"This is a remarkable story, Mr. Colwyn," said the chief constable, breaking the rather lengthy silence which followed the conclusion of the detective's reconstruction of the crime. "It has been quite entrancing to listen to your syllogistical skill. You would have made an excellent Crown Prosecutor." The chief constable's official mind could conceive no higher compliment. "Your statements seem almost too incredible for belief, but undoubtedly you have made out a case for the further investigation of this crime. What do you think, Galloway?"
"The question, to my mind, is what Mr. Colwyn's discoveries really represent," replied Galloway. "He has built up a very ingenious and plausible reconstruction, but let us discard mere theory, and stick to the facts. What do they amount to? Apart from Penreath's statement in the gaol that he saw the body carried down stairs——"
"You can leave that out of the question," said the detective curtly. "My reconstruction of the crime is independent of Penreath's testimony, which is open to the objection that it should have been made before."
"Exactly what I was going to point out," rejoined Galloway bluntly. "Well, then, let us examine the fresh facts. There are five as I see them. The recovery of Penreath's match-box, the discovery of the door between the two rooms, the wound on the innkeeper's forehead, the additional key, and the finding of the pocket-bookin the pit. Exclude the idea of conspiracy, and the recovery of the match-box becomes an additional point against Penreath, because it strikes me as guess work to assume that he had no other matches in his possession except that particular box and the loose one he found in his vest pocket. Smokers frequently carry two or three boxes of matches. The discovery of the hidden door is interesting, but has no direct bearing on the crime. The wound on the innkeeper's head looks suspicious, but there is no proof that it was caused by his knocking his head against the gas globe in the murdered man's room on the night of the murder. As Mr. Colwyn himself has pointed out, there is not much in Benson having a second key of Glenthorpe's room. Many hotel-keepers and innkeepers keep duplicate keys of bedrooms. The significance of this discovery is that Benson kept silence about the existence of this key. Undoubtedly he should have told us about it, but I am not prepared to accept, offhand, that his silence was the silence of a guilty man. He may have kept silence regarding it through a foolish fear of directing suspicion to himself. That theory seems to me quite as probable as Mr. Colwyn's theory. There remains the recovery of the money in the pit. In considering that point I find it impossible to overlook that Penreath returned to the wood after making his escape. That suggests, to my mind, that he hid the money in the pit himself, and took the risk of returning in order to regain possession of it."
"You are worthier of the chief constable's compliment than I, my dear Galloway," said Colwyn genially. "Your gift of overcoming points which tell against you by ignoring them, and your careful avoidance of telltale inferences, would make you an ideal Crown Prosecutor."
"I don't believe in inferences in crime," replied Galloway, flushing under the detective's sarcasm. "I am a plain man, and I like to stick to facts."
"What was the whole of your case against Penreath but a series of inferences?" retorted Colwyn. "Circumstantial evidence, and the circumstances on which you depended in this case, were never fully established. Furthermore, your facts were not consistent with your original hypothesis, and had to be altered when the case went to trial. Now that I have discovered other facts and inferences which are consistent with another hypothesis, you strive to shut your eyes to them, or draw wrong conclusions from them. Your suggestion that Penreath must have hidden the money in the pit because he was arrested near it is a choice example of false deduction based on the wrong premise that Penreath hid the money there on the night of the murder. He could not have done so because he had no rope, and how was he, a stranger to the place, to know that the inside of the pit was covered with creeping plants of sufficient strength to bear a man's weight? The choice of the pit as a hiding place for the money argues an intimate local knowledge."
"You have not yet told us how you came to deduce that the money was in the pit," said Mr. Cromering, who had been examining the pocket-book and money.
"While I was examining the mouth of the pit the previous afternoon I found this piece of paper at the brink, trodden into the clay. Later on I recognised the peculiar watermark of waving lines as the Government watermark in the first issue of Treasury war notes. From that I deduced that the money was hidden in the pit. It was all in Treasury notes, as you see."
"I'm afraid I don't quite follow you now," said the chief constable, with a puzzled glance at the piece ofdirty paper in his hand. "This piece of paper is not a Treasury note."
"Not now, perhaps, but it was once," said the detective with a smile. "It puzzled me at first. I could not account for the Treasury watermark, designed to prevent forgery of the notes, appearing on a piece of blank paper. Then it came to me. The first issue of Treasury notes were very badly printed. Ordinary black ink was used, which would disappear if the note was immersed in water. It was an official at Somerset House who told me this. He informed me that they had several cases of munition workers who, after being paid in Treasury notes, had put them into the pockets of their overalls, and forgotten about them until the overalls came back from the wash with every vestige of printing washed out from the notes, leaving nothing but the watermarks. It occurred to me that the same thing had happened in this case. The murderer, when about to descend to the pit to conceal the money, had accidentally dropped a note and trodden it underfoot, and it had lain out in the open exposed to heavy rains and dew until every scrap of printing was obliterated."
"By Jove, that's very clever, very clever indeed!" exclaimed Galloway. He picked up a magnifying glass which was lying on the table, and closely examined the dirty piece of white paper which Colwyn had found at the mouth of the pit. "It was once a Treasury note, sure enough—the watermark is unmistakable. You've scored a point there that I couldn't have made, and I'm man enough to own up to it. You see more deeply into things than I do, Mr. Colwyn. And I'm willing to admit that you've made some new and interesting discoveries about this case, though in my opinion you are inclined to read too much into them. But I certainly think theyought to be investigated further. If Penreath's statement to you this morning is true, Benson is the murderer, and there has been a miscarriage of justice. But what makes me doubt the truth of it is Penreath's refusal to speak before. I mistrust confessions made out at the last moment. And his explanation that he kept silence to save the girl strikes me as rather thin. It is too quixotic."
"There is more than that in it," replied Colwyn. "He had a double motive. Penreath heard Sir Henry Durwood depose at the trial that he believed him to be suffering from epilepsy."
"How does that constitute a second motive?"
