For a good three minutes after the departure of William Roper the Lord Loudwater walked up and down the smoking-room. His redly-glinting eyes still rolled in a terrifying fashion, and still every few seconds he snapped his fingers in the throes of an effort to make up his raging mind whether to begin by an attack on his wife or on Colonel Grey. He could not remember ever having been so angry in his life; now and again his red eyes saw red.
Then of a sudden he made up his mind that he was at the moment angrier with Colonel Grey. He would deal with him first. Olivia could wait. He hurried out to the stables and bellowed for a horse with such violence that two startled grooms saddled one for him in little more than a minute.
He made no attempt to think what he would say to Colonel Grey. He was too angry. He galloped the two miles to the "Cart and Horses" at Bellingham, where Colonel Grey was staying, in order to restore his health and to fish.
At the door of the inn he bellowed: "Ostler! Ostler!" Then without waiting to see whether an ostler came, he threw the reins on his horse's neck, left it to its own devices, strode into the tap-room, and bellowed to the affrighted landlady, Mrs. Turnbull, to take him straight to Colonel Grey. Trembling, she led him upstairs to Grey's sitting-room on the first floor. Before she could knock, he opened the door, bounced through it, and slammed it.
Grey was sitting at the other side of the table, looking through a book of flies. He appeared to be quite unmoved by the sudden entry of the infuriated nobleman, or by his raucous bellow:
"So here you are, you infernal scoundrel!"
He looked at him with a cold, distasteful eye, and said in a clear, very unpleasant voice: "Another time knock before you come into my room."
Lord Loudwater had not expected to be received in this fashion; dimly he had seen Grey cowering.
He paused, then said less loudly: "Knock? Hey? Knock? Knock at the door of an infernal scoundrel like you?" His voice began to gather volume again. "Likely I should take the trouble! I know all about your scoundrelly game."
Colonel Grey remembered that Olivia had said that she proposed to deny the kiss, and his course was quite clear to him.
"I don't know whether you're drunk, or mad," he said in a quiet, contemptuous voice.
This again was not what Lord Loudwater had expected. But Grey was a strong believer in the theory that the attacker has the advantage, and he had an even stronger belief that an enemy in a fury is far less dangerous than an enemy calm.
"You're lying! You know I'm neither!" bellowed Lord Loudwater. "You kissed Olivia—Lady Loudwater—in the East wood. You know you did. You were seen doing it."
"You're raving, man," said Colonel Grey quietly, in a yet more unpleasant tone.
The interview was not going as Lord Loudwater had seen it. He had to swallow violently before he could say: "You were seen doing it! Seen! By one of my gamekeepers!"
"You must have paid him to say so," said Colonel Grey with quiet conviction.
Lord Loudwater was a little staggered by the accusation. He gasped and stuttered: "D-D-Damn your impudence! P-P-Paid to say it!"
"Yes, paid," said Colonel Grey, without raising his voice. "You happened to hear that we had tea in the pavilion in the wood—probably from Lady Loudwater herself—and you made up this stupid lie and paid your gamekeeper to tell it in order to score off her. It's exactly the dog's trick a bullying ruffian like you would play a woman."
"D-D-Dog's trick? Me?" stammered Lord Loudwater, gasping.
He was used to saying things of this kind to other people; not to have them said to him.
"Yes, you. You know that you're a wretched bully and cad," said ColonelGrey, with just a little more warmth in his tone.
Had Lord Loudwater's belief that William Roper had told him the truth about the kiss been weaker, it might have been shaken by the whole-hearted thoroughness of Grey's attack. But William Roper had impressed that belief on him deeply. He was sure that Grey had kissed Lady Loudwater.
The certainty spurred him to a fresh effort, and he cried: "It's no good your trying to humbug me—none at all. I've got evidence—plenty of evidence! And I'm going to act on it, too. I'm going to hound you out of the Army and that jade of a wife of mine out of decent society. Do you think, because I don't spend four or five months every year in that rotten hole, London, I haven't got any influence? Hey? If you do, you're damn well wrong. I've got more than enough twice over to clear a scoundrel like you out of the Army."
"Don't talk absurd nonsense!" said Grey calmly.
"Nonsense? Hey? Absurd nonsense?" howled Lord Loudwater on a new note of exasperation.
"Yes, nonsense. A disreputable cad like you can't hurt me in any way, and well you know it," said Grey with painstaking distinctness.
"Not hurt you? Hey? I can't hurt the corespondent in a divorce case?Hey?" said Lord Loudwater rather breathlessly.
"As if a man who has abused and bullied his wife as you have could get a divorce!" said Grey, and he laughed a gentle, contemptuous laugh, galling beyond words.
It galled Lord Loudwater surely enough; he snapped his fingers four times and gibbered.
"I tell you what it is: I've had enough of your manners," said Grey."What you want is a lesson. And if I hear that you've been bullying LadyLoudwater about this simple matter of my having had tea with her, I'llgive it you—with a horsewhip."
"You'll give me a lesson? You?" whispered Lord Loudwater, and he danced a little frantically.
"Yes. I'll give you the soundest thrashing any man hereabouts has had for the last twenty years, if I have to begin by knocking your ugly head off your shoulders," said Grey, raising his clear voice, so that for the first time Mrs. Turnbull, trembling, but thrilled, on the landing, heard what was being said.
The enunciation of Lord Loudwater had been thick, his words had been slurred.
"You? You thrash me?" he howled.
"Yes, me. Now get out!"
Lord Loudwater gnashed his teeth at him and again snapped his fingers. He burned to rush round the table and hammer the life out of Grey, but he could not do it; violent words, not violent deeds, were his accomplishment. Moreover, there was something daunting in Grey's cold and steady eye. He snapped his fingers again, and, pouring out a stream of furious abuse, turned to the door and flung out of it. Mrs. Turnbull scuttled aside into Grey's bedroom.
Half-way down the stairs Lord Loudwater paused to bellow: "I'll ruin you yet, you scoundrel! Mark my word! Iwillhound you out of the Army!"
He flung out of the house and found that the ostler had taken his horse round to the stable, removed its bridle, and given it a feed of corn. He cursed him heartily.
Grey rose, shut the door, and laughed gently. Then he frowned. Of a sudden he perceived that, natural as had been his manner of dealing with Lord Loudwater, he had handled him badly. At least, it was possible that he had handled him badly. It would have been wiser, perhaps, to have been suave and firm rather than firm and provoking. But it was not likely that suavity would have been of much use; the brute would probably have regarded it as weakness. But for Olivia's sake he ought probably to have tried to soothe him. As it was, the brute had gone raging off and would vent his fury on her.
What had he better do?
