Chapter XIV.The TelegramOn the departure of Sir Clinton, Wendover found himself in a position of isolation. The Fleetwoods and Miss Fordingbridge kept to their own suite, and did not show themselves in the public rooms; but the whole hotel was astir with rumours and discussions among the guests on the subject of the recent tragedies; and Wendover shrank from associating too closely with anyone. He felt that he was in a position of trust, and he feared lest, under the strain of questioning, he might be betrayed into divulging, unconsciously, something or other which was best kept from the public. A reporter from a newspaper in the nearest town demanded an interview, in the hope of eliciting something; but Wendover had the knack of posing as a dull fellow, and the reporter retired baffled and uncertain as to whether his victim had any exclusive information or not. Armadale was the only person with whom Wendover might have talked freely; and Armadale was entirely antipathetic.Wendover filled in his time as best he could by taking long walks, which kept him out of reach of the more inquisitive guests as much as possible. He reviewed the whole range of affairs from the beginning, in the hope of seeing his way through the tangle; but there seemed to be so many possible cross-trails that he had to admit to himself that even an approximate solution of the problem was beyond him, and that he could produce nothing better than the merest guesswork.In the first place, there was the Peter Hay case. There, at least, the motive was plain enough. Someone had good reason to silence Peter Hay and suppress any evidence which he might give with regard to the Derek Fordingbridge claim. But, unfortunately, at least two people might be supposed to have good grounds for wishing to suppress Peter Hay's evidence: the claimant and Paul Fordingbridge. Either of them would fit the facts neatly enough.Then there was the Foxhills' housebreaking, and the theft of various articles. Obviously the silver was not the important part of the loot, since it was worth next to nothing; and the few odds and ends found in Peter Hay's cottage must have been planted there merely to confuse the trail. The real thing the thief had wanted was Derek Fordingbridge's diary. But here again the two possibilities were open. To a false claimant, the diary would be an invaluable mine of information; and, if the man at Flatt's cottage were an impostor, it was obvious that he would do his best to lay hands on such a treasure. On the other hand, if he were the real Derek, then Paul Fordingbridge would have every interest in suppressing a document which could be utilised to confirm his nephew's recollections at every point.The problem of Staveley's death was a piece of the puzzle which defeated all Wendover's attempts to fit it into place. Who had an interest in removing Staveley? The Fleetwoods, according to the inspector's ideas; and Wendover could not help admitting that a jury might look at things from the inspector's point of view. Undoubtedly he himself had produced enough circumstantial evidence to clear Cressida of even a manslaughter charge, provided that one pinned the prosecution down to the period when she met Staveley on the rock; but Wendover had been thoroughly alarmed by Sir Clinton's instructions to Armadale; and he feared that he had missed some vital link in the chain of evidence which might overturn his whole case for the defence.Then there was the alternative hypothesis: that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux had been the one to shoot Staveley. Again there seemed to be the double solution open, with no way of deciding which answer to choose. And, to make the matter still more complex, there was the second cartridge-case found at the groyne, which Stanley Fleetwood denied having used. Finally, Sir Clinton most obviously expected to find yet another empty cartridge-case somewhere on the sands. Wendover gave it up. Then a fresh thought struck him. Staveley, as the inspector had hinted, would be a good witness for the claimant; and therefore, making the same assumptions as before, Paul Fordingbridge had an interest in silencing him. But there was no evidence connecting Paul Fordingbridge with the matter at all. That seemed to be a blank end, like all the others.The next link in the chain of events was the attack on Cargill. The more Wendover considered the matter, the clearer it seemed to him that Cargill had been shot in mistake for the claimant. The two men were very much alike, except for the awful mutilation of the claimant's face; and, of course, that would not show in the dark. Once