Here the doubt fastened deeply: it took on claws, tight-holding, as it grew in Dick Markham's imagination.
'Sir Harvey,' it said, 'obviously hated Lesley Grant. He was pursuing her if any man ever pursued her. He nearly betrayed her yesterday afternoon, when she did try to shoot him. Her attitude towards him would hardly have been one of sweetness and light. If a poisoner's character does hide in that pretty body, she would have been just in the mood to strike back at him - with an undetectable method of poisoning.'
But that was where you came up with a bump against the final bewilderment. Sir Harvey Gilman certainly hadn't killed himself; and, the one man of all men to be on his guard, he couldn't have been gulled by any trick into injecting a hypodermic into his own arm. This you could swear to. Yet, on the other hand, it was absolutely impossible for anybody to have murdered him.
Dick walked blindly up the slopes of South Field.
Ahead of him now he could see the south wing of Ashe Hall, its ancient bricks showing dark in the polished morning air. Though no smoke went up yet from its kitchen chimneys, all the visible doors stood wide open.
And the first person Dick saw was Lord Ashe, coming round the side of the house - in his usual corduroys and ancient coat, wearing gardening gloves and with a pair of rose-tree shears in his right hand. He stopped short as he caught sight of Dick, waiting for him to come up.
'Er - good morning,' said Lord Ashe in a puzzled tone.
'Good morning, sir. You're up early.'
' I'm always up at this time,' said Lord Ashe.
Dick's gaze strayed along the south wing of the Hall.
'Don't you ever lock any doors or windows here, sir?'
Lord Ashe laughed.
'My dear boy,' he answered, making a slight gesture with the shears and pressing the pince-nez more firmly on his nose, 'there's nothing to steal. The pictures are all copies. My elder brother Frank presented the family jewels to a celebrated - er - lady of easy virtue years ago. There's the plate, of course, what there is left of it; but you'd want a lorry to take that away.'
Here he pondered, setting his pince-nez more firmly and looking curiously at his companion.
'If you'll excuse my mentioning it, Mr Markham, you have rather a wild and tousled look. Is anything wrong?'
Dick let him have it straight. He wanted the reaction of this solid man, with his soft voice and his ruddy complexion and his iron-grey hair, to a situation that would presently have Sue Ashes by the ears.
'Sir Harvey Gilman has committed suicide.'
Lord Ashe stared back at him.
'Good God!'
'Exactly!'
'But this' - Lord Ashe looked round for a place to put down the shears, and, finding none, kept them in his hands, ' - this is fantastic!'
‘I know.'
'Come to think of it,' muttered Lord Ashe, 'I did fancy I heard a shot in the middle of the night. Or was it later? Was it -?' He stared at memory.
'Sir Harvey didn't shoot himself. He took a hypodermic, " apparently containing prussic acid, and injected it into his arm. Cynthia Drew and I found him not half an hour ago.'
'Prussic acid,' repeated Lord Ashe. 'We used to use a derivative of that for fruit-tree spray. I dare say Sir Harvey would have access to some. But why, my dear boy? Why?'
'We don't know.'
'He seemed in the best of health and spirits, except for that unfortunate acci -' Lord Ashe rubbed his forehead with the hand that held the shears, endangering pince-nez and eyes. 'Could he have been depressed, or anything of that sort? I've seldom seen a man with more - what shall I say? - zest for life. He reminded me of a chap who was once here selling Bibles. And ... er ... may I ask why you come here?'
' I've got to see Dr Middlesworth. His wife said he was at the Hall.'
'Oh. Yes. Middlesworth was here. Cicely, that's one of the maids, had a bad turn in the night. Appendicitis. Middlesworth found it wasn't necessary to operate. He thinks he can do what they call "freeze it". But he's not here now. He left some time ago. Said he had to run over to Hastings.'
It was Dick's turn to stare.
'To Hastings? At half-past five in the morning? Why?' Lord Ashe looked puzzled.
' I can't say, my dear fellow. Middlesworth was rather mysterious about it.'
The sweet-scented grass, the glare of green lawns in broadening sunlight, caused a feeling of light-hcadedness. Dick was badly prepared for the next bombshell. Suddenly, with an odd sensation of imminent danger, he found Lord Ashe studying him with an intent expression, a close long look, which had in it a knife-edge of shrewdness before the other's face smoothed itself out
'What's this I hear,' Lord Ashe asked .in his soft voice, 'about Lesley Grant being a murderess?'
CHAPTER g
Miss LESLEY GRANT - to give her that name - awoke at a quarter past eight in the morning.
Her house, the old Farnham house towards the southern end of the High Street at Six Ashes, faced east towards the front grounds of Ashe Hall. It was pleasant and tree-shaded, with a deep front garden. From the upstairs bedroom windows you could look diagonally left across the High Street towards the heraldic griffin and ash-tree carved on the stone pillars of the entrance-gates. And, brilliant sunshine was pouring through these windows when Lesley awoke.
For a moment she lay as still as death, staring at the ceiling with wide-open eyes. A clock ticked on the bedside table, the only noise there.
Lesley's eyes moved sideways, apparently noting the time, before quickly resinning their stare at the ceiling.
She did not look as though she had slept well; or, in fact, slept very long. There were faint shadows under the naive-looking brown eyes, the brown hair seemed tumbled on the pillow, and there was a curious expression round her mouth. Her bare arms, outside the coverlet, were stretched out straight on either side. For minutes she lay motionless, listening to the tick of the clock, while her eyes now roved.
It was a comfortable room she saw, furnished with the same shrinking fastidiousness of good taste. It contained only one picture: a framed black-and-white drawing, of somewhat grotesque design, hanging between the two front windows. When her gaze encountered this, Lesley's teeth fastened in her lower lip.
' It's silly!' she said aloud.
Anybody who saw her then - fortunately or unfortunately, nobody did see her - would have been a little disquieted by the stealth of her movements. Slipping out of bed, in-a white silk nightgown trimmed with lace, she ran across to the picture and lifted it down from the wall.
Underneath showed the front of a small circular wall-safe, dull steel, of a pattern imported from the United States. It had no key: it opened with a letter-lock whose combination was known only to its manufacturers and to the so-called Lesley Grant.
Lesley's breathing grew shallower; her breast hardly seemed to rise and fall under the silk nightgown. She touched the dial of the safe, and had given its knob two partial turns when a heavy tread on the staircase outside in the passage, with the rattle of crockery on a tray, warned her that Mrs Rackley was on the way with morning tea.
She replaced the picture and flew back to bed. She was sitting up in bed, the pillows propped behind her - shaking back her hair, with scarcely a heightened colour or quicker breathing - when Mrs Rackley opened the bedroom door.
'Awake, miss?' inquired Mrs Rackley, with her usual formula. 'Lovely morning! Here's a nice cup of tea.'
Mrs Rackley, as a sort of maid-cook-housekeeper, was invaluable to any woman who did not mind her smothering protectiveness. After glancing round the room, noting with approval its tidiness and its open window, she creaked across to asthmatic accompaniments and set the tea-tray in Lesley's lap. Afterwards she stood back, her hands on her hips, and surveyed her charge.