The Dead Harlequin

Mr Satterthwaite walked slowly up Bond Street enjoying the sunshine. He was, as usual, carefully and beautifully dressed, and was bound for the Harchester Galleries, where there was an exhibition of the paintings of one Frank Bristow, a new and hitherto unknown artist who showed signs of suddenly becoming the rage. Mr Satterthwaite was a patron of the arts.

As Mr Satterthwaite entered the Harchester Galleries, he was greeted at once with a smile of pleased recognition. "Good morning, Mr Satterthwaite, I thought we should see you before long. You know Bristow's work? Fine—very fine indeed. Quite unique of its kind."

Mr Satterthwaite purchased a catalogue and stepped through the open archway into the long room where the artist's work was displayed. They were watercolors, executed with such extraordinary technique and finish that they resembled colored etchings. Mr Satterthwaite walked slowly round the walls, scrutinizing and on the whole approving. He thought that this young man deserved to arrive. Here were originality, vision, and a most severe and exacting technique. There were crudities, of course. That was only to be expected—but there was also something closely allied to genius. Mr Satterthwaite paused before a little masterpiece representing Westminster Bridge with its crowd of buses, trams, and hurrying pedestrians. A tiny thing and wonderfully perfect. It was called, he noted, "The Ant Heap." He passed on and quite suddenly drew in his breath with a gasp, his imagination held and riveted.

The picture was called "The Dead Harlequin." The fore-front of it represented a floor of inlaid squares of black and white marble. In the middle of the floor lay Harlequin on his back with his arms outstretched in his motley of black and red. Behind him was a window and outside that window, gazing in at the figure on the floor, was what appeared to be the same man silhouetted against the red glow of the setting sun.

The picture excited Mr Satterthwaite for two reasons. The first reason was that he recognized, or thought that he recognized, the face of the man in the picture. It bore a distinct resemblance to a certain Mr Quin, an acquaintance whom Mr Satterthwaite had encountered under somewhat mystifying circumstances.

"Surely I can't be mistaken," he murmured. "If it is so—what does it mean?"

For it had been Mr Satterthwaite's experience that every appearance of Mr Quin had some distinct significance attaching to it.

There was, as already mentioned, a second reason for Mr Satterthwaite's interest. He recognized the scene of the picture. "The Terrace Room at Charnley," said Mr Satterthwaite, "curious—and very interesting."

He looked with more attention at the picture, wondering what exactly had been in the artist's mind. One Harlequin dead on the floor, another Harlequin looking through the window—or was it the same Harlequin? He moved slowly along the walls, gazing at other pictures with unseeing eyes, with his mind always busy on the same subject. He was excited. Life, which had seemed a little drab this morning, was drab no longer. He knew quite certainly that he was on the threshold of exciting and interesting events. He crossed to the table where sat Mr Cobb, a dignitary of the Harchester Galleries, whom he had known for many years.

"I have a fancy for buying Number Thirty-nine," he said, "if it is not already sold."

Mr Cobb consulted a ledger. "The pick of the bunch," he murmured. "Quite a little gem, isn't it? No, it is not sold." He quoted a price. "It is a good investment, Mr Satterthwaite. You will have to pay three times as much for it this time next year."

"That is always said on these occasions," said Mr Satterthwaite, smiling.

"Well, and haven't I been right?" demanded Mr Cobb. "I don't believe, if you were to sell your collection, Mr Satterthwaite, that a single picture would fetch less than you gave for it."

"I will buy this picture," said Mr Satterthwaite. "I will give you a check now."

"You won't regret it. We believe in Bristow."

"He is a young man?"

"Twenty-seven or -eight, I should say."

"I should like to meet him," said Mr Satterthwaite. "Perhaps he will come and dine with me one night?"

"I can give you his address. I am sure he would leap at the chance. Your name stands for a good deal in the artistic world."

"You flatter me," said Mr Satterthwaite, and was going on when Mr Cobb interrupted.

