Читать книгу The Man at the Carlton - Edgar Wallace - Страница 4

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I

It proved to be a misty morning, but he had no difficulty in following the trail he had traced overnight. One thing was certain: Jelf knew the house. He had found the private way in to the main floor, which he must have opened with one of the two skeleton keys that were found in his pocket when his clothes were searched.

Another discovery was that Jelf had in his possession some five hundred pounds in bank-notes, so there seemed no pressing reason why he should have accepted the job of chauffeur.

Near to where he had found the cigarette case Tim discovered a blood-stained silk handkerchief, and remembered that the "chauffeur" had had this rather conspicuously displayed in his top left-hand pocket. Here might be an explanation of the discovery of the gold case. The man had pulled out the handkerchief and pulled the case with it. It had contained three or four cigarettes, but no other clue than the engraved figures.

He could find no trail beyond the road, but, walking fifty yards, he came to a chained wicket gate which led into the cemetery. A very low wall surrounded this, and after searching up and down in a vain effort to pick up the trail, Tim jumped over the wall and wandered through the weed-grown patch amidst the mounds and crumbling stones that stood to the glory of departed generations.

He had heard about the mausoleum, and had seen it from a distance. It was a granite hut with a stone roof. How old it was he could not guess. On one side was an effaced inscription crudely cut and wholly indecipherable. The doors, however, had been more recently fitted. They were about five feet high and two and a half feet wide, and were of gunmetal. There was a brief inscription in raised letters:

"THOS. BRODIE, ESQ. AGED 70. UNIVERSALLY RESPECTED."

On the arched top of the door was a smaller inscription;

"THESE DOORS WERE ERECTED BY THE GRANDSONS OF THOS. BRODIE IN 1925, AS A MARK. OF THEIR RESPECT FOR THE MEMORY OF A GOOD MAN AND A GREAT BENEFACTOR."

The end of the tomb where the bronzed doors were was that which faced inward from the road. It must have been a family tomb; generations of Brodies must have been buried there. Tim began to understand the peculiar attraction of this gaunt house for Mr. Awkwright, a Brodie by marriage.

A high wall separated the graveyard from the grounds about the house, and, save for the wicket and the free-and-easy method of jumping the wall, there seemed to be no other entrance.

He was walking away when something attracted his attention, and, stooping, he picked up three sodden cigarettes. They were made by a London tobacconist and were not of a kind that can be usually bought at any tobacconist's shop. Moreover, they had this interest for Tim, that they were exact fellows of the cigarettes he had found in Jelf's case. They lay together as if they had been deliberately thrown down. None of them had been lit, and on each of the three he detected the little depression made by the elastic band which bisected one half of the cigarette case.

Jelf had dropped them there; he had been in the churchyard on the previous night.

Tim began a search for bloodstains, and walked the whole length of the wall, scrutinising every stone, without success.

As he walked slowly back to the house a girl came through the mist to meet him. It was Mary Grier.

"Of course I didn't go to bed!" she said scornfully. And then, in a more serious tone: "Did you find anything?"

"Nothing," he said, "except these."

He showed her the cigarettes and told her of the case he had found. She made no comment.

"You haven't found any--anybody, have you? I mean, there is no trace of the murderer?" she asked anxiously.

"No; he got away. The police are investigating in every village. It's too early for them to report, but I should imagine they'd find him."

"I hope they won't find him," she said in a low voice, and was turning away when he caught her by the arm.

"Why do you say that, Mary?"

She forced a smile.

"I don't know...hysteria, I suppose! Or possibly I have a criminal mind--I once stole seventy pounds! Don't smile--I did--seventy pounds in bank-notes out of a steel box. I was desperate--you don't know how desperate I was!"

She was overwrought, so near to hysteria that her emotion might be mistaken for the real thing; and he knew she was telling the truth. Once she had stolen seventy pounds, and the knowledge of this was an obsession. It had to be blurted out now, when her nerves were on edge and she was near to breaking point.

