Mr. Fransemmery brought his story to an end with a force and emphasis worthy of a judicial utterance, and Blick, who was now busily occupied with suggestions of a surprising sort, nodded assent to his concluding remarks. But Mrs. Braxfield, in spite of her obvious agitation, showed a dogged disinclination to accept Mr. Fransemmery’s premise.
“That’s all very well, Mr. Fransemmery,” she said after a pause. “You’re a lawyer, and ought to know! But it’s all ifs and buts! If, as you say, Guy Markenmore married Myra Halliwell, and if they had a child, a son, and if that son’s alive—well, then, of course, he succeeds his father—or his grandfather, for as far as I’m aware, there’s nobody knows which died first, Sir Anthony or his elder son—in the title and estates. But—it’s all if!—if—if—if! I don’t believe Guy Markenmore ever married that girl—not I! He may have taken her away with him, and they may have lived together in London, and there may be a child—but all that doesn’t prove any marriage, Mr. Fransemmery!”
“What about the inscription on the tombstone, Mrs. Braxfield?” suggested Mr. Fransemmery. “My informant saw it!—and I take Margaret Hilson to be a truthful woman.”
“I’m not saying anything against Margaret Hilson,” retorted Mrs. Braxfield. “A decent enough woman! And I don’t deny that she may have seen such an inscription. But that proves nothing. Anybody could so describe anybody else—especially in a London cemetery, and who’d be the wiser! There’ll have to be more evidence than that forthcoming, Mr. Fransemmery, before it’s proved that all you’ve told is true—marriage lines, and birth certificate, and so on.”
“All that will doubtless be brought forward, ma’am,” replied Mr. Fransemmery. “We shall hear more, I’m convinced—much more! Somebody must know.”
“And you say you advised Margaret Hilson to go and tell this tale to Lawyer Chilford?” asked Mrs. Braxfield. “At once?”
“At once!” answered Mr. Fransemmery. “Matters of that sort can’t be allowed to wait. I think Margaret Hilson will already have seen Mr. Chilford—she spoke of going down to his house early this evening.”
“Then they’ll know at the Court,” observed Mrs. Braxfield with a frown. “Chilford would be sure to go there and tell them as soon as he got to know.”
“They may know—by now,” asserted Mr. Fransemmery. “But whether they know tonight or tomorrow, Mrs. Braxfield, what is certain is that this matter will have to be fully investigated. And if I may give you a little advice, ma’am, in the capacity of a neighbour who wishes you well, I should counsel you to wait a little before you send your daughter to Markenmore Court as Lady Markenmore. She may, you know, be only Mrs. Harry Markenmore. Count twenty, ma’am!”
With this Mr. Fransemmery, nodding at Mrs. Braxfield with the warning expression of a sage counsellor, rose to take his leave; his Airedale terrier, hitherto sleeping with one eye open under the table, rose too; accompanied by Blick they sallied out into the night; dark, save for the light of stars, for the moon had not yet risen. In silence they threaded the garden paths of Woodland Cottage and emerged upon the open hill-side.
“Queer revelations!” muttered Blick at last as they paced slowly across the close-cropped turf. “I gather that you believe this story about Guy Markenmore’s marriage?”
“I do!” replied Mr. Fransemmery firmly. “Putting everything together—I do! The woman from whom I got my information today, Margaret Hilson, is the sort of person that makes an ideal witness—you know what I mean. The sort that tells just what she knows, doesn’t want to add or subtract, embellish or disfigure, gives a plain affirmation or an equally plain negative; the sort, in fact, that hasn’t the imagination necessary to a deviation from truth. I have no doubt whatever that she gave me a plain, unvarnished account of what happened during her two visits to London, nor any that she saw the grave and the inscription she describes. And as to the probabilities of the marriage—well, Mr. Blick, I am, perhaps, a bit of an old gossip!—anyway, I like to talk to the country people about their affairs, though I hope I am not a Paul Pry. I like to hear of their little comedies and tragedies—I take a sympathetic interest in them. Now, long before I heard this story from Mrs. Hilson, I had heard of Myra Halliwell and her disappearance, and I had had a hint from one or two old people in the village that it might not be unconnected with Guy Markenmore. So—I was not unduly surprised at what Mrs. Hilson told me.”
“I wonder if Myra’s sister—the woman at the Dower House—knows anything about it?” said Blick.
“Daffy, as they call her—I wonder, too,” answered Mr. Fransemmery. “I think not, though. Daffy—whose correct name is Daphne—has been away in India for three years with Mrs. Tretheroe, and has only recently returned. Of course she may. But if she does, you may be certain she’ll soon let it be known!”
“She looks,” remarked Blick thoughtfully, “like a woman who’s got a good many secrets. Secretive!—very much so. Well, it’s an odd business, sir! And as you unfolded your story to Mrs. Braxfield I began to speculate on its possible relation to my particular business—naturally!”
“In what way, now?” asked Mr. Fransemmery.
“Well, first of all,” replied Blick. “An obvious question: Has this anything to do with Guy Markenmore’s murder?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Fransemmery. “Has it, indeed. A very big question, my good sir, and a remarkably difficult one to answer.”
“Another,” continued Blick. “Mrs. Tretheroe told us at the inquest that she and Guy Markenmore had renewed their old love-affairs when they met last Monday night, and had agreed to get married at once. Now, I’d like to know this: Did Guy Markenmore tell her that he’d been married before, lost his wife, and had a son living?”
“Did he, indeed?” said Mr. Fransemmery. “I wonder? But—who knows?”
“If he did,” Blick went on, “why didn’t she divulge that fact at the inquest? If she knew it, why did she conceal it?”
“Aye—why?” muttered Mr. Fransemmery. “Why?”
“And if Guy Markenmore didn’t tell her—the woman he was going to marry!—why didn’t he?” said Blick. “Did he or didn’t he? It strikes me, sir, that there’s a good deal that’s of high importance in that!”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” agreed Mr. Fransemmery. “But then, between you and me, there’s a good deal else that I’ve wondered about ever since I heard Mrs. Tretheroe’s evidence!”
“What, for instance?” asked Blick.
“Nothing, in any particular instance,” replied Mr. Fransemmery. “I have wondered, generally, if Mrs. Tretheroe told all she might have told; if she was candid, open, ingenuous, truthful. Between ourselves, I think she’s a vain, selfish, silly woman—and as stupid as such a woman always is!”
“Stupidity of that sort is very often allied with a good deal of cunning, isn’t it, though?” suggested Blick. “She’s struck me—what bit I’ve seen of her—as the sort of woman who could play a game.”
“I shouldn’t wonder!” agreed Mr. Fransemmery.
“Then, the question for me is—is she playing any game now, and if so, what is it?” said Blick. “And has von Eckhardstein anything to do with it?”
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Fransemmery. “That’s still another question!”
“Nice mystery altogether!” muttered Blick.
“Black as this lane, my friend,” said Mr. Fransemmery, as they descended into the deep and narrow cutting which, high-banked and tortuous, wound its way upward to the summit of the downs between The Warren and Woodland Cottage. “And you’ll want something more than starlight by which to find your way in it! Up to now, I believe, you’ve scarcely got hold of the ghost of a clue?”
“Got no more than a very slender thread, which mayn’t be a thread at all,” answered Blick, thinking of the information that Lansbury had given him. “No!—so far, Mr. Fransemmery, I’ve very little, indeed, to work on. I—what’s your dog up to?”
