Читать книгу The Night of the Storm - Arthur Gask - Страница 3

Table of Contents

"YES, they are all three as pretty as pictures," said the Superintendent, scowling, "but I'll stake my life one of them killed the man." He spoke slowly and deliberately. "They come of the best stock in the land, by birth and breeding they should be above reproach, and yet it is as clear as daylight to me that one of them has stooped to a guilty passion, and then, for some reason turning upon her lover, has sent him into eternity with the callousness of a butcher slaughtering a sheep."

"Very eloquently put, sir," smiled the stout, fatherly-looking Detective-Inspector Stone, "and I'm sure you ought to have been a clergyman." He seemed amused. "But you have just told us that everyone says that these girls always kept him at a distance, and that you haven't the slightest evidence that there was friendship between him and any of them!"

"And I haven't the evidence," retorted the Superintendent warmly, "but that doesn't make me the less certain that one of them was the murderess, for if she is equal to meeting us in the calm and brazen way she is now doing, then depend upon it she was quite clever enough to have kept her goings-on hidden from everybody."

"But why necessarily a guilty passion?" asked a third man, the lanky Detective-Inspector Carter, with a frown. "Two of the sisters are unmarried, you say!"

"But he wasn't," replied the Superintendent dryly. "He was very much married and everybody knew it, for his wife brought him into court last year to get a separation." He pursed up his lips. "And I've no doubt she could have got a divorce if she had wanted, for he was a gay dog, right enough, and cocked his eye at every pretty girl he saw. We found scores and scores of pictures of girls among his effects."

"But not one of any of these three girls in the Priory?" asked Inspector Carter.

The Superintendent shook his head. "No, unfortunately, there was not one of any of them." He slapped upon the desk before him. "But see how black everything looks against them." He punctuated each sentence with his hand. "The man was shot just before half-past ten, and old Evans the gardener heard the rifle fired and called out to someone he saw running in the direction of the Priory! Then just after half-past ten, the butler heard the front door of the Priory being shut very stealthily and then the sounds of someone moving about in the hall. Then, not two minutes later, he saw that the rook rifle, which he swears was there earlier in the evening, was missing from its accustomed place, and the next morning my men found this very rifle, dropped by the murderer, not fifty yards from the dead man's bungalow, and it has since been proved that it fired the fatal bullet." He laughed scornfully. "Just put two and two together, for there are only three individuals who can fulfil the two requirements of being able to get possession of that rifle and later, as the stealthy prowler, to be entering the house as one of its natural occupants for the night." His voice was most emphatic. "Only one of those girls, I say."

"But there are four servants and——" began Inspector Stone.

"All accounted for," interrupted the Superintendent. "The butler and the three maids were together in the kitchen from before nine o'clock until they went up to their rooms just after half-past ten." He shook his head vexatiously. "No, it was one of these three girls, without any doubt, but unhappily I can't bring it home to her. They are just sitting tight and persisting in their denials that they left the house and I can't prove to the contrary. I am up against a dead wall."

"I noticed that the inquest was as short as you could make it," said Stone.

"Yes, purely formal." The Superintendent scowled. "We just proved the discovery of the body and the cause of death and then had it adjourned."

Three men were seated in the room of the Superintendent of the Colchester police, Superintendent William Russell himself, and the two Detective-Inspectors from Scotland Yard, the latter among the shrewdest and most brainy officers in the Criminal Investigation Department, who had been sent to Colchester to give their assistance to the Essex police in the matter of the mysterious murder of Edwin Asher Toller of Stratford St. Mary.

A long silence followed, and then Inspector Stone produced a note-book and remarked briskly, "Well, go through it slowly again, Bill. We've got the general hang of things now and so shall be able to pick out what's important and what's not. We'll question you as you go along. Start from the beginning and give us more details. Tell us more, too, about all the parties concerned, apart from the actual murder."

The Superintendent made a grimace as of faint protest, but then began in brisk and policeman-like tones——

"The village of Stratford St. Mary is about six miles from here. The Priory, at the far end, is the most important residence in the neighborhood, and attached to it is a considerable estate, extensive enough, at any rate, to necessitate an agent to look after its affairs. The place has been in the possession of the Brabazon-Fanes, who are one of the best county families round here, for hundreds of years, but I gather the estate is somewhat impoverished now and that its rent-bill is not anything like it used to be. The late General Brabazon-Fane, the last male of the line, died two years ago and the property descended to his three daughters Beatrice, Eva, and Margaret. Beatrice is the eldest, unmarried and twenty-eight. Then comes Eva, also unmarried, twenty-six, and finally, the youngest Margaret, Lady Mentone, twenty-five and married to Sir Charles Mentone, a director of the Orion line of steamers." He sighed. "They are three lovely girls and noted for their good looks."

