Till Death Do Us Part

In the creaky basket-chair across the room, Dr Middlesworth took out a pipe and blew down the stem.

It gave him something to do; it eased, Dick knew, his acute discomfort. And it was the doctor's presence, representing Six Ashes and normality, which made the whole affair so grotesque. The faces of Mrs Middlesworth, of Mrs Price, of Lady Ashe, of Cynthia Drew, floated in front of his mind.

'Look here,' Dick burst out 'This whole thing is impossible.'

' Of course,' agreed Sir Harvey. 'But it happened.'

' I mean, they must have been suicides after all!'

'Perhaps they were.' The other's tone remained polite. ' Or perhaps not. But, come, now, Mr Markham 1 Let's face it! Whatever your interpretation of the facts, don't you find this situation just a little suspicious ? Just a little unsavoury ?'

Dick was silent for a moment.

' Don't you, Mr Markham ?'

'All right. I do. But I don't agree that the circumstances are always the same. This man in Paris ... what was his name?'

'Belford?'

'Belford, yes. You say she didn't marry him ?'

'Always thinking of the personal, eh?' inquired Sir Harvey, eyeing him with a sort of clinical interest and pleasure. 'Not thinking of death or poison at all. Merely thinking of this woman in some other man's arms.'

This was so true that it made Dick Markham rage. But he tried to put a dignified face on it.

' She didn't marry the fellow,' he persisted. 'Did she stand to gain anything by his death ?'

'No. Not a penny.'

"Then where's your motive?’

'Damn it all, man!' said Sir Harvey. 'Don't you see that by this time the girl can't help herself?'

With considerable awkwardness, holding himself gingerly, he put his hands on the arms of the chair and propelled himself to his feet Dr Middlesworth started to rise in protest, but their host waved him away. He took a few little steps up and down the shabby carpet

' Tou know that, young man. Or at least you profess to know it. The poisoner never does stop. The poisoner can't stop. It becomes a psychic disease, the source of a perverted thrill stronger - more violently exciting I - than, any in psychology. Poison 1 The power over life and death 1 Are you aware of that, or aren't you ?'

'Yes. I'm aware of it'

'Good! Then consider my side of it'

He reached round to touch his back, gingerly.

'I come down here for a summer holiday. I'm tired. I need a rest I ask them as a great favour if they won't keep my identity a secret, because every fool wants to jaw to me about criminal trials I'm already sick of.'

' Lesley -1' Dick was beginning.

'Don't interrupt me. They say they'll consider keeping it a secret, if I consent to playing fortune-teller at their bazaar. Very well. I didn't mind that. In fact, I rather liked it It was an opportunity to read human nature and surprise fools.’

He pointed his finger, compelling silence.

'But what happens? Into my tent walks a murderess whom I haven't seen since that Liverpool affair. And not looking a day older, mind you, than when I first saw her! I improve the opportunity (as who wouldn't?) to put the fear of God into her.

'Whereupon, as quick as winking, she tries to kill me with a rifle. This wasn't her usual suicide-in-the-locked-room technique. A bullet-hole in the wall doesn't give you any such opportunity. No; the lady lost her head. And why? I was beginning to see it even before she fired at my shadow. Because she's arranging a little poisoning-party for someone else. In other words' - he nodded at Dick -'you’

Again there was a silence.

'Now don't tell me it hadn't occurred to you!' said Sir Harvey, with broad scepticism and a fishy shake of his head. 'Don't say the idea never even crossed your mind 1'

'Oh, no. It's crossed my mind all right.'

' Do you believe the story I've been telling you ?'

' I believe the story, yes. But if there's been some mistake ... if it isn't Lesley at all...!'

' Would you credit the evidence of finger-prints ?'

'Yes. I'd be bound to.'

'But, even granting that, you still don't believe she would try to poison you?' 'No, I don't'

'Why not? Do you think she would make an exception in your case?' No reply.

'Do you think she's really fallen in love at long last?' No reply.

' Even supposing she has, do you still want to marry her ?'

Dick got up from his chair. He wanted to lash out with his fist at the air; to shut away from his ears the voice that was crowding him into a corner, making him face facts, cutting away each alternative as he seized at it.

'You can adopt,' pursued the other, 'one of two courses. The first, I see, has already suggested itself to you. You want to have this thing out with her, don't you?'

'Naturally!'

'Very well. There's a telephone out in the hall. Ring her up, ask her if its true, and pray she'll deny it. Of course she will deny it. Your common sense, if you have any left, must tell you that. Which leaves you exactly where you were in the first place.'

'What's the other course?.'

Sir Harvey Gilman paused in his tentative pacing behind the easy-chair. His scrawny neck seemed to emerge, like a turtle's, from the collar of the ancient dressing-gown and pyjamas. He tapped his forefinger on the back of the chair.

'You can set a trap,' he answered simply.'You can discover for yourself what sort of person she is. And I can discover just how the devil she manages to commit these murders.'

CHAPTER 5

DICK sat down again. He had more than a vague idea of the trend this conversation was taking now.

' What sort of trap ?' he demanded.

'To-morrow night,' said Sir Harvey, 'you are having dinner with the lady at her house. Is that correct?'

'Yes.'

'As a sort of celebration of your engagement? Just as Martin Belford had dinner with her a few hours before he died?'

A sensation of physical coldness crept into Dick's stomach. It was not fear: fear was too absurd an emotion to consider in relation to Lesley. But it wouldn't go away.

'Look here, sir! You don't think I'm going to go home afterwards, and lock myself up in a room, and be found dead next morning of prussic-acid poisoning ? ‘

'Yes, young man. I do.'

'You expect me to kill myself?'

'That, at least, will be the effect.'

'But why? Because of something that will be said or done or suggested at this dinner?'

'Very probably. Yes.'

' What, for instance?'

'I don't know,' returned Sir Harvey, spreading out his hands. 'That's why I want to be there and see for myself.'

He was silent for a moment, pondering courses.

'Please observe,' he went on, 'that for the first time we're in a position to see for ourselves. Deductions will get us nowhere; Gideon Fell found that out; we must use our eyes. And there's just one other thing we can use our eyes on. Now tell me something you must have discovered about "Lesley Grant".' Again Sir Harvey pointed his finger. 'She doesn't like jewellery, does she?'

Dick reflected.

‘Yes, that's true.’

‘And doesn't own any? And, furthermore, never keeps large sums of money in die house?' 'No. Never.'

'We now come to something which didn't emerge fully until the death of the third victim. When she married Foster, the American lawyer, somebody installed in their bedroom a small but very efficient wall-safe. When she married Davies, the Liverpool broker, a wall-safe was installed in their house too. In each case she explained it was her husband's idea, to use for business papers. There seemed nothing suspicious about that.

'But,' added Sir Harvey with extraordinary intensity, 'when she was living alone, on her own, in the Avenue Foch in Paris, a similar type of safe turned up there too.'