Читать книгу Sea Fog - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 6

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I took to my heels on making this discovery, running down the hill-side, through the mist, in the direction of where, from my remembrance of the lights of the previous evening, I supposed the village, hamlet, or farmstead to lie. I don’t think I stayed a second by the dead man; certainly—a matter that became of serious moment to me before long—I never made any examination of him or his clothing. He was dead!—dead as man can be—and my instinct was to run, possibly to get away from the sight of him, a truly horrible object, possibly to find somebody to whom I could tell what I had seen. The thing is that I ran harder than I had ever run before in my life. And as I ran, going in great bounds down the slopes, I heard, not very far below me, a clock strike six.

I ran, suddenly, out of the mist, upon level ground to find, in front of me, the house and outbuildings of an old farmstead, ringed about with tall trees. It was a fine old place, and at any other moment I should have paused to admire its quaint architecture, and the effect of the morning sun, now dispersing the sea fog, on its red-brick walls mellowed in tint by age, and here and there half covered by a wealth of ivy. But I was looking for human life—and in another moment, rounding a corner of the outbuildings, I saw it. There was an orchard there, at the foot of an old-world garden, and over its low wall a man and woman were talking; she on one side, he on the other. I took a hurried glance at both as I made for them. They were not young people. She, who had a basket balanced on top of the wall, from which she was throwing corn to the fowls on the stretch of grass beneath, was a tall, buxom, handsome woman of something near forty; the man, a big, loose-limbed, athletic-looking fellow, with the unmistakable air and bearing of the soldier about his bronzed face, keen eyes, and grizzled moustache, was still older. But even if these two were of middle age, or approaching it, I remember that I saw, in that quick inspection of them, that they were lovers.

The man was on my side of the orchard wall, and I hurried straight to him, and he heard me coming, and turned sharply, and I saw his eyes widen at the sight of me.

“Hullo!” he exclaimed. “What’s this? What’s the matter, my lad?——”

I realised then that my breath was spent by that headlong rush down the hill. But I managed to choke out a few words.

“There’s a man been murdered!” I gasped. “Up there—the hill-top. Knifed! I saw it! The—the other man’s run away.”

The woman made an inarticulate sound of surprise and horror; the man gave me a good searching look.

“When was this, my lad?” he asked. “How did you come to see it?”

I told them as briefly as I could; they listened intently, staring at me. The man turned to the woman.

“Send one of your men down to the Sergeant,” he said. “Tell him to come up to the old mill at once and bring help with him.” He turned to me as she hurried away towards the house. “I’ll go back there with you,” he went on. “What’s your name, my lad, and how did you come to be on the hill-top?”

“My name’s Crowe,” said I. “Tom Crowe. I’ve been in the employ of Mr. Andrew Macpherson, grocer, of Horsham——”

“Aye!” he interrupted. “I know Andrew Macpherson—I’ve served on a jury with him once or twice at Quarter Sessions. Well?”

“The grocery trade didn’t suit me,” I continued. “Mr. Macpherson and I agreed it would be more in my line to try a sea-life. So I set off for Portsmouth or Southampton, day before yesterday. The first night I lodged at Petworth; last night I came to this old mill, above here, at dusk, and I decided to sleep in it. Then this man came. I’ve told you the rest.”

“You didn’t hear the second man come?” he enquired.

“I heard nothing after I went to sleep until I heard the scream,” said I. “When I looked out, they were fighting—struggling together.”

“And you didn’t get any clear view of the second man?” he asked.

“I didn’t—the mist was too thick,” I replied. “And he was off, clean lost in it, as soon as he’d struck the other man down. He seemed to be a man of about the same size; a thick-set man.”

He made no further remark just then, and we went steadily up the hill-side until we came to where the dead man lay. The fog had cleared a great deal by that time; the plateau around the old mill was quite free of it, though it still lingered amongst the fringes of the woods on the northern side. And beyond the dead man there was nothing to be seen; he lay still enough, and, as far as I could see, just as I had left him. The man I had fetched stood gazing thoughtfully at him for awhile, but he made no offer to lay hands on the body.

