‘Duello’
HENRY WADE

OFFICER: Inspector John Poole 
FORCE: CID, Scotland Yard 
TIME: 1930

CASES: ‘Policeman’s Lot’ (1933), ‘Bury Him Darkly’ (1936), ‘Lonely Magdalene’ (1940), ‘Too Soon To Die’ (1953), ‘Gold Was Our Grave’ (1954) etc.

PROFILE: A deceptively ordinary-looking man in appearance, John Poole is a hidden dynamo of energy who mixes good manners with tact and exceptional judgment of character. He has an easy smile and his steady grey eyes often sparkle when he is on the verge of uncovering a clue. College educated and entering the Force at police training school in 1929, he has risen quickly through the ranks to become the youngest Inspector in Scotland Yard’s CID squad, where he is often assigned the cases that others are nervous about handling. By 1953 his career reaches its climax when he is promoted to the rank of Chief Inspector, and he marks the landmark in ‘Too Soon To Die’ by solving a particularly tricky murder case that is related to the devious attempts by a wealthy family to avoid inheritance tax and financial ruin.

CREATOR: Henry Wade, whose real name was Baronet Henry Aubrey-Fletcher (1887-1969), was a former Grenadier Guardsman who won the DSO and Croix de Guerre while on active service in the First World War. After leaving the army, he held several honorary positions in Buckinghamshire, including JP and High Sheriff, and devoted the rest of his time to writing crime novels, the majority of which featured Inspector Poole. In so doing he earned himself the accolade of ‘one of the really major figures of the Golden Age of the mystery story’, from the American critic Charles Shibuk. As a master of the realist police novel, Wade has been compared to Freeman Wills Crofts, but sadly few of his books have remained in print since his death. Apart from the precise young CID man Poole, he also wrote a number of stories about Constable John Bragg, described as ‘inquisitive as a mongoose, unshakeable as a bulldog’. Amongst Henry Wade’s short stories about Inspector Poole, ‘Duello’ has a particular interest for me-not only because of the ingenuity that the CID man shows in solving a double killing, but because it is set partly in Enfield where I was born and partly in Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, where I began my working life as an author and anthologist!

THE STORY:

‘Like the good old times, isn’t it? All for the love of a lady.’
The  speaker  was  a  uniformed  police  Superintendent, ponderous in build and patriarchal in manner. His companion was a considerably younger man in plain clothes, whose firm mouth and steady grey eyes were becoming only too well known to the underworld-Detective Inspector Poole, of the CID. The two men were standing on a stretch of sodden grass-a clearing in a wood; at their feet lay two other men, both in evening clothes-short coat, black tie, one wearing a white waistcoat, one a black-and both dead. In the right hand of each was clasped a small automatic pistol and each white shirt-front was saturated with a dark smear of blood.
‘Lady or money, Superintendent. Hardly politics in these days, I’m afraid. Who found them?’
‘Sergeant Robins, here. A farm labourer reported at Broxbourne this morning that there was an empty car with its lights on standing outside Cowheath Wood-this wood. Robins jumped on a bike and came along, found the car, did a bit of exploring into the wood and came across these chaps. Like a sensible fellow he got straight back to his station and telephoned for me-Enfield, my headquarters are. I came along with the doctor, had a look-and went off myself and telephoned to the Yard-and here you are. Dr Vammer just confirmed fact of death, then I sent him away and said we’d have him back later.’
Poole stroked his chin thoughtfully.
‘You had some reason for calling in the CID, Superintendent. On the face of it, it’s a job you could have tackled yourself.’
Superintendent Cox chuckled.
‘Yes, Mr Poole,’ he said. ‘I had a reason; you’ll probably spot it for yourself when you’ve had a look round.’
Poole nodded.
‘If it’s not a straightforward case,’ he said, ‘footprints are going to be important-can you tell me how much the ground’s been disturbed?’
‘I think so. Robins showed me exactly the line he’d followed, in and out-he didn’t come closer than ten paces or so-said he knew a stiff when he saw one. The doctor and I followed in his footsteps-as you and I have just done; of course we came right up but we didn’t trample round. I think you’ll find their footmarks quite distinct from ours. Now you go ahead.’