"In this way. Penreath has a highly-strung, introspective temperament. He went to the front from a high sense of duty, but he was temperamentally unfit for the ghastly work of modern warfare, and broke down under the strain. Men like Penreath feel it keenly when they are discharged through shell-shock. They feel that the carefully hidden weaknesses of their temperaments have been dragged out into the light of day, and imagine they have been branded as cowards in the eyes of their fellow men. I suspect that the real reason why Penreath left London and sought refuge in Norfolk under another name was because he had been discharged from the Army through shell-shock. He wanted to get away from London and hide himself from those who knew him. To his wounded spirit the condolences of his friends would be akin to taunts and sneers. When Sir Henry Durwood questioned him he was careful to conceal the fact that he had been a victim of shell-shock. As a matter of fact, Penreath's behaviour in the breakfast room that morning was nothing more than the effects of the air raid on his disordered nerves, but he wouldsooner have died than admit that to strangers. After listening to the evidence for the defence at the trial, he came to the conclusion that he was an epileptic as well as a neurasthenic. He might well believe that life held little for him in these circumstances, and that conviction would strengthen him in his determination to sacrifice his life as a thing of little value for the girl he loved."
"If that is true he must be a very manly young fellow," said the chief constable.
"Supposing it is true, what is to be done?" asked Galloway, earnestly. "Penreath has been tried and convicted for the murder."
"The conviction will be upset on appeal," replied the detective decisively.
"But I do not see that carries us much further forward as regards Benson," persisted Galloway. "If he is the murderer, as you say, he will clear out as soon as he hears that Penreath is appealing."
"He will not be able to clear out if you arrest him."
"On what grounds? I cannot arrest him for a murder for which another man has been sentenced to death."
"True. But you can arrest him as accessory after the fact, on the ground that he carried the body downstairs and threw it into the pit."
"And suppose he denies having done so? Look here, Mr. Colwyn, I want to help you all I can, but if I have made one mistake, I do not want to make a second one. Frankly, I do not know what to think of your story. It may be true, or it may not. But speaking from a police point of view, we have mighty little to go on if we arrest Benson. If he likes to bluff us we may find ourselves in an awkward position. Nobody saw him commit the murder."
"I realise the truth of what you say because I thought it all over before coming to see you," replied Colwyn. "If Benson denies the truth of the points I have discovered against him, or gives them a different interpretation, it may be difficult to prove them. But he will not—he will confess all he knows."
"What makes you think so?"
"Because his nerve has gone. If I had confronted him that night when I saw him in the room I would have got the whole truth from him."
"Why did you not do so?"
"Because I had not the power to detain him. I am merely a private detective, and can neither arrest a man nor threaten him with arrest. That is why I have come to you. You, with the powers of the law behind you, can frighten Benson into a confession much more effectually than I could."
"I don't half like it," grumbled Galloway. "There's a risk about it——"
"It's a risk that must be taken, nevertheless." It was Mr. Cromering who intervened in the discussion between the two, and he spoke with unusual decision. "I agree with Mr. Colwyn that this is the best course to pursue. I will go with you and take full responsibility, Galloway."
"There is no need for that," said Galloway quickly. "I am quite willing to go."
"I will accompany you and Mr. Colwyn. It has been a remarkable case throughout, and I want to see the end—if this is the end. I feel keenly interested in this young man's fate."
"I should like to go also, but an engagement prevents me," said Mr. Oakham. "I am quite content to leave Penreath's interests in Mr. Colwyn's capable hands." Herose as he spoke, and held out his hand to the detective. "We have all been in error, but you have saved us from having an irreparable wrong on our consciences. I cannot forgive myself for my blindness. Perhaps you will acquaint me with the result of your visit when you return. I shall be anxious to know."
"I will not fail to do so," replied Colwyn, grasping the solicitor's hand. "We had better catch the five o'clock train to Heathfield and walk across to Flegne," he added, turning to the others. "It will be as quick as motoring across, and the sound of the car might put Benson on his guard. We want to take him unawares."
"He'll have got wind of something already if he finds the pocket-book gone," said Galloway. "He may have bolted while we have been talking over things here."
"I've seen to that," replied the detective. "I tied my own pocket-book to the fishing line in the pit, and left Queensmead watching the pit. If Benson tries to escape with my pocket-book Queensmead will arrest him for robbery. I've made a complaint of the loss."
"You haven't left much to chance," replied Galloway, with a grim smile.
It was characteristic of Mr. Cromering to beguile the long walk in the dark from Heathfield Station by discussing Colwyn's theory that Benson had circulated the reappearance of the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit in order to keep the villagers away from the place where the stolen money was hidden. Mr. Cromering had been much impressed—he said so—with the logical skill and masterly deductive powers by which Colwyn had reconstructed the hidden events of the night of the murder, like an Owen reconstructing the extinct moa from a single bone, but he was loath to accept that part of the theory which seemed to throw doubt on the authenticity of a famous venerable Norfolk legend which had at least two hundred years of tradition behind it.
Mr. Cromering, without going so far as to affirm his personal belief in the story, declared that there were several instances extant of enlightened and educated people who had seen the ghost, and had suffered an untimely end in consequence. He cited the case of a visiting magistrate, who had been visiting in the district some twenty years ago, and knew nothing about the legend. He was riding through Flegne one night, and heard dismal shrieks from the wood on the rise. Thinking somebody was in need of help, he dismounted from his horse, and went up to the rise to investigate. As he neared the pit the White Lady appeared from the pit and looked at him with inexpressibly sad eyes, drew her hand thrice across her throat, and disappeared again in the pit. The magistrate was greatly startled at what he had seen, andrelated the experience to his host when he got home. The latter did not tell him of the tragic significance which was attached to the apparition, but the magistrate cut his throat three days after his return to London. "Surely,thatwas more than a mere coincidence?" concluded Mr. Cromering.
"I do not wish to undermine the local belief in the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit," said Colwyn, with a smile which the darkness hid. "All I say is that her frequent reappearances since the money was hidden in the pit were exceedingly useful for the man who hid the money. I can assure you that none of the villagers would go near the pit for twice the amount. There are plenty of them who will go to their graves convinced that they have heard her nightly shrieks since the murder was committed."
"It is difficult to believe that they are all mistaken," said Mr. Cromering slowly.
