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Title: In the night

Author: R. Gorell Barnes

Release date: March 16, 2025 [eBook #75628]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Longmans, Green and Co, 1917

Credits: Brian Raiter


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN THE NIGHT ***


In the Night

by R. Gorell Barnes

published by Longmans, Green and Co., 1917



CONTENTS

       Foreword
    I. At the Rose and Crown
   II. Philip and Evelyn
  III. Foul Play
   IV. A Mystery in the Night
    V. Upstairs
   VI. New Lights
  VII. Fears and Discoveries
 VIII. The Broken Window
   IX. Evelyn and Philip
    X. The Little Dancing Girl
   XI. A Chain of Confusion
  XII. Out of the Darkness
 XIII. How It Happened
  XIV. Sight at Last



  To
  Lt. Vivian Morse



FOREWORD

This tale of mystery must be regarded as a diversion from war, a word
which does not occur in its pages. It was planned in a base-hospital
in France, and written during recovery at home; if it serves to
interest for an hour or two those similarly placed and those still in
the trenches, its existence is amply justified.

It tries, at any rate, to deal fairly with its readers, who are not
called upon to admire clevernesses of deduction they are prevented
from performing for themselves. Nothing is more irritating, and more
common, in tales of the investigation of crime, than to find such
sentences as “the great detective rose from his knees and put away his
magnifying-glass with a self-satisfied air,” and not be told what he
saw to make him self-satisfied. In the following pages, therefore,
every essential fact is related as it is discovered and readers are,
as far as possible, given the eyes of the investigators and equal
opportunities with them of arriving at the truth.

        R. G. B.



CHAPTER I

At the Rose and Crown

The quiet of a fine summer evening was falling on the little village
of Salting; the fields were slowly emptying as the dusk settled down,
and the bar of the Rose and Crown was steadily filling with the
heavy-footed, silent-minded labourers. Salting lies a mile or two away
from a branch-line which ends with apparent inconsequence at a sleepy
town some ten miles further; and the pursuits of its inhabitants, and
in consequence their conversation, range eternally round the topics of
the season and the crops and the simple, but not necessarily
good-natured, personalities concerning one another. Nor is it a social
district in the sense in which so many English neighbourhoods are,
galvanized sporadically into an appearance of life by the moneyed
activities of the upper classes. There are no small gentry, only
farmers of varying prosperity; there is only one large estate, and
though the great house which is hidden in the woods of it had been
built for twenty-five years or more, it had never become in any sense
part of the life of the place.

Salting Towers was the residence of Sir Roger Penterton, a man who
cared nothing for the village which had happened to lie in the hollow
below the hill selected as a suitable site for his house. He was not
interested in agricultural affairs; he had chosen the locality solely
because it was sufficiently convenient for the visits he continued to
pay two and three times a week to the town in which he had pursued a
highly successful career at the head of a big business; hence an
appearance in a birthday honour list and that accretion of dignity and
pride which proclaims itself in the carriage of a Knight. He liked,
however, to fancy himself as a landed proprietor even while holding
that class in the greatest contempt as a set of idle and unthrifty
folk; the type of man of whom he was a shining example was, as he
often used to proclaim as he stood astride of the fire in hall or
smoking-room, the real backbone of the country. By years of hard work
he had built up a fine business, amassed a large fortune, and
incidentally married above himself. He had succeeded and not by any
stroke of luck, but, as he would declare, by sheer industry, and so
could any one else; he had no pity for failures. “Show me a failure
and I’ll show you an idler,” was a favourite remark of his to those
who tried to enlist his purse in aid of some charitable scheme.

As Inspector Humblethorne sat finishing his supper in the dingy
coffee-room of the Rose and Crown, he could see the grandiloquent
sweep of the drive as it crossed the park and disappeared into the
wood which shut off the Towers from the village, and idly wondered
where it led to. He had never heard of Sir Roger Penterton. The warmth
of the evening and the freshness of the air had their usual subtle
effect upon him, which the draining of a big glass of ale did nothing
to dispel. He felt mellowed, sociable and well-pleased with himself,
and heaved a big sigh to say so to all whom it might concern. It
concerned nobody; that was the one objection to an otherwise entirely
satisfactory state of things.

As he gazed out with dreamy eyes across the lane, watching the cattle
which showed dimly in the meadow beyond and listening to the slow,
ceaseless chatter of voices in the bar and the occasional sounds of
the village, he had a vague feeling in his mind that he was ripe for
conversation. He was not yet sufficiently accustomed to solitude to
feel bored; ease and inactivity were still delightful companions, but
nevertheless his mind did take hold for the first time of a certain
indefinite feeling that he didn’t know quite what he was going to do
with himself in this self-contained and seemingly lifeless spot. In
town, whilst still shackled with work, nothing had seemed to him more
deliciously original than to bury himself for his holiday in a
picturesque and unexciting village, but it must be confessed that on
this first evening a vague doubt as to the wisdom of this originality
began to present itself to him. There wasn’t a soul to talk to, and he
felt talkative, not to say, witty.

In this last if is possible he may have been deceived, for no one had
yet associated wit with Emmanuel Humblethorne. His colleagues in the
Force would have described him as a good little fellow, painstaking
and accurate rather than intuitive in his work, and kind and helpful
in his social relations. He was universally popular, even with those
against whom his work was necessarily directed, but not exactly
celebrated for his wit; he was of too sterling and quiet a strain to
seem to incur that dangerous reputation. Nevertheless the fact remains
on record that on this first free evening of his holiday he felt
almost witty, and had no one upon whom to exercise the unusual
faculty.

He was about to feel in his pocket for his pipe and rise from the
table with the idea of strolling out and seeking amusement for
himself, as it seemed obvious that none was coming to him of its own
accord, when sounds outside indicated the arrival of another visitor
to the Rose and Crown. But much to Humblethorne’s disappointment the
newcomer, when at length he entered the coffee-room, showed himself
openly, almost aggressively, indisposed to be sociable; he glanced at
Humblethorne in a swift and rather nervous way which was certainly not
suggestive of geniality, sat down at the furthest end of the table
without a word and, after glancing at his watch, drew out a crumpled
newspaper, put his elbows on the table and, resting his head upon his
hands, began to read.

Humblethorne, checked in the casual greeting which he was about to
give, filled his pipe with the studious regard of the completely idle
man and let his eyes rest vacantly upon the stranger. Now that he was
cheated of a companion the little curiosity he would have had was
without reason, but the mind is often above reason and after its bent
has been given it by years of training and application will proceed
quite happily on its own account. Humblethorne did not know he was
taking in the stranger detail by detail, but his mind in fact received
a clear and reproducible impression of a tall, thin man of about
thirty-three or thirty-four years of age, with hands which bore
indistinct indications of refinement and clothes that bore none. A few
minutes later when the stranger’s supper was brought in and he was
compelled to give over his steady reading of the paper, Humblethorne
also noted in the same uninterested way that he had a mouth of
delicate sensibility unusual for a man of his apparent status, and
above it a pair of restless and perhaps anxious eyes.

These met his as the stranger, after another glance at his watch,
began his supper; and he gave a curt nod in forced recognition of the
other’s presence, of which Humblethorne took immediate advantage.

“Mind my lighting up?” he inquired affably as he struck a match.

“Not at all,” replied the stranger, but without the least sociability.

“A fine evening,” resumed Humblethorne, “and looks like keeping fine
for a bit.”

The stranger took no notice whatever of this original
conversationalism, but Humblethorne, undaunted, tried again: “Know
this part of the country at all?”

The other mumbled an unwilling, “Not very well.”

“Stopping here long, then,” persisted Humblethorne.

“What the devil’s that to you?” answered the stranger, suddenly
looking up with surprising surliness.

“Nothing, nothing at all,” replied Humblethorne, rising in high
indignation, “except that if you are, I’m not,” after which he slammed
the door violently behind him and felt slightly better.

“Jolly sort of philanthropist to run up against on a holiday,”
grumbled the little man to himself as he left the inn and struck out
down the lane. “What boors we English are! Now if that had been a
Frenchman we’d have been bowing and parlevooing away like anything by
this time. Damn the fellow, he’s quite put me out of temper.”

He wandered on in an absent manner and his anger quickly cooled as he
drew in the fresh, sweet air of the July night and exchanged a
pleasant “Good evening” with a couple of labourers plodding by in the
gloom. By the time that he had found a convenient stile, which seemed
to invite a man to lean on it and look along the misty darkness of the
valley, his good humour was quite restored and he had even begun to
blame himself. “What an infernal thing it is,” he mused, “to get into
the habit of always asking questions; it’s bad enough when you’re
interested in the answers, but hopeless when you aren’t in the least.
I suppose it’s too late, though, for me to alter that, and it has
certainly proved useful once or twice; I doubt if I should ever have
got onto the track in the Scrawley case if it hadn’t been for that
chance conversation in the ’bus!” He was thinking, as he often did, of
the one great case in his career when, favoured by a singular piece of
luck, he had succeeded where a much more brilliant man had been
totally at sea; it had won him promotion and gained for him a
temporary reputation, subsequently to sink to a more solidly based but
less elevated level, and it was a harmless belief of his that he might
have succeeded without it. “I suppose I resented his seeming to think
I had a reason for my remarks just because I might have had,” he
thought, and drifted away into a reverie on the inconsequent
perversity of human nature.

When at last he returned to the inn after a long silent communing with
the stars, which on this still, clear night powdered the heavens with
peculiar brilliance, he found the landlord standing at the door and
entered immediately into the easy conversation he had been so long
denied.

“A glorious night,” he said, “do you often have weather like this?”

“Well, it’s middlin’ good here as a rule about this time o’ year,”
replied the man with something of that rather sententious
condescension with which inhabitants of a place so often speak of fine
weather to a stranger, as if suggesting that they have had some hand
in it and should be regarded with gratitude accordingly. “You don’t
get much of this sort in Lunnon, likely,” he added, “and I s’pose it’s
natural you should notice it. Powerful lot of rain we had last night,
though. The other gennelman, ’e’s out somewhere too, enjoying hisself;
I shall be locking ’im out if ’e don’t come in soon.”

“Who is he, d’you know?” asked Humblethorne incuriously.

“No, sir. Traveller, I should say; leastways ’e ain’t stayin’ here,
except just for the night, as you might say.”

“Well, I’m not sorry to hear it; he’s an unsociable sort of devil. Now
I like a fellow who can talk a bit. Pretty place you have here.”

“Ay, it is that, so I’m told.”

“What’s the best walk about here?” continued Humblethorne. “Not too
far; I’m not much of a walker, but I should like to see a bit of the
country whilst I’m here.”

“I couldn’t rightly say,” answered the landlord slowly; “I don’t hold
for walkin’ myself, and besides I ain’t been here long.”

“No! I thought you’d have been born here.”

“Lord, no; what made you think that, sir? I’ve been here six months
come Michaelmas; ’ad a place down Melbury way before that, that’s
where I was bred.”

Conversation flourished on similarly simple lines for some time and
presently from the clock in the village church midnight boomed out
slowly.

“Twelve o’clock!” exclaimed the landlord. “Time I was abed. Wunnerful
how time goes when you get talkin’. If you ain’t a-comin’ in just yet,
sir, will you have the kindness to lock this door and put out the
lamp?”

“With pleasure,” replied Humblethorne. “I shall just finish this pipe
and then I shall be turning in, too.”

The continued absence of the stranger had passed out of mind, and
Humblethorne had just knocked out the pipe he always declared was the
best of the whole day and turned to obey the injunction of the
landlord, when he heard hurried steps in the lane, and in another
minute the surly stranger came into the little ring of light cast by
the lamp. He shot a keen glance of apparent resentment at the sight of
Humblethorne standing with one hand on the door, brushed past him
without a word, passed through and closed the door quickly and with
unnecessary force behind him.

“Quite the gentleman,” murmured Humblethorne as he reopened it; “my
gratitude for not being locked out is amazing. Now I should say,” he
added thoughtfully as he lit his candle and put the light out, “that
that young fellow was following a true instinct in taking a dislike to
me—but it’s no concern of mine.”

With which piece of philosophy he went to bed.



CHAPTER II

Philip and Evelyn

Earlier on the same evening, about six o’clock to be more exact, two
young girls were playing an unequal set of tennis up at the Towers.
They were nearly of an age, between twenty-three and twenty-four, but
there was almost as much difference in their appearance as there
certainly was in their play. Celia Penterton was very pretty, fair of
complexion, slender in figure and delicate both in feature and
physique, with a grace in every movement which was quite unavailing to
impart accuracy to her strokes; she was getting badly beaten by her
friend, Evelyn Temple, who had a transparent vivacity and charm about
her which owed nothing to beauty and was playing with an easy skill
sufficient for victory without exertion. She looked a picture of
mental and bodily health as she stood on the court, laughing, full of
attraction in the simple white dress which set off the glow of her
cheeks, and swung her racket gaily into the air to mark the end of the
game.

“Play up, Celia!” she cried. “You aren’t having a look in.”

“I know; it’s hopeless playing against you, Evie,” answered Celia;
“and I’m worse than usual to-day, and besides, I am so hot.”

“D’you want to go on?”

“Not much; I can’t give you a decent game.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter, though you aren’t exactly at your best, I
must say.”

“No, I know; as a matter of fact, I’ve rather a headache.”

“My dear, why didn’t you tell me?” exclaimed Evelyn.

“Well, it wasn’t much, and I thought perhaps a set would drive it
away, but it hasn’t,” answered Celia.

“Then we certainly won’t go on.”

The two came together at the net collecting the balls and Evelyn
looked at her friend with concern. “Nothing the matter, is there?” she
asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” replied Celia doubtfully.

“If I were you, I think I should go and lie down for a bit before
dinner,” said Evelyn; “you haven’t been quite up to the mark for the
last day or two.”

“So obvious as all that?” inquired Celia, and it seemed as if the
question was not asked in a wholly idle spirit.

“Not obvious to any eyes but mine, darling,” replied Evelyn; “at least
I shouldn’t think so. Anyway, go and have a rest now; you’ll be
catching cold otherwise.”

“It might be just as well,” agreed Celia, “though I’m all right; you
needn’t be alarmed.”

“I’m not, only you are such a goose sometimes.” Evelyn put her arm
affectionately round her friend’s waist as she spoke; she was in
reality a few months the younger of the two, but in all the years of
their friendship the leadership had been freely surrendered to her.

Left to herself, she sat down on the bench beside the court and,
flinging one arm carelessly over the back, after a few moments took up
the book which she had laid down before the game. Thus engaged, she
failed to see a young man come lifelessly along the path from round
the back of the house: he saw her, however, at once, and pleasure
showed openly in his face as he struck across the grass towards the
bench. His slightly drooping shoulders and rather pale cheeks made him
look older than his real age which was just over thirty-one; his eyes
showed bright and even penetrating behind his pince-nez, but had a
tired look in them which his pleasure had momentarily displaced, and
his dark lounge suit, neat but by no means new, looked a little out of
the picture. Evelyn did not hear him until he was quite close, and
then she looked suddenly up and smiled to see him.

“Well, this is a bit of luck, isn’t it?” he said, dropping naturally
on to the other end of the bench and surveying her with an air which
plainly showed that he meant what he said.

“It entirely depends on what you call luck,” she answered lightly.
“Personally I was not complaining before; it’s a good book. Ever read
it?” She held it up.

“Yes, ages ago,” he answered; “that is, not yet, but I will if you
like, though I haven’t a moment. But hang it all, I don’t feel
literary and I hope you don’t. Where’s Celia?”

“Gone in with a headache.”

“Oh, dear; too bad on a day like this. One of the most perfect we’ve
had this year, isn’t it? And so useless—until this very minute, that
is.”

“Useless, why? You don’t look over well yourself, my friend, now that
I come to look at you.”

“I’m quite well; it isn’t that, Evelyn.”

“Well, what is it then?”

“Same old trouble, only worse. It was a bit thick that Sir Roger
should have selected to-day of all days to have what he calls a grand
clear up; yesterday, when it was raining cats and dogs, would have
been better, wouldn’t it? But I don’t mind that; after all, he can do
what work he likes when he likes, and I’m here for nothing else. But
what I do object to is his way of doing it. The first thing he said to
me, for instance, this morning when he got to his desk was ‘Now, my
lad, I’ll have you remember you’re paid to work, not loaf about and
look pretty. Why the devil wasn’t all this ready for me yesterday?’
and in that nasty hard voice of his, which always reminds me of the
shutting of a despatch box. I pointed out to him as quietly as I
could——”

“I know that quiet way of yours,” interrupted Evelyn; “it’s rather
irritating, you know, sometimes, Philip, especially to a man like Sir
Roger.”

“Well, I try not to make it so, but I can’t help the facts, can I? He
had distinctly told me a couple of days ago to leave the thing over
till to-day; and he was furious when I reminded him of what he’d said.
It seems to me sometimes that he takes a perfect delight in petty
tyranny.”

“Oh, I don’t like to think that.”

“He used not to be so bad, but he’s getting worse, and when he has a
touch of gout he really is the very deuce. As a matter of fact, I
don’t really mind his manner, except sometimes, but just lately he has
begun to hint at things.”

“What d’you mean by things?”

“Well——” he paused irresolutely and then continued, “he doubted my
word the other day, more than half suggested I was feathering my own
nest at his expense, cooked his accounts, if you want to know; and
then when he found he was wrong and I was fool enough to think he’d
apologize—not he; all he said was that I’d better be careful, he’d got
his eye on me. I tell you, Evelyn, it’s rotten.” He stared out
gloomily across the lawn.

“I’m sure it is,” she answered with real sympathy. “Tell me, how’s the
book going? That is always a great consoler, isn’t it?”

“It used to be,” he replied, “but I’m stuck. It began so well last
summer, didn’t it?”

“Yes, I liked the first part very much.”

“Well, all I’ve done since is heavy; I feel it is and I’m sure you’d
think so. I haven’t been able to get the necessary lightness, and a
tale of that sort is no good at all unless it’s told charmingly.
However,” with a swift transition to brightness, “I don’t care really
about anything else as long as I’m here. That’s the real trouble,” he
frowned heavily again and went on with a return to gloom; “he’s begun
to intimate that he’s only waiting for a chance to sack me.”

“Philip!”

“Yes, I know, and that I simply won’t bear. I’ll see that he doesn’t
get a legitimate chance, but if he makes one—and he’s quite capable of
doing it—well, let him look out for himself, that’s all.”

“Oh, come, what melodrama! I can’t believe he’s the least likely to do
anything of the sort.”

“I can easily.”

“Well, and if he did, what would, what could you do?”

“Do?” repeated Philip, in a tone of sudden ferocity. “What wouldn’t I
do?”

“You’re tired and you’re talking wildly,” said Evelyn quietly, “and
you know it. It wouldn’t matter much, would it, if he did; there are
heaps of better openings for you.”

“Wouldn’t it?” asked Philip scornfully. “You wouldn’t care, I suppose,
not a bit?”

“Don’t be absurd; I should care very much if he sacked you, as you
call it. But you might anticipate him, if you really dislike working
under him so—if it becomes unbearable, I mean; and that would be quite
different.”

“I sometimes believe you haven’t a heart at all,” he retorted. “How
would it be different? I should have to go away from here just the
same.”

“Are you so fond of the place?” she asked.

“The place! Good Lord, no!” He was taken aback by her literalness.

“Well then,” she continued, “I really can’t see what you mean.”

“Can’t you? People can be very dense sometimes. This place means you,
and I’ll put up with a lot more than I have done yet just to be with
you.”

“You’re very nice, Philip,” she answered with a change of tone, “only
you don’t mean half the flattering things you say. Why, I’m only here
sometimes; this place isn’t my home.”

“It seems to be,” he replied. “I mean—well, I don’t mean that as it
sounds. And, anyway, that’s not the point; it’s the only place in
which I ever see you or am ever likely to see you, and before I let
that old beast drive me from it, I’ll, I’ll——”

“Don’t. You mustn’t talk of him like that. He’s not as kind as he
might be, I know—I know it a great deal better than you do, Philip,
for all your work with him”—there was a note of real sadness in her
voice—“but after all he’s my host, and you’re his secretary, and we
mustn’t sit and abuse him here. Let’s talk of something else.”

“Very well,” he assented reluctantly; “only it’s a great relief; the
man who invented swearing knew very well what he was about; it has
prevented a multitude of crimes—but on your head be it. What shall we
talk about? The beautiful sunshine or your irresistible charm?”

“You are too ridiculous for words sometimes,” she laughed. “If I
thought you meant a word of what you say I should be very angry with
you.”

“Oh, do,” he pleaded. “I’ve seen you in many moods and I don’t know
one in which you’re not more fascinating than any other girl I ever
met. But I’ve never seen you angry, and it must be worth watching.”

“It is,” she acknowledged—“from a distance, and I said ‘angry with
you.’”

“Yes, I admit the direction of the blow might make a difference; I’ve
no doubt you can hit straight.”

“Perhaps; I don’t know. The only time I’ve ever really been angry—I
don’t count just flyings out and in again, you know; they’re like the
pebbles on the beach both for quantity and importance—but really
angry, I didn’t hit at all; I couldn’t. It wouldn’t have done the
least bit of good, only made things worse.”

The lightness had dropped from her voice; she was obviously speaking
of something which touched her nearly still, and his tone changed in
sympathy.

“When was that?”

“It was when John was driven away from home.”

“Oh, yes,” he murmured.

“It has meant more to Lady Penterton and to Celia than they will ever
acknowledge—and never to speak to him again. Oh, it was odious! You
would hardly remember it,” she went on more quietly, “it must be
nearly ten years ago.”

“I do,” he said. “It was soon after I came. John and I were friends,
of a sort, you know, and, as a matter of fact, it was John who
originally recommended me to Sir Roger.”

“Was it? You have never told me that.”

“Well, there was no reason why I should; there wasn’t much in it. I
mean, it was my references rather than his recommendation which got me
the place. I suppose I didn’t mention it because he’s the forbidden
subject. D’ you know, I shouldn’t wonder if that isn’t at the bottom
of Sir Roger’s treatment of me. I never thought of it before.”

“It is possible,” she agreed thoughtfully; “but I don’t know, he’s
like that to everybody. Only yesterday I heard him using dreadful
language to old Fairlie; called him a Mid-Victorian fossil with
epithets thrown in I won’t repeat.”

“I wonder the old man stands it,” remarked Philip.

“He wouldn’t, not for a day, if it was a case of Sir Roger alone, but
he’ll live and die with Lady Penterton and Celia.”

“Yes, he’s a faithful old card.”

“He’s a dear,” exclaimed Evelyn warmly, “only he does require living
up to. It’s too comic the way he shows his disapproval when Celia and
I are being frivolous; I sometimes can’t help shocking him just for
the fun of it, and he ought to know us by this time.”

“It seems to me,” remarked Philip casually, “that we are straying from
the subject. I don’t object to abusing Sir Roger, as I think you know;
he’s a poisonous——”

“Now, then!”

“Well, as I was saying,” he continued imperturbably, “I don’t object
to discussing you, angry or otherwise, but I do draw the line at
discussing Fairlie.”

“A very respectable subject.”

“Yes, that’s just it; respectability is the curse of conversation.”

“You’re now in a pretty dilemma,” she said, rising; “you don’t object
to discussing me, but you do object to discussing a respectable
subject: thank you, sir.” She made him a mock bow, and started merrily
for the house.

“No, don’t go!” he pleaded. “Please don’t; I’ll be very good.”

“Even that prospect cannot detain me,” she answered over her shoulder;
“I shall be late for dinner as it is.”

He watched her enter the house and then mechanically lit a cigarette.
“Damn!” he said forcibly. “I haven’t said one single thing I meant to,
and I’ve said a great many I didn’t mean to at all.”



CHAPTER III

Foul Play

Humblethorne lay late in bed the following day—wallowed in bed would
perhaps be a more fitting description of the way in which he
shamelessly and luxuriously stretched himself down between the sheets
long after his usual time of rising. It was due to no feeling of
fatigue; he had slept without stirring and, as the occupant of the
adjoining room could have testified if he had been disposed to do so,
with a sonorous simplicity. It was due to laziness, self-indulgence
unmitigated. He had even gone to the lengths, in order to enjoy his
extra hour the more, of getting out and pulling up the blind, so that
his eyes might rest comfortably on the sunny meadows outside, and then
getting back into bed again, an act which, as all true sluggards will
bear witness, denotes the lover of laziness for laziness’s own sake.

He heard and vociferously answered the knock of the girl announcing
morning and hot water, but took no steps whatever to prevent the
latter getting cold outside his door; he was startled from a fugitive
dream by the thump of his boots, but again he made no movement to
empty the passage. If the truth must be told, it was more than
laziness which kept him in bed; it was the truth dimly acknowledged
that he had no idea what he was going to do with himself all day long.
Somehow those meadows, sun notwithstanding, had an insipidity in his
eyes which the vision of them a few days ago in town had certainly
lacked. Then he had felt so sure, that it admitted of no question,
that he had only to be among them, with nothing to do, to be
absolutely happy; already on realization of his vision he found it
vaguely unsatisfying. He was, he perceived, no country lark but a very
ordinary London sparrow; he was not already bored, but he had a
feeling that he very soon might be. At any rate he saw no need to make
the day needlessly long; he couldn’t sit indefinitely many hours alone
in a meadow. So it happened that when at last he came down to a
perfectly cold breakfast—he had forgetfully ordered it to be ready at
8.15, and it had been, within twenty minutes or so—he found the table
laid for one and no trace of the surly stranger of the previous
evening. That did not depress him and he rang happily for a fresh brew
of tea, rang two and three times, but nobody took the least notice,
though he could hear a great deal of talking going on in the servants’
quarters. It seemed so animated that he lacked the courage to go and
make his wants known, and after a long wait he sat down to his meal in
no very good humour, vowing that when next he chose to be lazy he
would at any rate have his breakfast brought up to him.

He finished, however, all that was on the table, and then, lighting a
pipe, strolled out of the coffee-room with placidity restored. In the
passage he met Timmins, the landlord, who wore a very obvious air of
great importance.

“Good morning!” said Timmins in a sepulchral voice of pleasure, in
response to Humblethorne’s greeting. “Dreadful news this morning,
isn’t it?”

“What’s that? I have heard nothing,” replied Humblethorne.

“Not heard? Bless my soul, I thought as every one knew it by this
time. Why,” coming closer and speaking slowly and deeply so as to
extract the fullest amount of dramatic effect from a new listener—he
had had a good deal of practice that morning and was getting
distinctly good at it—“Sir Roger was found dead on ’is own stairs,
right there in the ’all, they say, this very morning! Terrible wounds
on his ’ed too; seems as if they’d really set on ’im proper, don’t
it?”