The Airedale terrier, who had preceded the two men into the darkness of the lane, had run on before them to the spot whereat he had shown inordinate signs of restlessness and curiosity when Mr. Fransemmery was on his way to Mrs. Braxfield. He was now whimpering again, and as they came near the bushes, they heard him tearing and scratching at the soil; the whimpering presently changed to growling.
“Now I shouldn’t wonder if that is a badger!” remarked Mr. Fransemmery. “I have had an idea that there were badgers, or a badger, in this lane, and hereabouts, for some time; I fancied that I detected footprints in the loose, sandy soil. If only I had a lantern, I could soon tell, for a badger’s burrow is easily distinguishable from a fox’s hole.”
Blick put a hand in his coat pocket and produced something which, under pressure of his fingers, gave a sharp metallic click, followed by a steady glare of light.
“There you are!” he said. “Electric torches are better than lanterns. Where is he?”
Mr. Fransemmery forced aside the bushes behind which the Airedale was busy, and revealed him at work, digging furiously at a cavity in the bank. The terrier turned his head, blinked at the light, and went on with his task more eagerly. Mr. Fransemmery sniffed.
“Pho!” he exclaimed. “A badger, certainly! No mistaking the rank odour—quite different to that of a fox. But he won’t be there now, my boy! Badgers go abroad soon after it’s dark, on the search for roots, and insects, and frogs, and the larvae of wasps and bees. Come away, Tinker!”
But the Airedale went on digging, and Blick watched him with interest, keeping the glare of his electric torch on the mouth of the burrow.
“Good hand at excavation!” he said. “He’s thrown some stuff out already. He’d soon be deep into the bank at that rate if—hello!”
He suddenly stooped forward, pushed the dog aside and from the gravelly soil and loose sand that he had thrown up dragged forth an object which shone bright in the glare of the torch. With a sharp exclamation he held it up to Mr. Fransemmery.
“Look at that!” said Blick.
Mr. Fransemmery looked—and recoiled.
“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed. “A revolver!”
Blick straightened himself, and holding his find in his left hand, turned the full light of the electric torch on it.
“A Webley-Fosbery automatic pistol,” he said. “And—new! And thrown in there not so long ago! Mr. Fransemmery!—what if we’ve found the thing that caused Guy Markenmore’s death? I shouldn’t wonder!”
Mr. Fransemmery backed away into the lane.
“Is—is that loaded?” he asked nervously. “I beg you to be careful, my dear sir! I have the greatest horror——”
“You hold the torch,” interrupted Blick. “I’ll be careful: I know all about firearms.” He handed the electric torch to his companion, and with both hands free began to examine the mechanism of the automatic pistol. “Nothing in it,” he announced presently. “Not a single cartridge! But look you here, sir—this has not been in there long! Not a speck of rust—all bright, clean, fresh——”
“The sand is very dry,” said Mr. Fransemmery, glancing at the mouth of the burrow. “And the gravel, too. Perhaps——”
“No!” said Blick. “If that had been there long, there’d have been at any rate some show of rust, at least a speck or two on the metal. Talk about luck! I feel inclined to give your dog a silver collar!”
“You attach great importance to this?” suggested Mr. Fransemmery.
“The greatest!” exclaimed Blick. “I should just think so! Why!—we’re within half a mile of the place where Guy Markenmore was shot dead with a pistol of some sort, and here is a pistol, an automatic pistol, which has obviously been thrown—quite recently—into a hole in the bank, behind bushes, in a lonely lane! Important? My dear sir!—it’s a clue!”
“We are close to my house,” observed Mr. Fransemmery. “Let us go there and consider the matter more fully. Bless me!—what a very remarkable discovery! It does, indeed, need deep and precise attention.”
“It’ll get it!” said Blick grimly. “First material clue I’ve struck.”
Mr. Fransemmery led the way to his house. At his door they were met by the trim parlourmaid.
“Mr. Chilford is waiting for you in the library, sir,” she said. “I told him I didn’t know how long you’d be out, but he said he must wait.”
Blick pulled Mr. Fransemmery’s sleeve as they entered the hall.
“Not a word about the automatic pistol!” he whispered. “Don’t want that to get out at all, yet. Look here—Chilford mightn’t want my presence; shall I go?”
“No; come in,” said Mr. Fransemmery. “I want you to come in. I’ll tell him that you know all about this Hilson business. Ah, Chilford!” he went on, as they entered the library, where the solicitor, evidently full of thought, sat staring at the fire. “I know what’s brought you here—I expected it! You’ve had Margaret Hilson to see you—she’d tell you she’d seen me already. Well, Mr. Blick is fully conversant with her story, so——”
Chilford looked from one to the other.
“Something more than Margaret Hilson’s story brought me here, Fransemmery,” he answered. “I’ve seen her, of course—she called on me late this afternoon. I didn’t know what to think of her story, exactly, as long as it was just hers, unsupported. But since seven o’clock, this evening, I’ve known it to be true—in every detail!”
“You have?” exclaimed Mr. Fransemmery. “How now?”
Chilford waved a hand towards the window from which, had it not been night and the blinds drawn, they would have looked across the park to Markenmore Court.
“The successor to the title and estates is down there!” he said. “A boy of six!—quite unaware of what he’s come into!”
Mr. Fransemmery glanced at Blick, and saw that what he himself was thinking about was also in the detective’s thoughts—the question raised by Mrs. Braxfield as to marriage or no marriage.
“You’re sure, then, of his right?” he said, turning to Chilford. “But—how has he turned up? This is something unexpected, isn’t it?”
“Hadn’t the ghost of a notion that any such development would occur,” answered Chilford. “Nobody ever suggested to me that Guy Markenmore had been married—I always understood that he never had! And when that woman, Margaret Hilson, came to me this evening, just after I’d returned from my office, with the story she’d already told you, I was more than a little amazed. But I know her for a decent, respectable woman, not at all likely to invent fairy-tales, nor, for that matter, to tell what she didn’t believe to be true, and when I’d heard her, I began to think there might be, well, something in it. And do you know, Fransemmery, she hadn’t left my house half an hour when there drove up from Selcaster railway station a well-known London solicitor, Quillamane, of Bedford Row, who brought with him a lady and a small boy, and a story agreeing entirely with that which I’d just listened to. What’s more,” concluded Chilford, with a dry laugh and a wink at Mr. Fransemmery, “he brought full documentary proofs of all that he had to tell. Pooh!—the thing’s quite clear. There’s a Sir Guy Markenmore in Markenmore Court tonight!—and he’s six years old!”
“Then Guy Markenmore did marry Myra Halliwell?” said Mr. Fransemmery.
“He did!—when they both left here,” answered Chilford. “And they lived very quietly, Clapham or Tooting or Wandsworth way, at first. Later, she lived there alone—he was a good deal away from her, and had a West End flat. She died—but there’s the boy. Quillamane knows the whole thing—has all the papers, marriage certificates, birth certificates, everything: he has been in Guy’s confidence all along. When the child’s mother died, the child was placed in the hands of Quillamane’s sister, who’s now with him at the Court—they’re all there: I took them up, myself.”
“And Harry Markenmore and his sister—how did they take it?” asked Mr. Fransemmery.
“To tell you the truth, they took it like bricks!” replied Chilford. “They didn’t turn a hair, either of ’em, and to do them justice, they immediately began to make much of the youngster. But I say!—I reckon I know who’ll be furious about it! Why, I heard that Harry Markenmore has secretly married Poppy Wrenne, with her mother’s knowledge!”
