“I’ve been over it often,” Rufford admitted.
“Right! Then likely enough you’ll remember the high embankment about five miles out o’ town. The line takes a bend there, round a sort of spur o’ high ground on the left-hand side. There’s a fairly steep slope, covered with high bracken, with a rough sort of road at the foot, between the slope an’ the line. The road runs under a bridge that stands just about the tip o’ this spur, this high ground I’m talkin’ about. Can you remember the place I mean, or have I got to go one?”
“I remember it well enough,” Rufford assured him.
“You do? That’s fine! Now I’ll tell you somethin’ more. That stretch of bracken’s quite popular with courtin’ couples, an’ some couples as ought to be courtin’ anyhow, by the way they go on. They can get up the hillside among the bracken-stems an’ do all the kissin’ an’ cuddlin’ they have a mind to. The bracken hides them from anyone chancin’ to pass along the road at the bottom. O’ course, they’re in plain sight from trains passin’ on the line, it bein’ high up an’ more or less over-lookin’ ’em. But they don’t seem to mind that. At least not judgin’ by some queer sights Tom an’ me sees there from time to time as we happen along.”
“You can kiss the Book on that!” interjected the fireman, with a reminiscent chuckle.
“Now, if you remember,” went on the engine-driver, “there’s a distant signal about a hundred yards before you come to the bridge, on the down line; an’ the home signal’s round the corner, about two hundred yards beyond the bridge. When me an’ Tom took out the seven-forty-seven this mornin’, the distant signal was against us, so I slowed down a bit; an’ when we got round that bend, the home signal was up, an’ I had to stop. Tom, here, happened to give a glance up at the bracken, an’ then he turned to me an’ said . . . What was it you said, Tom?”
“What I said was: ‘Them two must be keen, startin’ as early in the day as this.’ It was just three minutes past eight.”
“So I had a look myself,” continued the engine-driver, “an’ there they were, the two of ’em, up among the bracken. The girl was lyin’ on her back, so far’s we could see; she was wearin’ a dark green dress. The man was in a dark suit o’ togs an’ he was lyin’ on his face just alongside or near-by. We hadn’t much of a chance to take more than a glint at ’em, for the home signal went down just then an’ off we had to toot. Still, it seemed a bit funny; an’ Tom he said to me . . . What was it you said, Tom?”
“I said: ‘They must ha’ rocked themselves to sleep, last night, them two, an’ forgot to wake up in time to take the milk in. It’s a rum go, that is,’ I said, ‘for the dew’s heavy this momin’ an’ they must be fair soaked with it, lyin’ out all night that way,’ I said. ‘But there’s no accountin’ for tastes. Some folks like their pleasures wet,’ I said, ‘an’ I’m much in the same way of thinkin’ when there’s any beer about,’ I said.”
The engine-driver took up the tale again.
“We thought no more about it, an’ we got to Aldred at eight-thirty-eight—just two minutes late. We bring the nine-sixteen from Aldred back here. When we got near here again, I remembered them two up on the hillside, an’ I says to Tom, here: ‘You keep your eyes skinned as we pass, an’ see if they’ve woke up an’ gone away.’ So when we was passin’ that slope, we both of us ’ad a good dekko. An’ there, sure ’nough, was the pair lyin’ just as we’d seen ’em two hours before. That didn’t seem somehow natural, seein’ as it was close on ten o’clock in the mornin’ by then. We’re due in here at ten-two, an’ we was on time. So Tom and me talked it over a bit; an’, come to think o’ it, it seemed to us that these two ’adn’t seemed to be lyin’ there in a comfortable sort o’ way. I can’t just tell you what it was about ’em, but . . . What do you say, Tom?”
“Same as what you say,” confirmed the fireman. “The man ’ad ’is arm—’is right arm, if I remembers proper—flung straight out, an’ it looked to me a kind o’ uncomfortable sort o’ way to lie, if you see what I mean—face down and arm out like that. I’d ’appened to note that partic’lar the first time, an’ I was more surprised nor a bit to see ’im a-lying just that same way, after a couple o’ hours. Puzzled by that, I was.”