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Humblethorne. Timmins was disappointed;
the quiet little man had seemed such a splendid subject for the
gratifying reception of gruesome details, and yet he did not seem
particularly impressed, at least, not in the way in which Timmins had
expected. A thoughtful look came into his eyes and then they lit up
with a gleam that Timmins took for pleasure but was really
professional interest.

“Ah,” said Timmins, “I see you knew ’im. Well, there ain’t many as’ll
be sorry, a hard-hearted old grasper ’e was and no mistake. But isn’t
it terrible? So sudden-like. There’ll be a sight of people over, I’m
thinking. It’s lucky as I ordered in an extry large joint for to-day.
Bound to be busy ’ere with a thing like that ’appening. But it’s a
kind of reflection on the place, look at it ’ow you will, don’t you
think?”

“No, I didn’t know him,” said Humblethorne, breaking abruptly into
these remarks. “But of course I’m interested: I’m an inspector of
police, though you’ll help me by not letting on about that in the
village.”

“You leave it to me, sir,” said Timmins importantly. “Lord! An
inspector! Knew all about it before’and, I’ll lay, and came here on
the quiet-like.”

“No, indeed I did not,” replied Humblethorne warmly: his sense of
propriety was outraged at the expense of his sense of humour.

“You leave it to me,” repeated Timmins in suppressed tones of
confidence; “I’ll see as nobody twigs your little game; I’ll see you
through.”

“I suppose there’s a police-station in the village,” said
Humblethorne, ignoring the heavy suggestion of alliance.

“Yes, sir, just along to the left. Birts, Sergeant Birts, is your man:
shall I step round with you?”

Humblethorne declined the offer, though Timmins assured him more than
once it would be no trouble, not the least in the world, busy as he
was what with the expected custom and one thing and another. But as
Humblethorne had a rooted objection on principle to giving offence to
any one who might conceivably be useful to him—or to any one else for
that matter—he contrived to avoid doing so by intimating that Timmins
would be of great assistance if he kept an eye upon any chance
visitors to the inn. He left Timmins finally with an accession of
importance which was terrifying to behold, and made his way quietly
along the village to the police-station. Here an official card and a
very few words sufficed to establish his identity; and as the details
of the great Scrawley case had lingered on in the retentive minds of
the country police long after it had been forgotten by their busier
brethren he found it likely that even the sergeant would regard his
appearance as a godsend. He was able quickly to satisfy himself that
it was at any rate a case of suspected violence and, inwardly
rejoicing at the dissipation of all his fears of boredom, desired that
a telegram should be sent to headquarters asking that he should be put
in charge.

Humblethorne had always firmly believed in refusing to speculate upon
untrustworthy data: gossip and second-hand evidence were far more
often misleading than helpful; the mind was too apt to catch up and
assimilate what it first received with the possible result that later
and more important information attracted less attention than it
deserved, at least so he had found. So he had deliberately abstained
from questioning Timmins, and now, having learned that Sir Roger
Penterton had indeed been found dead in a state suggesting foul play,
he asked no further questions of the eager subordinate. Sergeant Birts
was “with the corpse,” he was informed, and with no haste but equally
no unnecessary delay Humblethorne now bent his steps in the same
direction.

From the social status and business importance of the dead man the
case was bound to attract attention, and the thinly populated locality
suggested that the tracking of the criminal would not be a specially
difficult matter. Humblethorne saw himself the speedy solver of an
important crime, and it was in high spirits that he passed up the
drive, which ran across the park and entered the woods at the point at
which he had watched it the previous evening. He emerged onto a large
and beautifully kept garden which stretched on either side of the
drive, and another hundred yards brought him in front of the big,
modern mansion known as Salting Towers.

It looked as if the owner had originally demanded comfort of his
architect and made no stipulation as to beauty, beyond, indeed, the
adornment of pretentious towers at either end; it was a rambling,
irregular building with a large gravel space before the heavy door
which was set nearly in the centre of the house. On the right-hand
side clumps of rhododendrons, abutting on the gravel, shut off the
drive as it went on to the back entrance; on the left a large expanse
of lawn stretched away, broken up near the house by a few flower-beds.
A gravel path cut the lawn round the house, leaving only room for a
strip of grass and for a narrow flower-bed from which grew ivy of no
great age and Virginian creeper.

So much Humblethorne noted whilst walking up—a house not difficult of
access, he decided, if, as seemed likely, the lawn and path ran on
round to the left in front of the south aspect. He rang the bell and
waited. After an interval he was just about to ring again when the
door was suddenly opened by a large individual in sergeant’s uniform
who ran his eyes aggressively over the visitor and inquired: “What
might you be wanting?”

“Am I speaking to Sergeant Birts?” asked Humblethorne pleasantly.

“That’s my name. Who are you?”

“I am Inspector Humblethorne; possibly you have heard of me,” he
handed over a card as he spoke, which the sergeant took with no very
good grace.

“You’re early on the field, sir,” he said at length. “How on earth did
you hear of the case so soon?”

Humblethorne looked at him closely a moment and allowed the dream he
had pleased himself with spinning as he walked up to vanish. “I am
staying at the Rose and Crown,” he said; “and so could hardly do
otherwise than make it my business to assist you. I inquired at the
station and they told me you were here, as I expected; so I came up at
once. I need hardly say, sergeant, that I shall see you get full
credit for any success which may attend our efforts; I know so well
what it means to a man to have an important case at last.”

The sergeant’s face brightened instantly. “It’s very good of you to
say so, sir,” he said, heartily. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sorry
you’re here.” He paused and then added with professional
impressiveness, “it’s a case, sir. Of course I’ve only had time to
make a few preliminary inquiries, but there isn’t a clue of any sort;
in fact, I think you’ll admit it has some curious features. But come
in.”

“I never knew a case yet without a clue of some sort, but whether
there’s one that leads to anything is another matter,” Humblethorne
replied as he stepped through the door and found himself in the large
hall of the house. He then stood, without going further, familiarizing
his eyes with the surroundings, according to his invariable rule.

“That’s where the body was found,” said the sergeant, pointing
half-left to the foot of the broad staircase, which ascended from the
hall to a landing and then turned upward again to the first floor;
“lying on the floor by the stairs there, it was.”

“And isn’t it now?” asked Humblethorne sharply. “What’s that under the
sheet?”

“Them’s only the marks; the body’s in the smoking-room, first room on
the left there.”

“Who moved it?” exclaimed Humblethorne with much severity. “Did you?”

“Yes, sir; at least——” Birts grew rather red under Humblethorne’s eye,
and went on less confidently: “I allowed it to be moved after the
doctor had seen it and I’d had a careful look.”

“You allowed it to be moved! What were you about?”

“Well, sir; I’d seen all there was to see, and of course I had no idea
you were coming.”

“You’d seen all there was to see!” There was as much contempt in the
little man’s voice as he was capable of by nature. “Good Lord, man,
how on earth could you? You haven’t had any special training. Why in
the name of all that’s holy didn’t you wait? If I hadn’t come somebody
else would probably have been sent from London as soon as they’d heard
of it there.”

“I’m extremely sorry, sir; I see I was hasty. But Mr. Castle, him as
is secretary to Sir Roger, asked me when I’d finished looking if it
couldn’t be moved away from the staircase; he said it was dreadful to
have it lying there all day, where every one had to pass to go
upstairs. Of course, it was broad daylight by then. Naturally,” ended
Birts, red and apologetic, “I shouldn’t have moved it if he hadn’t
asked me to.”

“Well,” said Humblethorne, “it’s no use crying over spilt milk. It’s
done now. But never, never move anything—in a case of this kind
everything may depend on it. I should have thought you’d have known as
much, even in the country. Who found the body?” he asked abruptly.

“Mr. Castle did, about half-past one this morning. We can tell you
exactly how it lay, sir,” added Birts eagerly, “and of course we took
particular care not to touch the stains or anything. Come and look,
sir.”

“In a minute. Let me just get the geography of this place clear; on
the left, first, smoking-room, then drawing-room, is that it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What’s this room on our right—dining-room?” He stepped forward,
opened the door and looked in and satisfied himself that it was so.
“And opposite the main door, ah, the billiard-room. Where does this
passage lead to?” pointing to one that led off to the right separating
the dining-room from the billiard-room.

“That goes through to the kitchen and leads off round to the left of
Sir Roger’s study and also Mr. Castle’s room.”

“And the body was found by Mr. Castle about 1.30 this morning lying in
this hall to which five doors and a passage have access. Any
explanation?”

“No, sir, absolutely none. Nobody that I’ve seen so far heard anything
or saw anything at all. But of course I haven’t had time yet for a
proper inquiry.”

“Very singular. Windows and doors all right, eh?”

“No traces so far as I have discovered. Fairlie—that’s the
butler—assures me he locked up as usual last night; and the maids say
everything was all right this morning.”

“That looks bad. Who does the household consist of?”

“Sir Roger and her ladyship—dreadfully upset she was at the news, so I
heard, though he wasn’t exactly what you’d call a kind husband, but I
daresay she thought more of him than we did and it would be a shock to
an old lady at the best of times; she was always so particular, too,
to have things just so. Then there’s the daughter, Miss Celia, great
friends she and I used to be when she was little—she’s all right. Then
there’s Miss Temple, Miss Celia’s friend, but she isn’t really an
extra; she’s always staying here: like sisters those two are, and I’ve
known her ever since she was so high,” putting his hand on a level
with his waist. “Mr. Castle, again, has been secretary here for a
great many years; very clever he is, and very easy to get on with too,
I must say. He’s high-strung and finding the corpse upset him a bit,
but he’s all right.” Birts spoke grudgingly; he regarded Castle as the
man who had got him into trouble. “Then there’s Fairlie, James
Fairlie, and he again has been here, well, as long as I can remember
and was with her ladyship’s family, so I believe, before she married,
and is as decent an old fellow as you’d see anywhere. Not much to go
upon yet, sir, is there?”

“Too early to give an opinion,” replied Humblethorne, cautiously. “I’m
not sure whether it helps or hinders most to know them all as you do.
It certainly saves a lot of questioning, but then it prejudices a man
also.”

“Perhaps it does, sir; but then I know it isn’t anything but waste of
time to go suspecting some people—Miss Celia, for example. Why, that
girl, sir, just couldn’t hurt a soul; I don’t believe she could if she
was to die for it. She’s been delicate, as you might call it, for a
long time, for one thing.”

“And yet,” remarked Humblethorne gravely, “if you recall the
Featherstone mystery, there was a girl just as you describe, gentle
and popular, a member of societies for doing charitable things and all
that—and she did have to die for it. One thing is certain and that is
that you can’t ever be sure about human nature; at least, that’s my
experience. Many a criminal has concealed a cold-blooded heart under a
guise of benevolence, and it doesn’t do in our profession to forget
it, Birts. Suspect everybody at first, and don’t allow your sympathies
to put any possibility out of your calculations. Not, of course,” he
observed, seeing polite incredulity in the sergeant’s face, “that I
have at present the least doubt of Miss Penterton’s innocence; all I
mean is, I shan’t refuse facts if later they should point to
her—that’s all. And now who else lives here?”

“Only servants, besides those I’ve mentioned. None of them been here
long except Fairlie and the cook. Sir Roger used to upset them a bit,
you know; he was rough with his tongue when put out. But there’s
nothing against any of them: footman seems an ordinary sort of lad.
Comes from Southhurst, that’s nine miles away; I can easily find out
all about him.”

Whilst they had been talking, Humblethorne had been taking in the hall
with a steady general scrutiny; and now expressed himself ready for a
more particular examination. They moved accordingly to the spot at
which the body had been found; and Birts carefully removed the sheet
which had been covering it.

“You’ll hear the facts from Mr. Castle yourself, of course,” he said;
“but Sir Roger was lying just here on his right side, with his head
here.” He indicated the marble just below the left-hand bottom corner
of the stairs.

“When did you see it?” asked Humblethorne, gazing intently at the
tell-tale stains which, spreading across the marble, had soaked into
the edge of the carpet. A heavy silver cigarette box of Indian
workmanship, adorned with richly embossed figures, lay with cigarettes
scattered round it just at the foot of the stairs and a little to the
left side: further to the left, a couple of yards away beyond the
stains, lay a heavy stick.

“About half-past five this morning.”

“Not till then.” Humblethorne looked up quickly.

“No; I was only told of the crime at twenty past four. Alfred, that’s
the footman, came on a bicycle.”

“And the body was found about one—a long interval, Birts; much might
happen in that time. Has anything besides the body been moved that you
know of?”

“Well, sir, some of these cigarettes were lying on the stairs. I let
Mr. Castle move them; he asked if he might and I didn’t see no harm;
they were on the stairs so as to make it awkward to pass.”
Humblethorne silently invoked heaven, so that Birts added hastily,
“They’re all here, though, I counted them to make sure. But you’ll
hear Mr. Castle yourself.”

“I intend to; and next time, for the Lord’s sake don’t move or let
anyone move a thing: It makes it hopeless.” Humblethorne knelt down
and examined everything, especially the stick and cigarette box, with
the utmost care. The box was lying close to where the dead man’s head
had rested; the main bloodstain ran up to it and had darkly marked the
centre of its lower edge: nothing else was noticeable except that one
of its corners had been dented and the brightness of the dent seemed
to show that this had been recently done. “Looks as if it had been
used,” he remarked, pointing this out.

“That’s the weapon all right,” returned Birts, confidently. “Struck
him on the forehead and made a nasty hole.”

“Where did it come from, d’you know?”

“No, but I expect Fairlie’ll be able to tell us.”

“Whose is the stick?”

“That belonged to Sir Roger.”

“H’m, there seems to be plenty of blood about,” remarked Humblethorne,
rising from his knees. “Look here, and here.” He pointed first to the
left-hand corner of the stone stairs, and then to the centre of the
carpet covering the second and fourth steps, on each of which a faint,
but traceable, oblong stain could be seen.

“This,” said Birts, referring to the first, “is close to his head and
he hit it falling—there’s a cut on the side to fit. But I don’t know
what the others are.”

“Footsteps, Birts, footsteps. Many a man’s been hung on less. That’s
the ball of the foot of a person we want going upstairs, or I’m much
mistaken.”

“Or coming down, it might be?”

“Possibly; but why should whoever it was come down with feet like
that? No, going upstairs—and either very careless or very agitated.
Let me see the body.”

They passed into the smoking-room, where a policeman was on duty
beside the covered body of the late owner of the house. Humblethorne
knelt down and, removing the covering, looked long at the clean-shaven
face of a man of about seventy-five, hard-featured in life and
inexpressibly repellant in the rigidity of death; his eyes were wide
open and seemed to stare out of the scowling face with a cold
malignity. The features were slightly distorted, whether with fear,
anger, or other emotion it was impossible to say. On his left temple
was a deep, ugly, triangular wound, an inch in diameter, and the
congealed blood lay dark and sinister across his forehead; on the
right side of his head, just above and in front of the ear, was a
short perpendicular cut, made, to judge by the slight flattening of
the face on that side, by some heavy object striking against it with
considerable force or by a fall upon a sharp and unyielding substance.
He was in a smoking-jacket and ordinary evening dress; his watch and
chain was in its place, and there was a sovereign and some odd silver
in his pockets.

“Doctor seen him?” inquired Humblethorne, rising at last from his
examination and replacing the sheet.

“Yes, sir. Arrived soon after me. He said death had taken place some
hours previously; didn’t like to be more definite. Either of the two
wounds would be sufficient to cause death, he said, especially the one
on the side of the head; skull’s fractured. He gave it as his opinion
that that was caused by striking the edge of the stairs in his fall.”

“Probably,” agreed Humblethorne. “Well, now I should like to hear what
Mr. Castle has to say. And that I think I can do better in the hall.”



CHAPTER IV

A Mystery in the Night

Humblethorne crossed to the fireplace and rang the bell, which was
answered in a few moments by the appearance of an old man whose quiet,
impassive respectability betrayed no hint either of the tragedy which
overshadowed the house or of his own want of sleep. He allowed himself
to notice the presence of a stranger by an almost imperceptible lift
of his eyebrows before turning to Birts and saying—

“Did you ring, sergeant? Is there anything you require?”

“This is Inspector Humblethorne, Fairlie,” answered the sergeant; “he
wishes to see Mr. Castle. Not in here—in the hall.”

“Mr. Castle is in the study; I will acquaint him with your wishes,”
said Fairlie, acknowledging the introduction by turning his body
slightly towards Humblethorne and preparing to go.

“One moment,” interrupted Humblethorne. “You’re the butler, aren’t
you?”

“I am.”

“You have been here a long time?”

“That is so.”

“I shall want to ask you a few questions after I have seen Mr.
Castle.”

“I shall be happy, h’only too happy to place myself at your disposal,”
replied Fairlie, allowing a faint undercurrent of human interest to
show for the first time through the dignity of his demeanour. “Her
ladyship and Miss Celia are upset, naturally upset, if I may say so,
at the terrible event in the house, and I have had no orders; but I am
sure her ladyship would wish me to help you to the best of my
abilities and to offer you every opportunity for arriving at the
truth.”

“Thank you,” answered Humblethorne meekly, and Fairlie withdrew.

“Not quite the man you would expect Sir Roger to have had as butler,”
remarked Humblethorne; “altogether too old-fashioned and superior.”

“Yes, he came with her ladyship. He’s a bit slow, no doubt, but he has
a warm heart, has old Fairlie, and many’s the kind thing he’s done for
the people in the village. Now Sir Roger didn’t care a rap of his
fingers for the village.”

“He certainly does not seem to have been a popular figure.”

“Popular? Him popular?” The sergeant gave a short laugh which, in
deference to the dead man beside him, he tried to turn into a cough.

“Mr. Castle is in the hall,” said Fairlie, opening the door quietly.

The appearance of Philip Castle had not been improved by the tragic
events of the night; he was dressed in the same dark suit which he had
worn the previous day, but the neatness had gone from it; his tie was
badly tied and his collar was dirty. He still wore evening socks and
shoes, and it looked as if his changing had been a hasty and casual
affair. His stoop as he walked restlessly up and down on the further
side of the hall was accentuated and his pallor increased, whilst his
eyes, though still clear and bright, had a haggard as well as a tired
look.

He glanced irritably at Humblethorne as he approached, and then seemed
to look past him at the closing door with a nervous movement.

“Well!” he exclaimed, “I understand you want to ask me some more
questions about this horrible business, and here of all places. I’ve
already told you what I know, and I don’t think you quite realize how
unpleasant it is for me to talk about it.”

“Murder is an unpleasant business,” replied Humblethorne calmly. “It
is the duty of every one to do what they can to help.”

“I know. You must excuse a little irritation! I’ve been up all night.”

Humblethorne’s eyes had travelled slowly over Philip, apparently
seeing little and yet recording in his mind each detail, and they now
rested upon his shoes.

“I am sure you have had a trying time, Mr. Castle,” he said. “I
understand you are the dead man’s private secretary.”

“Yes.”

“And have been with him for some time?”

“Nearly eleven years.”

“Now, Mr. Castle, is there any one as far as you know to whom his
death at the present moment would be of advantage?”

“That’s not a very easy question to answer,” replied Castle with some
hesitation. “Sir Roger had few friends and he had made, in one way and
another, a great many enemies in the course of his life—but none, as
far as I know, who would be the least likely to resort to violence.
The answer must certainly be, no.”

“Did he go in fear of any one, for example?”

“Not in the least; he was afraid of nothing and nobody.”

“In fact you had no apprehensions for him of any sort?”

“None; I thought he would live to be a hundred.”

“That stick over there, that belonged to him, I understand?”

“Yes; he’d been walking with it the last day or two.”

“In the house, d’you mean?”

“Yes, he had had twinges of gout; he had it all last evening.”

“I was coming to that; perhaps you will be good enough to tell me in
your own words exactly what happened last night.”

“I came along the passage to go to bed——”

“One minute,” interposed Humblethorne quickly; “that’s the end; I
should like to know all that happened previous to that. Did you notice
anything unusual in Sir Roger’s manner, for instance, during the day?”

“No, I can’t say I did. He was, well, brusque and touchy about
trifles, but that was entirely usual, especially when he had gout. He
told me a couple of days ago he intended to have a grand clear up
yesterday, but there is no significance in that; it was an expression
he often used, and only meant an extra hard day’s work for me. He came
to his study as usual after breakfast and dictated a few business
letters for me to write, and also told me to have ready for him by the
evening a detailed _précis_ of a lot of new material he had had sent
him at various times, all relating to a branch he had thoughts of
opening in Liverpool. He was in his study all the morning. He was
reading in the garden with his foot up, I believe, all the afternoon,
at least that’s what he said at lunch he was going to do; I was busy
with the _précis_, so I don’t know for certain. He signed his letters
for the six o’clock post, and told me he had some more letters he
would dictate after dinner so that they could go out at nine o’clock
this morning. We all sat here while he smoked a cigar after dinner,
and he and I went to his study, as near as I can remember, just after
ten o’clock.”

“He sounds very busy for a man of his age, partially retired,”
remarked Humblethorne thoughtfully. “Was this an average day for him?”

“Not quite: he seldom worked after dinner, and usually went to bed
early. But I’ve known him do it when interested in any new
development, and on the whole it was a fairly ordinary day for a day
here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“He used to go to Southampton two or three times a week. As a matter
of fact, he was busy just now, and even when he wasn’t he liked to
pretend that he was and make work. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, please go on.”

“Well, we worked together for about an hour and a half; he read the
_précis_ and even commended it—that perhaps was the one unusual thing
of the evening. Then he dictated his letters to me and left me to go
to bed.”

“What time was that? Can you say at all precisely?”

“Yes, I think I can tell you exactly, for I glanced at the clock as he
left the room: by that it was thirteen minutes to twelve.”

“And then?”

“I debated whether I should write the letters then or get up early to
do them; he would require them to be ready for signature when he came
down to breakfast. I decided to finish them; there were a dozen or
more to write, and they took me over an hour to do. I was not through
till nearly half-past one; found I had run out of cigarettes and came
along to get one here before going to bed.”

“What time was that?”

“As nearly as I can fix it, about twenty-five minutes past one. I came
along the passage——”

“By the passage you mean that passage behind you now?” asked
Humblethorne, referring to the one leading between the dining-room and
billiard-room. “It is important to have that quite clear.”

Castle nodded wearily. “That’s the one,” he said. “My ordinary way
from my room up to bed would be up the back stairs, but, as I say, I
wanted to get a cigarette and so I came along that passage, feeling my
way. The lights had all been turned out—Sir Roger had a passion for
small economies—but it was a bright night with a bit of a moon and
there was a certain amount of light coming in from that small window
on the landing.” Castle paused and a look of vivid remembrance passed
across his face; he had been speaking quietly and evenly, but now his
voice rose, and it was obvious that he was painfully agitated. “I had
got almost to the stairs,” he went on, “before I noticed anything.
Then I trod on something, a cigarette, I think, and I looked down. I
saw something dark and round just in front of me at the foot of the
stairs. I couldn’t think what it could be. I bent over. God! shall I
ever forget that hideous, blood-stained face?” He ended with a
half-hysterical cry and sank down into a chair, white and shaking.

Humblethorne, upon whom the clearness and quietness of the earlier
part of his narrative had made, in spite of his first prejudice
against the secretary, a distinctly favourable impression, watched him
curiously for a moment and then said with sudden, deliberate
sharpness, “Yes, and what did you do then?”

“Then?” repeated Castle vaguely. “Then I staggered back and it was all
I could do to keep myself from screaming at the top of my voice.”

“It would probably have been the best thing you could have done, sir,”
remarked Birts.

“It was the last thing a gentleman should have done,” retorted Castle
angrily. “It would have terrified Lady Penterton and the ladies out of
their wits to have been roused to such a dreadful sight suddenly like
that.”

“Let us hear what you did do,” repeated Humblethorne, with a gentle
insistence which had its due effect.

“I fumbled about until I got my hand on the switch,” went on Castle
shakily, “and turned the light on. It wasn’t quite as bad as it had
been coming suddenly in that eerie light, but it doesn’t bear talking
about. I got down beside him somehow then, but I didn’t need to feel
his heart to see that he was dead all right.”

“How exactly was he lying? Go to the place, please, and describe it as
accurately as you can.”

“He was lying here,” said Castle, going with a very apparent distaste
for his task to the foot of the stairs, “just to the left of the
staircase, his head on the floor here below the bottom stair almost
touching the corner; he was on his right side; his knees were drawn up
and both arms flung out in front of him; his hands were open. It was a
natural attitude, except for his head, which was bent backwards in a
way that seemed to me particularly hideous.”

“Yes, that’s just how he was when I see him,” added Birts in a rather
aggrieved tone.

Humblethorne remained silent, watching Castle as closely as the spot
indicated. “Yes?” he said.

“That’s all,” replied Castle. “I don’t think there is anything else I
can add.”

“According to your account, then, there is an interval of an hour and
thirty-eight minutes from the time that Sir Roger left you to the time
you came along the passage.”

“Yes, just about; I cannot fix the exact minute I left my room.”

“Were you writing in your room or in Sir Roger’s?”

“In my room; I took my notebook back into it as usual when he had
finished dictating.”

“And during this time that you were writing you heard nothing?”

“Not a sound of any sort; but of course I was busy.”

“What did you do after turning the light on and satisfying yourself
Sir Roger was dead? By the way, what made you conclude at once that he
was dead?”

“The blood had already ceased flowing and his arm had begun to
stiffen; besides, there was no mistaking the look on his face. He must
have been killed very soon after leaving me.”

“Well; go on, please.”

“My first thought,” continued Castle with an angry glance at the
imperturbable figure of Humblethorne, “was of course that he had met
with an accident; fallen and killed himself, I mean.”

“Come, Mr. Castle,” broke in Birts, “that won’t do!”

“I know that as well as you do, Birts,” retorted Castle irritably.
“But I’m not accustomed, like you are, to meeting with such things as
part of my ordinary life. For an old man to fall and kill himself in
his hall without rousing the house is not impossible; the other seemed
to be. But I realized, when I pulled myself together, that there was
something more than accident about him. I tried the door; it was
locked. I went as quickly as I could round the windows, both here and
in all the adjoining rooms, making sure that I should find one forced,
but they were all fastened. Then I did not know what to do, so I went
and knocked up Fairlie. He was asleep of course, but I made him get up
and dress as quickly as he could and come into the hall. After that I
went and knocked at Miss Temple’s door, woke her up, told her and left
her to tell Lady Penterton and Miss Celia, and came down here again.”

“When did you send for Birts?” asked Humblethorne.