the claimant was out of the way, then Paul Fordingbridge would be free from the impending disclosure of his malversations, if these had really occurred.And, suddenly, a light flashed on Wendover's mind from a fresh angle. The claimant, Cressida, Paul Fordingbridge—that was the order of inheritance. If by some manœuvre Paul Fordingbridge could clear out of his way, not the claimant only, but his niece as well, then he himself would come into the estate, and no one could ask any questions whatever. Cressida had been twice involved—once in the affair of Staveley; again when her car came up just after Cargill had been shot. Was it possible that Paul Fordingbridge had tried to kill two birds with one stone in the last crime? The inspector would have been a willing tool in his hands, since he believed Cressida quite capable of murder.Then there was the disappearance of Paul Fordingbridge himself, with all the puzzle of the footprints. A man didn't fly; nor did he hand himself over to enemies without some sort of struggle. Had he a couple of confederates who had helped him to stage the whole wilfully mysterious affair on the sands? And what did Sir Clinton mean by his hints about Père François and Sam Lloyd's “Get off the Earth” puzzle? Wendover recalled that puzzle: two concentric discs with figures on them, and when one disc was revolved on the central pivot, you could count one Chinaman more or less according to where you stopped the disc. Three men when the discs were in one position; two men when you gave a twist to one of the bits of cardboard. Had Sir Clinton some hanky-panky of that sort in his mind, so that the third man on the sands had no real existence? Wendover gave it up.He returned to the hotel for dinner, and spent as much time as possible in his own room rather than run the gauntlet of inquisitive guests. It was not until after dinner on Wednesday that he was again drawn directly into the game. He was just putting on his coat to go out, in order to escape his inquisitors, when the inspector appeared, evidently in a state of perturbation.“I've just had a wire from Sir Clinton, sir. My old landlady's let me down badly. I'd warned the post office people to send me any message immediately, but I was out when it came, and the old fool put it behind her kitchen clock and forgot all about it. It wasn't till I asked her that she remembered about it and gave it to me. Net result: hours wasted.”He handed a telegram form to Wendover, who read:“Heavy defalcations take Fleetwood boat on Thursday meet last train with car.”“Well, have you carried out your instructions?” he demanded.“No, worse luck!” Armadale confessed. “Owing to that old fool's bungling, she's slipped through my fingers.”Wendover's whole ideas of the case were overturned by the inspector's admission. He had refused to allow, even in his own mind, that Cressida could be guilty; but this sudden flight could hardly be squared with innocence by any stretch of probability.“Tell me what happened, inspector.”Armadale was obviously very sore. It was clear enough from his face that he felt he had muddled things just at the point when his own original theory was going to be vindicated.“I'd put a man on to watch her here. He couldn't do much except hang about in plain clothes and attract as little attention as possible; so he chose the entrance-hall as his look-out post, where he could keep an eye on the lifts and the stairs together. To-night, after dinner, he saw her come down in the lift. She'd evening dress on, and nothing to protect her head; so of course he thought she was just moving about in the hotel. However, he followed her along a passage; and at the end of it she opened a door marked: ‘Ladies' Dressing-Room.’ Well, of course, he could hardly shove in there; so he hung about waiting for her to come out again.”“And it was the golf dressing-room with the side-entrance from the outside?”“Of course. By the time he'd tumbled to what was up, she'd slipped off. Her golf-shoes and blazer are gone. She's diddled us. I wouldn't have had this happen for ever so much.”Wendover did not feel called upon to offer any sympathy.“What do you come to me for?” he demanded. “I know nothing about her.”Armadale put his finger on the last phrase in the telegram.“It's his own car he wants, apparently. You can get it out of the garage, sir, with less fuss than I could.”Wendover agreed, and, finding that the chief constable's train was not due for half an hour, he went up into his room and changed his clothes. They reached the Lynden Sands station in good time; and, as soon as the train steamed in, Sir Clinton alighted, with an attaché-case in his hand.