Chapter XXVIII

When will you marry me, Lee?”

Peter stood on the hearth-rug and surveyed her with frowning intensity. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets. His tone was business-like and his manner abrupt.

Lee said, “I haven’t said I’m going to marry you at all.”

His frown deepened.

“Of course you’re going to marry me. I do wish you would stick to the point.”

“I said I hadn’t promised to marry you. That is the point.”

“No, it isn’t. We settled that yesterday. The present point is, when are you going to marry me? And I think it had better be as soon as possible. This is Thursday, and the licence business takes three days… Damn! that means the week-end comes in, so I suppose it will have to be Monday-or will a parson marry you on a Sunday? I don’t see why he shouldn’t-in the afternoon.”

Miss Fenton had a clear and pretty voice. She raised it perceptibly.

“Peter, I am not going to marry you-either on Sunday or Monday. I haven’t said that I am going to marry you at all.”

He swooped, pulled her up out of her chair, and held her at arm’s length.

“Why?”

“It’s not-it’s not a time to get married.”

“My child, marriage isn’t a beano. But I see your point. The inquest is tomorrow, and then I suppose they’ll let us get on with the funeral, say Saturday, and what’s to prevent our getting married on Monday? You want someone to look after you, you know. I can’t so much as go out for an hour or two but you go pouring confessions into old Lamb’s fortunately unresponsive ear. Poor old Lamb-first he thought Mavis had done it, then it looked as if I was a dead snip until Lucinda dropped on him out of the blue, on the top of which you came along with a confession, and now I gather that he’s quite sure it’s Bobby. But to return to our licence. You need looking after, I want to look after you, and-”

She shook her head.

“Peter, it won’t do-not till this is all cleared up. Don’t you see that if you marry me, the police will think I knew something and that you’d done it to make sure I couldn’t be called as a witness against you?”

Peter let go of her rather suddenly.

“What a perfectly horrible mind you’ve got!”

“Well, isn’t that just what they would think?”

“I don’t know-I suppose they might.”

He took her by the elbow and began to walk her up and down the room.

“Look here, my dear, you say put off getting married until the mess is cleared up. But suppose it isn’t cleared up-suppose it’s never cleared up. Do you realize that we are all under suspicion and we shall go on being suspected till kingdom come unless they really do find out who murdered Ross, and, what is more, prove it up to the hilt? Do you think Mavis did it? I don’t. I don’t suppose she’s ever handled a revolver in her life. Besides, look at what she did earlier on when he got fresh with her. She upped with the decanter and hit him over the head. Very nice, natural, womanly reaction. If she’d had a revolver handy she’d have hit him over the head with it or heaved it at him, but I’ll go bail she wouldn’t have fired it.”

Lee nodded.

“Yes, I think so too.”

“Always agree with me, darling. You’ll find it a splendid foundation for our married life. We now come to me. Do you think I did it?”

“No.”

“I suppose there are circumstances in which I might have done it-I don’t know. But whoever shot Ross shot him sitting. That’s the medical evidence-the shot travelled downwards. He was shot sitting, probably whilst he was still dazed after the clip on the head Mavis gave him with the decanter. I don’t see myself doing that somehow.”

Lee said “No” again.

“Then there’s Lucinda. I don’t know if they believe her statement, but I do. Of course the wish is probably father to the thought, because if she really did see someone coming out of Craddock House at a quarter past two in the morning, it spreads quite a lot of whitewash over the Craddock family. And that’s the snag-they may think the whitewash altogether too convenient.”

“I suppose so. I-I’ve been awfully frightened about Lucy, Peter. She was most frightfully worked up about Ross, and she doesn’t really seem to have known what she was doing on Tuesday night. The thing that frightens me is that as far as I can see she was the only person who could have got in from outside after Rush locked up. She says she found the door open, but-”

“Mavis and Ross came in. They may not have shut the door properly. No-that won’t wash. I don’t believe anyone could forget to shut a door they’d just opened with a latchkey. You see, he took the latchkey out all right. It was there on his chain. He simply couldn’t have forgotten the door. Besides Mavis was there.”

“Then who opened it? Someone did, if Lucy’s story is true. Oh, Peter, it frightens me.”

“I know, but you’re not going to make me believe that Lucinda shot Ross. What about Miss Bingham? There’s a really bright idea!”

Lee’s laugh was half a catch of the breath.

“Peter, I had her here for an hour after the Inspector had gone, and it was the very last straw. Talk about third degree!”

“I begin to feel quite sure she did it,” said Peter firmly. “She had a secret passion for Ross, and she slew him because he wouldn’t reciprocate. Why, she admits being on the spot at or about the fatal time. I believe we have her sleuthed. Call me Renshaw no more-I am Hawkshaw the Detective. I must ring up old Lamb and tell him all before he goes and arrests me, or Lucinda, or the unfortunate Bobby.”

All this time he had been walking Lee up and down, with the pace getting faster and faster, until at its climax he stopped suddenly and embraced her after the French manner, with clasping arms and a kiss upon either cheek.

“Peter! Don’t be so mad!”

She got an injured stare.

“Is it that you are offended? Is it not that one is permitted to salute one’s betrothed? Do you not love me passionately?”

“No, I don’t! And if you think that’s a French accent, it isn’t!”

He let go of her and ran his hands through his hair.

“All right, let us return to the prison house. We are now going to be very, very serious, and I expect we had better sit down.”

He drew two chairs together and sat forward with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hand.

“Lee, did you know Ross was married?”

Her eyebrows went up.

“Was he?” she said. “I’m not really surprised, you know. Lucy used to drop hints. I suppose that was why she was in such a flap about Mavis.”

“You think Mavis knew?”

“Well, you’d think Lucy would have told her if she wanted to put her off.”

“You’d think so. Well, she told Abbott, and I dropped in on old Prothero on my way back, and he told me all about it. She was an actress in a small way-name of Aggie Crouch, but her stage name was Rosalie La Fay. Ross married her on one of his leaves in nineteen-seventeen. He was over age and compos mentis, and she was a perfectly respectable girl, so Uncle John had just to swallow her down. But by the time the Armistice came along Ross was through and they separated. Uncle John made her an allowance of three hundred a year on condition she kept out of everybody’s way. Somewhere about nineteen-twenty-five he reduced it to two hundred-he’d had some losses-and in nineteen-thirty-one it came down with a run to a mere fifty. Prothero says it was all he could manage. When he died four years ago Ross cut it down to twenty-five, and a year ago he stopped it altogether. You know he really was a swine, Lee. The woman wrote the most imploring letters-said she couldn’t get a job, and wouldn’t he do something for her? Prothero tried to persuade him, especially in view of the fact that all the leasehold property was due to fall in and he could quite easily have let her have the original three hundred a year again, but he wouldn’t hear of it. By the way, she’ll come in for most of that property now.”