Читать книгу Murder of the Ninth Baronet - J. S. Fletcher - Страница 6

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Chaney left the room; I waited; the servants were handing round coffee and cigars. Rupert Maxtondale had already disappeared; he had bolted, rather than eaten, his dinner; it seemed to me that he was badly upset about something. After the obvious check from his father, he had relapsed into silence, and if he looked round at any of us, it was with questioning, if not wholly suspicious, glances. There was something about him to which I took an instinctive dislike; a furtive air, a sullen expression; he was altogether different from Sir Stephen, who was frankness itself.

Waiting a few minutes, until Sir Stephen and Mr. Ellerthorpe had begun to talk, I left the room and in the hall found Chaney, in conversation with one of the footmen. He motioned me to put on my overcoat; together we passed out to the terrace in front of the big house. That was lighted by the gleam from the long range of windows; outside in the far-spreading pleasure-grounds and the park beyond, the night was already dark. Above the woods in the distance we could see in the sombre skies the reflected glow of the lights of Monkseaton; from that direction, too, we heard the rumble of the rising and falling machinery of the colliery shaft; the night shift, doubtless, was going down to its subterranean labours.

“I’ve found out the way to Robson’s place,” whispered Chaney, as we walked away from the house. “We take this path at the end of the terrace and follow it across this side of the park till we come to a biggish house on our left; that, so says that flunkey I was talking to, is the steward’s place—Mr. Weekes. After that there’s a cluster of cottages—labourers’ dwellings. And a bit farther on there’s a big farmstead—that’s the home farm. Robson’s. We call on Robson—privately.”

“With what object?” I asked. “The man’s already under suspicion!”

“But he doesn’t know that,” replied Chaney. “At least, if he’s gathered that he is or suspects that he is, or if he’s really guilty, he’ll not let us see that he knows or suspects anything, unless he’s a fool. No, we’ll call politely and civilly, tell him that at Sir Stephen’s request we are making search for his brother, Sir John, and ask if Mr. Robson or any of his household have seen anything of that gentleman. Object? The object, Camberwell, is to get a peep at Robson!”

“You think you’ll gain something by a personal inspection?” I suggested.

“Oh, well, I’m not a bad hand at sizing up a man!” chuckled Chaney. “I think I can read a man’s face pretty well. Anyway, it’s better to be doing something than sitting in there with Sir Stephen and old Ellerthorpe, speculating on this or that theory. By the by, what did you think of the son and heir—young Rupert?”

“Didn’t like him at all!” I said.

“Nor did I!” he declared fervently. “Far from it! Mark my words, Camberwell, that youngster’s got something on his mind, some secret that he daren’t let out. That accounts for his surliness, furtive look, and general restiveness. He’s been up to something and daren’t let papa know. I shall watch him. Did you see how excited he was about the rumour he’d heard? Well, did you guess what was in his mind? I did! He was thinking: ‘If my uncle John has turned up, and if he’s married, and if he’s got a son or sons, where’s my chance of the baronetcy and the Maxtondale properties?’ Eh?”

“You think that was it?” I said.

“Bet your life! Natural, too, I suppose. If I were a young fellow of that age, expecting to succeed to an old title and fine estates, I shouldn’t welcome anything that threatened to deprive me of my prospects. No, sir!—But what’s this?—somebody coming along in a hurry!”

We had just reached the end of the long terrace then and were about descending the steps to the path of which Chaney had spoken. This path for a little distance ran parallel with the carriage-drive; along this came a motor-car, driven at a fairly fast pace. It slowed down as it came to the foot of the steps, and we then saw that it was driven by a police officer. The door opened and the Superintendent of Police stepped out. Recognizing us, he paused.

“Oh,” he said, “you’re here, eh, Mr. Chaney? Sir Stephen anywhere about?”

“Inside,” replied Chaney, nodding at the lighted windows. “Any news?”

“Not from our side,” answered the Superintendent. “I just came along to report. I’ve seen the manager of the Heronswood main colliery and he’s going to organize a search-party amongst his men at once. I’ve also detailed as many of my men as I can spare, so between now and this time tomorrow we’ll have combed the district pretty well. But you know, Mr. Chaney, it’s struck me—how do we know that Sir John’s still in the district? He may have gone back to London.”

“He hadn’t returned to his hotel in London an hour and a half ago,” replied Chaney. “We telephoned there—the Waldorf—just before dinner. We’ve kept phoning there regularly all day. No, he’s somewhere round here. Alive or—dead!”

“Queer business,” remarked the Superintendent. “Now, I wonder if he’d anything in the way of valuables on him?”

“May have had,” said Chaney, non-committally. “Why?”

“We’ve a few rather bad characters round here,” replied the Superintendent. “Taking us all together, we’re a fairly decent and respectable and law-abiding community; still, we have some black sheep. There have been two or three cases of housebreaking lately, and so far I haven’t laid hands on the culprit, and in addition to that we’ve had a good many cases of poaching—”

“A poacher wouldn’t be out in the day-time,” interrupted Chaney, “and Sir John disappeared about noon.”

