Very hard on him, thought Molly! He had been known as a young lord who would one day be a marquis. They would laugh at him all his life. For, of course, wherever she went with him it would “get about.” Even at Brighton, where she had been nobody, it had “got about” that the name of Webster had been chosen at random. He would just be “Master Conrad” — if anything.
(“All right, dearie, I’ll help you! You shall have your chance in life no matter what happens to me.”)
By one o’clock Phyllis Margaret was dead.
Legally, it was a premeditated murder; but humanly speaking the whole thing was planned and carried out on the spur of the moment.
“I suppose we aren’t going to fly at each other’s throats,” said Molly. “We shall have to see Charles about this. He is pottering about after rabbits and won’t be in for ever so long, for he’s always late for luncheon, but I know where to find him.”
The two of them crossed the home-park together. Molly had kept the marriage certificate, which presently she put in her blouse. On the way their conversation seems to have been confined to an amicable agreement that the Marquis had always been untrustworthy with women, and probably always would be.
At a quarter to one they came upon the Marquis in a clearing in the copse. Joseph Ledbetter, a junior keeper, who was with the Marquis, testified to the time. He testified further that as the two ladies approached the Marquis showed signs of an almost ludicrous agitation and that he actually said, “Good lord, Joe! I’m in the soup. You’d better mouch off.”
There follows one of those amazing little scenes that positively shock our preconceptions. We are compelled to imagine those two unhappy women turning upon the Marquis and denouncing him for the cruel little cad that he was. We imagine him faltering and cowering. But in fact he merely said:
“Hullo, Phyllis!”
And Phyllis Margaret said:
“Hullo, Charles! I’ve just had a word with Lady Roucester.” (This was very civil of her since she believed the title was justly her own.) “And I saw your little boy, only it was too far off and I couldn’t speak to him.”
“Ha! Jolly kid, what! Only Molly runs him on a tight rein. I suppose we’d better be mouching back! Must be nearly lunchtime.”
Molly took out the certificate and showed it to him.
“I only want to know one thing, Charles. Is that a forgery?”
He just glanced at it, then looked away and she knew it was not a forgery. She folded it and put it back in her blouse.
“Bit awkward, what!” said the Marquis. “I suppose we can fix something?”
But Phyllis Margaret was not very helpful.
“I don’t know what we can do, Charles. It seems it’s going to be hard on one of us. And it wouldn’t surprise me if this lady was to refuse and have you sent to prison.”
That told Molly that the woman did not want to fix anything. Of course, there was no need for her to do so, reasoned Molly. She had only to make her claim to be sure of the title and at least a substantial alimony. But the fool ought to have realized this before she came to Roucester.
“That’s quite right, Charles! You can’t fix anything — you’ll have to go to prison — unless I save you.” (“All right, dearie, I’ll help you!”)
Molly grabbed the shot-gun from his hand, wheeled round and shot Phyllis Margaret through the head at a range of about four inches.
(“When she fell down dead looking all horrible, Charles was sick. And then I knew that it was no good, and that he couldn’t keep his head and tell the tale I’d already thought of. And l thought of Conrad and I didn’t love Charles at all, because I think he was a worm. But Conrad takes after me and I always meant him to have his chance.”)
Molly was holding the shot-gun while the Marquis babbled in terror. By checking up on other events we are able to work out that she gave him some seven minutes before she tackled him.
“I’m going to say that she was one of your cast-off loves and when you wouldn’t do anything for her she snatched your gun and shot herself. You must remember to tell the same tale. Otherwise we shall both be hanged because they’ll say we murdered her together.”
“Yes... yes, that’s what we’ll say! That’s a fine idea! Let’s go,” dithered the Marquis.
(“But his teeth were chattering and I was afraid he would run away. So I knew I’d have to do it quickly — or he would let some slut look after Conrad if I were taken.”)
“Wait a minute, Charles. We’ve got to get the tale right before we move from this spot. We’ve got to rehearse it. You play Phyllis. Go on — take the gun. Put it up as if you were going to shoot yourself... No, you can’t do it like that or you won’t be able to reach the trigger... You’ll have to put your mouth right on the muzzles. Go on — be a man!”
She saw that he could doubtfully reach the trigger. Anyhow, Molly’s finger got there first — and virtually blew her husband’s head off with the left barrel.
Molly had read all about fingerprints. She tore a strip of lace from her clothing — in those days they wore a gathered frill tacked inside the skirt-hem — and wiped the gun from muzzle to butt, including both triggers. She put the lace under her blouse beside the marriage certificate (and later washed it herself and wore it again).
Even when the muzzle had been in his mouth the Marquis could barely have reached the triggers. He was wearing a golf suit (precursor of plus-fours). She rolled back the dead man’s stocking, unbuckled his leather strap-garter, looped the garter round the trigger, then fastened the buckle. By such a device — by putting his toe in the loop of the garter — a man could blow his own head off with a shotgun.
Then she ran to Ledbetter’s cottage, which was nearer than the Castle and in the opposite direction.
“Get on your bicycle at once and go for Dr. Turner and the police. There has been an accident.”
“Did you say go for the police, my lady?”
“Dr. Turner and the police, Ledbetter. You’ll all have to know soon, so I may as well tell you now. His lordship shot a woman who was blackmailing him and then committed suicide.”
She turned back, walked through the copse past the two dead bodies to the Castle, where she summoned the housekeeper and the butler and gave them her version of the affair.
It is an axiom that the greater the risk taken by a murderer at the moment of murder, the greater are the chances of ultimate escape. Molly had taken an enormous risk at the moment of murder. Young Ledbetter might have hidden himself in the copse to see the fun. About four hundred yards away, part of the copse was being cleared by five laborers and a foreman. It was their dinner hour and any one of them might have passed the spot. It just happened that none of them did so.
There was no suspicion of Molly, partly because there was no perceptible motive. The Coroner, whose daughter Molly had presented at the last Court, confined his comments upon her actions to expressions of sympathy and admiration of her cool-headed courage. The local police toed the line. But the Treasury sent down Detective-Inspector Martleplug to have an unofficial look around.
From a close examination of the scene of the murder Martleplug picked up nothing. There was nothing in the footsteps to upset Molly’s story — and very little in the gun itself. Round one trigger was the garter which, in any case, would have blotted out fingerprints. On the other trigger there were no fingerprints — though there ought to have been, if the Marquis had shot Phyllis Margaret before looping the garter round the other trigger and shooting himself. But you couldn’t build anything on that.