No; it was another gate creaking, a little way up the wall. Spinelli had found the entrance to the Guest House in the boundary wall. They could hear his foot scraping in coarse grass; he was striking a match now, and propping the gate open. A good job. With Morgan following, Hugh went down on his hands and knees to dark across the moon-splashed road; he dodged into the shelter of the wall, breathing hard. The touch of rough stone was reassuring. Then they worked their way up and through the gate…
A momentary uneasiness gripped him. He could not see or hear Spinelli now. Damp trees overhung the path, and seethed faintly; the clouded moon could not penetrate, and only distorted the darkness. There were queer strands of cobweb floating across the path; they caught in your mouth as you moved. Hugh felt Morgan poke him in the back, and he crept on up in this wild game of hide-and-seek, up an endless path under the trees… The end of it came abruptly, at a turn. There was the clearing, with the fantastically ugly house in the middle. Its barred windows were gleaming dully. And they saw Spinelli again.
He had come out into the clearing, slowly, and this time he had the pistol in his hand. He was.bracing himself against a sundial, moving the gun about in a slow circle as though he were searching the whole open space. Nothing stirred…
Then he moved out of their line of vision, over towards the brick path that lead away in the direction of The Grange. They could hear the low swish-swish of his feet in wet grass; hesitant, exploring.
Silence. Then it was as though the air were full of vibrations; as though they could feel the jerk and gasp he gave. His voice rose, not loudly, but muffled and yet of piercing intensity:
"Come out of there! Come on, step out! No tricks-no tricks, now, by God — yes, I've got you covered-come on—"
The murderer…?
CHAPTER XVII
No Longer Bullet-Proof
Hugh's uppermost thought was that he had got to see this, even if he blundered and wrecked all the plans. It occurred to him — where was Inspector Murch? Murch was supposed to be here, in hiding. If by any ironical chance Spinelli had stumbled on Murch in mistake for the man he hoped to meet, there was an end to everything…
He swallowed hard; tried to control his inexplicable trembling; and slid forward boldly into the mouth of the clearing. Mud squished under his foot,' but he paid no attention to it.
Its scrolls and deformities darkened, but its barred windows gleaming almost hypnotically, the Guest House seemed to be watching too. Hugh had a sharp feeling that this was not fancy at all; that it literally was watching, or that somebody was watching in a dead man's place. The cool air struck his face again. He peered to the right, and drew back.
About thirty feet away, back turned towards him,
Spinelli was standing and facing a thick oak tree beside the brick path. His pistol was held close in against his side, to avert its being knocked away.
"Come out," he was muttering, with a rising inflection that sounded like hysteria. "I can see your hand— give you just a second more — don't stand there; Fm not going to hurt you; but you're going to pay me, and keep on paying me, get me?"
Some faint words were whispered, too indistinct to be heard at that distance. Hugh dropped on his hands and knees and wriggled closer. Spinelli was backing away, towards a dappling of moonlight.
"Know you?" said Spinelli. For the first time Hugh saw him sway a little; the man was almost blind drunk, and holding himself together on sheer nervous excitement. He lost all caution, and his voice screeched out aloud. "Know you? What the hell are you trying to do? You try any tricks on me, and see what you get… " He gulped; he seemed hardly able to breathe. "I got your gun first last night, or you'd've got me the way you got Nick… "
Closer yet in the long grass… Hugh raised his head. He was touching the brick path, but he had had to circle backwards, sot hat Spinelli was now turned partly sideways to him, and whoever stood behind that oak tree was completely hidden. A dappling of moonlight touched Spinelli's face; he could see the loose mouth, and he even noticed that there was a little colored feather stuck in the man's hatband. Now a voice spoke, very low, from behind the oak. It whispered:
"Thank you, my friend. I thought so. But Fm not the person you think I am. Put up your gun, put up your gun—! Sh-sh!"
Spinelli's hand shook. He lurched a trifle, and tried to rub clear sight into his eyes. Twigs cracked as somebody stepped out.
