Partners in Crime

"A young girl dressed in a flame colored coat and skirt had arrived by Main that evening about seven o'clock, and had asked the way to Captain Sessle's house. The same girl had reappeared again at the station, two hours later. Her hat was awry and her hair tousled, and she seemed in a state of great agitation. She inquired about the trains back to town, and was continually looking over her shoulder as though afraid of something.

"Our police force is in many ways very wonderful. With this slender evidence to go upon, they managed to track down the girl, and identify her as one Doris Evans. She was charged with murder, and cautioned that anything she might say would be used against her, but she nevertheless persisted in making a statement, and this statement she repeated again in detail, without any substantial variation, at the subsequent proceedings.

"Her story was this. She was a typist by profession, and had made friends one evening, in a Cinema, with a well dressed man who declared he had taken a fancy to her. His name, he told her, was Anthony, and he suggested that she should come down to his bungalow at Sunningdale. She had no idea then, or at any other time, that he had a wife. It was arranged between them that she should come down on the following Wednesday-the day, you will remember, when the servants would be absent and his wife away from home. In the end he told her his full name was Anthony Sessle, and gave her the name of his house.

"She duly arrived at the Bungalow on the evening in question, and was greeted by Sessle who had just come in from She links. Though he professed himself delighted to see her, the girl declared that from the first his manner was strange and different. A half acknowledged fear sprang up in her, and she wished fervently that she had not come.

"After a simple meal which was all ready and prepared, Sessle suggested going out for a stroll. The girl consenting, he took her out of the house, down the road, and along the 'slip' onto the golf course. And then suddenly, just as they were crossing the seventh tee, he seemed to go completely mad. Drawing a revolver from his pocket, he brandished it in the air, declaring that he had come to the end of his tether.

"'Everything must go! I'm ruined-done for. And you shall go with me. I shall shoot you first-then myself. They will find our bodies here in the morning side by side-together in death.'

"And so on-a lot more. He had hold of Doris Evans by the arm and she, realising she had to do with a madman, made frantic efforts to free herself, or failing that to get the revolver away from him. They struggled together, and in that struggle he must have torn out a piece of her hair and got the wool of her coat entangled on a button.

"Finally, with a desperate effort, she freed herself, and ran for her life across the golf links, expecting every minute to be shot down with a revolver bullet. She fell twice-tripping over the heather, but eventually regained the road to the station and realised that she was not being pursued.

"That is the story that Doris Evans tells-and from which she has never varied. She strenuously denies that she ever struck at him with a hat pin in self defence-a natural enough thing to do under the circumstances, though-and one which may well be the truth. In support of her story a revolver has been found in the furze bushes near where the body is lying. It had not been fired.

"Doris Evans has been sent for trial, but the mystery still remains a mystery. If her story is to be believed, who was it who stabbed Captain Sessle? The other woman, the tall woman in brown whose appearance so upset him? So far no one has explained her connection with the case. She appears out of space suddenly on the footpath across the links, she disappears along the slip, and no one ever hears of her again. Who was she? A local resident? A visitor from London? If so, did she come by car or train? There is nothing remarkable about her except her height, no one seems to be able to describe her appearance. She could not have been Doris Evans for Doris Evans is small and fair, and moreover was only just then arriving at the station."

"The wife?" suggested Tuppence. "What about the wife?"

"A very natural suggestion. But Mrs. Sessle is also a small woman, and besides Mr. Hollaby knows her well by sight, and there seems no doubt that she was really away from home. One further development has come to light. The Porcupine Assurance Co. is in liquidation. The accounts reveal the most daring misappropriation of funds. The reasons for Captain Sessle's wild words to Doris Evans are now quite apparent. For some years past, he must have been systematically embezzling money. Neither Mr. Hollaby, nor his son, had any idea of what was going on. They are practically ruined.