“That’s so!” said Mr. Fransemmery. “The marriage took place in London, three months ago, in the mother’s presence.”
“Then Madam Braxfield will be the angriest woman in Christendom when she hears of this!” exclaimed Chilford. “Of course, she was hoping that Guy was dead long since, and nobody’d ever heard of him for seven years, and that Harry would get the title, and Poppy be my Lady Markenmore! Well—that’s knocked on the head! Queer business! and Quillamane tells me there may be more. It turns out that Guy, who’d made a regular pot of money in his business doings, all left, of course, to the youngster by a recent will, wanted to give Markenmore Court absolutely to his brother and sister, and was going to take steps to hand it over as soon as he succeeded. But the estates are entailed! This child gets everything! Interesting, isn’t it, Fransemmery, from a lawyer’s point of view?”
“From that point—very,” agreed Mr. Fransemmery. “Complicated, too.”
He was wondering if Chilford wanted to expatiate on the intricacies of the situation, and hoping he didn’t, for he himself felt in no humour for discussing legal questions. But Chilford presently went away and Blick, after a whispered word with Mr. Fransemmery, went with him. Together, they walked towards the village, on the outskirts of which Chilford lived.
“Any luck in your line yet, young man?” asked Chilford, before they parted.
“Precious little!” replied Blick.
“As mysterious a case as ever I heard of!” exclaimed Chilford. “Not a ray of light on it!”
Blick left him at the cross-roads and turned into the Sceptre. Remembering Crawley, and not averse to a friendly chat before retiring, he looked into the bar-parlour and asked for him. Grimsdale, reading a paper behind his bar, shook his head.
“Never been back, Mr. Blick,” he answered. “He ordered his dinner for seven o’clock, but he didn’t come in for it. Ain’t set eyes on him since he went out just after breakfast; I suppose he’s altered his mind and gone elsewhere. Don’t signify, neither—he paid his bill!”
CHAPTER XIX
The bodies of Sir Anthony Markenmore and his elder son were duly laid to rest in the family burial ground in Markenmore churchyard next day at noon, in the presence of a crowd whose members had flocked into the old village from all parts of the surrounding country. Folk of all sorts and conditions assembled in the church itself and under the ancient elms and yews that fenced in its grey walls; the last ceremonies over they split up into groups, discussing the latest news appertaining to the fortunes of the Markenmore family. By that time everybody in the place knew that Guy Markenmore had left a son, and that he had come into the title and estates: many of the onlookers had hurried to the churchyard in hopes of seeing the new baronet. But all they saw was Harry Markenmore and two or three kinsmen; no women of the family were present, and there was nothing remarkable nor spectacular: the curtain went down on this act of the drama quietly and uneventfully, and when those present had seen the last of Guy Markenmore, laid side by side with his father, and in close proximity to his many dead and gone ancestors, they fell back on the oft-repeated question—who was responsible for his tragic end?
Blick saw nothing of these obsequies. He was not concerned with the dead. His one object was to lay hands on a living person—the murderer of Guy Markenmore. That person was somewhere; possibly far off by that time; possibly closer at hand than he knew. It was a difficult chase, and the quarry was clear out of sight and the scent poor, but Blick was casting round, and by perseverance, aided by luck, he hoped to get on the trail. And certainly he had got something to go on in the strange revelation of yesterday, and in the fortunate discovery of the automatic pistol. Full of thoughts and speculations about one, and with the other in his pocket, he set out for Selcaster as soon as his early breakfast was over, and by ten o’clock was closeted with the Chief Constable. To him he detailed all the news gained since the previous morning.
The Chief Constable listened and wondered. Like Blick, his thoughts turned to the question: Had these revelations about Guy Markenmore’s secret marriage of seven years ago anything to do with his murder? He discussed the likelihood and probabilities of this for some time, but suddenly turned off to a more pertinent subject.
“That, however, is all mere speculation; though, as you say, Blick, there may be a good deal in it,” he remarked. “But the finding of that automatic pistol, so near the scene of the murder, is quite a different matter. Now, how on earth did it come to be in that burrow, or hole, or whatever it is?”
“You mean—how did it come to be there unless it was put there!” said Blick. “Of course, it was dropped in there by somebody who wanted to get rid of it!—how else could it have come there? Let’s suppose that that somebody was the actual murderer. He came away from the scene of his crime, crossed the hill-side in front of Woodland Cottage——”
“More likely, followed the line of the coppice behind it,” suggested the Chief Constable, with a glance at a big map hung on the wall by his desk. “He’d be hidden from view, that way.”
“Well, that way, then,” agreed Blick. “Anyhow, he comes to Deep Lane. Going down there, he resolves to get rid of his weapon. There are any amount of holes in the banks there, behind the banks and the undergrowth at the foot of the high hedgerows. He pushes aside the bushes and drops his weapon into one of the deepest holes. And there it might have lain for ages—if it hadn’t been for Fransemmery’s dog.”
“Well, you’ve found it, anyway, and the next thing to do is to find out to whom it belongs,” said the Chief Constable. “Stiff business, but it can be done.” He picked up the automatic pistol, which Blick had laid before him, and looked at it with speculative eyes. “Seems to be brand-new,” he remarked. “I wonder if it was bought from anybody about here?”
“I’m going to enquire into that at once,” answered Blick. “Such things can be bought in Selcaster, I suppose?”
“You can buy sporting guns and revolvers in plenty,” replied the Chief Constable. “And no doubt things of this sort. There are two or three gunsmiths in the city, and of course there are ironmongers and hardware dealers who sell fire-arms.” He picked up a small volume from amongst a row of reference books on his desk. “Local directory,” he explained. “You’ll find names and addresses there.”
Blick made a list of names, and went out on a voyage of discovery. He called on half a dozen tradesmen, who, once they were aware of his identity and business, and had been pledged to secrecy, were only too ready to chat confidentially with a famous London detective. But they could give him no information—not one had seen the automatic pistol before. It was not until he made his last call that he got any help or signs of it. Then, however, the shopkeeper was somewhat doubtful as to whether he hadn’t seen that particular article before, some time or other.
“I’ve an idea that we may have supplied that,” he remarked. “But I’ll tell you what—you look in here about six o’clock this evening, or any time between that and seven. For this reason: I have a branch shop at Chilhampton, and my manager is there today, and won’t be back till late this afternoon. Now, if we ever sold that pistol—as I fancy we did—he’ll know all about it, and who the purchaser was; he’s more up in that department than I am. Come again at six or thereabouts; if I’m not in, ask for Mr. Waters, and tell him what you’ve told me. You can trust him.”
Blick thanked him and went out. A policeman who stood staring around him on the opposite side of the street, caught sight of and came across to him.
“The Chief sent me out to look for you, Mr. Blick,” he announced as he came up. “He says will you go back to his office?—there’s a young man called that he wants you to see. This Markenmore affair, he said.”
Blick hurried back to the police-station, and to the Chief Constable’s room. In a chair by the fireside sat the young man to whom the policeman had referred, watching the Chief Constable, who was reading and signing documents. He was a very meek and mild young man, thought Blick, as far as appearance went; an intellectual of some sort, evidently. He had a very high, broad forehead; a mass of long and untidy hair brushed back from it; a pair of large, somewhat brilliant eyes; a wide, sensitive mouth, and a generally high-strung aspect. Blick’s sharp eyes took all this in at a glance; he also observed that the young man’s black coat was very much stained in front, as though he was in the bad habit of spilling things on it, and that his long, delicately-fashioned fingers were also stained—his hands, in fact, from wrists to finger-tips were disfigured with odd patches of green, purples, and scarlets. A queer-looking chap, thought the detective, and yet, no ordinary one.