For a minute or so Poole continued to gaze down at the bodies of the two duellists-as apparently they were. One was a middle-aged man of fair size-perhaps five feet ten, but not heavily built. The other was younger and smaller, of rather dapper type, but possessed-Poole thought-of an excellent pair of shoulders. He lay on his side, with one arm flung out behind him-the right arm, in the hand of which was clasped the .38 Colt. Glancing at his feet, with a view to identifying footprints, the detective saw that they were small, even for his size, and that the evening shoes had sharply pointed toes. The older man’s feet were larger, and the shoes squarer, there should be no difficulty in distinguishing the two footprints, though there was probably no importance in them.
‘Square Toes’ also lay on his side, his knees slightly drawn up, one ankle turning inwards in a curiously unnatural manner. His hand, also, clasped a .38 Colt; it seemed as if the two men must have fired simultaneously, at very close range, though not so close as to leave powder marking on the linen shirt-fronts. It was an intriguing affair; such a thing as a duel was almost unheard of in these days and in this case it seemed as if the men had been bent upon killing each other, without thought of one surviving.
‘Know who they are, sir?’
Superintendent Cox drew some papers from his pocket.
‘One comes from Cheshunt-this one-George Horne; here’s his card. The other hadn’t a card but he had some letters, addressed to Julian de Lange, Cadorna Mansions, Putney. I don’t know anything about either of them, though Cheshunt’s in my division; enquiries being made now about Horne.’
‘Right, sir. I’ll telephone to the Yard to look up de Lange. Odd position this chap Horne’s in-that ankle, I mean.’
Poole took hold of the legs of the older man and tried to straighten them, but they were quite immovable. De Lange’s legs were nearly straight but they also were quite stiff.
‘Doctor say anything about time of death, sir?’
‘He put it between twelve and three; Horne’s rigor was a bit more advanced, but he’s an older man-arteries harder.’
With considerable difficulty the detective disengaged the Colt from Horne’s hand, drew out the magazine, extracted the round from the chamber, and looked down the barrel.
The worse of these automatics is that it’s so jolly difficult to tell how many rounds have been fired,’ he said. ‘The good old-fashioned revolver kept its spent cartridge in the cylinder-you only had to count. These things spit them out as they reload and you have to hunt on the ground-you can never be sure if you’ve found all there are. Are you an expert on guns, sir? Can you tell by the fouling of the barrel how many shots have been fired?’
Superintendent Cox shook his head.
‘I can’t, and I doubt if anyone else can-within a round. There’s not much fouling in this, but I can’t guarantee that only one shot’s been fired. What’s the doubt? They could hardly have missed each other at this range.’
Poole smiled.
‘Scotland’s Yard’s got to justify your calling it in, sir,’ he said.
A similar examination was made of de Lange’s Colt, with equally indeterminate result.
‘I’ll just go over these footprints before I look for the shell,’ said Poole.
Although the ground was soft enough to take a good impression wherever the earth was exposed, there was so much grass that no clear line of tracks could be distinguished. In the clearing where the bodies lay Poole had the greatest difficulty in picking out any distinct footprints, but nearer the edge of the wood-under the trees - there was no grass, only moss with many bare patches of earth. Here-in a line between the bodies and the deserted car-were several clearly defined footprints which Poole, a shoe from each victim in his hands, had no difficulty in identifying as those of the dead men. ‘Pointed Toes’-de Lange-gave particularly clear marks, except where in one or two places those of ‘Square Toes’ were partially superimposed upon them.
The detective spent a considerable time over these footprints; finally, he called to the Superintendent, who was still standing by the bodies.
‘Which of those men would you say was the heavier, sir?’
Mr Cox studied the bodies with a practised eye.
‘Horne, I should say; he’s inches taller. De Lange has got big shoulders, of course-may have the bigger bones.’
‘There’s no doubt about it from these tracks; de Lange is distinctly the heavier-his impressions are definitely deeper than Horne’s.’
He stood for a while in silence, studying the tracks at his feet.
‘It’s a funny thing, sir,’ he said. ‘These men came here with the obvious intention of killing each other-look at the range they fired at, with both pistols loaded-and yet one wasn’t afraid of being murdered by the other. These tracks show that de Lange walked in front, and Horne followed behind him-could easily have shot him in the back. Psychology’s an odd thing. Well, sir, I suppose we must go to Cheshunt now; I’ll just have a hunt round for those shells. The bodies can go off to the doctor; will you ask him to weigh them, sir, and let me know at the Cheshunt station.’
