# The Viaduct Murder/Chapter 21

CHAPTER XXI
THE TEST
Marryatt came and sat with them at dinner⁠—a situation which called forth Reeves' utmost powers of self-control. He was glad that Carmichael was there too; glad that he had not communicated to him the suspicions which he had just come to entertain. He could not help admiring the easy way in which Gordon managed to conceal his suspicions, talking to Marryatt in his ordinary vein of rather pawky pleasantry.
"Well, Marryatt, how was the collection?" was the first sample of it.
"Normal, thank you. It's fortunate that I don't depend on it for my livelihood, or you would have to wait some time for that half-crown I owe you."
"And how was the choir on the top notes?"
"There and thereabouts," said Marryatt cautiously.
"Do you know," Carmichael put in, "there's a passage in Longfellow's 'Village Blacksmith' which has always seemed to me a curious example of amphibology. The blacksmith, if you remember, is said to go on Sunday to the church, where he 'hears the ​parson pray and preach, he hears his daughter's voice singing in the village choir.' The context shows that it is the blacksmith's daughter who is alluded to, but by the ordinary rules of grammar it ought to be the parson's daughter. I'm not much of a churchgoer myself⁠———"
"Marryatt," continued Gordon, "do you have anthems often in church?"
The word "anthems" made Reeves feel as if he had leapt a foot into the air. Marryatt, however, showed no traces of excitement.
"Very rarely, I am thankful to say."
"And those, I suppose, are at Evensong, not at Mattins?"
Reeves frowned slightly. This effort to introduce the significant words seemed to him painfully forced, and at the same time quite useless. It was not likely that Marryatt would connect the words on the "washing-list" with the cipher he had inadvertently sent to Brotherhood on the same sheet of paper.
"No, not at Mattins. The Te Deum, I am afraid, exercises the capacities of my choir to their full limit."
"You just have them on big days, I suppose, like Harvest Festivals?"
"That kind of thing. Really, Gordon, you seem very ecclesiastical this evening. Were you going to offer to sing in the choir or anything?"
"No, my boy, not till you get some more comfortable hassocks."
​"As a matter of fact, I have ordered some only lately. I have to go up to London tomorrow to see about them."
Reeves' blood thrilled. Only a tiny corroboration, and yet enough to give him more confidence in his diagnosis of the "washing-list." Only lately Marryatt had been ordering new hassocks⁠—it all fitted in.
"I congratulate you, Marryatt," said Carmichael. "At the funeral the other day, I am afraid I found myself chiefly thinking about the unpleasantness of the kneeling accommodation, instead of the virtues of the deceased. By the way, have you declared a truce in the controversy with Brotherhood, now that he is no longer capable of replying?"
"I am afraid I continued the course this evening. I could not very well leave it where I had left off last Sunday. I had to meet, you see, his views about immortality."
Carmichael chuckled. "Well, let's hope Brotherhood won't walk," he said. "It would be very embarrassing for you, Marryatt, if Brotherhood's ghost came back to continue the discussion. It would speak with so much expert knowledge."
"Really, Carmichael," said Marryatt, "I wish you wouldn't say those things. You told us yourself that you don't believe in spiritualistic phenomena."
"It's all right," said Gordon, "you'll be able to exorcise him if he does turn up again. Try driving a stake through his body, I'm told it's effective. Hullo!" he added, consulting his watch, "I'd no idea ​it was so late. I promised I'd go and help Murdoch fix up his wireless. So long———" and he disappeared, giving a slight tug at Reeves' coat as he left.
He did not seem, however, to be in a hurry to redeem his promise. Instead, he made straight for Marryatt's room, taking the stairs three at a time; and his proceedings in Marryatt's room were sufficiently curious to be worth recording in detail. First, he took two out of the three pipes which lay there, and hid them carefully behind the coal-scuttle. Then he pulled the remaining pipe in half; picked a strand or two of tobacco out of the nearest tin, and rammed these tightly down the stem of the pipe, close to the mouthpiece. There were a couple of feathers on the mantelpiece; these he unscrupulously put in his pocket. And, "Now, my friend," he said to himself out loud, as he left the room, "I think we've spiked your guns. I for one shall be surprised if you don't come along hunting for pipe-cleaners." And so he went down and rejoined Reeves in the deserted billiard-room.
The Committee had not yet decided what action to take about the secret passage, and it was with no difficulty that the two friends entered it again from the billiard-room end, and made their way along it, guided by Reeves' torch. If it had lost its thrill of human mystery, it had acquired instead a kind of impersonal dreariness. One had not looked for ghosts, when one was expecting a murderer to be lurking there; now, you caught your ​breath a little as you passed the hiding-hole. Priests had lain close here many times; strange irony, that it should now be serving as a vantage-point for spying on a clerical delinquent. There were two cracks in the panelling of Reeves' room, and through either you could see, in the shifting firelight, the dark outlines of the oaken cudgel that lay against Reeves' arm-chair. By a grim accident, it stood exactly as if it were being held in the right hand of someone seated there. It could not fail to catch the eye of anyone who turned on the electric light, when he came in.
