Till Death Do Us Part dgf-15 Read online

  'You were violently discussing the mystery of locked, sealed rooms,' pursued Dr Fell. 'De Villa remarked,a propos the bullet fired at him through the tent, that you couldn't have such a thing as a locked room when a bullet-hole appeared in the wall. Is that correct?' 'Yes!'

  'Shortly afterwards Middlesworth heard a noise outside. He got up, went to the window, threw back the curtains, and looked out. Then he drew his head back - and stood staring at that window, with his back to you, as though something had just occurred to him. Is that correct too?'

  'Yes.'

  'Well?' prompted Dr Fell gently. 'When Middlesworth looked at the window, what did he see ?'

  With some effort Dr Fell hoisted himself to his feet. He lumbered across to the window, still locked, where the clean-drilled bullet-hole showed in the lower pane below and to one side of the metal catch.

  Dr Fell pointed to it

  'Colonel Pope, as we know, always used to fasten gauze screens to these windows - sometimes the upper, sometimes the lower part - using drawing-pins to fasten the screens there. Consequently, what do we find? We find, as Earnshaw has been so fond of pointing out, innumerable tiny little holes made by the points of drawing-pins. We find those little pin-pricks peppered all over the wooden frame of the window. Is that clear?'

  'Naturally! But...'

  'You could push another drawing-pin into the frame anywhere, couldn't you? And, when it was plucked out again, the mark it left would never be noticed?'

  'Of course not But...'

  'Middlesworth,' said Dr Fell, 'had a double inspiration. I will now tell you exactly what he did.

  'He could be morally certain Sam De Villa would take a large dose of luminal before going to bed. So he left this cottage and drove you home in his car, showing alarm only when you mentioned whisky, and asking you for God's sake not to get drunk...'

  ‘Why?'

  'Because he vitally needed you in his plan. Middlesworth then drove home himself, and made certain preparations. Who would be the likeliest person to have a hypodermic syringe at hand? A medical man. We discovered in the Sodbury Cross poisoning case that prussic acid can be distilled from separately non-poisonous elements; but who would be the likeliest person to have the acid ready at hand? A medical man. These particular preparations, however, did not concern him at the moment. He had other things to attend to first.

  'At shortly past midnight, when Six Ashes was asleep,' Dr Fell picked up the confession, and put it down again, 'he walked slowly out to this cottage once more.

  'The house was dark. He had no trouble getting in: the place was not locked, and a window would always have served if it had been. He found Sam De Villa, as he expected, in a drugged sleep upstairs in the bedroom. So far, excellent!

  'He came into this sitting-room, where he switched on the light. He set about arranging the room - notably that big easy-chair where Hadley is sitting now - exactly as he wanted it for the events that were to happen at daybreak next morning. He closed both windows, but drew back the curtains widely from both.

  'You see, of course, what his next move was? Middlesworth, carrying that Winchester 61 rifle, walked across the lane, climbed over the stone wall opposite, worked out his position carefully, and then - time still shortly past midnight - he fired a bullet through this window into a lighted, empty room.

  ' That was when the real shot was fired. That Was when a bullet drilled through this window, smashed the Battle-of-Waterloo picture over the fireplace there, and buried itself in the wall.

  'This is the loneliest of neighbourhoods after midnight. He didn't think it likely that anybody would hear the shot. Sam De Villa, in a drugged sleep upstairs, certainly wouldn't As a matter of fact, Lord Ashe up at the Hall did happen to hear the shot in the middle of the night, because he tells me he mentioned it to you...' Again Dr Fell looked at Dick.

  '... when he saw you early next day. But Lord Ashe confused it in his mind with another shot he heard at shortly after five o'clock in the morning. As for Middlesworth, the first part of his game was now secure. He closed the curtains on all the windows in this cottage, switched on all the lights so they would be certain to burn out before morning, and then went quietly home.

  ' No harm had been done. Not yet.

  'Chance might have wrecked Middlesworth, because he got a sick-call in the small hours of the morning. But the sick-call was to Ashe Hall, where one of the maids was taken ill; and it was admirable for his purpose. He could keep an eye on things.

