Let There Be Light

Edgar and Mary Burton were a somewhat ill-assorted pair, and none of their friends could explain why they had married. Perhaps the cynical explanation was the correct one: Edgar (who was almost 20 years older than his wife) had made a quarter of a million on the stock exchange before retiring at an unusually early age to live the life of a country gentleman and to pursue his one absorbing hobby – astronomy.

For some reason, it seems to surprise many people that an interest in astronomy is compatible with business acumen or even with common sense. This is a complete delusion, but in Edgar's case, shrewdness did seem to have been combined with a vague impracticality in one and the same person; once he had made his money he took no further interest in it, or indeed in anything except the construction of progressively larger reflecting telescopes.

On his retirement, Edgar had purchased a fine old house high up on the Yorkshire Moors. It was not so bleak and Wuthering-Heightish as it may sound; there was a splendid view, and the Bentley would get you into town in 15 (continued on page 54)Let There be Light minutes. Even so, the change did not altogether suit Mary, and it is hard not to feel rather sorry for her. There was no work for her to do, as the servants ran the house and she had few intellectual resources to fall back on. She took up riding, joined all the book clubs, read The Tatler and Country Life from cover to cover, but still felt there was something missing.

It took her about four months to find what she wanted; and then she met it at an otherwise dismal village fete. It was six-foot-three, ex-Coldstream Guards, with a family that looked on the Norman Conquest as a recent and regrettable piece of impertinence. It was called Aethelred Pendragon Tuncks (we'll forget about the other six Christian names) and it was generally regarded as the most eligible bachelor in the district.

Aethelred being a high-principled English gentleman, brought up in the best traditions of the aristocracy, it was two full weeks before he succumbed to Mary's blandishments. His downfall was accelerated by the fact that his family was trying to arrange a match for him with the Honorable Felicity Fauntleroy, who was generally admitted to be no great beauty. Indeed, she looked so much like a horse that it was risky for her to go near her father's famous stables when the stallions were exercising.

Mary's boredom, and Aethelred's determination to have a last desperate fling, had the inevitable result. Edgar saw less and less of his wife, who found an amazing number of reasons for driving into town during the week. At first he was quite glad that the circle of her acquaintances was widening rapidly, and it was several months before he realized that it was doing nothing of the sort.

It is quite impossible to keep any liaison secret for long in a small country town like Stocksborough, though this is a fact which every generation has to learn afresh, usually the hard way. Edgar discovered the truth by accident, but some kind friend would have told him sooner or later. He had driven into town for a meeting of the local astronomical society – taking the Rolls since his wife had already gone with the Bentley – and was momentarily held up on the way home by the crowds emerging from the last performance at the local cinema. In the heart of the crowd was Mary, accompanied by a handsome young man whom Edgar had seen before but couldn't identify at the moment. He would have thought no more of the matter, but Mary had gone out of her way the next morning to mention that she'd been unable to get a seat in the cinema and had spent a quiet evening with one of her women friends.

Even Edgar, engrossed though he now was in the study of variable stars, began to put two and two together when he realized that his wife was gratuitously lying. He gave no hint of his vague suspicions, which ceased to be vague after the local Hunt Ball. Though he hated such functions (and this one, by bad luck, occurred just when U Orionis was going through its minimum and he had to miss some vital observations), it occurred to him that this would give him a chance to identify his wife's companion, since everyone in the district would be there.

It proved absurdly easy to locate Aethelred and to get into conversation with him. Although the young man seemed a little ill at ease, he was pleasant company and Edgar was surprised to find himself taking quite a fancy to him. If his wife had to have a lover, on the whole he approved of her choice.

And there matters rested for some months, largely because Edgar was too busy grinding and figuring a 15-inch mirror to do anything about it. Twice a week Mary drove into town, ostensibly to meet her friends or to go to the cinema, and arrived back at the lodge just before midnight. Edgar could see the lights of the car for miles away across the moor, the beams twisting and turning as his wife drove homewards with what always seemed to him excessive speed. That had been one of the reasons why they seldom went out together; Edgar was a sound but cautious driver, and his comfortable cruising speed was 10 miles an hour below Mary's.