A thorough search of the ground round the bodies produced, as was to be expected, two spent cartridge-cases. Although the grass was fairly long, Poole felt pretty sure that there were no more. He next turned his attention to the car; it was a 12.hp Yorrick saloon, fairly new-its upholstery clean and yielding no clue of any sort. Poole got leave to borrow it and also Sergeant Robins; taking leave of the Superintendent he drove off towards Cheshunt.
Having learnt from the local police that Mr George Horne was a married man with no children, living in a small house called Five Oaks, about half a mile west of the town, Poole decided to call upon the Vicar, with the double object of getting him to break the news to the widow and of learning any local gossip.
Rev. James Partacle was an elderly man with an obviously sympathetic nature. He was genuinely distressed by the news brought by the detective and at once bustled off on his painful errand, murmuring, ‘Poor girl; poor young girl.’ Mrs Partacle, to whom the Vicar referred Poole for information, was perhaps more worldly than her husband; she was deeply intrigued by the detective’s news and was able and willing to throw considerable illumination upon it.
The Hornes, it appeared, had come to Five Oaks soon after their marriage four years previously. For a time they appeared a happy and attached couple, but as time went on it became evident that Quirril Horne, a pretty and excitable woman at least ten years younger than her husband, was finding life on the outskirts of a London suburb extremely dull. For a time this difficulty was met by her husband taking her two or three nights a week to theatres and nightclubs in London, but this life soon began to tell upon a hardworked City man and gradually he became more reluctant to take her, more fretful when he did. There was nothing unusual in the situation-it was a. commonplace of postwar life-but none the less a tragedy.
Inevitably as her husband cooled off Mrs Horne began to look for other cavaliers; she had no difficulty in finding them. There had been no actual scandal but there was ‘talk’; a London ‘gigolo’ was mentioned. There were no children to draw the couple together; they were drifting (so Mrs Partacle) to-this.
When the Vicar returned, Poole learnt that Mrs Horne, who had been ‘desperately worried’ at her husband’s absence, was now ‘prostrated with grief. The Vicar trusted that it would not be necessary to intrude upon her sorrow. Poole gave a non-committal reply, thanked Mr and Mrs Partacle for their help, and drove straight to Five Oaks. Leaving Sergeant Robins in the car outside the drive gate, Poole walked towards the house. The drive, some fifty yards long, was of new, well-kept gravel and showed clearly the single track of a car, the tyres being of the same make as those borne by the Yorrick. From the Cheshunt police Poole had discovered that there had been heavy rain on the previous night from about nine to eleven p.m.-probably the car had gone out after eleven and had come in (if it had been out at all that day) before nine.
A red-eyed maid admitted Poole, informed him that Mrs Horne was in the drawing-room and added that she was in a ‘terrible state, crying her head off’. The detective was suitably impressed and asked for a few words with his informant in the kitchen. As they passed down the passage the girl jerked her thumb at a door. Poole paused for a moment and heard the sound of deep sobbing within-it was indeed a severe attack that should last half an hour after the breaking of the news by the kindly Vicar.
In the kitchen Poole learnt that the cook, who ordinarily lived in the house, was away till midday, having been given leave to attend her sister’s wedding in Devonshire on the previous day. Ethel herself-the house parlourmaid-did not sleep in the house, but with her parents in Cheshunt. She had given Mr Horne his (cold) supper at 7.45 p.m. the previous evening-Mrs Horne was in London and not returning till late-and, after washing up and turning down the beds, had left the house at about ten p.m. There was, therefore (Poole observed), no independent witness of anything that might have occurred in the house after that hour. Ethel certainly did not know that Mr Horne was expecting anyone that evening, though of course he may have come after she left. Mr Horne always dressed for dinner, whether he was alone or not.
Having learnt so much, Poole thought he had kept Mrs Horne, who had probably heard the front doorbell ring, waiting long enough. Ethel was persuaded-against her will-to tap at the drawing-room door and announce him.
Mrs Horne, dressed in a fawn skirt and a striped jumper, was lying on a sofa, an embroidered shawl over her legs. She did not attempt to rise when Poole entered, but greeted him with the shadow of a smile and a gesture towards a chair. Her eyes were red, but her colour was high, and she gave the detective the impression of being hysterical rather than prostrated with grief.
Poole made the usual apology for intrusion, followed by the stock question as to when she had seen her husband last.
Quirril Horne put a lace handkerchief to her mouth and stared at the detective with wide-open eyes; she seemed to be stifling her emotion.
