Chapter VAt the best of times Whitbury Junction cannot be described as an attractive spot, with its three long platforms, flanked on either hand by sidings with their usual array of cattle-trucks and, apparently derelict, third-class coaches. An uninspiring collection of faded posters, imploring the weary traveller to hasten at once to Ostend or the Cornish Riviera and a row of battered milk-cans embellish the platforms; and the porters, elderly men of pessimistic habit, take even the arrival of the London train with complete lack of enthusiasm. At seven o’clock on a chilly March morning the Junction is at its worst, and Sir Edward Kean, alighting somewhat stiffly from his first-class carriage after a night of mingled boredom and discomfort, eyed his surroundings with marked disapproval. The fact that he would have over an hour to wait before taking the local train to the little station of Staveley Grange did not serve to cheer him, and he was entirely unprepared for the apparition of Cynthia Bell, the last person he desired to see under the circumstances, waiting for him on the platform.There was a hint of shyness in her greeting. Sybil Kean’s distinguished husband was one of the few people of whom she stood in awe and she not only felt responsible for his presence at an unearthly hour at this dreary spot, but was quite aware that, but for his wife’s persuasion, he would not have made the journey at all. It was this knowledge that had decided her to meet the train and see him first alone, in the hope of winning his sympathy and inducing him to take more than a cursory interest in John Leslie’s affairs. The sight of his dark, inscrutable face and thin-lipped, relentless mouth sent her courage into her boots and she felt pitifully young and very helpless as she hurried to meet him.“I wanted to see you and thank you, Sir Edward,” she began rather breathlessly. “Sybil told me you were coming down on purpose. . . .”In spite of his annoyance Kean was touched by her distress.“It seemed better to look into things at once,” he said kindly. “Sybil said you were anxious to see me.”“I wanted to ask your advice. There’s something I’m worried about and no one seems to know in the least what’s going to happen or what one ought to do. It’s the waiting that’s so hard. It makes one imagine things. They haven’t even said they suspect John yet, but they behave all the time as if they did and they’ve searched the farm as if they expected to find something. Meanwhile one hangs about. . . .” She was getting almost incoherent and Kean could see that she was on the verge of tears and was holding them back with difficulty.“You’ve let this get on your nerves,” he said quietly. “I suggest that we shelve the subject altogether till you’ve had some breakfast. We’ll go over to the station hotel and see what they can do for us, and afterwards you shall put the whole case before me and I’ll give you what advice I can. There’s plenty of time before my train goes and you’ll take a different view of things after you’ve eaten something.”She gave him a swift look of gratitude and followed him without speaking. At the hotel he ordered food and, when it came, quietly but firmly insisted that she should do it justice, making an excellent breakfast the while himself and keeping the conversation rigidly to impersonal topics. It was not till the meal was over and he had handed her a cigarette and lighted one himself that he allowed her to unburden her mind.“First of all, what did you wish to consult me about?”His tone was curt and business-like and, fortified by the food which she had badly needed, she was able to collect her thoughts and put them more clearly into words.She gave him a brief account of what had happened. The main facts he had already learned from the evening papers, in which Mrs. Draycott’s latest photograph, over the caption of “The Murdered Woman,” had confronted him. He questioned her sharply on one or two points, otherwise he let her tell the story in her own way. When she had finished he sat back in his chair, smoking thoughtfully, for a minute. Then he leaned forward, his keen eyes on hers.“Where was Leslie while all this was happening at the farm?” he asked sharply.Cynthia met his gaze without flinching.“With me,” she answered simply.“Then why doesn’t he say so?”“That’s what I wanted to see you about. It doesn’t clear him. You see, he wasn’t with me at the time they seem to think the murder actually took place. And now he doesn’t want me to say anything because he’s afraid it will drag me into it for nothing. I think he’s wrong and he ought to tell them. Mother being so hateful about our engagement makes it all so much more difficult.”“When was he with you?”“From five till nearly half-past. Then he did exactly what he said, took a long walk and did not get back to the farm till about eight. It was all my fault, really.”She broke off, as though she found it difficult to continue.“You’d better tell me exactly what happened,” came in Sir Edward’s quiet voice.“It’s all rather complicated,” she went on haltingly. “You know what Mother’s been, about our engagement. Daddie likes John and he’d be all right if it wasn’t for her. Lately she’s been trying to get round John too, telling him that he is ruining my young life and all that sort of rot. And poor old John gets fits of the blues and then he swallows everything she says and behaves like a blithering idiot afterwards, offers to let me off the engagement and all that sort of thing. He’s done it once already and we had an awful row and I wouldn’t speak to him for nearly a week. On Monday the parents went up to London and, thank goodness, they’re there still, or else I don’t think I could bear it. John and I arranged to meet in a copse near the Home Farm at five, after they’d gone, and go for a long walk. After that I was going home to dress for Miss Allen’s dinner and we’d planned that John should pick me up at her house and drive me in my car to Staveley at about eleven. You see, when the parents are at home, we never seem to get much time together and we were going to take advantage of their being away. We met at five, just as we’d arranged, but we did not go for the walk. John had met Mother somewhere the day before and she’d filled him up with the usual nonsense. He began to talk all sorts of rot about not being able to marry me for years, and all that kind of thing, and wanting to break it off. It ended in our having a fearful row, me saying he didn’t care for me and all the things one says when one’s in a rage, and so we parted. And I suppose the poor old thing was upset and went crashing off on this rotten walk and here we are in the soup. If only I hadn’t been such an ass we should have been together and everything would have been all right.”“I don’t know that you would gain anything by coming forward now,” commented Kean thoughtfully.“That’s what John says and, of course, after the line Mother’s taken, he doesn’t want to mix me up in it. What I say is, that sane people don’t go charging about the country for nearly four solid hours, unless there’s something wrong with them, and of course everybody thinks John must have been up to something. If he’d tell them exactly what happened and whatwaswrong with him, there’d be some sense in the whole thing. Of course, we should both look awful fools,” she finished ruefully.“I’d better see Leslie to-morrow and then you can appear at the inquest if we think it’s advisable. Tell him I’ll come over to the farm in the course of the morning.”Kean rose and picked up his overcoat.Cynthia hesitated, then took her courage in both hands.