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Castle wearily. “I was here trying to
think it out; it seemed so extraordinary. And then Fairlie suggested
that I should try and telephone to Birts and the doctor; but I could
get no answer whatever from the Exchange, though I tried ever so long.
So finally I scrawled a couple of notes and sent them off by Alfred on
a bicycle.”

“It was 4.20 a.m. by the station clock when Alfred reached me,” said
Birts.

“Yes, I must have spent half an hour or more trying to get through,
and I don’t suppose he hurried himself dressing and all that.”

“Mr. Castle,” said Humblethorne quietly, “on what terms were you
yourself with Sir Roger?”

“On what terms?” repeated Castle with a surprised stare. “What do you
mean? I was his private secretary.”

“Yes, I know that; I mean, were you on intimate terms or what?”

“Sir Roger was not on intimate terms with any one, so far as I know,”
answered Castle with some confusion. “Why do you ask?”

“It helps in a case of this kind to know everything,” replied
Humblethorne suavely.

“Well, then, yes, in a sense I was; that is to say, I’d been with him
a long time and probably knew him better than any one else.”

“That is a mere evasion of my question,” said Humblethorne softly.

“Well,” cried Castle, “if you mean, did I like him, no, emphatically
no! Did any one? Birts will tell you what sort of a man he was, if you
don’t know.”

“I didn’t mean that; I meant, did he like you?”

“This is too much!” exclaimed Castle. “I won’t be cross-examined in
this way. What are you driving at?”

“I may take it then,” said Humblethorne, quite unruffled, “that there
were differences between you.”

“You may take it how you like,” replied Castle with some heat.
“Differences, of course there were differences. If you think a man
could live for eleven years without differences with Sir Roger
Penterton, you’re mistaken.”

“I quite understand, Mr. Castle,” Humblethorne said in a more
conciliatory tone; “you mustn’t take offence at my questions; I am
bound to ask them, you know.”

“Questions, yes, but——”

“Just one more and I think I have finished,” interposed Humblethorne
gently. “Birts tells me you asked if the body couldn’t be moved.
That’s not a very usual request; d’you mind telling me why you made
it?”

“Certainly. I felt that it was too ghastly an object to leave lying at
the foot of the main staircase a moment longer than was necessary. I
hoped that the ladies would remain upstairs, as in fact they did, but
they might want to come down any time later, and I saw no reason after
Birts and the doctor had made their examinations why the risk should
be run. I couldn’t have done it, naturally, without Birts’s
permission; as he gave it, well, wring what significance you can out
of it.” After saying which, Castle looked straight at Humblethorne and
left the hall.

“Well!” said Birts, who did not at all like the trend of the
conversation. “I have known Mr. Castle for over ten years, but I’ve
certainly never known him speak like that.”

“You probably have never known him in quite these circumstances,”
remarked Humblethorne drily, ringing the bell.

“No more I have!” exclaimed Birts, as if embracing a quite new idea.

“Ah, Fairlie,” said Humblethorne, when the butler quietly appeared,
“there are one or two things I want to ask you. Just give me, if you
will, your version of what took place.”

“That is easily done,” replied Fairlie. “Sir Roger seemed quite as
usual last night, both at dinner and when I took him in the tray about
twenty minutes past ten.”

“Was he a heavy drinker?”

“Heavy but not excessive,” replied Fairlie solemnly. “I’ve not often
known him the worse for liquor, but he was fond of wine. Still he
wasn’t a drinker between meals, only now and again he would have a
whisky or two if he was going to sit up. He only wanted soda last
night, though, because he was threatened with his gout, I expect. He
was at work with Mr. Castle when I went in, and he did not ring or
require anything again. I locked up as usual, saw that everything was
all right and went to bed.”

“What time was that?”

“Well, let me see; I locked up and put the lights out about a quarter
to eleven, I should say. The ladies had all gone up then, and Sir
Roger used to go on at me for leaving lights burning when they weren’t
wanted, so even if he did happen to be working late I didn’t leave
them on. I waited up a little in case he should ring for anything, and
got to bed about twelve.”

“And you didn’t hear a sound between locking up and going to bed?”

Fairlie thought for a moment. “No, nothing,” he said. “I was doing the
silver and I shouldn’t have heard anything in the hall short of a
revolver going off.”

“You are positive the fastenings of the doors and windows were all
right?”

“They were when I went round. We have a good deal of silver and one
thing and another, and it is not a duty I could leave to any one
else.” He spoke with dignity and decision.

“And then what was the next thing you heard?”

“I went to bed and had dropped off to sleep when Mr. Castle burst into
my room—terribly agitated, he was, and it was some time before I could
understand just what had happened. It must have been about half-past
one he came to me.”

“Are you sure of the time?” asked Humblethorne slowly.

“I wouldn’t like to be positive; it may have been a bit sooner or a
bit later. I didn’t think to look at my watch until afterwards; I just
dressed as quickly as I could and came along.”

“And then?”

“I stayed in the hall with Sir Roger until Mr. Castle came back after
telling Miss Evelyn. He sat here a bit with his head on his hand
looking worn out; then he began to walk up and down, and I ventured to
remind him it would be as well to telephone for Dr. Shipstone, not
that he could do anything—and for you, Birts. But he couldn’t get
through, and at last I sent Alfred off.”

That really ended the story of the night.

In response to further questions, Fairlie identified the cigarette box
as the one which usually stood in the hall on a small table close to
the drawing-room door and corroborated Castle’s statement that the
stick was the one with which Sir Roger had been walking. The evidence
of the other servants threw no fresh light whatever upon the death;
they had all gone to bed at their ordinary times and had heard and
seen nothing unusual at all. Fairlie was able to substantiate the
simple statement of Alfred, the only other man in the house, by
stating that he had heard him snoring horribly when he himself went to
bed.

It was getting on for two o’clock by this time, and Humblethorne
expressed his intention of returning to the Rose and Crown for
luncheon. Fairlie assured him that Lady Penterton would wish him to be
offered the hospitality of the house; but Humblethorne declared that a
walk would do him good. He really wanted to be alone to arrange in his
mind the facts which had been presented to him. Birts accompanied him
in silence a little way down the drive.

“It’s beyond me,” said that worthy officer after they had gone a few
yards. “Man murdered in his own hall and not a single person know
anything about it.”

“We have not yet completed the preliminary inquiry,” responded
Humblethorne, “and may still find some one who does. But assuming,
what is most likely, that the remaining members of the household——”

“Why, there’s only her ladyship, Miss Celia, and Miss Temple left!”
exclaimed Birts in surprise.

“Exactly. If, as is most probable, they were in bed and also know
nothing about it, we arrive at the conclusion that nobody does. Well,
he couldn’t have dealt himself that wound on the forehead. So either
the assailant came from outside, in which case there’ll be some trace
on window or door and it’s up to us to find it—or he came from inside,
in which case we’ve listened to a good many lies this morning. There
is a third alternative,” Humblethorne added slowly, “and that is that
the murderer came from outside, but was let in: there might be no
trace then, but there would be somebody who knows a good deal more
than he has any idea of telling us. Well, it’s a nice little problem,
Birts. Don’t get talking to anybody, whatever you do, and keep a sharp
look out, especially in the hall, and don’t let a thing more be moved
till I come back. I shan’t be long.”

“Very good, sir,” answered Birts submissively.

“Damn that man!” said Humblethorne to himself as he walked on alone.
“There may have been nothing to see; there may have been a lot—either
seems equally probable. But what a mug!” Then apparently irrelevantly
he added, “Now I wonder what Mr. Castle possesses in the way of shoe
leather?”



CHAPTER V

Upstairs

Whilst Humblethorne was thus pursuing his investigations in the hall
with that unruffled air of patient determination which had threatened
seriously to upset the equanimity of the overwrought secretary, Evelyn
Temple was upstairs in her friend’s room, sitting beside her whilst
she slept. Celia had consented to stay in bed, but it had taxed all
Evelyn’s influence to achieve so much. The news of her father’s sudden
and terrible end had worked on her, goading her to aimless
restlessness like a spur, and seemed a far acuter sorrow than Evelyn
would have imagined had her imagination ever run into such a morbid
channel.

As she sat holding her friend’s hand, without the comforting strength
of which Celia seemed unable to try to get the rest she so obviously
needed, Evelyn went over in her mind the events of the night. An
insistent knocking had mingled itself with the staging of her dream
until it drowned the dream altogether and she woke to hear some one
knocking in actual fact on her door, shaking it with irregular
violence. As she started up she heard Philip Castle’s voice—at least
it sounded strangely unlike his and yet could belong to no one
else—telling her to open it; she flung on a dressing-gown and obeyed,
and found Philip standing outside, his face working with some strong
emotion, saying in a low, uncertain tone, “I thought I should wake the
whole house before I made you hear. He’s dead!”

She was still so little awake that she could only stare in
uncomprehending amazement and answer, “What are you saying?”

“Sir Roger. He’s dead. In the hall,” he said jerkily.

“Sir Roger dead! Impossible!” she gasped.

“It’s true.”

“Philip! It can’t be!”

Her scepticism, based on the complete inability of a girl whose
experience has run along quiet channels to credit anything terrible as
happening in her own life, had a steadying effect upon him.

“It is true,” he answered less tensely. “I almost stumbled across him
as I was coming up to bed; he is dead beyond possibility of doubt.”

“How horrible!” she exclaimed, every nerve wrung. “What can have
happened?”

“I don’t know. He has a horrible gash in his temple.”

“I don’t understand; did he fall?”

“I am afraid he has been murdered,” he answered slowly.

“Murdered!” The sinister word struck her like a blow and she recoiled
in horror. “In this house! How could he have been?”

“I don’t know. That will all have to be gone into later. Will you
break it to Celia?”

“I suppose I must.”

“And Lady Penterton must be told.”

“I will go and tell Celia now and she must tell her mother.”

“Yes, but whatever you do, don’t let either of them come downstairs.
He was awful enough in life, but now, Evelyn, it’s hideous!”

She shuddered involuntarily, then laid her hand on his arm.

“You’re unnerved, Philip,” she said. “What can I do to help? Shall I
come down as soon as I’ve told Celia? It won’t be so bad for me.”

He drew back almost fiercely. “You!” he cried. “How can you suggest
such a thing? Stay with them. You must, I tell you. I wouldn’t have
you see it for the world. Besides, Fairlie’s there.”

She looked at him a moment. “Very well,” she said quietly. “I’ll go to
Celia now.”

And she had gone along to her friend’s room, which lay separated from
her own only by a room that had once been a nursery, and now was given
over to the two girls as a study and workroom. She tapped lightly on
the door with a rhythm they were in the habit of using to each other,
and opened it, but she had hardly entered before she was met by Celia
who, seizing her arm with a quick, half-imploring gesture, asked in
tones almost of despair, “Evelyn! What is it? How you startled me!”

She had obviously leapt out of bed at the first sound of the tapping;
she was in her nightdress, her hair was flowing loose in some
disorder, and her face looked particularly childlike and even piteous.
Evelyn gathered the slight figure to her and said with the utmost
gentleness, “Darling, you must be brave.”

“I know,” answered Celia, clinging to her, “I’m a pitiful coward, but
I couldn’t sleep, and I—I suppose I lay imagining things; I think—I
think,” her hesitating uncertainty of speech made her seem more
fragile than ever, “I perhaps was dreaming a little; and then when I
heard your rap it made me so frightened. Why have you come? I thought
you would be asleep ages ago.”

“You must be brave, darling,” Evelyn repeated, drawing her down into
the bed and sitting down beside her. “Philip has just woken me to tell
me some bad news.”

“Bad news!” exclaimed Celia, half starting up. “What has happened?
Evelyn, tell me what has happened. Quickly, tell me quickly!”

“Sir Roger——” began Evelyn, wondering whether it would not have been
better to put off telling her until the morning as she was in such a
state of nerves.

“Yes, what has happened?” Celia interposed in an agitated voice.

“Darling, I don’t know how best to tell you. He’s dead.”

“Dead!” Celia rose up, drawing away from her friend’s detaining arm,
her whole body stiffening.

“Yes; I’m afraid it’s very terrible. You had better know the worst.
Philip found him with a wound on his forehead lying dead in the hall.”

“In the hall!” Celia repeated after her, staring down with wild eyes,
full of sick horror. She swayed suddenly and Evelyn only just caught
her as she fainted.

Evelyn lifted her into bed and used every effort to restore her to
consciousness, but it was some little time before she came to herself.

“Lie still,” ordered Evelyn as soon as she opened her eyes again.
“There is no need for you to move.”

“How did it happen?” asked Celia in an agonized whisper. “It’s
horrible.”

“Yes, it is, darling; Philip couldn’t tell me any more than just that
he had found him. I don’t know anything more. Now if you will lie
still I will go and tell your mother.”

“Doesn’t she know?”

“Not yet; I thought you would go and break it to her.”

“Oh, I can’t!” cried Celia, beginning to cry.

“No, I will. Just lie still; I’ll come back to you as soon as I can.”

“Yes, please; I can’t bear it alone.”

Evelyn had then bent and kissed her, and gone along to Lady
Penterton’s room. She knocked on the door and then opened it gently,
saying, “Aunt Eleanor!” She had invented this name years ago to
express her affection for her friend’s mother.

Lady Penterton’s voice answered her sharply, “Who’s that? What is it?”

“It’s Evelyn,” the girl answered soothingly.

“Evelyn? What is it you can want? What is it?”

Evelyn crossed to the bedside in the darkness, and as gently as she
could told the old lady, who clutched her nervously, her dismal news.
The effect was as she rather feared; Lady Penterton, never robust, had
been in feeble health for some time. Now she clung to Evelyn with all
her strength and gave way to dry, gasping sobs, which were terrible to
listen to. At one time she could hardly get her breath and Evelyn
became seriously alarmed; but the paroxysm passed, and gradually she
became calmer and allowed Evelyn to lay her back on her pillow. She
began to speak between tears, which still shook her with their
violence, of things in her married life of years ago, and of the time
of her engagement. For a long time Evelyn sat beside her and
endeavoured to soothe her; but it was not until her maid, who had now
heard of the death, came in that Evelyn felt it possible to leave her.

She had then come back, as she had promised, to Celia hoping that she
would find her asleep and be able to get a little rest herself; but
Celia was sitting up in her chair, wide-eyed, white and restless, and
turned at once at her entrance, saying—

“Oh, Evie, how long you’ve been! I thought you had forgotten to come
back, only I did not hear you pass. Have you heard any more?”

“Poor child,” answered Evelyn tenderly, “why didn’t you stay in bed? I
hoped you’d be asleep; I have only just left Aunt Eleanor. She was
dreadfully upset, but she is a little better now, and Thompson is with
her. Come to bed, dear; you won’t do any one any good by staying up.”

“I couldn’t lie still; I tried,” answered Celia. “Does any one know
how it happened?”

“I haven’t heard anything more. Come, let’s try and rest together; I’m
tired out.” Her appeal on her own behalf had been immediately
successful. They had lain down together and succeeded in getting some
much-needed rest. They had breakfasted upstairs, and then Evelyn had
dressed, promising to remain with Celia if she stayed in bed.

As she sat beside her friend, who seemed fragile indeed in the uneasy
sleep of exhaustion, Evelyn’s lively curiosity as to the mysterious
tragedy which had so suddenly come into their midst was at work. She
had seen neither the body nor the hall, but knew now the general
circumstances; the maid who attended her had naturally been brimming
over with it, and had told her volubly, “she had had it from Mr. Birts
himself that ’ow any one ’ad got in and murdered the master there in
the ’all was an absolute riddle, seein’ as there weren’t nothing to
show for it, no window open, none of the silver gorn nor nothink.”

If that was really so, if there was indeed nothing to show for it, it
could only have come from inside; she did not think of Humblethorne’s
third alternative, namely, possible co-operation inside—she saw the
problem simply in its elemental possibilities, if not from without,
then from within. But there was no one, there could be no one inside
the house who could conceivably be guilty of such an act. So far her
thoughts had gone when, like a leaping flash of light, she remembered
the way Philip had talked the preceding evening, a way she had at once
denounced as melodramatic. Was it conceivable that any real meaning
should then have been attached to it? The apparent absence of motive
beyond general dislike had been perplexing her as it was already
perplexing Humblethorne: he only concluded rather vaguely that there
must have been some grave cause of disagreement between Sir Roger and
the secretary who acted so strangely, and hoped to find something to
justify the conclusion; but she knew of a grave cause. Was it possible
that last night Sir Roger had carried out the threat he had been
holding over Philip’s head and given him his dismissal? And, if so,
what then? Had Philip in sudden passion struck him down? She
remembered the unsettled way he had looked when he came to tell her;
his “I am afraid he has been murdered” beat in her brain. Her vivid
imagination reconstructed the scene of the blow: Sir Roger, just as he
turned to go upstairs to bed, jerking out in his harshest way a
definite dismissal, Philip’s remonstrance leading to argument, angry
words—and a blow?

She would have risen from the bed in agitation, but for Celia’s hand
within hers. The vision she had conjured up seemed for a terrible
moment suddenly real: then as suddenly it seemed absurd. She felt that
Philip might have struck a blow in a gust of anger, but could never
conceal that he had done so. He would, she was convinced, have been
overcome with remorse, and would have confessed the whole story then
and there to her. Her momentary doubt shrivelled as an unclean thing
flung into a fire; she hated herself that she had ever entertained it
for a single instant. Philip was hasty, and high-strung; at the moment
he was also worn out; but whatever he had done, it went outside her
knowledge of him, her long trust and belief in him, that he could be
acting a part to save his own skin. In this thought she understood his
manner; to a man of his temperament to come across such a sight
unexpectedly—he had almost stumbled across the body, he had said—would
be sufficiently unnerving. In unconscious reparation for what she now
termed disloyalty her confidence grew all the stronger in so old and
true a friend.

She stirred, without knowing it, as she dispelled her disquieting and
ungenerous suggestion, and Celia at once awoke. She still looked white
and worn out and turned to Evelyn with a heavy sigh and then lay still
again. “How good of you to sit with me, Evie,” she said at last,
looking across the room in a tired way.

“My dear, what nonsense between us!” exclaimed Evelyn warmly. “Of
course I’m glad to do all I can. But you mustn’t take it so much to
heart. It is a dreadful thing, I know; horrible to think of, but after
all——” She paused and then added gently, “I know just what you are
thinking.”

Celia’s eyes turned upon her suddenly. She did not speak, but her hand
tightened on Evelyn’s.

“You mustn’t blame yourself. You’re thinking, I know,” went on Evelyn,
answering her gaze, “that you found him cold, even cruel, in his
lifetime, and now that he has gone you wish you had loved him more.”

Celia’s eyes dropped: she looked away and said at last in a low,
irresolute tone, “No, it isn’t that. It’s just the awful suddenness. I
didn’t love him; I wouldn’t tell any one else, especially now, but you
know I didn’t. But it is dreadful to think that——” She broke off
abruptly.

“Well, you must try not to think about it any more than you can help.
That’s so easy to say I know, but try.”

“I can’t help it,” said Celia, bursting suddenly into tears. She
controlled herself in a minute with an effort, dried her eyes, and
then said, “You’re quite right; I’m very silly. I will try. I think
I’ll get up and go and see mother now. I haven’t been to see her at
all, have I? Oh, if it had been any way but this—but I mustn’t say
that.”

When she came back Evelyn saw at once that she had overrated the
strength of her new resolution, and was on the point of giving way
completely. She did not speak but sank down into a chair and hid her
face in her hands whilst her shoulders shook with weeping.

“Celia!” exclaimed Evelyn with intentional sharpness. “This will not
do; it is almost ridiculous. Pull yourself together at once.”

Celia raised her face and the expression in her eyes as she looked at
her friend reminded Evelyn of a wounded hare.

“Don’t speak to me like that, Evie,” she said piteously. “I can’t bear
it.”

“Darling, I’m sorry, but you must not go on like this,” replied
Evelyn. “You really, really must show more courage. What has upset you
again?”

“Nothing, only being with mother was very trying. She was very quiet,
but somehow very old. And—oh, Evie, she wants me to send a telegram to
John to come here at once.” There was a sudden sound of hopelessness
in her voice.

“Well, why not?” replied Evelyn, answering the unspoken disagreement.
“There’s no reason now why he shouldn’t come here, and of course he
must be told at once.”

“You don’t understand,” exclaimed Celia, breaking into an irritation
unusual to her.

“No, I don’t,” replied Evelyn. “He’s the only son, and the mere fact
that his father ordered him out of the house years ago is no reason
why he shouldn’t come to his mother and sister at such a time as this.
They’ve never lost their love for him.”

“And never will!” cried Celia vehemently. “But that’s nothing to do
with it.”

“We seem to be talking at cross-purposes,” Evelyn said in the most
matter of fact voice she could manage; she did not know what to make
of Celia in this new, unpliant mood. “Aunt Eleanor wants him, of
course she does, and I should have thought you would have wanted him
just as much.”

Celia looked at her a moment without speaking, a worried, piteous look
which went straight to Evelyn’s heart.

“What is it, Celia?” she asked simply. “Why don’t you want him to
come? We have never talked about him, I know; we couldn’t honourably
after the promise Sir Roger made you and Aunt Eleanor give, but I’ve
always thought he was the one person you loved better than me, and
Aunt Eleanor has never been the same since; joyousness went out of her
somehow when John left. And yet now you don’t want him sent for, when
he could be such a comfort to you both. What is it? Won’t you tell
me?”

Celia had turned to the window whilst her friend was speaking, her
hands clasping and unclasping under an agitation she strained to
subdue. At last she spoke, still looking away, low and faltering,
“Evie, he mustn’t come, he mustn’t.” She turned and continued rapidly,
her eyes wandering over the room refusing to meet the other’s troubled
gaze, her colour coming and going painfully. “You don’t know about
him. Mother and I have never mentioned his name—she had given her word
and would never break it, she’s like that, you know, but I’m not; I
couldn’t let him go out of our lives absolutely whatever I’d promised.
And so I’ve managed to get news of him and told her from time to time,
not by name but so that she could understand. She never answered me; I
could see sometimes how she wanted to; her longing was terrible, but
she wouldn’t because she had promised.” She spoke in a rush of words
as if to forestall criticism.

“Yes, dear, but surely that promise is ended now. You see she thinks
so; she wants him now.”

“But he can’t come, he mustn’t come,” cried Celia passionately. “She’s
not able to stand another shock. I’ve let her suppose he was happy and
doing very well. So he was, but he isn’t now. He’s had a lot of
trouble lately; Margaret and the child are ill and he’s no work and is
practically without a penny. I should have to tell mother, and it has
been her one joy to believe him successful. It would kill her. I
can’t.”

“Then I will,” answered Evelyn firmly. “She’ll want him all the more.”

“No! you mustn’t, promise you won’t! I oughtn’t to have told you!”
Celia spoke with intense agitation and seized her hand. “Promise!”

“It’s your secret, not mine,” answered Evelyn gravely. “But you will
do a great wrong if you don’t tell her, a wrong to both of them. She
ought to know now: and if he wants help it will be her happiness to
give it him.”

“No, no!” cried Celia, her voice breaking into wild sobs. “Later
perhaps, not now. Oh, you don’t understand, Evelyn. I’m afraid, so
terribly afraid. They’ll rake up everything in father’s life, and when
they find out about John they’ll think he had a hand in it; I know
they will. He mustn’t, he mustn’t come here!” She had worked herself
up into such a state that Evelyn realized that it would be harmful to
press what seemed to her so obvious. She replied now to the last wild
words, “Darling, you mustn’t run away with such absurd ideas. To think
that any one could suppose, just because John quarrelled with his
father ages ago—ten years ago, isn’t it?—that he—it’s too silly of
you!”

“It isn’t silly,” replied Celia, weeping. “I may be silly about some
things but not—oh, I can’t bear it! You don’t know; John was——” She
choked her words down sharply, turned away and fought herself back to
some control.

“I will try and rest again a little now,” she said at last wearily.
“Don’t you worry about me, Evelyn; I shall be all right.”

But Evelyn was worried about her, worried and puzzled more than she
cared to own, even to herself. For the first time in her life she did
not feel sure that she altogether understood Celia.



CHAPTER VI

New Lights

Humblethorne walked back to the Rose and Crown with a mind fully
occupied: the fields, among which he had been looking forward to
idling only to find that idleness of so rustic a character had no
attractions for him, existed no more than if he had been walking along
the streets of a town. He was absorbed in the problem he had stumbled
on, and almost entirely happy. He would have been completely so if he
had not retained, even in a profession most unfavourable to the growth
of sentiment, a certain fresh idealism: just because it was so
obviously impossible, he longed to be able to take people on trust. It
was to remind himself as much as to warn Birts, that he had dwelt on
the need for general suspicion in the first stages of every inquiry.
He would have liked to be able, on faith alone, to narrow down the
field of search. And he was never completely happy as a man, however
absorbed he might become as an official, when engaged upon a case of
treachery or twisted motives. Straightforward violence he understood;
it was regrettable and must be punished, but it did not offend him. He
envied Birts for his simple faith, especially as it seemed likely to
be so little justified.

There were, as he saw the case, two main avenues of inquiry; he had to
satisfy himself first whether or no any one had made an entrance
unassisted into the Towers, and, secondly—a subject that bore closely
on the first—how far the secretary was telling the truth. The
impression Castle had made upon him as a personality was distinctly
favourable; the facts Castle had related and admitted just the
reverse. The man was unmistakably a gentleman, Humblethorne decided,
by that much misused word meaning not merely a man of birth or wealth.
He was undoubtedly in a highly strung condition, and too much emphasis
should not be laid on his having asked that ass, Birts, for leave to
shift the body; but it was at least suggestive of a desire to hide
things. It had to be borne in mind that a great deal rested at present
on Castle’s word alone, that even on his own showing there was an hour
and a half during which Sir Roger had not been seen, and that there
had been an apparent forgetfulness, to say the least of it, in
communicating with the police. Humblethorne, putting aside his
personal impression of Castle, felt convinced that there was a skilful
mixture of truth and falsehood in the tale he had been told, a clever
juggling with the clock, a concealment of some vital fact. It would be
his business to sift that truth out: there was much yet to ascertain
before he felt justified in arriving at any conclusion. It was quite
possible, it was even, he thought, probable that he would find some
tangible piece of evidence of which there was at present so little,
which would throw light suddenly upon some part of the story where
falsehood was grafted on to truth. “Talk! talk!” he said to himself.
“Plenty of that, and deuced few facts. Well, we’ll find them, if
they’re there; and if they’re not, well, that will be a fact of the
highest importance in itself.”