‘Yesterday morning-when he went to catch-(sob)-his train. I went up-in the afternoon-to shop-I-never-saw him again-oh my God.’ She turned on her side, buried her face in her arm, and sobbed wildly.
Poole allowed a minute to pass.
‘And when did you see Mr de Lange last?’ he asked quietly.
The sobs ceased abruptly. Slowly Quirril lifted her head and looked at the detective, her eyes large with innocent surprise.
‘De Lange?’ she said. ‘Who’s he?’
‘The man who was found dead beside your husband. I thought perhaps he was a-an acquaintance of yours.’
Mrs Horne sat bolt upright, her eyes flashing.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘How dare you? What are you suggesting? Oh how monstrous!’
‘I have suggested nothing, madam. I only asked...’
‘Oh, but you did! You think he is my lover-that my husband killed him-that they fought a duel for me. Oh, what shall I do? How cruel! How terrible!’
There was no longer any anger in Mrs Horne’s eyes, but there was a sparkle of something else-was it excitement?... Suddenly it dawned upon Poole that Mr Partacle’s ‘poor young girl’ was intensely enjoying the scene!
The detective’s manner changed at once. He rose to his feet; when he spoke, his voice was cold and incisive.
‘Mrs Horne, it is my duty to warn you of your position. In the eyes of the law murder has been committed; if you, being aware of the circumstances, conceal your knowledge from the police, you are rendering yourself liable to be charged as an accessory either before or after the fact. It is perfectly easy for the police to find out whether or not you knew Mr de Lange and when you were last with him. I strongly advise you to be absolutely frank with me.’
Poole realised that he was talking like a magazine detective but he felt sure that that was the only kind of talk that Mrs Horne would appreciate. Certainly it had the desired effect; Quirril altered her pose. Dropping her voice into a low and earnest key she made what she called her ‘confession’. Julian de Lange had been her lover. Her husband began to suspect their ‘guilty passion’ (sic) and last night Julian-with whom she had been dining and dancing in town-had insisted on coming down with her and having it out with George. She herself had retired to her bedroom (‘What else could I do, Inspector? My position was terrible!’) and for half an hour had listened to loud and angry voices from downstairs. Then the front door had slammed, she heard the garage doors pulled back and the car being started up and driven away. She could not imagine what had happened-had her husband driven away and left her? Or had he merely driven his rival to the station to catch a workman’s train? (‘An anticlimax that you’d have hated,’ thought Poole.)
‘I lay awake all night,’ Quirril concluded, ‘racking my brains, torturing myself with suspense. Oh, it was horrible, horrible! And then this morning-Mr Partacle coming-to hear that they were both dead-that they had killed each other for me-what my feelings have been-my remorse-my guilty remorse!’
Tears, sobs, heaving shoulders-all the reactions familiar to the devotee of the cinema. The woman was evidently quite incapable of genuine feeling-of appreciating the true horror of her position.
Utterly disgusted, Poole decided to cut the ‘scene’; he would probably have to return to it, but he wanted fresh air-morally as well as physically. There were one or two points to be cleared up before he could decide whether the case was as straightforward as it appeared or whether the curious doubt that had come into his mind was based upon solid foundations. Rejoining Sergeant Robins, he drove the dead man’s car back to Cheshunt police station. The sergeant in charge at once handed him a message from the doctor who was examining the bodies. Both men had died of gunshot wounds inflicted some time between midnight and three a.m. There was nothing to show whether the wounds were self-inflicted or not; the weight of Horne was 12st. 12,oz., and of de Lange 11st. 8oz.
Poole felt his interest, deadened as it had been by his disgust at Mrs Horne’s behaviour, quicken into active life. Horne was more than a stone heavier than his rival and yet his footprints were appreciably less deep and clear than those of de Lange!
For twenty minutes Poole sat, wrapped in thought; by the end of that time he had worked out a theory that might cover the known facts. Driving the Hornes’ Yorrick into the yard at the back of the police station, he went over it again with a magnifying glass, but without discovering anything either to confirm or disprove his theory. A reference to the Register of Firearms records was more enlightening and he drove back to Five Oaks with a grim tightening of his mouth.
Making his way this time to the back door, where he would not have to pass the drawing-room window, the detective gently knocked and was admitted by a flustered Ethel.
‘Your master’s dressing-room,’ he said. ‘Can you show it to me without letting Mrs Horne know?’
