Читать книгу The Hidden Door - Arthur Gask - Страница 6

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THE following morning just after ten, the detective drove up in a small car to the house where Rita Ethelton had lived in the little town of Leiston in Suffolk, just over a hundred miles from London.

The girl's mother answered his ring, and learning he had come from Scotland Yard, admitted him at once and led him into the sitting-room.

"But what is the good of your coming?" she asked tearfully. "I am sure now that she is dead."

"But you would wish to know what had happened to her," said the detective gently, "and if, after all, it were an accident?"

"Oh! it was no accident!" she exclaimed passionately. "Someone killed her, and it's no good shirking the truth. I am sure of it because there is no place within miles of here where an accident could have occurred. I've gone over everything in my mind thousands and thousands of times."

"Well," persisted the detective, "if anyone did her any injury, you would like him punished for it, wouldn't you? No, no, I'm not going over all the old ground again," he said quickly, "but I just want to satisfy myself on one or two points."

"Then you don't think," said the woman with her face darkening, "that my daughter went off with Mr. McHenry?"

"Not for a moment," replied Larose emphatically. "That's only the idle gossip of these little towns, and I don't believe that any people really believe it themselves." He took the chair that she offered. "Now, Mrs. Ethelton," he went on in a sharp and business-like tone, "the great difficulty that has presented itself to everyone who has attempted to find out what happened to your daughter that night, has been that they had not known where to begin. They haven't had any idea in which direction your daughter went when she started for that walk."

"No," admitted the woman sadly, "there are so many ways she might have gone. There was no particular walk that I know of which was her favourite one. She was fond of them all."

"Well, Mrs. Ethelton," said the detective, "please listen to me very carefully and then perhaps we shall be able to pick up what the others missed." He spoke very slowly. "Now there is nothing that any of us do, in any moment of our lives, that is not the result of some previous thought or act." He shook his head. "We do nothing, as people call it, 'by chance.' Something always decides what we must do. Something we have thought or said or done, just before." His face brightened. "So let us put our heads together and try to guess something of what were your daughter's thoughts in the last minutes before she went out."

"I wish I could," sighed Mrs. Ethelton, "but Rita was always a very reserved girl and no one ever knew what she was thinking about."

"Well," went on Larose again, "in these dreadful weeks you must, of course, have recalled many, many times, every trifling little thing that happened that night."

"Everything," replied the woman, "over and over again."

"Then tell me exactly," said Larose, "what happened, say after eight o'clock."

"I can't tell from eight o'clock," said Mrs. Ethelton, "for Rita was in her own room until half past. She came in here then to listen to the wireless. There was 'An hour with Chopin' on and she had been waiting for it, because Chopin was her favourite composer."

"Go on," said the detective, because she had stopped speaking.

"Her father and I were reading, and she brought in a book herself. Then, I don't think any of us said a word for the whole hour until the music stopped. And then I remember Rita looking out of the window for a few moments—the blind was drawn—then she got up suddenly and said she was going for a walk. Then she came over and kissed Dad and me."

"That was meant to be good night?" suggested Larose.

"Yes, because Dad and I always go to bed directly the clock strikes ten, and I suppose she was thinking she mightn't be back before we had gone upstairs."

"And she went out of the room then," said the detective, speaking very softly, "and that was all?"

"Yes," replied the woman equally softly and with a catch in her voice, "that was all. We never saw her again."

"What book had she been reading?" asked Larose after a pause.

"Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe," was the reply. "It was a favourite book of hers and she had read it many times."

"And I understand," went on Larose, "from what you told the others who have been here, that she changed her indoor shoes for walking ones and went out in her mackintosh and a beret?"

Mrs. Ethelton nodded. She could not speak.

The detective rose briskly to his feet. "And now, just one more thing," he said. "I'd like to look over her room if I may."

The woman's woe-begone expression changed instantly into a frown and, for the moment, she hesitated.

"Well, I suppose you may," she said rather reluctantly, "although no one has asked to go in there before." She sighed. "It's just as she left it, except, of course, that its been dusted every day." Her voice choked. "I know she'll never return, but I hope against hope that she will."

She led the way into a daintily furnished little room at the back of the house and the detective stepped reverently over the threshold. Then, for a long minute, he let his eyes roam all round, over everything. He took in the small, narrow bed, with the counterpane of sky blue, the bright curtains draping the window, the pictures upon the walls, the tortoise-shell backed brushes upon the dressing table, and the little simple ornaments on the mantleshelf.