"This Sir Charles Mentone is, of course, the member of Parliament," commented Inspector Stone.

"Yes, for the Ashburton division of Devonshire and he's thirty years his wife's senior. There are no children as yet." The Superintendent raised his eyebrows. "By-the-by, this girl, Lady Mentone, went on the stage when she was eighteen and there was a family quarrel, but when she married Sir Charles, five years ago, everything was made up and she's been a frequent visitor at the Priory ever since."

"No mother living?" asked Inspector Stone.

The Superintendent shook his head. "No, she has been dead for many years." He went on. "Well, Edwin Asher Toller was the bailiff or agent of the estate and had been so for the last three years. His salary was £6 a week. He was a good-looking, well-groomed man of thirty-five, of a decided personality and most capable in his work. It happened I had met him, personally, in connection with some poachers he was prosecuting then on behalf of the estate."

"How long ago?" asked the other Inspector, Carter.

"About two months. The last week in April, if I remember rightly."

"And what opinion did you form of him then," asked Stone, "apart from his being so capable, as you say?"

"For one thing, that he ought to have been in a much better position than he was at his time of life, as he impressed me as being a very knowledgeable and travelled man of the world." The Superintendent shook his head. "Yet I didn't take to him, for he seemed a bit deep, and you could never tell exactly what was in his mind. He thought a deuced lot of himself, too. Moreover, he was very hard, and pressed for sharp punishment upon those two poor devils who had only been caught snaring a few hares."

The Superintendent paused, but, no further question being asked, went on. "Well, the Priory is situated in about forty acres of walled grounds and the agent lived in a small modern bungalow close to the wall, about three hundred yards distant from the main building. He was looked after by an elderly housekeeper who has been in the Brabazon-Fane service for more than thirty years. Upon the night of the murder, on Tuesday, four days ago, she was absent from the bungalow, having come in here for a concert at the assembly rooms, and was not expected back until about half-past eleven, when it was known she would return by the village bus."

"Did she go to the concert alone?" asked Carter.

"No, Mrs. Evans, the wife of the Priory gardener was with her, and the cook would have accompanied them, too, had she not been feeling tired after the annual tenants' ball which had been held the previous night, and decided to stay at home. Well, just before half-past ten, the gardener, who was sitting up for his wife, and whose cottage is only about 100 yards distant from the agent's bungalow, heard the sharp crack of a rifle fired evidently not far away, and, immediately stepping to his front door, was just in time to see—there was a bit of a moon up to then—a figure darting among some rhododendron bushes. Thinking it was a poacher after the pheasants, which are very tame all round the Priory and often roost among the trees within the grounds, he shouted to the runner to stop, but of course the party only went the faster, and being old and rheumaticky, the gardener was unable to give chase, and so after waiting a minute or two, and seeing and hearing nothing more, he returned indoors."

"But can he give no description of the person he saw?" asked Stone.

"Not the slightest. He just saw someone running and that was all. His sight's not too good and he's rather stupid, too. He's over seventy."

"And we can be perfectly exact about the time?"

"Yes, we can be absolutely certain there, for he heard the clock of the village church strike the half-hour just as he came out of his door." The Superintendent became most impressive. "And now the Priory butler, Samuel Chime, comes into the picture, and he, too, heard the half-hour strike. He was sitting in the kitchen then with the maids, and, an old army man, and, most precise in his habits, he rose up at once and ordered them to bed. He went into his pantry to get a drink of water and he said it couldn't have been two minutes after the clock had struck, when, just as he was raising the tumbler to his lips, he thought he heard the faint click of the inner door of the hall being shut, followed by the sound of some faint movement in the hall. He says he paused and stood still to listen, but, hearing nothing more, he imagined he must have been mistaken, because he knew all the young ladies had gone up to their rooms an hour and more before. Still, he told us that. Nevertheless he went into all the four rooms leading out of the hall and, switching on the lights, had a good look round. Then, he says, he locked and bolted the outer hall door and was in the very act of switching off the lights there, when he noticed that a little rook-rifle was missing from its accustomed place upon the wall, just above where he was standing."

"A rook-rifle kept in the hall!" exclaimed Stone.

"Yes, because it is a treasured memento of the old General who, during the last years of his life used to potter about with it in the grounds, to shoot at any birds eating his fruit."

"But it wasn't kept loaded, of course?" asked Stone.

