Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [80]
“Shot him?”
“Peppered him with bird shot. If he’d been ten feet closer or had his face turned towards the gun, it could have been serious. One of the inexperienced guns—a boy of fifteen—looks to be responsible. An accident.”
“But also not an accident?”
“It feels slightly wrong. Here—let me show you.” I went to paw through his writing desk for a sheet of the elegant Justice stationery and a pen, then began drawing, Holmes bent over my shoulder. “We were here, strung out along the side of a hill lightly covered with bare trees and the odd clump of evergreens. The beaters were working their way towards us along this line.” The uneven row of twelve Xs was joined by a long squiggle indicating the front of the drivers. I drew in a couple of star bursts to show the clumps of evergreens. “The two boys and their father, Sir Victor, were here. The boys each had guns—they started the day sharing one, with their father unarmed and coaching them, but Marsh gave his gun to one of the boys after lunch, so they could both shoot. Sir Victor must have been a front-line soldier,” I reflected aloud. “And he must have been wounded at some point—he limps, and twitched at every shot.”
It was, in fact, proof of the man’s will-power that his body hadn’t taken command and dived for cover at some of the louder volleys. I’d seen soldiers on the street do just that, leaping for doorways at the back-fire of a lorry.
“This drive was to be the last,” I went on, “since the mist was coming in and it was getting dark. In fact, the head-keeper and Marsh’s brother-in-law had a disagreement over whether we had time to do one more drive. Darling insisted, but it meant that there was a bit of a rush on.” I described in some detail the ground, the placement of the guns, the movement of the beaters approaching, and the presence of a person or persons behind me. Holmes leant over the desk, propped on the heel of his right hand, studs forgotten, all his attention on the rough sketch taking shape under my pen.
“The drive was probably more than half over—the thickest body of birds already out of the woods—when Peter Gerard heard movement in the shrubs to his left and turned his gun in that direction. It sounds as if his movements were sensible, to a point: He waited until the bird broke, followed it for a quick count of two before firing. Only, Alistair and Marsh were here behind him, moving up the line in the same direction the bird flew. Marsh had just stepped in front of Alistair when the gun went off.”
“What are the distances here?” He pointed to the marks for Peter Gerard and the two evergreen clumps.
I estimated as best I could, not having had a measuring tape with me in the field. The three marks—gun, bird, and Marsh—formed a lopsided triangle, the line between gun and victim being slightly the longest.
“And the bird—did you see where it lay?”
I drew a small X approximately halfway between the clumps, then turned the pen upside-down and used the end to trace the creature’s path from its emergence at the clump to the point at which I had found it. As I moved the pen, I recited, “One. Two. Bang.” The pen end halted at the small X.
Far short of the holly bush into which Marsh and Alistair had fallen.
“Could the boy be wrong?”
“Wrong, yes, but not, I think, deliberately lying.”
“I must speak with Marsh.”
“Not for at least another hour. The doctor is with him,” I explained.
He grunted his frustration, then returned to the drawing. “All the guns will be here to dinner?”
Damn, I said to myself. “As far as I know, dinner will go ahead without Marsh. Alistair and Iris will stay with him.”
“Who is Iris?” he asked absently, and the last two days suddenly flooded in on me.
“You did not interrogate the servants upon your arrival? That isn’t like you.”
“I found a taxi at the station, and when I came in the servants were all frantically occupied. Why?”
“Iris, my dear Holmes, is the wife of Lord Maurice, the seventh Duke of Beauville. Mahmoud is married.”
His astonishment was instantly gratifying. He lowered himself onto the dressing-table bench. “I appear