He looked thoughtfully at the pictures and apparently was particularly interested in three large, framed photographs that he saw. 'A Rough Sea at Aldeburgh' was printed under one, 'Dunwich Cliffs' under another, and 'Thralldom Castle in the Moonlight,' under the third.

Then he looked at the titles of the books in a small bookcase.

"So she was fond of poetry," he said gently. "Chaucer, Swinburne, Tennyson and Sea Music, and she liked history and novels of an historical kind. Now, where is that Ivanhoe she was reading when the music was on?"

Mrs. Ethelton indicated the book and Larose, picking it out from among the others, opened it where a bookmarker had been left in. Then, to the woman's astonishment he pulled a chair forward and sitting down, proceeded carefully to scan through the opened pages. It was quite a long time before he rose to his feet again and replaced the book.

"Thank you," he said quietly, "and now about that photograph, 'Thralldom Castle,' I see. How far is it from here?"

"About two miles and a half," replied Mrs. Ethelton, "or a little longer if you go round by the sea."

"And she might have gone in that direction?" suggested Larose.

The woman threw out her hands. "She might have gone anywhere," she exclaimed. "That is the dreadful part of it all."

The detective asked a few more questions and then, bidding her good-bye, in less than twenty minutes was interviewing the bank manager's wife in Saxmundham.

Mrs. Holden was still living in the bank house, as an act of grace, he learnt afterwards, of the bank authorities who were reluctant to accept as a fact that their trusted manager would never return.

He found her a very different type of woman from Mrs. Ethelton, and rather difficult to make any headway with. She seemed to be resenting his coming, and every second to be waiting for him to couple up her husband's name with that of the missing school-teacher from Leiston. Her answers to his questions added no further information to that he already had.

At his request, however, although certainly not without some reluctance, she took him into her husband's little private room and, under her watchful eyes, he proceeded to look round. He noticed a large old-fashioned telescope bracketed upon the wall, with the initials of "J.B.H." on its broad, brass end and at once asked Mrs. Holden if it had belonged to her husband's father.

"No," replied Mrs. Holden, "to his grandfather, Captain John Holden. My husband's ancestors were all sea-faring people," she added, "and his own father was a captain in the P. & 0. Company. My husband, too, would have gone to sea, if it had not been for his eyes. He was very short-sighted as a young man, and it was a great disappointment that they wouldn't pass him."

"Where was Mr. Holden born?" asked the detective thoughtfully.

"At Tynemouth," she replied. "The Holdens are a very old Tynemouth family."

"And you have not the very faintest idea in which direction your husband started for his walk, upon that night?" asked Larose, following upon some further questioning.

"Not the very faintest," was the reply. "My husband was always fond of walking, and knowing every road in the country for miles round, he may have gone anywhere."

The detective next went into the bank and obtained a brief interview with the clerk who had been the second in command under Mr. Holden's managership. He was a good-looking young fellow, John Harden by name, with a clear-cut profile and frank, open, blue eyes. He was quite polite but very firm in his assertion that he could not help the detective in any way.

"And if you want to put it to me," he said warmly, "that there is the slightest truth in the rumour that there was anything on between that girl in Leiston and Mr. Holden, then I'll tell you straight, it's a lie. Mr. Holden was not that type of man and Miss Ethelton simply did her banking here, in preference to her own town because"—he looked very disdainful—"in these little country places everyone likes to poke their noses into other people's business and I suppose, naturally, she did not want hers known."

Larose visited the local police station and made a few enquiries in the town but, the disappearance of the bank-manager being now five weeks old, almost all the interest seemed to have died down and he got nothing for his pains.

But one thing struck him as peculiar. All that morning, not one single person he approached made any reference at all, either to the disappearance of the inn-keeper at Yoxford or to that of the bailiff of Lord Thralldom. Indeed, it seemed that they had not heard about them.

The afternoon found him in the pretty little town of Yoxford, and calling at the Yoxford Arms, he came upon Mrs. Baxter in the bar, which happened to be empty at the time.

She was a handsome woman of a rather florid type but her eyes, he thought, were rather hard. Directly she learnt who he was, to his surprise, she gave him an annoyed and frowning look.

