He had not been gone a minute when Elizabeth Twitcher came into the dining-room, said that her ladyship would be pleased to see Mr. Flexen, and led him upstairs to her sitting-room.
He found Olivia paler than her wont, but quite composed. She had lost her nervous air, for she had perceived very clearly that it would be dangerous, indeed, to display the anxiety which was harassing her. It was only natural that she should appear upset by the shock, but not that she should appear in any way fearful.
Mr. Flexen had been told that Lady Loudwater was pretty, but he had not been prepared to find her as charming a creature as Olivia. He made up his mind at once to do the best he could to save her from the trouble that the gossip about her and Colonel Grey would surely bring upon her—if always he were satisfied that neither of them had a hand in the crime. Looking at Olivia, nothing seemed more unlikely than that she should be in any way connected with it. But he preserved an open mind. As such reasons go, she was not without reasons, substantial reasons, for getting rid of her husband, and she appeared to him to be a creature of sufficiently delicate sensibilities to feel that husband's brutality more than most women. At the same time he found it hard to conceive of her using that fatal knife herself. Yet the knife is most frequently the womanly weapon.
For her part, Olivia liked his face; but she had an uneasy feeling that he would go further than most men in solving any problem with which he set his mind to grapple.
They greeted one another; he sat down in a chair facing the light, though he would have preferred that Olivia should have faced it, and expressed his concern at the trouble which had befallen her.
Then he said: "I came to see you, Lady Loudwater, in the hope that you might be able to throw some light on this deplorable event."
"I don't think I can," said Olivia gently. "But of course, if I can do anything to help you find out about it I shall be very pleased to try."
She looked at him with steady, candid eyes that deepened his feeling that she had had no hand in the crime.
"And, of course, I'll make it as little distressing for you as I can," he said. "Do you know whether your husband had anything worrying him—any serious trouble of any kind which would make him likely to commit suicide?"
"Suicide? Egbert?" cried Olivia, in a tone of such astonishment that, as far as Mr. Flexen was concerned, the hypothesis of suicide received its death-blow. "No. I don't know of anything which would have made him commit suicide."
"Of course he had no money troubles; but were there any domestic troubles which might have unhinged his mind to that extent?" said Mr. Flexen.
He wished to be able to deal with the hypothesis of suicide, should it be put forward.
Olivia did not answer immediately. She was thinking hard. The possibility that her husband had committed suicide, or that any one could suppose that he had committed suicide, had never entered her head. She perceived, however, that it was a supposition worth encouraging. At the same time, she must not seem eager to encourage it.
"But they told me that he'd been murdered," she said.
"We cannot exclude any possibility from a matter like this, and the possibility of suicide must be taken into account," said Mr. Flexen quickly. "You don't know of any domestic trouble which might have induced Lord Loudwater to make an end of himself?"
"No, I don't know of one," said Olivia firmly. "But, of course, he was sometimes quite mad."
"Mad?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Yes, quite. I told him so last night—just before dinner. He was quite mad. He said that I had kissed a friend of ours—at least he was a friend of both of us till he quarrelled with my husband some weeks ago—in the East wood. He raged about it, and declared he was going to start a divorce action. But I didn't take much notice of it. He was always falling into dreadful rages. There was one at breakfast about my cat and another at lunch about the wine. He fancied it was corked."
Olivia had perceived clearly that since Elizabeth Twitcher had been a witness of her husband's outburst about Grey, it would be merely foolish not to be frank about it.
"But the last matter was very much more serious than the matter of the cat or the wine," said Mr. Flexen. "You don't think that your husband brooded on it for the rest of the evening and worked himself up into a dangerous frame of mind?"
Olivia hesitated. She was quite sure that her husband had done nothing of the kind, for if he had worked himself up into a dangerous frame of mind he would assuredly have made some effort to get at her and give some violent expression to it. But she said:
"That I can't say. I wish I'd gone down to dinner—now. But I was too much annoyed. I dined in my boudoir. I'd had quite enough unpleasantness for one day. Perhaps one of the servants could tell you. They may have noticed something unusual in him—perhaps that he was brooding."
"Wilkins did say that Lord Loudwater seemed upset at dinner, and that he was frowning most of the meal," said Mr. Flexen.
"That wasn't unusual," said Olivia somewhat pathetically. "Besides—"
She stopped short, on the very verge of saying that she was sure that those frowns cleared from her husband's face before the sweets, for he would never take afternoon tea, in order to have a better appetite for dinner, and consequently was wont to begin that meal in a tetchy humour. Such an explanation would have gone no way to support the hypothesis of suicide. Instead of making it she said:
"Of course, he did seem frightfully upset."
"But you don't think that he was sufficiently upset to do himself an injury?" said Mr. Flexen.
Olivia had formed a strong impression that her husband would not in any circumstance do himself an injury; it was his part to injure others. But she said:
"I can't say. He might have gone on working himself up all the evening. I didn't see him after he left my dressing-room. It was there he made the row—while I was dressing for dinner."
Mr. Flexen paused; then he said: "Mr. Manley tells me that Lord Loudwater used to sleep every evening after dinner. Do you think that he was too upset to go to sleep last night?"
"Oh, dear no! I've known him go to sleep in his smoking-room after a much worse row than that!" cried Olivia.
"With you?" said Mr. Flexen quickly.
"No; with Hutchings—the butler," said Olivia.
"But that wouldn't be such a serious matter—not one to brood upon," saidMr. Flexen.
"I suppose not," said Olivia readily.
Mr. Flexen paused again; then he said in a somewhat reluctant tone: "There's another matter I must go into. Have you any reason to believe that there was any other woman in Lord Loudwater's life—anything in the nature of an intrigue? It's not a pleasant question to have to ask, but it's really important."
"Oh, I don't expect any pleasantness where Lord Loudwater is concerned," said Olivia, with a sudden almost petulant impatience, for this inquisition was a much more severe strain on her than Mr. Flexen perceived. "Do you mean now, or before we were married?"
"Now," said Mr. Flexen.
"I haven't the slightest idea," said Olivia.
"Do you think it likely?" said Mr. Flexen.
"No, I don't—not very. I don't see how he could have got another woman in. He was always about—always. Of course, he rode a good deal, though."
"He did, did he?" said Mr. Flexen quickly.
"Every afternoon and most mornings."
That was important. Mr. Flexen thought that he might not have to go very far afield to find the woman who had been quarrelling with Lord Loudwater at a few minutes past eleven the night before. She probably lived within an easy ride of the Castle.
"I'm very much obliged to you for helping me so readily in such distressing circumstances," he said in a grateful voice as he rose. "If anything further occurs to you that may throw any light on the matter, you might let me hear it with as little delay as possible."
"I will," said Olivia. "By the way, Mrs. Carruthers told me that you would like to stay here while you were making your inquiry; please do; and please make any use of the servants and the cars you like. My husband's heir is still in Mesopotamia, and I expect that I shall have to run the Castle till he comes back."