"Here he is now. I will introduce you to him right away."

He rose from behind his table. Mr Satterthwaite accompanied him to where a big clumsy young man was leaning against the wall surveying the world at large from behind the barricade of a ferocious scowl.

Mr Cobb made the necessary introductions and Mr Satterthwaite made a formal and gracious little speech.

"I have just had the pleasure of acquiring one of your pictures, 'The Dead Harlequin.'"

"Oh! Well! You won't lose by it," said Mr Bristow, ungraciously. "It's a bit of damned good work, although I say it."

"I can see that," said Mr Satterthwaite. "Your work interests me very much, Mr Bristow. It is extraordinarily mature for so young a man. I wonder if you would give me the pleasure of dining with me one night? Are you engaged this evening?"

"As a matter of fact, I am not," said Mr Bristow, still with no overdone appearance of graciousness.

"Then shall we say eight o'clock?" said Mr Satterthwaite. "Here is my card with the address on it."

"Oh, all right," said Mr Bristow. "Thanks," he added, as a somewhat obvious afterthought.

A young man who has a poor opinion of himself and is afraid that the world should share it. Such was Mr Satterthwaite's summing up as he stepped out into the sunshine of Bond Street, and Mr Satterthwaite's judgment of his fellowmen was seldom far astray.

Frank Bristow arrived about five minutes past eight to find his host and another guest awaiting him. The other guest was introduced as Colonel Monckton. They went into dinner almost immediately. There was a fourth place laid at the oval mahogany table and Mr Satterthwaite uttered a word of explanation.

"I half expected my friend Mr Quin might drop in," he said. "I wonder if you have ever met him. Mr Harley Quin?"

"I never meet people," growled Bristow.

Colonel Monckton stared at the artist with the detached interest he might have accorded to a new species of jellyfish. Mr Satterthwaite exerted himself to keep the ball of conversation rolling amicably.

"I took a special interest in that picture of yours because I thought I recognized the scene of it as being the Terrace Room at Charnley. Was I right?" As the artist nodded, he went on: "That is very interesting. I have stayed at Charnley several times myself in the past. Perhaps you know some of the family."

"No, I don't!" said Bristow. "That sort of family wouldn't care to know me. I went there in a charabanc."

"Dear me," said Colonel Monckton for the sake of saying something. "In a charabanc! Dear me!"

Frank Bristow scowled at him. "Why not?" he demanded ferociously.

Poor Colonel Monckton was taken aback. He looked reproachfully at Mr Satterthwaite as though to say, "These primitive forms of life may be interesting to you as a naturalist, but why drag me in?"

"Oh, beastly things, charabancs!" he said. "They jolt you so going over the bumps."

"If you can't afford a Rolls Royce you have got to go in charabancs," said Bristow fiercely.

Colonel Monckton stared at him. Mr Satterthwaite thought, Unless I can soon manage to put this young man at his ease we are going to have a very distressing evening.

"Charnley always fascinated me," he said. "I have been there only once since the tragedy. A grim house—and a ghostly one."

"That's true," said Bristow.

"There are actually two authentic ghosts," said Monckton. "They say that Charles I walks up and down the terrace with his head under his arm—I have forgotten why, I'm sure. Then there is the Weeping Lady with the Silver Ewer who is always seen after one of the Charnleys dies."

"Tosh," said Bristow scornfully.

"They have certainly been a very ill-fated family," said Mr Satterthwaite hurriedly. "Four holders of the title have died a violent death, and the late Lord Charnley committed suicide."

"A ghastly business," said Monckton. "I was there when it happened."

"Let me see, that must be fourteen years ago," said Mr Satterthwaite. "The house has been shut up ever since."

"I don't wonder at that," said Monckton. "It must have been a terrible shock for a young girl. They had been married a month, just home from their honeymoon. Big fancy dress ball to celebrate their home-coming. Just as the guests were starting to arrive Charnley locked himself into the Oak Parlor and shot himself. That sort of thing isn't done. I beg your pardon?"