“Sir Edward, Mr. Fayre is at the farm now with John and he wants to see you. Won’t you come over with me now? I’ve got the car outside and I could run you over to Staveley afterwards. Sybil knows. In fact, it was her idea, so she won’t be expecting you.”In her anxiety she forgot her shyness of him, clinging to his arm, her beseeching eyes fixed on his face.“Won’t you come now? Please, Sir Edward! The inquest’s this afternoon and it would make all the difference if you could see John first.”Kean’s face had begun to darken at her first words, but, at the mention of the inquest, it sharpened to a look almost of anxiety.“The inquest? Already? I was afraid of that!”“Sir Edward! They can’t arrest John!”“I don’t know. It all depends on what the police have up their sleeve. I think you’re right; I’d better come up to the farm now.”On their way they spoke little. Cynthia drove with all the recklessness of youth, and less than half an hour had passed before they turned into the little lane that led to the farm.Fayre and Leslie were at the door to meet them. “It’s very good of you, sir,” said Leslie. “I seem to be giving you a fearful lot of trouble.”He looked worn and anxious, but his eyes met Kean’s fearlessly and the lawyer, accustomed as he was to read faces, was both attracted and impressed by his manner.He laid his hand on Leslie’s shoulder.“Come inside,” he said. “And let’s talk things over. So you’ve got a finger in this pie, Hatter? You always were an old busybody!”There was a hint of annoyance in his voice. For one thing, he had all the professional’s dislike for amateur interference, and he knew Fayre too well not to be aware that he was lamentably thorough in his methods. Also, he would be yet another link which would serve to draw Sybil still more surely into this unsavoury business.There was a gleam of mischief in Fayre’s eyes as he answered.“Beastly nuisance, Edward, an outsider butting in! I know. I’ve had experience of them in the East. Don’t worry; I’m only here in the capacity of family adviser. I’ve constituted myself a sort of adopted uncle of Cynthia’s. After all, I’ve known her since her pigtail days.”He tucked the girl’s arm under his as he spoke, with a smile so friendly and encouraging that she felt her heart lighten.“Mr. Fayre’s been most awfully decent,” said Leslie impulsively. “It’s made all the difference, feeling we’ve got him on our side. And now you’ve come! Iamgrateful, sir!”“Everybody’s been decent,” put in Cynthia. “I can’t tell you what a brick Lady Staveley was when I told them all on Monday. And Miss Allen has written to ask me to go there and see her this morning. I don’t know why, unless it’s just to show that she believes in John. They’ve always been jolly good friends, but it’s pretty wonderful of her to see me at all, considering what’s happened.”“It’s unusual. And not in the best of taste, either, in the circumstances. Still, as you say, she may want to show herself definitely on your side. All the same, I think you’d better let me see her instead. It will be best for you to keep away until after the inquest.”“You don’t think Cynthia will have to appear?” put in Leslie anxiously.“I’m inclined to agree with her that it may put your actions in a more favourable light if she tells her story. After all, so long as your engagement holds she is involved, in any case. Her name is in the papers already and five minutes in the witness-box won’t make much difference.”Cynthia shot an indignant glance at him, and Leslie’s face took on an added gloom.“I told her we’d much better consider it off, at any rate till I was clear of all this business,” he said miserably. “But she won’t listen to me.”Cynthia turned in desperation to Fayre.“Uncle Fayre! You’re the only one of the lot with a gleam of sense. Do stop him! If he starts this argument again, I shall go mad! We’ve had enough rows already about it, and I should have thought the result of the last one might have taught him a lesson! Tell him what a fool he is, Uncle Fayre! You said you agreed with me. If I argue any more about it I shall lose my temper.”She swung round on Leslie.“Understand this! I’m not going to let this make any difference. I’m going to hang on like a leech, whatever happens! So you can’t get rid of me!”Kean’s eyes met Fayre’s meaningly.“I think she’s right,” he said quietly, and left it at that; but the other knew what he was thinking. If Leslie were to find himself in the dock the fact that his engagement to Cynthia still held would tell in his favour.He nodded absently. His mind was on the coming inquest. While they were talking they had drifted into the sitting-room, and he saw Kean’s face harden into grim lines as he took in the scene that had staged so dramatic a drama. It struck him that the lawyer, in spite of his air of calm efficiency, was taking anything but a light view of Leslie’s predicament.The table had been cleared of all its paraphernalia. No doubt the blotter was in the hands of the police. Fayre and Cynthia sat down near the table and Kean took up his position on the hearth-rug in his favourite attitude, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched almost to his ears. Leslie stood behind Cynthia, his eyes on Kean’s face.“What’s this about a police search?” asked Kean abruptly.“They went through the entire house,” answered Leslie. “Goodness knows what they were looking for. They wouldn’t let me go with them.”“What have you told them so far about your movements on Monday evening?”“Simply that I went for a walk. I wanted to keep Cynthia out of it.”“You’re sure you met no one who could identify you?”“I’m afraid not. I was riled and I wanted to walk it off. I went clean across country, away from the roads. I did see a chap with a spade over his shoulder, some labourer going home, I suppose, but he was a good way off and it was getting dark. I remember him because his dog barked.”“What time?”“Round about six, I should think. I’d been walking for about an hour.”“We might trace the fellow. In any case, I’m afraid there’s nothing for it but to give a clear account of your movements, including the time you were with Cynthia. You will gain nothing by holding it back at this juncture. I’ll go now and see this Miss Allen. She may possibly have something to say that throws a light on things. Is it within a walk?”“Take the Staveley car which brought me,” suggested Fayre. “It’s waiting at the gate and Staveley said I was to use it as I liked.”“In that case, I suggest that we all meet for lunch at the hotel at Whitbury. We shall be on the spot, then, for the inquest. You’re sure Sybil is not expecting me?”Fayre smiled.“This is one of her little plots. Didn’t you recognize her hand behind it? She told me to say that she would expect you when she saw you.”“We meet at the hotel, then.”Fayre accompanied him down the little path to the gate, where the Staveley car stood waiting. They had almost reached the end of the path when Fayre, who had been walking with his eyes on the ground, deep in thought, bent down suddenly and picked up something from the long grass that bordered the path.“Found anything?” asked Kean.“An old stylographic pen,” said Fayre, examining it curiously. “I remember them in my youth. ‘Red Dwarfs,’ I think they used to be called. I wonder how it got there.”Kean held out his hand for it.“It’s probably been there some time. We’ll ask Leslie if he recognizes it. We’ll stick to it, anyway. It may prove of interest.”Fayre was peering about in the grass.