"Thank you. To stay here will be very convenient and useful," said Mr.Flexen gratefully, and left her.
He came down the stairs thoughtfully. It seemed to him quite unlikely that she had had anything to do with the crime, or knew anything more about it than she had told him. Nevertheless, there was this business of Colonel Grey and her murdered husband's threat to divorce her. They must be borne in mind.
He would have been surprised, intrigued, and somewhat shaken in his conviction that she had been in no way connected with the murder, had he heard the gasp of intense relief which burst from Olivia's lips when the door closed behind him, and seen her huddle up in her chair and begin to cry weakly in the reaction from the strain of his inquisition.
Mr. Flexen found Inspector Perkins waiting for him in the dining-room with the information that James Hutchings was at his father's cottage in the West wood, and that he had set one of his detectives to watch him. Also, he told him that he had learned that Hutchings was generally disliked in the village as well as at the Castle, as a violent, bad-tempered man, with a habit of fixing quarrels on any one who would quarrel with him, and as often as not on mild and inoffensive persons, quite incapable of bearing themselves in a quarrel with any unpleasant effectiveness.
Mr. Flexen discussed with the inspector the question of taking out a warrant for the arrest of Hutchings, and they decided that there was no need to take the step—at any rate, at the moment; it was enough to have him watched. He would learn doubtless that it was known that he had been in the Castle late the night before. If, on learning it, he took fright and bolted, it would rather simplify the case.
Then Mr. Flexen sent again for Elizabeth Twitcher and questioned her at length about Lord Loudwater's onslaught on Lady Loudwater the night before and about the condition in which he had been at the end of it. Elizabeth was somewhat sulky in her manner, for she felt that she was to blame for that onslaught having come to Mr. Flexen's ears. She was the more careful to make it plain that however violently Lord Loudwater may have been affected, Olivia had taken the business lightly enough, and decided to ignore his injunction to her to leave the Castle. Mr. Flexen did not miss the point that Lord Loudwater had threatened to hound Colonel Grey out of the Army; but at the moment he did not attach importance to it. It was the kind of threat that an angry man would be pretty sure to make in the circumstances.
Having dismissed Elizabeth Twitcher, he came to lunch with the impression strong on him that he had made as much progress as could be expected in one morning towards the solution of the problem. He was quite undecided whether Hutchings' presence in the Castle at so late an hour, and the probability that he had entered and left it by the library window, or the matter of the woman who had had the stormy interview with the murdered man, was the more important. It must be his early task to discover who that woman was.
He found Mr. Manley awaiting him in the little dining-room, ready to play host. Over their soup and fish they talked about ordinary topics and a little about themselves. Mr. Manley learned that Mr. Flexen had been in the Indian Police for over seven years, and had been forced to resign his post by the breaking down of his health; that during the war he had twice acted as Chief Constable and three times as stipendiary magistrate in different districts. Mr. Flexen gathered that Mr. Manley had fought in France with a brilliant intrepidity which had not met with the public recognition it deserved, and learned that he had been invalided out of the Army owing to the weakness of his heart. This common failure of health was a bond of sympathy between them, and made them well disposed to one another.
There came a pause in this personal talk, and either of them addressed himself to the consumption of the wing of a chicken with a certain absorption in the occupation. It was not uncharacteristic of Mr. Manley that his high sense of the fitness of things had not prevailed on him to accord the liver wing to the guest. He was firmly eating it himself.
Then Mr. Flexen said: "I suppose you came across Hutchings, the butler, pretty often. What kind of a fellow was he?"
"He was rather more like his master than if he had been his twin brother, except that he wore whiskers and not a beard," said Mr. Manley, in a tone of hearty dislike.
"He does not appear to have been at all popular with the other servants," said Mr. Flexen.
"He certainly wasn't popular with me," said Mr. Manley dryly.
"What did Lord Loudwater discharge him for?"
"A matter of a commission on the purchase of some wine," said Mr. Manley. Then in a more earnest tone he added: "Look here: the trenches knock a good deal of the nonsense out of one, and I tell you frankly that if I could help you in any way to discover the criminal, I wouldn't. My feeling is that if ever any one wanted putting out of the way, Lord Loudwater did; and as he was put out of the way quite painlessly, probably it was a valuble action, whatever its motive."
"I expect that a good many people have come back from the trenches with very different ideas about justice," said Mr. Flexen in an indulgent tone. "The Indian Police also changes your ideas about it. But it's my duty to see that justice is done, and I shall. Besides, I'm very keen on solving this problem, if I can. It seems that Hutchings was in the Castle last night about eleven o'clock, and as you said something about coming down for a drink about that time, I thought you might possibly know something about his movements."
"Well, as it happens," said Mr. Manley and stopped short, paused, and went on: "You seem to have made up your mind that it was a murder and not a suicide."
"So you do know something about the movements of Hutchings," said Mr. Flexen, smiling. "You'll be subpoenaed, you know, if he is charged with the murder."
"That would, of course, be quite a different matter," said Mr.Manley gravely.
"As to its being a murder, I've pretty well made up my mind that it was," said Mr. Flexen.
Mr. Manley looked at him gravely: "You have, have you?" he said. Then he added: "About that knife and the finger-prints on it, if it happens to have recorded any: I've been thinking that you may find yourself suffering from an embarrassment of riches. I know that mine will be on it, and Lady Loudwater's, who used it to cut the leaves of a volume of poetry the day before yesterday, and Hutchings', who cut the string of a parcel of books with it yesterday, and very likely the fingerprints of Lord Loudwater. You know how it is with a knife like that, which lies open and handy. Every one uses it. I've seen Lady Loudwater use it to cut flowers, and Lord Loudwater to cut the end off a cigar—cursing, of course, because he couldn't lay his hands on a cigar-cutter, and the knife was blunt—and I've cut all kinds of things with it myself."
"Yes; but the finger-prints of the murderer, if it does record them, will be on the top of all those others. I shall simply take prints from all of you and eliminate them."
"Of course; you can get at it that way," said Mr. Manley.
They were silent while Holloway set the cheese-straws on the table.
When he had left the room Mr. Flexen said in a casual tone: "You don't happen to know whether Lord Loudwater was mixed up with any woman in the neighbourhood?"
Mr. Manley paused, then laughed and said: "It's no use at all. When I told you that I would throw no light on the matter, if I could help it, I really meant it. At the same time, I don't mind saying that, with his reputation for brutality, I should think it very unlikely."
"You can never tell about women. So many of them seem to prefer brutes.And, after all, a peer is a peer," said Mr. Flexen.
"There is that," said Mr. Manley in thoughtful agreement.
But he was frowning faintly as he cudgelled his brains in the effort to think what had set Mr. Flexen on the track of Helena Truslove, for it must be Helena.
"I expect I shall be able to find out from his lawyers," said Mr. Flexen.
