Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 26, No. 4. Whole No. 143, October 1955

“He’s only marrying her for her money,” I told Barry when I got back. “What can we do about it?”

“Nothing,” said Barry sensibly. “She’s a grown woman and she must be allowed to make a mess of her life if she chooses. And it may not be a mess.”

I shrank from telling him about Madame Clementine. He’d have thought I was going out of my mind.

“If she chooses to invest — oh, speculate, if you like — in a husband instead of stocks and shares, it’s her funeral,” he insisted.

Which was precisely what I feared it was going to be.

I wrote to Agatha, but she was in New York and by the time she got back it was too late. The marriage had taken place, and bride and bridegroom had flown to Italy for their honeymoon. Barry would say I was morbid but it wouldn’t have surprised me to hear that somehow Cynthia had vanished from the plane en route.

But she sent me postcards from Rome and Naples — Deliriously happy — and when they came back they settled in her house in Devonshire. She even invited me to stay, but one of the twins had measles, so I had to refuse and the chance didn’t come again.

They’d been married about six months, when I got an agitated letter from Agatha.

For pity’s sake make some excuse and go down to Cynthia. I’d go myself if I could get away. Apparently the whole village is humming with gossip. Raymond’s got a woman in the next village and spends half his time going over there. I happen to know Cynthia’s made a will in his favor, and — as usual — the wife’s always the last to know.

And then in big sprawling letters: Remember Madame Clementine!

Barry said it was ridiculous, but I felt the same as Agatha. I wrote to Cynthia that I’d had ’flu and the doctors wanted me to get away and would she like to revive her original invitation, and I got a letter by return mail, saying I was to come immediately and stay as long as I could.

Raymond met me at the station, driving a magnificent green Broad-bent.

“Cynthia’s wedding present,” he told me. “Isn’t she a beauty?”

He patted the side of the hood as if it were the flanks of a mare.

“Do you drive, Anne? I can call you Anne, can’t I?”

“I wouldn’t dare drive that,” I told him frankly, remembering our ancient Morris.

His hand touched mine for an instant. “To tell you the truth, she scares me, too,” he acknowledged. “It’s a comfort to remember that Broadbents are foolproof. Speaking for myself, I drive by guess and by God.” He did, too; I had ample proof of that in the next twenty minutes.

“Cynthia doesn’t trust me a yard,” he went on comfortably, as the car dashed along at what seemed to me a reckless pace. “She won’t come out with me unless we’re just driving on the flat. There’s a place near here called Dead Man’s Hill.” He chuckled. “I’ll take you there one day, if you’ll come. The authorities have put up a skull-and-cross-bones on the hairpin bend. If you lost control of the car there for even 30 seconds you’d have had it. I suppose,” he wound up meditatively, “that skull grinning at you would be the last thing you’d see before you plunged into eternity.”

I felt my scalp prickle. I was sure then how and where it would happen, that violent death foreseen by Madame so many years ago.

“Why take the car down that hill?” I murmured, and he laughed.

“Oh, it’s quite a favorite trip of mine,” he said.

He didn’t have to tell me why he went that way so often. Agatha had done that in her letter. I wondered if Cynthia had any inkling of the truth. Even before we reached the house I’d have given anything to be back in the shabby rectory with Barry and the children.

I had expected Cynthia to look haggard and wan, but, on the contrary, she looked wonderful. She sparkled like the sea when the sun’s on it. But I couldn’t understand how it was she couldn’t see through Raymond’s veneer of charm to the falsity that lay just under the surface.

I remember Agatha’s The wife’s always the last to know.

I must admit Raymond played up wonderfully. He was as attentive to Cynthia as if they were still honey-mooners, and the perfect host to me. But nothing dulled my conviction that he was only marking time.

Madame’s prophecy was fulfilled the night before I was due to go home. At lunch-time Cynthia asked how I’d like to spend my last afternoon with them — how about a drive? I said I thought I’d walk down to the village and buy a few souvenirs for the people at home, and then pack quietly.

“You come out with me, Cynnie,” Raymond suggested.