Читать книгу The Grave-Digger of Monks Arden - Arthur Gask - Страница 5

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LADY RODING was certainly a very pretty girl. Of medium height, with a supple and beautifully proportioned figure, her profile was clear-cut, her eyes were long lashed and of a deep blue, and her hair was of a rich auburn colour. Her complexion was faultless and her mouth a perfect Cupid's bow.

In the late spring of the year following her husband's burial, upon one glorious afternoon in June, when the air was heavy with the scent of coming summer, she was standing on the terrace of Roding Hall saying good-bye to a tall, good-looking man who was bending, almost reverently, over her.

"Thank you so much for your many kindnesses, Mr. Hellingsby," she said, looking up smilingly. "I'm sure I don't know what I should have done without you."

"Anything I have done," said Miles Hellingsby very solemnly, "has been done with the greatest of pleasure." He held her eyes with his own. "You know quite well there is nothing in the world I would not do for you."

Lady Roding looked quickly away. She could not help liking the speaker very much, for, apart from his good looks and charming manners, she had good cause for being very grateful to him. A one-time bank manager, he was a shrewd business man and had been of great service to her in the winding up of her late husband's affairs. Yes, she liked him very much, but at the same time she had to acknowledge to herself that somehow she was becoming a little bit afraid of him.

She could not pretend to herself to be unaware that he admired her and although he always treated her with the greatest of respect and without the slightest trace of familiarity, of late, especially when they had been alone, she had sensed a certain tender and caressing note in his voice as if it were quite natural for him to have taken on the role of protector to her.

This rather jarred upon her, as he was a married man, and his wife a friend of hers. Not only that, but had he been single and unattached her bereavement was so recent that the very thought she might allow herself to become, so soon, fond of anybody else was repugnant to her, as a desecration of her husband's memory.

So she was quite relieved now when she saw his wife appear upon the terrace, all ready for her journey. Mrs. Hellingsby, in the middle forties and not a few years her husband's senior, was one of those women who, however expensively they are dressed, always appear dowdy and uninteresting. She was very plain, and in disposition shrinking and shy. She seemed most devoted to her husband, and to outsiders, at least, they appeared to be a happy couple.

Miles handed her into the waiting car as if she were a duchess, and then when Warren, the Hall butler, was helping him on with his overcoat, slipped a couple of one-pound notes into the latter's hand.

"It always pays to keep in with the servants," thought Miles complacently, "for you never know when you may want them to do you a good turn, and they think you're a fine character if you throw your money about." But Miles would not have been quite so self-satisfied if he had read the letter the butler wrote that evening to his married daughter in Australia. This daughter had been one of the parlourmaids at the Hall up to a little time before Sir Eric's death and then, upon her marriage, had left straight away with her husband for the Commonwealth.

The butler wrote quite a good letter.

My Dear Betsy,

I am ashamed I have not written to you since you left, I know Mum has been writing pretty often, but I don't suppose she'll have told you much, except about what clothes the girls you used to know are wearing and what babies they've had.

Well, as of course you will expect, things are pretty quiet here now. The poor little mistress is just as sweet and pretty as ever, but she's sad, oh, very sad. And it makes me feel very angry, for I always think the master ought never to have died. There was something very funny about the whole business.

There was he talking to me, bright and lively as could be, at three o'clock, and then, at half-past nine the same night, he was dead. I'm sure old Dr. Curtis bungled things somehow. He had got too old for his work. You know he treated Mum for six months for lumbago when she had that pain in her back, and I had to rub her with liniment, every night, until my blessed arms were fit to fall off. Then young Dr. Burnaby, who took over his practice when he retired in September, said it was not lumbago but a stomach ulcer Mum had got and she never ought to have been rubbed at all, as rubbing was the worst thing she could have had. He made her keep in bed for a fortnight and she got quite well. So that's what old Dr. Curtis was.

We've had a few visitors lately, but, of course, nearly all relations. Still, that Mr. and Mrs. Hellingsby have been staying here for a week, you remember them, and they're only just gone this morning. When they went he gave me two pounds. But, all the same, I don't like the gentleman too much, and I think a lot of that fondness he always pretends for his wife is put on. She's a plain, woebegone creature if ever I saw one, but I hear she had all the money, and, of course, a bit of cash gets a plain girl off as quickly as a pretty one.