He turned his head sharply to the left and then looked across at Mr Satterthwaite with an apologetic laugh. "I am beginning to get the jimjams, Satterthwaite. I thought for a moment there was someone sitting in that empty chair and that he said something to me."

"Yes," he went on after a minute or two. "It was a pretty ghastly shock to Alix Charnley. She was one of the prettiest girls you could see anywhere and cram full of what people call the joy of living, and now they say she is like a ghost herself. Not that I have seen her for years. I believe she lives abroad most of the time."

"And the boy?"

"The boy is at Eton. What he will do when he comes of age I don't know. I don't think, somehow, that he will reopen the old place."

"It would make a good People's Pleasure Park," said Bristow.

Colonel Monckton looked at him with cold abhorrence.

"No, no, you don't really mean that," said Mr Satterthwaite. "You wouldn't have painted that picture if you did. Tradition and atmosphere are intangible things. They take centuries to build up and if you destroyed them you couldn't rebuild them again in twenty-four hours."

He rose. "Let us go into the smoking room. I have some photographs there of Charnley which I should like to show you."

One of Mr Satterthwaite's hobbies was amateur photography. He was also the proud author of a book, Homes of My Friends. The friends in question were all rather exalted, and the book itself showed Mr Satterthwaite forth in rather a more snobbish light than was really fair to him.

"That is a photograph I took of the Terrace Room last year," he said. He handed it to Bristow. "You see it is taken at almost the same angle as is shown in your picture. That is rather a wonderful rug—it is a pity the photograph doesn't show coloring."

"I remember it," said Bristow, "a marvelous bit of color. It glowed like a flame. All the same it looked a bit incongruous there. The wrong size for that big room with its black and white squares. There is no rug anywhere else in the room. It spoils the whole effect—it was like a gigantic bloodstain."

"Perhaps that gave you your idea for your picture?" said Mr Satterthwaite.

"Perhaps it did," said Bristow thoughtfully. "On the face of it, one would naturally stage a tragedy in the little paneled room leading out of it."

"The Oak Parlor," said Monckton. "Yes, that is the haunted room right enough. There is a Priests' hiding-hole there—a movable panel by the fireplace. Tradition has it that Charles I was concealed there once. There were two deaths from dueling in that room. And it was there, as I say, that Reggie Charnley shot himself."

He took the photograph from Bristow's hand.

"Why, that is the Bokhara rug," he said, "worth a couple of thousand pounds, I believe. When I was there it was in the Oak Parlor—the right place for it. It looks silly on that great expanse of marble flags."

Mr Satterthwaite was looking at the empty chair which he had drawn up beside him. Then he said thoughtfully, "I wonder when it was moved."

"It must have been recently. Why, I remember having a conversation about it on the very day of the tragedy. Charnley was saying it really ought to be kept under glass."

Mr Satterthwaite shook his head. "The house was shut up immediately after the tragedy and everything was left exactly as it was."

Bristow broke in with a question. He had laid aside his aggressive manner. "Why did Lord Charnley shoot himself?" he asked.

Colonel Monckton shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "No one ever knew," he said vaguely.

"I suppose," said Mr Satterthwaite slowly, "that it was suicide."

The Colonel looked at him in blank astonishment. "Suicide," he said, "why, of course it was suicide. My dear fellow, I was there in the house myself."

Mr Satterthwaite looked toward the empty chair at his side and, smiling to himself as though at some hidden joke the others could not see, he said quietly, "Sometimes one sees things more clearly years afterward than one could possibly at the time."

"Nonsense," spluttered Monckton, "arrant nonsense! How can you possibly see things better when they are vague in your memory instead of clear and sharp?"

But Mr Satterthwaite was reinforced from an unexpected quarter.