“Just a moment,” interrupted the inspector. “Were they tramps, or that kind of people?”
The engine-driver shook his head, and the fireman put the matter beyond doubt.
“Tramps? No, they was not tramps. It’s a fair distance, but my eyes is good, an’ I knows a tramp when I sees one. They was middle-class people, by the look of ’em. Not but what their clo’es wasn’t a bit ruffled. But they looked good clo’es; no rags about ’em an’ all o’ one piece, if you see what I mean. No, they wasn’t tramps. If they ’ad ’ave been tramps, we’d a’ spotted it. There’s plenty o’ tramps about. Now I come to think, there’s a sort o’ place among some rocks near-by there where a tramp sometimes settles for the night an’ lights a fire for to boil ’is tin o’ tea. We see ’em sometimes, in passin’.”
“Very good,” said Rufford, making a note. “And then?”
“Well, as I said,” the engine-driver resumed, “we talked it over, me an’ Tom, an’ we thought we’d be as well just to step across an’ put you wise about what we’d seen. I’m not sayin’ there’s anythin’ wrong. I don’t know as there is anythin’ wrong. But I said to Tom, here: ‘If there’s been any funny business goin’ on down there, then we’d better report it an’ be done with it. Then it’ll be off our hands, anyway.’ An’ Tom, here, he agrees with me that it was a bit rum, look ’ow you choose. So we steps across. An’ now there’s no more as we can tell you, mister. You’ve ’ad it all, an’ it’s up to you to carry on or to drop it, just as you please.”
Rufford had been taking notes as the two men gave their evidence. He read over his précis to them, got their signatures, and then, as they seemed anxious to be off, he let them go. When they had left the room, he reconsidered what he had heard. The evidence amounted to little enough, so far as the actual statements went; but the men’s manner of giving it had betrayed a genuine uneasiness in both of them. Plainly they were convinced that there was something suspicious about those two figures among the bracken, though they had not been able to convey the full force of their suspicions in words. In any case, these two railwaymen had pulled the string to set him in motion. He could not take the risk of disregarding their statement. The thing would have to be looked into. Luckily the scene was within easy range. His superintendent was ill just then, so Rufford was free to make his own arrangements. He had a car outside the police station; and after a moment or two’s consideration he decided to take a couple of constables with him.
When the car reached the road between the railway embankment and the bracken-covered slope, the inspector pulled up and got out, followed by his men.
“You wait here,” he ordered. “We can’t afford to go trampling among that bracken at random, and there’s nothing to be seen from here. Wait a bit until I get up the embankment and see what I can see. I can direct you better from there.”
Leaving them by the car, he vaulted the low fence separating the road from the railway, and scrambled up the steep embankment to the level of the line. From this point of vantage, he could see down among the bracken-stems, and his first glance assured him that he had not come on a wild-goose chase. Two figures were lying on the upper part of the slope before him; and the attitude of the male body, face downward with its right arm outstretched, tallied wholly with the railwaymen’s description of what they had seen nearly three hours earlier. No living man was likely to have stayed in that position all that time. Even asleep, he would have shifted unconsciously to some extent. The woman’s figure was partly concealed by intervening bracken fronds; but from what he could see of it, the inspector inferred that she could hardly have fallen asleep in such an uncomfortable attitude.
Rufford ran his eyes over the rest of the slope. Here and there, he could detect places where the bracken
had been crushed down; and this confirmed the railwaymen’s hint about courting couples frequenting the place. Closer inspection revealed trails of disturbance in the bracken which indicated the routes to the various spots where the couples had sat or lain down. The inspector noted that two such tracks led up from the road to the spot where the bodies lay.
“So they came there independently,” he inferred, “and the one that came first must have called to the other to let him or her know where to go. Or else the first one stood up so as to be seen by the second one. To judge by the number of snuggeries, people do come here for peace and quiet. But it’s not a crowded resort. Too far out of town for that, except for a car; and people with cars generally prefer to do their cuddling inside.”
He jotted a note in his pocket-book, with a rough sketch of the scene before him. Then he descended the embankment again and gave instructions to his men. He had noted where the two tracks emerged on the road, but it seemed inadvisable to trample over either of them until he knew more of the facts. Instead, he and his subordinates fetched a compass around the bodies and approached them from the top of the slope.