He had forgotten the existence of Timmins, but Timmins had not
forgotten him. He had no sooner put his foot inside the inn than
Timmins met him and exclaimed, “Ah! there you are, sir! I ’ardly
expected to see you till the evening. But there ain’t much that’s hid
from you now, I’ll be bound.”

This was intended, as Humblethorne was well aware, as a question, but
he did not choose to gratify idle curiosity and he was very hungry; so
he only replied that he wanted some lunch and hoped that he would
receive a little more attention than he had been favoured with at
breakfast. Timmins was disappointed, even pained, and roared out
commands to bring the gentleman his lunch immediately; how much longer
was he to be kept waiting? His personal endeavours produced it in a
time that ordinary frequenters of the inn would have considered
astounding, and he waited himself upon so august a guest.

Humblethorne ate for some time in silence, and Timmins after trying in
vain to draw him out, even suggesting half a dozen people that he “’ad
’is suspicions of,” finally remarked with a sigh—

“I see ’ow it is; you ain’t got all your ideas in order yet to want to
talk. I only wanted to ’elp, as it might be. There’s a lot o’ sense in
that old saying about two ’eds sometimes. Many a time my old woman ’as
come to me and sed, ‘Joe!’ she sez——”

Humblethorne pushed his plate away. It was obvious that Timmins meant
to talk; he might as well be made to talk to some purpose. “Timmins,”
he said, “Sir Roger seems to have been a highly unpopular man.”

“Ah, you may well say that, sir,” responded Timmins heartily; no true
inhabitant of a village fails to enter with gusto into the demerits of
a neighbour. “There won’t be many as’ll break their ’earts over ’im.”

“Why was that? I mean, was there anything particular about him? It
seems to be more than general dislike.”

“Well, there was ’arf a dozen things the people ’ere had agin him; but
I reckon it was the way ’e treated ’is son that first let folks see
’is real character.”

“His son? I didn’t know he had one,” said Humblethorne.

“Yes, ’e has one. It ’appened long before I came ’ere, so it’s all
’earsay, as it were, but by all accounts ’is son was as different from
’im—well, as ’er ladyship is. That made for trouble, I dessay: ’e was
for being a hartist, I believe, and Sir Roger, ’e don’t ’old with
anything of that sort; but I don’t rightly know ’ow the actual quarrel
came about. The son, ’e married a girl whose people used to live in
the village, I’ve ’eard tell, and Sir Roger, ’e was that mad when ’e
come to ’ear of it, ’e turned ’im out of the ’ouse, at night it was
too, with awful words, and they say as ’ow ’e made ’er ladyship and
Miss Celia—she must ’ave been only a little girl then—give ’im their
solemn word they’d never mention ’is son’s name again. I believe ’e’d
’ave turned them out too if they ’adn’t. People as knew ’im, they say
’e was worse as ’e grew older. Anyways, there ain’t one who could have
lived with ’im as her ladyship’s done, not for all ’is money. The
things she’s ’ad to put up with don’t bear telling, they say; but
there, I don’t ’old with gossip myself, and I don’t suppose ’e was as
black as ’e’s painted.”

Humblethorne listened with much attention; anything which bore upon
the life of the house might have its significance, though he was too
well versed in the exaggerations of popular report to do more than
docket the main facts of the story in his mind.

“And this was a long time ago, you say?”

“It must be nigh on ten year, I should say,” replied Timmins, after
much thought. “Mrs. Martin was talking about it only this morning, and
I remember she said as ’ow her eldest was just turned two when it
happened, and ’e’s getting on for twelve now.”

“Well, I must be going out again,” said Humblethorne, rising. “You
have certainly given me a good deal of information.”

“Always glad to oblige,” replied Timmins with an air of superb
condescension.

Humblethorne walked slowly back to the Towers, turning over the story
in his mind; but it was ancient history, he reflected, and, however
interesting for the side-lights it threw upon Sir Roger’s character
and reputation, it seemed to have no bearing upon the facts before
him.

He was met at the door by Birts, who put on a look of importance
immediately and obviously had something fresh to tell him.

“Well, Birts,” he said, seeing that the other was anxious to be asked,
“you look as if you had found out something.”

“I have,” replied Birts with a pleased air. “I rather think it isn’t
going to be a real case, after all.”

“What have you found?”

“There was a window forced last night, after all,” answered Birts. “It
seemed as if there must be somewhere. It’s the small one in the
pantry: glass smashed and all.”

“Let me see it. Nothing been touched, I hope?”

“Not a thing; I give orders it wasn’t to be till you’d had a look.”

Humblethorne nodded; his mind was running rapidly over possibilities.

They went together to the pantry, which was empty, Birts leading the
way with the expression of a showman about to exhibit his treasures.
He pointed to a small window, about two feet high and one foot wide,
in the extreme right-hand corner of the wall opposite the door which
led into the dining-room. This was hinged like a door and had a catch
on one side; just below the centre and close to the handle a piece of
glass large enough to admit a man’s hand had been broken away. The
window was fastened and fragments of glass were lying on the sill and
on the floor: the sill itself had several long scratches on it at
right angles to the window. “There you are!” said Birts. “There’s the
whole thing! Some one after the silver, there’s not the smallest
doubt. It’s kept in the dining-room, most of it, in a safe in the
sideboard. Sir Roger hears some one in there as he goes to bed: fellow
had only just got in, I should think. Sir Roger comes in, and gets one
on the head; he drops and the man bolts in a funk. He could easily
shut that window after him. That’s what happened, sure as fate.”

“Something of the kind may have happened certainly,” replied
Humblethorne thoughtfully; “only it doesn’t explain why Sir Roger
dropped on the far side of the hall, or the extraordinary choice of a
weapon.”

“N—no,” answered Birts. “That is awkward. I don’t know,” he said,
brightening; “the fellow got as far as the hall; he saw that box, all
silver, mind you, and then Sir Roger came along. The hall was dark,”
continued Birts, warming to his work, “he stood still, hoping to
escape detection, and Sir Roger didn’t see him until he was almost
across. Then of course the fellow hurled the box just because he had
it in his hands.”

“It’s not impossible that you are right, Birts. It’s certainly the
simplest solution.” Humblethorne examined the window again carefully.
“Whoever came in here,” he said at last, “was no fool. He has taken
very good care not to put his hands on the paint, and it can’t have
been so easy to avoid.” He opened the window and leant out. “H’m, I
see,” he remarked, closing it again. “No fool, indeed. It is difficult
to follow footprints on a much-used gravel path.” He bent down and
scrutinized the floor with the utmost care, from the window to the
door and then across the dining-room and on into the hall. “Nothing to
help us,” he said at last. “You may be right, Birts; I won’t say
you’re not, but I should like a little more evidence before I say you
are. Any strangers noticed hanging about?”

“So far as I’ve heard,” replied Birts, “no one has been hanging round
the place, and no one was seen last night; I’ll make inquiries, but of
course it’s a big place, and it would be easy enough for any one to
get into the park without being noticed.”

“Yes,” answered Humblethorne, “but they would have to know the habits
and ways of the house when they got here. Just think, Birts, supposing
your theory’s the right one, of the risks the fellow ran. Why come
then, about midnight according to Mr. Castle, anyway before half-past
one? The chances of running into some one were enormous. Think of it,
through the pantry and the dining-room into the hall, of all places.
It won’t do—not like that. Some one may have come there, but, if any
one did, it wasn’t just a fellow after the silver.”

At that moment he heard some one come into the dining-room, the door
of which he had left open. Looking in, he found Fairlie putting away
the silver which had come down from the luncheon-trays.

“Fairlie,” he said, “I thought you told me particularly that every
window and door was fastened all right last night?”

“And so they were when I went round,” repeated Fairlie, decidedly.
“But, as I told Birts, I only saw to the doors and the windows of the
living-rooms down here, all except the study and Mr. Castle’s room,
that is, of course; it wasn’t my place to see to them, when they were
used after dinner. I shut that window in the pantry myself when I
finished in there about nine o’clock; so I didn’t look at it again.”

“When did you find it broken?” Humblethorne asked, turning to Birts.

“Fairlie came and told me about it, let me see, about half an hour
after you’d gone,” replied Birts.

“How was it no one discovered it before?”

“On an ordinary morning,” Fairlie replied, “of course either Alfred or
myself would have been bound to see it first thing in the morning; but
everything has been at sixes and sevens all day. The maids don’t go in
there. Alfred, he’d been up and out on his bicycle, and I let him off
when he came back, and I didn’t have a minute to myself. I did go into
the pantry, but just hastily and out again, and didn’t think to look
at the window in the corner. It wasn’t till I’d had my dinner that I
came in and saw it. And then of course I called Birts’s attention to
it immediately. I wish I had seen it last night,” added the old man:
“then we would have had some chance before the fellow had gone far.”

“Some one may have got in when the servants were all at supper,”
remarked Birts hopefully to Humblethorne when they were alone again in
the hall, “and hid himself till he thought the house was quiet. He
wouldn’t know Sir Roger and Mr. Castle were working late in the
study.”

“He knew a good deal if he could dare to come in and hide himself in a
place like this, full of people,” was all Humblethorne answered. “Now
I’m going to take a look round.”

He went along the passage intending to begin his survey of the ground
floor in the study in which Sir Roger had last been seen alive, whilst
Birts went out to interrogate the gardeners and look for traces of the
man who, he was convinced, had come to burgle and been led on into
murder.

Philip Castle was lying down in his bedroom, and Humblethorne found
the time opportune for a thorough examination of both studies, but was
unable by any discovery to shake the story he had been told. The
_précis_ lay on Sir Roger’s desk, with pencil notes scrawled here and
there in another hand; a dozen letters, all dealing with various
business matters and bearing the previous day’s date, lay beside it
awaiting the signature they could never now receive. As he had
provided himself with the dead man’s keys, he was able to make an
exhaustive search in all the drawers, but he found nothing but
documents and papers, none of which helped him to build any theory
whatever. “I am wasting my time here,” he said to himself at last with
conviction: “if there was anything, there isn’t now. I’ll be better
employed elsewhere.”

He stepped out into the passage and, seeing the little door into the
garden standing open to the warm air, turned that way. A minute
examination of the lock satisfied him it had not been tampered with,
and he passed outside on to a pleasant stone-flagged loggia which ran
along the west side of the house between the two projecting wings
formed by the drawing-room on the south and the study on the north.
Several cane garden-chairs were ranged irregularly along the wall, and
in one of these an old lady was sitting. There was a dignity about her
which not even the evidences of physical weakness and mental suffering
could destroy, an attraction in the delicate yet firm lines of her
face which made it apparent that in youth she must have been really
beautiful; but, even apart from the ravages which tragedy and
sleeplessness had just impressed upon it, it was a sad face, worn with
many lines. She sat motionless, white and almost haggard, gazing
without purpose across the brilliant day.

Humblethorne coughed apologetically, and she turned her head sharply
with a nervous movement of her hands.

“I beg your pardon, my lady,” said Humblethorne gently. “I had no wish
to intrude. I am the inspector in charge of the case.”

She gazed at him for some moments without speaking; her thoughts
seemed to be far away and to be recalled with an effort. “Yes?” she
said at last vaguely. “What is it you want?”

“If your ladyship will excuse me,” said Humblethorne, anxious to make
the most of the opportunity which had presented itself, “I should be
glad if I might ask one or two questions.”

She seemed to be utterly weary and hardly to hear. “Ask me what you
wish,” she said listlessly.

“Thank you, my lady. I only wanted to know whether you noticed
anything unusual about your husband during the evening. Did he seem
quite himself at dinner, for instance?”

“Quite.”

“Not anxious, by any chance?”

“My husband was never anxious.”

“I see. And then after dinner he went to his study: was that usual?”

“Not usual, but work sometimes made it necessary.”

“And you went upstairs, I suppose?”

“I read for a while in my boudoir; I did not go straight to bed.”

“Can you tell me at all what time you went to bed, my lady?”

“What time? I don’t know exactly. I did not notice the time. My maid
could tell you—oh no, how I am forgetting! I had lent her to Miss
Penterton that evening as my daughter had gone up early with a
headache and I was anxious about her. She is not strong, you know.”
The old lady sighed heavily, tremulously; tears seemed not far away.

“So I have been told,” answered Humblethorne with sympathy. He waited
a moment and then asked: “You have said your husband was never
anxious; had he never any apprehensions? I mean, had he any enemies
that you know of?”

She shook her head slowly. “No,” she answered hesitatingly; then she
added in a low, half-broken voice, as if wrestling with a truth it was
useless to conceal, “I’m afraid it is not quite true to say he had no
enemies: every very successful man has, and perhaps in rising he made
them. But you understand.”

“Yes, my lady,” he assented; her pathetic loyalty touched him. He
wished to go and leave her to her sorrow, but one thing remained in
his mind on which she could perhaps tell him more than any one, and
with a strong reluctance he said gently, “In a case of this sort, my
lady, it helps to know everything or I wouldn’t mention it. I
understood he had differences with his son.”

Colour sprang into her white cheeks, and she clutched the arms of the
chair; her listless air vanished. “What has that to do with this?” she
asked with a sudden fire of which she had seemed incapable. “He had;
every one knows that. My son is coming: I have had him sent for. Ask
him if you want to know the wretched story. Go!” she added
imperiously, “unless you have anything to ask I alone can answer. I am
not strong enough for the questions of idle curiosity. Every
assistance will be given you.”

She sank back in her chair, exhausted and trembling; and Humblethorne,
with a slight flush of self-reproach, moved away and left her.

Meanwhile during Humblethorne’s fruitless investigation of the two
studies, Evelyn came down the main stairs to dissolve her uneasiness
and drive away the headache which was threatening her by a little
fresh air. As she reached the landing and turned down the flight of
stairs towards the hall she saw the sheet carefully covering the
evidences of the crime, and hesitated. She had not been told the exact
position in the hall where the body had been found and had not
realized she would have to pass so close to it. She half turned to
retreat and go by the back stairs, but the silence encouraged her and
curiosity drove her on. Skirting the sheet carefully, she gained the
hall. No one was about; she saw the body was not there and, stooping
with a sudden impulse, she lifted the sheet and looked down. She noted
with repulsion but also with interest, as her gaze grew more intent,
the main bloodstains on the marble and edge of carpet and those both
on the edge of the bottom stair and on the second and fourth steps.
They became photographed in her mind as any unusual sight will impress
itself on a vivid brain. She then looked with kindling imagination at
the cigarette box and confusion of cigarettes: “if the box was thrown
at him—and one could hardly hold it to strike with—it is funny it
didn’t drop further away and the cigarettes fly all over the place,”
she thought.

Forgetting in the interest of the amateur such scientific details as
the possibility of finger-marks, she bent down and gingerly lifted the
box, taking care not to soil her fingers by touching the bloodstains
on it. She noticed the dent on the corner and saw, rather to her
surprise, that there was no blood there. As she bent down with a
little exclamation of disgust to replace the box in the exact position
in which she had found it, she paused suddenly, turned the box
carefully over and saw that the bottom had from its edge to its centre
an irregular, blot-like stain, corresponding to that on the carpet as
now shown by the lifting of the box. The box was heavy, and the
impression of its shape was clearly visible on the soft carpet. “I
don’t quite understand this,” she said to herself, putting the box
back with great care. “If the box was there when the blood trickled
down to it, I should have thought it would have more or less dammed
the trickle. It must have been moved, I suppose; I wonder why.”

She replaced the sheet and stood there, puzzling over the little
problem she believed she had discovered.

“Now that box belongs on this table,” she said, going slowly to the
small table which stood against the wall close to the drawing-room
door, “and it was there last night after dinner, because I saw it. I
shall begin my investigations in the drawing-room.” With a sense of
slight amusement at the way she was following out a momentary impulse
she opened the door and went in.



CHAPTER VII

Fears and Discoveries

It was rather a crestfallen little man who re-entered the house after
leaving Lady Penterton. The afternoon was passing, and he had made no
progress whatever; more than that, which was negative, he reproached
himself with a positive act of unnecessary brutality. Why had he asked
her that question about Sir Roger and their son? It was ten years ago
and quite beside his inquiry. He cursed Timmins in his heart; if he
hadn’t had the story forced on his mind that same afternoon, he would
never have wasted his time and put an old and tragedy-burdened lady to
further pain. Humblethorne resolved to devote the remainder of the day
exclusively to an examination of the rooms, and especially the
windows, of the ground floor.

He accordingly made his way to the dining-room and began an unhurried,
methodical examination. He worked intently and yet his whole mind was
not on his task. The firm yet sensitive mouth he had just been
watching recalled to him some other mouth he had seen, and he could
not think whose. Mouths were a speciality with Humblethorne; a mouth
was difficult to disguise, even a beard and moustache could not hide
its tendencies completely and nothing else hid them at all; and the
mouth betrayed more than any other feature. Much of his firm belief
originated, as men’s beliefs will, in a single successful instance of
clever identification, and it had not been weakened by later failures.
He was convinced he had seen a mouth of just the same character
before; when and where he was quite unable to recall. It might be of
no importance at all, a mere coincidence; it might, on the other hand,
assist: it annoyed him that he could not remember, especially as in
that elusive game the mind plays with every one it seemed just round
the corner, as it were, of his memory.

He worked over the whole dining-room with this dual mind, but nothing
rewarded his industry. He went outside and satisfied himself from
there that no one had either attempted to force his way in or, as far
as could be seen, had entered through either window. He then went
along the outside of the house past the hall to the smoking-room
window, examined this without result, turned the corner to the south,
the garden side, and was brought up short. In front of the third
window on that side, which was the first of the two in the
drawing-room, he saw a girl kneeling down and earnestly studying the
soil in the narrow bed immediately below.

Such a proceeding interested Humblethorne to an amazing degree:
instantly desisting from his own search, he moved along the edge of
grass till he could see what was attracting her attention. The soil
had been obviously trampled; the rain on the day preceding the murder
had been heavy and the impress of a foot was clearly visible. At the
same instant that he noticed this, Evelyn perceived that she was not
alone.

“Who are you and what are you doing?” he asked brusquely, as she
sprang up and turned in some confusion. Then she realized who he must
be and the situation began to appeal to her.

“I am Miss Temple,” she answered calmly. “Who are you?”

“I am Inspector Humblethorne, in charge of this case,” he replied,
“and you have only answered the least important half of my question.”

“Perhaps we are doing the same thing,” she said, smiling and meeting
his gaze with absolute frankness, “I happening to be just ahead of
you; that’s all.”

Her complete self-possession, her frank and winning air could hardly
have failed to impress the most naturally suspicious of men; official
and would-be idealist conflicted in Humblethorne as he looked at her,
and idealist won. He found that, without further proof of innocence,
he was acquitting this vivid girl at least from any connexion with the
dark mystery he was engaged in trying to solve. Nevertheless, he was
slightly annoyed at her remark, and answered quietly, “I think there
are enough riddles already here. Will you please explain?”

“With pleasure,” replied Evelyn. “The train of reasoning which brought
me to this spot is simplicity itself. A certain cigarette box is found
lying close to—well, to the body; that cigarette box belongs to a
certain table; it was on it last night, and it is probable, not
certain of course but probable, that whoever threw it picked it up
from there. That table stands close to the door of the drawing-room.
Interest—curiosity, if you like—suggested to me that, since that was
so, it was possible, perhaps even probable, that the intruder came
from the drawing-room. A guess certainly, but after all not a wild
guess, especially when one remembers that the drawing-room opens onto
this quiet stretch of lawn. It would be so easy to get into the park
and cross the lawn without being seen; and then again the drawing-room
is the earliest room to be left unoccupied. True, it is next the
smoking-room, but you cannot expect everything.”

Humblethorne listened with the greatest attention. “Your reasoning,”
he said, as she stopped, “is admirably clear. But what made you come
here?”

“There seem to be boot-marks on the sill inside,” she said simply,
“though it is difficult to be sure without opening the shutters, and I
was afraid I might disturb something if I did that. But they made me
curious to see the earth outside, so I came round. And I find this.”
She pointed to the trampled soil as she spoke.

“Do you often do this sort of thing?” he asked, his eyes still on her.

She laughed. “I began five minutes ago,” she answered. “It was an
impulse which struck me as I came downstairs to go out.”

“Well,” he said, “I could do with a few of the same myself. Tell me,”
he went on, “now I am here, can you add anything of importance to what
I have gathered about last night?”

“My own knowledge is nil,” she answered. “Mr. Castle woke me about
half-past one, I don’t know exactly when but about then, and told me,
well, what had happened, and I then told Miss Penterton and Lady
Penterton. I’m afraid I’m not much help. There was nothing whatever
out of the way during the evening.”

“No,” be conceded, “that isn’t much help. Well,” he changed his tone
and became brisk, professional, “let’s examine these marks.”

He bent down and saw that beyond possibility of doubt some one had at
any rate stood beneath that window; the marks inside would speak as to
the actual entrance. He took out his pocket-book and a measuring tape
with a sense of relief; this at any rate was plain sailing. Evelyn
watched him with breathless interest as, taking the greatest care not
to disturb the earth which had grown hard and crumbling under the
recent sun, he measured and noted the one footprint which showed clear
in the midst of the trampled soil.

“I think he made that mark getting in,” she said. “See, here’s where
he rested the other foot.” She pointed to a spot on the little ledge
below the window, where a slight newly-made scratch showed on the
brick, and the bark of a tendril of ivy was badly bruised.

“You have quick eyes, Miss Temple,” remarked Humblethorne,
appreciatively. “I have no doubt you are right. By the marks he stood
here some little time, too, waiting——”

The moment he had spoken the last word he longed to recall it. He
stopped abruptly; but it was too late: she caught him up at once.

“Waiting?” she cried, “for what?” He did not answer, and her eyes
dilated and into them came a sudden, chilling fear. “For whom,” she
added in a low voice; not as one asking a question, but as a slow
sinking of fact into her own brain.

“Let me see the inside,” he said, rising and shooting a glance of
keenest inquiry at her. She did not seem at first to hear him;
interest had died in her; she was turning away and all her vivacity
had been struck from her face.

“I have seen it,” she said in a dull voice: “I do not wish to see it
again.” Without another word she left him.

Humblethorne stood looking after her, moved less by interest than by
sympathy.

“She doesn’t know who came in or she’d never have pointed anything
out,” he thought, “but she thinks she knows who helped him in.”

When she was out of sight, he went swiftly back, and, crossing the
hall, entered the drawing-room. He turned on all the lights and stood
for one moment, taking stock of the room generally, and then slowly
approached the window. No marks were discernible on the carpet, but a
search revealed little pieces of dry earth on the stained wood.
Carefully he unbarred the shutters, taking great pains not to touch
anything but the bottom of the bolt, and the extreme rim of the
shutters; there was no longer uncertainty about the entrance. Pieces
of earth lay on the sill, only minute particles as if it had been
hastily swept, but the white paint was scored to the left of the
centre with a number of tiny criss-cross scratches, and among them
dirt was ground in. Some one’s boot had been pressed and then turned
upon it, it was impossible to doubt it. If confirmation were needed,
it was given by the damning evidence of the faint imprint of
finger-tips on the lintel, where any one entering by the window would
naturally have caught hold to steady himself.

As he gazed, Humblethorne let out his breath in a long “ah!” Suddenly,
with that agility of performance with which the mind sometimes chooses
to delight those who have long been turning over a set of isolated
facts without being able to fit them together, he saw clear: three
facts came together without conscious effort and made a pattern. The
mouth of which Lady Penterton’s had reminded him in vain was that of
the unsociable stranger at the Rose and Crown, he remembered it now
perfectly, and had no doubt whatever—fact number one; that stranger
had gone out and returned hurriedly to the inn shortly after midnight
on the night of the murder—fact number two; some one had made a secret
entrance into the Towers—fact number three. In a flash his mind had
forged a complete chain of events: the stranger was the son of whom he
had been hearing; he had returned home secretly—for what purpose was
at the moment immaterial—he had encountered his father, whether by
arrangement or by accident; a quarrel had ensued; the son had struck
his father down, and fled—and some one had first let him in, and had
afterwards closed the window and bolted the shutters behind him.

Here the shutters did not help him; no finger prints were discernible.
Closing them again, he sat down and ran over in his mind all the
evidence in the light of what he now suspected with such deadly
confidence. It remained to track and identify the stranger of the inn,
perhaps a difficult but at any rate a straightforward task, and to
investigate further such questions as Castle’s property in shoes. He
rose up, full of energy and certain of success, went into the hall and
rang the bell.

When Fairlie presented himself he said in a casual manner, “Oh,
Fairlie, do you know where Mr. Castle is?”

“He was resting, but I think I heard him come down a few minutes ago
and go into his study. Do you wish to speak to him?”

“No, it doesn’t matter. Have you had any rest? You must be pretty
tired yourself.”

“I am all right, thank you,” Fairlie replied with a certain dignity.
“It doesn’t signify with me, and I have the household to look after.”

“By the way,” remarked Humblethorne idly, “you’ve told me that all the
windows were fastened; were all the shutters barred as well? I mean,
you are sure?”

“Quite sure,” replied Fairlie with a slight lift of his eyebrows. “It
was my duty to see to that. Whoever came in knew better than to try
any of those windows: that’s why he broke in through the pantry—at
least,” he added in a self-depreciatory tone, “I don’t know how people
of that sort reckon things out, but that seems sense to me.”

“Yes, perhaps,” murmured Humblethorne absently. “What about being seen
from the bedrooms upstairs, though? How do they go?”

“There isn’t anybody sleeps on that side of the house now,” replied
Fairlie, “except Mr. Castle and he’s right at the corner over the
study, with the kitchens, etc., between him and the pantry window.
It’s as safe a place to get in by as there could be.”

“I see. Well, thanks; sorry to trouble you.”

“It’s no trouble,” returned Fairlie simply, “I am glad to help, though
it’s little I can do. Besides, it will be her ladyship’s wish that I
should help in every way I can. I shall be bringing tea up in a few
minutes now. I expect you would like a cup too. Will you have it
here?”

“Oh, that’s very kind: yes, here will do nicely,” said Humblethorne,
anxious now he had learnt all he wished to know to get rid of Fairlie
and go upstairs without attracting attention.

Fairlie departed and Humblethorne, as soon as he was alone, went
quickly upstairs and made his way to the room indicated as belonging
to Castle. He listened outside a moment, heard nothing, and then
quietly opened the door and stepped in.