He was not long perceiving that there was nothing that he could do. The natural thing was to go to the Castle and prevent her husband—by force, if need be—from abusing and bullying Olivia. That was what his strongest instincts bade him do. It was quite impossible. It would compromise her beyond repair. He had done her harm enough by his impulsive indiscretion in the wood. His face slowly settled into a set scowl as he cudgelled his brains to find a way of coming effectually to her help. It seemed a vain effort, but a way had to be found.
Lord Loudwater galloped half-way to the Castle in a furious haste to punish Olivia for allowing Grey to make love to her, and even more for the contemptuous way in which Grey had treated him. He had hopes also of bullying her into a confession of the truth of William Roper's story. But Grey had excited him to a height of fury at which not even he could remain without exhaustion. In a reaction he reined in his horse to a canter, then to a trot, and then to a walk. He found that he was feeling tired.
He continued, however, to chafe at his injuries, but with less vehemence, and he was still resolved to make a strong effort to draw the confession from Olivia. On reaching the Castle, he did not go to her at once. He sat down in an easy chair in his smoking-room and drank two whiskies-and-sodas.
In the background of Olivia's mind, meditating pleasantly on her pleasant afternoon, there had been a patient and resigned expectation that presently her conscience would begin to reproach her for allowing Grey to make love to her. But the minutes slipped by, and she did not begin to feel that she had been wicked. The meditation remained pleasant. At last she realized suddenly that she was not going to feel wicked. She was surprised and even a trifle horror-stricken by her insensibility. Then, fairly faced by it, she came to the conclusion that, in a woman cursed with such a brute of a husband, such insensibility was not only natural, it was even proper.
Her woman's craving to be loved and to love was the strongest of her emotions, and it had gone unsatisfied for so long. Her husband had killed, or rather extirpated, her fondness for him before they had been married a month. She was inclined to believe that she had never really loved him at all. He had certainly ceased to love her before they had been married a fortnight, if, indeed, he had ever loved her at all. She had no child; she was an orphan without sisters or brothers. Her husband let her see but little of the friends who were fond of her. She began to suspect that her conscience did not reproach her because she had merely acted on her natural right to love and be loved. This conclusion brought her mind again to the consideration of Antony Grey, and again she let her thoughts dwell on him.
The gong, informing her that it was time to dress for dinner, interrupted this pleasant occupation. She had her bath, put herself into the hands of her maid, Elizabeth Twitcher, and resumed her meditation. She was at once so deeply absorbed in it that she did not observe her maid's sullen and depressed air.
She was presently interrupted again, and in a manner far more violent and startling than the summons of the gong. The door was jerked open, and her refreshed husband strode into the room.
"I know all about your little game, madam!" he cried. "You've been letting that blackguard Grey make love to you! You kissed him in the East wood this afternoon!"
The mysterious smile faded from the face of Olivia, and an expression of the most natural astonishment took its place.
"I sometimes think that you are quite mad, Egbert," she said in her slow, musical voice.
Elizabeth Twitcher continued her deft manipulation of a thick strand of hair without any change in her sullen and depressed air. To all seeming, she was uninterested, or deaf.
Lord Loudwater had expected, in the face of Olivia's gentleness, to have to work himself up to a proper height of indignant fury by degrees. The echo of Grey's accusation from the mouth of his wife raised him to it on the instant and without an effort.
"Don't lie to me!" he bellowed. "It's no good whatever! I tell you, I know!"
Olivia was surprised to find herself wholly free from her old fear of him. The fact that she was in love with Grey and he with her had already worked a change in her. These were the only things in the world of any real importance. That clear knowledge gave her a new confidence and a new strength. Her husband had been able to frighten her nearly out of her wits. Now he could not; and she could use them.
"I'm not lying at all. I really do believe you're mad—often," she said very distinctly.
Once more Lord Loudwater was compelled to grind his teeth. Then he laughed a harsh, barking laugh, and cried: "It's no good! I've just had a short interview with that scoundrel Grey. And I put the fear of God into him, I can tell you. I made him admit that you'd kissed him in the East wood."
For a breath Olivia was taken aback. Then she perceived clearly that it was a lie. He could not put the fear of God into Grey. Besides, Grey had kissed her, not she him.
"It's you who are lying," she said quickly and with spirit. "How couldColonel Grey admit a thing that never happened?"
Lord Loudwater perceived that it was going to be harder to wring the confession from her than he had expected. Checked, he paused. Then Elizabeth Twitcher caught his attention.
"Here: you—clear out!" he said.
Elizabeth Twitcher caught her mistress's eye in the glass. Olivia made no sign.
"I can't leave her ladyship's hair in this state, your lordship," saidElizabeth Twitcher with sullen firmness.
"You do as you're told and clear out!" bellowed his lordship.
"I don't want to be half an hour late for dinner," said Olivia, accepting the diversion and ready to make the most of it.
Elizabeth Twitcher looked at Lord Loudwater, saw more clearly than ever his likeness to the loathed James Hutchings, and made up her mind to do nothing that he bade her do. She went on dressing her mistress's hair sullenly.
"Are you going? Or am I to throw you out of the room?" cried LordLoudwater in a blustering voice.
"Don't be silly, Egbert!" said Olivia sharply.
From the height of her new emotional experience she felt that her husband was merely a noisy and obnoxious boy. This was, indeed, quite plain to her. She felt years older than he and very much wiser.
Lord Loudwater, with a quite unusual glimmer of intelligence, perceived that bringing Elizabeth Twitcher into the matter had been a mistake. It had weakened his main action. In a less violent but more malevolent voice he said:
"Silly? Hey? I'll show you all about that, you little jade! You clear out of this first thing to-morrow morning. My lawyers will settle your hash for you. I'll deal with that blackguard Grey myself. I'll hound him out of the Army inside of a month. Perhaps it'll be a consolation to you to know that you've done him in as well as yourself."
He turned on his heel, left the room with a positively melodramatic stride, and slammed the door behind him.
Olivia was stricken by a sudden panic. She had lost all fear of her husband as far as she herself was concerned. He had become a mere offensive windbag. She did not care whether he did, or did not, try to divorce her. Even on the terms of so great a scandal it would be a cheap deliverance. But Antony was another matter…. She could not bear that he should be ruined on her account…. It was intolerable … not to be thought of…. She must find some way of preventing it.
She began to cudgel her brains for that way of preventing it, but in vain. She could devise no plan. The more she considered the matter, the worse it grew. She could not bear to be associated in Antony's mind with disaster; she desired most keenly to stand for everything that was pleasant and delightful in his life. She would not let her brute of a husband spoil both their lives. He had already spoiled enough of hers.
After his injunction to her to leave the Castle first thing next morning, she took it that they would hardly dine together, and told Elizabeth Twitcher to tell Wilkins to serve her dinner in her boudoir. Also, she refused to put on an evening gown, saying that thepeignoirshe was wearing was more comfortable on such a hot night. Last of all, she told her to pack some of her clothes that night.