“There’s nothing else,” he said, “except some copper-coloured spangles, three of them, here on the path. I believe the poor creature was wearing a brown-spangled dress, so, as we know she probably came up this path, that does not lead us anywhere. The pen may prove more useful.”“It has probably got there since the murder,” Kean reminded him. “It’s hardly likely the police would have missed it. They must have gone over this ground pretty carefully. The pressmen have been down here already, remember. One of them may have dropped it.”He slipped the pen into his pocket as he spoke.After Kean had climbed into the car Fayre stood for a moment, his hand on the door.“I’m not going to make a nuisance of myself, Edward,” he said. “But, if there’s anything I can do, you might put me onto it. I’m sorry for those children and would give a great deal to help them. Also, I’m at a loose end and I’ve no ties. If there’s any special line you want followed I could do it more tactfully, possibly, and unobtrusively than one of these fellows from an agency.”Kean nodded.“I’ll remember. Don’t underrate the private detective, though. It’s not such an easy job as you seem to think. Meanwhile, if you can keep Sybil from worrying herself silly I should take it as a kindness. I’ve got to go back to town to-night and I should like to leave her in good hands. Yours are the best I know, old chap.”The car slid away, leaving Fayre, for all his even temper, a little ruffled. His offer, not a very practical one, perhaps, but none the less heartfelt for that, had been quietly, but firmly, put aside. The lump of sugar, skilfully administered after the pill, did not deceive him and he was human enough to feel snubbed. There was something significant, too, in the way in which Kean had quietly pocketed his find in the garden. Evidently he had no intention of taking his old friend into his confidence with regard to his conduct of the case. Fayre, who had meant to ask him his intentions should Leslie be committed for trial, decided to leave all such negotiations to Lady Kean. They had both hoped that he might be persuaded to undertake the defence and he felt now that she was the only person who could be counted on to influence him, should the occasion arise. He returned to the farm in as near a bad temper as was possible to one of his temperament and thoroughly out of patience with the legal mind.“If Edward takes this line, blessed if I don’t do a bit of investigating on my own,” he told himself doggedly. “He always was a hide-bound beggar. Come to that, why couldn’t he let Cynthia go and see Miss Allen? She’d probably get more out of her, as woman to woman, than he will. Another of his absurd points of legal etiquette.”Meanwhile the object of his wrath was reviewing the situation as the motor bore him swiftly on his way to Greycross. If Cynthia had seen his face now she would have been robbed of even the faint hope that had been kindled by his visit to the farm. But he felt no doubt as to Leslie’s innocence. His manner, all that he knew of him in the past, the complete lack of motive, even the very weakness of his alibi, all served to exonerate him; but, as Kean knew from long experience, only the lack of motive would weigh with a jury. He had guessed that part of Leslie’s time on the Monday had been passed in the company of Cynthia Bell and had counted on her to produce a sufficient alibi, expecting to be confronted with nothing more serious than the boy’s chivalrous desire to shield her. He had been far more concerned than he had chosen to admit, even to Fayre, when he found that Cynthia’s evidence would be worse than useless. He was so deep in thought that he was taken unawares when the motor drew up in front of Miss Allen’s pleasant, picturesque old house.A bulldog ambled out onto the drive to greet him and a couple of terriers sniffed at his legs as he waited in the comfortable drawing-room into which the maid had shown him. The pale March sunlight filtered in through the long French windows, but the blinds had been drawn in the ante-room through which he had passed and he knew that probably all the other windows of the house were shrouded. An ominous quiet seemed to brood over the whole place and he found himself moved for the first time by the realization of Mrs. Draycott’s death. Until now he had been too occupied with the consequences of the murder to give much thought to the woman who had, after all, been his fellow-guest at Staveley for over a week. Now, in her sister’s house, the sense of tragedy deepened and, when Miss Allen found him standing by the window, staring with sombre eyes into the sunlit garden, she was struck by the weariness of his pose and the almost haggard pallor of his face.He, summing her up sharply in his turn, was surprised to see but little sign of the violent grief he had expected. Her plain, fresh-coloured features were grave and a little sad, but she was obviously not prostrated by the loss of her sister. She greeted him frankly and with a certain quiet dignity.“My maid said that you wished to see me?” she said simply.“I must apologize for intruding on you at such a time, but I have come from Lady Cynthia Bell. She tells me that you very kindly offered to see her and she asked me to express her gratitude and appreciation. I am afraid that I am responsible for her failure to take advantage of your suggestion. . . . It is difficult to explain my interference without encroaching on a subject which, I am afraid, must be very painful to you.”He broke off, his face alight with a very real sympathy.“You mean my sister’s death,” she said steadily. “I know your name well, Sir Edward, and if you have come on Cynthia’s behalf, there is one thing I should like to make quite clear before we go any further. You have guessed, probably, why I wanted to see her and I am very glad to have the opportunity of saying as much to you as I had intended to say to her. It is simply this: I have known John Leslie for some time and I’m not a bad judge of character. I am absolutely convinced that he had nothing to do with my poor sister’s death and, what’s more, am practically certain that he had never met her or had ever had anything to do with her.”Having said her say, she stood waiting, a dignified, sturdy figure of an English spinster, a look of quiet resolution on her well-cut, weather-beaten features. Kean summed her up as a good friend and a bad enemy.“This will mean a lot to Cynthia,” he said warmly. “And I should like to thank you on her behalf. As for myself, I entirely agree with you; but, as you know, we may have to convince people who do not know Leslie, and, however strongly we may feel ourselves on the subject, we have no real proof to offer. Frankly, I came here in the hope that you might have some evidence that would help us. You say you are practically certain that Leslie never knew your sister. Is this only conjecture?”“Mr. Leslie told me himself that he had never met her when I spoke to him about her visit to me; but that, I suppose,” she went on with a rather grim smile, “is hardly sufficient for you lawyers! But, as a matter of fact, by sheer luck, my sister happened to pick up a snapshot of Cynthia and Mr. Leslie the morning she arrived. She recognized Cynthia from a photograph she had seen in some paper and asked who the attractive boy was with her. When I told her his name she said she had heard him spoken of at Staveley, but had never met him. Now, if what these idiots seem to suspect were true, John Leslie might have his reasons for keeping their acquaintance dark, but my sister could have had no objection to saying she knew him. Besides, from her manner, I am sure she did not recognize the photograph.”