Читать книгу The Mystery of the Downs - John Selby Watson - Страница 4

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SHE hurried from the room in terror. Marsland remained a few minutes examining the papers that had been taken from the pocket-book.

With the lamp in his hand he was compelled to descend cautiously, and when he reached the foot of the staircase the girl had left the house. He extinguished the lamp he was carrying, relit the lantern, and stepped outside. The lantern showed him the girl waiting for him some distance down the path.

"Oh, let us leave this dreadful house," she cried as he approached. "Please take me out of it. I am not frightened of the storm—now."

"I will take you wherever you wish to go," he said gently. "Will you tell me where you live? I will accompany you home."

"You are very good," she said gratefully. "I live at Ashlingsea."

"That is the little fishing village at the end of the cliff road, is it not?" he said inquiringly. "I am staying at Staveley, but I have not been there long. Come, I will take you home, and then I will inform the police about—this tragic discovery."

"There is a police station at Ashlingsea," she said, in a low voice.

He explained to her that he wanted to look after the comfort of his horse before he accompanied her home, as it would be necessary to leave the animal at the farm until the following day. She murmured a faint acquiescence, and when they reached the storehouse she took the lantern from him without speaking, and held it up to give him light while he made his horse comfortable for the night.

They then set out for Ashlingsea. The violence of the storm had passed, but the wind occasionally blew in great gusts from the sea, compelling them to halt in order to stand up against it. The night was still very black, but at intervals a late moon managed to send a watery beam through the scudding storm clouds, revealing the pathway of the winding cliff road, and the turbulent frothing waste of water dashing on the rocks below. Rain continued to fall in heavy frequent showers, but the minds of Marsland and his companion were so occupied with what they had seen in the old farm-house that they were scarcely conscious of the discomfort of getting wet.

The girl was so unnerved by the discovery of the dead body that she was glad to avail herself of the protection and support of Marsland's arm. Several times as she thought she saw a human form in the darkness of the road, she uttered a cry of alarm and clung to his arm with both hands. At every step she expected to encounter a maniac who had the blood of one human creature on his hands and was still swayed by the impulse to kill.

The reserve she had exhibited in the house had broken down, and she talked freely in her desire to shut out from her mental vision the spectacle of the murdered man sitting in the arm-chair.

On the other hand, the discovery of the body had made Marsland reserved and thoughtful.

He learned from her that her name was Maynard—Elsie Maynard—and that she lived with her widowed mother. Marsland was quick to gather from the cultivated accents of her voice that she was a refined and educated girl. He concluded that Mrs. Maynard must be a lady of some social standing in the district, and he judged from what he had seen of the girl's clothes that she was in good circumstances. She remarked that her mother would be anxious about her, but would doubtless assume she had sought shelter somewhere, as having lived in Ashlingsea for a long time she knew everybody in the district.

Marsland thought it strange that she made no reference to the companion who had accompanied her to the farm. If no one accompanied her, how was it that on opening the door to him she had greeted him as some one whom she had been expecting? She seemed unconscious of the need of enlightening him on this point. Her thoughts centred round the dead man to such an extent that her conversation related chiefly to him. Half-unconsciously she revealed that she knew him well, but her acquaintance with him seemed to be largely based on the circumstance that the dead man had been acquainted with a friend of her family: a soldier of the new army, who lived at Staveley.

She had told Marsland that the name of the murdered man was Frank Lumsden, but she did not mention the name of the soldier at Staveley. Lumsden had served in France as a private, but had returned wounded and had been invalided out of the army. He had been captured by the Germans during a night attack, had been shot through the palm of his right hand to prevent him using a rifle again, and had been left behind when the Germans were forced to retreat from the village they had captured. After being invalided out of the Army he had returned home to live in the old farm-house—Cliff Farm it was called—which had been left to him by his grandfather, who had died while the young man was in France. The old man had lived in a state of terror during the last few months of his life, as he was convinced that the Germans were going to invade England, destroy everything, and murder the population as they had done in Belgium. He ceased to farm his land, he dismissed his men, and shut himself up in his house.

His housekeeper, Mrs. Thorpe, who had been in his service for thirty years, refused to leave him, and insisted on remaining to look after him. When he died as the result of injuries received in falling downstairs, it was found that he had left most of his property to his grandson, Frank, but he had also left legacies to Mrs. Thorpe and two of the men who had been in his employ for a generation. But these legacies had not been paid because there was no money with which to pay them. Soon after the outbreak of the war the old man had drawn all his money out of the bank and had realized all his investments. It was thought that he had done this because of his fear of a German invasion.

What he had done with the money no one knew. Most people thought he had buried it for safety, intending to dig it up when the war was over. There was a rumour that he had buried it on the farm. Another rumour declared that he had buried it in the sands at the foot of the cliffs, for towards the end of his life he was often seen walking alone on the sands. In his younger days he had combined fishing with farming, and there was still a boat in the old boat-house near the cliffs. Several people tried digging in likely places in the sands after his death, but they did not find any trace of the money. Other people said that Frank Lumsden knew where the money was hidden—that his grandfather had left a plan explaining where he had buried it.

"What about the piece of paper with the mysterious plan on it which we found on the staircase?" said Marsland. "Do you think that had anything to do with the hidden money?"

"I never thought of that," she said. "Perhaps it had."

"We left it on the table in the room downstairs," he said. "I think we ought to go back for it, as it may have something to do with the murder."

"Don't go back," she said. "I could not bear to go back. The paper will be there when the police go. No one will go there in the meantime, so it will be quite safe."

"But you remember that his pocket-book had been rifled," he said, as he halted to discuss the question of returning. "May not that plan have been taken from his pocket-book after he was dead?"

