Partners in Crime

"Barnard and Lecky. They were playing just behind him, you remember."

"That was after he met the woman-the tall woman in brown. They saw him speaking to her, didn't they?"

"Yes-at least-"

Tommy broke off. Tuppence looked up at him, and was puzzled. He was staring at the piece of string in his fingers, but staring with the eyes of one who sees something very different.

"Tommy-what is it?"

"Be quiet, Tuppence. I'm playing the sixth hole at Sunningdale. Sessle and old Hollaby are holding out on the sixth green ahead of me. It's getting dusk, but I can see that bright blue coat of Sessle's clearly enough. And on the footpath to the left of me there's a woman coming along. She hasn't crossed from the Ladies' Course-that's on the right-I should have seen her if she had done so. And it's odd I didn't see her on the footpath before-from the fifth tee, for instance."

He paused.

"You said just now I knew the course, Tuppence. Just behind the sixth tee, there's a little hut or shelter made of turf. Anyone could wait in there until-the right moment came. They could change their appearance there. I mean-tell me, Tuppence this is where your special knowledge comes in again-would it be very difficult for a man to look like a woman, and then change back to being a man again? Could he wear a skirt over plus fours, for instance?"

"Certainly he could. The woman would look a bit bulky, that would be all. A longish brown skirt, say, a brown sweater of the kind both men and women wear, and a woman's felt hat with a bunch of side curls attached each side. That would be all that was needed-I'm speaking, of course, of what would pass at a distance, which I take to be what you are driving at. Switch off the skirt, take off the hat and curls, and put on a man's cap which you can carry rolled up in your hand, and there you'd be-back as a man again."

"And the time required for the transformation?"

"From woman to man, a minute and a half at the outside, probably a good deal less. The other way about would take longer, you'd have to arrange the hat and curls a bit, and the skirt would stick getting it on over the plus fours."

"That doesn't worry me. It's the time for the first that matters. As I tell you, I'm playing the sixth hole. The woman in brown has reached the seventh tee now. She crosses it and waits. Sessle in his blue coat goes towards her. They stand together a minute, and then they follow the path round the trees out of sight. Hollaby is on the tee alone. Two or three minutes pass. I'm on the green now. The man in the blue coat comes back and drives off, foozling badly. The light's getting worse. I and my partner go on. Ahead of us are those two, Sessle slicing and topping and doing everything he shouldn't do. At the eighth green, I see him stride off and vanish down the slip. What happened to him to make him play like a different man?"

"The woman in brown-or the man, if you think it was a man."

"Exactly, and where they were standing-out of sight, remember, of those coming after them-there's a deep tangle of furze bushes. You could thrust a body in there, and it would be pretty certain to lie hidden until the morning."

"Tommy! You think it was then-But someone would have heard-"

"Heard what? The doctors agreed death must have been instantaneous. I've seen men killed instantaneously in the War. They don't cry out as a rule-just a gurgle, or a moan -perhaps just a sigh, or a funny little cough. Sessle comes towards the seventh tee, and the woman comes forward and speaks to him. He recognizes her perhaps, as a man he knows masquerading. Curious to learn the why and wherefore, he allows himself to be drawn along the footpath out of sight. One stab with the deadly hat pin as they walk along. Sessle falls-dead. The other man drags his body into the furze bushes, strips off the blue coat, then sheds his own skirt and the hat and curls. He puts on Sessle's well known blue coat and cap, and strides back to the tee. Three minutes would do it. The others behind can't see his face, only the peculiar blue coat they know so well. They never doubt that it's Sessle-but he doesn't play Sessle's brand of golf. They all say he played like a different man. Of course he did. He was a different man."

"But-"