“Ay, well, but he might have encountered some bad lot or other in those woods,” said the Superintendent. “That is,” he went on, lowering his voice and glancing round as if he feared to be overheard, “that is, if it isn’t Robson! But, between you and me and the post, I fear it is Robson! Robson’s the sort of man, Mr. Chaney, who’d never forgive, never!”

“If you think that, then the only thing is to find Sir John’s dead body and then—what’s that, now, that’s coming?”

He broke off to point along the path which we had been about to take when the Superintendent’s car arrived. Some hundred and fifty yards away a light was coming along that path, wobbling, jumping, shifting from side to side like a thing possessed, but growing bigger and brighter with every second. Suddenly I saw what it was. Somebody was riding a bicycle down that path, and riding it at such a speed that the lamp in front was swaying about in a fashion that threatened a smash and a crash for the rider. In another minute light and machine dashed up to the foot of the steps, and a bareheaded, almost breathless young rustic, evidently a farm-lad, flung himself at the uniformed figure of the Superintendent.

“Will you come to Robson’s?” he gasped out. “Will you come at once to Robson’s? The housekeeper sent me—at once, she said. Robson—”

He choked over the name, trying to recover his breath; Chaney laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Steady, my lad, steady!” said Chaney. “Take your time! Now, what about Robson?”

The lad shook himself, making an effort. It was easy to see that in addition to being breathless he was frightened; his face shone white, his eyes were dilated.

“Robson—” he gasped, “Robson, he’s dead—lying dead in the parlour!—shot, the housekeeper said. And Mother Kitteridge, sir, she’s dead there, as well. Both dead—lying on the parlour floor—I saw ’em! And will you go at once? We saw you pass in your car, Mr. Mallwood, and the housekeeper—”

“Were they dead, then,” asked the Superintendent, “when I passed your gate?”

“No, sir—it was just after. There were two shots—”

“Who’s Mother Kitteridge?” interrupted the Superintendent.

“Old woman that lived at the cottages. She’d come—”

“Hadn’t we better get up there?” suggested Chaney. “Take me up in your car—Camberwell, you go into the house, tell Sir Stephen, and bring him and Ellerthorpe along. Here, boy, you follow Mr. Mallwood and me back to the farm.”

In another second or two Chaney and Mallwood were off, and I ran into the house.

Sir Stephen and Mr. Ellerthorpe had left the dining-room and gone into the library. The old solicitor was drawing a very easy chair up to the fire. Sir Stephen was looking for some book on one of the crowded shelves. Each turned on me in astonishment as I hurried in; Sir Stephen dropped his book; Ellerthorpe’s hands left the chair; I suppose they saw, each of them, that I had news which was like to be startling.

“Something—happened?” asked Sir Stephen.

I tried to speak as steadily as possible.

“A boy has just hurried down from the home farm with strange news,” I said. “The housekeeper sent him after Superintendent Mallwood; they had seen his car pass. He says that Robson, the farmer, and an old woman named Kitteridge—”

“Good heavens!—Mother Kitteridge!” muttered Sir Stephen. “Yes—yes?”

“Are lying dead in Robson’s parlour! Shot!”

“Shot! By whom? But—is it true?”

“The boy’s story seemed veracious enough,” I replied. “Mallwood and Chaney have gone up to the farm already. They want us to follow.”

Sir Stephen tugged at a bell-rope.

“Of course, of course,” he muttered. “We’ll have a car out at once. Shot? Robson and old Mother Kitteridge? What—what ever can this mean?”

“More than’s on the surface,” said Ellerthorpe. He turned to me. “Of course the boy didn’t know anything beyond the fact that these two were shot?”

“Nothing!” I assented.

“And that they were—positively?—dead?”

“He said they were dead.”

Ellerthorpe gave me a queer, significant look; he and I followed Sir Stephen into the hall. Within a few minutes the three of us were in a car and speeding through the darkness towards the home farm. There were powerful lamps on that car; in their light, as we sped past, I saw people standing outside the labourers’ cottages of which Chaney had spoken to me; there was already a small group of frightened and inquisitive folk at the gate and fence of Robson’s farmstead. And there, too, keeping these people back, was the village policeman; the news had spread with amazing quickness. In the light of the car lamps, I got some sort of notion of the home farm as Sir Stephen, Ellerthorpe, and I hurried across its garden. It was a big, square-built house, set in the middle of apparently well-arranged and carefully kept grounds. On its north side was a thick belt of woodland, coming to the very edge of the gardens; on its south lay an extensive range of outbuildings, barns, stables, granaries, and the like. On the side from which we had approached it lay Heronswood Park; on the other, the park and lands of Sedbury.