Ethel goggled but she led the way up a miniature back stairs in silence. The dressing-room was small but well furnished-a good mahogany wardrobe, a bow-fronted chest of drawers, and a boot-cupboard. It was to the latter that Poole turned his attention; opening the door he pulled out seven pairs of shoes and placed them side by side in a row on the floor-two pairs of black, one of brown, golf shoes, tennis shoes, old evening shoes and red slippers; with the exception of the latter they were all evidently built from the same last. Drawing from the small attache case that he carried the evening shoe that he had removed from the dead man’s foot for identifying footprints, he compared it carefully with the shoes in front of him; without a shadow of doubt they were also made from the same last.
‘How many pairs has he got altogether?’ asked Poole in a low voice. ‘There’ll be another pair of day shoes perhaps?’
Ethel was looking at the display with a puzzled expression. ‘That’s a funny thing,’ she said. ‘I can’t call to mind... oh, well, I suppose I did-I’ve been that flustered today.’
‘What can’t you remember?’ asked Poole sharply.
‘Cleaning them London shoes.’
‘Do you mean the ones he was wearing when he came back from London yesterday? Probably they’re still downstairs.’
‘Not they; he didn’t have but two pairs. It’s one of them two,’ said Ethel, whose grammar was not her strong point.
‘You usually clean them; when?’
‘Not till latish as a rule-morning I mean. Master, he’d take ‘em off of an evening of course and I’d take ‘em down to the pantry. But he always put on another pair and another suit come the morning-rested the mollycoddles or something, he said. I usen’t as a rule to brush till after I’d cleared breakfast.’
‘Had you cleared breakfast when I came this morning?’
‘No I hadn’t-not to say properly, I mean. One or two things I’d brought into the pantry, but I was that flustered-like, what with Master not being back and her that jumpy and excited...’
‘Then when did you clean the shoes?’
‘I didn’t. Leastways I s’pose I must ‘a done. But I don’t know when-I don’t recollect doing it.’
Poole seized the two pairs of black shoes.
‘Which pair was he wearing yesterday?’ he asked.
The question seemed unreasonable, so twin were the two parts, but Ethel knew her job better than her quantities. She looked carefully at the pairs, then touched the ones in Poole’s left hand.
‘Them. That tag’s gone-I noticed it yesterday morning.’
‘Look at them carefully-can you tell me whether you cleaned them or not?’
‘Well, look at them? They’re clean enough, ain’t they?’ Ethel’s voice had a tang of indignation.
‘I mean did you clean them?’
The girl stared at him, looked at the shoes again, turned them over-and straightened herself abruptly. ‘That I didn’t-they ain’t black under the arches-master was dead on that-look ‘ere.’ She seized the other pair and, turning both over, displayed the difference to Poole.
The detective rose slowly to his feet.
The suit?’ he said.
Ethel half turned towards the wardrobe, but stopped.
‘I’ll take my Davy it was still in the pantry when you come just now,’ she said.
‘Get it,’ he returned, and to himself, ‘Not likely to be that one.’
While the girl was away he hunted through the suits in the wardrobe but evidently found nothing that interested him. Nor did the suit of conventional London clothes brought by Ethel afford any enlightenment. Returning to the shoes he examined them carefully with a pocket magnifying glass and this time appeared satisfied with what he saw.
‘That’s enough to go on,’ he muttered.
Dismissing Ethel, he quietly descended the front stairs and, after listening for a moment at the drawing-room door, walked straight in. To his surprise, he found Mrs Horne still lying on the sofa, her legs covered with the embroidered shawl. He had not expected that a woman of her temperament would hold that pose so long. Without apology for his intrusion he came straight to the point.
‘Would you mind telling me who looks after your husband’s clothes, madam?’ he asked.
Quirril stared at him in evident surprise.
‘Why, Ethel, of course-the parlourmaid,’ she replied after a pause.
‘Nobody else?’
‘No. Why should they?’
‘You don’t yourself do so?’
‘Certainly not-I make him stockings sometimes, that’s all.’
‘You don’t, for example, ever clean his shoes?’
For the first time Poole thought he saw genuine emotion in the girl’s face-the emotion of fear.
She did not answer, but stared at him with hard eyes-a look which he returned. Suddenly, as he watched her, there came to him a possible explanation of her attitude-her physical attitude.
‘Will you come with me and help me go through the things in his dressing-room?’ he asked.
There was no mistaking the look on her face now.
‘Why do you want to do that?’ she asked harshly. ‘Can’t you leave me alone-the very day that my husband dies!’