"I'm sick of you police," she said bluntly, "and I don't know what you want by coming bothering me any more. I've told everything I know, and all of you round here are an incompetent lot. You've found out nothing and I don't want to have anything more to do with you."

"But, Mrs. Baxter," exclaimed the detective, very astonished, "surely you want to know what has become of your husband?"

"All in good time," snapped the woman, "and when I do know, I'm sure from your methods, that it won't come through any of you." She tossed her head angrily. "So, I'm not going to answer any more questions, and if you want to know anything, you can just go off to the police station here." She sniffed contemptuously. "They've got all my answers written down."

The detective eyed her very sternly. "But you'll have to give me an answer to every question that I put," he replied sharply. "I've come down expressly from London and I want, too, to look over the inn."

"Want to look over the inn!" gasped the woman in great astonishment. "Why, do you think Sam's in hiding here?"

"Certainly not," replied Larose in matter-of-fact, business-like tones, "but I've come all the way down from Scotland Yard and I have to make a full report." He spoke most politely. "I'd like to go over the place straightaway, please."

The woman hesitated and looked as if she were going to refuse but then, shrugging her shoulders in contempt, she called for one of the maids to attend to the bar in her absence and led the way into the living parts of the inn.

The detective looked into every room, and noted from the guns and fishing tackle upon the walls in one of them that Sam Baxter's activities ran in more than one direction of sport. He asked Mrs. Baxter several questions, but she replied in curt monosyllables whenever possible, or else made her answers snappy and short.

In their common bedroom he came upon a large framed photograph of a group of cricketers, and approaching it closely, he recognised the round, smiling face of the innkeeper amongst them.

"Alfreton Cricket Club, August, 1923," he read.

He made no comment but out again in the hall, asked suddenly, "And for what reason, in your opinion, did your husband go into the back-yard that night? Can you think of anything he might have been wanting there?"

"Yes, lots of things," replied Mrs. Baxter flippantly. "Pigs, dogs, cats, fowls or even ducks down by the ponds."

She smiled coldly. "He was always wanting one thing or another."

Larose gave her up at last and proceeding to the police station in the town, the sergeant-in-charge there showed him in neat handwriting, upon many pages of foolscap, all the information that had been gathered together and the detective went through it carefully.

"And why," he asked presently, "was Mrs. Baxter so antagonistic towards me? She was as uncommunicative and unpleasant as possible."

"I don't know, sir," replied the sergeant, shaking his head. "She's only been like that lately. I think she's been upset by so many outsiders pestering her with questions. Not that I've ever quite understood her," he added thoughtfully, "for she's been a bit queer all the time. At first, as you have read, she never said a word about Baxter's disappearance to anyone, and for a few days everybody was told he was away on business. Then she came here crying and said she was sure someone had murdered him and then, this last week, she's shut up like an oyster, and been rude to everyone."

"What reason did she give for thinking he'd been murdered?" asked Larose.

"No reason at all," smiled the sergeant. "Just a woman's intuition, she said." He shook his head. "But we didn't think much of it, for Baxter had gone off for a week once before." He smiled again. "Sam is a good publican and when he does go on the booze, he boozes away from home."

"But his wife is keeping back something now," said Larose sharply, "and there must be some reason for her not wanting the enquiry to go on. It wasn't mere annoyance that made her so evasive with me just now. She was fencing the whole time." He looked intently at the sergeant. "Was she supposed to be fond of her husband?"

"Oh! yes, and she was!" was the reply. "She was very proud of him, too, for he was a popular chap. She bossed him about and kept him in order, but she was fond of him right enough, and only as late as yesterday, I saw her with her eyes heavy and swollen from crying."

"Anything known about him before he came here?" asked Larose.

"Nothing much," replied the sergeant. "The references he had to put in when he applied for the transfer of the licence of this inn both came from London, where he'd been a barman for three years."

"Anything known about him before that?" asked Larose.

The sergeant shook his head. "No, I never heard tell where he'd lived before."

"Well, ring up a place called Alfreton," said the detective sharply, "and get me the police station there. Baxter was in the Alfreton Cricket Club in 1923, and we're sure to learn something from them. Be quick please, because I'm in a hurry."

"Alfreton's in Nottinghamshire," said the sergeant, "and it may take a bit of a while to get through."

However, in less than ten minutes Larose was speaking to the Alfreton police, and was soon in possession of some interesting information about the missing inn-keeper.