"You dirty rat—" said Spinelli suddenly. He choked; it was as though he were going to weep as he saw the other person. The word "rat" had an incredulous, shrill, despairing echo. He took a step forward…
It was pure chance that Hugh looked round then. He wanted to see whether Morgan was behind him. As he craned his neck round, his eyes fell on the house some distance behind Spinelli, and he stared. Something was different about it. Even his vision seemed blurred with doubt, until he realized that the difference was in the line of shimmering windows. There was a half-blank where one of the windows should have been, growing slowly, because one of the windows — that nearest the front door — was being slowly pushed up.
Spinelli did not see it. But the other man, the man behind the oak tree, let out a sound that resembled a gurgling, "Chua!" followed by a horrible rattling of breath. He jumped forward, seizing Spinelli by the shoulders as though he would hide himself.
From that window there was a tiny yellow spurt, less than a needle flash, but an explosion that shook the moonlight; so shattering in that hush that it was like a blow over the head. Hugh tried to lurch to his feet. He heard Morgan say, "Chri…!" behind him; but he was conscious only of Spinelli. The man's hat, with its little colored feather, had fallen off. His leg gave; he suddenly began to reel round like one who had been thrown off the end of the line in a game of crack-the-whip; then his other leg buckled; and Hugh saw that the man was being sick at the very moment he pitched forward with a bullet through the brain.
The other man screamed. It blended horribly with a squawking and stirring of birds roused out of the ivy by the crash. His body seemed paralyzed, though with one hand he wildly gestured towards the window as though he would push Death away. He fell on his knees and rolled, kicking; he tried to dive for the underbrush…
Crack! There had been another cool pause, as though the person in the window were taking deliberate aim. The man behind the oak was staggering to his feet just as the bullet took him; he flapped against the bole of the tree, screamed again…
Crack! The cool, inhuman precision of the sniper in the window was adjusted with hideous nicety; he fired at intervals of just five seconds, drawing his sights to a fraction of an inch…
Crack! —
Somebody was thrashing through the underbrush, still screaming. Hugh couldn't stand it. He got to his feet just as Morgan seized his ankle and brought him down toppling. Morgan yelled: "Don'tbeabloodyfool; hellpickusoffas-we-get-up—! Ah!"
He grunted as Hugh jerked loose. Nobody would have believed that mere birds could have made such a racket; the clearing was alive with their noise, and they wheeled in clouds on the moonlight. Round the side of the house ran a clumsy figure, making indistinguishable noises. It was a wild-eyed Inspector Murch. He ran up the side steps of the porch, waving a flashlight whose beam darted crazily over the house, and he had something else in the other; and even then he was shouting out some nonsensical words about the name. of the Law.
Nobody has a clear recollection of exactly what happened. Morgan gasped something like, "Oh, all right!" and then he and Hugh were running up the lawn, zigzag fashion, towards the house. Murch's light glared momentarily in the sniper's window, and something jerked back like a toad. The sniper fired high, off j balance, shattering the glass in his own window. They saw it spurt and glitter out against a white mist of smoke and the pot-bellied bars that guarded the window. Then there were more flashes in the smoke, j because Murch forgot police rules, and he was firing in reply. When the three of them came together on the porch, he was dangerously ready to drill anybody he
; saw; but Morgan cursed him in time, and prevented a shot as the inspector whirled round. The sniper was gone. All Murch did was stand and shake the bars of j the window, until somebody said, "Door!" and they all j charged for it.
It was unlocked. But even as Murch kicked it open, a faint bang from another door at the rear of the house i announced which way the sniper had gone…
Five minutes later they were still aimlessly beating the brush, and finding nobody. The only result was that Murch had stumbled on something and broken his flashlight. Not, they silently agreed as they looked at each other, a very dignified spectacle of a man hunt, j Even the querulous birds were angrily dozing off j again. The sharp mist of smoke had begun to dissolve before a shattered window; a breeze had come back-rather complacently, you felt — to the long grasses; and the clearing was quiet. But, from the porch where they
had reassembled, they could see Spinelli's body lying spread-eagled on the brick path near the oak. That was all.