Another thing about Mr. Hellingsby is that he eyes the little mistress much too much to please me. He's always looking at her and bows and scrapes to her as if she was a queen. But he's handsome, I give you that, and if he was not married I should never have been surprised if he'd hung up his hat here.

Heigh ho! but what a pity there wasn't a baby! How a little baronet would have been worshipped now. They say mistress's relations want her to sell up the whole place, but she's told me for a certainty she's not going to do it. Still, how she's going to live on here for years and years I can't think. It's so big and lonely and must be always reminding her of the happy days she once had.

There's no particular news. Norah has been made head parlourmaid and is going out with the new chauffeur, quite a decent young fellow, called Stokes. He gets £4 a week and would be a good catch. Norah certainly means business, whether he does or not, and I believe from the way she's managing things she'll get him in the end. She's told Mum she's giving nothing away and won't even let him kiss her properly until they are engaged—only just a pecks she says. And that's what I call a sensible girl and not making herself too cheap.

Gertrude had six young 'uns last week, but that's no good, and I shall fatten her now for the butcher. A sow that can't do better than that isn't worth her keep.

I hope you like Melbourne all right, but you haven't told us anything yet about the droughts and the blacks. I should like to see what the gins are like. Are they good- looking?

Your loving Dad,

Timothy Warren."

SOME three weeks after the departure of the Hellingsbys from Roding Hall, Gilbert Larose, the one-time famous international detective, but now a country squire and married to the rich widow Lady Helen Ardane of Carmel Abbey, was sitting reading in his study, when the butler entered and handed him a card upon a silver salver.

"Wimpole Carstairs, The Grove, Little Easton!" ejaculated Larose, "I don't know him." He frowned. "What does he want? Didn't he say?"

"No, sir, he just asked if he could see you," replied the butler.

"All right, show him in," said his master, and in a few moments the visitor was ushered into the room. He was a small, intellectual-looking man of about fifty years of age, with a rather white face, a high forehead and a very pointed nose. He wore large glasses, from behind which peered out two big, dark eyes. He was well dressed and carried a small bag in his hand.

"Mr. Gilbert Larose?" he queried, and when Larose had inclined his head he went on a little nervously, "I must really ask you to pardon my intruding upon you, but when you have heard my story I feel quite sure that you will say you have never heard of anything quite to equal it."

"Well, sit down, sir," smiled Larose, "and tell me what it is I can do for you."

Mr. Carstairs did as requested and then asked hesitatingly: "But do you happen to know me by reputation?"

Larose hesitated, too. "Your name somehow seems familiar to me," he said politely, "but I can't exactly place it for the moment."

"No, no, of course not," went on Mr. Carstairs hurriedly, "and I oughtn't to have expected it either, for, with no offence, your life must have been a very materialistic one." He smiled proudly. "I am the editor of The New Spiritualism and, without boasting, may refer to myself as one of the best-known spiritualists in the United Kingdom. Indeed, for many years now I have been devoting a not inconsiderable amount of money to the encouragement"—he spoke with the utmost reverence—"of communion with the spirits of the dead."

Larose thought it only courteous to look reverent, too, and his visitor went on. "My poor wife also, until her untimely death last year, was as enthusiastic as I am in the great cause. She was also well known in the literary world and for her work in the feminist movement."

"Ah, now I remember her!" smiled Larose. "She was Alma Carstairs, and I recollect several of her books were banned by the authorities." She had once been an ardent suffragette.

"Exactly!" smiled back Mr. Carstairs. "Imprisoned four times when the struggle for the vote was going on, and once for striking Mr. Bellow, then Prime Minister, with an umbrella." He spoke with great pride. "A wonderful woman, and one of the most fluent speakers of her generation. She had a marvellous brain."

"Undoubtedly," agreed Larose. "I remember someone gave me the obituary notice in The Times to read and it referred very highly to her intellectual gifts."