  'He left Ashe Hall at twenty minutes to five in the morning - speaking rather wildly to Lord Ashe about his intention of driving straight to Hastings - and drove his car to the High Street There he abandoned the car for the moment, and walked once more into Gallows Lane. I can imagine him coming along here through the first ghostly grey of morning; and I can imagine that his heart was as cold as his hands.

  'Long ago, of course, he had glanced in through a lighted wall of windows at Mr Markham's, and seen Mr Markham asleep on the sofa with a full, untouched whisky-bottle and syphon on the desk. I fancy he glanced in once again, to make sure. Then he went on to this cottage here.

  'The electricity here had burned itself out long before. The place was dark; it was chilly; it was almost the hour of the murder and the illusion. Middlesworth found De Villa still in a drug-sleep upstairs. If the victim had been awake, Middlesworth was ready to tie him with a soft dressing-gown-cord which would leave no marks, and gag him with a handkerchief and sticking-plaster.

  ' But it wasn't necessary. He carried De Villa downstairs -

  De Villa was a little chap, and Middlesworth a big man -and propped him up in that easy-chair, so that the course taken by the already-fired bullet passed just across the top of De Villa's head.

  .'And then, just as the first eerie glow of dawn was lighting up this room, he rolled back the sleeve of De Villa's dressing-gown and with gloved hands emptied the hypodermic of prussic acid into his victim's left arm.'

  Dr Fell paused.

  Despite that warm afternoon, Dick Markham was cold to the heart. He seemed to see shadows moving at dawn, evil shadows in this room: the gloved physician, the corpse that jerked once, the stir of birds outside in the trees.

  'He next,' said Dr Fell, 'locked up the room. He could do this, don't you see, because there was now a bullet-hole in the window. We kept talking about this room being "sealed". But, by thunder, it wasn't sealed! That's the whole point! De Villa had spoken truly when he remarked that you can't have a sealed room when there's a bullet-hole in the wall.

  'Middlesworth took a box of drawing-pins, and spilled it artistically on the floor at the dying man's left hand. He locked and bolted the door on the inside. Finally, he... will you oblige, Hadley?'

  Superintendent Hadley nodded with more than a litde grimness. He got up and went out of the room.

  'I burbled away on Friday night,' continued Dr Fell, 'with a little discourse on windows. Please observe this particular window and this particular bullet-hole. The bullet-hole - as I face it now - is below the line of the joined sashes, some three inches below and to the left of the metal catch. Very well I

  'I take an ordinary drawing-pin, like this one in my hand now. I stick this drawing-pin into the frame of the window - the horizontal frame facing me, marking the line of the joined sashes - above the bullet-hole and a little farther to the left.

  ' I then take a piece of very heavy black thread, a long piece like this one' - it appeared in conjuring fashion from Dr Fell's capacious side pocket - 'and this I prepare for my trick.'

  The figure of Superintendent Hadley appeared outside the window. The lower sill of the window, as Dick had been able to notice before, was not much above the level of a man's waist.

  Dr Fell unlocked the window by pushing its metal catch to the right, so that it lay flat back. Folding the long pieces of thread, he fastened its loop round the thumb-grip of the catch. He ran the ends of the thread along to the left and over the drawing-pin, as though over a pulley. Then h
e ran the ends downwards, threading them both through the opening of the bullet-hole so that they now hung outside the window.

  ' Since I am of somewhat more than modest dimensions myself,' Dr Fell said apologetically, 'you will excuse me if I don't execute the movement myself. But I raise the window. Like this!'

  He pushed up the window, the long loop of thread running with it but its position remaining undisturbed.

  ' Imagine, now, that I climb out as Middlesworth did. I climb out, I close the window after me' - down it came with a soft bang - 'and I am all ready. I have only to take diose ends of the thread which now hang outside the window, and pull them downwards as Hadley is doing.

  ' Pressure on that loop of thread, run over the drawing-pin to act as a pulley, pulls the thumb-catch of the window outwards, towards me, moving slowly outwards until it is at right angles; and the window is now locked.

  'Once this is done, a very strong downwards jerk on my drawing-pin-pulley dislodges the drawing-pin from the frame; it falls inwards and bounces somewhere on the floor of the room. I pull one of the ends of my loop of thread, so that I draw the thread outside the window like a snake, and have it outside the window in my hand. No trace now remains. The drawing-pin will be found in the room, of course. But it will not be noticed if I have already spilled a box of drawing-pins on the floor. All right, Hadley!'