Yes, they remembered Sam Baxter quite well. He had kept the 'Wheatsheaf' public-house there six years ago, but the licence had been taken away from him because he had been sentenced to two months' imprisonment for poaching. He had been known to be an inveterate poacher for a long time, but he had been very artful and they had not been able to catch him. No, beyond that there had been nothing against him. He had been a good fellow and very popular in the town. He had married a London girl, Sally Matters.

Larose hung up the receiver and passed the information to the sergeant. "Now," he asked, "was Baxter given to poaching here?"

The sergeant frowned. "Not that I know of," he replied, "for he would of course have lost his licence here, as well, if he'd been caught." He reflected. "He might have been, for when I come to think of it, he kept a very good table at his inn, and either rabbit pie or jugged hare were often on the bill of fare. Not that he'd have had to poach for the rabbits though, for there'd have always been plenty of farmers who'd have given him a day's rabbiting whenever he wanted it, but hares"—and the sergeant shook his head—"hares are a different matter, for they belong to the gentry and the big landowners."

"But he kept dogs that would have coursed hares," said Larose. "I saw a greyhound in the yard just now."

"It's not a pure greyhound," remarked the sergeant. "It's a bit of a mongrel, but still it would run down hares right enough."

"And if he wanted to get a hare," asked Larose, "where would he go for it?"

"Sefton Park, or on the meadows adjoining Thralldom marshes," was the prompt reply. "There are plenty of hares in both those places. But it'd have been a bit risky taking a dog near Thralldom Castle just now for, of late, there have been a number of them poisoned there. Someone has been laying down strychnine baits."

"Who's laid them down?" asked the detective.

The sergeant laughed grimly. "That's what we'd like to know. The Thralldom people say they know nothing about it." He looked very stem. "It's against the law, you know."

The detective asked a few more questions and then left, to make his last enquiries, at the home of Lord Thralldom's bailiff.

After a couple of miles or so, he arrived at the top of a hill. A wide view of the surrounding country spread itself before his admiring eyes and, almost involuntarily, he drew up to the side of the road, and switching off his engine, sat silent and enthralled, to drink in the beauty of the scene.

Only about five miles distant from the sea, between the hill and the glistening waters, rolled a wide and slightly undulating plain, dotted here and there with farm buildings and little groups of cottages, and with a narrow river winding in and out among the pasture lands.

But it was Thralldom Castle that dominated everything, and its majesty and beauty gripped him with delight.

It stood alone, in a wide clearing of its own, and like some great over-lord of the country-side, its massive heights were a landmark in every direction.

"What a glorious old pile!" he ejaculated, "and what a view one would get from those battlements!" He sighed. "We have nothing like that in Australia and never shall have. Those days are gone."

He soon found the bailiff's home, and directly she knew from where he came, was welcomed thankfully by Mrs. Rawlings. She took him into what was obviously the best room, but the carpet there was folded up and all the pictures and furniture stacked in one corner.

"I'm moving," she explained with a choke in her voice, "and the new bailiff is coming in to-morrow."

"But it's very sudden, isn't it," queried Larose, "with your husband——" he hesitated.

"Only gone a fortnight to-morrow," supplemented the woman quickly. "And it's very unkind of his lordship, and I don't understand it, for"—her voice broke again—"we can't be certain yet that my husband is dead." She wiped away a tear. "It's so unsympathetic."

"Is Lord Thralldom a hard man then?" asked the detective.

"No, usually not at all so," was the quick reply. "He spoke very kindly to me when I went up to the castle last week, but since then he's got to hear that I went to my old master, Colonel Edis, who's a member of parliament, and he's very angry about it. He told me not to go to the police for they couldn't get me back my husband if he'd walked over the cliffs and got drowned which, he was sure, had happened, and he said any publicity would attract attention to the Castle and then people would come and rob him of his pictures." She began to cry. "Of course he's very old and ill, and can think of nothing but his pictures now." She clasped her hands together. "Oh! do you think, sir, that my poor husband is really dead?"

"Sit down and tell me all that happened," said Larose soothingly, "and then, we'll see what we can find out."

For upwards of an hour the detective questioned her, but at the end of that time he had reluctantly to admit to himself that, once again, he had added little to the knowledge he already possessed.

"You see, Mrs. Rawlings," he said at last, "if you could only give me some idea where your husband was going that night, then we should be able to start our search in some definite direction."

