"What letter?" said Mr. Quin.
"The letter from the girl--from that poor child. She was the Merriams' nursery governess. He had--he had made love to her--yes, while he was engaged to me, just before we were married. And she--she was going to have a child too. She wrote saying so, and that she was going to tell me about it. So, you see, he shot himself."
She looked round at them wearily and dreamily, like a child who has repeated a lesson it knows too well.
Colonel Monckton blew his nose. "My God," he said, "so that was it. Well, that explains things with a vengeance."
"Does it?" said Mr. Satterthwaite. "It doesn't explain one thing. _It doesn't explain why Mr. Bristow painted that picture._"
"What do you mean?"
Mr. Satterthwaite looked across at Mr. Quin as though for encouragement and apparently got it, for he proceeded. "Yes, I know I sound mad to all of you, but that picture is the focus of the whole thing. We are all here tonight because of that picture. That picture _had_ to be painted--that is what I mean."
"You mean the uncanny influence of the Oak Parlor," began Colonel Monckton.
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Not the Oak Parlor. The Terrace Room. That is it! The spirit of the dead man standing outside the window and looking in and seeing his own dead body on the floor."
"Which he couldn't have done," said the Colonel, "because the body was in the Oak Parlor."
"Supposing it wasn't," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "Supposing it was exactly where Mr. Bristow saw it, saw it imaginatively, I mean, on the black and white flags in front of the window."
"You are talking nonsense," said Colonel Monckton. "If it was there, we shouldn't have found it in the Oak Parlor."
"Not unless someone carried it there," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"And in that case how could we have seen Charnley going in at the door of the Oak Parlor?" inquired Colonel Monckton.
"Well, you didn't see his face, did you?" asked Mr. Satterthwaite. "What I mean is, you saw a man going into the Oak Parlor in fancy dress, I suppose."
"Brocade things and a wig," said Monckton.
"Just so, and you thought it was Lord Charnley because the girl called out to him as Lord Charnley."
"And because when we broke in a few minutes later there was only Lord Charnley there dead. You can't get away from that, Satterthwaite."
"No," said Mr. Satterthwaite, discouraged. "No--unless there was a hiding-place of some kind."
"Weren't you saying something about there being a Priests' hole in that room?" put in Frank Bristow.
"Oh!" cried Mr. Satterthwaite. "Supposing--" He waved a hand for silence and sheltered his forehead with his other hand and then spoke slowly and hesitatingly.
"I have got an idea--it may be just an idea but I think it hangs together. Supposing someone shot Lord Charnley. Shot him in the Terrace Room. Then he--and another person--dragged the body into the Oak Parlor. They laid it down there with the pistol by its right hand. Now we go on to the next step. It must seem absolutely certain that Lord Charnley has committed suicide. I think that could be done very easily. The man in his brocade and wig passes along the hall by the Oak Parlor door and someone, to make sure of things, calls out to him as Lord Charnley from the top of the stairs. He goes in and locks both doors and fires a shot into the woodwork. There were bullet holes already in that room if you remember; one more wouldn't be noticed. He then hides quietly in the secret chamber. The doors are broken open and people rush in. It seems certain that Lord Charnley has committed suicide. No other hypothesis is even entertained."
"Well, I think that is balderdash," said Colonel Monckton. "You forget that Charnley had a motive right enough for suicide."
"A letter found afterward," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "A lying, cruel letter written by a very clever and unscrupulous little actress who meant one day to be Lady Charnley herself."
"You mean?"
"I mean the girl in league with Hugo Charnley," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "You know, Monckton, everyone knows, that that man was a blackguard. He thought that he was certain to come into the title." He turned sharply to Lady Charnley. "What was the name of the girl who wrote that letter?"
"Monica Ford," said Lady Charnley.
"Was it Monica Ford, Monckton, who called out to Lord Charnley from the top of the stairs?"
"Yes, now you come to speak of it, I believe it was."
"Oh, it's impossible," said Lady Charnley. "I--I went to her about it. She told me it was all true. I only saw her that once afterward but surely she couldn't have been acting the whole time."
Mr. Satterthwaite looked across the room at Aspasia Glen. "I think she could," he said quietly. "I think she had in her the makings of a very accomplished actress."
