolly. “Really a fascinating monster. What do you mean?”