Elizabeth Twitcher, stirred somewhat out of her brooding on her own troubles by this trouble of her mistress, looked at her thoughtfully and said: "I shouldn't go, m'lady. It'll look as if you agreed with what his lordship said. And it's only William Roper as has been telling these lies. He asked to see his lordship about something very partic'ler before his lordship went out. And who's going to pay any heed to William Roper?"
"William Roper? Who is William Roper? What kind of a man is he?" saidOlivia quickly.
"He's an under-gamekeeper, m'lady, and the biggest little beast on the estate. Everybody hates William Roper," said Elizabeth with conviction.
This was satisfactory as far as it went. The worse her husband's evidence was the freer it left her to take her own course of action. But it was no great comfort, for she was but little concerned about the harm he could do her. Indeed, she was only concerned about the harm he could do Antony. She returned to her search for a method of preventing that harm during her dinner, and after her dinner she continued that search without any success. This injury to Antony, for her the central fact of the situation, weighed on her spirit more and more heavily.
The longer she pondered it the more harassed she grew. The most fantastic schemes for baulking her husband and saving Antony came thronging into her mind. She rose and walked restlessly up and down the room, working herself up into a veritable fever.
Mr. Manley, having dealt with the letters which had come by the five-o'clock post, read half a dozen chapters of the last published novel of Artzybachev with the pleasure he never failed to draw from the works of that author. Then he dressed and set forth, in a very cheerful spirit, to dine with Helena Truslove. His cheerful expectations were wholly fulfilled. She had divined that he was endowed, not only with a romantic spirit, but with a hearty and discriminating appetite, and was careful to give him good food and wine and plenty of both. With his coffee he smoked one of Lord Loudwater's favourite cigars. Expanding naturally, he talked with spirit and intelligence during dinner, and made love to her after dinner with even more spirit and intelligence. As a rule, he stayed on the nights he dined with her till a quarter to eleven. But that night she dismissed him at ten o'clock, saying that she was feeling tired and wished to go to bed early. Smoking another of Lord Loudwater's favourite cigars, he walked briskly back to the Castle, more firmly convinced than ever that every possible step must be taken to prevent any diminution of the income of a woman of such excellent taste in food and wine. It would be little short of a crime to discourage the exercise of her fine natural gift for stimulating the genius of a promising dramatist.
He was not in the habit of going to bed early, and having put on slippers and an old and comfortable coat, he once more turned to the novel by Artzybachev. He read two more chapters, smoking a pipe, and then he became aware that he was thirsty.
He could have mixed himself a whisky and soda then and there, for he had both in the cupboard, in his sitting-room. But he was a stickler for the proprieties: he had drunk red wine, Burgundy with his dinner and port after it, and after red wine brandy is the proper spirit. There would be brandy in the tantalus in the small dining-room.
He went quietly down the stairs. The big hall, lighted by a single electric bulb, was very dim, and he took it that, as was their habit, the servants had already gone to bed. As he came to the bottom of the stairs the door at the back of the hall opened; James Hutchings came through the doorway and shut the door quietly behind him.
Mr. Manley stood still. James Hutchings came very quietly down the hall, saw him, and started.
"Good evening, Hutchings. I thought you'd left us," said Mr. Manley, in a rather unpleasant tone.
"You may take your oath to it!" said James Hutchings truculently, in a much more unpleasant tone than Mr. Manley had used. "I just came back to get a box of cigarettes I left in the cupboard of my pantry. I don't want any help in smoking them from any one here."
He opened the library door gently, went quietly through it, and drew it to behind him, leaving Mr. Manley frowning at it. It was a fact that Hutchings carried a packet, which might very well have been cigarettes; but Mr. Manley did not believe his story of his errand. He took it that he was leaving the Castle by one of the library windows. Well, it was no business of his.
At a few minutes past eight the next morning he was roused from the deep dreamless sleep which follows good food and good wine well digested, by a loud knocking on his door. It was not the loud, steady and prolonged knocking which the third housemaid found necessary to wake him. It was more vigorous and more staccato and jerkier. Also, a voice was calling loudly:
"Mr. Manley, sir! Mr. Manley! Mr. Manley!"
For all the noise and insistence of the calling Mr. Manley did not awake quickly. It took him a good minute to realize that he was Herbert Manley and in bed, and half a minute longer to gather that the knocking and calling were unusual and uncommonly urgent. He sat up in bed and yawned terrifically.
Then he slipped out of bed—the knocking and calling still continued—unlocked the door, and found Holloway, the second footman, on the threshold looking scared and horror-stricken.
"Please, sir, his lordship's dead!" he cried. "He's bin murdered! Stabbed through the 'eart!"
"Murdered? Lord Loudwater?" said Mr. Manley with another terrific yawn, and he rubbed his eyes. Then he awoke completely and said: "Send a groom for Black the constable at once. Yes—and tell Wilkins to telephone the news to the Chief Inspector at Low Wycombe. Hurry up! I'll get dressed and be down in a few minutes. Hurry up!"
Holloway turned to go.
"Stop!" said Mr. Manley. "Tell Wilkins to see that no one disturbs LadyLoudwater. I'll break the news myself when she is dressed."
"Yes, sir," said Holloway, and ran down the corridor.
Mr. Manley was much quicker than usual making his toilet, but thorough. He foresaw a hard and trying day before him, and he wished to start it fresh and clean. He would come into contact with new people; he saw himself playing an important rôle in a most important affair; he would naturally and as usual make himself valued. A slovenly air did not conduce to that. It seemed fitting to put on his darkest tweed suit and a black necktie.
When he came—briskly for him—downstairs he found a group of women servants in the hall, outside the door of the smoking-room, three of them snivelling, and Wilkins and Holloway in the smoking-room itself, standing and staring with a wholly helpless air at the body of Lord Loudwater, huddled in the easy chair in which he had been wont to sleep after dinner every evening.
"He's been stabbed, sir. There's that knife which was in the inkstand on the library table stickin' in 'is 'eart," said Wilkins in a dismal voice.
Mr. Manley glanced at the dead man. He looked to have been stabbed as he slept. His body had sagged down in the chair, and his head was sunk between his shoulders, so that he appeared almost neckless. His once so florid face was of an even, dead, yellowish pallor.
Mr. Manley's glance at the dead man was brief. Then he saw that the door between the smoking-room and the library was ajar. He could not see the library windows without crossing the smoking-room. That he would not do. He was a stickler for correctness in all matters, and he knew that the scene of a crime must be left untrampled.
He turned and said: "We will leave everything just as it is till the police come. And telephone at once to Doctor Thornhill, and ask him to come. If he is out, tell them to get word to him, Wilkins."
Wilkins and Holloway filed out of the room before him; he followed them out, locked the door and put the key in his pocket. Then he opened the door from the hall into the library. The long window nearest the smoking-room door was open.
