'I assure you, sir,' Angell interjected, with alarm in his voice, 'I only meant –'
'You know perfectly well,' Farrar interrupted again, 'that you couldn't have recognized anybody in that thick fog last night. You've simply invented this story in order to –' He broke off, as he saw Laura Warwick emerging from the house into the garden.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
'I'm sorry I've kept you waiting, Julian,' Laura called as she approached them. She looked surprised to see Angell and Julian Farrar apparently in conversation.
'Perhaps I may speak to you later, sir, about this little matter,' the valet murmured to Farrar. He moved away, half bowing to Laura, then walked quickly across the garden and around a corner of the house.
Laura watched him go, and then spoke urgently. 'Julian,' she said, 'I must –'
Farrar interrupted her. 'Why did you send for me, Laura?' he asked, sounding annoyed.
'I've been expecting you all day,' Laura replied, surprised.
'Well, I've been up to my ears ever since this morning,' Farrar exclaimed. 'Committees, and more meetings this afternoon. I can't just drop any of these things so soon before the election. And in any case, don't you see, Laura, that it's much better that we shouldn't meet at present?'
'But there are things we've got to discuss,' Laura told him.
Taking her arm briefly, Farrar led her further away from the house. 'Do you know that Angell is setting out to blackmail me?' he asked her.
'Angell?' cried Laura, incredulously. 'Angell is?'
'Yes. He obviously knows about us – and he also knows, or at any rate pretends to know, that I was here last night.'
Laura gasped. 'Do you mean he saw you?'
'He says he saw me,' Farrar retorted.
'But he couldn't have seen you in that fog,' Laura insisted.
'He's got some story,' Farrar told her, 'about coming down to the pantry and doing something to the shutter outside the window, and seeing me pass on my way home. He also says he heard a shot, not long before that, but didn't think anything of it.'
'Oh my God!' Laura gasped. 'How awful! What are we going to do?'
Farrar made an involuntary gesture as though he were about to comfort Laura with an embrace, but then, glancing towards the house, thought better of it. He gazed at her steadily. 'I don't know yet what we're going to do,' he told her. 'We'll have to think.'
'You're not going to pay him, surely?'
'No, no,' Farrar assured her. 'If one starts doing that, it's the beginning of the end. And yet, what is one to do?' He passed a hand across his brow. 'I didn't think anyone knew I came over yesterday evening,' he continued. 'I'm certain my housekeeper didn't. The point is, did Angell really see me, or is he pretending he did?'
'Supposing he does go to the police?' Laura asked, tremulously.
'I know,' murmured Farrar. Again, he ran his hand across his brow. 'One's got to think – think carefully.' He began to walk to and fro. 'Either bluff it out – say he's lying, that I never left home yesterday evening –'
'But there are the fingerprints,' Laura told him.
'What fingerprints?' asked Farrar, startled.
'You've forgotten,' Laura reminded him. 'The fingerprints on the table. The police have been thinking that they're MacGregor's, but if Angell goes to them with this story, then they'll ask to take your fingerprints, and then –'
She broke off. Julian Farrar now looked very worried. 'Yes, yes, I see,' he muttered. 'All right, then. I'll have to admit that I came over here and – tell some story. I came over to see Richard about something, and we talked –'
'You can say he was perfectly all right when you left him,' Laura suggested, speaking quickly.
There was little trace of affection in Farrar's eyes as he looked at her. 'How easy you make it sound!' he retorted, hotly. 'Can I really say that?' he added sarcastically.
'One has to say something!' she told him, sounding defensive.
'Yes, I must have put my hand there as I bent over to see –' He swallowed, as the scene came back to him.
'So long as they believe the prints are MacGregor's,' said Laura, eagerly.
'MacGregor! MacGregor!' Farrar exclaimed angrily. He was almost shouting now. 'What on earth made you think of cooking up that message from the newspaper and putting it on Richard's body? Weren't you taking a terrific chance?'
'Yes – no – I don't know,' Laura cried in confusion.
Farrar looked at her with silent revulsion. 'So damned cold-blooded,' he muttered.
'We had to think of something,' Laura sighed. 'I – I just couldn't think. It was really Michael's idea.'
'Michael?'
'Michael – Starkwedder,' Laura told him.
'You mean he helped you?' Farrar asked. He sounded incredulous.
'Yes, yes, yes!' Laura cried impatiently. 'That's why I wanted to see you – to explain to you –'
Farrar came up close to her. His tone was icily jealous as he asked, firmly, 'What's Michael – he emphasized Starkwedder's Christian name with a cold anger – 'what's Michael Starkwedder doing in all this?'
'He came in and – and found me there,' Laura told him. 'I'd – I'd got the gun in my hand and –'
'Good God!' Farrar exclaimed with distaste, moving away from her. 'And somehow you persuaded him –'
'I think he persuaded me,' Laura murmured sadly. She moved closer to him. 'Oh, Julian –' she began.
Her arms were about to go around his neck, but he pushed her away slightly. 'I've told you, I'll do anything I can,' he assured her. 'Don't think I won't – but –'
Laura looked at him steadily. 'You've changed,' she said quietly.
'I'm sorry, but I can't feel the same,' Farrar admitted desperately. 'After what's happened – I just can't feel the same.'
'I can,' Laura assured him. 'At least, I think I can. No matter what you'd done, Julian, I'd always feel the same.'
'Never mind our feelings for the moment,' said Farrar. 'We've got to get down to facts.'
Laura looked at him. 'I know,' she said. 'I – I told Starkwedder that I'd – you know, that I'd done it.'
Farrar looked at her incredulously. 'You told Starkwedder that?'
'Yes.'
'And he agreed to help you? He – a stranger? The man must be mad!'
Stung, Laura retorted, 'I think perhaps he is a little mad. But he was very comforting.'
'So! No man can resist you,' Farrar exclaimed angrily. 'Is that it?' He took a step away from her, and then turned to face her again. 'All the same, Laura, murder –' His voice died away and he shook his head.
'I shall try never to think of it,' Laura answered. 'And it wasn't premeditated, Julian. It was just an impulse.' She spoke almost pleadingly.
'There's no need to go back over it all,' Farrar told her. 'We've got to think now what we're going to do.'
'I know,' she replied. 'There are the fingerprints and your lighter.'
'Yes,' he recalled. 'I must have dropped it as I leaned over his body.'
'Starkwedder knows it's yours,' Laura told him. 'But he can't do anything about it. He's committed himself. He can't change his story now.'
Julian Farrar looked at her for a moment. When he spoke, his voice had a slightly heroic tone. 'If it comes to it, Laura, I'll take the blame,' he assured her.
'No, I don't want you to,' Laura cried. She clasped his arm, and then released him quickly with a nervous glance towards the house. 'I don't want you to!' she repeated urgently.
'You mustn't think that I don't understand – how it happened,' said Farrar, speaking with an effort. 'You
