Free The Problem of the Green Capsule by John Dickson Carr Page B

looked at him curiously. “Yes. That seems the most feasible explanation, doesn’t it?”
    “Consequently, some person overheard what plans Mr. Chesney and Mr. Emmet were making in this room after dinner? Some person outside the door or outside the windows?”
    “I see,” murmured the professor.
    For a moment there was a faint, fixed half-smile on his face. He was leaning forward, his plump fists on his knees and his elbows outspread like wings. He wore that oddly witless expression assumed by intelligent people when their thoughts turn inwards, and arrange facts with swift certainty into a pattern. Then he smiled again.
    “I see,” he repeated. “Now let me ask your questions for you, Inspector!” He waved his hand in the air, mesmerically. “Your next question is, ‘Where were you between nine-fifteen and midnight?’ And, ‘Where were Marjorie and George Harding between nine-fifteen and midnight?’ But you’ll go further. ‘Where were all of you at the time the performance took place?’ That’s the important thing. ‘Is it possible that one of you spectators could have slipped out in the dark, and played the part of the sinister bogey in the top-hat?’ That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?’
    Major Crow’s eyes narrowed.
    “Yes,” he said.
    “It is a fair question,” replied Professor Ingram comfortably. “And it deserves a fair answer, which is this. I will swear before any court in the world that not one of us left this room during the performance.”
    “H’m. Pretty strong statement, isn’t it?”
    “Not at all.”
    “You know how dark it was in here?”
    “I know perfectly well how dark it was. In the first place, with that Photoflood lamp blazing in the other room, not quite so dark as you seem to think. In the second place, I have other reasons, which I hope my companions will corroborate. In fact, we might ask them.”
    He got up from his chair, and gestured towards the hall door like a showman, as Marjorie and George Harding came in.
    And Elliot inspected the new fiancé.
    At Pompeii he had seen only the back of Harding’s head. And he was now vaguely irritated with the full view. George Harding could not have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six. He had a good-natured, straightforward, hearty manner; he was without self-consciousness, and moved among people as naturally as a cat among ornaments on a sideboard. He was rather handsome in a somewhat Southern European manner: black crinkled hair that looked wiry, broad face, and dark eyes of singular expressiveness. It was this appearance which Elliot found difficult to reconcile with his hearty minor-public-school manner. He was probably welcome company anywhere, and knew it.
    Then Harding caught sight of Marcus Chesney’s body beyond the folding doors, and his air became full of solicitude.
    “Could we have those doors closed?” he asked, taking Marjorie’s arm under his. “I mean, do you mind?”
    Marjorie disengaged her arm, to his evident surprise.
    “It’s quite all right,” she said, looking straight at Elliot nevertheless.
    Elliot closed the doors.
    “Marjorie told me you wanted to see me,” Harding went on, looking round in the friendliest possible way. His face clouded. “Just tell me what I can do to help. All I can say is that this is a rotten bad business, and—oh, you know!”
    (Now we are seeing him through Elliot’s eyes, not necessarily as he actually was; and therefore it would be unfair to stress the sour impression made to Elliot by this straight-from-the-shoulder speech, and the straightforward gesture with which he accompanied it. To Major Crow and Superintendent Bostwick, who liked him, Harding sounded quite sincere.)
    Elliot indicated a chair.
    “You’re Mr. Harding?”
    “That’s right,” agreed the other, now friendly as a puppy and anxious to please. “Marjorie says you want us all to tell what happened here when—well, when the poor old boy got his.”
    “He wants more than