"I know what you mean," said the artist. "I should say that possibly you were right. It is a question of proportion, isn't it? And more than proportion probably. Relativity and all that sort of thing."

"If you ask me," said the Colonel, "all this Einstein business is a lot of dashed nonsense. So are spiritualists and the spook of one's grandmother!" He glared round fiercely. "Of course it was suicide," he went on. "Didn't I practically see the thing happen with my own eyes?"

"Tell us about it," said Mr Satterthwaite, "so that we shall see it with our eyes also."

With a somewhat mollified grunt the Colonel settled himself more comfortably in his chair.

"The whole thing was extraordinarily unexpected," he began. "Charnley had been his usual normal self. There was a big party staying in the house for this ball. No one could ever have guessed he would go and shoot himself just as the guests began arriving."

"It would have been better taste if he had waited until they had gone," said Mr Satterthwaite.

"Of course it would. Damned bad taste—to do a thing like that."

"Uncharacteristic," said Mr Satterthwaite.

"Yes," admitted Monckton, "it wasn't like Charnley."

"And yet it was suicide?"

"Of course it was suicide. Why, there were three or four of us there at the top of the stairs. Myself, the Ostrander girl, Algie Darcy—oh, and one or two others. Charnley passed along the hall below and went into the Oak Parlor. The Ostrander girl said there was a ghastly look on his face and his eyes were staring—but of course that is nonsense—she couldn't even see his face from where we were—but he did walk in a hunched-up way as if he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. One of the girls called to him—she was somebody's governess, I think, whom Lady Charnley had included in the party out of kindness. She was looking for him with a message. She called out, 'Lord Charnley, Lady Charnley wants to know—' He paid no attention and went into the Oak Parlor and slammed the door and we heard the key turn in the lock. Then, one minute after, we heard the shot.

"We rushed down to the hall. There is another door from the Oak Parlor leading into the Terrace Room. We tried that but it was locked too. In the end we had to break the door down. Charnley was lying on the floor—dead—with a pistol close beside his right hand. Now what could that have been but suicide? Accident? Don't tell me. There is only one other possibility—murder—and you can't have murder without a murderer. You admit that, I suppose."

"The murderer might have escaped," suggested Mr Satterthwaite.

"That is impossible. If you have a bit of paper and a pencil I will draw a plan of the place. There are two doors into the Oak Parlor, one into the hall and one into the Terrace Room. Both these doors were locked on the inside and the keys were in the locks."

"The window?"

"Shut, and the shutters fastened across it."

There was a pause.

"So that is that," said Colonel Monckton triumphantly.

"It certainly seems to be," said Mr Satterthwaite sadly.

"Mind you," said the Colonel, "although I was laughing just now at the spiritualists, I don't mind admitting that there was a deuced rummy atmosphere about the place—about that room in particular. There are several bullet holes in the panels of the walls, the result of the duels that took place in that room, and there is a queer stain on the floor that always comes back though they have replaced the wood several times. I suppose there will be another bloodstain on the floor now—poor Charnley's blood."

"Was there much blood?" asked Mr Satterthwaite.

"Very little—curiously little—so the doctor said."

"Where did he shoot himself, through the head?"

"No, through the heart."

"That is not the easy way to do it," said Bristow. "Frightfully difficult to know where one's heart is. I should never do it that way myself."

Mr Satterthwaite shook his head. He was vaguely dissatisfied. He had hoped to get at something—he hardly knew what.

Colonel Monckton went on. "It is a spooky place, Charnley. Of course I didn't see anything."

"You didn't see the Weeping Lady with the Silver Ewer?"

"No, I did not, sir," said the Colonel emphatically, "but I expect every servant in the place swore they did."

"Superstition was the curse of the Middle Ages," said Bristow. "There are still traces of it here and there, but thank goodness, we are getting free from it."

"Superstition," mused Mr Satterthwaite, his eyes turned again to the empty chair. "Sometimes, don't you think—it might be useful?"