The group of servants were all watching him; never had he moved or acted with an air of graver or greater importance. His portliness gave it weight.
"Has any of you opened the windows of the library this morning?" he said.
No one answered.
Then Mrs. Carruthers, the housekeeper, said: "Clarke does the library every morning. Have you done it this morning, Clarke?"
"No, mum. I hadn't finished the green droring-room when Mr. Holloway brought the sad news," said one of the housemaids.
Mr. Manley locked the library door and put that key also in his pocket.
Then he said in a tone of authority: "I think, Mrs. Carruthers, that the sooner we all have breakfast the better. I for one am going to have a hard day, and I shall need all my strength. We all shall."
"Certainly, Mr. Manley. You're quite right. We shall all need our strength. You shall have your breakfast at once. I'll have it sent to the little dining-room. You would like to be on the spot. Come along, girls. Wilkins, and you, Holloway, get on with your work as quickly as you can," said Mrs. Carruthers, driving her flock before her towards the servants' quarters.
"Thank you. And will you see that no one wakes Lady Loudwater before her usual hour, or tells her what has happened? I will tell her myself and try to break the news with as little of a shock as possible," said Mr. Manley.
"Twitcher hasn't bin downstairs yet. She doesn't know anything about it," said one of the maids.
"Send her straight to me—to the terrace when she does come down," saidMr. Manley, walking towards the hall door.
He felt that after the sight of the dead man's face the fresh morning air would do him good.
There came a sudden burst of excited chatter from the women as they passed beyond the door into the back of the Castle. All their tongues seemed to be loosed at once. Mr. Manley went out of the Castle door, crossed the drive, and walked up and down the lawn. He took long breaths through his nostrils; the sight of the dead man's yellowish face had been unpleasant indeed to a man of his sensibility.
In about five minutes Elizabeth Twitcher came out of the big door and across the lawn to him. She was looking startled and scared.
"Mrs. Carruthers said you wished to speak to me, sir?" she said quickly.
"Yes. I propose to break the news of this very shocking affair to Lady Loudwater myself. She's rather fragile, I fancy. And I think that it needs doing with the greatest possible tact—so as to lessen the shock," said Mr. Manley in an impressive voice.
Elizabeth Twitcher gazed at him with a growing suspicion in her eyes.Then she said: "It isn't—it isn't a trap?"
"A trap? What kind of a trap? What on earth do you mean?" said Mr.Manley, in a not unnatural bewilderment at the odd suggestion.
"You might be trying to take her off her guard," said Elizabeth Twitcher in a tone of deep suspicion.
"Her guard against what?" said Mr. Manley, still bewildered.
Elizabeth's Twitcher's eyes lost some of their suspicion, and he heard her breathe a faint sigh of relief.
"I thought as 'ow—as how some of them might have told you what his lordship was going to do to her, and that she—she stuck that knife into him so as to stop it," she said.
"What on earth are you talking about? What was his lordship going to do to her?" cried Mr. Manley, in a tone of yet greater bewilderment.
"He was going to divorce her ladyship. He told her so last night when I was doing her hair for dinner," said Elizabeth Twitcher.
She paused and stared at him, frowning. Then she went on: "And, like a fool, I went and talked about it—to some one else."
Mr. Manley glared at her in a momentary speechlessness; then found his voice and cried: "But, gracious heavens! You don't suspect her ladyship of having murdered Lord Loudwater?"
"No, I don't. But there'll be plenty as will," said Elizabeth Twitcher with conviction.
"It's absurd!" cried Mr. Manley.
Elizabeth Twitcher shook her head.
"You must allow as she had reason enough—for a lady, that is. He was always swearing at her and abusing her, and it isn't at all the kind of thing a lady can stand. And this divorce coming on the top of it all," she said in a dispassionate tone.
"You mustn't talk like this! There's no saying what trouble you may make!" cried Mr. Manley in a tone of stern severity.
"I'm not going to talk like that—only to you, sir. You're a gentleman, and it's safe. What I'm afraid of is that I've talked too much already—last night that is," she said despondently.
"Well, don't make it worse by talking any more. And let me know when your mistress is dressed, and I'll come up and break the news of this shocking affair to her."
"Very good, sir," said Elizabeth, and with a gloomy face and depressed air she went back into the Castle.
She had scarcely disappeared, when Holloway came out to tell Mr. Manley that his breakfast was ready for him in the little dining-room. Mr. Manley set about it with the firmness of a man preparing himself against a strenuous day. The frown with which Elizabeth Twitcher's suggestion had puckered his brow faded from it slowly, as the excellence of the chop he was eating soothed him. Holloway waited on him, and Mr. Manley asked him whether any of the servants had heard anything suspicious in the night. Holloway assured him that none of them had.
Mr. Manley had just helped himself a second time to eggs and bacon when Wilkins brought in Robert Black, the village constable. Mr. Manley had seen him in the village often enough, a portly, grave man, who regarded his position and work with the proper official seriousness. Mr. Manley told him that he had locked the door of the smoking-room and of the library, in order that the scene of the crime might be left undisturbed for examination by the Low Wycombe police. Robert Black did not appear pleased by this precaution. He would have liked to demonstrate his importance by making some preliminary investigations himself. Mr. Manley did not offer to hand the keys over to him. He intended to have the credit of the precautions he had taken with the constable's superiors.
He said: "I suppose you would like to question the servants to begin with. Take the constable to the servants' hall, give him a glass of beer, and let him get to work, Wilkins."
He spoke in the imperative tone proper to a man in charge of such an important affair, and Robert Black went. Mr. Manley could not see that the grave fellow could do any harm by his questions, or, for that matter, any good.
He finished his breakfast and lighted his pipe. Elizabeth Twitcher came to tell him that Lady Loudwater was dressed. He told her to tell her that he would like to see her, and followed her up the stairs. The maid went into Lady Loudwater's sitting-room, came out, and ushered him into it.
His strong sense of the fitness of things caused him to enter the room slowly, with an air grave to solemnity. Olivia greeted him with a faint, rather forced smile.
He thought that she was paler than usual, and lacked something of her wonted charm. She seemed rather nervous. She thought that he had come from her husband with an unpleasant and probably most insulting message.
He cleared his throat and said in the deep, grave voice he felt appropriate: "I've come on a very painful errand, Lady Loudwater—a very painful errand."
"Indeed?" she said, and looked at him with uneasy, anxious eyes.
"I'm sorry to tell you that Lord Loudwater has had an accident, a very bad accident," he said.
"An accident? Egbert?" she cried, in a tone of surprise that sounded genuine enough.
It gave Mr. Manley to understand that she had expected some other kind of painful communication—doubtless about the divorce Lord Loudwater had threatened. But he had composed a series of phrases leading up by a nice gradation to the final announcement, and he went on: "Yes. There is very little likelihood of his recovering from it."