"This promises to be interesting—the intervention of Romance," said Mr. Manley in a tone of livelier interest. "I took it that the murder, if it was a murder, would be a sordid business, in keeping with Lord Loudwater himself. But if you're going to introduce a lady into the case, it promises to be more fruitful in interest for the dramatist. I'm writing plays."
But Mr. Flexen was not going to divulge the curious fact that about the time of his murder Lord Loudwater had had a violent quarrel with a lady. He had no doubt that Mrs. Carruthers would keep it to herself.
"Oh, one has to look out for every possible factor in a problem like this, you know," he said carelessly.
The faint frown lingered on Mr. Manley's brow. Mr. Flexen supposed that it was the result of his refraining from gratifying his appetite for the dramatic. They were silent a while.
"When are you going to take our finger-prints?" said Mr. Manley presently.
"Not till I've learned whether there are any on the handle of the knife," said Mr. Flexen. "Perkins has already sent it off to Scotland Yard."
"I never thought of that. It would be rather a waste of time to take them before knowing that," said Mr. Manley.
Holloway brought the coffee; Mr. Manley gave Mr. Flexen an excellent cigar, and they talked about the war. Mr. Flexen drank his coffee quickly, said that he must get back to his work, and added that he hoped that he would enjoy the company of Mr. Manley at dinner. Mr. Manley had been going to dine with Helena Truslove; but after Mr. Flexen's question whether Lord Loudwater had been entangled with any woman in the neighbourhood, he thought that he had better dine with him. He might learn something useful, if he could induce Mr. Flexen to expand under the relaxing influence of dinner. He resolved to use his authority to have the most engaging wine the cellar held. He was determined to make every endeavour to keep Helena's name out of the affair, and he thought that he would succeed.
Mr. Flexen left him. He finished his coffee, the second cup, slowly, wondering about Mr. Flexen's question about Lord Loudwater and a woman. Then, since he had done all the work he could think of, in the way of making arrangements for the funeral, during the morning, he set out briskly to Helena's house, hoping that she would be able to throw some light on it.
He greeted her with his usual warmth, and then, when he came to look at her at his leisure, it was plain to him that the murder had been a much greater shock to her than he had expected. He was surprised at it, for she had assured him that she had never been really in love with Lord Loudwater, and he had believed her. But there was no doubt that she had been greatly upset by the news of his death. Her high colouring was dimmed; she wore a harassed air, and she was uncommonly nervous and ill at ease. He thought it strange that she should be so deeply affected by the death of a man she had such good reason to detest. But, of course, there was no telling how a woman would take anything; Lady Loudwater's distress had fallen as far short of what he had expected as Helena's had exceeded it.
To Mr. Manley's credit it must be admitted that in less than twenty minutes Helena Truslove was looking another creature; her face had recovered all its colour; the harassed air had vanished from it, and she was sitting on his knee in a condition of the most pleasant repose. It was his theory that a woman was never too ill, or too ill at ease, or too unhappy to be made love to. He had acted on it.
When he had thus restored her peace of mind, he told her that Mr. Flexen had asked him whether the late Lord Loudwater had been mixed up with any lady in the neighbourhood, and asked her if she could suggest any reason for his having asked the question. She appeared greatly startled to hear of it. But she could not suggest any reason for his having asked the question. He then asked her about the manner in which the allowance had been paid to her, and was pleased to learn that there was little likelihood of Mr. Flexen's learning that she had received such an allowance from Lord Loudwater, for it had been paid her through a young lawyer of the name of Shepherd, at Low Wycombe, the lawyer who had dealt with the matter of the transference of the house they were in to her, from the rents of some houses Lord Loudwater owned in that town, and that lawyer was somewhere in Mesopotamia, his practice in abeyance.
She was in entire accord with Mr. Manley about the advantage of her name not being connected in any way with the tragedy at the Castle. She pointed out that it was also an advantage that she had just been paid her allowance for the present quarter, and there would not be another payment for three months. By that time it was probable that the murder would have passed out of people's minds and Mr. Flexen be busy with other work. It seemed to Mr. Manley that Mr. Flexen would not easily learn about the allowance unless Mr. Carrington also knew it, which seemed unlikely, though it was always possible that there was some record of it among the Lord Loudwater's papers at the Castle. Soon after seven he left her to walk back to dine with Mr. Flexen.
Mr. Flexen had had a considerable surprise that afternoon. He had told Robert Black to find William Roper and bring him to him. He wished to hear the story he had told Lord Loudwater the evening before, for it might be of a triviality to make the hypothesis that Lord Loudwater had committed suicide yet less worthy of serious consideration. Black was a long while finding William Roper, for he was at work in the woods. Indeed, he had not yet heard that Lord Loudwater had been murdered, for he had been up most of the night, risen late, got his own breakfast in his out-of-the-way cottage in the depths of the West wood, and gone out on his rounds. The constable found him at the cottage, in the act of preparing his dinner, or rather his tea and dinner, at a quarter to four.
William Roper was startled, indeed, to hear of the murder, and then bitterly annoyed. All the while on his rounds he had been congratulating himself on his coming promotion, and reckoning up the many advantages which would accrue from it, not the least of which was a wider prospect of finding a wife. The cup was dashed from his lips. He had acquired no merit in the eyes of the new Lord Loudwater, and he had most probably made the present Lady Loudwater his enemy, if the murdered man had divulged the source of his knowledge of her goings-on with Colonel Grey. He ate his mixed meal very sulkily, listening to the constable's account of the circumstances of the crime. Slowly, however, his face grew brighter as he listened; the new information he had obtained for his murdered employer might very well have an important bearing on the crime itself. He might yet establish himself as the benefactor of the family.
On the way to the Castle he was so mysterious with Robert Black that the stout constable became a prey to mingled curiosity and doubt. He could not make up his mind whether William Roper really knew something of importance or was merely vapouring. William Roper neither gratified his curiosity, nor banished his doubt. He was alive to the advantage of reserving his information for the most important ear, so as to gain the greatest possible credit for it.
At the first sight of him Mr. Flexen felt that he had before him an important witness, for he took a violent dislike to him, and he had observed, in the course of his many years' experience in the detection of crime, that the most important witness in hounding down a criminal was very often of a repulsive type, the nark type. William Roper was of that type, but his story was indeed startling.
He first told how he had seen Colonel Grey kiss Lady Loudwater in the afternoon—Mr. Flexen noted that Lord Loudwater had accused her of kissing Grey—and of their spending most of the afternoon in the pavilion in the East wood. The time of his watching had already lengthened in William Roper's memory. There was nothing new in these facts, and Mr. Flexen saw no reason to suppose that they had any bearing on the crime. But William Roper went on to say that soon after ten in the evening he had been on his round in the East wood, when he saw Colonel Grey walking in the direction of the Castle. His curiosity had been aroused by what he had seen in the afternoon, and thinking it not unlikely that he was on his way to another meeting with the Lady Loudwater, and that it was the duty of a faithful retainer to make sure about it, with a view to informing his master should his surmise prove correct, he followed him.
