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Title: The sign of evil
Author: R. McNair Wilson
Release date: November 2, 2026 [eBook #79908]
Language: English
Original publication: Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1925
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/79908
Credits: an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SIGN OF EVIL ***
THE SIGN OF EVIL
BY
ANTHONY WYNNE
PHILADELPHIA & LONDON
J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1925
[COPYRIGHT]
COPYRIGHT, 1924, 1925, BY THE RED STAR NEWS COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1925, BY J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
CONTENTS
PART I
I. Dismissed
II. A Friend in The Vicarage
III. Sir William Disappears
IV. Who is Sawyer?
V. The White Berry
VI. The Marks on The Tree
VII. Why Not The Graveyard?
VIII. What The Grave Told
PART II
IX. Broken Glass
X. Who Drugged Sir William?
XI. The Stain on The Coat
XII. Poppy’s Handkerchief
XIII. A Chase Through The Snow
XIV. Blunder at Home
PART III
XV. A Cry in The Night
XVI. Mr. Blunder Explains
XVII. A Client’s Illness
XVIII. Financing Poppy
XIX. A Sum in Arithmetic
PART IV
XX. Dr. Hailey Eavesdrops
XXI. Behind Prison Bars
XXII. What The Mark Meant
XXIII. The House of Silence
XXIV. Dr. Wellwisher Helps
XXV. Out of The Asylum
XXVI. Due Process of Law
XXVII. Estelle Armand Explains
PART V
XXVIII. The Twenty Pellets
XXIX. Mr. Blunder’s Confession
XXX. The Eye Reappears
XXXI. A Family Feud
PART VI
XXXII. A Tryst With The Dead
XXXIII. The Secret of The Grave
XXXIV. Footsteps
XXXV. The Tiger Springs
XXXVI. As In a Dream
XXXVII. Out of The Depths
THE SIGN OF EVIL
PART I
CHAPTER I.
DISMISSED
“But it’s absurd,” Jack Derwick declared. “We have been engaged for
two months. Our happiness is complete. What right has your father to
shatter it in this fashion?”
Estelle did not reply. He noticed that her fingers, which rested on
the edge of the table, were pale at the tips from the pressure which
she was exerting on them.
“I shall see your father at once.”
“Oh, no!”
Her voice now had a piteous ring in it. She came to him and grasped
him by the arm.
“For my sake, Jack--promise me that you will not speak to father about
it.”
She looked so terrified that instinctively he put his arm around her
waist.
“Promise me.”
“That means--it can only mean--that you agree with his decision. Tell
me why.”
“I can’t.”
He left her and strode across the room and back. From the mullioned
windows a splendid view of one of the wildest parts of the
Northumbrian coast was obtainable. But he had no eyes at the moment
for scenery.
“There is some reason, I suppose?” he challenged.
“Yes.”
Jack smiled bitterly. “I take it you are not a spy nor a thief nor any
of the things which prevent the heroines of novels from marrying till
the last chapter.”
Estelle did not reply, but the misery in her eyes reproved him for his
outburst. Whatever her secret might be, it was obviously a terrible
one. He came to her again and took her hands.
“Look me in the face, Estelle,” he demanded gently.
She raised her head. The action gave him the full roundness of her
throat, the exquisite curve of her cheek. The afternoon sunshine
rested in her golden hair, filling it with light.
“Now say you still love me.”
“I still love you.”
He bent and kissed her.
“Listen, little girl. I don’t ask to know your secret. All I ask is
that I may be near to help you. You can’t send me away, because I
won’t go.”
A moan broke from Estelle’s lips. “I must send you away. If you knew
how urgent it was--”
Suddenly she seemed to gather all her strength for a final effort. Her
voice became more calm, but not less urgent.
“Jack, you say you love me. Do this for me without asking why and
without waiting. Go away to-night, back to London, to your work.
If--if things should change--if it is possible at all--I will come to
you. I promise that.”
She trembled as she spoke, and he saw it.
“Estelle,” he cried, “you are afraid--”
“Yes; and every hour that you delay makes me more afraid. If only you
would go, I think I could bear it.”
The horrible mystery gripped Jack Derwick’s heart. Only an hour ago he
had believed himself the special favorite of fortune with this
glorious girl as his betrothed and his career opening splendidly
before him. He slumped into a chair and laid his head on his arms.
“God help me,” she heard him cry, “I can’t obey you!”
But his weakness seemed, somehow, to give her new resolution and
vigor.
“Listen,” she told him in quick tones. “I have already telegraphed
announcements to the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_ that our
engagement is broken off. I have told Travers to book a sleeper for
you in the night mail. Your luggage will be taken to the station at
ten o’clock.”
He started up, anger flashing in his eyes.
“So that I am dismissed already, before I have even consented to be
dismissed. I tell you I will not leave till I have seen your father
and demanded--”
His voice broke. Already he was sorry. Again her eyes reproached him
so that he could not bear the pain which they revealed. He caught his
breath in a sob, then turned and left the room.
When he had gone Estelle sank down on the chair on which he had been
seated. But her eyes had no tears.
CHAPTER II.
A FRIEND IN THE VICARAGE
When Jack left Estelle he went straight to his bedroom. His valet
was busy in the room laying out his evening clothes. He told him
rather curtly that he should not require them.
“I am returning to town to-night, Payne,” he announced. “You had
better begin packing up.”
Payne knew his master in this mood. He did not attempt to discover the
reason of this sudden change of plan. Jack took his cap and stick and
left the room.
He went out into the beautiful November evening and turned toward the
shore. It was a favorite walk of his, and in other circumstances the
nip of frost in the air would have delighted him. The beginnings of a
great sunset already stained the western sky.
He strode on, along the cliffs, letting his thoughts rush in their
turgid stream through his mind. That was his method when any big
decision had to be taken--the method, as he believed, which had
brought him to fame at the bar and in Parliament. Always, he had
found, after the first incoherent tide had spent itself, some clear,
simple idea took shape and enabled him to see his problem whole.
The sunset developed as he walked, staining the sea a deep crimson in
patches. Away beyond the light there was a faint mist on the water in
which he could just distinguish the outline of a ship. He paused,
straining his eyes until the vessel finally disappeared.
Then he turned and glanced back at Calthorpe Hall, Estelle’s home, the
place of all his desires. The old house was dark in the fading light,
but it stood clear-cut against the sky, a picture of rugged and solemn
strength. Even the pine woods which surrounded it seemed diminutive by
comparison. Sir William Armand, he thought, had chosen well in
selecting this place for his old age.
But that thought was followed by an instant stab of bitterness. For
what reason of sanity or sense had this man, regarded all over England
as one of the cleverest lawyers of his day, and certainly the kindest
and most charming of personalities, decided to take arms against his
daughter’s happiness. Estelle, he knew, was the idol of all her
father’s thoughts and ambitions.
He bit his lip strongly as the stark truth came back to him. Whatever
the reason might be, it was a sufficient one--sufficient for daughter
as well as for parent--a reason appealing as strongly to a woman’s as
to a man’s mind. His legal instinct fastened on that fact. Again and
again it had been his experience to find that objections or doubts
which seemed important to his male clients were brushed aside by their
women folk as quite irrelevant. Woman’s mind worked in a manner
different from man’s.
Indeed, he had made a working rule for his own guidance in difficult
cases that, when men and women saw eye to eye in any problem the key
to that problem was to be found in human nature.
And yet he did not believe for one instant that Estelle had ceased to
love him. He knew her well enough to be quite sure that had this been
the case she would have told him frankly. Estelle was not the sort of
girl to make a mystery rather than face an unpleasant fact.
No, she was as deeply in love with him as ever. Could it be that she
was sending him away for his own good?
But that idea was too ridiculous to be entertained. How could it be an
advantage to him--in the most material sense--to lose one of the most
beautiful and certainly one of the richest brides in England? The name
of her father’s firm, Armand & Blunder, was itself a passport to
success at the bar, and already, as he knew, he had profited greatly
by his association with it. No other solicitors in the world enjoyed
so commanding a reputation.
He resumed his walk at a slower pace, anxiety and bewilderment
possessing his mind. The path along the cliffs turned inland a short
distance to avoid one of those deep gashes in the rock which are
hereabouts a characteristic of the coastline.
He entered a scrubby pine wood, in which, in spite of the lateness of
the season, the smell of resin still lingered deliciously. Before him
was the village of Calthorpe, a tiny hamlet lying in a fold of the
hills which rise here in long, slow undulations toward the main
Cheviot range.
The light had grown dimmer, but this served only to enhance the beauty
of the scene. His eye traveled from the square tower of the village
church with the vicarage peeping out from its trees behind to the
roofs of the cottages, now a deep purple of almost unfathomable
richness. The air was cold and vital as champagne.
He came to the church and lingered a moment in the fresh pain of
memory which the sight of it caused him. They had planned to be
married here, Estelle and he. After the ceremony they meant to walk
back to the Hall along the cliffs according to an old custom of the
squires of Calthorpe. For an instant he saw Estelle’s face again as
she asked him if he would consent to fall in with her wishes in this
respect.
How remote and impossible that glorious time seemed already! How
remote and impossible even last Sunday when they had worshiped
together in the family pew!
He leaned his elbows on the low wall surrounding the churchyard and
gazed vacantly at the rows of tombstones. A new grave which seemed to
have been filled but yesterday lay like a gash in the greensward
before him. That spectacle somehow made his heart quail. He covered
his face with his hands.
A footstep sounded behind him. He turned sharply to find himself face
to face with the vicar of the parish, the Rev. Hargreave Willoughby.
“What, Mr. Derwick--”
The vicar held out his hand cordially, adding:
“I suppose Miss Armand is not far away, eh?”
Jack hesitated a moment. He liked the Rev. Hargreave instinctively,
but his natural reticence cautioned silence. After all, he had not
really abandoned hope.
“Oh, no,” he said as casually as he could; “I am alone; I was just
taking a little walk before dinner. I came along the cliffs to enjoy
the wonderful sunset.”
The clergyman nodded. His thin, ascetic face lighted with enthusiasm.
“These Northumbrian sunsets are heavenly,” he declared. “Each time I
see one of them, I feel how near is this earth of ours to the glory of
its Creator. Will you come to the vicarage and let me give you a cup
of tea? My housekeeper would be much honored.”
For some reason the proposal appealed to Jack. It offered, if only for
a moment, escape from his bitterness of spirit. He followed the
clergyman round the corner of the church and along the narrow path
between high hedges which admitted directly to the vicarage garden.
Tea was ready when they reached the drawing-room--a frugal meal of
bread and butter cut, Jack noticed, rather thick and spread rather
thin. He had heard that the living was a poor one.
A glance at the Rev. Hargreave’s clothes confirmed that impression.
They were terribly threadbare and soiled--and unbrushed. Mud, splashed
probably by his bicycle, clung to his trouser legs, and there were
stains over both coat and trousers. Yet the man himself somehow
outshone and excused his clothes.
As he spoke of his work and the hopes which inspired him in connection
with it, his face literally glowed, so that it was easy to understand
the love and respect in which he was held everywhere. Jack thought,
indeed, that his eyes had a quality of spiritual exaltation which was
unique in his experience. They were strange, deep, almost wild, eyes
that burned as he spoke. The martyrs must have had eyes of that type,
and the saints.
Looking at the Rev. Mr. Hargreave one realized how great may be the
power of mind or soul over any material thing.
When he rose to go Jack felt a little calmer. He held out his hand.
“I do not think,” he said, “that you realize how kind you have been,
Mr. Willoughby. I may as well tell you now that as Miss Armand has
broken off our engagement, this is perhaps the last time I shall have
a chance of thanking you.”
“What!”
The Rev. Mr. Hargreave’s eyes dilated.
“Oh,” he cried, “I am so sorry to hear it!” He appeared to be greatly
upset by the news and paced up and down the room with swift steps.
“Do you think,” he asked, “that I might offer my services as mediator?
I feel sure that something might be done--there must be some mistake.”
“I fear not,” Jack said. “Sir William has decided this matter, and
Estelle seems to have bowed to his decision.”
The clergyman stopped. His visitor saw that his face had become very
much flushed. He opened and closed his hands in a peculiar, nervous
manner.
“Her father has ordered her to send you away?” he cried in a tense
voice. “Oh, surely that cannot be true!”
“Unhappily, it is true.”
He rose to go. The vicar accompanied him to the door, but made no
further comment. The thought occurred to Jack that he was a good
fellow, as well as a good man, with a ready sympathy for the troubles
of another. It was kind of him to offer to act as a peacemaker.
His anger against Sir William rose higher when he compared his almost
brutal behavior with the consideration shown him by the clergyman. At
least, he might have been furnished with some inkling of the reason
for his dismissal.
His face set in a grim expression of determination. Suddenly he
exclaimed in amazement.
A few yards away, crossing a field toward the village, was Estelle
herself.
He had a clear view of her, though the darkness was falling quickly.
He hurried forward to the place where, as he knew, the footpath
reached the main road. This was situated between a cottage and the
village inn; for a moment as he passed the former he lost sight of the
girl. Then, when he reached the stile, he saw to his astonishment that
she had turned back and was retracing her steps quickly toward the
Hall.
She must have seen him, of course, at the same moment as he saw her,
and she would not meet him. An impulse to run after her came strongly,
but he hesitated; it was only too clear that her decision of the
afternoon had not altered.
He wondered why she had come to the village at this late hour, and
whether, when he went away, she would return again. In all his
knowledge of her, he had never known her to act in this fashion
before.
He decided to wait a few moments and then follow her back to the Hall
across the fields.
CHAPTER III.
SIR WILLIAM DISAPPEARS
Two days later the world learned that Sir William Armand, senior
partner of the firm of Armand & Blunder, was missing.
The news caused a great sensation in legal circles, for Sir William
was regarded as the kind of man who, in any circumstances, may be
relied on to do the right thing. The idea that he could suddenly
vanish, leaving no trace and no explanation, seemed somehow grotesque
and impossible.
At Scotland Yard, on the other hand, lively anxiety was felt, for the
reports from Calthorpe were disquieting. Sir William had been last
seen two days previously--that is, on the day on which Estelle broke
off her engagement to Jack Derwick--about four o’clock in the
afternoon.
At that time he was leaving the Black Bull Inn of the village to
return home along the cliffs. He was accompanied by a strange man,
named Mr. Sawyer, a visitor at the inn, with whom he had been closeted
for about an hour previously.
“It looks bad on the face of it,” the chief declared, after reading
the account sent him by the local superintendent. “What do you think,
Biles?”
“I agree with you.”
Inspector Biles spoke in quiet tones, but his manner was as decided as
it was gentle. He was a tall, lean man, clean-shaven, with crisp hair
and rather pale eyes. But his expression was good-humored, even
kindly.
“You know Sir William, of course?”
“I have met him. Before I came to see you, I sent for a record of his
career. There is nothing of any sort.”
“Oh, nothing, of course.”
“And this Sawyer?”
Inspector Biles shook his head. He had no information.
“Well,” the chief said, “do your best. I leave it entirely to your
judgment. You will travel north to-night, I take it?”
“Yes. I must go over the ground.”
When Biles returned to his own room he found a further note about Sir
William Armand on his desk. It stated that he had retired from active
participation in the work of his firm about two years ago, though he
had not in any official way severed his connection.
“Where did you get this?” the officer demanded of his clerk, who was
working at a side table.
“In the _Northumberland Country Directory_. It’s a new reference which
was published for the first time last year.”
“There is nothing else?”
“Nothing that I can find.”
Biles reread the telegrams of the district superintendent carefully.
He tried, according to his usual custom, to make a mental picture of
the mystery. The Black Bull would be the usual type of North Country
inn, hospitable, warm, smelling a little of beer, a little of ham. The
bedrooms would be on the first floor, clean, rather damp, probably,
with big, overblanketed beds.
Sir William would certainly never send any guest of his own to such a
place. But why should he go out of his way to visit a stranger who had
been staying at the inn only one night? He must have known that Mr.
Sawyer was coming; indeed, he must have had an appointment with him.
Why had he not asked Mr. Sawyer to Calthorpe Hall?
The description of this mysterious person was exasperatingly meager.
“A middle-aged man, well dressed, rather stout, wearing mustache and
beard; appeared somewhat excited.” It might have applied to any
commercial traveler. That was the worst of these local policemen. They
looked only for the obvious--and never saw it.
He rested his head between his hands, gazing vacantly in front of him
at the opposite wall. The more he considered this case, the more
extraordinary it became. Where could an elderly man disappear to in a
countryside where he was known to every inhabitant?
The possible explanations, of course, were suicide, murder, and
voluntary disappearance. The first two, he thought, might be dismissed
offhand--though he never, in practice, dismissed any possibility,
however remote, until he had finally investigated and disproved it.
The last might furnish the key. Elderly gentlemen do not, as a rule,
murder one another; but they are most apt, of all people, to depart
mysteriously for other lands--even when they enjoy blameless
reputations.
“Have you sent my message to the ports?” Biles asked his clerk
suddenly.
“Yes, sir.”
“With a description of Sir William Armand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.”
The train left King’s Cross at 9.45. It was now 6 P.M. Biles decided
to go home at once and dine quietly in his own house. He left orders
that any further information about Sir William, or about the firm of
Armand & Blunder, was to be forwarded to him instantly at the Black
Bull at Calthorpe.
He drove up to Hempstead in a cab, turning over his new problem in his
mind as he went. It was his invariable custom in every difficult
investigation to think well before acting, and having arrived at a
theory, to test it step by step.
His house stood on the top of Holly Hill, overlooking London. From his
study window a splendid panorama of spires and domes was revealed--the
great city in whose darker life he found such perennial interest.
His housekeeper, a merry little woman with a ripe-apple face, had
dinner ready for him. He sat down at once, but he ate little; the
excitement of a new chase dominated his mind.
As he drove off to the station he began to think about Mr. Sawyer.
They knew nothing of this individual at Sir William’s office. Indeed,
Mr. Blunder had stated definitely to the detective who had been sent
to interview him that, so far as he was aware, the firm possessed no
client of that name. Biles could not see what reason Mr. Blunder could
have for being untruthful on this point. It was obvious, then, that
Sir William had interests outside of his business.
But what interests? Rich men are often secretive enough about their
investments. But they do not employ the kind of men as confidential
agents whom they hesitate to introduce into their own houses. The very
idea of a clandestine meeting is repugnant to the legal mind--at
least, in its nobler manifestations.
No, the more he thought about it, the more sure he felt that there was
something in the life of the great lawyer of which he was
ashamed--something perhaps which threatened his present security or
peace of mind. It could scarcely be a woman--though this possibility
could not be absolutely excluded--and therefore it was most probably a
question of money.
Just before he went to sleep the detective turned his thoughts to Sir
William’s daughter, Estelle, and her fiancé, John Derwick. Did they,
he wondered, know anything of the reasons which might have led to the
present mysterious events?
CHAPTER IV.
WHO IS SAWYER?
Next morning at six o’clock Biles alighted from the sleeping-car
express at Newcastle. He found to his exasperation that he must wait
here two hours--the London time-table his clerk had consulted was
mistaken, or his clerk had overlooked the matter of connections. In a
very ill humor he walked into the dingy-looking refreshment room and
ordered a cup of tea.
The girl who served him seemed inclined to talk, and after a minute or
two he mentioned the Calthorpe affair, on the principle that people
who serve the public in railway stations often hear bits of news.
On this occasion he was destined to obtain a speedy reward. It
appeared that the barmaid was a native of a village situated about two
miles from Calthorpe, and had been home only the previous day. She was
full of information.
This, however, amounted to no more than local gossip. Indeed, in all
she said, Biles could discern only one item which appeared to him to
possess significance--the statement that John Derwick had left
Calthorpe Hall rather unexpectedly on the night of Sir William’s
disappearance.
“How do you know that?” he asked the girl.
“Because my cousin has a daughter working as scullery-maid at the
Hall. She did say that Miss Estelle was crying bitterlike when Mr.
John went away.”
“A scullery-maid wouldn’t be likely to see her mistress crying.”
“That’s what I said. Nor did she, sir. It was the lady’s maid what
told her. And the queer thing is that Miss Estelle was in her bed from
before dinnertime that night. She didn’t even say good-by to her young
man.”
The barmaid added significantly:
“A quarrel, of course. But it kept her from knowing her father was
missing till the next morning.”
“It’s a strange affair,” Biles said, stirring his cup of tea
meditatively.
“Very strange, sir. They do say the police from London is on to it
already. My own notion is that they done away with the old man for his
money, though they tell me there’s no trace of his body anywhere to be
found.”
The train was very cold, and Biles had a most uncomfortable journey to
Belfort. There the local superintendent was awaiting him with a
motor-car. They drove the five miles to Calthorpe through a wonderful
North Country dawn all gold and crystal.
Breakfast was served as soon as they reached the Black Bull. When it
was over, the two men went to a sitting-room at the back of the inn
which had been placed at their disposal. Biles lit his large black
pipe and stood with his back to the fire, warming himself, while the
superintendent, whose name was Robson, gave him an outline of the case
to date.
The first report that Sir William Armand was missing had, he said,
come from Calthorpe Hall on Tuesday morning, the day after Sir William
was last seen. Miss Estelle Armand had rung up the local police
herself. Thereafter search parties had been sent out over the whole
neighborhood. But so far no trace of the missing man had been found.
“What is your own view of the case, superintendent?” Biles asked in
his quiet voice which always carried a suggestion of indifference.
“That Sir William has his own reasons for disappearing.”
“H-m! But in that case he must have traveled by train or motor-car. It
seems pretty clear that he did not travel by train. What about his
cars?”
“No--they have not been out at all.”
“If he had hired a car anywhere round here, the fact would be known.
I’m afraid there is no escape from the conclusion that he must have
walked a long distance himself, or gone into hiding--that is, if he
has really disappeared.”
Superintendent Robson’s face clouded.
“You think--” he began.
“No--I have no theory yet. It is quite possible that you are right.
Only it seems a little difficult to explain. Now tell me, have you any
information about the man Sawyer who was with him?”
“He went back to London by train from Belfort on Monday night.”
“The same train by which Mr. John Derwick, who is engaged to Miss
Armand, traveled?”
Superintendent Robson started.
“Yes,” he said; “but how did you know?”
Biles did not answer for a moment; then he asked:
“Your information came from the station-master, I take it. Did he, by
any chance, mention that Mr. Derwick and Mr. Sawyer traveled
together?”
“No. He said they traveled separately.”
“You have no idea who this man is, I suppose, or where he comes from?”
“None. His name is down in the hotel register as James Sawyer, London.
But he didn’t even enter it himself. He had a sore hand, and got the
waiting-maid to do it for him.”
It was obvious that no further information could be obtained in this
quarter. Biles knocked the ashes out of his pipe on the fender.
“I think, if you don’t mind, I’ll take a walk across to the Hall,” he
said. “I’ll follow the path along the cliffs where Sir William was
last seen, and take my own time about it. Perhaps you will make it
convenient to meet me here later in the day.”
He got his hat and stepped out into the village street. It was
strangely empty. However, he knew that such an appearance, in the
North Country, is always deceptive. After the visitor has passed, a
face appears at every window. He turned suddenly just as he reached
the stile leading into the fields, and confirmed his view. The sight
made him smile.
At this moment he had a small pine wood directly in front of him.
Calthorpe Hall stood somewhat to the right, its chimneys being visible
among the trees which surrounded it. Calthorpe Church was on the left.
The path he was about to follow led straight to the wood, and then, as
he guessed, swung along the top of the cliffs toward the Hall. He
could see that a branch path connected the Hall and the church
directly. It appeared to leave the main way somewhere in the wood. He
made a rapid sketch-map of these observations before beginning his
walk.
Then he crossed the fields and entered the little wood. He stood near
the center of it, attempting to see whether or not the trees offered
an effective screen. There could be no doubt that they did not. In
daylight anything passing in the wood must be easily visible for a
considerable distance.
Sir William, however, had been last seen just as dusk was falling. At
that time of day the wood would constitute a much more effective
shield from observation. He walked through it from end to end twice,
and then he walked right round it. On the side next the sea it
advanced quite close to the edge of the cliffs, but these were not
very precipitous at this place.
The theory that the lost lawyer might have fallen over and been
carried out into deep water was not tenable. Besides, as Biles had
verified for himself, the tide was probably at full ebb about the time
of the disappearance.
But if the missing man had not fallen into the sea, where on earth
could he have gone? It was incredible that he could hide in such a
place as this even during a single night.
The only explanation which seemed at all reasonable in the
circumstances was that he had descended the cliffs to the foreshore,
and so made his way back to the main road at a distance from the
village. Biles resolved to test this theory for himself, but as the
tide was at present flowing, he postponed this piece of research and
resumed his walk to the Hall.
His ring was answered by a tall footman, who seemed very much
astonished at his visit, and who told him rather curtly that “Miss
Estelle” was “unable to see any visitors.”
“Pardon me,” said Inspector Biles gently, “but I think she will make
an exception in my favor if you give her this card.”
The footman took the card, read it, and started.
“Will you come in, sir?” he invited.
Biles was shown into what he recognized as Sir William’s study. It was
a solidly furnished room with bookshelves lining the walls and a large
desk in the center. There was an air of established worth about every
chair.
The detective examined the room quickly. He noted that the
blotting-pad on the table had been used recently; it was very clean,
yet ink-stained. He saw, too, that the seals of a tin box standing
near the fireplace had been broken and renewed within the last few
days. A particle of red wax still adhered to the surface of the desk
where, no doubt, the resealing operation had taken place.
The writing on the blotting-pad was very indistinct, but he read
easily the words, “at our interview,” and the signature, “William
Armand.” Biles prided himself on his power to read blotting-paper
without the use of a mirror.
He was dwelling on the significance of these discoveries when Estelle
came into the room. A single glance at her pale, anxious face
convinced him that she was suffering great mental torture.
“I am Inspector Biles, of Scotland Yard, Miss Armand,” he said. “I
have been sent down here to assist in the search for your father which
is going on. I have come to see you because I know you can help me.”
He watched the girl closely as he spoke, and saw her start slightly;
but she controlled herself at once.
“I wish I could,” she declared. “We are in such terrible anxiety about
him; and yet there does not seem to be a gleam of light anywhere.”
“I am very sorry for you, especially as you have your own trouble at
the same time.”
Again the watchful gray eyes looked for some sign, but Estelle only
nodded.
“You saw the announcement in the papers, I suppose.”
It was Biles’s turn to feel surprised. He had not seen any
announcement. What he was working on was the information supplied by
the Newcastle barmaid. Inwardly he abused his clerk for an unobservant
fellow. Not once, but a hundred times, he had warned him never to
overlook the social announcements in the morning papers. He hazarded:
“The breaking off of your engagement to Mr. Derwick came, I suppose,
before your father’s disappearance?”
“Oh, yes.”
“There is no possible connection between the two events?”
“How could there be?”
Estelle eyed her visitor rather coldly; but the detective fancied that
an expression of fear lurked in her eyes.
“Look here, Miss Armand,” he said in his softest tones, “I want to
make an appeal to you. If you know anything, however intimate or
personal, about this matter, it is your duty to tell me. There is no
doubt at all in my mind that this is a very serious case indeed.”
Estelle sighed deeply.
“You mean?” she asked in low tones.
“That the evidence, so far as it goes--and that is not far--points
to--well, to foul play. I cannot believe that a man in your father’s
position would attempt to hide himself in any circumstances.”
“I’m quite certain that he wouldn’t.”
“Then, tell me everything.”
Estelle did not reply for a moment. She stood looking down at her
hands, which rested on the edge of her father’s desk. In the deep
silence the rhythm of the waves breaking on the shore was distinctly
audible.
Finally she looked up in the eyes of her interlocutor.
“There is nothing to tell except that I broke off my engagement at my
father’s wish.”
Biles thought rapidly; then he said:
“You would not consent to that course without a good reason.”
“My father gave me a reason. I promised that I would not divulge it.”
“Surely that promise may be broken now--in the circumstances.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
The detective bit his lip. He realized the kind of girl he was dealing
with, and knew that, for the moment, it was useless to persist. He
reached for his hat.
“There is only one question that I would like to ask you,” he said in
unruffled tones, “if I may.”
“You may.”
“Your feelings toward Mr. Derwick have not changed?”
“No.”
Estelle’s lips quivered, but she did not flinch.
She added rather hurriedly:
“My father did not tell me that he had an appointment at the inn until
a few minutes before he went there, so Mr. Derwick knew nothing about
it when he left here on Monday night.”
“But surely he must have been astonished when your father did not
return to dinner.”
“He went before dinner. I did not see him again after--after our
interview. I suppose he preferred to dine at Belfort.”
Biles did not pursue the matter, because he could see that Estelle was
already near the breaking-point. Besides, he had the barmaid’s
information that the girl had gone to bed as soon as her lover went
away. That explained sufficiently why she had not become alarmed about
her father till the next morning.
“You have no guests staying with you?” he asked as he was leaving the
room.
“No; we had some friends coming, but my father asked me to write and
put them off.”
Biles returned to the village by the way that he had come. When he
reached the wood he paused for a little time and searched the ground
with his eyes; but, so far as he could see, the carpet of pine-needles
which covered it was unruffled.
The idea that so large an object as a human body could have been
disposed of in this bare place was grotesque on the face of it. If
indeed a murder had been committed, it must have taken place in some
other locality.
He found the superintendent awaiting him at the inn. There was no
further news of any sort. The various search-parties had gained not a
single scrap of information.
“You have not forgotten the foreshore in your investigations?”
“No; it has been thoroughly examined.”
Superintendent Robson shook his head as though gloomy forebodings were
entering his mind.
“I must say,” he declared, “that the case begins to wear an ugly look.
Since the morning I’ve been thinking over what you said, and it’s
clear to me that Sir William cannot have disappeared of his own free
will. We would have been bound to have had news of him by this time.”
Biles nodded.
“Quite so, I came to the same conclusion myself after I had seen the
ground.”
He filled his pipe slowly, pressing the tobacco carefully into the
bowl.
“We’ve got to find Sawyer,” he declared reflectively, “and we’ve got
to discover why Miss Armand broke off her engagement to young Derwick.
I fancy Miss Armand could enlighten us on both points, if she liked.”
“Did you ask her about Sawyer?”
“No.”
“I’ve just heard that she was seen coming across the fields toward the
inn while her father and Sawyer were together. But she turned and went
back again before she came to the stile. And then Mr. Derwick was seen
walking after her. I made inquiries, and found he had been to tea at
the vicarage.”
Superintendent Robson spoke casually. It was evident that he attached
very little importance to these discoveries. Biles, on the contrary,
was keenly interested in them.
“That means,” he declared, “that these two may have actually been in
the wood when Sir William and Sawyer entered it.”
“It’s possible. Sir William left here about a quarter of an hour after
Miss Armand was seen coming to the stile--so far as I can be sure
about the times.”
The London detective drew a deep breath.
“It’s quite clear,” he said, “that I must spend the rest of the
daylight in the wood.”
CHAPTER V.
THE WHITE BERRY
Experience had taught Inspector Biles that in detective work
half-measures are absolutely fatal. It is better to neglect altogether
than to undertake carelessly. He determined to make his examination of
the wood a thorough one in every particular--to go over it foot by
foot, spending, if necessary, several days on the work.
Unhappily, the weather conditions since the day of Sir William’s
disappearance had been unfavorable. It had rained hard on several
occasions, and footprints had been largely obliterated.
Nevertheless, as the detective often reminded himself, “You never know
what you may find till you look.”
He began at the end next to the cliffs, and paced the wood slowly from
side to side, kneeling to examine more closely any feature which
attracted his attention. He progressed in this task for about an hour
before he had the least reward for his labor. Then, close to the trunk
of one of the largest trees, he observed what seemed to be the imprint
of a heel.
He stooped and regarded his find with meticulous care. The heel
undoubtedly belonged to a woman--undoubtedly, also, it was not the
possession of a woman of the laboring classes.
But that was all. Any servant-girl, “walking out” with her lover,
might leave such an imprint.
He examined the ground in the neighborhood carefully, but could find
nothing else of consequence.
It was after one o’clock. He marked the place where his search had
ended, and went back to the inn for luncheon. An hour later he
returned and resumed his task. When the light began to fail he had
scrutinized about half the ground. He had made no discovery worthy of
the name.
He returned to the inn feeling rather cold and depressed. The mystery
remained as impenetrable as ever. Even his speculations mocked him by
their fruitlessness. He went up to his bedroom to wash his hands
before dinner. It was an old, raftered room with a low ceiling. There
was no illumination except a candle. Nor had he been supplied with any
hot water. The thought came to him again that in no circumstances
would Sir William Armand have condemned one of his friends to this
discomfort. The man Sawyer was clearly an object of dislike, or a mere
go-between.
He dried his hands carefully, and put the towel back on the rail. It
slipped to the floor, and he bent to lift it again. As he did so he
caught sight of a cigarette-end lying in the corner between floor and
wall. He picked it up and examined it. The first glance made him carry
his find to the candle in order to have a better view of it. This was
no ordinary cheap cigarette such as, in all probability, most of the
visitors to the Bull at Calthorpe smoked. It was a Russian of the most
expensive brand.
He rang the bell, and when the chambermaid came asked her who had had
the room the night before. She told him that the room had not been
occupied at all since Mr. Sawyer’s departure.
“You are sure of that?”
“Quite certain, sir.”
“And before Mr. Sawyer’s visit?”
“We had not one staying for a fortnight before that. At this season we
are usually empty.”
Biles dismissed the girl and reëxamined his find. Whoever Sawyer was,
he had a nice taste in tobacco. He took a small silver box from his
pocket and put the cigarette-end into it for future reference.
Then he went downstairs to the bar and called for a whisky and soda.
The proprietor, whose name was Mullins, served him. He confirmed the
idea that Sawyer was a rich man with expensive tastes.
“Nothing I have in the way of wines pleased him,” he declared. “Even
my sherry, which is a good vintage, was unsatisfactory. But he drank
two bottles of it all the same.”
“Did he ask for sherry in the first instance?”
“No; he asked for port. I fetched up a bottle of my best, 1905, but he
refused to drink it. Said he was accustomed to very good wine, and had
doctor’s orders not to touch anything but the best. He uncorked the
bottle himself, for fear I didn’t know my job.”
Biles set his tumbler down on the bar.
“What did you do with the bottle?” he asked.
“It’s there.”
Mr. Mullins waved his fat hand toward the shelves on which his wares
were arranged for the temptation of his customers.
“You have not sold any of its contents, then?”
“Not a drop. My customers don’t drink port of that quality.”
The proprietor reached up to take the bottle.
“Stop!” shouted Biles. “Don’t touch it!”
He ran round the bar to the astonished Mullins.
“I want that bottle,” he explained, “but I want it unfingered. A great
deal may depend on what I find when I examine it--finger-prints, you
understand. Sawyer, you say, uncorked it himself. Did he use a
napkin?”
“No. I offered him one, but he refused it.”
The detective lifted the bottle carefully by the cork. He set it down
on the bar and resumed the consumption of his drink.
“There was nothing about the fellow to identify him, was there?” he
asked.
Mullins shook his head.
“I’d know him again if I saw him, of course, but he wasn’t anything
out of the ordinary. I reckon his age is about fifty-four, though his
hair and beard are still mostly black.”
“H-m! That doesn’t carry us much farther, does it?”
Biles finished his drink and carried the bottle, by its cork, to his
private sitting-room. He took his magnifying glass from his pocket and
fitted it into his eye. The bottle was literally covered with
finger-prints--those, no doubt, of the proprietor and his servants, as
well as of Sawyer. He turned it slowly round and round, looking for
separate imprints. There were a number of these, but they disclosed no
special feature.
He was about to conclude that this clew also had failed him, when he
noticed a mark high up on the neck of the bottle which was different
from all the others.
It was the imprint of a thumb, and across the middle of it was a scar
about an eighth of an inch wide.
It was obvious at a glance that this mark had been made at the time
when the bottle was uncorked. That meant that it had been made by
Sawyer. A gleam of excitement shone in the detective’s eyes.
He went to his bedroom and returned with a small bottle containing
very fine varnish. With infinite care he painted this over the
precious mark so as to preserve it against any possibility of damage.
Then he lit his pipe and fell to reflecting on the exceeding
difficulty of the problem which confronted him. When he went to bed he
had advanced no further in his speculation.
The next morning before breakfast he was back at his work of surveying
the wood. He pursued this tiresome search until midday, without
obtaining the slightest reward. Nevertheless, as soon as he had eaten
his luncheon he returned to it. And then, almost immediately, he made
a curious find.
This was a small, round object, not unlike a large pearl, but of much
softer consistency. Inspector Biles had never seen anything resembling
it before, and at first concluded that it must be some sort of winter
berry. But though he searched diligently, he could find no shrub on
which it might have grown.
Nor was there any other similar berry to be seen anywhere.
The ground in the immediate neighborhood was rather hard, but it did
seem as if the carpet of pine-needles had been disturbed--possibly by
human feet. He put the mysterious object in a little specimen box
filled with cotton wool, and resumed his search, but he found nothing
more.
Superintendent Robson was at the inn when he returned there. Once
again he had to report failure. The whole country had been searched,
but absolutely no trace of the missing man had been obtained.
“It looks to me, sir, as though he must have drowned himself. The
currents are strong on this coast, and his body may have been carried
out to sea.”
The detective nodded.
“I thought of that,” he said. “It may be the explanation.”
He took his specimen box from his pocket as he spoke, and showed the
object he had found to his colleague.
“Have you any idea what this may be?” he asked.
Superintendent Robson examined it carefully. He shook his head.
“I’ve no idea.”
“There are no berries of that sort growing in the neighborhood?”
“Oh, none. I’m certain on that point.”
“I found it in the wood this afternoon. It may or may not be a clew.
Anyhow, I shall take it to a doctor friend of mine who is a bit of a
scientist, and see what he thinks of it. I’m going up to London
to-night to try to find that man Sawyer. I rely on you to keep me
informed of anything that may happen.”
When he reached King’s Cross, Biles drove straight to Scotland Yard.
He found his chief as much in the dark about the whole affair as he
was himself. The attempts to trace Sawyer had all failed.
“The local superintendent believes that Sir William Armand drowned
himself,” Biles declared. “He says the tidal currents are very strong
on the Northumbrian coast and may have carried the body far out to
sea.”
“Why should he drown himself? Besides, he’s well over the ‘suicide
age.’ That comes between forty and fifty. It’s the rarest possible
thing to find a man over sixty attempting his own life.”
“On the other hand, he forced his daughter to break off her engagement
with young Derwick on the very day on which he disappeared. She
confessed that herself. Derwick went back to London the same night.”
The chief raised his eyebrows sharply.
“That is certainly a new fact. I suppose you will see Derwick
yourself.”
“Yes. Curiously enough, Miss Armand refused to tell me the reason why
her father had acted as he did, but she appeared to consider it
adequate. She said that she had given a promise of secrecy.”
“H-m!”
The chief’s thin fingers rested on the edge of his desk. He thought a
moment, and then asked:
“Has her father’s disappearance made any difference to the prospects
of happiness for this young lady and her lover, I wonder?”
Biles did not know, but the question had been in his mind during the
past twenty-four hours. He would certainly require to find an answer
to it. Meanwhile he wished to settle the matter of the white berry
which he had found in the wood at Calthorpe.
When he left his chief, he called a cab and told the driver to take
him to 22 Harley Street. A quarter of an hour later he was being shown
into the consulting-room of Dr. Eustace Hailey, the well-known
specialist in mental diseases.
Dr. Hailey was justly celebrated. He was believed to be the fattest
man in the medical profession, yet he did not look very fat. Somehow,
Nature had compensated him for his great bulk by affording him the
grace to wear it becomingly. She had given him, too, one of the
kindest and most charming faces in the world.
“Ah, my dear Biles,” he exclaimed, “I expected you as soon as I read
in the papers that you were engaged on that fascinating Armand case.
There were bound to be discoveries of a medical nature, eh?”
Dr. Hailey had grasped his friend’s hand as he spoke and now stood
holding it and beaming down from the serene heights of his immense
tallness.
Biles chuckled.
“But this discovery,” he declared, “will puzzle even you. A berry
growing where no berries grow--a freak of nature.”
He opened his specimen box and held it out to the genial doctor, who
took it and set it down on the table at his side. In moments of stress
Dr. Hailey always took snuff before proceeding to business.
He snuffed slowly and elegantly from a silver box which he carried in
his waistcoat pocket. Then he picked up the specimen box and extracted
its contents with a pair of fine forceps. He carried it to the window
and looked at it closely through a large magnifying glass.
Biles, who was watching him eagerly, saw a look of amazement appear on
his huge face.
“My dear Biles-- Where did you say you found this--eh--‘berry’?”
“In the wood at Calthorpe, entering which Sir William Armand was last
seen.”
“Dear me--how dreadful! How shocking!”
Dr. Hailey turned round toward his visitor. He held the forceps in
which he was grasping the berry as though he would have liked to put
them away from him. His expression was unwontedly serious.
“You have no idea what this object really is?” he asked in quiet
tones.
“None. Isn’t it a berry, then?”
“No, my dear sir--oh, no. Very far from that. I regret to say that
this is the lens of an eye--probably a human eye.”
“What!”
“There is no doubt at all.”
Biles gasped.
“But that means,” he cried, “that--” He caught his breath.
Dr. Hailey bowed his head.
“Quite so. The owner of the eye has almost certainly been murdered.”
CHAPTER VI.
THE MARKS ON THE TREE
Biles had a host of questions to ask, and Dr. Hailey did his best to
answer them, though he gave the impression of doing this under mild
protest. The pursuit of one human being by another was not agreeable
to his very genial nature.
He was emphatic, however, in his opinion that the lens could not have
been removed from its situation in its owner’s eye except by a degree
of violence which must have greatly endangered his life.
“You see, my dear Biles,” he added, “we are rather firmly knit
together. The eyeball is one of the strongest structures in the human
body. Only a stab with a sharp knife would dislodge the lens, and such
a stab must almost certainly penetrate to the brain behind.”
“Yes, I understand that. But what I don’t understand is the absence of
all other signs of so violent a deed.”
Dr. Hailey took a further pinch of snuff.
“I am not a detective,” he declared. “My knowledge goes no further
than my own profession. All I can tell you is that on an occasion not
very remote some one stabbed some one else in the eye. Probably the
assault was committed exactly where you found the lens, since it is
difficult to imagine that the murderer would carry such an object away
with him, in the unlikely event of his noticing it at all.”
“It couldn’t be from the eye of an animal? Possibly a hawk might have
dropped it.”
The doctor shook his head. The lens was too large to have belonged to
any small creature. He was satisfied that it was not derived from the
eye of a sheep or pig.
“You see, the lens of the eye has this peculiarity. It never stops
growing at any age. Consequently, in old people it assumes a rather
different shape from that found in young ones. This is an old lens. It
follows that it cannot belong to any creature which has not reached
advanced years; and we know, my dear Biles, that domestic animals
never grow old. It is a mere guess, but I should put the eye of the
owner of this lens at about sixty or seventy.
“However, no doubt the Home Office pathologist will make some
microscopic sections of it. That will afford grounds for a more
definite conclusion.”
Biles nodded. His active mind was already busy with the steps he must
take to collect further evidence. It would not, he realized, be
sufficient to rely on this single clew, for experience warned him that
the difficulty of proving the ownership of the lens would be
exaggerated to the utmost by defending counsel--supposing that a
charge was preferred. He must go over the ground again with redoubled
care. He must, too, have some expert assistance.
He explained his trouble to Dr. Hailey, and asked him if he could
suggest the name of a medical man who would be prepared, for a
substantial fee, to travel to Calthorpe and assist in the
investigation. Great was his surprise when the doctor replied that he
would take on the job himself, “if you will have me.”
“Have you! It’s more than I dared hope for.”
“There is something about this case which appeals to a bizarre
instinct that has been my joy and my trouble all the days of my life,”
Dr. Hailey explained. “A horrible something, yet, to me, as
fascinating as it is horrible. I seem to recognize--”
He stopped. His face grew blank, as though a new idea had blotted out
those already present in his mind.
“You had better take the specimen to Dr. Ponsonby as soon as
possible,” he said. “I know him; he likes his material as fresh as
possible. Besides, everything may depend on this clew.”
The detective agreed. After arranging to meet Dr. Hailey the same
evening at King’s Cross, he drove to Dr. Ponsonby’s house in Wimpole
Street. The famous pathologist--a little, eager man of about
fifty--was at home, and received him at once.
