Читать книгу The Mystery of the Downs - John Selby Watson - Страница 7

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SERGEANT Westaway was flattered at the manner in which his theory of the murder had been received by men who were far more experienced than himself in investigating crime. His sallow cheeks flushed with pleasure and his pessimism waned a little. In his determination to place his hearers in possession of all the facts concerning the crime and the victim he gave them details regarding Lumsden's mode of life at Cliff Farm after his discharge from the army, and the gossip that was current in the district concerning him. While he was dealing with these matters they heard a motor-car approaching. It stopped outside the gates of the farmhouse, and the three police officials went to the door to see who had arrived.

"Why, it's Crewe!" exclaimed Detective Gillett, in a tone of surprise. "I wonder who has put him on to this?"

"That is Sir George Granville with him—the stout elderly man," said Inspector Payne.

"The other gentleman is Mr. Marsland," said Sergeant Westaway.

"Which is Crewe and which is Marsland?" asked Inspector Payne.

"The tall one on the left is Crewe," answered Detective Gillett.

As a police official, Inspector Payne was indignant at the idea of Crewe intruding into the case, but as a man he was delighted at the opportunity of meeting the famous private detective who had so often scored over Scotland Yard by unravelling mysteries which had baffled the experts of the London detective department. Crewe's fame had even penetrated to Ashlingsea, and Sergeant Westaway studied the private detective with awed interest as the three occupants of the motor-car walked up the drive.

Inspector Payne had pictured Crewe as a more striking personality than the tall young man in tweeds who was accompanying Sir George Granville and his nephew. The latter was talking earnestly, and Crewe was listening closely. Inspector Payne had an opportunity of noting the distinction and character which marked the detective's face in repose: the clear, clean-cut profile, the quick penetration and observation of his dark eyes as they took in the exterior of Cliff Farm. He concluded that Crewe was rather young for the fame he had achieved—certainly under forty: that he liked his face; that he looked like a gentleman; and that his tweed suit displayed a better cut than any provincial tailor had ever achieved.

His companion, Sir George Granville's nephew, was a young man of Saxon type, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a clear skin which had been tanned brown as the result of his war campaigning in France. He was two or three inches shorter than Crewe, but was well set up and well-built, and although he did not wear khaki his recent connection with the army was indicated by his military carriage and bearing.

After the necessary introductions Crewe explained with an air of modesty that, Sir George Granville's nephew having had the misfortune to become associated with the tragedy through the discovery of the body, Sir George, as a public man, had conceived the idea that he ought to do something towards discovering the author of the crime. That was how he himself came to be present. He hoped that he would not be in the way of the police.

"Not at all; not at all," said Inspector Payne, answering for the County Police. "We'll be glad of your help. And as for anything we can do for you, Mr. Crewe, you have only to ask."

"That is very kind of you," said Crewe.

"You are just in time," continued Inspector Payne. "Gillett and I have been here only a few minutes. We were just going upstairs to look at the body when you arrived."

On their way upstairs Gillett drew attention to some marks on the margin of the stairs between the carpet on the staircase and the wall. These marks were irregular in shape, and they looked as if they had been made by wiping portions of the stairs with a dirty wet cloth. Some of the stairs bore no mark.

"It seems to me that some one has been wiping up spots of blood on the stairs," said Inspector Payne, as he examined the marks closely.

On the linoleum covering the landing of the first flight there were more traces of the kind, the last of them being beside the door of the room in which the body had been discovered.

The dead man was still in the arm-chair near the window. There was such a resemblance to life in his stooping posture that the men entering the room found it difficult at first to realize they were confronted with the corpse of a man who had been murdered. A ray of sunlight fell through the narrow window on the bent head, revealing the curly brown hair and the youthful contour of the neck. The right arm was slightly extended from the body towards the table near the arm-chair in which the corpse was seated, as though the murdered man had been about to pick up the pocket-book which lay on the table. The pocket-book was open, and the papers which had been in it were scattered about the table.

Payne, Gillett and Crewe inspected the body closely. Sir George Granville and Marsland waited a little distance away while the others conducted their examination. The dead man had been fully dressed when he was shot. On the left side of his vest was the hole made by the bullet, and around it was a discoloured patch where the blood, oozing from the wound, had stained the tweed. There were numerous blood-stains on the floor near the dead man's feet, and also near the window at the side of the arm-chair.