Bristow stared at him. "Useful, that's a queer word."

"Well, I hope you are convinced now, Satterthwaite," said the Colonel.

"Oh, quite," said Mr Satterthwaite. "On the face of it, it seems odd—so purposeless for a newly married man, young, rich, happy, celebrating his home-coming—curious—but I agree there is no getting away from the facts." He repeated softly "the facts" and frowned.

"I suppose the interesting thing is a thing we none of us will ever know," said Monckton, "the story behind it all. Of course there were rumors—all sorts of rumors. You know the kind of things people say."

"But no one knew anything," said Mr Satterthwaite thoughtfully.

"It's not a best-seller mystery, is it?" remarked Bristow. "No one gained by the man's death."

"No one except an unborn child," said Mr Satterthwaite.

Monckton gave a sharp chuckle. "Rather a blow to poor Hugo Charnley," he observed. "As soon as it was known that there was going to be a child he had the graceful task of sitting tight and waiting to see if it would be a girl or boy. Rather an anxious wait for his creditors too. In the end a boy it was and a disappointment for the lot of them."

"Was the widow very disconsolate?" asked Bristow.

"Poor child," said Monckton, "I shall never forget her. She didn't cry or break down or anything. She was like something—frozen. As I say, she shut up the house shortly afterward and as far as I know it has never been reopened since."

"So we are left in the dark as to motive," said Bristow with a slight laugh. "Another man or another woman, it must have been one or the other, eh?"

"It seems like it," said Mr Satterthwaite.

"And the betting is strongly on another woman," continued Bristow, "since the fair widow has not married again. I hate women," he added dispassionately.

Mr Satterthwaite smiled a little and Frank Bristow saw the smile and pounced upon it. "You may smile," he said, "but I do. They upset everything. They interfere. They get between you and your work. They—I only once met a woman who was—well, interesting."

"I thought there would be one," said Mr Satterthwaite.

"Not in the way you mean. I—I just met her casually. As a matter of fact—it was in a train. After all," he added defiantly, "why shouldn't one meet people in trains?"

"Certainly, certainly," added Mr Satterthwaite soothingly, "a train is as good a place as anywhere else."

"It was coming down from the North. We had the carriage to ourselves. I don't know why, but we began to talk. I don't know her name and I don't suppose I shall ever meet her again. I don't know that I want to. It might be—a pity." He paused, struggling to express himself. "She wasn't quite real, you know. Shadowy. Like one of the people who come out of the hills in Gaelic fairy tales."

Mr Satterthwaite nodded gently. His imagination pictured the scene easily enough. The very positive and realistic Bristow and a figure that was silvery and ghostly—shadowy, as Bristow had said.

"I suppose if something very terrible had happened, so terrible as to be almost unbearable, one might get like that. One might run away from reality into a half-world of one's own and then, of course, after a time, one wouldn't be able to get back."

"Was that what had happened to her?" asked Mr Satterthwaite curiously.

"I don't know," said Bristow. "She didn't tell me anything, I am only guessing. One has to guess if one is going to get anywhere."

"Yes," said Mr Satterthwaite slowly. "One has to guess."

He looked up as the door opened. He looked up quickly and expectantly but the butler's words disappointed him.

"A lady, sir, has called to see you on very urgent business. Miss Aspasia Glen."

Mr Satterthwaite rose in some astonishment. He knew the name of Aspasia Glen. Who in London did not? First advertised as the Woman with the Scarf, she had given a series of matinées single-handed that had taken London by storm. With the aid of her scarf she had impersonated rapidly various characters. In turn the scarf had been the coif of a nun, the shawl of a mill worker, the headdress of a peasant, and a hundred other things, and in each impersonation Aspasia Glen had been totally and utterly different. As an artist Mr Satterthwaite paid full reverence to her. As it happened, he had never made her acquaintance. A call upon him at this unusual hour intrigued him greatly. With a few words of apology to the others, he left the room and crossed the hall to the drawing room.