"I do not think they are mistaken—at least, not all of them. Some have probably heard shrieks."
"Then how do you account for the shrieks?" asked the chief constable eagerly.
"I think they have heard Benson's mother shrieking in her paroxysms of madness."
"By Jove, that's a shrewd notion!" chuckled Superintendent Galloway. "You don't miss much, Mr. Colwyn. Whether you're right or not, there's not the slightest doubt that the whole village is in terror of the ghost, and avoids the Shrieking Pit like a pestilence. I was talking to a Flegne farmer the other day, and he assured me, with a pale face, that he had heard the White Lady shrieking three nights running, and when his men went to the inn after dark they walked half a mile out of their way to avoid passing near the pit. He told mealso that the general belief among the villagers is that Mr. Glenthorpe saw the White Lady a night or so before he was murdered."
"I heard that story also," responded Colwyn. "He was in the habit of walking up to the rise after dark. He appears to have been keenly interested in his scientific work."
"He was absorbed in it to the exclusion of everything else," said the chief constable, with a sigh. "His death is a great loss to British science, and Norfolk research in particular. I was very much interested in that newspaper clipping which was found in his pocket-book with the money. It was a London review on a brochure he had published on sponge spicules he had found in a flint at Flegne, and was his last contribution to science, published two days before he was struck down. What a loss!"
Their conversation had brought them to the top of the rise. Beneath them lay the little hamlet on the edge of the marshes, wrapped in a white blanket of mist. Colwyn asked his companions to remain where they were, while he went to see if Queensmead was on the watch. He walked quickly across the hut circles until he reached the pit. There his keen eyes detected a dark figure standing motionless in the shadow of the wood.
"Is that you, Queensmead?" he said, in a low voice.
"Yes, Mr. Colwyn." The figure advanced out of the shadow.
"Is everything all right?"
"Quite all right, sir. I've watched from this spot from dark till dawn since you've been away, and there's not been a soul near the pit. I've not been disturbed—not even by the White Lady."
"You have done excellently. The chief constable andSuperintendent Galloway have come over with me, and we are going to the inn now. You had better keep watch here for half an hour longer, so as to be on the safe side. If anybody comes to the pit during that time you must detain him, and call for assistance. I will come and relieve you myself."
"Very good, sir, you can depend on me," said Queensmead quietly, as he returned to his post.
Colwyn rejoined his companions, and told them what had passed.
"I want to be on the safe side in case Benson tries to bolt when he sees us," he explained. "He's hardly likely to go without making an effort to get the money. Now, let us go to the inn."
"One moment," said the chief constable. "How do you propose to proceed when we get there?"
"Get Benson by himself and frighten him into a confession," was the terse reply. "I want your authority to threaten him with arrest. In fact, I should prefer that you or Superintendent Galloway undertook to do that. It would come with more force."
"Let it be Galloway," responded the chief constable. "You will act just as if I were not present, Galloway, and it is my wish that you do whatever Mr. Colwyn asks you."
"Thank you," replied the detective. "Let us go, now. There is no time to be lost. Somebody may have seen me speaking to Queensmead."
They descended the rise and, reaching the flat, discerned the gaunt walls of the old inn looming spectrally from the mist. A light glimmered in the bar, and loud voices were heard within. Colwyn felt for the door. It was shut and fastened. He knocked sharply; the voices within ceased as though by magic, and presentlythere was the sound of somebody coming along the passage. Then the door was opened, and the white face of Charles appeared in the doorway, framed in the yellow light of a candle which he held above his head as he peered forth into the mist. His black eyes roved from Colwyn to the forms behind him.
"I'm sorry you were kept waiting, sir," he said, in his strange whisper, which seemed to have a tremor in it. "But the customers will have the door locked at night now. They are frightened of this ghost—this White Lady—she's been heard shrieking——"
"Never mind that now," replied Colwyn. He had determined how to act, and stepped quickly inside. "Where's Benson?"
"He's sitting upstairs with his mother, sir. Shall I tell him you want him?"
"No. I will go myself. Take these gentlemen into the bar parlour, and return to the bar."
Colwyn made his way upstairs in the dark. He passed the rooms where Mr. Glenthorpe had been murdered and Penreath had slept, and the room from which he had watched Peggy's nocturnal visit to the death chamber. That wing of the inn was as empty and silent as it had been the night of the murder, but a lighted candle, placed on an old hall stand which Colwyn remembered having seen that night in the lumber room, flickered in the wavering shadows—a futile human effort to ward off the lurking terrors of darkness by the friendly feeble companionship of a light which could be extinguished even more quickly than a life.
Colwyn took the candle to light him down the second passage to the mad woman's room. As he reached it, the door opened, and Peggy stepped forth. She recoiled at the sight of the detective.
"You!" she breathed. "Oh, why——"
"I have come to see your father," said Colwyn. It went to his heart to see the entreaty in her eyes, the pitiful droop of her lips and the thinness of her face.
The door was opened widely, and the innkeeper appeared on the threshold beside his daughter. Behind him, Colwyn could see the old mad woman in her bed in the corner of the room, mumbling to herself and fondling her doll. The innkeeper fastened his bird-like eyes on the detective's face.
"What are you doing here?" he said, and there was no mistaking the note of terror in his voice. "What is it you want?"
"I want to speak to you downstairs," said the detective.
The innkeeper looked swiftly to the right and left with the instinct of a trapped animal seeking an avenue of escape. Then his eyes returned to the detective's face with the resigned glance of a man who had made up his mind.
"I will come down with you," he said. "Peggy, you must look after your grandmother till I return."
The girl went back into the room and shut the door behind her, without a word or a glance. Once more Colwyn felt admiration for her as a rare type of woman-hood. Truly, she had self-control, this girl.
He and the innkeeper took their way along the passages and descended the stairs without exchanging a word. When they got to the foot of the stairs Benson half hesitated, and turned to Colwyn as if for direction. The latter nodded towards the door of the bar parlour, and motioned the innkeeper to enter. Following closely behind, he saw the innkeeper start with surprise at the sight of the two inmates of the room. Mr. Cromering was seated at the table, but Superintendent Galloway wasstanding up with his back to the fireplace. There was a moment's tense silence before the latter spoke.