"I see that the window is broken," said Inspector Payne, pointing to one of the panes in the window near the arm-chair.

"By a bullet," said Sergeant Westaway. He pulled down the window blind and pointed to a hole in it which had evidently been made by a bullet. "When I came in the blind was down. I pulled it up in order to let in some light. But the fact that there is a hole in the window blind shows that the murder was committed at night, when the blind was down. I should say two shots were fired. The first went through the window, and the other killed him."

"I think the bullet that killed him has gone through him," said Crewe, who had moved the body in order to examine the back of it. "It looks as if he was shot from behind, because the wound in the back is lower down that the one in front." He pointed to a hole in the back of the coat where the cloth showed a similar discoloured patch to the one in the vest.

"It must have been a powerful weapon if the bullet has gone through him," said Gillett. "That means we shall have no bullet to guide us as to the calibre of the weapon, unless we can find the one that went through the window."

"Perhaps there was only one shot fired after all," remarked Inspector Payne. "The victim may have been standing by the window when he was shot, and then have staggered to the chair. Otherwise if he were shot in the back while sitting in the chair the bullet should be embedded in the chair or wall. But I can see no sign of it."

"Not necessarily," said Gillett. "Look at the position on the arm-chair. It is possible that the bullet, after going through the man, went through the window. That would account for the broken pane of glass."

The pocket-book and the papers it contained were next examined. Inspector Payne asked Marsland concerning the mysterious plan he had picked up on the stairs. Marsland borrowed a sheet of paper from the inspector's large official note-book and drew a rough sketch of the plan as he remembered it. He explained that as he had lost his glasses while out in the storm he had not been able to make a close study of the plan. While he was engaged in reproducing the plan as far as he remembered it, Sergeant Westaway enlightened Crewe and Sir George Granville about the theory he had formed that the murderer was in the house when Marsland discovered the body, and that, after Marsland left, the murderer made his escape and took from the sitting-room downstairs the plan he had dropped on the stairs when he heard Marsland in the house.

"What do you make of this, Mr. Crewe?" asked Inspector Payne, as he took up the paper on which Marsland had sketched what he recalled of the plan. "Do you think this was meant to show where the old grandfather had his money?"

"That is very probable," said Crewe. "But it is not worth while trying to solve the riddle from a sketch drawn from memory. Get the murderer and you will probably get the original plan as well."

Sergeant Westaway, in pursuance of his duties as guide, took his visitors downstairs to the sitting-room for the purpose of showing them how the window had been forced in order to provide an entrance. He pointed to a mark on the sash which indicated that a knife had been used to force back the catch.

This was the room in which Miss Maynard had been sitting when Marsland had arrived to obtain shelter from the storm. Marsland noticed the chair beside which she had stood while they were in the room together before going upstairs to investigate the cause of the crash they had heard. He gave a start as he saw behind the chair a small tortoiseshell comb such as ladies sometimes wear to keep their hair up. He stooped quickly to pick it up, and as he did so he realized that he had blundered badly. In order to rectify the blunder he made a weak attempt to hide the comb, but he saw Detective Gillett's eye on him. "What have we here?" asked the Scotland Yard man genially.

Marsland held out his hand with the comb resting in it.

"A woman in the case," commented Inspector Payne. "That ought to help to simplify matters."

Marsland bit his lips at the thought of how he had been false to his promise to Miss Maynard. He had kept her name out of the discovery of the crime, but he had unwittingly directed attention to the fact that a woman had only recently been in that room.

The comb was handed to Crewe for examination. It was about three inches long and was slightly convex in shape. On the outside was a thin strip of gold mounting. Crewe handed the comb back.

"You sat in this room before going upstairs, Marsland?" he asked, turning to Sir George's nephew.

"Yes; I was here about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes."

"Was the window open when you came in? Did you close it?"

"I did not close it, but it must have been closed, as otherwise I would have noticed it open. It was raining and blowing hard while I was here." Marsland thought to himself that any information he could give about the window was useless in view of the fact that Miss Maynard had been in the room some time before he arrived.

"Was this the room in which you found the lamp that you took upstairs?" continued Crewe.

"Yes."

"I think you told me that there was no light in the house when you entered?"

"The place was in darkness. I found a candlestick on the hallstand. I lit that first and after coming in here I lit the lamp." He had decided to adhere in his statements to what Miss Maynard had told him she had done before he arrived.