"You stole seventy pounds, did you?" he chuckled. "That's nothing--I once stole a thousand! We're fellow criminals, Mary, and neither of us has been found out--"

"I was." The words came jerkily. "Almost as soon as it was stolen...and there was no escape for me. I wasn't even called upon to lie."

She was breathing quickly, and when he took her arm he found she was shaking.

"Let's walk," he said authoritatively, and as she went by his side obediently, "I told you to sleep, and you didn't, and that is why you're jumpy. It is a fine morning--let us eat something!"

Nearing the house, she told him more calmly that she had telephoned the news to Mr, Awkwright, and that he was returning at once.

"I don't think I'll have any breakfast," she said. "It's very early....I really will try to sleep."

He left her at the foot of the broad stairs that led out of the cold, gloomy hall.

"I think the young lady's very wise."

Tim turned with a start; he had not seen Stocker in the shadows.

"Oh, you do, do you?" he said, and his tone was not of the friendliest. "Where did you spring from?"

"I came in after you, sir. You've been to our churchyard."

"How do you know?" asked Tim sharply.

He could not have been seen from the house for the mist was still thick.

"I followed Miss Mary when she went out, and I saw you," said Stocker coolly.

"Why did you follow her?"

The stout man smiled.

"After what happened in the night, sir, I didn't think it was very safe for the young lady to be wandering about a lonely road by herself, and I took the liberty of going after her."

There was no reply to this, Tim felt.

"Were you here some years ago, when Miss Grier was attacked on the road by a man?"

Stocker nodded.

"Yes, sir, I have always been here during the tenancy of Mr, Awkwright. I remember it very well, sir. I gave the young lady first-aid."

"Did they ever find the man who did it?"

"I can't remember," said Stocker, with a beaming smile, "but I rather imagine he escaped."

"Mr. Awkwright gave you orders to look after her, eh?"

"No, sir, Mr. Awkwright has never expressed a view on the matter."

At seven o'clock came Mr. Awkwright himself, a pallid, trembling old man with a harsh voice, eyes that glared suspiciously from Tim to the watchful Stocker, and a manner that was constitutionally antagonistic to all humanity.

"What's all this, what's all this?" He spoke rapidly and with unexpected vigour. "Bringing a chauffeur here, Jordan, and getting him murdered...in my house! What's the meaning of it? It wasn't necessary for you to come here at all: I wrote to you and told you it wasn't necessary. You could have seen my lawyers in town. If you hadn't come this wouldn't have happened. Where is Miss Grier?"

"She's lying down, sir," said Stocker.

"Get her--I want her; I have some very important letters to write."

"And she has some very important sleep to get," said Tim coolly. "Dictate 'em to me. I write a fairish kind of shorthand."

The old man scowled at him, hesitated, and then: "Come into my study," he said.

Tim followed him along the corridor into the untidy room.

Its only title to the description the old man gave of it was that here he studied the form of thoroughbred racehorses.

Tim was puzzled. Benjamin Awkwright was acting; he was certain of it from the moment the old man had come into the house and begun snapping his questions and comments. Why was he acting? What had he to conceal? All this bullying, hectoring manner of his was put on for the occasion; the real Mr. Awkwright was betrayed by the white face, the quivering hands, and the pathetic droop of his mouth.

"Sit down, Jordan," said the old man, and dropped into his own comfortable desk chair with a groan. "I'm sorry this thing has happened, but it can't be helped. I suppose you've no idea who killed your man?"

"None," said Tim.

"Did it happen in the house?"

Tim shook his head.

"No; on the road. It seems a senseless sort of murder. I haven't told the police, but before he died Jelf said that he had been stabbed by the same man who attacked Miss Grier."

"What?"

Old Awkwright came to his feet, glaring at the young man.

The colour of his face had become suddenly livid. In his wide-open eyes was a horror he could not conceal.

"That's a lie!" he quavered. "She didn't tell me that--and she would have told me!"

As suddenly as he rose he collapsed over the desk. Tim thought he had fainted, but he waved away all offers of assistance.

"I'm all right," he mumbled. "Indigestion....Sit down, sit down, Jordan."

He seemed to have shrunk. His face, entirely colourless, appeared even more shrivelled.