“Well, Biles,” he cried, “what have you brought me this time? Whenever
I see you, I look for trouble, you know.”
He opened a box of cigars and offered them to his visitor, who
selected one, bit the end off it, and lit it carefully.
“This time,” he said, “I think you will not be disappointed.”
Then, in his abrupt, clear way, he described the investigations he had
been making and his discovery of the lens in the wood at Calthorpe.
“I thought at first it was a white berry of some sort, so I consulted
my old friend, Dr. Hailey, about it--quite unofficially, of course. He
is an authority on so many branches of science. But he soon opened my
eyes. He told me I must lose no time in coming to you.”
Dr. Ponsonby had taken the specimen box in his hands. He opened it and
examined its contents with a large glass.
“There is no doubt about it at all,” he said. “It is certainly most
amazing.”
“Dr. Hailey said you would probably wish to examine it
microscopically. He seemed to think that would give some idea of the
age of the owner.”
“Yes.”
Biles rose to go. He promised that an official request for the
pathological examination would be sent immediately.
“I am going back to Calthorpe to-night,” he added, “and I’m taking
Hailey with me. He’s a bit of a detective himself, you know, and he is
greatly interested in this case. Between us we may discover some
further evidence.”
He returned to the Yard and told his chief of the discovery which had
been made. His disclosure produced a sensation, but it was resolved in
the meantime to allow nothing to be made public. Already the
newspapers were busy enough with the fact of Sir William Armand’s
disappearance. If they had learned of this astonishing find, the case
would instantly become the chief news topic of the day.
It is a principle at Scotland Yard to avoid alarming the criminal
until the arrangements for his arrest are complete.
“You have no objections, I suppose, to my taking Dr. Hailey with me?”
Biles asked.
“On the contrary, there is no man I would sooner trust in the matter.
We owe Hailey a bigger debt already, over the Walden case, than most
of us care to admit.”
The finger-print on the neck of the port-bottle yielded less
information than Biles had hoped. There was nothing resembling it in
the library of the photographs at the Yard, so that, whoever the man
Sawyer might be, the police had had no previous dealings with him.
Careful reproductions of the imprint of his thumb were made however,
and issued broadcast. Then the detective called a cab and drove to the
Temple to call on Jack Derwick.
He found this busy young barrister in a mood of great depression. He
had heard nothing from Calthorpe, but the hubbub in the papers was
proving almost more than he could endure.
“I may be wrong,” he declared, pacing his chambers restlessly, “but I
can’t help associating my own dismissal with this mystery. Miss Armand
told me nothing, but I know that she was dreadfully upset herself. It
is quite clear to me that some terrible secret had been revealed to
her.”
“Yet, we can find nothing to justify that idea. Sir William Armand was
more than an averagely successful man; so far as is known, he need not
have possessed a care in the world.”
The young barrister shook his head.
“There is something, nevertheless,” he declared. “Estelle is the last
girl in the world to exaggerate anything.”
The detective watched his man closely. He felt sure that this was no
feigned agitation, yet the idea crossed his mind that the cause of it
might be other than was suggested. He could not forget that it was in
obedience to her father’s orders that Miss Armand had broken off her
engagement.
Jack Derwick stood to gain considerably by the old man’s disappearance
from the scene. He had been observed, too, entering the very wood
where the murder was committed only a few minutes before Sir William
himself entered it.
“May I ask you, Mr. Derwick,” he said, “why you went to Calthorpe
village on the night before you returned to London? And why Miss
Armand came to meet you at the village?”
There was a look in his eyes as he spoke which caused Jack Derwick to
stiffen in his attitude. Nothing is so difficult to endure as
suspicion, however well concealed.
“There was no reason. I went for a walk after I--after our engagement
had been broken off. I met the vicar and had tea with him. Miss Armand
did not come to meet me. I think she came to speak to her father, who,
as I found out afterward, was at the village inn at the time. When she
saw me, however, she turned back.”
Biles nodded. His gesture was entirely noncommittal.
“But you walked back with her through the wood to the Hall?”
Jack’s face flushed suddenly.
“If those are leading questions put to me in order to get me to commit
myself,” he declared, “you should know as well as I do that they are
grossly unfair.”
“My dear sir, it is my duty to investigate this matter. I can only ask
for information from those who were concerned directly or indirectly.”
Jack seemed to control himself. The flush passed from his face.
“Miss Armand and I did not return to the Hall together,” he said. “I
did not speak to Miss Armand at all after she broke off our
engagement.”
The detective thanked him and rose apparently to go away. He turned at
the door, however, and took a step back into the room.
“Please don’t think that I suspect you,” he said, “or Miss Armand
either. So far, I am entirely in the dark. If we could find the man
Sawyer, with whom Sir William was last seen, we might obtain some
light.”
“You have no clew to his identity?” It was evident that Jack Derwick
refused to reopen the question of his own share in the mystery.
“None. He is said to have traveled to London by the same train as
yourself. That is all we know.”
Jack started.
“The man in the long ulster! I remember him quite well, because I
wondered who he was. Somehow his figure and walk seemed familiar, and
yet when I saw his face by one of the station lamps I realized that I
did not know him. He had a beard and mustache, and seemed to be past
middle age. I did not notice him on the train or at King’s Cross.”
“Would you recognize him again if you saw him, do you think?”
“I think so. His eyes were peculiar, small and rather beady, like a
rat’s eyes.”
Biles walked across the Strand to Clement’s Inn, where he had a
friend, a solicitor, whom he often consulted on points of law. The boy
who opened the door in response to his ring told him that Mr. Humphrey
was in. He was conducted through a room full of old and aging papers
to a snug office overlooking the law-courts.
He found Mr. Humphrey seated beside a big fire reading the _Times_.
“Come along, Biles,” that cheerful man cried. “You find me in one of
my fits of idleness. For some reason which I have never fathomed, the
more I have to do, the less I feel inclined to do it. To-day has been
overwhelming.”
The detective made himself comfortable, and in response to an eager
invitation began to fill his pipe from a tobacco-jar which stood on
his friend’s desk.
“Tell me,” he said in deliberate tones, “all that you know about the
firm of Armand & Blunder, solicitors.”
“H-m!”
Mr. Humphreys pursed his rather thin lips and brought his fingers
together in a gesture of great delicacy.
“You see,” he said, “I know so very little. They enjoy a great
reputation, of course. But it is the kind of reputation which does not
invite the curious. Personally, I should say that everything in that
garden is beautiful.”
Biles could get no more than this. He went away feeling more
despondent than was his wont. It would be possible, of course, to
obtain orders to search Sir William’s house and possibly to
investigate his business dealings, but his professional instinct was
against so drastic a course. So far, there was no convincing evidence
that the missing lawyer was dead; still less that he had been
murdered, for the more he thought about the finding of the lens, the
less he felt able to rely on it--at least for the present.
He was in this mood when he met Dr. Hailey at King’s Cross. The
doctor, on the contrary, seemed to be full of fresh eagerness. He
insisted on Biles joining him for a drink and smoke in his
sleeping-berth before turning in for the night.
“Has it occurred to you,” he asked, “that a hatpin would be an
excellent instrument with which to extract the lens from a human eye?
Suppose that a woman in a fit of anger--”
“Yes. But she would then be faced by the necessity of getting rid of
the body.”
“Quite so; and the body has been got rid of, my dear Biles.”
His gentle smile played on Dr. Hailey’s lips.
“A strong young man might easily lift the body of an old one and carry
it--in the dusk--a long way without being detected in that operation.
You have not searched for a grave, by any chance?”
“No.”
Biles’s eyes were growing brighter. He realized that he had been
concentrating too much on the meager details which he had so far been
able to collect. It was, indeed, quite possible that the murderer,
whoever he was, had buried his victim in some other part of the
estate. Yet an objection to this theory presented itself to his mind.
“There would scarcely have been time for a funeral of that sort. It is
certain that both Derwick and the girl returned to the Hall before
dinner.”
Dr. Hailey took snuff.
“They had an hour on your own showing,” he declared, “and a great deal
can be accomplished in that time. Moreover, Derwick dined at Belfort,
whereas his train did not leave until after midnight. He could easily
have returned on foot to complete his work.”
It is one thing, however, to make theories; it is quite another thing
to prove them. When Biles retired to his own berth he realized that
the task in front of him was a much bigger one than he had supposed
and that the odds against his accomplishing it were long. He fell
asleep with his mind full of new projects.
When, however, he found himself back in the wood at Calthorpe next
morning, these projects began to fade. The wood was as inscrutable as
ever. Moreover, Superintendent Robson had informed him at breakfast
that he had made a search of the whole estate, and that not a leaf
appeared to have been disturbed. The idea that Sir William’s body had
been buried overnight by his murderers receded into the background.
In accordance with his usual methodical custom, he had made an exact
note of the spot where the lens had been discovered. He found it at
once and pointed it out to Dr. Hailey, who proceeded to examine it in
his rather casual way. The detective stood a few paces farther on so
as to give his friend a clear field.
There was a slowness about the doctor’s movements which suggested an
ox browsing in rich pasturage. Every now and then, too, he was in the
habit of raising his great head just as oxen do, and surveying the
landscape with listless gaze. Yet Biles knew that no detail possessing
any significance would escape those calm eyes.
He was not destined to have to wait long for confirmation of this
opinion. Dr. Hailey beckoned him to approach, and showed him a scar on
the bole of one of the pine-trees.
It was a tiny mark, yet it had clearly been made within the last few
days.
“Observe the round shape of the break in the bark,” the doctor urged.
“There is only one thing which I know of that could cause such a
mark.”
“The ferrule of a walking-stick?”
“Exactly. Sir William, I suppose, like all countrymen, was carrying a
stick at the time of his disappearance.”
Dr. Hailey paused and bent down suddenly, an action for which he was
singularly ill-fitted by nature.
“Look here!” he exclaimed.
Biles obeyed, and saw another mark on the bole not far from the
ground--a mere scrape, as it seemed. But what riveted his attention
was a small tuft of white hair entangled in the rough bark just above
it.
“Good heavens!”
The doctor drew a glass from his pocket and focused it on the scrape.
Then he stood erect with a sigh.
“As I feared,” he said.
He handed the glass to his companion.
“If you look carefully,” he told him, “you will see several tiny
fragments of skin adhering to the wood. He must have struck his head
on this tree as he fell. Probably the thrust with his stick was his
last effort at self-defense.”
CHAPTER VII.
WHY NOT THE GRAVEYARD?
“And now,” said Dr. Hailey, “we must ask ourselves the question how
the body, which undoubtedly fell at this spot, was carried away from
it.” His eyes, as he spoke, regained their dullness, lost for a moment
during the process of his investigation.
“What evidence is there,” Biles asked, “that Sir William was dead? He
might surely have been wounded only.”
The big head shook decisively.
“If the eye alone had been injured, he would not have fallen. The
wound must have involved the brain--involved it deeply, too; unless,
indeed, there were other wounds, but in that case we should have
discovered some blood-stains. So far, I have not detected any of these
anywhere.”
This reasoning seemed plausible, if not conclusive. Biles nodded
agreement. His admiration for the doctor had never been greater than
at this moment, yet the skeptical tendency of his mind caused him to
point out that it would be difficult to hold an inquest on an eyeball
and a tuft of white hairs.
Even as he spoke he felt a little vexed with himself for what struck
him suddenly as an ungenerous response to his friend’s effort on his
behalf. Dr. Hailey, however, was unperturbed. He helped himself to
snuff, and waved his big hand reassuringly.
“My dear Biles,” he exclaimed, “the body we seek must be near this
place--very near, probably. There is nothing more inconvenient, I can
assure you, as a burden, than a dead man. Let us clear our minds for
a moment. The murderer, whoever he or she may have been, was faced
with the same difficulty as we are now facing--only in a more urgent
form. The body must be lifted and carried--where?” Again the doctor
took snuff.
“I don’t know,” said Biles in humble tones. “Had I been the murderer,
I should have hesitated--and been lost, no doubt. I fancy I might have
thrown it over the cliffs.”
“But you have already told me that the sea does not come up to the
bottom of those cliffs. The body would have been discovered next
morning, and it has not been discovered.”
“He might have rowed it out to sea--supposing that he had a boat
handy.”
“It is just possible. But the sea is apt, you know, to give up its
dead. Have you made inquiries about the boats and their owners, by the
way?”
Biles had made no inquiries. He promised to do so at once, but Dr.
Hailey had other work for him of a more urgent kind. He asked him
suddenly to lie down on the ground and permit himself to be lifted and
carried a short distance in order to test the probable endurance of
the murderer when bearing his victim.
Biles lay down, and next instant felt himself swung up as though he
had been a small child. Not until that moment had he realized the
enormous strength of the doctor’s huge frame. He was carried across
his bearer’s shoulders with his head to the back and his legs dangling
in front.
They went quickly for a few paces in the direction of the village, and
then the rate of movement began to slacken. After a yard or two more
had been covered Dr. Hailey unburdened himself.
“So,” he declared, “we can conclude that the first halt was made on or
about the circumference of a circle, of which the distance between
this spot and the place where the murder was committed is the radius.
I make that distance fifty paces. It brings us clear of the wood on
this side, and I think it would bring us to the edge of the cliffs,
going in the opposite direction. Suppose we just confirm that for a
start.”
They walked back to their starting-point, and then the doctor paced
the distance from there to the cliff-edge. He made it forty-five paces
exactly. He stood for an instant facing the sea, as though completing
a farther measurement in his mind; then he turned sharply and, without
moving his feet, bent, and finally knelt, down. Biles saw him take his
glass from his pocket and fix it in his eye in order the better to
scrutinize the ground.
Apparently, however, he did not find what he expected to find, for
after a few minutes he rose again and walked a short distance along
the cliffs. He repeated the same performance in exactly the same way
at several different places before he rejoined the detective. Then he
confessed that he had been mistaken.
“It is quite evident that we shall have to abandon the idea that the
body was thrown over the cliffs,” he declared. “Had that been so, I
should have found traces of blood just now. You see, every wound--even
a wound in the eye which has proved immediately fatal--bleeds a
little. Granting that the murderer carried his victim across his
shoulder, some drops of blood must have fallen on the grass at the
spot where he reached his journey’s end--before he threw the body
over. Do you agree?”
“Yes. But he might have carried the body in his arms, surely?”
“In that case he could not have come so far without pausing, and for
the moment therefore we may dismiss the one possibility in order to
concentrate on the other. When I was a student demonstrator in the
anatomy rooms, I used to watch the attendants bringing the bodies to
the tables at the beginning of the session. Sometimes they lifted them
in their arms from the barrows--if they happened to be working
single-handed. It was as much as any man could do. Sir William Armand
was a big man, was he not?”
“Oh, yes--a very big man.”
They returned again to the scene of the murder, and then Dr. Hailey
paced the distance he supposed the body might have been carried at a
stretch, in the direction of Calthorpe Hall. This brought him to an
open space well outside of the little wood and well within view of the
village. There did not seem to be much probability that any one
anxious to dispose of a murdered body would choose such a spot as a
resting-place even in the dusk of falling night.
The ground on the opposite side of the wood was more hopeful. It
sloped here toward the shore of a small creek which separated the
grounds of Calthorpe Hall from those of the adjoining estate. A tiny
stream ran in the dip, and there was a certain amount of undergrowth.
When he had determined his distance, the doctor began to survey the
ground carefully, and Biles joined him in this laborious task.
They found the signs they were looking for almost simultaneously; a
number of dark stains which the rain of the past few days had not
obliterated. Dr. Hailey rose from his knees, and stretched himself
uneasily. He had a single withered leaf in his hand.
“I was not designed by Nature for work of this kind, my dear Biles,”
he announced, “and I fear I must leave the rest of it to your more
supple limbs. I have provided myself with just one specimen, which I
will examine immediately we get back to the inn. I took the precaution
of bringing the necessary apparatus with me.” He glanced at his watch.
“Do you realize that it is already time for luncheon?”
Mullins, the proprietor of the Black Bull, had excelled himself with
an admirable spare rib of pork, which the doctor pronounced the best
he had ever tasted. He ate grandly, washing down his meal with copious
drafts of the excellent beer the place provided.
Impatient as he was to pursue his investigations, Biles could not but
admire such detachment. He did not dare to put the questions which
were on his lips--and he received no encouragement to that end. On the
contrary, the talk was of music and musical instruments, in both of
which Dr. Hailey took a profound interest.
After lunch, however, business was resumed with energy. The doctor
fetched a magnifying-glass and a case of little bottles from his
bedroom. He proceeded to dissolve some of the stain from the leaf
which he had picked up just before coming in. A straw-colored fluid
was the result. He conveyed a few drops of this to a slide, put on a
cover-glass, and examined it.
“The corpuscles are scarcely recognizable,” he told his companion,
“but I have no doubt that it is blood. However, the spectroscope will
soon settle that.”
He opened a small leather case, and took out from it what appeared to
be a diminutive brass telescope. This he screwed to the eyepiece of
the microscope. A single glance sufficed him.
“There is no doubt about it,” he announced.
He sat back and opened his snuff-box.
“A most remarkable instrument, this. The spectroscope, as you know, is
able to detect blood in bulk, owing to the fact that the red
coloring-matter produces certain dark bands at certain definite places
in the rainbowlike scheme of colors into which the prism splits up
ordinary daylight.
“No other fluid except blood gives quite the same picture. The trouble
used to be, however, that unless one had a sufficient quantity of
blood the test was inapplicable.
“Then, an ingenious mind conceived the idea of combining the
spectroscope and the microscope in one instrument. Now even the
smallest trace of blood can be detected.”
Biles knew little of science, so he merely nodded acquiescence. But
Dr. Hailey had the born teacher’s instinct to be understood at all
costs. He explained in detail how the spectroscope was merely a
scientific application of the familiar effect of the beveling of a
mirror in producing rainbowlike colors.
These colors--there were seven of them--when mingled together made
ordinary “white” light. The function of the spectroscope was to
separate them out--just as a raincloud does when it produces a
rainbow.
“And from that beginning of knowledge,” he concluded, “we have
advanced to the possession of a new eye of justice--an instrument
capable of detecting blood-stains on a single hair or a single
thread.”
“You think a British jury could accept this evidence as conclusive?”
“My dear Biles, we are not concerned as yet with a British jury; we
should not dream of offering them such evidence. What we must offer
them is the body of the murdered man itself. This is merely the first
stopping-place on that quest.”
Dr. Hailey reached as he spoke for the case in which he had fetched
his microscope. He took from it a map with which he had provided
himself before leaving London.
He spread it open on the table before him, and then unscrewed the cap
from a pair of compasses which he carried in his pocket. He invited
Biles to indicate the exact spot in the wood where the discovery of
the lens had been made.
The map was a large-scale one of the kind which military men approve.
The wood was clearly and accurately delineated. Biles studied it for a
moment and then pointed with his finger to the place he selected. Dr.
Hailey set one leg of his compasses on this and opened them, so that
the other leg fell on the edge of the cliffs.
“That is forty-five paces, as we know,” he remarked.
He swung the instrument round, using the scene of the murder as the
center of his circle, until it reached a spot near the creek where
they had found the blood-stains. He pressed the point through the
sheet at this place, and then described a second circle of the same
radius from this new center.
The circumference of this second circle just reached a road leading
from the main highway past the parish church to a small fishing
village farther up the coast.
“I’m afraid it doesn’t take us very much farther,” said Biles. “He
would scarcely risk bringing his victim onto a public way, even in the
dark.”
Dr. Hailey did not reply. He was studying the map intently with that
curious, dull gaze of his.
“Suppose,” he said, after a few minutes, “that we take a walk along
this road ourselves and just verify the distances.”
They stepped out into the sunlight of a bettering afternoon. Biles lit
his pipe and turned up the collar of his coat against the keen wind
which already had a nip of frost in it. Their footsteps sounded quite
loud in the deep silence of the village street. When they came to the
crossroads, where the byway they were about to explore began, Dr.
Hailey stopped for a moment and opened his snuff-box.
“You will observe,” he pointed out, “that from this spot it is
impossible to see any part of the road after it reaches the vicarage
gate. No one standing in the village could therefore know what was
going on round that bend--even in full daylight.”
He took a double pinch deliberately--apparently well satisfied with
his observation, though Biles was unable to see its import. They
strolled slowly on past the vicarage and the church to the spot where
the second lap of the murderer’s journey might be supposed to have
ended. The road here was without hedges or ditches; nor were there any
trees near it. Its surface was rather broken.
A prolonged search revealed absolutely nothing. Biles, whose pipe had
gone out, lit it again carefully, as a signal, perhaps, that he
thought the case hopeless. The doctor, however, was far from ready to
abandon his theory.
“We must go back to the place where we found the blood-stains,” he
declared, “and investigate that more thoroughly.”
They tramped across the grass to the bushes flanking the little
stream. These now became the objects of Dr. Hailey’s anxious regard,
and very soon he had his reward in the shape of a broken twig
overhanging a patch of rushes. The twig, as he saw at once, was
stripped from the stem of the bush to which it belonged, in a downward
direction. So must it have snapped if a heavy body was allowed to fall
against it.
The rushes, too, though they were withered and broken enough by the
rains and winds of the season, were clearly more broken than the
others surrounding them. It was obvious that they had been pressed
down from above. He bent and examined them, and then called Biles’s
attention to another and larger blood-stain on the ground beside them.
“It was here, my friend, that he dropped the body in the first
instance. An excellent place, too, where it might have rested for a
long time without detection. Notice how, from this spot, you cannot be
seen either from the vicarage or from the village.”
Biles looked as directed. It was true; no place in the immediate
neighborhood afforded such immunity from detection.
“Yes,” he agreed; “but the body is here no longer.”
“Of course not. This murderer, as you must realize by this time, is in
many senses an exceptional person. He has completed his work.”
“But how--where?”
Dr. Hailey did not reply for a moment. Then suddenly Biles saw him
start.
“How--where? Oh, my dear Biles, how blind we can be sometimes, even
when we are most anxious to see!”
He pointed with his great arm to the roadway they had just left, and
cried:
“Where indeed should one bury a dead man but in the graveyard?”
Directly behind the road, surrounded by a low stone wall, was the
village churchyard, with its rows of flattening mounds and unsteady
tombstones.
CHAPTER VIII.
WHAT THE GRAVE TOLD
“The right kind of experiment,” Dr. Hailey said, “furnishes an
answer, just as the right kind of theory propounds a question. You
invent your theory and then test it by application to the actual
facts.
“Now, my theory is that the murderer of Sir William Armand left his
body in the bushes at the top of the creek, and went and dug a grave
for that body in the churchyard. After that he returned and conducted
the funeral.”
Biles and he were seated in the smoking-room of the Black Bull,
drinking vermouth as a preparation for their dinner. They had
relinquished their detective work for the day in order, as the doctor
said, to think out the next step before taking it.
“But that would surely lead to discovery,” the detective objected.
“You cannot dig a grave without leaving traces of your digging.”
“My dear fellow, you cannot dig a grave at all--at least, not a
satisfactory grave--unless you know the way to do it.”
“In that case--”
The doctor had his snuff-box in his hand. He closed it with a snap.
“Did you notice,” he asked, “that there was a new grave in the
churchyard--a very new grave? Now, any full-grown man could reopen a
grave which had been recently dug sufficiently to add to its contents.
And there would be nothing left behind, if he exercised even average
care, to indicate his handiwork.”
“Good heavens!”
“No; we must not go too fast. It is by no means clear as all that. In
the first place, we have to ask ourselves how the murderer could have
known that the churchyard did, in fact, at that time contain a new
grave. He must have known this, I think, or else he would not have
attempted the plan at all.”
Biles frowned as though trying to jog his memory. Suddenly he started.
“Why,” he exclaimed, “Jack Derwick had tea with the vicar about an
hour before the murder was committed. He must have crossed the very
ground we have been working on, for he told me that he came from the
Hall along the cliffs. And he must have walked past the churchyard--”
Dr. Hailey’s eyes narrowed a little, but otherwise he made no sign.
“That may possibly dispose of one objection,” he said; “but there is
another. You cannot dig a grave without a spade, and sextons are not
in the habit of leaving their tools lying about in the churchyard.”
“Presuming that Derwick was the murderer, he might have gone back to
the Hall and got a spade. There must be plenty of them in the
gardener’s tool-house, which is probably not kept locked.”
Dr. Hailey nodded.
“It is possible,” he said. “There was plenty of time, certainly.
Meanwhile, before we do anything, we must make quite sure that the
body really does lie in that new grave. I propose to carry out certain
investigations myself to-night. After that we can institute a public
search.”
Biles secured a spade from Superintendent Robson, who was continuing
his own search, and who came each evening to report progress. He
obtained the key of the hotel from Mullins, telling him that, in all
probability, his work would detain him most of the night.
“You have no clew as yet?” asked that amiable man, repressing his
curiosity with difficulty.
“The mystery, on the contrary, grows deeper every day.”
Mullins lowered his voice.
“I did hear,” he said, “from one young customer in the bar, Jim Deiry,
that Mr. Sawyer, the gentleman who met Sir William here on the night
of his disappearance, was quarreling terribly with him when they left
the inn.
“‘There is no other course open to me as an honest man,’ Sir William
said to him. He cried out, ‘For Heaven’s sake, don’t rush to such an
extreme now when there’s no need for it!’ That was at the stile
leading to the fields. Jim was at his own back door at the time. But
after that they moved away, and he heard nothing more.”
“H-m!” Biles assumed his most sophisticated attitude. “And did your
customer see whether or not they went into the wood together?”
“No, I asked him that; but it was too dark. Mr. Sawyer came back
within twenty minutes, though, as I know myself.”
Biles retailed this conversation to Dr. Hailey, who showed great
interest in it, without however offering any comment. They dined
together, and at dinner the doctor returned at once to the subject of
his beloved music as though he had no other concern in life.
He put the proposition to the detective that, strictly speaking, it
was erroneous to describe Beethoven as one of the classics. That term
ought to be reserved for such composers as Bach.
Biles shook his head in dismay.
“I enjoy music,” he said, “but I know very little about it.”
“My dear sir, that is the position of us all. How can we know much of
any mystery so great as this one? When I listen to the fine music in
‘The Valkyrie,’ for example, I feel as though I were looking at the
very essence of life, and yet the complete revelation is always denied
me.
“Strangely enough, though, it is different when I hear some of the
folk-songs of our own country--things like ‘The Raggle Taggle Gypsy.’
Then I seem to understand perfectly, without knowing what I
understand. Sometimes I wonder if the soul of a nation is not
cushioned in its folk-music.”
He opened his snuff-box.
Biles eyed him with a mixture of awe and delight.
“You see, detective work is nothing more nor less than the
understanding of human nature. Once you have put yourself completely
in the criminal’s shoes, his crime becomes more or less obvious; so
that music, which reveals the depths of our nature, is the finest of
all trainings for this business. It helps us to feel, and so to
understand.”
After dinner they smoked in silence for a long time. Dr. Hailey was in
the habit of sleeping a little at this period of the day, but to-night
he remained alert and wakeful. Now that he had, as he believed, found
the victim, his thoughts began to turn to the murderer. They became
concerned with the man Sawyer.
It struck him as astonishing that no one had obtained the slightest
information of real value about this strange individual--for his
practical mind discounted the finger-print on the port-bottle and the
cigarette-end about which Biles had told him. These were
identification marks--nothing more. It was necessary in the first
instance to “catch your hare.” He wondered whether a more careful
study of the bedroom Sawyer had occupied might not yield some
information.
Failing that, there was the possibility that intelligent questions
addressed to Miss Armand or some of her servants might prove fruitful.
It seemed quite certain that this man had had many dealings with the
dead solicitor.
At eleven o’clock the two men separated to get their hats and coats.
They let themselves out of the front door of the hotel as quietly as
possible. Biles had the spade wrapped up in a spare coat, which he
carried in such a way as to disguise its contents as much as possible.
They took the main road down to the village street.
There was a half-moon in the sky, and a light mist lay in the hollows
suggesting the presence of water. Dr. Hailey stopped when they
approached the church to admire the scene. He declared that such
effects of atmosphere and light were as characteristic of the North
Country as are its minglings of outlines of the Fen District.
“And this air, my dear Biles, so strangely resembles champagne in its
effect on the spirits!”
The vicarage was dark and silent behind its hedges. Over its roof they
saw the square tower of the church with its four corner-turrets
clearly outlined against the pale sky. Their footfalls on the moist
surface of the road had an eerie sound. They came to the gate of the
churchyard, passed it, and climbed the wall, Biles going first and
helping Dr. Hailey to mount.
The grass was very wet and slippery, but in spite of this they arrived
without mishap at the new grave which they had observed in the
afternoon. The doctor took an electric torch from his pocket and
switched it on.
The grave appeared to be undisturbed. On the top of it was a glass
jelly-jar containing some half-withered chrysanthemums which pious
hands had placed there. There were no other flowers. Dr. Hailey
examined the jar carefully; then he moved the beam of light over the
raw mound.
Suddenly he stooped to make a closer inspection.
“Look!” he commanded his companion.
Biles bent down and saw, on one of the upturned clods, the imprint of
a round object. He started.
“The jar!” he exclaimed.
“Just so. That was its original resting-place--before the second
funeral. No doubt this detail escaped attention in the darkness.”
The doctor stood back, leaning against a tombstone, while Biles took
his spade from its cover. The implement gleamed dully in the
moonlight. Then the detective began to work at what seemed to be the
head of the grave.
He had removed only two or three spadefuls of earth, when he uttered
an exclamation of horror. The doctor strode across to his side and
ignited his torch.
The yellow beam fell on a mass of white hair dabbed with the graveyard
earth.
“My God--it’s horrible!” Biles whispered in hoarse tones.
Dr. Hailey knelt down, and with his hands broke the soil away from the
dead man’s brow. Then he asked his companion to dig again a little
farther down the grave so they might expose the features. He remained
kneeling while this operation was in process of completion. When it
was finished Biles knelt also and assisted in removing the last
fragments of earth.
Then a sight truly appalling met their eyes. Sir William’s eyes had
been stabbed through with a ferocity which surely was without equal in
the realms of crime. His face, too, was bruised and discolored as
though it had been struck with a heavy fist.
The doctor touched the edges of the wounds, and then examined them
with his eyeglass.
“It is impossible to decide at once,” he declared, “whether or not
they were inflicted after or before death.”
He rose up and brushed the mud from his knees.
“I fancy we need no further confirmation,” he remarked. “You had
better replace the earth.”
He took snuff rather more freely than usual while Biles was engaged on
this task. When it was completed he examined the grave again with his
lamp, suggesting one or two finishing touches. Then they made their
way back in silence to the inn. Dr. Hailey poured out two stiff
glasses of whisky from the bottle which Mullins had left for them by
his direction. He handed one of these to the detective.
“Well?” he asked.
“It’s more horrible by far than I expected.”
Biles took a big mouthful of the whisky. His face was distinctly paler
than usual.
“And also more interesting. I confess I was not prepared for so much
bruising.”
“But the eyes-- Why should he put out his eyes in that awful manner?”
“My dear Biles, once a man has committed murder, he is very apt to
become a demon. Fear is the most cruel of all the human emotions, and
the most senseless. You must have seen that for yourself many a time.
Some murderers--quite gentle people at other times--positively hack
their victims to pieces after they have killed them.”
“I can scarcely believe it of Derwick, though. A man of his
education--”
Dr. Hailey shook his head.
“Above all things, do not let us jump to conclusions. Derwick may be
the murderer, but at present that is a mere guess. Before we can
afford to suspect any one we must find the man Sawyer.”
PART II
CHAPTER IX.
BROKEN GLASS
The discovery of Sir William Armand’s body thrilled the whole
country. The London evening papers of the following day contained full
accounts of the exhumation, which had been carried out during the
early afternoon. The Black Bull Inn positively hummed with local and
special correspondents, each intent on his own explanation of the
mystery.
Mullins supplied those enterprising gentlemen with plenty of clews,
and very soon the public learned all about the mysterious Mr. Sawyer
and the other actors in the drama. Happily, it learned nothing
whatever about Dr. Hailey, who took the precaution of absenting
himself from the village during the whole day.
He returned late at night to find Biles in a very cheerful state of
mind. The detective had been able to secure the exclusive use of a
small room on the ground floor, and so was safe from the attentions of
the journalists. He greeted his friend most heartily.
“I had enormous credit,” he declared, “for your work. But I kept my
word, and never so much as mentioned your name. I don’t mind owning,
though, that I felt a cur. They took the body to the mortuary at
Belfort. The inquest opens to-morrow.”
“It will be adjourned, of course?”
“Oh, yes.”
“And then?”
Biles shook his head.
“I can’t see any light,” he confessed. “We can’t arrest anybody as
yet; but now, of course, there will be a fearful hue and cry. The
place is full of journalists to-night and more are arriving to-morrow.
It’s what the papers call a first-class sensation.”
“You’ve taken possession of everything I suppose?”
“Not yet. I’m going to search the house to-morrow morning first thing.
Miss Armand will be a witness, and Mullins here. Later on we shall
summon Derwick and Blunder, Sir William’s partner.”
Dr. Hailey went to the sideboard and poured himself out a glass of
whisky. He turned to his companion with his drink in his hand.
“I fear I have an unpleasant surprise for you,” he said in his calmest
tones. “Miss Armand has been missing since the early afternoon!”
“What!”
“While you were all busy in the churchyard she seems to have driven
off with some stranger who came to the Hall just after midday in a big
car. She had not returned at nine o’clock.”
Biles had become rather flushed while the doctor was speaking.
“Why the deuce didn’t we keep an eye on her?” he cried. “These local
police are worse than useless. I told Robson early in the week that he
was to have the Hall watched.”
“But, my dear Biles, the lady is a free agent.”
Apparently that fact had, for the moment, escaped the detective’s
mind.
“Still, we could have seen whom she traveled with--and followed her to
her destination. Now she’s probably in London. It will be another case
of Sawyer. How did you find this out?”
“By the simple process of calling to inquire. I went for a long walk
to-day to Bamburgh. On the way back it occurred to me that I might
possibly be of some service to the poor lady in her most tragic
circumstances, but she had already gone when I reached Calthorpe Hall.
I met the vicar on the same errand as myself, and returned with him to
dinner. A most interesting man! We went back to the Hall about nine
o’clock, but she had not returned.”
Biles declared that he must inform Scotland Yard immediately. He
ordered out the hotel car and drove off to Belport to send a telegram.
Dr. Hailey began to open a large roll of newspapers which had arrived
for him by post that afternoon.
The roll contained back numbers of the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_
for a whole month. He addressed himself to the work of studying these
carefully, page by page and issue by issue. Occasionally he cut out
items of news which interested him and placed them in his pocketbook.
He had made but little progress by the time Biles returned.
“I drove round by the Hall on the way back,” the latter told him. “She
had not returned. It seems that the car was a hire from Newcastle, but
there’s no description of its occupant worth listening to.” He added
bitterly: “I’ve left a policeman in charge now. Poor old Robson nearly
had a fit when I told him; he would have sent the entire constabulary
of the district.”
“The thing that is puzzling me at present,” Dr. Hailey said, “is why
Miss Armand should have published an announcement of the breaking off
of her engagement in both the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_. She must
have been very anxious to let the whole world know, and yet you say
that she told you her feelings for Derwick had not changed.”
“She told me that.”
“If we believe her, it can only mean that she did it for Derwick’s
good. In other words, there was some ugly revelation coming.”
Biles nodded. “I thought of that.”
“Connected, undoubtedly, with the man Sawyer, but not connected with
Derwick.”
“That was what I hoped we should be able to get some light on at the
inquest. I am certain that Miss Armand knew the nature of her father’s
trouble.”
Dr. Hailey took snuff.
“So we arrive,” he said, “at the conclusion that she has probably run
away in order to avoid answering questions, and not because she fears
being accused of murder. Clearly, we must answer the questions
ourselves in her absence.”
“I only wish we could.”
“I took the liberty,” the doctor said, “of making a rather careful
search of your bedroom this morning before I went out. You told me it
was the room which Sawyer occupied during his visit here. I made one
small discovery.”
He felt in his waistcoat pocket as he spoke, and took out a small
paper parcel. This he opened, disclosing two very minute fragments of
brown glass. These were bent circular fashion. He fitted them together
to make a ring and pushed this gently across the table to Biles.
“They are not yours, I take it?”
“No. Have you any idea what they are?”
“I know exactly what they are. Any doctor must know. They are portions
of a phial which contained hypodermic pellets. Brown glass is used in
order to exclude the light. I can even go further than that and say
that the phial probably contained atropine, morphia, or strychnine. It
is too small for the size of pellets in which most other drugs are
made up. Unhappily, I have not so far been able to discover any more
of it. These portions, as you can see, were broken off when the cork
was taken out; they are from the very top of the tube.”
“So Sawyer is a drug maniac.”
“Possibly.”
Dr. Hailey drew the fragments of glass back toward him, and gazed at
them for a few seconds in silence.
“The presumption is quite strong,” he remarked, “that this was a new
tube. Once a tube has been opened, it seldom gets broken at subsequent
openings--at least, that is my experience. Did you notice that one or
two small threads are still adhering to one of the pieces of glass?”
Biles had not noticed, but on reëxamining the glass with a magnifier
he agreed.
“They are from the cotton wool plug with which these phials are always
sealed. Now, my own dealings with drug-takers has led me to think that
most of them are exceedingly careless. I expected to find the plug of
cotton wool in the fender where I found the glass; but it was not
there.
“The chambermaid, too, is quite sure that she did not notice it. It
would seem to follow that it was carefully replaced before the cork
was reinserted.”
The doctor paused and again took snuff.
“You mean,” Biles said, “that you suspect it was not for his own use
that Sawyer opened this phial.”
“I confess the idea has occurred to me.”
Biles frowned slightly as though this new complication disturbed him.
“I don’t see,” he remarked, “why even a murderer should wish to do his
work twice over. If Sawyer meant to knock out his victim, why should
he try to poison him as well?”
Dr. Hailey did not answer this question. Instead, he asked whether the
detective had made any further examination of the body after its
arrival at the mortuary. Biles told him that he had, and that a
post-mortem examination had been ordered for the following morning.
“The coroner did not think it necessary to send for the Home Office
people, so one of the local doctors is going to do it. I suggested
that you might care to be present.”
“I shall avail myself of that permission.”
“Those bruises on the face which you thought were made by the
murderer’s fists,” Biles added, “did not look so bad when we examined
them carefully. They might even have occurred when the old man fell
against the tree-trunk.
“The real mystery is the condition of the eyes. In all my experience I
have never seen anything to approach that for sheer ferocity.”
Dr. Hailey rose to go to bed. Very carefully he wrapped up the pieces
of glass and returned them to his waistcoat pocket. When he had gone
Biles lit a final pipe and tried to collect his thoughts.
In his own mind he had already decided that the burden of evidence was
against Jack Derwick. The disappearance of Estelle Armand, he felt
strongly supported that idea. She knew why her father had objected to
her engagement, and she admitted the validity of the objection. But at
the same time she was in love with the young barrister. What more
natural than that she should try by all means in her power to shield
him from justice?
It was not easy to argue with Dr. Hailey, who seemed to have a theory
of his own; but Biles had already constructed what seemed to him a
plausible story of the crime. He supposed that some discreditable
episode in Jack Derwick’s life had come to the knowledge of Sir
William--perhaps through the agency of the man Sawyer.
Sir William’s austerity was well known, and his natural inclination
would be to order his daughter to break off her engagement at once. No
doubt the girl had given her lover some idea of the charges against
him and urged him to try to set himself right with her father.
What followed seemed obvious enough from this point of view. Derwick,
the rejected lover, threatened with a terrible exposure, must have
lost control of himself. It was certain that he had wandered about the
estate in the most irresponsible way immediately after hearing the
news. It was also beyond dispute that he had been hanging around the
hotel where Sir William and Sawyer were closeted together. He went
into the wood a very short time before the murdered man entered it.
And then there was the damning fact that he had walked over the very
ground across which, later in the day, the corpse was carried. He,
alone of all the actors in the drama, certainly knew of the fresh
grave in the churchyard.
That circumstance seemed to Biles to exclude the possibility of
Sawyer’s having committed the murder. Whoever this individual might
be, he was a complete stranger to Calthorpe. There was the authority
of Mullins for the idea that he had not left the inn during the whole
day of the murder until he went out with Sir William. He had returned,
too, almost immediately on that occasion and remained indoors until he
was driven off to catch his train at Belfort. It was utterly
impossible that he could have carried out the funeral of his victim
even if he had committed the murder.
Moreover, the words overheard by Mullins’s customer suggested that
Sawyer was pleading for Derwick against Sir William’s determination to
ruin him.
“There is no other course open to me as an honest man.”
“For Heaven’s sake, don’t rush to such an extreme when there’s no need
for it.”
No doubt the fellow was a vulgar blackmailer, who had expected to make
a few pounds by his disclosures, but not to precipitate a violent
upheaval. He had lost his nerve at the end and cringed--probably
because he feared the vengeance of Derwick.
Biles wondered whether or not that vengeance had already overtaken
him. A man who has murdered once does not, as a rule, hesitate to
repeat the crime when the same or greater incentive urges him to that
course.
Then he wondered whether or not Estelle Armand had positive knowledge
that her lover was a murderer. She might or might not have discovered
him. In any case it was clear that her suspicions must be strongly
aroused. Hence her disappearance.
The only real difficulty seemed to be the horrible nature of the
crime. Biles could understand one man knocking another down with the
intention to kill; he could not understand any man deliberately
putting out the eyes of his victim. Such cold barbarity was foreign to
his conception of human nature.
He resolved to discover whether or not there was a history of insanity
in the Derwick family.
CHAPTER X.
WHO DRUGGED SIR WILLIAM?
The first surprise of the inquest on Sir William Armand was the
appearance in court of Jack Derwick. He had arrived by the night train
and gone, in the first instance, to Calthorpe Hall, where he learned
of the disappearance of Estelle. His anxiety when he returned to
Belfort was evident.
His presence surprised Biles exceedingly. However, he had plenty of
experience of the daring of criminals, and determined not to allow the
fact to influence the manner in which he presented his evidence; but
during the whole course of that evidence he watched the young
barrister as closely as possible.
The story Biles told was listened to by a crowded court with the very
closest attention. He described his preliminary investigations at some
length, dwelling especially on the fact that Miss Armand had told him
that, though she had broken off her engagement with Derwick, her
feelings had not changed.
Then he traced, step by step, the search which had led to the finding
of the dead man’s body. Finally, in describing Miss Armand’s
disappearance, he contrived to make it quite clear in what direction
his own suspicions lay. Judging by their expressions, the jurymen
appeared to share his views when he stood down from the box.
The next witness was Superintendent Robson. His evidence was largely
of a confirmatory nature. Then, at his own request, Jack Derwick was
sworn.
His features, Dr. Hailey noticed, were haggard, and his hands trembled
slightly; but he answered the questions put to him by the coroner in a
clear, strong voice and with complete frankness.
It was quite true that he had seen the new grave when he passed the
churchyard on the afternoon of the murder. He distinctly recollected
seeing it. It was also true that he had observed Miss Armand coming to
the inn, and that she had turned back when she saw him. He did not
speak to her again before his departure.
“Did you meet Sir William Armand in the wood on your way to the Hall?”
the coroner asked.
“No, sir.”
“Do you know the reason why Sir William desired his daughter to break
off her engagement to marry you?”
Jack shook his head sadly.
“No. I begged Miss Armand to tell me, but she refused absolutely on
the ground that her father had exacted a promise of secrecy.”
The coroner leaned forward.
“Are you prepared to tell the jury that you have no idea whatever of
the nature of the objection to your proposed marriage?” he asked in
slow tones.
“Yes, sir.”
One of the jurymen interposed to ask whether the witness had by any
chance seen the man Sawyer at Belfort station; and Jack told him that
he had noticed a man whose figure and walk seemed somehow familiar,
but when he happened to obtain a glimpse of his face he realized that
he had been mistaken.
“I fancy,” he added, “that this must have been Sawyer, from the
descriptions I have since read.”
Again the coroner leaned forward. He asked:
“You have no idea why Miss Armand left home yesterday, or who her
companion was?”
“None. I came this morning in the hope of being of some service to her
in her trouble. I have not heard from her at all since our engagement
was broken.”