The front door was open, but the boy who had hurried to fetch Mallwood from Heronswood and had hastened back behind the Superintendent’s car stood guard at it. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder towards an inner door which stood slightly ajar; from behind it came a murmur of subdued voices. I pushed the door wider open and walked in, followed by Sir Stephen and Ellerthorpe. I expected to be at once confronted by the evidences of the tragedy, but I was mistaken. This was a square hall, from which various doors opened. At one of these stood another policeman; Mallwood motioned towards him as my companions and I advanced.

“The doctors are in there,” he whispered. “I sent straight to Sedbury for Dr. Bellender; Dr. Monro happened to be dining with him, so they both came. They’ll be out presently—you can have a look then.”

I had no particular desire to look at the dead man and dead woman; waiting, however, to do so, I looked at the living ones about me. There were several people in that hall. Mallwood, the Superintendent, and Chaney I knew; I made a guess that a middle-aged woman, occasionally wiping a tear from her cheeks, was Robson’s housekeeper. But there was another woman there—a woman of between forty-five and fifty years, who attracted my attention: a slenderly-built, sinewy sort of woman, with strong features, sharp eyes, a determined chin, who had fastened upon Sir Stephen as soon as he crossed the threshold, and was now talking volubly to him in a quiet, practical tone.

“I was out seeing to my chickens when I heard the shots,” she was saying. “There were two, in quick succession. Of course, Sir Stephen, I knew what they were, having been used to guns all my life.”

“Oh, of course, of course, Mrs. Weekes,” assented Sir Stephen. “Unmistakable, eh?”

“Exactly!—and coming, or seeming to come, from the woods just beyond this house, I thought it must be a poaching affair. Then, in a few minutes, quite a few minutes, a boy came running, and Weekes and I set off here just as we were, to find—well, what we did find!”

“I found them,” murmured the tearful woman. “I heard the shots—it was not long after Mrs. Kitteridge had called, and gone in to see Mr. Robson in the parlour—and there they were! And the window was half open at the bottom—Mr. Robson was a great one for fresh air.”

“Do you mean to say they’d been shot through the window,” exclaimed Sir Stephen, “from outside the house?”

“I don’t think there’s any doubt of that, Sir Stephen,” said Mallwood. “As Miss Holt says, the window’s half open at the bottom, and the curtain wasn’t drawn nor the blind pulled down. I sized things up at one glance,” he went on, turning to me, “and so, I reckon, did Mr. Chaney. They’d been shot dead, both of ’em, by somebody who stuck a gun through the open window from the garden outside.”

“Dear, dear!” groaned Sir Stephen. “Sheer, cold-blooded murder. But—”

The door opened. The two doctors came out. Doctor-like, they had little to say, except to confirm Mallwood’s opinion.

Sir Stephen, Ellerthorpe, and I went into the parlour. Half the shock had been taken away by what we had heard, but what we saw was sufficient to send my two companions back, hurriedly, to the hall without, pale and trembling. I remained; it was my job. Chaney joined me; for a minute or two we stood silent, looking about us.

It was a good big room, that, square-shaped, windows on two sides. On the side fronting us, where the old-fashioned fireplace was, a window, set in a recess, looked out towards the woods. That was uncurtained, and the blind was not pulled down, either, but the sashes were closed. On the garden side, however, where there were two windows, one had its lower sash thrown well up; we could see the shrubs and flowers in the beds outside. And by that window there was a sort of low fence of laurel; I saw at once that it afforded good cover. Already I began to realize how the affair had been worked; the murderer had crept up to this laurel fence, listened, watched, finally fired through the open window. And his victims had been within a few feet of his gun.

The doctors had said gunshot wounds—yes. And the effect had been instantaneous, evidently. It seemed to Chaney and me that what had happened was this: Robson had been standing on the hearth-rug; the old woman who had come to see him had, presumably, been sitting in front of him; the middle of that room was clear of all furniture except a chair, now knocked over, set in front of the fire. The first shot had been fired at the old woman; she had sunk or toppled over sideways, the chair going with her. And Robson had made a dart for the window and been instantly shot full in the face; he had spun round and collapsed, and now lay fully spread out, his head bumping the wainscoting at the foot of the windowsill. All over in a few seconds!—and then the murderer had gone quietly through the side garden, to be lost in the woods.

Chaney motioned me out of the room; we could do nothing. He got hold of Mallwood and led him outside to the garden.

“Footprints!” he said. “Let’s see exactly what’s beneath the window. If it’s soft earth—”

But it wasn’t earth; it was hard concrete or something of that sort; nothing, at any rate, that would receive an impression. All the paths in that garden were paved in that way. Still, there was soft mould in the flower-beds and borders.

We left the local police and the medical men in charge and went back to Heronswood. Whatever this tragedy meant, it was at the moment impossible to guess at. But all of us were asking the same question—had it any connexion with the disappearance of Sir John Maxtondale?

It was a long time before I slept that night, but I slept at last. And I was still asleep when Chaney came to my room to shake me awake.

“Get up, Camberwell!” he said “Here’s work for us! And this time—Sir John!”

There was only a grey light in the room, but it sufficed to show me the expression on Chaney’s face, which told me that Sir John Maxtondale had been found dead.