"But as I say, I can't tell you," she replied tearfully. "My husband never talked to me about any of the business of the estate. He was a very reserved man and spoke very little at any time and he had the idea, too, that all a woman's interests should be in the home. But he was a devoted husband to me and all our married life we have been very happy together. He never, however, brought his business worries to me at any time."

The detective thought for a moment. "And you don't know, then, what particular work your husband had been doing during the day previous to the night when he disappeared?"

Mrs. Rawlings shook her head. "No, he was busy the whole day," she replied, "and I only saw him at meals, and then he was writing all the evening."

"He kept a diary?" asked Larose.

The woman's face brightened. "Oh! yes, and I believe he put down the minutest things that happened."

"Show me the diary, then," said the detective, and she at once led him into another room and began looking among a number of books and ledgers piled upon the table.

"Here it is," she said and Larose pulled up a chair, and sitting down, began turning over the leaves of the book she had handed to him. The scrutiny, however, was very short before he spoke to her again.

"What does that mean?" he asked, pointing to an entry under the date of Saturday, September 16th. The entry consisted of two words only, "Queen Guinivere," upon an otherwise entirely blank page.

The woman smiled a wan smile. "We have a herd of Jersey cattle," she replied, "and Queen Guinivere is one of the cows. She was due to have her calf on that day. She is the matron of the whole herd and a valuable animal. She has taken lots of prizes."

"And did she have her calf on that date?" asked the detective. "Remember, it would be the day after your husband disappeared."

"Oh! no," replied Mrs. Rawlings, "not until the day before yesterday. Look, you can see them, if you want to. They are both in the meadow there."

Larose walked over to the window. "And do you think it is likely," he asked, "that your husband went out that night to see if she was all right?"

For a few moments, the woman stood silent. "It might be," she replied, speaking very slowly. "Yes, it might be, for I know he was rather anxious about her. She's getting old and nearly died with her last calf." She bit her lip in vexation. "I never thought of that."

"And where would she have been that night?" asked the detective, "if he had gone to her."

"In the same meadow where she is now," replied Mrs. Rawlings, "somewhere between here and the castle. The Home meadow, we call it."

"Now, another thing," went on Larose. "Poison baits are said to have been laid about here. Do you know anything about that."

"They've been laid," she replied slowly, "because several dogs have died and now no one dares to keep one on the estate." She shook her head. "But no one knows who lays them and it's been a mystery to everyone for some time. It's very queer."

The detective made no comment. "And you have a lot of hares here, I understand," he said after a moment. "Now whereabouts would you find them?"

"Oh! all round," she replied. "They come to feed in the clover fields at night."

A long silence followed, and then Larose got up to bid her good-bye. "I shan't be far away," he said, "for I'm going to stop for a few days at that inn, there by the beach. Oh! I was forgetting," he exclaimed. "Where will you be if I want to ask you any more questions?"

Her face brightened. "At Westleton," she replied, "and it's only a mile from here. Lord Thralldom has been very kind about that and has given me a cottage and two pounds a week for as long as I live."

"Well, that's good," nodded Larose. "Good-bye," he said smilingly, "I'm sure to be seeing you again soon."

But the smile dropped from his face directly he was outside.

That night, as upon every night when he was engaged upon a case, Larose went very carefully over everything that had happened during the day and with a map of Suffolk spread out before him, began talking softly to himself.

"Well, I'll sort out all my cards," he said, "and just see what sort of a hand I have. Now what does it all mean?" He spoke very solemnly. "Within the space of a few short weeks these four persons, all residing within a few miles of one another and all in happy and comfortable circumstances have all disappeared off the face of the earth, and I ask myself, from what I have learnt to-day, am I dealing with four separate happenings, having no connection or relation to one another, or am I faced with one main problem, of which each of these four disappearances form only a part?"

He punctuated every word slowly with his hand. "Is it reasonable to suppose that the same unaccountable urge came to each of these four persons—to break all in an instant from the peaceful and settled order of their lives, to forsake kith and kin, father, mother, wife and children with no word or message of regret and no goodbye? To leave those who loved them, to be night and day, and day and night, torturing their brains as to what calamity could possibly have overtaken them?"