Olivia looked at him queerly, hesitating. Then she said: "Do you mean that he's going to be a cripple for life?"
"I mean that he will not live to be a cripple," said Mr. Manley, pleased to insert a further phrase into his series.
"Is it as bad as that?" she said, in a tone which again gave Mr. Manley the impression that she was thinking of something else and had not realized the seriousness of his words.
"I'm sorry to say that it's worse than that. Lord Loudwater is dead," he said, in his deepest, most sympathetic voice.
"Dead?" she said, in a shocked tone which sounded to him rather forced.
"Murdered," he said.
"Murdered?" cried Olivia, and Mr. Manley had the feeling that there was less surprise than relief in her tone.
"I have sent for Dr. Thornhill and the police from Low Wycombe," he said."They ought to have been here before this. And I am going to telegraph toLord Loudwater's solicitors. You would like to have their help as soon aspossible, I suppose. There seems nothing else to be done at the moment."
"Then you don't know who did it?" said Olivia.
Her tone did not display a very lively interest in the matter or any great dismay, and Mr. Manley felt somewhat disappointed. He had expected much more emotion from her than she was displaying, even though the death of her ill-tempered husband must be a considerable relief. He had expected her to be shocked and horror-stricken at first, before she realized that she had been relieved of a painful burden. But she seemed to him to be really less moved by the murder of her husband than she would have been, had the Lord Loudwater carried out his not infrequent threat of shooting, or hanging, or drowning the cat Melchisidec.
"No one so far seems to be able to throw any light at all on the crime," said Mr. Manley.
Olivia frowned thoughtfully, but seemed to have no more to say on the matter.
"Well, then, I'll telegraph to Paley and Carrington, and ask Mr.Carrington to come down," said Mr. Manley.
"Please," said Olivia.
Mr. Manley hesitated; then he said: "And I suppose that I'd better be getting some one to make arrangements about the funeral?"
"Please do everything you think necessary," said Olivia. "In fact, you'd better manage everything till Mr. Carrington comes. A man is much better at arranging important matters like this than a woman."
"You may rely on me," said Mr. Manley, with a reassuring air, and greatly pleased by this recognition of his capacity. "And allow me to assure you of my sincerest sympathy."
"Thank you," said Olivia, and then with more animation and interest she added: "And I suppose I shall want some black clothes."
"Shall I write to your dressmaker?" said Mr. Manley.
"No, thank you. I shall be able to tell her what I want better myself."
Mr. Manley withdrew in a pleasant temper. It was true that as a student of dramatic emotion he had been disappointed by the calmness with which Olivia had received the news of the murder; but she had instructed him to do everything he thought fit. He saw his way to controlling the situation, and ruling the Castle till some one with a better right should supersede him. He was halfway along the corridor before he realized that Olivia had asked no single question about the circumstance of the crime. Indifference could go no further. But—he paused, considering—was it indifference? Could she—could she have known already?
As he came down the stairs Wilkins opened the door of the big hall, and a man of medium height, wearing a tweed suit and carrying a soft hat and a heavy malacca cane, entered briskly. He looked about thirty. On his heels came a tall, thin police inspector in uniform.
Mr. Manley came forward, and the man in the tweed suit said: "My name is Flexen, George Flexen. I'm acting as Chief Constable. Major Arbuthnot is away for a month. I happened to be at the police station at Low Wycombe when your news came, and I thought it best to come myself. This is Inspector Perkins."
Mr. Manley introduced himself as the secretary of the murdered man, and with an air of quiet importance told Mr. Flexen that Lady Loudwater had put him in charge of the Castle till her lawyer came. Then he took the keys of the smoking-room and the library door from his pocket and said:
"I locked up the room in which the dead body is, and the library through which there is also access to it, leaving everything just as it was when the body was found. I do not think that any traces which the criminal has left, if, that is, he has left any, can have been obliterated."
He spoke with the quiet pride of a man who has done the right thing in an emergency.
"That's good," said Mr. Flexen, in a tone of warm approval. "It isn't often that we get a clear start like that. We'll examine these rooms at once."
Mr. Manley went to the door of the smoking-room and was about to unlock it, when Dr. Thornhill, a big, bluff man of fifty-five, bustled in. Mr. Manley introduced him to Mr. Flexen; then he unlocked the door and opened it.
The doctor was leading the way into the smoking-room when Mr. Flexen stepped smartly in front of him and said: "Please stay outside all of you. I'll make the examination myself first."
He spoke quietly, but in the tone of a man used to command.
"But, for anything we know, his lordship may still be alive," said Dr. Thornhill in a somewhat blustering tone, and pushing forward. "As his medical adviser, it's my duty to make sure at once."
"I'll tell you whether Lord Loudwater is alive or not. Don't let any one cross the threshold, Perkins," said Mr. Flexen, with quiet decision.
Perkins laid a hand on the doctor's arm, and the doctor said: "A nice way of doing things! Arbuthnot would have given his first attention to his lordship!"
"I'm going to," said Mr. Flexen quietly.
He went to the dead man, looked in his pale face, lifted his hand, let it fall, and said: "Been dead hours."
Then he examined carefully the position of the knife. He was more than a minute over it. Then he drew it gingerly from the wound by the ring at the end of it. It was one of these Swedish knives, the blades of which are slipped into the handle when they are not being used.
"I think that's the knife that lay, open, in the big ink-stand in the library. We used it as a paper-knife, and to cut string with," said Mr. Manley, who was watching him with most careful attention.
"It may have some evidence on the handle," said Mr. Flexen, still holding it by the ring, and he drove the point of it into the pad of blotting paper on which Mr. Manley had been wont to write letters at the murdered man's dictation.
"And how am I to tell whether the wound was self-inflicted, or not?" cried the doctor in an aggrieved tone.
"If you will get some of the servants, you can remove the body to any room convenient and make your examination. It's a clean stab into the heart, and it looks to me as if the person who used that knife had some knowledge of anatomy. Most people who strike for the heart get the middle of the left lung," said Mr. Flexen.
So saying, he gently drew the easy chair, in which the body was huddled, nearer the door by its back. Mr. Manley bade Holloway fetch Wilkins and two of the grooms, and then, eager for hints of the actions of a detective, so useful to a dramatist, gave all his attention again to the proceedings of Mr. Flexen, who was down on one knee on the spot in which the chair had stood, studying the carpet round it. He rose and walked slowly towards the door which opened into the library, paused on the threshold to bid Perkins examine the chair and the clothes of the murdered man, and went into the library.
He was still in it when the footman and the grooms lifted the body of Lord Loudwater out of the chair, and carried it up to his bedroom. Mr. Manley stayed on the threshold of the smoking-room. His interest in the doings of Mr. Flexen forbade him leaving it to superintend decorously the removal of the body.