The vicar of Calthorpe, the Rev. Hargreave Willoughby, was the next
witness. He gave formal evidence about the grave and its rightful
occupant, and confirmed the statement that Jack had taken tea with him
on his invitation on the evening of the murder.
“Did he tell you that his engagement had just been broken off?” the
coroner inquired.
The witness moved uneasily, clasping his hands in front of him and
again unclasping them.
“He did. He appeared to be very much depressed. I concluded from his
manner that Sir William Armand was dissatisfied at the match in some
way, for he told me that Miss Armand was obeying her father in sending
him away.”
“He said nothing to suggest to you that he might bear Sir William any
great ill-will?”
“Nothing at all.”
The vicar was followed by Mullins, of the Black Bull, and then the
coroner called Dr. Williamson, who had that morning performed the
post-mortem on the body of the murdered solicitor. He asked him to
what he ascribed death.
“To a penetrating wound of the brain in the region of the left
eye-socket,” said the doctor.
The answer seemed to surprise the coroner, who apparently had already
formed the idea that Sir William had been struck down in the first
instance, and mutilated afterward.
“So,” he said, “the bruises on the dead man’s head and face were not
so serious as they appeared?”
“They were not serious. It is my opinion that they may have been
caused when Sir William fell and struck his head on the trunk of the
tree. Two of the bruises were certainly caused in this fashion,
because small pieces of bark have been driven into the skin.”
“What about the wound in the right eye?”
“No, it does not appear to have reached the brain at all.”
The doctor further stated that he believed the wounds might have been
caused by a large pocket-knife.
“But how, in that case,” the coroner asked, “do you account for them?
Surely it would be difficult to stab a man in the eye while he
retained possession of himself?”
“It would be very difficult. As it happens, however, I am in a
position to offer an explanation which, to my own mind, at any rate,
is satisfying. _The fact is that, before he was murdered, Sir William
Armand was drugged!_”
To say that this statement created a sensation in the tightly packed
court-room would be to minimize entirely its effect. The reporters
looked up sharply from their notebooks; the members of the public
gasped. Even the policemen on duty craned their necks.
The coroner’s clear voice when he spoke came as a relief.
“You are really in possession of evidence to that effect?” he asked.
“Indisputable evidence. On the back of Sir William’s left thigh, about
three inches above the knee, I found a small swelling with the mark of
a needle puncture in the center of it.
“I have satisfied myself that this represents what remains of a
hypodermic injection administered shortly before--but still an
appreciable time before--the death of the recipient.
“I may say that I am supported in this view by my colleague, Dr.
Hailey, of Harley Street, who was present and assisted me at the
autopsy this morning.”
There was a moment of profound silence, then the coroner asked:
“Will you explain to the jury just how you believe this crime to have
been committed?”
“So far as my examination goes,” the doctor declared in his
emotionless, practical tones, “I imagine that Sir William Armand was
knocked down, in the first instance, either by a blow or by being
jostled. As soon as he fell, his assailants plunged the needle of a
hypodermic syringe, filled of course in advance with a suitable drug,
into his thigh, and pressed home the piston.”
“But surely such an operation would present tremendous difficulty?”
“No, sir--it would not. It could be accomplished in an instant with
but little pain to the victim.”
Dr. Williamson added, however, that he felt in duty bound to explain
to the court that Sir William himself was possessed of a hypodermic
syringe.
“As his doctor, I was called pretty frequently to attend him for a
severe form of neuralgia which came on very suddenly. Sometimes I was
not immediately available, and so I instructed Miss Armand how to give
him a hypodermic injection of morphia, and left her a syringe and a
supply of tablets. I am of opinion, however, that this dose in the
thigh was not administered in that fashion.”
Again a rustle of excitement betrayed the feelings of the spectators.
The coroner’s brows narrowed.
“It is certainly a most extraordinary case,” he declared. “In view of
what you say, the wounds in the eyes become almost inexplicable.
Indeed, there is so much mystery about the whole affair that I feel
the only course open to me is to adjourn the inquest for a week.”
Dr. Hailey returned with Biles to Calthorpe. The latter was rather
depressed because he found it difficult to fit the drugging of the
murdered man into his theory of the crime. He confessed to himself
that nothing was more unlikely than that Derwick should have taken
Miss Armand’s syringe or attempted to use it.
He communicated those doubts to his friend while they drank their
_aperitif_ in the inn before dinner.
Dr. Hailey nodded.
“We shall have to think again,” he said laconically.
“But how? If Derwick is not the murderer, who is? It is impossible
that Sawyer could have buried the body in the time at his disposal.
“Besides, we have failed to discover any clew to the man’s identity.
At one time I thought he might be Blunder, Sir William’s partner. I
sent a man round to his office to make observations, but it was a wild
goose chase.”
“In what way?”
Biles lit his pipe with care before he replied.
“Mr. Blunder has no scar on his left thumb--or either of his thumbs.
You remember how I found a scar mark on the finger-print I discovered
on the port-bottle here. It can be said for certain that Mr. Blunder
did not open that bottle, whereas we know that Mr. Sawyer did.
Moreover, Mr. Blunder does not smoke Russian cigarettes.”
The doctor inclined his head slightly. He appeared to be satisfied.
“You don’t happen to have kept one of the photographs of that
finger-print, do you?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.”
Biles opened his pocketbook and handed a card across the table.
Dr. Hailey examined it closely with his magnifying glass.
“May I keep it?”
“Certainly; I have another.”
CHAPTER XI.
THE STAIN ON THE COAT
Dr. Hailey returned to London the next morning. He had spent longer
than he intended on the Armand case; nevertheless he promised Biles to
return for the adjourned inquest.
Left to himself, the detective began to hark back to his first theory.
After all, he argued, there was no absolute certainty in the matter.
It was possible, if not probable, that Miss Armand had herself
supplied her lover with the syringe.
Generally speaking, women were not the instigators of crime, but there
were, as he knew well, exceptions to that rule. Faced with a choice
between her father’s scruples and her lover’s safety, many a girl
might become a criminal.
The more he considered this aspect of the matter, the more it appealed
to him as the probable solution. Miss Armand had come to meet her
lover at the inn and had turned back toward the wood on seeing him.
They must have met in the wood, and she could then have supplied him
with the syringe, ready filled. That, perhaps, was an afterthought on
her part, a kind of sop to her conscience, so that she might console
herself with the reflection that, at any rate, her father had not
suffered.
The idea of delivering the fatal blow in the eyes became more
understandable on this assumption. It avoided the real danger of
shedding much blood, and it was, perhaps, the most instantaneous way
of accomplishing the murder.
Granted that Estelle Armand hid beneath her frank appearance of
girlishness the heart of a Lady Macbeth, this surely was exactly how
she would have planned her father’s death.
The idea of burying the body in the village churchyard was worthy of
the rest of the scheme. It betrayed, Biles felt, the master criminal
mind. But for the single chance that one of the eye-lenses had become
detached, it must assuredly have succeeded, for, brilliant as had been
Dr. Hailey’s work on the case, it could not even have been begun had
not the clew of the lens been discovered.
If the specimen which had been sent to the Home Office for analysis
really contained morphia, the case would be strengthened, because the
contents of the phial found in Sawyer’s room were unknown, whereas it
was certain that Miss Armand possessed a supply of this drug.
He had just reached this conclusion when Superintendent Robson called
to tell him that the walking-stick which the murdered man always
carried had been found washed up on the shore below Calthorpe Hall.
That was not, of course, proof that it had been thrown into the sea at
the same spot. But it served in a way as confirmatory evidence.
The rest of the day was spent at Calthorpe Hall, in a minute
examination of every possible source of information. Biles excelled at
the work and enjoyed it. He found, as he had expected to find, that
the sealed deed box in Sir William’s study was missing.
That, he made no doubt, had been taken away by Miss Armand. Nor could
he discover any trace of the hypodermic syringe or the pellets of
morphia. This latter fact removed his last doubts.
When his survey was complete, began the examination of the servants.
This took place in the study, each member of the staff being
introduced separately by a policeman who had been told off for the
duty. The head gardener came first on the list.
He was an old man who had been a very long time in the employment of
the Armands. It was obvious that the tragic events of the last few
days had distressed him greatly. Indeed, Biles found it difficult to
engage his attention to the questions he asked him, and even more
difficult to get satisfactory answers.
One fact, however, was easily obtained: the shed in which spades and
other tools were kept was never locked. Anybody who knew the place
could easily enter it at any time. Work in the garden, of course,
stopped at sundown, and after that the place was deserted.
“You didn’t miss a spade on the morning after Sir William
disappeared?”
“No, sir. There was no spade missing.”
The chauffeur was positive that the car had not been used for two days
before the crime. The last time he had taken it out was to fetch Sir
William himself from Belfort on his return from London.
Biles started slightly at this information, but immediately controlled
himself. He had not known that Sir William had been away from home
recently.
“How long had your master been in London?” he asked the man.
“Two days. I drove him to the station when he went away.”
“Did you notice anything peculiar about him when he came back?”
“Well, sir, he usually spoke to me before we drove off, but this time
he never said a word. I remember thinking that he must be very tired
or unwell.”
“The car has not been out since the murder?”
“Only to take Mr. Derwick and his valet to Belfort. I left him at the
Queen’s Head in the town.”
Biles looked up and fixed the chauffeur with his keen eyes.
“You didn’t happen to see the car in which Miss Armand went away
yesterday, did you?”
“No, sir. Yesterday was my day off, and I was in Belfort most of the
time. That is where my parents live.”
The butler, however, had seen the car and spoken to the driver. It was
a hire from a Newcastle garage. The visitor whom it brought to
Calthorpe Hall was a stranger to himself, but, as he had been but a
short time in the service of the family, this was not a matter of
surprise.
“A short man, sir, with a gray mustache and wearing broad-rimmed
spectacles. Looked to me a little like a foreigner, he did, but spoke
English perfectly, if I may say so.”
“Did he stay to luncheon?”
“Oh no, sir. He was ’ere only about half an hour.” The butler added
that his opportunities of observation had been limited, as Miss Armand
dispensed with his services as soon as her visitor arrived.
“You didn’t happen to notice whether or not he was smoking?”
“Yes, sir. He was smoking a big cigar when I opened the door to him.”
The rest of the servants’ evidence merely confirmed what was already
known. On the afternoon of the murder Jack Derwick had been seen going
out alone along the cliffs. Miss Armand went out later. None of the
servants saw them return; indeed, none of them, except the butler and
chauffeur, knew until late in the evening that Jack had left the
house.
It is one thing, however, to have a theory; it is quite another to
present it to a jury. The really weak point in the charge against
Derwick was, as Biles clearly recognized, the absence of any clew to
the reason why Sir William had objected to him as a son-in-law.
Information on that point had been shared by three people, of whom one
was dead and two were now missing. He turned over the possibilities in
his mind as he walked back to the Black Bull.
It was a clear night with all the glory of a Northumbrian sunset in
the western sky. The sea lay like a mirror toward the horizon, a great
stillness possessed the earth.
When he came to the pine-wood, he stood still to listen to the faint
lapping of the swell on the rocks at the foot of the cliffs. It seemed
strange, grotesque almost, that this serene loveliness should have
been the scene of such an appalling crime.
The next morning found him closeted with his chief in Scotland Yard.
He recounted in detail exactly what he had found and the inferences he
had drawn, watching, while he spoke, the cold, clear face of this
master detective. The chief remained silent until he had finished; he
gave no sign of agreement or dissent, but before the whole story was
told, his decision had been taken.
“It is enough to justify an immediate arrest,” he said. “I think,
myself, it is enough to hang any man. Remember, we are not concerned
with motives, except in so far as they help to explain conduct. That
is a first principle of law.”
Biles felt a thrill of satisfaction. During the night, in the train,
he had passed through a fresh period of doubt, and had felt his chain
of evidence snapping in his hands. But this practical brain was not
likely to make a mistake. The number of men Scotland Yard had placed
in the dock on the capital charge, and failed to convict, is very
small.
“The way it strikes me,” the chief said, in his abrupt, incisive
tones, “is this: Derwick was rejected as Miss Armand’s lover in the
afternoon, for a reason we need not trouble about. But it was Sir
William and not the girl who rejected him.
“He was seen entering the wood a few minutes before Sir William and
the man Sawyer entered it. Miss Armand was with him or near him.
Sawyer returned to the hotel within a few minutes.
“Nobody knows exactly when Derwick returned--but in any case he had
ample time to bury the body as it was found to have been buried.
Moreover, he had access to a hypodermic syringe and morphia, and to a
spade.
“You’ll be interested to know that it was morphia--a very large dose
of it, too--which was administered hypodermically to the murdered man.
I have just had a report from the Home Office people.
“In the circumstances, we can definitely exclude Sawyer, who could not
possibly have carried out the full program, however active he might
have shown himself.
“Who remains? Not a breath of suspicion, so far as I can see, attaches
to anybody else. Moreover, there is the disappearance of Miss Armand.
I fancy they made absolutely certain that the body would never be
discovered.”
“As you put it,” Biles said, “it does seem to be pretty damning. I
confess I hesitated a little over some of the details.”
The chief smiled. “One always does that when one has to bear the
strain of deduction and search. The case is so strong that I propose
to arrest Jack Derwick just as soon as I can get out a warrant.
“He will be taken to Newcastle to-morrow, and handed over to the local
police. In the meantime, I fancy you had better make a careful
examination of his rooms in the Temple as soon as he is out of them.”
Two hours later Biles was seated at a window overlooking the gardens
of King’s Bench Walk. Before him, spread out on a card-table, was a
collection of miscellaneous articles which he had discovered in
various drawers and receptacles of Derwick’s flat and which seemed
worthy of further scrutiny.
The collection included a cane with a loaded head, a large
pocket-knife and a tiny dagger of Italian workmanship. So far as could
be seen, both knife and dagger were entirely free of stains of any
kind.
When he had completed his survey, Biles rang the bell for the valet,
Payne, who remained on the premises by his express order. This young
man was very pale, and appeared to retain his self-control with great
difficulty. He protested that at no time had he entertained the
slightest suspicion of his master.
“Do you remember the night on which Sir William was murdered?” Biles
rapped out sharply.
“Very well, sir.”
“When your master came in from his walk, were his clothes soiled in
any way?”
“I did not notice any soiling sir.”
“Think again, if you please. Think very carefully.”
“Possibly there may have been a little mud on one of the sleeves. I
remember now brushing it off the next day.”
Biles raised his eyes in a glance of warning.
“This is a very serious matter, remember,” he said.
The valet wilted.
“There was mud on the left sleeve, at the elbow,” he declared. “Mr.
Derwick told me he had been leaning on the wall of the churchyard.”
“You still have the suit, I suppose?”
“Oh yes, sir. Shall I fetch it?”
The valet went out of the room and returned in a few minutes with a
brown tweed knickerbocker suit. Biles glanced sharply at the
shoulders. They were quite unsoiled. He noticed, however, a dark stain
at the back, low down, near the hem.
“How long has that been there?” he asked.
“I don’t know, sir. I didn’t notice it before.”
If this were a blood-stain, then the case against Derwick would be
complete, for so must blood have fallen from a body carried on the
wearer’s shoulder, presuming the body to be wounded about the head and
to be carried feet foremost. Biles felt his pulses quicken with
excitement.
“I put it to you,” he declared, “that that stain was not present until
after the murder of Sir William Armand. Use your memory again on that
point.”
Once more the valet wilted visibly.
“I certainly don’t remember noticing it before then,” he stammered.
“But you have noticed it before now?”
“I--yes, sir.”
Biles took the coat away with him and sent it direct to the Home
Office. Next morning he had a report on the nature of the stain.
His suspicions were confirmed. The stain was blood.
CHAPTER XII.
POPPY’S HANDKERCHIEF
Dr. Hailey practiced his profession in a desultory sort of fashion.
He was a man of some independent means, a bachelor, able to gratify
his personal tastes.
Consequently, when he returned to Harley Street, it was not to see
large numbers of patients. The fascination of the Armand case
possessed him too completely for that, and so far, the most
fascinating observation which he had made in connection with that case
was one which he had kept to himself.
It pleased him to know this as, for the tenth time, he turned his
magnifying-glass on the photograph of the finger-print with which
Biles had supplied him. There could be no doubt whatever about it; the
scar on which so much store was set by his friend was a fake. Whoever
Sawyer might be he was clearly an artist.
But he had not been quite clever enough. In cutting out the tiny piece
of material which he had used to disguise his finger-print, he had
made one slip. He had left a single ragged point, and that point had
got bent over. No scar of nature’s handiwork ever possessed such a
break in its continuity.
It followed that the acquittal of Mr. Blunder of all share in the
mystery was not justified. The solicitor might, of course, be
innocent; but the fact that his two thumbs were intact did not, as
Biles imagined, constitute a proof of this.
Dr. Hailey reached for the telephone book which lay on his desk, and
looked up the number of the firm of Armand & Blunder, Clement’s Inn.
He gave this number and was answered by a voice which he guessed to be
that of a clerk.
“You may remember,” he said in quick tones, “that I rang up last
Monday week to ask for an appointment and you told me that Mr. Blunder
was ill.”
“Oh, yes, sir. But who is that speaking?”
“My name is Smith, Albert Smith. Is Mr. Blunder back to work yet?”
“Oh, yes, sir. He was away only for a day.”
Dr. Hailey hung up the receiver very quietly so as to convey the
impression that the line had been cut off. A smile flickered for a
moment at the corners of his mouth. He consulted the telephone book a
second time and then gave another number--that of Mr. Blunder’s
private house in Camden Hill. A woman’s voice answered him.
“Is that Mrs. Blunder?”
“No, sir, I’m her maid. If you hold the line--”
“No, no, please,” Dr. Hailey cried, “I only rang up to ask if Mr.
Blunder is better. I heard he had been confined to the house two days
ago.”
The girl’s voice took on an eager tone.
“Oh, yes, thank you. But he’s quite well again now. Who shall I say
rang up?”
“Mr. Albert Smith.”
So Blunder had been confined to the house on both occasions when
mysterious strangers visited Calthorpe. The fact seemed to merit some
further investigation.
Dr. Hailey chuckled as he thought of the moment when the lawyer
returned home to learn of a further inquiry after his health by Mr.
Albert Smith. It was just possible that on receipt of that news he
would do something foolish--but probably not.
Wise men always wait as long as possible before doing anything. He
wondered if Estelle had been taken to Camden Hill; if so, she was
probably safe for the moment. If not----
He got up and rang the bell. His butler, a man almost, though not
quite, of his own dimensions, answered it.
“Jenkins,” he said, “I want the car immediately.”
A new limousine came to the door. Dr. Hailey gave the address of
Armand & Blunder in Clements Inn. Then he lay back on the deep
cushions and closed his eyes. Driving in London was one of the new
delights of his life, but the delight was not complete unless he was
able to enjoy it in somnolence.
He mounted the stairs to the lawyer’s office slowly, and handed his
card to the clerk in the anteroom, who took it into his employer’s
room at once. A moment later he reëmerged and opened the door for the
visitor to pass in.
Mr. Blunder was seated at his desk with a pen in his hand, but Dr.
Hailey saw that he had not been writing. He rose at once and bowed.
“Dr. Hailey, of Harley Street,” he said, using the phrase which had
been employed at the inquest at Calthorpe the day before, and reported
in all the newspapers.
“Quite so. I ventured to trouble you because I have been helping my
friend, Inspector Biles, of Scotland Yard, during the last few days,
in connection with this tragic affair of your partner. There are one
or two matters which puzzle us very much and which you may possibly be
able to clear up.”
He watched the lawyer carefully as he spoke, but his eyes seemed
utterly listless.
“I am at your service, of course,” said Mr. Blunder, with an
expression of deep concern which, it had to be admitted, was entirely
unforced.
“The first point is this----”
Dr. Hailey fumbled in the tail pocket of his morning coat and produced
a memorandum-book. He turned over several of the leaves hurriedly.
“Sir William’s life seems to have been insured for a very large sum,
judging by a memorandum which was found in a sealed box in his study.”
He glanced up from his notes as he spoke. The face opposite him had
changed so that he scarcely recognized it.
“You are ill, my friend.”
“No. It’s nothing.”
The round, pebbly face of the lawyer was suffused suddenly with blood,
changing from pallor to redness. He mastered himself with a supreme
effort, which won the doctor’s admiration.
“I believe what you say is correct,” he managed to ejaculate. “The
exact sum was £50,000.”
Dr. Hailey made a note.
“Unfortunately,” he declared, “the box has now disappeared with Miss
Armand. It was she who opened it and gave us this information, and
consequently we were anxious to have it checked if possible.”
Again he glanced up, but this time his victim was forewarned. Whatever
relief he experienced was hidden under an appearance of unruffled
calm.
“Your partner was a healthy man, wasn’t he?”
“So far as I know.”
Dr. Hailey replaced his notebook in his pocket.
“One question more, if I may,” he said, “and then I shall apologize
for troubling you and take myself off. When Sir William visited you
here, a few days before his death, he did not, did he, require to send
for a doctor?”
Again there was not a quiver of the lawyer’s eyelids.
“Oh, no,” he said. “On the contrary, he appeared to be in excellent
health.”
The doctor bowed himself out. He descended the stairs as slowly as he
had mounted them. He returned at once to Harley Street. So far, his
investigation had yielded the results he expected, but he realized now
that the task he had set himself was more difficult than he had
supposed.
Mr. Blunder and Sawyer might be the same individual, but that would
take a great deal of proving. He had to confess himself nearly as much
in the dark as before.
He tried to imagine the effect on a jury of such evidence as was at
his disposal, and perceived that it would be negligible. Even
supposing that Mr. Blunder had been absent from business on the days
of the stranger’s appearances at Calthorpe, what did that signify?
And how, as Biles had asked, could he have killed and buried Sir
William in the space of twenty minutes? Moreover, where was the
certainty that the pieces of glass found in the fender of the bedroom
at the Black Bull really belonged to Sawyer at all?
Numbers of people, after all, used hypodermic syringes. His question
about the insurance policy, too, might well have been misunderstood.
It might have appeared as a direct accusation, since, in all
probability, Blunder was the executor of Sir William’s will and a
beneficiary under it. Very few men can bear even a hint that they may
have been concerned in a criminal action--murder especially.
Compared with the case against Derwick, this one was, he recognized,
merely contemptible.
But there was a tough quality in Dr. Hailey’s character, which
resisted all argument when argument was opposed to instinctive
feeling. The great detective, after all, is born, not made.
He spent an uneasy night examining again all the points in the case
and attempting to fit together in a new way all the conflicting items
of evidence. It was consequently nearly eleven o’clock when he
breakfasted.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, just when he was about to enjoy a
short siesta, his butler announced Inspector Biles.
Biles entered the consulting-room briskly with the air of a man who
has achieved his immediate purpose. His tall figure seemed to have
straightened; his muscles were braced. Even the usual kindliness of
his features was a little tinctured with severity.
“Well,” he declared, “he’s arrested at last; and we’ve issued a second
warrant against the lady. I owe you, my dear doctor, an immense debt
of gratitude.”
Sleep was in Dr. Hailey’s eyes. He tried to rub it out, and looked, in
the process, uncommonly like a bad-tempered baby.
“What do you say, my dear Biles?” he inquired petulantly. “Whom have
you arrested? I fear I am very dull-witted this afternoon.”
“We’ve arrested Derwick. What is more, we’ve found blood-stains on the
coat he was wearing on the fatal night--right down at the bottom of
the coat, at the back. The chain of evidence is complete--against both
of them, I think.”
Dr. Hailey opened his snuff-box, but did not take any snuff.
“Do I understand you to say, then, that Miss Armand has been found?”
he asked.
“No, she has not been found. We are circulating a description of her
to the press this afternoon. I don’t suppose her arrest can be long
delayed.”
Dr. Hailey shook his head.
“I fear,” he said, “that her arrest will never occur at all unless
some one takes action. You are terribly precipitate, my dear Biles. It
seems to me that we are only at the very beginning of this strange
crime.”
Had any other man ventured to reprove him in this way, Biles would
have been immediately resentful. But with the doctor it was different.
Though he scarcely admitted the fact to himself, he recognized in his
friend a greater detective than any other he had ever met.
Dr. Hailey met his rather puzzled look with a crisp description of his
investigations of the previous day.
“Are you quite sure about the finger-print?” Biles asked anxiously.
“I am quite sure. Look for yourself.”
The detective opened his pocketbook and extracted his own copy. He
examined it and then laid it down on the table.
“There’s no doubt about it. What a fool I was not to notice it
sooner.” He thought for a moment and then added:
“But, after all, that does not prove much, does it?”
“Not much. But enough to make it worth while inquiring into Mr.
Blunder’s movements during the past few days, I think.”
Biles bit his lip.
“He couldn’t have committed the murder.”
There was a challenge in the words. The doctor accepted it with
alacrity.
“My dear friend,” he declared, “it is the duty of an investigator to
investigate.”
“But we believe we have got our man. The case against him is
overwhelming.”
A slight frown gathered on Dr. Hailey’s broad brow. He spread out his
hands.
“If I were a barrister,” he said, “I should like to have the job of
defending young Derwick.”
Biles went away pretty soon, for he was traveling to Newcastle that
night to be present in the police court the following morning when
Derwick would be charged.
Dr. Hailey drove down to the Strand end of Chancery Lane, and then
told his chauffeur to ask where the nearest garage was. He found one
behind the law-courts.
“Drive in,” he told the man, “and fill up with petrol.”
While the petrol was being obtained the doctor made a tour of the
premises. A number of cars were standing in the place, but none of
these tallied with the ideas he had formed of the kind of vehicle Mr.
Blunder might be expected to possess. He was about to conclude that he
had drawn a blank, when he saw a very smart coupé, painted electric
gray and heavily silvered, coming up the alleyway to the garage.
Blunder himself was driving it. Dr. Hailey got into his car on the off
side and bent down while the vehicle passed him.
From his position he could see without necessarily being seen. The
gray coupé was splashed with mud--yellow mud, too, of the kind which
is not to be picked up in London streets.
It was manifest that it had just returned from a run in the country.
That run, too, must have taken it away from the main roads, which are
covered with tarmacadam, to byways, where the old top-dressing of dust
remains.
He had just observed this fact, when the plump body of Mr. Blunder
descended into the garage. The car lurched a little as he stepped
down, giving the impression that it was glad to be rid of him.
Dr. Hailey chuckled. He bent again as Mr. Blunder passed him on his
way out of the shed.
“Had a good run, sir?” asked the man who was engaged in filling the
doctor’s petrol tank.
“Oh, yes. Pretty muddy, though. You needn’t clean her, by the way, as
I am likely to be going out again to-night.”
“Very good, sir.”
The little man waddled away out of sight. Dr. Hailey descended again
and strolled toward the coupé. He noted instantly that the mileage
recorded stood at 2,415½ miles. He made a quick note of that figure
on his cuff. Then he scraped a little of the mud from one of the
panels and received it in a tiny pill-box which he had brought with
him.
The window of the coupé was open. Just beneath it was a pocket in the
upholstery of the door, covered by a loose flap. The doctor glanced
round to assure himself that he was not observed, and then slipped his
hand into this receptacle. It was empty, except for a handkerchief. He
seized on this and squeezed it to a ball in his palm. Then he walked
carelessly round a few of the other vehicles, and so back to his car.
As soon as he was back in the daylight of the Strand he looked at his
booty. It was a fragile, absurd thing, “all lace and empty space.”
Nevertheless, he searched its margins with an eagerness he could
scarcely conceal.
He discovered what he was seeking in an instant--a name neatly printed
on the fine cambric.
“Poppy de Vere.”
He sighed. He had half hoped, in spite of the scent of Parma violets,
that the name might be Estelle Armand. Then he examined the
handkerchief more closely, and realized that it probably possessed
considerable value. The lace which trimmed it was surely very old.
Who was Poppy de Vere, and what, in any case, was her handkerchief
doing in Blunder’s car?
When he got home he consulted a directory of the stage, without avail.
It was two years old, however, so he rang up the Times Book Club for a
new one. When he got it he found what he was looking for in the
following entry:
De Vere, Poppy:
Played lead in:--
The Giddies, The Girlies.
Address: 1, The Wayside Lane,
Hempstead, N.W. 3.
She was in the telephone book, and he rang up her number at once.
There was no reply. Either Miss de Vere did not employ a maid or the
place was shut. He glanced at his watch. It was already five o’clock.
He walked round to the garage in Harley Mews, where he kept a small
car which he usually drove himself. His chauffeur had already filled
and oiled it in readiness. It was a closed vehicle, one of those
semi-coupés which became so popular just after the war. He drove it
round to his house and left it standing by the curb.
Then he ate a hurried meal of two courses and went upstairs to change
into his very warmest clothing. Before he left the room he slipped a
tiny automatic pistol into his pocket, after making sure that it was
fully loaded.
The car was provided with a number of tools which his former
excursions into the world of crime had suggested as convenient
accessories of the amateur detective.
He drove very carefully down to the city, going by Portland Place and
Regent Street. The traffic in Piccadilly Circus was very dense, and he
had to sit inactive at his wheel for about ten minutes till an
Olympian constable who was making a freeway up Shaftesbury Avenue
deigned to lower his white-gloved hand.
Then he turned down the Haymarket, and so to the Strand. He drew up
just opposite St. Clement Dane’s Church, and stopped the engine. Then
he lit a cigar and lay back with his coat well muffled round his face.
It was a bow at a venture, of course, but his calculations had been
carefully made. Blunder would scarcely leave his office till six
o’clock. He would probably go and dine somewhere before calling for
his car--probably at the Cock Tavern at the top of Fleet Street, which
was popular with the legal fraternity.
It was a cold night, but, happily, the coupé was fitted with an
electric foot-warmer. Dr. Hailey was not uncomfortable. He watched the
egress from Clement’s Inn as a ferret watches the rabbit which it is
stalking.
Presently he saw a fat figure emerging from that egress into the
swollen stream of the Strand.
CHAPTER XIII.
A CHASE THROUGH THE SNOW
Mr. Blunder wore a big overcoat and a cap well pulled down over his
ears. He turned at once in the direction of Fleet Street. Dr. Hailey
touched the self-starter button on his desk board and set his engine
purring. He moved slowly along the curb like a taximan looking for a
fare.
His quarry evidently did not intend to dine, for he kept along the
left-hand pavement till he passed the law-courts. Then he turned into
the narrow close which separates that great building from the premises
abutting on Chancery Lane. Dr. Hailey lost sight of him for a moment
in the crowd.
He could not follow directly, of course, for the close is a footway
only. He quickened his pace and turned into Chancery Lane, hoping to
be in time to see Blunder emerge again into the public street.
Unhappily a traffic block delayed him. When he came to the place he
desired to reach, Blunder had disappeared. He drove on toward the
garage, determined to take the risk of exposure there might be rather
than abandon his quest at the beginning.
When he passed the entrance he saw that the lawyer must have arrived,
for there was no sign of him in the passageway. He halted his car
again and looked out through the back window.
It commanded a clear view of the whole street; no one could leave the
garage without being observed by him.
About ten minutes later the gray coupé poked her nose out and slipped
quietly into the street. She came purring past the place where he was
standing, and turned up at the first corner toward Holborn.
Dr. Hailey made haste to follow her--so much so, indeed, that he very
nearly collided with her when she drew up to await a chance of
entering the main stream of traffic. Blunder drove with great
assurance.
He went straight up to the Oxford Circus and then by Portland Place to
Regent’s Park. At the bridge over the canal he turned into Avenue
Road.
The thought struck Dr. Hailey that possibly this was an excursion to
Hempstead to visit Poppy de Vere, but that surmise was quickly
disproved. The coupé mounted through Hempstead to the top of the
Heath and thence sped away down the steep hill to Golder’s Green
Station.
The road was nearly empty now, and it was necessary to exercise
greater caution. Dr. Hailey just kept his quarry in sight. He drew up
halfway down the hill to allow for the inevitable stop at the Tube
Station. The gray coupé turned into the Finchley Road.
From this point it made rapid going to Barnet, where the Great North
Road to Hatfield was chosen. Dr. Hailey found that all his wits were
required to sustain the pace.
At Hatfield he imagined he had lost the game altogether. When he
rounded the bend through the town he found a clear road. But then he
saw a taillight disappearing along the way to Hertford. He drew up,
reversed, and turned. The taillight had vanished altogether. He opened
his accelerator to its widest.
The road is narrow here, and he had a most exciting escape from death
at one of the corners, where he encountered a big limousine. The
experience sobered him somewhat, but nevertheless he was determined to
sight the coupé again before they reached Hertford. He continued to
drive “all out,” discovering in the process how very much even a
couple of minutes’ start signifies to a swift vehicle.
He had his reward. At the steep hill which leads to the outskirts of
the country town he caught a momentary glimpse of a red light. He saw
it again just as they came to the first street-lamp.
Caution was necessary now, lest Blunder should stop for dinner at one
of the hotels. A minute later, as the coupé drew up at the Stag’s
Head, the doctor congratulated himself on his foresight. He passed
quickly on to the White Bear, where another car was standing.
The bar of the hostelry commands the street, so that he was able to
order himself a whisky and soda, and at the same time keep an eye on
the gray car. Mr. Blunder was evidently in a hurry, for only about
twenty minutes elapsed before he reappeared. He drove off at once in
the direction of Ware.
The night was very dark, and it had begun to snow. The roads were
distinctly dangerous. Nevertheless, the gray coupé maintained a pace
which Dr. Hailey’s speedometer showed to be not far short of thirty
miles an hour. They took the sharp bend into Ware giddily and then
went out on the hillroad to Bishop’s Stortford.
This was new country for the doctor. The tremendous hairpin bends in
the road, which soon occurred every few furlongs, made him catch his
breath. Once he thought he had lost the gray coupé altogether, and
twice he very nearly ran into it.
Possibly the latter fact determined Blunder, who apparently knew the
country well, to take the short cut from Muchadam village to the main
Stortford Road. To the occupant of the car following him it seemed as
though he disappeared suddenly into the side of a house, so abruptly
does the road turn off.
When he came to the turning-point himself Dr. Hailey hesitated a
moment, for his headlights revealed a very bad surface. But he decided
finally to go on. A minute later his car was plowing a quagmire, and
a minute later still it was in a ford.
Happily the water was not deep, but the mere fact of this road having
been chosen made the doctor uneasy, and his uneasiness increased when
a little later he reached the highroad again and read a signpost to
the effect that this “short cut” saved less than a mile and led
through water. Obviously his quarry had been “trying it on.”
He followed at a greater distance for a mile or two, until he judged
that they must be approaching Bishop’s Stortford. Then he drew a
little closer. Blunder scarcely slackened his pace at all; he drove
right through to the Cambridge and Newmarket Road, which he followed
through Stanstead, Mountpicket, and Newport. Just beyond this latter
village he turned right to Saffron Walden. Dr. Hailey saw that they
had traveled upward of forty miles.
Saffron Walden was passed without a stop. It was not yet nine o’clock,
but this little market town was as empty of life as if the hour had
been midnight. The road they followed led away from it in an eastern
direction, toward that bare and somber plateau which is known as the
Essex Uplands, upon which no fewer than four small rivers have their
source.
The snow had stopped and a half-moon peered from the broken cloud. Dr.
Hailey had a vision of wide, empty fields, and long, watery distances.
The road was extremely muddy and rough. They mounted for a mile or
two, passed a hamlet on the hilltop; then, farther on, mounted again
and descended steeply to a tiny village with a big church set in the
very center of it. After that the road ran straight for a short way.
The doctor confessed himself entirely unaware of his whereabouts, but
the longer this strange chase continued, the higher mounted his hopes.
This country, above all others in his knowledge, lent itself to
secrecy.
The inhabitants of these scattered villages would take but small
interest in any but the most local affairs. They seemed to go to bed
at sundown, leaving, for the whole stretch of the night, their world
to any who might care to use it. He had heard that the great Dick
Turpin himself was a native of one of these hamlets. That, he thought
with a grim smile, explained much in his adventurous character.
The thought was still in his mind, when suddenly, on rounding a sharp
bend between the high banks, he saw the gray coupé standing still in
the middle of the road immediately in front of him.
Not a chance existed of avoiding dire calamity.
CHAPTER XIV.
BLUNDER AT HOME
Dr. Hailey could not recollect afterward what he did. There was so
small a fraction of time in which to do anything. All he remembered
was a terrific, dizzy swerve, a tremendous crash, and the spectacle of
his car rearing wildly under his feet like a shying horse.
A long, fierce grinding of machinery followed; and then, with a sound
that was half explosion and half sob, the engine stopped. He remained
holding the wheel, and then suddenly and swiftly ran his hands over
his legs.
Could it be possible that he was uninjured?
The car had mounted the off-side bank. It had not turned over, because
the front wheels had become fixed in the low hedge-row which crowned
this eminence; but it was buckled about him so that he seemed to be
seated in a concertina.
He tried the door on his right hand, and was unable to open it. Then
he noticed that the left-hand door had been wrenched entirely from its
hinges. He got out and stood looking down on the cause of his
misfortunes.
The gray coupé had not moved. As his impressions of what had just
happened clarified in his mind, he realized that he had not injured it
by more than a few scratches at most. The first instinct of every
driver, to avoid the vehicular obstacle at all costs, had asserted
itself to good purpose. His swerve had certainly carried him clear.
Then he saw a most extraordinary sight. Blunder was standing some
distance behind his car, coolly surveying the disaster he had brought
about.
They observed one another at almost the same moment. The little
solicitor threw up his hands and shouted as though he were welcoming
some one back from the dead. He ran forward across the white road,
looking like a waddling duck on his short legs.
“My dear sir--oh, my dear sir, thank the Lord you are safe!”
Dr. Hailey remained on his vantage-ground. He restrained a strong
impulse to go down and strangle the wretch with his hands.
“It was a near thing,” he declared in deep tones; “an object-lesson,
if I may say so, on the danger of stopping suddenly near a blind
corner.”
“Alas, yes!”
The doctor was not so far thrown off his usual balance that he failed
to observe that Mr. Blunder showed no anxiety lest there might be
other occupants of the shattered car. Evidently he was well aware that
it had only one occupant--well aware, too, doubtless, who that
occupant was. But he gave no indication of his knowledge. On the
contrary, when he had climbed the bank, he began to renew his
protestations of sorrow and regret.
“In this part of Essex we are apt to forget that any one else in the
world owns a motor-car. I don’t think I have seen a dozen cars on this
road after dusk since I first came here ten years ago.”
Dr. Hailey had turned to examine the wreck of his coupé. He was
trying to make up his mind what to do, what to say. He remembered that
Colchester lay somewhere in this direction, and resolved to make that
place his destination. He declared that he had lost his way at
Bishop’s Stortford, but hoped he would pick it up again by reaching
the Cambridge-Colchester road.
“Oh, my dear sir,” said Blunder, “that is several miles away.”
He appeared to consider for a moment, and then his tones changed to
those of friendliness.
“I do indeed hope that you will let me make what amends are in my
power by accepting my hospitality for the night. I have a little
place, not half a mile from here, at the village of Hempstead. My wife
will be charmed to see you, and to-morrow my man will drive you to
your destination.”
Again Dr. Hailey found himself gasping. He was convinced that Blunder
knew who he was; yet this bold invitation, this daring “my wife.” In
spite of himself his heart warmed to a man who combined, as he
believed, the will to crime with the instinct for a workmanlike style
in the commission of it. He accepted the invitation at once in spite
of the obvious danger which it threatened.
“I do hope you have suffered no injury,” said Blunder, as they climbed
down the bank to the road. “The shock must have been terrible.”
“No, I’m none the worse.”
They came within range of the gray coupé’s headlights. Blunder
turned, with an appearance of curiosity which did credit to his powers
as an actor. Then he exclaimed:
“What! Dr. Hailey?”
“Mr. Blunder,” said the doctor, without any emphasis whatever.
The lawyer enlarged on the amazing nature of this coincidence. His
companion cut him short by asking whether his car had received any
injuries. He answered his own question by going round to the back of
it to inspect it for himself. One mud-guard was slightly dented.
He glanced at the road behind, and saw that at this place it widened
like the neck of a bottle approaching the body. The spot was chosen
with remarkable insight. Any one of a thousand drivers could be
trusted to swerve, just as he had swerved, and so to mount the bank,
just as he had mounted it. It was long odds, too, that the car would
turn over and fall back on the road.
Nevertheless, he felt a further thrill of admiration at the daring
which had conceived and executed the plan. The only pity was that
Blunder had not so completely trusted his judgment as to remain in the
driving-seat of his coupé. The fact that he had got out detracted in
a small way from an otherwise most distinguished performance.
They got into the car and Blunder set the engine running. The coupé
glided away, as it seemed, among the shadows of the road. Dr. Hailey
tried to make up his mind whether the man beside him had really
intended to kill him, or merely put him out of action.
He rather favored the latter idea, though he could not be sure.
Probably, at the moment, the publicity of an inquest, even on the
victim of an accident, would be inconvenient.
The car slowed down and turned into an avenue through an
unostentatious gateway. A moment later it drew up in front of a long,
low-built house, the front of which seemed to be entirely covered with
ivy. Blunder opened the door beside him and got out. He then hurried
round to assist his visitor to alight.
“I’ll take the car round to the garage later,” he said. “Meanwhile,
let me assure myself that you are in some sort of comfort.”
He ran up the steps of the house and opened the front door with a
latchkey. He advanced some way into the hall and called “Mary” twice
in a loud voice. A door opened, filling the hall with light.
Then Dr. Hailey had one of the sharpest surprises of his life. He saw
an elderly woman with a plump, matronly figure appear in the doorway.
“Oh,” she cried, “it’s dad.”
This information was intended, evidently, for her daughter, who
followed her into the hall and ran toward Blunder with an expression
of obvious pleasure on her very pretty face. Dr. Hailey, standing
behind his host, gasped. What he had expected to see, and what he now
saw, were worlds apart.
“Mother,” said the lawyer, “here is a gentleman whom I have very
nearly killed. He will tell you all about it while I’m putting the car
in. But I wanted to tell you to be specially kind to him.”
His face looked more like an apple than ever as he spoke, one of those
pippins, the doctor thought, which do not require much color even when
they are quite ripe. He waddled away to the front door. Mrs. Blunder
and her daughter helped their visitor to take off his coat and
muffler, then they ushered him into a very cosy drawing-room.
It was furnished in a way which delighted Dr. Hailey at the first
glance. Everything was so exceedingly good and yet so very
comfortable. He glanced from an exquisite little Queen Anne clock on
the mantelpiece to a fire-screen which had assuredly done service once
upon a time in nobler surroundings.
Then his eyes fell approvingly on a huge, deep Chesterfield of that
kind which a few modern cabinet-makers have had the wit to place once
again on the market.
“What can we give you?” said his hostess in her rather faded voice,
which suggested an unequal struggle abandoned long ago. “James always
has a plate of cold beef and some cheese, but it will be quite easy to
get some hot soup as well.”
“Thank you,” said Dr. Hailey; “but the cold meat will be quite enough
for me. I’m not hungry.”
“Dearest,” said her mother to the pretty girl, “bring the decanter and
siphon of soda. I’m sure Mr.----”
“Dr. Hailey.”
“--Dr. Hailey must be needing a little stimulant.” She turned again to
her visitor. “I don’t know, I’m sure, what James has done to you, but
he’s so reckless with that car that I can believe anything. I scarcely
ever go out with him now because all the time I have my heart in my
mouth.”
There was a trace of complaining in the faded voice which suggested
that possibly, though defeated, Mrs. Blunder was not yet entirely
reconciled to her fate. Dr. Hailey watched her closely while he
described the accident.
He noted that such exclamations as she uttered during his narration
were purely formal. This woman lived, as he had once heard an American
express it, “a mile inside herself.” He concluded that the furnishings
of the room were not her work. Women of this sort are all slatterns at
heart.
Miss Blunder clearly took after her father. She poured out his whisky
for him without asking his consent, and she sent the soda down into it
with the deftness of a potman.
He felt that her prettiness was curiously misplaced--unless, indeed,
she married a hunting squire or some other horsey young man who would
know how to subdue her. She was not pitiful like her mother, but she
had the same negative quality--the lack of subtlety, of _alure_.
It was strange, because the drawing-room in which these women
presumably spent much of their time was full of this indefinable
charm. It suggested the feminine, as leisure and taste has evolved
that delicious human quality. These women were foreigners in their own
house.