“Well, inspector! Got your bird caged all right, I hope?”“No, sir,” the inspector confessed shamefacedly. “She's got clean away.”Sir Clinton seemed both staggered and perturbed by the news.“Got away? What do you mean? You'd nothing to do but walk up and arrest her. Why didn't you do it?”Armadale explained the state of affairs; and, as he told his story, the chief constable's face darkened.“H'm! Your landlady's made the mess of her life this shot. And I thought I'd been in plenty of time! Come along to the car. There isn't a moment to lose. Flatt's cottage, first of all.”Wendover drove them up to the headland, and Sir Clinton jumped out of the car almost before it pulled up. He opened his attaché-case.“There's a Colt for each of you. The first cartridge is up in the barrel, so mind the safety-catches. You may not need them; but you'd better be prepared.”He handed a pistol to each of his companions, and pitched the attaché-case back into the car.“Now, come along.”When they reached the door of the cottage, the place seemed deserted.“Drawn blank, it seems,” Sir Clinton confessed, in a tone which showed he had expected little else. “We'll go through the place, just to be sure. This is no time to stand on etiquette.”He smashed a window-pane with his pistol-butt; put his hand through the hole and slipped the catch; then, lifting the sash, he climbed in. Armadale and Wendover followed close on his heels. Sir Clinton produced a flash-lamp from his pocket and threw its light hither and thither until he found the oil-lamp which served to light the room. Armadale struck a match and lit the lamp. Then he followed Sir Clinton into the other parts of the house.Wendover, left to his own devices, glanced round the sitting-room in search of he knew not what. His eye was caught by the large filing-cabinet which stood on one side of the fireplace; and he pulled out a drawer at random, lifted one of the cards, and examined it.“11–2–16.—Left for France. At dinner: Cressida, J. Fordingbridge, P. Fordingbridge, Miss Kitty Glenluce (age 23, fair-haired, dispatch-rider; told some stories about her work). . . .”He picked out another card at random and read:“15–4–17.—Staveley's wedding. Bride dropped bouquet when signing register. Wedding march Mendelssohn. Bride given away by P. Fordingbridge. Bridesmaids were. . . .”He had no time to read further. Sir Clinton and the inspector were back again, having found no one else on the premises. The chief constable had a bottle in his hand, which he handed to Wendover, pointing to the label.“Amyl nitrite?” Wendover asked involuntarily. “So that's where the stuff came from that killed Peter Hay?”Sir Clinton nodded. His eye fell on the table, on which a manuscript book was lying. He picked it up and opened it, showing the page to his companions.“Derek Fordingbridge's diary, isn't it?” the inspector inquired.“Yes. And there's their card-index, with everything entered up in chronological order—every bit of information they could collect about the Foxhills crowd from any source whatever. That made sure that if they had to meet any questions from a particular person abouthisdealings with the real Derek Fordingbridge, they could turn up their index and know exactly what to say. It was far safer than trusting to any single man's memory on the spur of the moment. I expect they've been copying out entries from the stolen diary and putting them into the filing-cabinet. We haven't time to waste. Come along. The police, next. Sapcote must collect them for us and bring them along, inspector.”As Wendover drove, it was hardly more than a matter of seconds before Sapcote had been instructed to collect all the available constables and bring them to the hotel.“That's our next port of call, squire. Drive like the devil,” Sir Clinton ordered, as he ended his instructions to the constable.But they had hardly cleared the village before he gave a counter-order.“Stop at the cottage again, squire.”Wendover pulled up the car obediently, and all three jumped out.“Get the oars of that boat,” Sir Clinton instructed them. “And hurry!”The oars were soon found and carried down to the car, which Wendover started immediately. A few hundred yards along the road, Sir Clinton pitched the oars overboard, taking care that they did not drop on the highway.Wendover, intent on his driving, heard the inspector speak to his superior.“We found that cartridge-case you wanted, sir, when we put that sand through the sieves. It's a .38, same as Mrs. Fleetwood's pistol. I have it safe.”Sir Clinton brushed the matter aside.