Thursday, 17 September 2026

Shot With Crimson 3 (Pages 54 - 190)

 

SPOILERS!!!

The encounter between James and Marion ends up badly. James wanted to know how Matthew, the man he had loved, could have killed himself, and Marion, his mother, somehow admits that she encourged him to end his life. That admission angers James so much that without being aware he presses a cushion on the woman's face. James is horrifed to see what he is doing, but it is  too late and the woman isdead, and the crucifix pendant she was wearing is on the floor. He takes the crucifix and frightened, he flees the cottage.

James is afraid because Marion's daughter Evelyn had been at the house when he arrived, so he isdoomed. As he crosses the lawn to the big house, Evelyn calls him and he gives him a note to read, and she wants him to meet him, but all James wants is to leave the place. However, the director, Vic, tells him that their departure is to be delayed, and he is worried.

Josephine continues on the ship and she comes across Lee Hessel at the swimming pool. It is the woman who approaches her to apologise. When they talk, Lee tells her that her father was an actor and worked for Hitchcock. He died of pneumonia and she blames Hitchcock because his father got sick after the terrible conditions during the filming of Jamaica Inn. Lee says that all she wants is for Hitchcock and his family to suffer, and Josephine feels afraid.

Once in America Josephine has to take a train from Chicago to California. At the station she sees a man who clearly intends to jump before a train, and she approaches him and the interruption stops him. The man is James, who after what he did to Marion thinks that he has no reason to live. Josephine comes across him again on the train. Alma introduces him to Josephine as the man who creates the miniatures that Hitchcock is using in Rebecca. On the train James asks Josephine not to tell anyone what he intended to do. Josephine likes the man but she finds him a mystery. Josephine tells him about the cross that she picked up that he had, and on seeing the cross James shows bitterness and throws the crucifix out of the window. Then when he takes his cigarettes out of his jacket pocket, there is a note, which I imagine is from Evelyn gave him, and he then burns the note.

Back in England Archie is sent to Milton Hall because there has been a suspicious death and the army, who is stationed there, has requested his presence as Colonel Selwyn Scott knew Archie at university. The matter is delicate because of the army being stationed there. The reader believes that the crime that Archie is to investigate is Marion's, but when he arrives, we discover that the murdered woman is his daughter, Evelyn, who was shot and was found in the forest. Marion is alive and it seems that she suffered a stroke when James thought he had killed her. 

An army pistol, the murder weapon, is found next to the victim, and Archie goes to talk to him. Donald Young tells Archie that he met Evelyn when he was convalescing in Milton Hall during the last war, and he was the happiest man when she married him. He was left with a limp, and the two decided to stay and work for the family. Archie asks the man why he did not report his wife missing, and he tells him that he told everyone that Evelyn had gone to look after her aunt because he thought she had left him for another man. He saw her with James Bartholomew, who Donald thinks his wife was in love with, and when she didn't turn up at the house and the film crew was gone, he thought she had left him. Donald says that James must have killed her after she turned him down.

Archie asks the local officer to search the house as Donald claims to have had a pistol from his army days, but he can't find it, and Archie believes that the murdered weapon must be Donald's. When he is leaving, the vicar's wife, Georgia Wells, who is looking after Marion, tells him that when she found Marion sick, she did nto find a crucifix that she always wore.

This gets more and more interesting. Will James have to return to England to defend himself? Will Archie go to America?

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