Till Death Do Us Part

didn't see it. Instead he presently saw, looming ahead beside a darkling orchard, the low-pitched black-and-white cottage with the defaced windows.

The body of Sam De Villa, alias Sir Harvey Gilman, had long ago been removed to the mortuary at Hawkstone. Bert Miller the constable now patiently stood guard in the front garden. Hadley addressed him as soon as they were within hailing distance.

'Any post-mortem report ?'

'No, sir. They've promised to phone when there is one.' 'Any luck with tracing that telephone-call ?' Bert Miller required to have things explained. His large face was impassive under its imposing helmet. 'Which telephone-call, sir?' Hadley looked at him.

'An anonymous telephone-call,' he said, 'was put through to Mr Markham at his cottage very early this morning, asking him to come here in a hurry. You remember that ?'

'Yes, sir.'

' Have they traced that call ?' 'Yes, sir. It was put through from this cottage.' 'From this cottage, eh?' repeated Hadley, and glanced at Dr Fell.

'From the phone in there,' explained Miller, nodding towards the open hall door behind him, 'at two minutes past five in the morning. Exchange said so.'

Again Hadley glanced at Dr Fell

'I suppose you're going to say,' he remarked dryly, 'you anticipated that?'

'Dash it all, Hadley!' Dr Fell complained querulously. 'I am not trying to stand here like a high-priest of hocus-pocus, making mesmeric passes over a crystal as Sam De Villa did. But certain things do emerge because they can't help emerging. You understand, don't you, the most important consideration in this case ?'

Hadley remained discreetly silent

'Look here, sir,' said Dick. 'You asked that question once before. Then, when we tried to answer you, you never supplied your own answer at all. What is it?'

'The most important consideration, in my humble opinion,' said Dr Fell, 'is how Sam De Villa spent the last six hours of his life.'

Dick, who had been expecting something else altogether, stared at him.

'You took leave of him here,' pursued Dr Fell, 'at about eleven o'clock last night. Good! You found him dead - very recently dead - at about twenty minutes past five this morning. Good! How did he spend the interval, then? Let us see.'

Dr Fell lumbered up the two stone steps into the little front hall. But he did not go into the sitting-room, for the moment at least. He stood turning round and round in the hall, with majestic slowness suggesting a battleship at manoeuvres, while his vacant eye wandered.

'Sitting-room on the left.' He pointed. 'Dining-room across the passage on the right' He pointed. 'Back- kitchen and scullery at the rear.' He pointed again. 'I had a look at all of 'em while I was waiting here this morning. Including, by the way, a look at the electric meter in the scullery.' Dr Fell brushed at his moustache, and then addressed Dick again. 'When you left him at eleven o'clock, De Villa said he intended to go to bed ?'

‘Yes.'

'And presumably he did go to bed,' argued Dr Fell, 'since Lord Ashe called here shortly afterwards to see how the wounded man was getting on, and found the place all dark. Lord Ashe told you that, didn't he?'

'Yes.'

' I didn't go upstairs this morning. But it's worth a try now.'

The staircase was a narrow affair with heavy balustrades and a sharp right-angled turn. It led them into the low-ceilinged upper floor. Here, where a shingled roof pressed down with a thick blanket of heat, they found two good-sized front bedrooms as well as a tiny back bedroom and a bathroom. It was the front bedroom just over the sitting-room which showed signs of occupancy.

Dr Fell pushed open a close-fitting door with a latch, which creaked and scraped along the bare floor. Two windows, in the sloping wall facing the lane, admitted late afternoon light to which the shade of the birch-coppice opposite gave a muddy reddish tinge.

The room's furnishings were as austere as its white-plaster walls. A single bed, a chest-of-drawers with mirror, an oak wardrobe, a straight chair, and one or two small rugs on the floor. The room smelt fusty in spite of its open windows; it spoke of haste and untidiness. The bed had been slept in, its bedclothes now thrown back as though the occupant had got up hastily.

So much they noticed in the litter of personal belongings - loose collars, toilet-articles, books, a plaited dressing-gown-cord - which overflowed from two big suit-cases not yet quite unpacked.

'He was only camping here, you see,' observed Dr Fell, and pointed with the cane. 'Ready to cut and run as soon as he got the dibs. A perfect scheme nobly executed. And instead of that... Stop a bit 1'

On the floor beside the bed was an ashtray with two or three cigar-stubs. Beside it stood a tumbler partly full of stale, beaded water, and a tiny bottle. Following the doctor's inquiring glance, Hadley picked up the bottle. It contained a few small white pills, and he carried it to the window to read the label.

'Luminal,' said the superintendent 'Quarter-grain tablets.'

'That's all right,' interposed Dick. 'It was mentioned last night that he'd brought some luminal with him. Middlesworth told him he could take a quarter-grain if his back got very painful.'

Dr Fell reflected.

'A quarter-grain? No more?'

'That's what Middlesworth said, anyway.'

'And I rather imagine his wound was paining him ?'

'Like the devil. He wasn't faking about that much, I'll swear.'

'No!' rumbled Dr Fell, shaking his head violently and making a very dismal face. 'No, no, no, no, no! Look here, Hadley. It's not in human nature for De Villa to have been as moderate as that!'

' How do you mean ?'

'Well, suppose you were in that position? Suppose you're a strung-up, imaginative chap, facing a long night with a painful bullet-wound? And you've got plenty of luminal handy. Would you stop short with a modest quarter- grain? Wouldn't you give yourself a thorough-good dose and make sure you went off heavily to sleep ?'

'Yes,' admitted Hadley,' I suppose I would. But -'

'We are trying,' roared Dr Fell, taking a few lumbering strides to and from the door,' to reconstruct the prelude to this crime. And what have we got?'

'Not a hell of a lot, if you want my candid opinion.'

'All the same, follow De Villa's movements. His guests leave him at eleven. He's already in his pyjamas, dressing-gown, and slippers, so he doesn't have to undress. He comes upstairs to this room.'

Here Dr Fell's wandering glance encountered the plaited dressing-gown-cord, which protruded from the suit-case. He stared at it, pulling at his under-lip.

'I say, Hadley. De Villa's body was found this morning in pyjamas and dressing-gown. I didn't notice myself; but do you happen to remember whether the dressing-gown-cord was attached to the dressing-gown?' He looked at Dick. 'What about you, my boy?'

'I don't remember,' Dick confessed.

'Neither do I,' said Hadley. 'But the stuff is at the Hawkstone mortuary now. We can easily ring up and inquire.'

Dr Fell's gesture dismissed the subject.

'Anyway, follow our reconstruction of the dark hours before the murder. De Villa comes up here to bed. He fetches a glass of water. He takes a thorough-good dose of luminal, and sits up in bed to finish a cigar - vide ashtray - while the drug takes effect. And then...'

Hadley snorted derisively.

'And then,' said Hadley, 'he gets up and goes downstairs at five o'clock in the morning?' 'Apparently, yes.' 'But why?'

'That,' Dr Fell said abruptly, 'is what I hope Mr Markham can tell us here and now. Come downstairs.'

The sitting-room below looked far less repulsive when no motionless figure sat at the writing-table. The Hawkstone technical men had already covered the room for photographs and finger-prints. And the hypodermic syringe had been removed, though the .22 rifle still stood propped up by the fireplace and the box of spilled