  The window-catch, pulled over by that thread, had slid into the locked position. Hadley, outside the window, gave now a sharp downwards yank. The drawing-pin, pulled loose, fell upon the inside sill, and flew out into the room. It landed on the carpet...

  'Not far, you observe,' said Dr Fell, pointing, 'from another drawing-pin which seemed to have rolled wide from the spilled box we found here Friday morning. You perhaps recall I had my eye on it while we were here during the afternoon? Hadley almost stepped on it.'

  Hadley, pulling at one end of the thread, was now drawing it outside the window into his hand.

  'That's all there was to Middlesworth's dodge,' said Dr Fell.' It takes a few minutes in the telling; but in execution it can be done in thirty seconds. The room was sealed. Middlesworth was now ready for the last, most important thing - to convince you, Mr Markham, that there was no bullet-hole in the window until you arrived.

  'He went to the telephone in the hall, and sent that frantic whispering message. It was certain to draw you, and it did. He imagined how long it would take you to leave the house. He dropped a shilling into the electric meter, having left the switch turned on in this room; and a light came on here. He dodged across the lane - some distance eastwards, from the orchard to the coppice, where Miss Drew saw him - and all was ready.

  'When you got well in sight, he made a conspicuous clatter with the rifle by rattling it against the wall. He drew your attention to it. As you shouted out to that marksman, he aimed at the window and fired... ?'

  'A blank cartridge,' supplied Dick.

  'A blank cartridge,' agreed Dr Fell. 'Inspired by Earnshaw's adventure when Major Price played the famous joke, Middlesworth used it to very good advantage.

  'Now you yourself, Mr Markham, were utterly convinced you had seen that bullet-hole, as you put it "jump up" in the window. That was what I had to break down when I questioned you on Friday afternoon. I was perhaps - hurrum! - a little on edge when I questioned you; and, when Hadley interrupted at a critical point, I fear I mentally consigned him to hopeless spiritual ruin.

  'But actually you never saw anything of the kind. This became obvious from your own account of the matter. Your actual words to me were, when I pressed you:"I was watching the rifle; I saw it fired; and even at that distance I could make out the bullet-hole in the window."

  '"Make out," yes. But that's a different thing. Naturally you had your eyes on the rifle 1 You saw it fired. Good 1 But to say that you also saw the bullet-hole appear in the window presupposes a turn of the head from left to right faster than the velocity of a rifle-bullet. This was an evident impossibility.

  ' I breathed, sir, with much relief. When, shortly afterwards, I was presented with Miss Cynthia Drew's story of the man - or figure - she saw running across the road, I seemed to see the case complete. But for Hadley's interruption at a difficult time...'

  Superintendent' Hadley, who had come back into the room, stopped short in wrath.

  'My interruption?' he repeated.

  ‘Yes.'

  'If it had occurred to you,' said Hadley, 'to tell me just what the devil was the line you were working on before that time, things might have gone a little more smoothly. And aren't you running far ahead of your story?'

  Dr Fell's cigar had gone out. He blinked at it, and lumbered back to the sofa, where he sat down.

  'There is very little more to tell. If I may be allowed to turn back the clock again, to ten o'clock and onwards on Friday morning, I think we shall finish sweeping up any loose pieces. I was - er - inclined to think, on my first examination of this room just before Hadley's arrival, that I could fathom the lines of the locked room. Hadley arrived, as I told you a while ago, with his information about the identity of the dead man; and my attention was already on Dr Middlesworth.

  'Just before I started up for Ashe Hall -'

  'Why did you want so much to go up there?' inquired Dick.

  'The household,' said Dr Fell, 'had been up most of the night with a sick maid. Somebody might have heard something interesting. Lord Ashe, as I told you, had heard that shot at past midnight While I went on there, I asked Hadley to see whoever was in charge of the village post-office ...'

  'And,' snarled Hadley, 'put different marks on any stamps bought by four or five people! I didn't know until late in the afternoon you were definitely after Middlesworth. You might have been after Miss Drew, who was my choice; or Major Price or Mr Earnshaw or even...'