“Could you let me have this snapshot, Miss Allen?”“It is on the mantelpiece behind you. Keep it, if you think it will be of any use.”“You will forgive me if I seem insistent,” he went on. “But, as you know, this is a very serious matter for Leslie. Can you think of any one, in the past, who might possibly have harboured a grudge against your sister?”Miss Allen hesitated, her clear eyes very troubled.“I’d better be frank with you,” she said at last. “You’ll probably think what I am about to say almost indecent, but I’ve never shirked the truth in my life and I want to leave no stone unturned to help that boy. You met my sister at Staveley, I believe, Sir Edward, and I think you will understand what I am trying to tell you. You may not know that she was divorced by her first husband and would have been divorced by her second if he had not died in the nick of time. It isn’t pleasant for me to say this and I hope it need not go any further, but that is the kind of woman she was. I don’t judge her, and I suppose it was largely a matter of temperament. She was spoiled, too, as a child. But she was a woman who was bound to have enemies, both male and female, and she had some queer friends, too. If her first husband were not dead I should have been very much inclined to put this down to him. He went to pieces, altogether, after she left him, and became just the kind of half-mad, reckless creature that might end in the dock. Thank goodness, he is out of it, but she has made many friends and many enemies since his day.”“You know of no one in particular?” pressed Kean eagerly. “Is there nothing she said, at any time, that would suggest any one?”But Miss Allen shook her head.“You must remember that I was not in her confidence. We have never been intimate, and for the last ten years I have seen very little of her. I did not like her ways or her friends and I told her so. As a matter of fact, I was surprised when she proposed this visit herself. She told me when she arrived that she was economizing and wanted to put in a week somewhere in between two visits.”“She said nothing else that might possibly be a clue? Will you search your memory very carefully, Miss Allen? There may be something that seemed quite unimportant at the time.”He leaned forward, watching her anxiously.“There was one thing. I didn’t take much account of it at the time and I don’t now. It was her way to make exaggerated statements. But, when she spoke of economizing, she said that, anyhow, it wouldn’t last long. She was out to make a lot of money; in fact, was practically certain of it. I asked her whether it wasn’t just another of her ‘sure things,’ for she was a born gambler, you know. And she said it was as sure as death. I’ve remembered her words since.”“As sure as death,” echoed Kean softly. “What irony!”“I took it for granted that she was talking either of racing or of some speculation she was mixed up in. She had a lot of queer people in tow, bookies and the sort of shady-looking men who are supposed to be something in the city. Looked like criminals, most of them, and I told her so, more than once. But I dare say they were harmless enough, really. I met her once in Paris with a man she told me was a well-known French bookie and I wouldn’t have trusted him alone in a room with my purse. They fleeced her a lot, one way and another.”“There was nothing among her papers that pointed to any big transaction?”Miss Allen shook her head.“I went through them carefully yesterday. There was nothing. As I said, I don’t believe John Leslie had anything to do with this and I should like to see him cleared, but I am not so heartless as I may have sounded. I don’t say that we got on well together, but she was my sister, when all’s said and done, and I find myself regretting many things now. Perhaps if I had taken the trouble I might have been of some influence in her life. I don’t know. But I should like to see the man who did this brought to book.”Her voice was wrung with emotion and Kean could see that she had been tried more hardly than she realized in the past few days.“I don’t think I had ever understood the strength of blood-relationship until I saw her lying in that horrible place at Whitbury,” she muttered almost inaudibly.Kean waited in silence. There seemed nothing he could say. She pulled herself together with a pluck that roused his admiration and turned to him.“I’m afraid I’ve helped you very little,” she said regretfully.“I’m not so sure. Anything may turn out to be important in a case like this. In the meantime, I am more than grateful to you, Miss Allen, for your frankness. Cynthia will no doubt see you very soon and thank you herself. In view of the fact that she may have to appear at the inquest this afternoon I considered it better that she should not be known to have been in touch with you. She saw my point; otherwise she would have come in answer to your note this morning.”Miss Allen nodded.“I’m very glad she has got you to turn to, Sir Edward. If there is anything more I can tell you at any time I will let you know.”Kean paused in the act of shaking hands.“One thing more,” he said. “You have no reason to suspect that your sister went out with the intention of meeting anybody on Monday night?”“I hadn’t at the time, but I have wondered since. I was writing letters in the little room I call my study when she went out. I shut myself up there directly after tea, to get through some troublesome correspondence, and left her comfortably settled in front of the fire in here. When I came back about half-past six she was gone and the maid told me she had seen her go out. I was surprised, because she hated walking and it was not the sort of weather to tempt her out of the house, but I did not get anxious until after the arrival of Cynthia. We waited dinner for her until past eight, and after dinner I sent the groom down to Keys to ask if she had been seen there. When he returned and said he could get no trace of her I began to get really anxious. Until then I had simply thought she had lost her way, and was in hopes that she might have telephoned to the inn at Keys, leaving a message for me saying she was hung up somewhere. I have no telephone here, you see, and she knew that the people at The Boar sometimes take messages for me. I sent my man straight back to Keys, telling him to see Gunnet, the constable there. But Gunnet was out and his wife did not know when he would be back. Of course, I know now that he was at the farm. Cynthia was just trying to persuade me to let her take her car and scour the lanes when the police arrived with the news of what had happened.”“You have no idea what could have taken her to Leslie’s farm?”“None whatever. I should certainly never have dreamed of looking for her there. By ten o’clock I had made up my mind that she had either lost her way or had an accident. There was a gale blowing that night and a good many trees were down, and I was afraid she might have been hit and be lying helpless somewhere. Thinking it over, I feel certain of one thing.”Kean looked up quickly.“Yes?”“She never meant to go to the farm. It is two miles the other side of Keys and forty minutes’ walk from here. She was wearing an old pair of evening shoes and she hadn’t troubled to change them. No sane woman would walk even a mile on a country road in thin slippers.”