"We have sent for you to ask you a few questions, Benson."
"I was under the impression—that is, I was led to believe—that it was Mr. Colwyn who wanted to see me."
"Never mind what you thought," retorted Galloway impatiently. "You know perfectly well what has brought us here. I'm going to ask you some questions about the murder which was committed in this inn less than three weeks ago."
"I know nothing about it, sir, beyond what I told you before."
"You will be well advised, in your own interests, not to lie, Benson. Why did you not tell us you had a second key to Mr. Glenthorpe's room?"
There was a perceptible pause before the reply came.
"I didn't think it mattered, sir."
"Then you admit you have a second key?"
"Yes, sir."
"Very well." Superintendent Galloway took out a pocket-book and made a note of the reply. "Now, where did you conceal the money?"
"What money, sir?"
"Don't equivocate, man!" Superintendent Galloway produced the pocket-book Colwyn had recovered from the pit, and held it at arm's length in front of the innkeeper. "I mean the £300 in Treasury notes in this pocket-book, which Mr. Glenthorpe drew from the bank, and which you took from his room the night he was murdered."
"I know nothing about it."
To Colwyn at least it seemed that the expression on the innkeeper's face as he glanced at the pocket-bookmight have been mistaken by an unprejudiced observer for genuine surprise.
"I suppose you never saw it before, eh?" sneered Galloway.
"I never did."
"Nor hid it in the pit?"
"No, sir."
Galloway paused in his questioning in secret perplexity. Benson's answers to his last three questions were given so firmly and unhesitatingly that some of his former doubts of Colwyn's theory returned to him with redoubled force. But it was in his most truculent and overbearing manner that he next remarked:
"Do you also deny that you carried Mr. Glenthorpe's body from his room and threw it down the pit?"
The spasm of sudden terror which contorted the innkeeper's face was a revelation to the three men who were watching him closely.
"I don't know anything about it," he quavered weakly.
"That won't go down, Benson!" Galloway was quick to follow up his stroke, shaking his head fiercely, like a dog worrying a rat. "You were seen carrying the body downstairs, the night of the murder. You might as well own up to it, first as last. Lies will not help you. We know too much for you to wriggle out of it. And never mind smoothing your hair down like that. We know all about that scar on your forehead, and how you got it."
A wooden clock, standing on the mantelpiece, measured off half a minute in heavy ticks. Then the innkeeper, in a voice which was little more than a whisper, spoke:
"It is true. I carried the body downstairs."
"Why did you not tell us this before?"
"It would not have made any difference."
"What!" Superintendent Galloway's indignation andamazement threatened to choke his utterance. "You keep silence till an innocent man is almost hanged for your misdeeds, and now have the brazen effrontery to say it makes no difference."
"Is Mr. Penreath innocent?"
"Nobody should know that better than you."
"Then who murdered Mr. Glenthorpe?"
"Let us have no more of this fooling, Benson." Superintendent Galloway's voice was very stern. "You have already admitted that you carried Mr. Glenthorpe's body downstairs."
"Oh!" The wretched man cried out wildly, like one who sees an engulfing wave too late. "I see what you mean—you think I murdered him. But I did not—I did not! Before God I am innocent." His voice rang out loudly.
"We don't want to listen to this talk," interrupted Galloway roughly. "You are under arrest, Benson, for complicity in this murder, and the less you say the better for yourself."
"But I tell you I am innocent." The innkeeper brought his skeleton hands together in a gesture which was almost tragic in its despair. "I carried the body downstairs, but I did not murder him. Let me explain. Let me tell you——"
"My advice to you is to keep silence, man. Keep your story for the trial," replied the police official. "You'd better get ready to go to Heathfield with me. I'll go upstairs with you, and give you five minutes to get ready."
"Let him tell his story before you take him away, Galloway," said Colwyn, who had been keenly watching the innkeeper's face during the dialogue between him and his accuser. "I want to hear it."
"I do not see what good it will do," grumbled Superintendent Galloway. "However, as you want to hear it, let him go ahead. But let me first warn you, Benson, that anything you say now may be used in evidence against you afterwards."
"I do not care for that—I am not afraid of the truth being known," replied the innkeeper. He turned from the uncompromising face of the police officer to Colwyn, as though he divined in him a more unprejudiced listener. "I did not murder Mr. Glenthorpe, but I went to his room with the intention of robbing him the night he was murdered," he commenced. "I was in desperate straits for money. The brewer had threatened to turn me out of the inn because I couldn't pay my way. I knew Mr. Glenthorpe had taken money out of the bank that morning, and in an evil moment temptation overcame me, and I determined to rob him. I told myself that he was a wealthy man and would never feel the loss of the money, but if I was turned out of the inn my daughter and my old mother would starve.
"My plan was to go to his room after everybody was asleep, let myself in with my key, and secure the pocket-book containing the money. I knew that Mr. Glenthorpe was a sound sleeper, and I was aware that he generally locked his door and slept with the key under his pillow.
"I went to my room early that night, and waited a long time before making the attempt. It came on to rain about eleven o'clock, and I waited some time longer before leaving my room. I walked in my stocking feet, so as to make no sound, and I carried a candle, but it was not lighted. When I got to the door I stood and listened awhile outside, thinking I might judge by Mr. Glenthorpe's breathing whether he was asleep, but I could hear nothing. I unlocked the door quietly, and felt my way towards the bed in the dark, hoping to findhis coat and the money in it without running the risk of striking a light.
"But I could not lay my hands on the coat in the dark, so I struck a match to light the candle. I had made up my mind that if Mr. Glenthorpe should wake up and see me at his bedside I would tell him the truth and ask him to lend me some money.