"There is one thing you haven't got over," said Frank Bristow. "There would be blood on the floor of the Terrace Room. Bound to be. They couldn't clear that up in a hurry."
"_No_," admitted Mr. Satterthwaite, "but there is one thing they could do--a thing that would only take a second or two--they could throw over the bloodstains the Bokhara rug. Nobody ever saw the Bokhara rug in the Terrace Room before that night."
"I believe you are right," said Monckton, "but all the same, those bloodstains would have to be cleared up some time?"
"Yes," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "in the middle of the night. A woman with a jug and basin could go down the stairs and clear up the bloodstains quite easily."
"But supposing someone saw her?"
"It wouldn't matter," said Mr. Satterthwaite. "I am speaking now of things as they _are_. I said a woman with a jug and basin. But if I had said a Weeping Lady with a Silver Ewer, that is what they would have _appeared_ to be." He got up and went across to Aspasia Glen. "That is what you did, wasn't it?" he said. "They call you the Woman with the Scarf now, but it was that night you played your first part, the Weeping Lady with the Silver Ewer. That is why you knocked the coffee cup off that table just now. You were afraid when you saw that picture. You thought someone knew."
Lady Charnley stretched out a white, accusing hand.
"Monica Ford," she breathed. "I recognize you now."
Aspasia Glen sprang to her feet with a cry. She pushed little Mr. Satterthwaite aside with a shove of the hand and stood shaking in front of Mr. Quin.
"So I was right. Someone _did_ know! Oh, I haven't been deceived by this tomfoolery. This pretense of working things out." She pointed at Mr. Quin. "_You_ were there. _You_ were there outside the window looking in. You saw what we did, Hugo and I. I _knew_ there was someone looking in; I felt it all the time. And yet when I looked up there was nobody there. I knew someone was watching us. I thought once I caught a glimpse of a face at the window. It has frightened me all these years. And then I saw that picture with you standing at the window and I recognized your face. You have known all these years. Why did you break silence now? That is what I want to know."
"Perhaps so that the dead may rest in peace," said Mr. Quin.
Suddenly Aspasia Glen made a rush for the door and stood there flinging a few defiant words over her shoulder.
"Do what you like. God knows there are witnesses enough to what I have been saying. I don't care, I don't care. I loved Hugo and I helped him with the ghastly business and he chucked me afterward. He died last year. You can set the police on my tracks if you like but, as that little dried-up fellow there said, I am a pretty good actress. They will find it hard to find me." She crashed the door behind her and a moment later they heard the slam of the front door also.
"Reggie," cried Lady Charnley, "Reggie." The tears were streaming down her face. "Oh, my dear, my dear, I can go back to Charnley now. I can live there with Dickie. I can tell him what his father was, the finest, the most splendid man in all the world."
"We must consult very seriously as to what must be done in the matter," said Colonel Monckton. "Alix, my dear, if you will let me take you home, I shall be glad to have a few words with you on the subject."
Lady Charnley rose. She came across to Mr. Satterthwaite and laying both hands on his shoulders she kissed him very gently.
"It is so wonderful to be alive again after being so long dead," she said. "It was like being dead, you know. Thank you, dear Mr. Satterthwaite." She went out of the room with Colonel Monckton. Mr. Satterthwaite gazed after them. A grunt from Frank Bristow, whom he had forgotten, made him turn sharply round.
"She is a lovely creature," said Bristow moodily. "But she's not nearly so interesting as she was," he said gloomily.
"There speaks the artist," said Mr. Satterthwaite.
"Well, she isn't," said Mr. Bristow. "I suppose I should only get the cold shoulder if I ever went butting in at Charnley. I don't want to go where I am not wanted."
"My dear young man," said Mr. Satterthwaite, "if you will think a little less of the impression you are making on other people, you will, I think, be wiser and happier. You would also do well to disabuse your mind of some very old-fashioned notions, one of which is that birth has any significance at all in our modern conditions. You are one of those large-proportioned young men whom women always consider good-looking, and you have possibly, if not certainly, genius. Just say that over to yourself ten times before you go to bed every night and in three months' time go and call on Lady Charnley at Charnley. That is my advice to you, and I am an old man with considerable experience of the world."