Till Death Do Us Part

' I believe the story, yes. But if there's been some mistake ... if it isn't Lesley at all...!'

' Would you credit the evidence of finger-prints ?'

'Yes. I'd be bound to.'

'But, even granting that, you still don't believe she would try to poison you?' 'No, I don't'

'Why not? Do you think she would make an exception in your case?' No reply.

'Do you think she's really fallen in love at long last?' No reply.

' Even supposing she has, do you still want to marry her ?'

Dick got up from his chair. He wanted to lash out with his fist at the air; to shut away from his ears the voice that was crowding him into a corner, making him face facts, cutting away each alternative as he seized at it.

'You can adopt,' pursued the other, 'one of two courses. The first, I see, has already suggested itself to you. You want to have this thing out with her, don't you?'

'Naturally!'

'Very well. There's a telephone out in the hall. Ring her up, ask her if its true, and pray she'll deny it. Of course she will deny it. Your common sense, if you have any left, must tell you that. Which leaves you exactly where you were in the first place.'

'What's the other course?.'

Sir Harvey Gilman paused in his tentative pacing behind the easy-chair. His scrawny neck seemed to emerge, like a turtle's, from the collar of the ancient dressing-gown and pyjamas. He tapped his forefinger on the back of the chair.

'You can set a trap,' he answered simply.'You can discover for yourself what sort of person she is. And I can discover just how the devil she manages to commit these murders.'

CHAPTER 5

DICK sat down again. He had more than a vague idea of the trend this conversation was taking now.

' What sort of trap ?' he demanded.

'To-morrow night,' said Sir Harvey, 'you are having dinner with the lady at her house. Is that correct?'

'Yes.'

'As a sort of celebration of your engagement? Just as Martin Belford had dinner with her a few hours before he died?'

A sensation of physical coldness crept into Dick's stomach. It was not fear: fear was too absurd an emotion to consider in relation to Lesley. But it wouldn't go away.

'Look here, sir! You don't think I'm going to go home afterwards, and lock myself up in a room, and be found dead next morning of prussic-acid poisoning ? ‘

'Yes, young man. I do.'

'You expect me to kill myself?'

'That, at least, will be the effect.'

'But why? Because of something that will be said or done or suggested at this dinner?'

'Very probably. Yes.'

' What, for instance?'

'I don't know,' returned Sir Harvey, spreading out his hands. 'That's why I want to be there and see for myself.'

He was silent for a moment, pondering courses.

'Please observe,' he went on, 'that for the first time we're in a position to see for ourselves. Deductions will get us nowhere; Gideon Fell found that out; we must use our eyes. And there's just one other thing we can use our eyes on. Now tell me something you must have discovered about 'Lesley Grant'.' Again Sir Harvey pointed his finger. 'She doesn't like jewellery, does she?'

Dick reflected.

‘Yes, that's true.’

‘And doesn't own any? And, furthermore, never keeps large sums of money in die house?' 'No. Never.'

'We now come to something which didn't emerge fully until the death of the third victim. When she married Foster, the American lawyer, somebody installed in their bedroom a small but very efficient wall-safe. When she married Davies, the Liverpool broker, a wall-safe was installed in their house too. In each case she explained it was her husband's idea, to use for business papers. There seemed nothing suspicious about that.

'But,' added Sir Harvey with extraordinary intensity, 'when she was living alone, on her own, in the Avenue Foch in Paris, a similar type of safe turned up there too.'

'Meaning what?'

'She doesn't own jewellery. She doesn't keep money in the house. Then what does she want with a burglar-proof little safe? What does she keep in this safe, which is never examined until after the murder?'

Cloudy guesses, all unformed but all unpleasant, drifted through Dick Markham's mind.

'What do you suggest, sir?'

He tried to keep his face straight, he tried to avoid Sir Harvey's very sharp eye. Yet, as usual, this dry old devil fastened on his thoughts rather than his spoken words.

'There's a safe like that in her house now, young man. Isn't there?'

'Yes, there is. I happen to know, because the maid commented on it.' Dick hesitated.' Lesley only laughed, and said that was where she kept her diary.'

He paused, his mind stumbling over what seemed the ugliest implication of them all.

' Her diary,' he repeated.' But that's -!'

'Will you please face the fact,' said Sir Harvey, 'that this girl isn't normal? That the poisoner has got to confide in someone or something, and that it usually is a diary? All the same, I should expect to find something besides that.

No poison, you recall, was ever traced to her. Not even a hypodermic syringe. It may be that. Or it may be...' ·Well?'

'Something even more unpleasant,' replied Sir Harvey, and his mouth had an odd expression as he stared into vacancy. 'Yes. Something even more unpleasant. Gideon Fell once said -'

There was an interruption.

'I heard at the pub to-day,' suddenly observed Dr Middlesworth, taking the still-empty pipe out of his mouth, 'that Dr Fell is spending the summer at Hastings. He's got a cottage there.'

It was as though a piece of furniture had spoken. Sir Harvey, ruffled, glanced round in some irritation. Middlesworth, continuing to draw at the empty pipe, kept meditative eyes fixed on the lamp.

'Gideon Fell near here?' said Sir Harvey, with a mood changing to one of lively satisfaction. 'Then we must have him in. Because Hadley consulted him after the Davies case, and these locked rooms utterly beat him. Whereas we, you see, shall proceed to unlock the room...'

' With my help ?' Dick asked bitterly.

'Yes. With your help.'

'And what if I won't do it ? ‘

'I think you'll do it Miss Lesley Grant, so-called, thinks I'm in a coma and dying. So I can't have betrayed her. Don't you begin to follow the scheme?'

'Oh, yes. I follow if

'She's being a fool, of course. But she must play with this bright shiny wonderful toy called murder by poison. It's got her. She's obsessed. That's why she took the risk of shooting at me, and trusting to innocent eyes and general gullibility to have it called an accident. All her preparations are made for somebody's death. And she won't be cheated of the thrill.'

Sir Harvey tapped one finger on the edge of the writing-table.

'You, Mr. Markham, will go to this dinner. You will do whatever she tells you, and accept whatever she tells you. I shall be in the next room, listening. With your assistance, we shall find out what she keeps in this famous hiding-place. And, when we do discover how a not-very clever lady has managed to beat the police of two nations ...'

'Excuse me' interrupted Dr Middlesworth again.

Both the others jumped a little.