Poole rose to his feet.
‘It’s my duty to go through his things-I must do it now,’ he said.
She sat upright and seemed about to follow him, but checked herself and sank back on her cushions, putting her hand to her eyes.
‘I feel so ill,’ she said, weakly. ‘I can’t do it-do fetch a doctor or someone.’
‘I’m going now,’ the detective replied, inexorably, moving towards the door. But Quirril did not move and as he closed the door behind him Poole realised that his first stratagem had failed. Going to the kitchen, he gave some instructions to Ethel and slipped out into the garden. Making his way carefully to the drawing-room window he crouched down, with his head just below the sill. There was a minute’s pause and the front door banged. Poole slowly raised his head till he could see into the room. Quirril Horne was sitting bolt upright on the sofa, staring at the door-her back was almost to him, so that he could not read the expression on her face, though he guessed it accurately enough. Again a pause and, unexpectedly, the door banged again. Poole saw his prey stiffen. Pause, and again a bang. Pause, bang. Pause, bang. Pause, bang. It was more than any nerves, however sound-and Quirril’s surely were not that-could stand. Swinging her feet to the floor, she sprang up and took three quick steps towards the door, then staggered and came to an abrupt stop. For a moment she stood in the centre of the room, then turned and limped slowly back to the sofa. Poole could see her face now-on it was deeply engraved pain and misery. Pity for the first time stirred in his heart, mingling with the triumph that he felt at this complete confirmation of his guess.
Going back into the house, he stopped Ethel’s door-banging activities and obtained from her the further information that he required. Then, with a rather heavy heart, he returned to the drawing-room.
‘Mrs Horne,’ he said. ‘I may have to take you into custody on a charge of being concerned in the murder of either your husband or Mr de Lange. I am going to ask you some questions but I must warn you that what you answer may be used as evidence and that you are not obliged to answer if you do not want to.’
As he spoke he saw, to his intense astonishment, Quirril’s expression change from misery to alertness to excitement-almost pleasure. The dramatic value of the situation was outweighing her personal fears!
‘Ask your questions,’ she exclaimed. ‘I will decide whether to answer them when I hear them.’
‘Were you dancing with Mr de Lange in London last night?’
‘You know I was-I told you. There’s no crime in that.’
‘Why did you stop?’
Quirril stared at him.
‘Why? Because we’d had enough I suppose-no, it was because Julian wanted to come down here and have it out with George-I told you that too.’
‘No other reason?’
‘No-what do you mean?’
Poole leant forward.
‘You didn’t stop because you had rubbed the skin off your heels so badly that you couldn’t walk three steps across a room?’ he asked.
Slowly the colour ebbed out of the girl’s face-fear again pushing the ‘dramatic’ into the background.
‘I put it to you,’ Poole followed up, ‘that you rubbed the skin off your heels when you walked back from Cowheath Wood in your husband’s shoes last night. Is that so?’
The girl buried her face in her hands and remained so, motionless, while the detective’s calm, inexorable voice continued.
‘In the Firearms Register of this district, Mrs Horne, your husband is registered as holding a .38 Colt automatic.’
A pause, but Quirril did not move.
‘You are also registered as holding a similar automatic, Mrs Horne. These two weapons bear the numbers of, and in fact are the two that were found in the hands of the dead men this morning. I put it to you that you at least knew...’
Quirril flung up her head, her face once more flushed, her eyes sparkling.
‘Yes, I knew!’ she cried. ‘And much more than that! You’re a clever man, inspector; you’ll find it all out in time. I’ll tell you-no, no, don’t stop me; I know what I’m doing. I’ll tell you now-I may not if you take me to the police station. I told you that Julian wanted to have it out with George-that wasn’t true; he didn’t-it was the last thing he wanted. I got him down here, pretending George was away from home.
‘You should have seen their faces when they met in this room! George simply blew up and Julian lost his temper too-it was terrific!’
The girl’s eyes flashed with enjoyment of the recollection.
‘I thought they’d fight, but instead of that they cooled off-they hadn’t either of them got the guts. I don’t mean they made it up-anything but-but they became coldly hating instead of hotly, as I wanted. George actually offered to drive Julian to the station, because it was raining! While he was gone for the car, I slipped my gun into Julian’s hand and told him to shoot George-we could easily arrange it to look like suicide. He wouldn’t-wanted to, but funked it-pushed the gun back at me. When George came back into the room I walked up to him and shot him myself through the heart.