The Colonel went straight through the wood into the Castle garden, walked round the Castle, keeping in its shadow as he went, till he stood under the window of Lady Loudwater's suite of rooms.
There he appeared to suffer a check. There was a light in the room on the ground floor under her boudoir. The Colonel had waited quite a while; then he had walked round the Castle and into it by the library window.
William, greatly surprised by the Colonel's audacity, had taken up his position in a clump of tall rhododendrons, opposite the library window, from which he could keep watch on it.
"What time would this be?" said Mr. Flexen.
"It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes past ten, sir," saidWilliam Roper.
"And what happened then?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Nothing 'appened for a good ten minutes. Then James Hutchings, the butler, come across the gardens from the south gate, as if 'e'd come from the village, and 'e went in through the libery winder—the same winder."
Mr. Flexen had thought it not unlikely that Hutchings had entered theCastle by that entrance. He was pleased to have his guess corroborated.
"That would be about half-past ten," he said. "Could you see into the library at all?"
"Only a very little way, sir."
"You couldn't see whether Colonel Grey and then James Hutchings went straight through it into the hall, or whether either of them went into the smoking-room?"
"No; I couldn't see so far in as that, though there was a light burning in the libery," said William Roper.
That was a new fact. Any one passing through the library would be able to see the open knife lying in the big inkstand.
"Go on," said Mr. Flexen. "What happened next?"
"Nothing 'appened for a long while—twenty minutes, I should think—and then there come a woman round the right-'and corner of the Castle wall and along it and into the libery winder. At first I thought it was Mrs. Carruthers, or one of the maids—she were too tall for her ladyship—but it warn't."
"Are you quite sure?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Quite, sir. I should have known 'er if she had been. Besides, she was all muffled up like. You couldn't see 'er face."
"Did she hesitate before going through the library window?" saidMr. Flexen.
"Not as I noticed. She seemed to go straight in."
"As if she were used to going into the Castle that way?" said Mr. Flexen.
William Roper scratched his head. Then he said cautiously: "She seemed to know that way in all right, sir."
"And how was she dressed?" said Mr. Flexen.
"She wasn't in black. It wasn't as dull as black, but it was dullish. It might have been grey and again it might not. It might have been blue or brown. You see, there was a fair moon, sir, but it was be'ind the Castle, an' I never seed 'er in the full moonlight, as you may say, seeing as, coming and going, she come along the wall and went round the right 'and corner of it, in the shadder."
"And which of these three people came away first?" said Mr. Flexen.
"She did. She wasn't in the Castle more nor twenty minutes—if that."
"Did she seem to be in a hurry when she came out? Did she run, or walk quickly?"
"No. I can't say as she did. She went away just about as she came—in no purtic'ler 'urry," said William Roper.
Mr. Flexen paused, considering; then he said: "And who was the next to leave?"
"The Colonel, 'e come out next—in about ten minutes."
"Did he seem in a hurry?"
"'E walked pretty brisk, and 'e was frowning, like as if 'e was in a rage. 'E passed me close, so I 'ad a good look at 'im. Yes; I should say 'e was fair boilen', 'e was," said William Roper, in a solemn, pleased tone of one giving damning evidence.
Mr. Flexen did not press the matter. He said: "So James Hutchings came away last?"
"Yes; about five minutes after the Colonel. And 'e was in a pretty fair to-do, too. Leastways, he was frowning and a-muttering of to 'imself. He passed me close."
"Didheseem in any hurry?" said Mr. Flexen.
"'E was walkin' fairly fast," said William Roper.
Mr. Flexen paused again, pondering. He thought that William Roper had thrown all the light on the matter he could; and he had certainly revealed a number of facts which looked uncommonly important.
"And that was all you saw?" he said.
"That was all—except 'er ladyship," said William Roper.
"Her ladyship?" said Mr. Flexen sharply.
"Yes. You see, there was no 'urry for me to go back to the woods, sir; an' I sat down on one of them garden seats along the edge of the Wellin'tonia shrubbery to smoke a pipe and think it ou'. I felt it was my dooty like to let 'is lordship know about these goings-on, never thinking as 'ow 'e was sitting there all the time with a knife in 'im. I should think it was twenty minutes arter that I saw 'er ladyship come out. Of course, I was farther away from the window, but I saw 'er quite plain."
"And where did she go?" said Mr. Flexen.
"She didn't go nowhere, so to speak. She just walked up an' down the gravel path—like as if she'd come out for a breath of fresh air. Then she went in. She wasn't out more nor ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour."
Mr. Flexen was silent in frowning thought; then he looked earnestly at William Roper for a good minute; then he said: "Well, this may be important, or it may not. But it is very important that you should keep it to yourself." He looked hard again at William, decided that an appeal to his vanity would be best, and added: "You're pretty shrewd, I fancy, and you can see that it is most important not to put the criminal on his guard—if it was a crime."
"I suppose I shall 'ave to tell what I know at the inquest?" said WilliamRoper, with an air of importance.
Mr. Flexen gazed at him thoughtfully, weighing the matter. Here were a number of facts which might or might not have an important bearing on the murder, but which would give rise to a great deal of painful and harmful scandal if they were given to the world at this juncture.
Besides the publication of them might force his hand, and he preferred to have a free hand in this matter as he had been used to have a free hand in India. There he had dealt with more than one case in such a manner as to secure substantial justice rather than the exact execution of the law. It might be that in this case justice would be best secured by leaving the murderer to his, or her, conscience rather than by causing several people great unhappiness by bringing about a conviction. He was inclined to think, with Mr. Manley, that the murderer might have performed a public service by removing Lord Loudwater from the world he had so ill adorned. At any rate, he was resolved to have a free hand to deal with the case, and most certainly he was not going to allow this noxious young fellow to hamper his freedom of action and final decision.
"Your evidence seems to me of much too great importance to be given at the inquest. It must be reserved for the trial," he said in an impressive tone. "But if it gets abroad that you have seen what you have told me, the criminal will be prepared to upset your evidence; and it will probably become quite worthless. You must not breathe a word about what you saw to a soul till we have your evidence supported beyond all possibility of its being refuted. Do you understand?"
For a moment William Roper looked disappointed. He had looked to become famous that very day. But he realized his great importance in the affair, and his face cleared.
"I understands, sir," he said with a dark solemnity.
"Not a word," said Mr. Flexen yet more impressively.
That morning Olivia went to meet Grey in a mood very different from that of the afternoon before. Then she had moved on light feet, in high spirits, expectant, even excited. She had not known what was coming, but the prospect had been full of possibilities; and, thanks to the sudden appearance of the cat Melchisidec at the crucial moment, she had not been disappointed. Today she would have gone to meet the man who loved her in yet higher spirits, for there is no blinking the fact that she was wholly unable to grieve for her husband. He had with such thoroughness extirpated the girlish fondness she had felt for him when she married him, that she could not without hypocrisy make even a show of grieving for him. His death had merely removed the barrier between her and the man she loved.