“That's good, inspector. We'll have that gang in our hands before long. But Lord knows what damage they may do in the meanwhile. I'd give a lot to have them under lock and key at this minute.”At the hotel, Sir Clinton wasted no time on ceremony, but darted up the stairs to the Fleetwoods' room. As they entered, Stanley Fleetwood looked up in surprise from a book which he was reading.“Well——” he began in an angry tone.Sir Clinton cut him short.“Where's Mrs. Fleetwood?”Stanley Fleetwood's eyebrows rose sharply.“Really, Sir Clinton——”“Don't finesse now,” the chief constable snapped. “I'm afraid something's happened to Mrs. Fleetwood. Tell us what you know, and be quick about it. Why did she leave the hotel to-night?”Stanley Fleetwood's face showed amazement, with which fear seemed to mingle as Sir Clinton's manner convinced him that something was far wrong. He pulled himself up a little on the couch.“She got a letter from her uncle making an appointment at the Blowhole.”Sir Clinton's face fell.“That's worse than I thought,” he said. “Let's see the letter.”Stanley Fleetwood pointed to the mantelpiece; and the chief constable searched among two or three papers until he found what he wanted.“H'm! There's no date on this thing. It simply says, ‘Meet me at the Blowhole to-night at’ ”—he paused and scrutinised the letter carefully—“ ‘at 9p.m.Come alone.’ It is 9p.m., isn't it?”He passed the letter to the inspector.“It seems to be 9p.m.,” Armadale confirmed, “but it's a bit blotted. This is Mr. Fordingbridge's writing, I suppose?” he added, turning to Stanley Fleetwood.“Quite unmistakable; and the signature's O.K.,” was the answer.Sir Clinton was evidently thinking rapidly.“We'll try the Blowhole first, though there'll be nothing there, I'm afraid. After that, we'll need to look elsewhere. This letter came by the post in the usual way, I suppose?”“I don't know. It came to my wife, and she showed it to me.”“Well, I've no time to wait just now. It's a pity you can't come along with us.”Stanley Fleetwood lay back on the couch and cursed his crippled state as the three hurried from the room. At the Blowhole they found nothing. The great jet was not playing, and the only sound was the beating of the waves on the beach below the cliff. The moon was just clearing the horizon mists, and there was enough light to show that the headland was bare.“They've got away,” Sir Clinton commented, when they saw they had drawn blank. “They had that car of theirs; I saw the boat-house was empty when we were at the cottage. That means they may be anywhere within twenty miles by this time. We can't do much except send out a general warning. You do that, inspector, when we get back to the hotel. But it's the poorest chance, and we must think of something nearer home if we're to do anything ourselves.”He pondered over the problem for a minute, and then continued:“They won't go back to the cottage at present. It wouldn't be safe. If they want to lie up for even a few hours, they'll need a house of some sort for the work. And it'll need to be an empty house in a quiet place, unless I've misread things.”He reflected again before concluding.“It's a mere chance, but Foxhills and Peter Hay's are the only two empty places here. But Miss Fordingbridge sometimes goes up to Foxhills, so Peter Hay's is more likely. We'll go there on the chance. Come along.”At the hotel, they found that Sapcote had assembled all the available constables and dispatched them along the road. He had telephoned a message to this effect before leaving himself. Armadale got his headquarters on the telephone and ordered a watch to be kept for any suspicious car; but, as he was unable to supply even the most general description of the wanted motor, the chance of its discovery seemed of the slightest.He came out of the telephone-box to find Sir Clinton and Wendover waiting for him in Sir Clinton's car.“Get in,” the chief constable ordered. “We've got to waste a minute or two in going down the road to meet that gang of constables and giving them orders to follow on. Put both feet on the accelerator, squire, and do anything else short of spilling us in the ditch. Every minute may count now.”Wendover needed no urging. They flashed down the road towards Lynden Sands, pulled up as they met the body of police, and were off again as soon as Sir Clinton had given the constables their orders to make direct for Foxhills. A very few minutes brought the car to the Foxhills gate, where Wendover, at a sign from Sir Clinton, stopped the car. The chief constable jumped out and examined the road surface with his pocket flash-lamp.“Thank the Lord! A car's gone up the avenue. We may be in time to nab them yet.”