He shook his head emphatically. "No, no, I can rule that out at once. Upon the face of it, I can be sure the disappearances of all these people were not voluntary. They were forced upon them. Something happened to keep them from returning to their homes and that something"—he spoke in a whisper that was almost inaudible—"can surely only mean that they are dead."

He paused for a long time here before going on. "Yes, that is the only way I must account for their silence, for their silence can only be the silence of the grave." His tone became much more brisk. "Well, what happened? Did they then all meet with some such accident that their bodies as a natural consequence have been hidden ever since from the gaze of human eyes?" He shook his head again. "No, impossible. The coincidences would be too strained. They were killed somehow. Yes, they were killed and the fact that no traces of any one of them have been found, suggests that they all came to their deaths in the same manner and by the striking of the same hand."

He paused again as if to check up his thoughts. "Then, if that were so, surely the killer did not seek them all out individually in the vicinity of their own homes. He was not waiting at Leiston for the school-teacher, at Saxmundham for the bank-manager, at Yoxford for the innkeeper and here at Thralldom for the bailiff. No, no, they came to him, and it was upon some single, common meeting-ground that they encountered him and passed into eternity. Each of them upon the night when they disappeared, by chance, came within reach of that uplifted arm, and it remains for me to find out when they set out upon their journeys; where their paths eventually converged; and at which particular place they all met with their mysterious ends." He was quite convinced. "Yes, I am dealing with one main problem, and the four disappearances are part of a whole."

He considered for a moment. "So, I'll try and put myself in the minds of some of those people upon the nights when they disappeared, and see where their thoughts will lead me if, in my subsequent actions, there be anything in common with them at all."

He settled himself back in his chair. "First, I am that school-teacher, and I am twenty-seven, and well among the years when, if any lover were coming to me, he should have come by now. But I am plain and uninteresting-looking and no man has arrived to give me those mad moments for which I crave. Oh, yes, I want them. I want them badly, for I am very romantic. I love all the beauty in life. I love the sea, I love flowers and I love scenery. I love poetry, too, of the romantic kind." He nodded; "I could see how often that Tennyson of hers had been opened at 'Idylls of the King.' In effect, I am a girl who must be finding my unfulfilled womanhood very hard.

"Well, that night I am sitting with my parents and there is no conversation. I am reading, but the soft, sensuous music of the divine Chopin is filtering through into my brain. I am reading Ivanhoe and I have just come to that part,"—he frowned—"now what were those lines in particular that caught my eye when I opened the book? Ah! I remember—'they hurl the defenders from the battlements, they throw them into the moat'."

He shook his head and sighed. "But I close the book there and, for a little while sit thinking. Then what are my thoughts? Surely I am thinking of gay ladies and gallant knights, of battle-axes and shining armour, of a mighty castle with high towers and towering battlements, and—Thralldom Castle at once leaps up before my eyes."

His own eyes sparkled. "Of course it would, for all my life I have known Thralldom Castle, and night and morning in that large photograph its grim walls have been always under my gaze. So the castle in Ivanhoe becomes real to me and I picture it as Thralldom is, and see them hurling defenders over battlements that are familiar to me, and into a moat that I know quite well."

"Then I look out of the window and see the moon is shining." The detective made a muttered aside here. "There was some moon shining on each of the nights when those poor souls disappeared." He went on. "So all on the instant, I make up my mind to take a walk and then, what is more natural than that, with these thoughts in my mind, I should turn my steps in the direction of Thralldom Castle?" He paused for a long moment. "Surely I should have gone that way."

He leant back in his chair and sighed. "Guess-work, Gilbert, just guesswork and nothing more," he nodded his head grimly, "but for all that you may not be very far astray."

His voice took on a sharp and business-like tone. "Now, for disappearance number two, and I am the bank manager in Saxmundham. It is after supper and I have a headache. I have been writing all the evening and am not unnaturally tired. I think I will go for a walk. It will do me good and clear the cobwebs from my brain. Well, where shall I go? It is just a walk that I want, and therefore, I suppose all directions will be the same to me. Ah! but will they? I was born by the sea and all my boyhood's recollections are associated with the shore, the sands, the waves and the breezes of the sea. My father was a sailor and his father before him and his father before that. So, I have the very salt of the sea in my blood, and what is more natural then than that I should turn to the sea when I am feeling tired—as a tired child turns to his mother in any distress? Yes, I'd take my walk in the direction of the sea."