"No, but there was a broken box of cartridges close handy in the drawer of the umbrella stand. The butler was a little surprised about the rifle not being there, but thought that perhaps one of the young ladies might have taken it to polish it—they were the only ones ever to touch it—and had omitted to put it back. At any rate he didn't then associate its absence with the clicking of the door that he had heard, and at once dismissing the matter from his mind, he switched off the lights and took himself off to bed."

The Superintendent glanced down at a paper upon his desk and went on. "Then nothing more happened until twenty minutes past eleven when the agent's housekeeper, Sarah Bowman, came back from the concert. She had been dropped by the village bus, along with the gardener's wife, just outside the Priory grounds and, bidding good-night to her companion, proceeded to walk across a short stretch of lawn to the bungalow, less than a hundred yards away. Then, having to pass before the window of Toller's office, she saw that the light was on, the window open, and that the blind had not been drawn. I must tell you here that it was a close and sultry night, with a storm threatening, and not a breath of air stirring. Well, she glanced in, going by, and was about to say good-night, when to her horror she saw Toller in the big armchair only a few feet from the window, lying back in an unnatural pose, with his head bent down and his face covered in blood. Naturally she was terrified, and at once called out to him, and receiving no answer, she rushed into the bungalow and into his room."

"Were the doors shut?" asked Carter.

"No, neither of them"—the Superintendent paused impressively—"and in his basket in the hall was curled the agent's little fox terrier."

"Drugged, eh?" queried Stone quickly.

The Superintendent laughed. "Not a bit of it, and he came up at once, wagging his tail." He went on—"She ran into the office and laid her hand upon Toller's arm, but the sight of blood at once made her feel sick, she dashed to the telephone and rang up the Priory. It is a private phone, and only rings up to there, but it has an extension into the butler's room at night, and Chime answered her at once. She wailed wildly that she didn't know what had happened, but that she had come home to find Toller lying back quite still in his chair and all covered with blood, and she was sure he must be dead."

"She didn't say then he had been murdered?" asked Stone sharply.

"No, and she says it hadn't occurred to her, for she was too dazed to think of anything, but Chime thought of murder or suicide at once, and so rang up Dr. Athol, the village doctor, a very smart man, by the by, asking him to come immediately. He also says he asked him to bring the village Constable along with him but the doctor said later he did not take in that part of the message, and in consequence he came alone. Dr. Athol is both the a medical man and a friend of the Brabazon-Fanes, and, living not half a mile away, he arrived at the bungalow just at the very same moment as the butler, who had hastily thrown on some clothes and rushed there himself."

"Had the butler said anything to any of them at the Priory?" asked Stone.

"No, he had told no one, but had come straight off on his own, taking the precaution, however, to lock the hall door of the house behind him. They found the housekeeper standing outside the bungalow, sobbing hysterically and clutching the little fox terrier she was holding. She pointed to the open window, and they looked through. Then the doctor ran in, and seeing instantly that the man was dead, with no delay sent Chime back to the house to ring up the village constable and tell him, too, to acquaint us here with what had happened. Also, he ordered Chime to wait at the entrance to the grounds, and, when we arrived, bring us straight to the bungalow without going near the house. He didn't want to alarm anybody there, and particularly so, because he had been called in that very day to attend Lady Mentone, who had not been well after the ball of the previous night." The Superintendent nodded here. "I learnt later that a baby is expected next year."

He went on—"I was just going to turn in when we got the ring from the Constable, and I decided at once to go out myself with two of my men." He frowned. "But we had the devil's own luck that night. We were shorthanded, and couldn't get in touch with our special photographer, as he was off duty, and no one knew where he was. Also, our own surgeon had gone up to town to a medical dinner, and to cap all we ran into one of the most awful storms I have ever encountered. It was quite fine when we started, but a mile off Stratford St. Mary it was thundering, and the lightning was flashing and the rain simply coming down in torrents.

"We picked up the butler at the entrance to the grounds, and, reaching the bungalow, found Dr. Athol waiting for us in the passage. He said that as the man was stone dead when he arrived he had not disturbed the body, but had left everything exactly as it had been when he came in. It appeared, too, that the housekeeper had collapsed, and it had taken him all his time to attend to her."

"But, of course, he was with you when you examined the body?" asked Carter.

The Superintendent nodded. "It was still quite warm, and he estimated that death had taken place less than two hours previously. There was not much blood about, very little in fact, and the hole in the forehead was very small. From the position of the body we were of opinion that the deceased had undoubtedly been shot through the open window, and, from the size of the wound, that a weapon firing a .22 bullet had been used." He paused dramatically. "And then, hardly able to articulate in his excitement, the butler, who had been standing alongside us while we had been examining the body, burst out impetuously with a story of how the small .22 rifle was missing from the Priory Hall, and how earlier in the night he had thought he heard someone stealthily closing the hall door when all the lawful inmates of the house were at that moment accounted for in other parts of the building."