With a sudden, clear distinctness, Dr. Hailey realized the whole
tragedy of Blunder’s life. For the first time he pitied him. It is not
wickedness in a woman, as that quality is generally understood, he
reflected, which usually drives her husband to the devil. It is
emptiness of spirit.
He raised his glass and bowed to the two women. Mrs. Blunder was
telling her daughter over again about the accident, and reëxpressing
her certainty that “dad” would soon come to an untimely end. There was
a wistful tone in her voice as she said this, which was not without
its significance. She added, for Dr. Hailey’s benefit:
“But deary’s just as bad as her father.”
Mr. Blunder came in, all rubs and wriggles, as though he sought to
shake off the cold which he had left behind him in the yard. They went
into the dining-room--another impressive apartment--where supper had
been laid for them. Mr. Blunder instructed his man-servant to bring
him a bottle of his 1900 port from the cellar.
“A vintage, my dear doctor,” he declared, “of which I am sorry to say
there are now too few survivors.”
He talked further about wine, revealing the fact that his knowledge
was superficial and his taste dubious. Dr. Hailey led the conversation
to furniture and, when he had accomplished his object, was rewarded.
The solicitor was a real collector, one of those rare beings moreover,
a collector with a point of view. As he spoke, the delight of the man
in that quality of beauty which is just a trifle too obvious was
revealed again and again. Furniture, perhaps, is the only material in
which sensuousness can be expressed without any restraint.
When they returned to the drawing-room, Mrs. Blunder was seated behind
a big coffee-pot, from which she instantly began to pour out cups of
coffee. Miss Blunder carried those to their destinations; then she
brought brown sugar in a silver bowl and jingled her bracelets while
she served it.
Dr. Hailey helped himself and then took out his snuff-box--a gesture
which made both the women stare. He took snuff. Then he turned to his
host and said in his soft, rather smiling tones:
“I know, my dear sir, that you play the violoncello. Do you think that
I might ask----”
Mr. Blunder started slightly.
“How can you know that?” he exclaimed in evident bewilderment.
“I guessed it. If I may be permitted to guess again, I will say that
your favorite composer is Gounod.”
The solicitor’s eyes narrowed. This man by some means or other had
read his heart. He did not like it.
“The ‘Ave Maria,’ for example?”
“Oh, yes, dad plays that beautifully. It is so sweet, don’t you
think?”
After all, then, there were points of resemblance, other than
superficialities, between father and daughter. But horsiness and
sentimentality are often bedfellows--and crime.
The cello was produced by the girl from its big case. She brought it
to her father, who caressed it after the manner of amateurs. A moment
later the cloying sweetness of the “Ave” sobbed through the room.
Dr. Hailey closed his eyes. At least, this man knew how to play. He
began to form a mental picture of Miss Poppy de Vere. She would be
like a nun--assuredly like a nun.
It was certain that as soon as the music stopped Mrs. Blunder would go
to bed. Women of her type always retire early as soon as they have
served the last meal of the day. There is, too, an uncomfortable sense
of early rising and the preparation of breakfast about their “good
nights.”
Though others may indulge in late hours, the work of the world must go
on. A second pang of pity for Blunder smote the doctor’s heart.
Miss Blunder soon followed her mother, but without the same suppressed
righteousness of manner. Mr. Blunder indicated the decanter which
stood on the tea-table. He was obviously anxious to play again. This
time he rendered the “Salut d’Amour,” then he put his cello back into
its case and lit a cigar.
“So they have arrested young Derwick,” he said in smooth tones.
“I believe so.”
“It seems rather premature, doesn’t it? Especially as they have not
found the girl yet. You didn’t know Estelle Armand, did you?”
“No; I know none of the people in the case, I’m afraid, except
Inspector Biles. He is a patient of mine, and occasionally indulges my
passion for amateur detective work by calling me in. He came to see me
this afternoon. He appears to be very confident of obtaining a
conviction.”
Again Blunder’s eyes narrowed. But his visitor caught the gleam of
satisfaction in them nevertheless.
“Really! Possibly they have evidence which has not got into the
papers. I confess that the whole story seems to me complicated and
difficult to a degree. Armand, I assure you, was one of the simplest
and gentlest of men--the very soul of honor. I cannot conceive why any
one should ever have borne him a grudge.”
Dr. Hailey did not reply. He drank his whisky reflectively, as though
awaiting the passing of an unpleasant topic. His host asked him if he
wished to go to bed, and assured him that he would find a suit of
pyjamas and shaving material placed at his disposal in his room. It
was obvious that he himself wished to retire.
He conducted the doctor to the bedroom, which was on the first floor,
at the end of the house, remote from the carriageway.
“Tea will be brought you in the morning,” he announced. “But don’t
hesitate to order your breakfast in bed as well, if you like. This is
Liberty Hall, you know. When we come down here we put all ceremony
aside. In fact, I can scarcely get my wife and daughter to leave the
place.
“They came down yesterday in the Ford car my daughter drives and mean
to stay till after Christmas.” He turned away, and then from the
doorway added: “The village here, Hempstead, is Dick Turpin’s
birthplace, you know.”
When he had gone the silence of country houses in winter descended.
Dr. Hailey raised the curtain and saw that snow was again falling. It
seemed to muffle the world so that every sound was muted.
He stood in the middle of the room and tried to take stock of the
position, but a great weariness was upon him. He sat down on the couch
at the foot of the bed; then he lay down. In a moment he was asleep.
Two hours later he started up, listening with every faculty strained
and alert.
PART III
CHAPTER XV.
A CRY IN THE NIGHT
The sound which he heard was the buzzing of a telephone bell. He
glanced at his watch. It was just after one o’clock. He went very
softly to the door and opened it with great care.
The bell rang again, and then he heard footsteps at the far end of the
corridor. They seemed to descend the stairs, though he was not sure of
this. Then he heard Blunder’s voice speaking, though he was unable to
hear the words.
He crept into the corridor, which was faintly illuminated from a
window at the far end, against which the setting moon was now shining.
He moved noiselessly toward the staircase. He was just in time as he
reached this to hear the lawyer say:
“Very well, I’ll come at once.”
The receiver was replaced with a click. Dr. Hailey hurried back to his
room and closed the door. He sat down on the bed to think things over.
It was obvious that Blunder was going somewhere immediately. That he
was going on any ordinary errand--unless indeed some wealthy client
were dying and wished to make a will--seemed out of the question. His
parents were both dead, and he had no brothers or sisters, so that a
family emergency was scarcely possible.
Suddenly the truth dawned. The doctor found himself gasping again.
Wherever he went, for the next twelve hours at any rate, there would
be no danger of pursuit. He had the hunter safe abed in his own house.
Was there no possibility of acting as stowaway on this journey? But
no, the coupé was too small. Even if he managed to scramble
undetected on to the dickey, his weight would affect the steering and
make discovery absolutely certain.
Besides, Blunder would see him through the back window of the hood.
If only they had been nearer Saffron Walden, he might have obtained a
hired car, but walking there was out of the question, even if he
started an hour before the lawyer. Besides, what assurance had he that
this route would be chosen?
He got up and walked to the window. He was about to lift the curtain
when he remembered that by doing this he would probably illuminate the
branches of the trees in front of the house and so disclose the fact
that he was awake.
He switched off the light and then looked out. The snow lay evenly on
the lawns; the sky, however, had become quite clear. It was possible
to see a wide sweep of the country. He made up his mind that, at any
rate, he must get out of the house immediately and use such means as
might present themselves to get away also from the neighborhood.
And then suddenly he remembered the Ford car in which Blunder had told
him his wife and daughter had traveled from London. It must be in the
garage still.
He waited anxiously at his door till he heard the door of his host’s
room open again. This time the lawyer’s footsteps were loud and firm,
as though he had nothing to hide and was not in a mood to hide
anything. His boots sounded heavily on the old wooden staircase, which
creaked under them.
Dr. Hailey left his room and tiptoed to the stair-head. He heard the
lock of the back door click and then the sound of bolts being drawn.
He came down the staircase as quietly as he could and turned in the
direction which he took to be that of the servants’ quarters.
Blunder went out and shut the door behind him, but he did not relock
it--probably because there was only one key, and because the chances
of burglary in this quarter were so infinitesimal. The doctor came to
the door a moment after, and stood behind it listening.
He noticed that a small pantry opened off the corridor just to his
right. It had a window looking out on the yard, because there was a
patch of moonlight on the floor. He crept in and gently drew the door
half shut behind him.
The next instant he had reason to be thankful for this precaution.
Blunder had evidently forgotten something, and came back to fetch it.
He passed within touching distance and went lumbering away into the
darkness of the corridor. The doctor waited until his steps became
fainter, and then slipped out by the open door into the yard. He
congratulated himself that fortune this time was playing into his
hands.
The house had evidently been a farm at one period, for there were
numerous sheds and outhouses surrounding it. One of these, as he could
see, had been rebuilt as a garage. The others appeared to be empty. He
chose the interior of that which seemed to be the darkest and entered
it.
It was a roomy place, used evidently by the gardener, for it was full
of all sorts of odds and ends of apparatus--seed-boxes,
forcing-frames, and the like. He crouched down behind a number of
these latter, and watched the door, which was clearly illuminated by
the moon.
Presently Blunder returned. He was dressed in his full motoring kit
and wore a large muffler round the lower part of his face. He carried
a key in his hand--possibly the object for which he had reëntered the
house.
When he crossed the yard, the doctor lost sight of him, but he heard
him in the garage next door opening petrol tins and filling his tank.
These occupations appeared to distress him a good deal, for he puffed
and blew while engaged in them.
The sounds changed, and the listener heard the creak of the big doors
of the garage. Then he heard a carriage-door slam, and immediately
afterwards the whir of the self-starter. The engine began to purr.
Blunder drove out into the yard, stopped the car and came back to shut
his garage. Then, very quietly, he drove away into the night.
There was not an instant to be lost. The doctor had already possessed
himself of an iron stake he had found lying beside the forcing-frames.
He ran out and without a moment’s hesitation inserted the end of it,
jimmy fashion, between the doors of the garage. A single wrench of his
powerful shoulders broke the lock and opened the place to him.
He nearly cried out for joy at the sight of the Ford car, which
immediately greeted his eyes. It was the work of a few seconds to find
the switch and light the place up. There was an abundance of petrol,
and he lifted a couple of cans into the back seat. Then he jumped in
and switched on the engine.
The car was a new one and started at once. He had driven Fords on many
occasions and felt no uneasiness. Within five minutes of the departure
of Blunder, he was actually on the road in pursuit, but those five
minutes were, in fact, a long start, for Blunder enjoyed the
inestimable advantage of knowing the district. Moreover, it was out of
the question to use any lights during at least the early period of the
chase. The moon alone must be his guide and protector.
Happily, there was the snow, which recorded faithfully the tracks of
the coupé. It declared that Mr. Blunder had taken the road to London.
The Ford made good, easy going. In a few minutes it came to the place
where the accident had occurred the night before. There was the
smashed car, still perched on the top of the bank, but covered now
with a shimmering white mantel. It looked lonely, disconsolate, its
owner thought, as though making silent protest against the evil design
which had wrought its ruin.
The tracks led straight back to Saffron Walden. They lay clear in the
middle of the road uncrossed by any other wheels. Even when the
Newmarket road was reached, their possession of this midnight world
remained unchallenged.
Doctor Hailey let the Ford out and went down to Stanstead much faster
than was at all safe. As he approached the village he caught a glimpse
of the taillight of the coupé.
Mr. Blunder drove into London by Epping. As he neared the city, the
difficulty of keeping him in view became much greater, so that Dr.
Hailey began to despair of his task. Nevertheless, when they reached
the Strand he was still following.
The coupé ran up the Haymarket and turned into Piccadilly. It reached
Putney Bridge by the Fulham road, and then took the Portsmouth road.
Here again, the snow was thick and but little disturbed. When Kingston
had been passed, following was as easy as it had been in Essex.
Dr. Hailey was just congratulating himself on his success when, with a
sudden gasp, the Ford came to a standstill. He knew that sound. The
petrol tank was empty. He climbed out from his seat, and realized as
he did so how exceedingly stiff and cold he was. Even in his thick
gloves his hands were frozen. He worked his arms cabman fashion to
warm himself, and then opened both the tins he had brought with him.
About a quarter of an hour elapsed before he started again, but he had
no difficulty in following the tracks till he reached Guilford. There,
unhappily, another car had come to complicate matters, for while one
set of tracks remained on the Portsmouth road, the other mounted
toward the Hog’s Back.
He got out to examine the tread-marks, but unfortunately he had not
looked carefully enough at those made by the coupé. There was nothing
for it but to retrace his way to the outskirts of the town to the
point where only the coupé’s tracks lay on the road.
More than half an hour was spent in this work, but at last he learned
that Blunder had stuck to the Portsmouth road. He hurried back through
the steep little town.
There was no further check, and he came quickly to the place where the
Hazlemere road takes off from the main highway. Blunder had gone in
that direction. He made good going over the steep uplands and through
the silent, snow-laden pine woods which give to this part of England,
in winter, a magical quality not found in any other district. The
tracks led straight into the little down, and then turned off toward
the heights of Blackdown.
A moment later Dr. Hailey came to the open gates of a large private
house.
It was his destination.
He ran the Ford a short distance farther up the road, and drew it to
the side, out of sight of the gateway he had just passed. Then he got
out and walked back to reconnoiter. This was not easy, for the moon
had set and it was very dark.
The house apparently stood well back among thick trees, for he was
unable to catch a glimpse of any light from where he stood. He entered
the gateway, and at once passed among the trees, using his electric
torch to follow the direction of the avenue, but taking care not to
debouch upon it.
The way was uphill, and once or twice he slipped, and only saved
himself from falling by using his hands. He turned the torch on the
carriageway and saw that the coupé had had a difficult climb, and
must have given its driver considerable anxiety.
Just when he had begun to wonder whether there was any house at
all--so long was the approach--he caught the glimmer of a light. A few
yards farther on, he realized that this proceeded from a window on the
first floor of the house.
He crept forward carefully, using his torch as little as possible. The
house was evidently surrounded by a wide expanse of lawn, for his view
of it became more and more uninterrupted as he approached.
He changed his direction and moved round it, keeping still within the
shelter of the shrubbery. As he came abreast of the façade, he saw
the outline of the building against the clear, star-filled sky.
It was evidently a very large house indeed. Moreover, though he
supposed that this was an illusion of the darkness, it had a deserted
appearance, like that of a great mansion in the hands of caretakers.
The carriageway, he could see, ran round this side of the building to
the offices, and a hurried inspection with his torch revealed the fact
that Blunder had driven round. He walked on and came to a wall which
evidently enclosed the yard behind.
It was necessary now to emerge from the cover of the trees and find
the gateway in this obstruction. He felt his way along the wall and
soon came to it. Very cautiously he glanced within. The red taillight
of the coupé gleamed at him from a distance of a few yards.
He waited, in case by any chance the man he was following had not yet
entered the house. But the yard was silent. He stole forward and came
behind the car. Its headlights had been switched off, but the
side-lamps were burning. They showed him a back door in full
illumination. Some distance to the left of this door was a window
which was less brightly lit.
He advanced to the window and gently tried the sash with his thumbs.
It resisted him. He turned his light on it and saw that the catch was
fastened. He felt in his pocket for his knife, and with a deftness
which must have astonished his patients, had they seen him, inserted
the blade between the sashes and pressed the catch back.
It opened with a slight click, which sounded very loud in the utter
stillness of the night. He waited anxiously to hear if there was any
response. Then he gently raised the lower sash and climbed into the
house. He shut the window carefully and quietly behind him.
The room he found himself in was a pantry of some sort, for it smelled
of food, he thought of food which had been eaten a long time ago.
There was an indescribable musty dampness in the air which was,
somehow, rather horrible. He moved to the place where he conceived the
door must be and found it closed. He switched on his light for an
instant.
The small apartment was hung with hooks--doubtless for hams or game.
There were a few sacks in one corner, and he observed a table set
against one of the walls. Otherwise the place was quite empty.
Happily the door was not locked. He turned the handle and crept out
into the passage beyond. Then, suddenly, he turned back and removed
the heavy coat he was wearing; he also bent down and took off his
shoes. His hand traveled to the pocket where he had placed his pistol
before leaving home.
He passed back into the passage and followed it till he came to a door
covered with green baize. He pushed this open and found himself in the
main hall of the mansion. It was dark, but he caught a gleam of light
from somewhere overhead.
Then suddenly a terrible cry, which horrified even his cool,
professional nerves, rang through the emptiness of the house.
CHAPTER XVI.
MR. BLUNDER EXPLAINS
The cry was repeated.
Standing in the darkness, it seemed to him the most piteous sound he
had ever heard, something between the whimpering of a child afflicted
by night terror and the wail of an animal in pain.
Yet it was not a cry of fear. That unmistakable note was quite absent
from its shrill cadences.
The deep silence of the house fell again, and muffled all sound, so
that he found himself wondering whether his senses, in the eerie
darkness, had not deceived him. He passed through the door and came
out into the center of the hall.
There was no further sound. In front of him, as his torch showed, was
the main doorway behind a wide oak staircase. The light of the stars,
when he switched off again, was visible through long mullioned windows
set behind it. He crept up the stairs and had reached the landing
which divided the two flights when the cry was repeated.
It came from a room on the left side of the house. Heard at this
greater nearness, it sounded rather less terrifying, rather more
piteous. He hurried up the remaining steps, and came to the first
floor. The carpet was thick and soft and his passage made no sound. He
stepped quickly along the corridor in the direction from which the cry
had come.
And then, suddenly, the sound of voices talking in hurried tones came
to his ears.
He approached the door from which these sounds emanated. He stood
still, holding his breath in his eager excitement; but the door seemed
to be very thick and he could hear but little.
“To-morrow--the police--arrest.”
That voice, he thought, was Blunder’s, though he could not be quite
sure. Another, softer voice answered it, but what was spoken was
inaudible. He pressed his ear to the door and listened again. Then he
heard the first voice say:
“Even so, we cannot delay and the danger is small.”
Again the soft voice answered, and again he failed to catch what it
said. But one thing was clear. Estelle Armand was in this house, and
these two men were deciding her fate. Then a terrible thought came to
him. The cry he had just heard must have been hers.
It was repeated at that instant. It came, undoubtedly, from the next
room to that in which the conference was going on. As it died away the
loud voice exclaimed:
“You hear? Surely that is sufficient?”
What was he to do? These men were desperate and there were two of
them. How could he hope to rescue the girl against their united
opposition. On the other hand, he was armed and they, possibly, were
not. But that was a desperate course, at best. It would be better and
wiser perhaps to steal away and rouse the Hazlemere police.
On the other hand time might be more vital than he supposed. What if
they had given the girl poison and were awaiting the effects of it. He
shuddered as the idea crossed his mind. But no, that could not be the
explanation, for they were speaking about handing her over to the
police. What could have happened then?
Again the cry.
It was different this time, longer, wilder. Suddenly as he listened to
it, Dr. Hailey knew that his question was answered.
There could be no possibility of doubt. Estelle Armand was mad.
By their treatment of her in these tragic days of her young life, the
villains had robbed her of her senses. A burning fury of indignation
drove all thought of his own safety, even of caution, from the
doctor’s mind. He plunged his hand into his pocket and drew out his
pistol, then, with a swift movement of his hand and arm, he flung open
the door.
The scene which greeted him caused him to hold his breath.
Seated round a table in the center of the room were Blunder, a young
man with fair hair, and a young woman in a nurse’s uniform with a huge
red cross on her breast. Blunder appeared to be weeping.
At sight of Dr. Hailey brandishing his pistol, they all sprang to
their feet. The woman screamed and the man, instinctively, it seemed,
ducked down under the table. Only the little lawyer maintained his
_sang-froid_.
“What, my dear doctor,” he cried, “have you actually followed me from
Hempstead?”
He looked up without a tremor of fear into the muzzle of the gun. His
eyes, reddened as they were, did not flinch.
“What is the meaning of this?” the doctor cried, “and what have you
done with Miss Armand? What damnable villany is afoot here?”
“If you please--” Mr. Blunder raised his hand in a deprecating
gesture, “I cannot really talk to you while you flourish that weapon
in that exceedingly--shall I say?--theatrical manner. There is, as
doubtless you perceive, a lady here, and she is naturally alarmed.”
“I mean to have no nonsense.”
“Of course not. And let me say, I admire your zeal nearly as much as I
deprecate your lack of judgment. Permit me to introduce to you Dr.
Parsons and his wife, who are rendering me and, incidentally, Miss
Armand, a very great and heroic service.”
Dr. Hailey glanced at the doctor. His weak face was still full of
anxiety, but he certainly looked innocuous enough.
“I don’t understand,” he declared bluntly. “What was that terrible cry
I heard just now.”
“That? That was Miss Armand, my patient. The poor lady has lost her
reason I fear.”
“Where is she?”
Dr. Parsons pointed to a door leading into the adjoining room.
“There,” he said. He signaled to his wife, who immediately left them
to go in beside the patient.
“So I was right in my suspicion. You have driven her out of her wits.”
“My dear doctor,” Blunder cried, “why will you jump to conclusions in
this frantic style? Is it necessary always to impute the worst, the
most villanous motive to your fellow-men. I know you are a detective,
of course, but even detectives allow that some men are honest.”
Blunder’s round face wore a slightly cynical smile. In spite of
himself, Dr. Hailey felt his admiration for the man increasing. Only
honesty, or genius, could maintain such an attitude in such
circumstances.
“I insist on an explanation,” he declared in tones which, as he felt
himself, lacked the conviction of his first assault.
“You shall have it. You may even keep your gun if you wish. I should
not care to rob you of that safeguard. But I do ask, as a matter of
common politeness, that you lower the muzzle of it. After all, you
might, inadvertently of course, pull the trigger, and I am not yet
anxious to quit this wicked world.”
Dr. Hailey lowered his pistol, but he refused the invitation to sit
down which followed this concession.
“Go on,” he declared; “I’m listening.” Blunder cleared his throat.
“You may or may not have observed,” he said, “that last night when I
spoke to you of Sir William Armand’s death, I adopted the most casual
tones?”
He paused. Dr. Hailey inclined his head.
“I noticed it,” he declared.
“You would, of course. Very well, my reason was not, as perhaps you
concluded, lack of affection for my dear partner--” again, to the
bewilderment of the doctor, the little man’s eyes filled with
tears--“but to the fact that I had already done all that lay in my
power to save his name from dishonor and calamity.”
He paused, and wiped his eyes with his big white handkerchief.
“You are aware, I know,” he continued, “that a warrant has been issued
for the arrest of Miss Armand. I foresaw that warrant when I heard of
Sir William’s disappearance, and before even his body was found--for
I knew that he could not have disappeared of his own free will.
“It was inevitable, surely, on the face of it--just as the arrest of
that poor young man was inevitable on the face of it. The police of
this country are not the fools which some people, I understand,
suppose them to be.”
There was a wealth of sarcasm in this last statement which made Dr.
Hailey redden in spite of himself. But he did not reply.
“And so, perhaps wrongly, I determined to do what I could to defeat
the ends of justice by furthering those of a higher justice and
conveying the poor girl to a place of refuge.”
“Ah, so _you_ were the mysterious stranger with the motor-car who came
to Calthorpe Hall, were you? I may congratulate myself on my
perspicacity.”
“Undoubtedly you are entitled to do that.”
Mr. Blunder rose and pressed the points of his fingers on the table--a
gesture, no doubt, which he often employed in the course of his
professional practice.
“When I made that journey,” he said, “I found, as I had reason to
expect to find, that this poor girl was sorely tried. I could see
then, though I lack perhaps the professional eye, that it was but a
matter of time until she broke down altogether. In other words, there
was not a moment to be lost if her reason was to be saved.”
He paused again, and again wiped his eyes. There were tears on both
his cheeks.
“This house, as you may or may not know, is a private house for cases
of incipient insanity. Dr. Parsons, who conducts it, is an old
personal friend of my own. I brought Miss Armand straight here from
London by private car. Unhappily I was too late.
“The breakdown, as you know, has taken place in spite of us. It was
because I received a message to that effect from the doctor at
Hempstead that I made this night journey.”
Dr. Hailey contracted his brows.
“I do not see,” he said, “why so much haste was necessary. Even in
these tragic circumstances you might, surely, have put off your visit
till the morning.”
Blunder waved his hand impatiently.
“I know. You think I was anxious to improve the chance given me by
your safe bestowal in my own house. I agree that, had I planned the
execution of some villany, the opportunity was a good one. My dear
sir, the reason why I made this night journey is far simpler than you
imagine.
“It is that Miss Estelle Armand is an epileptic--and my friends here
do not possess the necessary means of controlling such a case. When
you entered the room we were actually discussing what we should do in
the very difficult and terribly tragic circumstances. You will agree
that action is imperative--unless indeed you favor the view that I
should hand over the daughter of my old friend to the police.”
Dr. Hailey’s face was blank. He thought he had been prepared for
anything; he found himself unprepared for this.
“Can you be serious?” he said in tones which afforded a grudging
admission of his miscalculated action.
“I am indeed serious. Dr. Parsons will tell you that before Sir
William’s death I paid him a visit for the express purpose of
arranging Miss Armand’s transference to his care in order that what I
understand is a new and hopeful treatment might be given her. My late
partner was in a state of deadly anxiety about her condition, and no
wonder. On two separate occasions she has made determined attempts on
his own life.”
“What!”
“There is, unfortunately, no doubt whatever about it, though naturally
the matter was kept a profound secret. Only Sir William himself and I
knew anything at all about it, for it so happened that both the
attempts were made at night when father and daughter were alone
together in their drawing-room.
“It was only after the second attempt that my advice was sought, and
that, I believe, only because in the interval Miss Armand had engaged
herself to young Derwick. Not even the family doctor was consulted in
the matter.”
The lawyer’s voice had dropped to a whisper. He seemed to be greatly
moved; but, nevertheless, Dr. Hailey’s critical faculty was
reawakening after the shock it had received.
“I confess,” he said, “that it sounds to me a most improbable story. I
cannot imagine that Sir William would not at once, in these
circumstances, lay the matter before his doctor.”
“You did not know him as I knew him. To begin with, the late Lady
Armand was an epileptic. She left a special request in her will that
her husband would shield their daughter in every way against the
terrible consequences of this disease, should it ever break out in her
case. He regarded that as a trust from the dead.
“Moreover, he was terribly anxious that Estelle should be happily
married. It was his one hope to avoid all local publicity and seek a
cure, if such could be obtained.”
“Then why did he order his daughter to break off her engagement? I
presume you mean to suggest that her illness had some relation to that
step.”
“It had, of course. The reason was that he felt that he was bound in
honor to save Derwick from the consequences of such a marriage. You
would not surely, as a physician, question the rightness of that
step?”
“I certainly should not question it.”
“Sir William was murdered because he came to this honorable
decision--a decision from which I confess I tried myself to dissuade
him only a few minutes before he met his death.”
“Good heavens--so you are the man Sawyer!”
“Of course. Is that not sufficiently obvious from what I have been
telling you?”
CHAPTER XVII.
A CLIENT’S ILLNESS
To say that Dr. Hailey was convinced by this astonishing narrative
would be to do less than justice to his critical faculty. On the other
hand, he was made uneasy by it. Blunder, emphatically, had startled
him. He glanced down at the pistol in his hand, and experienced as he
did so a feeling of some regret that he should have acted so
violently.
He put the weapon back in his pocket. As he did so, he saw a smile
which was capable of various interpretations, none of them very
complimentary to himself, on the lawyer’s lips.
“May I add,” said Blunder, “that my disguise was worn at Sir William’s
own request? I have stayed on former occasions at Calthorpe Hall, and
might have been recognized. In the present instance it was
desirable--or so my late partner felt--that no inkling whatever of his
trouble should be obtained by any one.”
“But I don’t see----”
Blunder waved his hand in indication of his desire to be absolutely
frank.
“My dear sir, Sir William, as perhaps you know already, came to London
in the week before his death to ask my advice. I saw Dr. Parsons after
his visit, and arranged for Miss Armand’s treatment. The doctor gave
me his views of the case, and these I laid before my friend as soon as
possible. My visit was made for the express purpose of doing this.
“I confess that the news of the broken engagement came as a great
surprise, yet I would not dispute its fairness, though, as I have
said, I tried to mitigate its severity. When I left Sir William he was
profoundly disturbed and agitated.”
When he stopped speaking a heavy silence filled the room. They heard
the doctor’s wife moving about beside her patient. Far away in the
village a clock chimed the hour of five. Dr. Hailey sat down and took
out his snuff-box.
“It is a very strange story,” he declared. “It does not seem to help
us much with the solution of the mystery, does it?”
“Except that Miss Armand’s mind may well have become unhinged when her
happiness was threatened. I speak subject to correction, but I believe
that if there is insanity in a family a severe shock is apt to bring
it out. The girl set immense store by this love affair.
“I can imagine that she might be ready to go any lengths to safeguard
it--even the length of murder. Remember, she had already tried on two
occasions to kill her father.”
Blunder was now at his ease. He got up and came toward Dr. Hailey,
waving his fat hands as he did so in a manner which suggested the
efforts of a swimmer. There was the plain suggestion in his attitude
that he meant to bear no ill-will against a meritorious though
misguided upholder of the law.
“Of course,” he added, “in telling you all this I am placing myself in
your hands; but I believe I speak as one gentleman to another.
Meanwhile, come and see Miss Armand for yourself.”
He led the way to the door of the bedroom. Dr. Parsons followed him. A
moment later Dr. Hailey found himself face to face with tragedy.
Estelle lay back on the pillows, over which her beautiful golden hair
was spread in disorder. Her face was very pale, but red spots burned
in each cheek. She had an unnatural, wild loveliness. Her lips kept
moving to frame a torrent of incoherent sound, and her hands, free of
the bedclothes, wandered over them in great restlessness.
The doctor advanced to the side of the bed where Mrs. Parsons stood
with a cup and spoon in her hands. He bent over the recumbent figure,
watching the twitching eyelids and ever-shifting hands in silence. He
could doubt no longer that some terrible disorder of the mind
afflicted the poor girl, but he realized also that he could give no
name to the picture presented to him. Her wonderful beauty seemed to
intensify the tragedy.
Estelle opened her eyes and gazed up vacantly into his face. For a
moment he seemed to see fear in that glance, but her lips smiled and
she muttered something about having enjoyed herself very much. Then
she laughed outright and turned over on her side. Dr. Parsons had
joined his professional brother, and said:
“I am not quite clear about the nature of the case. It is delirium, of
course, but from what cause arising is difficult to say. I have given
her some morphia.”
Dr. Hailey nodded. He knew enough to know that the text-book
descriptions of insanity are seldom accurate for any individual case.
So it was with all descriptions of disease. Always the patient
possessed his or her own inflection--just as each human voice is
subtly different from all the others.
He turned away from the bed and came back to the door. Blunder opened
it and passed out with him into the anteroom.
“Are you satisfied?” he asked in low tones.
He appeared to be greatly overcome again. A sense of utter
bewilderment took hold of Dr. Hailey. He nodded slowly without
speaking.
“In my place, you would have acted in the same way?”
There was just a trace of urging in the lawyer’s voice.
“I don’t know. Perhaps I should have. I think if I had really believed
that she killed her father, or helped to kill him, I certainly should
have.”
“Thank you.”
The lawyer smiled in a watery, chastened manner. Then he indicated the
sideboard, on which were several bottles and siphons and some
sandwiches. He said that he could offer port or sherry or a whisky and
soda. Dr. Hailey, however, was in no mood for eating or drinking. His
bewilderment had dulled the edge of his humor.
Every idea which he had formed of this case seemed to have been
incorrect from the very beginning. The force of Biles’s contention
that Blunder could have had no part in the murder, on the mere obvious
ground of time, struck him anew. He had been too subtle and so had
failed where a more practical mind had achieved success.
In his hurry to be gone from the house he so far retracted his
suspicions as to assure the lawyer that he would not, personally,
communicate to the police the whereabouts of the missing girl. He
promised, too, to leave the Ford car in the garage behind the
law-courts, and apologized for having borrowed it. He went out by the
back door, having found his coat and shoes in the little pantry.
On the way back to London a great weariness came on him--the
consequence, perhaps, of his despondency, as much as of his exertions.
He could scarcely keep awake until the difficulties of the city
traffic roused him. He drove straight home from the garage and went
immediately to bed. It was nearly dinner-time before he woke in
response to a telephone call.
He had a switch to his bed. It was Biles, just arrived from Newcastle,
where the proceedings against Derwick had been opened. He asked him to
come to dinner and rang at once for his man.
Biles was, if possible, more satisfied than ever with the progress of
the case. Fresh items of evidence, he declared, were being collected.
They all bore out the central thesis of the prosecution that Derwick
was the murderer, and that Estelle had helped him--probably after the
event.
“We don’t think that she actually gave him the hypodermic syringe and
the morphia,” he explained. “Probably she had spoken of her possession
of these, and he knew where they were kept, and so was able to obtain
them before he went out.
“I fancy he lacked the nerve to kill the old man outright, and so
planned to trip him up and, as it were, anæsthetize him in the first
instance. The rest was easy, and of course he counted on the certainty
of the body remaining undiscovered.
“That, my dear doctor, was where you were too clever for him. The more
I think of your work at Calthorpe, the more intensely I admire it.”
It must be confessed that, in his present chagrin, Dr. Hailey found
this tribute rather gratifying. He would have dismissed his more
recent adventures from his mind if he could, and accepted
wholeheartedly the plausible if rather clumsy explanation of the
tragedy which Biles was offering; but even as he listened, the
knowledge came again to him that such acceptance was impossible. That
dogged instinct of his rejected the argument with an energy which
surprised him.
“My dear Biles,” he said in his most deliberate manner, “would you
attempt to administer a dose of morphia in that fashion?”
“Certainly not.”
Biles’s tone was brusque. It was his experience that the worst way of
approaching a crime was to attempt to place one’s self in the position
of the criminal. The tendency to do this which Dr. Hailey habitually
exhibited seemed to him a fatal bar to success. It was the streak of
amateurishness in an otherwise supremely capable detective.
He tried to explain this in language which would not afford the least
ground for offense. Dr. Hailey’s spirits revived a little in the face
of opposition.
“If Derwick committed the murder,” he said, “he did so in a moment of
passion--during, that is to say, an altercation with the old man. No
other explanation seems to me to be even a possible one.”
“In that case the fatal dose of morphia--for it was a fatal dose--must
have been administered by the girl before her father left home. It is
just possible, of course----”
“It is just possible----”
Dr. Hailey lifted his wine-glass, which contained some choice old
Burgundy, to his lips, and drank thoughtfully. His dull eyes traveled
round the beautiful dining-room, to every detail of which he had given
his closest personal attention. He asked the detective to tell him
about the scene in the magistrate’s court when Derwick was charged.
“It was purely formal, of course. The prisoner seemed very ill at
ease.”
“No wonder.”
The butler served the last course and then withdrew. Dr. Hailey pushed
the port toward his companion, who was engaged in cutting a large
cigar. He helped himself to a tiny glass of old brandy.
“You mentioned some further clews,” he said.
“Oh, yes. It appears that Sir William visited London a few days before
his death, and had an interview with his partner. That, I take it, was
his avowed reason for the journey. The real reason, probably, was
connected with the other matter which brought Sawyer to the Black Bull
and led to the breaking off of the engagement. There is no doubt in my
mind that a connection exists between those events.”
Dr. Hailey remained silent. He could not now mention that his own
suspicions about Sawyer were correct. If what Blunder had told him,
however, was even approximately true, Biles’s reading of the case in
this direction, at any rate, did him credit. He raised his brandy to
his lips.
“And then we found a letter in Sir William’s desk--or rather, I should
say, the beginning of a letter. I don’t attach much importance to it.
It was addressed to Lady Windwest--‘My dear Lady Windwest’--and
consisted of but two lines in which he said he had heard with deep
regret of her illness, and wished to take an early opportunity of
seeing her. The letter broke off at that point.”
“Lady Windwest!”
Dr. Hailey’s expression had changed in an instant. Biles observed the
alert manner which had so far been conspicuously absent. He felt a
real thrill of joy in seeing his friend evince further interest in a
case which seemed to have lost all attraction for him.
“She is the widow of the Earl of Windwest, you know,” he explained.
“Armand & Blunder are the family solicitors.”
“The deuce they are!”
Dr. Hailey rose and asked his guest to excuse him a moment. He went
out of the room and returned presently carrying a file of the _Times_.
He cleared a place for it on the table and laid it open before him.
Then he turned up the number corresponding to the day of Sir William’s
murder. There was a paragraph in the column of society news, stating
that Lady Windwest’s recovery was being well maintained. He turned
back a week and found the following, which he showed to Biles, in the
same column:
Lady Windwest’s condition gives rise to very grave anxiety. The
pneumonia from which she is suffering has invaded both lungs, and her
pulse continues to show signs of weakness.
“That would reach Calthorpe, I fancy, the day before Sir William left
for London.”
Biles drew out his notebook and consulted the table of dates he had
made in connection with the case.
“Yes,” he said, “that is certainly accurate.”
Two days later the _Times_ announced that a turn for the better had
taken place in the patient’s condition. The doctor directed his
guest’s attention to this item also.
“You do not know,” he asked, “whether Sir William’s visit was made in
connection with some change in the lady’s will?”
Biles shook his head.
“Impossible. She lives in Herefordshire, near Ross. Sir William
certainly did not travel there.”
Dr. Hailey took out his snuff-box and snuffed vigorously.
“Then, in all probability, he came to town to satisfy himself that
everything connected with the estate was in good order.”
“Yes, possibly.”
Dr. Hailey leaned across the table toward the detective. His eyes
gleamed.
“Supposing--that everything was not in good order.”
CHAPTER XVIII.
FINANCING POPPY
The jury, at the adjourned inquest on Sir William Armand’s body,
returned a verdict of wilful murder against Jack Derwick. Dr. Hailey
had expected that, and because of his expectation had refrained from
going to Calthorpe. He felt that the time given him to probe this
mystery was all too short to permit of his wasting a single hour of
it.
Unless he could produce evidence of a convincing kind within the next
few weeks, Derwick would assuredly pay the penalty of his life.
It was a horrible thought, for, in spite of all that Biles could urge,
the doctor was unconvinced. His instinct refused the whole theory of
the crime which the prosecution had built up; and yet he was forced to
confess that his suspicions of Blunder had found no confirmation in
the investigations he had made.
He spent wakeful hours testing the story which the lawyer had told
him. He was compelled to admit that, whether true or untrue, it held
together. Estelle Armand was undoubtedly insane. There was nothing
even improbable in the story of her epilepsy--his professional
experience had furnished him with examples of the same kind of thing
on many occasions--carefully guarded secrets of mysterious “fits”
which fathers and mothers, or brothers and sisters, persisted in
regarding as mere fainting attacks, but of which they never spoke to
any outside person.
It was certain, moreover, that Blunder had not buried the murdered
body. The idea that he possessed an accomplice was ridiculous on the
face of it. That a man should begin a crime of that sort, a crime
evidently premeditated and thought out in every detail, and not finish
it, was absurd.
And yet there were suspicious circumstances connected with the lawyer
which could not be overlooked. Why, for example, had he been at such
pains to hide his identity during his stay at the Black Bull?
He had worn a false beard, adopted an _alias_, and even taken the
trouble to disguise his finger-prints. It was comprehensible that some
steps to avoid village gossip might have been necessary, but these
minute precautions suggested, surely, a deeper, more sinister purpose.
And then there were those pieces of glass which he had found in the
fender of the bedroom. Blunder did not look like a drug-taker himself.
What, then, was he doing with a phial of hypodermic pellets?
He had omitted to ask him that question, but the omission did not
signify much. The lawyer would merely have disclaimed all knowledge of
the matter, and it could not be denied that the fragments of glass
might have been dropped in the fender by some previous visitor.
Did Blunder, then, really believe that Estelle Armand had helped to
murder her father? He did believe, on his own statement, that she had
tried to kill him on two earlier occasions, but the events were not
strictly comparable.
In the one instance epileptic attacks had overwhelmed her; in the
other, she was possessed of her faculties. Yet, he had seen with his
own eyes how fragile was her sanity, how easily unhinged her mind in
the face of disaster.
Suppose that she, and she alone, had committed the crime. But no, that
was impossible. No girl of her build could have carried the body to
the churchyard and buried it there. Her part, if indeed she had played
a part at all, must have been that of accessory before or after the
fact.
That brought him back again to Derwick, for obviously he was the only
person whom the girl could have assisted. They had been together, too,
in the pine wood a few minutes before the dead man entered it----
His brain reeled. He got up and paced his consulting-room restlessly.
So impenetrable a mystery had never before disquieted him. Whichever
way it was looked at, grotesque improbabilities met the vision.
He reflected that there was only one clew remaining to him to follow
up--that furnished by the letter to Lady Windwest, which Sir William
had left unfinished in his desk. Behind that letter lay the remote
possibility that Blunder had been a dishonest steward and had
misappropriated trust funds.
It was a slender chance enough, for the firm of Armand & Blunder was,
by common repute, an exceedingly wealthy one. The partners in such an
old established firm would be the last people on earth to run risks of
this kind. Moreover, Blunder lived frugally enough. His establishment
at Hempstead was by no means bigger than might have been expected in
the case of a man in his position, nor was his town house at all
suggestive of extravagance. There was no reason to suppose that he was
addicted to gambling.
Could Miss Poppy de Vere, the actress, supply the key to the riddle?
Dr. Hailey’s mind was singularly romantic for a man of his wide
experience of the darker side of human nature. In a sense he idealized
all women; it was the hardest possible thing for him to believe evil
of any of them--though he was a shrewd enough judge of woman’s
character when it was actually before him.
Somehow, he did not believe that a very pretty young girl--he had seen
a photograph of Poppy de Vere in one of the illustrated papers--would
have dealings of any kind with such a man as Blunder.
The clew, however, was his last remaining hope. He must meet this
young woman, and if possible attempt to discover whether or not she
was on intimate terms with the lawyer--in any case, why her
handkerchief had been found in the pocket of Blunder’s coupé. He
decided that his first step should be a visit to his old friend Rhoda
Romney, whose knowledge of the stage seemed to grow more extensive
with each year of her separation from that scene of her triumphs.
He drove to her flat in Cheyne Walk, just before tea-time. She was
alone in her strangely furnished drawing-room, which suggested, he
always thought, a museum combined with a high-class curiosity shop.
Relics of the wonderful past jostled there against pieces from the
drawing-rooms of old Versailles and the Faubourg--pieces collected
haphazard, without much care, but always with discrimination.
Yet the room lacked nothing of comfort. Indeed its comfort transcended
and embraced its motley furnishings, making them, somehow, a proper
background for the personality of their owner.
Miss Romney was busy writing when he discovered her, but the tea-table
was already set. He caught the gleam of wonderful silver, the
indefinable suggestion of deliciousness in store. His hostess rose
with the enthusiasm of a girl and came to him, both hands extended in
welcome.
“My dear, good Eustace, how delightful of you.”
She took his hands and looked up into his face, and he saw again the
woman whose beauty was proverbial. Sixty years had but slightly, he
thought, tarnished that luster.
“Ah, dear Rhoda,” he said, “already you make me feel ashamed of
myself, of my mission.”
She stood away from him, smiling.
“I know what that means,” she cried; “you have come on business. You
men--you men! When we are young and when we are old, it is the same
thing. Always you come with a purpose, never just for the joy of
coming. And yet, you know, we are glad to see you however you come.”
She installed her visitor in a great chair, covered with a royal robe
of silk which, in spite of its age, possessed still much of its
ancient splendor. He was aware immediately of the sense of well-being
which her presence always induced in him; the charm which had
captivated every audience, almost from the rise of the curtain, was as
potent as ever.
“You shall talk to me,” she declared, “when I have given you tea--and
not before. But don’t be afraid. I know what it means to be busy, and
I can guess how anxious the work of unraveling this case must be. I
have read all the reports of it, you see. Your name has been mentioned
again and again.”
She lifted the big teapot which cunning hands had shaped, a century
before, in the form of a dragon, with fierce muzzle and terrible
claws. The exquisite, wide cups were filled with meticulous care.
Dr. Hailey possessed himself of one of them, and at the same time
lifted the cover from a muffin-dish and presented it to his hostess.