"Did you notice when you lit the lamp whether the lamp chimney was hot, warm, or quite cold?" asked Crewe.

"I cannot be certain. I think it was cold, or otherwise I should have noticed."

"You lit the lamp before you heard the crash which startled you?"

"Yes. I lit it a few moments after I came into the room."

"Any foot-marks outside the window?" said Inspector Payne, thrusting his head out of the open window. "Yes, there they are, quite plainly, in the ground. Made by heavy hobnailed boots. We must get plaster impressions of those, Gillett. They are an important clue."

"I notice, inspector," said Crewe, "that there are no marks of any kind on the wall-paper beneath the window. One would expect that a man getting in through this window would touch the wall-paper with one foot while he was getting through the window, and as it was a wet night there ought to be some mark on it."

"Not necessarily," replied the inspector. "He may have jumped to the floor without touching the wall-paper."

"But there do not seem to be any impressions inside the house of these heavy nailed boots," returned Crewe. "Those impressions beneath the window show that they were made when the ground was soft from the rain. Wet muddy boots with nails in the soles ought to leave some traces on the carpet of this room and on the staircase."

"And what about those marks we saw on the staircase? They show that some one had been over the staircase with a wet rag."

"To wipe out the traces of those boots?" asked Crewe.

"Why not?"

"Why did the person wearing those boots walk on the uncarpeted part of the stairs near the wall instead of the carpeted part?"

"Because he knew that it would be easier for him to remove the traces of his footprints from the wood than from the carpet."

Crewe smiled at the ingenuity displayed by the inspector.

"One more doubt, inspector," he said. "Why did the man who wore those boots take such care to remove the traces of footprints inside the house and show so much indifference to the traces he left outside?"

"Because he thought the rain would wash out the footprints outside. And so it would have done if it had rained until morning. Let us go outside and have a good look at them."

They went out by the front door and made their way to the window, taking care to keep clear of the footprints.

"There you are, Mr. Crewe," said Inspector Payne. "There is evidence that the man got in through the window." He pointed to a spot beneath the window where a small piece of mortar between the brickwork had been broken off about fifteen inches above the ground. "And look at those parallel scratches on the mortar. It looks to me as if they were made by the nails in a boot."

"Very true," assented Crewe, examining the marks closely.

"Now let us follow the footsteps to see where they start from," continued Inspector Payne.

It was no difficult matter to follow the marks of the heavy boots. In the soft soil, which had formerly been part of a flower-bed, they were quite distinct. Even on the grass beyond the flower-bed the impressions were visible, though not so distinctly. Eventually they reached the gravel-walk which skirted the front of the house, and here the traces were lost.

"I should say that the boots which made these marks are the ordinary heavy type worn by farm-hands and fishermen in this locality," said Crewe.

"No doubt," answered Inspector Payne. "But, though there are some hundreds of men in this locality who wear the same type of boot, the number of pairs of boots absolutely the same are small. That is particularly the case with these heavy nailed boots—the positions of some of the nails vary. A cast of three or four of the best of these impressions will narrow down the circle of our investigations. What do you say, Gillett?"

"It looks to me as if it is going to be a comparatively simple affair."

Inspector Payne turned to Marsland.

"I think you said you found the door open, Mr. Marsland. Do you mean wide open or partly closed?"

"I found it wide open," replied Marsland. "I thought at the time that it had not been properly closed and that the wind had blown it open."

"That means that the murderer got in through this window and left by the door," said Inspector Payne to Detective Gillett. "He left it open when he fled."

"But what about Westaway's theory that he was in the house when Mr. Marsland came here?" asked Gillett. "What about the crash Mr. Marsland heard when the picture fell down? What about the plan of the hidden money that disappeared after Mr. Marsland left?"

It was plain that Detective Gillett, who had to investigate the crime, was not in sympathy with Inspector Payne's method of solving difficult points by ignoring them.

Inspector Payne stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"There are a lot of interesting little points to be cleared up," he said cheerfully.

"Yes, there are," responded Detective Gillett, "and I've no doubt we will find more of them as we go along."

It was obvious to Marsland that in keeping silent about Miss Maynard's presence at Cliff Farm on the night of the storm, and the means by which she had entered the house, he was placing obstacles in the way of the elucidation of the tragedy.