XIII.The WeaponSuddenly, and very softly, Superintendent Salt was among us once more. I knew of his presence only when I heard him speak.“My Lord, one more question, if you please. The man—Soames I believe his name is—who has just conducted me to the cellars says you gave him a letter to post last evening.”“I did—confound him! I handed it to him and expressed a wish that if the storm should cease as suddenly as it commenced, it might reach New Aidenn in time to go out in this morning’s post. Of course, when the downpour showed no sign of abating, I had it back.”“I presumed so, my Lord. In that case, I shall have to see the letter, with your permission.”“And that you certainly shall not!”Salt was like the everlasting hills. “Only the envelope, my Lord. The superscription is all I need to see.”After a long ten-seconds’ hesitation Lord Herbert drew a letter from his breast-pocket and held it close to the Superintendent’s face. Salt peered.“Hm. Is that it? Seems to be. Stamp uncancelled. To the Bangor and Newcastle Corporation, eh? 12 Gate Street, London, E. C. Very innocent, I’m sure, my Lord. Thank you.”I saw the quick purple flash into the Baron’s face when Salt read aloud the words intended only for his eye. “I consider this an impertinence, sir.”“To be called things is all in my day’s work, my Lord,” responded Salt, and turning to Pendleton, he said, “You ought to open a little Post Office here.”“What on earth for?”“For surreptitious mail.”“Bangor and Newcastle Corporation,” I could not help repeating puzzledly, half-aloud, I fear. “What on earth connection can there be between little Bangor with its agriculture and Druid Circle, and the coal and battleships of Newcastle-on-Tyne?”Ludlow said nothing, but I observed in his eye and in the hook of his bloodless lip a sublime contempt for my ignorance.But at that moment everyone save me was looking toward the door leading to the Hall of the Moth, which had opened sufficiently to admit first the head and then the rest of Blenkinson. Again the look of transcendence appeared natural, even casual on his person. Spiritual transcendence, that is, for bodily he was in great bedragglement, as if he had wallowed in the rain just before it ended.“Mr. Salt, I beg to report that the weapon ’as been found. I ’ave left it where I and Finlay discovered it, almost—”I think the feeling of elation that visited me was shared by nearly everyone in the conservatory. I saw faces brightening. But Salt’s did not.The Superintendent gave one leap toward Blenkinson, cutting him dead off in the midst of his glory.“Mr. Blenkinson, your admirable researches—invaluable assistance—indispensable services—fill me with alarm. Please be more discreet. Inform me in private of your discoveries, and letmebe the judge whether they are to be shared by these ladies and gentlemen. For, mind you,technically, every person here is under suspicion—and that goes for you, too, Mr. Blenkinson. You may, or may not, be revealin’ something valuable to the murderer himself.”Under this withering sardonic fire the smug efficiency of the butler had fallen ingloriously. “I’m—‘gulp’—very sorry, sir, but—‘gulp’—the fact is, I was so helated—‘gulp’—that I—”“Quite,” agreed Salt; “quite. And now, Mr. Blenkinson, if you please, lead the way to this weapon, whatever it is.” He thrust the butler before him through the door into the Hall, and looked back upon the threshold. “Kindly do not let your curiosity to see Mr. Blenkinson’s find tempt you to follow us, any of you. Thank you.” The door closed.The weapon found! Tongues were wagging anew. I thought of the difference between Salt’s previous assurance to us that the solution was to be sought among the many missing persons, and his recent proclamation that no one in the House was exempt as a possible murderer. Then in the midst of the babble came a still voice close behind me. I turned; Doctor Aire was leaning over the piano, his abbreviated form easily sheltering underneath the lifted cover.“Mr. Bannerlee, how about a stroll up the Vale, now it promises fair weather? Mr. Salt has admonished us to go in pairs.”“Up the Vale—now? You must be emulating Noah himself, Doctor! The waters haven’t yet descended from Ararat.”“I want to get rid of this cursed miasma of flowers. It’s like some noxious emanation. My head aches with odours.”“But surely it’s out of the question. Why, after this downpour, the Vale’s certain to be swampland all the way up to Water-break-its-neck.”The yellowy doctor shook his head, smiling. “Strange, but you’re wrong. You should really dig into the lore of this region, Mr. Bannerlee. The Welsh name of our locality, I have read, is Maesyfed.”