They Do It With Mirrors

At the moment he did not look dangerous. He looked young and pathetic and rather repulsive.

His voice had lost its carefully acquired accent.

'I didn't mean to do it,' he groaned. 'I dunno what came over me - talking all that stuff- I must have been mad.'

Mildred sniffed.

'I really must have been mad. I didn't mean to. Please, Mr Serrocold, I really didn't mean to.'

Lewis Serrocold patted him on the shoulder.

'That's all right, my boy. No damage done.' 'I might have killed you, Mr Serrocold.' Walter Hudd walked across the room and peered at the wall behind the desk.

'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 Believer'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 Believer. 'I've my own opinion. But I had to call the police. Mr Gulbrandsen's been shot dead.'

Chapter 8

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 Believer, 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, glow-ering 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 to Gina. Her young startled face was the most vivid thing in the room.

Suddenly the front door opened and a rush of cold air together with a man in a big overcoat came in.

The heartiness of his greeting seemed incredibly shocking.