The Chief Constable signed a big blue paper, pushed it away from him, laid down his pen, and swung round in his chair. He waved a hand towards the figure on the hearth.
“This young gentleman has looked in to say that he’s been reading about the Markenmore problem in the papers, and that he thinks he can throw some light on it,” he announced, glancing at Blick. “I waited till you came before hearing what he’s got to say. Now,” he continued, nodding at the visitor, “you can go ahead! This is Detective-Sergeant Blick, of the Criminal Investigation Department, who has this case in hand. You can tell him and me anything you like—in privacy and confidence. And first of all—to whom are we talking?”
The visitor looked from one man to the other and spoke in quiet, even tones.
“My name is Spindler,” he answered, “Eustace Spindler—I’m an assistant in Moore and Smith’s chemist and druggists, Farsham.”
“I know it—very good, high-class business,” said the Chief Constable. “Old established.” He turned and threw an aside to Blick, who had sat down near him. “This is the chap Lansbury told us of,” he whispered. “The chap who had the secret to sell.” He looked round again at the caller. “Well, Mr. Spindler,” he continued, “glad to hear anything you can tell.”
“It is in strict confidence, of course?” enquired Spindler. “Strictly between ourselves—at present, at any rate?”
“You put it in the precise fashion,” assented the Chief Constable. “At present—at any rate.”
“Well,” continued Spindler, with a nod of agreement, “what I wanted to tell you was, and is, this—and I may say that I came here as much for my own satisfaction as to give information. I am, as I said, an assistant chemist—a qualified assistant, that is to say, I’ve passed all my exams. Now, for the last year or two, I’ve spent my spare time in experimenting in the preparation of synthetic dyes. I daresay you gentlemen are aware that up to now our dyers in this country have been almost entirely dependent on Germany for their aniline dyes——”
“We are!” said the Chief Constable solemnly. “Pretty well known, I believe, Mr. Spindler, that we’ve been shamefully behind-hand in that matter!”
“Just so—we have,” assented Spindler. “Well, to put the matter briefly, I have discovered a certain secret as regards the preparation of a valuable synthetic dye: a most important secret. And when I’d got it fully perfected, I naturally wanted to make some money out of it. So I advertised inThe Times, indicating what I’d got to sell. My advertisement was answered by Mr. Guy Markenmore. In consequence of his letter, I went to see him at his office in Folgrave Court, in London—near Cornhill. I told him all about my discovery, and he asked me how much I would take for my secret. Now, I am a poor man, but I have good ideas, and I want to do certain things, and one is to buy the business—a small, undeveloped business, yet, but capable in my hands of great development—of a manufacturing chemist, which I can get for a very reasonable price. I thought things over and told Mr. Markenmore I would take three thousand pounds cash. He then asked me if I would entrust him with my papers—the formula, you understand, of my secret—so that he might submit them to an expert. I consented, on condition that the expert was somebody I could trust. We fixed on Professor Sir Thomas Hodges-Wilkins, of Cambridge—the famous chemist. I then gave Mr. Markenmore the papers. A week later he wrote to me, saying he would buy at my price if he could get a couple of other financiers to join him in the venture. I wrote back to him and asked him, if he bought, to let me have the money in cash. I made this request, because I intended to pay cash for the business I’ve referred to, and didn’t want anybody to know how much money I had—no bankers, no nobody, you understand. He replied that that was all right, and that he’d probably call on me, at Farshams, in a few days, and hand me the money. And after that,” concluded Spindler, spreading out his thin hands, “I never heard anything till I read of this murder!—and what I want to know is—where are my papers, my valuable secret?”
“And your three thousand pounds!” muttered the Chief Constable, aside to Blick. “Well, Mr. Spindler,” he said aloud, “I can assure you that no scientific papers of the sort you refer to were found on Mr. Guy Markenmore’s dead body—we have everything that was found. But just tell me—that formula of yours? Supposing it fell into the hands of anybody who knew what it was—what it was all about, I mean—would it be of use?”
“Of use?” vociferated Spindler. “I should just think it would! Why, of course, it tells exactly how to manufacture this particular dye!”
“Then—it would be worth anybody’s while to steal it?” asked the Chief Constable.
“Worth anybody’s while?” exclaimed Spindler. “Goodness gracious me!—don’t I tell you Markenmore was giving three thousand pounds for it?”
“Just for the papers?”
“The secret is on the paper—a paper—an ordinary sheet of note-paper! There were, of course, some other papers—memoranda. But ifthepaper falls into the hands of—of anybody—why, of course, my secret’s lost! Are you sure it wasn’t on Markenmore’s body?—just a sheet?—it would look like a prescription.”
They saw by that time why Mr. Eustace Spindler had called. It was not to give information, but to get news. And they had none to give him.
“There were no papers of that sort on Markenmore,” said Blick. “But—they may be at his office in London, or at his private residence. We’ll do what we can for you, Mr. Spindler, and as soon as possible.”
But when Spindler had gone, highly concerned, and dissatisfied, Blick turned to the Chief Constable and shook his head.
“We know from what Lansbury told us that Guy Markenmore had the papers this chap speaks of on him that night at the Sceptre!” he observed. “He must have had, because it was about them and the secret and the price that the discussion was. Probably he had the formula and Professor What’s-his-name’s opinion on it. In that case he’d have them when he left the Sceptre—put them all together with the three thousand pounds’ worth of bank-notes. And whoever murdered him got ’em—with the notes!”
“There’s another alternative,” remarked the Chief Constable. “He no doubt had the notes on him. But he may have handed over the formula and opinion to one of his fellow-purchasers.”
“Not to Lansbury,” declared Blick. “He’d have told us.”
“There was a third man,” said the Chief Constable, meaningly. “Von Eckhardstein.”
Blick took two or three paces about the room, thinking.
“I wish we could follow that up!” he exclaimed suddenly. “That fellow’s disappeared, and we’ve done nothing whatever to trace him. How do we know, after all, in spite of his being the wealthy man he’s reputed to be, that for purposes of his own he didn’t shoot Guy Markenmore and appropriate the money and the formula?”
“Possible!” agreed the Chief Constable. “But as to tracing him, we’ve done all we can here, and we’ve ascertained that he hasn’t turned up at any of his usual haunts in London, or in the City. Yet—he’s vanished! Suddenly, too! Now—why?”
Blick paced the room again, thinking still more intently.
“I wonder if Mrs. Tretheroe knows more than she’s told!” he said suddenly. “I’ve a conviction—a sort of intuition—that she does.”
“I’ve had a suspicion of that sort all along,” answered the Chief Constable. “My own personal belief is that I don’t believe her a bit!”
“Well,” said Blick, after more thought, “there’s one thing we can do.”
“What?”
“Go out there, both of us, this afternoon,” replied Blick. “Put pressure on her! Bluff her! Make her think we know something. Come with me, and leave the talking to me. I’ll force something out of her.”
“Very good—after lunch,” agreed the Chief Constable. “It’s a chance!”
Mrs. Tretheroe, alone in her boudoir late that afternoon, was neither surprised nor displeased when Daffy Halliwell announced the Chief Constable and Mr. Blick. The Chief Constable, as an ex-Army officer of rank, was likely to be quite agreeable as a visitor, and Blick was a young man of good looks and interesting personality. She welcomed both with some show of pleasure.