"Tell me all about it. Don't mind me, Jordan. I'm rather upset this morning. At my age...being called out of bed with this dreadful news."

Tim Jordan told the story briefly, and the old man listened without interruption.

"You know nothing about this man Jelf?" he quavered at the finish of Tim's narrative. "Who he was, where he came from? Why did you engage the man? Why did you bring him here? It's the sort of thing you've done all your life. You haven't considered me in the least...thoughtless, selfish!"

He was working himself up to a fury, but behind his anger was fear, an anguish of mind which he could not conceal. Tim recognised, too, the antagonism that the old man had always shown to him.

"I wish to God I'd never seen you or heard of you!" he went on violently. "Why did your father burden me with your affairs? I'm going to put an end to it. My lawyers will settle with you!"

Tim was staggered by his vehemence, though he could understand that his guardian was temporarily knocked over by the dreadful thing which had happened in his house.

The old mouth drooped even more pathetically.

"I hate this country, I hate this house. God hasn't been good to me! Life has been a curse to me..."

Tim made his escape, and the broken old man did not notice he had gone.

He strolled out into the garden, if garden it could be called, walked along the front of the house, and came to the big door of the chapel garage. It was detached from the house, a high-walled building with mullioned windows that once had held priceless specimens of stained glass. The structure was a very old one; the granite walls had weathered and in places were covered with ivy.

He walked all round the building and came back to the big door, where to his surprise he found Stocker.

"A queer old place, sir." Stocker beamed at him. "It goes back to the twelfth century, so they say. There used to be a castle here...." He became descriptive.

"What is inside?" asked Tim, stopping the flow of garbled history.

Stocker put his hand in his pocket, pulled out a key and, thrusting it into the lock, turned it and pulled open one of the leaves of the two doors. Tim walked in. He had expected to find an untidy litter of old tyres, petrol tins and spare parts, but the interior of the garage was in a remarkable state of orderliness.

There were two cars--a big roadster, covered by a waterproof sheet, and a smaller machine--and a powerful-looking farm tractor on caterpillar wheels.

"Where is Jelf's machine?" he asked.

"He took it to the village, sir, Mr. Ledbetter is rather particular about strange cars being garaged here. We once had a fire, or nearly had a fire, as the result of a chauffeur's carelessness."

"Whose car is that?" Tim pointed to the big roadster under the cover.

"Mr. Ledbetter's, sir. He does a lot of motoring when he's at home. The smaller one belongs to Mr. Awkwright."

"And the tractor?"

Stocker smiled.

"That is ours, sir. We intended farming some land--we have got about a hundred acres--and Mr. Ledbetter purchased the tractor, and then changed his mind."

Tim examined the powerful machine carelessly. Behind the driver's seat, and hanging to the back of the car, was a coil of steel rope. The machine had done very little work: there was no sign of clay or mud on the caterpillar; and he questioned the butler.

"No, sir, it has never been on the field. I wanted Mr. Ledbetter to sell it, but he's rather peculiar; he never sells things he has purchased. In fact, he has refused a very large offer for the house--much more than it's worth. I notice you're looking at the padlock and chain. That is another of Mr. Ledbetter's peculiarities. He doesn't like things used until he has decided how they can be used."

"So that if you wanted to take the tractor out you couldn't?"

"We never wish to take the tractor out--I know nothing of agriculture."

Tim came out of the garage, apparently unimpressed. Unless Mr. Ledbetter had been in the house very recently, Stocker was lying; for on the solid stone floor there was a distinct mark of a track which had been recently made.

Tim Jordan had hoped to leave Clench House a few days after his arrival, but the death of Jelf involved an inquiry, at which he had to give evidence.

He saw very little of Mary the first day. The three of them dined together almost in silence, Mr. Awkwright glowering at the girl every time she attempted to make conversation. After dinner he took her away to his study, and Tim gave up hope of seeing her again that night; but just as he was thinking of going to bed she returned, looking very tired. Looking at her closely, he saw that she had been crying. She might have used all manner of methods to hide the fact, but they did not deceive him.

