Till Death Do Us Part

suddenly lighted up his whole face. It was unconscious; it was his only bed-side mannerism; yet it worked wonders.

Tramping over towards them now, slinging the golf-bag from one shoulder to the other, he surveyed Major Price in astonishment.

'Aren't you at the cricket match ?' he demanded.

'No,' said the major, both question and answer being a little superfluous.' I thought I'd hang on here, and - well! keep an eye on the fortune-teller. I've just been telling Dick about Sir Harvey Gilman.'

' Oh,' said Dr Middlesworth.

He opened his mouth as though to add something, but changed his mind and closed it again.

'As a matter of fact,' pursued the major, 'Lesley Grant is in there having her fortune told now. If he tells her she's met a fair man and will go on a journey, that's absolutely right' He pointed to Dick. 'Those two are going to make a match of it, you know.'

Dr Middlesworth did not comment He merely smiled and extended his hand, with a grip of strong capable fingers. But Dick knew it was sincere.

'I'd heard something about it,' he confessed. 'From my wife.' His vaguely harassed look returned, and he hesitated. 'As for Sir Harvey...'

'In this lad's profession,' continued the major, tapping Dick impressively on the shoulder, 'he ought to be invaluable. Eh?'

'Invaluable,' Dick said with some fervour, 'isn't the word for it. That man has given expert evidence in every murder case, celebrated or obscure, for the past thirty years. A friend of mine used to live near him in Bayswater; and said he'd come home, as often as not, with somebody's insides in an open glass jar. Ralph says the old boy's a walking encyclopedia about murders, if you can only persuade him to talk. And...'

This was the point at which all three of them jumped.

It was partly the brief glare of lightning, illuminating the whole grounds with a deathly pallor, and followed by a shock of thunder striking close. Lightning picked out every detail as though in the flash of a photograph.

It caught, in the background, the dull red-brick shape of Ashe Hall, with thin chimneys and mullioned windows now moonlit: venerable and yet shabby, like their owner. It caught the writhe of seething trees. It caught the thin careworn face of Dr Middlesworth, and the fat comfortable countenance of Major Price, now turned towards the fortune-teller's tent. When darkness came again, with the crash of thunder dying to a rattle, it directed their attention towards another thing.

There was something wrong inside the fortune-teller's tent.

The shadow of Lesley Grant had jumped to its feet. The shadow of the man was also standing, pointing a finger at her across the table. And the weirdness of that shadow-play, wavering on a lighted wall, could not disguise its urgency.

'Here!' cried Dick Markham, hardly knowing what he protested at.

Yet the agitation of those figures he could feel as clearly as though they were there. The shadow of Lesley Grant turned round, and Lesley herself bolted out of the tent.

Aimlessly, still carrying the rifle under his arm, Dick ran towards her. He saw her stop short - a white figure in the gloom - and she seemed to be bracing herself.

' Lesley! What's wrong ?'

'Wrong?' echoed Lesley. Her voice was cool and gentle, hardly raised above its usual key. ' What was he saying to you ?'

Dick felt rather than saw the brown eyes, with their ' strongly luminous whites and very thin eyebrows, searching his face.

'He wasn't saying anything to me!' Lesley protested. 'I didn't think he was very good, really. Just the usual thing about a happy life; and a little illness, but nothing serious; and a letter arriving with some pleasant news.'

' Then why were you so frightened ?'

' I wasn't frightened!'

'I'm sorry, darling. But I saw your shadow on the wall of the tent.' More and more oppressively disturbed, Dick came to a decision. Hardly realizing what he was doing, he thrust the rifle into Lesley's hands. 'Here, hold this for a minute 1'

' Dick! Where are you going?'

' I want to see this bloke myself.'

' But you mustn't !'

'Why not?'

The rain answered for her. Two or three large drops spattered down, and then ran across the lawn as though the hissing of all these trees were gathering together to let the skies open like a tank.

Glancing round, Dick could see that the hitherto almost deserted lawn was now being invaded by people hurrying back from the cricket match at the other side of the grounds. Major Price was hastily gathering up an armful of rifles. Beckoning to him, and pointing at Lesley, Dick touched her arm.

' Go on up to the house,' he said.' I'll not be long.' Then he pushed open the tent-flap and ducked inside.

A voice, pitched in a sing-song deliberately guttural and assumed, struck at him sharply from the close, stuffy confines of the tent.

'I regret!' it said. 'You find me fatigued. That was the last sitting. I can oblige no more ladies or gentlemen to-day.'

'That's all right, Sir Harvey,' said Dick. 'I didn't come to get my fortune told.'

Then they looked at each other. Dick Markham could not understand why his own voice stuck in his throat.

In an enclosure barely six feet square, a shaded electric light hung from the roof. It shone down across a gleaming crystal ball, against the plum-coloured velvet cover of the little table, and added a hypnosis to this stuffy place.

Behind the table sat the fortune-teller, a lean dry shortish man of fifty-odd, in a white linen suit and with a coloured turban wound round his head. Out of the turban peered an intellectual face, a sharp-nosed face, with a straight mouth, a bump of a chin, and an ugly worried forehead. His rather arresting eyes were pitted with wrinkles at the outer corners.

'So you know me,' he said in his normal voice - a dry voice, like a schoolmaster's. He cleared his throat, and coughed several times to find the right level.

‘That’s right, sir.'

' Then what do you want, young man ?' Rain-drops struck the roof of the tent with a drum-like noise.

'I want to know,' returned Dick, 'what you were saying to Miss Grant' 'Miss who?'

'Miss Grant The young lady who was just in here. Myfiancee’

' Fiancee, eh?'

The wrinkled eyelids moved briefly. Major Price had said that Sir Harvey Gilman was enjoying himself at his job. It would require a sardonic humour, Dick reflected, to sit here all day in the airless heat, speaking with a fake accent and enjoying the dissection of those who sat opposite him. But there was no hint of any enjoyment now.

·Tell me, Mr...?'

' My name is Markham. Richard Markham.'

'Markham.' The Great Swami's eyes seemed to turn inwards. 'Markham. Don't I periodically see, in London, plays written by a certain Richard Markham? Plays of a sort that are called, I believe,' he hesitated,' psychological thrillers?'

'That's right, sir.'

'Analysing, if I recall correctly, the minds and motives of those who commit crimes. You write them ?'

'I do the best I can with the material,' said Dick, suddenly feeling on the defensive before that eye.

Yes, he thought, the old boy was pleased. Sir Harvey uttered a sound which might have been laughter if he had opened his mouth a little more. Yet the ugly forehead remained.