But today she did not go to her tryst in spirits higher for the removal of that barrier. She went more slowly, on heavier, lingering feet. Her eyes were downcast, and her forehead was furrowed by an anxious, brooding frown.
The sight of Colonel Grey, waiting for her at the door of the Pavilion, smoothed the furrows from her forehead and quickened her steps. When the door closed behind them he caught her in his arms and kissed her. It was early in her widowhood to be kissed, but she made no protest. She did not feel a widow; she felt a free woman again. It is even to be feared that her lips were responsive.
Antony, too, was changed. He was paler and almost careworn. There was no doubt of his joy at her coming, no doubt that it was greater than the day before. But it was qualified by some other troubling emotion. Now and again he looked at her with different eyes—eyes from which the joy had of a sudden faded, rather fearful eyes that looked a question which could not be asked. Her eyes rather shrank from his, and when they did look into them it was with a like question.
But they were too deeply in love with one another for any other emotion to hold them for long at a time. Presently in the joy of being together, looking at one another, touching one another, the fearfulness and the question passed from their eyes.
There was nothing rustic about the Pavilion inside or out. It was of white marble, brought from Carrara for the fifth Baron Loudwater at the end of the eighteenth century; and a whim of her murdered husband had led him to replace the original, delicate, rather severe furniture by a most comfortable broad couch, two no less comfortable chairs with arms, a small red lacquer table and a dozen cushions. He had hung on each wall a drawing of dancing-girls by Degas. Since the coverings of the couch and the cushions were of Chinese silken embroideries, the interior appeared a somewhat bizarre mixture of the Oriental and the French.
Antony had been in some doubt that Olivia would come. But he had thought it natural that she should come to him in such an hour of distress, for he knew the simple directness of her nature. Therefore he had taken no chance. He had gone to High Wycombe, ransacked its simple provision shops, and brought away a lunch basket.
She was for returning to the Castle to lunch. But he persuaded her to stay. She needed no great pressing; she had a feeling that every hour was precious, that it was unsafe to lose a single one of them: a foreboding that she and Antony might not be together long. It almost seemed that a like foreboding weighed on him. At times they seemed almost feverish in their desire to wring the last drop of sweetness out of the swiftly flying hour.
After lunch again the thought came to her that she ought to go back to the Castle, that she might be needed, and missed; but it found no expression. She could not tear herself away. She had been denied joy too long, and it was intoxicating.
It was five o'clock before she left the Pavilion. She walked briskly, with her wonted, easy, swinging gait, back to the Castle, in a dream, her anxiety and fear for the while forgotten. On her way up to her suite of rooms she met no one. She was quick to take off her hat and ring for her tea. Elizabeth Twitcher brought it to her, and from her Olivia learned that only Mr. Manley had asked for her. She realized that, after all, thanks to her dead husband, she was but an inconspicuous person in the Castle. No one had been used to consult her in any matter. She was glad of it. At the moment all she desired was freedom of action, freedom to be with Antony; and the fact that the life of the Castle moved smoothly along in the capable hands of Mrs. Carruthers and Mr. Manley gave her that freedom.
After her tea she went out into the rose-garden and was strolling up and down it when Mr. Flexen, pondering the information which he had obtained from William Roper, saw her and came out to her. He thought that she shrank a little at the sight of him, but assured himself that it must be fancy; surely there could be no reason why she should shrink from him.
"I'm told, Lady Loudwater, that you went out through the library window into the garden for a stroll about a quarter to twelve last night. Did you by any chance, as you went in or came out, hear Lord Loudwater snore? I want to fix the latest hour at which he was certainly alive. You see how important it may prove."
She hesitated, wrinkling her brow as she weighed the importance of her answer. Then she looked at him with limpid eyes and said:
"Yes."
He knew—the sixth sense of the criminal investigator told him—that she lied, and he was taken aback. Why should she lie? What did she know? What had she to hide?
"Did you hear him snore going out, or coming in?" he said.
"Both," said Olivia firmly.
Mr. Flexen hesitated. He did not believe her. Then he said: "How long didLord Loudwater sleep after dinner as a rule? What time did he go to bed?"
"It varied a good deal. Generally he awoke and went to bed before twelve. But sometimes it was nearer one, especially if he was disturbed and went to sleep again."
"Thank you," said Mr. Flexen, and he left her and went back into the Castle.
Lord Loudwater had certainly been disturbed by the woman with whom he had quarrelled. He might have slept on late. But why had Lady Loudwater lied about the snoring? What did she know? What on earth was she hiding? Whom was she screening? Could it be Colonel Grey? Was he mixed up in the actual murder? Mr. Flexen decided that he must have more information about Colonel Grey, that he would get into touch with him, and that soon.
He had information about him sooner than he expected and without seeking it. Inspector Perkins was awaiting him, with Mrs. Turnbull, the landlady of the "Cart and Horses." The inspector had learned from her that the Lord Loudwater had paid a visit to her lodger the evening before, and that they had quarrelled fiercely. Mr. Flexen heard her story and questioned her. The important point in it seemed to him to be Lord Loudwater's threats to hound Colonel Grey out of the Army.
Mrs. Turnbull left him plenty to ponder. Mr. Manley had told him that the handle of the famous knife would probably provide him with an embarrassment of riches in the way of finger-prints. It seemed to him that the stories of William Roper, Mrs. Carruthers, and Mrs. Turnbull had provided him with an embarrassment of riches in the way of possible murderers. It grew clearer than ever to him that the inquest must be conducted with the greatest discretion, that as few facts as possible must be revealed at it. It was also clear to him that, unless the handle of the knife told a plain story, he would get nothing but circumstantial evidence, and so far he had gotten too much of it.
He made up his mind that it would be best to see Colonel Grey at once and form his impression as to the likelihood of his having had a hand in the crime. He was loth to believe that a V.C. would murder in cold blood even as detestable a bully as the Lord Loudwater appeared to have been. But he had seen stranger things. Moreover, it depended on the type of V.C. Colonel Grey was. V.C.s varied.
Mr. Flexen lost no time. It was nearly six o'clock. It was likely that the Colonel would be back at his inn after his fishing. Mrs. Turnbull was sure that he had as usual gone fishing, for, when he set out in the morning, he had taken his rod with him. Antony Grey was not the man to omit a simple precaution like that. Therefore, Mr. Flexen ordered a car to be brought round, and was at the "Cart and Horses" by twenty past six.
He found that Colonel Grey had indeed returned. He sent up his card; the maid came back and at once took him up to the Colonel's sitting-room. Grey received him with an air of inquiry, which grew yet more inquiring when Mr. Flexen told him that he was engaged in investigating the affair of Lord Loudwater's death. Therefore, Mr. Flexen came to the point at once.
"I have been informed that Lord Loudwater paid you a visit last night, and that a violent quarrel ensued, Colonel Grey," he said.
