Till Death Do Us Part

surprising thing. ' I want to be respectable! ‘ she cried out suddenly. ' I do so want to be respectable!'

He essayed a light tone.

'And can't you manage to be respectable?'

'Darling, please don't joke! And then I get involved in this dreadful mess, through no fault of my own.' Again she turned round, with such a yearning of appeal that it destroyed his power to reason. 'But it won't spoil our celebration, will it?'

'You mean - to-morrow night?'

'Yes. Our dinner together.'

'Nothing could keep me away. Will there be any other guests?'

She stared at him.

' You don't want any other guests, do you ? - Dick, what's wrong? Why are you going away from me? In another minute, you know, I shall be getting funny ideas myself.'

' There's nothing wrong! I only ...'

' I want everything to be perfect for us! Everything! And especially, am I being sentimental?) I want everything to be perfect to-morrow. Because I've got something to tell you. And I've got something to show you.'

' Oh ? What have you got to tell me ? ‘

He had taken a cigarette from the box and lighted it And, as he asked this question, the knocker out on the front door began to rap sharply. Lesley uttered an exclamation and sat back.

Dick hardly knew whether to be glad or sorry for the interruption. Probably glad, since the emotional temperature was going up again and for the life of him he could not look away from Lesley's eyes. He could relax, for a moment at least, the fever of concentration on giving nothing away. So he hurried out to the front door, opened it, and blinked in surprise at the visitor who was shifting from one foot to the other on the doormat.

'Er - good evening,' said the visitor. 'Sorry to trouble you at this time of night'

' Not at all, sir. Come in.'

Down by the gate stood a dilapidated Ford, its engine throbbing. The visitor made a sign with his hand to someone inside the Ford, who switched off the motor. Then he entered with an air of some diffidence.

George Converse, Baron Ashe, was the only peer of the realm in Dick's acquaintance. Having frequently met such persons in fiction, however - where they are always haughtily aristocratic, or languidly epigrammatic, or dodderingly futile - Dick found Lord Ashe something of a surprise.

He was a middle-sized wiry man in his early sixties, with iron-grey hair and a pinkish complexion, but a scholarly preoccupied face. You seldom saw him. He was supposed to be compiling an interminable history of his family. His clothes had always a vaguely shabby look, not surprising when you considered his taxes and his chronic state of being hard up. But he could be good company when he chose, or when he did not seem to run down like a clock.

And, as he followed Dick down the passage, Dick was thinking of certain words which Cynthia Drew had used in that very cottage earlier this evening. 'Why does Lord Ashe always look so oddly at poor Lesley, on the few occasions when he has seen her?'

For Lord Ashe stopped abruptly on the threshold of the study, and he was looking oddly at Lesley now. Lesley jumped to her feet,

'H'm, yes,' muttered the visitor. 'Yes, yes, yes!' Then he roused himself, with a courteous bow and smile. 'Miss Grant, isn't it? I - er - thought...' Evidently at a loss, he turned to Dick.' My dear boy, there's the very devil to pay.'

'About what ?' cried Lesley.

'It's perfectly all right, Miss Grant!' Lord Ashe assured her soothingly. 'On my word of honour, there is nothing to worry about But I am rather glad to find you. I - er -didn't expect to find you here.'

'I -1 only dropped in!'

'Yes, yes. Of course.' Again he turned to Dick. 'I've just been down to -' He nodded towards the other cottage. 'I thought it was my duty to go.' Lord Ashe did not seem to relish this duty. 'But the place is all dark, and nobody answered when I knocked.'

·That's all right Sir Harvey's settled in for the night’

Lord Ashe looked surprised.

' But isn't the doctor there ? Or a trained nurse ?'

' No. Dr Middlesworth didn't think it was necessary.'

'But, my dear boy! Is that wise? Still, I suppose Middlesworth knows his business. How is the patient? I -er - I suppose everybody's been bothering you with that question all evening, but I felt I ought to come in and ask.'

. 'The patient,' said Dick, 'is as well as can be expected. What's this about there being the devil to pay?' 'Somebody's stolen a rifle,' answered Lord Ashe. There was a silence.

An evil silence, suggesting a design completed. Taking a spectacle-case from the pocket of his loose tweed coat, Lord Ashe extracted a rimless pince-nez and fitted the pince-nez into place on his nose.

' Please tell me, Miss - er - Grant. After the regrettable accident this afternoon, when the rifle went off by accident, do you happen to remember what you did with that rifle?'

Lesley regarded him wide-eyed.

' I gave it back to Major Price. Anyone can tell you that'

'Yes. Exactly. So everyone agrees. But you don't by any chance recall what happened to the rifle after you gave it to Major Price?'

Lesley shook her head and shivered.

'Major Price,' she replied, 'was collecting up the guns when the storm broke. He had them all in a line on the counter of the shooting-range. After that ghastly thing happened, I -I just threw the rifle at him. I think he put it with the others on the counter. But I'm not sure. I was horribly upset. I asked Dick here to take me home.'

'H'm, yes. Do you happen to remember, my boy?'

Dick tried to focus his mind on that scene of rain and confusion and blowing tents, which seemed so long ago as to be part of another age.

'Yes, that's what happened,' he agreed. 'When Sir Harvey collapsed, I stuck my head out of the tent and called to Major Price and Dr Middlesworth.'

'And then?'

'Bill Earnshaw - that's the bank-manager, you know,' Dick explained, with a hazy notion that Lord Ashe lived so remote from village-life as not to recognize this name -'Bill Earnshaw had just come up. Major Price asked Bill to mind the rifles while the major and Dr Middlesworth carried Sir Harvey to the doctor's car. That's all I can tell you.'

' Exactly,' said Lord Ashe.

'Then what's wrong, sir?' 'Major Price, you see, says that nobody abstracted a rifle while he was there. Mr Earnshaw declares that nobody abstracted a rifle while he was there. Yet the rifle is gone.'

Lesley hesitated.' It wasn't the same rifle as I... ?' 'Yes.'

On the third finger of Lord Ashe's left hand was a small seal ring, dullish and unobtrusive. Dick noticed it as the other lifted a hand to his pince-nez. So did Lesley, who seemed to have grown more flustered than ever since their visitor's entrance. Lord Ashe now played his celebrated trick of running down and trailing off like a gramophone.

' Er - I daresay it's of no importance,' he said at length. The needle had caught its groove; the record revolved again. 'But Major Price and Mr Earnshaw were rather heated about it. I believe the major played some stupid joke on Mr Earnshaw at the shooting-range this afternoon, and suspected Mr Earnshaw of trying - as they say - to get level.

'But it's extraordinary. Most extraordinary! Especially when you consider all the rumours that are going about.'

'What rumours?' asked Lesley. She clenched her hands. ' Please tell me! Are they saying things about me ?'