“Oh? Meaning?”“The absorbent field, probably. For the thirsty soil does wonders after rain; in summer even Aidenn Water sinks underground for long distances and leaves its channel dry.”“Well, I’m in favour of getting out of here if it can be done.”“It can; I know from previous visits. We’ll give the sun and soil a couple of hours to restore dry footing.”“Well enough. I’ll meet you in the library.”Salt re-entered just then and took Aire away with a few whispered words. I wandered into the dinner-room where stragglers were sitting at belated luncheon, for since yesterday’s disaster the schedule of meals seems to have fallen into anarchy. I did not stay long at the board, however; perhaps the fumes of the conservatory had stopped the pangs of appetite. I excused myself and crossed to the armoury, intending first to glance over the array of the library shelves in the hope of discovering something of interest, then to go to my room and set down some of the multitudinous details of last night and to-day.But I never got as far as the library. I heard a strenuous young voice through its door ajar:“Ah, g’wan. You make me laugh—you. When they put a lily in your hand, you’ll deserve the Good Boy’s Epitaph.”“What’s that?” demanded Bob suspiciously.“ ‘He loved his grandmother.’ ”“You think you’re funny, don’t you? Well, I wasn’t crazy about this Cosgrove. I would have been ready to do him in. He was no good for Paula, even if he did have all that coin. He was a fast worker, that’s what he was. I guess you ought to know. He was a dirty bum.”“ ‘Swine’ is what you say in this country.”“I said I’d have polished him off, and I meant it. Wouldn’t you?”“Hush up, Bobby. Keep that stuff under your hat. You don’t want somebody to overhear you talking crazy, do you?”“Well, wouldn’t you?”Lib lowered her voice and spoke rapidly. “Yes, I would, for a brick like Paula. My God, what a man Cosgrove was! And she fell for him!” Then, “Change the subject, change the subject! To hear you talk like that would give an alligator nervous prostration. Suppose a few of those detectives were in the armoury.”There was a spell of silence, sharply broken by Lib. “Leggo my hand! What do you think this is, a golf links?”“You tol’ me to change the subject,” said Bob with deep grievance.“Don’t be sil. Say, I think thereissomebody in there. Look quick.”But I had fled into the corridor and, laughing heartily within, was half-way up the stairs.In my room I immersed myself in that task of writing which has become almost my principal interest. I quite lost track of time while I wrote of Salt’s arrival last evening and the rest of it. With a start I recalled Aire, looked at my watch, and leaped down the stairs. It was nearly four.The short, spindly-legged man was waiting, and with a touch of annoyance I saw that Maryvale was consulting some book in a corner of the library, a book which he put down upon my arrival as if he expected to accompany us.“Gilbert has consented to come along.”“Oh? Glad.”The sky was unblemished with cloud when we set out for that supposedly uneventful walk in the bracing hill-air, but the sun had sloped nearly to the high horizon of the ridge, and the light already had in it a subtle infiltration of yellow. Some jewels still glittered on the lawn, but the turf was surprisingly firm and pleasant to the tread.We struck under the shade of the cypresses; through the systematic “wilderness” of planted trees we strode, toward the pretentious bridge, past the mouldering eighteenth-century summer-house, a thing quite dismantled and defeated and gutted out. Once I had fancied it as a possible hiding-place for mysterious visitants, but now I rejected it utterly. The old smooth lawns there were now ragged stretches of rough grass, still heavy with the rain where they lay beneath any trees, and sluggish lake-like ponds were the remains of once sparkling basins.Aire paused where a grey fallen statue and its pedestal lay beside one of these sad meres, a place where the trees had hunched their shoulders together to make an extra twilight shade.“About here, they say, a former occupant of the mansion, the one who built that summer-house, was found.”“How found?”“Dead, Mr. Bannerlee, with his head neatly shorn away from the rest of him. That was nearly two hundred years ago.” He grunted. “The chapoughtto have been killed for putting up that thing.”“Good heavens! Who had done it?”