At close range, no doubt remained, for a quantity of blood had oozed from the head of the male body, staining the turf among the bracken-stems. As he came within a few feet of the dead man, one of the constables checked himself abruptly in his stride and exclaimed:
“Here, sir! A pistol! I almost trod on it.”
“Don’t touch it, Loman!” ordered the inspector, as the constable stooped as though to pick up the weapon.
“It looks as if he’d shot himself, sir, and when he fell flat, the pistol jerked out of his hand,” suggested the constable. “It’s here, you see, and there’s his hand, half open, quite close by.”
“Maybe,” conceded the inspector. “Leave it for the present.”
He turned to examine the body, snapping out disjointed comments for the benefit of his subordinates.
“His hat’s fallen off. . . . Black felt, semi-clerical pattern. . . . Ah! there’s some blood on it, so he must have had it on his head when the shot went in. . . . Bullet’s gone through his right temple, rather low down. . . . His togs have a semi-clerical look about them, too. . . .”
Very gently he insinuated his hand under the body and felt the clothes and the turf.
“Grass under the body’s a bit moist. . . . So’s his waistcoat. . . . There was heavy dew last night. . . . His back’s covered with it and the grass all round is dewy. . . . I don’t want to shift him till we get a photograph taken. . . . No exit wound on the left side of the head, so the bullet must still be inside his skull. . . .”
He rose to his feet again and looked about him. Then a fresh aspect of the affair seemed to strike him. He turned to the second constable.
“Tatnell! You go back to the car. Keep in the track you made, coming up here. Take the car back to the station and pick up Sergeant Ilford and another constable. Bring them here, after the sergeant has ordered the ambulance to follow on. You’d better bring a photographer as well. But don’t go spreading the news of this affair. We want some peace and quietness, if we can get it, until we’ve seen to things here. Until we’ve got the bodies away, anyhow. Hurry up.”
Constable Tatnell was not pleased at being thus ordered off, but he had no choice in the matter. When he had gone, Rufford turned to the second body, continuing his abrupt comments as he pursued his investigation.
“By the position’s she’s in, she must have been sitting up when the shot was fired, and then fell over to her right. . . . And the bracken on her left’s crushed down, as if somebody had been sitting there with her. . . . Shot in the left temple, rather high up. . . . It missed her hat, for she’s wearing one that cants down on the right-hand side so that her left temple’s been completely exposed. . . . No exit wound here either. . . . Looks as if she might have been a pretty girl, before the shot. . . . Quite good class, too, judging by her clothes, and the smell of verbena bath salts. . . . H’m! wedding-ring on her finger, but no others. . . . Wrist-watch, still going. . . . The grass under her’s quite dry, or almost dry. . . . So’s her dress, on the ground side. . . . Dew’s all over the top of her, of course. . . . No use moving her till we get a photo taken. . . . But here’s her handbag beside her.”
He picked up the bag, a morocco pochette with a fancy twist clasp, and after opening it gingerly, examined the contents.
“Not much help here. . . . Lipstick, powder compact, comb, handkerchief. . . . No laundry-mark or initials on that . . . a couple of notes, some silver and coppers in the purse section. . . . No visiting-cards or papers. . . . Some cigarettes and paper matches. That’s all. . . .”
A thought seemed to strike him and he gently slipped the wedding-ring from the dead woman’s finger.
“They sometimes engrave initials inside these things. . . . Just so! Here they are, Loman. ‘E.C. and J.B.’ H’m! Better than nothing, but not much use at the moment.”
He slipped the ring back into place and rose to his feet again. The bracken was the next thing which caught his attention; and he glanced at the four tracks which converged upon the space where the bodies lay.
“Let’s see, now,” he said reflectively to the constable. “You and Tatnell came in that way”—indicating the track with a nod as he spoke—“and you came side by side, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” confirmed the constable.
