Till Death Do Us Part

murder, in short?'

'Yes. I think I have.'

' Very well,' said Dr Fell.' Suppose you tell me what it is ?'

' Hang it, Doctor! At a time like this ...!'

' Yes, by thunder!' said Dr Fell. 'At a time like this I'

Lesley, though plainly she understood not one word of this, was trembling. Dick put his arm round her shoulders. The whole house seemed full of unaccountable creaks and cracks, as though it were poised; and the metronome-clock ticked in the hall.

'Just as you like,' said Dick.' When I met Superintendent Hadley at Ashe Hall this morning, that wasn't the first time I'd seen him.'

'Aha! Well?'

'The first time I saw him, I was standing at the window of Lesley's bedroom upstairs,' Dick pointed to the ceiling, 'and I saw him cross the road towards the post office.'

'Go on,'said Dr Fell.

'Then,' continued Dick, 'we had that conference in Lord Ashe's study at the Hall. You explained how this whole murder-scheme was an attempt to frame Lesley for the job-'

Dr Fell intervened.

'One moment,' he said. 'What I did, if you recall, was to challenge anyone to say what else it could be. But continue.'

'You said the real murderer had provided us a problem. Now he'd got to provide a solution, a solution for the locked room, or the police couldn't touch Lesley. You suggested there would be a 'communication'.'

‘I did.'

'When you told us that,' Dick went on, 'Superintendent Hadley looked up all of a sudden and said, 'Was that why you asked me, a while ago, to -?' And you shut up very quickly. You suggested it might be a telephone call.

'But Hadley never for a second believed in that 'telephone-call'. He mentioned it later, at the dead man's cottage. He pointed out it would be too risky, and added 'But your other idea, I admit -' Whereupon you cut him off again. Not long afterwards, up cropped still another reference to your other scheme, and this time in flat-out connexion with the post office.

'I'm a' cloth-headed goop,' Dick concluded bitterly, ' for not guessing it long ago. Of course it's the old poison-pen trick.'

Lesley peered up at him in bewilderment.

'Poison-pen trick?' she repeated.

'Yes. If the real murderer wanted to get in touch with the police, then the obvious and safest anonymous way would be to write. And there's no stamp-machine at the post office, if you remember?'

'Stop a bit!' cried Lesley. 'I think I do begin to...'

'Anybody who wants stamps must buy 'em from Laura over the counter. Dr Fell,' said Dick,' believed this morning that one person, or maybe one of a small group of persons, would drop a line to explain how you committed the murder.'

'You mean-?'

'So he asked Hadley to do what the police often do when there's a plague of poison-pen letters. With the co-operation of whoever's in charge of the post office, every stamp sold to a suspected person or persons has a private mark on it. Then, when the anonymous letter arrives, the police can infallibly prove who wrote it.

'Would Laura Feathers have enjoyed helping in a trick like that? She'd have cackled and loved it! Dr Fell had a shot at the same trick for trapping this murderer. And it very nearly worked.

'The real murderer did write a note, all right. I've got the proof here in my hand. The real murderer slipped into my cottage and wrote the blasted thing on my typewriter...'

Lesley drew away from him. She could not seem to believe her ears, and she dashed her hand out as though trying to push something away.

'On your typewriter?' she exclaimed.

'Yes. But that's no clue, I'm afraid. I haven't been at my place all day. Anyway, half the neighbourhood walks in and out of there without bothering to knock. Cynthia Drew, Major Price -'

'And myself,' smiled Lesley.

'Don't joke about this!' Dick said sharply.' The murderer wrote this note accusing Lesley of being a famous poisoner, and probably showing how De Villa had been killed. The murderer posted it. Then somehow he, or she, tumbled to it that a trap had been set He, or she, tried to get the letter back by waiting until Laura Feathers cleared the box, and then begging it on some excuse. But Laura was a wily old bird; she knew, and let the murderer know she knew. And so ...'

Dick made the motion of one who pulls a trigger. He turned to Dr Fell. 'Is this true, sir, or isn't it?' Dr Fell's face was very serious.

Blinking, he removed his eyeglasses, stared at them reflectively, and pinched at the deep red mark they made across the bridge of his nose before putting them on again.

'Oh, yes,' he admitted. 'It's true enough.'

The tension went out of Dick's muscles, and his lungs relaxed in a long breath of relief.

'That was your game with the post office, sir?'

'Yes.' Dr Fell brooded. 'It was a long shot, of course.'

'Howso?'

'Well, dash it all!' complained Dr Fell. 'It's simple enough to use that trick on a poison-pen writer, who writes numbers of letters and therefore requires numbers of stamps. But suppose your quarry has a casual stamp in his pocket or at home, and doesn't have to buy one? Still, it was worth trying. And it worked. Archons of Athens' -a curious violent look overspread his face - 'Archons of Athens, how it worked!'

'I don't follow that, sir.'

'Almost too soon, don't you think? Almost' - Dr Fell snapped his fingers - 'like that All the same, I agree, it did work. And it cost a human life.'

' You couldn't have helped that I'

' I wonder,' said Dr Fell.

'Anyway, however that game worked out, there's one thing these two bits of paper and the whole evening's events definitely do prove. I hope you'll at least agree with that?'

'With what?'

'The original theory! You said this might happen, and it has happened! You said Lesley might be accused by an anonymous communication, and she's been accused! You said the real murderer might take this line, and he has taken this line! What more can we want? I submit that this proves the murder of Sam De Villa was a deliberate attempt to fasten the blame on Lesley Grant! Don't you agree?'

Dr Fell blinked at the floor. His hands, clasped over his cane, seemed to draw his whole huge frame closer together. Then he rolled up his head.

'Well, no,' he answered reluctantly. 'I can't say I do agree.'

CHAPTER 19

'What's that?'

'I don't agree,' Dr Fell explained mildly, 'that the explanation you've just given is the only possible one.' 'But your own theory -!'

'I beg your pardon.' Dr Fell spoke very sharply. 'If you think back far enough, I imagine you'll agree it was not my theory at all.'

'But you distinctly said -'

'I said,' Dr Fell raised his big voice, 'I said we must consider the evidence. I said that, if we did consider the evidence, this was die conclusion to which we must come. I challenged Hadley to cite any other conclusion from the facts as presented to us.'

'Well? What's the difference? That's the same thing, isn't it?'

'But I also said, if you remember,' Dr Fell observed gently, 'that it took a bit of believing.'

The whole weird, unnatural situation had begun to turn Dick Markham's nerves.