"And it's about her I've come to you now," said Mr. Carstairs with a deep sigh. Then suddenly he sat up in his chair and all at once became brisk and businesslike. "Now, Mr. Larose, here's my story. I live, as you see from my card, at Little Easton, some three miles from Thaxted, and last year was a very unfortunate one for me. In June my poor wife and I were involved in a bad motor accident, and then not three weeks after she was out of the doctor's hands, she contracted pneumonia and died in four days." A sad note came into his voice. "We were a most devoted couple and you can imagine my grief when she was laid to rest in the village churchyard. That was on Monday the fourth of September last. Well, the months sped by and, with her image continually in my mind, I tried to get in contact with her in the spirit world. Money was no object to me, and bringing over one of the most renowned mediums in the world, a strong-souled practitioner from Budapest, I at last succeeded in my desire." He spoke only in a whisper now. "I saw her twice."

"You saw her!" ejaculated Larose, frowning hard so that he should not smile and hurt the other's feelings.

"Yes," nodded Mr. Carstairs, appearing almost as if he were going to burst into tears, "but, instead of looking at me tenderly as she always did in life, her look was now a reproachful one and"—he pressed his hand over his eyes—"her face was covered over with blood."

"Goodness gracious!" exclaimed Larose, and although his visitor's expression was so pitiful he felt inclined to laugh.

Then once again Mr. Carstairs took a quick hold upon himself and returned to normal tones. "Yes, I could not understand it, for a returned spirit has always some message to deliver and hers was so obviously one of sorrow, when, instead, it should have been one of joy." He sighed heavily. "I say, I saw her twice, but after that second time all our calls were vain, and sit for hours and hours as we did, her spirit was never visible again."

"Most disappointing!" said Larose sympathetically. "Most disappointing, I am sure!"

Mr. Carstairs suddenly shot out a trembling hand and opened his eyes very wide. "Now comes the bomb that has burst into my life!" He could hardly speak in his excitement. "Last Tuesday I was in Colchester. I walked down Bent Street and happened to look in the window of the second-hand shop there, I saw, I saw"—he pressed his hands tightly over his heart to control his emotion—"oh, I saw a plaster cast of my dead wife's face exposed for sale and I knew"—he clenched his fingers viciously together—"that never in life or death had a cast of her been made."

A long silence followed with Mr. Carstairs looking away out of the window and biting upon his lip so that he should restrain his tears. Then Larose asked very quietly:

"And what are you suggesting, Mr. Carstairs? What do you mean?"

Mr. Carstairs turned sharply round. "Suggesting!" he exclaimed irritably. "I can't suggest anything." His voice dropped to awed tones. "But don't you realise the mystery of it? A cast of my dead wife, when no cast of her was ever made!"

"Come, come," said Larose gently, "is it not possible you may have made a mistake?"

"A-ah!" came from the other with a scowl, and he now looked most annoyed with himself, "but I ought to have shown you these first," and with shaking hands he opened the small bag he had with him and produced from a folder two large photographs. "See, these were taken of my wife only three weeks before she died, full face and profile." He pointed with his finger. "Note well that scar over the left temple. She got that from the motor accident, and it is most significant."

The photographs were those of a woman about fifty years of age, with an oval-shaped intellectual face and big dreamy eyes. Her expression was a very gentle one but, at the same time, rather sad.

"Now, compare them with this," went on Mr. Carstairs excitedly, and from the bag he now snatched out an object wrapped round many times with a thick roll of cotton wool. "Look! This is the cast I bought in the second-hand shop!"

Larose took the cast he held out and examined it carefully. It was that of the face, part of the neck and half of the head of a woman, set up upon an oval background about half an inch thick, all made of the same material. The whole thing was beautifully executed and although obviously composed of plaster of Paris, as could be seen where someone had cut into it at the back, the plaster had been so treated with some preparation of wax as to make it hard and enduring and resemble the colour of old ivory. At some time the cast had been broken midway across the chin but it had been mended, although a fragment was still missing from the join.

"And will anyone dare to say," asked Mr. Carstairs fiercely, "that this cast was not taken from the face in the photographs?" He snapped his fingers together. "Why, that scar on the forehead makes the matter beyond dispute!"

For a long minute Larose considered, looking alternately at the photographs and the cast, many times holding up the latter to examine it from every angle. Then he said very quietly: "You are quite right, Mr. Carstairs. This cast is that of your wife and it was made from a death-mask."

