Читать книгу The Golden Bat - Fred M. White - Страница 6

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"I want you to understand," Barlington began. "That I was left a widower with two children, both of whom were quite young. My elder son has never caused me the least anxiety, and of him I say nothing. But Charles was different. I had to leave him to strangers, because, after the death of my wife, I threw myself, heart and soul, into my work, which kept me for the best years of my life abroad. So you will understand that my boys had largely to bring up themselves. Charles ought to have been all right; he was in perfect surroundings with the right sort of people, and at Eton he was a popular favourite. A good sportsman, and all that sort of thing. But I suppose there was a weakness somewhere, and at quite an early age he began to go astray. It was after one particular, disgraceful episode that I determined to have him with me out in South America. He came sullenly enough, but he did come, and for a year or two everything went well. Then, during one long leave of mine, he broke out again, and got himself into the most serious trouble with the authorities. The affair was too grave for me to interfere, and he fled up country with the girl he married. I never saw her, though I believe that she was a lady who had come out there as English governess to a wealthy Spanish-American family, but when Charles got mixed up with some sort of revolutionary business up in the hills where the Brazilian mines are, it was too late to do anything, and my unfortunate boy was shot as a spy, or betrayed into the hands of some murderous gang, and those miscreants not only shot him, but murdered his wife as well. I should never have known this, if it had not been told me a year or two later by a man who had come down country, and had been very nearly an eyewitness of the deplorable affair. He brought with him my boy's belongings in the shape of some packing cases, and when I came to open them, I found amongst them a little case that contained the Golden Bat. And, for some reason, I kept it, perhaps because it was rare, perhaps because it was extraordinarily beautiful, but I suppose mainly for sentimental reasons. At any rate, it was very good of Keen to take all that trouble."

"Who?" Ray almost shouted. "Who?"

"Keen, a man named Keen," Barlington said, looking up in mild surprise. "Edward Keen. He was a perfect stranger to me, and I have never seen him since. But I thought it was very nice of him to saddle himself with all those things."

Ray nodded absently. He was lost in a whirl of speculative thought, and out of it was gradually crystalising a stupendous idea. He was like a man who, in searching for an emerald, had suddenly blundered upon a great, shining-diamond. And the light of it dazzled him. But he put all this sternly out of his mind now, for there were other things to think of.

"I am indeed sorry to rake up all this unpleasantness," he said. "And all the more so, because I cannot even tell you why I am asking the questions. But you have given me a really valuable piece of information, which ought to lead to great results."

With that, they parted, and for the next few hours, Ray was free to pursue his own line of thought. The more he pondered over the problem, the more confused he grew. But somewhere in the back of the gloom, he could see a ray of light. Then, next morning, came one of those mysterious messages from Barle to the effect that Keen had left London by way of Paddington Station, as if on his way to the West, and that he had left the train at Reading, and had proceeded North, via Didcot and Oxford.

"Oho," Ray said softly to himself. "Well, I was right after all. And now, I think I will just run down to Shepperton, and have a good look over the Thatched House."

Armed with the proper credentials, there was no trouble whatever in reaching the Thatched House without attracting attention. He took with him an intelligent constable that he picked up in the police station, after a chat with the sergeant in charge there.

"Now look here," he said. "I want you to understand that I am a stranger to you people, and that I never heard the name of Barle mentioned. I am merely in here now asking a casual question. If any of your constables meet me in the street, they are not to speak to me, mind, that is, unless I give them the sign first. I should be down here frequently, and most of my time will be spent in the Thatched House. But I shall let you know when I am coming and it will be your duty, sergeant, to detail one of your men to keep an eye on the bungalow and give me the alarm in case anybody approaches it, whoever he is. I know there is no danger to-day, and that is why I am taking this man with me. No, you are not going to walk with me through the village, oh dear no. You will lag at a respectful distance behind, and see that we are not watched. Then, when the coast is clear, join me inside the house. By the way, have you had any journalists hanging about here during the last day or so?"

"No, sir," the sergeant grinned. "They have all cleared off. When they found there wasn't much in it, they stopped troubling us. But, if anything big turns up——"

"If anything big turns up," Ray said shortly, "they won't know anything at all about it. I will see to that all right."

