Till Death Do Us Part

’I’d really rather you didn't touch me,' Lesley said breathlessly. 'When you and Cynthia -' 'Don't mention Cynthia!' 'Why not?'

Half dragging her into the front hall, Dick opened the door; and saw, as he had hoped, the reassuring immensity of Dr Fell outside.

'Laura Feathers -' Dick began.

' I know,' said Dr Fell. His waistcoat rose and fell wheezily; his voice was subdued. 'We heard the shot and saw you run in. Hadley's there now. May I ask, sir, just what devil's wasp-nest you've overturned now?'

'That,' said Dick, 'is exactly what you can call it. In the first place, I can prove Lesley had no hand in any funny business at all. In the second place, I don't have to prove it, because if you give a shout for whatever policemen you've got at hand, we can nail the murderer in this house.'

In three sentences he outlined the story. Its effect on Dr Fell was rather curious. The Gargantuan doctor stood motionless on the doorstep, his shovel-hat still on his head and his hands folded over his cane, breathing noisily. He kept his eyes fixed on the two tiny scraps of paper Dick held out to him.

This phlegmatic attitude, when Dick Markham half expected somebody to fire a bullet from the direction of the stairs, drove Dick into a frenzy.

'Don't you understand, sir?' he repeated, with a sort of wild patience. 'In the house!'

'Oh, ah,' said Dr Fell. His eyes moved over the hall behind. 'In the house. Can he get out the back way?'

'I hope not. Anyway, Joe McIntyre the gardener is there.'

'And he can't get out the front way,' said Dr Fell, moving his bulk to peer round behind him, 'because Bert Miller is there, and a man who's just come down from the Criminal Records Department at Scotland. Harrumph, yes. Excuse me for just one moment.'

He lumbered off into the gloom, where they saw him conferring with two shadows in the path. One of these shadows slipped away towards the back of the house; the other remained where it was; and Dr Fell returned.

'Look here, sir!' protested Dick. 'Aren't we going to search the place?'

'At the moment,' answered Dr Fell, 'no. With your permission, I should much prefer to come in and talk for a little.'

'Then for God's sake let me get Lesley away from here while ...'

' It would be better, I assure you, if Miss Grant remained.' 'Even with the murderer in the house?' 'Even,' replied Dr Fell gravely, 'with the murderer in the house.'

And he stepped into the hall, sweeping off his shovel-hat and thrusting his cane under his arm.

The brightly lighted dining-room attracted his attention. Ponderously gesturing Lesley and Dick to precede him, he followed them into the dining-room. He blinked round him with abstracted interest. He murmured some excuse about the heat. Rather clumsily emphasizing this excuse - it was warm in the room - Dr Fell threw open the thick curtains of the opened windows.

Under these two front windows stood a heavy Florentine oak chest. Dr Fell sat down on it, again propping his hands over his cane.

'Sir,' he began, 'those two shreds of paper, as you very properly remark, must go to Hadley. But I gather from your recital you believe you have discovered the meaning of what happened at the post office? Of that murder, in short?'

'Yes. I think I have.'

' Very well,' said Dr Fell.' Suppose you tell me what it is ?'

' Hang it, Doctor! At a time like this ...!'

' Yes, by thunder!' said Dr Fell. 'At a time like this I'

Lesley, though plainly she understood not one word of this, was trembling. Dick put his arm round her shoulders. The whole house seemed full of unaccountable creaks and cracks, as though it were poised; and the metronome-clock ticked in the hall.

'Just as you like,' said Dick.' When I met Superintendent Hadley at Ashe Hall this morning, that wasn't the first time I'd seen him.'

'Aha! Well?'

'The first time I saw him, I was standing at the window of Lesley's bedroom upstairs,' Dick pointed to the ceiling, 'and I saw him cross the road towards the post office.'

'Go on,'said Dr Fell.

'Then,' continued Dick, 'we had that conference in Lord Ashe's study at the Hall. You explained how this whole murder-scheme was an attempt to frame Lesley for the job-'

Dr Fell intervened.

'One moment,' he said. 'What I did, if you recall, was to challenge anyone to say what else it could be. But continue.'

'You said the real murderer had provided us a problem. Now he'd got to provide a solution, a solution for the locked room, or the police couldn't touch Lesley. You suggested there would be a "communication".'

‘I did.'

'When you told us that,' Dick went on, 'Superintendent Hadley looked up all of a sudden and said, "Was that why you asked me, a while ago, to -?" And you shut up very quickly. You suggested it might be a telephone call.

'But Hadley never for a second believed in that "telephone-call". He mentioned it later, at the dead man's cottage. He pointed out it would be too risky, and added "But your other idea, I admit -" Whereupon you cut him off again. Not long afterwards, up cropped still another reference to your other scheme, and this time in flat-out connexion with the post office.

'I'm a' cloth-headed goop,' Dick concluded bitterly, ' for not guessing it long ago. Of course it's the old poison-pen trick.'

Lesley peered up at him in bewilderment.

'Poison-pen trick?' she repeated.

'Yes. If the real murderer wanted to get in touch with the police, then the obvious and safest anonymous way would be to write. And there's no stamp-machine at the post office, if you remember?'

'Stop a bit!' cried Lesley. 'I think I do begin to...'

'Anybody who wants stamps must buy 'em from Laura over the counter. Dr Fell,' said Dick,' believed this morning that one person, or maybe one of a small group of persons, would drop a line to explain how you committed the murder.'

'You mean-?'

'So he asked Hadley to do what the police often do when there's a plague of poison-pen letters. With the co-operation of whoever's in charge of the post office, every stamp sold to a suspected person or persons has a private mark on it. Then, when the anonymous letter arrives, the police can infallibly prove who wrote it.

'Would Laura Feathers have enjoyed helping in a trick like that? She'd have cackled and loved it! Dr Fell had a shot at the same trick for trapping this murderer. And it very nearly worked.

'The real murderer did write a note, all right. I've got the proof here in my hand. The real murderer slipped into my cottage and wrote the blasted thing on my typewriter...'

Lesley drew away from him. She could not seem to believe her ears, and she dashed her hand out as though trying to push something away.

'On your typewriter?' she exclaimed.

'Yes. But that's no clue, I'm afraid. I haven't been at my place all day. Anyway, half the neighbourhood walks in and out of there without bothering to knock. Cynthia Drew, Major Price -'

'And myself,' smiled Lesley.

'Don't joke about this!' Dick said sharply.' The murderer wrote this note accusing Lesley of being a famous poisoner, and probably showing how De Villa had been killed. The murderer posted it. Then somehow he, or she, tumbled to it that a trap had been set He, or she, tried to get the letter back by waiting until Laura Feathers cleared the box, and then begging it on some excuse. But Laura was a wily old bird; she knew, and let the murderer know she knew. And so ...'

Dick made the motion of one who pulls a trigger. He turned to Dr Fell. 'Is this true, sir, or isn't it?' Dr Fell's face was very serious.

Blinking, he removed his eyeglasses, stared at them reflectively, and pinched at the deep red mark they made across the bridge of his nose before putting them on again.