Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

I realized I was still holding my borrowed shotgun and I put it down on the table. It took only a couple of moments to assure myself that there was no one in the living room or upstairs. Now all I had to do was clean off the traces of my passage through the woods and change my clothing to make identification more difficult. But first I returned to the kitchen to retrieve the telltale shotgun. It looked quite domestic lying there on that rustic table amid a squad of jam tarts. I picked it up, turned to go, then for the second time that day temptation assailed me.

The snowball had started rolling here. Alice’s tarts, Lennie’s blackmail, the milkman’s money; the accused tramp, the escaped sheep, the crashed constable; the assaulted farmer and the stolen gun. And all for the sake of a couple of jam tarts.

Surely I deserved another?

Of course I did.

I took it and raised it to my mouth. Behind me I heard a noise. My nerves had gone beyond rapid reaction. Slowly I turned.

Standing in the cellar doorway with a bottle of elderberry wine in her hand and an expression of self-righteous triumph on her face was Alice.

“I knew it were you!” she cried. “I knew it!”

This was nonsense, of course, and mere wish-fulfillment. I opened my mouth to say as much, when I observed the triumph fading to be replaced by another less positive expression. For a second I was puzzled, till I realized that as I had turned the shotgun had turned with me and the barrel was pointed straight at Alice’s ample bosom. Flushed with effort, gashed by briars, and grim with guilt, I must have looked quite a frightening sight.

I savored the moment, knowing that I could scarcely hope twice in a lifetime to have the ascendancy over Alice.

Popping the tart in my mouth, I brought both hands to bear on the gun and curled my finger around the forward trigger. Her eyes bulged. I smiled and squeezed.

“Boom!” I said through a mouthful of pastry.

She shrieked and stepped backwards, then disappeared from view as though she’d dropped into a hole. I heard Widow Tyler’s bottle of elderberry smash to pieces on the cellar floor. And I heard no more.

After a moment, I moved slowly forward and peered down the steep flight of worn stairs.

It was a very lucky escape for Alice, I realized. If I’d squeezed the other trigger, she’d have got the loaded barrel right through her whalebone corset. As it was, I thought as I carefully closed the cellar door, her parting from this world was tragic rather than scandalous. That would have been the way she wanted it — Alice would have hated being relegated to the status of mere victim.

When Sally and Lennie returned, I was clean, immaculate, and relaxed, standing by the kitchen window eating jam tarts. Lennie looked at the tray with uncharacteristic bewilderment. There were only ten left.

Sally made no comment but put the kettle on. Her face wore that characteristic half smile which few of the world’s upsets could remove for long. She was a dear girl, able to take everything in her stride, neither asking for, nor attending to, explanations.

“I’ll make a pot of tea,” she said. “We’ll have it in the garden. Or would you prefer a bottle of Aunt Alice’s potato wine?”

I considered the option.

“No,” I said. “Tea will be fine.”

I had another jam tart. Lennie’s eyes never left me. I thought of cause and effect; small causes, large effects; single steps and journeys of a thousand miles. I had not known what I was doing when I took the tarts that morning any more than I could have foreseen the consequences that other morning (so long ago it now seemed) when I helped myself to a couple of quid from the petty-cash box. Such a fuss Leonard had made! Poor, soft, amiable, hard-working Leonard, to make such a fuss about a few pounds when for years I had been milking every penny I could out of the business! He’d been very upset. I’d told the coroner so, though I naturally did not particularize the cause. Pressure of work was mentioned. Pressure of heel as he clung to the outer scaffolding was not. The heart has its laws which the law might misunderstand.

Lennie was breathing heavily over the remaining tarts.

“Help yourself,” I said magnanimously. He considered this for a moment, the deep grey eyes under the shock of black hair inward-looking as he weighed up the situation. Then he arrived at his decision, smiled broadly, and grabbed two.

I, too, smiled, feeling almost fond of the little monster. Perhaps, I thought, preening myself slightly as I regarded my reflection in the kitchen window, perhaps he had inherited some of his father’s good qualities, too.

My reflection nodded agreement and a lock of my jet-black hair flopped down over my deep-set grey eyes. I pushed it back and thought that perhaps it was as well Leonard had not lived to see the way young Lennie developed.

“We are all children of fate,” I mused as we went out into the garden.

“Fete?” said Sally. “This afternoon’s, you mean?”

Lennie, bringing up the rear with the last of the jam tarts on a plate, said nothing.