谋杀启事11

IV

Delighted gasps and feminine squeaks of appreciation were heard in thedarkness. “It’s beginning,” cried Mrs. Harmon in an ecstasy. DoraBunner’s voice cried out plaintively, “Oh, I don’t like it!” Other voices said,“How terribly, terribly frightening!” “It gives me the creeps.”

“Archie, where are you?” “What do I have to do?” “Oh dear—did I stepon your foot? I’m so sorry.”

Then, with a crash, the door swung open. A powerful flashlight playedrapidly round the room. A man’s hoarse nasal voice, reminiscent to all ofpleasant afternoons at the cinema, directed the company crisply to:

“Stick ’em up!

“Stick ’em up, I tell you!” the voice barked.

Delightedly, hands were raised willingly above heads.

“Isn’t it wonderful?” breathed a female voice. “I’m so thrilled.”

And then, unexpectedly, a revolver spoke. It spoke twice. The ping oftwo bullets shattered the complacency of the room. Suddenly the gamewas no longer a game. Somebody screamed….

The figure in the doorway whirled suddenly round, it seemed to hesit-ate, a third shot rang out, it crumpled and then it crashed to the ground.

The flashlight dropped and went out.

There was darkness once again. And gently, with a little Victorianprotesting moan, the drawing room door, as was its habit when notpropped open, swung gently to and latched with a click.

VInside the drawing room there was pandemonium. Various voices spokeat once. “Lights.” “Can’t you find the switch?” “Who’s got a lighter?” “Oh, Idon’t like it, I don’t like it.” “But those shots were real!” “It was a real re-volver he had.” “Was it a burglar?” “Oh, Archie, I want to get out of here.”

“Please, has somebody got a lighter?”

And then, almost at the same moment, two lighters clicked and burnedwith small steady flames.

Everybody blinked and peered at each other. Startled face looked intostartled face. Against the wall by the archway Miss Blacklock stood withher hand up to her face. The light was too dim to show more than thatsomething dark was trickling over her fingers.

Colonel Easterbrook cleared his throat and rose to the occasion.

“Try the switches, Swettenham,” he ordered.

Edmund, near the door, obediently jerked the switch up and down.

“Off at the main, or a fuse,” said the Colonel. “Who’s making that awfulrow?”

A female voice had been screaming steadily from somewhere beyondthe closed door. It rose now in pitch and with it came the sound of fistshammering on a door.

Dora Bunner, who had been sobbing quietly, called out:

“It’s Mitzi. Somebody’s murdering Mitzi….”

Patrick muttered: “No such luck.”

Miss Blacklock said: “We must get candles. Patrick, will you—?”

The Colonel was already opening the door. He and Edmund, their light-ers flickering, stepped into the hall. They almost stumbled over a recum-bent figure there.

“Seems to have knocked him out,” said the Colonel. “Where’s that wo-man making that hellish noise?”

“In the dining room,” said Edmund.

The dining room was just across the hall. Someone was beating on thepanels and howling and screaming.

“She’s locked in,” said Edmund, stooping down. He turned the key andMitzi came out like a bounding tiger.

The dining room light was still on. Silhouetted against it Mitzi presenteda picture of insane terror and continued to scream. A touch of comedywas introduced by the fact that she had been engaged in cleaning silverand was still holding a chamois leather and a large fish slice.

“Be quiet, Mitzi,” said Miss Blacklock.

“Stop it,” said Edmund, and as Mitzi showed no disposition to stopscreaming, he leaned forward and gave her a sharp slap on the cheek.

Mitzi gasped and hiccuped into silence.

“Get some candles,” said Miss Blacklock. “In the kitchen cupboard.

Patrick, you know where the fusebox is?”

“The passage behind the scullery? Right, I’ll see what I can do.”

Miss Blacklock had moved forward into the light thrown from the din-ing room and Dora Bunner gave a sobbing gasp. Mitzi let out another full-blooded scream.

“The blood, the blood!” she gasped. “You are shot—Miss Blacklock, youbleed to death.”

“Don’t be so stupid,” snapped Miss Blacklock. “I’m hardly hurt at all. Itjust grazed my ear.”

“But Aunt Letty,” said Julia, “the blood.”

And indeed Miss Blacklock’s white blouse and pearls and her handswere a horrifyingly gory sight.

“Ears always bleed,” said Miss Blacklock. “I remember fainting in thehairdresser’s when I was a child. The man had only just snipped my ear.

There seemed to be a basin of blood at once. But we must have somelight.”

“I get the candles,” said Mitzi.

Julia went with her and they returned with several candles stuck intosaucers.

“Now let’s have a look at our malefactor,” said the Colonel. “Hold thecandles down low, will you, Swettenham? As many as you can.”

“I’ll come the other side,” said Phillipa.

With a steady hand she took a couple of saucers. Colonel Easterbrookknelt down.

The recumbent figure was draped in a roughly made black cloak with ahood to it. There was a black mask over the face and he wore black cottongloves. The hood had slipped back disclosing a ruffled fair head.

Colonel Easterbrook turned him over, felt the pulse, the heart … thendrew away his fingers with an exclamation of distaste, looking down onthem. They were sticky and red.

“Shot himself,” he said.

“Is he badly hurt?” asked Miss Blacklock.

“H’m. I’m afraid he’s dead … May have been suicide—or he may havetripped himself up with that cloak thing and the revolver went off as hefell. If I could see better—”

At that moment, as though by magic, the lights came on again.

With a queer feeling of unreality those inhabitants of Chipping Cleghornwho stood in the hall of Little Paddocks realized that they stood in thepresence of violent and sudden death. Colonel Easterbrook’s hand wasstained red. Blood was still trickling down Miss Blacklock’s neck over herblouse and coat and the grotesquely sprawled figure of the intruder lay attheir feet….

Patrick, coming from the dining room, said, “It seemed to be just onefuse gone …” He stopped.

Colonel Easterbrook tugged at the small black mask.

“Better see who the fellow is,” he said. “Though I don’t suppose it’s any-one we know….”

He detached the mask. Necks were craned forward. Mitzi hiccuped andgasped, but the others were very quiet.

“He’s quite young,” said Mrs. Harmon with a note of pity in her voice.

And suddenly Dora Bunner cried out excitedly:

“Letty, Letty, it’s the young man from the Spa Hotel in Medenham Wells.

The one who came out here and wanted you to give him money to getback to Switzerland and you refused. I suppose the whole thing was just apretext—to spy out the house … Oh, dear—he might easily have killedyou….”

Miss Blacklock, in command of the situation, said incisively:

“Phillipa, take Bunny into the dining room and give her a half glass ofbrandy. Julia dear, just run up to the bathroom and bring me the stickingplaster out of the bathroom cupboard—it’s so messy bleeding like a pig.

Patrick, will you ring up the police at once?”

 

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