“I wish I could tell you. He was never discovered. I don’t think the victim was a very popular gentleman; so there may have been connivance in keeping the secret locked away. A baffling affair it must have been for the Salts of that day. The time-and-space problem was mystifying then as now it is in Cosgrove’s death.”I looked curiously at the little man with the broad shoulders. “Doctor, you certainly hit upon the queerest tales. Where could you have found that recorded?”“On a special pasted-in leaf of an old family Bible. Quite a fascinating library Crofts owns without comprehending it.”“This is accursed ground,” said Maryvale. “It reeks with lawless bloodshed.”We left the park with its sickly poetry and bore to the right by a field-path toward the prosaic potato-patch of the sisters Delambre, where the scarecrow bore almost too great a likeness to Baron Ludlow in his tweeds to be laid to coincidence. It was here that the brook later spanned by the absurd bridge came down from the indentation of the hill. We followed the narrow channel, where the rain-swollen stream now leaped against its banks, to where the deserted cottage stood in an oak-clump. The morsel of a stone-roofed house gave only a shy peep from its covert; it was like a doll’s house, dwarfed by overshadowing branches.“Do you think it possible that these women were concerned either last night or the night before? What were they like?”“Cranky Frenchwomen. I’ve seen them on previous visits,” answered Aire. “They always gave me the impression of being a couple of—well, I might say unfrocked nuns, if you understand.”“Sounds rather ambiguous, Doctor,” I remarked.I was suddenly put in mind of a tale I had heard in another spot of demon-haunted Wales, and I told it with some gusto. There two sisters had lived together and managed a small farm with the aid of one man. They were unfamiliar people and the country-folk were turned askance to them. The pair would vanish at a particular time of day, and their hats would be hanging in their bedrooms upon the looking-glass. One afternoon the farmhand hid under their bed to find out their secret. He saw them take off their caps and hang them on the glass, whereupon they themselves immediately turned to cats, and ran to the dairy and began lapping the cream.A somewhat dubious look upon Aire’s face as he gazed at Maryvale during my recital was, I fear, lost on me, for it gave me a thrilling pleasure to apply this tale to the sisters Delambre, particularly since in that grimalkin of appalling voice they had a fit companion for many an impious Sabbath.“And by the way,” I concluded, “the beast spared us its caterwauling last night.”“Last night, but not to-night,” said Maryvale. “It will be hungrier than ever to-night. We shall hear it, unless—”“Unless what?”“We shall see,” he parried.“It’s a vicious beast, if ever there was one,” said Aire, looking in one of the cottage windows. “It’s twice the size you’d believe it could attain. There’s never been any other cat in the Vale whose nine lives were worth sixpence when this animal discovered its presence.”“And the birds,” added Maryvale. “The nightingales that once loved this valley so—scarcely one is left.”Returning toward Aidenn Water at a point somewhat further north, we heard from beyond a gnarl of blackberry bushes the sound of footsteps and voices which proved to be those of Salt, wearing rubber boots, and of Hughes the keeper. They were making their way up the stream by the principal path, and I noticed that Hughes bore an axe of considerable heft.Salt greeted us while we fell into step. “Sensible to get out of doors.”“But you’re not here for your health, I fancy,” said Aire.“I am not. Mr. Hughes here and I are going to devote the last hour of daylight to satisfyin’ ourselves about traces of the assassin on the other side of the Vale. We’ve scoured north, south, east, and west on this side of the stream, and never a footprint of him or anybody else. Mr. Pendleton seemed a bit anxious we shouldn’t overlook the chance, and it is a chance.”“What is that axe for?” suddenly demanded Maryvale.“To chop down a tree, sir,” answered Hughes. “I know where I can make one fall across the Water. It’s the only way to get over.”“I thought as much,” I said. “What, just, is the state of things down at the bridge?”“There isn’t a trace of it left, sir,” Salt informed me. “Sometime last night the stone ends were undermined by the current. There are men on the other side, though, riggin’ up a makeshift, and to-morrow, maybe, if the stream goes down reasonably, we can get out of here, and get Mr. Cosgrove’s body out, too.”Hughes pointed to the north, where the zigzag path down the mountain had been obliterated by the landslip. “Men from Penybont beyond the Forest are coming from the other side to clear that up to-morrow, too.”“Well, someone must have been moving heaven and earth!”