  'Me?' asked Lesley quietly. . ' Or even Lord Ashe himself,' said Hadley, smiling at her. ' This trick of laying a trap for the whole ruddy crowd -'

  'Well, I might have been wrong,' said Dr Fell, unabashed. 'But everything henceforward told me with roaring certainty that I was right I even heard from Lord Ashe, in your presence, that the "Bible-salesman", Sam De Villa, visited only Ashe Hall. I daresay he was scouting by feeling out the nature of his reception: by making an estimate of the leading light in this district But, by the Lord Harry, he could never have got all that information about village-people just from a talk with Lord Ashe. It confirmed belief in an accomplice.

  ‘I,ve already given you the various indications which led to the certainty, after my interview with Mr Markham late in the afternoon, that we had the thing taped. From Middlesworth's confession we know that he tumbled to the trick about the stamps because he bought a book of stamps; and poor Laura marked them rather clumsily.

  'He'd already sent a letter to me, of all people, accusing Miss Grant of being a noted poisoner and dropping hints - not saying anything definite, but dropping hints - about

  how the murder might have been committed. Don't you see he had to provide basis for his fictional plot? He had to show there was an enemy of Lesley Grant who still believed in "Sir Harvey Gilman", and was trying to frame her. That was the only way he could do it, and the surest way -in his own estimation - of turning suspicion away from himself.

  'He wrote the letter. Then, in horror, he tried to get the letter back. And Laura Feathers died.'

  'But his letter,' said Dick, 'didn't actually hint broadly at the real way of committing the murder?'

  'Oh, no. That was too dangerous. And also unnecessary. All he had to do was plug, and plug, and plug away, at the idea of someone trying to frame Miss Grant. But he tumbled to the marked book of stamps; he got away; he took refuge in Miss Grant's house because three persons were closing in on him from different sides.

  'You see,' Dr Fell hesitated, 'I was rather sure I caught a glimpse of him up in that bedroom when I was coming up the path. Mr Markham's story confirmed it. So I had the house covered. He couldn't get away. But... I talked to him, I let him
hear me, and I let him die. I think that explains everything.'

  There was a long silence, while the sun lay drowsy in the room.

  'Not every thing,' said Dick. 'It was Cynthia, I suppose, who listened outside these windows on Thursday night? And overheard De Villa's tale about Lesley ?'

  'Oh, yes. Miss Drew is a good girl. But she's a little erratic'

  'And Lesley didn't actually wallop her with a mirror up in that bedroom when they were having the argument?'

  'Of course I didn't!' cried Lesley.

  They were sitting in chairs not far away from each other. Dick worked up his courage to face a last question.

  'Are you thinking,' asked Lesley, 'what I've heard about since? That I was out of the house, and somebody saw me here in the front garden, at three o'clock in the morning?

  And you got this horrible idea that I might be the guilty one after all.'

  'Well... not exactly the guilty one. But -'

  ' You did! Don't deny it!'

  'All right, darling, I did,'

  'And I don't blame you,' said Lesley, 'It's rather sad that the explanation should be so very foolish. But I can't help it! It worries me; it's always worried me. I've been to a number of doctors, but they say not to worry. They say it often happens to people like me: overstrung, tending to brood, making much of a trifle.

  'But I did think I'd killed that man, don't you see? I mean I thought I'd killed "Sir Harvey Gilman" when the rifle went off accidentally! And I dreamed about it! I couldn't help dreaming about it! I had an awful night, and woke up very tired. So I knew it must have happened again, though I had only a hazy idea of what had happened or where I'd been. When I saw a different frock across the chair - that is, when I woke up in the morning and saw it -!'

  'Look here,' said Dick. 'Are you telling us ... ?'

  ' It was just another devilment added to the rest,' said Lesley. 'Nothing more or less than sleep-walking. I must have come out here, maybe with an idea of finding out what was wrong or how badly he'd been hurt; but I don't remember it. The horrible thing is that I might even have run into the murderer. But I shouldn't have known it if I had. I'm not much good to you, am I? Lily Jewell's daughter, nervous tantrums, and being afflicted with sleepwalking because ...'