Till Death Do Us Part

' Bibles!' exclaimed Lord Ashe.

They all stared at him.

' I beg your pardon, gentlemen,' said Lord Ashe, shifting in the creaky chair, 'but I told our young friend this morning that the fellow reminded me of a man who was here long ago selling Bibles. You mean this was the - er -criminal figure you call Sam ?'

Hadley nodded.

'Always a good device, Bibles,' he declared. 'It gives the salesman access to the family Bible and to family history, if anybody's willing to talk.'

Dr Fell, whose several chins were propped over his collar while he stared at the floor, appeared vaguely disturbed. Internal rumblings disturbed his bandit's moustache.

'I say, Hadley,' he muttered, 'I'm rather curious to know, in fact I want very much to know, whether he visited any other house at Six Ashes except this one.'

' I imagine he had a good thorough round of it,' the Superintendent said grimly. 'It accounts for his great success as a fortune-teller. Naturally he consented to do that. Sam had what he called a sense of humour -'

'God damn his sense of humour,' said Dick Markham, with quiet sincerity.

There was an uncomfortable silence.

Hadley's voice grew quiet

'I know, Mr Markham. I know!' Hadley smiled as though he had gone a trifle too far. 'But you've got to understand that these gentry will use anything, any weapon at all, when they think they can bring off a good haul. The garden-party gave him a heaven-sent opportunity to upset Miss Grant, and, consequently, upset you in preparation for his plan.'

' What did he actually say to her, by the way ?'

Hadley grunted, continuing his wry friendly smile.

' Can't you guess, Mr Markham ?'

'References,' said Dick, 'to the fact that he, the great fortune-teller, knew all about her past life? And her mother's past life?'

'That's it. With the practical certainty, you see, that she wouldn't tell you: at least, not yet. He was a great psychologist, Sam was.' 'A great psychologist. Yes.'

'Which,' Hadley pointed out, 'put you in the position to be upset by the hint of even more sinister secrets. Oh, yes. He couldn't know an accident would play into his hands when that rifle went off. But he used that too, with smacking good effect.

' I don't think there's much more to tell you, Mr Markham. His whole game, the story about the terrible poisoner and the diary or poison or something locked up in a safe, was to get that safe open. And how to do that? Easy! He told you, if I've got the story straight from Dr Fell, that he wanted to be present unseen while you had dinner with Miss Grant? And that he was very anxious to see what was in the safe?'

'Yes.'

'And that he would give you his 'final instructions' about it next morning ?'

'Yes. Those were the exact words.'

Again Hadley lifted his shoulders.

'You were to get the combination of the safe for him,' the Superintendent said. 'The combination of that impregnable safe. He'd have told you that this morning - if he'd been alive.'

' Wait a minute! Do you think Lesley would have... ?'

'Given you the combination? You know ruddy well she would have, if you pressed her! She meant to tell you about the whole thing, anyway, at this dinner she projected for to-night.'

Words floated back to him, words which Lesley had spoken in his own cottage the night before:' I want everything to be perfect to-morrow. Because I've got something to tell you. And I've got something to show you.' He saw her sitting in the lamplight, stung and brooding.)

'But would you have believed anything she'd told you, by that time?'

'No. I suppose not'

(He was glad Lesley wasn't here, now.)

'You'd have got that combination during the day. And while you were at dinner, Sam would have cleaned out the safe and quietly faded away. That's all there is to it, Mr Markham. Only -'

' Only,' interposed Dr Fell,' somebody murdered him.'

CHAPTER 14

THE words fell with a heavy chilling weight.

And the cautious Hadley, thrusting out his jaw, made formal protest.

'Stop a bit, Fell! We can't say for certain this is murder. Not at the present stage of the game.'

' Oh, my boy! What do you mink ?'

'And I, perhaps,' interposed Lord Ashe, 'can answer one of your questions now.'

Both Hadley and Dr Fell, surprised, turned to look at him. Lord Ashe, who was again weighing the gold ruby-studded collar in his hand, made a deprecating noise as though warning them not to expect too much.

'You were asking a while ago,' he said, 'whether this fraudulent Bible-salesman visited any other house except mine. The matter is hardly very important. But I can tell you. He didn't I made inquiries about him.'

' So!' muttered Dr Fell.' So!'

Hadley regarded him suspiciously - the doctor's scatter-brain had been having this effect on his friend for twenty-five years - though Hadley said nothing.

'But surely, gentlemen!' protested Lord Ashe, putting down the gold collar. 'Come, now! You make use of the word 'murder'?'

'I use it,' affirmed Dr Fell

'For myself, I know little of such matters,' said Lord Ashe. 'Though I used to read those novels of the gentleman who wrote them over the weekend, about mysterious deaths in ancestral mansions. But surely now!

As I understand it, this man De Villa died of poison in a room with the doors and windows locked up on the inside.'

'Yes,' agreed Dr Fell. 'That,' he added, 'is why I must repeat that the centre of the whole plot, apparently, is Miss Lesley Grant.'

'Wait a minute, please!' urged Dick, and appealed to Lord Ashe. 'You say, sir, that Lesley came here this morning, and threw those jewels at you, and poured out this story about her mother ?'

' Yes. Rather to my discomfort'

'Why did she do it, sir?'

Lord Ashe looked bewildered.

'Because, apparently, little Cynthia Drew had come to her and accused her of being a poisoner.'

Lesley herself slipped into the room now, closing the green-baize door softly after her. Though outwardly composed, she was clearly nerving herself to meet this interview. She stood at the corner of the windows, her back to the light, and faced them.

'You'd better let me answer that,' she said. 'Though I loathe telling it!' A little curving smile, the smile Dick Markham found so irresistible, flashed round her lips and was gone in concern. 'It's all right, Dick,' she added. 'I'll - I'll talk to you about it later. But it was rather dreadful for me.'

'Cynthia?'

'Yes! She turned up in my room this morning. Heaven knows how she got there, but she was trying to open the safe.'

' I’ve - er - heard about it'

Lesley's arms were straight down at her sides, her breast heaving.

'Cynthia said to me, ' I want to know what's in this safe. And I mean to find out before I leave here.' I asked her what she was talking about. She said, 'That's where you keep the poison, isn't it? The poison you used on those three men who were in love with you before ? '

'Well!' cried Lesley helplessly, and turned out her hands. 'Steady, now!'

' I ‘d been thinking,' she went on, ' that the whole village must be saying or at least imagining some terrible