A dirty evening shirt and evening socks lay on the chair beside the
bed, which was crumpled, and a pair of evening shoes now lay thrown on
the top of the rest below the dressing-table. Castle had evidently
completed his changing at last. The shoes were those he had worn
whilst he had told his story that morning. Humblethorne, after one
searching glance round, walked across and picked them up, and turned
them over; they were nearly new and the soles smooth and as clean as
could be expected. Humblethorne had looked for nothing else; they were
not the pair, he was certain, Castle had worn the previous evening. He
measured them swiftly and noted the measurements in his pocket-book,
laid them down, examined the soles of all the other boots and shoes
just to leave nothing to chance, and then swiftly, but methodically
searched the room. He found nothing: ten minutes satisfied him that no
trace of what he was looking for was in that room. He went first to
one window and then to the other, and came rapidly to the conclusion
that a very brief search would reveal any package flung out of either,
“and this man’s no fool, whatever he may seem,” he concluded; “no,
nothing so obvious as that; but I’ll find them yet.”

He stepped out and on an impulse turned to the left instead of
returning along the passage by which he had come, and opened the door
of the adjoining room. He found himself in a small room, neat and
plain; on the chest of drawers stood a little folding book-case full
of books—a miscellaneous collection composed of a Browning, an
anthology of verse, a few small monographs on famous artists, and half
a dozen novels: some moderate engravings of country subjects were on
the walls and over the mantelpiece a couple of groups of school
elevens: boots and shoes were ranged tidily by the further wall. The
room produced an odd impression; it was fresh and clean and yet had a
curious atmosphere of emptiness. Humblethorne walked straight to the
mantelpiece; the groups were what interested him. One look, and he
knew his chain of events was founded on no coincidence; the boy under
whom was written “J. Penterton” bore an unmistakable resemblance to
the stranger of the inn. Humblethorne opened the Browning; on the
fly-leaf was written, “John, from his loving Mother;” a date, twelve
years old, followed. He went over to the other wall, picked up a boot
and compared its measurements with those he had entered in his
notebook from the imprint below the drawing-room window: they were
practically identical.

He had just replaced the boot and was gazing out of the window in a
dark reverie when the door was pushed further open and Evelyn looked
in at him. She had been returning wearily to her room, and with new
unreasoning reluctance to pass those sheeted stains again had come up
the little back staircase which passed the door. It was standing ajar
and instantly attracted her attention.

For a moment no one spoke. He was particularly vexed at her finding
him in the room; she was sick with apprehension at the thoughts which
crowded in on her. Then in a low, strained voice she said, “What are
you doing—here?”

“I am just looking round the house,” he answered evasively.

“But here, you can learn nothing here.”

“This seems to be the son’s room if I’m not mistaken?” he asked. “I
understood he never came here.”

“It is ten years since he was here,” she answered; then, seeing his
unspoken question, she went on, “It was his mother’s whim to keep the
room exactly as it was when he was ordered out of the house: he went,
you know, just as he stood, and left everything; he was proud—and
angry. I expect you have heard the story. Anyway, his name was never
allowed to be mentioned again. Sir Roger had one great fault; he was
proud too but in a very different way, and he could not forgive.”

“I see, but I should have thought that this——” he paused and indicated
the room.

“Oh, he never asked about it, why should he? It was never mentioned,
just maintained. Sentimental, yes, but it harmed no one and pleased
his mother. But I am afraid,” she went on, forcing herself to speak
lightly, “that this old history, sad as it has been, is only a waste
of time now. Tragedies of ten years ago have little bearing on
tragedies of to-day.”

“I am bound to look everywhere,” he said, coming out. They walked
along the passage together in silence. Each was wondering how much the
other knew; she dared not say more in the light of her fears, he did
not wish to in the light of his knowledge.

Evelyn went to her room and then, after taking off her hat, went with
leaden feet to Celia.

“Well,” she said as brightly as she could as she entered, “how are you
feeling now? It’s lovely out, not too hot like yesterday.”

“Where did you go?” asked Celia without interest.

“Oh, only in the garden.” Evelyn found a difficulty in keeping her
voice quite natural, and her eyes strayed restlessly to the window.
This was horrible; what was it that had thrust itself between them?
She must make some effort to end the crushing uncertainty she had been
suddenly called upon to face. Anything was better than that; and in
her heart she was convinced, in spite of all the evidence which was
pressing on her, that a frank renewal of speech would dispel the
spectre. She might be deceived in her eyes and her reason, but she
felt she could not be deceived in the character of her own Celia. She
looked up abruptly and said, “I’m afraid the police are working rather
at random.”

It seemed to her, though she hated to think it, that Celia did not
receive this remark quite naturally; she turned quickly and said with
a strange note—was it relief or disappointment or was it merely an
overstrung imagination in the listener?—“Why do you say that?”

“Well, that inspector seems to be looking through the rooms just in
case he can come across anything unusual. I found him just now,”
Evelyn added as naturally as she could, “in John’s little room.”

She had hoped above all things that saying this would have little
effect, but her hopes were doomed to extinction. Celia started away,
grew as white as a sheet and said wildly, “In John’s room!”

“I told him,” answered Evelyn quickly, “I was afraid he was wasting
his time.”

“It’s horrible, horrible!” moaned Celia. “What could he find in
there?” She seized Evelyn’s hand convulsively: “Evie, for God’s sake,
tell me, what did he say?”

“Only that he was bound to go everywhere,” answered Evelyn in a flat
voice which sounded odd in her own ears.

Celia did not remark it; she sank back with a deep sigh, shivered a
little and then stayed white and silent. Evelyn could not bear it;
“she will not tell me,” she thought, “and she has something to tell.”
She rose wearily and said, “I’m going to lie down a bit myself or I
shall be the next one with a headache.”

But it was her heart rather than her head that was aching, and when
she got to her room she could not force herself to rest.



CHAPTER VIII

The Broken Window

When Humblethorne, on leaving Evelyn, descended once more to the hall,
he found his tea set in readiness for him at the end opposite the
stairs. He felt that he had earned it, and sat down in one of the big
armchairs facing the fireplace, well satisfied with his afternoon’s
work. Presently through the front door on his left Birts entered and,
seeing him, at once came to tell of his afternoon’s activities. The
tale of the account he had given to a friendly reporter he did not
think it necessary to repeat—that had not had much to do with
Humblethorne; but he had an entirely negative report of the inquiries
he had been pursuing in the grounds to deliver.

“There hasn’t been a soul hanging round that any one admits to
seeing,” was his conclusion.

“And you didn’t find any traces—not a pair of shoes, for example?”
inquired Humblethorne with a light, half-amused glance at him.

“A pair of shoes,” repeated Birts in surprise. “No, I certainly
haven’t seen any.”

“That’s a pity, for I particularly want to find some.”

“Give me their description,” said Birts, taking out his notebook.

Humblethorne laughed. “I believe I could describe them fairly
accurately,” he said; “but that won’t help you to find them. I’ve
looked in all the likely places already.”

“You mean,” remarked Birts after he had considered this remark, “that
they’ve been hidden away?”

“Hidden away or destroyed.”

“If they’ve been destroyed, that doesn’t give us a chance.”

“I agree—if they have been destroyed. But shoes aren’t easy things to
destroy without leaving any traces, especially in summer when there
are no fires. No, depend upon it, they have been hidden and well
hidden: the point is, where?”

“Just so,” remarked Birts. “It’s a large place and plenty of
rabbit-holes and the like in the woods.”

“When I was down at lunch, where were you, Birts?”

“I was here all the time till Fairlie came about that window, and then
here again after that.”

“Any one come downstairs?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, as you say, it’s a big place.” Humblethorne relapsed into
silence which remained unbroken for a few moments, each man pursuing
his own train of thought.

“I was thinking, if you agreed, sir,” said Birts at last, “of making
inquiries in the village and neighbourhood this evening.”

“Quite unnecessary; and, besides, I want you here.”

Birts stared at him in deep astonishment and Humblethorne allowed
himself the gratification of watching him with a little smile.

“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” said Birts at length.
“Unnecessary—does that mean you’ve traced him? And what can I do
here?”

“I want you to stay here to-night,” repeated Humblethorne. “You have a
man with the body too, haven’t you? Well, I want one of you to remain
on duty all the time and make sure that nobody leaves the house
without your knowing all about it. I may be quite wrong, but I think
there’s some one in this house with a pair of shoes and a guilty
conscience to dispose of, and I don’t want that done without our
knowing all about it. See?”

Birts struggled manfully to appear as if he saw, but he was too full
of curiosity to conceal it. “I see, sir,” he said, “of course exactly
what you want me to do, but I can’t say as I quite follow what you
have in your mind. When you say inquiries are unnecessary do you mean
as you know who did it?”

Humblethorne paused. It was a pleasant moment for him, and he
consciously prolonged it. At last, leaning back in his chair, he
answered the eager question.

“Yes, I know,” he said. “I know in spite of what has been done since
to prevent my knowing. It only remains to put my hand on him.”

“Oh!” Astonishment at the beginning of the sentence mingled with
disappointment at its conclusion. “But you know him?” Birts went on.
“Who is he? I’ll find him for you all right. I know every one about
here.”

“All in good time,” replied Humblethorne, who was willing to gratify
the sergeants curiosity to a certain extent, but had received too
evident a proof of his lack of ability to confide in him unduly at
this stage. “If you want to know, he’s a youngish man, clean-shaven,
rather over six foot I should say, thin, has blue eyes, and fairly
dark brown hair a little grey above the ears.” It was not quite fair
of Humblethorne; he was a _poseur_ and he knew it. He was ascribing to
his own cleverness what was really due entirely to his luck, but the
astonished admiration of Birts was an incitement he could not resist.

“You’re laughing at me, sir?” exclaimed the sergeant. “You can’t have
found out all that this afternoon; it beats reason. And it isn’t as if
you lived in these parts and knew every one.”

“Indeed, I am not laughing at you, Birts,” protested Humblethorne a
little more warmly than he would have spoken if he had not been so
nearly doing it. “That is a fairly exact description of the man who
got into the house last night——”

“Yes, through that little window,” interpolated Birts, anxious to
remind Humblethorne that he had at any rate reasoned the crime out
from that start.

“What little window? Oh, in the pantry: I’d forgotten about that. No,
he didn’t get in there.”

“Not there! Why——”

“That has nothing whatever to do with the case. I never really
supposed it had,” interrupted Humblethorne decisively. “That might
have got broken in a score of ways; there’s not the smallest evidence
that any one got in through it, and there’s every reason to suppose
that no one did.”

“How did he get in then?” Birts was nettled at this drastic sweeping
away of his one theory and spoke with the air of a man putting an
unanswerable conundrum.

“Through the drawing-room,” replied Humblethorne shortly.

“Through the drawing-room!” repeated Birts incredulously. “But the
shutters were all up; they hadn’t been touched either, for I looked at
them myself when I got here.”

“It is possible to open them from inside,” remarked Humblethorne
gravely, “and that is the reason I am now looking for a pair of
evening shoes. If I can find them, I know all I want to know about the
man on whose story so much depends.”

“Mr. Castle!” gasped Birts. “You don’t mean——”

“I mean nothing,” broke in Humblethorne, irritated that he had been
led on to say so much, “and take care you say nothing yet to any one
of what I’ve been saying—not to any one.”

“I’ll keep my mouth shut all right, sir, never fear,” said Birts with
sudden sternness: he recognized that in the eyes of his superior he
had allowed himself to be made a fool of by one of the criminals, and
he was full of personal as well as professional resentment.

“Good; I trust you, remember,” said Humblethorne, rising, “or I
wouldn’t have told you so much until the chain of evidence was
complete. Until it is, by the way, I think I’ll take charge of the
weapon. I’m afraid we shan’t learn much from it, though: that kind of
florid silver work is pretty hopeless for finger-prints. Pity it isn’t
an ordinary smooth box; if it was, it could tell us all we most want
to know.” He went over to the sheet, lifted it, and with great
precautions not to interfere with any finger-prints which might be
discoverable on it removed and wrapped up the cigarette box. “Now I’m
off, Birts,” he said; “remember what I told you.”

They moved off towards the door, Birts saying grimly, “I don’t think
as I’m likely to forget.”

“I may not be here to-morrow morning,” added Humblethorne, in a lower
tone, “I’ve a few inquiries to put through, and they may take a little
time.”

“I can’t bring to mind any one about here who exactly fits that
description you give me,” remarked Birts ruminatively; “let’s see——”

“Don’t worry about it, Birts; I know my man and I can trace him. Also
I want to try and see if this cigarette box has anything to say. Well,
so long—and keep your eyes open.”

Now, as related at the end of the last chapter, Evelyn had found it
impossible to rest, torn as she was with the conviction she could not
dispel, that Celia, her own bosom friend, held the key to the dark
mystery overshadowing the house. She had reached a pitch of weariness,
mental even more than physical, when to keep still had become
intolerable; she tried to read but could not fix her thoughts on the
page. At last she left her room in despair and, drawn by a hateful but
irresistible magnet, slowly descended the stairs towards the hall.
When she reached the landing and turned to come down the straight
flight of stairs to the spot where the body had been found, she saw
the two men sitting with their backs to her, engaged in conversation.
She stopped in some annoyance, having no wish to keep on running
across Humblethorne, and was about to retire as quietly as she had
come, when she heard his protest: “Indeed, I am not laughing at you,
Birts; that is a fairly exact description of the man who got into the
house last night,” and Birts’s self-conscious interpolation, “Yes,
through that little window.” “Little window?” she thought, “why
‘little’?” Humblethorne’s rejoinder riveted her attention: it was the
first she had heard of the broken pantry window. She stole down a
couple of steps and heard every word of the remainder of their
discussion.

It was with a sudden shock for which she was wholly unprepared that
she heard the words “the man on whose story so much depends.” After
the momentary suspicion of Philip Castle of which she had been
immediately ashamed she had entirely put him out of her head in
connexion with the tragedy; all her mind was centred on the strange
manner and wild words of Celia. When she had discovered the marks on
the drawing-room window she had been acting on a mere impulse and,
concentrating simply on the one fact before her eyes, had gone out to
verify her discovery without reasoning beyond it. Humblethorne’s
incautious comment on the character of those marks had turned her
reason onto the dreadful significance which lay behind: the man who
had left those footprints had been waiting to be let in, there was no
hope of doubting the conclusion. In a flash her reason had been forced
over her love to the truth. “John was——” Celia had begun in her
extraordinary agitation at the idea of sending for him now—“here and I
let him in,” finished reason in spite of all Evelyn could do to drive
the thought away. It had swept in, overwhelmingly reinforced, at the
way Celia received the news of Humblethorne’s visit to John’s room. So
it was with a mixture of relief and indignation that she learnt that
it was not Celia, but Philip who lay under the dreadful suspicion.
That was ridiculous—and it was unjust.

As Humblethorne rose to his feet, she slipped upstairs again, recalled
to the part of eavesdropper she was playing. She was above and out of
sight when the two men turned and went over to the sheet, but heard
Humblethorne’s remarks about the cigarette box and then his
announcement of departure. The possibility that it might be her
finger-marks which would be found on the box suddenly crossed her
mind, but more lasting was the memory of the original little puzzle
which had started her on her career of investigation. She had
forgotten all about it in the turmoil of her emotions, but now it came
back to perplex her; there was probably some very obvious solution,
but she resolved to ask Philip at the first opportunity if he had
moved the box.

Though she dreaded with all her strength the terrible solution which
her reason told her was the right one, she continued to hope that
something would be found wholly to falsify it: this fact, new to her,
of the broken pantry window might possibly help to establish faith in
triumph over reason. Humblethorne’s rather contemptuous dismissal of
it did not promise well, but still she felt she must find out about it
for herself, if only to divert her mind from facts which it was
torture to contemplate.

She heard the hall door close as Humblethorne took his departure and
after a moment’s hesitation came downstairs again. Birts was standing
in the hall, gloomily surveying the carpet. He was not in a good
humour; his faith had been callously imposed upon, he considered, and
he had the uncomfortable feeling that when all the facts came to the
ears of his chief he would be lucky if he escaped merely with a
reprimand. He looked up sharply when he heard her tread; then, seeing
who it was, he allowed his official manner to relax a little: he had
known her these twenty years.

“Oh, it’s you, Miss Evelyn, is it?” he said. “Take care as you come
by, miss; nothing’s to be moved, not on no account.”

“No, I see,” she answered, skirting the wall scrupulously. She looked
keenly at Birts when she was well in the hall and, though she did not
follow all his thoughts, made a very shrewd guess at his general
humour. “You look tired, Birts,” she said sympathetically; “it’s the
responsibility, I suppose. I hope Fairlie’s looking after you all
right; did he bring you any tea?”

“Well, miss,” replied Birts, gratified, “I haven’t had any and that’s
a fact. It isn’t Fairlie’s fault; I was out and come in too late; the
inspector had some all right.”

“Oh, but that’s not fair; why should he have his and you not? I’ll go
and see about it at once.”

“Don’t trouble, miss; I’ll ask Fairlie for a cup when I see him.”

“It’s no trouble: every one has to do what they can to help at a time
like this.”

She smiled at him and went through the dining-room to the pantry door,
glad to have so easily found an excuse for going there. The door stood
ajar and she pushed it open to find the footman alone in it, humming a
tune. “Oh, Alfred,” she said, “get a cup of tea and some bread and
butter for Sergeant Birts; he’s in the hall, and has had nothing.”

“Very good, miss,” returned the lad.

“Hullo!” she went on with well-sustained naturalness, “how did that
little window get broken?” She crossed casually to look at it.

“That’s where the fellow got in who killed Sir Roger, miss,” replied
Alfred with interest.

“Really! That’s very interesting,” she replied. She examined the sill,
the glass, the lintel and the litter on the floor with an attention
she tried to make appear that of the purest curiosity. The scratches
on the sill interested her most. “What are these?” she asked.

“Them’s ’is boots,” Alfred answered, “’ob-nailed boots, so Birts ses;
I ain’t much ’and at following such things meself.”

“Nor I,” she answered slowly.

Like Humblethorne, she could see no other marks suggestive of an
entrance, but, unlike Humblethorne, that in itself seemed to her
rather interesting. In common with all but the best brains in his
profession Humblethorne had one characteristic which acted as a
limitation; he was able to preserve a completely open mind at the
start of an inquiry, but when he had collected sufficient facts to
justify the deliberate adoption of a theory he was prone to treat as
of little importance new facts which did not square with that theory;
in other words, when once his thoughts had taken to running along a
fixed channel facts were apt to get twisted, instead of the channel
being twisted or changed to include them. He saw nothing to make
probable Birts’s facile theory; he knew a great deal to make it
improbable. When further search revealed clues which confirmed his
theory in every respect and in addition he had the very definite
identification of the stranger at the inn and John Penterton, the
broken window became to him of trifling importance: he had enough to
go upon with assurance without it. But to Evelyn, who embraced no
theory and longed to be able to refute the conviction forced upon her,
it appeared in a different light. The scratches Humblethorne soon
decided had not been made by a boot, not even a hobnailed one, and it
was for boot-marks that he was looking: Evelyn, who was not looking
for anything, did not ignore them because to her too they seemed too
regular to have been made by boots. She did not understand them and
continued to wonder what had caused them.

“There seem to be a good many things I don’t understand,” she thought
to herself as, having reminded Alfred about the tea, she returned to
the hall, “but after all that is hardly to be wondered at.”

“I’ve told them to bring you some tea, Birts,” she said, “and
something to eat; I expect you’ll be glad of it.”

“Thank you, miss; it’s very kind of you.”

“By the way, I see there’s a window broken in the pantry,” she
remarked casually.

“You didn’t touch nothing, I hope,” exclaimed Birts hastily.

“I was careful not to,” she answered; “Alfred told me it was where
the—the man got in last night; so of course I didn’t.”

“That’s what I says,” said Birts, “but the inspector, he doesn’t think
it has anything——” he broke off, remembering Humblethorne’s
injunction.

“Well,” remarked Evelyn lightly, “I’ve no doubt he’s very clever, but
all the same it seems a little curious to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

“I must say as it does,” confessed Birts.

“When did you find it was broken?” she asked.

“I should say it was a little after two o’clock; at least the
inspector had been gone to lunch about half an hour.”

“Two o’clock this afternoon? Not till then? But didn’t you see it
early this morning? I thought all the doors and windows had been
examined then.”

A glance at Birts’s face gave her her answer; he might have examined
all the more obvious ways into the house, but it was evident that
there had been some gaps. She added quickly, “No, I expect you had
plenty to see to in here. What a horrible business it is!”

Just then Alfred appeared with a tray and Evelyn, having learnt
everything that Birts was likely to tell her, left him to enjoy his
tea in peace. She went slowly to her room, turning over and over in
her mind the new facts on which she had lighted. Some one might have
got in by that window; she wished her mind would think that some one
had, for he could have entered there unassisted. But her mind did not
think so and she could not force it to; the scratches were too obvious
somehow. Close on the heels of this thought came the conclusion—some
one had marked the sill in order to make it seem the place where the
entrance was effected. Once more she was brought face to face with
evidence from which her only wish was to find an escape. This last was
worst of all, arguing a deliberate intention to mislead, a desire to
cover up the admittance and lay a false trail which could only have
taken shape after the deed. This went beyond all her former fears and
chilled her to the bottom of her heart.



CHAPTER IX

Evelyn and Philip

Evelyn did not go downstairs again that evening; nor did she make any
attempt to see Celia. She sent word that she was worn out, would just
like some dinner brought her, and did not wish otherwise to be
disturbed. She was very tired physically; mentally she was strained
and harassed whichever way her thoughts turned. For some hours she
tossed restlessly in the vain attempt to escape from them; several
times she made up her mind to have nothing further to do with
investigations. Each time she had played detective her reason had
demanded of her more than her heart could yield. But she was in the
grip of her mind; it would not let her leave bad alone, and always she
continued to hope, to try and force herself to believe that, if she
only had eyes to see it, some other and less terrible solution lay
before her.

Already she had come upon two almost irreconcilable sets of facts. It
was possible that John had been let in that night by Celia—she
remembered that Celia had gone up early, pleading headache, and had
said good-night, telling her not to come in again—but it did not seem
possible that after the tragedy Celia could have let John out and then
laid a false trail: it asked for greater resolution and coolness than
Evelyn had ever seen Celia show.

Evelyn taxed her memory to recall exactly how Celia had looked and
spoken when she broke the news to her. She had been, it seemed looking
back, fearful, apprehensive; she had known something, enough to be
afraid, not enough to know of what to be afraid. Yet John had been let
out, the window had been barred, a false trail had been laid—by whom?
Evelyn’s mind swung back in spite of her utmost resistance to the one
other person who had admittedly been awake, Philip Castle. Suddenly
she felt the whole truth was laid before her. Celia had known that
John was coming that night to see his father—perhaps she had arranged
it, hoping against hope no doubt that Sir Roger would find it at last
in his heart to forgive—there had been a quarrel, John had killed his
father, accidentally she was sure, and Philip—it was Philip who was
doing all he could to screen him. At last on this thought, much less
terrible than any yet she had found, she fell asleep.

She awoke the next morning in a calmer and more decided frame of mind.
She was confident that she had hit upon the truth, and was only
anxious to have it confirmed. One thought made her pause; Humblethorne
knew of John and suspected Philip; his view of the affair corresponded
rather closely with her own—only he read it as murder and she did not.
How were they to prove that it was not? The broken window, clever as
it was, had not thrown Humblethorne off the track, but he had missed
its true significance. If he once grasped that, it might be hard,
perhaps impossible, to prove that there had been no intention in the
death. But there might be some fresh fact still to be discovered to
help that proof. Evelyn smiled a little: wearily at her many
resolutions to have nothing more to do with investigation: the spirit
of it had caught hold of her. There was one thing now she did not
understand, the first thing which had really set her feet towards
discovery, and that was the shape of the stain on the bottom of the
cigarette box. Why had Philip—or perhaps John—moved it? For moved it
had been, she felt sure. Had one of them kicked it as they ran to Sir
John? Probably it would not help at all to know, but it annoyed her;
it was the one thing still concealed from her.

As soon as she had had breakfast, she got up, dressed, and went
downstairs. No one was in the hall, but, recognizing what an enormity
she had committed in lifting the sheet and fingering the cigarette
box, she was specially careful to come down the further side of the
stairs. The sheet which usually lay more to the right was now a little
in the way of her passing: to steady herself more surely in stepping
round she put her hand on the heavy wooden cornice which ran along the
wall at approximately the same height as the balusters on the other
side; and as she stepped round and rather dragged her hand, she ran a
small splinter into her thumb. She had gone several steps along the
hall towards the passage, when it suddenly struck her as odd that a
polished cornice should have such a thing as a splinter. She walked
back and carefully examined the cornice. Level with the third step, on
the under side of the cornice she found that the wood had received a
blow. The projection of the cornice above kept it in shadow and on the
mahogany it was hardly noticeable unless the eye was actually looking
for it, but direct examination revealed a dent about a third of an
inch across and half an inch deep; the edges where the polish was
crushed were fresh.

“Something else I don’t understand,” she muttered to herself; “now
what in the world did that?”

She spent several minutes examining cornice and wall, both above and
below, for some distance on either side of the dent, but found
nothing, and finally decided that there was nothing more to find.

“Probably that has nothing whatever to do with it and I am vexing my
brains to no purpose,” she thought as she desisted from her
examination and went along, according to her original intention, to
the study.

Here, as she hoped, she found Philip Castle, who was engaged in going
through and docketing the dead man’s papers ready for the perusal of
the family solicitor. His face brightened when he saw who his visitor
was, and he rose from his chair with a cordial greeting—

“Why, Evelyn,” he exclaimed, “come in! I don’t feel as if I’d seen you
for a hundred years.”

“I’ve come—on business, Philip,” she said with some hesitation: he
looked now so different from the white, excited man she had been
recalling for so many troubled hours. He had recovered his
self-possession, and, though still looking tired and a little shaken,
was apparently much as usual.

“Oh!” he said with a slight frown of surprise. “Well, come in and sit
down, won’t you?” He placed the armchair for her as he spoke.

She shut the door and sat down. Now that she was here she found words
difficult; he saw that she was troubled, and sat down himself gravely
to hear what it was she wanted to tell him.

“Philip,” she said at last, “we’ve known each other a long time.”

“Yes, indeed,” he assented warmly, wondering what was coming.

“Is there—is there anything about this horrible business you can tell
me that you can’t tell anybody else?”

He started from his chair. “Evelyn!” he exclaimed, “What do you mean?”

His astonishment at her question sounded so genuine that she in her
turn stared at him in blank surprise.

“Don’t you know who did it?” she asked, almost anxiously.

“Know who did it?” he repeated. “Know who did it? Evelyn!” Reproach,
bewilderment was in his voice.

“You don’t?” she cried.

“What does such a question mean?” he asked, looking at her in a
strange way. “Why should I know? Is it a way of saying you think I did
it?”