"But it couldn't possibly have been made from a death-mask," almost wailed Mr. Carstairs, "and that's the whole mystery. I didn't have a death-mask taken and no one else had any opportunity to make one. There were children in the house when she died and so the bedroom door was kept locked the whole time until the coffin was carried out for the funeral. No one entered the room without my being present. I saw the undertaker take the measurements of her dead body, I saw her put in the coffin, and I saw the coffin screwed down."

The interest of Larose was now thoroughly aroused, and he commented frowningly: "Then it's mysterious, most mysterious."

"Of course it is," exclaimed Mr. Carstairs irritably, "and if that cast were not made from a death-mask but taken from the living body, it is equally as mystifying." He punctuated his words with his hand. "That scar on the forehead narrows down the time from when the wound was beginning to heal after the motor accident to the moment when the coffin was screwed down, and never during those few weeks did anyone have access to her, in life or death, to get an opportunity to make a cast. I was always near her, and practically never left her."

Larose shook his head. "But this cast was not made from a mask taken during her lifetime. I am quite sure it was made from one taken after death."

"But how?" asked the other, his voice rising querulously. "That's what I've come to you about." He went on quickly: "I have told you about the locked bedroom door, and then under my very eyes the coffin was lowered into the grave, and before we had left the churchyard I saw the two grave-diggers, who had been standing by during the service, begin to fill it in. Barely an hour later I went back there on foot—my house is not a quarter of a mile from the church—with another wreath that had arrived after we had left, and saw the grave was already filled in."

"Well, it's certainly most puzzling," commented Larose, and then he asked sharply: "And how did the cast come into the hands of the second-hand dealer? I suppose there was no mystery there!"

"No, none at all," replied Mr. Carstairs instantly. "It was labelled 'St. Mary Magdalene' and I went in and bought it for five shillings. Then I said it reminded me so much of someone I had once known and I asked the proprietor of the shop from where he had obtained it. He said he had bought it last January at a lost property sale in the police yard at Colchester. It had been among some odds and ends of no value in a leather suit-case and he had bid for the lot to get the suit-case only."

"And what were the odds and ends, as he calls them?" asked Larose,

"There were several, he says, but except for two working shirts, he doesn't remember what. He recollects the shirts were new, but of very cheap quality, as he sold them to a garage man for three shillings."

"And, of course, you've enquired at the police station in Colchester to verify what he said?" suggested Larose.

"Yes, but I didn't get much satisfaction," replied Mr. Carstairs with a frown. "They said the sale had been the usual half-yearly one of unclaimed articles that had been found over a large part of Essex and that scores of suitcases had been collected from the different towns to put in the sale. They wanted more particulars to identify the particular suit-case and told me the search would entail a lot of trouble." He looked rather shamefaced. "I know I didn't make a good impression on them, because to show my right to make enquiries I invented a story about the cast having been stolen from me. Then when they asked me when and under what circumstances I hummed and hawed and then foolishly declined to say. So, in the end, they said they couldn't help me, and I came away in bad odour."

A short silence followed and then Larose asked: "Now was any jewellery buried with your wife?"

"Nothing but her wedding ring. She possessed very little jewellery at all. She was not that kind of woman."

Larose pointed to the cast. "Did you mend that break, then?"

"No, that's exactly as I bought it."

"Did the man in the shop mend it, then?"

"I don't know, I didn't ask."

Again Larose compared the cast with the photograph, and this time he was so long in his consideration that at length Mr. Carstairs broke in anxiously: "Do you think you can help me?"

Larose looked up. "I am not quite certain," he replied slowly. He regarded him very intently. "I'll be quite frank with you, Mr. Carstairs. You are an entire stranger to me and so, of course, I don't know how much reliance can be placed upon your memory. No, no, please don't get offended, but you see this investigation would mean quite a lot of work for me, and I should be very disappointed if it all ended in my finding you had made a mistake."

"Mistake!" gasped Mr. Carstairs. "In what way?"