The muffins, he noticed, were buttered to perfection.
“Do you happen to know a girl whose stage name is Poppy de Vere?” he
asked in his gentlest tones.
“Yes.”
Miss Romney’s voice was crisp. Her monosyllable seemed to compromise
between a desire to say much and an even stronger wish to say nothing
at all. Dr. Hailey sipped his tea.
“I understand,” he remarked at length, “or at least I think I do.”
“My dear Eustace, you certainly do not. Poppy de Vere is exactly the
kind of girl whom a man like you is incapable of understanding. And so
men like you come, sometimes, to great disaster. I have seen it.”
“From which I may infer that you do not like the young lady?”
Miss Romney’s lips parted in sudden hesitation. It was an expression
which, when she was a girl, had been described again and again by
enthusiastic admirers in the press.
“No--you must not infer that--at least, not quite that. There is
something about Poppy--I believe that if there were no men in the
world, I should like her very much indeed. But that is not fair to
you, is it?”
“I confess it leaves me a little bewildered.”
“Poppy is a man’s girl--in the strictest sense of that horrid
expression. She drives some men quite crazy.”
Dr. Hailey handed his hostess the cake-basket. She selected a
sponge-finger and began to nibble it.
“Do you understand now?” she asked.
“Mm, yes, in a way. I suppose that means that she is as greedy as the
proverbial sparrow?”
“Not greedy--spendthrift.”
Dr. Hailey laid his cup on the table and took out his snuff-box.
“I see,” he declared,” the sort of a girl who doesn’t mean to ruin the
men she makes friends of.”
“Exactly.”
“Still, extravagance is an elastic term, you know. In Tooting, I am
told, it is reckless extravagance to possess ten hats.”
“Poppy de Vere is extravagant after the fashion of the Rue de la
Paix.”
Miss Romney refilled her visitor’s cup. She watched him take snuff
with the fascinated interest of a child who has been expecting the
exhibition of a mannerism, and crows inwardly with delight when
expectation is realized.
“Hats in her case are a cure for melancholy.”
“Curious,” said Dr. Hailey, “but I have observed myself that women of
that sort are always the victims of depression.”
“Because they are always the victims of _ennui_. Buying happiness is
so much more difficult than buying hats.”
Dr. Hailey stirred his second cup of tea reflectively. This was the
kind of girl who might, after all, supply him with the motive he was
looking for. Yet he found it more difficult than ever to associate her
with Blunder. He wondered whether or not he should pursue the matter
further.
“One more question,” he said, “and I will apologize for my curiosity.
Does Miss de Vere earn a good income by her acting?”
“About £4 or £5 a week--not a penny more.”
“Yet she played the lead in---- I forget the name of the piece.”
“My dear Eustace, you said ‘earn.’ I have no doubt she has been paid
very much larger sums on many occasions.”
“In that case I want to meet her.”
Miss Romney opened her eyes, but before he had time to observe this
expression she had changed it. The actress died hard in the woman.
“I shall ask her to my next At Home then--on Friday. Will that do?”
“To-day is Tuesday. I haven’t much time to spare; but we can’t force
matters, I think.”
“And I shall introduce you as the eminent Harley Street specialist.
Poppy likes eminent men, especially if they are rich as well as
distinguished. And now tell me this, just to satisfy an old woman’s
curiosity: Is it in connection with the Armand case that you are
making this--this move?”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall tell you something which I am quite sure you will like
to know. The last time Poppy de Vere played lead in a West End
production, Mr. Blunder, of Armand & Blunder, found the money for the
show. People who understand these matters put his total loss at about
£10,000.”
CHAPTER XIX.
A SUM IN ARITHMETIC
Miss Romney’s At Homes had this in common with the British
Museum--that they brought together times past and present. They were
at once an anachronism and a joy. The older actors and actresses who
came to them caught, once again, the spirit of their first successes;
the younger found success of a sort in having been invited.
In this company Poppy de Vere looked surprisingly modest. She did not
look like an actress, but, as Dr. Hailey had anticipated, like a nun.
He observed her very carefully before he was introduced to her, and
was frankly astonished.
He had expected a degree of flamboyancy as well as of saintliness; he
saw a girlish figure dressed in the simplest possible style. It did
not immediately occur to him that that simplicity had cost more than
all the bizarre raiment in the room put together.
Miss de Vere’s face was greatly intelligent. Her brow was broad, her
eyes widely set, her nose and mouth excellently proportioned. She
possessed, too, very charming hands, the hands of a well-bred woman.
He turned away, and then looked back again. There was a dreamy quality
in her big eyes which appealed to him in spite of himself.
When Miss Romney introduced him, he became acutely conscious of this
quality. It dominated the girl’s expression, giving her an air of
remoteness from her surroundings. She seemed to look on the world from
a distance, and there was the suggestion that this vantage-ground was
infinitely to be desired--a place of enchantment and wonder.
Nevertheless, there was a shyness, almost a _gauche_ quality in her
manner, which maintained the girlishness of her appearance in spite of
her siren glances. It would be possible, he felt, to believe all the
good in the world of her, while at the same time abandoning one’s self
to her bewitchments.
That impression, however, did not endure. When he had talked to her
for a few minutes on indifferent topics, he found himself becoming
aware of another feeling--which he could only characterize as the
effect of an overwhelmingly feminine temperament on a purely masculine
one.
Miss de Vere made love with her eyelids. She promised understanding
and sympathy in conventional phrases about the weather. As he watched
her, there arose in his mind the memory of the family circle at
Hempstead as he had seen it on the night of his motor smash--Mrs.
Blunder, incurably virtuous and hard, the girl, hard without any other
quality whatever except her high spirits, Blunder, with his obvious,
pitiful hankering after the pretty things of life--the feminine
things. How overpowering must be the effect of such a girl as this on
such a man.
He looked down--into the depths of the velvety gray eyes, which were
smiling up at him. Miss de Vere said:
“You are not really listening to me, are you, Dr. Hailey?”
“I was thinking about you, though.”
“What a little fool I am, no doubt.”
“On the contrary----”
He led her through the crush to the refreshment room and found a seat
for her in a quiet corner. He fetched a cup of tea and sat beside her.
“Tell me about your new part,” he said.
He saw her cheeks flush quickly. The velvet eyes grew discontented.
“My new part? Oh, that’s all off now.”
“What!”
He affected a note of pained astonishment.
“Yes. It’s a beastly nuisance, but my luck this year is all out. Do
you know, this has been the very worst year of my whole
life--everything has gone wrong. It’s all very difficult.”
It was, apparently, because the girl pouted in a sulky fashion, of
which he would scarcely have supposed her capable. Yet the feminine
quality which radiated from her suffered no diminution in the change
of her expression. It seemed, indeed, to grow in intensity. He could
imagine the devastating effect on a lover of this show of feeling.
“I suppose,” he said, “that it is difficult to finance any play just
now. Times are bad, you know.”
She bit her lip.
“That doesn’t make disappointment any easier to bear, does it?” she
exclaimed. “Men never seem to think how much a girl like me counts on
her work to keep her spirits up. When I heard that the play must be
dropped, I felt so utterly wretched that I could hardly bear to live.”
There was fresh resentment in her voice. Evidently she considered that
the reasons for the abandonment of this enterprise--whatever it might
be--were inadequate. Dr. Hailey drew a bow at a venture.
“Mr. Blunder was to have financed the play, wasn’t he?” he asked in
casual tones.
“Who told you that?”
“Oh, it’s common talk.”
The gray eyes searched his face. He bore the scrutiny with what
indifference he could command.
“I wish,” said the girl sharply, “that people would mind their own
business. It’s disgusting, I think, the way everybody keeps prying and
nosing into my affairs.”
“My dear, it’s human nature.”
Her mood changed suddenly, and the sulky look in her eyes cleared
away. She showed him a very charming smile--so charming that he felt
genuinely sorry for her disappointment. What Rhoda Romney had said
about this girl was true in every respect.
“Bring me another cup of tea,” she asked, “and then I shall be quite
good-tempered again.”
She was pensive when he returned with the tea, as though her mind was
already far away from the things they had been talking about. Her fine
eyes seemed gentler, too.
“It is kind of you,” she said simply.
He sat in silence, not knowing what to say. After a few minutes she
suggested that they should return to the drawing-room.
“May I come and see you some time?” he asked.
“Of course, any time. You know my address.”
He was aware that her interest had reawakened suddenly. Probably she
was still thinking of her leading part; one man would be as good as
another to adventure his money in theatrical enterprises. And yet she
did not strike him as particularly worldly.
He waited behind when the other guests had gone away--a privilege he
often exercised at Miss Romney’s.
“You were right, of course--as you always are--about that girl,” he
told her. “She is exactly as you described her.”
The actress lay back in one of her great chairs with her arms extended
before her. She seemed to be very tired, though he could not decide
whether this was real or only make-believe.
“My dear Eustace,” she said in weary tones, “I almost forget my own
description now. These people exhaust me more than they used to.” She
added after a moment, lest he should think her ungracious, “She is
charming, isn’t she?”
“Very charming.”
“Did you discover what you wanted to discover?”
“Some of it.”
There was another pause. Then Miss Romney smiled in her half-cynical
fashion which never conveyed any real impression of cynicism.
“You will not rest content until you have discovered all,” she
declared. “I know you. To-morrow, or the next day, poor Poppy’s
secrets will be dragged from her. It must be terrible to be a
detective--even an amateur detective--I think.”
“And yet, you know, curiosity is a quality of art. As an artist----”
He did not finish his sentence. Miss Romney nodded.
“We are all hag-ridden,” she declared. “It would be better to break
stones.”
He walked home through a mist which lay lightly on the pavements like
the foam of some ghostly sea. Exercise cleared his brain and enabled
him to think. When he reached Harley Street, his mind was restored to
the activity which the adventure at Hazlemere had, for the moment,
almost brought to a standstill.
Whatever might be the truth of that affair, it was certain that
Blunder was spending a great deal more money than any of his
acquaintances supposed him to be spending. He did not know very much
about the theater, but he knew enough to realize that financing plays
for the purposes of friendship is one of the highroads to ruin. Only a
millionaire can continue to pursue that hobby.
It followed that the lawyer was probably in monetary difficulties
already. When a man of that type begins to pander to a woman’s
fancies, he is very far gone indeed. As a rule he is quite incapable
of stopping in time. The fact that a halt had been called to the
expenditure meant, without a doubt, that sheer necessity dictated that
course.
In other words, Blunder was ruined. The question remained to what
depths of disaster he had sunk. Had he, for example, spent other
people’s money as well as his own--Lady Windwest’s money? If so, then
Sir William Armand must have experienced the greatest shock of his
life when he visited his office during his last day in London.
Dr. Hailey accepted that idea as true for a moment, in order the
better to arrive at the consequences which must have followed. Sir
William was, beyond all doubt, a man of very high honor. He would be
appalled, stricken.
His first impulse would certainly be to find the money himself, and so
at least secure his client against loss.
He was a rich man, but his total fortune probably did not exceed
£100,000. Suppose that this sum was inadequate to cover the
defalcations? Rhoda Romney, who was no financier, had put the losses
on one play alone at £10,000.
And there had been two plays at least. He consulted his theater guide
again. The first was called _The Giddies_, and had been produced in
1920. He could faintly remember seeing the bills. It had run just ten
weeks.
_The Girlies_ followed in 1922, and ran a fortnight. This last was the
£10,000 adventure clearly; he wondered whether its predecessor, in
its ten weeks’ course, had not cost double that sum. Both were
exceedingly expensive plays.
And that, of course, was only the beginning of Poppy de Vere’s
extravagance. If she had managed to wheedle £30,000 from her lover
for plays, how much had she not obtained in the last four or five
years for clothes and jewelry, for hats, for houses, for motor-cars,
for visits to fashionable resorts, for eating and drinking?
Moreover, it was possible that Blunder had been the victim of this
infatuation for a decade. Poppy was not a child, and Mrs. Blunder must
have been almost unendurable from an early period of her wedded life.
It was, therefore, quite possible that Sir William’s whole fortune was
inadequate to make good the embezzlements of his partner. His course,
in that case, would not be difficult to determine. He would pay what
he could and put the matter at once in the hands of the police lest
bad should become worse.
But that meant absolute ruin for himself as well as for Blunder. He
was a partner of the firm, jointly responsible for all its dealings.
He must have realized with deadly clarity that his name was bound to
be covered in disgrace.
Nor could his daughter escape a share of this tragedy.
Dr. Hailey got up, as the thought expanded in his mind, and began to
pace the floor of his consulting-room. Estelle Armand’s shame would
cover also her future husband, Jack Derwick, M.P.
It would lead inevitably to his retirement from politics--to the ruin
of his career, both as a politician and a barrister. Unless, indeed,
he could make good his escape from the entanglement. But a decent man
does not break off his engagement in such circumstances.
Was that, then, the reason for the mysterious order to Estelle to get
quit of her lover as speedily as possible--an order which she obeyed
immediately? On the other hand, it must be admitted that the theory
supplied Derwick with a fresh motive for the crime of which he was
being accused. If Sir William’s mouth was sealed in the mysterious way
attempted, the shame of exposure would be delayed and very greatly
lessened. The law does not proceed against dead men.
Next morning a fresh consideration occurred to him. It was just
possible that Sir William might have refunded the money, and yet in
addition to that have felt it his duty to inform the police. In that
case, his death would save the situation for every one
concerned--Blunder among the number.
But these were suppositions. He must possess facts. Immediately after
lunch he called his car, and drove out to Hempstead to redeem his
promise to Miss de Vere.
The outside of her house, as he saw it when he approached, did not
suggest extravagance. It was a Georgian house, with long windows and a
severe beauty of line which enchanted him. But the rent, he guessed,
could not exceed £200 a year.
He sent his car away and rang the bell. It was answered by a maid, who
showed him through a paneled hall to the drawing-room.
The room was empty. A single glance at it made him gasp with
amazement. Never, anywhere, had he seen such splendid, such prodigal
luxury. This luxury spread itself everywhere.
The very walls were hung with tapestries which, he knew, must be
almost priceless--glorious scenes executed in the grandest style of a
period which created beauty for the enjoyment of kings and queens.
The carpet was another miracle of loveliness--an old French texture of
the early Versailles period. The curtains over the window were of
exquisite rose brocade.
He glanced at the furnishings, the tables of bric-a-brac, the huge
piano, the exquisite little bronzes which flirted with the light, the
enamels, the inlays--there was not an article of them all which was
not perfect in its own way, not an article which had not been chosen
with the loving care of enthusiasm and experience.
In the light of this artistic triumph, the drawing-room at Hempstead
seemed like a crude sketch. But they bore, nevertheless, the imprint
of the same hand.
The door opened. Poppy de Vere came into the room.
PART IV
CHAPTER XX.
DR. HAILEY EAVESDROPS
Her appearance was a fresh surprise. She was dressed in a blue
tea-gown, which on some women would have looked dowdy. Worn by Poppy
de Vere, it looked ravishing. Her fair hair and delicate complexion
contrasted exquisitely with its deeper color. Her slight figure made
its looseness an artistic triumph.
Dr. Hailey glanced at her in admiration which he could not disguise.
No wonder men were found to gratify the whim of so lovely a creature.
“I didn’t think you would come so soon,” said the girl in tones which
left him doubtful whether or not she welcomed his visit. He felt
suddenly as awkward as a school-boy.
“I’m afraid,” he declared, “that my visit is not--what perhaps it may
seem to be.”
The big eyes opened wider.
“How funny!”
“You see, I am a doctor. A doctor hears a great deal which does not
reach the ears of other people.”
He paused again, trying to think how he should handle a situation
which had been made unexpectedly difficult for him.
Miss de Vere bit her lip.
“Don’t say you’ve come to feel my pulse,” she exclaimed, “because I
can assure you I’m quite well, thank you.”
He decided swiftly. He would be frank with her--up to a point.
“You may have seen in the papers,” he said, “that I am helping the
police in the Armand case. I believe you are a friend of Mr. Blunder,
who was Sir William Armand’s partner, and I believe you can help me.”
The girl’s face became grave.
“Mr. Blunder is not a friend of mine,” she declared.
“Then I have been mistaken.”
Her eyes were troubled. He thought that he saw a hidden fear in them.
“Will you go away now?” she said simply.
He turned to the door. He was just about to open it when the street
bell rang sharply twice. The sound drove the blood from the girl’s
face.
“Oh,” she cried, “he’s there. He will find you. What am I to do?”
Her voice challenged and appealed to him at the same time.
“I will say----”
“No, no! He must not find you--not on any account. You don’t
understand.”
She glanced round the room with tragic eyes. They heard the steps of
the maid going to open the door. Suddenly she sprang to the curtains
and drew back the heavy folds of one of them. There was just room for
a man to stand within those folds.
“Quick!” she urged, imploring him in her distress.
He obeyed her. She drew the curtain about him with deft fingers,
arranging its folds so that even an observing eye would detect nothing
amiss. In his sorrow of having so deeply compromised her, he did all
that his inconvenient size would allow to facilitate the process.
A moment later the door opened and he heard Blunder’s voice say:
“My dear child, I had to come at once to tell you the good news.”
There was a pause, a gasp of admiration. Then the voice exclaimed:
“Aren’t you lovelier than loveliness itself?”
“Am I?”
“Babs, there is nobody like you in the world!”
Miss de Vere was evidently accustomed to this kind of talk. She urged
her visitor to come to the point and disclose the object of his visit.
“It’s about the play,” he declared, “we can go on with it.”
“What! Oh, you dear thing!”
“I found the money.”
There was a pause. Dr. Hailey imagined that the girl was rewarding her
benefactor with kisses but could not be sure. Then Blunder said:
“Never mind about the details, little puss, they wouldn’t interest you
a bit. You get busy on the production. This time I mean to
succeed--for I know we can succeed. We must get the very best crowd
obtainable. As Lady Di, you should set the town on fire.”
Miss de Vere clapped her hands.
“I’ll begin making plans to-day,” she assured him. “I’ll have the car
round at once and go and see Marston. We must have a Shaftesbury
Avenue House, of course--and--and----”
Her voice lost itself in her anticipations.
Blunder declared:
“And I’ll come back after dinner, if I may. I can’t wait now because
I’m up to the eyes in work at the office.”
He seemed to the listener to move about the room. Then, in a changed
voice, he asked:
“You will not bring David into it?”
“Oh, why not?”
“Because--” Suddenly the tones grew deep and violent. “Because, by
God, I won’t have it. Do you understand, child, I won’t have it. The
fellow’s in love with you!”
“You say that of everybody.”
“And it’s true--of everybody.”
In the silence which followed, Dr. Hailey could hear Mr. Blunder’s
breathing. Then the girl’s clear voice declared:
“I’ve told you before that I will not have my friends interfered with.
If I want David in the play, I’ll have him--or you can find another
girl to be Lady Di.”
“You are in love with David. My God, I can’t bear it!”
“I’m not in love with anybody.”
Blunder’s temper broke loose. He raved so that it was difficult to
recognize the cold, clever lawyer in this wild man, driven crazy by
jealousy.
“No,” he shouted, “that is the abominable thing. You are not in love
with anybody, because you are incapable of love! You love only
yourself--you are ice, steel. The men you know are only things to be
used and thrown away.
“Look at you a week ago when I was afraid I could not finance this new
toy! You hated me then, abused me, sneered at me. What did it matter
to you that I had ruined myself in satisfying all your whims? I might
go to the gutter and be hanged.
“Now, when I find the money, you will kiss me again. Ha! and you will
kiss other men, too--just as easily. You have no heart, no soul. How I
hate you! How I would like sometimes to take your pretty neck in my
hands and strangle you!”
“Please try to control yourself.”
Her words only fanned his exasperation.
“I won’t control myself. I have controlled myself long enough;
controlled myself to the tune of thousands, hundreds of thousands of
pounds. I have brought myself to the edge of ruin. And all the time I
have had the knowledge that you cared nothing--that you are unfaithful
in thought if not in fact--oh, you are poisonous, poisonous.”
The girl laughed softly.
“You know you don’t mean that,” she said in quiet tones.
“Mean it? I mean every word of it. But, believe me, I mean also to
draw the line here and now. I mean to have my money’s worth in
submission, if not in affection. I warn you that if I find you fooling
about with David--or anybody else--anybody else, mark you--I’ll close
down on the whole show. You can go to the devil for all I care!”
“So you don’t really love me?”
His voice broke so that Dr. Hailey could scarcely listen to it. The
madness of the wretch was strangely disagreeable, strangely piteous.
“You know that I love you with my whole soul, Babs. Oh, my God, how I
love you!”
“If you loved me, you would wish to make me happy.”
There was no reply for a moment. Then the lawyer spoke again in calmer
tones.
“I know you don’t mean to vex me,” he said, “but you’re strange, wild,
impossible, and I’m crazy. Oh, yes, I’m stark mad where you’re
concerned. For pity’s sake try to play straight with me, and I swear
you shall have all you want--all.”
“I always play straight with you.”
“I believe you do--in your own way. Perhaps it isn’t your fault that
men worship the ground you walk on.”
Mr. Blunder went away. When the door had closed behind him, Poppy de
Vere came and released Dr. Hailey from his prison. Her face was
flushed, and her deep eyes held a strange quality of resignation.
“It was your own fault,” she said coldly, “that you heard what you
heard. I think your visit a monstrous insult--in the circumstances.”
“You have the right to think that. Yet, believe me, the reason which
brought me here is serious beyond any exaggeration. That is my only
excuse.”
She walked to the fireplace and stood before it, a picture of girlish
loveliness.
“You heard what he said about me,” she declared. “I have no soul. I am
utterly selfish.”
“Yes, I heard. May I say that I pitied the man?”
She looked down into the fire, showing him the delectable lines of her
neck and shoulders.
“I suppose you may. I do myself--sometimes. And yet I like him,
too--and fear him.”
Her manner had changed entirely. She seemed anxious now to talk, as
though another nature had taken possession of her. Dr. Hailey had not
met any woman quite like this before--and yet he was surprised to find
that her inconsistencies did not puzzle him. In a sense she was
womanhood itself, an embodiment of all the worst--and perhaps of all
the best--qualities of her sex.
“You will have some tea?”
He protested that he must go, but she rang the bell. Then she asked:
“Did you find out what you came to find out?”
“Yes.”
“That Mr. Blunder has been spending a great deal of money on me?”
“No. I knew that before.”
She frowned. Then she shrugged her shoulders.
“I can’t see what you came for in that case,” she said.
“I came to discover whether he possessed any more money.”
“He does, evidently.”
“Evidently.”
She looked up into his face with eyes suddenly troubled.
“Do you mean that that fact tells against him in some way? Because, if
it does, it would not be fair of you to use it. You got it by a
trick--on a girl.”
He nodded slowly. He had been thinking the same thing.
“I promise you that I will not use it,” he said. “As it happens, there
are other bits of evidence which amount to the same thing.”
Possibly his tones were a little severe. In any case they alarmed his
companion. She came to him and put her hand on his arm.
“I feel that something terrible is going to happen,” she whispered; “I
feel it. And that you are going to make it happen. Oh, please, tell
me, have I been vile in getting this money out of him.”
“I don’t know.”
She uttered a little cry and covered her eyes with her hands.
“Has he--has he done something--awful?” she cried brokenly.
“I don’t know.”
“But you suspect--oh, I feel that you suspect, and it makes me
terrified. I wish now that I had refused to let him pay for the new
production.”
Dr. Hailey was silent a moment. She left him and sat down on a sofa
near the fire. Her maid brought in the tea-tray and arranged it. When
she had left the room again, he said:
“You see, a young man’s life is in danger. They have arrested Jack
Derwick on the charge of murdering Sir William Armand, and I feel
almost certain that he is innocent of that crime.”
She started up.
“You mean--that he--Blunder, is guilty. Oh, my God!”
“No. That is scarcely possible.”
“I should not like him less than I do, if he were guilty. I don’t mind
what people do--only what they are.”
Her face, as she said this, glowed with a resolution which transformed
it. Dr. Hailey felt a new interest in her.
“What is more,” she added, “I am going to warn him that you are after
him. It is only fair. After all, he has been my pal.”
He bowed his head.
“I can’t prevent you doing that,” he said. “But Mr. Blunder knows
already that I’m after him. We have met--often.”
“Then I needn’t have minded his finding you here. He would not have
suspected anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I shall tell him,” she repeated. “Perhaps it’s all I can do now to
help him.”
CHAPTER XXI.
BEHIND PRISON-BARS
Sir William Armand’s will appointed Mr. Blunder sole trustee. He
left the whole of his fortune to his daughter. The will had been made
more than a year before his death.
This information was brought to Dr. Hailey by Biles on the day
following his visit to Miss de Vere. It occasioned him no surprise.
Until the girl was found Blunder would have the disposal of one
hundred thousand pounds; and the girl, for reasons which he knew,
would not be found. Yet his lips were sealed. He could not even tell
his friend Biles, without prejudicing his honor.
For, after all, he had no real evidence that his theory was correct.
Blunder had spent large sums on Poppy de Vere; but he was a rich man.
He might have come to some belated arrangement with his bank which
enabled him to finance the new venture. On the other hand, if any
inkling of Estelle Armand’s whereabouts reached Scotland Yard, the
result would be her immediate arrest.
If only he knew whether or not Blunder was acting honestly in relation
to his partner’s daughter. Dr. Hailey had a deep respect for the law,
but nevertheless he would not stir a finger to betray the whereabouts
of that unhappy girl, of whose complete innocence he felt convinced.
Even if he had not, tacitly, promised to respect the lawyer’s secret,
he would, he told himself, have felt bound in honor to shield a broken
woman from the fresh horrors which awaited her.
Biles assured him that a verdict against Jack Derwick was a matter of
certainty. The case, even in the absence of Estelle, was complete. The
proceedings in the magistrate’s court would finish that week and the
trial might be expected within a fortnight--at the next Assizes.
“The prisoner,” he added, “means to conduct his own defense; but that
will not help him, clever barrister as he is.”
“On the contrary,” said Dr. Hailey, “it is madness. How can he collect
the necessary evidence from his cell in Newcastle Jail?”
“What evidence is there for him to collect? We shall put all the
available witnesses in the box. All he can do is cross-examine them.”
“He might be able, surely, to authenticate his movements on the night
of the murder.”
“My dear friend, the only person who could possibly give evidence on
that point is Miss Armand herself and she is still in hiding. I don’t
think I can ever remember a woman eluding the police so successfully
for so long a period.”
“No. It is extraordinary. You haven’t discovered any clew to her
whereabouts?”
“Not an inkling. We know that she entered the London express at
Newcastle in company with a man--and that’s all. Our people were
warned in time to meet the train at King’s Cross, but they saw nothing
of the couple.”
“The train stops at Grantham, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. Unfortunately, there was not time to cover that possibility.”
They were seated in the doctor’s consulting-room. He brought a box of
cigars and offered it to his friend, who selected one. Then he asked:
“Would I be permitted to see young Derwick in prison if I went to
Newcastle?”
Biles opened his eyes in astonishment.
“Why on earth should you want to do that?” he demanded sharply.
“Because I think I might be able to help him. Somehow, I cannot quite
feel about this case as you feel.”
“You don’t believe he is guilty?”
“Frankly, no.”
Biles thought a moment.
“It’s irregular, of course,” he said, “but we have no desire whatever
to stand in the way of his obtaining an absolutely fair deal. Scotland
Yard, as you know, prides itself on giving the men it prosecutes every
possible chance to save themselves. When do you want to go?”
Dr. Hailey considered. “Would Saturday be convenient?” he asked, “the
day after to-morrow?”
“Yes, quite convenient. I’m going back to-morrow for the final
proceedings at the police court. I’ll see the governor of the prison
myself.”
Dr. Hailey did not enjoy his visit to Newcastle. His enthusiasm for
detective work ended always at a prison’s gates. Indeed, he never
entered these terrible buildings without a shudder. The utter futility
of the whole system bore dismally on his spirit.
Biles had been as good as his word, and the governor, Colonel
Whitestar, a kindly man with the spirit of the army in his nostrils,
received him most graciously. But in the short interview they had in
the office not a word passed which was not directly concerned with
business.
This man, the doctor realized, had acquired a habit of reticence, just
as a surgeon acquires what the unthinking often call “callousness.” It
was his shield against the world in which he lived.
A warder with jingling keys conducted the visitor across the prison
yard, where men dressed in the raiment of shame were marching in
aimless circles round unhallowed patches of grass. The expressions on
their faces were the expressions of beasts of burden--of the less
well-conditioned variety. Again the thought sprang to his mind: What
is the good of it? What can it accomplish?
They passed into a large building, which somehow reminded him of the
Lion House at the zoo. It seemed to be constructed of cages joined
together with concrete. Other warders in their severe blue uniform
were standing about, and convicts were hurrying along the corridors.
Once an order rang out--and then the convicts seemed to hurry a little
faster. A bell rang sharply.
“What is that?” the doctor asked his guide.
“Somebody ringing for a whisky and soda, I expect,” the man explained
with a grin which was not lacking in kindness.
He was an old man. Probably he lamented the passing of the severer
discipline of his youth. Even prisons, apparently, were being
demoralized by the modern spirit.
They came to the block reserved for prisoners awaiting trial. The
warder led the way into a fairly large room, furnished with a table
and chairs. He left the doctor here and went to fetch Derwick. A few
minutes later the latter entered. The warder went out, but left the
door ajar behind him. Dr. Hailey heard his footsteps passing out of
earshot in the corridor.
Jack Derwick was dressed in his own clothes. He looked undaunted, but
anxious. His face was thinner than it had appeared at the inquest at
Belfort, and his eyes held a haggard expression.
“Dr. Hailey, I believe,” he said, in tones of some surprise.
“Yes. I have taken a liberty in forcing myself upon you, I know, but I
have done so because I feel I may be of some use.”
He paused.
“You assisted the police, did you not, to find Sir William’s body?”
“That is so. Beyond that I have not been able to help them. May I say
at once that I do not share their views about yourself.”
A look of slight suspicion crept into Derwick’s eyes. Had this man
been sent to him as a kind of spy? But immediately afterwards his
expression cleared. He held out his hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
“On the other hand,” said the doctor, “I don’t disguise from myself
the fact that the evidence is rather damaging--so far as it goes. What
I came to tell you, I’m afraid, does not remove that difficulty, but
it may possibly be of greater assistance to you than I am able to
realize at present. May I sit down?”
Derwick apologized for his rudeness in not having anticipated this
wish. He took another of the wooden seats round the table. He rested
his head on his hands while his visitor recounted, step by step, his
investigation into Blunder’s activities. Not until the scene in the
house at Hazlemere was described did he utter a syllable.
But at that disclosure he sprang up suddenly with a cry of horror.
“My God, they mean to kill her. Oh, tell me that you know she is
safe?”
“I have reason to think so, my dear fellow,” said the doctor gently.
He continued his narrative, reporting as nearly as he was able the
statement made by Blunder. Derwick controlled himself with what was
obviously a very severe effort. At last he interjected:
“It’s all rubbish, of course. Estelle never had an epileptic fit in
her life?”
“But his point was that no one except her father knew about the fits.
As a doctor I am forced to admit that this may be true.”
“What! Do you mean to say people can be mad without their most
intimate friends knowing it?”
“Epilepsy is not madness. Between attacks its victims are often
specially sane. Both Napoleon Bonaparte and Julius Cæsar were
epileptics.”
Jack Derwick frowned.
“I can’t believe it,” he declared.
“Recollect that Miss Armand was certainly out of her mind when I saw
her. There is no doubt whatever about that.”
A look of great weariness came into the young man’s eyes.
“So you think it was because of these fits that she broke our
engagement?”
“You will admit, anyhow, that the reason was an adequate one--one, I
mean, which would seem adequate both to her father and herself?”
“Ye-es--it may be so.”
“Moreover--you see, I am defending my own conduct to some extent--one
could not quarrel with Blunder for rescuing her from the police,
always supposing that his object in doing so was her own good.”
“No.”
Dr. Hailey moved round a little in his chair so as to face Derwick.
“In any case,” he said, “it is quite certain that Blunder--or Sawyer,
as he called himself at Calthorpe--did not murder Sir William. He
hadn’t time to do it. He would not be likely, therefore--or so I have
argued--to do any injury to Sir William’s daughter. If he had a
quarrel, it would be with the father.”
Derwick inclined his head. He did not speak.
“Therefore, I left Miss Armand where she was and devoted myself to
inquiring into Blunder’s private affairs.”
He described his visit to Poppy de Vere, and the information he had
gathered about the lawyer’s expenditure, adding:
“You see, there might be--I say _might be_ only--a motive for murder
there, but the case breaks down at once when we come to the actual
circumstances. By no hook or crook could any man have accomplished the
burial of Sir William’s body in the time during which Blunder was
absent from the Black Bull Inn.”
He paused again and took out his snuff-box.
“You have no theory of the crime, then?” said his companion.
“At present, none.”
“Naturally I have thought a great deal about it. It is certainly
baffling in the extreme; all that evidence about morphia, for example.
Believe me, I never owned or used a hypodermic syringe in my life.”
“Yes, that is one of the most mysterious features.”
Derwick got up and began to pace the room. He was wearing prison
shoes, and they fell with a padded sound on the stone floor.
“Blunder will be called for the Crown,” he said. “I might
cross-examine him on his financial position, but I don’t see what good
that will do, except to discredit him personally. It would react on
Estelle. Above all things, mention of her whereabouts must be avoided.
Whatever happens to me, she is safe--or at least comparatively safe.”
“Yes, I think so. I don’t know what may happen if she recovers her
reason, but probably it will be possible in that event to send her to
a retreat somewhere until afterward. Meanwhile, we must establish your
innocence. I came to offer my services for what they may be worth in
that direction.”
He took snuff. The young man’s stride had lengthened and become more
vigorous. He was a caged beast now, with the fury of the captive in
his eyes.
“But how, how?” he exclaimed. “How am I to convince a jury that,
though I was out on the cliffs at the time of the murder, I did not
actually commit murder?” He added, after a moment: “You see, I carried
on past the Hall, to the southward, so as not to go in until it was
time to leave altogether. I would have gone farther than I did, and
reached the next village--and an alibi--if I hadn’t torn my hand on a
barbed wire fence.”
“What! You wounded your hand?”
“Yes; and then found I had lost my handkerchief. I had to do the best
I could to stop the bleeding by pressing the wound against my coat.
They mentioned at the police court that they had found a blood-stain
on one of the tails.”
“It is a cardinal point in the indictment.”
They sat in silence for some time; then Dr. Hailey asked:
“What about the vicar? You had tea with him on the night in question,
I believe?”
“Yes, but left him long before the critical time.”
Derwick sat down again. He sighed deeply.
“It is extraordinarily good of you to try to help me in this way,” he
said. “Do, please, believe that I am grateful--whatever the upshot. I
am, too, more than grateful for the news you have brought me about
Estelle. Her disappearance was a terrible weight on my mind. I feared
the worst. Bad as things are, she is alive and being cared for.” He
looked up suddenly. “Would it be too much to ask you to visit
Hazlemere again before the trial and see how she is getting on?”
“Not at all,” said Dr. Hailey. “I was going to do that in any case.”
When he left the prison his heart was heavy. He could see no adequate
defense--no defense, at any rate, which would convince an average
jury. The evidence was purely circumstantial, but it was quite strong
enough to secure a conviction--for if Derwick had not murdered Sir
William, who did?
That was the question which would be reiterated again and again by the
prosecution. So far, there seemed to be no answer to it. His most
careful inquiries had failed entirely to reveal any hostility to the
lawyer in his village. On the contrary, he was beloved both as a
squire and as a man.
Nevertheless, he resolved to return to Calthorpe and spend the
week-end in going over the ground once more. Experience had shown him
that trifles, overlooked in the first eagerness of search, were
sometimes observed on a later occasion. No trifle could be too
insignificant to merit attention in this case.
CHAPTER XXII.
WHAT THE MARK MEANT
There is no place where the opinion of a neighborhood is so
faithfully reflected as the village inn. Dr. Hailey had not been long
at the Black Bull, Calthorpe, before he discovered that, in the
opinion of its patrons, Jack Derwick was already as good as hanged.
He overheard scraps of conversation to this effect through the open
door of the proprietor’s office, to which, as a personage in the case,
he had been admitted soon after his arrival.
“What I asks you,” one of the voices demanded, “is this: If _he_
didn’t do it, who did?”
No answer was forthcoming to this challenge, and the listener’s heart
grew heavy as he realized that in all human probability no answer
would be forthcoming. The picture of Derwick’s dark, handsome face,
strained with anxiety and anticipation of death, rose terribly in his
memory.
Another voice declared: “Derwick was after her money, of course. When
he saw he wasn’t going to get it, he went blind mad. It’s as simple as
A, B, C.”
There was a shuffle of beer-mugs on the counter, then the patrons of
the Bull passed to discussion of the execution. They seemed to regret
that it would take place in Newcastle, and not in Calthorpe.
He went to bed early, and got up before breakfast. He walked over the
ground between the village and the Hall once more, lingering a long
time beside the fatal tree where the murder had taken place. The dawn
was red over the sea, a great splash of color which seemed to open the
heavens. The shapes of the tall pines made a dark lattice across this
window of morning.
The sun rose, and the mists which lay on the headlands vanished in
diaphanous weblike wisps, which seemed to curl themselves into the
ground. An exquisite clearness came into the air. Far away he heard
the plaintive calling of a curlew.
It was such a Sabbath morning as only the North Country can afford,
when heaven and earth seem to have drawn very close to one another in
a silence ineffable and full of light. Death and crime had no part in
this sacrament of dawn.
Yet there on the bole of the tree were the marks of death, mute
witnesses of crime; the little hole made by the ferrule of the
victim’s walking-stick, the scars which testified to his headlong
fall.
He stood contemplating them, wondering at the secret they held. Again
he passed his little magnifying-glass over their surfaces. There were
still a few gray hairs entangled in the rough bark.
He glanced at the round hole, and then, as if attracted by some
irregularity in its shape which he had missed on his first inspection,
magnified it also. His attention appeared to become concentrated
progressively from moment to moment.
The light was not yet very strong, and he had to peer closely to
satisfy himself, but at the end he had no sort of doubt. The hole
which he had taken in the first instance for an imprint of the ferrule
of a walking-stick was, in fact, nothing of the kind. It was a
deliberate stamp on the wood by some instrument designed for the
purpose.
And it represented, without any doubt, a rude figure of a human eye.
He stood back in extreme astonishment. He had seen just such a figure
before in a museum of ethnology which was opened in London for a short
time before the war. The curator of the museum told him that it
represented a charm against the evil eye which was once in wide use
among the English peasantry. He recollected his very words:
“If a cow or a sheep died, or if a mysterious human death
occurred--even, I believe, if lovers quarrel--this sign was resorted
to. It was supposed to protect against the baleful glance of man or
fiend which had wrought the trouble.”
He made a further most minute examination. The mark had clearly not
been cut. It had been stamped in a single stroke--a very powerful
stroke it must have been, for the bark of the tree was cut right
through. Within the circle of the eye there was a second, smaller
circle, radiated like a human iris, and possessing a tiny embossed
pupil.
That could only mean that the author of this sign possessed some
ancient instrument of the sort in use a couple of centuries ago,
unless, indeed, Sir William had had his walking-stick shod in this
strange fashion to gratify some whim.
Biles had told him that the walking-stick had been recovered, but
probably it was now in the possession of the prosecution as an exhibit
in the case.
He walked back toward the hotel, and then turned to make another
inspection of his find. Was it possible that, after all, its presence
was unconnected with the murder. It was, undoubtedly, a new mark, for
the bark was freshly broken, yet it might well have been made on any
day within the last two months. Lovers were addicted to imprinting
strange devices on the boles of trees, and doubtless those of
Calthorpe were not different from their fellows elsewhere.
But the coincidence between this device and the wounds in the dead
man’s eye was too remarkable, surely to admit of such an explanation.
Again he magnified the strange lines, asking himself whether, after
all, he might not be mistaken about them. Some sticks possessed
ferrules with a serrated surface to increase their “grip” of the
ground. Could not this impression--so like an eye--have been made
quite accidentally in this fashion?
But for those museum specimens, he might have accepted that
explanation. The thought came that a jury, not having seen the
specimens, would accept it without question.
At breakfast he wondered again and again how he could convince
ignorant men of the truth of his observation. He would try to discover
where the ethnological specimens had been obtained, and where they now
were. Possibly, the curator of the museum might be able to give expert
evidence on the subject. But so much depended on Sir William’s
walking-stick.
Then he asked himself what, in any case, his discovery proved. Who
would believe that Sir William met his death at the hands of some
maniac unknown, with a taste for the darker aspects of folk-lore?
Where, in any case, was the man? The sense of despondency which, in
the excitement of his find, had passed away for a few minutes,
returned with new force.
The landlord entered the coffee-room just as he finished his meal, and
at once began discussing the crime. At another time Dr. Hailey would
have tried to get rid of him as quickly as possible. Now, however, he
wanted information, and bore with the wearisome recital. When it
seemed to have concluded he asked in casual tones whether there were
any witches left in Calthorpe.
The worthy hotelkeeper stared.
“I never heard tell of any,” he said decidedly.
“Only that I have been told that North Country folk are still full of
old superstitions,” the doctor explained. “I thought, perhaps, the
village might number some old man or woman among its inhabitants with
enough second sight to explain the mystery to us.”
“Oh--I see.”
The hotelkeeper laughed. He had not grasped that his guest was making
a joke. He added heartily:
“No, we’re too modern for that sort of thing nowadays. Besides, sir,
what need of second sight in a case of this kind? Why, it’s as plain
as a pikestaff.”
He began to develop his opinions once again. Dr. Hailey managed to
reach the door. To his relief he saw that Superintendent Robson, of
the local police, was entering the inn. He hailed him immediately.
It appeared that Biles had telephoned for some further particulars of
the “ground” asked for by the prosecution. Robson had motored over
from Belfort to collect them.
“In that case,” said the doctor, “I will, if I may, accompany you on
your work. I also came to make a fresh inspection.”
“Found nothing new, I suppose?” said Robson a little offhandedly.
“Er--not much. By the way, you recovered Sir William Armand’s
walking-stick, didn’t you?”
“Oh, yes. It was washed ashore. It’s lying at the Hall now.”
Dr. Hailey snuffed vigorously in token of his satisfaction at this
piece of news. He reflected on the carelessness of the police in not
producing this, to his mind, important link in the chain of evidence.
“May I look at it?” he asked in tones from which he tried to exclude
the eagerness he felt.
“Of course. I’m going over to the Hall now as soon as I’ve had a glass
of beer.”
Robson was not a fool, though he had rather slow wits. He confessed to
his companion as they walked along the cliffs that he was not entirely
satisfied with the evidence against Derwick. In his homely phrase, “it
wanted punch somehow.”
“I agree with you,” said the doctor cordially.
“And yet--if not him, who?”
That question was assuming nightmare proportions. Unless some really
convincing answer to it was discovered, it would hang the unfortunate
young man. The doctor demanded sharply:
“You are quite sure that the neighborhood contains no half-crazed
fellow who might murder for the mere sake of doing it? Such cases are
common enough, you know.”
The police officer shook his head.
“I know what you mean,” he declared; “and it seems to me a good idea,
but we have nobody of that sort around here--not a soul. There used to
be an old man near Belfort who was supposed to have murdered his son
years before, but he died in the summer, and anyhow there was no real
evidence against him.”
They reached the Hall--a picture of quiet beauty in the glowing
sunlight. Dr. Hailey marked the fine sweep of the lawn and the
comfortable arrangement of the shrubberies which inclosed this rather
severe mansion in a warm embrace. But his eagerness did not permit him
time for enjoyment.
As soon as the front door was opened he stepped briskly into the hall
and took the walking-stick which Robson drew from a rack and handed to
him.
Bitter disappointment was in store. The ferrule of the stick was
marked with a double circle on its road surface. Yet he would not
relinquish his hope until he had proved the matter by actual
examination. With the policeman’s consent he took the stick back to
the wood and actually fitted it into the hole in the tree. He uttered
a cry of joy as he did so.
The ferrule was considerably smaller than the hole.
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE HOUSE OF SILENCE
At Calthorpe that clew had seemed of enormous importance. In Harley
Street its value wore a far less encouraging aspect. After all,
imprints on the barks of trees are doubtful things at best.