“I hope you’ve brought me some news of Baron von Eckhardstein,” she said as she pointed them to chairs near her own. “It’s really most distressing that I’ve heard nothing yet, though I’m sure I’ve done everything that I could to find him in this neighbourhood—organized search parties and I don’t know what. Have you heard anything through your police people?”
“A great deal, Mrs. Tretheroe!” replied Blick.
Mrs. Tretheroe started and glanced sharply at the detective. These were not the tones in which he had addressed her on his previous visit—his voice now was official, firm, almost menacing; he spoke like a man who has got the whip-hand of the person he is addressing. And after her sharp glance at him Mrs. Tretheroe paled a little; she was conscious that two pairs of masculine eyes were fixed on her, not in admiration, but in something very like stern scrutiny.
“What—what do you mean?” she faltered. “What is it—what’s happened?”
“What has happened is this, Mrs. Tretheroe,” replied Blick. “We know a great deal more, now, than you seemed to think we know, about the recent doings of von Eckhardstein. Von Eckhardstein was the third man of the three who met at the Sceptre last Monday night—oh, it’s no use your protesting, Mrs. Tretheroe!—he was! It was he who went there at two o’clock in the morning, and—mind this!—he was the last man in whose company Guy Markenmore was seen alive!”
Mrs. Tretheroe uttered a faint cry—evidently one of genuine astonishment.
“No—no!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe——”
“Quite immaterial what you believe,” said Blick, with well-assumed indifference. “We know it! Now, Mrs. Tretheroe, all this pretended concern of yours about von Eckhardstein’s being lost through some accident is all pretence! I tell you we know things. Now, you haven’t been candid with us up to now, and you’re running into serious danger. Out with it, Mrs. Tretheroe! You know very well that von Eckhardstein left your house at a late hour the other night—intentionally? Where is he now?”
He waited with secret impatience, doubting even then if his fish would rise. But Mrs. Tretheroe, after an almost terrified glance at the Chief Constable’s stern face, spoke, faintly.
“I believe—in Paris!”
“How did he get away from here?” demanded Blick.
“He waited till all was quiet, then walked across to Carfant, and got a motor-car to run him along the coast-road to Newhaven, to catch the early morning boat for Dieppe.”
“Why did he go away like that?”
“He said,” answered Mrs. Tretheroe, in a very low voice, “because he didn’t want to be mixed up in the sordid details of a vulgar murder, and he’d go across to the Continent until you’d got the real man and the thing was settled.”
Blick got up, and silently motioned his companion to follow. Mrs. Tretheroe rose, too, white and trembling.
“You—you don’t think he killed Guy?” she whispered. “You surely don’t say he did?”
“At present—we say nothing,” answered Blick, and went away. But once outside the Dower House he turned to the Chief Constable.
“Worked like a charm!” he muttered. “Well—what next?”
Then he remembered the gunsmith at Selcaster and hurried back there in the Chief Constable’s dogcart.
The gunsmith met him as he turned in at his shop-door, and drew him aside.
“I’ve found out about that automatic pistol for you,” he whispered. “We did sell it! About three months ago. We sold it to Mr. Harry Markenmore, of Markenmore Court. Like to see the entry?”
CHAPTER XX
The Chief Constable had followed close upon Blick’s heels when the detective walked into the gunsmith’s shop, and he caught the whispered information. Not as accustomed as Blick was to reserve of speech and stolidity of expression he let out a word of surprise, scarcely checked. But Blick said nothing, and his only sign was one of assent to the gunsmith’s proposition: together the three men went to the back of the shop, where a sharp looking young man was busy with account books.
“My manager, Mr. Waters,” said the gunsmith. “Waters—just show these gentlemen that entry we looked up a while ago.”
Waters produced a day-book, turned over its pages, ran his fingers over the lines, and silently pointed to an entry and some figures. Blick glanced at them.
“You remember selling a Webley-Fosbery automatic pistol to Mr. Harry Markenmore?” he asked, turning to the manager. “I mean—you sold it, personally?”
“I sold it,” assented Waters. “I remember it well enough. He wanted a revolver—I recommended that.”
“Would you know it again?” asked Blick.
Waters pointed to some figures and letters in the entry.
“That’s the number,” he said.
Blick produced the weapon he had picked up from beneath the Airedale terrier’s busy feet.
“That it?” he enquired.
Waters turned the automatic pistol over in his hand, and looked carefully at the figures and letters stamped into the mount.
“That’s it!” he answered. “Oh, yes—but I should have known it again without that.”
“There’s no doubt about it?” said Blick. “No possibility of any mistake? You’re sure that is the pistol you sold, on that date, to Mr. Harry Markenmore?”
“There’s not the slightest doubt,” replied Waters confidently. “Take my oath of it!”
Blick put the automatic pistol back in his pocket and turned away.
“I hope that won’t be necessary, Mr. Waters,” he said. “However——” here he looked at the gunsmith, who, with the Chief Constable, had stood by, watching and listening—“in the meantime keep all this to yourself—don’t mention it to anybody. I may as well tell you, in confidence, that I found this thing—and it may have been lost by its owner—dropped, quite innocently. So—for the present—silence!”
The gunsmith and his manager nodded comprehendingly, and Blick and the Chief Constable went out into the street and walked some little distance in silence.
“Another complication!” muttered Blick at last. “And I suppose it’s within bounds of possibility that Harry Markenmore shot his brother and threw this thing away in Deep Lane! Possible! but, I think, not at all probable. However, I’ll soon make sure about that.”
“How?” asked the Chief Constable.
“According to the medical evidence,” answered Blick, “Guy Markenmore was shot dead at Markenmore Hollow about four o’clock in the morning. Now it was just about that hour that Sir Anthony Markenmore died at Markenmore Court, and I imagine that his younger son would be at his bedside. Harry Markenmore couldn’t be in two places at once. Still, how came this automatic pistol in that badger-hole? That’s got to be answered—somehow! For without a doubt, it was dropped in there by somebody who wanted to get rid of it.”
The Chief Constable suddenly laid one hand on the detective’s arm, and with the other pointed across the street.
“There’s the very man who will know what Harry Markenmore was doing, and exactly where he was on the night of his father’s death!” he exclaimed. “Come across!”
Blick looked in the direction indicated, and saw Braxfield. The old butler, very solemn and precise in his mourning raiment, was just emerging from a chemist’s shop, sundry small parcels in his hands. He lifted startled eyes as the Chief Constable accosted him.
“Good evening, Braxfield,” said the Constable, affably. “How are you in these trying times?”
Braxfield shook his head.
“Trying indeed they are, sir!” he replied. “I have felt this week, sir, as if the world was being turned upside down—my world at any rate! I never knew such times, sir, nor expected to know such!”
“You’ve certainly had a good deal of trouble at Markenmore, Braxfield,” said the Chief Constable, sympathetically. “Must have been a time of great anxiety to everybody who’d lived a quiet life hitherto, as I think you’ve done.”
Braxfield shook his head again, and looked as mournful as his garments.
“It’s not been so much the trouble, sir, nor yet the anxiety, though both have been bad enough, as the continual surprises!” he answered. “One after the other they’ve come, till my poor head has fairly ached under them! Mr. Guy’s coming—his father’s death—that dreadful murder—hearing that my stepdaughter was married, secret-like, to Sir Harry, as we then thought him—this little boy being brought and presented as the real heir—and all the rest of it; dear me, sir, it’s as if you didn’t know whatever to expect next!”