"By the light of the candle I saw Mr. Glenthorpe lying on his back, with his arms thrown out from his body. He was uncovered, and the bed-clothes were lying in a tumbled heap at the foot of the bed. I stood looking at him for a minute, not knowing what to do. I did not realise at the time that he was dead, because the wind blowing in at the open window caused the candle to flicker, and I could not see very clearly. I thought he must be in a fit, and I wondered what I could do to help him. As the candle still kept flickering in the wind, I picked up the candlestick and walked to the gas-jet in the centre of the room, turned on the tap and tried to light it with the candle. It would not light, and then I remembered that I had told Ann to turn it off at the meter before going to bed. I walked back to the bedside, put the candle down on the table, and had a closer look at Mr. Glenthorpe. As he was still in the same attitude I put my hand on his heart to see if it was beating. I felt something warm and wet, and when I drew back my hand I saw that it was covered with blood.
"When I realised that he was dead—murdered—I lost my nerve and rushed from the room, leaving the candle burning at the bedside. My one thought was to get downstairs and wash the blood off my hand. It was not until I had reached the kitchen that I remembered that I had left the candle burning upstairs. I considered whether I should return for it at once or wash my handsfirst. I decided on the latter course, and went into the kitchen.
"I had just lit a candle, when I heard a door open behind me, and, turning round, I saw Charles coming out of his room in his shirt and trousers, with a candle in his hand. He said he had seen the light under his door, and wondering who had come into the kitchen had got up to see. Then his face changed when he saw my hands, and he asked me how the blood came to be on them.
"I tried to put him off at first by telling him I had knocked my hand upstairs. He didn't say any more, but stood there watching me wash my hands, and when I had finished he said that if I was going upstairs he would come with me, as he remembered he had left his corkscrew in Mr. Glenthorpe's sitting room, and would want it in the morning.
"I could see that he suspected me, and that if he went upstairs he would see the light burning in Mr. Glenthorpe's bedroom, and might go in. So, in desperation, I confessed to him that I had gone into Mr. Glenthorpe's room, and found him dead. I asked Charles what I should do. He heard me very quietly, but when he learnt that I had left my candle burning in Mr. Glenthorpe's room he said the first thing was to go and get that, and then we could discuss what had better be done.
"I realised that was good advice, and went upstairs to get the candlestick. But when I got to the door I was amazed to find the room in darkness. The door was on the jar, just as I remembered leaving it, but there was not a glimmer of light. I was in a terrible fright, but as I stood there in the dark, listening intently, the sound of the wind roaring round the house reminded me how the candle had flickered in the wind while I was in the room before, and I concluded that it must haveblown out the light. So I went into the room, feeling my way along the walls with my hands. When I got near the bed I struck a match and looked for the candlestick. But it was gone.
"Then I knew somebody had been in the room, and I made my way downstairs again as fast as I could, and told Charles, and asked him what he thought of it. Charles said it was clear that the murderer, whoever he was, had revisited the room since I had been there, and finding the candle, had carried it off with him. I asked Charles for what purpose? Charles turned it over in his mind for a moment, and then said that it seemed to him that he might have done it to secure himself, in case he was caught, by being able to prove that somebody else had been in Mr. Glenthorpe's room that night.
"I saw the force of that and was greatly alarmed, and asked Charles what he thought I had better do. Charles, after thinking it over for a while, said in my own interests I would be well advised if I carried the body away and concealed it somewhere where it was not likely to be found. He pointed out that if the facts came to light it would be very awkward for me. On my own admission I had gone into Mr. Glenthorpe's room in the middle of the night, and had come away leaving him dead in bed, with his blood on my hands, and my bedroom candlestick alight at his bedside. Charles pointed out that these facts were sure to come to light if the body was left where it was, but if the body was removed and safely hidden, it might be thought that Mr. Glenthorpe had simply disappeared.
"I was struck by the force of these arguments, and we next discussed where the body should be hidden. We both thought of the pit, but I didn't like that idea at first because I thought the police would be sure tosearch the pit when they learnt of Mr. Glenthorpe's disappearance, because his excavations were near the pit. Charles, on the other hand, thought it was the safest place—much safer than the sea, which was sure to cast up the body. He said it would never occur to the police to search the pit, until the body had lain there so long that it would be impossible to say how he came by his death. Perhaps it would never be searched, in which case the body would never be recovered.
"We decided on the pit, and Charles said he would keep watch downstairs while I went up and got the body. But first I went and opened the back door and went to the side of the inn to see if anybody was about. The rain had ceased, it was a dark and stormy night, and everybody long since gone to bed. The rough stones outside cut my feet, and recalled to my mind that I was without boots. I knew I could not carry the body all the way up the rise without boots, and I was about to go to my room to get them when I remembered that I had seen Penreath's boots outside his bedroom door. I decided to wear them and avoid the risk of going back to my room for my own boots. I have a small foot, and I had no doubt that they would fit me.
"Charles suggested that I should go into the room in the dark, so as to lessen the risk of being seen, and light the candle when I got inside. I took the candle, but I said I would turn on the gas at the meter, in case the wind blew out the candle. I will keep nothing back now. The real reason was that I wanted the better light to make quite sure if the money was gone. I thought perhaps the murderer might have overlooked it, and I hoped to find it because I needed it so badly. When I got upstairs I stopped outside Mr. Penreath's room, picked up his boots, and put them on. I went into the room inthe dark, intending to strike a match, and light the gas, and search for the money. I miscalculated the distance, and bumped into the gas globe in the dark, cutting my head badly. When I struck a match I found that I couldn't light the gas because the incandescent burner had been broken by the blow, so I lit the candle.
"I shuddered at the ordeal of carrying the body downstairs, and only nerved myself to the task by reflecting on the risk to myself if I allowed it to remain where it was. As I stood by the bedside, I noticed Mr. Glenthorpe's key of the room lying by the pillow, and I picked it up and put it in my pocket. I then lifted the body on my shoulders, carried it downstairs, steadying it with one hand, and carrying the candle in the other. Charles was waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs, and he took the candle from me and lighted me to the back door.
"A late moon was just beginning to show above the horizon when I got outside, and by its light I had no difficulty in finding my way up the rise and to the pit. It was a terrible task, and I was glad when I had accomplished it. I returned to the back door, where Charles was awaiting me. We then fastened the back door, and he went to his room off the kitchen, and I went upstairs to my room. As I passed Mr. Glenthorpe's room I saw the door was open, and I pulled it quickly to, but I forgot to take out the key I had left in the door when I first entered the room.
