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3
Dinner that evening was a somewhat constrained1 meal. Both Gulbrandsen
and Lewis were absentminded and absorbed in their own thoughts. Wal-
seemed to have little to say either to each other or to the company at large.
technical discussion with Mr. Baumgarten, the occupational therapist.
cused himself almost at once. He said he had an important letter to write.
“So if you will forgive me, dear Carrie Louise, I will go now to my room.”
“You have all you want there? Jolly?”
“Yes, yes. Everything. A typewriter, I asked, and one has been put there.
He left the Great Hall by the door on the left which led past the foot of
bedroom and bathroom.
When he had gone out, Carrie Louise said:
“Not going down to the theatre tonight, Gina?”
The girl shook her head. She went over and sat by the window overlook-
ing the front drive and the court.
Stephen glanced at her, then strolled over to the big grand piano. He sat
two occupational therapists, Mr. Baumgarten and Mr. Lacy, and Dr. Mav-
erick, said good night and left. Walter turned the switch of a reading lamp
and with a crackling noise half the lights in the Hall went out.
“That darned switch is always faulty. I’ll go and put a new fuse in.”
He left the Hall and Carrie Louise murmured, “Wally’s so clever with
toaster?”
“It seems to be all he does do here,” said Mildred Strete. “Mother, have
Miss Bellever looked annoyed.
“I declare I completely forgot tonight.” She jumped up and went into the
dining room, returning presently with a small glass containing a little
rose-coloured fluid.
Smiling a little, Carrie Louise held out an obedient hand.
face.
And then, rather unexpectedly, Lewis Serrocold said: “I don’t think I
should take it tonight, my dear. I’m not sure it really agrees with you.”
Quietly, but with that controlled energy always so apparent in him, he
took the glass from Miss Bellever and put it down on the big oak Welsh
dresser.
Miss Bellever said sharply:
“Really, Mr. Serrocold, I can’t agree with you there. Mrs. Serrocold has
been very much better since—”
She broke off and turned sharply:
The front door was pushed violently open and allowed to swing to with
a crash. Edgar Lawson came into the big dim Hall with the air of a star
performer making a triumphal entry.
He stood in the middle of the floor and struck an attitude.
It was almost ridiculous—but not quite ridiculous.
Edgar said theatrically17:
“So I have found you, O mine enemy!”
He said it to Lewis Serrocold.
Mr. Serrocold looked mildly astonished.
“Why, Edgar, what is the matter?”
“You can say that to me—you! You know what’s the matter. You’ve been
deceiving me, spying on me, working with my enemies against me.”
Lewis took him by the arm.
“Now, now, my dear lad, don’t excite yourself. Tell me all about it
quietly. Come into my office.”
He led him across the Hall and through a door on the right closing it be-
of a key being turned in the lock.
Miss Bellever looked at Miss Marple, the same idea in both their minds.
It was not Lewis Serrocold who had turned the key.
Miss Bellever said sharply: “That young man is just about to go off his
head in my opinion. It isn’t safe.”
Mildred said, “He’s a most unbalanced young man—and absolutely un-
grateful for everything that’s been done for him—you ought to put your
foot down, Mother.”
With a faint sigh Carrie Louise murmured:
“There’s no harm in him really. He’s fond of Lewis. He’s very fond of
him.”
expression that Edgar had turned on Lewis Serrocold a few moments pre-
viously, very far from it. She wondered, as she had wondered before, if
Carrie Louise deliberately20 turned her back on reality.
Gina said sharply:
“He had something in his pocket. Edgar, I mean. Playing with it.”
Stephen murmured as he took his hands from the keys:
“In a film it would certainly have been a revolver.”
Miss Marple coughed.
“I think, you know,” she said apologetically, “it was a revolver.”
From behind the closed doors of Lewis’ office the sound of voices had
been plainly discernible. Now, suddenly, they became clearly audible.
Edgar Lawson shouted whilst Lewis Serrocold’s voice kept its even, reas-
onable note.
“Lies—lies—lies, all lies. You’re my father. I’m your son. You’ve deprived
me of my rights. I ought to own this place. You hate me—you want to get
rid of me!”
ing control of himself. Occasional words came from Lewis—“calm—just be
Insensibly everyone in the Hall was silent, listening intently to what
went on behind the locked door of Lewis’ study.
“I’ll make you listen to me,” yelled Edgar. “I’ll take that supercilious27 ex-
pression off your face. I’ll have revenge, I tell you. Revenge for all you’ve
made me suffer.”
“Put that revolver down!”
Gina cried sharply:
“Edgar will kill him. He’s crazy. Can’t we get the police or something?”
Carrie Louise, still unmoved, said softly:
“There’s no need to worry, Gina. Edgar loves Lewis. He’s just dramat-
ising himself, that’s all.”
Edgar’s voice sounded through the door in a laugh that Miss Marple had
to admit sounded definitely insane.
“Yes, I’ve got a revolver—and it’s loaded. No, don’t speak, don’t move.
You’re going to hear me out. It’s you who started this conspiracy29 against
me and now you’re going to pay for it.”
What sounded like the report of a firearm made them all start, but Car-
rie Louise said:
“It’s all right, it’s outside—in the park somewhere.”
