Till Death Do Us Part dgf-15 Page 4

  '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

  "den". And once more the room was locked up on the inside.'

  Dick pressed a hand across his forehead. 'Securely?' he demanded.

  'The windows were not only locked, but had wooden-barred shutters as well. The door had two bolts - new, tight-fitting bolts which couldn't be tampered with - one at the top, and one at the bottom. It was a big, florid, old-fashioned house; that room could be sealed up inside like a fortress. Nor was that all.

  'Davies, they showed, had begun life as a dispensing chemist. He was well acquainted with the odour of prussic acid. He couldn't have injected the stuff into his own arm by accident, or by somebody's telling him it was a harmless concoction. If this wasn't suicide, it was murder. Yet there had been no struggle and no drugging. Davies was a gross old man, but he was still a big man: he wouldn't have submitted tamely to a needle redolent of hydrocyanic acid. And the room remained locked up on the inside.'

  Sir Harvey pursed up his lips, cocking his head on one side the better to admire this.

  'The very simplicity of the thing, gentlemen, drove the police mad. They felt certain; yet they couldn't prove.'

  'What,' asked Dick, fighting black things in his own mind, 'what did Les ... I mean, what did the wife say to this?'

  'She denied it was murder, of course.' 'Yes; but what did she say?’

  'She was simply wide-eyed and horrified. She said she couldn't understand it She admitted she was the girl who had married Burton Foster, but said the whole thing was a dreadful coincidence or mistake. What could the police answer to that?'

  'Did they do anything else?'

  'Investigated her, naturally. What little could be found out' 'Well?'

  'They tried to get her on my charge,' said Sir Harvey.

  'And they couldn't. No poison could be traced to her. She'd married Davies under a false name; but that's not illegal unless there's a question of bigamy or fraud. There was no such question. Full-stop.' 'And then?'

  The pathologist lifted his shoulders, and winced again. His wound, or the emotion caused by it, had begun to madden him.

  'The final step in her progress I can tell you very briefly. I didn't see it happen. Neither did Hadley. The pretty widow, now with quite a sizeable fortune, simply disappeared. I more or less forgot her. It was three years ago that a friend of mine living in Paris, to whom I'd once told the lady's story as a classic example, sent me a cutting from a French newspaper.

  'The press-cutting reported an unfortunate suicide in the Avenue George V. The victim was M. Martin Belford, a young Englishman, who had a flat there. It appeared that he had just become engaged to be married to a certain Mademoiselle Lesley Somebody - the name escapes me now - whose house was in the Avenue Foch.

  'Four days later he dined with this lady at her home, as a sort of celebration of the engagement. He left the house at eleven o'clock that night, apparently in the best of health and spirits. He went home. Next morning he was found dead in his bedroom. Do I need to tell you under what circumstances?'

  'The same?'

  'Exactly the same. Room locked up, in the comprehensive French style. Intravenous poisoning by hydrocyanic acid.'

  'And then?.'

  Sir Harvey stared at the past.

  ' I sent the cutting to Hadley, who got in touch with the French police. Even those realists wouldn't hear of anything but suicide. The newspaper reporters, who are allowed a broader style than they are here, spoke in tones of tragedy and sadness' about mademoiselle."Cette belle anglaise,
très chic, très distinguée." They suggested that there had been a lovers' tiff, which mademoiselle didn't like to admit; and in a fit of despair the man had gone home and killed himself.'

  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.'

  'Meaning what?'

  'She doesn't own jewellery. She doesn't keep money in the house. Then what does she want with a burglar-proof little safe? What does she keep in this safe, which is never examined until after the murder?'

  Cloudy guesses, all unformed but all unpleasant, drifted through Dick Markham's mind.

  'What do you suggest, sir?'

  He tried to keep his face straight, he tried to avoid Sir Harvey's very sharp eye. Yet, as usual, this dry old devil fastened on his thoughts rather than his spoken words.

  'There's a safe like that in her house now, young man. Isn't there?'

  'Yes, there is. I happen to know, because the maid commented on it.' Dick hesitated.' Lesley only laughed, and said that was where she kept her diary.'

  He paused, his mind stumbling over what seemed the ugliest implication of them all.

  ' Her diary,' he repeated.' But that's -!'

  'Will you please face the fact,' said Sir Harvey, 'that this girl isn't normal? That the poisoner has got to confide in someone or something, and that it usually is a diary? All the same, I should expect to find something besides that.

  No poison, you recall, was ever traced to her. Not even a hypodermic syringe. It may be that. Or it may be...' ·Well?'

  'Something even more unpleasant,' replied Sir Harvey, and his mouth had an odd expression as he stared into vacancy. 'Yes. Something even more unpleasant. Gideon Fell once said -'

  There was an interruption.

  'I heard at the pub to-day,' suddenly observed Dr Middlesworth, taking the still-empty pipe out of his mouth, 'that Dr Fell is spending the summer at Hastings. He's got a cottage there.'

  It was as though a piece of furniture had spoken. Sir Harvey, ruffled, glanced round in some irritation. Middlesworth, continuing to draw at the empty pipe, kept meditative eyes fixed on the lamp.

  'Gideon Fell near here?' said Sir Harvey, with a mood changing to one of lively satisfaction. 'Then we must have him in. Because Hadley consulted him after the Davies case, and these locked rooms utterly beat him. Whereas we, you see, shall proceed to unlock the room...'

  ' With my help ?' Dick asked bitterly.

  'Yes. With your help.'

  'And what if I won't do it ? ‘