"I remembered the key in the morning when Ann told me Mr. Glenthorpe's room was empty, but I dared not remove it then because I knew Ann must have seen it. And later on, when you were questioning me about the key in the door, I was afraid to tell you about the second key, because I knew you would question me.
"When I learnt from Ann that Mr. Penreath had left early in the morning, and wouldn't stay for breakfast, I felt sure it was he who had committed the murder. It was a little later that Charles took me aside in the bar and told me that he had walked up to the rise early that morning to see if everything was all right, and that I had left traces of my footprints across the clay to the mouth of the pit. I was very much upset when I heard this, for I knew the body was sure to be found. But Charles said that, as things turned out, it was a very lucky accident.
"Charles said there was no doubt Mr. Penreath was the murderer. He had not only cleared out, but the knife he had used at dinner had disappeared. Charles said he had not missed the knife the night before, but he had discovered the loss when counting the cutlery that morning. If the police found out that it was his boots which made the prints leading to the pit it would only be another point against him, and as he was sure to be hanged in any case the best thing I could do was to go and inform Constable Queensmead of Mr. Glenthorpe's disappearance and Mr. Penreath's departure, but to keep silence about my own share in carrying the body to the pit. Even if the murderer denied removing the body nobody would believe him. I thought the advice good, and I followed it. I don't know whether I could have kept it up if I had been cross-questioned, but from first to last nobody seemed to have the least suspicion of me. The only time I was really afraid was when one of you gentlemen asked me about the key in the outside of the door, but you passed it over and went on to something else.
"And now you know the whole truth. But I shouldlike to say that I kept silence about carrying the body away because I didn't think I was injuring anybody. I believed Mr. Penreath to be guilty. Now you tell me he is innocent. If I had had any idea of that I would have told the truth at once, even though you had hanged me for it."
"You're a nice scoundrel, Benson," said Superintendent Galloway, nodding his head at the innkeeper with a kind of ferocious banter. "You're really a first-class villain, upon my soul! But this precious story with which you've tried to bamboozle us is not complete. Would it be putting too much strain on your inventive faculties to ask you, while you are about it, to give us your version of how the money which was stolen from Mr. Glenthorpe came to be hidden in the pit in which you flung his body?"
"But I didn't know the money was hidden in the pit," said the wretched man, glancing uneasily at the pocket-book, which was still lying on the table. "I never saw the money, though I've confessed to you that I would have taken it if I had seen it. That's the truth, sir—every word I've told you to-night is true! Charles will bear me out."
"I've no doubt he will. I'll have something to say to that scoundrel later on. There's a pair of you. I've no doubt he caught you in the act of carrying away the body of your victim, and that you bribed him to keep silence. You planned together to let an innocent man go to the gallows in order to save your own skin. Now, my man——"
"Wait a moment, Galloway."
It was Colwyn who spoke. The innkeeper's story had been to him like a finger of light in a murky depth, revealing unseen and unimagined abominations, but supplying him with those missing pieces of the puzzle for which he had long and vainly searched. During the brief colloquy between Galloway and the innkeeper his brain had been busy fitting together the whole intricate design of knavery.
"I want to ask a question," he continued, in answer to the other's glance of inquiry. "What time was it you went to Mr. Glenthorpe's room—the first time I mean, Benson. Can you fix it definitely?"
"Yes, sir. I kept looking at my watch in my room, waiting for the time to pass. It was twenty past eleven the last time I looked, and I left my room about five minutes later."
"Was it raining then?"
"Yes, sir, but not so hard as previously, and it stopped altogether before I entered the room, though the wind was blowing."
"That is as I thought. Benson's story is true, Galloway."
"What!" The police officer's vociferous exclamation was in striking contrast to the detective's quiet tones. "How do you make that out?"
"He couldn't have committed the murder. Mr. Glenthorpe was killed during the storm, between eleven and half-past. Benson says he didn't enter the room till nearly half-past eleven."
"If that's all you're going on——"
"It isn't." There was a trace of irritation in the detective's voice. "But Benson's story fills in the gaps of my reconstruction in a remarkable way—so completely, that he couldn't have invented it to save his life, because he does not know all we know. In this extraordinarily complicated case the times are everything. My original theory was right. There were two persons in the roomthe night of the murder—three, really, but Peggy doesn't affect the reconstruction one way or the other. The murderer, who carried an umbrella to shield himself from the rain, entered the room about twenty past eleven. He murdered Mr. Glenthorpe, took the money, and escaped the same way he entered—by the window. Benson entered by the door at half-past eleven, certainly not later, and after standing at the bedside for two or three minutes, rushed downstairs, as he related, leaving his candle burning at the bedside. During his absence downstairs his daughter entered the room. Benson returned for the candle and found it gone. Had he returned a minute or two earlier he would have seen his daughter carrying it away, because in her story to me she said she thought she heard somebody creeping up the stairs as she left the room. I thought at the time that she imagined this, but now I have very little doubt that it was her father she heard, going upstairs again to get the candle. Finally, Benson, after planning it with Charles, removed the body to the pit some time after midnight."
"This is mere guess-work. Let us stick to facts. On Benson's own confession he entered the room nefariously and removed the dead man's body."
"Yes, but it was a dead body when he got there—just dead. Mr. Glenthorpe was alive and well not ten minutes before."
"Oh, come, Mr. Colwyn, this is going too far," Galloway expostulated. "Again, I say, let us have no guess-work."
"This is not guess-work. There can be no doubt that the murderer left the room by the window just before Benson entered it by the door."
"How do you know that?" asked Galloway.
"Because he was watching Benson from the window."
Galloway looked startled.
"You go too deep for me," he said. "Was it Penreath who got out of the window?"
"No, Penreath, like Benson, was the victim of a deep and subtle villain."
"Then who was it?"
Before Colwyn could reply a shriek rang out—a single hoarse and horrible cry, which went reverberating and echoing over the marshes, rising to a piercing intensity at its highest note, and then ceasing suddenly. In the hush that ensued the chief constable looked nervously at Colwyn.
"It came from the rise," he said in a voice barely raised above a whisper. "Do you think——"
Colwyn read the unspoken thought in his mind.