“Ah, well, you’ll get settled down in time, Braxfield,” remarked the Chief Constable. “The little boy is, of course, a great surprise. How does Mr. Harry take the sudden change in his fortunes?”
“Mr. Harry, sir, and Miss Valencia,” replied Braxfield, “have taken the matter in the best way possible. The little gentleman—Sir Guy, of course—has been welcomed in the warmest fashion; he is already made as much of by his uncle and aunt as if they’d known him from his cradle. Family feeling, sir, is strong in such houses as ours!”
“I suppose Mr. Harry was fond of his father, Sir Anthony?” asked the Chief Constable, with an almost imperceptible side-glance at Blick. “Very constant in attendance upon him, I believe?”
“Mr. Harry, sir,” answered Braxfield, “was a very good son to his father, especially as Sir Anthony drew near his latter end. He was for ever at his bedside—never left him, except when Miss Valencia took his place.”
“Was he with him when he died?” enquired the Chief Constable, coming at last to the question which Blick desired to have answered.
“He was, sir! Mr. Harry,” said Braxfield, “was with my late master all that night, from the time Mr. Guy went away until Sir Anthony died—which he did in a light sleep. Yes, sir, Mr. Harry has nothing to reproach himself for in respect of his behaviour to his father—and I would have wished, sir, that he had come into the title and estates. But the law, I believe, is the law, sir, as you know better than I do—and all Markenmore, and the old title belongs to the little boy! Strange changes, sir, indeed, but you’ll excuse me, gentlemen—I see our groom waiting for me in our trap, and I’ve still a little shopping to do.”
The old butler hurried away after a polite bow, and the Chief Constable turned to Blick.
“That disposes of any question of Harry Markenmore’s possible guilt,” he murmured. “He spent that night by his father’s bedside. So he couldn’t have been at Markenmore Hollow.”
“Never thought he had,” said Blick. “But I think his automatic pistol was there. And now I’m going back to the Sceptre, to get my much-needed supper, and think a bit.”
“Tomorrow’s Sunday,” observed the Chief Constable.
“I’m aware of it,” replied Blick. “And as I have reason to believe that Sunday, amongst rustic communities, is a great day for gossip, I intend to hear what these Markenmore villagers are saying. I fancy they’re saying a good deal amongst themselves.”
“And how will you get to hear?—a stranger!” asked the Chief Constable with a laugh.
“Easily,” replied Blick. “All village gossip either begins or ends at the village ale-house. I shall hear no end at the Sceptre, I think.”
“One way of getting information, to be sure,” assented the Chief Constable. “Well, Sunday or no Sunday, keep me posted up, Blick, if you hear of anything really pertinent.”
Blick promised, and went off to Markenmore, and that night, of set purpose, he put his business clean out of his mind, and spent a quiet evening in reading the local histories and guide-books which he had procured from Selcaster when he first took up his quarters at the Sceptre. There was a great deal of interesting information in those books, and before he went to bed he had learned much about the Markenmore neighbourhood and the Markenmore family, whose pedigree, long and intricate, was given in full in one of the volumes. And next morning he stayed late in bed, and lounged mentally as well as physically, and it was not until after his mid-day dinner that he thought of his professional problem at all. It was recalled to him first when he strolled along the quiet street in the middle of the peaceful Sunday afternoon and came across Benny Cripps, the sexton, who sat on a stone bench outside the lych-gate of the churchyard, smoking his pipe. There was a look of invitation in Benny’s eye, and Blick sat down by him.
“Taking a bit of rest from your Sunday labours, eh?” he said. “Nice spot to smoke your pipe in, this.”
“Custom o’ mine,” answered Benny. “I do allays smoke a pipe or two o’ bacca here of a Sunday arternoon, year in, year out—wet or fine. I do keep that up. If ’tis fine weather, along o’ this ancient stone bench; if so be as ’tis wet, under that there lych-gate. And while I smokes, I meditates.”
“On what?” asked Blick.
“Different subjects at different times,” answered the sexton. “If so be as you wants to know the precise nature of my speckylations on this here occasion, I may tell ’ee as how when you come along, I was a-thinking of you!”
“Of me, eh?” said Blick. “And what about me?”
“Thinking as how if you’re a-endeavouring to find out about that there murder, ’tis a long furrow as lies afore ’ee,” replied Benny. “And main stiff soil to plough through! You ain’t got much forrader, I reckon, since I see ’ee last?”
“No!” admitted Blick.
The sexton took his long clay pipe out of his lips, and rubbed his nose reflectively with the stem.
“Well!” he remarked, after a pause. “There ain’t no wiser man in all this here parish than what I’m reckoned for to be, and I do allow as all this here mystery have a woman at the bottom of it—sure-ly!”
“A woman?” exclaimed Blick.
“Well, it med be wimmin,” continued Benny. “Woman or wimmin, ’tis all one! Wimmin is pison! Ain’t never been nothing go wrong since ever this here old world was created out of nothing, as it do tell in first chapter of Genesis, but wimmin was at the bottom of it! I tell ’ee, sir, the wimmin makes all the mischief—men is peaceable animals, but wimmin is oneasy critters.”
“What would Mrs. Cripps say if she heard you?” asked Blick.
“Ain’t no Mrs. Cripps!” retorted Benny. “Not that there ain’t been! Been three on ’em, one time or another—buried ’em all, I did, and the last ’un it be five year ago. Never another, says I, when I covers her in—third time, says I, pays for all! They was tur’ble old toads, all three on ’em, and I fare to do deal better as a widow-man. If you ain’t a wed man, don’t ’ee ever go for to be one, my dear—’tain’t wuth it!”
“I’ll bear your advice in mind,” said Blick. “You’ve evidently tried it pretty well. But I say—what woman do you think’s at the bottom of this affair?”
“Med be one, and med be another,” replied Benny. “I ain’t at all comfortable in my mind about that there young Jezebel at the Dower House—deal too much mystery and queer goings-on about she to suit my disposition. Knowed her ever since she was the height o’ sixpennorth o’ copper, I have, and never knew her to do nothing but mischief. Reckon her’s something to do wi’ this affair, and keeps it so deep as my well. And then again there’s that there Mistress Braxfield—I ain’t no opinion o’ she!”
“Why, what about her?” asked Blick. “Highly respectable woman, isn’t she?”
Benny sniffed.
“Depends on what ’ee calls highly ’spectable,” he answered. “Don’t call it neither high nor yet ’spectable for a woman what used to keep a public-house to go marrying her gal, hole-and-corner like, to a young gentleman of old family! Low conduck, I calls it! But her thought as how there was a good chance of her daughter being my Lady Markenmore—that was her notion. And ’twouldn’t surprise me if she wasn’t at the bottom o’ this, some way or another way. Wimmin, I tell ’ee, is allays at the bottom o’ all unpleasantness. If ’ee was as well acquanted wi’ the Bible as what I am—which ain’t to be expected, considering as I be a pillar of the church—you’d know that what I tell ’ee is Gospel truth—so ’tis! Ain’t you never heard tell about what Eve did to poor old Adam?”
“I’ve heard of that incident,” admitted Blick. “Bit stiff, wasn’t it?”
“I believe ’ee, my son! And so ’tis all through—the wimmin is allays deep down at the root o’ all mischievousness,” asserted Benny. “I could tell ’ee more tales o’ wimmin nor you could find in a dozen books, and so I would, only it be time for our parson to come and catechize they young varmints o’ children what you see trooping into my church, and I must go and keep order among they. But I tells ’ee straight, my dear, you seeming a decent and fair-spoken young feller, though no doubt a Londoner, which I don’t hold wi’, that if you wants to get at the bottom o’ this here, you go a-looking for wimmin! Wimmin is at the bottom of all battles, murders, and sudden deaths—and don’t you forget it!”