At the best of times Whitbury Junction cannot be described as an attractive spot, with its three long platforms, flanked on either hand by sidings with their usual array of cattle-trucks and, apparently derelict, third-class coaches. An uninspiring collection of faded posters, imploring the weary traveller to hasten at once to Ostend or the Cornish Riviera and a row of battered milk-cans embellish the platforms; and the porters, elderly men of pessimistic habit, take even the arrival of the London train with complete lack of enthusiasm. At seven o’clock on a chilly March morning the Junction is at its worst, and Sir Edward Kean, alighting somewhat stiffly from his first-class carriage after a night of mingled boredom and discomfort, eyed his surroundings with marked disapproval. The fact that he would have over an hour to wait before taking the local train to the little station of Staveley Grange did not serve to cheer him, and he was entirely unprepared for the apparition of Cynthia Bell, the last person he desired to see under the circumstances, waiting for him on the platform.
There was a hint of shyness in her greeting. Sybil Kean’s distinguished husband was one of the few people of whom she stood in awe and she not only felt responsible for his presence at an unearthly hour at this dreary spot, but was quite aware that, but for his wife’s persuasion, he would not have made the journey at all. It was this knowledge that had decided her to meet the train and see him first alone, in the hope of winning his sympathy and inducing him to take more than a cursory interest in John Leslie’s affairs. The sight of his dark, inscrutable face and thin-lipped, relentless mouth sent her courage into her boots and she felt pitifully young and very helpless as she hurried to meet him.
“I wanted to see you and thank you, Sir Edward,” she began rather breathlessly. “Sybil told me you were coming down on purpose. . . .”
In spite of his annoyance Kean was touched by her distress.
“It seemed better to look into things at once,” he said kindly. “Sybil said you were anxious to see me.”
“I wanted to ask your advice. There’s something I’m worried about and no one seems to know in the least what’s going to happen or what one ought to do. It’s the waiting that’s so hard. It makes one imagine things. They haven’t even said they suspect John yet, but they behave all the time as if they did and they’ve searched the farm as if they expected to find something. Meanwhile one hangs about. . . .” She was getting almost incoherent and Kean could see that she was on the verge of tears and was holding them back with difficulty.
“You’ve let this get on your nerves,” he said quietly. “I suggest that we shelve the subject altogether till you’ve had some breakfast. We’ll go over to the station hotel and see what they can do for us, and afterwards you shall put the whole case before me and I’ll give you what advice I can. There’s plenty of time before my train goes and you’ll take a different view of things after you’ve eaten something.”
She gave him a swift look of gratitude and followed him without speaking. At the hotel he ordered food and, when it came, quietly but firmly insisted that she should do it justice, making an excellent breakfast the while himself and keeping the conversation rigidly to impersonal topics. It was not till the meal was over and he had handed her a cigarette and lighted one himself that he allowed her to unburden her mind.
“First of all, what did you wish to consult me about?”
His tone was curt and business-like and, fortified by the food which she had badly needed, she was able to collect her thoughts and put them more clearly into words.
She gave him a brief account of what had happened. The main facts he had already learned from the evening papers, in which Mrs. Draycott’s latest photograph, over the caption of “The Murdered Woman,” had confronted him. He questioned her sharply on one or two points, otherwise he let her tell the story in her own way. When she had finished he sat back in his chair, smoking thoughtfully, for a minute. Then he leaned forward, his keen eyes on hers.
“Where was Leslie while all this was happening at the farm?” he asked sharply.
Cynthia met his gaze without flinching.
“With me,” she answered simply.
“Then why doesn’t he say so?”
“That’s what I wanted to see you about. It doesn’t clear him. You see, he wasn’t with me at the time they seem to think the murder actually took place. And now he doesn’t want me to say anything because he’s afraid it will drag me into it for nothing. I think he’s wrong and he ought to tell them. Mother being so hateful about our engagement makes it all so much more difficult.”
“When was he with you?”
“From five till nearly half-past. Then he did exactly what he said, took a long walk and did not get back to the farm till about eight. It was all my fault, really.”
She broke off, as though she found it difficult to continue.
“You’d better tell me exactly what happened,” came in Sir Edward’s quiet voice.
“It’s all rather complicated,” she went on haltingly. “You know what Mother’s been, about our engagement. Daddie likes John and he’d be all right if it wasn’t for her. Lately she’s been trying to get round John too, telling him that he is ruining my young life and all that sort of rot. And poor old John gets fits of the blues and then he swallows everything she says and behaves like a blithering idiot afterwards, offers to let me off the engagement and all that sort of thing. He’s done it once already and we had an awful row and I wouldn’t speak to him for nearly a week. On Monday the parents went up to London and, thank goodness, they’re there still, or else I don’t think I could bear it. John and I arranged to meet in a copse near the Home Farm at five, after they’d gone, and go for a long walk. After that I was going home to dress for Miss Allen’s dinner and we’d planned that John should pick me up at her house and drive me in my car to Staveley at about eleven. You see, when the parents are at home, we never seem to get much time together and we were going to take advantage of their being away. We met at five, just as we’d arranged, but we did not go for the walk. John had met Mother somewhere the day before and she’d filled him up with the usual nonsense. He began to talk all sorts of rot about not being able to marry me for years, and all that kind of thing, and wanting to break it off. It ended in our having a fearful row, me saying he didn’t care for me and all the things one says when one’s in a rage, and so we parted. And I suppose the poor old thing was upset and went crashing off on this rotten walk and here we are in the soup. If only I hadn’t been such an ass we should have been together and everything would have been all right.”
“I don’t know that you would gain anything by coming forward now,” commented Kean thoughtfully.
“That’s what John says and, of course, after the line Mother’s taken, he doesn’t want to mix me up in it. What I say is, that sane people don’t go charging about the country for nearly four solid hours, unless there’s something wrong with them, and of course everybody thinks John must have been up to something. If he’d tell them exactly what happened and whatwaswrong with him, there’d be some sense in the whole thing. Of course, we should both look awful fools,” she finished ruefully.
“I’d better see Leslie to-morrow and then you can appear at the inquest if we think it’s advisable. Tell him I’ll come over to the farm in the course of the morning.”
Kean rose and picked up his overcoat.
Cynthia hesitated, then took her courage in both hands.
“Sir Edward, Mr. Fayre is at the farm now with John and he wants to see you. Won’t you come over with me now? I’ve got the car outside and I could run you over to Staveley afterwards. Sybil knows. In fact, it was her idea, so she won’t be expecting you.”