He looked down at the map before him and went on. "And if I take my walk towards the sea, by where will it lead me?" He spoke very slowly and deliberately now. "I shall pass Thralldom Castle"—his voice trailed away to nothing—"Thralldom Castle again!"

There was a long pause and then he shook his head. "A guess in the dark, Gilbert, just a guess and yet"—he nodded—"for all that, you may be dead on the spot again."

He smiled. "Now, for disappearance number three, and I am Sam Baxter, a merry-hearted publican and I shut up my bar sharper than usual to-night. Punctual to the tick of ten, for I have something to do and I am in a hurry to get on with it. I put on my cap and let myself out into the yard."

He screwed up his eyes and looked very puzzled. "Now what do I go into the yard for? What could I be wanting there at that time of night? I have gone there to get something and I am afterwards going for a walk or upon an expedition of some kind for I have taken my cap from the hall. Well, what am I wanting from the yard? There is no car, nor horse there. Nothing but sheds, with fowls, ducks, pigs and a dog. Ah! a dog."

His thoughts ran on. "Yes, I was a poacher six years ago, an inveterate poacher, so the Alfreton police said, and I suppose once a poacher, always a poacher. So perhaps, I am going out poaching to-night, and I have gone into the yard to get the dog. Well then, if I am going poaching, what am I going poaching for? Not rabbits—the sergeant ruled that out—and certainly not partridges or pheasants, for they are out of season, and could not be put on the public table, and again, I should not be wanting a dog to get them. Then, I must be thinking about hares, and that means that I am going either to Sefton Park or Thralldom. Sefton Park or Thralldom," he repeated slowly, "and I shall most probably choose Thralldom because it is a moonlight night, and my inn is on the Thralldom side of the town, and so by going in that direction there will be less chance of anyone seeing me with my dog."

The detective nodded. "And that brings me to Thralldom again—always Thralldom." He looked very grave. "It may be that I am only guessing again, but now the startling fact is emerging from my guesses that by deductions that are perfectly reasonable, and by no undue stretching of the imagination, I am leading each of these three persons, the school-teacher, from Leiston, the bank-manager from Saxmundham and the inn-keeper from Yoxford, all to the very spot where we know for certain that the bailiff himself disappeared. Yes, Thralldom lures them all to their destruction; Rita Ethelton, because she is thinking of the castle by moonlight; Augustus Andrew Holden because he and his forebears have been all born by the sea, and Samuel Baxter because it is there he must go poaching for his hares."

He nodded his head again. "Yes, and if anyone had deliberately planned a common meeting place for these three, where they would have to travel the least distances from their several homes, he would have chosen Thralldom, for Thralldom is the centre of that circle from the circumference of which they would have all started upon their journeys."

He went on. "So, I come finally to the case of Rawlings, and, in a way, his last movements present the smallest difficulty of all, for if I cannot with certainty say he was going to visit that much-prized matron of the Jersey herd, I can at least assume from his half-dressed condition that he was not going far away from his home." He pursed up his lips. "But I can be pretty certain he was going after that cow in the meadow there, for if he considered the matter that was worrying him after he had retired to rest, to be of such urgency that he felt compelled to get out of his bed almost in the middle of the night, then it undoubtedly suggests that he was going to attend to some living creature, and the fact that he took no lantern with him indicates that he was content with the light of the moon for whatever he had to do"—he nodded for the third time—"which brings in the meadow where the cow was again."

He leant back once more. "And if these four poor creatures have met with some untimely and violent form of death, who but a madman could have inflicted it upon them, for what reason other than the sheer lust of blood could have urged him upon his path of murder? It could not have been for money that they were killed, for they practically carried none, and it could not have been for any feelings of personal animosity, for they all came from widely separated places and there was nothing that one can conceive, except pure chance, that could have brought them one after another, within reach of the wretch who assassinated them."

He rose up from his chair and began taking off his clothes.

"Yes, Gilbert," he said, "to-morrow, it's a madman you've got to start looking for, and you'll have all your work cut out to find him. You have, however, two things in your favour. You know the exact date when this nice gentleman first started business"—his eyes glinted—"and you know the place about where he takes his walks at night." He fished his pyjamas out of his portmanteau. "So, to-morrow after supper you'll go out to try and meet him and say 'how-do-you-do.' You can be very nice and polite and all that, but I think first you had better shoot him in the legs."

And he put out the light and composed himself placidly to sleep.