"Pardon me; but the violence was all on Lord Loudwater's part," said Colonel Grey in an exceedingly unpleasant tone. "I merely made myself nasty in a quiet way. Violence is not in my line, unless I'm absolutely driven to it; and any one less likely to drive any one to violence than that obnoxious and noisy jackass I've never come across. The fellow was all words—abusive words. He'd no fight in him. I gave him every reason I could think of to go for me because I particularly wanted to hammer him. But he hadn't got it in him."
Grey spoke quietly, without raising his voice, but there was a rasp in his tone that impressed Mr. Flexen. If a man could give such an impression of dangerousness with his voice, what would he be like in action? He realized that here was a quite uncommon type of V. C. He realized, too, that Lord Loudwater had made the mistake of a lifetime in his attempt to bully him. Moreover, he had a strong feeling that if it had seemed to Colonel Grey that Lord Loudwater was better out of the way, and a favourable opportunity had presented itself, he might very well have displayed little hesitation in putting him out of the way. He felt that the obnoxious peer would have been little more than a dangerous dog to him.
He did not speak at once. He looked into Colonel Grey's grey eyes, and cold and hard they were, weighing him. Then he said: "Lord Loudwater threatened to hound you out of the Army, I'm told."
"Among other things," said Grey carelessly.
Mr. Flexen guessed that the other things were threats to divorce LadyLoudwater.
"That would have been a very serious blow to you," he said.
"You're quite—right," said Colonel Grey.
Mr. Flexen could have sworn that he had started to say: "You're quite wrong," and changed his mind.
The Colonel seemed to hesitate for words; then he went on: "It would have been a very heavy blow indeed. You can see that for a man who enlisted in the Artists' Rifles in 1914, and fought his way up to the command of a regiment, nothing could be more painful. It would have been heartbreaking; I should have been years getting over it."
The rasp had gone out of his voice. He was speaking in a pleasant, confidential tone, and Mr. Flexen did not believe a word he said. At the least he was exaggerating the distress he would have felt at leaving the Army; but Mr. Flexen had the strongest feeling that he would have felt next to no distress at all. Again he was astonished. Colonel Grey was lying to him just as Lady Loudwater had lied. What could be their reason? What on earth had they done?
He kept his astonishment out of his face, and said in a sympathetic voice: "Yes, I can see that. And then, again, it would have been painful and very unpleasant to feel that your thoughtlessness had landed Lady Loudwater in the Divorce Court."
"Oh, Lord, no!" said Colonel Grey quickly. "There was no chance of any divorce proceedings. Even for a divorce case, at any rate one brought by the husband, there must besomegrounds; he must havesomeevidence. The cock-and-bull story of a gamekeeper is hardly enough to found a divorce case on, is it?"
"Oh, I don't know. The gamekeeper might convince a jury. You know what juries are. You can never tell what form their stupidity will take," said Mr. Flexen.
"But apart from the lack of evidence, there was no chance of a divorce case. I tell you, Loudwater hadn't got it in him," said Grey confidently. "He'd have threatened and been abusive. He'd have gone on throwing that cock-and-bull story at Lady Loudwater for as long as she continued to stick to him; but it would have stopped at that. His infernal temper never went any deeper than his lungs. Lady Loudwater had nothing to fear."
"Yet you think that he would have done his best to hound you out of the Army?" said Mr. Flexen, finding this conception of Lord Loudwater as a harmless, if violent, vapourer somewhat inconsistent.
"That's quite another matter," said Grey quickly. "It merely meant using his influence behind my back with some scurvy politician. There wouldn't have been any publicity attached to that, any exposure of his bullying. He'd have done that all right."
"I should have thought that a man of Lord Loudwater's violent temper would rather have sought an open row," Mr. Flexen persisted.
"Of course—if he'd been really violent. But he wasn't, I tell you. He was only a blustering bully where women and servants were concerned—people he could cow. I tell you, I made it quite clear that he crumpled up directly you stood up to him. Why, hang it all! Any man with the soul of a mouse who really believed that I had been making love to his wife, couldn't have taken the things I told him without going for me at any risk. And as I'm still rather crocked up, and he knew it, there must have seemed precious little risk about it. I tell you that he was just a blustering ruffian."
Mr. Flexen had a strong impression that Colonel Grey was unused to being as expansive as this, that he was talking for talking's sake, possibly to put him off asking some question which would be difficult or dangerous to answer. He could not for the life of him think what that question could be.
"I daresay you're right," he said carelessly. "Bullies aren't over-fond of a real scrap. But I am told that you paid a visit to the Castle last night and came away about a quarter past eleven. Did you?"
Colonel Grey showed no faintest disquiet on hearing that his visit to Olivia the night before was known. But he did not give Mr. Flexen time to finish the sentence.
He interrupted him, saying quickly: "Yes. I went to see Lady Loudwater. I thought it likely that she would attach a good deal more importance to Loudwater's silly threats than they deserved and might be worrying. It would have been quite natural. I wanted to talk it over with her and set her mind at rest about it. It didn't take very long to do that, partly because it was a long time since he had really frightened her. She had got used to his tantrums and bullying; and even this new game had not disturbed her very much. We both came to the conclusion that he was just blustering again, and wouldn't do anything. As a matter of fact, I don't think she cared very much what he did. She had got so fed up with him that she didn't care whether they separated or not."
Mr. Flexen felt more sure than ever that this garrulity was unusual in Colonel Grey. He was talking with a purpose, apparently to induce him to believe that both he and Lady Loudwater had taken her husband's threat of divorce proceedings lightly. He began to think that they had not taken it lightly at all, or, at any rate, one or other of them had not.
"Yes," he said. "That's what always happens with those blustering fellows. In the end no one takes them seriously. But what I came to ask you was: Did you, as you came through the library or went out through it, hear Lord Loudwater snore?"
Colonel Grey hesitated, just as Lady Loudwater had hesitated over that question. Plainly he was weighing the effect of his answer.
Then he said: "No."
Mr. Flexen's instinct assured him that Colonel Grey had lied just as LadyLoudwater had lied.
"Are you sure that nothing in the nature of a snore came to your ears as you came out? Did you hear any sound from the room? You can see how important it is to fix as near as we possibly can the hour of Lord Loudwater's death," he said earnestly.
"No, I heard nothing," said Colonel Grey firmly.
"Bother!" said Mr. Flexen. "It's very important. Possibly I shall be able to find out from some one else."
"I hope you will," said Grey politely.
Mr. Flexen bade him good-night cordially enough, and drove back to the Castle in a considerable perplexity. Both Colonel Grey and Lady Loudwater were behaving in an uncommonly odd, not to say suspicious manner.
He was quite sure that both of them had lied about the dead man's snoring. But it was plain that either had lied with a different object. Lady Loudwater had lied to make it appear that her husband had been alive at midnight. Colonel Grey had lied to make it appear that he was dead at a quarter-past eleven. But Mr. Flexen was sure that Colonel Grey had heard Lord Loudwater snore and that Lady Loudwater had not.