In her anxiety she forgot her shyness of him, clinging to his arm, her beseeching eyes fixed on his face.
“Won’t you come now? Please, Sir Edward! The inquest’s this afternoon and it would make all the difference if you could see John first.”
Kean’s face had begun to darken at her first words, but, at the mention of the inquest, it sharpened to a look almost of anxiety.
“The inquest? Already? I was afraid of that!”
“Sir Edward! They can’t arrest John!”
“I don’t know. It all depends on what the police have up their sleeve. I think you’re right; I’d better come up to the farm now.”
On their way they spoke little. Cynthia drove with all the recklessness of youth, and less than half an hour had passed before they turned into the little lane that led to the farm.
Fayre and Leslie were at the door to meet them. “It’s very good of you, sir,” said Leslie. “I seem to be giving you a fearful lot of trouble.”
He looked worn and anxious, but his eyes met Kean’s fearlessly and the lawyer, accustomed as he was to read faces, was both attracted and impressed by his manner.
He laid his hand on Leslie’s shoulder.
“Come inside,” he said. “And let’s talk things over. So you’ve got a finger in this pie, Hatter? You always were an old busybody!”
There was a hint of annoyance in his voice. For one thing, he had all the professional’s dislike for amateur interference, and he knew Fayre too well not to be aware that he was lamentably thorough in his methods. Also, he would be yet another link which would serve to draw Sybil still more surely into this unsavoury business.
There was a gleam of mischief in Fayre’s eyes as he answered.
“Beastly nuisance, Edward, an outsider butting in! I know. I’ve had experience of them in the East. Don’t worry; I’m only here in the capacity of family adviser. I’ve constituted myself a sort of adopted uncle of Cynthia’s. After all, I’ve known her since her pigtail days.”
He tucked the girl’s arm under his as he spoke, with a smile so friendly and encouraging that she felt her heart lighten.
“Mr. Fayre’s been most awfully decent,” said Leslie impulsively. “It’s made all the difference, feeling we’ve got him on our side. And now you’ve come! Iamgrateful, sir!”
“Everybody’s been decent,” put in Cynthia. “I can’t tell you what a brick Lady Staveley was when I told them all on Monday. And Miss Allen has written to ask me to go there and see her this morning. I don’t know why, unless it’s just to show that she believes in John. They’ve always been jolly good friends, but it’s pretty wonderful of her to see me at all, considering what’s happened.”
“It’s unusual. And not in the best of taste, either, in the circumstances. Still, as you say, she may want to show herself definitely on your side. All the same, I think you’d better let me see her instead. It will be best for you to keep away until after the inquest.”
“You don’t think Cynthia will have to appear?” put in Leslie anxiously.
“I’m inclined to agree with her that it may put your actions in a more favourable light if she tells her story. After all, so long as your engagement holds she is involved, in any case. Her name is in the papers already and five minutes in the witness-box won’t make much difference.”
Cynthia shot an indignant glance at him, and Leslie’s face took on an added gloom.
“I told her we’d much better consider it off, at any rate till I was clear of all this business,” he said miserably. “But she won’t listen to me.”
Cynthia turned in desperation to Fayre.
“Uncle Fayre! You’re the only one of the lot with a gleam of sense. Do stop him! If he starts this argument again, I shall go mad! We’ve had enough rows already about it, and I should have thought the result of the last one might have taught him a lesson! Tell him what a fool he is, Uncle Fayre! You said you agreed with me. If I argue any more about it I shall lose my temper.”
She swung round on Leslie.
“Understand this! I’m not going to let this make any difference. I’m going to hang on like a leech, whatever happens! So you can’t get rid of me!”
Kean’s eyes met Fayre’s meaningly.
“I think she’s right,” he said quietly, and left it at that; but the other knew what he was thinking. If Leslie were to find himself in the dock the fact that his engagement to Cynthia still held would tell in his favour.
He nodded absently. His mind was on the coming inquest. While they were talking they had drifted into the sitting-room, and he saw Kean’s face harden into grim lines as he took in the scene that had staged so dramatic a drama. It struck him that the lawyer, in spite of his air of calm efficiency, was taking anything but a light view of Leslie’s predicament.
The table had been cleared of all its paraphernalia. No doubt the blotter was in the hands of the police. Fayre and Cynthia sat down near the table and Kean took up his position on the hearth-rug in his favourite attitude, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders hunched almost to his ears. Leslie stood behind Cynthia, his eyes on Kean’s face.
“What’s this about a police search?” asked Kean abruptly.
“They went through the entire house,” answered Leslie. “Goodness knows what they were looking for. They wouldn’t let me go with them.”
“What have you told them so far about your movements on Monday evening?”
“Simply that I went for a walk. I wanted to keep Cynthia out of it.”
“You’re sure you met no one who could identify you?”
“I’m afraid not. I was riled and I wanted to walk it off. I went clean across country, away from the roads. I did see a chap with a spade over his shoulder, some labourer going home, I suppose, but he was a good way off and it was getting dark. I remember him because his dog barked.”
“What time?”
“Round about six, I should think. I’d been walking for about an hour.”
“We might trace the fellow. In any case, I’m afraid there’s nothing for it but to give a clear account of your movements, including the time you were with Cynthia. You will gain nothing by holding it back at this juncture. I’ll go now and see this Miss Allen. She may possibly have something to say that throws a light on things. Is it within a walk?”
“Take the Staveley car which brought me,” suggested Fayre. “It’s waiting at the gate and Staveley said I was to use it as I liked.”
“In that case, I suggest that we all meet for lunch at the hotel at Whitbury. We shall be on the spot, then, for the inquest. You’re sure Sybil is not expecting me?”
Fayre smiled.
“This is one of her little plots. Didn’t you recognize her hand behind it? She told me to say that she would expect you when she saw you.”
“We meet at the hotel, then.”
Fayre accompanied him down the little path to the gate, where the Staveley car stood waiting. They had almost reached the end of the path when Fayre, who had been walking with his eyes on the ground, deep in thought, bent down suddenly and picked up something from the long grass that bordered the path.
“Found anything?” asked Kean.
“An old stylographic pen,” said Fayre, examining it curiously. “I remember them in my youth. ‘Red Dwarfs,’ I think they used to be called. I wonder how it got there.”
