John Carr: Till Death Do Us Part

'Weren't you there?'

'No. But they say he's dying.'

On the point of speaking, Dick checked himself.

'They say there was an accident,' Cynthia continued. 'And Sir Harvey was shot near the heart. And Major Price and Dr Middlesworth picked him up and got him into a car and drove him down here. Poor Dick!'

' Why are you pitying me?'

Cynthia pressed her hands together.

'Lesley's a dear girl' - she spoke with such obvious and earnest sincerity that he could not doubt her - 'but- you shouldn't have given her that rifle. Really you shouldn't 1 She doesn't know how to deal with practical things. Major Price says Sir Harvey's in a coma and dying. Have you heard anything more from the doctor ?'

'Well-no.'

·Everybody is dreadfully upset Mrs Middlesworth says it only goes to show we shouldn't have had a shooting-range. Mrs Price took her up rather sharply, especially as the major was in charge of it. But it does seem a pity: the padre says we collected well over a hundred pounds from the whole bazaar. And people are starting the most absurd rumours.'

Cynthia was standing by the typewriter-desk, picking up scattered books only to put them down again, and talking breathlessly. She meant so well, Dick thought; she was so infernally straightforward and friendly and likeable. Yet one problem, the problem of Sir Harvey Gilman, scratched at his nerves as Cynthia's voice was beginning to scratch.

'Look here, Cynthia. I'm sorry, but I've got to go out’

'Nobody has seen Lord Ashe to ask him'what he thinks. But then we so seldom do see him, do we? By the way, why does Lord Ashe always look so oddly at poor Lesley, on the few occasions when he has seen her? Lady Ashe ...' Cynthia broke off, waking up. ‘ What did you say, Dick ?'

‘I've got to go out now.' 'To see Lesley? Of course!'

'No. To see what's happening down at the other cottage. The doctor wants to speak to me.'

Cynthia was instantly helpful. 'I'll go with you, Dick. Anything at all I can do to help -' .

' I tellyou, Cynthia. I've got to go alone!'

It was as though he had hit her in the face.

A complete swine, now. Well, let it go.

After a brief silence Cynthia laughed: the same deprecating laugh, slurring things over, he had heard her give on a tennis-court when somebody lost his temper and flung down a racket with intent to break it. She regarded him soberly, the blue eyes concerned.

' You're so temperamental, Dick,' she said fondly.

‘I'm not temperamental, curse it! It's only...'

'All writers are, I suppose. One expects it.' She dismissed the idiosyncrasy as a matter she did not understand.

' But - funny, isn't it? - one doesn't associate it with a person like you. I mean, an outdoor person, and a fine cricketer, and all that. I mean - oh, dear! There I go again! I must be pushing off.' She looked at him steadily. With colour under the blue eyes, her placid face became almost beautiful.

'But you can count on me, old boy,' she added.

Then she was gone.

It was too late to apologize now. The villain of the piece waited until she had time to get well away towards the village. Then he left the house himself.

In front of his cottage a broad country lane ran east and west, curving among trees and open fields. On one side of the lane ran the low stone wall which bounded the park of Ashe Hall; on the opposite side, set something over a hundred yards apart, were three cottages.

The first was Dick Markham's. The second stood untenanted. The third, farthest east, had been rented furnished by their enigmatic newcomer. They were intriguing to visitors, these cottages in Gallows Lane. Each stood well back from the road, and made up in picturesqueness for its shilling-in-the slot electric meter and lack of main drainage.

As Dick emerged into the lane, he could faintly hear the church clock to the west striking ten. The lane swam in dusky light, though it seemed less dark than the print of bright stars overhead, which you saw as though from a well. Night-scents and night-noises took on a peculiar -distinctness here. By the time Dick reached the last cottage, he was running blindly.

Dark.

Or almost dark.

Across the road from the Pope cottage, a thick coppice of birch-trees pressed up close inside the boundary wall of the park. Close beside the cottage itself, bounding the lane for some distance eastward, stretched a fruit-orchard. It was a dusky place even by day, damp and wasp-haunted. By night Dick, could see nothing of the cottage except chinks of light showing through imperfectly drawn curtains on two windows facing the road.

He must have been heard or seen stumbling across the front garden. Dr Middlesworth opened the front door and admitted him into a modern-looking hall.

'Listen,' the doctor began without preamble. He spoke in his customary mild tone, but he meant it. 'I can't go on with this pretence. It's not fair asking me to.'

' What pretence ? How badly is the old boy hurt ?'

' That's just the point. He's not hurt at all.'

Dick closed the front door with a soft bang, and whirled round. '

' He fainted from shock,' Dr Middlesworth went on to explain, 'so of course everybody thought he was dying or dead. I couldn't be sure myself until I'd got him here and used the probe. But, unless you get a direct head or heart wound, a bullet from a .22 target-rifle isn't usually very dangerous.'

A faint twinkle of amusement showed in the mild eyes under the lined forehead. Dr Middlesworth put up a hand and rubbed his forehead.

'When I extracted the bullet, he woke up and yelled bloody murder. That rather surprised Major Price. The major insisted on tagging along, though I tried to keep him away.'

'Well?'

'All Sir Harvey's got is a flesh-wound. He didn't even lose much blood. His back will be sore for a few days; but, barring that, he's as fit as he ever was.'

Dick took some moments to assimilate this.

'Do you know,' he said, 'that Lesley Grant's nearly out of her mind ? She thinks she's killed him ?'

All the amusement died out of Middlesworth's face.

'Yes. I know.'

' Then what's the big idea ?'

'When Major Price left here,' replied the doctor, evading a direct answer, ‘ Sir Harvey made him promise not to say anything. Sir Harvey intimated it would be best to circulate a report that he was in a coma and couldn't last long. Knowing the major, I rather doubt whether the secret will be kept for any length of time.'

Some emotion had startled Hugh Middlesworth almost to volubility.

'Anyway,' he complained, ' I can't keep it. I warned him of that. It's unprofessional. It's unethical. Besides...'

Again, as once before that day, the doctor opened his mouth to say or suggest something, and thought better of it.

'But I keep asking you, Doctor! Why?'

'He wouldn't tell the major. He wouldn't tell me. Maybe he'll tell you. Come along.'

Abruptly Middlesworth stretched out his hand and turned the knob of a door on the left-hand side of the hall, motioning Dick to precede him. It opened into a sitting-room, large though rather low of ceiling, with two front windows facing the lane. In the exact centre of the room was a big writing-table, lighted by a hanging lamp just over it. And, in an arm-chair beside this table, his back out from it so as not to touch the back of the chair, sat the fortune-teller now divested of his raiment.

Sir Harvey Gilman's face was so grim that it swallowed up other impressions. Dick noticed that he wore pyjamas and a dressing-gown. His head, shorn of the turban, was now revealed as bald, above the sceptical eyes and sharp-pointed nose and hard sardonic mouth. He looked Dick up and down.

'Annoyed, Mr Markham ?'

Dick made no reply.

'I rather imagine,' said Sir Harvey, 'that I'm the one to be annoyed.' He arched his back, winced, and shut his lips hard before opening them to continue.