Blick got no information out of this interview, but it made him think a great deal. He, too, was eminently suspicious about Mrs. Tretheroe. He had forced out of her an admission that von Eckhardstein had gone away with her full knowledge, and it was obvious that she had sent out her search-parties on the day after his fully arranged departure with intent to deceive the police authorities. But he found it difficult to believe that she had any knowledge of the murder; something told him that her first impetuous accusation of Harborough was genuine; genuine, too, he thought was her evident concern when she asked him, only the previous afternoon, if he thought that von Eckhardstein had killed Guy Markenmore. If, then, there was something which she knew, and was keeping back, what was it?—and what was her object in secrecy? From her, he turned to her maid; did Daffy Halliwell know anything? She gave one the impression, thought Blick, of being the sort of woman who had a habit, or the knack, of knowing things.
“And I should say,” he muttered to himself, “she’s a confoundedly clever hand at keeping them close when she does know them!”
That evening, tired of reading local history and topography, he went into the bar-parlour of the Sceptre and sat in a quiet corner. There were several men in the place, small farmers and village craftsmen; if they knew who Blick was, they gave small heed to his presence; their talk was free and unrestrained. For once Grimsdale was not behind his bar; the waitress from the little coffee-room officiated in his stead; she had little to do, and seeing that she looked lonely and somewhat bored, Blick, who was naturally amiable, leaned over the counter and talked to her. But he kept one ear open for anything that was said by the men behind him. His experience was that you may pick up a good deal from a chance remark or stray hint.
The men, of course, were discussing the events of the previous Monday night and Tuesday morning; they had been discussing them for six days, and they would go on discussing them for many days longer—long, Blick felt sure, beyond the proverbial nine.
“’Tis a ’nation queer thing to me,” observed one man, “that such a matter can happen in a Christian country as that a young gentleman do get shot through’s head, and die of that, and nobody don’t know who done it! And what I says, frequent, since that do happen to he, I says again, and will say, and that be—what be the police folk about? Been me, I’d ha’ found him as done that and hanged him so high as our church steeple, before now!”
“Why don’t ’ee find him, then, Bob Gravus?” asked a cynical listener. “Bain’t naught to prevent ’ee!”
“’Tain’t my job, that!” retorted Bob Gravus. “I bain’t a policeman. But,” he added, with a sly wink in Blick’s direction, “if I bain’t mistook, I do allow as that there young gentleman be one o’ these here powerful clever London men, what they calls detectives, and I do s’pose that he very likely know a deal more ’bout this than we do!”
Feeling the eyes of the company on his back, Blick turned towards the last speaker.
“Make yourself easy, my friend!” he said. “I know no more than you do, I think. I should be glad to know a lot more.”
“But you’m what I do say, hain’t you, mister?” suggested Bob Gravus. “I hear you was, anyway.”
“Well, you can take it I am,” admitted Blick. “But I can’t see through a brick wall, any more than you can!”
“’Tis a true saying, that!” remarked one of the company, solemnly. “Faith, yes, the powers of mortal man be terrible limited, as you med say. Things there is as man that is born of a woman can do, and things there is as he cannot do. And there ain’t never been a man so fur as I knows on us could see through a brick wall. A true remark!”
“Well,” said another, “it be a main powerful mystery who done it, and as difficult a thing to find out as I reckon it ’ud be to lift Selcaster Cathedral wi’ a jack-screw. And you can’t go for to walk around the neighbourhood a-saying to one and then to another ‘Was it you as done this terrible wicked deed’—can’t, nohow! ’Cause why? They’d all say they didn’t!”
There was a murmur of general approval at this piece of wisdom. But a dark-faced man who sat in a corner and who had listened in silence up to that point, suddenly lifted his pot of ale, drank from it, and set it down again with an emphatic bang.
“Tell ’ee all what I do think, and no two ways about it!” he exclaimed. “This here shooting o’ Master Guy Markenmore what you’re all talking so free about and don’t get no forrarder—I do think as how Mistress Braxfield, up to Woodland Cottage, did shoot he! That’s what I do say. Mistress Braxfield, as kept this house once—she done it!” Blick turned sharply from the bar; the other men turned towards the speaker; a dead silence fell over the room, broken at last by a solemn voice.
“You’m best to mind what you’re a-saying of, Bill Carver!” it said. “There be law for them as slanders folk—you’ll be took to ’sizes! Beside, Master Guy, he be shooted with a revolver. Mistress Braxfield ain’t got no revolvers, and couldn’t shoot one if she had!”
“Ain’t she?” exclaimed Bill Carver, derisive and contemptuous. “Then I tells ’ee that she have! Many’s the time I seen her a-shooting with that, early of a morning when I bin about them downs. I seen her shoot a score o’ times at foxes what comes arter her chickens. And when you says who shot Master Guy Markenmore, I says Mistress Braxfield did shoot he! That’s what I say—and don’t care who hears me say it! Ain’t I free to say what I do think?—’tis a free country!”
CHAPTER XXI
A period of tense silence followed on this bold declaration, ended at last by a shuffling of feet and a succession of dry, deprecating coughs. Then a voice came out of the smoke-laden depths of a far corner.
“’Tis all very well to say as how this here is a free country,” remarked the voice, “but I do allow as ’tain’t so free as that a man may call murder agin a woman! That there be what they call libel and slander, what folks goes to ’sizes for—it be a punishable matter that. I count as how you’ll git yourself into sore tribulation, Bill Carver, if so be as you do go up and down a-saying that Mistress Braxfield her did murder pore young Muster Guy—so you will!”
“Ain’t a-saying as how her did murder he!” retorted Bill Carver. “What I says is that ’tis my belief as how her did shoot he dead—main different matter! Might ha’ bin done accidental, like!”
“Oh, if ’twas accidental, like, ’tis a vastly different circumstance!” said the correcting voice. “There’s bin a deal o’ serious and bloody murders done accidental, I do allow! But it seem strange if this here catastrophe bin brought about i’ that way. Mistress Braxfield, she say nothing o’ that, so far.”
“’Tain’t likely as her would,” declared Bill Carver. “Her’ve more sense! Ain’t no ’casion as I knows on for any man or woman to go for to accuse theirselves o’ terrible doings. Wouldn’t be a common-sense thing for anybody as that happened to come for’rard and say as they done it! Ain’t Christian conduck for anybody to walk into a trap wi’ his eyes open, I do reckon.”
“’Tis very true!” assented another wiseacre. “Noo—I don’t count as how any well-disposed, law abiding citizen have any call to ’criminate his-self—’tis agin religion and nature, which is powerful commodities. Noo!—I reckon that if Mistress Braxfield done this, accidental like, wi’ that pistol what Bill Carver refer to, she say to herself ‘Well,’ she say, ‘this here is a sad misfortune to happen to me, but I ain’t no call to tell about it,’ she say, and then, of course, she say nothing. That be the way of it—common-sense, like. And we all knows that accidents does happen to the meekest of us!”
“Accident’ll happen to I, if I don’t get homealong?” remarked Bill Carver with a laugh, as he rose from his corner and made for the door. “My old woman, she do have supper ready nine o’clock Sunday nights, and if I ain’t to the minute, her’ll let me hear the sound of her tongue. I bids ’ee all a good night!”