The Superintendent shook his head vexatiously. "And I confess candidly I was guilty of a great error of judgment then, for after listening to the man, I didn't attach much importance to what he had told us, in fact I didn't altogether believe him. I sized him up as only a busybody, who just wanted to get into the limelight, as he was obviously so anxious to make all things fit in—that the agent had been shot with that particular rifle. Then——"

"One moment, please," interrupted Stone, "you told us, did you not, that the butler said he had heard the movements in the hall after the clicking of the hall door, not, before?"

"Yes, that's it," nodded the Superintendent, "and, remembering that there was then no association in our minds with the murderer and the person who clicked that door, you can understand my blunder." He shrugged his shoulders disgustedly. "We had not learnt then that the gardener had seen the murderer running towards the Priory only two minutes before the time of the clicking of the door. So when Chime said he had heard those movements after the clicking, I dismissed them as unimportant, just thinking that perhaps one of the young ladies had been out for a late stroll, although he had imagined they had all gone to bed."

"And naturally," commented Stone, "you did not think the sounds had anything to do with any theft of the missing rifle?"

The Superintendent shook his head. "No, I did not," he replied emphatically. "And about the disappearance of that rifle from its accustomed place; when I asked Chime if it had ever been missing from the hall before, he began to hum and haw, and then admitted that Miss Eva, the second girl, had taken it into her bedroom, only a few nights previously, to shoot at an owl that had began hooting in the tree just opposite her window."

He sighed heavily. "No, that night the butler didn't impress me, and the next morning I saw I had lost my chance"—his voice hardened—"for he had become an evasive and unwilling witness. He had been out and heard what the gardener had to say, and, undoubtedly comparing the latter's story with his own, was realising how damning he was making things look for one or other of his young mistresses."

Inspector Carter emitted an exclamation of surprise. "But hadn't the gardener," he asked incredulously, "at once told his wife what he had heard and seen the very moment she had got home the previous night?"

"He had certainly told her," replied the Superintendent, "but unhappily he had told no one else, and"—he looked rather sheepish—"as a plain statement of fact, we were not even aware of the gardener's existence that night." He went on quickly. "I have said we were dogged by evil luck, and that terrific storm upset everything. When we arrived at the bungalow the rain was simply coming down in sheets and it was so pitch dark that we didn't see, and no one thought to mention to us, that there was any gardener's cottage so near. Consequently, the gardener never entered into our minds, and we were all unconscious that there was almost an eye-witness of the actual crime, in possession of a most valuable clue as to the identity of the murderer." He almost groaned. "I could have kicked myself when, returning the next morning, I saw the cottage there, for then I guessed instantly that in the stillness that had preceded the thunderstorm, its inmates would most certainly have heard the firing of the shot that killed the agent."

"But I should have thought this smart doctor you talk about," growled Stone, "would have had the intelligence to suggest your questioning the gardener as to whether he had heard anything, seeing that his cottage was such a little way away!"

"Well, be didn't," replied the Superintendent and then he added after a moment, "but I think that was because he was much too concerned about the condition of the housekeeper, she is a patient of his and he was aware she has valvular disease of the heart. Indeed, she was so bad that night that he had to give her a strychnine injection." He sighed. "There again we were most unfortunate, for we didn't get her story until the following morning."

"Then didn't you attempt to ask her any questions at all?" asked Stone, very surprised.

"I didn't even see her," replied the Superintendent, "for the doctor said we had better not go into her room." He shook his head angrily. "Yes, and another thing, we didn't learn that night that all the time there had been a dog upon the premises, for the doctor had put the little beast upon the bed by the woman's side, to comfort her, so he says."

"And the significance there?" asked Carter.

The Superintendent nodded emphatically. "That the dog had not barked, or maybe had not even left his basket, when the killer had crept up to the open window through which the agent had undoubtedly been shot, which means surely"—he spoke very solemnly—"that the animal was familiar with his or her footsteps."

"And does the fox terrier know the young ladies well?" asked Carter.

"Sure," replied the Superintendent. "He's always up at the house after scraps; and he meets me, barking like the very devil, every time I appear."

"And the butler," went on Carter, looking rather puzzled, "didn't even he suggest that perhaps the gardener might have heard something?"

