LITMIR.BIZ

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ring Dr Meadows, but to stay in my room. In a little while, perhaps it was as much as twenty minutes – I really don’t know – I heard him come back and go downstairs. I again spoke to Phillipa. She implored me not to do anything and said that she herself would speak to Dr Meadows in the morning. So I waited a little longer and then went to bed.’

      ‘And to sleep?’

      ‘My God, no!’

      ‘Did you hear the wireless again?’

      ‘Yes. At least I heard static.’

      ‘Are you an expert on wireless?’

      ‘No. I know the ordinary things. Nothing much.’

      ‘How did you come to take this job, Mr Hislop?’

      ‘I answered an advertisement.’

      ‘You are sure you don’t remember any particular mannerism of Mr Tonks’s in connection with the radio?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Will you please ask Mrs Tonks if she will be kind enough to speak to me for a moment?’

      ‘Certainly,’ said Hislop, and went away.

      Septimus’s wife came in looking like death. Alleyn got her to sit down and asked her about her movements on the preceding evening. She said she was feeling unwell and dined in her room. She went to bed immediately afterwards. She heard Septimus yelling at Phillipa and went to Phillipa’s room. Septimus accused Mr Hislop and her daughter of ‘terrible things’. She got as far as this and then broke down quietly. Alleyn was very gentle with her. After a little while he learned that Septimus had gone to her room with her and had continued to speak of ‘terrible things’.

      ‘What sort of things?’ asked Alleyn.

      ‘He was not responsible,’ said Isabel. ‘He did not know what he was saying. I think he had been drinking.’

      She thought he had remained with her for perhaps a quarter of an hour. Possibly longer. He left her abruptly and she heard him go along the passage, past Phillipa’s door, and presumably downstairs. She had stayed awake for a long time. The wireless could not be heard from her room. Alleyn showed her the curtain knobs, but she seemed quite unable to take in their significance. He let her go, summoned Fox, and went over the whole case.

      ‘What’s your idea on the show?’ he asked when he had finished.

      ‘Well sir,’ said Fox, in his stolid way, ‘on the face of it the young gentlemen have got alibis. We’ll have to check them up, of course, and I don’t see we can go much further until we have done so.’

      ‘For the moment,’ said Alleyn, ‘let us suppose Masters Guy and Arthur to be safely established behind cast-iron alibis. What then?’

      ‘Then we’ve got the young lady, the old lady, the secretary, and the servants.’

      ‘Let us parade them. But first let us go over the wireless game. You’ll have to watch me here. I gather that the only way in which the radio could be fixed to give Mr Tonks his quietus is like this: Control knobs removed. Holes bored in front panel with fine drill. Metal knobs substituted and packed with blotting paper to insulate them from metal shafts and make them stay put. Heavier flex from adapter to radiator cut and the ends of the wires pushed through the drilled holes to make contact with the new knobs. Thus we have a positive and negative pole. Mr Tonks bridges the gap, gets a mighty wallop as the current passes through him to the earth. The switchboard fuse is blown almost immediately. All this is rigged by murderer while Sep was upstairs bullying wife and daughter. Sep revisited study some time after ten twenty. Whole thing was made ready between ten, when Arthur went out, and the time Sep returned – say, about ten forty five. The murderer reappeared, connected radiator with flex, removed wires, changed back knobs, and left the thing tuned in. Now I take it that the burst of static described by Phillipa and Hislop would be caused by the short-circuit that killed our Septimus?’

      ‘That’s right.’

      ‘It also affected all the heaters in the house. Vide Miss Tonks’s radiator.’

      ‘Yes. He put all that right again. It would be a simple enough matter for anyone who knew how. He’d just have to fix the fuse on the main switchboard.’

      ‘How long do you say it would take to – what’s the horrible word? – to recondition the whole show?’

      ‘M’m,’ said Fox deeply. ‘At a guess, sir, fifteen minutes. He’d have to be nippy.’

      ‘Yes,’ agreed Alleyn. ‘He or she.’

      ‘I don’t see a female making a success of it,’ grunted Fox. ‘Look here, Chief, you know what I’m thinking. Why did Mr Hislop lie about deceased’s habit of licking his thumbs? You say Hislop told you he remembered nothing and Chase says he overheard him saying the trick nearly drove him dippy.’

      ‘Exactly,’ said Alleyn. He was silent for so long that Fox felt moved to utter a discreet cough.

      ‘Eh?’ said Alleyn. ‘Yes, Fox, yes. It’ll have to be done.’ He consulted the telephone directory and dialled a number.

      ‘May I speak to Dr Meadows? Oh, it’s you, is it? Do you remember Mr Hislop telling you that Septimus Tonks’s trick of wetting his fingers nearly drove Hislop demented. Are you there? You don’t? Sure? All right. All right. Hislop rang you up at ten twenty, you said? And you telephoned him? At eleven. Sure of the times? I see. I’d be glad if you’d come round. Can you? Well, do if you can.’

      He hung up the receiver.

      ‘Get Chase again, will you, Fox?’

      Chase, recalled, was most insistent that Mr Hislop had spoken about it to Dr Meadows.

      ‘It was when Mr Hislop had flu, sir. I went up with the doctor. Mr Hislop had a high temperature and was talking very excited. He kept on and on, saying the master had guessed his ways had driven him crazy and that the master kept on purposely to aggravate. He said if it went on much longer he’d…he didn’t know what he was talking about, sir, really.’

      ‘What did he say he’d do?’

      ‘Well, sir, he said he’d – he’d do something desperate to the master. But it was only his rambling, sir. I daresay he wouldn’t remember anything about it.’

      ‘No,’ said Alleyn, ‘I daresay he wouldn’t.’ When Chase had gone he said to Fox: ‘Go and find out about those boys and their alibis. See if they can put you on to a quick means of checking up. Get Master Guy to corroborate Miss Phillipa’s statement that she was locked in her room.’

      Fox had been gone for some time and Alleyn was still busy with his notes when the study door burst open and in came Dr Meadows.

      ‘Look here, my giddy sleuth-hound,’ he shouted, ‘what’s all this about Hislop? Who says he disliked Sep’s abominable habits?’

      ‘Chase does. And don’t bawl at me like that. I’m worried.’

      ‘So am I, blast you. What are you driving at? You can’t imagine that…that poor little broken-down hack is capable of electrocuting anybody, let alone Sep?’

      ‘I have no imagination,’ said Alleyn wearily.

      ‘I wish to God I hadn’t called you in. If the wireless killed Sep, it was because he’d monkeyed with it.’

      ‘And put it right after it had killed him?’

      Dr Meadows stared at Alleyn in silence.

      ‘Now,’ said Alleyn, ‘you’ve got to give me a straight answer, Meadows. Did Hislop, while he was semi-delirious, say that this habit of Tonks’s made him feel like murdering him?’

      ‘I’d forgotten Chase was there,’ said Dr Meadows.

      ‘Yes, you’d forgotten that.’

      ‘But

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