He strode out amidst a chorus of farewells, but stopped in the hall, pulled up by a tap on his arm, and turned to find Blick at his elbow.
“A word with you,” said Blick. “Come in here.” He led Carver into his sitting-room, and closed the door. “You know what I am, Carver?” he went on in a low voice. “A detective! Very well—now, I heard what you said in there. Is it true that you’ve seen Mrs. Braxfield shooting at things with a pistol—early of a morning?”
“True enough, master,” replied Carver. “I seen her do that more than once. Been working up in they woods all this winter and spring, I have, and gone to my work uncommon early since the mornings got light. I seen Mistress Braxfield out about her house now and again, taking a pop at they foxes—there’s a wealth o’ them varmints up there, and I did hear her say as they was allays at her chickens. Oh, aye, I seen her wi’ her pistol!”
“You didn’t see her last Tuesday morning?—the morning Mr. Guy was shot?”
“I didn’t, master, ’cause I wasn’t in them parts at all, that day—I was over t’other side of Greycloister, two miles off.” He paused, regarding the detective with knowing eyes. “Don’t want to make no trouble, master,” he went on, suddenly, “but I could ha’ said a deal more in there than what I did say!”
“What?” demanded Blick. “If you know anything, tell it!”
“Don’t know anything partic’lar,” said Carver. “But I said, in there—accidental! Nor, there is them in the village what says—on purpose!”
“Do you mean that there are people in Markenmore who are saying that Mrs. Braxfield meant to shoot Mr. Guy?” asked Blick. “Is that it?”
“That’s it, master!” replied Carver. “They are saying it, some of ’em, round about where I lives—on one Mitbourne road. But only since it come out that Mistress Braxfield’s lass—young Poppy—be wed to Master Harry. When that comes out, the folk began to talk same as I do tell ’ee. ‘Ah!’ says they. ‘That be the true colour of it! Her shooted Master Guy so’s his poor brother could be Sir Harry and that young damsel be my Lady Markenmore! So ’tis,’ says they; ‘ain’t no doubt on ’t.’ But you’ll bear in mind, master, as how I don’t say that. I do say her, very like, shooted he accidental.”
Blick paid no attention to Carver’s personal opinion; he was thinking of the common gossip.
“Are many of them saying that?” he asked. “Your neighbours, I mean?”
“All on ’ems a-saying of it!” declared Carver. “Down our way, you understand—far end o’ the village. Them here chaps what you sees i’ th’ bar there, they belong to this end o’ the place—us don’t know what they’m thinking. But down along wi’ us, that be the general talk—her shooted Master Guy so’s Master Harry ’ud be Sir Harry, and the young gel’ ud be my lady! See, master?” He paused again—and again gave the detective a shrewd, knowing look. “Her’s a sharp, spry female, Mistress Braxfield!” he continued suddenly. “I could tell ’ee more nor that, only I ain’t one for to get nobody into trouble. But so I could!”
“If you know anything, you ought to tell it,” said Blick. “What do you mean, now, about Mrs. Braxfield?”
“Well, master, I tells ’ee,” said Carver, after a pause. “Mebbe you didn’t see I, but I was up at that Crowner’s ’quest what they held at the Court. Mistress Braxfield, her wented into the witness-box and gived evidence. Her said as how her see’d Master Harborough at a certain place on the hillside from her chamber window, at a certain time that Tuesday morning. Master, her didn’t do nothing o’ that sort! Her couldn’t see that place from her chamber window!—’tis impossible! I did help to build that there house of hers—Woodland Cottage—and from her chamber window you couldn’t see that place where she said her did see Master John. But—her could ha’ seen it, and him, or whoever was there, from somewhere else, where very like her was!”
“Where?” demanded Blick.
“Bit of a spinney, right against Markenmore Hollow,” answered Carver. “Where I seen her, more than once, a-looking out for they foxes.”
Blick suddenly remembered his big Ordnance Survey Map, still pinned against the wall. He led Carver over to it, and pointed out certain landmarks.
“I seen a drawing like this afore, master,” said Carver. “Old Muster Tompkins, to Beech Farm, he have one o’ them here, framed, in his parlour—many’s the time I’ve studied he when I bin waiting there for the old gentleman to give me my orders. And I’ll show ’ee what I do mean about what I say.” He pulled out a wooden match from his pocket, and proceeded to point out places and trace lines on the map before him. “Now here be Woodland Cottage, master, so plainwritten as never was, and there be the spot where Mistress Braxfield do say she see Muster Harborough. But, as you see, between them two places there be the rise of a bit of a hill! Her couldn’t see through that, nohow, could her? No! But now you comes along here, as it med be, from her house, across the hill-side, to this here bit of a spinney, on the edge of Markenmore Hollow, and you sees that from that her could see, straight down, to the place where she said she see Muster Harborough: ’tis all visible, so to speak, from that. There med be no doubt her did see Muster Harborough at that partic’lar spot that morning, but her didn’t see him from her chamber window, ’cause her couldn’t! If her see’d him at all, her see’d him from that spinney, where I assures ’ee I see her more than once, popping at they foxes.”
“Did you ever see the pistol she used?” asked Blick. He was certain by then that at last he had got on a definite trail, and he felt that he might as well pursue it.
“Seen it in her hand, time and again,” replied Carver.
Blick suddenly produced the automatic pistol and held it out to his companion.
“Was that it?” he asked.
Carver looked down at the exhibit with a flash of curiosity.
“Well!” he exclaimed. “If ’tain’t, ’tis the very spit and image of that there what I sees her handle! But they things be pretty much of a muchness, I reckon, master.”
Blick put the automatic pistol back in his pocket, and laid his hand on Carver’s arm.
“Now, look here!” he said. “Just you keep all this to yourself, there’s a good man! Don’t say a word about it to anybody—not even to your wife. I hope you won’t get into trouble by being late for your supper. But—silence, now—not a word!”
“I understand ’ee, master,” responded Carver, with a knowing grin. “And I ’on’t go for to breathe a syllable till you tells I ’tis convenient. Howsomever, do ’ee remember, master, as how what I says is—accidental it med be! Ain’t no sort of hands at shooting off guns and pistols, isn’t wimmin, as you knows.”
When Carver had departed into the night, Blick walked up and down his sitting-room for a good ten minutes, thinking. At the end of that time he went up to his bedroom, got into an overcoat, and made ready for going out. Descending to the hall, he encountered Grimsdale, just entering the house.
“Late walk, Mr. Blick?” asked the landlord, with a smile. “Fine night, too!”
“I’m going into Selcaster,” replied Blick, “and look here—I don’t think I shall be back tonight; I shall stay the night at the Mitre. You’ll see me sometime tomorrow morning.”
Grimsdale nodded in acquiescence and let his guest out. And Blick went away along the starlit road towards Selcaster, still thinking, speculating, putting things together, and all his thoughts and speculations came to a point in Mrs. Braxfield.
Mrs. Braxfield was in her tidy kitchen next morning at half-past eight o’clock, giving orders to the charwoman who always came to Woodland Cottage on Mondays, when a knock sounded on her front door. She opened the door herself, and confronted Blick, the Chief Constable, and another man—in plain clothes, but obviously a policeman. The three men, all watching her keenly, saw her start, frown, and turn pale. But they affected to notice nothing unusual, and the Chief Constable’s voice, addressing her, was polite and cheery.
“Good morning, Mrs. Braxfield!” he said. “Just called to have a little chat with you, ma’am. May we come in?”