"Never said a word," replied the Superintendent, and he shook his head disgustedly. "You see, that awful thunderstorm, apart from the distraction of the noise, was actually filling us with physical discomfort and dulling all our senses. The butler had got wet through, waiting for us, and was shivering as if he were seized with an ague, and we, driving with no side curtains up, were no better off, for we were soaked almost to the skin, too. As I have already told you, it wasn't raining when we started out, and naturally in a great hurry, we had just jumped into the car as it was."

"Well, what did you do next?" asked Stone.

"Decided to leave everything as it was until the morning, touching nothing in the room and even letting the body remain in the position we had found it. We locked the door and one of my men, Detective Lesser, was left in charge of the bungalow with strict injunctions that no one was to enter on any pretence."

"And what time was it, then?" asked Stone.

"A quarter to one and still raining heavily. Well, in the morning we were back again by eight o'clock and then things began to move quickly. We got the gardener's story straight away, and then knowing the exact moment when the murder had been committed, and at once realising the significance of what the butler had told us"—he paused dramatically—"we began to have ideas."

He paused a long moment to marshal his facts in their proper order, and then resumed his tale. "Some things, at any rate, seemed perfectly obvious to us. A murder had been committed with a .22 bullet and a rifle of that calibre had been taken from the hall of the Priory not long before the murder had been done. Presumably, therefore, the murder had been carried out with that rifle. Then the murderer had been seen running in the direction of the Priory, and not two minutes later someone had been heard to enter there. Therefore, again, we can presume it was the murderer who had gone in, and if the rifle had not been returned to its place, then undoubtedly it had been thrown away so as not to impede the murderer's flight." He smiled. "All justified deductions, were they not?"

The Inspectors nodded and he continued. "So we started to search for that rifle, and we found it in less than a couple of minutes"—his voice hardened grimly—"at the very spot where the murderer had been passing when the old gardener, seeing the running figure, had shouted to him or her to stop, and as I have already told you among a clump of rhododendrons."

"And after the rain, no fingermarks of course, on it?" asked Carter.

"Not a sign of one, for it was muddied all over," replied the Superintendent. He lent forward over his desk. "Now comes an interesting point, for the rifle, being a light one, to a running man it would have been of small impediment, but"—he spoke very slowly—"to a woman, and especially to one of slight physique, such as all these three girls, carrying it in flight would certainly have been a handicap."

"And you thought at once of these sisters!" suggested Stone.

"Of course I did," replied the Superintendent instantly, "and I went straight up to the house to have a talk with them. The butler opened the door, and his jaw dropped and he looked darned scared the moment he set eyes upon me. 'Found that rifle?' I asked with no preliminaries. 'No-o,' he stammered, 'and no one knows any thing about it.' 'Good,' I said, 'and now don't you forget about those noises you heard in this hall after the clicking of this door.' 'No, no,' he exclaimed at once, some firmness coming into his voice. 'I made a mistake last night, and it has come back to me now that the sounds I heard were footsteps upon the gravel outside, and they were not in here at all.'"

He paused and made a gesture of contempt. "But I took no notice of his denial and, asking where the young ladies were, was informed that they were just finishing breakfast in the morning room. So I ordered him to announce me, and, intending to give him no opportunity to warn them, followed straight upon his heels. Detective Jennings came with me."

"But didn't the butler want to go and ask the girls, first, if it were convenient to them to see you?" asked Inspector Carter.

"Of course he did," replied the Superintendent. "He didn't want me to follow him. But I waved him on angrily and he shuffled before me with the gait of a very frightened man. Well the three girls were standing talking by the window when he opened the door"—he frowned here and shook his head—"and the instant I set eyes upon them, I confess quite frankly that I didn't feel quite so sure one of them had shot the man. They looked so dainty and such perfect ladies and there was an air of refinement about them that I couldn't well associate with crime. They are women——"

"Yes, of course they are women," Interrupted Stone testily, "and being women, at your time of life you ought to know you can never judge by appearance what they will or will not do. A woman in a fury or a passion is much nearer to the savage than we men are and I've seen——"

"Never mind what you've seen, Charlie," broke in Inspector Carter rudely, "everyone knows you've seen a lot that you ought not to have seen but you needn't tell us about it now, for it's not to the point." He waved to the Superintendent. "Go on Bill. Take no notice of him."

The eyes of the burly Stone twinkled good-humoredly, but he subsided into silence and the Superintendent went on.

