It was still possible to hear incoherent cries from Colonel Vane, and the Doctor strode swiftly to the door, calling after the Indian: “I will come up to him presently and administer a sedative which will ensure him a peaceful sleep.”
Then he turned his attention back to the more immediately urgent problem of Mr. and Mrs. Holt. “Curious,” he mused, “that the Colonel should exhibit in dreams a foreknowledge of tonight’s events. Extremely interesting.”
He glanced swiftly around the room as if to photograph its every detail in his retentive mind. Then he stepped silently into the sitting room where he saw Mrs. Holt, now in full possession of her sense once more, on a couch. Beside her was the still somewhat anxious Miss Frayle.
“Ah, Mrs. Holt,” the Doctor said, “I am pleased to note that you appear considerably better.”
“She is a little better,” Miss Frayle said.
The Doctor appeared pleased at this. “In that event, Mrs. Holt,” he said, “perhaps you would try to answer one or two questions which I should like to put to you.”
“I’ll do my best,” she promised.
“Are you aware of the combination which opens the safe in the office?”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone else possess this knowledge, apart from your husband and yourself?” was the next question posed by the Doctor. The answer was what he had anticipated.
“Definitely no one else,” Mrs. Holt said. “My husband would never have dreamed of giving it away. It was known only to him and to myself—and he changed it very often. It was never written down. We used to memorise it.”
“You are sure it could have been known to no third party at all?”
“Quite certain.”
“And did you know anything about the valuables which were kept in the safe—valuables, for the most part, deposited by the guests of the hotel?”
Mrs. Holt looked puzzled at the line of questioning which Doctor Morelle had taken.
“I knew something of what was hidden in the safe, yes,” she agreed. “But not necessarily the details, or the particular items which might be left there by particular guests.”
“I understand, Mrs. Holt. Did you—if I may be so bold as to cite a particular example—know that the safe contained a precious stone which Colonel Vane had entrusted for safety to the care of your husband?”
There was a slight look of confusion in Mrs. Holt’s face as if she were still not at all sure whither this cross-examination was leading.
“Yes,” she said at length. “I knew that there was something important of the colonel’s there. But I did not know exactly what it was, or that it was in any special way valuable.”
Suddenly Doctor Morelle grasped Miss Frayle’s arm. A tipsy voice was heard in the entrance hall of the hotel. A man was loudly singing some quite incomprehensible ditty, which was brought to a sudden stop by a loud hiccough. Miss Frayle felt an almost irresistible desire to giggle, which, however, she managed to suppress by a great effort of will.
The man’s footsteps passed the door of the sitting room in which they were situated and then unsteadily made their way to the main staircase of the hotel.
“Is that another of your guests, Mrs. Holt?” Doctor Morelle enquired.
Mrs. Holt nodded. “Mr. Foster,” she said.
“He certainly sounds a little—er—well—” Miss Frayle searched vainly for the word that would express in sufficiently polite terms the precise state of inebriation in which Foster had apparently come home.
“Just so, my dear Miss Frayle,” said the Doctor in irritable tones. “And now I think that it is time for the police to take over the case. Miss Frayle, perhaps you would be so kind as to get into telephonic communication with Scotland Yard. I daresay that you can still recollect the number?”
“Whitehall 1212,” Miss Frayle said proudly and promptly.
“What an excellent memory you possess,” Doctor Morelle said. “Yes, I fancy that I shall, as usual, be able to offer them the information which will lead them directly to the apprehension of the criminal responsible.”
“Doctor Morelle!” Miss Frayle exclaimed, “do you mean you know who murdered Mr. Holt?”
Doctor Morelle looked at her with that mixture of dislike and irritation that she knew so well from past days.
“I mean,” he said slowly, “that I know a certain person is withholding the real truth about the murder—doubtless in order to shield either themselves or someone else. Moreover—and this is no doubt what will most interest the gentlemen from Scotland Yard—I know who that certain person is!”
* * * *
About an hour later Doctor Morelle, and a somewhat chastened Miss Frayle, were seated in the study. As he smoked an inevitable Le Sphinx, the Doctor was airing his views on the case that he had so neatly elucidated, while Miss Frayle sipped a cup of tea and listened to what he had to say.
“I don’t know how you do it, Doctor Morelle. It astonishes me more every time I think of it,” she said.
He smiled sardonically. “Of course,” he said, “certain important aspects of the crime immediately presented themselves to me as soon as I entered the hotel. My mental processes will possibly be well known to you by now, Miss Frayle, and were I in the position of dictating a further chapter for inclusion in a future edition of my casebook....”
He paused and glanced at Miss Frayle. She pushed her glasses back on to her nose and looked meekly at him.
“There’s a notebook here, Doctor,” she said with a hint of a suppressed giggle. “If you are sure the efficient Miss Grimshaw wouldn’t mind, I’d be only too delighted to jot down a few notes for you while the case is fresh in your mind. I know how much importance you attach to not waiting too long before you commit the facts to paper—especially when it has been a difficult and complicated case like this one.”
“This case has been neither difficult nor complicated,” he said in irritated tones. “On the contrary, it has been extremely simple and straightforward from the start. However, I am inclined to accept your kind offer, since I feel that this is a case which deserves to be put on record if only because it exemplifies the fact that the average criminal invariably neglects to remember some quite vital point—a point which the alert investigator, if he uses his mental powers to the utmost, can invariably notice.”
Miss Frayle was sitting, pencil poised above the notebook, regarding him intently.
“You don’t want all this included in your notes of the case, do you, Doctor?” she queried.
Doctor Morelle looked at her suspiciously. Did he detect a note of sarcasm in her voice? Then he said:
“No. Begin here, Miss Frayle: It was immediately apparent to me that, if the safe had been opened by someone without any prior knowledge of the combination, it must have yielded only to the most delicate manipulation of the sensitive mechanism—a feat that only an expert safe-breaker could have performed—or would, for that matter, have attempted. Alternatively, however—” He broke off suddenly. “I trust that I am not going too rapidly for you, Miss Frayle?”
Miss Frayle laughed. “Oh, not at all. This is really great fun. Just like old times!”
The Doctor resumed.
“Alternatively, however,” he went on, “Holt or his wife could have imparted the secret of the safe combination to someone else. But this seemed a totally impossible suggestion, unless she herself had robbed the safe, or passed on the secret of the combination to some accomplice whom her husband had later surprised in the act of the robbery.”
“Quite so,” Miss