Morgan leaned against the porch. He tried to light a cigarette, shakily. "Well?" he said.
" 'E can't get away, I tell the'!" insisted Inspector Murch, who was nearly unintelligible from wrath and uncertainty. He shook his fist. "We know! He's going to The Grange, every time! We know it — we — aaah!" He panted for a moment. "You two see if the' can do anything for them that was shot, down there. Ill go to the big 'ouse. That's where our man is, and we know it."
"Do you think you hit him?" Hugh asked, as calmly as he could. "When you fired through the window, I mean? If you did—"
"Ah! I was off me head for a moment, d'ye see." Murch looked blankly at the weapon in his hand. "I don't know. Twas so sudden; I don't know. Stand guard, now. There's an other one that was shot at— where's he? Who was 'e?"
"Damned if I know," said Morgan. He added bitterly: "We're a fine parcel of men of action. This is one to remember for the book. All right, inspector; cut along. Well look for your missing body. Though, personally, I'd rather take castor oil."
He hunched his shoulders and shivered as he went down the lawn. Hugh could still hear the stupefying crash of the shooting; and the emotional let-down was fully as stupefying. He accepted one of his companion's cigarettes, but his hand was not steady.
"Is this real?'' Morgan demanded in an odd voice.
"Hell-raising — gunplay — all over in a second; feel like a wet rag… No, no. Something's wrong. I don't believe it."
"It's real enough," said Hugh. He forced himself to go close to Spinelli's body. All around there was a smell of sickness and the warm odor of blood. As Morgan struck a match, the glimmer shone on bloodstains in the brush round the oak tree, where the second man had tried to crawl for safety. Hugh added: "I don't suppose there's any doubt…?"
Spinelli lay on his face. Morgan, who was looking white, bent over and held the match near his head. It burned his fingers, and he jumped up again.
"Dead. No doubt. They — they got him through the back of the head, just over the hair line. Euh… I imagine," he said blankly, "that's rather like what a battle must be, that business. I can't tell just yet what did happen." He shivered. "I don't mind admitting that if anybody leaned out and said. 'Boo!' to me at this minute, I'd jump out of my skin. But, look here… H'm. One thing about it, that little marksman in the window was out to get Spinelli and the other chap; deliberately knock over those two, and nobody else. He didn't take a shot at either one of us, though he must have seen us easily."
"He shot at Murch."
" 'M, yes. But a wild shot, over his head, to keep him back. Not the way he picked off Spinelli. Like a sitting bird. Ugh! And the other fellow. Or maybe he lost his nerve. / don't know. God, I don't know anything…"
He began to pace back and forth. "Come on. We've got to look for the other man, if it kills us. Who was he? Do you know?"
"I didn't see him either; at least, to recognize him. Here, I've got a cigarette lighter. That will be better than matches. If’ said Hugh, feeling a little sick, "we follow that trail of bloodstains…"
But neither of them was anxious to start. Morgan made a gesture which said, "Let's finish our cigarettes." He said aloud:
"I was just thinking who it might be." The thought, to Hugh, was as terrifying as anything that had gone before. They would need to penetrate only a little way among the trees, because the sniper had been too deadly a shot for his second victim to have got very far. But his mind was full of formless conjectures that were all horrible. Morgan seemed to meet his thought. He went on swiftly:
"Uh. A dead shot, and cool. My God, what's going on in this nice placid corner of the universe? Who's the maniac can sit at a window and break people's heads like clay pigeons? I told you how impossible it was. And yet it happened. 'Keep your stories probable.' I’d like to know what the hell a probable story is," he said rather wildly, "if this is one… Keep on talking; it'll whisde our spirits up. That reminds me, I'm carrying a flask. Like a drink?"
"Would I!" Hugh said fervently.
Two amateur criminologists," jerked out Morgan, handing over the flask, "afraid of the bogey man. The reason is, you and I are afraid there's somebody we know only too well lying in there with a couple of bullets through him."
Hugh drank whisky greedily, shuddered at the bite in his throat; but he felt better. "Let's go" he said.
The pocket lighter made a surprisingly broad flame.
