Till Death Do Us Part

drawing-pins lay on the floor beside the easy-chair.

Hadley, who had already said some powerful, realistic words to Dick on the subject of touching exhibits and interfering with evidence, did not comment except by a significant look. And Dr Fell did not comment at all. Folding his arms, the doctor set his back to the wall between the two windows. On one side of him was the bullet-hole in the lower pane, on the other side an empty window-frame with shattered glass lying strewn beneath. Outside the windows loomed the helmet of Bert Miller, endlessly passing and repassing as the constable paced.

' Mr Markham,' began Dr Fell, with such fiery earnestness that Dick felt a few qualms, 'if ever in your life you concentrated, I want you to concentrate now.'

'On what?’

' On what you saw this morning.'

It required no effort of concentration. Dick wondered if that infernal odour of bitter almonds would ever fade, even weeks afterwards, so that images did not pop up from corners of the sitting-room.

'Listen, sir! Let's get one thing straight first. Do you think I'm lying to you ?'

'Why should I think that?'

'Because everybody, from Miller out there to Superintendent Hadley and Lord Ashe, seems to think I must have been lying or eke dreaming. I tell you, those windows were locked on the inside! And the door was locked and bolted on the inside: Do you doubt that?'

' Oh, no,' said Dr Fell.' I don't doubt it.'

'Yet the murderer did get - what's the word I want? -did get his physical body in and out of this room in order to kill Dc Villa? In spite of the locked door and windows?'

'Yes,'said Dr Fell.

Across the line of the windows passed Miller's figure, like a shadow of the law.

Superintendent Hadley, hitching up the easy-chair to the writing-table, sat down where the dead man had sat, and got out his notebook. Dr Fell added:

' I mean that, Hadley. I mean quite literally that.'

1 Go on!' said Hadley.

'Let's begin,' growled Dr Fell, holding his folded arms more tightly, 'with this mysterious telephone-call at two minutes past five. You've heard, now, that the call came from this house?'

‘Yes.'

'It couldn't, for instance, have been De Villa's voice speaking?'

' It might have been, yes. I can't say whose voice it was. It whispered.'

'Yet it did convey' - Dr Fell tilted up his chin, squaring himself - 'an impression of urgency ?' 'Of very great urgency. Yes.'

'Right. You ran out of your cottage, and along the lane. When you were still some distance from this house, you saw a light switched on in this sitting-room.'

Dr Fell paused, with cross-eyed concentration behind his eyeglasses. 'How far were you away when you saw that light?'

Dick considered.

'A little over a hundred yards, I should say.'

' So you couldn't actually see into this room at that time ?'

'Lord, no! Nothing like that! I was too far away. I just saw the light shine out when the sky was still pretty dark.'

Without a word Superintendent Hadley got to his feet. The only light in the room was the bright tan-shaded hanging lamp over the writing-table. Its switch was in the wall beside the door to the hall. Hadley walked over to this; he clicked the switch down, and then up again, so that the lamp flashed on and off; afterwards, still without a word, he returned to his notebook at the writing-table.

Dr Fell cleared his throat.

'You then,' he resumed, 'walked more slowly along the lane? Yes! A little later, I understand, you saw this .22 rifle poked over the wall? Yes. How far were you away when you saw that?'

Again Dick reflected.

'Well... say thirty yards. Perhaps less.'

'So you still couldn't see into this room here?'

'No. Naturally not.'

'But you distinctly saw the rifle?'

'Yes.'

' You even' - Dr Fell reached out with his right hand and tapped the window-glass - 'you even made out the bullet-hole when, to use your expressive phrase to the constable, it 'jumped up in the window-pane' ?'

Dick gestured helplessly.

'That's a literary way of putting it, I'm afraid. I was thinking of the fortune-teller's tent. But that's exactly what it amounts to. I was watching the rifle; I saw it fired; and even at that distance I could make out the bullet- hole.'

'You've got long eyesight, I take it?'

'Very long eyesight. Yesterday, for instance, when I was target-shooting at Major Price's range, I could tell exactly where my hits were scored without having the target drawn in to the counter.'

Superintendent Hadley intervened.

'If you're thinking there's any flummery about that bullet-hole,' he said, 'you can wash it out. Purvis's people have verified everything: angle of fire, force of projectile, damage to window. And,' he nodded towards the shattered picture over the fireplace, 'checked the bullet they dug out of the wall. It was fired from that rifle, and no other rifle.'

Dr Fell slowly turned a red face.

' My God, Hadley,' he said, with a sudden and far-from-characteristic burst of anger which startled Hadley almost as much as it startled Dick, 'will you please allow me to handle this witness in my own way?'

His face grew even more fiery.

'You, sir, are a superintendent of Metropolitan Police. I am very much at your service. I am merely your consultant on theoutre; or, to put it in a less high-falutin way, the old guy whom you drag in during peculiar, not so loony, cases of this kind. You have done me the honour of consulting me now in a case which we both believe to be murder. May I ask my own questions, sir, or may I not?'

Outside the windows, the moving helmet of Bert Miller stopped for a fraction of a second before Miller resumed his pacing. Not for -nothing had Dick, when he related the story to Miller that morning, insisted on suicide with such a wealth of detail that the constable dreamed of no other contingency. This was the first time Miller had heard mention of the word murder from his superior officers.

But Dick hardly noticed this now; it was swept away by the extraordinary violence of Dr Fell's outburst.

' Sorry if I've stepped on your toes,' Hadley said mildly. ' Carry on.'

'Harrumph! Ha! Very well.' Dr Fell adjusted his eyeglasses, drawing the air through his nostrils with a long challenging sound. 'On hearing the shot, Mr Markham, you ran forward again?'

‘Yes.'

'And met Miss Cynthia Drew in the lane?' 'That's right.'

'How was it, with your long eyesight, that you hadn't seen her before?'

' Because,' answered Dick,' the sun was smack in my eyes. Straight down the lane, and she was coming from the east I could see things on either side, but not in the lane itself.'

'H'm, yes. That accounts for it. What explanation did Miss Drew give for her presence in the lane at that hour?'

'Look here, sir! You don't think - ?'

'What explanation,' Dr Fell repeated gently, 'did Miss Drew give for her presence in the lane at that hour?'

Outside, in the hall, the telephone began to ring shrilly.

It made each of these three men, each with his own separate thoughts, start a little to hear that clamouring bell. Was this, Dick wondered, the communication Dr Fell expected? Was the murderer - behind a bland friendly countenance of all the bland friendly countenances at Six Ashes - ringing up to whisper more hatred against Lesley