Let Him Lie by Ianthe Jerrold Read Free Book Online Page A

something falling. I didn’t know what it was. You know how you see things sometimes without realising what you’ve seen. It was like that. There was a shot and at the same time something falling in the grass. I wondered what on earth Robert had let drop out of the tree. I thought the shot had startled him and he’d dropped his coat or—or something. I thought it was funny the thing he’d dropped should have a boot on it!”
    A giggle escaped Agnes, and as if that hysterical giggle rather than her recital horrified her, she gave a sob and turned blindly towards Jeanie. After a moment she went on:
    â€œYou see, I saw it was Robert who’d fallen out of the tree, but I didn’t know it was! I just thought it was something he’d dropped. Everything was just the same. There was a cart rattling about. And a bird singing. And then I suddenly sort of knew it was Robert. I ran towards him. I ran. I ran !” she iterated piteously, and Jeanie had to suppress a mental picture of her friend creeping unwillingly, slowly, in horror across the grass. “I thought at first perhaps he’d fainted or had a stroke or something.”
    She spoke fast now, on short sobbing breaths, holding Jeanie’s hand in a hot dry clasp.
    â€œBut he hadn’t!” she wailed suddenly, and her tears came. “Oh, please! I saw—I saw he’d been shot. Blood, I saw blood,” said she, mastering herself and speaking in a matter-of-fact level voice, the sharp nails of her fingers digging into Jeanie’s palm. “I saw blood and I knew he’d been shot. Rabbit-shooting always makes me sick. Only this wasn’t as bad as rabbit-shooting, really. Because I simply didn’t believe it. Not for ages. I ran all round the orchard, kind of gasping to myself. And I went out of the orchard. And—and I thought I was going to faint or something. And Jeanie came. Oh. And there was Myfanwy Peel. Or did I imagine it? What was she doing there, I wonder?”
    â€œMyfanwy Peel?” murmured Finister, prompting her.
    â€œMrs. Peel. Sarah’s mother. Robert’s brother’s widow. Yes. I met her walking up the lane, but I can’t think what she can have been doing here. I said: ‘Robert’s dead.’ At least, I think I said it. I tried to say it. She didn’t answer. She looked awfully queer. I wanted her to help me, you see. I would have asked anybody. I felt so awful, I felt so sick! But she wouldn’t, she just went on up the lane. And I saw Jeanie—Miss Halliday, you know—looking out of the stable-loft window. And I thought: It’s no use, I must lie down . I don’t remember after that. That’s all. May I go now?”
    She looked piteously at Sir Henry. She was of that fair, fragile type from which tears seem to wash the last remnants of colour and vitality. She looked wretched, poor Agnes, like a doll that has been left out in the rain.
    â€œThere’s only one thing,” said Superintendent Finister, “that I wish we could fix, and that’s the time. You say you left your room at three-fifteen?”
    â€œYes. Yes,” said Agnes nervously.
    â€œAnd went almost at once to the orchard, so that you would be at the orchard gate at three-twenty or at most three-twenty-five?”
    â€œWell—I don’t know! I didn’t have a watch. I didn’t look at the time. I might have been earlier.” Her eyes, which had been flickering nervously about the room, shot a quick glance at the superintendent’s face. “Or later,” she added. 
    â€œYou see, we have two independent witnesses, Miss Tamsin Wills and Sir Henry Blundell, who say they were aware of the time when they heard the shot and that it was then twenty-five minutes to four.”
    â€œThat is so,” agreed Sir Henry.
    Agnes said tremulously:
    â€œYes, well—it might have been. I talked to Bates. I didn’t hurry.”
    â€œOh,