She had something to say to him; he realised that she had come back for that purpose when she moved her position from the end of the table and sat opposite to him.

"Captain Jordan, Mr. Awkwright says that the inquiry will be ended, as far as you're concerned, the day after tomorrow, Are you going back to London?"

"Yes," he said, in surprise, "but I thought I should be here a week."

She shook her head. "Mr. Awkwright thinks that it can be arranged for your evidence to be taken."

"Does he want to get rid of me?" he asked bluntly.

"Don't you want to go?" she countered. "You ought to be very happy! If I could only--" She stopped suddenly.

"If you could only go? Why don't you?"

She drew a quick breath. "Don't be absurd. Why should I want to go?"

She took out of the little bag which lay before her a slip of paper. "When you get back to London will you have your solicitors see Mr. Awkwright's and arrange the transfer of your money? He is very anxious to--" She hesitated for a word.

"Get rid of me?" he suggested, and she smiled faintly.

"Something like that."

She looked at him for a long time.

"Are you going to tell me?" he asked gently, and she started.

"Tell you what? There is nothing to tell."

"There's a lot to tell," he said; "but at the moment you feel you can't, eh?"

She rose abruptly. "I wish you'd go back to London," she said. "I'm serious. You can't do any good here, and I feel your presence is worrying Mr. Awkwright."

"Worrying you?" he asked.

There was a little pause.

"Yes"--almost defiantly. "It does worry me a little."

"But why?"

She either could not or would not answer this.

"Are you expecting another murder?"

It was a stupid question to put--a little cruel. The effect upon her was remarkable. Her face went whiter than it had been.

"How can you say that?" she asked, and, turning quickly, almost ran out of the room.

Tim Jordan was puzzled. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he had suddenly turned over a stone and seen all manner, of strange, creeping things that the imagination of man had never conceived.

What was the girl doing in all this? Who was the man who had once wounded her? Stacker could tell, but he recognised the futility of questioning the butler. It would be better, perhaps, to follow her advice and take his belongings to the nearest inn, for he realised that it was not so desirable that he should return to London as it was that he should leave the house.

The inquiry would take two or three days, but he would be able to contribute very little to the sum of information which the police had, and already they were in possession of the vital facts..

That night when he went to bed he locked the door, which was an unusual proceeding on his part. But there was no interruption to his slumbers. When he woke the sun was shining through his window, and, dressing, he went downstairs and out through the garden on to the road.

On the previous afternoon he had handed over to the police the gold cigarette case, but he had only done this after he had been into the village, discovered a photographer, and had the inscription carefully photographed. He had made no mention of the cigarettes he had found in the graveyard; they were his own private clue. He had made up his mind to work independently of the official investigators, but was still in some dilemma as to where and how he should start.

He examined the enlarged print he had secured, but found no inspiration there. When he came back to the house after his walk, Stocker had laid a solitary breakfast on the long refectory table. That stout man was very cheerful.

"Have you found anything, sir?"

It irritated Tim that the man should assume he was in search of information.

"Why should I find anything?"

"I thought you were unusually interested in the case, sir. Naturally, being a police officer, you would be interested. My own opinion is that the murder was committed by a tramp. There have been some pretty bad characters about here lately."

"That's fairly obvious, isn't it?" said Tim dryly. "One of them was a murderer. Did you know Jelf?"

"Jelf? You mean the unfortunate man? No, sir, I have never seen him before. In fact, I didn't see him at all. He spoke to one of the kitchen-maids, and took his car down to the village before I could see him."

"You didn't by any chance go into the village?"

"No, sir."

Tim smiled.

"If I told you that you were seen a few hundred yards from here just after dark, quarrelling with Jelf, what would you say? You were seen by two people. I think it is only fair to tell you that that is the information which the police have and which they communicated to me last night."

Stocker was in no sense perturbed.

"Was that the fellow?" he said coolly. "I certainly did have a slight disagreement with a man I met quite by accident. He was rather drunk. I thought he was a local. So that was Mr. Jelf!"