"Well, I can tell you I didn't beat about the bush, and after I'd told them who I was, I went straight to the point. 'One of you young ladies,' I said sharply, 'came into the hall just after half-past ten last night,' I eyed them very sternly. 'Now which one of you was it?' They all went white as chalk, and for a few seconds looked at one another bewilderedly. Then the eldest, Miss Beatrice, said very quietly, but with a choke in her voice. 'None of us. We were all in bed by half-past nine!' 'That not true,' I said. 'The gardener saw one of you running by the rhododendrons, and your butler heard whoever it was, not two minutes after, creep into the hall here.' Then I raised my hand accusingly and went on: 'One of you killed your agent; you shot him with that rifle you took from the hall. You——'"

"One moment," said Stone. "Did they go white before you said a word to them—before you had spoken at all?"

"No but they all looked very agitated, as if the way I had come into the room was upsetting to them."

"But did they know then what the gardener had seen?" went on the stout Inspector.

The Superintendent frowned. "Yes, unfortunately, for as I have said, the butler had been over to the gardener, very early, to tell him all that had happened during the night, and then, in turn the gardener had told his story, and back had come Chime to the house and informed the young ladies."

"But when they had first learnt that the man had been murdered?" asked Stone.

"The eldest one had learnt it a few minutes after we had gone the previous night, because Dr. Athol, taking the housekeeper home with him—he had decided he dare not leave her in the bungalow with the body there—had called at the Priory in passing and made the butler go and fetch Miss Beatrice. Then he had broken the news to her and the first thing in the morning, so she says, she told her sisters."

"Then if one of these girls was the killer," remarked Carter, "she was prepared to meet you with an expression of innocence, when you appeared!"

"Yes, unhappily she not taken by surprise as far as the knowledge of the agent's death and the gardener's story were concerned"—the Superintendent nodded grimly—"but she was undoubtedly deuced surprised to be confronted with an accusation of murder so speedily, for when I entered the room no one in the Priory was aware that the old General's rifle had been picked up among the rhododendrons."

"Well, go on," said Stone. "How did they take it when you accused them point blank?" asked Carter.

"They gasped and went more ghastly than ever. Lady Mentone gave a little cry and dropped into an armchair as if she were going to faint, and Beatrice rushed and put her arms round her. Then the third one, Eva, from pallor turned to a flaming red and stamping her feet, but without raising her voice, turned on me like a tigress and exclaimed furiously. 'You fool! You senseless fool!'"

"It looked the real thing, as if they were very surprised?" queried Stone.

"Very much like it," frowned the Superintendent, "and then in a few moments they had all, so to speak, recovered themselves and were lashing in to me as if I were trying to blackmail them. Oh, yes, the breeding came out right enough then, for they had got their tempers well under control. They became now sarcastic and icily cold. 'Where's your proof that it was one of us?' they kept asking. 'What motive could we have had?' 'Why should we have wanted to harm him?' and adding that Toller was a valuable employee of theirs." He looked scornful. "Employee! mind you, to rub it in that he was only a servant. They all denied, too, that they had touched the rifle. Then I asked them if any one of them could bear witness as to where any other of them was after ten, and they reiterated they had said good-night to one another and were in their separate rooms by half-past nine."

The Superintendent mopped his forehead with his pocket handkerchief, as if he were still thinking of the gruelling nature of the interview, and then went on. "I could get nothing out of them. As I say, I was up against a blank wall, and so with the intimation that they must practically consider themselves as prisoners, and and extracting from each a solemn promise she would not go beyond the Priory grounds, I left them and went to have another talk with the butler. In the hall, however, I met this Dr. Athol who had just arrived to see Lady Mentone, as a patient. As I have told you, she had overtired herself at the ball and he was apprehensive about her."

"But did he tell you that straightaway?" asked Stone.

"No, but when I told him how the girls had come to be under the gravest suspicion"—the Superintendent nodded viciously—"I tell you I made no secret of it, he looked very disturbed and said any bad shock might have very serious consequences for Lady Mentone. Then when, in reply to his questioning, I informed him how the girls had taken the accusation, he said that as a medical man, whose special study up to his coming to Stratford St. Mary less than a year previously, had been nervous diseases, in his opinion it was quite impossible for anyone of their temperaments to have committed any such crime and not be hysterical and absolutely prostrated after it. He was convinced that if any one of them were really a murderess, then her mental state would be so noticeable that it would be patent to anyone."

"And without having seen any of these girls I don't agree with him," growled Carter. "Why, I knew a woman once, a fragile little flower of a thing, whom it turned out later had been the party to kill her husband with an axe, and who, when we called in not a couple of hours after she had committed the crime, choked back her sobs to make us a cup of tea. I have also known——"

"Never mind what you have also known, Elias," interrupted Stone with a grin, and evidently remembering the snub he had received a few minutes previously. "You've known a great deal too much in your time for the peace of mind of your missus if anyone only told her." He turned to the Superintendent. "Go on, Bill!"