Holding it low, Hugh stepped across the brick path towards the oak tree. The path here was bordered with foxglove, white and reddish-purple above the fern; but it had been torn and kicked about, and much of the red was blood. It was not difficult to follow the trail. Somebody had ripped himself loose from the thorns of a blackberry bush, and penetrated in where the trees were thickest. It was chill and marshy now, and there were gnats. More blood in a clump of bracken, which bore an impress as though somebody had dragged himself forward on his face, weakening…
Something rustled. The flame moved right and left, writhed in a draught, and almost went out. Their feet crackled on dead plants. Branches scratched past Hugh's shoulder; their snap and swish knocked his arm, and he had to spin the wheel of the lighter again.
"I could have sworn," said Morgan. "I heard somebody groan."
Hugh almost stepped on it. It was a highly polished black shoe, scuffing in dead leaves at the bole of a maple tree. As they looked it jerked once, showed part of a striped trouser leg, and became only a shoe again. There were whitish rents in the bark of the tree where the owner of the shoe had scratched it as he fell. He was lying on his side in a clump of foxglove, shot through the neck and shoulder. They heard him die as Hugh's light flickered on him.
Morgan said: "Steady. We can't go back now. Besides—"
Kneeling, Hugh wrenched the portly figure over on its back. Its face was dirty, the mouth and eyes open; and blood had not made it more attractive. There was a long silence as they stared at it.
"Who the devil is that?’ Morgan whispered. "I never saw…"
"Hold the lighter" said the other, gagging in sudden nausea, "and let's get out of here. I know him. He's a lawyer. His name is Langdon."
CHAPTER XVIII
Dr. Fell Meets the Murderer
They got back into the clearing somehow. Even then, Hugh remembered accidentally kicking Spinelli's hat as they crossed the brick path. By common consent they made for the Guest House. It was full of ugly suggestions and memories, but it was better than that area where the sniper had left his messy trophies.
Morgan peered at the house, and stopped. "I know what's wrong," he said. Funny. It never occurred to me before. Do you know what we've done? The lights, man!" He pointed. "We've chased somebody we couldn't find all over the house and the grounds, and we never once thought to turn on the lights inside… Add psychological quirks, if you can add anything. What am I talking about anyway? Anyway, what we need is light… "
He ran up on the porch, and groped round inside the open front door. The electric lights of the hall glowed out; gloomy enoug
h, but better than the darkness. They stood in the light as they might have stood before a fire on a cold day.
"All we can do," said Hugh, sitting down on the step, "is to take it easy and wait until Murch gets back with some — some minions." (That, he thought, was an idiotic word to use; like somebody in a bad play. "Minions!" What put that into his head?)
Morgan nodded. He stood bracing himself against the doorway, the collar of his blazer drawn up, and his face turned away.
"Uh. Yes, that's all. Question is, who is this Langdon down there, and why should he get killed?"
"I don't know why he should get killed. As to who he was, you'd have to hear all about what happened tonight. It's a longish story, and I don't feel up to it. Not just yet, anyhow. But—" an idea occurred to him, "but at least there's something about it you ought to know."
Automatically Morgan took out his flask and handed it over. "Fire away," he said.
"Well, the fact is that my old man — the bishop, you know — got an idea into his head that you were the murderer; or, at least, a pretty suspicious character."
The other did not seem surprised. He let out a long breath, as though facts were being faced at last. "Ah! Enfin. Fve been waiting for that. It was sure to occur to somebody, and I'm not surprised it was your father; I could see he had his eye on me. But why?"
"Chiefly it was about that footprint; the one around the side of the house here, made with Morley Standish's shoe. He had a theory that you had gone up to The Grange to steal those shoes; gone in through the secret passage in the oak room to get to the junk closet, without knowing anybody was sleeping there; and, when you find it had an occupant, you played poltergeist to cover your retreat." Morgan turned, staring.
"Holy—!" he said, and struck the back of his head. "Now there's a suggestion that hadn't occurred to me. About the shoes, I mean. But the rest of it — yes, I was expecting it to happen."
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