Presently Mr. Flexen came back, and as he walked round the room, examining the rest of it, especially the carpet, Mr. Manley studied the man himself, the detective type. He was about five feet eight, broad-shouldered out of proportion to that height, but thin. He had an uncommonly good forehead, a square, strong chin, a hooked nose and thin, set lips, which gave him a rather predatory air, belied rather by his pleasant blue eyes. The sun wrinkles round their corners and his sallow complexion gave Mr. Manley the impression that he had spent some years in the tropics and suffered for it.
When Mr. Flexen had examined the room, though Inspector Perkins had already done so, he felt round the cushions of the easy chair in which Lord Loudwater had been stabbed, found nothing, and stood beside it in quiet thought.
Then he looked at Mr. Manley and said: "The murderer must have been some one with whom Lord Loudwater was so familiar that he took no notice of his or her movements, for he came up to him from the front, or walked round the chair to the front of him, and stabbed him with a quite straightforward thrust. Lord Loudwater should have actually seen the knife—unless by any chance he was asleep."
"He was sure to be asleep," said Mr. Manley quickly. "He always did sleep in the evening—generally from the time he finished his cigar till he went to bed. I think he acquired the habit from coming back from hunting, tired and sleepy. Besides, I came down for a drink between eleven and twelve, and I'm almost sure I heard him snore. He snored like the devil."
"Slept every evening, did he? That puts a different complexion on the business," said Mr. Flexen. "The murderer neednothave been any one with whom he was familiar."
"No. He need not. But are you quite sure that the wound wasn't self-inflicted—that it wasn't a case of suicide?" said Mr. Manley.
"No, I'm not; and I don't think that that doctor—what's his name? Thornhill—can be sure either. But why should Lord Loudwater have committed suicide?"
"Well, he had found out, or thought he had found out, something about Lady Loudwater, and was threatening to start an action against her for divorce. At least, so her maid told me this morning. And as he wholly lacked balance, he might in a fury of jealousy have made away with himself," said Mr. Manley thoughtfully.
"Was he so fond of Lady Loudwater?" said Mr. Flexen in a somewhat doubtful tone.
He had heard stories about Lord Loudwater's treatment of his wife.
"He didn't show any great fondness for her, I'm bound to say. In fact, he was always bullying her. But he wouldn't need to be very fond of any one to go crazy with jealousy about her. He was a man of strong passions and quite unbalanced. I suppose he had been so utterly spoilt as a child, a boy, and a young man, that he never acquired any power of self-control at all."
"M'm, I should have thought that in that case he'd have been more likely to murder the man," said Mr. Flexen.
"He was," said Mr. Manley in ready agreement. "But the other's always possible."
"Yes; one has to bear every possibility in mind," said Mr. Flexen. "I've heard that he was a bad-tempered man."
"He was the most unpleasant brute I ever came across in my life," saidMr. Manley with heartfelt conviction.
"Then he had enemies?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Scores, I should think. But, of course, I don't know. Only I can't conceive his having had a friend," said Mr. Manley in a tone of some bitterness.
"Then it's certainly a case with possibilities," said Mr. Flexen in a pleased tone. "But I expect that the solution will be quite simple. It generally is."
He said it rather sadly, as if he would have much preferred the solution to be difficult.
"Let's hope so. A big newspaper fuss will be detestable for LadyLoudwater. She's a charming creature," said Mr. Manley.
"So I've heard. Do you know who the man was that Loudwater was making a fuss about?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. Probably the maid, Elizabeth Twitcher, will be able to tell you," said Mr. Manley.
Mr. Flexen walked across the room and drew the knife out of the pad of blotting-paper by the ring in its handle, and studied it.
"I suppose this is the knife that was in the library? They're pretty common," he said.
Mr. Manley came to him, looked at it earnestly, and said: "That's it all right. I tried to sharpen it a day or two ago, so that it would sharpen a pencil. I generally leave my penknife in the waist-coat I'm not wearing. But I couldn't get it sharp enough. It's rotten steel."
"All of them are, but good enough for a stab," said Mr. Flexen.
Olivia had very little appetite for breakfast. It is to be doubted, indeed, whether she was aware of what she was eating. Elizabeth Twitcher hovered about her, solicitous, pressing her to eat more. She was fond of her mistress, and very uneasy lest she should have harmed her seriously by her careless gossiping the night before. But she was surprised by the exceedingly anxious and worried expression which dwelt on Olivia's face. Her air grew more and more harassed. The murder of her husband had doubtless been a shock, but he had been such a husband. Elizabeth Twitcher had expected her mistress to cry a little about his death, and then grow serene as she realized what a good riddance it was. But Olivia had not cried, and she showed no likelihood whatever of becoming serene.
At the end of her short breakfast she lit a cigarette, and began to pace up and down her sitting-room with a jerky, nervous gait, quite unlike her wonted graceful, easy, swinging walk. She had to relight her cigarette, and as she did so, Elizabeth Twitcher, who was clearing away the breakfast, perceived that her hands were shaking. There was plainly more in the matter than Elizabeth Twitcher had supposed, and she wondered, growing more and more uneasy.
When she went downstairs with the tray she learned that Dr. Thornhill was examining the wound which had caused the Lord Loudwater's death, and that Mr. Flexen and Inspector Perkins were questioning Wilkins. Talking to the other servants, she found of a sudden that she had reason for anxiety herself, and hurried back in a panic to her mistress's boudoir. She found Olivia still walking nervously up and down.
"The inspector and the gentleman who is acting Chief Constable are questioning the servants, m'lady," said Elizabeth.
Olivia stopped short and stared at her with rather scared eyes.
Then she said sharply: "Go down and learn what the servants have told them—all the servants—everything."
Her mistress's plainly greater anxiety eased a little Elizabeth Twitcher's own panic in the matter of James Hutchings, and she went down again to the servants' quarters.
Mr. Flexen and Inspector Perkins learnt nothing of importance from Wilkins; but he made it clearer to Mr. Flexen that the temper of the murdered man had indeed been abominable. Holloway, on the other hand, proved far more enlightening. From him they learnt that Hutchings had been discharged the day before without notice, and that he had uttered violent threats against his employer before he went. Also they learnt that Hutchings, who had left about four o'clock in the afternoon, had come back to the Castle at night. Jane Pittaway, an under-house-maid, had heard him talking to Elizabeth Twitcher in the blue drawing-room between eleven and half-past.