Larose shrugged his shoulders. "You may have altogether forgotten that a cast of your wife was made after her death. You may be under the delusion——"

"Ah! I get you," broke in Mr. Carstairs quickly. "I see what you mean." For the first time his face broke into a smile. "You are thinking that because I am a spiritualist perhaps I may not be mentally sound." He shook his head. "Well, have no distrust there. I have been a spiritualist for five and twenty years and at the same time have conducted a very successful business in the city. Up to the year before last I was a member of the Stock Exchange, often employing more than twenty clerks. I had a splendid connection and"—he smiled broadly—"the man who could get the better of me in any deal had to get up very, very early in the morning."

"Well, well," laughed Larose, "in that case I feel more assured." He sobered down. "But if all your statements are correct, you must realise what can only have happened." He spoke very solemnly. "Your wife's grave was interfered with, for I repeat"—he tapped the cast with his finger—"this was made from a death-mask."

"But why are you so sure there?" came anxiously from Mr. Carstairs.

"The repose, the peculiar laxness of the cheek muscles and, perhaps above all, the sharpness with which the inner part of the nostrils has come out," replied Larose. He spoke emphatically. "I know a cast made from a death-mask when I see it, for I've examined hundreds made from murderers and murdered people, and I'd stake my life no quills were put up those nostrils to enable the subject to breathe while the mask was being taken."

"But why, in heaven's name," asked Mr. Carstairs, "should anyone exhume a body to make a cast of a face?"

Larose shrugged his shoulders. "That's what we've got to find out." He rose to his feet. "Yes, I'll make some enquiries about it and see what happens. Leave the photographs and the cast with me, and now give me that second-hand dealer's address."

The following morning Larose walked into the dingy little shop in Colchester where the cast had been bought, and asked a woman dusting over the things there if he could speak to the proprietor. The woman said she was sorry, he was away at a sale, but as she was his wife she could transact any business in his absence.

Larose thought she looked sharp and intelligent and so, with no hesitation, told her what he had come after, and asked her if she could tell him anything.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed the woman instantly. "I know all about it." She looked a little bit uneasy. "But if it was stolen from anywhere it's nothing to do with us, for we bought it honestly at the police sale. My husband told that other gentleman so last week."

Larose laughed merrily. "No, no, it's nothing to do with any stealing," he said, "and as far as I'm concerned I've only come here out of curiosity. The truth is, my friend who bought the cast the other day is very worried because it is exactly like his wife who died some years ago, and he can't think how there comes to be one of her." He smiled his most pleasant smile. "Now I only want to ask you a few questions, and the first one—can you be certain at which sale you bought the suit-case and its contents?"

"Quite certain!" replied the woman. "Why, I'll show you the sale in our books." She led the way into a little room behind the shop.

"My husband's very careful about keeping an account of all his expenses," she went on as she produced a small ledger from a shelf, "because of the income tax people." She grinned. "Perhaps he's not quite particular about all his receipts." She found a particular page and ran her finger down. "See, there it is, January 15th, leather suitcase, etc., six and sixpence. Oh, no, don't think we make a tremendous profit. I remember that suit-case quite well, and it was a damaged one. One end of the handle was torn off, and we had to pay for it to be repaired before we could offer it to anyone for sale, I had to put in a new lining, too, because the old one was so filthy dirty."

"But have you sold the suit-case?" asked Larose eagerly.

"Oh, yes, long ago, but we don't remember who bought it. We handle lots of suit-cases, as they always sell well."

"And what, then, do you recollect was in this particular one when your husband brought it home?"

"Just what he recollects and no more," replied the woman, "that plaster cast and two shirts." She frowned. "There were some other things, of course, but they were of no value or I should be remembering them. They were probably put in our sixpenny box and sold as rubbish."

"Ah, that reminds me!" exclaimed Larose. "That cast had been broken at some time. Was it mended when you got it?"

The woman shook her head. "No, I mended it myself. We were just going to throw it away as worthless, because part of the chin was missing, when I found the broken piece in a separate little parcel in the suit-case. It was well wrapped up in cotton wool and brown paper." She nodded. "Whoever lost the suit-case must have been thinking quite a lot of that cast, because it had been carefully rolled round in cotton wool, and cotton wool of very good quality, too."

"It was, was it?" said Larose thoughtfully. "And was there the label on it, 'St. Mary Magdalene'?"

The woman smiled. "No, I put that on. I thought it would sell quicker. The face was very sad and it seemed a good title."