Nevertheless, Dr. Hailey had hope. He had made careful impressions of
the mark and the ferrule in wax obtained on Monday morning in Belfort.
He compared these now at his leisure, measuring the circles they
contained with his compasses. The inner circles were almost exactly of
the same size, but the outer ones differed by a definite fraction.
He sat down and wrote a careful letter on the subject to Jack Derwick,
and dispatched this at once to the Newcastle jail. The date of the
trial had been announced during the week-end. It would probably begin
on the following Saturday morning. There remained, therefore, five
days in which to continue his investigations.
He drove to Wigmore Street, and saw an official of the Medical Museum
there, whom he knew to be an authority on charms of all sorts. He
showed him the wax impression of the hole in the tree and asked him
his opinion of it.
It was not so decided as he had hoped.
“A crude representation of an eye, possibly,” said the official. “But
really, you know, it might be almost anything.”
“What about the radial lines in the inner circle?”
“Yes; I see what you mean. That would be the iris, of course, if your
theory is correct.”
Greatly discouraged, the doctor presented his second impression.
“Could these two possibly have been made by the same instrument?” he
asked.
The official examined them very carefully.
“Offhand I should say it was improbable,” he declared, “but the
difference is not very considerable. Sometimes, too, a stamp slips a
little in making its impression.”
Dr. Hailey drove back to Harley Street. So, of course, would the
prosecution argue and the jury accept. He went to the telephone and
rang up a friend at the British Museum who might possibly know
something of the ethnological collection.
But he drew blank. The war had scattered so many small scientific
enterprises. “Who is the best man on folk-lore in England?” he
demanded, and was given the name of Professor Mildmay, of Oxford.
The next day he went to Oxford. Professor Mildmay proved to be a very
old man, who looked exactly like an astrologer in one of the mediæval
prints; but he had a keen brain. Dr. Hailey gave him a succinct
outline of the case, and then showed him the two impressions. He
awaited his verdict with almost breathless interest.
The old man pored over the wax for a long time; his shaggy eyebrows
were drawn down so that it seemed as if his eyes were shut. His
companion began to fear that he had gone to sleep at his task. At
last, however, he raised his head.
“There is not the least doubt in my mind,” he said, “that your
scruples are justified.”
“Thank God for that!”
“You see,” continued the professor, ignoring the interruption, “this
impression--the one from the tree--is sharply made. The edges of the
lines are clean-cut, whereas the lines in the other are blunter--in
spite of the fact that the ferrule is evidently a comparatively new
one. That to begin with. Then look at the outer ring.”
He indicated its slightly uneven character and its larger size. Then
he got up and went to a shelf in his bookcase, from which he extracted
a large volume. Very slowly and deliberately he turned over the
yellowing pages until he came to the place he sought. Dr. Hailey saw a
number of wood-cuts. He glanced at them and exclaimed in astonishment.
“These,” said his companion, “are types of the charm against the evil
eye which used to be worn by large numbers of country folk in this
country. As you can see, they resemble your impression very closely.”
“I do see.”
“Unhappily, they also resemble, to some extent, the mark made by the
walking-stick.”
Dr. Hailey’s voice took on an anxious tone.
“But you would be prepared,” he suggested, “to swear that a
fundamental difference exists between them.”
“Oh, yes. I have no doubt about it.”
“That is all I want.”
The old man shook his head.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “it is a poor enough straw with which to rescue
any drowning man. British juries are not easily convinced by minute
scientific considerations.”
Nevertheless, it was something to go upon. After obtaining the
professor’s promise that he would give evidence at Newcastle, Dr.
Hailey returned to London in better spirits than he had enjoyed since
his experience at Hazlemere. He took the night train back to
Calthorpe, and next morning called at the vicarage.
He had met the Rev. Hargreave Willoughby on one occasion during his
first visit, and so was already on familiar terms with him. He plunged
immediately into a description of his mission, explaining that he had
come to the only man who, he felt, might know the inside of local
superstition.
The vicar was in his gardening clothes--which were much shabbier than
his ordinary apparel. He looked excessively destitute, but his fine,
cold face scorned all thoughts of appearance.
“Alas,” he said, “I fear that I cannot help you at all. This parish is
all too deeply imbued with the most material type of common sense.”
He folded his earth-soiled hands over his knee and looked up rather
vacantly into the face of his visitor. Dr. Hailey suspected that his
mind had already drifted from a subject which, no doubt, he regarded
as trivial.
“So you think my discovery is without significance?”
“No; far from it. Such a discovery must have a meaning. My difficulty
is that I cannot find any interpretation of the riddle, unless,
indeed, that poor young man carries a walking-stick with a bizarre
shod on it.”
Dr. Hailey frowned. He had forgotten that possibility. He rose to go.
“It is kind of you to see me,” he murmured in dull tones.
“On the contrary, I am glad to see you. A country vicar, I’m afraid,
is always glad when a visitor comes. Our lives are rather lonely ones,
especially in winter.”
After he left the vicar, Dr. Hailey visited, in turn, the schoolmaster
and the parish clerk. His inquiries in their cases were of a general
character; but in each case he obtained nothing. There were no
half-witted people in Calthorpe.
He drove through to Belfort in the afternoon and renewed his inquiries
there, but again failure met him at every turn. Next morning,
Thursday, he returned to London. There seemed to be no hope whatever
of following his clew any farther.
He reached King’s Cross in the late evening, and drove home at once.
There were no letters awaiting him, though, somehow, he had half
expected some communication--anxiety always breeds that feeling in
highly strung natures. He went to bed, and only then realized how
deeply exhausted he was.
Nevertheless, he woke early with the thought in his mind that only one
day now remained before the beginning of the trial. His man had
brought the morning papers to his room, and he glanced at them with
anxious eyes. They were full of the case, which promised to be a
_cause célèbre_ of the most sensational kind. He flung them from him
and got up.
He could do no more. So far as he could see, Jack’s only defense was a
flat denial. The burden of proof lay on the prosecution. They must
bring their case home to him. If he could show--and in the gray of a
London winter morning it seemed a slender enough hope--that there had
been some one else present on the scene of the murder, it might avail
to raise a doubt in the minds of the jury, and so to save him.
That was the very most which could be expected of the clew of the evil
eye. He prayed that Professor Mildmay might make the very most of his
high reputation as an ethnologist.
There was only one service left which it was in his power to render
the accused man, and that was to ease his mind about the welfare of
the girl he loved. He had set apart this last day for his visit to
Hazlemere so that, whatever might happen at Newcastle, Jack should
face his accusers in the comfortable assurance that Estelle was safe.
He left London early in the afternoon, and reached Hazlemere two hours
later. He directed the chauffeur to drive right through the village to
the mansion and to go straight up the avenue.
The house, when he reached it, seemed even more desolate and deserted
than it had appeared on his first visit. He rang the heavy iron bell
which hung down beside the front door. It sounded loudly within, but
the harsh notes died away among their own echoes. There was no
response.
He rang again; this time with greater vigor. Again only silence
rewarded his efforts.
“Doesn’t seem to be anybody there, sir,” said his chauffeur, who had
followed him up the steps and was looking into one of the rooms on the
ground floor.
“I fear not.”
“Shall I run round to the back and see if there’s anybody about
there?”
Dr. Hailey consented. The man was absent a few minutes. When he
returned his face was blank.
“The house is all shut up--back and front,” he announced, “but there’s
a window slightly open near the back door.”
The window, doubtless, which he had himself opened! Dr. Hailey walked
round the house, and passed through the door in the wall which he had
reconnoitered so carefully in the dark. The place was utterly
deserted. He came to the open window, and threw it wide open. He
shouted into the house. His own voice answered him.
“Wait here,” he told his man, “till I return. I’m going to see if
they’ve left any traces behind them.”
He climbed into the pantry, the door of which stood ajar. The corridor
beyond was dark and silent. He pushed through the baize-covered door
and entered the main hall. Not a sound was to be heard.
After standing listening for a few seconds, he began to mount the
stair. At the top of the flight he stopped again, but again there was
no sound. He walked along the passage to the room where Blunder and
the doctor had been seated when he found them.
He pushed open the door. The room was empty!
He glanced around him in consternation. Everything seemed to be
exactly as it had been that night. The plate of sandwiches, now grown
mouldy, still stood on the side table, with the siphons. The chairs
remained in disarray--his own, Blunder’s, the doctor’s. The fender
contained the ends of several cigars.
He passed into the sick-room and exclaimed in bitterness. The tumbled
bedclothes remained, but the woman they had covered was missing.
A tumbler stood on a small table at the bedside; it contained a few
drops of liquid. He raised it, and felt the odor of stale brandy.
There seemed to be no other medicament in the chamber.
He returned to the anteroom and looked about him in the desperate hope
of finding some indication of the time or manner of the exodus which
had taken place, but Blunder was not, as he knew, in the habit of
advertising his movements by the things he left behind. There was
nothing. Even the blotting-paper on a pad on the table was free of any
ink-stains.
And yet, now that he came to clarify his memory, the pad itself was an
innovation since his last visit. Neither it, nor the pen and ink which
lay beside it, had been there before. He wondered what need the two
men could have of writing materials.
He picked up the pad and examined it more from force of habit than
from any expectation that it would yield him information. It was not
complete; several sheets had been torn off since the holder was last
filled. He looked in the fireplace to see if any of them remained, and
found a small scrap which had escaped burning. It was unstained.
From its position, he judged that the fire must have been going out
when it was thrown into it. It certainly looked as though the party
had left within a short time of his own departure--otherwise there
must have been changes in the arrangement of the furniture. It looked,
too, as though they had gone away in some haste.
This would be terrible news, indeed, to take to Jack Derwick. An awful
fear clutched at his heart that the fate of Sir William Armand had
likewise befallen his daughter. He hurried downstairs and came out
again as he had entered.
“I want you to help me search the garden,” he said to his man. “Look
out for any fresh signs of digging anywhere.”
Between them they made a careful survey. The ground had certainly not
been disturbed in any direction. Dr. Hailey heaved a sigh of relief.
At any rate, that immediate horror could be dismissed from his mind.
He glanced at his watch. It was four o’clock. In another hour it would
be dark. He determined to spend the night in Hazlemere.
He drove to a hotel and inquired of the host the name of the most
important local house-agent. He walked up the wide main street until
he found the address which he had been given. A boy showed him at once
into a back office, where a young man in a smart but cheaply cut suit
received him.
“What can I do for you?”
“I have called about the house on the Blackdown road--the big one,
standing back in its own gardens. I do not know its name.”
The young man nodded. “I know, ‘Dalswinton.’ Unfortunately, we are not
the agents. It is in the hands of a firm of London solicitors, I
believe, Messrs. Armand & Blunder.”
“What?”
“Messrs. Armand & Blunder; Sir William Armand’s firm.”
The agent looked knowing as he imparted this information. Apparently
Hazlemere people were proud of being connected, however remotely, with
the sensation of the hour.
Dr. Hailey controlled his agitation with an effort. He understood now
why this place had been selected for the early stages of a drama, the
end of which he could only dimly surmise. Blunder had the keys
entirely at his disposal.
“But is it not the case,” he asked, “that the house was in use a short
time ago--as a nursing home?”
“I didn’t hear that, sir, and I think we should have heard about it
sooner or later.”
“Do you mean to tell me it has been standing empty for a considerable
period?”
“Oh, yes, a year at least. Several parties came down to look at
it--but they didn’t seem to care for it much. Too big, probably.”
“You don’t happen to know if one of these parties was a doctor?”
“No sir, I don’t know. I did hear that a caretaker and his wife had
been put in a short time ago to fire the place, but of course, as we
aren’t handling the business, I was not interested.”
CHAPTER XXIV.
DR. WELLWISHER HELPS
The horror of the situation seemed to be entirely without relief. As
it stared him grimly in the face, Dr. Hailey cursed himself for a
dolt, a fool. How, with his suspicions wide awake, had he allowed
himself to be thus bemused by the cunning lawyer? How had he so easily
accepted that story of the nursing home at its face value?
And yet, when the first outburst of his anxiety had spent itself, he
could not wonder that he had been deceived. There was the demented
girl as a proof of what he had been told--a proof which even his
professional experience was compelled to accept as authentic. How
could he doubt the evidence of his own senses?
Nevertheless, his senses had betrayed him. There could be no
reasonable question that his first suspicions of Blunder were
absolutely sound. The journey to Hempstead had been undertaken solely
for the purpose of ensnaring him--doubtless because the lawyer
realized he was being observed and was certain to be followed.
How clever the plan had been! He was to suffer an accident, and if he
didn’t break his neck on the spot, was to be introduced to the
respectable presence of Mrs. and Miss Blunder, and then carefully and
securely locked up for the night under the family roof. The telephone
call was doubtless a device to allay the suspicions of the lawyer’s
wife when her husband should depart in the small hours.
Thus would he calculate on having at least twelve hours’ clear start
in his enterprise, and on having, moreover, a perfectly free hand.
While his pursuers were attempting once more to hit off the trail, he
would be bringing his business to a satisfactory conclusion.
The Ford car had evidently upset these well-laid plans. But with what
magnificent _sang-froid_ the scoundrel had countered that unexpected
advantage of his enemy. The more he thought of it, the higher rose the
doctor’s admiration. Even Blunder’s tears were a triumph though they
were probably quite genuine. A man, he knew, may weep and weep and be
a villain--indeed weeping and villany often go together.
Then, suddenly, the recollection of the rather flamboyant nurse’s
uniform worn by Dr. Parsons’ wife came to him. She could not have
donned that costume for his benefit, seeing that, most emphatically
and certainly, he was not expected to make an appearance at the
midnight party at “Dalswinton.”
For whose benefit, then, was she dressed up?
The conviction gradually rose in his mind that, though the
conspirators were not expecting the visitor they actually received,
they were, in fact, expecting some visitor.
That, probably, was the explanation of Blunder’s presence in the
house. He had come in order to be present at some important meeting at
which the attendance of a nurse would be essential. Of what nature
could such a meeting be?
And, most important of all, by what devilish means had they driven the
girl insane in the first instance?
Surely some one in Hazlemere must have penetrated a little of the
secret? Miss Armand had been at the house during several days, and her
jailers must have required food in that time. He resolved before
sitting down to dinner to make a round of as many of the foodshops as
possible.
He visited a dairy and a butcher’s, but neither of them had supplied
“Dalswinton” for upwards of a year, nor did the shopkeepers know that
the house had been occupied by other than a caretaker. The same blank
ignorance awaited him at two grocers’ and at another dairy. He had
almost decided to abandon his quest when he remembered the pen and ink
and blotting-pad. It was just possible that they had been bought
locally.
And so it proved. The stationer’s girl distinctly remembered the
purchase. It was made by a woman, and she noticed that a man was
waiting for her outside the shop. The strange thing--the thing which
had fixed it in her memory--was that they had come before the shutters
were taken down in the morning. Actually they were on the doorstep
when she opened the front door.
Dr. Hailey thanked the girl and returned to his hotel. It was almost
empty, and he had the long dining-room to himself. He sat pondering
deeply the reason for this curious early morning purchase.
When he went to bed he had found no enlightenment. He felt too
agitated to sleep, and lay tossing from side to side in a vain attempt
to rid himself of his thoughts. Then, for about an hour, he seemed to
fall into a troubled slumber which, however, was without refreshment.
Suddenly, he sat up in bed with an exclamation of astonishment. Of
course, that was what had occurred.
He found his watch under the pillow, and consulted it. Three o’clock!
He could not hope to do anything for several hours yet. He lay back
and suddenly fell into a deep sleep.
When he awoke it was after seven o’clock. He rang for his bath, and
then dressed as quickly as he could. Before he went in to breakfast,
he sought out the proprietor in his private office and asked him the
names of the local doctors.
There were three of them, but one of them, it appeared, did not
practice much. Dr. Wellwisher--a young man--had the most considerable
practice. He decided to visit him first, and called at his house
immediately after breakfast.
The doctor was already in his surgery. He received his distinguished
visitor with evident surprise, and hurried to offer him a cigar, but
Dr. Hailey would not smoke.
“You must forgive me for this untimely intrusion,” he apologized, “but
the fact is that my business will brook no delay. You may have noticed
from the newspapers the trial of Mr. Derwick, for the murder of Sir
William Armand, begins to-day in Newcastle. It is about that that I am
here.”
Dr. Wellwisher’s eyes opened very wide. He began to think that the
London physician had lost his mental balance.
“About the Armand case? My dear sir, how can I help you there?”
His visitor waved a large hand impatiently.
“Tell me,” he asked, “were you called to ‘Dalswinton’ Lodge a few days
ago to see a young girl with mental trouble?”
The doctor’s face became grave in a moment. He hesitated.
“I know,” said Dr. Hailey, “that it is difficult for you to answer me
because of the promise you made; but I can assure you that when you
know the facts, you will no longer hesitate.”
“You are aware, then, that I gave a promise?”
“Well aware. You were told, were you not, that the utmost precaution
had been taken to keep the tragedy secret?”
The doctor inclined his head. The gesture was rather equivocal
nevertheless. It was evident that he had some doubts about the _bona
fide_ character of this inquiry. Dr. Hailey lowered his voice.
“You cannot, I think, know that the girl you examined was Miss Estelle
Armand,” he said.
“What!”
“For whom the police all over Britain are at present searching.”
“Surely you can’t be serious?”
“I was never more serious in my life. It may surprise you to know that
I traced the girl myself to the house the night before you were called
in. I saw her there.”
Dr. Hailey opened a picture newspaper he had bought on the way to the
doctor’s house, and pointed to a photograph.
“There is your patient,” he added.
His companion almost snatched the sheet from his hands. He examined it
with flushed face, and hands which trembled in spite of him.
“I confess,” he exclaimed, “that it’s very like her. I had no idea.”
His voice fell almost to a whisper.
“They told me that she had a delusion that she was Estelle Armand.”
It was Dr. Hailey’s turn to gasp. There was a deftness, a sureness,
about Blunder’s methods which electrified him. The man was great
beyond even his expectations.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you gave this as one of the symptoms of
insanity observed by you?”
The doctor admitted it. He had asked the girl who she was, and been
promptly assured by her, in the intervals of her raving, that she was
Estelle. That statement had confirmed him in his opinion that she was
insane.
“The same reason, I believe, was given by Dr. Parsons, who also signed
the lunacy certificate. The gentleman who called her his daughter.”
“A short, fat man?”
“Yes. He explained that the case had unhinged her mind.”
“He is Mr. Blunder, of the firm of Armand & Blunder. I fear, doctor,
you have assisted him to get rid of a very dangerous witness--from his
own point of view.”
Dr. Wellwisher’s agitation was now almost painful. No man fears a
scandal quite so much as a country doctor, because no man stands to
lose so much by it.
“She is confined in a private asylum,” he stated. “I accompanied her
there myself with her fath--I mean, with the man who posed as her
father. He seemed deeply affected.”
“He would be.”
Dr. Hailey drew out his watch. “How long will it take us to get
there?” he asked. “I have a big car in the town.”
“About an hour.”
“Very well, can you come with me at once?”
The doctor was only too anxious to help to undo his fault. In the car
he described the scene at “Dalswinton” Lodge, in which he had played
an unwitting part. Blunder, it appeared, had called at his house early
in the morning, and given the name of Colonel Herbert.
He had explained that his daughter had been subject to mental trouble
for some years, but had broken down completely a week before, when
reading an account of the Armand case. He had taken “Dalswinton” and
brought her down there from his home in Knightsbridge, under the care
of a doctor and nurse.
Unhappily, she had become so violent that they were unable to control
her, and the doctor had intimated that he could not continue to take
charge of the case.
“He burst into tears at that point in his story, and covered his face
with his hands. I was genuinely sorry for him, and promised to come at
once to the house.”
“I can believe,” Dr. Hailey interjected, “that he showed you a
suitable gratitude.”
“Oh, dear me, yes. He almost embraced me in his enthusiasm.”
Miss Armand, when the doctor saw her, was still delirious, but she was
able to answer questions if they were spoken in a loud voice. She did
not appear to realize where she was, and showed no fear.
“I saw her alone, of course, and satisfied myself very soon that she
was the victim of delusions. I thought it fortunate, at the time, that
I happened to have a certificate of lunacy in the house. As soon as I
had made my diagnosis, Dr. Parsons, who had already examined her apart
from me, filled in his portion of the document. After that I took the
girl and the man I thought was her father in my car to the asylum.” He
added after a moment, “He paid me a fee of fifty guineas on the spot.”
“In the circumstances, a modest fee.”
“I think so.”
The car reached a big iron gateway. Dr. Wellwisher squeezed the bulb
of the speaking-tube and directed the chauffeur to blow his horn. In
response to it, a woman appeared from a lodge and opened the gates.
Next minute they drew up in front of a large red brick house which
belonged, Dr. Hailey perceived, to the late Elizabethan period.
Evidently, Mr. Blunder had spared no expense in the matter of the type
of retreat he had chosen for his victim.
And then, suddenly, there came to him the fear that, after all,
Blunder might have been acting in good faith. If Estelle Armand was
really insane, this surely was the best possible way of removing her
permanently from danger of arrest!
Could it be that he had shattered a perfectly genuine scheme for
saving this unhappy girl from shame and disaster?
He passed into the splendid oak-paneled hall of the old house, with a
sense of growing anxiety at his heart.
The next few minutes must decide for him--or against.
CHAPTER XXV.
OUT OF THE ASYLUM
The medical superintendent of the asylum inspired Dr. Hailey
instantly with a feeling of exasperation. He was one of those foolish,
“safe” men, who are of all others the most difficult to deal with when
emergency measures are called for.
He had a cat-like face, and wore a long, straggling mustache. His
voice was loud and hearty, and when Dr. Wellwisher explained the
reason of the visit, he uttered a sound like the wind among trees--a
gusty yet self-approving sound.
“Heu! my dear sirs,” he exclaimed, “you trust your Hillman (Hillman
was his name). I know insanity when I see it, and whatever the poor,
dear, young lady may say, and whoever she may be, there is not an atom
of doubt that she is certifiable.”
He stroked his mustache as he spoke. Dr. Hailey noticed that he had
blue eyes.
“Have you examined her recently?” he asked, in tones which for him
were unwontedly crisp.
“No--not very recently. But believe me----”
“It is not a question of believing you. We do that, of course. It is a
question of fact only. May we see the lady at once?”
The superintendent frowned in a purely contemplative manner.
“It would be a little irregular, I think,” he declared, “without her
father’s consent, I beg your pardon, the consent of the gentleman who
brought her here. Lunacy law is very strict, you know, on matters of
that kind.”
“Oh, blow the Lunacy law!”
“Alas, if only I could.”
Two things were obvious. The first that Dr. Hillman knew very little
about the condition of his patients--that was probably the business of
the nurses he employed or of his assistant. The second, that he meant
to obstruct by every means in his power.
Dr. Hailey’s manner changed.
“You leave me no choice,” he declared, “but to report to Scotland Yard
that you are defeating the ends of justice by harboring a woman
against whom a warrant is out. It is a serious matter.”
“What?”
The long mustache seemed, somehow, to lose its aggressiveness. The
cat-like expression became timid.
“These are the facts.”
“Of course, I had no idea of anything so serious, I’ll send for the
girl at once. If you will excuse me for a moment----”
Dr. Hillman left the room and closed the door behind him--a heavy
oaken door which nevertheless shut without the least sound. Heaviness
and silence brooded over this place. Dr. Hailey turned to his
companion:
“I should say he hasn’t examined her once since she came here,” he
declared bitterly.
“I’m afraid not.”
His own responsibility in this very awkward and unpleasant affair was
weighing heavily on Dr. Wellwisher’s mind. If only he hadn’t been
called in. He felt thankful that he belonged to a society for the
legal protection of members of his profession.
“In any case, Scotland Yard will have to be informed.”
“I suppose so.”
The door reopened. Dr. Hillman entered, followed by a nurse and
Estelle. The girl leaned heavily on the nurse’s arm. She was deadly
pale, and her beautiful eyes had a wild, hunted look.
“What are you going to do with me now?” she cried; “oh, please, let me
go away from here.”
“My dear young lady, my dear young lady,” came the soothing voice of
the superintendent. It was evident that he sought to assure the
doctors that the inmates of his asylum were people to be envied.
“Miss Armand?” said Dr. Hailey gently.
“Yes, yes. Oh, thank God, some one believes me at last!”
She tottered toward him and put her hands on his arms.
“Don’t say that you, too, think I am mad, that you are only trying to
humor me--like the nurses.”
“I am convinced that you are not mad.”
When she heard these words, Estelle reeled, and would have fallen had
he not supported her.
“You had better sit down,” he said.
He led her to an arm-chair and bestowed her carefully in it. She lay
back and closed her eyes. Her eyelids, he observed, were waxen in
their whiteness. There were wide, dark lines under her eyes.
“Do not exhaust yourself by talking at present,” he counseled. He left
her and came back to the superintendent.
“The girl is perfectly sane, of course,” he declared severely.
“Er--yes---- To-day she seems to be very much better---- This place,
the fresh air----”
Dr. Hailey made an impatient signal that he would like to say
something in private. When they had come out into the corridor he
declared:
“You had better ring up Scotland Yard at once. The trial of Derwick
began this morning in Newcastle, and she is undoubtedly a most
important witness for the defense. There is not a moment to be lost.
You had better give them an exact description of what has taken place,
but you need not know the real name of the ‘Colonel Herbert’ who
brought the girl to you, unless you like.”
“You think there is no other course?”
“Unless you wish to be arrested yourself, there is certainly no other
course.”
The superintendent went off to his telephone box. Dr. Hailey returned
to Estelle. She was looking somewhat better now, and smiled as he
approached her chair. He sat down and took her hand in his own.
“Are you strong enough, do you think, to answer just one question?” he
asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“Why did you leave Calthorpe with Mr. Blunder in that mysterious
fashion?”
“Because he told me that if I could not be found, they could not
possibly arrest Jack. He said that there was no doubt my father had
been murdered, and that Jack would be arrested. The body had not been
found by that time.”
The color sprang to the girl’s cheeks, giving her back for a moment
all her beauty. She bent her golden head, and the light from the
window rushed and flamed among her hair.
“Why not?”
“Because I was the only person who knew he had been in the wood at the
same time as my father.”
Dr. Hailey’s eyes had a grim expression as he replied:
“My dear child, at least two people saw him going into the wood. The
fact was stated in all the papers. But I suppose he counted on your
not having read any papers.”
“I suppose so.”
The girl’s voice was ineffably weary. Her head drooped. The doctor
realized that further interrogation was out of the question just now.
“You know that Mr. Derwick has been arrested,” he said.
“Oh, no!”
A moan of anguish broke from her lips. She sat up, endowed, it
appeared, with a new strength by the knowledge that her lover might
have need of her help.
“Tell me--everything, please.”
He told her. During this time she remained impassive, a figure of
tragedy, whose grief must have appealed to the sympathy of the most
callous.
“Do you think that they will allow me to go to him?” she whispered
brokenly, when he had finished.
“They cannot prevent you from giving evidence in his favor.”
The superintendent returned to the room. He seemed excited now and
full of a fresh importance. He would certainly have blurted out his
news, had not Dr. Hailey signed to him to keep quiet until a more
favorable occasion should arise.
The nurse brought Estelle some beef tea, and stood beside her while
she drank it. The doctors left the room, and went to the
superintendent’s private office.
There Dr. Hailey announced that he must return at once to London, and
go to Newcastle by the night train, in order to see Jack on Sunday. He
suggested that Dr. Wellwisher should accompany the patient to
Newcastle the following night, if the police consented to this
arrangement.
“They are sending men down now to arrest the girl,” Dr. Hillman
stated. “I can only trust that no scandal will attach to my asylum as
a consequence.”
“My dear sir, you will be wanted as a witness at the Derwick trial on
Monday. I suppose you can make immediate arrangements to travel
north?”
The superintendent had not contemplated this possibility. It filled
him with consternation. When Dr. Hailey left the house, he was still
bewailing his misfortunes.
Before he went away, the doctor returned for a moment to Estelle.
There were two further matters on which it was absolutely vital that
he should obtain enlightenment, if he were to bring any assistance to
the accused man.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DUE PROCESS OF LAW
The court-house at Newcastle was packed to suffocation when the
Derwick trial began. The judge, Mr. Justice East, was perhaps the most
severe figure on the bench, a man popular as certain types of
schoolmasters are popular--by reason of his unflinching sternness. He
was called a “hanging judge,” and the public in this country has a
weakness for the breed.
Jack Derwick stepped into the box as he might have walked into his own
chambers. His lean, athletic-looking body, had suffered nothing from
his stay in prison, but those in court who knew him--and there were a
number of them--detected a change of expression which told its own
story.
No man, however well fortified in the knowledge of his innocence,
faces the capital charge with equanimity. There is a quality of the
process of justice which human nerves are scarcely able to endure.
He pleaded “Not guilty” in a firm voice. Then the jury was empaneled.
He watched them closely, reflecting, with a sense of mingled
astonishment and anxiety, that his fate--his, John Derwick’s very
life, once so fully and splendidly his own--depended now on the view
which these casual strangers might choose to take of it.
What manner of men were they? It was not fair, surely, that a man’s
conduct should be pronounced upon by men he had never known, men who
understood nothing of his character, his way of life, his ideas, his
ambitions--men, in short, who might have nothing whatever in common
with him.
The jurymen were obviously impressed by the importance suddenly
attaching to them. They looked and moved and spoke to one another as
Englishmen of their class always do in such circumstances. Every
Englishman, he thought, is a prime minister or an occupant of the
judicial bench at least. If the opportunity comes, it finds him
ready--so far, at least, as becoming gravity and the sense of
responsibility are concerned.
A faint smile flickered on his lips at this thought. It broadened
slightly when one of the twelve--a very fat man with a face which
recalled a harvest moon--began stuffing a big red handkerchief between
his collar and the back of his neck.
Derwick had a quick sense of the grotesque. He had once seen another
fat man do the same thing in a Welsh church, and this incident rose in
his mind. He wondered if all fat men---- And then came that chill
thought which for an instant he had almost forgotten; that this was
not a fat man, but one of his judges, holding in his two hands
life--with all life’s swift and actual magic--and death.
Taken as a group, his judges were not formidable-looking men. Most of
them seemed to belong to the shopkeeping class, though he thought he
detected an individual of a different type in the second row, an
elderly man with a hungry-looking face but rather kind eyes.
The voice of the prosecuting counsel, Sir William Broom, a man he knew
quite well, cut across these ideas. He sat back on the hard wooden
bench to listen. He folded his arms, as sooner or later all accused
men do. How was it that, in his former appearances in criminal courts,
he had failed to notice all the strange, bizarre details which now
kept crowding on his attention?
Sir William Broom’s voice, for example--that terrible rasp in it which
must literally have ripsawed his way to fame through other people’s
nerves.
Sir William was speaking about that other Sir William, whose going out
of life had brought them all together. He called him a “man of
irreproachable honor, an ornament to his profession,” and so on. It
was certain that within a few minutes he would be speaking about
“murder,” with a horrid rasping of the “r” in that word. The prisoner
sighed; but nevertheless his sense of detachment, which had come upon
him suddenly when he entered the court, left him again. He began to
listen with close attention.
Sir William outlined the case in detail. He seemed to have been
carefully coached in his brief. As Derwick had expected, his great
point was the absence of the prisoner from Calthorpe Hall during the
whole period necessary for the carrying out of the crime.
“Evidence will be brought,” he told the jury, “that the accused man
was seen entering the wood just before Sir William Armand entered it,
that he was not seen again till he appeared, two hours later, at
Calthorpe Hall; and that then there were stains of mud--and blood--on
his clothes.
“Further, you will be told that it was an easy matter for him to
obtain a spade, and that he knew by personal inspection that very
afternoon that there was a new grave in the very remotely situated
village churchyard.”
Moreover, a clear motive existed. Sir William was a very rich man. He
had a beautiful only daughter, to whom the prisoner was engaged, and
with whom evidently he was deeply in love. Derwick, on the contrary,
was poor, though highly ambitious. Could anybody doubt that he was
counting on the Armand money to assist him to carve out a great career
in Parliament?
The jury, Jack thought, certainly did not look as if they doubted it
for a moment. Sir William Broom evidently had some knowledge of human
nature as it is found behind the counters of small shops. The idea of
wading to power through mud and blood seemed to be both familiar and
attractive to such minds.
Already, it appeared, a picture of himself to this effect was forming
in their imaginations. He felt a sense of new bitterness, but this was
followed a moment later by the whimsical thought that this “learned
friend” of his was being abominably rude to him, and would certainly
have been turned out of decent society if he had made such infamous
suggestions about him over, say, a private dinner-table.
“You are men of the world, gentlemen of the jury,” the voice rasped
on. “As such I shall appeal to you. All that I ask--all that the law
asks--is that you use your common sense.”
Sir William Broom resumed his seat. Derwick felt his own heart
quicken, just as it always did at a political meeting when the
chairman was about to call on him to address the audience.
The first witness was Inspector Biles. He retold the story of his
investigations in minute detail, and it was easy to see that his
evidence produced a profound effect. This was the kind of story which
a jury of business men could understand and appreciate.
Derwick asked him but one question in cross-examination.
“You have said,” he stated, “that you received most valuable
assistance in your work from Dr. Eustace Hailey, of Harley Street. Is
it not a fact that the whole credit of these investigations belongs to
Dr. Hailey?”
Biles reddened a little, but quickly recovered himself.
“I am prepared to admit that,” he said coldly.
Evidence was then called to prove that Derwick had actually gone into
the wood just before Sir William entered it; and then an expert from
the Home Office described his investigations of the morphine found in
the dead man’s body, and of the blood-stain on the prisoner’s coat.
“That stain might have been made by the wearer of the coat’s own
blood?” Derwick asked him.
“Oh, yes--by any human blood.”
“If the wearer, for example, had touched the place with a scratched
finger?”
“Possibly. He would scarcely touch the back of his coat, though, would
he, in these circumstances?”
“If he carried his handkerchief in a hip pocket and was attempting to
find it, he might do so?”
“Yes.”
The day wore on and the light faded from the dim windows. Servants
from Calthorpe Hall followed one another in weary succession. The jury
were assured that it would be quite easy for the prisoner to take a
spade from the garden tool-house.
They were told that Miss Armand and her fiancé appeared to be on very
affectionate terms; they were further informed that on the night of
the murder their mistress did not appear at dinner.
“So that no one dined in the house at all that night?” Sir William
Broom suggested.
“No one, sir.”
“Had that ever happened before when the family were staying in the
house?”
“Never that I can remember, sir.”
The last witness of the day was Mr. Blunder. He bowed to the judge as
he stepped into the box. His round face looked as healthy as a ripe
apple, and he gave his evidence in sprightly tones which made welcome
contrast with the dreary responses of the servants. When Jack rose to
cross-examine him, he bowed again, as though he at any rate was not
the man to forsake a friend in adversity.
“You stated, Mr. Blunder,” Jack declared, “that Sir William visited
you a few days before his death.”
“That is so.”
“Am I right in believing that on this occasion--or subsequently--he
told you that he meant to terminate the engagement between his
daughter and myself?”
There was a slight but quite appreciable emphasis on the word
“subsequently.” Blunder’s small eyes gleamed as he detected it. He
shot a quick, furtive glance at the face of the accused man. Jack
could see that he was asking himself whether or not it was possible
that Dr. Hailey had supplied any information. He hesitated.
“You do not answer my question.”
The little lawyer contracted his brows.
“Sir William did tell me that he meant to terminate your engagement,”
he declared in rather low tones.
It was the first real hit which the defense had scored throughout the
day. Sir William Broom raised his head uneasily. Several of the
jurymen leaned forward in the box.
“Did he tell you the reason?”
Again there was a craning of necks. The slight murmur which had
characterized the court hitherto died away into absolute silence, so
that sounds from the street outside were clearly audible. Blunder
gripped the rail in front of him with both his hands.
“Yes.”
“What was it?”
The last question came like a pistol-shot. In the deep silence it
sounded unnecessarily loud.
“That,” said the witness, “I am afraid I cannot disclose. Sir William
was not only my partner, he was also my client.”
The silence broke in an uneasy shuffling. It was obvious that the
audience in court resented this refusal keenly. Blunder turned to the
judge as though to claim his protection in his refusal, but before he
spoke he was answered.
“There is no privilege as between a solicitor and client, Mr. Blunder,
when his client is dead. I think you must answer the question put to
you.”
Again the silence fell. Jack watched the small eyes questioning his
face--wondering what he knew, how much he knew. He understood exactly
what was passing in Mr. Blunder’s mind. He would have given much to
know whether or not Mr. Blunder was an honest man, but with Estelle in
her present position, he could not afford at the moment to doubt it.
He stood awaiting his reply with exemplary patience. At last it came.
“Miss Estelle Armand was the victim on several occasions of epileptic
fits of a severe character. No one knew of these but her father,
because they always occurred in the late evening. Sir William felt
that it would not be right to allow a marriage in these
circumstances.”
“Thank you, Mr. Blunder.”
Jack sat down at once, to the very evident relief of the witness. The
feelings of the people in court found vent immediately in a fresh
rustling and murmuring, but the judge suppressed the sound with a
frown. He leaned toward the witness-box.
“I fancy, Mr. Blunder,” he said, “that I shall have some questions to
address to you on Monday morning.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
ESTELLE ARMAND EXPLAINS
Public interest in the trial had become enormously greater during
the week-end--as a result, no doubt, of the dramatic admission of Mr.
Blunder. When, therefore, the court sat on Monday morning, there was a
new tension in the air.
Jack entered the dock, his friends thought, with a firmer, more
confident step. He turned before he took his seat, and exchanged a
smile with Dr. Hailey, who was seated just behind him.
By the judge’s direction, Mr. Blunder was recalled at once. Dr. Hailey
observed him closely as he mounted the step to the witness-box, and
concluded that he had not heard, as yet, of Estelle’s arrest.
Some precaution had been taken by the police to avoid any publication
of the news whatever, and the fact that the event had occurred on a
Saturday made this easier. The little lawyer, however, looked rather
uneasy. His uneasiness increased palpably when his eyes met those of
the doctor.
“You said, I think, that Sir William Armand made you his confidant in
the matter of his daughter’s health,” the judge began, after
consulting his notes of the previous hearing. “Can you tell me why he
took this course?”
“Because, my lord, we were very close personal friends, and because he
desired me to arrange a consultation with a medical friend of mine who
specializes in epilepsy.”
“He did not propose to tell the prisoner anything about the matter?”
“No, my lord. He stated definitely that he would on no account tell
him.”
The judge was about to dismiss the witness, when Jack rose and asked
leave to put some further questions to him.
“What was the last occasion on which you saw your partner?” he asked
in crisp tones.
Mr. Blunder started. Instinctively, he glanced toward Dr. Hailey,
whose dull eyes were fixed on his face. The doctor was in the act of
taking a pinch of snuff. He made no sign. The lawyer seemed to measure
swords with him for an instant, and then to recoil.
“On the day on which he was murdered,” he said in low tones.
The judge raised his head sharply.
“Do I understand you to mean that Sir William left Calthorpe on that
day?” he asked.
“No, my lord. I came to Calthorpe to see him--at the village inn.”
Amazement was stamped on every face, including that of Sir William
Broom, who half-rose from his seat and then sat down again. Jack’s
voice rang out, putting his next question:
“Under the assumed name of Mr. Sawyer, I take it?”
“That is so.”
Mr. Blunder extracted a large, dark-colored handkerchief from his
pocket and wiped his brow with it. Again his eyes sought and found Dr.
Hailey’s eyes, but his quick wits challenged that impassive man in
vain. He received no token of recognition or of approval.
“Consequently, it was you who accompanied Sir William into the wood
where he was murdered.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see anybody lurking in the wood at the time?”
“Nobody. It was growing very dark, however.”
The judge interposed:
“Why didn’t you tell us all this on Saturday? It it surely material to
the issue before the jury.”
“Because, my lord, had I done so, I should have disclosed my dead
friend’s most carefully guarded secret.”
There were no further questions. Blunder left the box and was
accommodated with a seat in the front of the court, not far from where
Dr. Hailey was sitting. He remained for some time bent forward, with
his head between his hands.
This closed the case for the prosecution. Jack rose to address the
jury.
“Gentlemen,” he said in quiet tones, “it is one of the penalties of
innocence that it is usually unready to defend itself. That is my
difficulty in addressing you to-day. This charge took me unprepared,
because I had no need, or so I thought, of any preparation. When I
came to consider the question of my defense, I found that the number
of witnesses who might be able to help me was very small indeed.
“So I can promise you but little evidence. My chief defense, indeed,
must be with yourselves--with that instinct which enables honesty to
recognize honesty, and innocence to recognize innocence, even when, as
in my own case, a fellow being is apparently enmeshed in the web of
circumstance and coincidence.
“I shall not,” he went on, “attempt to deny many of the statements
made by counsel for the prosecution. I believe that in my dealings
with you I can afford to speak the exact truth.
“It is a fact that I entered the wood at Calthorpe just before Sir
William Armand entered it. It is a fact also that I had ample time to
carry out the horrible crime of which I am accused.
“Nor would I be telling the truth if I denied that I did see a new
grave in the churchyard when I passed that way.
“I remember seeing it most distinctly. Only an hour had then elapsed
since my engagement to Miss Armand was broken off. I was feeling sick
at heart, sore, if you like, greatly depressed.
“The thought occurred to me as I looked at the freshly turned earth
that the occupant of the grave was in a happier state than those of us
who, without hope, must still continue our lives.”
He paused a moment. The faces of the jury remained impassive. Though
he was accustomed to court work himself, he felt the lack of response
as a heavy weight on his spirit. Perhaps, after all, he had been
foolish in trusting to his own personality.
It might have been better to take the advice so many of his friends
had offered him, and left his defense in the hands of one of the big
criminal advocates.
“But, gentlemen,” he continued in quieter tones, “if I cannot call
many witnesses, I mean to call one or two. The vicar of Calthorpe will
tell you that I took tea with him on the afternoon of the murder, and
you will hear from his lips whether or not I conveyed to him the
impression a man about to take the life of another might be expected
to convey.
“Again, I shall call a very distinguished expert to explain to you
that some of the marks found on the tree beside which Sir William
Armand was struck down are of a most peculiar character, and actually
tell a tale very different from that put forward by the Crown.
“You will, I think, realize when you hear this evidence, that it must
have been the hand of a madman and not the hand of a man in possession
of his normal senses which perpetrated this crime.”
He sat down. In the rather dim light of the court, he thought he
detected an incredulous smile on the lips of the fat juryman. He drew
a deep breath. There is, after all, no more unconvincing proof of
innocence than the assertion that one is not guilty.
His first witness was Dr. Hailey, and the arrival of that--to the
public--mysterious character in the box was an occasion of great
curiosity. His evidence, so far as it related to the finding of the
body, merely confirmed that given by Inspector Biles; but when he came
to describe the mark which he had found on the tree, interest
reawakened.
Sir William Broom cross-examined him only on this point, and used all
his powers to extract an admission that possibly the work might have
been made by the ferrule of the dead man’s, or of the murderer’s,
walking-stick, but the doctor was unshakable in his view.
“I reached that conclusion during my first visit to Calthorpe,” he
admitted, “but when I reëxamined the tree, I abandoned it at once.”
“Have you much experience in the study of old superstitions?”
“Very little.”
Jack called the vicar of Calthorpe. The Rev. Dr. Hargreave Willoughby
came into court very much against his will. The whole “atmosphere of
Justice,” as he called it, was repugnant to him.
Nevertheless, he made a good witness. He assured the jury, in his
tense, emotional voice, that he found it impossible to conceive that
the prisoner had committed the crime imputed to him.
“A murderer,” he added, “on the very threshold of his crime, could
scarcely behave as my guest behaved. My experience of human nature
repudiates such an idea.”
This witness was not subjected to cross-examination, but Sir William
Broom devoted considerable attention to Professor Mildmay. He had
small reward for his pains; the professor’s mind was made up.
“I repeat,” he declared, after he had been severely pressed, “that in
my opinion the mark was made by one of the old stamps with which, in
past days, farmers and others used to ‘protect’ their fields against
occult influence.”
“But surely such an idea is, shall I say, rather imaginative. I put it
to you, professor, who would be likely to possess such an instrument?”
“Oh, there are still a number of specimens in existence in remote
country districts.”
