Читать книгу The Caravan Crime - Fergus Hume - Страница 7

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Lawson instinctively knew that Miss Hamber not only recognised him immediately, but had guessed at his presence in the house from the moment Mrs. Trotte had taken up Selwin’s summons. Consequently, so far as he was concerned, she had her feelings completely under control, and after an indifferent glance in his direction addressed herself pointedly to the constable. With him, indeed, she was anything but indifferent, displaying considerable distress and alarm. But for the fear of waking her brother, she would undoubtedly have been even more vehement in showing her anxiety. As it was, she spoke in an eagerly enquiring whisper. “Is it true?” she asked, trying to control herself.

“Yes, miss,” Selwin spoke as softly as she did, knowing, from village gossip, that the baronet’s nerves were dangerously shattered by his motor car accident, and that possibly to waken him suddenly might wreck his reason. “She is dead. Her body is lying in the drawing room.”

“Lady Hamber! Dead!” Audrey shivered, and turned even paler than she was.

“Shot through the heart,” whispered Dick over Selwin’s shoulder, and with his eyes fixed intently on her anxious face.

“Murdered?” She put the question with a quick indrawing of her breath.

“Undoubtedly.”

“By—by—whom?”

“So far we don’t know, miss,” struck in Selwin, staring alternately at the girl and the sleeping man. “Have you any idea who—”

“No!” she interrupted, quietly positive, her bosom rising and falling with overpowering emotion held in check determinedly. “I have been here for the greater part of the evening holding my brother’s hand. He will wake if I take it away.”

“Can’t you come downstairs, miss, and explain?”

“There is nothing to explain,” replied the girl, fiercely, but keeping her voice to undertones. “I can’t leave my brother; I won’t leave him. This is the first sound sleep he has had for nights and nights. If he wakes he may lose his sanity. You know, Selwin.”

“Yes, miss. That accident broke him up a lot, miss. Shan’t stay longer than I can help; but you understand, I must hunt while the trail is hot.”

“Yes! Yes! It’s terrible—horrible!” She wiped her pale lips with a cobweb handkerchief. “Anything I can say or do to help—”

“Of course, miss. Perhaps you can explain why Lady Hamber went into the wood?”

The surprise exhibited by the girl was so perfect that had not Dick been aware of recent events, he would have been deceived. “Was she in the wood?”

Selwin nodded respectfully. “We found her body on the path leading to the park.”

“On the path leading to the park,” repeated Audrey, and again her manifestation of surprise was a masterpiece of acting. “But how did it—I mean, how did she get there?”

“That is what I am trying to learn, miss,” said Selwin, drily. “If you—”

“But I know nothing,” she interrupted again, and again in a fierce whisper. “About half-past 9 I came up here to sit with my brother, who retired to bed at 8 o’clock.”

“Leaving Lady Hamber and Mr. Randolph, in the drawing room, miss?”

“Oh, no, I left her there, but Mr. Randolph had already gone to bed. He has been staying with my Uncle Oliver at Sarley Grange, and told me that he had been walking over the grounds during the day for miles. So he went to bed early, and, as my brother needed me, I left Lady Hamber in the drawing room. She said she was going to the library to write business letters.”

“And you have been in this room ever since half-past 9, miss?”

“Yes,” said Audrey, boldly, and stared directly at Dick, who stared back in an equally searching manner. The situation adjusted itself between them without words, and she drew a deep breath of relief. “Sitting beside my brother.”

“And you know nothing, miss?” Selwin looked disappointed.

“No!” she said, resolutely, but this time did not look at Lawson, aware by her previous glance that what he knew he would keep secret.

The constable stood irresolute, overcome by the situation. A more independent and zealous officer would have insisted upon her coming into the presence of the dead, so as to shake her into possible confession, presuming that she had any knowledge. But Selwin was a native of Sarley Village, and his hereditary respect for his local superiors prevented him from pushing things to extremes. Also the danger of the sickness complicated matters. With a remembrance of his former master’s resourceful mind in African wilds, he turned to him for counsel.

“What do you think, sir?”

“I think that Miss Hamber has said all she can say for the moment,” advised Dick, promptly. “Tomorrow morning, when released from her vigil, she can tell more—that is, if she knows more, which I doubt.”