Larose cross-examined her at some length and then, finally, took his leave with many thanks to her for her courtesy.

"But there's something funny here!" he murmured as he drove away from the shop. "The cheapest shirts and cotton wool of very good quality." He shook his head. "The two things don't harmonise."

The police station was his next objective. The superintendent did not happen to be in, but when Larose had made himself known, a sergeant there expressed his willingness to be of any service.

"Yes," he said, when Larose told him what he wanted, "it was I who spoke to the party who came about the same thing last week. He was a queer bird, and as he declined to answer our questions properly, we didn't make any move to help him." He explained: "You see, sir, it will be very difficult to place that particular suit-case from among some scores of others drawn from a radius of nearly fifty miles all round the districts. We shall have to ask for a report from a good many towns."

"But this suit-case ought not to be so difficult to trace," said Larose, "because it was one with a broken handle."

"Ah!" exclaimed the sergeant, "that certainly will make it much easier as it will be marked on some list sent here as 'leather suit-case, damaged.' I'll go and look up the files."

And Larose was not kept waiting long, for in a very few minutes the sergeant returned with a paper in his hand. "Here it is, Mr. Larose," he said smilingly. "This must be it. It was sent in from Saffron Walden and has got 'broken handle' on it." He nodded. "You see, any external defect has to be put down, so that we can be sure the damage was not done at this end."

Some three-quarters of an hour later Larose was at the police station in Saffron Walden and going through the lost-property records with the sergeant there. He had told the latter he had personal reasons for wanting to know what the particular suit-case had contained, and the sergeant, knowing him well by reputation, had shown himself most anxious to oblige.

The reference to the suit-case with the broken handle was soon found in the book, and Larose gave a low whistle when he saw it had been handed in upon the evening of September 7th, only three days after the burial of Alma Carstairs. He repressed a second whistle when, in reply to his enquiry, he learnt that Little Easton, the place of her burial, was only about ten miles distant from Saffron Walden.

It appeared the suit-case had been brought into the police station by a passing motorist who had picked it up on the Thaxted road about a mile out of Saffron Walden.

"And it had undoubtedly fallen off the carrier of a motor-bicycle," commented the sergeant, as he proceeded to read out what it had contained. "Well-patched inner tube of motor-bicycle, two new brown working shirts with no tab on them of place of purchase, broken plaster cast wrapped in cotton wool and brown paper, broken piece of cast, cotton lamp wick, two mantles for petrol lamp, three motor maps, large bunch of grapes in cardboard box, half a Dutch cheese, three pork sausages, and some newspaper." He smiled. "The grapes were kept until they had gone bad, and I expect the cheese and sausages were eaten here, too."

"Then do you remember this suit-case being brought in?" asked Larose.

"Oh, yes," replied the sergeant, "the grapes fix it in my memory. Besides, we don't get too many things brought in as we are off the main road."

"Is this your handwriting?"

The sergeant shook his head. "No, Constable Brook made those entries." His face brightened. "Ah, now would you like to talk to him? He's a very smart young fellow and probably will remember all about everything the suit-case contained. He's always amusing us by trying to tell us about the owners of lost things when they are brought in, and sometimes"—he nodded—"he's very near the mark."

"The very man!" laughed Larose, and so a bright-faced young constable was brought in and introduced.

Yes, he told Larose, he remembered quite well about that suit-case, if only because of the grapes. They were beautiful big hot-house ones, as fine as ever he had seen in any shop window in London, from where he came. The bunch had weighed over two pounds and they had all had a taste at the station.

"And what sort of party was it, do you think, who had lost the suit-case?" asked Larose smilingly. "Did you try to form any opinion there?"

The constable looked down the list of articles recorded in the book to refresh his memory. "He was a labouring man, sir, as the shirts were of very poor quality, and the inner tube had been mended so many times that anyone in good circumstances would certainly have thrown it away. The piece of Dutch cheese also suggested the same thing, and the fact that he had only bought half a pound of sausages inclines one to think he was a bachelor or, at any rate, lived by himself."

"Quite sound deductions," nodded Larose. "Go on."

"Then he was on his way home, sir," continued the constable, "because he had made his purchases and the suit-case had got in it as much as it could comfortably contain. Also, he was going away from Saffron Walden and not approaching it when the suit-case fell off."

