Till Death Do Us Part

Cynthia went over and plumped down in the easy-chair.

Earnshaw, hesitating and smiling in the doorway, cleared his throat.

'I just happened to tell Cynthia -' he began. But his voice rose with shattering loudness, and then fell away to nothing, because of the silence and the battery of looks directed at him by both Hadley and Dr Fell. Hadley faced

Cynthia across the writing-table, leaning his hands on the edge of it.

'Your mother told us, Miss Drew, that you got that bruise on your temple from slipping and falling on some stone steps.'

' I'm afraid,' answered Cynthia, ' that was just a polite fiction for the benefit of the neighbours.' Hadley nodded.

'Actually, I'm told, you got the bruise when Miss Lesley Grant hit out at you with a hand-mirror ?' 'Yes. I'm afraid that's true.'

'Would it interest you to hear, Miss Drew, that Miss Grant denies hitting you with a mirror or with anything else?'

Cynthia raised her head. She put the palms of her hands flat along the arms of the chair. Her blue eyes opened in amazement.

' But that's simply not true!'

' It's not true, Miss Drew, that you fell and struck the side of your head against the footboard of a bed ?'

' I... no, of course not!' After a speculative silence, while they again heard distantly the voice of the church-clock, Cynthia added: 'Let's come straight out with this, shall we? I hate beating about the bush. I hate - crooked things! And I'm pretty sure you know why I've come here to see you. Mr Earnshaw has been telling me...'

Earnshaw intervened before anybody could stop him.

'If you don't mind,' he said with polite sharpness, ‘I'd rather be kept out of this.'

'So?' inquired Dr Fell.

' I came here early to-day,' Earnshaw continued, smiling away unconsciously even as he registered a protest, ' to ask about a rifle. That rifle there by the fireplace. While I was here, I gave Dick Markham a theory about this affair. I also gave him some information.'

'Concerning,' said Dr Fell, 'drawing-pins?'

'Yes!' Earnshaw now poured with volubility. 'Colonel Pope always used to use drawing-pins for his gauze screens, as you can see for yourself if you examine the marks on any window-frame in this house. Though what a box of them should be doing on the floor now I can't say. Never mind 1'

Here Earnshaw raised his hand.

'While I was here,' he went on to Dr Fell, 'I heard a certain thing. About - Sir Harvey Gilman. You said it, Dr Fell. I wasn't sworn to secrecy, if you remember. Nobody asked me not to mention it. All the same, I decided not to mention it. Because of my position; because I didn't understand it; because discretion is discretion.'

Nobody now tried to stop Earnshaw. It was as though he spoke into a void, as though he spoke to Dr Fell round a corner, utterly ignoring the tableau presented by Hadley and Cynthia in the middle of the room. The silent struggle between the eyes of Hadley and the eyes of Cynthia was emphasized and heightened to fever-pitch by Earnshaw's words.

'On my way home from the bank to-day...'

(Cynthia made a short, slight movement)

' On my way home from the bank to-day,' said Earnshaw, ' I stopped at Cynthia's house to give her a message from my wife. She saw me. She broke down a little. She told me an absolutely ghastly story' - here Earnshaw uttered a loud laugh - 'about Lesley Grant.'

'A true story,' said Cynthia, with her eyes on Hadley.

'A ghastly story,' repeated Earnshaw. 'I felt bound to warn her, you know. Discretion or no discretion. I said; "Look here, where did you hear that?"'

'A very interesting question,' said Hadley.

' I said, "Because I'm bound to warn you that Dr Gideon Fell says this Sir Harvey Gilman wasn't Sir Harvey Gilman at all. And Middlesworth claims he was an impostor too.

'Is the story true? The story about Lesley?' demanded Cynthia.

'Is it true?' asked Earnshaw, who was white to the forehead.

Superintendent Hadley remained for a second or two supporting his weight with both hands on the writing-table; his face betraying nothing.

'Suppose I told you, Miss Drew - and you too, Mr Earnshaw - that the story about Miss Lesley Grant is perfectly true?'

' Oh, my God,' murmured Earnshaw in a flat voice.

Cynthia dropped her eyes at last. She seemed to gasp at the air, as though she had been holding her breath for a full minute.

' Officially, mind,' the superintendent spoke in a warning tone, 'I have no information to give you. I merely say "suppose" that. And I think, Mr Earnshaw, I'd rather excuse you while I have a further word with Miss Drew. If you wouldn't mind waiting but in the car ?'

'No, no, no,' Earnshaw assured him. Earnshaw glanced at Dick, and looked away with perplexed embarrassment. 'Lesley Grant a poisoner with - Never mind! Discretion. It's incredible! Excuse me.'

He closed the door firmly after him. They heard his footsteps in the hall, and their tempo seemed to quicken in the grass outside.

For the first time Cynthia addressed herself to Dick Markham.

' I couldn't tell you about it this morning, Dick,' she said in a low, steady voice. There was pity in her gaze: if this were acting, it struck him with honest horror. ' I couldn't bring myself to hurt you that much! When it came to the test, I'm afraid I simply failed it.'

'Yes,' said Dick. His throat felt thick; he did not look back at her.

'I've been wondering all afternoon,' Cynthia went on in a conscience-stricken voice, 'whether I might be doing her an injustice. Honestly, if there had been any mistake about this, I should have gone down on my knees to beg her pardon!'

'Yes. Of course. I see.'

'When Bill Earnshaw told me what he did, I wondered for half a second ...! But there it is!'

'Just one moment, Miss Drew.' Hadley did not speak loudly. 'You couldn't bring yourself to hurt Mr Markham by telling him about this, though you believed he knew it already?' He paused. 'You told Miss Grant, didn't you, that Mr Markham already knew all about it?'

Cynthia uttered a small harsh laugh.

' I'm a rotten bad hand at expressing myself,' she replied. ' Yes. I knew he'd heard it. But J didn't want to be the one who threw it in his teeth and reminded him of it. Can't you understand that ?'

'By the way, Miss Drew, where did you hear the story?'

'Oh, does that matter now? If the story is true?'

Hadley reached over and picked up his notebook.

'It might not matter,' he conceded in an even voice, 'if the story were true. But it's not true at all, Miss Drew. It was a pack of lies invented by a crook who called himself Sir Harvey Gilman.'

Cynthia stared at him.

‘You said-!'

'Oh, no. I carefully said "suppose" that, as any of these gentlemen can testify.' Hadley poised his pencil over the notebook. 'Where did you hear the story?'

Incredulity, defiance, still a straightforward virtuousness all mingled in Cynthia's expression, despite the pallor of her face and the rigidity of her body.

'Don't be silly!' she burst out. And then: 'If this isn't true, why should anybody say it was?'

'Certain people might not like Miss Grant very much. Can't you understand that?'

'No. I like Lesley, or thought I liked her, very much.'

'Yet you attacked her?'

'I didn't attack her,' replied Cynthia, raising her chin with pale calm.

'She attacked you, then? You still maintain you got that bruise on your temple from being hit with a hand-mirror?'

‘Yes.'

' Where did you hear this story, Miss Drew ?' Cynthia still disregarded this.

' It's utterly absurd,' she declared,' that anybody should give all those details unless there was some truth in it. Some truth, don't you see?' She spread out her hands. 'What do you know about Lesley? How many times has she been married ? What does she keep in that safe ?'