Audrey shot him a grateful glance. “I don’t—don’t know—more,” she gasped, “and I—I can’t—bear any—any trouble at present. This horrible death is enough.”

“Naturally!”

Lawson, taking Selwin’s arm, guided him gently to the door, where Mrs. Trotte hovered anxiously.

“Don’t worry, Miss Hamber,” he added, looking back with his eyes on her feet, “all will come right in the end.”

Audrey drew her feet under her kimono, guessing from his significant glance exactly what he meant she should guess. The excuse of holding her brother’s hand did away with the risk of rising and revealing a sprained ankle. If Selwin saw that she limped he would probably have declined belief in her staying-at-home tale. Dick knew, and she knew that he knew, that several lies had been told during the last 15 minutes; but these were white lies to save someone—possibly the young man on the bed, who had slept throughout the conversation. On the way down the stairs, at the heels of the voluble housekeeper and Constable Selwin, Lawson considered the matter. If the sick brother with shattered nerves had retired to bed at 8 o’clock, he, naturally, could not have been hidden in the wood to fire the shot. There was someone else concerned in the matter, he felt sure, if only to carry back the girl to Sarley Court, since she could not have walked hither with a sprained ankle. Out of gratitude, she might be, and probably was, shielding this person, for in no other way could he account for her obstinate deception. Of course, in thus acting a difficult part, she was lying cleverly and cautiously. Dick disapproved of falsehood, but was forced to be lenient in his judgment, remembering how he had lied himself earlier in the evening. More, he admired the pluck of the girl in facing a desperate situation so resolutely. She was to him a heroine, as well as a beauty. It must be confessed that her attractive looks biassed the young man in his conclusions, for, if it was possible to fall in love at sight, he was fathoms deep in an ocean of nectarous sweetness. “But it is a devil of a mess,” ruminated Lawson, on returning to the drawing room. The ordinary duties of a country policeman had not educated Selwin into dealing with mysterious crimes, and he was baffled at the outset. The servants, Mr. Randolph, Miss Hamber, all had told their various stories, honestly enough, it would seem. These threw no light on the darkness, indicated no trail, pointed to no safe conclusion. In a quandary, Selwin appealed again to Lawson for advice. And as Dick was as much an inborn ruler as the policeman was an inborn servant, he promptly interpreted the appealing glance, giving Selwin the credit of being in authority. “As you suggested to me, constable,” he said, when all were looking to the officer for guidance, “it will be best to leave things as they are until the morning.”

“Of course, sir.” Selwin was grateful for sound advice, masked under an open recognition of his official position.

“You should arrest me, Selwin. It would show real zeal an your part,” said Dick when they passed out into the park.

“Show me up as a bally idiot, sir,” exclaimed Selwin. “Ain’t I known you for four or five years, inside out?”

Dick nodded, touched by the man’s loyalty. “Still, the body was found in the wood, and I was camping in the wood. I might have a revolver—”

“I take your word for it, sir, that you haven’t,” struck in Selwin, swiftly.

“All right between you and I, Selwin, but we must satisfy the coroner as to that. Just shift my goods in the caravan to make sure of my honesty.”

Openly grumbling at this cautious advice, but recognising its wisdom, Selwin pushed on, through the park and the wood, finally arriving at the glade. Here he went through the contents of the caravan methodically, turning over everything both inside and outside. Also he searched the glade and the path, but without any result in any direction. “Clever chap that chap as did it sir,” commented the baffled constable, with a shrug of despair, “ain’t left never a trace behind him. Now I’m going to the post office to knock up the gal with the wire and get a telegram sent off to my inspector at Tarhaven. And you, sir?”

“I shall stay here and get some kind of a sleep. Unless you want me, of course.”

“No! No! That’s all right, sir. See you at sunrise, sir.”

When Selwin went off with a hasty salute Dick filled his pipe, rekindled the fire, and boiled a kettle of water to brew himself some strong tea, which refreshment he very greatly required. Then, instead of seeking his bed, he sat by the fire, thinking deeply. The girl—her brother. Was she guilty; was he guilty? When the dawn came with golden lights and winging birds, dew on the grass and wind in the trees, he was as far off as ever from finding answers to these leading questions.