What did they know? What had they done? Or what had one of them done?
When Mr. Flexen reached the Castle Wilkins took him to a bedroom in the west wing. He found that his portmanteau had arrived, had been unpacked, and that his dress clothes were laid out ready for him on the bed.
As he dressed he cudgelled his brains for the reason why Lady Loudwater and Colonel Grey had lied. Then an idea came to him: were they lying to shield the unknown woman with whom Lord Loudwater had had that violent quarrel? The longer he considered this hypothesis the more possible it grew.
He must find that unknown woman, and at once. Possibly Mr. Carrington, asLord Loudwater's legal adviser, would be able to put him on her track.
He came to dinner, still perplexed, to find Mr. Manley waiting to bear him company. They talked for a while about public affairs and the weather.
Then Mr. Flexen said: "Was Lord Loudwater the kind of man to confide in his lawyers?"
"Not if he could help it," said Mr. Manley with conviction.
Mr. Flexen hoped that Lord Loudwater had not been able to help confiding in his lawyers about this unknown woman.
Then he said: "By the way, do you know Colonel Grey?"
"Oh, yes. He was here a lot up to a little while ago. Then he had a row, the inevitable row, with Lord Loudwater, and he hasn't been here since. He dropped on to Lord Loudwater for bullying Lady Loudwater, and he didn't drop on him lightly either. Hell, I fancy, was what he gave him."
"Yes; I gathered that something of the kind had taken place. What kind of a man is the Colonel?" said Mr. Flexen carelessly.
"The best man in the world not to have a row with. He's a cold terror," said Mr. Manley, in a tone of enthusiastic conviction. "He always seems rather cooler than a cucumber. But my belief is that that coolness is just the mask of really violent emotions. I saw them working once. I came in on the end of his row with Loudwater—just the end of it—my goodness! From my point of view, the dramatist's, you know, he's the most interesting person in the county—bar Lady Loudwater, of course."
"I should never have thought him a terror," said Mr. Flexen, in a tone of somewhat incredulous surprise. "I had a talk with him this evening about Lord Loudwater's death, and he seemed to me to be a pleasant enough fellow and an excellent soldier. I take it that he's very keen on his career in the Army?"
"Not a bit of it. The war is merely a side issue with him," said Mr. Manley in an assured tone. "I know from what he told me himself. We were talking over our experiences."
"But, hang it all! he's a V. C.!" cried Mr. Flexen.
"Yes, he's a V. C. all right. But that's because he's one of those men who have the knack of taking an interest in everything they turn their hands to, and doing it well. But his two passions are Chinese art and women," said Mr. Manley.
"Women?" said Mr. Flexen. "He didn't strike me as being that kind of man at all. He seemed a quite simple, straightforward soldier."
"Simplicity and a passion for Chinese art don't go together—at least, not what is usually called simplicity," said Mr. Manley dryly. "A friend of mine, who knows all about him, told me that he had had more really serious love affairs than any other man in London. He seems to be one of those men who fall in love hard every time they fall in love. He said that it was one of the mysteries of the polite world how he had kept out of the Divorce Court."
"Sounds an odd type," said Mr. Flexen, storing up the information, and marking how little it agreed with his own observation of Colonel Grey. "And you say that Lady Loudwater is interesting too?"
"Oh, come! Are you pumping me or merely pulling my leg?" said Mr. Manley. "Surely you can see that Lady Loudwater is pure Italian Renaissance. She is one of those subtle, mysterious creatures that Leonardo and Luini were always painting, compact of emotion."
"It's so long since I was at Balliol, and then I was doing Indian Civil work—the languages, you know. I've forgotten all I knew about the Renaissance in Italy, and I don't look at many pictures. All the same, I think you're wrong—your dramatic imagination, you know. My own idea is that Lady Loudwater, at any rate, is a quite simple creature."
"It isn't mine," said Mr. Manley firmly. "She's a great deal too intelligent to be simple, and she comes of far too intelligent a family."
"What family?" said Mr. Flexen.
"She's a Quainton, with Italian blood in her veins."
"The deuce she is!" cried Mr. Flexen, and half a dozen stories of theQuaintons rose in his mind.
He must amend his impressions of Lady Loudwater.
"And she has a keener sense of humour than any woman I ever came across," said Mr. Manley, driving his contention home.
"Has she?" said Mr. Flexen.
There was a pause. Then Mr. Manley said in a musing tone: "Do you suppose that Colonel Grey finds her simple?"
"What? You don't think that there is really anything serious between them?" said Mr. Flexen quickly.
"No, not really serious—at any rate, on Colonel Grey's part. You can hardly expect a man, recovering very slowly from three bad wounds and still crocked up, to fall in love, can you? Especially a man who, when he does fall in love, falls in love with the violence with which Grey is charged," said Mr. Manley.
"There is that," said Mr. Flexen. "But that wouldn't prevent Lady Loudwater from falling in love with Colonel Grey. And after the way her husband treated her, she must have needed something in the way of affection—badly."
"It's no good a woman falling in love with a man unless he falls in love with her," said Mr. Manley, in the tone of a philosopher. "Besides, women don't fall in love with men who are so feeble from illness as the Colonel seems to be. How can there be the attraction? She might, of course, want to mother him very keenly. But that's quite a different thing." He paused, then added in a tone of some anxiety: "I say, you're not trying to mix her up with the murder—if it was a murder?"
"I'm not trying to mix anybody up in it," said Mr. Flexen slowly. "But I don't mind telling you that it is growing quite a pretty problem, and to solve a problem you must have every factor in it. You see that the strong point about both Lady Loudwater and Colonel Grey is, on your own showing, that they are uncommonly clever; and only stupid people commit murder—except, of course, once in a blue moon."
"But what about these gangs of criminals we sometimes read about, with extraordinarily clever men at the head of them? Don't they exist?" said Mr. Manley, in a tone of surprise.
"They exist; but they don't commit murders—not in Europe, at any rate," said Mr. Flexen. "In the East and in the United States it's different perhaps. Murder is always as much of a blunder as a crime. It makes people so keen after the criminal. No: no really intelligent criminal commits murder."
"Of course, that's true," said Mr. Manley readily. He paused, then added in a thoughtful tone: "I wonder whether the war has weakened our conception of the sanctity of human life?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said Mr. Flexen; and their talk drifted into a discussion of generalities.
He was glad that he was staying at the Castle. His talk with Mr. Manley had been illuminating.
Olivia dined in her sitting-room, and with a poor appetite. Away from Grey, she had fallen back into her anxiety and fearfulness. Wilkins was waiting on her, an insensible block of a fellow; but even he perceived that she was very little aware of what she was eating, and now and again paused, and in some worrying train of thought forgot that she was dining at all.
After dinner, however, her mood changed. The fearfulness and anxiety at times vanished from her face, and a pleasant, eager expectancy took their place.