About three miles from the house the lights of the car would disappear for several minutes as the road was hidden by a hill. There was a dangerous hairpin bend at this point; in a piece of highway construction more reminiscent of the Alps than of rural England, the road hugged the edge of a cliff and skirted an unpleasant hundred-foot drop before it straightened out on the homeward stretch. As the car rounded this bend, its headlights would shine full on the house, and there were many evenings when Edgar was dazzled by the sudden glare as he sat at the eyepiece of his telescope. Luckily, this stretch of road was very little used at night; if it had been, observations would have been well-nigh impossible, since it took Edgar's eyes 10 or 20 minutes to recover fully from the direct blast of the headlights. This was no more than a minor annoyance, but when Mary started to stay out four or five evenings a week it became a confounded nuisance. Something, Edgar decided, would have to be done.

Throughout all this affair Edgar Burton's behavior was hardly that of a normal person. Indeed, anyone who could have switched his mode of life so completely from that of a busy London stockbroker to a near-recluse on the Yorkshire Moors must have been a little odd in the first place. One would hesitate, however, to say he was more than eccentric until the time when Mary's midnight arrivals started to interfere with the serious business of observation. And even thereafter, one must admit that there was a certain crazy logic in his actions.

He had ceased to love his wife, but he did object to her making a fool of him. And Aethelred Pendragon Tuncks seemed a pleasant young chap; it would be an act of kindness to rescue him. Well, there was a beautifully simple solution, which had come to Edgar in a blinding flash – literally, for it was while he was blinking in the glare of Mary's headlights that Edgar conceived his perfect murder.

It is strange how apparently irrelevant factors can determine a man's life; though it were churlish to say anything against the oldest and noblest of the sciences, it cannot be denied that if Edgar had never become an astronomer he would never have become a murderer. For his hobby provided part of the motive and a good deal of the means...

He could have made the mirror he needed – he was quite an expert by this time – but astronomical accuracy was unnecessary in this case, and it was simpler to pick up a second-hand searchlight reflector at one of those war-surplus shops in Lisle Street. The mirror was about three feet across, and it was only a few hours' work to fix up a mounting for it and to arrange a crude but effective arc-light at its focus. Getting the beam lined up was equally straightforward, and no one took the slightest notice of his activities since his experimenting was now taken for granted by wife and servants alike.

He made the final brief test on a clear, dark night and settled down to await Mary's return. He did not waste the time, of course, but continued his routine observations of a group of selected stars. By midnight, there was still no sign of Mary, but Edgar did not mind as he was getting a nicely consistent series of magnitudes which were lying smoothly on his curves. Everything was going well, though he did stop to wonder just why Mary was so unusually late.

At last he saw the headlights of the car flickering on the horizon, and rather reluctantly broke off his observations. When the car had disappeared behind the hill, he was waiting with his hand on the switch. His timing was perfect; the instant the car came round the curve (concluded on page 70)Let There be Light(continued from page 54) and the headlights shone on him, he closed the arc.

Meeting another car at night can be unpleasant enough even when you are prepared for it and are driving on a straight road. But if you are rounding a hairpin bend, and know that there is no other car coming, yet suddenly find yourself staring directly into a beam 50 times as powerful as any headlight – well, the results are more than unpleasant.

They were exactly what Edgar had calculated. He switched off his beam almost at once, but the car's own lights showed him all he wanted to see. He watched them swing out over the valley and then curve down, ever more and more swiftly, until they disappeared below the crest of the hill. A red glow flared for a few seconds, but the explosion was barely audible, which was just as well, as Edgar did not want to disturb the servants.

He dismantled his little searchlight and returned to the telescope as he had not quite completed his observations. Then, satisfied that he had done a good night's work, he went to bed.

His sleep was sound but short, for about an hour later the telephone started to ring. No doubt someone had found the wreckage, but Edgar wished they could have left it until morning, for an astronomer needed all the sleep he could get. With some irritation he picked up the phone, and it was several seconds before he realized his wife was at the other end of the line. She was calling from Tuncks Place, and wanted to know what had happened to Aethelred.

It seemed they had decided to make a clean breast of the whole affair, and Aethelred (not unfortified by strong waters) had agreed to be a man and break the news to Edgar. He was going to call back as soon as he had done this and tell Mary how her husband had received it. She had waited with mounting impatience and alarm as long as she could, until at last anxiety had got the better of discretion.

It goes without saying that the shock to Edgar's already somewhat unbalanced nervous system was considerable.

In the long run, Mary came out of it rather well. Aethelred wasn't really very bright, and it would never have been a satisfactory match. As it was, when Edgar was duly certified and safely put out of harm's way, Mary received power of attorney for the estate and promptly moved to Dartmouth, where she took a charming flat near the Royal Naval College and seldom had to drive the new Bentley for herself.