Miss Glen was sitting in the very center of a large settee upholstered in gold brocade. So poised, she dominated the room. Mr Satterthwaite perceived at once that she meant to dominate the situation. Curiously enough, his first feeling was one of repulsion. He had been a sincere admirer of Aspasia Glen's art. Her personality, as conveyed to him over the footlights, had been appealing and sympathetic. Her effects there had been wistful and suggestive rather than commanding. But now, face to face with the woman herself, he received a totally different impression. There was something hard—bold—forceful about her. She was tall and dark, possibly about thirty-five years of age. She was undoubtedly very good-looking and she clearly relied upon the fact.

"You must forgive me this unconventional call, Mr Satterthwaite," she said. Her voice was full and rich and seductive.

"I won't say that I have wanted to know you for a long time, but I am glad of the excuse. As for coming tonight"—she laughed—"well, when I want a thing, I simply can't wait. When I want a thing, I simply must have it."

"Any excuse that has brought me such a charming lady guest must be welcomed by me," said Mr Satterthwaite in an old-fashioned gallant manner.

"How nice you are to me," said Aspasia Glen.

"My dear lady," said Mr Satterthwaite, "may I thank you here and now for the pleasure you have so often given me—in my seat in the stalls."

She smiled delightfully at him.

"I am coming straight to the point. I was at the Harchester Galleries today. I saw a picture there I simply couldn't live without. I wanted to buy it and I couldn't because you had already bought it. So—" She paused. "I do want it so," she went on. "Dear Mr Satterthwaite, I simply must have it. I brought my checkbook." She looked at him hopefully. "Everyone tells me you are so frightfully kind. People are kind to me, you know. It is very bad for me—but there it is."

So these were Aspasia Glen's methods. Mr Satterthwaite was inwardly coldly critical of this ultrafemininity and of this spoiled-child pose. It ought to appeal to him, he supposed, but it didn't. Aspasia Glen had made a mistake. She had judged him as an elderly dilettante, easily flattered by a pretty woman. But Mr Satterthwaite behind his gallant manner had a shrewd and critical mind. He saw people pretty well as they were, not as they wished to appear to him. He saw before him not a charming woman, pleading for a whim, but a ruthless egoist determined to get her own way for some reason which was obscure to him. And he knew quite certainly that Aspasia Glen was not going to get her own way. He was not going to give up the picture of "The Dead Harlequin" to her. He sought rapidly in his mind for the best way of circumventing her without overt rudeness.

"I am sure," he said, "that everyone gives you your own way as often as they can and is only too delighted to do so."

"Then you are really going to let me have the picture?"

Mr Satterthwaite shook his head slowly and regretfully. "I am afraid that is impossible. You see—" He paused. "I bought that picture for a lady. It is a present."

"Oh! but surely—"

The telephone on the table rang sharply. With a murmured word of excuse, Mr Satterthwaite took up the receiver. A voice spoke to him, a small, cold voice that sounded very far away.

"Can I speak to Mr Satterthwaite, please?"

"It is Mr Satterthwaite speaking."

"I am Lady Charnley, Alix Charnley. I daresay you don't remember me, Mr Satterthwaite; it is a great many years since we met."

"My dear Alix. Of course I remember you."

"There is something I wanted to ask you. I was at the Harchester Galleries at an exhibition of pictures today. There was one called 'The Dead Harlequin'—perhaps you recognized it—it was the Terrace Room at Charnley. I—I want to have that picture. It was sold to you." She paused. "Mr Satterthwaite, for reasons of my own I want that picture. Will you resell it to me?"

Mr Satterthwaite thought, Why, this is a miracle. As he spoke into the receiver he was thankful that Aspasia Glen could only hear one side of the conversation. "If you will accept my gift, dear lady, it will make me very happy." He heard a sharp exclamation behind him and hurried on. "I bought it for you. I did indeed. But listen, my dear Alix, I want to ask you to do me a great favor if you will."