“Yes, sir; Mr. Pendleton was quite busy on the ’phone this afternoon.”“That telephone is not the least of our miracles,” I observed. “I should have expected the line to be smashed to smithereens by the storm.”“Our wires run underground, sir,” said the keeper.“What!”“Yes, sir, all the way to New Aidenn. There was too much trouble with it the other way; so Mr. Pendleton had it changed. Now nothing ever interferes with it.”I remembered something. “To bring into this discussion an element sadly wanting—”“What’s that?”“Disclosures. Tell me, Superintendent, does the pall of official secrecy still cover the weapon discovered by the astute Blenkinson?”“Not much use trying to keep anything secret hereabout,” said Salt with a smile, which made me wonder what recent discoveries actually reposed undivulged beneath that sodden hat and those iron-grey curly locks. “The lid is off that little matter.”“Itisthe weapon? What had Blenkinson found?”“A piece of angular slate, well shaped for holdin’, provided with an almost sharp edge. Queer, isn’t it? Here’s a chap—I mean the guilty party—helped himself to what he wanted out of the armoury the night before; now, when he’s in a killin’ mood, he fetches along a stone. Plenty of rock like it in the Vale, of course. Seems likely, though, that it was picked up from that gimcrack rockery old Finlay wants to get rid of—just opposite the tower where Cosgrove was found.”“You’re sure it’s the instrument?” I asked.Salt looked at Aire, who said, “The Superintendent called in Doctor Niblett and me for our opinions on that point. The Coroner and I agree that in the hands of a vigorous person, who must have approached Cosgrove secretly from behind, the stone might well have done the damage.”“But where was it lying?” I asked, with incredulity sounding in my tone. “How could we have missed it?”“It wasn’t lyin’ anywhere,” answered Salt. “That’s a feature about it. It was embedded, sir, almost buried among the flowers outside the central windows of the Hall. If the rain hadn’t played hob with the beds, and the man Finlay with Mr. Blenkinson hadn’t been assessin’ the damage, it might have remained there unnoticed for a tidy while.”“By Jove, though, that’s a far-fetched hiding-place.”Salt raised his brows. “Is it? I think it was a clever one, sir. One second he strikes the blow, the next he hurls the weapon straight down into the loam. Inside half a minute he may be anywhere, and nothin’ to connect him with the crime. Just a little more energy, and the earth would have fallen in about the edges and covered the stone completely. But as it was it must have taken strength, gigantic strength.”“It must have taken superhuman strength, Mr. Salt. Why, there had been rain, but it blew a bit easterly then, and those beds couldn’t have got much of it. It was nothing like last night’s inundation. The ground must have been hard.”“On the contrary, the ground was exceedingly soft. Remember what it said in Mr. Blenkinson’s document, sir. Finlay had been waterin’ those very beds, and waterin’ ’em plenty after four o’clock.”“Were there any marks on this stone?” asked Maryvale. “Any signs such as I understand often guide the police in their search?”“No, sir, none. And—”“I thought so.”Ignoring this somewhat cryptic remark, Salt explained: “Unpolished stone isn’t a good medium for takin’ impressions. I’ll stake my little finger, though, it was the stone that finished Mr. Cosgrove.”“Here we turn off, sir,” advised Hughes.We had been in sight of Aidenn Water much of the time, its cheerful flow increased to boiling spate. Through a partly cleared copse of larch, we could see it now, laughing with white teeth and greedy gurgle along a sort of rapids. The particular tree Hughes intended to chop was visible, already leaning half across the flood.Somewhat to my discomfiture, Aire announced that he intended to accompany the pair across the stream. “Don’t mind, do you, Bannerlee? I want to be in at the death of Pendleton’s theory. Or will you two come along with us? Any objection, Superintendent?”“More the merrier,” said Salt.But I cared nothing for the death of any theory compared with my eagerness to get farther north and see the great ruin beneath the hills again. Maryvale had no love for the thought of crossing above the churlish Water on a tree-trunk, and said so. We left the three proceeding to the bank of the stream, but I confess it was with a pang of premonition that I paced beside the man of business and heard the sound of the lusty axe grow fainter and fainter.
Suddenly, and very softly, Superintendent Salt was among us once more. I knew of his presence only when I heard him speak.