Kean held out his hand for it.
“It’s probably been there some time. We’ll ask Leslie if he recognizes it. We’ll stick to it, anyway. It may prove of interest.”
Fayre was peering about in the grass.
“There’s nothing else,” he said, “except some copper-coloured spangles, three of them, here on the path. I believe the poor creature was wearing a brown-spangled dress, so, as we know she probably came up this path, that does not lead us anywhere. The pen may prove more useful.”
“It has probably got there since the murder,” Kean reminded him. “It’s hardly likely the police would have missed it. They must have gone over this ground pretty carefully. The pressmen have been down here already, remember. One of them may have dropped it.”
He slipped the pen into his pocket as he spoke.
After Kean had climbed into the car Fayre stood for a moment, his hand on the door.
“I’m not going to make a nuisance of myself, Edward,” he said. “But, if there’s anything I can do, you might put me onto it. I’m sorry for those children and would give a great deal to help them. Also, I’m at a loose end and I’ve no ties. If there’s any special line you want followed I could do it more tactfully, possibly, and unobtrusively than one of these fellows from an agency.”
Kean nodded.
“I’ll remember. Don’t underrate the private detective, though. It’s not such an easy job as you seem to think. Meanwhile, if you can keep Sybil from worrying herself silly I should take it as a kindness. I’ve got to go back to town to-night and I should like to leave her in good hands. Yours are the best I know, old chap.”
The car slid away, leaving Fayre, for all his even temper, a little ruffled. His offer, not a very practical one, perhaps, but none the less heartfelt for that, had been quietly, but firmly, put aside. The lump of sugar, skilfully administered after the pill, did not deceive him and he was human enough to feel snubbed. There was something significant, too, in the way in which Kean had quietly pocketed his find in the garden. Evidently he had no intention of taking his old friend into his confidence with regard to his conduct of the case. Fayre, who had meant to ask him his intentions should Leslie be committed for trial, decided to leave all such negotiations to Lady Kean. They had both hoped that he might be persuaded to undertake the defence and he felt now that she was the only person who could be counted on to influence him, should the occasion arise. He returned to the farm in as near a bad temper as was possible to one of his temperament and thoroughly out of patience with the legal mind.
“If Edward takes this line, blessed if I don’t do a bit of investigating on my own,” he told himself doggedly. “He always was a hide-bound beggar. Come to that, why couldn’t he let Cynthia go and see Miss Allen? She’d probably get more out of her, as woman to woman, than he will. Another of his absurd points of legal etiquette.”
Meanwhile the object of his wrath was reviewing the situation as the motor bore him swiftly on his way to Greycross. If Cynthia had seen his face now she would have been robbed of even the faint hope that had been kindled by his visit to the farm. But he felt no doubt as to Leslie’s innocence. His manner, all that he knew of him in the past, the complete lack of motive, even the very weakness of his alibi, all served to exonerate him; but, as Kean knew from long experience, only the lack of motive would weigh with a jury. He had guessed that part of Leslie’s time on the Monday had been passed in the company of Cynthia Bell and had counted on her to produce a sufficient alibi, expecting to be confronted with nothing more serious than the boy’s chivalrous desire to shield her. He had been far more concerned than he had chosen to admit, even to Fayre, when he found that Cynthia’s evidence would be worse than useless. He was so deep in thought that he was taken unawares when the motor drew up in front of Miss Allen’s pleasant, picturesque old house.
A bulldog ambled out onto the drive to greet him and a couple of terriers sniffed at his legs as he waited in the comfortable drawing-room into which the maid had shown him. The pale March sunlight filtered in through the long French windows, but the blinds had been drawn in the ante-room through which he had passed and he knew that probably all the other windows of the house were shrouded. An ominous quiet seemed to brood over the whole place and he found himself moved for the first time by the realization of Mrs. Draycott’s death. Until now he had been too occupied with the consequences of the murder to give much thought to the woman who had, after all, been his fellow-guest at Staveley for over a week. Now, in her sister’s house, the sense of tragedy deepened and, when Miss Allen found him standing by the window, staring with sombre eyes into the sunlit garden, she was struck by the weariness of his pose and the almost haggard pallor of his face.
He, summing her up sharply in his turn, was surprised to see but little sign of the violent grief he had expected. Her plain, fresh-coloured features were grave and a little sad, but she was obviously not prostrated by the loss of her sister. She greeted him frankly and with a certain quiet dignity.
“My maid said that you wished to see me?” she said simply.
“I must apologize for intruding on you at such a time, but I have come from Lady Cynthia Bell. She tells me that you very kindly offered to see her and she asked me to express her gratitude and appreciation. I am afraid that I am responsible for her failure to take advantage of your suggestion. . . . It is difficult to explain my interference without encroaching on a subject which, I am afraid, must be very painful to you.”
He broke off, his face alight with a very real sympathy.
“You mean my sister’s death,” she said steadily. “I know your name well, Sir Edward, and if you have come on Cynthia’s behalf, there is one thing I should like to make quite clear before we go any further. You have guessed, probably, why I wanted to see her and I am very glad to have the opportunity of saying as much to you as I had intended to say to her. It is simply this: I have known John Leslie for some time and I’m not a bad judge of character. I am absolutely convinced that he had nothing to do with my poor sister’s death and, what’s more, am practically certain that he had never met her or had ever had anything to do with her.”
Having said her say, she stood waiting, a dignified, sturdy figure of an English spinster, a look of quiet resolution on her well-cut, weather-beaten features. Kean summed her up as a good friend and a bad enemy.
“This will mean a lot to Cynthia,” he said warmly. “And I should like to thank you on her behalf. As for myself, I entirely agree with you; but, as you know, we may have to convince people who do not know Leslie, and, however strongly we may feel ourselves on the subject, we have no real proof to offer. Frankly, I came here in the hope that you might have some evidence that would help us. You say you are practically certain that Leslie never knew your sister. Is this only conjecture?”
“Mr. Leslie told me himself that he had never met her when I spoke to him about her visit to me; but that, I suppose,” she went on with a rather grim smile, “is hardly sufficient for you lawyers! But, as a matter of fact, by sheer luck, my sister happened to pick up a snapshot of Cynthia and Mr. Leslie the morning she arrived. She recognized Cynthia from a photograph she had seen in some paper and asked who the attractive boy was with her. When I told her his name she said she had heard him spoken of at Staveley, but had never met him. Now, if what these idiots seem to suspect were true, John Leslie might have his reasons for keeping their acquaintance dark, but my sister could have had no objection to saying she knew him. Besides, from her manner, I am sure she did not recognize the photograph.”
