'What do you mean?' Laura asked him.
'That's the boyfriend, isn't it?' He came closer to her. 'Well, come on now, is it?'
'Since you ask,' Laura replied, defiantly, 'yes, it is!'
Starkwedder looked at her for a moment without speaking. Then, 'There are quite a few things you didn't tell me last night, aren't there?' he said angrily. 'That's why you snatched up his lighter in such a hurry and said it was yours.' He walked away a few paces and then turned to face her again. 'And how long has this been going on between you and him?'
'For quite some time now,' Laura said quietly.
'But you didn't ever decide to leave Warwick and go away together?'
'No,' Laura answered. 'There's Julian's career, for one thing. It might ruin him politically.'
Starkwedder sat himself down ill-temperedly at one end of the sofa. 'Oh, surely not, these days,' he snapped. 'Don't they all take adultery in their stride?'
'These would have been special circumstances,' Laura tried to explain. 'He was a friend of Richard's, and with Richard being a cripple –'
'Oh yes, I see. It certainly wouldn't have been good publicity!' Starkwedder retorted.
Laura came over to the sofa and stood looking down at him. 'I suppose you think I ought to have told you this last night?' she observed, icily.
Starkwedder looked away from her. 'You were under no obligation,' he muttered.
Laura seemed to relent. 'I didn't think it mattered –' she began. 'I mean – all I could think of was my having shot Richard.'
Starkwedder seemed to warm to her again, as he murmured, 'Yes, yes, I see.' After a pause, he added, 'I couldn't think of anything else, either.' He paused again, and then looked up at her. 'Do you want to try a little experiment?' he asked. 'Where were you standing when you shot Richard?'
'Where was I standing?' Laura echoed. She sounded perplexed.
'That's what I said.'
After a moment's thought, Laura replied, 'Oh –over there.' She nodded vaguely towards the french windows.
'Go and stand where you were standing,' Starkwedder instructed her.
Laura rose and began to move nervously about the room. 'I – I can't remember,' she told him. 'Don't ask me to remember.' She sounded scared now. 'I – I was upset. I –'
Starkwedder interrupted her. 'Your husband said something to you,' he reminded her. 'Something that made you snatch up the gun.'
Rising from the sofa, he went to the table by the armchair and put his cigarette out. 'Well, come on, let's act it out,' he continued. 'There's the table, there's the gun.' He took Laura's cigarette from her, and put it in the ashtray. 'Now then, you were quarrelling. You picked up the gun – pick it up –'
'I don't want to!' Laura cried.
'Don't be a little fool,' Starkwedder growled. 'It's not loaded. Come on, pick it up. Pick it up.'
Laura picked up the gun, hesitantly.
'You snatched it up,' he reminded her. 'You didn't pick it up gingerly like that. You snatched it up, and you shot him. Show me how you did it.'
Holding the gun awkwardly, Laura backed away from him. 'I – I –' she began.
'Go on. Show me,' Starkwedder shouted at her.
Laura tried to aim the gun. 'Go on, shoot!' he repeated, still shouting. 'It isn't loaded.'
When she still hesitated, he snatched the gun from her in triumph. 'I thought so,' he exclaimed. 'You've never fired a revolver in your life. You don't know how to do it.' Looking at the gun, he continued, 'You don't even know enough to release the safety catch.'
He dropped the gun on the footstool* then walked to the back of the sofa, and turned to face her. After a pause, he said quietly, 'You didn't shoot your husband.'
'I did,' Laura insisted.
'Oh no, you didn't,' Starkwedder repeated with conviction.
Sounding frightened, Laura asked, 'Then why should I say I did?'
Starkwedder took a deep breath and then exhaled. Coming round the sofa, he threw himself down on it heavily. 'The answer to that seems pretty obvious to me. Because it was Julian Farrar who shot him,' he retorted.
'No!' Laura exclaimed, almost shouting.
'Yes!'
'No!' she repeated.
'I say yes,' he insisted.
'If it was Julian,' Laura asked him, 'why on earth should I say I did it?'
Starkwedder looked at her levelly. 'Because,' he said, 'you thought – and thought quite rightly – that I'd cover up for you. Oh yes, you were certainly right about that.' He lounged back into the sofa before continuing, 'Yes, you played me along very prettily. But I'm through, do you hear? I'm through. I'm damned if I'm going to tell a pack of lies to save Major Julian Farrar's skin.'
There was a pause. For a few moments Laura said nothing. Then she smiled and calmly walked over to the table by the armchair to pick up her cigarette. Turning back to Starkwedder, she said, 'Oh yes, you are! You'll have to! You can't back out now! You've told your story to the police. You can't change it.'
'What?' Starkwedder gasped, taken aback.
Laura sat in the armchair. 'Whatever you know, or think you know,' she pointed out to him, 'you've got to stick to your story. You're an accessory after the fact – you said so yourself.' She drew on her cigarette.
Starkwedder rose and faced her. Dumbfounded, he exclaimed, 'Well, I'm damned! You little bitch!' He glared at her for a few moments without saying anything further, then suddenly turned on his heel, went swiftly to the french windows, and left. Laura watched him striding across the garden. She made a movement as though to follow and call him back, but then apparently thought better of it. With a troubled look on her face, she slowly turned away from the windows.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Later that day, towards the end of the afternoon, Julian Farrar paced nervously up and down in the study. The french windows to the terrace were open, and the sun was about to set, throwing a golden light onto the lawn outside. Farrar had been summoned by Laura Warwick, who apparently needed to see him urgently. He kept glancing at his watch as he awaited her.
Farrar seemed very upset and distraught. He looked out onto the terrace, turned back into the room again, and glanced at his watch. Then, noticing a newspaper on the table by the armchair, he picked it up. It was a local paper, The Western Echo, with a news story on the front page reporting Richard Warwick's death, 'PROMINENT LOCAL RESIDENT MURDERED BY MYSTERIOUS ASSAILANT,' the headline announced. Farrar sat in the armchair and began nervously to read the report. After a moment, he flung the paper aside, and strode over to the french windows. With a final glance back into the room, he set off across the lawn. He was halfway across the garden, when he heard a sound behind him. Turning, he called, 'Laura, I'm sorry I –' and then stopped, disappointed, as he saw that the person coming towards him was not Laura Warwick, but Angell, the late Richard Warwick's valet and attendant.
'Mrs Warwick asked me to say she will be down in a moment, sir,' said Angell as he approached Farrar. 'But I wondered if I might have a brief word with you?'
'Yes, yes. What is it?'
Angell came up to Julian Farrar, and walked on for a pace or two further away from the house, as if anxious that their talk should not be overheard. 'Well?' said Farrar, following him.
'I am rather worried, sir,' Angell began, 'about my own position in the house, and I felt I would like to consult you on the matter.'