“My Lord, one more question, if you please. The man—Soames I believe his name is—who has just conducted me to the cellars says you gave him a letter to post last evening.”
“I did—confound him! I handed it to him and expressed a wish that if the storm should cease as suddenly as it commenced, it might reach New Aidenn in time to go out in this morning’s post. Of course, when the downpour showed no sign of abating, I had it back.”
“I presumed so, my Lord. In that case, I shall have to see the letter, with your permission.”
“And that you certainly shall not!”
Salt was like the everlasting hills. “Only the envelope, my Lord. The superscription is all I need to see.”
After a long ten-seconds’ hesitation Lord Herbert drew a letter from his breast-pocket and held it close to the Superintendent’s face. Salt peered.
“Hm. Is that it? Seems to be. Stamp uncancelled. To the Bangor and Newcastle Corporation, eh? 12 Gate Street, London, E. C. Very innocent, I’m sure, my Lord. Thank you.”
I saw the quick purple flash into the Baron’s face when Salt read aloud the words intended only for his eye. “I consider this an impertinence, sir.”
“To be called things is all in my day’s work, my Lord,” responded Salt, and turning to Pendleton, he said, “You ought to open a little Post Office here.”
“What on earth for?”
“For surreptitious mail.”
“Bangor and Newcastle Corporation,” I could not help repeating puzzledly, half-aloud, I fear. “What on earth connection can there be between little Bangor with its agriculture and Druid Circle, and the coal and battleships of Newcastle-on-Tyne?”
Ludlow said nothing, but I observed in his eye and in the hook of his bloodless lip a sublime contempt for my ignorance.
But at that moment everyone save me was looking toward the door leading to the Hall of the Moth, which had opened sufficiently to admit first the head and then the rest of Blenkinson. Again the look of transcendence appeared natural, even casual on his person. Spiritual transcendence, that is, for bodily he was in great bedragglement, as if he had wallowed in the rain just before it ended.
“Mr. Salt, I beg to report that the weapon ’as been found. I ’ave left it where I and Finlay discovered it, almost—”
I think the feeling of elation that visited me was shared by nearly everyone in the conservatory. I saw faces brightening. But Salt’s did not.
The Superintendent gave one leap toward Blenkinson, cutting him dead off in the midst of his glory.
“Mr. Blenkinson, your admirable researches—invaluable assistance—indispensable services—fill me with alarm. Please be more discreet. Inform me in private of your discoveries, and letmebe the judge whether they are to be shared by these ladies and gentlemen. For, mind you,technically, every person here is under suspicion—and that goes for you, too, Mr. Blenkinson. You may, or may not, be revealin’ something valuable to the murderer himself.”
Under this withering sardonic fire the smug efficiency of the butler had fallen ingloriously. “I’m—‘gulp’—very sorry, sir, but—‘gulp’—the fact is, I was so helated—‘gulp’—that I—”
“Quite,” agreed Salt; “quite. And now, Mr. Blenkinson, if you please, lead the way to this weapon, whatever it is.” He thrust the butler before him through the door into the Hall, and looked back upon the threshold. “Kindly do not let your curiosity to see Mr. Blenkinson’s find tempt you to follow us, any of you. Thank you.” The door closed.
The weapon found! Tongues were wagging anew. I thought of the difference between Salt’s previous assurance to us that the solution was to be sought among the many missing persons, and his recent proclamation that no one in the House was exempt as a possible murderer. Then in the midst of the babble came a still voice close behind me. I turned; Doctor Aire was leaning over the piano, his abbreviated form easily sheltering underneath the lifted cover.
“Mr. Bannerlee, how about a stroll up the Vale, now it promises fair weather? Mr. Salt has admonished us to go in pairs.”
“Up the Vale—now? You must be emulating Noah himself, Doctor! The waters haven’t yet descended from Ararat.”
“I want to get rid of this cursed miasma of flowers. It’s like some noxious emanation. My head aches with odours.”
“But surely it’s out of the question. Why, after this downpour, the Vale’s certain to be swampland all the way up to Water-break-its-neck.”
The yellowy doctor shook his head, smiling. “Strange, but you’re wrong. You should really dig into the lore of this region, Mr. Bannerlee. The Welsh name of our locality, I have read, is Maesyfed.”