On the departure of Sir Clinton, Wendover found himself in a position of isolation. The Fleetwoods and Miss Fordingbridge kept to their own suite, and did not show themselves in the public rooms; but the whole hotel was astir with rumours and discussions among the guests on the subject of the recent tragedies; and Wendover shrank from associating too closely with anyone. He felt that he was in a position of trust, and he feared lest, under the strain of questioning, he might be betrayed into divulging, unconsciously, something or other which was best kept from the public. A reporter from a newspaper in the nearest town demanded an interview, in the hope of eliciting something; but Wendover had the knack of posing as a dull fellow, and the reporter retired baffled and uncertain as to whether his victim had any exclusive information or not. Armadale was the only person with whom Wendover might have talked freely; and Armadale was entirely antipathetic.
Wendover filled in his time as best he could by taking long walks, which kept him out of reach of the more inquisitive guests as much as possible. He reviewed the whole range of affairs from the beginning, in the hope of seeing his way through the tangle; but there seemed to be so many possible cross-trails that he had to admit to himself that even an approximate solution of the problem was beyond him, and that he could produce nothing better than the merest guesswork.
In the first place, there was the Peter Hay case. There, at least, the motive was plain enough. Someone had good reason to silence Peter Hay and suppress any evidence which he might give with regard to the Derek Fordingbridge claim. But, unfortunately, at least two people might be supposed to have good grounds for wishing to suppress Peter Hay's evidence: the claimant and Paul Fordingbridge. Either of them would fit the facts neatly enough.
Then there was the Foxhills' housebreaking, and the theft of various articles. Obviously the silver was not the important part of the loot, since it was worth next to nothing; and the few odds and ends found in Peter Hay's cottage must have been planted there merely to confuse the trail. The real thing the thief had wanted was Derek Fordingbridge's diary. But here again the two possibilities were open. To a false claimant, the diary would be an invaluable mine of information; and, if the man at Flatt's cottage were an impostor, it was obvious that he would do his best to lay hands on such a treasure. On the other hand, if he were the real Derek, then Paul Fordingbridge would have every interest in suppressing a document which could be utilised to confirm his nephew's recollections at every point.
The problem of Staveley's death was a piece of the puzzle which defeated all Wendover's attempts to fit it into place. Who had an interest in removing Staveley? The Fleetwoods, according to the inspector's ideas; and Wendover could not help admitting that a jury might look at things from the inspector's point of view. Undoubtedly he himself had produced enough circumstantial evidence to clear Cressida of even a manslaughter charge, provided that one pinned the prosecution down to the period when she met Staveley on the rock; but Wendover had been thoroughly alarmed by Sir Clinton's instructions to Armadale; and he feared that he had missed some vital link in the chain of evidence which might overturn his whole case for the defence.
Then there was the alternative hypothesis: that Mme. Laurent-Desrousseaux had been the one to shoot Staveley. Again there seemed to be the double solution open, with no way of deciding which answer to choose. And, to make the matter still more complex, there was the second cartridge-case found at the groyne, which Stanley Fleetwood denied having used. Finally, Sir Clinton most obviously expected to find yet another empty cartridge-case somewhere on the sands. Wendover gave it up. Then a fresh thought struck him. Staveley, as the inspector had hinted, would be a good witness for the claimant; and therefore, making the same assumptions as before, Paul Fordingbridge had an interest in silencing him. But there was no evidence connecting Paul Fordingbridge with the matter at all. That seemed to be a blank end, like all the others.
The next link in the chain of events was the attack on Cargill. The more Wendover considered the matter, the clearer it seemed to him that Cargill had been shot in mistake for the claimant. The two men were very much alike, except for the awful mutilation of the claimant's face; and, of course, that would not show in the dark. Once the claimant was out of the way, then Paul Fordingbridge would be free from the impending disclosure of his malversations, if these had really occurred.
And, suddenly, a light flashed on Wendover's mind from a fresh angle. The claimant, Cressida, Paul Fordingbridge—that was the order of inheritance. If by some manœuvre Paul Fordingbridge could clear out of his way, not the claimant only, but his niece as well, then he himself would come into the estate, and no one could ask any questions whatever. Cressida had been twice involved—once in the affair of Staveley; again when her car came up just after Cargill had been shot. Was it possible that Paul Fordingbridge had tried to kill two birds with one stone in the last crime? The inspector would have been a willing tool in his hands, since he believed Cressida quite capable of murder.