“A seafaring man, this, by the looks of him,” he said at last. “And in a new rig-out, eh? New clothes, new boots, fresh linen—I suppose there’ll be some clue on him, but we’ll wait till the policeman comes up. Show me where you saw him sleeping.”

I took him inside the mill, and pointed out everything relative to the doings of last night. He looked curiously at the place where the man had slept in the bracken, and presently picked up a crumpled newspaper which lay near, whereon there were grease-marks. I remembered then that this had been thrown away by the dead man when he unpacked the meat and bread from his knapsack.

“Evening News of last night,” said my companion, pointing to the date. “That looks as if he’d come to these parts by train. Some strange mystery in it, my lad——”

Just then we heard voices, and, hurrying out of the mill, saw men coming up the hill-side. Two, obviously, were farm-labourers, agog with excitement; the third was a burly, round-faced man, half dressed, but with the unmistakable cut of the drilled and trained policeman about him. He was already stooping over the body when we joined him and his wondering companions.

“Strange affair this, Captain!” he remarked, with a salute to the man who had come up with me. “Pretty savage thrust that’s been!” Then he turned and gave me a look that seemed to take me all in. “This the lad who gave the information? Just so!—Um!” He bent down again to the body and began examining the clothing. His fingers, deft enough, went from pocket to pocket. “There’s nothing on him!” he announced, glancing up at us. “That is—this is all!”

He threw out on the turf a handful of loose silver and copper, a handkerchief, and the knife with which I had seen the dead man cut up his bread and meat. And at that I let out a sharp exclamation.

“Then he’s been robbed!” I said. “He’d more than that! He’d a packet, inside that waistcoat—an inner pocket. Look!”

He unbuttoned the waistcoat still more; he had already had his fingers inside it at his first examination, and he found the pocket I spoke of, but there was nothing in it. Gingerly, he drew off the man’s knapsack, which lay crushed half under his shoulders and side; there was nothing in it but some remaining bread and meat and the bottle, of which one-third the contents still remained. And at that the sergeant got up, brushed his knees, and gave me another searching look.

“A packet, eh, young fellow?” he said. “And how do you know that?”

“Because I saw it, last night,” said I. “He took a map out of it!”

“A map, eh? And of what?” he asked. “This part?”

I had realised for some minutes that my best plan was to tell this representative of the law the whole story of my adventures since my walking out of Andrew Macpherson’s doorway. For I saw that he was regarding me with a sort of suspicion, and being conscious of my own innocence, and of the fact that I had ten pounds on my person, I resented it. “I’d better tell you everything that I know,” said I. “I’ve already told this gentleman a good deal, and he knows a man who’ll answer for me—I’m no tramp, if that’s what you’re thinking, and I could have afforded to stay at the best hotel in Portsmouth last night if I’d liked!—I only slept in that mill because——”

“It’s just because you did sleep there that you’re a valuable witness!” interrupted the sergeant, with a smile at my companion. “And you’ll have to tell what you know at the inquest, my lad! If you like to tell us now, by way of rehearsal——”

“I’ll tell you everything from the start,” I broke in. “And gladly, for it’s my belief I know the man who did this! If you’ll follow me——”

I begun at the beginning—not omitting to mention my possession of the ten pounds—and told them every detail of my adventures since leaving Horsham to the moment in which I saw the murderer run away. Once, at an early stage of my story, the sergeant interrupted me to send off the two labourers for a horse and cart; thenceforward he listened with keen attention, especially when I arrived at the episode of the packet. And in the end he once more examined the dead man’s clothing, more thoroughly than before, eventually rising to his feet with a decisive shake of his head.

“There’s no packet on him now!” said he. “You’re sure he put it back in his pocket after looking it over last night?”

“Dead sure!” I answered. “He wrapped the whole thing up carefully, and put it inside his waistcoat.”

The man whom I had brought up the hill looked at the sergeant.

“The fellow who knifed him must have stolen it,” he suggested. “Probably that was what he was after.”