“Oh? Meaning?”
“The absorbent field, probably. For the thirsty soil does wonders after rain; in summer even Aidenn Water sinks underground for long distances and leaves its channel dry.”
“Well, I’m in favour of getting out of here if it can be done.”
“It can; I know from previous visits. We’ll give the sun and soil a couple of hours to restore dry footing.”
“Well enough. I’ll meet you in the library.”
Salt re-entered just then and took Aire away with a few whispered words. I wandered into the dinner-room where stragglers were sitting at belated luncheon, for since yesterday’s disaster the schedule of meals seems to have fallen into anarchy. I did not stay long at the board, however; perhaps the fumes of the conservatory had stopped the pangs of appetite. I excused myself and crossed to the armoury, intending first to glance over the array of the library shelves in the hope of discovering something of interest, then to go to my room and set down some of the multitudinous details of last night and to-day.
But I never got as far as the library. I heard a strenuous young voice through its door ajar:
“Ah, g’wan. You make me laugh—you. When they put a lily in your hand, you’ll deserve the Good Boy’s Epitaph.”
“What’s that?” demanded Bob suspiciously.
“ ‘He loved his grandmother.’ ”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you? Well, I wasn’t crazy about this Cosgrove. I would have been ready to do him in. He was no good for Paula, even if he did have all that coin. He was a fast worker, that’s what he was. I guess you ought to know. He was a dirty bum.”
“ ‘Swine’ is what you say in this country.”
“I said I’d have polished him off, and I meant it. Wouldn’t you?”
“Hush up, Bobby. Keep that stuff under your hat. You don’t want somebody to overhear you talking crazy, do you?”
“Well, wouldn’t you?”
Lib lowered her voice and spoke rapidly. “Yes, I would, for a brick like Paula. My God, what a man Cosgrove was! And she fell for him!” Then, “Change the subject, change the subject! To hear you talk like that would give an alligator nervous prostration. Suppose a few of those detectives were in the armoury.”
There was a spell of silence, sharply broken by Lib. “Leggo my hand! What do you think this is, a golf links?”
“You tol’ me to change the subject,” said Bob with deep grievance.
“Don’t be sil. Say, I think thereissomebody in there. Look quick.”
But I had fled into the corridor and, laughing heartily within, was half-way up the stairs.
In my room I immersed myself in that task of writing which has become almost my principal interest. I quite lost track of time while I wrote of Salt’s arrival last evening and the rest of it. With a start I recalled Aire, looked at my watch, and leaped down the stairs. It was nearly four.
The short, spindly-legged man was waiting, and with a touch of annoyance I saw that Maryvale was consulting some book in a corner of the library, a book which he put down upon my arrival as if he expected to accompany us.
“Gilbert has consented to come along.”
“Oh? Glad.”
The sky was unblemished with cloud when we set out for that supposedly uneventful walk in the bracing hill-air, but the sun had sloped nearly to the high horizon of the ridge, and the light already had in it a subtle infiltration of yellow. Some jewels still glittered on the lawn, but the turf was surprisingly firm and pleasant to the tread.
We struck under the shade of the cypresses; through the systematic “wilderness” of planted trees we strode, toward the pretentious bridge, past the mouldering eighteenth-century summer-house, a thing quite dismantled and defeated and gutted out. Once I had fancied it as a possible hiding-place for mysterious visitants, but now I rejected it utterly. The old smooth lawns there were now ragged stretches of rough grass, still heavy with the rain where they lay beneath any trees, and sluggish lake-like ponds were the remains of once sparkling basins.
Aire paused where a grey fallen statue and its pedestal lay beside one of these sad meres, a place where the trees had hunched their shoulders together to make an extra twilight shade.
“About here, they say, a former occupant of the mansion, the one who built that summer-house, was found.”
“How found?”
“Dead, Mr. Bannerlee, with his head neatly shorn away from the rest of him. That was nearly two hundred years ago.” He grunted. “The chapoughtto have been killed for putting up that thing.”
“Good heavens! Who had done it?”
“I wish I could tell you. He was never discovered. I don’t think the victim was a very popular gentleman; so there may have been connivance in keeping the secret locked away. A baffling affair it must have been for the Salts of that day. The time-and-space problem was mystifying then as now it is in Cosgrove’s death.”