“Then you think that possibly one of the villagers came out after the
murder and branded the tree--as a measure of ‘Safety First’?”
“Either that, or the murderer himself made the mark. I am not a
criminologist, but it strikes me that there are many features of this
crime which suggest the work of a disordered intellect.”
“Do I understand you to say, professor,” the judge interpolated, “that
in olden times murder by stabbing through the eyes was not uncommonly
met with?”
“That is so. If a man or woman was suspected of possessing the evil
eye, and was not publicly burned for this crime, he or she was
sometimes murdered. The eyes were ‘put out,’ and a charm against the
evil eye installed in the vicinity.”
The professor left the box. Jack glanced again at the faces of the
jury. He saw, as he had expected to see, that these minutiæ of
science bewildered without convincing them. He could almost hear their
comments on this, to their way of thinking, desperate plea when they
retired from the court. He rose, and in clear, ringing tones called:
“Miss Estelle Armand.”
The excitement which followed this announcement was extraordinary, for
descriptions of the missing girl had been diligently circulated by the
press, and the failure of Scotland Yard to apprehend her made the
subject of a great deal of sarcastic comment. Every one in court
seemed to press forward to catch a glimpse of her as she entered the
precincts.
At that moment Dr. Hailey took occasion to glance at Blunder. He
suppressed an exclamation as he did so. The plump, red face had paled
to a sickly white and the small, alert eyes were staring. The doctor
continued to watch until Jack’s first directions to the new witness
hushed the court again to silence.
“Will you tell the jury, Miss Armand, all that you know about the case
from the beginning?”
The girl’s voice was low at first. She seemed extremely nervous, and
looked very pale, but her beautiful features were under complete
control. They revealed but little of the torturing anxiety which, as
Dr. Hailey knew, she was suffering at that moment.
“My father,” she began, “cordially approved of my engagement to Mr.
Derwick. He was, indeed, very fond of my fiancé and treated him as if
he had been his own son. That continued right on until the day before
he died.”
She paused and sighed deeply. There was a murmur of sympathy for her
in the court. Dr. Hailey, who feared she might break down, half rose
from his seat. As he did so, he observed that Mr. Blunder had quite
recovered his normal appearance. He was making notes on a small
writing-pad which he had balanced on his knee.
Jack asked:
“It was on that day, was it not, that Sir William told you you must
break off your engagement?”
“Yes.”
“He gave you his reasons?”
“Yes.”
“And you agreed with them?”
“Yes.”
The girl’s tones had fallen so low that even the judge heard her with
difficulty. He asked her gently to try to speak a little louder. Jack
noticed that the jurymen, without exception, were straining forward to
catch every syllable.
“Did your father suggest that the disclosure he had made to you should
be kept secret?”
“He made me promise him that I would tell it to no one--not even to
you.”
The personal pronoun slipped out inadvertently. Estelle flushed and
turned from the dock, which she had been facing, to the jury-box.
“He made me promise him,” she repeated, “that I would not tell Mr.
Derwick. I did not tell him.”
She went on to describe how she had sent her lover away the next day,
adding that, before she took this step, she despatched notices to both
the _Times_ and the _Morning Post_.
“There was so very little time to spare, because at any moment the
blow might fall.”
Jack leaned with one hand on the front rail of the dock. His body was
bent forward and his face had an eager, intent look which indicated in
advance the importance he attached to the question he was about to
ask.
“What was the nature of that blow?” he queried.
Estelle answered in a voice suddenly grown clear and resonant, so that
her words carried to the back of the court.
“My father, through no fault of his own, had become a criminal.”
PART V
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE TWENTY PELLETS
In the stillness which followed, every word possessed its full
significance.
“My father went up to London,” Estelle continued, “because he had
noticed in the papers that Lady Windwest was ill. He and his partner,
Mr. Blunder, were her trustees, and the estate is a very large one. He
wanted to satisfy himself that everything was in order.”
She broke off because at that moment she happened to see Blunder for
the first time. A shaft of sunlight had fallen on his face, picking
him out as a spotlight picks out an actor on the stage. She seemed to
draw back to the farthest corner of the box.
“Was everything in order?” Jack asked.
“No.”
The word trembled on her lips.
“I take it you mean that these trust funds had been tampered with?”
The girl bowed her head. The terrible moments which her father had
lived through when he made this discovery were still fresh in her
mind. She could see his face again on the night of his return from
London, the expression in his eyes when he told her that he was
ruined.
“Did your father tell you, Miss Armand,” the judge asked, “that he had
made this discovery in London?”
“Yes, my lord. He told me that every penny he possessed in the world
would not be enough to make good the money taken from Lady Windwest’s
estate. He came back to Calthorpe to decide what he ought to do,
because Mr. Blunder had begged him not to act without consideration.”
“And he decided?” Jack asked.
“To inform the police at once, and offer the whole of his fortune as a
part payment of his debt. It was that decision which he conveyed
himself to Mr. Blunder at the village inn.”
“So you knew that the man who called himself Sawyer was Mr. Blunder?”
“I knew that Mr. Blunder was coming.”
“Do you think your father wished him to adopt a disguise?”
“He didn’t mention that to me. Personally, I should think not, but it
may be so.”
“You feel, no doubt, that at the interview at the village inn Mr.
Blunder learned that he would be standing in the dock on a serious
charge within a very short time?”
“No doubt at all. My father told me himself that he, also, must be
arrested, though he had not touched a penny of the money. That was his
reason for my breaking the engagement. Had I not broken it, and had
this blow fallen on us, you might have shared in our ruin.”
During this passage in the examination the atmosphere of the court had
become more and more tense. Gradually every eye had turned from the
girl in the box to the little lawyer whose reputation as a
professional man and an honest person her pretty lips were blasting.
He sat bent down, as he had been sitting since the moment Estelle
entered the court.
In spite of the burning curiosity which he must have felt was
everywhere about him, he continued to make notes on the pad before
him. Dr. Hailey, who had watched him for a considerable time, saw that
now he was writing faster than at the beginning of the girl’s
evidence. Was it possible that that fertile brain had yet another
surprise in store in the shape of a new explanation?
Just as this thought occurred Blunder raised his head and glanced
toward the doctor. His face was calm and unmoved. Their eyes met and
he smiled slightly; it might have been a chance recognition in a
theater.
After his last question Jack had bent down to consult his memoranda.
When he stood up again the ray of sunlight, which was gradually
traveling across the court as the day wore on, shone on him. He looked
at that moment a good figure of a man, with his fine head and crisp
brown hair which had a faint sheen of gold in it. His lean body seemed
to be in perfect physical condition.
Dr. Hailey glanced from him to the girl who, in happier circumstances,
would have shared his life. Her beauty, he thought, was not less
distinguished than his. It was strange, dramatic, this meeting, after
their separation, in the grim old court-house where he stood defending
his life against the whole force of organized justice.
“It follows, I think,” Jack’s voice declared, “that Mr. Blunder had a
good reason for wishing your father removed from his path. You know,
perhaps, that Mr. Blunder is the sole trustee under his will?”
“I have heard it.”
Estelle then told the story of Blunder’s visit to Calthorpe Hall. He
had assured her that her father must have been murdered, and that
Derwick would be accused. If she were missing, however, no action
could be taken by the police against him; and that argument had been
decisive.
“I recognize now that I was foolish,” she confessed, “but at the
moment I was terrified because I felt sure something awful had
occurred, and I knew you had been in the wood, or near it, at the
time.”
Blunder took her to Newcastle and from there they went by train to
Grantham. He had his car at a garage in the town, and they took the
road to London. Just as they were leaving the city she felt a stab of
pain in her arm.
She cried out, and her companion at once apologized and showed her a
pin sticking out of his coat which he said he had put there because
the lining had been torn. After that she felt very drowsy, and
remembered nothing more until she found herself in Dr. Hillman’s
asylum.
Sir William Broom rose to cross-examine, with an expression on his
rather pompous face which betrayed the surprise he felt.
“I am correct, am I not, Miss Armand,” he began, “in thinking that at
the present moment you are under arrest?”
“Yes.”
“On the charge of being concerned with the prisoner in the murder of
your father?”
“Yes.”
He moved his head in the direction of the jury, as though indicating
that a woman in that position was assuredly not to be trusted. Then he
leaned forward.
“Mr. Blunder has told us in his evidence,” he said, “that your father
informed him you were a sufferer from epileptic fits, and that this
was the reason why your engagement was broken off. Have you, to your
knowledge, ever suffered from epilepsy?”
A faint smile appeared on Estelle’s lips.
“Never.”
“Never, that is, that you know of.”
“If you wish to put it so.”
Sir William Broom changed his line of attack.
“Did it not strike you as a singular thing that your father should
meet his partner at the Black Bull Inn to discuss intimate business
affairs?” he asked.
“No. My father would not, on any account, have permitted Mr. Blunder
to enter his home again. He only consented to see him at all because
he hoped that between them they might be able to procure the money
necessary to pay these shameful debts in full.”
“I see. That does not, however, explain the appearance of Mr. Blunder
under an assumed name. I may tell you that he has himself given the
court an explanation of this.”
Estelle hesitated a moment.
“I do not know why Mr. Blunder disguised his identity,” she said
simply.
Sir William consulted his notes.
“You possess, I think,” he said, “a hypodermic syringe, and some
tablets of morphia which Dr. Brown, who gave evidence in this court on
Saturday, says he supplied to you.”
“Yes. They were for use when my father got neuralgia.”
“Did you give your father many injections?”
“Only two.”
“You mean you used only two of the pellets in the phial of twenty
supplied to you?”
“Yes.”
“Then how comes it that the syringe and the phial are both missing
from Calthorpe Hall?”
Estelle opened her eyes in a little gesture of astonishment.
“Are they missing?” she asked.
“The police have been unable to find them.”
She nodded.
“Oh, I see. But they would not be able to find them without assistance
from me. I always kept them, for safety, in a secret receptacle at the
back of the desk in my bedroom. It is an old piece of furniture. I
have the key of that receptacle in my pocket now.”
Jack Derwick rose.
“My lord,” he said, “I venture to submit to you that some one should
be dispatched at once to verify this statement of the witness.”
The judge assented and orders were given. Inspector Biles was
intrusted with the mission. Then Sir William Broom resumed his
cross-examination. He put several questions about Estelle’s flight
from Calthorpe, her explanation of which he appeared to regard as a
myth from beginning to end.
“Your suggestion, I take it,” he said, “is that you were drugged.”
“I am quite sure of that. The doctors who attended me are of the same
opinion. They will tell you so when they give evidence.”
“It is unnecessary to anticipate the evidence of other witnesses,”
said the judge in tones of admonition. “Have you any idea of the
nature of the drug used?”
“I have since been told it was probably Indian hemp or hashish. It
caused me to lose my reason completely, so that I was certified as
insane and sent to a private asylum.”
Sir William Broom started. He had not heard anything of this. But he
recovered himself quickly.
“It has already been suggested,” he reminded her, “that your mental
state is not satisfactory. I submit to you----”
He got no further than that. Suddenly there was a scream from the body
of the court, and several men and women jumped to their feet. They
were seen to be raising a man’s body from the floor, to which it had
apparently just fallen.
Estelle turned and looked, and saw the face of Blunder. She knew
instinctively that he was either dead or dying.
CHAPTER XXIX.
MR. BLUNDER’S CONFESSION
Dr. Hailey forced his way to the side of his antagonist. Blunder
still breathed, but he appeared to have lost consciousness. In all
probability he had been struck down by apoplexy. But no--he opened his
eyes and managed to force a smile on his livid, trembling lips.
They laid him on the floor of the corridor with a coat under his head
to serve as a pillow.
“Is that you, Hailey?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
He closed his eyes again. The ushers had begun to clear the court, and
there was more air. The proceedings were for the moment suspended.
“Bring me some brandy, somebody,” the doctor ordered.
“It’s no use.” Blunder’s voice was now so faint as scarcely to be
audible. “Cyanide of potash--ten minutes ago.”
His breathing grew slower. Dr. Hailey felt his pulse trip over one of
its beats--a sign he knew of evil significance in the circumstances.
Next moment the breathing stopped. The face of the lawyer became
distorted and he bared his teeth. Then a severe spasm of all his
muscles shook his body.
And then, gradually, the muscles relaxed, and the pale lips fell back
again in an expression of gentleness. Both breathing and pulse had
stopped.
Dr. Hailey rose from his knees.
“He’s dead,” he declared.
He turned away and glanced at the place where the lawyer had been
sitting. The writing-pad lay on the seat, to which some one had no
doubt restored it from the floor.
He reached and took it. The judge was still seated on the bench, and
he made his way forward and told him what had happened.
“I fancy, my lord,” he added, “that I had better hand you this
document, which Mr. Blunder was engaged in writing at the moment of
his death. It is probably material to the present case.”
The court adjourned for an hour to permit of the removal of Blunder’s
body to the mortuary. When the sitting was resumed, the judge told the
jury that he proposed at once to read them the memorandum left by the
dead man and written by him in court.
“It’s,” he said, “in the form of a letter addressed to myself. It
runs:
“Your Lordship:
“I am about to take a dose of cyanide of potash, which for some time
now I have carried about with me in readiness. When this letter falls
into your hands, I shall therefore be dead.
“I am writing it in order that one part of the mystery of Sir William
Armand’s death may be finally cleared up. About the other part, I can
furnish no information whatever.
“Let me say at once that what Miss Armand has told the court is true
in every particular. Her father did discover that I had acted for many
years as a fraudulent trustee, and that the fortune of Lady Windwest
was almost completely dissipated.
“He wished to communicate with the police there and then, but I begged
him to consider his daughter and her fiancé, and give the latter a
chance to escape the disgrace which was coming. He agreed to think
matters over and meet me, later, at the Black Bull at Calthorpe with
his final decision.
“I knew my man, and urged this arrangement on him because I meant to
murder him----”
The judge’s voice hesitated a little at this point, but he resumed his
reading in a moment:
“I shall not trouble you with my reasons, as you would scarcely
understand them if I did. I obtained a good disguise at Messrs.
Clarkson’s in Wardour Street, telling them it was for a fancy dress
ball, and went to Calthorpe under the name of Sawyer.
“I took all the necessary precautions to hide my identity in every
possible way--and succeeded, as I think, remarkably well. Indeed,
nothing could have been more certain of success than the plan I had
decided upon.
“Briefly, it was this: I would accompany Sir William some distance on
the way home, ostensibly to importune him to change his mind, and show
me mercy. At a suitable spot I would trip him up.
“It would then be the work of an instant to plunge the needle I had
ready and filled in my pocket into his leg, and give him enough
morphia to kill him in a few minutes.
“My one fear was that my dose might somehow miscarry, and that in
consequence he might be able to reach home, or, at any rate, to
communicate with somebody before it took effect on him. In that case,
I realized, I should have to take my own life.
“But my position was so desperate that I had to accept this hazard. As
it happened, there was no need for anxiety. The plan succeeded even
better than I could have hoped. The old man fell like a stone, and, in
falling, struck his head on a tree.
“My dose was administered without the slightest trouble. I waited for
a short time, holding my victim down, until he began to be drowsy, and
those, I can tell you, were anxious moments, for he had considerable
strength, and attempted to shout for help.
“Happily, no one heard him. As soon as he became unable to move
easily, I left him. Within twenty minutes of setting out from it, I
was back again at the inn.
“You may or may not believe me, but, as a man about to die, I can
assure you that I know nothing further about the case. Obviously, my
own plan was complete.
“Sir William, had he remained as I left him, would have been found
with a few scratches on his brow--made obviously by the tree when he
fell, but no marks of violence whatever on his body. Knowing what I do
of the average post-mortem examination in a country mortuary, I am
ready to wager that the true cause of death would not have been
discovered, for I calculated that he would go on breathing for about
half an hour, and in that time the morphia would be well distributed
over his body, and well diluted by his blood.
“Only the tiniest needle-mark would remain--a mark almost invisible
even to eyes searching carefully for it. The verdict would have been
‘death from heart failure’ without the smallest shadow of doubt.
“Judge, then, of my amazement and horror when I learned that the body
had disappeared, and, later, that it had been discovered. I knew then
that some one else had reason to wish my late partner out of the
way--though why he should have remurdered a man already doomed I
cannot think. Possibly, he supposed Sir William was merely ill, and
took the chance afforded of making a quick end of him.
“In any case, it upset my apple-cart. Nevertheless, I might have
escaped had not the fates sent Doctor Hailey to vex me. Let me take
this opportunity of paying a tribute to the cleverest analytical mind
it has ever been my misfortune to encounter. Twice, as the doctor will
tell you himself, I managed to throw him off the scent.
“But he was too keen for me, and a certain piece of information I
received a few days ago from a friend convinced me that my time was
near at hand. Miss Armand, of course, was my chief danger--for she
alone knew the facts about Lady Windwest’s estate.
“If I could secure her permanently, I was safe, for I had become
trustee of a large sum of money--about one hundred thousand pounds,
belonging to my partner, and his insurance policy is worth not less
than fifty thousand pounds. Moreover, Lady Windwest had recovered.
“It was merely a matter of time to clear up the mess sufficiently to
be able to leave the country with a competency, at least. I nearly
succeeded when I had Miss Armand certified as a lunatic and committed
to an asylum.
“But fate, as I have said, was against me----
“The narrative ends there,” said the judge, “but he has managed to
sign it.” He turned to Sir William Broom. “Do you wish to recall Miss
Armand?”
“I think not, my lord.”
Just then Inspector Biles entered the court. He was sworn, and
produced the syringe of pellets which he had found in the desk at
Calthorpe. Only two of the twenty pellets were missing.
The rest of the evidence was soon taken. It merely confirmed Estelle’s
story. Then Jack rose to make his final appeal to the jury.
He found them in a very different temper from that in which they had
been when he addressed them in opening his case. Yet their minds were
still, he realized, prejudiced against him. Blunder’s confession,
while it explained much, did not explain everything. He perceived that
he must exert all his strength to avert disaster. His speech was
listened to with profound attention. Indeed, the court was hushed when
he asked:
“Is it likely, is it even credible, that a man in love with Sir
William’s daughter, finding him sick almost to death in those terrible
circumstances, would kneel down and murder him brutally?” He added:
“With what weapon, moreover, could he commit that murder?”
He continued:
“This, surely, as Dr. Hailey suggested, was the work of some lunatic,
some homicidal degenerate. Such men exist in every land and in most
districts. It may be difficult to find the monster. After all, Jack
the Ripper, operating in busy, well-lit Whitechapel, was never found.
Yet, can you doubt that he exists? Is there not the mark of the Evil
Eye on the tree to prove it?”
He sat down, his task finished. He leaned against the wooden partition
behind him. It seemed to him as though the big policemen on each side
of him drew a little closer. Sir William Broom rose and cleared his
throat.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” he began, “one murder does not excuse
another.” His voice was, if possible, more rasping than ever, his
manner more didactic. Step by step he went over the whole evidence,
sifting it, analyzing it, rearranging it. His conclusion was that
Derwick, and only Derwick, could possibly have committed the deed, for
he alone of all the persons in the drama had a motive, however
inadequate, was on the spot, and was in possession of the necessary
knowledge and the necessary time.
“You cannot,” he concluded, “get away from these hard facts, whatever
sympathy you may feel for this misguided young man.”
It was late--about half past seven o’clock--yet the judge decided to
finish the case, and began his summing up at once.
“I do not disguise from you, gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “that
the case is one presenting almost a maximum of difficulty from the
point of view of those who are called upon to decide it. There are so
many and so diverse elements. There have been, even in this
court-house, so many terrible incidents. Moreover, public interest has
magnified the issue out of all proportion--almost out of recognition.”
His cold voice grew a little louder.
“Nevertheless, you must perform your duty. The issue before you is
clear enough from one point of view, and that is the only point of
view which should concern you. It is this:
“Did the prisoner, in fact, stab Sir William Armand in the eyes so as
to cause his death, and thereafter bury him in the Calthorpe
churchyard?”
He went on to say that the fact that Sir William might have died of
the poison administered by Mr. Blunder was not to be taken into
account. Equally true would it be to say that he might have recovered
from it.
Medical science was full of resource, and there was always a
possibility that some one might have passed that way and found the
sick man before it was too late. Nor could the fact that Miss Armand
had clearly had no part in the attempt to poison her father be allowed
to weigh.
“I may tell you,” said the judge, “that, in all probability, no
further action will be taken against this unhappy young lady. But that
probability in no sense exculpates her lover. He was out, alone, in
the grounds of Calthorpe Hall, long after she had gone to bed.
“He was, moreover, in complete ignorance of the reason for his
dismissal, a reason which I think does infinite credit both to Sir
William and to his daughter. There is his own evidence to prove that
the blow which had fallen on him was one under which he suffered
extreme mental distress, and which, quite possibly, filled his spirit
with resentment.
“In this condition of mind, it is suggested by the prosecution, he
found the main cause of all his troubles lying unconscious in a
remote, unfrequented wood.
“A fresh grave, as he knew--this again he admits quite freely--lay but
a few hundred yards away in the village churchyard. It was very dark,
very desolate.”
The judge went on to say that if the jury felt that, in these
circumstances, Derwick might have yielded even for an instant to the
sense of injury he no doubt experienced at the moment, they must
unhesitatingly bring in a verdict to that effect. If, on the other
hand, they believed the theory of the defense that some wandering
maniac with a taste for folk-lore had committed the murder, Derwick
must be acquitted.
“The difficulty I find in accepting that theory,” he added, “is that,
according to all the local witnesses, no such individual has ever been
known in the district. Nor is the analogy drawn with the case of the
so-called Jack the Ripper murders a wholly satisfying one. On the
other hand, the evidence of Professor Mildmay is entitled to full
respect. In any case, if you entertain any doubt whatever, you must
give the prisoner the benefit of that doubt.”
He finished his address at nine o’clock, and the jury at once retired.
They returned almost on the stroke of eleven.
The verdict was “Guilty.”
With a dim sense of horror to come, Jack heard the judge express the
view that he considered this verdict to be in accord with the weight
of evidence.
Then he heard another voice order him by name to stand up and declare
if he had anything to say why sentence of death should not be passed
on him.
He did not speak.
The judge pronounced sentence.
CHAPTER XXX.
THE EYE REAPPEARS
On the following Saturday, Dr. Hailey reached Calthorpe in response
to an urgent request from Estelle.
The Crown had offered no evidence against her when she was brought up
before the magistrate, and she was released at once. She had remained
in Newcastle for several days, in order to be near Jack. Dr. Hailey,
on the other hand, had returned to London in the hope of persuading
Scotland Yard that some further investigations ought, even at this
eleventh hour, to be carried out. He had had no success in this
mission.
“Nevertheless,” Estelle cried when he told her, “we must save him. Oh,
promise me that you will do everything in your power to save him.”
They were in the big drawing-room of which, in other days, the girl
had felt so proud. A great vista of tossing waves stretched away
before the windows. He thought that never before had he seen a woman’s
face in which courage and gentleness were so fairly mingled. In spite
of all that she had suffered and was now suffering, there was no sign
of weakness.
“My dear child, I think I am nearly as distracted as you must be.
After Blunder’s confession I made sure that no jury would convict. But
the judge was against us from the outset. That is the worst of a man
such as West; he has no imagination.”
“Do you think the court of appeal will set this terrible injustice
right?”
“I hope so, indeed.”
She turned away from him. He went down to the hall, and walked out
along the cliffs. Personally he had no confidence whatever that the
court of appeal would reverse the jury’s verdict. It was against all
precedent that they should do anything of the kind.
There was just a chance that the obvious bias against the prisoner
shown by Mr. Justice West might be regarded as an unfair bias, but he
doubted that. After all, the judge had presented both sides of the
case, and he was fully entitled to make up his own mind.
He stood watching the wild turmoil of the waves, enjoying,
unconsciously, this great spectacle of nature in travail. How puny
were the struggles of men as compared with this mighty conflict! Then
the thought of Derwick awaiting in his fearful cell the sound of the
steps of death drew his mind back to reality.
He turned and looked toward the quiet little village nestling in its
fold of the cliffs. There, somehow, if only he could find it, was the
key to this mystery.
That thought inspired him with a strange hope. His whole experience
had proved to him that no human act is ever carried out without
leaving its effect somewhere. For those who had patience to
investigate and eyes to see, there were always fresh clews.
With this idea in his mind, he strolled down the village street,
scrutinizing every one whom he met. Not a doubt remained with him that
the murderer of Sir William Armand was hidden under one of these
roofs, behind one of these rough walls. He walked into the bar of the
Black Bull and called for a pint of beer. While it was being drawn, he
glanced at the faces of the people who shared the taproom with him.
There were a considerable number of customers, for it was Saturday
afternoon, and the laborers on the neighboring farms had their week’s
wages in their pockets. The talk was all of the trial--as it would be,
until after the day fixed for Derwick’s execution.
As he expected, these Englishmen were unanimously on the side of the
law. One or two of them recognized him, but none of them ventured to
speak. The North countryman is the most reticent of all human beings.
He listened to them for a short time, and then accepted the landlord’s
invitation to come into his private room.
The landlord shared his patrons’ opinion that justice had been done,
but he was anxious to make it appear that he was a man of open
mind--possibly because Miss Armand was his landlord. He asked in a
very guarded way whether there was any hope of a reprieve being
granted to “the poor young man.”
“None, I should imagine,” said Dr. Hailey shortly.
“You think they’ll hang him?” This in tones which were instinctively
gloating.
“Unless some one proves him innocent in the meantime.”
The doctor, however, had not come to discuss the future, but to delve
into the past and present.
“The difficulty about this place,” he said, “is that one never by any
chance sees its inhabitants. They all seem to live behind closed
doors, and never come out. Consequently, it’s impossible to say what
sort of people they are.”
The innkeeper, as he had done on a former occasion, entirely mistook
the nature of the doctor’s anxiety.
“You’ll need to go to church, sir,” he declared, “to-morrow morning.
That is the only time the whole village turns out together.”
Dr. Hailey took his advice. He installed himself in a front seat in
the right transept, just under the pulpit, from which he was able to
command a wide view of the building. It was, he saw, a beautiful old
Saxon church in a wonderful state of preservation.
The Normans had “improved” it with a few arches, but the original
fabric was unharmed. The thought passed through his mind that the
so-called Gothic style of ecclesiastical architecture had been greatly
overrated.
The congregation began to enter the building. They were well-fed,
healthy-looking folk for the most part, with the shrewdness of the
North in their eyes.
He searched in vain for any face of the type he was looking for--a
type so common in some of the western districts of Cornwall and Wales
and the Highlands of Scotland.
At the moment when the service began he had seen only one individual
who might conceivably be regarded as a degenerate type--a young
farmer, he judged, with a red, heavy face and rather sinister
expression; but the idea of connecting such a man with a murder was
grotesque on the face of it.
The service was very simple, but nevertheless it impressed him more
than he had expected it would. The Rev. Dr. Hargreave Willoughby
possessed that rare quality of inspiration which makes even the
reading of a collect significant.
He had evidently been at immense pains, too, to make the musical part
of the service as impressively devotional--in the best sense of that
much abused term--as possible. When he entered the pulpit, Dr. Hailey
was aware of a sense of pleasurable anticipation.
Nor was he disappointed. The Rev. Dr. Hargreave preached with very
considerable power from the text, “Thou shalt not kill.”
He explained his singular choice on such a day by reminding his
hearers that he was devoting a series of sermons to the Ten
Commandments. He had not felt that the terrible events of the last few
weeks should deter him from proceeding with this intention.
On the contrary, there might be more than a mere coincidence in the
fact that the sixth commandment should form their immediate subject.
If they chose, they might see the hand of God in that occurrence.
He leaned over the pulpit when he had said this and the tension of his
voice increased.
“This week,” he said, “it was my painful duty to be present in a court
of law, and see a fellow creature condemned to death--for killing, for
breaking this solemn commandment. On the same day I was witness also
of the self-slaughter of another fellow creature.”
He paused, waiting, as it seemed, for the effect of his words to be
manifest. Dr. Hailey scanned every face before him with diligent care.
Surely such preaching as this must discover guilt, if guilt existed
among these people.
“We feel, do we not,” the clergyman continued, “very innocent of these
horrible crimes? Yet, I tell you, we are not so innocent as we feel.”
His voice rose in swift crescendo, which somehow seemed to harmonize
with the shrilling of the wind among the trees outside.
“Killing is a big word, and there are so many ways in which a man or
woman may kill. They may kill the body; for that crime the punishment
is death. But they may also kill the spirit--and in this world go
unpunished.”
Again he leaned towards his congregation.
“In my view, in God’s view, as you may discover for yourselves in the
Bible, it is a far greater crime to strike at the spirit than to
murder the body.
“To betray the trust of a child, to prove unfaithful to a friend, to
deceive those who have put their faith in us, to put the lust of gain
before the dictates of the heart, to make the holy emotion of love a
counter of merchandise--all these are murders most foul. In the
Kingdom of Heaven, believe me, the punishment for all these is death.”
A little later in his sermon he mentioned the Derwick trial again by
referring to the theory of the defense that some madman with a
lingering belief in the influence of the Evil Eye had wrought the
crime.
“Grotesque, perhaps, in this age of science, with its wireless
wonders, and its new powers of control of nature,” he commented, “yet,
in another sense, these, old beliefs had their bed-rock of truth.
Surely the slayer of a soul is indeed possessed of an evil eye which
not even the love of God can restore. ‘If, therefore, thine eye be
evil, pluck it out!’”
As he spoke these words, Dr. Hailey fancied that the coarse-faced
farmer did look uneasy. A young girl in one of the front pews, also,
seemed to hear the sermon with disquiet. But so, perhaps, must anybody
with even the beginnings of a guilty conscience.
He came out of the churchyard in as deep perplexity as he had felt
when he entered the building. Mists of night seemed to be gathered
about this case, which not all the straining of his wits was
sufficient to dissipate.
Around him, as he passed down the narrow pavement, were the graves of
Calthorpe. He looked toward the place where he had made his first
great discovery in the case. The earth on the new grave had become
darker; already an obliterating nature was smoothing away all traces
of that ghastliness. Then his eyes strayed further to another new
grave under a great tree, which he realized must be that of Sir
William Armand.
He turned from the pavement, and walked across to it. There were still
a number of faded wreaths lying on the raw earth. One of them, he saw,
bore a card inscribed “From the members of the Parthenon Club,” of
which Sir William had been a member for many years. Another was from a
well-known ornament of the judicial bench.
In a few days, doubtless, they would be taken away. And then the earth
of this grave also would be smoothed away by the same broad hands, and
even the memory of it forgotten. He raised his eyes in dim regret to
the tree which stood, like a living sentinel, among these dead. It, at
least----
He muttered a sharp exclamation, and took a quick step forward, round
the head of the grave.
There, stamped on the trunk of this tree also, was the mark of the
Evil Eye which he had found at the site of the murder.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A FAMILY FEUD
The sight set his pulses throbbing with new excitement.
He glanced round. The churchyard was empty now. He could see the last
of the congregation in the distance, going homeward to the village. He
took out his glass and examined the mark carefully. There could be no
manner of doubt that it had been made by the same instrument as that
used on the first occasion.
He knelt down and inspected the ground at the bottom of the tree, but
there were no footprints to serve as a guide. The recent heavy storms
had washed away any traces which might have been evident.
He left the churchyard and took the path across the fields to the
Hall. One thing was certain. That mark had been made since Jack
Derwick had left Calthorpe forever. It had been made, too, at a
considerable interval of time from the first mark, because Sir
William’s grave was a new one.
The old family vault in the churchyard belonged to the last owners of
the estate and was, he had been told, quite full. No one could
possibly know where this new squire would be buried until the actual
decision about his grave was taken.
It followed that the maker of those strange marks was at large in the
neighborhood, just as he had suspected. That fact must certainly be
presented for the consideration of the appeal court, though probably
they would merely take the view that it pointed to the presence in the
neighborhood of some superstitious person bent on warding off the evil
spirits which might be supposed to have prompted the murder.
He told Estelle of his find as soon as he reached the Hall, and for
the moment the news seemed to cheer her; but she, too, recognized that
this clew, unless it could be followed up, supplied but a slender
chance of attaining their object.
“Did you make any progress at all with your search?” she asked.
He shook his head. “The people here are not murderous by nature. They
look honest and steady, all of them.”
He went out for a long walk alone, returning in time for dinner. But
still the key he sought eluded him. When bedtime came he was no nearer
any conclusion. Estelle had retired early because she was going to
Newcastle again the next morning, and had need of all the rest she
could obtain to enable her to endure the ordeal without flinching.
He sat in Sir William’s study with a book on his knees which he was
not reading. A great fire burned in the big, open grate. The subtle
comfort of the room held him back from his intention to go upstairs.
His mind seemed to drift away.
When he awoke, the fire had gone out, and there was a chill in the
air. He glanced at his watch. It was four in the morning. With an
exclamation of annoyance, he rose and took the book back to its place
on one of the shelves.
Just as he was putting it in, he paused and stood a moment with an
intent, wondering look on his face. Somehow, during his sleep, his
brain had gone on working. There had come, out of the darkness, a
glimmer of a new light.
He moved along the big, well-stocked bookcase, searching its contents
with eager eyes. Suddenly he came to the volume he was looking for.
With hands which trembled, he drew it from its shelf and carried it to
the table in the center of the room.
He found the place he wanted, and bent over the table, reading
intently. Then he stood up again with a puzzled expression on his face
as though he were attempting to recall some far-off incident to his
memory.
The next morning he traveled with Estelle as far as Newcastle. She
told him that she believed there would be enough money to set her
father’s affairs in order, when the total of Sir William’s estate,
including his life insurance, had been realized.
“I shall have to sell Calthorpe, of course, but now I should do that
in any case. I could not bear to live there permanently in the
future.”
He traveled straight on to London, and drove to Harley Street. Two
hours later he caught the Cornish express. The next morning he
breakfasted in Penzance. Then he drove out to the little village of
Pensillian, which lies at the extreme western point of Mount’s Bay.
The considerable resemblance between this hamlet and Calthorpe struck
him at once, though the distinctly Cornish qualities of the landscape
remained to make the likeness superficial. He told the driver of the
hired car to wait for him, and took his way up the rough little
street, which was unfit for any wheeled traffic, to the cottage of the
registrar of the parish, the location of which he had previously
discovered in Penzance.
He found it easily enough and strode up through the small garden to
the door. His knock was answered by an old woman who hobbled to the
door with a stick. She declared that her son was within, and bade the
visitor enter.
Dr. Hailey took off his hat and stepped down into the small kitchen,
where a man in middle age was eating a belated breakfast. The doctor
introduced himself as Mr. Smith, of Edinburgh, and said that he had
come to consult the parish register, if that might be possible.
“The fact is,” he declared, “I am writing a book on the parish
registers of the country and the strange stories which many of them
contain. I am now going about gathering material for it.”
Mr. Ward--that was the name of the registrar--did not appear to regard
the idea with much favor. Nevertheless, he invited his visitor to
share his meal. Dr. Hailey refused, but accepted a cup of tea.
“You have had, I suppose,” he queried, “your own share of queer
happenings here in Pensillian?”
The registrar raised his heavy eyebrows. He nodded in an equivocal
sort of way. He went on to say that the old registers were kept at the
church. Only the more recent volumes were in his custody.
“Oh, it is the recent volumes in which I am interested; those for the
year 1915 in particular. Let me see, was I rightly informed in
Penzance this morning that during that year a mystery of some sort
occurred in the village?”
Mr. Ward glanced at his visitor keenly.
“Do you mean the case of Farmer Robin?” he asked in his deliberate
tones.
“I fancy that is the case I do mean. He disappeared, did he not, quite
suddenly?”
“That he did, sir; and was never seen or heard of again, though there
were those as had their own suspicions.”
Dr. Hailey took out his snuff-box and offered it to his companion,
who, to his very considerable surprise, accepted it with alacrity.
They snuffed together while the old woman refilled their cups with her
very excellent tea.
“I wonder if you could tell me something more than I know already
about that case. I can assure you that such mysteries interest me very
deeply; indeed, they are exactly what I am looking for, for this book
of mine.”
The registrar shook his head.
“There isn’t much to tell,” he declared. “Robin, he was an oldish man
with a good farm. He had a tidy bit of money, so they said, though he
didn’t spend much. But his horses was fine beasts and he used to drive
to church in his own gig every Sunday. A well enough liked man and
very quiet living.”
The man paused to raise his cup to his lips.
“Had he any family?” Dr. Hailey asked.
“Yes, he had. Two sons and one daughter. The boys have the farm now,
but the girl’s married and gone out of the place to Camborne. There’s
no dealings between her and her brothers, I can tell you.”
“Really? Why should that be?”
“For a good reason, sir. She married a man that her father had
forbidden her to have any dealings with.” He glanced uneasily at the
door and window as if fearing that what he said might be overheard.
“I may mention,” he added in a lower tone, “that I believe her scamp
of a husband might have thrown light on what became of the old man if
he had cared to do it. That’s all I say--there’s more what thinks as I
do.”
Again the doctor took snuff. He awaited further information with an
eagerness which he restrained as best he could.
“Anyhow,” added his companion, “he was killed in the war, so maybe
he’s made atonement by this time. God knows; and it’s not for us frail
human creatures to judge, anyhow. But I do know that, for all she’s a
widow with two young children, her brothers will have nothing to do
with his wife. There’s the curse of their father still between them.”
“Did Mr. Robin, then, want his daughter to marry some one else?” Dr.
Hailey asked.
“He did, and a fine man too, one of the biggest farmers round about
Pensillian. He’s left the place now, for he was mad to make Kate Robin
his wife, and when she refused him he joined up and went straight away
to the war--though he needn’t have gone, being a farmer, at all. They
tell me he’s back at the land again somewhere in Devonshire.”
“Um; I suppose he made the old mistake of asking the father before he
asked the daughter, whereas his rival asked the girl first.”
The registrar shook his head.
“It wasn’t quite that way,” he declared. “You see, Kate and the man
she afterward married were engaged for about six months before Mr.
Drew--that’s the name of the farmer as wanted her--came to the place.
Up till that time Farmer Robin was agreeable to the marriage.
“Then one day he and John Trevanin had a wild set-to about some
private matter, and he ordered him out of his house and said he would
never marry daughter of his. Nobody ever heard the truth of that
quarrel, but, of course, all the tongues was busy.
“They said that Robin wanted a rich man for a son-in-law and picked a
quarrel for the purpose of getting rid of the poor one, and I’m not
denying it may be so; but Trevanin was a wild scamp, all the same.”
“So that if Mr. Robin had not disappeared, his daughter would now be
Mrs. Drew.”
“Most like. Kate was a bold girl, but she was afraid of her father for
all that, and had hardly dared have crossed him. Sure it is, she
didn’t see aught of Trevanin from the time of the quarrel till she was
free to make her own choice; and they say Drew was visiting the house
near every day.”
“Was that in the spring?”
“No, it was the month of November. I remember the time well, because
my own wife died just the week before Robin was missed. She died on
the Sunday and it was the following Saturday night that he was last
seen coming out of the post-office there, from buying the weekly
paper. He used to walk over from his farm every Saturday night to get
his paper, for he was a great reader of the war news.”
When the old lady had cleared the table, Mr. Ward fetched his
register. Dr. Hailey glanced at one or two entries, including that
relating to the registrar’s wife, who died, he saw, on November 15th,
1915, of “acute pneumonia.” Then he closed the book, and rose to go
away after having slipped a handsome fee into the man’s ready palm.
“I suppose,” he said, “that if a man were to fall over the cliffs
about here, his body would be carried away by the tide and lost
forever.”
“Oh, yes. That was the conclusion the police came to--that he had
missed his footing in the dark. There was a bit of a fog that night,
you see. But it’s one thing to miss your footing, and it’s another
thing----”
Mr. Ward shrugged his broad shoulders expressively.
When Dr. Hailey left the cottage, he walked up to the churchyard,
which stood rather higher than the village, on the back of a rolling
hillock. He entered it and looked about among the gravestones, till he
came to one bearing the inscription:
In loving memory
of
Hanna Grantham
beloved wife of John Ward
who departed this life Nov. 15, 1915
“Thy Will be Done”
He marked the position of this grave, now grass-grown and rather
deserted, with great care, seeming to memorize its exact whereabouts
in the churchyard. Then he advanced to the headstone and inspected it
with the most meticulous care.
A look of profound disappointment spread over his face at the result
of this examination. Could it be that, after all, he was mistaken, and
that he had embarked on what was little better than a wild-goose
chase? But no, he refused to believe it. He repeated his examination,
this time with even closer attention.
“Ah!”
It appeared that he had found what he came to find. A look of lively
horror was in his eyes as he turned away from the grave and went back
down the village street to his car.
PART VI
CHAPTER XXXII.
A TRYST WITH THE DEAD
Two days later Dr. Hailey alighted from the Scottish express at
Carlisle. He caught a local train half an hour later, and so came to
Appleby in Cumberland. From that remote place, he drove to Hendred
Castle on the high moors.
It was after one o’clock when he reached this latter place. He sat
down at once to luncheon in the George Hotel, which is certainly one
of the best hostelries in this land of good cheer and solid comfort.
The room was empty, for in winter Hendred Castle has few save
commercial visitors, who travel between Cumberland and Yorkshire by
the branch railway from Appleby. He finished an excellent meal and
went out at once into the wide market square of the little town, with
its huge, rough cobbles and its air of immemorial tranquillity.
He crossed the square and walked up High Street till he came to a
house beside the door of which was displayed a metal plate announcing
that it was inhabited by John Cossar, Registrar of Births, Marriages,
and Deaths. He rang the bell, and asked for this individual.
He was shown into a small but very neat office, which appeared to be
full of very large books arranged on broad shelves round the walls.
When the registrar appeared, he took a small notebook from his pocket
and consulted it.
“I should like to consult the volumes covering the month of February,
1905,” he declared--“the deaths, if you please.”
The man went to one of the shelves and drew out the required book.
“Is there any special name you wish to see?” he asked.
“No, thank you. What I want are the deaths which took place in the
week beginning February 4th. Ah, here they are!”
He bent over the book, and then jotted down the four names which were
given as having died in the time mentioned.
“Were all these people buried in the churchyard here?” he asked.
“No, sir. Only two of them. The first and third. The others were
buried in the small villages where they died.”
Dr. Hailey paid his fee and left the office. The weather had cleared
and it was a beautiful afternoon. He stood entranced at the loveliness
of the old town, with its fair church and quaint overhanging gables.
A bit of the wall which, at one period, had surrounded it stood up
grimly in the background.
He strode through empty streets, on the pavements of which his
footsteps sounded strangely loud, to the church. The iron gateway
leading into the yard was open and he entered at once.
He spent the next hour among the graves, locating the two which he had
marked in the registrar’s office. One of them appeared to be the vault
of a substantial local family, for it was railed in, and covered by an
immense slab of stone.
The other was an open grave, marked only by a cheap cross bearing the
letters E.A.M. These, he knew, were the initials of the name,
Elizabeth Anne Martin. He examined the cross as he had examined the
headstone at Pensillian. The fact that it yielded nothing to his
inspection did not, on this occasion, seem to cause him any
disappointment.
When he had completed this task, he walked from the grave to the end
of the churchyard, which, at this point, abutted on the wall of the
town. From here, he obtained a wonderful view of the church itself, a
very beautiful example of the larger type of twelfth century edifices.
The high gables of a distinctly modern vicarage showed to the left,
peeping out from a screen of big trees.
He strolled slowly in the direction of the house. There was, he
observed, free access to the churchyard from its garden, which was
separated from the tombs by nothing more substantial than a shrubbery.
He returned to the street, and climbed further up the hill on which
the old town is built, till he came to a long, low building, standing
back from the road in its own grounds. From this point a wonderful
view of the Cumberland and Yorkshire hills is obtainable. He stood for
a few minutes and watched the sunset develop over the lowlands to the
west. Masses of smoky fire seemed to roll in the valleys. The breasts
of the mountains were already shrouded in night.
He entered the building, and found himself in a wide hall, the center
of which was full of strange-looking machinery. Round the walls were
innumerable glass cases containing all sorts of objects of all sorts
and sizes.
He had often heard of this museum, which is one of the town’s most
treasured possessions, and he knew that some of the early-pattern
hand-looms he was now looking at were regarded as the finest specimens
of the kind in the world. But it was not interest in the history of
weaving which had occasioned his present visit.
