John Carr - Till Death Do Us Part

'Will you please prove it, Lesley?'

'Exactly,' said Lord Ashe. 'But one thing does seem to be evident, Mr Markham.' His face hardened a little, with an expression about the eyes Dick could not read. 'Miss Grant has more than one very spiteful friend.'

' How do you mean ?' cried Lesley.

'One of them,' Lord Ashe pointed out, 'sends you here to live at Six Ashes. Another, if we can credit what we've just heard, is trying to get you hanged for murder.'

'Don't you see,' urged Lesley, holding tightly to Dick's arm, 'that's just what I can't face? And won't face? The idea that somebody, anybody, could hate you as much as that is the most terrifying thing of all. I don't even want to hear about it!' ' Lord Ashe reflected.

'Of course, if Dr Fell has by any chance some notion of how and why this extraordinary locked-room crime was committed-?'

'Oh, yes,' said Dr Fell apologetically. 'I think I might manage that, if I hear one or two answers I expect.'

A sense of new danger, hidden danger, darted along Dick Markham's nerves.

Turning round half a second before, he surprised between Dr Fell and Superintendent Hadley a kind of pantomime communication. It was only a raising of eyebrows, a sketched motion of lips; yet it vanished instantly, and he had no idea of its meaning. Hitherto he had regarded both Dr Fell and Hadley as allies, as helpers, here to tear away phantom dangers. No doubt they still were allies. At the same time...

Dr Fell frowned.

'You understand, don't you,' he asked, 'the most important consideration in this case?'

CHAPTER 15

IT was late in the afternoon, outside the evil-looking cottage in Gallows Lane, when Dr Fell asked that same question again.

After lunch at Ashe Hall, Dr Fell and Hadley and Dick Markham made a little tour of the village. Dick had wanted to go home with Lesley, but Dr Fell would not hear of this. He seemed interested in meeting as many persons as possible.

No word had as yet slipped out that the dead man was not Sir Harvey Gilman, or that the police had any reason to suspect anything but suicide. You could almost feel the lure of the trap, the invitation of the deadfall, the whistling summons to a murderer. Faces of bursting curiosity were directed towards them, though only the averted eye asked a question. Dick had never felt more uncomfortable in his life.

And they met many people.

An attempt to interview Cynthia Drew was frustrated by Cynthia's mother, a sad little woman who pointedly refrained from speaking to Dick Markham. Cynthia, she explained, had sustained a bad fall on some stone steps, bruising her temple. She was in no condition to see anyone; nor should anyone expect - raising of eyebrows here - to see her.

But they encountered Major Price coming out of his office. They were introduced to Earnshaw making some purchases at the post office. Dr Fell bought chocolate cigars as well as real ones at the sweet-and-tobacconist's; he exchanged views on church architecture with the Rev. Mr Goodflower; he visited the saloon-bar of the 'Griffin and Ash-Tree' in order to lower several pints before closing-time.

The low, yellow-blazing sun lay behind the village before they turned back again towards Gallows Lane. Passing Lesley's house, Dick remembered her last words to him. 'You will come to dinner to-night, just as we planned?' and his agreement with some fervency. He looked for her face at a window, and didn't see it. Instead he presently saw, looming ahead beside a darkling orchard, the low-pitched black-and-white cottage with the defaced windows.

The body of Sam De Villa, alias Sir Harvey Gilman, had long ago been removed to the mortuary at Hawkstone. Bert Miller the constable now patiently stood guard in the front garden. Hadley addressed him as soon as they were within hailing distance.

'Any post-mortem report ?'

'No, sir. They've promised to phone when there is one.' 'Any luck with tracing that telephone-call ?' Bert Miller required to have things explained. His large face was impassive under its imposing helmet. 'Which telephone-call, sir?' Hadley looked at him.

'An anonymous telephone-call,' he said, 'was put through to Mr Markham at his cottage very early this morning, asking him to come here in a hurry. You remember that ?'

'Yes, sir.'

' Have they traced that call ?' 'Yes, sir. It was put through from this cottage.' 'From this cottage, eh?' repeated Hadley, and glanced at Dr Fell.

'From the phone in there,' explained Miller, nodding towards the open hall door behind him, 'at two minutes past five in the morning. Exchange said so.'

Again Hadley glanced at Dr Fell

'I suppose you're going to say,' he remarked dryly, 'you anticipated that?'

'Dash it all, Hadley!' Dr Fell complained querulously. 'I am not trying to stand here like a high-priest of hocus-pocus, making mesmeric passes over a crystal as Sam De Villa did. But certain things do emerge because they can't help emerging. You understand, don't you, the most important consideration in this case ?'

Hadley remained discreetly silent

'Look here, sir,' said Dick. 'You asked that question once before. Then, when we tried to answer you, you never supplied your own answer at all. What is it?'

'The most important consideration, in my humble opinion,' said Dr Fell, 'is how Sam De Villa spent the last six hours of his life.'

Dick, who had been expecting something else altogether, stared at him.

'You took leave of him here,' pursued Dr Fell, 'at about eleven o'clock last night. Good! You found him dead - very recently dead - at about twenty minutes past five this morning. Good! How did he spend the interval, then? Let us see.'

Dr Fell lumbered up the two stone steps into the little front hall. But he did not go into the sitting-room, for the moment at least. He stood turning round and round in the hall, with majestic slowness suggesting a battleship at manoeuvres, while his vacant eye wandered.

'Sitting-room on the left.' He pointed. 'Dining-room across the passage on the right' He pointed. 'Back-kitchen and scullery at the rear.' He pointed again. 'I had a look at all of 'em while I was waiting here this morning. Including, by the way, a look at the electric meter in the scullery.' Dr Fell brushed at his moustache, and then addressed Dick again. 'When you left him at eleven o'clock, De Villa said he intended to go to bed ?'

‘Yes.'

'And presumably he did go to bed,' argued Dr Fell, 'since Lord Ashe called here shortly afterwards to see how the wounded man was getting on, and found the place all dark. Lord Ashe told you that, didn't he?'

'Yes.'

' I didn't go upstairs this morning. But it's worth a try now.'

The staircase was a narrow affair with heavy balustrades and a sharp right-angled turn. It led them into the low-ceilinged upper floor. Here, where a shingled roof pressed down with a thick blanket of heat, they found two good-sized front bedrooms as well as a tiny back bedroom and a bathroom. It was the front bedroom just over the sitting-room which showed signs of occupancy.

Dr Fell pushed open a close-fitting door with a latch, which creaked and scraped along the bare floor. Two windows, in the sloping wall facing the lane, admitted late afternoon light to which the shade of the birch-coppice opposite gave a muddy reddish tinge.

The room's furnishings were as austere as its white-plaster walls. A single bed, a chest-of-drawers with mirror, an oak wardrobe, a straight chair, and one or two small rugs on the floor. The room smelt fusty in spite of its open windows; it spoke of haste and untidiness. The bed had been slept in, its bedclothes now thrown back as though the occupant had got up hastily.

So much they noticed in the litter of personal belongings - loose collars, toilet-articles, books, a plaited dressing-gown-cord - which overflowed from two big suit-cases not yet quite unpacked.