"How do you make that out?" asked Larose.

"Because one doesn't come out of towns and go into villages to purchase things. His purchases concluded, he was leaving the region of any good-sized towns. Besides, it is hardly possible he would have filled up his suit-case at the beginning of his journey, instead of nearing the end of it."

"That seems good reasoning," agreed Larose, "and another thing of which we can be sure is that his journey that day was going to end at the same place where it had begun. He was not staying away for the night, as his suitcase contained no clothes or personal effects."

"And also," went on the constable, "he lives in some little out-of-the-way village which has no gas or electricity, because of the cotton lamp wick and those mantles he had bought."

"Well, what did you think was his occupation?" asked Larose.

"A gardener, I should certainly say," said the constable, "as two of the three papers in the case were weekly gardening ones."

"And what was the third paper?"

"A Times." The constable shook his head. "I couldn't understand that, but I don't think he had bought any of the papers himself, as I remember remarking to the others here that they were not current issues."

"You don't happen to remember the dates of any of them, of course?"

"No, but if it were important enough you easily can find out the date of The Times, for there was an article in it dealing with the pedigree breeding of canaries, I happen to keep canaries myself and it caught my eye and I read it."

They talked on for quite a long time, and then Larose made his good-byes and drove away with a very grave expression upon his face.

There could not be the very slightest doubt now, he told himself, that the grave of Alma Carstairs had been rifled and either the whole corpse bodily removed, or else—he made a grimace here—the head cut off at the neck and taken away. It was inconceivable to think the cast had been made from an authorised death-mask before she had been placed in her coffin, and that it was only just a coincidence that it had been lost barely three days after the burial, not ten miles distant from where she had been buried.

No, the husband had spoken the truth when he had averred so strongly that no one had meddled with the body before it had been lowered into the grave. So, undoubtedly, the cast had been obtained in an unlawful way, and the very fact that no one had come forward to claim the suit-case after it had been lost pointed to a guilty conscience on the loser's part. He had been afraid to claim it, because of what might have been the consequences.

What in Heaven's name did it all mean? Was anyone going about rifling graves, just to take death-masks of the faces of the dead? The very idea was preposterous!

Some twenty minutes later, Larose had parked his car just outside the churchyard of Little Easton and was walking round to locate the grave of Alma Carstairs.

An old man was clipping the grass edges at the sides of the paths and he touched his cap respectfully as Larose passed.

Larose quickly picked out the grave he wanted, as the sculpture over it was heavy and ornate, picturing the life-sized figure of a winged woman bending over. The lettering read—

TO THE LOVING MEMORY OF

ALMA CARSTAIRS

WHO JOINED THE HEAVENLY THRONG IN

THE FIFTY-FIRST YEAR OF HER AGE

"Ay!" he murmured, "and over what does that stone rest, an emptied coffin or the rotting body of a headless corpse?" The grave was well looked after with a beautiful show of late spring flowers.

Returning towards the gate of the churchyard, he was about to pass the old man again when a thought struck him and he stopped to speak.

"Some beautiful flowers here," he smiled. "Are you the gardener?" When the old man nodded, he went on: "I don't suppose you get many burials here now."

"No, sir, very few," replied the old man. "We haven't had one now for six months."

"Do you dig the graves?" asked Larose.

"Yes, sir, me and my son. The work's too heavy for me alone now, although I digged them myself up to five or six years ago."

"Do you always fill them in directly after the funeral?"

"Yes, sir, straight away. That's the custom and the law, too. An hour or two hours and all the earth has to be put back, and the wreaths laid on top."

"Have you ever found anybody disturbing the wreaths?" asked Larose.

The old man looked horrified. "Taking them away? Oh, no, sir, this is a quiet little village, and nothing like that goes on here."

"I didn't mean that," smiled Larose. "I meant you've never come back next day and noticed the wreaths different from how you'd placed them after the funeral?"

The old man considered. "Well, I won't say that, sir, because I've known folks come and pull at the wreaths to have a look at the cards on them and see who sent them, and once"—he nodded grimly—"when a great writer was buried here"—and Larose's eyes glinted in expectation as the old man jerked his head in the direction of the grave of Alma Carstairs—"a person of no quality in the village here pulled out his wreath from under the others and placed it on top." He frowned at the recollection. "I noticed it first thing the next morning, and it was just like his impudence, too."