Visibly he was not put out by the news, but Tim detected a sort of tightening-up of his caution. There was an indefinable change both in his attitude and in his speech. He still preserved the appearance of carelessness. Actually, Tim saw, he was alert, with all his defences set against surprise.

"It only shows you how perfectly innocent people can be implicated," he said. "The man knocked against me as I was walking back to the house--I invariably take a little constitutional before turning in. I tried to avoid him, but he was intent upon picking a quarrel. I admit he annoyed me. I probably said things to him which in the circumstances I now regret. Eventually he went on his way, and I returned to the house. So that was Jelf!" he repeated for the third time. "I had never connected him with the unfortunate man who was murdered."

"What time was this?" asked Jordan.

Stocker looked up at the ceiling.

"It must have been nearly eleven o'clock. It was just after you had gone to bed," he said.

When the police came later they interrogated Stocker, and seemed satisfied with the explanation he offered. It had some support from other information they had received. Jelf had spent the evening at a little public-house, where he drank, spirits and was indeed inclined to be quarrelsome.

The day was a particularly dull one for Tiger Tim Jordan.

He lunched alone and did not see Mary Grier until late in the afternoon. She spent most of the day behind the closed door of Mr. Awkwright's study. Apparently he was a man who had a great deal of business, for Tim heard a typewriter going every time he paced past the study window in the hope of catching a glimpse of her.

The Chief Constable came with the police, and Tim was told there would be no objection made if he left, providing he was prepared to return to give evidence at the adjourned inquest.

Jelf had given him a London address, which his employer had passed on to Scotland Yard, but here they drew blank. It was a little furnished room in South London, which the man had not occupied for a week. A search of his few belongings gave no other clue to his identity.

Tim was coming away from the telephone in the hall when he saw the girl. She was hurrying towards the foot of the stairs, and was apparently not particularly anxious to see him, for she would have passed on with a nod, but he stood squarely in her way.

"When am I going to see you?" he asked.

"I don't know; I am rather busy."

She was looking very tired, and he had not the heart to force his company upon her, but returned to the solitude of the drawing-room. He had not been there very long when Stocker came in.

"There's a 'phone message for you, sir."

"Is it the police?"

"No, I don't think so, sir. The lady wouldn't tell me her name."

"A lady?"

He got up quickly and went out into the hall. Somebody asked him in a low voice if he was Captain Jordan, and when he replied in the affirmative: "Can I see you?"

"Who is it?" he asked. The voice was familiar, but for the moment he could not place it.

"Mrs. Daney. Could you come along the Glasgow road? You'll find my car waiting for you. I think I have something very interesting to tell you."

He hesitated.

"All right," he said at last, 'I'll be with you. How far must I go before I meet you?"

"Not far," said the voice, and there came the click of the receiver as she hung up.

Jelf's car was in the hands of the police, but the garage proprietors, realising Jordan's predicament, had offered to hire him a car whenever he wanted one. He telephoned them, and in ten minutes a car was at the door. He had to go five miles, and on the outskirts of a little village he came upon a big coupe drawn up on the verge of the road. He stopped his own machine, got out and walked the fifty yards which separated them.

Mrs. Daney sat at the wheel. Even in the hard light of day she was a pretty woman, though she was much older than he had thought at their first meeting.

She opened the door.

"Come inside," she said.

She glanced back through the window at the back of the hood. "Your chauffeur will wait?"

He nodded.

"A man has been murdered here--a man called Jelf, isn't it? Do you know him? His real name is Jaffrey."

"How do you know?" he asked quickly.

"Because I have seen him." Her voice was perfectly calm. "It was rather beastly, but the police let me see him. I told them I might be able to identify him. Walter Jaffrey. He was one of my husband's gang. He was in the Mersey job. Lew quarrelled with him. Jaffrey couldn't go straight and Lew fired him. He used to be in charge of the get-away car. I warned Lew against him."

"Why have you come up here?" he asked bluntly.

"I am rather anxious to meet Lew," she said. "I want to give him one more chance. I knew that where Mary Grier was. Lew would be."

"Are you suggesting that your husband killed this man?"

She smiled contemptuously and shook her head. "Ask Mary Grier who killed him. She knows!"