‘There was no one else in the house and not another house within earshot. I mopped up what little blood had got on to the carpet and filled Julian up with whisky-and a plan. I put on an old pair of George’s flannel trousers and the shoes he’d been wearing and my own mac and a cap. I pretended it was because I should be less noticeable as a man than as a woman, but really of course it was to make footprints like George-Julian was too much of a fool to think of them.
‘The car was already at the door-it had stopped raining. We drove to Cowheath Wood and Julian carried George to that clearing-I followed. We had put the gun into George’s hand at once-after wiping off my fingerprints-and we arranged him (as Julian thought) to look like suicide. Then when Julian straightened up I shot him through the heart in exactly the same way with George’s gun, that I’d got out of his desk-and there it was-a duel!
‘Of course, I had to kill Julian. I’d have been in his power for ever if I hadn’t-he was quite capable of blackmail. I killed George because I couldn’t stand him any longer-and because-because-oh, you wouldn’t understand that.’
The look in Quirril’s eyes as she spoke was certainly a complex one-it would have needed, Poole thought, an alienist to interpret it fully.
‘The grass was long in the clearing and down a ride that crossed the wood-I knew it well; we often used to picnic there. I felt sure my footprints wouldn’t show on it if I shuffled along and that you would only look at the two tracks-George’s and Julian’s you would think, leading from the car to the bodies. I don’t know what made you suspect me.’
She paused interrogatively, but as Poole remained silent, continued: ‘I walked home but, though it was only two miles George’s awful shoes rubbed the most ghastly places on my heels. I didn’t notice-I was too excited-till the damage was done. I struggled home, burnt the trousers in the hot water furnace, cleaned George’s shoes, and went to bed. When I woke up my feet were awful. I didn’t dare stay in bed-I knew I should be made to get up and I couldn’t let anyone see me walk into a room-so I dressed and lay on the sofa. I don’t know how you spotted... Good God, Julian!’
Poole, who had been watching the girl’s face, saw it suddenly stiffen into a look of terror, her gaze fixed over his shoulder towards the door. He spun round, caught by the age-old and never-failing trick, and in that moment a revolver crashed.

‘That’s a type that I don’t understand,’ said Superintendent Cox, gazing down at the dead woman. Poole had repeated to him Quirril’s extraordinary story and still more extraordinary manner.
‘Wartime adolescence and postwar demoralisation,’ said Poole. ‘I’ve seen them in London-nightclubs full of them-though they don’t generally go to such lengths. Lot of good qualities in her too-brains and pluck-up to the eyes in pluck.’
‘I wonder there wasn’t any blood in the car,’ said the matter-of-fact Superintendent.
‘She was too sharp for that, sir-wrapped him up in something I expect, and burnt it like the trousers. I looked for it, of course.’
‘What put you on to it, Poole-that it wasn’t what it looked?’
‘Well, I knew you’d seen something, sir, or you wouldn’t have called in the Yard. So I didn’t take things for granted. Horne’s ankle was the first thing-it was bent over. The fall couldn’t have done that, and if it was permanent, it would have shown in the footprints, which were straight enough. It simply followed that he couldn’t have made them. The bent ankle, too, suggested a cramped position, for a stiffening body in the car. Then there was the rigor. The doctor said Horne’s was more advanced than de Lange’s-suggested age as the cause: but Horne wasn’t old or decrepit-a much simpler explanation was that he died earlier than de Lange did. Then again, those footprints-de Lange’s, the lighter man’s-more deeply marked than Horne’s-why? Than Horne’s? But Horne hadn’t made them-then who had? They were made with his shoes, without a shadow of doubt. Who had access to his shoes? His wife.
‘Then there was Mrs Partacle’s account of the Hornes; Mrs Horne’s own extraordinary manner and what she called her “confession”-finally, the Firearms Register, showing her as the owner of one of the automatics. I was a damn fool, though, to forget that it showed him as holding a service revolver as well as the Colt; I ought to have searched for it-she’d got it under the cushions on the sofa all the time I suppose.’
There was silence for a moment, as the two men looked down at the still form, the shattered head now veiled by Poole’s silk handkerchief.
The younger man was the first to speak.
‘Will you tell me, sir, what made you think it wasn’t straight?’
Superintendent Cox chuckled.
‘People don’t fight duels nowadays,’ he said. ‘And besides, why were de Lange’s shoes limed with clay but Horne’s had only respectable drive gravel on them?’