“No, no!” she answered. “I don’t think you did it.”

“Thank heaven for that! But you think I know who did it?”

She looked at him miserably. “I did think so,” she said in a low
voice; her theory, the one theory to which after hours of restless,
unhappy doubt she could fit without too great pain the facts her
reason had given her, was crumbling in ruins.

He began to walk in extreme agitation up and down the room; he was
obviously cut to the heart by her thought. She watched him and could
think of nothing except that she had been wretchedly wrong as usual.
Presently he stopped in front of her and said quite quietly:

“Evelyn, as you said at first, we have known each other a long time;
d’you mind telling me why you thought I knew?”

She felt herself placed by her own action in a dreadful dilemma: she
could not tell him the torment of doubt through which she had passed,
about Celia and about him; yet she recognized the justice of the
question and the moderation with which he spoke.

“You have a right to know, Philip,” she said at length; “don’t imagine
it was easy for me to think so; I’ve been suffering pretty acutely
this last twenty-four hours. But partly by accident and partly by
using my intelligence I have found out several things, and the only
conclusion I could come to—a horrid one, but less horrid than some
I’ve been fighting against—was that you knew and were trying to screen
somebody.” She saw his lips forming into a question and added
hurriedly, “Don’t ask me whom, Philip, please. I may be wrong, as I
was about you. It isn’t anybody in the house.”

“It is difficult to understand,” he said slowly. “What can you have
found out to make you conclude such a thing?”

She longed to tell him everything; but if he knew nothing—and all her
faith in him now was regained—then she was back in her former doubt,
and she could not utter a word to bring Celia’s name into such a
thing. She might be utterly wrong, she hoped with her whole heart she
was. But somebody knew, somebody had opened the shutters and closed
them again afterwards. Whatever faith she had in her friends, she
could not lay that irrefutable fact aside.

“I wish I felt I could tell you,” she said as these thoughts swept
over her; “I hate evasions. But if it is not your secret, and I know
now it is not, then, well, the less said about it the better, till
it’s not guesswork but certainty.”

“You are very mysterious,” he said.

“Am I?” she answered wearily. “Yes, I’m afraid I am. And I am very
worried; it is all so dreadful, I wish I could keep my mind quiet: it
will fly round and round and try against my will to solve what it does
not understand.”

“I didn’t expect you to doubt me, Evelyn,” he said, following out his
own thought. “With others it’s different: that ass, Birts, for
instance, is eyeing me this morning as if I were a rattlesnake.”

“Don’t be angry with me,” she exclaimed; “I believe you absolutely. If
I did think you knew, I was sure you were acting from a generous
motive in pretending you didn’t. I thought some one must have come in
and then there had been a quarrel and an accident, and you wanted to
save an unhappy man from consequences he never intended, and you could
not tell me because it didn’t involve you alone. That would have been
like you, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, I don’t know,” he said a little awkwardly; “it doesn’t sound so
bad, put that way.”

“And that is the way I did put it,” she answered quickly; “I know you.
But, Philip, these men don’t, and it is natural, I suppose, that they
should think differently. You have told them everything, I suppose?”

“They have questioned me to their heart’s content,” he replied.

“What I mean is—suppose they decide that you know, even that you
helped the other escape, isn’t there some way to prove conclusively
that you didn’t?”

He changed colour a little. “Good heavens, Evelyn!” he cried. “What a
horrible question! No, there isn’t, I was quite alone. I can only say
I found him as I told them; I can’t prove it.”

She became suddenly thoughtful. “No, I see that,” she said; “but as
long as there is nothing to seem to prove the contrary, it doesn’t
matter what they think. You didn’t,” she asked the question
hesitatingly, “move the cigarette box or anything, did you?”

He looked at her blankly as he exclaimed, “Move the cigarette box!
Evelyn, what on earth have you in your mind? Why do you ask?”

“Because it was moved and very soon after Sir Roger was killed.”

“How can you possibly know that?” he asked, taken aback at the quiet
assertion.

“I have seen it since,” she answered, a little confused; “and the
marks on it make me think that it was put down on the blood, after it
had stopped flowing but before it dried.”

“What an extraordinary girl you are!” he said in a tone divided
between admiration and amazement. “And that made you think I’d moved
it? No, I didn’t touch it. I touched nothing till Birts and the doctor
had come. Oh!” he cried, his face lighting up as if a sudden light had
broken in upon him, “I think I understand why Birts is looking at me
like that this morning. After he’d finished making his notes and all
that, I asked if I couldn’t move the body into the smoking-room; it
seemed so dreadful to have it lying there all day: I was afraid you
would come down and see it. He was very doubtful, but I persuaded him
at last to let me. And I expect that other fellow was annoyed he
hadn’t seen it where I found it, and told Birts he oughtn’t to have
allowed it, and Birts is working off his annoyance on me.”

Evelyn had listened intently, but now spoke with impatience:

“It was idiotic of you, Philip. What did it matter if I did see it?”

“It had upset me,” he said simply, “coming on it suddenly in the dark:
and I couldn’t bear the idea of your receiving the same sort of
impression.”

“It is just like you,” she said. “You never think things out. It was
nice of you in a way, but the act of a——.” she stopped; then added
with conviction, “an innocent man; no one else would have dared, there
is that about it. Tell me,” she went on with a change of manner, “I
wish you would, just what you told that inspector. I haven’t heard and
I may think of something.”

He at first wished to refuse, but in response to her further request,
told again what he had already told Humblethorne. She listened, all
her mind absorbed, trying in vain to see whether it threw any new
light on the facts of which she was in possession. When he finished
she stayed silent a long while, leaning forward in her chair, her head
on her hands.

“One thing puzzles me besides that point about the box,” she said at
last as much to herself as to him. “If it had been thrown as
apparently it was and came open enough to let any cigarettes fall out,
why weren’t they all over the place instead of all more or less
together?”

“They were,” he replied: “there were some on the floor, but most of
them were on the stairs, scattered about. Birts let me move them,
after he had counted them, so as to clear a way upstairs.”

“Scattered about on the stairs,” she repeated thoughtfully. “Where?”

“Oh, all over the place,” he replied vaguely.

“Yes, but where exactly? On which stairs? You must know, Philip.”

“I don’t see that it matters,” he answered.

“Nor do I, but I want to know.”

“Well, all over the stairs, most of them four or five steps up, some
in the centre and some on the right, as you go up; that’s why they
were so in the way. But really I can’t see that it’s of the least
importance.” He spoke with a touch of impatience.

“No, probably it isn’t. Well, you’re tired of being asked questions; I
can see that, and I don’t wonder. I’ll leave you in peace now. Don’t
worry about anything I’ve said, Philip. It’s troubling me so, and I’m
always wrong.”

As she turned out of the study and passed the back staircase she
remembered going up it the evening before and finding Humblethorne in
John’s room. She stopped. After all, she reflected, she did not know
it was John who entered by the drawing-room window; she only suspected
it because of Celia. Now that her thoughts about the one were in such
confusion, she might be wrong about the other. She believed she was
right, but she could turn belief into certainty. She slipped upstairs,
entered John’s room, took a boot belonging to a left foot, since that,
she remembered, was the clear impression, and went quietly downstairs
and out of doors. No one was about; she went straight to the first
drawing-room window, stooped down and, as lightly as possible so as
not to break away the edges, placed the boot over the impression.

With a heavy heart she saw that it confirmed her fears; she could
doubt no longer that John had been there on the evening of the
tragedy, had waited to be let in, an obviously arranged meeting, and
had been let out secretly—it could not be by Philip after what he had
said; if it was by Celia, then she had indeed little knowledge of her
friend.

It was a sorely puzzled investigator who went slowly, wearily back
into the house and replaced the boot which she had prayed would give
her thoughts the lie.



CHAPTER X

The Little Dancing Girl

Evelyn stood for many minutes after replacing the boot, in doubt and
distress. She absolved Philip; she could neither absolve Celia nor
understand how it was possible that she had had the resolution to do
what undeniably had been done. There was something else, there must
be, which would explain all. Perhaps if she could find the reason for
the two things which still seemed to have none, the moving of the box
and the dent in the wall, she would understand everything. At any rate
she could make no discovery which rendered things less horrible than
they had now again become.

So thinking, she came down once more to the hall, took up a position
on the further side opposite the foot of the stairs and tried with an
intense effort of mind to imagine stage by stage exactly what had
taken place. It was fruitless; she was unable to pass beyond the
conclusions to which she had already been forced. At last, rather
hopeless of progress, fearful that no progress was possible, and that,
incredible as it seemed to her, the truth lay between Celia and John
as she had first been appalled by it on realizing the significance of
the barred shutters, she came slowly forward to the edge of the sheet.

She did not dare move it again, but she had no need to; she saw the
stains and all below it in her mind as clearly as in a photograph. She
was thinking whether any enlightenment was to be found in the original
positions of the cigarettes. “Most of them four or five steps up,” she
thought, “in the centre and right.” Her heart gave a sudden leap,
light burst in her brain and thoughts followed one upon the other.
That was just beyond the dent, the dent was made by the box, the
cigarettes had naturally fallen scattered, most of them just beyond
where it struck. She ran up the first and second steps, stooped at the
third, looked at the dent again, and was certain of her conclusion.
Then she turned round and faced the hall from there. Her eyes
travelled automatically to the little table on which the cigarette box
ordinarily stood; instantly she saw that the cigarettes had fallen on
the centre and right because the box came obliquely from the left,
clearing the end of the balusters and striking against the wall. The
thought rose sharp and bewildering—the box had missed! But it had been
found lying at the foot of the stairs, close to the dead man’s head
and stained with his blood. The one thing remaining which had puzzled
her was suddenly illuminated with light; it was no accident, but
murder, and the murderer was the man who had moved the box! He had set
it down in the dead man’s blood deliberately to make it appear the
weapon, and it had never touched him at all.

Relief and dread fought a bitter battle in her. For the first time
since he had come into her thoughts to overshadow them with fear, she
felt it possible to acquit John not only of murder but of causing his
father’s death at all; the thought of him had been bound up with the
box and now she knew the box had shed no blood. But the instant she
had yielded herself up to the relief of this her reason became weighed
with a greater sense of evil still. The box had missed, but none the
less Sir Roger had been struck down. In spite of all her reborn belief
she could not repress the thought that this might have been by the
hand either of John or of Philip. Philip and John might both have
attacked Sir Roger; more odious still, Philip might have killed him
after John had left, believing that it would not be difficult to shift
the guilt onto one who had secretly entered the house he was
forbidden. She felt sick as these possibilities forced their way in on
her. No longer could she even comfort herself by believing in the
thought of accident.

And after the deed was done, what then? If they had acted together,
Philip had let John out and broken the little window. Then, back at
the body, he had had a spasm of fear and put the box where it had been
found—that at least would throw suspicion away from him. If he had
done it after he had let John out, striking perhaps on an impulse
without thinking it out in all its traces afterwards, the moving of
the box argued just the same a fell and deadly motive. Then he had
gone back to his study—she saw the whole thing—written those letters
rapidly and then returned to make a show of finding the body and to
act a long-drawn lie.

Wildly she wracked her brain for one detail which could disprove these
fearful imaginings. “A pair of evening shoes”—the words she had heard
Humblethorne use in his talk with Birts the previous evening, words
then without special significance, came instead with swift insistence
into her mind. They wanted a pair of Philip’s shoes; she had heard
them say so. Why? Instantly thought answered itself as she remembered
the rest of the stains so close to her. She stooped, and lifting the
edge of the sheet, looked again at the two faint, oblong stains, one
on the second and one on the fourth step. “He went upstairs after the
murder,” came the flashing conclusion—“to act his lie first to me,”
she added with a horror-stricken repulsion. So violent was this that
she struggled with all her might against it: this seemed to her the
most shocking part of the whole dreadful business, “To me, with wet
blood on his shoes—impossible! He must have had some other reason; it
must have been before that,” she found herself saying. She dropped the
sheet she had been clutching with unconscious fierceness, and white
and cold, with her mouth set in a fierce, hard line, examined the
stairs above, and then the landing, and then the second flight of
stairs.

When she reached the top without having found anything to answer her,
she stopped: she would not believe her first thought while any other
solution could be found. She leant against the balustrade and looked
down into the hall. Suddenly it crossed her mind that it was possible
that Sir Roger might have been struck from there: she wondered why it
had not occurred to her before and then realized that as long as it
was assumed that the cigarette box had killed him any such possibility
was far too remote. But now when another weapon was in question the
situation was different. As she stood, though, just at the head of the
stairs, she saw that Sir Roger would have had his back towards her, if
he had been turned towards the hall; and he had been, she was sure,
for, if he had been coming up the stairs and the body moved, there
must have been some indications, and there were none. She accordingly
went along a few steps until she reached a bracket which stood against
and level with the top of the balusters, and could see most of the
hall.

Here she was almost directly above the spot at which the body had been
found, and she stood still, her thoughts concentrated on the one
problem directly before her mind, why had Philip come upstairs
immediately after the murder? She gazed out over the hall and tried to
find a reason. Her eyes travelled slowly over all she could see, from
the doors of the hall and the dining-room across the hall to the
tragic place almost immediately below her. No thought, no reason came
to her. She leant forward to discover how far underneath her towards
the drawing-room door she could see and found that it was invisible.
She was turning away with a gesture of impatience when her glance fell
on a little bronze statuette of a dancing girl about nine inches high
and fixed into a small ebony pedestal which stood on the bracket level
with the top of the balusters. It had stood there for years and she
had passed it a thousand times, but there was something about its pose
now which instantly attracted her attention, keyed as that was to the
uttermost. The right arm, which ordinarily was raised with the elbow
bent at right angles to the body and the forearm curving in an easy,
graceful manner outwards, was now bent forwards and rather across the
body in a way that huddled the shoulder awkwardly.

Evelyn gripped the rail of the balusters with both hands with a sudden
violence of which she was completely unconscious: and then, her heart
beating wildly with an intuition of success, bent to examine what she
had found. On the elbow, a little underneath and behind it so that,
unless the statuette was moved—and she had no intention of touching it
then—it could only be seen by twisting well over the balusters, was a
little, dirty, dark red clot: the whole of the arm at the back from
elbow to shoulder and again a little down the side was slightly
stained as well. Evelyn knew that she had come upon not only the
answer to the puzzle which had then been engaging her but the true
weapon as well.

The statuette stood almost directly above the spot where Sir Roger’s
body had been found. She saw it all now. It had been so easy to fling
it down upon the victim standing below. Sir Roger’s attention must
have been attracted by a noise above just too late; he had started
back, and the statuette had struck him on his uplifted forehead and
dashed him to the ground. It was obvious too why the murderer had come
upstairs immediately after committing the crime—it was to replace the
statuette. What part John had played she could not tell; it was
evident that he could have had no direct hand in it, he would never
have come there to seize and hurl so bizarre a weapon. Black as the
tragedy seemed, Evelyn was sensible of two consoling thoughts. John
might know, but it might have happened after he had gone—probably it
had; at any rate he had not struck the blow; and secondly, Celia,
whatever she knew and feared, had not known of this, had not helped to
cover up the tracks of her father’s murderer.

She drew back, a little from the bracket, clutching these two thoughts
to her bitter, sickened heart, and then, stooping down, gazed fixedly
at the floor for any further direct testimony as to the replacing of
the statuette. Nothing was visible on the carpet, but, outlined on the
white paint, between the carpet and the balusters was the imprint of a
left foot, very faint, but clear enough of outline to intently
searching eyes. It needed no great acuteness to deduce that in the act
of putting the statuette back on the bracket the murderer had stepped
off the carpet with one foot.

For many minutes after making this discovery Evelyn remained staring
at the ominous mark: then she turned and went straight to her room;
she felt appalled, terrified at the abysses of human nature into which
she had unwittingly forced her way. Once again she wished with all her
heart that she had never been curious enough to try and penetrate the
mystery; she had been drawn on from one darkness to another, and yet
she had not been able to leave it alone. Nor could she now; she was
impelled against her desire to turn conviction into undeniable
certainty. Remembering that the first thing Humblethorne had done on
coming on the footmarks outside the drawing-room window had been to
secure the measurements, she took a pair of scissors and a piece of
drawer-paper and, returning to the mark below the statuette, carefully
cut out a pattern. Then she went back to her room. What her purpose
was she hardly knew; she did not know what she would do when she had
established conviction on an unbreakable chain of reason, but while
any possibility of error remained her bitterness of spirit gave her no
rest. She looked at the cutting in her hand and shivered at the
significance which so simple a thing contained. Then she wondered if
she dared go immediately to compare it with its original; but she did
not know for certain that Philip was still in the study, and she saw
no way of finding out without revealing the horror in her soul. She
stood turning the pattern over and over purposelessly; then she thrust
it into a drawer as if it burnt her; she would go and get a measuring
tape, anything to feed her craving for action. With this intention she
went into the room she shared with Celia and was rummaging in a
work-basket when her friend came in.

“Why, Evelyn,” said Celia, “I didn’t know where you were: you have
neglected me this morning!”

“Have I, dear?” replied Evelyn in so vague a tone that it was obvious
that the remark had not penetrated in the least.

“What’s the matter? Aren’t you feeling any better?” asked Celia with
sympathetic surprise: she was not used to such replies.

“What’s that? Better? Oh, I’m all right,” said Evelyn, trying to force
her thoughts away and speak naturally. She put the work-basket down,
closed it and then looked across at Celia.

“And how are you this morning?” she added. “You seem a little more
rested, but why that worried look?”

“Oh, Evie, it’s about—well, what we spoke of yesterday,” responded
Celia, half eagerly from desire to share and half fearfully from
memory of their difference of view. “About, well, John, you know.” Her
voice in saying the name quivered and stumbled.

“Yes?” asked Evelyn with a quick glance.

“I’ve just been with mother and she began by asking me if I had had
any answer to my telegram. I couldn’t tell her I hadn’t sent one—I
didn’t, you know—so I simply answered, no. And then she said it was
very odd that we hadn’t heard from him and went on about it worrying
so that I didn’t know what to do. And so I told her—I didn’t mean to,
but I suppose I let out a hint and she seized on it and made me tell
her.”

“Tell her what?”

“About, about,” Celia caught her friend’s glance and faint colour came
into her white cheeks as she hesitated and stuck in the sentence she
was on the point of uttering; then summoning up a little
determination, she said doggedly, “about his having troubles of his
own, how he really wasn’t rich and happy now as I had always let her
suppose, and how Margaret was ill and all; I said I couldn’t worry him
to come now. She was very upset as I was afraid she would be.” Celia
stopped and then resumed. “She agreed, though, at last about not
urging him to come; I promised to write and send him some money and
tell him she said he was to bring Margaret as soon as she is better
and able to come here too. She said of course they must regard this as
home now. But——” again she stopped and this time did not say any more,
but remained plucking nervously at a cushion-cover with down-cast
eyes.

“Celia,” said Evelyn gently after waiting a moment in hope she would
go on of her own accord.

“Yes,” replied Celia, neither looking up nor desisting from her
restless movements.

“Won’t you tell me everything?”

“That’s all; I came away then,” answered Celia, speaking quickly in a
weak defiance of fear and not looking up.

“I mean, about John. Why did he come here two nights ago?”

Celia went suddenly white to the lips: her eyes widened slowly in
intense distress, and she breathed in a low, strained voice, “You
know!”

“Yes, I have known since yesterday. You can tell me, Celia; you must
tell me so that I can help him and you.”

“Does any one else know?” A fearful anxiety was in her question.

“No one knows as much as I do. The others who know think he killed Sir
Roger. I know he didn’t.”

The effect of this simple assertion was startling. Celia stretched out
her hand to Evelyn, her breath coming in quick, short gasps, and cried
with half-incredulous joy, “Evie! do you know what you are saying?”

“Yes. I can prove he didn’t, too, but it will be much easier if you
tell me what he did do. Why he came and everything you know. It’s not
like us to have secrets from each other.”

“Oh, you don’t know what joy you give me. Yes, I will tell you
everything: it has been so terrible bearing it alone,” cried Celia,
holding on to her friend and weeping in wild relief. “I couldn’t tell
you about his coming beforehand; he made me promise not to; he was
more afraid, I think, of mother’s finding out about his being so
worried and unhappy than of anything else. And afterwards I couldn’t
tell you, because—because I was so afraid he must have done it. Oh,
Evie, are you sure he didn’t?”

“Darling, what made you even think for a moment he did?”

“Because I left them together,” answered Celia in a low, terrified
voice; “and father was in one of his rages and John white and cold.”

“Well, he didn’t,” replied Evelyn. “I thought at first he did, by
accident, of course, but he didn’t. So tell me everything from the
beginning.”

“It began about a month ago,” said Celia, “with Margaret getting ill:
that was the final misfortune. I was away on a visit to the
Williamsons then, you remember, so he could write without being afraid
that his letters would be noticed—I have always managed to let him
know when I’m away from here—and he told me how bad things were with
him. Finally, he asked for my help; he had always refused to take a
penny before—he has all mother’s pride, you know—but he couldn’t get
the things Margaret needed if she was to have a chance of getting
well, and that broke it down; nothing else would have. I was for
sending him all I could scrape together, but a sudden, foolish desire
to see me and talk to me came over him; he wrote as eagerly as a boy
and made this plan. Father almost always went up early; it seemed so
easy for me to slip down and open the drawing-room window and he could
so easily get into the park and steal across the lawn. I didn’t much
like it, but there was no other way in which I could see him without
running the risk of father’s getting to hear of it—and when once it
had been suggested, oh, Evie, I longed to see him as much as he did to
see me.”

“Yes, dear,” Evelyn said understandingly. “And what happened?”

“I slipped down as arranged,” went on Celia nervously; “that was easy.
I’d gone to my room early, you remember, after saying good-night to
you on the plea of headache. I hated hiding it from you, Evie, but
John thought it better no one should know. It was about eleven, I
should think; all lights were out downstairs and I thought every one
was in bed. I opened the window, and he was there, waiting. We talked
there a long while, and then he said he couldn’t see me properly or I
him, and he came in. I went and turned on the light, and then I heard
father as he limped along in the hall. I didn’t know what to do, I was
so afraid he had seen the light and was coming straight in. I thought
the only thing to do was to go out and pretend I’d only come down for
a book or something. I signed to John to stay still and stepped out.”
She shivered, and it was a moment before she went on. “I suppose I
acted badly,” she said finally; “at any rate, father suspected
something; he told me very angrily to give him none of my nonsense,
and when I tried to pass it off and to go upstairs he caught me so
roughly by the arm that I cried out. And—and that was more than John
could stand. He came out and ordered father to leave me alone: he was
terribly angry, not in father’s way, but white and stern. He alarmed
me, but father, after staring at him as if he could not believe his
own eyes, broke out into awful language and then turned on me and told
me to go upstairs. I would have disobeyed, even if he had struck me,
but John said to me in a little, dry voice, ‘You had better go,’—and
so, hating it but not seeing how I could help, I went. That’s all I
know; and when father was found like that, I couldn’t help believing
John had done it. You can imagine how I have been suffering, and then
when mother wanted him to come here it was dreadful.”

Evelyn had listened to every word with the deepest attention; she was
hearing the truth, she knew. When Celia had finished, she became very
thoughtful and finally said, “No, you couldn’t help believing it: I
can quite understand. Well, don’t worry any more: I’m going to show he
didn’t.”

She walked to the window and gazed out; then abruptly turned and
disappeared into her room. She had seen Philip Castle strolling along
away from the house.



CHAPTER XI

A Chain of Confusion

Without delaying a moment Evelyn took the paper pattern of the
footprint she had discovered from her drawer and went along the
corridor to Philip’s room. The door was standing ajar; she pushed it
open, entered and closed it after her. Now that she had come to the
climax of her investigations her mind for all its deadly horror was
free of the tortures of uncertainty; intimacy, free and absolute, had
been regained between her and Celia, and she had had the joy of taking
from Celia the crushing belief in her brother’s guilt.

But the criminal remained in all his blackness, and her heart knew no
pity there: she stooped and, fighting down a sense of nausea, took up
the pair of evening shoes on which Humblethorne had pounced with
avidity on his entrance the day before. Their smooth, undarkened soles
came as a sudden shock to her; she had been so certain that she would
have no need to look further. Then the same thought occurred to her as
previously to Humblethorne—these were worn and left conspicuously
about just because he had a second pair. She understood completely now
what Humblethorne had meant. But she had something which would be
decisive even without the discovery of that pair: with a trembling
hand she took up her paper pattern and laid it on the left shoe of the
two in her hand. It was several sizes too large!

To say that she was taken aback would be hopelessly to understate the
turmoil in her brain; she stared at the misfit, so incomprehensible,
so utterly unexpected, as if she were seeing a ghost. Her breath went
and came; her colour left her; it was against all reason, past all
understanding. It could not be true.

Then after a few moments of absolute blank disbelief, when if was
obvious that unless she had taken leave of her senses she could not by
any alteration of the placing of the pattern make it coincide with the
shoe, her mind began to work feverishly again. She could not be
entirely wrong, it was the shoe which was wrong, it must be. She knew
that at any rate this was not the shoe which had left the stain;
perhaps the subtle mind of the man she was tracking had foreseen this,
and had deliberately left these small shoes about to be found by any
one who came so far along the path of his crime. She snatched up one
after the other the left feet of the three other pairs of shoes and
boots in the room: the result was identically the same.

“I’m going out of my mind,” she thought; “there’s something wrong
somewhere!” It could not now be the shoe; it was absurd to suppose
that all the footgear was a blind. It must be the pattern, she
decided; she was agitated when she cut it out and had made it too big.
Yes, that must be it: she seized the left evening shoe again, hurried
out of the room down the passage until she stood half-breathless once
more before the little dancing girl. She waited a moment to steady
herself and then bent down and, taking the utmost pains to ensure
accuracy, placed the shoe over the stain. She could no longer doubt
her eyes: the stain was too big.

When at last she became convinced that this was so, she experienced an
overpowering revulsion of feeling. For an hour or more her whole soul
had been sickened with the contemplation of a dastardly crime and the
callous effrontery of the criminal. Now she was forced to believe that
she had done him a great wrong; it was certain now that he had not
replaced the statuette, it was probable he had never laid hands on it
at all. She was hurled in this terrible see-saw of doubt back on the
story she had just heard from Celia. John and his father had been left
facing each other in the hall in deepest anger. Had John after all
done this? Her mind, leaping to the question, instantly conceived how
it might have been—she pictured Sir Roger suddenly altering his mind
about Celia’s departure, John on an impulse running upstairs to fetch
her back, then the thought of the strange weapon at his elbow and the
fierce flinging of it down. And then, perhaps, Philip had found him in
remorse beside his father’s body, had decided to shield him and had
let him out after John had replaced the weapon. And she had just told
Celia John was guiltless and she could prove it—that to her was the
most poignant tragedy of this surprise. She felt estranged from Philip
for ever, whatever part he had played, and, if it had to lie between
him and John, she longed only to be able to say it was not John.