Then there was the disappearance of Paul Fordingbridge himself, with all the puzzle of the footprints. A man didn't fly; nor did he hand himself over to enemies without some sort of struggle. Had he a couple of confederates who had helped him to stage the whole wilfully mysterious affair on the sands? And what did Sir Clinton mean by his hints about Père François and Sam Lloyd's “Get off the Earth” puzzle? Wendover recalled that puzzle: two concentric discs with figures on them, and when one disc was revolved on the central pivot, you could count one Chinaman more or less according to where you stopped the disc. Three men when the discs were in one position; two men when you gave a twist to one of the bits of cardboard. Had Sir Clinton some hanky-panky of that sort in his mind, so that the third man on the sands had no real existence? Wendover gave it up.
He returned to the hotel for dinner, and spent as much time as possible in his own room rather than run the gauntlet of inquisitive guests. It was not until after dinner on Wednesday that he was again drawn directly into the game. He was just putting on his coat to go out, in order to escape his inquisitors, when the inspector appeared, evidently in a state of perturbation.
“I've just had a wire from Sir Clinton, sir. My old landlady's let me down badly. I'd warned the post office people to send me any message immediately, but I was out when it came, and the old fool put it behind her kitchen clock and forgot all about it. It wasn't till I asked her that she remembered about it and gave it to me. Net result: hours wasted.”
He handed a telegram form to Wendover, who read:
“Heavy defalcations take Fleetwood boat on Thursday meet last train with car.”
“Heavy defalcations take Fleetwood boat on Thursday meet last train with car.”
“Well, have you carried out your instructions?” he demanded.
“No, worse luck!” Armadale confessed. “Owing to that old fool's bungling, she's slipped through my fingers.”
Wendover's whole ideas of the case were overturned by the inspector's admission. He had refused to allow, even in his own mind, that Cressida could be guilty; but this sudden flight could hardly be squared with innocence by any stretch of probability.
“Tell me what happened, inspector.”
Armadale was obviously very sore. It was clear enough from his face that he felt he had muddled things just at the point when his own original theory was going to be vindicated.
“I'd put a man on to watch her here. He couldn't do much except hang about in plain clothes and attract as little attention as possible; so he chose the entrance-hall as his look-out post, where he could keep an eye on the lifts and the stairs together. To-night, after dinner, he saw her come down in the lift. She'd evening dress on, and nothing to protect her head; so of course he thought she was just moving about in the hotel. However, he followed her along a passage; and at the end of it she opened a door marked: ‘Ladies' Dressing-Room.’ Well, of course, he could hardly shove in there; so he hung about waiting for her to come out again.”
“And it was the golf dressing-room with the side-entrance from the outside?”
“Of course. By the time he'd tumbled to what was up, she'd slipped off. Her golf-shoes and blazer are gone. She's diddled us. I wouldn't have had this happen for ever so much.”
Wendover did not feel called upon to offer any sympathy.
“What do you come to me for?” he demanded. “I know nothing about her.”
Armadale put his finger on the last phrase in the telegram.
“It's his own car he wants, apparently. You can get it out of the garage, sir, with less fuss than I could.”
Wendover agreed, and, finding that the chief constable's train was not due for half an hour, he went up into his room and changed his clothes. They reached the Lynden Sands station in good time; and, as soon as the train steamed in, Sir Clinton alighted, with an attaché-case in his hand.
“Well, inspector! Got your bird caged all right, I hope?”
“No, sir,” the inspector confessed shamefacedly. “She's got clean away.”
Sir Clinton seemed both staggered and perturbed by the news.
“Got away? What do you mean? You'd nothing to do but walk up and arrest her. Why didn't you do it?”
Armadale explained the state of affairs; and, as he told his story, the chief constable's face darkened.
“H'm! Your landlady's made the mess of her life this shot. And I thought I'd been in plenty of time! Come along to the car. There isn't a moment to lose. Flatt's cottage, first of all.”
Wendover drove them up to the headland, and Sir Clinton jumped out of the car almost before it pulled up. He opened his attaché-case.
