Fen Country Read Online Free PDF Page B

tampered with in any way; I checked that myself, before I left.
    “As to Challis or Humphrey or Holmes having the wretched thing hidden on their—on their persons, the mere size of it put that possibility completely out of court.”
    Gina flushed slightly. “So you see the situation that that left me in. Grandfather wouldn’t even listen to me. He just turned his head away and said there was no point in laboring the matter, but that in the circumstances I might feel happier if I didn’t remain in his house. So by dinner-time I’d packed up and left…
    “There’s no question of prosecution, of course,” said Gina in conclusion. “But just the same, Professor Fen, I did not steal that candlestick.”
    For a while Fen pondered. Then he said: “Assuming that you are innocent, and that the key couldn’t have been borrowed from you while it was in your possession, and that Challis is honest—well, that really leaves only two possibilities, doesn’t it? Your grandfather or your cousin.”
    “Yes, but how?”
    “Oh, as to how…” Fen chuckled. “The ‘how’ is quite simple, I should say—and you don’t have to postulate any nonsense about duplicate keys in order to arrive at it, either.”
    Then he frowned. “Proof, though… Ah well, there’s at least a 50-50 chance, I imagine. What I’ll do is go and see your grandfather about it: I do know him slightly…
    “And then—let’s see, we’ve got a tutorial together in about a week’s time, haven’t we? With any luck at all, I’ll have some news for you then.”
     
    It was Gina, radiant, who produced the first piece of news at their next meeting after the week had elapsed. “A letter this morning from Grandfather,” she exulted. “Very apologetic, and will I please forgive him and go and visit him again as soon as I possibly can. But he doesn’t explain why , and—”
    “The ‘why’, I fancy,” said Fen, “is a letter he had from me, enclosing an authoritative laboratory report… Incidentally, I too have had an apology from him. He was pretty chilly when I went to see him, although he allowed me to do what I wanted (and also unwittingly gave me the chance to pay an unauthorized visit to a certain bedroom). Your cousin Humphrey, I’m afraid, will now be in just as great disfavor as you were; only he deserves it.”
    Gina nodded soberly. “I thought it must be Humphrey,” she said. “But, honestly, I still can’t understand how he managed it.”
    Fen snorted. “You take things too much for granted,” he said. “And of course, the thing you were taking too much for granted in this instance was that nice clean outline left by the base of the candlestick in the surrounding dust.
    “Obviously—there being, apart from the duplicate-key hypothesis, no other conceivable explanation—obviously cousin Humphrey stole the candlestick before he and his grandfather went off on their cruise; intending, I imagine, to pawn it for ready money, and later to redeem and replace it…
    “It must have come as a nasty shock to him when immediately on his return not one person but two were given the entrée to those rooms which only he and his grandfather had visited since they were shut up. You were a tolerable risk, since you were concerned only with the first of the two rooms—nor with the one where the candlesticks were. But Challis was a different matter.
    “Challis’s attention had been specially drawn to the candlesticks, so that the disappearance of one of them was bound to be discovered—with the dust on the mantelpiece indicating plainly that it had been gone a good long time…
    “Well, you’ll have realized by now what Humphrey did. While Challis fooled about with the musical-box in the first room, Humphrey went on into the second; and there had sufficient time to wipe the end of the mantelpiece where the stolen candlestick had stood; transfer to the cleared area the second (identical) candlestick; puff a layer of dust round it, with the