"Of course. Mr Satterthwaite, I am so very grateful."

He went on: "I want you to come round now to my house, at once."

There was a slight pause and then she answered quietly, "I will come at once."

Mr Satterthwaite put down the receiver and turned to Miss Glen. She said quickly and angrily, "That was the picture you were talking about?"

"Yes," said Mr Satterthwaite, "the lady to whom I am presenting it is coming round to this house in a few minutes."

Suddenly Aspasia Glen's face broke once more into smiles. "You will give me a chance of persuading her to turn the picture over to me?"

"I will give you a chance of persuading her."

Inwardly he was strangely excited. He was in the midst of a drama that was shaping itself to some foredoomed end. He, the looker-on, was playing a star part. He turned to Miss Glen.

"Will you come into the other room with me? I should like you to meet some friends of mine."

He held the door open for her and, crossing the hall, opened the door of the smoking room.

"Miss Glen," he said, "let me introduce to you an old friend of mine, Colonel Monckton. Mr Bristow, the painter of the picture you admire so much." Then he started as a third figure rose from the chair which he had left empty beside his own.

"I think you expected me this evening," said Mr Quin. "During your absence I introduced myself to your friends. I am so glad I was able to drop in."

"My dear friend," said Mr Satterthwaite, "I—I have been carrying on as well as I am able but—" He stopped before the slight sardonic glance of Mr Quin's dark eyes. "Let me introduce you. Mr Harley Quin, Miss Aspasia Glen."

Was it his fancy—or did she shrink back slightly. A curious expression flitted over her face. Suddenly Bristow broke in boisterously: "I have got it."

"Got what?"

"Got hold of what was puzzling me. There is a likeness, there is a distinct likeness." He was staring curiously at Mr Quin. "You see it?" He turned to Mr Satterthwaite. "Don't you see a distinct likeness to the Harlequin of my picture—the man looking in through the window?"

It was no fancy this time. He distinctly heard Miss Glen draw in her breath sharply and even saw that she stepped back one pace.

"I told you that I was expecting someone," said Mr Satterthwaite. He spoke with an air of triumph. "I must tell you that my friend Mr Quin is a most extraordinary person. He can unravel mysteries. He can make you see things."

"Are you a medium, sir?" demanded Colonel Monckton, eyeing Mr Quin doubtfully.

The latter smiled and slowly shook his head. "Mr Satterthwaite exaggerates," he said quietly. "Once or twice when I have been with him he has done some extraordinarily good deductive work. Why he puts the credit down to me I can't say. His modesty, I suppose."

"No, no," said Mr Satterthwaite excitedly. "It isn't. You make me see things—things that I ought to have seen all along—that I actually have seen—but without knowing that I saw them."

"It sounds to me deuced complicated," said Colonel Monckton.

"Not really," said Mr Quin. "The trouble is that we are not content just to see things—we will tack the wrong interpretation onto the things we see."

Aspasia Glen turned to Frank Bristow. "I want to know," she said nervously, "what put the idea of painting that picture into your head?"

Bristow shrugged his shoulders. "I don't quite know," he confessed. "Something about the place—about Charnley, I mean—took hold of my imagination. The big empty room, the terrace outside, the idea of ghosts and things, I suppose. I have just been hearing the tale of the last Lord Charnley who shot himself. Supposing you are dead, and your spirit lives on? It must be odd, you know. You might stand outside on the terrace looking in at the window at your own dead body and you would see everything."

"What do you mean?" said Aspasia Glen. "See everything?"

"Well, you would see what happened. You would see—"

The door opened and the butler announced Lady Charnley.