The sergeant jerked his thumb at me.

“But he says that the murderer made off in the mist, the very instant he’d knifed this chap!” he remarked. “The very instant!”

“He did!” I asserted. “That very instant! He’d no sooner knifed him—I saw the flash of the knife!—than he was off and clean gone—down there. I’ll swear that he never even touched him after he’d used his knife on him.”

The sergeant stood with his hands clasped in front of him, calmly regarding the dead man, for some minutes, evidently musing.

“You ran off as soon as this happened, you say, and came across this gentleman, Captain Trace, at the foot of the hill?” he asked. “How long was it before you got back up here?”

But I was not competent to answer that; my brain was still confused with the events of that first awakening.

“I heard the clock strike six just before I reached the house down there——” I began. Then I stopped, and Captain Trace finished for me.

“We were up here within twenty minutes, Preece,” he said. “And, of course, within twenty minutes——”

“You’re thinking just what I’m thinking, Captain,” said Preece. “Time for the murderer to come back and rob his victim, eh? Maybe! But if the murderer had no reason to think that there was anybody about, why didn’t he seize the packet at once?”

“Well, I wasn’t thinking that,” replied Captain Trace. “What I am thinking, now that I’ve heard more, is that within twenty minutes there was plenty of time for a third person to rob this dead man. Eh?”

Sergeant Preece started, rubbing his chin.

“Third person?” he said. “I don’t follow you, Captain!”

“No?” replied Trace. “Look at this man, now! That’s a very good, rather expensive suit of the best blue cloth; his boots are good; everything about him shows that he wasn’t wanting money. What’s the exact amount you found there in his trousers pockets?—nine shillings and fivepence-halfpenny, in silver and copper. I think he’d have more than that on him, Sergeant! And I think he’d have a good watch and chain.”

“He had a watch and chain!” I exclaimed, suddenly remembering. “I saw them on him last night.”

“Gone, now!” continued Trace significantly. “I think this man was robbed after his death, during the twenty minutes in which his body was left alone. Probably he’d money—notes, perhaps—in that inside waistcoat pocket, as well as his map.”

Preece made no remark about this theory, though I could see he was thinking about it. He pulled out a note-book and pencil and turned to me.

“That man you met at Petworth, and saw again at Graffham?” he said. “Just give me an accurate description of him. Make it close, now!—don’t forget anything.”

I gave him a faithful, even circumstantial, description, and by the time he had got it all down the two labourers were coming back with the horse and cart and another man. I watched them winding round the hill-side as I furnished Preece with the final details.

“All right!” he said, putting his note-book away. “Now, you’ll be wanted at the inquest. Where were you going—Portsmouth? You’d better stay here, in the village down yonder, until to-morrow—I’ll try and get the inquest opened to-morrow afternoon. You’ve money on you, so——”

“I’ll take him home with me,” said Trace. He turned to me with a friendly look. “Come along with me, my lad,” he went on. “I know Andrew Macpherson, as I told you, and I dare say I can help you to what you want in the seafaring way. Come to my place if you want him, Sergeant—or me, either!”

“I shall want both,” remarked Preece dryly. “First and second witnesses!”

We left him superintending the removal of the murdered man’s body to the village inn, where, said Trace, it would have to lie in an outhouse until the coroner and his jury could sit on it, and went down the hill by the way we had climbed it. But instead of going forward to the old farmstead where I had found him talking with the handsome woman, my guide turned aside through a path that led through apple-orchards to the centre of the village, stopping at last before a cottage on which, it was evident, a good deal of money and taste had been laid out.

“Half in ruins, this, when I found it!” he remarked, with a smile, as he opened the gate and motioned me to enter. “I did it up. How’s it strike you?”

I said that I admired it greatly, especially the garden, which was already beginning to be bright and gay with flowers.

“Aye, it’s not half bad!” he answered. “Well, come in, my lad, and we’ll have some breakfast. Murder is a beastly thing, and vile to see—but it won’t have spoiled your appetite!”