"Then I returned to that precious butler again," went on the Superintendent disgustedly, "and at once was of opinion that he'd been listening at the keyhole when I was questioning those girls, and was heartened at the way they had denied everything, for he now swore most confidently to his tale about the footsteps on the gravelled drive. I was pretty sharp with him, but I couldn't shake him, and he began to get impudent and finally stated he wasn't going to suppress facts to please anyone. I gave him up at last and went back to the bungalow. We——"

"One moment, please," interrupted Stone. "Had the body been taken away by then?"

"Yes, we had brought an ambulance along with us that morning, as well as our own surgeon and our photographer; the latter is also a fingerprint expert."

"What did the surgeon say?"

"Corroborated all Dr. Athol had said. Death had been instantaneous, and it was undoubtedly a .22 bullet that had killed him." The Superintendent shook his head. "Now comes a very mystifying thing for, quite in the dark as to the motive for the murder, as a matter of routine we proceeded to get all the fingerprints that were in the room."

He paused here so long that Stone began to become impatient. "Get along, man," he said sharply. "You found——"

"None at all," exclaimed the Superintendent, "or practically none! Just a few of the dead man's upon the arms of the chair in which he was sitting, but none anywhere else." He threw out his hands. "None where we should have expected to find them. None upon the knobs of the desk drawers, none upon the desk itself, none upon the door of the safe and none even upon either the outside or inside handles of the door."

"Curious!" nodded Stone thoughtfully. "Very curious!"

The Superintendent went on. "Our expert said he could not remember finding so few in a tenanted room, and the only explanation I can put forward there is that furnished by the housekeeper. She says Toller had hardly used the office at all that day, having come into this town very early upon some income tax business connected with the estate, and returning just in time for his evening meal, after seven o'clock."

"But what was he doing when he was killed?" asked Carter.

"Leaning back in an armchair and either asleep, or else smoking his pipe—we picked one up on the floor close near—and looking through a catalogue of motor cars that we found upon his lap. This catalogue, we learnt later, he had obtained from a firm in Colchester. It was fouled with blood."

"And the search in the office yielded nothing, you say," remarked Stone.

"Nothing of any service," was the reply, "except as I have already told you, that from the number of pictures of girls that we found in the desk he must have been very interested in the other sex. There are eight drawers to the desk, and four he used for the estate and four for himself. They were all closed, because the roll-top of the desk was down, likewise the safe was locked, and the keys were in his pocket. Nothing apparently had been disturbed."

"But about these pictures of girls?" asked Carter. "Whose were they?"

"Oh, film stars, actresses, girls in beauty competitions and girls in bathing costumes. They had all been cut out of newspapers and magazines. As for the other private things, they were a lawyer's letters in relation to his wife's separation, bills from tradesmen"—the Superintendent nodded impressively—"he owed a devilish lot of money and seemed to have been living greatly beyond his means, for there were three letters from firms in this town threatening summonses, and one from a money-lender who was pressing him for the payment of thirty-odd pounds. Then there were a number of racing programmes."

"But no letters from any woman?" asked Stone.

"No, and when subsequently, we came to make enquiries about his private life, we could learn nothing, although"—the Superintendent nodded again here—"there's undoubtedly a lot to learn, for nearly every week-end of late it had been his custom to go away on his motor cycle, but to where, no one knows."

"Were his accounts all right?"

"Quite, and he had little chance of going crook there, for every fortnight an accountant from this town, one of the girls' trustees, used to go down to check them up. This chap, by the by, gives the murdered man a most excellent character."

"And you say you can gather no evidence of the slightest friendship existing between him and any of these Brabazon-Fane girls?" asked Stone.

"None whatever, and I cannot discover either that any of them had ever set eyes on him before he came there as agent. We have not been able to get in touch with his wife, but we are assured by the lawyer who acted for her in the separation agreement against Toller that she is now somewhere in America. The accountant, too, tells me the General engaged Toller through some agency, but he doesn't know which agency it was."

"But did the girls have nothing at all to do with him?" asked Stone. "If he were well-dressed, educated and good-looking, as you say, did they never ask him up to the Priory to a meal or a game of tennis?" He looked puzzled. "It doesn't seem natural to me, for women are women all the world over, and a handsome man always appeals."

"Well, outwardly, it didn't here," replied the Superintendent, "for they had nothing at all to do with him except in a purely business way, and then it was only Miss Beatrice whom he saw. He had been rather hard upon certain of the tenants lately and had threatened to turn them out, because they were behind with the payment of their rents, and I have learnt they had appealed direct to her for leniency."