“You sit there looking at me — looking at me — pretending to be un-
moved. Why don’t you get down on your knees and beg for mercy? I’m go-
ing to shoot, I tell you. I’m going to shoot you dead! I’m your son—your un-
acknowledged despised son — you wanted me hidden away, out of the
world altogether, perhaps. You set your spies to follow me—to hound me
down—you plotted against me. You, my father! My father. I’m only a bas-
ing to be kind to me, and all the time—all the time … you’re not fit to live. I
won’t let you live.”
Again there came a stream of obscene profanity. Somewhere during the
scene Miss Marple was conscious of Miss Bellever saying:
“We must do something,” and leaving the Hall.
Edgar seemed to pause for breath and then he shouted out,
“You’re going to die—to die. You’re going to die now. Take that, you
devil, and that!”
Two sharp cracks rang out—not in the park this time, but definitely be-
hind the locked door.
Somebody, Miss Marple thought it was Mildred, cried out:
“Oh God, what shall we do?”
There was a thud from inside the room and then a sound, almost more
door.
It was Stephen Restarick.
“Open the door. Open the door,” he shouted.
Miss Bellever came back into the Hall. In her hand she held an assort-
ment of keys.
“Try some of these,” she said breathlessly.
At that moment the fused lights came on again. The Hall sprang into life
Stephen Restarick began trying the keys.
They heard the inside key fall out as he did so.
Inside, that wild desperate sobbing went on.
Walter Hudd, coming lazily back into the Hall, stopped dead and deman-
ded:
“Say, what’s going on round here?”
Mildred said tearfully,
“That awful crazy young man has shot Mr. Serrocold.”
the study door. Very gently she pushed Stephen Restarick aside. “Let me
speak to him.”
She called—very softly—“Edgar … Edgar … let me in, will you? Please,
Edgar.”
They heard the key fitted into the lock. It turned and the door was
slowly opened.
But it was not Edgar who opened it. It was Lewis Serrocold. He was
breathing hard as though he had been running, but otherwise he was un-
moved.
“It’s all right, dearest,” he said. “Dearest, it’s quite all right.”
“We thought you’d been shot,” said Miss Bellever gruffly.
“Of course I haven’t been shot.”
it had dropped from his hand.
“But we heard the shots,” said Mildred.
“Oh yes, he fired twice.”
“And he missed you?”
“Of course he missed me,” snapped Lewis.
Miss Marple did not consider that there was any of course about it. The
shots must have been fired at fairly close range.
“Where’s Maverick? It’s Maverick we need.”
Miss Bellever said:
“I’ll get him. Shall I ring up the police as well?”
“Police? Certainly not.”
“Of course, we must ring up the police,” said Mildred. “He’s dangerous.”
“Nonsense,” said Lewis Serrocold. “Poor lad. Does he look dangerous?”
At the moment he did not look dangerous. He looked young and pathetic
His voice had lost its carefully acquired accent.
ing all that stuff—I must have been mad.”
“I really must have been mad. I didn’t mean to. Please, Mr. Serrocold, I
really didn’t mean to.”
Lewis Serrocold patted him on the shoulder.
“That’s all right, my boy. No damage done.”
“I might have killed you, Mr. Serrocold.”
Walter Hudd walked across the room and peered at the wall behind the
desk.
“The bullets went in here,” he said. His eye dropped to the desk and the
chair behind it. “Must have been a near miss,” he said grimly.
“I lost my head. I didn’t rightly know what I was doing. I thought he’d
done me out of my rights. I thought—”
Miss Marple put in the question she had been wanting to ask for some
time.
“Who told you,” she asked, “that Mr. Serrocold was your father?”
Just for a second, a sly expression peeped out of Edgar’s distracted face.
It was there and gone in a flash.
“Nobody,” he said. “I just got it into my head.”
Walter Hudd was staring down at the revolver where it lay on the floor.
“Where the hell did you get that gun?” he demanded.
“Gun?” Edgar stared down at it.
up. “By heck, it is! You took it out of my room, you creeping louse you.”
“All this can be gone into later,” he said. “Ah, here’s Maverick. Take a
look at him, will you, Maverick?”
“This won’t do, Edgar,” he said. “This won’t do, you know.”
“He’s a dangerous lunatic,” said Mildred sharply. “He’s been shooting off
a revolver and raving. He only just missed my stepfather.”
“Careful, please, Mrs. Strete.”
“I’m sick of all this. Sick of the way you all go on here! I tell you this
man’s a lunatic.”
to the floor at Serrocold’s feet.
“Help me. Help me. Don’t let them take me away and shut me up. Don’t
let them….”
An unpleasing scene, Miss Marple thought.
Mildred said angrily, “I tell you he’s—”
Her mother said soothingly49,
“Please, Mildred. Not now. He’s suffering.”
Walter muttered,
“Suffering cripes! They’re all cuckoo round here.”
“I’ll take charge of him,” said Dr. Maverick. “You come with me, Edgar.
Bed and a sedative—and we’ll talk everything over in the morning. Now
you trust me, don’t you?”
Rising to his feet and trembling a little, Edgar looked doubtfully at the
young doctor and then at Mildred Strete.
“She said—I was a lunatic.”
“No, no, you’re not a lunatic.”
Miss Bellever’s footsteps rang purposefully across the Hall. She came in
with her lips pursed together and a flushed face.
“I’ve telephoned the police,” she said grimly. “They will be here in a few
minutes.”
Carrie Louise cried, “Jolly!” in tones of dismay.
Lewis Serrocold frowned angrily.
“I told you, Jolly, I did not want the police summoned. This is a medical
matter.”
“That’s as may be,” said Miss Bellever. “I’ve my own o
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