Voices, echoed up the staircase, proclaimed the breaking up of the dining-tables. They could distinguish Carmichael's high-pitched accents, as he told an interminable story at the foot of the stairs⁠—no doubt to Marryatt, who still delayed his coming. Then at last they heard Marryatt's step, the rather boyish, light step that characterized him; he was still crooning, if further identification were needed, the hymn Reeves had heard from the churchyard.
and the sounds died away with the footfalls, as Marryatt turned the corner into his own room.
​Then there was silence; a silence fraught with expectation, and for Gordon with anxiety. Why hadn't he come? Had he, after all⁠—one ought to have considered that⁠—another pipe in his pocket? Had some splinter or paperclip succeeded in removing the all-important obstruction? No; Marryatt's door was suddenly flung open with an impatient gesture; Marryatt's step was heard again in the passage; Marryatt's voice still found occupation in rendering the hymn, but more savagely now⁠—you pictured a bear robbed of her whelps.
and at that the door suddenly swung open, and the light was switched on.
Angels to beckon me———
The voice stopped dead in mid-tone. There was a sharp, nerve-wracking crash as a pipe fell on the floorboards. Marryatt was standing in the doorway as if transfixed, staring at the oaken stick, his face distorted with terror. Half in excitement, half in relief, Reeves drew a deep breath, which came out with a slight whistle⁠—he must be careful not to do that again, or he might betray his presence. . . . No, precaution was needless. Marryatt had turned; he strode in silence down the pas​sage like a man pursued, and they heard his door shut behind him, the key turn in the lock.
Very cautiously, Reeves and Gordon pushed aside the settee which blocked the entrance of the passage, and stepped out into the room. Marryatt had left his pipe where it lay, had not turned off the light as he went out.
"Now," said Reeves, "what d'you make of Marryatt's innocence?"
"I'm going along to his room," said Gordon.
"No, look here, you mustn't do that. We haven't decided what we're going to say to him, what we're to do about it. Leave him alone for the present."
"I'm not going in," said Gordon. He tiptoed along the passage outside, till he came opposite Marrayatt's door, and stood irresolute. Then suddenly he heard a muffled voice from inside. "Oh, my God!" and again, "Oh, my God!" He tiptoed back again, his face grave. "Look here, Reeves, I can't understand it. I tell you, I can't understand it."
"It doesn't much matter whether we understand it or not; the point is, what to do about it? We can have explanations later on. But I daren't go to a man and say, 'Look here, are you a murderer?' Besides, I know he is one. I can't simply tell the police what I know, and leave them to get on with it; it seems so mean. Besides, I don't think I want anything to happen to Marryatt. Only I've promised Miss Rendall-Smith that I'll do my best to get Davenant off. What am I to do?"
​"If you feel like that⁠—I suppose you wouldn't trust me to talk to him?"
"It's awfully good of you, but you know, I feel it's up to me. I must form my own conclusions."
"Then, if I were you, I'd write him a letter, simply pointing out that there are certain actions of his which you can't quite explain, and asking him to explain them. Tell him you're still worried over Brotherhood's murder, and feel that perhaps he may be concealing something, from whatever motive, which might lead you to the truth if you knew about it. Reeves, I'm sure the man isn't a murderer: you only want to get him to explain things."
"Yes, but the whole business hangs together, I can't tell him how I formed my suspicions without telling him the whole of the evidence I've got; and that means putting it to him straight out. I must see that he manages to exculpate Davenant; as long as he does that, I don't mind if he goes abroad⁠—I don't mind giving him time to get away. But I must show him where he stands, and I must get a confession out of him."
"But the thing's impossible!"
"Look here, I've got it⁠—the telephone! That lets you talk to a man without seeing his face, without letting him answer if you don't want him to; you can treat him as if he wasn't there. I know it sounds a silly dodge, but you see my idea, don't you?"
"I should have thought it would be rather public. ​Can't the people at the exchange overhear everything if they want to?"
"Yes; I'd forgotten that. I know⁠—the speaking-tube in the steward's office! I can get the steward to let me have the use of the room for ten minutes in the slack time tomorrow morning. Then I'll call up to Marryatt and tell him all I want to."
"The trouble about that speaking tube is, it isn't really made for dialogue. I mean, you have to speak and listen alternately through the same tube."
"All the better. I don't want any interruptions from him. Now, a game of bezique for Heaven's sake: my nerves are all anyhow."