Till Death Do Us Part

'Right. You ran out of your cottage, and along the lane. When you were still some distance from this house, you saw a light switched on in this sitting-room.'

Dr Fell paused, with cross-eyed concentration behind his eyeglasses. 'How far were you away when you saw that light?'

Dick considered.

'A little over a hundred yards, I should say.'

' So you couldn't actually see into this room at that time ?'

'Lord, no! Nothing like that! I was too far away. I just saw the light shine out when the sky was still pretty dark.'

Without a word Superintendent Hadley got to his feet. The only light in the room was the bright tan-shaded hanging lamp over the writing-table. Its switch was in the wall beside the door to the hall. Hadley walked over to this; he clicked the switch down, and then up again, so that the lamp flashed on and off; afterwards, still without a word, he returned to his notebook at the writing-table.

Dr Fell cleared his throat.

'You then,' he resumed, 'walked more slowly along the lane? Yes! A little later, I understand, you saw this .22 rifle poked over the wall? Yes. How far were you away when you saw that?'

Again Dick reflected.

'Well... say thirty yards. Perhaps less.'

'So you still couldn't see into this room here?'

'No. Naturally not.'

'But you distinctly saw the rifle?'

'Yes.'

' You even' - Dr Fell reached out with his right hand and tapped the window-glass - 'you even made out the bullet-hole when, to use your expressive phrase to the constable, it "jumped up in the window-pane" ?'

Dick gestured helplessly.

'That's a literary way of putting it, I'm afraid. I was thinking of the fortune-teller's tent. But that's exactly what it amounts to. I was watching the rifle; I saw it fired; and even at that distance I could make out the bullet-hole.'

'You've got long eyesight, I take it?'

'Very long eyesight. Yesterday, for instance, when I was target-shooting at Major Price's range, I could tell exactly where my hits were scored without having the target drawn in to the counter.'

Superintendent Hadley intervened.

'If you're thinking there's any flummery about that bullet-hole,' he said, 'you can wash it out. Purvis's people have verified everything: angle of fire, force of projectile, damage to window. And,' he nodded towards the shattered picture over the fireplace, 'checked the bullet they dug out of the wall. It was fired from that rifle, and no other rifle.'

Dr Fell slowly turned a red face.

' My God, Hadley,' he said, with a sudden and far-from-characteristic burst of anger which startled Hadley almost as much as it startled Dick, 'will you please allow me to handle this witness in my own way?'

His face grew even more fiery.

'You, sir, are a superintendent of Metropolitan Police. I am very much at your service. I am merely your consultant on theoutré; or, to put it in a less high-falutin way, the old guy whom you drag in during peculiar, not so loony, cases of this kind. You have done me the honour of consulting me now in a case which we both believe to be murder. May I ask my own questions, sir, or may I not?'

Outside the windows, the moving helmet of Bert Miller stopped for a fraction of a second before Miller resumed his pacing. Not for -nothing had Dick, when he related the story to Miller that morning, insisted on suicide with such a wealth of detail that the constable dreamed of no other contingency. This was the first time Miller had heard mention of the word murder from his superior officers.

But Dick hardly noticed this now; it was swept away by the extraordinary violence of Dr Fell's outburst.

' Sorry if I've stepped on your toes,' Hadley said mildly. ' Carry on.'

'Harrumph! Ha! Very well.' Dr Fell adjusted his eyeglasses, drawing the air through his nostrils with a long challenging sound. 'On hearing the shot, Mr Markham, you ran forward again?'

‘Yes.'

'And met Miss Cynthia Drew in the lane?' 'That's right.'

'How was it, with your long eyesight, that you hadn't seen her before?'

' Because,' answered Dick,' the sun was smack in my eyes. Straight down the lane, and she was coming from the east I could see things on either side, but not in the lane itself.'

'H'm, yes. That accounts for it. What explanation did Miss Drew give for her presence in the lane at that hour?'

'Look here, sir! You don't think - ?'

'What explanation,' Dr Fell repeated gently, 'did Miss Drew give for her presence in the lane at that hour?'

Outside, in the hall, the telephone began to ring shrilly.

It made each of these three men, each with his own separate thoughts, start a little to hear that clamouring bell. Was this, Dick wondered, the communication Dr Fell expected? Was the murderer - behind a bland friendly countenance of all the bland friendly countenances at Six Ashes - ringing up to whisper more hatred against Lesley Grant? Hadley hurried out to the phone; they heard him speaking in a low voice. When he returned his face was very grave.

' Well ?' prompted Dr Fell.

'No,' said the superintendent quickly, 'it's not what you're thinking. That telephone-communication idea of yours is rubbish, and you know it. Nobody would take such a fool's risk as that. But your other idea, I admit -'

' Who was it, Hadley?'

'It was the police-surgeon at Hawkstone. He's just done the post-mortem. And it's upset the apple-cart again.'

Dr Fell, with his big bulk propped against the wall, straightened up. His mouth fell open under the bandit's moustache.

'Look here, Hadley! You're not going to tell me Sam De Villa wasn't killed by prussic acid after all ?'

'Oh, yes. He was killed with prussic acid, right enough. About three grains of anhydrous prussic acid, administered in a hypodermic by somebody unskilled in the use of it. But...’

'But what?'

' It's the stomach-contents,' said Hadley. 'Go on, man!'

'About six hours before death,' replied Hadley, 'Sam swallowed what must have amounted to three or four grains of luminal.'

Again Hadley sat down at his desk, and opened his notebook.

'Don't you understand?' he went on. 'If Sam took that much luminal before going to bed at some time past eleven, it's practically impossible that he could have come downstairs under his own steam at five o'clock the following morning.'

CHAPTER l6

'MIND!' added the cautious superintendent. 'We can't say it is impossible.' He picked up a pencil and examined its point. 'There are people capable of resistance to the strongest drugs, and people who shake off their effects very quickly. All we can say is that it's very unlikely. But according to the evidence at least, Sam did come downstairs this morning?' 'Apparently, yes.'

'And, unless we call Mr Markham a liar, a light did go on in this room when he says it did?'

' Undoubtedly.'

'But you think that doesn't upset the apple-cart in any way?'

'No,' answered Or Fell, pushing himself back against the wall so that the front of his shovel-hat rose up as though tilted by an invisible hand, 'no, my lad, I can't say it does. This may become clearer,' he screwed up his face hideously, 'if you let me get on with a few relevant matters. What explanation (may I repeat) did Miss Cynthia Drew give for her presence in the lane at that hour?'

Dick looked away.

'She couldn't sleep. She'd been out for a walk.' 'A walk. Oh, ah. And is Gallows Lane the fashionable place for an early morning walk hereabouts ?' 'It could be. Why not?'

Dr Fell frowned. 'The lane, Lord Ashe informed me, ends only a few hundred yards east of here: where, in the eighteenth century, a gallows actually stood.'