Mr. Flexen questioned Holloway at length, and learned that James Hutchings was a man of uncommonly violent temper; that it had been a matter of debate in the servants' hall whether his furies or those of their dead master were the worse. Then he dismissed Holloway, and sent for Jane Pittaway. A small, sharp-eyed, sharp-featured young woman, she was quite clear in her story. About eleven the night before she had gone into the great hall to bring away two vases full of flowers, to be emptied and washed next morning, and coming past the door of the blue drawing-room, had heard voices. She had listened and recognized the voices of Hutchings and Elizabeth Twitcher. No; she had not heard what they were saying. The door was too thick. But he seemed to be arguing with her. Yes; she had been surprised to find him in the house after he had gone off like that. Besides, everybody thought that he had jilted Elizabeth Twitcher and was keeping company with Mabel Evans, who had come home on a holiday from her place in London to her mother's in the village. No; she did not know how long he stayed. She minded her own business, but, if any one asked her, she must say that he was more likely to murder some one than any one she knew, for he had a worse temper than his lordship even, and bullied every one he came near worse than his lordship. In fact, she had never been able to understand how Elizabeth Twitcher could stand him, though of course every one knew that Elizabeth could always give as good as she got.
When Mr. Flexen thanked her and said that she might go, she displayed a desire to remain and give them her further views on the matter. But Inspector Perkins shooed her out of the room.
Then Wilkins came to say that Dr. Thornhill had finished his examination and would like to see them.
He came in with a somewhat dissatisfied air, sat down heavily in the chair the inspector pushed forward for him, and said in a dissatisfied tone:
"The blade pierced the left ventricle, about the middle, a good inch and a half. Death was practically instantaneous, of course."
"I took it that it must have been. The collapse had been so complete. I suppose the blade stopped the heart dead," said Mr. Flexen.
"Absolutely dead," said the doctor. "But the thing is that I can't swear to it that the wound was not self-inflicted. Knowing Lord Loudwater, I could swear to it morally. There isn't the ghost of a chance that he took his own life. But physically, his right hand might have driven that blade into his heart."
"I thought so myself, though of course I'm no expert," said Mr. Flexen. "And I agree with you when you say that you are morally certain that the wound was not self-inflicted. Those bad-tempered brutes may murder other people, but themselves never."
"Well, I've not your experience in crime, but I should say that you were right," said the doctor.
"All the same, the fact that you cannot swear that the wound was not self-inflicted will be of great help to the murderer, unless we get an absolute case against him," said Mr. Flexen.
"Well, I'm sure I hope you will. Lord Loudwater had a bad temper—an infernal temper, in fact. But that's no excuse for murdering him," said Dr. Thornhill.
"None whatever," said Mr. Flexen. "What about the inquest? I suppose we'd better have it as soon as possible."
"Yes. Tomorrow morning, if you can," said the doctor, rising.
"Very good. Send word to the coroner at once, Perkins. Don't go yourself.I shall want you here," said Mr. Flexen.
He shook hands with the doctor and bade him good-day. As Inspector Perkins went out of the room to send word to the coroner, he bade him send Elizabeth Twitcher to him.
She was not long coming, for, in obedience to Olivia's injunction, she was engaged in learning what the other servants knew, or thought they knew, about the murder.
When she came into the dining-room, Mr. Flexen's keen eyes examined her with greater care than he had given to the other servants. On Jane Pittaway's showing, she should prove an important witness. Now Elizabeth Twitcher was an uncommonly pretty girl, dark-eyed and dark-haired, and her forehead and chin and the way her eyes were set in her head showed considerable character. Mr. Flexen made up his mind on the instant that he was going to learn from Elizabeth Twitcher exactly what Elizabeth Twitcher thought fit to tell him and no more, for all that he perceived that she was badly scared.
He did not beat about the bush; he said: "You had a conversation with James Hutchings last night, about eleven o'clock, in the blue drawing-room. Did you let him in?"
Elizabeth Twitcher's cheeks lost some more of their colour while he was speaking, and her eyes grew more scared. She hesitated for a moment; then she said:
"Yes. I let him in at the side door."
He had not missed her hesitation; he was sure that she was not telling the truth.
"How did you know he was at the side door?" he said.
She hesitated again. Then she said: "He whistled to me under my window just as I was going to bed."
Again he did not believe her.
"Did you let him out of the Castle?" he said.
"No, I didn't. He let himself out," she said quickly.
"Out of the side door?"
"How else would he go out?" she snapped.
"You don't know that he went out by the side door?" said Mr. Flexen.
Elizabeth hesitated again. Then she said sullenly: "No, I don't. I left him in the blue drawing-room."
"In a very bad temper?" said Mr. Flexen.
"I don't know what kind of a temper he was in," she said.
Mr. Flexen paused, looking at her thoughtfully. Then he said: "I'm told that you and he were engaged to be married, and that he broke the engagement off."
"Ibroke it off!" said Elizabeth angrily, and she drew herself up very stiff and frowning.
It was Mr. Flexen's turn to hesitate. Then he made a shot, and said: "I see. He wanted you to become engaged to him again, and you wouldn't."
Elizabeth looked at him with an air of surprise and respect, and said: "It wasn't quite like that, sir. I didn't say as I wouldn't be his fioncy again. I said I'd see how he behaved himself."
"Then he wasn't in a good temper," said Mr. Flexen.
"He was in a better temper than he'd any right to expect to be," saidElizabeth with some heat.
"That's true," said Mr. Flexen, smiling at her. "But after the trouble he had had with Lord Loudwater he couldn't be in a very good temper."
"He was too used to his lordship's tantrums to take much notice of them.He was too much that way himself," said Elizabeth quickly.
"I see," said Mr. Flexen. "What time was it when he left you?"
"I can't rightly say. But it wasn't half-past eleven," she said.
He perceived that that was true. At the moment there was no more to be learned from her. If she could throw any more light on the doings of James Hutchings, she was on her guard and would not. But he had learned that James Hutchings had not entered the Castle by the side door. Had he entered it and left it by the library window?
He asked Elizabeth a few more unimportant questions and dismissed her.
Inspector Perkins, having sent a groom to inform the coroner of the murder, and of the need for an early inquest into it, came back to him. They discussed the matter of James Hutchings, and decided to have him watched and arrest him on suspicion should he try to leave the neighbourhood. The inspector telephoned to Low Wycombe for two of his detectives.
Mr. Flexen questioned the rest of the servants and learned nothing new from them. By the time he had finished the two detectives from Low Wycombe arrived, and he sent them out to make inquiries in the village, though he thought it unlikely that anything was to be learnt there, unless Hutchings had been talking again.
He had risen and was about to go to the smoking-room to look round it again, on the chance that something had escaped his eye, when Mrs. Carruthers, the housekeeper, entered the room. None of the servants had mentioned her to him, and it had not occurred to him that there would of course be a housekeeper.
"Good morning, Mr. Flexen. I'm Mrs. Carruthers, the housekeeper," she said. "You didn't send for me. But I thought I ought to see you, for I know something which may be important, and I thought you ought to know it, too."
"Of course. I can't know too much about an affair like this," said Mr.Flexen quickly.
"Well, there was a woman, or rather I should say a lady, with his lordship in the smoking-room last night—about eleven o'clock."
"Indeed?" said Mr. Flexen. "Won't you sit down? A lady you say?"