“Could you let me have this snapshot, Miss Allen?”
“It is on the mantelpiece behind you. Keep it, if you think it will be of any use.”
“You will forgive me if I seem insistent,” he went on. “But, as you know, this is a very serious matter for Leslie. Can you think of any one, in the past, who might possibly have harboured a grudge against your sister?”
Miss Allen hesitated, her clear eyes very troubled.
“I’d better be frank with you,” she said at last. “You’ll probably think what I am about to say almost indecent, but I’ve never shirked the truth in my life and I want to leave no stone unturned to help that boy. You met my sister at Staveley, I believe, Sir Edward, and I think you will understand what I am trying to tell you. You may not know that she was divorced by her first husband and would have been divorced by her second if he had not died in the nick of time. It isn’t pleasant for me to say this and I hope it need not go any further, but that is the kind of woman she was. I don’t judge her, and I suppose it was largely a matter of temperament. She was spoiled, too, as a child. But she was a woman who was bound to have enemies, both male and female, and she had some queer friends, too. If her first husband were not dead I should have been very much inclined to put this down to him. He went to pieces, altogether, after she left him, and became just the kind of half-mad, reckless creature that might end in the dock. Thank goodness, he is out of it, but she has made many friends and many enemies since his day.”
“You know of no one in particular?” pressed Kean eagerly. “Is there nothing she said, at any time, that would suggest any one?”
But Miss Allen shook her head.
“You must remember that I was not in her confidence. We have never been intimate, and for the last ten years I have seen very little of her. I did not like her ways or her friends and I told her so. As a matter of fact, I was surprised when she proposed this visit herself. She told me when she arrived that she was economizing and wanted to put in a week somewhere in between two visits.”
“She said nothing else that might possibly be a clue? Will you search your memory very carefully, Miss Allen? There may be something that seemed quite unimportant at the time.”
He leaned forward, watching her anxiously.
“There was one thing. I didn’t take much account of it at the time and I don’t now. It was her way to make exaggerated statements. But, when she spoke of economizing, she said that, anyhow, it wouldn’t last long. She was out to make a lot of money; in fact, was practically certain of it. I asked her whether it wasn’t just another of her ‘sure things,’ for she was a born gambler, you know. And she said it was as sure as death. I’ve remembered her words since.”
“As sure as death,” echoed Kean softly. “What irony!”
“I took it for granted that she was talking either of racing or of some speculation she was mixed up in. She had a lot of queer people in tow, bookies and the sort of shady-looking men who are supposed to be something in the city. Looked like criminals, most of them, and I told her so, more than once. But I dare say they were harmless enough, really. I met her once in Paris with a man she told me was a well-known French bookie and I wouldn’t have trusted him alone in a room with my purse. They fleeced her a lot, one way and another.”
“There was nothing among her papers that pointed to any big transaction?”
Miss Allen shook her head.
“I went through them carefully yesterday. There was nothing. As I said, I don’t believe John Leslie had anything to do with this and I should like to see him cleared, but I am not so heartless as I may have sounded. I don’t say that we got on well together, but she was my sister, when all’s said and done, and I find myself regretting many things now. Perhaps if I had taken the trouble I might have been of some influence in her life. I don’t know. But I should like to see the man who did this brought to book.”
Her voice was wrung with emotion and Kean could see that she had been tried more hardly than she realized in the past few days.
“I don’t think I had ever understood the strength of blood-relationship until I saw her lying in that horrible place at Whitbury,” she muttered almost inaudibly.
Kean waited in silence. There seemed nothing he could say. She pulled herself together with a pluck that roused his admiration and turned to him.
“I’m afraid I’ve helped you very little,” she said regretfully.
“I’m not so sure. Anything may turn out to be important in a case like this. In the meantime, I am more than grateful to you, Miss Allen, for your frankness. Cynthia will no doubt see you very soon and thank you herself. In view of the fact that she may have to appear at the inquest this afternoon I considered it better that she should not be known to have been in touch with you. She saw my point; otherwise she would have come in answer to your note this morning.”
Miss Allen nodded.
“I’m very glad she has got you to turn to, Sir Edward. If there is anything more I can tell you at any time I will let you know.”
Kean paused in the act of shaking hands.
“One thing more,” he said. “You have no reason to suspect that your sister went out with the intention of meeting anybody on Monday night?”
“I hadn’t at the time, but I have wondered since. I was writing letters in the little room I call my study when she went out. I shut myself up there directly after tea, to get through some troublesome correspondence, and left her comfortably settled in front of the fire in here. When I came back about half-past six she was gone and the maid told me she had seen her go out. I was surprised, because she hated walking and it was not the sort of weather to tempt her out of the house, but I did not get anxious until after the arrival of Cynthia. We waited dinner for her until past eight, and after dinner I sent the groom down to Keys to ask if she had been seen there. When he returned and said he could get no trace of her I began to get really anxious. Until then I had simply thought she had lost her way, and was in hopes that she might have telephoned to the inn at Keys, leaving a message for me saying she was hung up somewhere. I have no telephone here, you see, and she knew that the people at The Boar sometimes take messages for me. I sent my man straight back to Keys, telling him to see Gunnet, the constable there. But Gunnet was out and his wife did not know when he would be back. Of course, I know now that he was at the farm. Cynthia was just trying to persuade me to let her take her car and scour the lanes when the police arrived with the news of what had happened.”
“You have no idea what could have taken her to Leslie’s farm?”
“None whatever. I should certainly never have dreamed of looking for her there. By ten o’clock I had made up my mind that she had either lost her way or had an accident. There was a gale blowing that night and a good many trees were down, and I was afraid she might have been hit and be lying helpless somewhere. Thinking it over, I feel certain of one thing.”
Kean looked up quickly.
“Yes?”
“She never meant to go to the farm. It is two miles the other side of Keys and forty minutes’ walk from here. She was wearing an old pair of evening shoes and she hadn’t troubled to change them. No sane woman would walk even a mile on a country road in thin slippers.”