“There's a Colt for each of you. The first cartridge is up in the barrel, so mind the safety-catches. You may not need them; but you'd better be prepared.”
He handed a pistol to each of his companions, and pitched the attaché-case back into the car.
“Now, come along.”
When they reached the door of the cottage, the place seemed deserted.
“Drawn blank, it seems,” Sir Clinton confessed, in a tone which showed he had expected little else. “We'll go through the place, just to be sure. This is no time to stand on etiquette.”
He smashed a window-pane with his pistol-butt; put his hand through the hole and slipped the catch; then, lifting the sash, he climbed in. Armadale and Wendover followed close on his heels. Sir Clinton produced a flash-lamp from his pocket and threw its light hither and thither until he found the oil-lamp which served to light the room. Armadale struck a match and lit the lamp. Then he followed Sir Clinton into the other parts of the house.
Wendover, left to his own devices, glanced round the sitting-room in search of he knew not what. His eye was caught by the large filing-cabinet which stood on one side of the fireplace; and he pulled out a drawer at random, lifted one of the cards, and examined it.
“11–2–16.—Left for France. At dinner: Cressida, J. Fordingbridge, P. Fordingbridge, Miss Kitty Glenluce (age 23, fair-haired, dispatch-rider; told some stories about her work). . . .”
“11–2–16.—Left for France. At dinner: Cressida, J. Fordingbridge, P. Fordingbridge, Miss Kitty Glenluce (age 23, fair-haired, dispatch-rider; told some stories about her work). . . .”
He picked out another card at random and read:
“15–4–17.—Staveley's wedding. Bride dropped bouquet when signing register. Wedding march Mendelssohn. Bride given away by P. Fordingbridge. Bridesmaids were. . . .”
“15–4–17.—Staveley's wedding. Bride dropped bouquet when signing register. Wedding march Mendelssohn. Bride given away by P. Fordingbridge. Bridesmaids were. . . .”
He had no time to read further. Sir Clinton and the inspector were back again, having found no one else on the premises. The chief constable had a bottle in his hand, which he handed to Wendover, pointing to the label.
“Amyl nitrite?” Wendover asked involuntarily. “So that's where the stuff came from that killed Peter Hay?”
Sir Clinton nodded. His eye fell on the table, on which a manuscript book was lying. He picked it up and opened it, showing the page to his companions.
“Derek Fordingbridge's diary, isn't it?” the inspector inquired.
“Yes. And there's their card-index, with everything entered up in chronological order—every bit of information they could collect about the Foxhills crowd from any source whatever. That made sure that if they had to meet any questions from a particular person abouthisdealings with the real Derek Fordingbridge, they could turn up their index and know exactly what to say. It was far safer than trusting to any single man's memory on the spur of the moment. I expect they've been copying out entries from the stolen diary and putting them into the filing-cabinet. We haven't time to waste. Come along. The police, next. Sapcote must collect them for us and bring them along, inspector.”
As Wendover drove, it was hardly more than a matter of seconds before Sapcote had been instructed to collect all the available constables and bring them to the hotel.
“That's our next port of call, squire. Drive like the devil,” Sir Clinton ordered, as he ended his instructions to the constable.
But they had hardly cleared the village before he gave a counter-order.
“Stop at the cottage again, squire.”
Wendover pulled up the car obediently, and all three jumped out.
“Get the oars of that boat,” Sir Clinton instructed them. “And hurry!”
The oars were soon found and carried down to the car, which Wendover started immediately. A few hundred yards along the road, Sir Clinton pitched the oars overboard, taking care that they did not drop on the highway.
Wendover, intent on his driving, heard the inspector speak to his superior.
“We found that cartridge-case you wanted, sir, when we put that sand through the sieves. It's a .38, same as Mrs. Fleetwood's pistol. I have it safe.”
Sir Clinton brushed the matter aside.
“That's good, inspector. We'll have that gang in our hands before long. But Lord knows what damage they may do in the meanwhile. I'd give a lot to have them under lock and key at this minute.”
