Till Death Do Us Part

third...' 'What husbands?'

'Does it shock your romantic soul?' inquired Sir Harvey. 'Her first husband was an American corporation lawyer named Burton Foster. Her second was a Liverpool cotton-broker called Davies; I forget his first name. Both were wealthy men. But the third victim, as I was saying...'

Dick Markham pressed his hands to his temples.

'God!' he said. And out of that monosyllable suddenly burst all the incredulousness, all the protest, all the dazed bewilderment which welled up. inside him. He wanted not to have heard; he wanted to blot the last thirty seconds out of his life.

Sir Harvey had the grace to look a little fussed, and to turn his eye away.

' I'm sorry, young fellow' - he flung his dead cigar into the ashtray - 'but there it is.' Then he eyed Dick keenly. 'And if you're thinking...'

'Go on! What was I thinking?'

The other's mouth grew still more sardonic.

'You write psychological tosh about the minds of murderers. I enjoy the stuff; I don't mind admitting it. And among my colleagues I am supposed to have rather a peculiar sense of humour. If you think I am inventing things and playing an elaborate joke on you, by way of poetic justice, get the idea out of your head. My purpose, believe me, is not a joke.'

And, as Dick found out only too soon, it wasn't.

'This woman,' said Sir Harvey clearly, 'is a thoroughgoing bad hat. The sooner you get used to that idea the sooner you'll get over it. And the safer you'll be.'

'Safer?'

'That's what I said.' The ugly stamp appeared again on Sir Harvey's forehead. He twisted his body in the chair, to get a more comfortable position; then, stung with pain, he subsided angrily.

'But that's the trouble,' he went on.' In my estimation, this woman isn't even particularly clever. Yet she goes on, and on, and on, and gets away with it! She's devised a method of murder that beats Gideon Fell as much as it beats me.'

This was the first time that the flat word 'murder' had been applied to Lesley. It opened new chasms and new doors into evil rooms. Dick was still groping blindly.

'Stop a bit!' he insisted. 'A minute ago you said something about fingerprints. You mean she's been on trial ?'

'No. The fingerprints were obtained unofficially. She's never been on trial.'

' Oh ? Then how do you know she's guilty ?'

Exasperation sharpened the other's countenance.

' Won't you believe me, Mr Markham, until our friend arrives from Scotland Yard ?'

'I didn't say that. I ask why you state it as a fact. If Lesley was guilty, why didn't the police arrest her ?'

'Because they couldn't prove it. Three occasions, mind you! And still they couldn't prove it.'

Once more the Home Office pathologist thoughtlessly tried to move his position. Once more pain burnt him. But he was absorbed now. He hardly noticed it. His fingers lifted up and down on the padded arms of the chair. His monkey-bright eyes, fixed on Dick Markham, held so richly sardonic an expression that it might have been one of admiration.

'The police,' he went on, 'will supply exact dates and details. I can only tell you what I know from personal observation. Kindly don't interrupt me more than is necessary.'

'Well?'

'I first met this lady thirteen years ago. Our so-called Government had not yet awarded me a knighthood. I was not yet Chief Pathologist to the Home Office. I often served in the capacity of police-surgeon as well as pathologist One morning in winter - the police, I repeat, can supply dates - we learned that an American named Foster had been found dead in his dressing-room, adjoining the bedroom, of his home in Hyde Park Gardens. I went out there with Chief Inspector Hadley, now Superintendent Hadley.

' It seemed to us a clear case of suicide. The deceased's wife had been away from home for the night. The deceased was found half-sitting, half-lying on a sofa beside a little table in the dressing-room. The cause of death was hydrocyanic acid, injected into the left forearm by means of a hypodermic syringe found on the floor beside him.' Sir Harvey paused.

A rather cruel smile pinched in the wrinkled flesh round his mouth.

'Your studies, Mr Markham' - he spread out his fingers '- your studies, I say, will have taught you about hydrocyanic, or prussic, acid. Swallowed, it is agonizing but rapid. Injected into the blood-stream, it is agonizing but even more rapid.

'In Foster's case, suicide seemed plain. No man in his senses allows a murderer to inject him, neatly in a vein, with a hypodermic smelling of bitter almonds from ten feet away. The windows of the dressing-room were locked on the inside. The door was not only bolted on the inside, but had an immensely heavy chest of drawers drawn across it The servants had great difficulty in breaking in.

'We reassured the stricken widow, who had just returned home in prostration and floods of tears. Her grief, delicate creature as she was,' became quite touching.'

Dick Markham tried to hold hard to reason.

'And this widow,' he said,' was - ?'

'It was the woman who called herself Lesley Grant. Yes.'

Again there was a silence.

'We now come to one of those coincidences mistakenly supposed to be more common in fiction than in real life. Five years later, some time in the spring, I happened to be in Liverpool, giving testimony at the Assizes. Hadley was also there, on a completely different matter. We ran into each other at the sessions-house, where we met the local Superintendent of Police. In passing the time of day, the Superintendent said...'

Here Sir Harvey cast up his eyes.

'He said, 'Rather queer suicide out Prince's Park way. Man killed himself with prussic add in a hypodermic. Elderly chap, but plenty of money; good health; no troubles. Still, there's no doubt about it. The inquest's just over now.' He nodded along the hall. And we saw somebody, in black coming along that dirty hall, amid a group of sympathizers. I'm pretty tough, young man. I'm not easily impressed. But I've never forgotten the look on Hadley's face when he turned round and said, 'By God, it's the same woman'’

The words were bald enough. Yet they had an intolerable vividness.

Quietly, as Sir Harvey Gilman musingly ceased to speak, Dr Middlesworth crossed the room, circled round the big writing-table, and sat down in a creaky basket-chair near the windows.

Dick started a little. He had completely forgotten the doctor. Even now Middlesworth did not comment or obtrude into the conversation. He merely crossed his long legs, propping a bony elbow on the arm of the chair and his chin in his hand, and stared with thoughtful eyes at the tan-shaded lamp over the writing-table.

'You're telling me,' snarled Dick Markham, 'or trying to tell me, it was Lesley again ? My Lesley ?'

'Your Lesley. Yes. Slightly second-hand.'

Dick started to get up from his chair, but sat down again.

His host had no notion of being offensive. You could guess that he was merely trying, like a surgeon, to cut out of Dick Markham's body, with a sharp knife, what he considered a malignant growth.

' Then,' he added,' the police did start an investigation.'

'With what result?'

'With the same result as before.' .

'They proved she couldn't have done it ?'

'Excuse me. They proved that they couldn't prove it. As in Foster's case, the wife had been away from home that night...'

'Alibi?'

'No provable alibi, no. But it wasn't necessary.' ' Go on, Sir Harvey.'

'Mr Davies, the Liverpool broker,' continued the other, 'had been found lying across the desk in his so- called