"But in that case how did it come on the staircase?"

"It was dropped there by the man who stole it from the pocket-book."

"He will be too frightened to go back for it," she declared confidently. "He would be afraid of being caught."

"But he may have been in the house while we were there," he replied. "We did not solve the mystery of the crash we heard when we were in the room upstairs."

"You said at the time it was possibly caused by the wind upsetting something."

He was amused at the inconsequence of the line of reasoning she adopted in order to prevent him going back for the plan.

"At the time we did not know there was a dead body upstairs," he said.

"Do you think the murderer was in the house while we were there?" she asked.

"It is impossible to say definitely. My own impression now is that some one was in the house—that the crash we heard was not caused by the wind."

"Then he must have been there while I was sitting downstairs before you came," she said, with a shiver at the thought of the danger that was past.

"Yes," he answered. "The fact that you had a candle alight kept him upstairs. He was afraid of discovery. When we went upstairs to the first floor he must have retreated to the second floor—the top story."

She remained deep in thought for a few moments.

"I am glad he did not come down," she said at length. "I am glad I did not see who it was."

Again Marsland was reminded of the way in which she had greeted him at the door. Could it be that, instead of having gone to the farm for shelter with a companion, she had gone there to meet some one, and that unknown to her the person she was to meet had reached the house before her and had remained hidden upstairs?

"Did you close the front door when we left?" she asked.

"Yes. I slammed it and I heard the bolt catch. Why do you ask?"

"There is something I want to ask you," she said, at length.

"What is it?"

"I want you to promise if you can that you will not tell the police that I was at Cliff Farm tonight; I want you to promise that you will not tell any one."

"Do you think it—wise?" he asked, after a pause in which he gave consideration to the request.

"I do not want to be mixed up in it in any way," she explained. "The tragedy will give rise to a lot of talk in the place. I would not like my name to be mixed up in it."

"I quite appreciate that," he said. "And as far as it goes I would be willing to keep your name out of it. But have you considered what the effect would be if the police subsequently discovered that you had been there? That would give rise to greater talk—to talk of a still more objectionable kind."

"Yes; but how are they to discover that I was there unless you tell them?" she asked.

He laughed softly.

"They have to try to solve a more difficult problem than that without any one to tell them the solution," he said. "They have to try to find out who killed this man Lumsden—and why he was killed. There will be two or three detectives making all sorts of inquiries. One of them might alight accidentally on the fact that you, like myself, had taken shelter there in the storm."

She took refuge in the privilege of her sex to place a man in the wrong by misinterpreting his motives.

"Of course, if you do not wish to do it, there is no reason why you should." She removed her hand from his arm.

He pulled her up with a sharpness which left on her mind the impression that he was a man who knew his own mind.

"Please understand that I am anxious to do the best I can for you without being absurdly quixotic about it. I am quite willing to keep your name out of it in the way you ask, but I am anxious that you should first realize the danger of the course you suggest. It seems to me that, in order to avoid the unpleasantness of allowing it to be publicly known that you shared with me the discovery of this tragedy, you are courting the graver danger which would attach to the subsequent difficulty of offering a simple and satisfactory explanation to the police of why you wanted to keep your share in the discovery an absolute secret. And you must remember that your explanation to me of how you came to the farm is rather vague. It is true that you said you went there for shelter from the storm. But you have not explained how you got into the house, and from the way you spoke to me when you opened the door it is obvious that you expected to see some one else who was not a stranger."

She came to a halt in the road in order to put a direct question to him.

"Do you think that I had anything to do with this dreadful murder? Do you think that is the reason I asked you to keep my name out of it?"

"I am quite sure that you had nothing whatever to do with the tragedy—that the discovery of the man's dead body was as great a surprise to you as it was to me."

"Thank you," she said. The emphasis of his declaration imparted a quiver to her expression of gratitude. "You are quite right about my expecting to see some one else when I opened the door," she said. "I expected to see Mr. Lumsden."

"Oh, I beg your pardon. I never thought of that." He flushed at the way in which her simple explanation had convicted him of having harboured unjust suspicions against her.

"I went to the farm to see him—I had a message for him," she continued, with seeming candour. "The storm came on just before I reached the house. I knocked, but no one came, and then I noticed the key was in the lock on the outside of the door. Naturally I thought Mr. Lumsden had left it there—that when he saw the storm he had gone to the stable or cowshed to attend to a horse or a cow. I went inside the house, expecting he would be back every moment. When I heard your knock I thought it was he."

"I am afraid you must think me a dreadful boor," he said. "I apologize most humbly."

She replied with a breadth of view that in its contrast with his ungenerous suspicions added to his embarrassment.

"No, you were quite right," she said. "As I asked you to keep my name out of it—as I virtually asked you to show blind trust in me—you were at least entitled to the fullest explanation of how I came to be there."

"And I hope you quite understand that I do trust you absolutely," he said. "I know as well as it is possible to know anything in this world that you were not connected in the remotest way with the death of this man."

Having been lifted out of the atmosphere of suspicion, she felt she could safely enter it again.

"I was not quite candid with you when I asked you to keep me out of the dreadful tragedy because of the way I would be talked about," she said, placing a penitent and appealing hand on his arm. "There are other reasons—one other reason at least—why I do not want it known I was at Cliff Farm to-night."

He was prepared to shield her if she was prepared to take the risk of being shielded.

"That alters the case," he said. "My reluctance to keep your name out of it arose from the fear that you did not realize the risk you would run."

"I realize it," she said. "And I wish to thank you for pointing it out so clearly. But it is a risk I must take."

"In that case you can rely on me."

"You will keep my name out of it?" she asked.

"I will tell no one," he replied.