At the hotel, Sir Clinton wasted no time on ceremony, but darted up the stairs to the Fleetwoods' room. As they entered, Stanley Fleetwood looked up in surprise from a book which he was reading.
“Well——” he began in an angry tone.
Sir Clinton cut him short.
“Where's Mrs. Fleetwood?”
Stanley Fleetwood's eyebrows rose sharply.
“Really, Sir Clinton——”
“Don't finesse now,” the chief constable snapped. “I'm afraid something's happened to Mrs. Fleetwood. Tell us what you know, and be quick about it. Why did she leave the hotel to-night?”
Stanley Fleetwood's face showed amazement, with which fear seemed to mingle as Sir Clinton's manner convinced him that something was far wrong. He pulled himself up a little on the couch.
“She got a letter from her uncle making an appointment at the Blowhole.”
Sir Clinton's face fell.
“That's worse than I thought,” he said. “Let's see the letter.”
Stanley Fleetwood pointed to the mantelpiece; and the chief constable searched among two or three papers until he found what he wanted.
“H'm! There's no date on this thing. It simply says, ‘Meet me at the Blowhole to-night at’ ”—he paused and scrutinised the letter carefully—“ ‘at 9p.m.Come alone.’ It is 9p.m., isn't it?”
He passed the letter to the inspector.
“It seems to be 9p.m.,” Armadale confirmed, “but it's a bit blotted. This is Mr. Fordingbridge's writing, I suppose?” he added, turning to Stanley Fleetwood.
“Quite unmistakable; and the signature's O.K.,” was the answer.
Sir Clinton was evidently thinking rapidly.
“We'll try the Blowhole first, though there'll be nothing there, I'm afraid. After that, we'll need to look elsewhere. This letter came by the post in the usual way, I suppose?”
“I don't know. It came to my wife, and she showed it to me.”
“Well, I've no time to wait just now. It's a pity you can't come along with us.”
Stanley Fleetwood lay back on the couch and cursed his crippled state as the three hurried from the room. At the Blowhole they found nothing. The great jet was not playing, and the only sound was the beating of the waves on the beach below the cliff. The moon was just clearing the horizon mists, and there was enough light to show that the headland was bare.
“They've got away,” Sir Clinton commented, when they saw they had drawn blank. “They had that car of theirs; I saw the boat-house was empty when we were at the cottage. That means they may be anywhere within twenty miles by this time. We can't do much except send out a general warning. You do that, inspector, when we get back to the hotel. But it's the poorest chance, and we must think of something nearer home if we're to do anything ourselves.”
He pondered over the problem for a minute, and then continued:
“They won't go back to the cottage at present. It wouldn't be safe. If they want to lie up for even a few hours, they'll need a house of some sort for the work. And it'll need to be an empty house in a quiet place, unless I've misread things.”
He reflected again before concluding.
“It's a mere chance, but Foxhills and Peter Hay's are the only two empty places here. But Miss Fordingbridge sometimes goes up to Foxhills, so Peter Hay's is more likely. We'll go there on the chance. Come along.”
At the hotel, they found that Sapcote had assembled all the available constables and dispatched them along the road. He had telephoned a message to this effect before leaving himself. Armadale got his headquarters on the telephone and ordered a watch to be kept for any suspicious car; but, as he was unable to supply even the most general description of the wanted motor, the chance of its discovery seemed of the slightest.
He came out of the telephone-box to find Sir Clinton and Wendover waiting for him in Sir Clinton's car.
“Get in,” the chief constable ordered. “We've got to waste a minute or two in going down the road to meet that gang of constables and giving them orders to follow on. Put both feet on the accelerator, squire, and do anything else short of spilling us in the ditch. Every minute may count now.”
Wendover needed no urging. They flashed down the road towards Lynden Sands, pulled up as they met the body of police, and were off again as soon as Sir Clinton had given the constables their orders to make direct for Foxhills. A very few minutes brought the car to the Foxhills gate, where Wendover, at a sign from Sir Clinton, stopped the car. The chief constable jumped out and examined the road surface with his pocket flash-lamp.
“Thank the Lord! A car's gone up the avenue. We may be in time to nab them yet.”