I looked curiously at the little man with the broad shoulders. “Doctor, you certainly hit upon the queerest tales. Where could you have found that recorded?”
“On a special pasted-in leaf of an old family Bible. Quite a fascinating library Crofts owns without comprehending it.”
“This is accursed ground,” said Maryvale. “It reeks with lawless bloodshed.”
We left the park with its sickly poetry and bore to the right by a field-path toward the prosaic potato-patch of the sisters Delambre, where the scarecrow bore almost too great a likeness to Baron Ludlow in his tweeds to be laid to coincidence. It was here that the brook later spanned by the absurd bridge came down from the indentation of the hill. We followed the narrow channel, where the rain-swollen stream now leaped against its banks, to where the deserted cottage stood in an oak-clump. The morsel of a stone-roofed house gave only a shy peep from its covert; it was like a doll’s house, dwarfed by overshadowing branches.
“Do you think it possible that these women were concerned either last night or the night before? What were they like?”
“Cranky Frenchwomen. I’ve seen them on previous visits,” answered Aire. “They always gave me the impression of being a couple of—well, I might say unfrocked nuns, if you understand.”
“Sounds rather ambiguous, Doctor,” I remarked.
I was suddenly put in mind of a tale I had heard in another spot of demon-haunted Wales, and I told it with some gusto. There two sisters had lived together and managed a small farm with the aid of one man. They were unfamiliar people and the country-folk were turned askance to them. The pair would vanish at a particular time of day, and their hats would be hanging in their bedrooms upon the looking-glass. One afternoon the farmhand hid under their bed to find out their secret. He saw them take off their caps and hang them on the glass, whereupon they themselves immediately turned to cats, and ran to the dairy and began lapping the cream.
A somewhat dubious look upon Aire’s face as he gazed at Maryvale during my recital was, I fear, lost on me, for it gave me a thrilling pleasure to apply this tale to the sisters Delambre, particularly since in that grimalkin of appalling voice they had a fit companion for many an impious Sabbath.
“And by the way,” I concluded, “the beast spared us its caterwauling last night.”
“Last night, but not to-night,” said Maryvale. “It will be hungrier than ever to-night. We shall hear it, unless—”
“Unless what?”
“We shall see,” he parried.
“It’s a vicious beast, if ever there was one,” said Aire, looking in one of the cottage windows. “It’s twice the size you’d believe it could attain. There’s never been any other cat in the Vale whose nine lives were worth sixpence when this animal discovered its presence.”
“And the birds,” added Maryvale. “The nightingales that once loved this valley so—scarcely one is left.”
Returning toward Aidenn Water at a point somewhat further north, we heard from beyond a gnarl of blackberry bushes the sound of footsteps and voices which proved to be those of Salt, wearing rubber boots, and of Hughes the keeper. They were making their way up the stream by the principal path, and I noticed that Hughes bore an axe of considerable heft.
Salt greeted us while we fell into step. “Sensible to get out of doors.”
“But you’re not here for your health, I fancy,” said Aire.
“I am not. Mr. Hughes here and I are going to devote the last hour of daylight to satisfyin’ ourselves about traces of the assassin on the other side of the Vale. We’ve scoured north, south, east, and west on this side of the stream, and never a footprint of him or anybody else. Mr. Pendleton seemed a bit anxious we shouldn’t overlook the chance, and it is a chance.”
“What is that axe for?” suddenly demanded Maryvale.
“To chop down a tree, sir,” answered Hughes. “I know where I can make one fall across the Water. It’s the only way to get over.”
“I thought as much,” I said. “What, just, is the state of things down at the bridge?”
“There isn’t a trace of it left, sir,” Salt informed me. “Sometime last night the stone ends were undermined by the current. There are men on the other side, though, riggin’ up a makeshift, and to-morrow, maybe, if the stream goes down reasonably, we can get out of here, and get Mr. Cosgrove’s body out, too.”
Hughes pointed to the north, where the zigzag path down the mountain had been obliterated by the landslip. “Men from Penybont beyond the Forest are coming from the other side to clear that up to-morrow, too.”
“Well, someone must have been moving heaven and earth!”