"Yes; she was a lady, though she seemed very angry and excited, and was talking in a very high voice. I didn't recognize it, so I can't tell you who it was. You see, I don't belong to the neighbourhood. I've only been here six weeks."
"And how long did this interview last?" said Mr. Flexen.
"I can't tell you. It was no business of mine. I was making my round last thing to see that the servants had left nothing about. I always do. You know how careless they are. I went round the hall, and then I went to bed. But, of course, I wondered about it," said Mrs. Carruthers.
Mr. Flexen looked at her refined, rather delicate face, and he did not wonder how she had repressed her natural curiosity.
"Can you tell me whether the French window in the library, the end one, was open at that time?" he said.
"I can't," she said in a tone of regret. "I couldn't very well open the library door. If the door between the library and the smoking-room was open, I should have been certain to hear something that was not meant for my ears. And it generally is open in summer time. But I should think it very likely that the lady came in by that window. It's always open in summer time. In fact, his lordship always went out into the garden through it, going from his smoking-room."
"And what time was it that you heard this?" he said.
"A few minutes past eleven. I looked round the drawing-room and the two dining-rooms, and it was a quarter-past eleven when I came into my room."
"That's the first exact time I've got from any one yet," said Mr. Flexen in a tone of satisfaction. "And that's all you heard?"
She hesitated, and a look of distress came over her face. Then she said: "You have questioned Elizabeth Twitcher. Did she tell you anything about his lordship's last quarrel with her ladyship?"
"She did not," said Mr. Flexen. "Mr. Manley told me that she had told him about the quarrel. But I did not question her about it. I left it till later."
Mrs. Carruthers hesitated; then she said: "It's so difficult to see what one's duty is in a case like this."
"Well, one's obvious duty is to make no secret of anything that may throw a light on the crime. Was it anything out of the way in the way of quarrels? Wasn't Lord Loudwater always quarrelling with Lady Loudwater? I've been told that he was always insulting and bullying her."
"Well, this one was rather out of the common," said Mrs. Carruthers reluctantly. "He accused her of having kissed Colonel Grey in the East wood and declared that he would divorce her."
"It was Colonel Grey, was it?" said Mr. Flexen.
"That is what Elizabeth Twitcher told me after supper last night. It seems that his lordship burst in upon them when she was dressing her ladyship's hair for dinner and blurted it out before her. I've no doubt she was telling the truth. Twitcher is a truthful girl."
"Moderately truthful," said Mr. Flexen in a somewhat ironical tone.
"Of course she may have exaggerated. Servants do," said Mrs. Carruthers.
"And how did Lady Loudwater take it?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Twitcher said that she denied everything, and did not appear at all upset about it. Of course, she was used to Lord Loudwater's making scenes. He had a most dreadful temper."
"M'm," said Mr. Flexen, and he played a tune on the table with his finger-tips, frowning thoughtfully. "Was Colonel Grey—I suppose it is Colonel Antony Grey—the V.C. who has been staying down here?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Carruthers. "He's at the 'Cart and Horses' atBellingham."
"Was he on good terms with Lord Loudwater?"
"They were quite friendly up to about a fortnight ago. The Colonel used to play billiards with his lordship and stay on to dinner two or three times a week. Then they had a quarrel—about the way his lordship treated her ladyship. Holloway, the footman, heard it, and the Colonel told his lordship that he was a cad and a blackguard, and he hasn't been here since."
"But he met Lady Loudwater in the wood?"
"So his lordship declared," said Mrs. Carruthers in a non-committal tone.
"Do you know how Lord Loudwater came to hear of their meeting?"
"Twitcher said that he must have had it from one of the under-gamekeepers, a young fellow called William Roper. Roper asked to see his lordship that evening and was very mysterious about his errand, so that it looks as if she might be right. None of the servants ever went near his lordship, if they could help it. It had to be something very important to induce William Roper to go to him of his own accord."
"I see," said Mr. Flexen thoughtfully. "Well, I'm glad you told me about this. Do you suppose that this Twitcher girl has talked to any one but you about it?"
"That I can't say at all. But she has a bedroom to herself," said Mrs. Carruthers. "Besides, if she had talked to any of the others, they would have told you about it."
"Yes; there is that. I think it would be a good thing if you were to give her a hint to keep it to herself. It may have no bearing whatever on the crime. It's not probable that it has. But it's the kind of thing to set people talking and do both Lady Loudwater and Colonel Grey a lot of harm."
"I will give her a hint at once," said Mrs. Carruthers, rising. "But the unfortunate thing is that if Twitcher doesn't talk, this young fellow Roper will. And, really, Lord Loudwater gave her ladyship quite enough trouble and unhappiness when he was alive without giving her more now that he's dead."
"I may be able to induce William Roper to hold his tongue," said Mr.Flexen dryly. "Certainly his talking cannot do any good in any case. AndI have gathered that Lady Loudwater has suffered quite enough alreadyfrom her husband."
"I'm sure she has; and I do hope you will be able to keep that young man quiet," said Mrs. Carruthers, moving towards the door. As she opened it, she paused and said: "Will you be here to lunch, Mr. Flexen?"
"To lunch and probably all the afternoon." He hesitated and added: "It would be rather an advantage if I could sleep here, too. I do not think that I shall need to look much further than the Castle for the solution of this problem, though there's no telling. At any rate, I should like to have exhausted all the possibilities of the Castle before I leave it. And if I'm on the spot, I shall probably exhaust them much more quickly."
"Oh, that can easily be arranged. I'll see her ladyship about it at once," said Mrs. Carruthers quickly.
"And would you ask her if she feels equal to seeing me yet?"
"Certainly, Mr. Flexen; and if she does, I'll let you know at once," she said and went through the door.
Mr. Flexen was considering the new facts she had given him, when about three minutes later Inspector Perkins returned; and Mr. Flexen bade him find William Roper and bring him to him without delay. The inspector departed briskly. He was not used to having the inquiry into a crime conducted by the Chief Constable himself; but Mr. Flexen had impressed the conviction on him that it was work which he thoroughly understood. Moreover, he had been appointed acting Chief Constable of the district during the absence of Major Arbuthnot, on the ground of his many years' experience in the Indian Police. Also, the inspector realized that this was, indeed, an exceptional case worthy of the personal effort of any Chief Constable. He could not remember a case of the murder of a peer; they had always seemed to him a class immune from anything more serious than ordinary assault. He was pleased that Mr. Flexen was conducting the inquiry himself, for he did not wish Scotland Yard to deal with it. Not only would that cast a slur on the capacity of the police of the district, but he was sure that he himself would get much more credit for his work, if he and Mr. Flexen were successful in discovering the murderer, than he would get if a detective inspector from Scotland Yard were in charge of the case. Such a detective inspector might or might not earn all the credit, but he would certainly know how to get it and probably insist on having it.