John Carr - Till Death Do Us Part

'But you distinctly said -'

'I said,' Dr Fell raised his big voice, 'I said we must consider the evidence. I said that, if we did consider the evidence, this was die conclusion to which we must come. I challenged Hadley to cite any other conclusion from the facts as presented to us.'

'Well? What's the difference? That's the same thing, isn't it?'

'But I also said, if you remember,' Dr Fell observed gently, 'that it took a bit of believing.'

The whole weird, unnatural situation had begun to turn Dick Markham's nerves.

'What is all this?' he demanded. 'What are you leading up to?'

'I asked him,' said Lesley, 'I asked him the same thing this morning!' ' Laura Feathers is shot,’ said Dick.' You ring the door-bell.

1 tell you there's a murderer in the house - I tell you I've seen the murderer run in here - and I expect at least you'll want to do something about it Instead you say you'd rather sit down and talk a bit. May I repeat that there's a murderer in the house?' ' Is there ?' asked Dr Fell.

And now Dick noticed something which made the roots of his scalp stir. Dr Fell, in the doctor's own heavy way, was no less strung-up, no less poised and tense, than he was himself. Dick had a nervous sensation that something moved, something lurked in ambush: that, any moment now, the whole case might turn upside down again with the most appalling crash yet

'At risk of perhaps deserved assault and battery' - Dr Fell's voice seemed to come from far away - ' I should like to try your patience a little further.'

'Why should you do that?'

'Because I'm waiting for something.'

'You're waiting for what?'

Dr Fell ignored the question.

'A moment ago,' he continued, 'you made some precise and accurate deductions from the post office trap and its ugly sequel. Have you made any other deductions?'

Dick's throat felt dry.

'I think I've found out how an electric light can be made to go on in a room when the room's locked up on the inside.' He related the incident at his own cottage. 'Is that true too, Doctor?'

'Oh, yes,' returned Dr Fell, blinking at him with refreshed interest. 'Whang in the gold once more. But, come now!' He rapped the ferrule of his cane on the floor. 'If you get that far, isn't it possible to spur just a little farther and see the truth - the whole truth - about the murder of Sam De Villa?'

'No!'

'Why not?'

'Because the room remains locked up on the inside, whoever puts a shilling in the electric meter outside it!'

'True, of course. And yet...' Dr Fell's manner became vague. He puffed out his cheeks. 'What,’ he asked in an off-handed way, 'did you make of the row yesterday between Mr Earnshaw and Major Price?'

'Does that business matter, sir?'

'As evidence, no. As an interesting lead, yes. I think it does.'

Dick shook his head.

'I've heard that there was a row between Bill and Major Price at the shooting-range, because the major played a joke on Bill. But I haven't even heard what it was about.'

‘I have,' said Dr Fell. 'From Lord Ashe. I heard some very interesting things from Lord Ashe. Mr Earnshaw, I believe, rather fancies himself as a crack shot?'

'Yes, that's right.'

'He arrived at the shooting-range early yesterday afternoon, to show off his prowess before Mrs Earnshaw and a group of other ladies.' Dr Fell scratched the side of his nose. ' Major Price, with a very grave face, handed him a rifle loaded with blank cartridges. Mr Earnshaw blazed away six times at the target without scoring a hit on any part of it.'

Dr Fell eyed the floor as he went on:

'Major Price said, "Bad luck, my dear chap; you're off your form to-day." It was several minutes before Mr Earnshaw tumbled to the joke. And he didn't like it a bit. It was some time afterwards, you recall, that Mr Earnshaw accused Major Price of stealing the Winchester 61 rifle from the range - whereas the major intimated that the thief must have been Mr Earnshaw. Don't you find something rather suggestive in all that ?'

'No. I can't say I do. It's the sort of joke Major Price is always playing.'

'So!'said Dr Fell.

'But, if you're on the subject of Bill Earnshaw, it seems to me he made die most intelligent suggestion so far with regard to the locked room. I tried to sketch it out to you

this morning, but you didn't seem to pay much attention toil.'

'Forgive my scatterbrain,' apologized Dr Fell. 'What was the suggestion?' Dick waved his fists in the air.

' Who fired that damned rifle at Sam De Villa, at very nearly the same lime Sam was poisoned?' he demanded. 'Bill suggested -and I agree with him - that, aside from the actual murderer, the person who fired the rifle is the most important figure in the case. Don't you agree?’

' In a way. Yes.'

'The marksman,' persisted Dick, 'could see into that room. He had a clear view of what went on in that sitting-room. All right! But you haven't tried to find out who he was, you haven't asked a question about him, you don't even seem to have any curiosity concerning him!'

Dr Fell raised a hand and called for silence.

'Now there,' he pointed with satisfaction, 'we have the crux of the whole matter. There we see the point at which the light went out, figuratively speaking. There we have the place at which a cloud of obfuscation (pray excuse me if I sound like a leading article in The Times), a cloud of obfuscation misted the wits of all detectives, and sent them hareing off in the wrong direction.'

He pointed at Dick with his cane.

'You say to me, "This is gross negligence. Why don't you try to find that marksman with the rifle, as well as trying to find the murderer?" Very good! Yes! But I can reply, with my hand on my heart, that this would be a waste of effort.'

Dick stared at him.

'A waste of effort? Why?'

'Because the marksman with the rifle, and the poisoner who killed De Villa with prussic acid, are one and the same person.'

Again the summons of the front door-bell shrilled out strongly, from the buzzer over their heads. Dick's own head was spinning. Dr Fell's words seemed quite literally to make no sense. He had a mad vision -derived from the cheaper thrillers, where anything is possible - of the murderer firing at Sam De Villa some fantastic bullet containing a hypodermic injection of prussic acid to pierce the victim's arm.

Again the door-bell shrilled. Lesley hastened to answer it; and, though Dick had meant to seize her arm and restrain her, she got away from him. From the corner of his eye he saw, as Lesley opened the front door, that the visitor was only Superintendent Hadley, and he could relax his vigilance. For he was blindly obsessed now, concentrated on Dr Fell, trying to grope closer to an explanation which he sensed as there yet always eluding him.

'Let's get this quite straight!' Dick pleaded. 'You say that the murderer ...'

Dr Fell spoke with toiling patience.

'The murderer,' he said, 'killed Sam de Villa by injecting a hypodermic of prussic acid into his arm.'

'In the sitting-room?'

'Yes. In the sitting-room.'

'And then?'

'Then the murderer slipped out of the sitting-room ...' 'Leaving the room all locked up behind him?' 'Yes. Leaving the room all locked up.' 'But how?'

'We're coming to that,' said Dr Fell imperturbably. 'I ask you merely to follow this elusive person's movements. The murderer injected the prussic acid, which would render De Villa unconscious almost at once but would take two minutes or more to render life extinct. The murderer then left the room -'

(Windows locked. Door locked and bolted.)

'- and put through a phone call to you, summoning you there, from the telephone outside in the hall. The murderer waited until you were on your way, and dropped a shilling into the electric meter: thus turning on the light in the sitting-room.