"Then he wasn't too popular with the tenants?" queried Carter.

"No, but then agents never are, as all the dirty work falls upon them."

"But are they a cold and passionless lot, these Brabazon-Fane girls?" asked Stone after a moment's silence.

The Superintendent laughed. "Not a bit of it. Eva's a desperate little flirt, if ever I saw one. She's engaged to a barrister in the city but, with all her rudeness to me, tilts up her chin provokingly to make me feel that, after all, I'm only a man. Then Lady Mentone—they call her Billy among themselves—can make herself most fascinating if she wants to, and Beatrice—I am inclined to like her best of the three—for all her nun-like face, somehow gives me the impression that she could be very affectionate." He nodded. "By-the-by, three years back this sister was upon the point of being married to the Honorable Ian James, but he was killed in a motor accident and now she is being paid a lot of attention by the rector of Stratford St. Mary, a middle-aged widower." He screwed up his face thoughtfully. "In passing, I should be more inclined to regard this girl, than either of the other two, as the killer, for with all her gentleness she seems to have a most decisive determination of character."

A short silence followed and then Stone remarked frowningly. "Well, if they have dispositions such as you say, why again, I ask, did they keep the agent at such a distance? I contend it wasn't natural, and there must have been a reason for it."

The Superintendent considered. "Well, they are very proud," he replied after a few moments, "and I think it was simply because the man was employed by them and that therefore they held him to be in a socially inferior position."

"Have you got a photograph of him?" asked Carter.

"We haven't, but they have one up at the Priory, in a flashlight photo taken of all the guests at the ball, the night before he was murdered. He comes out very well, too." He grinned suddenly. "Oh, yes. I have evidence of intimacy of a kind, for that night he danced once with Beatrice and Eva, and twice with Lady Mentone. We saw that from the dance programme we came upon, in one of his drawers."

"Oh! he had two dances with Lady Mentone, did he?" commented Stone. "Hum! there may be something in that."

Again a short silence followed and then Carter remarked slowly. "Then we are to take it that your whole case against one of these girls depends upon that clicking of the door the butler heard, and if it were not for that, you would never have thought of them?"

"Exactly," replied the Superintendent, "for it was that clicking that started us at once upon their trail."

"And there are no suspicions about anyone else in any other direction?" went on Carter.

"None that I regard of any value," was the instant reply. The Superintendent shrugged his shoulders. "It is true there was a tale of two hikers who had been camping the previous night not far from the Priory grounds, and whose subsequent movements we have not been able to follow up. Also the gardener came to us the next afternoon with a handful of feathers which he found under some trees, as least a quarter of a mile distant from his cottage, and there was no doubt they had come recently from some pheasant. But we could be sure of no footmarks among the thick layer of leaves about where he said he had found them, and I gave the matter no further thought." He laughed drily. "You see, the girls are all very well liked, and at once everyone wanted to shield them, whereas the agent, with his haughty manners and high ways of carrying on, was by no means popular."

"But how did the gardener come to be looking among the trees so far away from his cottage?" asked Stone.

"Oh, he said a couple of sheep had wandered into the grounds and he had followed them to drive them out."

No one spoke for a few moments and then Stone asked another question. "And the girls, of course, have had proper legal advice?"

"Oh! yes, plenty of it. I had a call here, the next day but one, from this future husband of Miss Eva. He is Jimmy Aker-Banks, the K.C., and he was very venomous. He tried to bully, and advised me to be more careful, or he didn't know what might happen to me. Of course, he wanted to make out that the whole idea of the girls having anything to do with the murder was absolutely preposterous." The Superintendent laughed contemptuously. "I know he's a big man at the Bar, but I think, in fact I'm perfectly sure, I gave him something to ponder over after he'd gone away. Then Sir Charles Mentone called here, and wanted to poo-pooh the whole matter, too, but I tell you I gave him very short shrift, and told him pretty sharply that I was going to do my duty whatever the consequences."

They chatted for a few minutes and then the burly Inspector Stone rose briskly to his feet. "Well, we'll go and have a talk with them now and see what we can find out." He made a grimace. "It doesn't seem quite the thing for three big men to go and put the third degree upon three defenceless girls, but we'll have to do it. It appears we've got to trap one of them into some admission that will incriminate her and then"—he heaved a deep sigh—"but we'll talk about that later on." He scowled at Inspector Carter. "Come on, you old ruffian. You always boast you can see through any woman, and now we'll try you out." He grinned at the Superintendent. "But Bill here says they are so pretty that I almost hope you'll turn out to be a dud."