He strode out of the police station into the sunlight, stopping just for a moment to light a cigarette, then, in an aimless sort of way with the policeman loitering a hundred yards behind, he drifted out into the country and across the footpath over the fields leading to the bungalow. It was a low, thatched building, standing all by itself, with nothing more than a cart-track on the far side, by which tradesmen had been in the habit of approaching the house. The bungalow itself had evidently been fenced off in the corner of a field, and within recent memory, somebody with a decided taste for gardening had made a successful effort to create a floral oasis there. The lawn was ragged with unshorn grass, the paths weedy, and the wide herbaceous borders choked with docks and nettles. But here and there flowers held up their heads, dahlias and stocks, and delphiniums struggling hard to live in the choking undergrowth. With a little care and attention, and by the employment of a couple of men for a week, the garden would have been a smiling paradise again. But, as it was, with weeds and flowers mixed, it presented a melancholy appearance of desolation and decay. Beyond it was a small orchard with broken frames here and there, and, in the far corner a wired enclosure which evidently had once contained poultry. Ray had a feeling as he looked round that the world was very far off just then. But it was just the sort of place where a recluse and a man of science would hide himself from the public gaze, and devote himself exclusively to his work, and from that side Ray could see nothing sinister about it. In front of the bungalow itself was a wide flagged terrace, and in the centre an antique leaden pump, which probably at one time had been over a well in the field, a well obviously used for the purpose of watering cattle. Some one had planted a Dorothy Perkins in a fissure of the pavement, and under this the pump was half hidden.

But all this troubled Ray not at all. He waited for the officer to come up and admit him, and, once inside, and secure behind the shuttered windows, he switched on the light, wondering, meanwhile, how much it had cost Moon to have the cable taken from the main road as far as the bungalow, and why? But this, for the moment, was of little matter. He was standing presently in the middle of the big library, the walls of which were literally covered with cases of butterflies and insects, probably the finest collection in the world. There were but a few books in one dark corner, and in the centre of the room a long writing table, every drawer of which was empty. Search as he would, Ray could find nothing in the shape of papers or documents to identify the house with its owner. He wandered aimlessly from room to room, looking for something, he knew not what, in the hope of stumbling on some clue, however small, by which he might establish a link in the chain which was slowly forming in the back of his mind. But, so far, nothing.

Everything was perfectly neat and tidy, the cooking utensils in the kitchen, the ashes in the open grate, which had not been removed, though the hearth was tidy enough; even the kitchen sink was sweet and clean. And yet, over everything there was that faint film of almost invisible dust that gathers in a house even when it is deserted and no one comes inside the front door for months. It was the same in the two plain bedrooms, where the beds were made, the pillow slips in their place, and the white linen bedspreads with their fancy borders just as they had been left when Moon last turned his back upon his bungalow and locked the front door. Nothing here to strike the most vigilant eye.

Then suddenly, in the better bedroom of the two, Ray came up all rigid, like a pointer in a turnip field. Very gently, with his little finger nail, he touched the bedspread and examined a minute speck of dust under the pink tip. From his pocket he produced a magnifying glass, and bent over four twig-like brown stains in the centre of the white linen cloth. He shut off the light, and threw back the shutters so that the brilliant sunshine fell exactly athwart the bed. He turned to his companion.

"Go out in the garden and get me a feather," he said. "A small, light feather. You will be sure to find one in that old fowl house. A white feather for choice. Be quick."

With the feather he lightly brushed the brown twigs, then bent over with his glass again. He smiled to himself as he scratched delicately at one of the stains, and, almost daintily, nibbled at his finger tips. It was like a mouse nibbling cheese.

"Found anything, sir!" the policeman asked.

"Yes, I have found a good deal," Ray smiled gently. "I have found that somebody has been here within a comparatively short time, and that this somebody, whoever he is, had a meal cooked in the house, and, moreover, partook of it in bed. I should say that it was breakfast, because a man does not usually indulge in eggs and bacon at any other time. Anyway, it is not long ago that somebody sat up in this bed and had a meal of eggs and bacon, and obviously somebody else cooked it, because a man doesn't get up and go back to bed to breakfast. Besides, what are those cinders doing in that very neat kitchen, otherwise? I shouldn't be at all surprised if two people have been living here for quite a long time."