“Yes, sir; Mr. Pendleton was quite busy on the ’phone this afternoon.”
“That telephone is not the least of our miracles,” I observed. “I should have expected the line to be smashed to smithereens by the storm.”
“Our wires run underground, sir,” said the keeper.
“What!”
“Yes, sir, all the way to New Aidenn. There was too much trouble with it the other way; so Mr. Pendleton had it changed. Now nothing ever interferes with it.”
I remembered something. “To bring into this discussion an element sadly wanting—”
“What’s that?”
“Disclosures. Tell me, Superintendent, does the pall of official secrecy still cover the weapon discovered by the astute Blenkinson?”
“Not much use trying to keep anything secret hereabout,” said Salt with a smile, which made me wonder what recent discoveries actually reposed undivulged beneath that sodden hat and those iron-grey curly locks. “The lid is off that little matter.”
“Itisthe weapon? What had Blenkinson found?”
“A piece of angular slate, well shaped for holdin’, provided with an almost sharp edge. Queer, isn’t it? Here’s a chap—I mean the guilty party—helped himself to what he wanted out of the armoury the night before; now, when he’s in a killin’ mood, he fetches along a stone. Plenty of rock like it in the Vale, of course. Seems likely, though, that it was picked up from that gimcrack rockery old Finlay wants to get rid of—just opposite the tower where Cosgrove was found.”
“You’re sure it’s the instrument?” I asked.
Salt looked at Aire, who said, “The Superintendent called in Doctor Niblett and me for our opinions on that point. The Coroner and I agree that in the hands of a vigorous person, who must have approached Cosgrove secretly from behind, the stone might well have done the damage.”
“But where was it lying?” I asked, with incredulity sounding in my tone. “How could we have missed it?”
“It wasn’t lyin’ anywhere,” answered Salt. “That’s a feature about it. It was embedded, sir, almost buried among the flowers outside the central windows of the Hall. If the rain hadn’t played hob with the beds, and the man Finlay with Mr. Blenkinson hadn’t been assessin’ the damage, it might have remained there unnoticed for a tidy while.”
“By Jove, though, that’s a far-fetched hiding-place.”
Salt raised his brows. “Is it? I think it was a clever one, sir. One second he strikes the blow, the next he hurls the weapon straight down into the loam. Inside half a minute he may be anywhere, and nothin’ to connect him with the crime. Just a little more energy, and the earth would have fallen in about the edges and covered the stone completely. But as it was it must have taken strength, gigantic strength.”
“It must have taken superhuman strength, Mr. Salt. Why, there had been rain, but it blew a bit easterly then, and those beds couldn’t have got much of it. It was nothing like last night’s inundation. The ground must have been hard.”
“On the contrary, the ground was exceedingly soft. Remember what it said in Mr. Blenkinson’s document, sir. Finlay had been waterin’ those very beds, and waterin’ ’em plenty after four o’clock.”
“Were there any marks on this stone?” asked Maryvale. “Any signs such as I understand often guide the police in their search?”
“No, sir, none. And—”
“I thought so.”
Ignoring this somewhat cryptic remark, Salt explained: “Unpolished stone isn’t a good medium for takin’ impressions. I’ll stake my little finger, though, it was the stone that finished Mr. Cosgrove.”
“Here we turn off, sir,” advised Hughes.
We had been in sight of Aidenn Water much of the time, its cheerful flow increased to boiling spate. Through a partly cleared copse of larch, we could see it now, laughing with white teeth and greedy gurgle along a sort of rapids. The particular tree Hughes intended to chop was visible, already leaning half across the flood.
Somewhat to my discomfiture, Aire announced that he intended to accompany the pair across the stream. “Don’t mind, do you, Bannerlee? I want to be in at the death of Pendleton’s theory. Or will you two come along with us? Any objection, Superintendent?”
“More the merrier,” said Salt.
But I cared nothing for the death of any theory compared with my eagerness to get farther north and see the great ruin beneath the hills again. Maryvale had no love for the thought of crossing above the churlish Water on a tree-trunk, and said so. We left the three proceeding to the bank of the stream, but I confess it was with a pang of premonition that I paced beside the man of business and heard the sound of the lusty axe grow fainter and fainter.