“I came along that track there,” continued Rufford, with another nod. “Mine’s a narrow track; your one’s double width or more, with two of you abreast. Now, let’s see about the other trails. One of them’s like mine—a single person’s track. The other one’s like the one that you and Tatnell made, double width; so two people must have come up abreast there. . . . That looks funny.”
He reflected for a moment or two before hitting upon a possible explanation.
“They may have come in a car and climbed up here together. That would account for the double track. Then perhaps one of them went back to the car for something, and came back along the same route without trampling it down any wider. It’s what I’d have done myself if I had to go through these bracken-stems. H’m! That seems to fit?”
“It does, sir,” agreed Loman, evidently impressed by the ingenuity of the inspector. “It looks just like that to me, now you’ve pointed it out.”
“There’s no use looking for foot-prints in this turf,” said Rufford regretfully, after some examination of the ground. “Grass sometimes holds them; but not here, so far as I can see. No, no good. Now that pistol.”
He knelt down and examined it as it lay.
“It’s a Colt .38 automatic. There seem to be some fingerprints on the smooth part of the slide. We may get something definite there. The rest of the metal’s all corrugated and wouldn’t take prints of much use to us. Don’t touch the thing, Loman, whatever you do; and mind you don’t tramp on it by accident.”
“Oh, no, sir,” the constable protested, as if shocked at the mere suggestion.
“And now these bits of paper strewed about the ground,” Rufford went on. “They may have nothing to do with the case, but we’d better gather them up. Wait a moment, first!”
He bent down and examined some of the fragments, picking them up for closer inspection.
“They’re all damp with the dew and need careful handling, or the writing may get smudged. Two kinds of letter-paper, plain white and a bluish shade. . . . There’s what looks like a man’s writing on the white stuff, and a woman’s writing on the bluish paper. . . . They’ve been fairly well torn up and scattered about. . . . Was there much of a wind last night?”
“Not much, sir. I happened to speak about it to Worsley when he came off duty this morning, and he said it was starry, with no wind to speak of.”
“Then this stuff can’t have blown far. Pick up every scrap you see, Loman. Don’t finger-print it more than you can help, though I don’t suppose there’ll be much left in that line, after all this soaking in the dew. Some of
the paper’s quite flabby with moisture.”
They set to work and soon collected a number of scraps of the torn paper. Rufford placed the bluish fragments in one envelope and the white ones in a second. He made no attempt to piece them together at that moment; but one scrap caught his eye as he picked it up. It held a complete printed address in neat Roman type;
FERN LODGE
HAYDOCK AVENUE
Rufford recalled that Haydock Avenue was a quiet residential street in a middle-class neighbourhood, with detached villas and small gardens.
“Haydock Avenue’s on your beat, isn’t it?” he asked Loman as he stowed the scrap of paper in the appropriate envelope. “Who lives in Fern Lodge?”
The constable hesitated for a moment or two before answering.
“I’ve just been shifted on to that beat in the last day or two, sir, and I haven’t got the lie of the land, yet. Fern Lodge has a big shady bank of ferns in the garden. Perhaps that’s why they called the house Fern Lodge. Or else they called it Fern Lodge and planted the ferns on account of the name. The name of the people is Callis, I know that much; but I haven’t been long enough on the beat to tell you much about them. I don’t know that I’ve even seen them—not to recognise anyway.”
“Callis?” mused the inspector. “That tallies with those initials E.C. on that wedding-ring. E. Callis might be the husband’s name, and the J.B. might be the wife’s maiden initials. It’s a fairly new ring by the look of it. Are they a young couple?”
“I really don’t know, sir, but I’ve an idea that they are, though how I picked it up I can’t say. Perhaps somebody may have mentioned them to me in a casual way, maybe. I can’t remember exactly how I got the notion.”
“Well, we’ll soon find out,” returned the inspector. “By the way, when I was up on the embankment yonder I noticed an old house just beyond the crest of this slope. You don’t know whose it is, I suppose?”
“Well, sir, as a matter of fact, I do. I lived round about here when I was a boy. It’s the Kerrisons’ house, the Hermitage, they call it. Mrs. Kerrison, she owns it: an old lady she must be by this time, seventy-odd or so, from what I remember of her when I was a lad.”
The Twenty-One Clues Page 4