"A sure thing!" murmured Larose, as he drove out of the village. "The wreaths were moved and the grave opened during the night." He shook his head. "But that old fellow had no hand in it. He's as honest as a clock."

That night, with a pencil and piece of paper before him, Larose started to go over everything he had learnt that day.

"Well, Gilbert," he said to himself, "you have now a splendid opportunity to show what your boasted powers of deduction are worth, and if that very lively imagination of which you are so proud is really as good as you have always thought it to be."

He sighed heavily. "Certainly, some imagination is wanted now, for how hopeless it seems to be able to trace any particular person from the contents of that suit-case! You've not much to go on, Gilbert, for you've only seen one of the articles that was in it, and so nearly all of your information comes to you second-hand."

His face brightened. "Still, you were very lucky to strike that young policeman in Saffron Walden this morning. He was unusually intelligent and what he remembered should be of great help. No, things are not really hopeless, for certain points stand out very clearly. The first—two distinct persons are involved here. One, a well-to-do person, and the other of the labouring classes. One gave and the other received, and that plaster cast was the bond of union between them. That bunch of grapes was a gift, and was not bought at any shop or nursery, because the policeman says it was in a tin biscuit box, tied up with odd pieces of string. Now that's not the way a shop would hand it over to a customer, neither would they put in good quality absorbent cotton wool to prevent it from being bumped about. A shop would use wadding and no cotton wool at all."

He nodded. "By the by, that woman in the dealer's shop also remarked upon the quality of the cotton wool in which the cast was wrapped, so undoubtedly both cast and grapes came from the same person, and as the grapes were ones that had been grown in a hot-house, then this first person, as I say, must be in good circumstances. Yes, he lives in a nice house with a good garden and conservatories and most probably keeps a gardener."

His thoughts ran on. "Now for what purpose did this rich man hand over the plaster cast to this poor man who wore cheap shirts and bought pork sausages three at a time?" He answered his own question. "Surely, for one purpose only, and that was that he should mend it. Of course, the rich man could have stuck the broken piece on just as the dealer's wife did, but he evidently wanted the repair done properly, with the little missing piece from the chin filled in and perhaps the whole cast dipped in the boiling wax again when it had been re-plastered at the back."

He nodded a second time. "And so that brings us logically to the conclusion that the poor man made the cast and the rich man had paid him for it, and then we at once ask ourselves the question, what manner of men are these two who conspire together to violate the dead? There is no doubt the poor man had a hand in it, if indeed he were not the actual violater of the grave, as he had undoubtedly considered it too risky to make any attempt to find out if his suit-case had been picked up and handed into a police station. The reasoning of that young policeman was quite sound and the man most certainly lives in this district. So he was afraid to make any enquiries, either because he was fearing that, Alma Carstairs being a public character and living near, the cast might have been recognised as one of her by someone at the police station, or else, he himself being well known in the district, he didn't want to arouse curiosity as to how he had become in possession of such a thing as a plaster cast."

He smiled to himself. "Now I'll start guessing. The rich man is an ardent spiritualist and he wanted a death-mask taken of Alma Carstairs, because he had been a great admirer of hers, and the poor man was a gardener and accustomed to shovelling earth. So the two put their heads together and this cast was the result."

His smile changed suddenly to a frown. "But am I right about that man being a gardener, simply because two gardening papers were found in the suit-case? Poor working gardeners don't run about on motor-bicycles with three well-thumbed motor maps in their possession, neither are they usually artists in plaster casts! That cast is quite a work of art, and the oval background of the plaque is of perfect shape, with the edges all beautifully bevelled as by a sure and accustomed hand. No, I don't think I'm right there. My guess is going, obviously, astray." He sighed heavily. "Now if I could only find somewhere to start off from. If only I could sense somewhere the beginning of a trail."

But, rack his brain as he might, he could not find anywhere to start off, and two days after his visit to Saffron Walden he was still doing nothing.

Then, on the third day, an idea came to him, and eight o'clock in the morning found him driving up to London in a much more hopeful frame of mind.