In acute agony she returned to Philip’s room, not greatly caring now
whether she ran into him or not, replaced the shoe and almost
automatically took up the pattern which in her bewilderment she had
left lying on his dressing table. She turned out of the room with a
strange feeling of apathy, saw she held the pattern in her hand, and,
with an unreasoning resentment, tore it to pieces. She had hardly done
so before she regretted the action: at least she might make as certain
of John as she had tried to do of Philip. She went into John’s room
and, seeing an odd boot at the end of the row, took it up. It was a
left one and she was puzzled to know what could have become of its
fellow. It had been there, she was sure, when she had looked in and
found Humblethorne the day before. However, that mattered little
beside the purpose for which she had come.

She took up the boot and went back to the stain; almost listlessly she
placed the one over the other. Then she gave a little cry; John’s boot
fitted no better than Philip’s shoe! She rose unsteadily, her mind in
a whirl; she was utterly crushed, humiliated. On what foolish belief
in her own cleverness had she been building these fearful ideas about
her friends? She had seen something she did not understand and had
immediately set to work to paint disloyal and hideous pictures,
refusing in her pride of brain to listen to the true promptings of her
heart. And now she had finally and conclusively proved her folly to
herself. Philip had not been there, nor John. Her abasement at her own
self-deceptions did not prevent her from a feeling of relief so great
as almost to choke her, but it kept in the back of her consciousness
the question which still remained. She put it from her, kept it
ignored, and moved away from the fatal spot in a dazed, unthinking
condition, content with what she knew and conscious of a great
contempt for her powers of investigation. It was only when she had
gone some yards that she saw that she was still holding John’s left
boot. Who, she thought, could have taken the other one; what was the
point when John was innocent? Then she remembered that Humblethorne
did not know he was; of course he must have taken it. She wondered
where Humblethorne was, becoming aware she had not seen him the whole
morning. The boot in her hand and the thought of Humblethorne brought
back the recollection of the meeting outside the drawing-room window;
she could afford to smile at it now. She would go and look at the
window again; in the light of what she knew it would interest her
without tempting her to any further frightful theories. She went down
and entered the drawing-room and saw to her surprise that the window
was now standing open.

Meanwhile Humblethorne had been spending his time in the
straightforward, though difficult, business of following up the
stranger of the inn. Inquiry showed that he had left early on the
morning after the crime, walked to the railway station and there
caught the 8.7 a.m. train. He had taken no ticket, obviously having a
return half. Having ascertained so much, first from Timmins and then
by a visit to the station, Humblethorne walked back, intending to send
off a long official telegram which would start the great machinery of
the police force at work in picking up the trail. As he passed the
post-office, however, an idea struck him; he sauntered in and over the
sale of a picture postcard drifted easily into conversation with the
postmaster on the great topic of the crime. A skilful suggestion about
the awfulness of having to write such news to the son bore unexpected
fruit; Miss Celia, it appeared, had written to him. The postmaster was
easily drawn on to talk: the letter had attracted notice by being the
first written to Mr. John since he was driven from home, think of
that, and he had noticed the street and the suburb, though he couldn’t
be certain of the number. The telegram that Humblethorne eventually
dispatched in official code would do the rest.

Humblethorne then devoted his energies to an endeavour to procure
further identification, either of John Penterton or of Philip Castle
from the cigarette box, but, as he had feared, the roughness of the
surface, owing to the ornamentation and tooling, made the discovery of
any finger-marks hopeless. Evelyn, had she thought of it further, only
narrowly escaped falling under suspicion herself by virtue of this
accident.

One half of his inquiry, that relating to John, being now finished,
Humblethorne next directed his attention to the finding of the
evidence against Castle which he was firmly persuaded was still in
existence. He walked up to the Towers, and, entering quietly, made his
way up the back stairs. With unhurried, unwearied persistence he
searched the two large unoccupied rooms, which were at the end of the
passage past Castle’s room. He found no trace whatever of what he was
looking for, entered John’s room and repeated the process, again
without result. Puzzled, he stopped, wondering where he should search
next. His glance fell upon the boots and it occurred to him that it
would still further strengthen the chain of evidence if he verified
his measurements: also he would re-examine the window in the hope that
he might find he had overlooked some proof of the identity of the man
who had bolted the shutters. He accordingly picked up the nearest boot
of the row, went downstairs and crossed the hall into the
drawing-room.

Here he subjected the window and shutters to the minutest examination,
but shutters will not retain any impression from hands that are clean,
and he could still find nothing, except the dirty finger-marks on the
lintel: these he resolved to have photographed that afternoon. He
threw open the window at last, and looked out. It was pleasant there
in the sun and he remained in meditation several minutes; then
realizing that he was idling, he went out to fit the boot he had taken
to the one clear impression in the soil. He bent down to do so when he
realized that he had stupidly brought only one boot and that the wrong
one. For another minute he looked the soil over to see if amongst its
tramplings he could make out a right foot with sufficient clearness,
but saw it was hopeless and exclaimed irritably to himself, “I shall
have to get the other, that’s all.”

“Perhaps I can save you the trouble,” he heard a voice say pleasantly,
and straightening his back he looked up and saw Evelyn at the window
holding the left boot.

“Well, I’m hanged!” he exclaimed.

“You will probably wish to fit it yourself,” she said, leaning out;
relief at her failures was making her spirits rise above the
humiliation of her late thoughts and she spoke almost gaily. “It does
fit; I know, because I tried it yesterday.”

He was so taken aback by her sudden appearance and her manner that she
could not help smiling.

“This is the window I always come to first, isn’t it?” she said.
“Don’t grudge it me.”

“I don’t understand,” he replied slowly. “Do you know whose boots
these are?”

“Ten years ago they belonged to Mr. John Penterton,” she answered
coolly.

“And feet don’t change their size much after people grow up,” he added
rather slowly.

“From which the conclusion is to be drawn——?” she asked.

“That two nights ago Mr. Penterton was let in through this window.”

“Well? We know that. What of it?”

It was obvious that she puzzled him: he remembered too well the way
she had been suddenly stricken dumb before this same window the day
before, and now she leant out of it, inconsequent, almost gay. He was
more than puzzled; he felt a vague misgiving, but he did not care to
confess it.

“Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me,” he said with an assumption of
the official manner, “why, if you fitted that boot here yesterday, you
come here with it again to-day?”

“I was making sure,” she answered slowly.

“I see; well, perhaps you would let me do the same.”

She handed him the boot without a word and watched him fit it
carefully to the impression. He raised himself after having done so
with an air of subdued triumph in his eyes and felt a renewal of
misgiving as he noticed that in hers was only a fairly obvious
amusement.

“Don’t lean out of that window, please,” he said rather stiffly. “You
are very nearly touching the lintel and I have still to take a copy of
those finger-marks.”

She drew back obediently at once and asked with interest—

“How do you manage to do that? It must be very difficult there.”

“I shall photograph those,” he answered.

“The whole system of taking finger-marks is extraordinarily
fascinating,” she said; “I don’t see how you do it.”

“Oh, it’s not difficult when once you know how.”

“Like so many things, I suppose,” she remarked, “but it must require
great dexterity and special training.”

“I don’t know,” he answered: insensibly his tone had become that of
the expert, good-humouredly answering the questions of a layman; and
he was not altogether sorry to have an opportunity to show this clever
amateur the science that lay beneath his methods. “Of course,” he went
on, “I have taken prints for years, and practice makes perfect, they
say; but I don’t know that it is specially difficult.”

“How do you set about it in the ordinary way?” she asked.

“Well, it depends of course what they are on,” he replied rather
sententiously. “And you can do it in several ways.”

“Yes, but ordinarily.”

“Oh, well, if they were on paper, for example, and you were to
sprinkle a little lamp-black over the place, you would see all there
was: if on something dark, well, there are several things one can use;
fine flour does as well as anything.”

“And it shows up the marks?”

“If there are any; but you have to dust it off very lightly. It’s the
grease on the hand, you see, miss, that makes the mark and you want
something light that will stick on the place when the rest is brushed
off. Of course you can touch plenty of things and not leave a mark,
anything rough for instance; in moments of great agitation, however,
the human hand becomes moist, which facilitates the work of
discovery.”

“I see; it’s very interesting. Well, thank you. I hope I haven’t
wasted your time. Oh,” a little smile played round her lips, “I know I
haven’t done that.”

He was slightly nettled. “And how do you know?” he asked.

“Because—well, it sounds rude but I don’t mean it to be—because you
are wasting it for yourself out there. The man who made those marks is
not the man who killed Sir Roger.”

She nodded pleasantly and left him to stare after her with open mouth
and profoundly puzzled eyes, as she went slowly upstairs to luncheon.

“Celia let him in; who let him out? What really happened?” she was
thinking. “How, when and why did I begin to build up my castle of
falsehood?” She stopped dead half way up the stairs; it was the little
window, she remembered, which had first convinced her it was Philip
just because she was sure Celia could not have done that. In her
revulsion of feeling she now absolved Philip afresh; who broke the
window then? Suddenly without seeking for it she remembered every word
of her conversation with Birts about that window. How blind she had
been to its real significance! The breakage had not been discovered
till two o’clock on the day after the murder. It might, then, have
been done any time between after dinner on the night of the murder and
two o’clock next day; it might have been done, the thought came
insistently, on the morning after the murder. It might, yes, but why
should it have been? No answer suggested itself, but it was with
quickened interest in the sudden opening up of a new avenue of thought
that she continued her way slowly upstairs.



CHAPTER XII

Out of the Darkness

During luncheon Evelyn sat absorbed in her own thoughts, and spoke
little and then at random. Celia, her only companion at the meal, was
naturally full of questions; how did Evelyn know John had not done it?
Why had she left her so suddenly? And the like, to all of which Evelyn
returned evasive answers. She could not shake herself free from the
baffling problems of the tragedy, no matter how often or how sincerely
she resolved to leave them alone. She had been hopelessly, grievously
wrong, but how and why? What had made her go wrong? On what false
basis had she reared her crazy edifices? “Some one,” her mind kept
repeating to her, “barred that window; John couldn’t do it himself;
you have heard and you believe Celia’s story, you have followed
Philip’s trail and it has led you to an absurdity. Who remains?” Then
her mind ran away with her to the new fact which had just penetrated
her consciousness, that there was a large margin of time inside which
the little window might have been broken; it was probable of course
that it had been done soon after the murder, but it was odd, if that
was so, that it had not been discovered many hours earlier than it
was. Supposing it had been done the morning after, what could she make
of that? Who could have done it, and what was the reason why it was
done? It was so easy to make suppositions, so easy to ask questions,
but she seemed to be led into a blank wall when she tried to answer
them.

Luncheon over, she threw herself down into a low basket chair, and
gave herself entirely to a reconsideration of everything she had
discovered. The most important point to be decided was, who had left
that larger footmark in replacing the statuette? It was not John, it
was not Philip. Who else could it possibly have been? As if in reply
to the reiterated question, there was a discreet knock on the door and
Fairlie entered. He bent in his habitual manner of semi-apology when
delivering a message and said that her ladyship would be glad if Miss
Celia would come and sit with her that afternoon. Evelyn, reclining in
her chair, suddenly grew rigid: her eyes had fallen upon his shoes.
She glanced away hurriedly, fearful of betraying the agitation in her
mind; her thoughts had received their answer.

Two men remained who could have broken that window, Fairlie and the
footman. The latter she put out of her reckoning at once; he was an
ordinary, unintelligent, unresourceful lad, who had only been there a
few months. He had never known John; he could not have played a part
afterwards in any case even to save his neck from the gallows. She
could not conceive any reason, except robbery—and of that there was no
trace here—why he should murder his master. But Fairlie was a being of
very different fibre. No one could ever guess at the thoughts lying
hid in that silent soul beneath his stolid mask of dignified
imperturbability. Whatever he had done, he was capable, if he chose,
of concealing it.

Evelyn was too fresh from the complete upsetting of all her reasoning
to leap at once to new conclusions of guilt; she was grown more
moderate in her imaginings and no longer felt assured that any picture
her mind painted was necessarily the truth. But she realized in an
instant the possibilities of this new thought. Fairlie had been
devoted to John as a little child. Whatever had happened it would have
been his first thought to avoid running the risk of implicating John.
She did not go so far in her thoughts as to say Fairlie struck Sir
Roger down, but she saw that he might have done so; he might for
instance have intervened in a quarrel. As to all that she did not know
and refused, as far as she could, to speculate upon thoughts alone;
but at any rate Fairlie might have let John out, Fairlie might have
broken the window—no one more likely. It was obvious that if he was
the one who had barred the window then whether it was he who hurled
the statuette or no and whether that was done before or after John’s
departure, he would have provided the semblance of some other entrance
so that John’s presence on the scene might never be suspected.

The more she thought of it the more probable it seemed that Fairlie
was the man: she was amazed that she had never given him a thought
before. She recalled Philip’s account of how he had roused Fairlie:
there was nothing in that to have prevented Fairlie’s participation
during the earlier part of that long interval between thirteen minutes
to twelve when Sir Roger left the study and half-past one when he was
found dead: plenty of time for him to have let John out, killed Sir
Roger—or killed Sir Roger and let John out, if that was the order—and
gone himself to bed.

Full of such thoughts she saw her work clear before her, to find
proofs which should either dispel this theory as all her others had
been dispelled or make it stand out evident to all as the truth. It
fitted all facts so well that even in her humility she felt assured
that this time it would be strange indeed if she were entirely wrong.
She had none of the bitter, horror-stricken resentment with which her
belief in Philip’s guilt had inspired her; horror she felt still
certainly, but also a kind of unwilling pity. She could not imagine
Fairlie capable of what she would call a selfish crime: there could be
no reason for such an act. Whatever his feelings towards Sir Roger
were—and it was probable that beneath his respectful deference had
lain a deep resentment—they would never have blazed, she felt, into
violence. The thought fought itself in on her that he might have acted
merely as a shield against discovery to John.

At this she rose hastily: it was no use repeating error by vexing
herself in advance needlessly. It was time to act, to prove, not
think. Her recent talk with Humblethorne on the subject of
finger-marks had not been entirely conversational: at the back of her
mind, humiliated though she had been, had still lingered irrepressible
interest, and she had kept wondering whether it would not be possible
to find on the statuette marks which would guide her towards the real
truth. Now she would put the information given her by Humblethorne to
the test. It was characteristic of her that she never stopped to
consider the propriety of her handling the statuette for such a
purpose: it would have been simpler and safer to have informed
Humblethorne of her discovery, but she had erred alone and she would
succeed alone.

She got up from the easy chair and thought out her plans. She must
first get some fine flour and test the statuette. She was about to go
downstairs to beg some from the cook, when glancing at the clock on
the mantelpiece she noticed that it was just two o’clock. The sense of
time had slipped from her: she saw instantly that it would be the most
ill-fitting time to approach the cook, but the best to pursue
unobserved any private inquiry of her own. The servants would all be
at their dinner. At once her mind was made up. She went to her room,
took scissors and paper, and, hurrying to the stain which had so
baffled her, cut out another pattern. Then she made her way without
noise or hesitation to the room she knew to be Fairlie’s. Outside she
paused, wondering what explanation she would give if she were seen,
but the clatter and voices in the servants’ hall reassured her: she
opened the door and stole in. Beneath the washstand were a couple of
pairs of boots; she dived at a left foot, turned it over and placed
her pattern upon it. She had made no error this time: one thing was
certain now, Fairlie’s foot had made the stain.

She was fearful of being discovered and had no definite object in
further delay. But she saw no evening shoes; no doubt the pair then on
his feet were those he had been wearing the evening of the murder, but
they might be hidden away. Hastily she searched the most likely
places, but without result; she opened rapidly one after another the
drawers, but could find nothing. She dared stay no longer, and closed
the drawers silently. She could not quite push home the top left-hand
drawer, however; it had been closed and she was anxious to leave
everything exactly as she had found it. She made another attempt and
became convinced something was obstructing it. Hurriedly she pulled
the drawer right out, felt at the back, and to her horror drew out a
dirty, crumpled handkerchief stained with blood. She had hardly done
so when she heard the screech of a chair being pushed back in the
servants’ hall: she snatched a clean handkerchief from the drawer,
thrust it behind, inserted and forced the drawer home, and fled back
to her room with her pattern and the blood-stained relic crushed in
her hand.

Then, locking the door, she examined what she had so unexpectedly
stumbled upon. It was a man’s ordinary white handkerchief of good, but
not especially fine, linen; it bore in the corner the initials J.F.;
right across its width from edge to edge the centre was stained with a
streaky band of blood, about three inches across at its widest and
then narrowing irregularly to about an inch and a half; and it was
marked by little ribs of dirt.

“More puzzles!” thought Evelyn. “Now what has this been used for?”

She locked it away carefully and then went down as she had first
intended and managed to borrow some fine flour from the cook without
exciting any special interest in that good woman’s lethargic mind; she
had supplied both Celia and Evelyn with many curious things in her
time when they had been amusing themselves learning to cook. So far
Evelyn had succeeded beyond her wildest dreams; she had now the most
delicate part of her self-imposed task before her.

A confidence, however, in her own dexterity of touch—if a
clumsy-handed man like Humblethorne could do it, she certainly could,
was her thought—and a belief that any discovery her experiment might
yield would at best be only additional to what she already knew helped
to steady her excitement and kept her from realizing how unusual her
action was. She put on a pair of thin gloves, went along the passage,
first making sure that no one was about, and, after examining the
statuette once more as it stood, lifted it down by the arm which was
free of any stain.

She was surprised to find how heavy it was; it looked slight and small
in position, but she realized what a terrible blow it must have
inflicted, hurled from that height. One other thing she noticed as she
carried it unobserved to her room, and that was that it had become
loose on its little ebony pedestal. The closer inspection, which was
possible as soon as she was secure against observation or interruption
inside her own locked door, revealed that the stout pins which entered
the pedestal from the feet and held the figure in place had been badly
strained, so that one foot had driven slightly into the pedestal to
one side, and then when the statuette was put again in an upright
condition had shifted back, leaving a distinct mark on the polished
wood. That the statuette had had a severe fall was placed beyond all
doubt.

Celia was a keen and skilful artist in delicate water-colour, so
Evelyn had only to slip through to the girls’ study and borrow a fine
brush to have all her preparations made for the new experiment. First
of all, however, she practised making a few finger-prints by pressing
her thumb on the polished mahogany of her dressing-table and
sprinkling and brushing the flour. She had not been quite so ignorant
of the elements of the art as her questions to Humblethorne had
suggested and in any case did not find it particularly difficult.
After a few attempts she felt reasonably sure of being able to make
visible whatever the statuette concealed.

She came to it, and as she stood looking again at the bent arm a
sudden knowledge came to her as to the use to which the blood-stained
handkerchief had been put: like so much else it seemed obvious
directly the thought had come at all—the handkerchief had been used to
wipe the arm and shoulder. She took it out and examined it again in
connexion with the stains on the statuette; yes, there could be little
doubt. The line of her mouth tightened: a passionate impulse, even if
it culminated in a blow, was less horrible than these evidences of a
cool-headed and deliberate purpose afterwards. She was struck with the
inconsistencies which showed themselves here before her. The criminal
could think to wipe the statuette, move the box, break the window, but
he had never noticed that he had put his foot in the blood. Well, this
was what she had often heard, that criminals nullified a dozen careful
clevernesses by a single evident oversight: the agitated mind, she
supposed, was too occupied in laying its deceptions to observe the
most obvious realities. Her thoughts went again to the marks on the
sill of the drawing-room window, which she had been able fully to see
that morning for the first time; it had struck her then that they had
seemed not merely indefinite, but partially obliterated. She saw at
once now that her thought had been right; the ribs of dirt on the
handkerchief, so out of place in the property of a conspicuously clean
and respectable butler, had been made when the handkerchief had been
hastily rubbed over the trodden sill. She could not be sure, but at
least it seemed highly probable; and just as the stains raised the
presumption of Fairlie’s handling of the statuette so did the dirt of
his shutting of the window.

She laid the handkerchief by, took the statuette carefully in her
gloved hand by the clean arm and tipped it over; she was sure that the
smooth polish of the pedestal would yield the best results and was
afraid of testing the statuette itself in case she altered the
appearance of the bloodstains. Carefully she sprinkled the fine flour
over the front of the pedestal, brushed the surface very lightly, and
then paused with shining eyes and a deep sigh, half satisfaction at
the correctness of her conclusions and facility of her execution, half
distress at the evidence of guilt before her. Clearly marked on the
ebony towards each corner of the pedestal stood out the impressions of
two large thumbs: the criminal after setting it down had evidently
pressed it carefully back into its exact position.

She sat for some minutes staring almost vacantly at the marks; one
link in the chain alone remained now, and that was the identification
of those thumbs. That would not be difficult, she reflected: Fairlie
had necessarily to be always handling things. She rose with quick
decision—the sooner her task was complete the better—locked away the
handkerchief, cleared a drawer, lifted the statuette carefully and
placed it in a prone position in the drawer which she locked. Then she
went downstairs.

In the hall she met Humblethorne, who was holding a telegram in his
hand which Birts had just brought him. He wore a look of
dissatisfaction in consequence both of an absolutely fruitless search
for some further evidence, the shoes for preference, which should
establish Philip Castle’s participation in the escape of the murderer,
and also of the news he had just heard. The telegram said briefly in
official code that John Penterton, carrying a bag, had left his home
shortly before Humblethorne’s information had been received and had
not returned, destination at present unknown, house would be watched
and all steps to trace him followed.

Humblethorne glanced at Evelyn without pleasure. Her attitude had
puzzled him, and if his evidence had not been so overwhelmingly direct
he would have admitted that he felt a real misgiving. People do not
say “Well! we know that: what of it?” in a matter of fact tone, in
such circumstances as his last meeting with Evelyn, unless they have a
reason. Thinking it over, he had been forced reluctantly to the
conclusion that, though he could prove John’s secret entry, he could
not prove his hand in the murder; he could only throw on John the onus
of disproving it. And whatever grounds for suspicion he might have he
knew that so far he had found no proof against Philip whatever. He had
no doubt in his own mind, but this girl showed up to him fearlessly,
almost, he felt, cynically, the weaknesses of his case.

“Miss Temple,” he said, as she was passing the two men, “I think you
ought to be told a little how the case stands. It will be my duty very
shortly to make a very painful communication to Lady Penterton; I
think it would be as well if she was prepared. She may see it in the
paper at any moment now.”

Evelyn shot a keen glance at him and his telegram, and then replied
quietly, “It would be foolish of me to pretend I do not understand.
Has Mr. Penterton been arrested?”

“Not yet,” Humblethorne admitted rather reluctantly. “But it is only a
question of a few hours now before he will be.”

“Then you have still time to avoid making a mistake publicly,” she
replied. “I advise you to use it.”

“Your good opinion of your friend’s brother does you credit,” remarked
Humblethorne drily; “I regret I cannot share it.”

“It is hardly a question of good opinion,” she returned boldly, “but
of proof. You know very well that you have none.”

Humblethorne flushed at this direct blow. “I have proof of things that
will need a good deal of explanation,” he said shortly.

“You shall have all the explanation you require—in half an hour,” she
said. “Delay the arrest that length of time and you will have no
reason to regret it.”

“What do you mean?” he exclaimed.

“You have been looking for a pair of evening shoes, I think,” she went
on with apparent irrelevance.

“Yes.” He tried unsuccessfully to hide his eagerness.

“I will show you them—in half an hour. Wait that long at any rate.”
She nodded and went into the dining-room.



CHAPTER XIII

How it Happened

With a heart beating with excitement Evelyn opened the door that led
from the dining-room into the pantry. Luck favoured her, for Fairlie
was in there alone.

“Oh, Fairlie,” she said in the most natural voice she could assume,
“I’m so thirsty; can you give me a glass of water?”

As he went to fetch it her mind was in a ferment. She had promised to
explain everything in half an hour, but could she? There was much she
could only guess even if her deductions all proved to be facts; and it
suddenly crossed her mind that, if the finger-marks on the pedestal
did not prove to be Fairlie’s, she was as far from the truth as ever.
At any rate, she had come to a point when she must share all her
discoveries with Humblethorne. Fairlie now returned with a glass of
water on a small silver tray. She took the latter carefully by the
opposite side; then, wishing to duplicate his finger-prints in case of
failure, she said, “That looks a little dusty, Fairlie,” and lifted
the tray towards him.

Unsuspectingly he took the glass, held it up against the light, and
then set it down again on the tray.

“It looks all right to me, Miss Evelyn; but I’ll get you another,” he
replied.

“Oh no, don’t trouble,” she exclaimed, and bore away tray and glass.

As she passed through the hall again she was very conscious of the
curious, not to say suspicious, gaze of the two men; but she was too
intent on her purpose, and that purpose held too much that was
terrible, for her to feel the amusement which would otherwise have
been hers. Without looking at them she carried her last evidence
carefully upstairs.

“Well,” remarked Birts with a heavy sigh as she disappeared, “I wonder
what she’s up to now: play acting, I call it.”

Humblethorne did not reply, though his thoughts were running in the
same direction. He was uneasy; it was difficult to stifle altogether
the conviction that this girl, whose quick brain and perceptive eye
had already aroused his appreciation, would not speak so confidently
unless she had something better than a mere belief to go upon. He was
moodily pacing the hall when Evelyn came downstairs again.

“I am ready now,” she said. “I asked for half an hour, but it did not
take so long.”

“Perhaps you will be good enough to explain your mysteries, then,”
remarked Humblethorne with slight irony.

“I will tell you everything I have discovered,” she answered; “it does
not explain everything, I know, but it explains enough for you to be
able to find out the rest. I have gone as far as I can alone,” she
added simply, “and my only course now is to place it in your hands to
use as you think fit.”

Humblethorne was mollified; he had been afraid she was going to taunt
him with failure. But with the end of her task a heaviness had fallen
upon her; to investigate was interesting, to discover horrible.

“Let us go into the drawing-room,” she said; “we cannot be overheard
there, and here, as I know, we can be. Oh, I want you first to look at
this. I don’t wonder it was overlooked; I only found it by accident,”
and she took the two men to the dent under the cornice level with the
third step of the stairs.

