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There was a silence. Blore shifted his feet and frowned. Philip Lombard said:

‘I don’t believe in that story for a minute. Besides none of us left this room for hours afterwards. There was Marston’s death and all the rest of it.’

The judge said:

‘Someone could have left his or her bedroom—later.’

Lombard objected:

‘But then Rogers would have been up there.’

Dr Armstrong stirred.

‘No,’ he said. ‘Rogers went downstairs to clear up in the dining-room and pantry. Anyone could have gone up to the woman’s bedroom then without being seen.’

Emily Brent said:

‘Surely, doctor, the woman would have been fast asleep by then under the influence of the drug you had administered?’

‘In all likelihood, yes. But it is not a certainty. Until you have prescribed for a patient more than once you cannot tell their reaction to different drugs. There is, sometimes, a considerable period before a sedative takes effect. It depends on the personal idiosyncrasy of the patient towards that particular drug.’

Lombard said:

‘Of course you would say that, doctor. Suits your book—eh?’

Again Armstrong’s face darkened with anger.

But again that passionless cold little voice stopped the words on his lips.

‘No good result can come from recrimination. Facts are what we have to deal with. It is established, I think, that there is a possibility of such a thing as I have outlined occurring. I agree that its probability value is not high; though there again, it depends on who that person might have been. The appearance of Miss Brent or of Miss Claythorne on such an errand would have occasioned no surprise in the patient’s mind. I agree that the appearance of myself, or of Mr Blore, or of Mr Lombard would have been, to say the least of it, unusual, but I still think the visit would have been received without the awakening of any real suspicion.’

Blore said:

‘And that gets us—where?’

VII

Mr Justice Wargrave, stroking his lip and looking quite passionless and inhuman, said:

‘We have now dealt with the second killing, and have established the fact that no one of us can be completely exonerated from suspicion.’

He paused and went on.

‘We come now to the death of General Macarthur. That took place this morning. I will ask anyone who considers that he or she has an alibi to state it in so many words. I myself will state at once that I have no valid alibi. I spent the morning sitting on the terrace and meditating on the singular position in which we all find ourselves.

‘I sat on that chair on the terrace for the whole morning until the gong went, but there were, I should imagine, several periods during the morning when I was quite unobserved and during which it would have been possible for me to walk down to the sea, kill the General, and return to my chair. There is only my word for the fact that I never left the terrace. In the circumstances that is not enough. There must be proof.’

Blore said:

‘I was with Mr Lombard and Dr Armstrong all the morning. They’ll bear me out.’