Mr Satterthwaite went to meet her. He had not seen her for nearly thirteen years. He remembered her as she once was, an eager, glowing girl. And now he saw—a Frozen Lady. Very fair, very pale, with an air of drifting rather than walking, a snowflake driven at random by an icy breeze. Something unreal about her. So cold, so far away.

"It was very good of you to come," said Mr Satterthwaite.

He led her forward. She made a half gesture of recognition toward Miss Glen and then paused as the other made no response.

"I am so sorry," she murmured, "but surely I have met you somewhere, haven't I?"

"Over the footlights perhaps," said Mr Satterthwaite. "This is Miss Aspasia Glen, Lady Charnley."

"I am very pleased to meet you, Lady Charnley," said Aspasia Glen.

Her voice had suddenly a slight transatlantic tinge to it. Mr Satterthwaite was reminded of one of her various stage impersonations.

"Colonel Monckton you know," continued Mr Satterthwaite, "and this is Mr Bristow."

He saw a sudden faint tinge of color in her cheeks.

"Mr Bristow and I have met too," she said and smiled a little. "In a train."

"And Mr Harley Quin."

He watched her closely, but this time there was no flicker of recognition. He set a chair for her and then seating himself he cleared his throat and spoke a little nervously: "I—this is rather an unusual little gathering. It centers round this picture. I—I think that if we liked we could—clear things up."

"You are not going to hold a séance, Satterthwaite?" asked Colonel Monckton. "You are very odd this evening."

"No," said Mr Satterthwaite, "not exactly a séance. But my friend, Mr Quin, believes, and I agree, that one can by looking back over the past see things as they were and not as they appeared to be."

"The past?" said Lady Charnley.

"I am speaking of your husband's suicide, Alix. I know it hurts you—"

"No," said Alix Charnley, "it doesn't hurt me. Nothing hurts me now."

Mr Satterthwaite thought of Frank Bristow's words: "She was not quite real, you know. Shadowy. Like one of the people who come out of the hills in Gaelic fairy tales."

"Shadowy," he had called her. That described her exactly. A shadow, a reflection of something else. Where then was the real Alix? And his mind answered quickly, "In the past. Divided from us by fourteen years of time."

"My dear," he said, "you frighten me. You are like the Weeping Lady with the Silver Ewer."

Crash! The coffee cup on the table by Aspasia Glen's elbow fell shattered to the floor. Mr Satterthwaite waved aside her apologies. He thought, We are getting nearer, we are getting nearer every minute—but nearer to what?

"Let us take our minds back to that night fourteen years ago," he said. "Lord Charnley killed himself. For what reason? No one knows."

Lady Charnley stirred slightly in her chair.

"Lady Charnley knows," said Frank Bristow abruptly.

"Nonsense," said Colonel Monckton, then stopped, frowning at her curiously.

She was looking across at the artist. It was as though he drew the words out of her. She spoke, nodding her head slowly, and her voice was like a snowflake, cold and soft.

"Yes, you are quite right. I know. That is why as long as I live I can never go back to Charnley. That is why when my boy Dick wants me to open the place up and live there again I tell him it can't be done."

"Will you tell us the reason, Lady Charnley?" asked Mr Quin.

She looked at him. Then, as though hypnotized, she spoke as quietly and naturally as a child. "I will tell you if you like. Nothing seems to matter very much now. I found a letter among his papers and I destroyed it."

"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."

A very charming smile suddenly spread over the artist's face. "You have been thunderingly good to me," he said suddenly. He seized Mr Satterthwaite's hand and wrung it in a powerful grip. "I am no end grateful. I must be off now. Thanks very much for one of the most extraordinary evenings I have ever spent."

He looked round as though to say good-by to someone else and then started. "I say, sir, your friend has gone. I never saw him go. He is rather a queer bird, isn't he?"

"He goes and comes very suddenly," said Mr Satterthwaite. "That is one of his characteristics. One doesn't always see him come and go."

"Like Harlequin," said Frank Bristow, "he is invisible," and laughed heartily at his own joke.