The curator of the museum, an old man with a hard, square face, came
out of his office at the entry of this unexpected visitor. Dr. Hailey
greeted him.
“You possess, I think,” he said, “a collection of charms and such
like?”
“Aye, sir; and if I say it myself, one of the finest in England.”
The man led the way to a row of cases at the far end of the building.
“Most of them were picked up locally,” he explained, “but our friends
send us specimens occasionally. This piece from Cornwall, for
example.”
He indicated a rough-looking piece of iron, which seemed to have been
moulded at one end. The doctor examined it closely through the glass
of the case in which it lay. It was unlike the other objects
surrounding it.
“You have a Society of Antiquaries in the town, haven’t you?” he
asked.
“Yes, sir. This collection really belongs to them, though it has been
here now so long that we have come to regard it as our own.”
He went to his office and came back with a booklet which he presented
to the visitor.
“That’s the list of members, past and present,” he said. “You may care
to keep it.”
Dr. Hailey thanked him and went away. At half past six he left his
hotel again and returned to the church to evening prayer. The large
building was nearly empty, though he saw a few old people scattered
about the dim nave.
The voice of the officiating curate made echoes in the roof. He took a
seat far back, and remained until the service was over. Then he
slipped out past an old doorkeeper, and turned sharply into the
churchyard, with the object of revisiting the grave he had located in
the afternoon. It proved a task by no means easy of accomplishment.
He carried a heavy stick in his hand. When finally he reached his
destination and had satisfied himself that he was quite alone in the
darkness of the winter’s night, he unscrewed the head of this. It came
away from the shaft, drawing with it a long rapier-like blade.
He laid the sheath down carefully beside the stone cross, and then,
after judging his distance as well as he could, pressed the blade down
into the turf which covered the grave.
Five times he repeated this operation, before his probe encountered
any greater resistance than that of the earth itself, but on the sixth
occasion he felt the steel strike against some hard substance. He
released the point slightly, by drawing it back, and tapped gently
against this body. Then he pressed the point firmly downwards again.
After that, he withdrew it and reëntered it about an inch from the
last place. He had to determine that distance by touch, for he did not
wish to risk attracting any attention to himself by lighting his lamp.
Again, at the same distance, the same solid obstruction was
encountered.
He withdrew the rapier once more and tried again. The obstruction was
met with in the same way. Clearly, it was of very considerable size.
He took a small tube from his pocket and, having removed the rapier
from the earth, smeared some of its contents on the point, which he
then thrust back, till the steel struck the obstacle he was
investigating.
He withdrew it and wiped the blade on a clean handkerchief which he
had brought with him for this purpose. He folded the handkerchief very
carefully and put it in his pocket. Then he screwed up the
walking-stick, and made his way out of the churchyard, along the wall
of the church to the vicarage garden. He left the precincts by the
vicarage gate, which, as he expected, was unfastened.
When he got back to the George, he asked for the use of a bedroom to
change his clothes in before dinner. As soon as he was alone, he took
the handkerchief from his pocket and spread it out under the light of
the electric lamp on the dressing-table.
There was a stain on the cloth made by the solution which he had
applied to the blade of his rapier. Adhering to this wet surface were
two white hairs.
The horror which had filled his eyes in the graveyard at Pensillian
crept into them again. He refolded the handkerchief, and put it away
in a leather wallet. Then he packed his walking-stick carefully in his
kit-bag, and went down to dinner.
At eleven o’clock he drove by car to Penrith, covering the twenty odd
miles in a little over an hour. He was in ample time to catch the
Glasgow-London express which stops at this station. A berth had been
reserved for him, and he went to bed at once and slept until the
express was running through Watford the following morning.
As soon as he reached Harley Street, he went to his little laboratory.
He took one of the hairs from the handkerchief and put it under his
microscope. He saw that it was eaten away in several parts of its
length, as though it had been subjected to rough usage, or to the long
process of time in damp surroundings.
Later in the morning he went down to Scotland Yard, and sent his card
in to Inspector Biles. The messenger returned at once, and asked him
to go upstairs. He mounted the broad flight which, for so many, has
proved to be a _via dolorosa_, and came to Biles’s room. Next moment
his friend was shaking him by the hand, with the joy of a schoolboy
restored to the company of his best friend.
“My dear doctor, where did you go to after the trial? Everywhere I
searched for you to pay my homage. Even the chief here was ready to
fall at your feet. Wonderful! Wonderful!”
Dr. Hailey sat down and attempted to recover his breath, which was a
trifle short after his climb.
“Spare me,” he begged, “the necessity of abominating my stupidity
more, even, than I do at present. Do you realize, Biles, that until
Sunday last almost every conclusion I reached in connection with this
case was wrong--wrong in essence, wrong even in circumstances and in
facts? Pursuing Blunder so diligently, I lost sight of the real issue
altogether.”
Biles laughed.
“Remember, I have heard you speak like that before,” he declared.
“But never before have you seen me so overwhelmed. If only I had
studied the details with a little more care.”
He got up and came to the fireplace where the detective was standing.
“I have a favor to ask of you,” he declared.
Biles’s face clouded. He knew that the doctor still believed Derwick
innocent, and feared that what he was going to demand would be
impossible to grant.
“If I possibly can, I will do anything you want,” he said a little
faintly.
“I want you to take me to your chief.”
“Now?”
“Yes, immediately.”
Biles strode to the door and opened it. He was absent only about two
minutes.
“Come with me,” he said.
The room into which Dr. Hailey was shown was like many another in the
various government offices, a little bare, a little formidable, but
the welcome accorded him could scarcely have been more cordial. The
chief of the Criminal Investigation Department went out of his way to
be gracious.
“The help you have given us,” he declared, “is really beyond praise.
But for your exertions, or so Biles assures me, the Armand mystery
would remain a mystery still.”
Dr. Hailey raised his hand in protest.
“Forgive me,” he said in low tones, “but that is precisely what it
does remain--at this hour.”
“My dear doctor, when a British jury has pronounced finally and firmly
on it? Come now, you’re joking.”
“I was never more serious, never in my life.”
The chief knit his brow. He seemed not to know how to take this
declaration. He glanced at Biles. The detective also looked uneasy.
“Surely,” he asked, “you can’t mean that you think there has been a--a
mistake----”
“I do not think--I know.”
The doctor spoke so earnestly that both men felt uneasy. Had it been
anybody else in the world, they would have dismissed the matter
instantly from their minds, but this man they had learned to respect
above any one else.
“You came to ask something of me,” said the chief, anxious apparently
to give the conversation a practical turn.
“Yes. A very great favor, I’m afraid.”
“What is it?” The tones were rather less than encouraging.
“That you and Inspector Biles will accept my hospitality for one
single night.”
“What!--that is no favor at all.”
The relief in the great detective’s voice was most marked.
“Stop a minute. The night must be this one; and I warn you we shall
travel some distance.”
Again the detectives exchanged glances. They guessed their destination
to be Newcastle. The enthusiasm which had flickered up a moment before
died out of their faces.
“To what place?” the chief asked.
“To Cornwall. To Penzance in Cornwall.”
Relief was again apparent. After all, then, their fears had been
groundless. It was not to attempt to reopen the Derwick case that Dr.
Hailey was inviting them--at least, not ostensibly. The chief went to
a calendar on his desk, and looked at his list of appointments for the
next twenty-four hours. He frowned slightly and then nodded.
“Very well,” he said, “I’m your man. I can just do it, I find, if you
promise to let me return first thing in the morning. What about you,
Biles?”
“Yes, sir, I can manage it also on the same conditions.”
Dr. Hailey bowed. His manners, as the chief remarked to Biles
afterward, were reminiscent of the Victorian age.
“The conditions are agreed,” he promised. “But I also have a condition
to make: that during the time of our excursion you will acknowledge my
right to lead and direct operations.”
The chief shrugged his shoulders. If he didn’t altogether relish this
prospect, at any rate he was not going to make any more bother.
“I’ll risk that,” he declared, “on behalf of both of us.”
They caught a midday train to Plymouth. At the station a big motor-car
was awaiting them. By ten o’clock they were in Penzance, installed in
their hotel and sitting down to an excellent hot supper, which had
been ordered earlier in the day.
“So far,” said the chief, “the favor which we are supposed to be
conferring on you, doctor, has been rather difficult to discover.”
“Wait. The night is to come.”
Dr. Hailey had scarcely spoken when the hall porter came to announce
that the car was in readiness.
“Have you put my long bag into it, as I directed you?” the doctor
asked him.
“Yes, sir.”
He turned to the chief and Biles.
“Come, gentlemen. Time presses, and we have a considerable journey
before us.”
They went without a murmur. A big closed car stood at the door. It was
brightly illuminated inside. The three men accommodated themselves on
the broad back seat, and the chauffeur drew a rug over their knees.
Then Dr. Hailey switched out the light. The car moved off slowly down
the main street of the town in the direction of St. Michael’s Mount.
“Are we permitted to ask questions as to our immediate destination?”
the chief inquired, as they rolled along the shores of Mount’s Bay.
Dr. Hailey sighed deeply, reproving, as it seemed, the flippant tones
of his companion.
“My dear sir,” he replied, “we are going to seek an answer to one of
the darkest mysteries of crime which ever baffled human intelligence.
Our immediate destination is a graveyard and we are about to keep a
tryst with the dead.”
CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE SECRET OF THE GRAVE
There was a half-moon in the sky. St. Michael’s Mount, when they
passed it, seemed like a grim hag’s tooth set in the silver of the
sea. The chief, who was aware now of a sense of uneasiness he had not
felt in the beginning of their enterprise, looked at it with dubious
eyes. Was it here, he wondered, that the mysterious object of their
adventure lay?
But no, the car swept on noiselessly past the end of the causeway
leading to the Mount, and so into Marazion. A few minutes later they
were running across the high land above the village, between empty
cornfields which, in September, as he remembered from a former visit
to this district, are bright with poppies.
They came to the cross-roads, where the byway leading to Pensillian
tapers off. The car stopped, and the man descended and opened the
door. Dr. Hailey got out and spoke to him while his companions were
alighting. Then he received his bag, and announced that from this
point they must proceed on foot.
The village, when they reached it, seemed strangely quiet. None of
them had spoken during the short walk, and now even the possibility of
speech seemed ruled out. The long, characteristic landscape, with its
shadows and lights, held a weird aspect which in some curious way
affected the senses.
Inspector Biles found himself thinking that it was small wonder the
inhabitants of such districts betook themselves to bed at sundown and
stayed there till wholesome day was again in possession of the world.
He had puzzled his brains for hours now to read the riddle of this
excursion, but he had failed to read it. There could be no connection,
he felt, between the place they were going to and the churchyard at
Calthorpe to which Dr. Hailey had led him on that grim enterprise a
few weeks ago, which had been fraught with such terrible consequences.
Yet he knew that the doctor, once his mind was made up about a case,
never really relinquished it. If this visit were not directly
concerned with the murder of Sir William Armand, it had assuredly an
indirect bearing on it.
There he was forced to leave the matter. His own mind was at peace
about the whole affair, because he cherished not the faintest doubt
that the guilty man had been brought to justice. It was an axiom with
this clever detective that the obvious explanation is nearly always
the true one.
In his experience amateurs failed here, as in other departments of
life, by trying to be too clever. They always favored the complicated
as against the simple, whereas life, generally speaking, was a simple
business.
He glanced up and saw that they were approaching the church. Its
square tower stood out darkly against the pale sky. The moon was
reflected from some of the panes of its heavily leaded windows. The
ghostly forms of the tombstones were clustered about its base.
The gates were closed. Dr. Hailey lifted his bag onto the top of the
low wall, and climbed up easily beside it. He held out his hand to the
chief, inviting him also to ascend, but the latter seemed to hesitate.
“Is it really wise, my dear doctor,” he expostulated, “to violate the
sanctity of the place in this fashion?”
“It is essential.”
“I confess I don’t like it.”
There was a moment’s silence, then, mindful of his promise, the chief
climbed the wall. Inspector Biles followed him. They walked up the
steep slope of the churchyard together, allowing Dr. Hailey to precede
them by a few yards.
“What can it mean?” the chief asked in a low whisper.
“I have no idea, sir,” replied Biles, “but knowing the doctor, I
should think it probably means a good deal. There’s no doubt at all
that he’s found something pretty big.”
Dr. Hailey reached the grave of Mrs. Ward, and set down his bag. He
waited for his companions to join him. When they came up, he pointed
to the grave and turned the rays of a small electric lamp on the
headstone.
“There lies buried here, as you see,” he told them, “the body of the
wife of a local man, who, as it happens, is the registrar of births
and deaths. The grave otherwise, as I have been at pains to assure
myself, is empty--at least, so far as is known.”
He pronounced these last words slowly and very deliberately. Though
neither of his companions knew what he meant, they both experienced a
thrill of uneasiness. The eeriness of the place, the silence, broken
only by the occasional discordant scream of a sea-bird, the
bewilderment of the pale, shifting light, oppressed their spirits with
nameless dread.
“What are you going to do?” the chief asked in a whisper.
“I am going to call you to witness to the truth,” was the enigmatic
reply.
As he spoke, Dr. Hailey bent down and opened his bag. The moon was
riding bare in the sky at the moment, and immediately they caught the
gleam of a metal object. Inspector Biles, who was standing nearest,
saw that this was the iron of a new spade. He uttered an exclamation
of amazement. Dr. Hailey lifted the spade out and moved round to the
top of the grave.
“For God’s sake, Hailey,” protested the chief in anxious tones, “don’t
do such a thing. It’s horrible.”
He turned, as though he thought of leaving the churchyard at once.
Biles saw that his expression had become very grave, as though he
considered that all bounds of decency, and even of law, had been
overstepped.
“You will not regard it as less horrible when you know the truth,” the
doctor’s calm voice assured him. “Let me remind you that, as the chief
criminal expert of this country, it is your duty to face even the
darkest realities of human nature. I can assure you that the
revelation you are about to experience will fully deserve that title.”
He drove the spade into the turf as he spoke, and, with a heave of his
shoulders, released a large clod of earth, which he set down carefully
by the graveside. Then he began to dig in a wide circle, which seemed
to embrace the upper portion of the grave. The two detectives watched
him at this gruesome task with ever-increasing horror. Nothing, they
told themselves, but his signal services to the cause of justice in
the past would have induced them to allow him to continue so great an
outrage on decent conduct.
“Ah!”
Dr. Hailey stooped down and gleamed his torch into the hole he had
made. Then he returned to his bag and took from it a small trowel.
With this in his hand, he knelt down beside the grave and continued
his excavations.
He worked now very slowly, removing only small quantities of earth at
a time. The two men watching him shivered in the chill night, but they
did not move from their positions near the front of the grave.
Whatever he might be doing was his own business, until he chose to ask
them to participate in it. They were there, as they felt, by a kind of
trick; but since they had promised not to interfere, they would
endeavor to keep their promise.
At last the doctor rose to his feet. He turned and beckoned them to
approach. They came beside him, one on each side of the grave. He
pressed the button of his lamp, and threw the yellow beam of light
into the hole in the ground which he had made.
“Oh, my God!”
The chief started back. Even Biles felt himself chill with swift fear.
From the bottom of the hole, a human skull, pale, ghastly, grinned up
at them.
Dr. Hailey extinguished the lamp and gripped the chief by the arm.
“That,” he said in a tense whisper, “is not the skull of Mrs. Ward.
Her body is at least three feet farther down, within its coffin.”
There was no reply. Both the detectives felt sick, unnerved by this
horrible discovery, the meaning of which one of them at least was
still entirely at a loss to understand.
“It is necessary that you should make a more detailed inspection,” the
doctor continued. “I wish particularly to direct your attention to the
eye-sockets of the skull, which, as you will see when I turn the lamp
on again, have been pierced in several places.”
He reillumined the grave, calling on the chief to observe the points
indicated. The detective bent down and followed with his eyes the
movements of the stalk of grass which Dr. Hailey used as a pointer. He
saw that each of the bony eye-sockets in the skull was perforated in
several places. Biles, who was also bending over the hole, exclaimed
in amazement:
“That is exactly how Sir William Armand was murdered.”
“It is, exactly. The instrument, knife or dagger, or whatever it was,
reached the victim’s brain through these wounds in this case as in
that. And the murderer in this case, as in that, buried his handiwork
in a new grave. Mrs. Ward died on November 15, 1915. The day was
Sunday.
“On the following Saturday evening a farmer named Robin, who had just
broken off his daughter’s engagement, left the village here to return
home, and was never seen or heard of again. You will admit that the
two cases present many points of similarity.”
The chief stood erect, and drew a deep breath. He seemed to be
overwhelmed. Dr. Hailey again extinguished his lamp.
“And now,” he said, “I propose that we return at once to our hotel.
The further handling of this problem is your duty, rather than mine.”
He bent, as he spoke, and replaced some of the turf on the grave so as
to hide its grisly contents. The chief waited until he had completed
this task, then he said:
“I fancy, my dear doctor, that our debt to you is a bigger one than
any of us were able to realize.”
He did not speak again until they were seated in the car on their way
back to Penzance. Then he declared that he would give immediate orders
for the investigation of the whole matter, adding:
“The disturbance of the grave is bound to be noticed to-morrow.”
He turned to Dr. Hailey.
“By what amazing process of reasoning,” he asked in tones of the
deepest respect, “did you reach this place?”
“By no process of reasoning. By an accident only. Chance a few days
ago put into my hands the connecting link I had failed myself to
discover.”
The doctor lay back on the cushions, and closed his eyes. After a few
moments he opened them again and asked:
“Do you remember the case of the missing rector of Hendred Castle, in
Cumberland?”
He spoke very quietly, but both his companions uttered exclamations of
horrified amazement at his words.
“What! You cannot possibly suggest----”
The chief’s voice thrilled.
“It is my experience,” said Dr. Hailey, “that murders of the kind we
have just been investigating are never single murders. I mean they
always belong to a series committed in the same way by the same hand.
In this matter, perhaps, as a doctor, I have the advantage of you.
“In order to understand such cases one must have delved deeply into
the foundation of human conduct, both normal and abnormal. One must
know something of those mysterious sources from which proceed the
streams of impulse and emotion.”
He extracted his snuff-box as he spoke, and took a large pinch.
“At the beginning of every human nature,” he declared, “there is love,
but that early fountain is so easily contaminated by the bitter waters
of jealousy and hate and despair. And so character is determined.
“In the language of modern psychology ‘a conflict’ is produced. This
conflict demands solution with such insistence that neither law nor
honor nor decency are strong enough--in many instances--to prevent
disaster.”
He waved his hand as though the matter were too difficult for casual
discussion.
“There is, from one point of view,” he added, “a scarcely appreciable
difference between the emotional lover who flits from mistress to
mistress without ever achieving happiness, and the maniac whose life
is made hideous by a long series of crimes.
“Both are the wretched slaves and victims of love--that fire which may
burn with ineffable glory, or, being released from the control of
reason, may consume and utterly destroy. What is still more
astonishing, it is always the same immediate cause which leads to each
of the philanderings or crimes in the series.
“The cast of an expression, the sound of a voice, the set of a pretty
head, a sentiment expressed or hinted at in a particular way--these
are the ‘switches,’ so to speak, which release the pent-up violence of
the unbalanced lover, and so urge him to plunge into a new
entanglement. The homicidal maniac is in just the same bondage to
circumstance and chance.
“Sooner or later the command, which he cannot but obey, will ring in
his ears, and then he will go out, a wild beast, with the old
blood-lust of the dawn of the world in his eyes. In his own way--and
the manner never varies--he will kill, and so satisfy for a moment, at
any rate, the demon which possesses him.”
The car reached Penzance and drew up at the hotel. They found a cold
supper spread for them in the coffee-room. Dr. Hailey invited his
guests to be seated.
“I have a further request to make,” he said, “which perhaps, in the
circumstances, you will not refuse me. I want you, if it is at all
possible, to travel back with me to Calthorpe, when I shall have one
more piece of evidence--the most vital of all--to lay before you.”
CHAPTER XXXIV.
FOOTSTEPS
The wind howled dismally in the chimneys of the old house, and the
thudding of the heavy waves on the shore beat time to that sound. Dr.
Hailey glanced at his watch.
Had the storm, he wondered, delayed the coming of his visitors? The
way to Calthorpe Hall is exposed, no matter from what direction one
may approach it. Yet he thought that, in spite of the weather, they
would not disappoint him.
His expression was rather grimmer than usual, and once his hand
strayed to the pocket of the roomy smoking-coat he was wearing, and
closed for a moment round the barrel of the little pistol which
reposed there. He meant to run no risks.
On the other hand, he meant to make his demonstration a complete one
in every respect. Though he had not complained at the time, he had
resented a little the way in which the police had taken this case out
of his hands as soon as he had provided them with the necessary clews.
The arrest of Derwick had been, in his opinion, an act characterized
by high-handedness--in relation to himself--as well as by
precipitation. Always, he reflected, it was the same thing. As soon as
a crime was committed, the newspapers began to shriek for a victim,
and the police lost their heads. They put haste to satisfy the clamor
above all considerations of certainty.
He had not relished the position into which he had been thrust by this
policy of theirs. Instead of directing an investigation with the
resources of the law behind him, he had been compelled to work
single-handed, in the dark, without assistance. If he had reached a
conclusion satisfying to his own ideas and instincts, he had no reason
to thank them.
He was standing in the library before a big fire which crackled
cheerfully, making a pleasant contrast with the dismal sounds of the
elements outside. The heavy curtains were drawn close and the room
glowed with warmth and comfort.
His reflections were interrupted by the faint sound of a motor
changing gear. That meant that the car was entering the lodge gates.
He listened until he heard it again. Then he went to the front door
and stood behind it waiting. He did not wish to open the door until
the last moment on account of the boisterous wind.
The headlights swept into view round the final bend of the avenue.
They cast a beam of silver on the glass fanlight over the door. He
turned the handle and stepped out, meeting the heavy gust which swept
past him. When the car stopped, he opened the door. The chief of the
Criminal Investigation Department stepped out, followed by Inspector
Biles.
“I’m afraid you have had a terrible night for your journey,” the
doctor cried. “I began to fear you might have been blown over on the
way from Belfort.”
He conducted them into the house and handed them over to the butler,
Travers, who took them to their rooms. When they came downstairs
again, dinner was announced.
“I am to apologize for Miss Armand’s absence,” Dr. Hailey said, in
tones which were a trifle studied. “She is, as you may imagine,
unwilling to leave Newcastle for the present.”
He watched the chief narrowly as he spoke and saw that distinguished
man redden a little. The butler was in the room, and so he made only a
conventional reply, but a moment later, when they were alone, he
raised his head and looked the doctor in the face.
“Remember,” he said, “that we are obeying your orders now. Events
might possibly have moved faster but for that.”
“I think not.”
The conversation turned to general matters.
When the servants had retired, Dr. Hailey rose and placed himself in
front of the fire.
“There are one or two points which I wish to make quite clear
before--before anything happens,” he said. “But in the first place, I
should like to know how your side of the matter has been progressing.
I presume the body of Farmer Robin was identified without much
difficulty.”
The chief nodded.
“His watch and chain were still there; that alone was sufficient. The
affair, I understand, has created a tremendous sensation in the
neighborhood, where the general ideal prevails that the murder was
committed by a son-in-law, who was killed in the war. There appears to
have been some pretty bitter dispute between him and his prospective
father-in-law.”
“There was. The old man broke off the fellow’s engagement to his
daughter in the first instance. She only married him after her
father’s disappearance.”
“The police, of course, have been given strict instructions to take no
action whatever until they receive further orders from headquarters.”
The chief’s eyes fell to the tablecloth as he made this last
statement. There was, in his manner, a faint suggestion that he was
aware of standing on the defensive where the doctor was concerned. He
raised his glass of port to his lips and sipped it slowly.
“And Hendred Castle?” Dr. Hailey asked. “Have you had any
communication from that quarter?”
“We have--a long telegram, which was retransmitted from London, to
catch us at Newcastle this evening.”
The chief’s voice thrilled. “My God, Hailey!” he exclaimed suddenly,
“you are absolutely uncanny. It was exactly as you foretold it would
be. The old rector was found in the grave you indicated. He had been
buried in his surplice, just as you anticipated.”
“And his eyes?”
“As you foretold--exactly as you foretold.”
Silence fell between them. The storm seemed to be growing fiercer and
the big windows rattled in their frames. The thudding of the waves was
like the knocking of mighty subterranean hammers.
“You agree, then, that the same hand wrought all three murders?”
“It must be so. Coincidence could not extend to cover that wide
range.”
Again there was a pause. Then the chief rose and came toward the
fireplace, carrying his wine-glass in his hand.
“No doubt,” he said, “in a day or two now we shall possess the
complete answer to the riddle.”
Dr. Hailey took snuff. He realized that the last remark was a
challenge, but he had his own reasons for ignoring it. Three days had
now elapsed since their visit to Cornwall, and yet, even in that time
apparently, no inkling of the truth had reached them.
A sense almost of bewilderment overwhelmed him. Then he reflected it
is easier to test a theory than to interpret it from a record of
experiments conducted to prove or disprove its value. In the place of
his companions he might not, himself, have fared any better.
“You have no suspicions, then?” he asked them, permitting himself just
this one small revenge.
The chief shook his head.
“So far, no. But do us the credit, my dear doctor, of remembering that
the work at Hendred Castle only took place this morning, that at
Pensillian only the night before. There are certain necessary
preliminaries to the disturbance of graves in consecrated ground.
“We do know this, however,” he added in lower tones, “Derwick has
never visited either of these places, so far as can be ascertained. He
was little more than a lad when the rector of Hendred Castle
disappeared, and in 1915 he was in the army in France.”
“His appeal comes before the court to-morrow, I understand?”
The chief’s face assumed, suddenly, a very grave expression.
“I am sorry to say,” he declared, “that it was heard to-day. There was
a change of the arrangements at the last moment. We had another
message at Newcastle to the effect that it was dismissed.
“Until our investigations at Hendred Castle had been carried out, we
felt that no interference on our part was warranted--though I wish now
we had acted in advance of knowledge.”
It was evident that the hitch in the process of justice which he
foresaw to be inevitable weighed heavily on the spirit of this
distinguished policeman. Dr. Hailey reflected that to the official
mind all things--even life and death--are official.
These men were not inhuman or lacking in sympathy. But they were
nevertheless parts of a machine which exists at all only because, on
the whole, its smooth working can be relied on. Every failure of the
machine to function threatened a little that public confidence which
was its main support and strength.
He glanced from the chief to Inspector Biles and realized that, though
as honest men they must rejoice in the vindication of innocence, as
detectives the fact that innocence had been placed in peril was a very
serious blow to them. It meant endless criticism, endless rebuke from
those very newspapers which, had they failed to “do something” at
once, would have been their fiercest detractors.
“I suppose,” he said, “that a petition for a reprieve is certain to
follow to-morrow.”
“Yes, quite certain. In a case of this sort, where a romance is
interwoven with a story of crime, the public imagination is always
deeply stirred. Women, especially, seem to be affected. The affection
they bear to good-looking men who are accused of doing murder on
behalf of their own sex is truly astonishing.”
Dr. Hailey glanced again at his watch. It still wanted ten minutes to
nine. He nodded his agreement.
“Women,” he declared, “have a different code of honor from men;
perhaps, in a sense, a nobler, more exalted code. I have yet to meet
the woman who would stick at crime, except possibly the one crime of
murder, to save the man of her heart or the child she loved. Our laws
and our law-courts are still entirely masculine in their attitude in
spite of the women jurors.”
They heard footsteps on the gravel outside.
These passed the window and reached the front door. The bell rang in a
vigorous peal.
“Come,” said Dr. Hailey to his companions.
He led them across the hall to the library and closed the door behind
them. They heard the footman approaching to open the front door. He
crossed the room to the window, and flung back the heavy curtains
which covered it, exposing a deep embrasure.
“It is essential,” he declared, “that you should remain out of sight
for a little time. If you step in here I will draw the curtains over
you.”
Biles glanced at his chief, who had started slightly at the idea of
concealment, but his expression indicated that he was ready to follow
any instructions given him. Dr. Hailey covered the two men from sight,
and then seated himself in front of the fire.
The door of the room opened, and the footman announced:
“The Rev. Dr. Hargreave Willoughby.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
THE TIGER SPRINGS
The vicar of Calthorpe advanced into the room with firm, active
stride. His usually pale cheeks were glowing from the whips of the
wind. Raindrops gleamed on his face.
He greeted Dr. Hailey cordially.
“I trust I am not late. What a fearful night! On the cliffs once or
twice I thought I must be blown off my feet.”
He selected a cigar from the box which the doctor offered him and cut
it very carefully with his pocket-knife.
“I do hope,” said Dr. Hailey, “that you will forgive my abrupt
summons. Nothing, I can assure you, but the urgency of the case would
have made me send it. But the court of appeal, as I have just heard,
has refused Derwick’s application, and there is therefore not a moment
to be lost in launching our petition. I felt that it was of great
importance to have your name at the top of the list of local
signatures.”
The clergyman inclined his head.
“In that matter,” he declared, “I am entirely at your disposal.
Personally, I have always been opposed to capital punishment, which I
regard as barbarous and useless, quite useless. On that ground alone I
should be ready to sign any petition which you may have drawn up.”
“And I, too. But this case presents other features, I think, which
enormously strengthen the case for a reprieve.” The doctor’s voice
became a little more earnest. “I do not know what you think, sir,” he
added, “but it appears to me that only a madman, in Derwick’s place,
would have attacked Sir William. What possible motive could he have
for the crime?”
The question came sharply. The Rev. Dr. Hargreave did not answer it at
once. He blew a coil of smoke from his thin lips and watched it rise
in widening circles above his head.
“His engagement had been broken off, of course,” he declared at last.
“That may have temporarily unhinged his mind. Love, I have observed,
comes to different men in different ways. And the loss of love, also,
is apt to exercise a more severe effect on some than on others. It may
restore to one individual his ambition in a new and more alluring
form; it may rob another of all desire to succeed in life.
“Again, it may drive a man to solitude or send him headlong into the
vortex of pleasure and gayety. In this matter, what may seem to one
but a slender motive for an extreme course of action may, in the eyes
of another, justify almost any excess.”
He spoke precisely, with a trace of his pulpit manner and enunciation.
Dr. Hailey nodded agreement.
“I have met with cases of all sorts myself,” he agreed. “The longer I
live, indeed, the more I become convinced that woman is the real
touchstone of character. We know but little of a man until we know how
he has fared in relation to the opposite sex.”
He got up and crossed the room to a side table where a decanter and
some siphons had been placed.
“Do let me give you a drink,” he urged.
The Rev. Dr. Hargreave turned to watch his tumbler being filled. As he
did so, his face was fully illumined by the lamp hanging in the center
of the room. Dr. Hailey noticed that his eyes were very bright,
whereas the color had almost entirely vanished from his cheeks. His
cold features seemed to have taken on a sterner aspect. He brought the
two tumblers to the fireplace and set them on the mantelpiece.
“Some time ago,” he said, “I happened to hear of a most remarkable
case which, were the facts not known to me, I should certainly regard
as entirely beyond credence. It concerned a member of your own
profession.”
The vicar looked up, treating his companion to a glance which was
hawk-like in its swiftness.
“Ah,” he said, “my profession includes men of the strangest, as well
as men of the noblest character.”
He half rose from his chair and took his tumbler in his hand.
“The ministry of religion,” he added, “attracts a certain temperament
irresistibly. That is why apparently worldly men are so frequently
found in holy orders.”
Dr. Hailey nodded.
“In this case, however,” he said, “the principal actor in the drama
was, by no means, worldly. He was a young curate of most ascetic cast
of mind, working in a large North Country parish on the edge of the
Yorkshire moors. I believe that the people to whom he ministered made
an idol of him.
“When he preached, the church was always crowded and large numbers of
women, especially young women, used to hang on his lips. One of the
latter was the daughter of his rector, a very beautiful girl, with
masses of golden hair and eyes of that dreamy, spiritual quality which
so greatly attracts a certain type of man--a girl, I imagine, not
unlike Miss Armand.”
He paused and took a pinch of snuff. The Rev. Dr. Hargreave had bent
forward while he was speaking and now sat staring into the fire. His
face was so still, so rigid, that his features seemed to be carved in
marble. The cigar he was holding burned in a thin wisp of smoke which
rose straight into the air above his head. The long line of smoke
might have been drawn with a ruler, so unwavering was it.
“Naturally enough,” the doctor continued, “the young clergyman fell
desperately in love with this beautiful child. They exchanged vows and
he poured out all the passion and fervor of his spirit in his wooing
her. Love, as he soon found, was his supreme gift. In the intoxication
of that discovery, no obstacle seemed insuperable.
“Nevertheless, obstacles of a formidable character existed, which must
have impressed any man less sanguine by nature with the difficulty of
the enterprise on which he had embarked. For one thing, the girl was a
distant relation of his own; for another, his family history was a
somber one. Both his parents had died in asylums. This fact was known,
of course, to the girl’s father.”
Again Dr. Hailey took snuff. The motionless figure of the clergyman
afforded no sign either of interest or the lack of it.
“It was inevitable, in the circumstances, that consent to a marriage
should be withheld. The lovers, however, were too deep in their new
happiness to pay heed to this difficulty. They promised each other
that nothing should come between them and that, as soon as the girl
attained her majority, they would get married in spite of family
opposition.
“But the girl, as it turned out, was not a very strong character. The
strain of her father’s disapprobation weighed on her spirit, and she
became ill. The doctor ordered her away to the south. At first she
wrote her lover daily, but after a time her letters became less
frequent. In three months they had ceased altogether, and then, one
morning, he learned that she had become engaged to another man--the
younger son of a very wealthy peer.
“The curate, strangely enough, showed no sign of the blow he had
received. He went about his duties as usual. It was assumed that he
had accepted the inevitable in a Christian spirit. The rector showed
him all the kindness and consideration possible, even to the extent of
arranging that the marriage should take place in London.”
Dr. Hailey’s voice assumed a more serious tone.
“And yet,” he went on, “I have reason to know that at the moment when
the blow fell on him, he became a madman. The intense egotism of his
nature, an evil inheritance from his parents, brought forth delusions
of persecution.
“He saw himself, not as a suitor rejected on quite legitimate grounds,
but as a martyr sacrificed to sordid and wicked motives. As always
happens in these cases, he believed that the powers of darkness were
arraigned against him.
“His nature was fine in many respects and chivalrous. Moreover, he was
a profound student of the superstitions of earlier days, an antiquary
and ethnologist of distinction. There came to him the feeling that he
had been singled out by Divine Providence to make war on the enemies
of the holy spirit of love.
“He was a new St. George, a new St. Francis; he possessed the power to
cast out devils, the right to adopt any means to secure this glorious
and righteous aim.
“Naturally, however, the Kingdom of Darkness must exert its whole
force against so tremendous an antagonist. Persecution was in the air
around him. Spirits of evil dogged his steps by night, fearful shades
of horror haunted his sleep; the Evil Eye, that immemorial token of
malignancy, cast its wicked spell on him. The need to strike at these
assassins of his soul grew more urgent every day.
“And added to that need was the need to purge the temple and body of
Christ of the profane persons who defiled it--the wolves in sheep’s
clothing, who violated the sacred spirit of love in order to sell
their daughters for money and position.
“He would rid the world of all such, he, the new savior of society,
the new knight of the cross. Beginning with the rector himself, he
would work swift destruction on every father who set his face against
a daughter’s love.
“You see, a madman’s mind is the most logical instrument in the
world.”
The doctor raised his tumbler to his lips. Still the bent figure
remained in stony immobility.
“One winter night, after evensong, when the rector was returning alone
from the church to the vicarage, his curate, who had been hidden among
the shadows of the buttresses of the great building, struck him down.
“As the old man pitched forward under that blow, ten thousand devils
were released in the young man’s spirit. Snarling like a dog, he
sprang on his victim. There was a flash of steel, once, twice, as the
bloodthirsty knife descended, smiting out the Eyes of Evil.
“It was over in an instant. The madman lifted his poor victim and bore
him down the hill among the ghostly tombstones to a new grave, still
covered with half-withered funeral flowers. He had a trowel with him.
He scooped a hole in the loose earth, big enough to hold the frail old
body. He buried it.”
Suddenly Dr. Hailey sprang to his feet. The clergyman had turned upon
him, and there was such a look in his eyes as even he had never before
seen on a human face. He moved back behind the chair on which he had
been sitting. His hand traveled swiftly to his pocket.
Biles, who had a clear view of the room through a slight tear in the
curtain in front of him, saw the Rev. Dr. Hargreave crouch like a wild
animal before it springs. He moved his face round slowly, and even the
hardened detective caught his breath.
The eyes seemed to be diffused with blood. They were staring. The thin
lips were drawn back from the big teeth in an expression sardonic,
sinister, horrible. Then the fearsome sound of a maniac’s laugh rang
in the room.
He saw Dr. Hailey raise his pistol and cover the clergyman. The
doctor’s face was rather pale, though his movements were deliberate
enough.
“If you move, I shoot--remember.”
Again the horrible laugh rang out. The Rev. Dr. Hargreave drew himself
up to his full height.
“Your weapons,” he cried in a great voice, “cannot prevail against me,
for I come in the name and the strength of God himself.”
He made the sign of the cross on his brow. Then in an instant, with
such agility as seemed beyond the power of human frame, he leaped on
his victim and bore him with a crash to the floor.
The pistol was flung violently across the room.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
AS IN A DREAM
The two detectives sprang from their hiding-place. They flung
themselves bodily on the struggling men, who rolled backward and
forward in what was obviously a death grip. Biles caught a glimpse of
Dr. Hailey’s face, and saw that it was dark and suffused as though his
breath were being strangled in his body.
Then he noticed the thumbs of the clergyman pressed into his friend’s
eye-sockets. He clasped his own hands round the assailant’s throat and
drove his fingers deeply inward, where the great blood-vessels run up
the neck to the brain.
That old and well-tried method of self-defense was instantly
successful. The clergyman’s hands grew feeble--he released his
terrible grip. The detectives dragged him back from the body of the
doctor. With a swift movement, Biles applied the self-locking
handcuffs which he invariably carried on his person.
Dr. Hailey lay gasping on the floor where he had fallen. The chief
came to his assistance and raised his head. When his breathing had
grown a little easier, he went and fetched the tumbler of whisky.
“Thank God, you were near at hand. I had no idea how strong he was.”
Biles stood guard over the prisoner, who lay quite still, with his
eyes closed and the color entirely gone from his features. After a
time, Dr. Hailey staggered to his feet, and came and joined them.
“I have arranged,” he said, “that the car shall be ready to go to
Belfort at once, if you wish it. It seems, I think, the best solution
in the circumstances.”
He gazed at the cold, beautiful face of the man who had so nearly
proved his undoing. Every trace of the demoniac fury of a few moments
ago had passed away, smoothed out of sight, as it seemed, by gracious
and effacing fingers. He bowed his head and sighed deeply. The
clergyman opened his eyes and a smile flickered for an instant on his
lips. Then suddenly his brow contracted in a look of utter
bewilderment. He tried to rise, and felt the irons bite on his wrists.
“Where am I?” he murmured. “And what has happened? What is the meaning
of this, gentlemen?”
His eyes were sincere in their expression of wonder. The chief glanced
uneasily at Dr. Hailey.
“You have had a very violent fit,” the doctor declared. “We had to
secure your hands for your own safety. Please lie still and do not
talk.”
The Rev. Dr. Hargreave, however, was in no mood to listen to this
advice. He struggled to his feet, and then sat down in the chair which
Biles wheeled toward him.
“I have had such a frightful dream,” he told them. “I dreamed actually
that it was I who murdered Sir William, and not that poor young man. I
found him lying asleep in the wood, and I stabbed at his eyes with my
pocket-knife.
“Then I went back to the vicarage and got one of the old iron stamps I
used to collect, and marked the tree where he fell with the sign of
the Evil Eye; and after that, will you believe it? I carried his body
to the churchyard and buried it where it was found, in poor Miss
Anderson’s grave.”
His eyes closed again as he spoke, and his head bent forward. He had
fallen asleep.
“That is the usual thing,” Dr. Hailey said, “after an attack. He will
be drowsy now for many hours.”
He poured himself out a stiff whisky and swallowed it at a gulp.
“It was his sermon last Sunday,” he told the detectives, “which gave
me the clew. He mentioned the Evil Eye in a way which, when I thought
it over, seemed rather extraordinary. And then suddenly at night in
this room the truth dawned on me. I consulted a reference book of the
clergy, and found that he had been curate of Hendred Castle and
Pensillian. I visited both places. You know the rest.”
CHAPTER XXXVII.
OUT OF THE DEPTHS
Estelle had received several telegrams from Dr. Hailey during the
period covered by his investigations. They gave her hope, and enabled
her to bear up better, when she went to the prison to see Jack, than
she might otherwise have been able to do. But, in spite of them, a
terrible fear haunted her mind. When the news that the court of
appeals had dismissed her lover’s petition reached her, her heart
quailed.
Could it be that, after all, the doctor’s optimism was not justified?
Had he failed in some critical moment of his quest? She went to bed,
and lay awake all night, not even trying to woo the sleep which, if it
came, must be filled with anxieties and horrors not less terrible than
those which afflicted her waking senses. At an earlier hour than usual
she rose and dressed and went down to breakfast.
But she could not eat. The hotel waiter brought her a morning
newspaper, and she read the judgment of the court with uncomprehending
brain. They seemed to think that everything which could have been said
in the prisoner’s favor had been said. She flung the sheet away from
her. How blind, how stupid, all these men were. Could they not realize
that the truth stared them in the face in the eyes of a good man? At
half past eight a boy brought her a telegram. It was from Dr. Hailey,
from Belfort, and ran:
Jack innocent. Have no fear.
Somehow it failed to convince, or even greatly to comfort her. He had
been hinting at the same thing for a week now. She set forth for the
prison, where she was expected at ten o’clock.
But to-day the usual order of her entry within these grim doors seemed
to have changed. The official at the gate received her with deference.
He said that the governor desired her to call immediately at his
office.
Next moment she was shaking hands with that rather solemn official. He
motioned her to a seat.
“I have strange news for you, Miss Armand,” he said in very gentle
tones. “Pray try to compose yourself to hear it.”
For an instant she thought he was going to say that all hope must be
abandoned. Then a glance at his eyes reassured her; they were almost
happy. He touched a bell, and a man appeared. He made a sign. Then he
rose and moved to the door.
“If you will wait a moment,” he said, “you will be fully enlightened.”
He went out and closed the door softly behind him. She heard the click
of a latch behind her, and turned her head sharply. Another door just
behind her had opened. Jack, dressed in his ordinary clothes, stood in
the passageway.
A cry broke from his lips when he saw her. He sprang across the grim
little room. She stood up and suddenly felt herself sway. If he had
not caught her in his arms she must have fallen.
They returned to Calthorpe the same evening, when all the formalities
of Jack’s release and vindication had been completed. As they drove
from Belfort through the quiet woods neither of them spoke a word;
their hearts were too full, in this wonderful, sacred hour, for speech
of any kind.
The car turned into the main avenue and glided to the door. Estelle
saw Dr. Hailey advancing down the steps to meet them. She came to him
with both her hands extended and tears gleaming in her beautiful eyes.
“My friend,” she whispered. “My friend.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Anthony Wynne was a pseudonym of Scottish physician Dr. Robert McNair
Wilson.
This story was originally serialised in _Flynn’s_ from November 1924
to January 1925. It was also published as _The Mystery of the Evil
Eye_.
Minor spelling inconsistencies (e.g., crossroads/cross-roads,
pine-wood/pine wood, etc.)
Alterations to the text:
Abandon the use of drop-caps.
Puncuation: fix some quotation mark pairings/nestings.
[Chapter VI]
Change “Somehow his figure and walk seemed _familar_” to _familiar_.
[Chapter X]
“The first surprise of the inquest on Sir _Willliam_ Armand” to
_William_.
“profound silence then the coroner asked;” change the semicolon to a
colon.
[Chapter XV]
“He was dressed in in his full motoring kit” delete one _in_.
[Chapter XXIX]
“_ostensiby_ to importune him to change his mind” to _ostensibly_.
[Chapter XXX]
“already an _oblitering_ nature was smoothing away all traces” to
_obliterating_.
[End of text]
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