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 overlooking the front drive and the court.
Stephen glanced at her, then strolled over to the big grand piano. He sat down at it and strummed very softly—a queer melancholy little tune. The two occupational therapists, Mr. Baumgarten and Mr. Lacy, and Dr. Maverick, 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.
He growled.
“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 electrical gadgets and things like that. You remember how he fixed that toaster?”
“It seems to be all he does do here,” said Mildred Strete. “Mother, have you taken your tonic?”
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.
“Such horrid stuff and nobody lets me forget it,” she said, making a wry 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 theatrically:
“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 behind him. After he had done so, there was another sound, the sharp sound 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 ungrateful 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.”
Miss Marple looked at her curiously. There had been no fondness in the expression that Edgar had turned on Lewis Serrocold a few moments previously, very far from it. She wondered, as she had wondered before, if Carrie Louise deliberately 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, reasonable 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!”
There was a soothing murmur from Lewis and then the hysterical voice rose still higher. It screamed out foul epithets. Edgar seemed rapidly losing control of himself. Occasional words came from Lewis—“calm—just be calm—you know none of this is true—” But they seemed not to soothe, but on the contrary to enrage the young man still further.
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 supercilious expression off your face. I’ll have revenge, I tell you. Revenge for all you’ve made me suffer.”
The other voice came curtly, unlike Lewis’ usual unemotional tones.
“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 dramatising 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 conspiracy against me and now you’re going to pay for it.”
What sounded like the report of a firearm made them all start, but Carrie Louise said:
“It’s all right, it’s outside—in the park somewhere.”
Behind the locked door, Edgar was raving in a high screaming voice.
“You sit there looking at me—looking at me—pretending to be unmoved. Why don’t you get down on your knees and beg for mercy? I’m going to shoot, I tell you. I’m going to shoot you dead! I’m your son—your unacknowledged 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 onl
y a bastard, aren’t I? Only a bastard. You went on filling me up with lies. Pretending 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 behind 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 terrible than what had gone before, the sound of slow, heavy sobbing.
Somebody strode past Miss Marple and started shaking and rattling the 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 assortment of keys.
“Try some of these,” she said breathlessly.
At that moment the fused lights came on again. The Hall sprang into life again after its eerie dimness.
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 demanded:
“Say, what’s going on round here?”
Mildred said tearfully,
“That awful crazy young man has shot Mr. Serrocold.”
“Please.” It was Carrie Louise who spoke. She got up and came across to 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 unmoved.