At a quarter to nine she took a dark wrap from her wardrobe, went quietly down the stairs, and slipped out of the side door, across the east lawn, and into the path through the shrubbery, unseen. Grey had suggested that he should come to the Castle after dinner to spend the evening with her; but they had decided that it would be wiser to meet in the pavilion. There would be talk if he spent the evening with her so soon after her husband's death, with his body still unburied in the house. This was the only mention they made of him all the time they spent together. Besides, both of them found the pavilion in the wood a far more delightful meeting-place than the Castle. In the pavilion they felt that they were out of the world.
Grey, too anxious and restless to await her at the pavilion, had come down the wood and into the end of the path through the shrubbery. It startled her to come upon him so suddenly. But when they came out of the shrubbery into the moonlit aisle of the wood, the fearfulness and anxiety and restlessness had vanished utterly from their faces; both of them were smiling.
They walked slowly, saying little, touching now and again as they swayed in their walk along the turf. It seemed wiser not to light the candles in the pavilion. The moonlight, shining through the high windows, gave them light enough to see one another's eyes. It was all they needed. The time passed quickly in the ineffable confidences of lovers. They had a hundred things to tell one another, a hundred things to ask one another, in their effort to attain that oneness which is the aim of all true love. But in their joy in being together, in the joy of both of them, there was a feverishness, a sense that it was a menaced joy which must needs be brief. Again they were striving to wring the most out of the hour which was so swiftly passing. At times the sense of danger which hung over them was so strong, that they clung to one another like frightened children in the dark.
Though Mr. Flexen had at the time shown himself somewhat unbelieving in the matter of Mr. Manley's conclusions about the character and temperament of Grey and Olivia, the impression they had made on him grew stronger. He was too good a judge of men not to perceive that the budding dramatist had the intelligent imagination which makes for real shrewdness, and he was not disposed to underrate the value of the imagination in forming judgments of men and women. Probably Colonel Grey was a man of less intensity of emotion than Mr. Manley had declared, and Lady Loudwater less subtile and intelligent. But, after making these reductions, he had here possible actors in a drama of passion; and though it was his experience that money, not passion, is the most frequent motive of murder, he must take the probability of Lord Loudwater's murder being a crime of passion into account, though, of course, the violent Hutchings, threatened with ruin, would undoubtedly benefit from a monetary point of view by the murder. At the same time, Hutchings had just had an interview, which had gone better probably than he had expected, with an uncommonly pretty girl.
Mr. Carrington arrived soon after breakfast next morning, and Mr. Flexen at once discussed the matter of the inquest with him and the Coroner. He found the lawyer chiefly eager to have as little scandal as possible, and the Coroner took his cue from the lawyer. This suited Mr. Flexen admirably. He had no wish to show his hand so early. He foresaw that if the story of William Roper were told, and the story of Lord Loudwater's quarrel with Colonel Grey at the "Cart and Horses," there would be a painful scandal. The majority of the people of the neighbourhood would at once believe and declare that Lady Loudwater, or Colonel Grey, or both, had murdered Lord Loudwater. Such a scandal would in no way serve his purpose. It might rather hamper him. Pressure might be put on him which might force him to take steps before the time was ripe for them.
There was no difficulty in their having exactly the kind of inquest they wanted, for it was wholly in the hands of Mr. Flexen and the Coroner. After careful discussion they decided to limit it to Dr. Thornhill's evidence, and that of the servants with regard to the dead nobleman's mood on the night of his death. Mr. Carrington urged strongly that full prominence should be given to the fact that the wound might have been self-inflicted, and the Coroner promised that this should be done.
When the Coroner had left them the lawyer said to Mr. Flexen: "In the case of a man like the late Lord Loudwater, you can't be too careful, you know. Really, it would be better if the jury brought in a verdict of suicide. A suicide in a family is always better than a murder."
"H'm! You could hardly expect me to rest content with such a verdict," said Mr. Flexen. "Not, I mean, on the evidence."
"Oh, no; I shouldn't," said Mr. Carrington. "All I want to avoid is a lot of quite unnecessary painful scandal, which won't lead to anything of use to you, about innocent people connected with my late client. You won't act without something pretty definite to go upon, while the scandalmongers will talk on no grounds at all. Lord Loudwater was a queer customer, and goodness knows what will come to light, for, of course, you'll investigate the affair thoroughly."
The inquest accordingly was conducted on these lines. Only Dr. Thornhill, Wilkins and Holloway were called as witnesses; and the Coroner directed the jury to bring in a verdict to the effect that Lord Loudwater had died of a knife-wound, and that there was no evidence to show whether it was self-inflicted or not.
But in this he failed. The jury, muddle-headed, obstinate country folk, had made up their minds that Lord Loudwater was the kind of man to be murdered, and that, therefore, he had been murdered. They brought in the verdict that Lord Loudwater had been murdered by some person or persons unknown.
Mr. Flexen, Mr. Carrington and the Coroner were annoyed, but they had had too wide an experience of juries to be surprised.
"This will let loose a horde of reporters on us," said Mr. Carrington very gloomily.
"It will," said Mr. Flexen. "The pet sleuths of theWireand thePlanetwill leave London in about an hour."
"Well, they'll have to be dealt with," said Mr. Carrington.
"Oh, they're all right. I probably know them. I'll get them to work with me. They must be treated very nicely," said Mr. Flexen cheerfully.
"They're always a confounded nuisance," said Mr. Carrington, frowning.
"Not if they're kindly treated. Indeed, I shall very likely find them really useful," said Mr. Flexen. "But you might give the servants a hint to be careful of what they say. The hint will come best from you, and be much more effective than if it came from any one else. You represent the family."
"I'll see about it," said Mr. Carrington, and he went to Olivia's boudoir to confer with her about the invitations to the funeral.
Mr. Flexen was, indeed, little disturbed by the prospect of the coming of the newspaper men. A popular member of the chief literary and journalistic club in London, he would probably know them, or they would know of him; and he would find them ready enough to work with him. Besides, even if they discovered that the quarrel between Colonel Grey and Lord Loudwater had its origin in Lady Loudwater, in the present state of mind of the country, they would have to move very cautiously indeed in the case of a V.C.
He did not, indeed, think it likely that they would discover the cause of the quarrel for some time—possibly not before their papers had tired of the business and sent them on other errands. Mrs. Turnbull only knew of Lord Loudwater's threat to hound Colonel Grey out of the Army; she did not know the reason of his fury and his threat. Elizabeth Twitcher would certainly hold her tongue about Lord Loudwater's subsequent quarrel with Lady Loudwater, and his accusations and threats; Mrs. Carruthers was even more unlikely to tell of it. It was unlikely that William Roper would come within the ken of the newspaper men. No one could tell them that he was the great repository of facts in the case, and Mr. Flexen believed that he had given him good cause to keep his mouth shut till he called on him to open it.
Taking one thing with another, he thought it more than likely that the newspaper men would not hinder him in his purpose of dealing with the affair in his own way.