They do it with mirrors - Agatha Christie [26]
‘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.
‘Looks mighty like my gun,’ said Walter. He stooped down and picked it up. ‘By heck, it is! You took it out of my room, you creeping louse, you.’
Lewis Serrocold interposed between the cringing Edgar and the menacing American.
‘All this can be gone into later,’ he said. ‘Ah, here’s Maverick. Take a look at him, will you, Maverick?’
Dr Maverick advanced upon Edgar with a kind of professional zest.
‘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.’
Edgar gave a little yelp and Dr Maverick said reprovingly:
‘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.’
With a bound Edgar wrenched himself away from Dr Maverick and fell 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 soothingly:
‘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 out 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.
Edgar uttered a wail.
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 opinion. But I had to call the police. Mr Gulbrandsen’s been shot dead.’
Chapter 8
I
It was a moment or two before anyone took in what she was saying.
Carrie Louise said incredulously:
‘Christian shot? Dead? Oh, surely, that’s impossible.’
‘If you don’t believe me,’ said Miss Bellever, pursing her lips, and addressing not so much Carrie Louise, as the assembled company, ‘go and look for yourselves.’
She was angry. And her anger sounded in the crisp sharpness of her voice.
Slowly, unbelievingly, Carrie Louise took a step towards the door. Lewis Serrocold put a hand on her shoulder.
‘No, dearest, let me go.’
He went out through the doorway. Dr Maverick, with a doubtful glance at Edgar, followed him. Miss Bellever went with them.
Miss Marple gently urged Carrie Louise into a chair. She sat down, her eyes looking hurt and stricken.
‘Christian — shot?’ she said again.
It was the bewildered hurt tone of a child.
Walter Hudd remained close to Edgar Lawson, glowering down at him. In his hand he held the gun that he had picked up from the floor.
Mrs Serrocold said in a wondering voice:
‘But who could possibly want to shoot Christian?’
It was not a question that demanded an answer.
Walter muttered under his breath:
‘Nuts! The whole lot of them.’
Stephen had moved protectively closer