Till Death Do Us Part

'No doubt, Mr Markham. This lady's name, you said, was...?'

'Grant. Lesley Grant.' He uttered the words just as the storm broke and the rain tore down. It struck the roof of the tent with such a hollow, heavy drumming that Dick had to raise his voice above it. 'What's all this mystery ?'

'Tell me, Mr Markham. Has she lived here in Six Ashes for very long ?'

' Np. Only about six months. Why ?'

'How long have you been engaged to her? Believe me, I have a reason for asking that.'

' We only got engaged last night. But -'

'Only last night,' repeated the other without inflexion.

The hanging lamp in the tent swung a little, sending smooth bright reflexions slipping across that crystal ball. The drumming drive of rain deepened to a roar, making canvas walk vibrate. Behind the crystal ball, regarding his visitor with those curious eyes, Sir Harvey Gilman upturned the palm of his hand and knocked with the finger-joints, lightly and leisurely, on the velvet-covered table.

'One other thing, young man,' he remarked in an interested way. 'Where do you get the material for your plays?'

At any other time Dick would have been only too glad to tell him. He would have been flattered, even tongue-tied. He realized that he was probably offending the sharp-nosed old pathologist, even making an enemy of him. But he had reached a point of desperation.

' For God's sake, man, what is it ?'

'I have been wondering how to break it to you,' said Sir Harvey, showing for the first time a gleam of humanity. He looked up. 'Do you know who this so-called 'Lesley Grant' really is?'

' Who she really is ?'

' I suppose,' said Sir Harvey,' I had better tell you.'

Drawing a deep breath, he got up from his chair behind the table. And it was at this point that Dick heard the crack of the rifle-shot

After that, the world dissolved in nightmare.

Though the noise was not loud, Dick's thoughts were so entwined already with rifles and shooting-ranges that he had almost a pre-vision of it.

He saw the small bullet-hole jump up black in the side wall of the tent, now growing greyish where the wet crawled down. He saw Sir Harvey flung forward as by the blow of a fist - striking just beside and under the left shoulder-blade. He saw, in one momentary flash, the inscrutability of the pathologist's face cracked open by a look of sheer terror.

Table and man pitched forward almost into Dick's arms. But there was not even time to stretch out a hand before the whole clutter landed round him. Sir Harvey's own hand was twitching convulsively; he dragged the table-cover with him; and the crystal ball dropped with a thud on flat-trodden grass. Then, as Dick saw the ghost of a blood-stain take form and deepen on the side of the white linen suit, he heard a clear voice raised outside.

' Major Price, I couldn't help it!'

It was Lesley's voice.

'I'm terribly sorry, but I couldn't help it! Dick shouldn't have given me this rifle to hold! Somebody touched my arm, and my hand was on the trigger, and the rifle seemed to fire itself by accident!' The voice came from a little distance away, of anguished sweetness and sincerity against the tumult of rain.' I -I do hope I haven't hit anything!'

CHAPTER 3

AT half-past nine that night, when June twilight was deepening outside the windows, Dick Markham paced endlessly up and down the study of his cottage just outside Sue Ashes.

'If I could stop thinking,' he told himself, 'I should be all right But I can't stop thinking. 'The fact remains that Sir Harvey Gilman's shadow was clearly outlined against the wall of that tent, a perfect target if anybody had wanted to shoot at it

' But what you're thinking is impossible!

'This whole affair,' he further told himself, 'will prove to have a perfectly simple explanation if you don't get into a fever about it. The main thing is to get rid of these cobwebs of suspicion, these ugly clinging strands that wind into the brain and nerves until you feel the spider stir at the end of every one of them. You're in love with Lesley. Anything else is of no consideration whatever.

'Liar!

'Major Price believes this shooting was an accident. So does Dr Middlesworth. So does Earnshaw, the bank manager, who turned up so unexpectedly after Sir Harvey Gilman tumbled over with a bullet in him. You alone...'

Dick stopped his pacing to look slowly round the study where he had done so much work, good and bad.

There were the fat-bowled lamps on the table, throwing golden light across its comfortable untidiness, and reflected back from the little line of diamond-paned windows. There was the dark brick fireplace with its white overmantel. The walls were hung with framed theatrical photographs, and garish playbills - from the Comedy Theatre, the Apollo Theatre, the St Martin's Theatre -announcing plays by Richard Markham.

Poisoner's Mistake was proclaimed from one wall, Panic in the Family from another. Each an attempt to get inside the criminal's mind: to see life through his eyes, to feel with his feelings. They occupied such wall-space as was not taken up by stuffed shelves of books dealing with morbid and criminal psychology.

There was the desk with its typewriter, cover now on. There was the revolving bookcase of reference- works. There were the overstuffed chairs, and the standing ashtrays. There were the bright chintz curtains, and the bright rag rugs underfoot It was Dick Markham's ivory tower, as remote from the great world as this village of Six Ashes itself.

Even the name of the lane in which he lived...

He lit another cigarette, inhaling very deeply in a curious perverse effort to make his own head swim. He was taking still another deep draw when the telephone rang.

Dick snatched up the receiver with such haste that he almost knocked the phone off the desk.

' Hello,' said the guarded voice of Dr Middlesworth.

Clearing his throat, Dick put the cigarette down on the edge of the desk so as to grip the phone with both hands.

' How's Sir Harvey ? Is he alive ?'

There was a slight pause.

' Oh, yes. He's alive.'

' Is he going to - be all right?'

‘Oh, yes. He'll live.'

A dizzy wave of relief, as though loosening something in his chest, brought the sweat to Dick's forehead. He picked up the cigarette, mechanically took two puffs at it, and then flung it at the fireplace.

'The fact is,' pursued Dr Middlesworth, 'he wants to see you. Could you come over here to his cottage now? It's only a few hundred yards away, and I thought perhaps...?'

Dick stared at the phone.

' Is he allowed to see anybody ?'

'Yes. Can you come straight away ?'

'I'll come,' said Dick, 'just as soon as I've phoned Lesley and told her it's all right She's been ringing here all evening, and she's nearly frantic'

'I know. She's been phoning here too. But' - there was more than a shade of hesitation in the doctor's manner -' he says he'd rather you didn't.'

'Didn't what?'

'Didn't phone Lesley. Not just yet He'll explain what he means. In the meantime' - again the doctor hesitated - 'don't let anybody come with you, and don't tell anybody what I've just said. Do you promise that ?' 'Allright, all right!’