Till Death Do Us Part

Here Dr Fell smote his fist against his pink forehead.

' I should keep a secretary,' he roared, 'merely to remind me of what I was thinking about two minutes before. Of course! That erect back! That Anthony Eden hat! That polished hair and dental smile 1 When we met him at the post office, you know, I had a vague feeling I'd seen the blighter somewhere before. Absence of mind, my good Hadley...!'

'Well,' said Hadley unsympathetically, 'don't blame me. But, speaking of post offices, doesn't this dish your other scheme?'

'No, not necessarily. At the same time, I would rather have had it work out in a different way.'

The meaning of this reference to die post office - with its temperamental proprietress Miss Laura Feathers, who shouted lectures at you from behind her wire-guarded counter for the smallest postal infringement - was far from clear to Dick.

But every other consideration went out of his mind, was swept away, in his concern for Cynthia Drew.

' Miller!' called Superintendent Hadley.

Outside the window, Bert Miller wheeled round. He looked as though about to say something on his own account, but altered his mind.

'Sir?'

'You can admit both Miss Drew and Mr Earnshaw,' Hadley told him. 'But ' - here he directed a very significant glance at Dr Fell'- I, my friend, will do the questioning of this witness.'

Cynthia, with Earnshaw just behind her, hurried into the room from the hall and stopped dead. The weight of emotional tensity, while Hadley stood looking politely at Cynthia, could be felt like the warmth of that sitting- room.

Cynthia had almost managed to disguise, with powder, the darkish bruise on her right temple. Other things she could not disguise.

'Miss Cynthia Drew?' Hadley said without inflexion. 'Yes, yes. I -'

Hadley introduced himself, and presented Dr Fell. He did this with deliberation, with smoothness, and with what was, to Dick Markham, a horrible sense of imminent danger.

' You wanted to see us about something, Miss Drew ?'

'My mother told me’ returned Cynthia, with a steady hardness and shine about her blue eyes, 'that you came to see me.' Cynthia made a slight gesture.' She didn't tell me at the time you were there, I'm afraid. She thought she was keeping me from unpleasantness. It wasn't until Mr Earnshaw dropped in -'

'Ah, yes,' Hadley said pleasantly. 'Mr Earnshaw I'

' - dropped in, and mentioned one thing or another,' said Cynthia, fighting to control her breathing but keeping her eyes steadily fixed on Hadley's, 'that I learned you had been there. Did you want to see me about anything, Mr Hadley?'

'As a matter of fact, Miss Drew, I did. Will you sit down?'

And he indicated the heavy easy-chair in which the dead man had been sitting.

If it was meant as a gesture of studied callousness, it had its effect. Yet Cynthia never flinched or took her eyes from his.

' In that chair, Mr Hadley ?'

' In another chair, by all means. If you've got any objection to that one.'

Cynthia went over and plumped down in the easy-chair.

Earnshaw, hesitating and smiling in the doorway, cleared his throat.

'I just happened to tell Cynthia -' he began. But his voice rose with shattering loudness, and then fell away to nothing, because of the silence and the battery of looks directed at him by both Hadley and Dr Fell. Hadley faced

Cynthia across the writing-table, leaning his hands on the edge of it.

'Your mother told us, Miss Drew, that you got that bruise on your temple from slipping and falling on some stone steps.'

' I'm afraid,' answered Cynthia, ' that was just a polite fiction for the benefit of the neighbours.' Hadley nodded.

'Actually, I'm told, you got the bruise when Miss Lesley Grant hit out at you with a hand-mirror ?' 'Yes. I'm afraid that's true.'

'Would it interest you to hear, Miss Drew, that Miss Grant denies hitting you with a mirror or with anything else?'

Cynthia raised her head. She put the palms of her hands flat along the arms of the chair. Her blue eyes opened in amazement.

' But that's simply not true!'

' It's not true, Miss Drew, that you fell and struck the side of your head against the footboard of a bed ?'

' I... no, of course not!' After a speculative silence, while they again heard distantly the voice of the church- clock, Cynthia added: 'Let's come straight out with this, shall we? I hate beating about the bush. I hate - crooked things! And I'm pretty sure you know why I've come here to see you. Mr Earnshaw has been telling me...'

Earnshaw intervened before anybody could stop him.

'If you don't mind,' he said with polite sharpness, ‘I'd rather be kept out of this.'

'So?' inquired Dr Fell.

' I came here early to-day,' Earnshaw continued, smiling away unconsciously even as he registered a protest, ' to ask about a rifle. That rifle there by the fireplace. While I was here, I gave Dick Markham a theory about this affair. I also gave him some information.'

'Concerning,' said Dr Fell, 'drawing-pins?'

'Yes!' Earnshaw now poured with volubility. 'Colonel Pope always used to use drawing-pins for his gauze screens, as you can see for yourself if you examine the marks on any window-frame in this house. Though what a box of them should be doing on the floor now I can't say. Never mind 1'

Here Earnshaw raised his hand.

'While I was here,' he went on to Dr Fell, 'I heard a certain thing. About - Sir Harvey Gilman. You said it, Dr Fell. I wasn't sworn to secrecy, if you remember. Nobody asked me not to mention it. All the same, I decided not to mention it. Because of my position; because I didn't understand it; because discretion is discretion.'

Nobody now tried to stop Earnshaw. It was as though he spoke into a void, as though he spoke to Dr Fell round a corner, utterly ignoring the tableau presented by Hadley and Cynthia in the middle of the room. The silent struggle between the eyes of Hadley and the eyes of Cynthia was emphasized and heightened to fever-pitch by Earnshaw's words.

'On my way home from the bank to-day...'

(Cynthia made a short, slight movement)

' On my way home from the bank to-day,' said Earnshaw, ' I stopped at Cynthia's house to give her a message from my wife. She saw me. She broke down a little. She told me an absolutely ghastly story' - here Earnshaw uttered a loud laugh - 'about Lesley Grant.'

'A true story,' said Cynthia, with her eyes on Hadley.

'A ghastly story,' repeated Earnshaw. 'I felt bound to warn her, you know. Discretion or no discretion. I said; 'Look here, where did you hear that?''

'A very interesting question,' said Hadley.

' I said, 'Because I'm bound to warn you that Dr Gideon Fell says this Sir Harvey Gilman wasn't Sir Harvey Gilman at all. And Middlesworth claims he was an impostor too.

'Is the story true? The story about Lesley?' demanded Cynthia.

'Is it true?' asked Earnshaw, who was white to the forehead.

Superintendent Hadley remained for a second or two supporting his weight with both hands on the writing- table; his face betraying nothing.

'Suppose I told you, Miss Drew - and you too, Mr Earnshaw - that the story about Miss Lesley Grant is perfectly true?'

' Oh, my God,' murmured Earnshaw in a flat voice.