“You never saw the cigarettes in their original positions, I think,”
she said to Humblethorne, as he bent over to look at it with his
interest roused instantly to the full.

“No: did you?” he queried instantly.

“No, but after I found this dent yesterday I asked Mr. Castle to tell
me exactly where they had lain. It was obvious when I came to look
again that they had fallen out when the cigarette box struck the wall
here.”

She spoke simply, intent on her explanation, and looked up in surprise
when Humblethorne, seeing the full significance of her remark, gave a
sudden exclamation and cried excitedly—

“Struck the wall! When was that?”

“Before Sir Roger was killed, obviously,” she answered. “How long
before I do not know.”

“But, but——” he began, trying to assimilate this new and startling
fact.

“It does rather upset one’s preconceived ideas, doesn’t it?” she said.
“But I do not see how the conclusion is to be avoided. The box would
hardly be thrown after Sir Roger lay dead.”

“You have made a discovery of the very greatest importance, Miss
Temple,” Humblethorne asserted. “I will not deny that, but this
doesn’t clear John Penterton.”

“I am aware of that,” she replied; the unconscious touch of
condescension had not escaped her. “Perhaps it would help if you told
me what evidence you have against him. I know he was here—Miss
Penterton had arranged some while ago that he should come. Is that
evidence that he is guilty of his father’s death?”

While she was speaking the dining-room door opened, and Fairlie came
quietly into the hall.

“That remains to be seen,” returned Humblethorne. “He came secretly at
night-time, and there are several questions to be answered. Did his
father know of his coming? Was his father alive when he left? Who let
him out? His father was killed that evening; if he didn’t kill him,
who did? Answer me that, Miss Temple?”

As the questions followed each other, Evelyn felt as if the ground
were opening under her feet; she had still all the evidence of the
statuette, but she realized with a sudden pang that that did not
answer the one dreadful question, “Was his father alive when he left?”
She turned uneasily and saw Fairlie standing in the doorway; his guard
was down as he listened, and a terrible indecision was written on his
face. Evelyn read him like a book—his young master was accused; in
spite of the way he had tried to cover up the trail, it was known that
John had been there, and there was no one now alive except Fairlie
himself who could save him, and he could only save him by admitting
his own guilt—so Evelyn understood the look of doubt and agony with
which the old man’s usually settled face was working. Whether, left to
himself, he would have risen to a confession was never decided.
Humblethorne’s final words had been a challenge as one should say,
“Certainly I did overlook this dent which you admit you yourself only
found by accident, but what difference does it really make?” and
almost without thinking Evelyn took up the challenge.

“If he didn’t kill him, who did?” she repeated. “Look behind you!
There stands your answer in the shoes for which you have been
searching!”

Both men wheeled sharply. “Fairlie!” they gasped. The butler’s face
set again, just as if a curtain had fallen across the vivid drama
momentarily revealed; and he came forward, paler than usual, bowed
down a little by age and the fearful thoughts within him, but
retaining his imperturbable manner undiminished.

“I do not understand how you have ascertained the fact, Miss Evelyn,”
he said, searching her with a slow, keen glance, but speaking in his
normal, respectful voice; “but it is quite true that I killed Sir
Roger.”

“Take care!” cried Humblethorne sharply. “It is my duty to warn you
that anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”

“I quite understand that,” replied Fairlie with a characteristically
gracious inclination of his body towards Humblethorne. “I am obliged
to you, but since I have been discovered there is no further object in
concealment. I am not sorry,” he added wearily. “Perhaps you will
excuse me if I sit down a moment.” He seated himself after an
apologetic glance at Evelyn with the air of a man who has neither hope
nor fear of any future thing.

The two men were too taken aback at the extraordinary suddenness of
the accusation and confession to say a word: Evelyn was too
overwhelmed with the conflict in her mind, horror, pity and a kind of
dreadful fascination in this fulfilment of her labours.

“I will tell you how it happened,” resumed Fairlie slowly; “there has
been enough of mystery in this house. Will you tell me, Miss Evelyn,
how you found me out?”

“I knew that Mr. John couldn’t have done it when I found the dent in
the wall showing the box had missed,” she replied; “so I searched for
the real weapon. At first I thought—I didn’t know what to think. I
knew it was some one in the house; Miss Celia had not let Mr. John
out, nor broken the pantry window. By the way, when did you break
that?”

“About ten minutes to two yesterday, when the other servants were just
sitting down to dinner.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want Mr. John’s name brought into it; I was hurried the
night before and didn’t think of it. In the morning I saw from the
inspector’s questions that it was necessary to provide a way in for an
ordinary burglar, or else they would find out Mr. John had been here
and suspect him—though of course he had nothing whatever to do with
it—or get on my tracks, as you have done. But I don’t see how you did,
Miss Evelyn.”

“I found the statuette,” she said simply.

“The statuette?” exclaimed Humblethorne, bewildered.

“Yes, I will show it you later. Oh, I know you wiped it, Fairlie,” she
added, seeing mystification still on his face. “I have the
handkerchief you used both for that and for the window-sill, but the
right arm has plenty of stains on it still: then you left a footprint
on the wood below and marks of both thumbs on the pedestal when you
replaced it.”

The old man was silent for several minutes; then he said slowly—

“I have made many mistakes; I fear I am a poor criminal. I didn’t
think it out, you see. This was how it happened. I had locked up and
put the lights out and should have gone to bed only Sir Roger was
sitting up in his study with Mr. Castle, and I thought he might want
something and ring, and if he did he would be very angry if no one
came. So I busied myself with the silver and one thing and another to
pass the time; Sir Roger did not used to sit up late. I was in the
dining-room putting away the last of the silver when I heard him
coming along the passage. The door was ajar and I could hear him quite
well. The hall was in darkness, according to orders, as I told you.”
He inclined towards Humblethorne, who nodded. “But Sir Roger was very
contrary; I heard him swearing at me for not leaving a light on and
saying I was too old and he’d give me notice to-morrow. I stepped
across and put out the dining-room light for fear he should see it and
come in and give me notice then and there—that would have been like
him; he was very hasty always—and had hardly done so before I heard
him give a sharp exclamation. I wondered what was up, and I pulled the
door more open very quietly and looked out.

“I saw Miss Celia standing there in front of the drawing-room door,
and he was going on at her, insisting that she was up to some
mischief. And then she tried to pass him and go upstairs and he caught
hold of her arm. She gave a little cry—he was always rough, was Sir
Roger—and then out of the drawing-room came Mr. John. I hadn’t seen
him for ten years or more and nor had Sir Roger, but we both
recognized him at once. Sir Roger used dreadful language at him—you
know, of course, the way he drove him from home—and then ordered Miss
Celia to her room, saying he’d deal with her later. She was for
staying, but Mr. John saw she couldn’t do any good and he told her to
go too. Then Sir Roger began on Mr. John and called him all the things
he could think of, dreadful the way he went on, it was: and at last he
raised his stick and made as if to strike at him. Mr. John had stood
there very quietly, not saying a word—he knew it wasn’t no use—but
when he saw Sir Roger lift his stick at him he picked up that
cigarette box which was just by his hand and threw it at him, not
fierce-like but just to keep him off. It hit the wall and the
cigarettes fell all over the stairs—and Mr. John gave a short laugh
and ran back into the drawing-room: and I didn’t see him again.”

“What time was this?” interposed Humblethorne as Fairlie paused.

“Twelve o’clock struck just afterwards,” replied Fairlie.

“Well, what then?” interjected Birts after a moment’s silence.

“Then,” resumed Fairlie slowly, “I slipped away and turned up the back
stairs and round to the top there where I could see down into the
hall. I thought it was my duty to remonstrate with Sir Roger if he
intended to go to Miss Celia: in the state he was in he would have
thrashed her, as likely as not. I couldn’t stand by and see that. He
was still in the hall, muttering to himself. He was just below me and
it came over me all of a sudden. What with the fear of him giving me
notice and the fear of him lifting his hand to Miss Celia—but, there,
I can’t explain it. He heard me up there, looked up and somehow, when
I see his face like that, I felt that he wasn’t fit to live and I
tipped the statuette down on him. He just fell and never moved again.”

Fairlie paused, took out his handkerchief, blew his nose solemnly and
then replaced his handkerchief carefully.

“I was filled with horror,” he went on, “at what I had done,
naturally. But he was dead and couldn’t be brought to life again. It
was as I was going downstairs I saw how thoughtless I’d acted. People
that didn’t know him might think Mr. John had had a hand in it. So,
after seeing that Sir Roger was really dead, I went and fastened up
the drawing-room window, using my handkerchief, as Miss Evelyn
guessed, to clean the sill in case of boot-marks. Then I came back and
thought what was best to be done. First I picked up the cigarette box
and put it down beside Sir Roger—I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t
been agitated; I was just thinking that would seem as if Sir Roger had
come on some burglar, and, having shut Mr. John out, I didn’t think of
him any more—but I was agitated and didn’t think clear. Then I picked
up the statuette, wiped it with my handkerchief and put it back on the
bracket upstairs. If I hadn’t been hurried I should have seen I had
blood on my shoe. I made a great many mistakes.” He sighed deeply. “I
ought to have broken the pantry window then, but I didn’t think it
out. I saw that I had to be in bed when the body was found, and I knew
Mr. Castle was still in his study: so I hurried to my room and I only
just had time to get undressed and into bed before Mr. Castle came
along. That’s just what happened.” He sighed again heavily and sat
still, looking old and wearied but still indomitably respectable.

There was a long silence when he had finished, broken only by the
stertorous breathing of Birts as he waited for orders from his
superior officer; it was the most dramatic moment of Birts’s life and
would be told by him with proper pride for years afterwards.

“You will remain in charge of the prisoner, Birts,” said Humblethorne
at length. “I will see what Miss Temple has to show me.”

“Very good, sir,” replied Birts stolidly.

“Let us go up,” said Evelyn hurriedly; this was dreadful. She paused a
moment, hesitating before Fairlie: she could not leave him without a
word. “Oh, Fairlie,” she cried suddenly, “I am terribly sorry! Why,
why did you do it?”

“Don’t take on, Miss Evelyn,” Fairlie replied looking up, the light of
kindly affection coming for an instant over his sombre face. “What’s
done is done. I didn’t think things out: that was where I went wrong.”
His face settled back into solemn imperturbability, and with a heavy
load upon her heart Evelyn led Humblethorne upstairs.

When she had shown him the bracket on which the statuette had stood
and the footprint below it, she briefly described the course of her
investigations from that point, omitting, however, all reference to
her doubts of John and Philip. Then she took him to her room and
handed over to his charge the statuette and the handkerchief and the
glass and tray which had identified the thumb marks.

“I acted carefully on the information you kindly gave me,” she said.
“It was not as difficult as I had supposed.”

“You have certainly shown remarkable resource, and, if I may say so,
courage, Miss Temple,” Humblethorne remarked as he, fastened up the
evidence with much precaution against injury. “It was taking a serious
responsibility to handle this statuette after what you suspected.”

“Perhaps,” she returned vaguely: “it is necessary sometimes. At any
rate I have finished now, and I wish I had never started. It is
horrible to feel my hand has doomed one who has been really an old
friend.” She shuddered and then added, “Well, at any rate you need not
trouble about Mr. Penterton. This is the end.”

“Yes,” repeated Humblethorne thoughtfully, “this is the end—if Fairlie
is speaking the truth, the whole truth, I mean. But is he?”

Without waiting for an answer he bowed to Evelyn in acknowledgment of
her services and left the room.



CHAPTER XIV

Sight at Last

It was some minutes before Evelyn gathered her thoughts together after
Humblethorne’s parting remark: it startled her into fresh speculation
just when she thought she could at last put the whole dreadful
business firmly from her mind. Then resentment came to her rescue—

“How like that little man!” she thought. “He will never own that he
has been hopelessly wrong: he began by believing John did it and he
still believes it; well, what does it matter? He can’t bring a shred
of evidence to support what isn’t true.” With that she made a great
effort to throw off the fear he had left with her.

She looked into the room she used with Celia, hoping to find her
friend and tell her what had taken place. The room was empty, and
Evelyn remembered that Celia was sitting with her mother. They would
both have to know and she had better go and tell them at once for fear
of their hearing the news suddenly from a less sympathetic source.
However broken, it was bound to be a terrible shock to Lady Penterton:
Fairlie had been a servant to her and her father for over forty years
and there was a very real and deep attachment between them. It was an
unpleasant task, but she obviously could not avoid it.

Reluctantly she went along the passage to Lady Penterton’s boudoir. No
one was there, and she went on to the bedroom she had visited with the
first news of the tragedy: now she had to complete the tale. She
knocked lightly and entered; Celia was sitting in an armchair reading
in a low voice to her mother who was lying back in her bed, wan and
listless. As Evelyn looked at the fine, weary face, Celia’s
description of her mother the day before as ‘very quiet but somehow
very old’ returned to her mind with vivid force.

“Here’s Evelyn, mother,” said Celia, breaking off from her reading.

“How are you feeling to-day, Aunt Eleanor?” said Evelyn, bending over
the bed and kissing the old lady. “I thought you would be in your
boudoir.”

“I meant to get up, dear,” she replied in a dull voice.

“She did get as far as the loggia yesterday,” said Celia.

“Yes, the sun tempted me, but it tried me too much.” Lady Penterton
sighed and relapsed into silence. For a minute more Evelyn sat,
stroking tenderly the wrinkled hand.

“I have something to tell you both,” she said at length. “I am afraid
it will distress you. But you will have to know and it is better that
I should tell you than any one else.”

Lady Penterton turned her head wearily on the pillow towards her,
while Celia laid down her book with a sharp intake of the breath.

“I have stumbled more by chance than any skill on things the
detectives happened to overlook; they had a certain idea in their
heads,” she glanced across at Celia to try and read whether she had
told her mother of John, and received a quick negative shake of the
head, “and perhaps that blinded them to anything else; I don’t know.
But I found footmarks and finger-prints they had not seen; and I
followed them up.” She paused, uncertain how best to break the
conclusion of that following up.

Lady Penterton’s agitation at this talk of the tragedy was evident.

“My dear child,” she exclaimed, her hand tightening nervously on
Evelyn’s, “what an extraordinary thing for you to do!”

“Yes, perhaps it was,” admitted Evelyn, “but I didn’t stop to think
about that.”

“Oh, what did you find? How dreadful it all is!”

“I found,” said Evelyn slowly, unwillingly, “that it was done by
Fairlie.”

“By Fairlie!” uttered the old lady, turning so white that Evelyn
thought she was going to faint.

“It is dreadful, I know, but, when charged with it, he confessed.”

Celia started up, crying in amazement, “Fairlie!” and Lady Penterton
with a deep sigh, fell back, her fingers relaxed and she lay white and
still.

Both girls, terribly alarmed, bent over her; Evelyn ran to the
washstand for cold water and then said quickly to Celia, “Send for the
doctor! I’ll attend to her.” But as she spoke Lady Penterton recovered
herself, her lips moved, and then she said faintly, “Fairlie! Fairlie
confessed! Evelyn, was that what you said? No,” to Celia who was
slipping out, “stay with me; I don’t want any one.”

“I know it is terrible news for you, Aunt Eleanor,” Evelyn said very
gently; “but there is no doubt about it, I’m afraid. He did it by
flinging down the statuette of the little dancing girl that stands on
the bracket by the stairs; you know the one I mean.” She saw a sign of
understanding on Lady Penterton’s lips, as she lay rigidly still with
eyes closed, and continued, “He left his finger-marks on the pedestal
and a footprint underneath. Why he did it I hardly know; he doesn’t
really know himself. It was a mad impulse, which he says he can’t
explain.”

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Celia, pale with emotion. “Oh, how
dreadful!”

Lady Penterton lay, only her lips moving nervously, inaudibly, while
the two girls watched her with anxiety. At last she opened her eyes;
her lips closed tightly and it was obvious that she was making a great
effort to regain the self-possession from which she had been so
startlingly shaken.

“I should like to see him,” she said.

“Oh, mother!” exclaimed Celia in protest.

“He has been with me most of my life,” answered Lady Penterton simply.

“I felt the same,” said Evelyn in a low voice to Celia; “it will
distress her more if she doesn’t.” Then to Lady Penterton, “I will
fetch him.”

“Thank you, dear.” Lady Penterton closed her eyes again with a little
sigh as of a weariness almost intolerable.

Evelyn went downstairs and found Humblethorne and Birts on the point
of departure with Fairlie in their custody.

“I have just been with Lady Penterton and told her,” she said; “she
wishes to see Fairlie. May she? He has been with her so long she feels
she cannot let him go without saying a few words to him.”

“Well,” said Humblethorne, “it’s not exactly regular, but I don’t see
that there can be any harm in stretching a point.”

“It can do no good,” said Fairlie. “I do not wish to see her ladyship
in these altered circumstances.”

“Oh, Fairlie,” exclaimed the girl, “it will distress her so much more
if she doesn’t. Do this for her at least.”

Fairlie kept his eyes upon the ground and hesitated a long while. “It
can do no good,” he repeated doggedly.

“I am afraid she will be really ill unless she is given in to in this
little way. It need only be for a moment.”

“Well, for a moment, Miss Evelyn.” He straightened his bowed
shoulders. “But I am sure you will appreciate how painful it is for
me.”

“Yes, yes, I know, but just for a moment. She will feel less unhappy
afterwards.”

He signified that he assented, and the four of them went upstairs to
the bedroom. Evelyn knocked and entered first. “He is here, Aunt
Eleanor,” she said, “but he did not wish to come.”

“Fairlie, Fairlie!” cried the old lady, sitting up in her emotion with
a sudden accession of strength. “What does this mean?”

He remained obstinately silent; before the mistress he had served so
long and faithfully it was evident that he found it difficult to
maintain the air of stolid, half-resigned, half-defiant gloom which
had settled down upon him like a cloak; he shifted uneasily from one
foot to another, he kept his eyes on the carpet, and his breath came
irregularly.

“What a servant, what a friend you have always been, Fairlie!”
continued the old lady in the strained, high-pitched voice of intense
feeling, looking at him with wide eyes which glistened with tears. “In
the happy years before I married I remember you so well; in the long,
dark years afterwards you have been, oh, like a shield, standing by
ready to help always. And now!” Her gaze faltered and wandered from
the bowed, uneasy figure until it met Humblethorne’s, and she went on,
“You do not get servants like that nowadays; he has been with me over
forty years.” Her eyes left Humblethorne and rested on Evelyn. “How
clever you have been, Evelyn!” she exclaimed, as if a new thought had
entered her weary, restless brain. “I do not understand at all how you
made it out. Very clever—but quite wrong!”

“Wrong!” cried Evelyn, astounded.

“Yes, dear,” said Lady Penterton. “Fairlie didn’t kill Sir Roger,” she
paused for the fraction of a second as she looked at him: “I did!”

On all but one of her audience this announcement, delivered with such
rapidity that none could forecast the direction in which her
apparently haphazard remarks were tending, came with the effect of a
thunderclap. “You!” they cried in a single voice of stupefaction—but
on Fairlie the effect was very different. He started forward in the
attempt to check her speech, but was too late; then, seizing her hand,
he pressed it to his lips as he cried in tones of acutest distress,
“Oh, my lady, my lady, why did you speak? I would have died, willingly
I would.”

“I know; I believe you,” she answered, bending over him with a rare
tenderness; “but I could not allow that.”

“I don’t understand,” cried Evelyn, finding her voice at last. “You
killed him, Aunt Eleanor, you? But——”

“I will tell you all about it,” said Lady Penterton, still looking at
Fairlie and paying very little attention to anybody else. “I never
meant not to, only it was so terrible and got harder instead of
easier. It is very simple; it was quite an accident. Oh, I did not
mean to; did you think I did, Fairlie?”

“I didn’t know, my lady. I couldn’t see very clearly; it was too
dark.”

“Where were you?”

“Just inside the dining-room, my lady.”

“Oh, I see: that explains it.” She leant back and closed her eyes.

“I think,” said Humblethorne, after waiting several moments for her to
go on, “that we must hear everything now. I never thought Fairlie was
speaking the truth before.”

“But I was,” returned Fairlie, rising and facing the inspector; “up to
a point, that is. Everything I told you was as it happened up to the
time Sir Roger was left alone in the hall.”

“What happened then? The truth, this time.”

“Of course,” replied Fairlie with dignity. “I saw her ladyship look
over the stairs, wondering, I suppose, what was happening: the
cigarette box made a bit of noise hitting the wall and falling,
naturally, and I suppose her ladyship heard it.” He glanced in a
respectful way at Lady Penterton, but she was lying back as if
exhausted and made no sign. “Sir Roger stood there, muttering curses
under his breath and waving his stick, and I saw her ladyship lean
forward; the banisters creaked and Sir Roger looked up and then
something fell down and hit him on the forehead. Her ladyship gave a
little cry and stood there wringing her hands, and then after a minute
she came downstairs. She stood as if she didn’t dare go actually to
him; I think even then she was afraid of him and presently she made a
shuddering sound—I can’t describe it any differently—I saw her pick up
the statuette in a kind of wondering way and then she went upstairs as
if she was terrified. When she was at the top I saw her stop suddenly.
She was looking at what she had caught hold of in her hands; I could
see she didn’t know how it got there. She put it down and stood,
holding her elbow as if it hurt her and shaking in a kind of way as if
she didn’t know what she was doing, and then she gave a dreadful gasp
and I could hear her sobbing as she went along to her room. It was
terrible for me to hear her ladyship like that. Then I acted just as I
told you: I was afraid there would be stains on the statuette and that
it wasn’t put back proper.”

He stopped and looked at Lady Penterton, who raised herself up on one
elbow and gazed at him.

“If you had only told me you were there,” she said, “how much better
it would have been! Oh, the awfulness of that silent hall!” She
shuddered convulsively.

“Tell us everything, my lady,” said Humblethorne.

She did not seem at first to hear; it was some minutes before she
could gain control of herself and summon up the resolution to speak.

“It is very simple,” she said at last, tremblingly. “I was reading in
my boudoir later than usual—the book was interesting—and I was just
thinking of going to bed when I heard my husband’s voice raised in
anger in the hall. At first I tried to take no notice: it was,” she
paused and looked piteously at Fairlie before continuing, “it was not
uncommon. But it went on and at last I came out to listen. He was
standing at the foot of the stairs calling some one names—I could not
see whom and no one answered.”

Humblethorne shot a searching glance at Evelyn, who said in a whisper,
“She does not know. She has not been told.”

“The silence seemed to infuriate my husband—he was, I am afraid, like
that”—went on Lady Penterton, oblivious of this by-play, “he raised
his stick and cried out some threatening words. The person—it must
have been some one come on business, and my husband hated being
disturbed in that way, here—made a movement and then I saw something
bright hit the wall, and fall with a clatter, I don’t quite know what
it was, and then I heard steps of some one going away. My husband
remained where he was, but his anger was terrible to see. It
frightened me; I leant against the balusters, trembling, and they made
a noise. My husband looked up and saw me; I leaned over to speak to
him and I knocked against the statuette—I have the mark on my elbow
now—I was trembling so that I couldn’t catch it and it fell.”

She stopped, breathless, in terrible agitation. Celia went to her,
took her hand and held it in silence, and in a minute she went on
again more calmly.

“I ought to have told somebody at once, of course I ought. If I had
known Fairlie was there, I would have called to him. But there seemed
to be no one. I listened and could not hear a sound. I came down and
called to my husband in a whisper, but he did not answer and I was
afraid. Then I don’t know what happened—I don’t remember anything
clearly: I found myself at the top of the stairs with that dreadful
statuette in my hands. I could not think: I don’t really remember what
I did; I was terrified and I hurried to my room. I had lent my maid to
Miss Penterton: there was no one there. My mind was making strange
patterns and it was difficult to see: I got to bed, I do not remember
how. And then I could think, and the worst was I could not, I could
not cry; I tried to, but I could not. I suppose I was too terrified.
It was such a dreadful end to his life, that he should have died like
that whilst he was so angry. It was so dreadful that it should have
been through me, his wife. I have tried so hard always, and then this
happened. If I had been a bad wife, I should not have minded so much;
but I have tried always to be patient. And then you came,” addressing
Evelyn, “and told me he had been found. Oh, what a relief that was!
But I could not tell you then. I did not care about any one finding
out; I did not care about anything, but I could not tell any one; it
was too dreadful. Only when you told me it was Fairlie and he had
confessed—I saw then he was trying to save me, as he has tried all my
married life, and I had to tell.”

She fell silent and Humblethorne was just about to speak when a voice
was heard outside, a rapid knock shook the door, which was flung open
and John Penterton entered. His glance swept the company with surprise
and, encountering Humblethorne, took on a vague recognition, but his
whole interest was with his mother, who gave a sudden, wild cry,
“John! my boy, my boy!”

She stretched out her arms to him and he went straight to them.

“I did not know any one was with you, mother,” he said as soon as he
could speak. “I was told you were in your bedroom and came straight
up. I saw the awful news in the paper, and started as soon as I
could.”

“Didn’t you get my letter?” cried Celia in surprise.

“No; I have had no letter,” he answered. “But I saw I must come here
at once. It was obvious from the account that it was the only thing I
could do to clear myself as I had been here that night.”

“As you had been here, John!” cried the old lady in a voice rising
almost to a scream. “Was it you? Was it you down there? Merciful
heavens, why wasn’t I told? Oh, my boy, they might have suspected
you!”

Humblethorne had no longer the least doubt that he had now heard the
whole truth of the mysterious tragedy: the old lady’s tears of welcome
and joy at the sudden appearance of her son had dispelled from it the
last uncertainty. He rose to the occasion now. “No one, my lady,” he
said with a grand air, “had any real reason to do that.” He opened the
door and, summoning the agape Birts with his eye, said as he passed
through, “You will wish to be alone now with him, no doubt, my lady.”
Birts and Fairlie followed him, and Evelyn also left brother and
sister to explain everything to one another and to their mother.

“If you don’t mind taking a tip from me, Miss Temple,” she heard
Humblethorne saying in her ear as they went along the passage, “you
have a real gift, but you make one mistake.”

“What is that?” she asked without the least interest.

“In thinking that there can be only one explanation of any set of
facts,” he replied. “Now I have had years of experience and I know
that the same facts can often be explained in several different ways.
And you see now that I’m right.”

“Yes,” she answered slowly, “I see now: it is wonderful to see at
last, isn’t it?”


The End



TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE

This transcription follows the text of the 1917 edition published by
Longmans, Green and Co., with the exception of the following changes,
made to correct what are believed to be unambiguous errors.

 * One occurrence of “Inspecter” has been changed to “Inspector”.
 * An extraneous quotation mark has been deleted.





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