"I'll go and see what it was," he said briefly.
He opened the door and went out. In the passage he encountered Ann shaking and trembling, with a face blanched with terror.
"It came from the pit, sir—the Shrieking Pit," she whispered. "It's the White Lady. Don't leave me, I'm like to drop. God a' mercy, what's that?" she cried, finding her voice in a fresh access of terror as a heavy knock smote the door. "For God's sake, don't 'ee go, sir, don't 'ee go, as you value your life. It's the White Lady at the door, come to take her toll again from this unhappy house. You be mad to face her, sir—it's certain death."
But Colwyn loosened himself quickly from her detaining grasp, and strode to the door. As he passed the bar he caught a glimpse of a ring of cowering frightened faces within, huddled together like sheep, and staringwith saucer eyes. The mist spanned the doorway like a sheet.
"Who's there?" he cried.
"It's me, sir." Constable Queensmead stepped out of the mist into the passage, looking white and shaken. "Something's happened up at the pit. While I was watching from the corner of the wood I saw somebody appear out of the mist and come creeping up the rise towards the pit. I waited till he got to the brink, and when he made to climb down, I knew he was the man you were after, so I went over to the pit. He had disappeared inside, but I could hear the creepers rustling as he went down. After a bit, I heard him coming up again, tugging and straining at the creepers, and gasping for breath. When he was fairly out, I turned my torch on him and told him to stand still. It is difficult to say exactly how it happened, sir, but when he saw he was trapped he made a kind of spring backwards, slipped on the wet clay, lost his balance, and fell back into the pit. I sprang forward and tried to save him, but it was too late. He caught at the creepers as he fell, hung for a second, then fell back with a loud cry."
"Who was it, Queensmead?"
"Charles, the waiter, sir."
"We must get him out at once," said Colwyn. "We shall need a rope and some men. Can you get some ropes, Queensmead? There's some men in the bar—we'll get them to help.
"I don't think they're likely to come, sir. They're all too frightened of the Shrieking Pit, and the ghost."
"I'll go and talk to them. Meanwhile, you go and get ropes."
Colwyn returned to the bar parlour and, after explaining to Mr. Cromering and Galloway what had happened, went into the bar.
"Men," said Colwyn, "Charles has fallen into the pit on the rise, and I need the help of some of you to get him out. Queensmead has gone for ropes. Who will come with me?"
There was no response. The villagers looked at each other in silence, and moved uneasily. Then a man in jersey and sea-boots spoke:
"None of us dare go up to th' pit, ma'aster."
"Why not?"
"Life be sweet, ma'aster. It be a suddint and bloody end to meet th' White Lady of th' pit. Luke what's happened to Charles, who went out of this bar not ten minutes agone! Who knows who she may take next?"
"Very well, then stay where you are. You are a lot of cowards," said Colwyn, turning away.
The faces of the men showed that the epithet rankled, as Colwyn intended that it should. There was a brief pause, and then another fisherman stepped forward and said:
"I'm a Norfolk man, and nobbut agoin' to say I'm afeered. I'll go wi' yow, ma'aster."
"If yower game, Tom, I'll go too," said another.
By the time Queensmead returned with the ropes there was no lack of willing helpers, and the party immediately set forth. When they arrived at the pit Colwyn said that it would be best for two men to descend by separate ropes, so as to be able to carry Charles to the surface in a blanket if he were injured, and not killed. Colwyn had brought a blanket from the inn for the purpose.
"I'll go down, for one," said the seaman who had acted as spokesman in the bar. "I'm used to tying knots andslinging a hammock, so maybe I can make it a bit easier for the poor chap if he's not killed outright."
"And I'll go with you," said Colwyn.
Mr. Cromering drew the detective aside.
"My good friend," he said, "do you think it is wise for you to descend? This man Charles, if he is still alive, may be actuated by feelings of revenge towards you, and seek to do you an injury."
"I am not afraid of that," returned Colwyn. "I laid the trap for him, and it is my duty to go down and bring him up."
Colwyn left the chief constable and returned to the pit. The next moment he and the seaman commenced the descent. They carried electric torches, and took with them a blanket and a third rope. They were carefully lowered until the torches they carried twinkled more faintly, and finally vanished in the gloom. A little while afterwards the strain on the ropes slackened. The rescuers had reached the bottom of the pit. A period of waiting ensued for those on top, until a jerk of the ropes indicated the signal for drawing up again. The men on the surface pulled steadily. Soon the torches were once more visible down the pit, and then the lanterns on the surface revealed Colwyn and the fisherman, supporting between them a limp bundle wrapped in the blanket, and tied to the third rope. As they reached the air they were helped out, and the burden they carried was laid on the ground near the mouth of the pit. The blanket fell away, exposing the face of Charles, waxen and still in the rays of the light which fell upon it.
"Dead?" whispered Mr. Cromering.
"Dying," returned Colwyn. "His back is broken."
The dying man unclosed his eyelids, and his dark eyes, keen and brilliant as ever, roved restlessly over the groupwho were standing around him. They rested on Colwyn, and he lifted a feeble hand and beckoned to him. The detective knelt beside him, and rested his head on his arm. The white lips formed one word:
"Closer."
Colwyn bent his head nearer, and those standing by could see the dying man whispering into the detective's ear. He spoke with an effort for some minutes, and hurriedly, like one who knew that his time was short. Then he stopped suddenly, and his head fell back grotesquely, like a broken doll's. Colwyn felt his heart, and rose to his feet.
"He is dead," he said.
"There are several things that I do not understand," said Superintendent Galloway to Colwyn a little later. "How were you able to decide so quickly that Benson had told the truth when he declared that he had not committed the murder, after he had made the damning admission that he had removed the body?"
"Partly because it was extremely unlikely that Benson could have invented a story which fitted so nicely with the facts. The slightest mistake in his times would have proved him to be a liar. But I had more than that to go upon. I said this afternoon that my reconstruction was not wholly satisfactory, because there were several loose ends in it. At that time I believed he was the murderer, and I was anxious to frighten the truth out of him in order to see where my reconstruction was at fault. His story proved that my original conception of the crime was the correct one, and my mistake was in departing from it, and ignoring some of my original clues in order to square the new facts with a fresh theory. I should never have lost sight of my first conviction that there were two persons in Mr. Glenthorpe's room the night he was murdered.
"When Benson told his story I asked myself, Could Charles' conduct be dictated by the desire to have a hold over Benson—with a view to blackmail later on? But he was not likely to risk his own neck by becoming an accomplice in the concealment of the murdered man's body! Charles, if he were innocent himself, must have thought that Benson was the murderer. It was impossible that he could have come to any other conclusion. He discovers a man washing blood off his hands at midnight, and this man admits to him that he has just come from a room which he had no right to enter, and found a dead man there. Why had Charles believed—or pretended to believe—Benson's story?
"It came to me suddenly, with the recollection of the line under the murdered man's window—one of the clues which I had discarded—and the whole of this baffling sinister mystery became clear in my mind. The murder was committed by Charles, who got out of the window by which he had entered just before Benson came into the room. Charles saw a light in the room he had left, and returned to the window to investigate. Crouching outside the window, he saw Benson in the room, examining the body, and it came into his mind as he watched that his employer had conceived the same idea as himself—had seized on the presence of a stranger staying at the inn in order to rob Mr. Glenthorpe, hoping that the crime would be attributed to the man who slept in the next room. Charles was quick to see how Benson's presence in the room might be turned to his own advantage. Charles had taken precautions, in committing the murder, to leave clues in the room which should direct suspicion to Penreath, but the innkeeper's visit to the room suggested to him an even better plan for securing his own safety. When Benson left the room Charles got through the window again, and followed him downstairs.
"Charles' story, told to me when he was dying, filled in the gaps which I have omitted. He said that he watched the whole of Benson's movements from the window. He saw him searching for the money, saw him feel the body, and saw the blood on his hands. When Benson turned to leave the room he forgot the candle,and it was then that the idea of following him leapt into Charles' mind. He divined that Benson would go downstairs and wash the blood off his hands. Charles' idea was to go after him and surprise him in the act. He followed him swiftly, and was never more than a few feet behind. While Benson was striking a match and lighting the kitchen candle Charles slipped into his own room, lit his own candle, and then emerged from his door as though he had been disturbed in his sleep. The rest of his plan was easily carried out through the fears of Benson, who agreed, in his own interests, to conceal the body of the man whom the other had murdered.
"The clue by which Penreath was virtually convicted—the track of bootmarks to the pit—was an accidental one so far as Charles was concerned. It is strange to think that Chance, which removed the clues Charles deliberately placed in the room, should have achieved Charles' aim by directing suspicion to Penreath in a different, yet more convincing manner.
"The murderer's revelation clears up those points which I was unable to settle this afternoon. He entered Mr. Glenthorpe's room during the heaviest part of the storm. He carried a box, under his arm, because he was too short to get into the window without something to stand on, he shielded himself from the rain with an umbrella, which got caught on the nail by the window, and he lit a tallow candle which he had brought from the bar.
"Another clue, which I originally discovered and laid aside, is also explained. The wound in Mr. Glenthorpe's body struck me as an unusual one. You heard Sir Henry Durwood say, in answer to my questions, that the blow was a slanting one, struck from the left side, entering almost parallel with the ribs, yet piercing theheart on the right side. The manner in which Mr. Glenthorpe's arms were thrown out, his legs drawn up, proved that he was lying on his back when murdered. For that reason, the direction of the blow suggested Charles as the murderer."
"I am afraid I do not follow you there," said Mr. Cromering.
"Charles had a malformed right hand; his left hand was his only serviceable one. The blow that killed Mr. Glenthorpe struck me at the time as a left-handed blow. The natural direction of a right-handed blow, with the body in such a position, would be from right to left—not from left to right. But, after considering this point carefully, I came to the conclusion that the blow might have been struck by a right-handed man. I was wrong."
"I do not think you have much cause to blame yourself," said the chief constable. "You were right in your original conception of the crime, and right in your later reconstruction in every particular except——"
"Except that I picked the wrong man," said Colwyn, with a slightly bitter laugh. "My consolation is that Benson's confession brought the truth to light, as I expected it would."
"It took you to see the truth," said Galloway. "I should never have picked it. I suppose there has never been a case like it."
"There is nothing new—not even in the annals of crime," returned Colwyn. "But this was certainly a baffling and unusual case. The murderer was such a deep and subtle scoundrel that I feel a respect for his intelligence, perverted though it was. His master stroke was the disposal of the body. That shielded him from suspicion as completely as an alibi. I put aside my first suspicion of him largely because I realised that it wasimpossible for a man with a deformed arm to carry away the body. Such a sardonic situation as a murderer persuading another man that he was likely to be suspected of the murder unless he removed the body was one that never occurred to me. That, at all events, is something new in my experience."
"It is a wonder that Charles, with his deformed arm, was able to go down the pit and conceal the money," said the chief constable.
"He did not go down very far. It is not a difficult matter to climb down the creepers inside with the support of one hand, and he was able to use the other sufficiently to thrust the small peg into the soft earth. He first hid the money in the breakwater wall, being too careful and clever to hide it in the pit until after the inquest. When he had concealed it in the pit he revived the story of the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit so as to keep the credulous villagers away from the spot. He need not have taken that precaution, because the hiding place was an excellent one, and it was only by chance that I discovered the money when I descended the pit. But he left nothing to chance. The use of the umbrella on the night of the murder proves that. Murderers do not usually carry umbrellas, but he did, because he feared that if his clothes got wet they might be seen in his room the following day, and direct suspicion to him. He chose to commit the crime when the storm was at its height because he thought he was safest from the likelihood of discovery then.
"The callous scoundrel told me with his last breath that he was waiting until Penreath was safely hanged before disappearing with the money. When he opened the door to us to-night, he knew that he was at the end of his tether, and he decided to try to bolt. He realisedthat Benson would tell the truth when he was questioned and, although the innkeeper's story did not implicate him directly, he did our common intelligence the justice to believe that, through his dupe's confession, we should arrive at the truth."