“I follow,” said French. “I’m afraid that doesn’t help us very much. What I was really trying to get at was whether anything was discussed which Miss Stone might have heard as she was coming down to join you, and which might have caused her to change her mind?”
Julia shook her head. “Oh no, nothing of the kind. We just chatted about nothing in particular.”
“And how long did you say the Campions stayed?”
“They left about six, I think. About three-quarters of an hour. I think Miss Campion would have stayed longer, but Dr. Campion was anxious to be off as he said he wanted to call at the golf club to see someone about going to Town to-morrow. In the end he went out and started up the car. When she heard that she made a move.”
Once again French paused. None of this was very productive, but he didn’t think anything more was to be learnt from Julia.
“Now let me see that I’ve got these times right,” he went on. “The Campions left about six, then you and Miss Lawes remained sitting in the drawing-room and had a little sleep. About seven you went to get supper and about half-past seven you rang for Miss Stone. It was then you discovered she was missing?”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“You looked about until nearly eight, and then rang up Dr. Campion. He and his sisters came at once, arriving a few minutes past eight, and then you carried out your search?”
“Yes,” said Julia again.
“Tell me about your search. Where exactly did you look?”
“We divided up between us what was to be done. My sister and I again searched the house, the outbuildings and the grounds, the Campion sisters took their car and drove over the roads, while Dr. Campion went through the wood. It was really repeating what had been done before.”
“I understand. And how long did your search last?”
“Till nearly nine. I suppose we were forty minutes or three-quarters of an hour looking. My sister and I were done soonest, then the ladies came in with the car, and then Dr. Campion. The wood took longest, as the doctor searched among the trees as well as along the paths.”
“Quite,” French agreed. “That’s all, I suppose, you can tell me?”
Julia’s manner suggested that it was a great deal more than she would have volunteered. French then thanked her for her clear statement and asked to see Miss Lawes.
One after another he interviewed the others; Marjorie Lawes, Lucy, and the three Campions. But practically the only fresh information he obtained was from Lucy. She said she had seen Ursula Stone in the hall as she was going out that afternoon. It was then just half-past three. She was sure of the time, because she had caught the bus which passed the house at 3.35.
“I think, Mrs. Earle,” French said when he had finished, “that nothing more can be done to-night. I should like to have a look at Miss Stone’s room and then with your permission I shall have a sleep here on this drawing-room couch. I suggest that at your convenience everyone may go to bed.”
This was arranged. The Campions drove off and Julia and Marjorie retired to their rooms. French made a provisional search of Ursula’s room, though without finding anything bearing on the mystery. Then he went down to the drawing-room, turned off the light, and lay down on the sofa.
He was tired, but he could not sleep. This utterly unexpected development filled his mind and kept it working actively. How on earth did Ursula Stone, a visitor to the household, and so far as he had been able to learn, not a very close intimate of any of its members, how did she come to be mixed up so vitally with whatever dreadful activities were going on below the surface of things in this quiet country retreat? And what was in effect going on? Why had first Earle and the nurse and now Ursula Stone been spirited away in this uncanny fashion? What was at the bottom of it?
The only thing in the whole case of which French felt sure was that his conclusions on the previous disappearances were false. These three cases were so much alike that a common origin was irresistibly suggested. It was absurd to suppose that Ursula had disappeared voluntarily. The question reiterated itself, therefore. Did it not follow that all three, she and Earle and the nurse, had been abducted or murdered, or both?
French turned to details. If Ursula had been murdered, how could she have been induced to go out? In the case of Earle it was possible to conceive of someone coming to the drawing-room window and beckoning him. But this could not have happened in Ursula’s case. She was upstairs. Her room was over the dining-room and it had two bow-windows, one looking out in front and the other at the side away from the road, that is, the side on which the study gave. But from neither could she see anyone beckoning unless she was actually in the window. Lying on her bed it would have been out of the question. Moreover, it didn’t seem possible that anyone could have called her unheard by those below stairs.
Apart from this, the similarity of this case with that of Earle struck French more and more forcibly, the longer he considered them. Both the missing persons had settled down for what would normally have been a considerable time, Earle with his paper, Ursula with her book. It was probable indeed that both would have dozed before they moved. Both had vanished without making a sound or leaving a trace and without the slightest suggestion of a reason. Both had worn house shoes with thin soles, unsuitable for walking even a little way outside. Though on each occasion the weather was cold, neither had taken any wrap or hat. Neither had left any note or message explaining their absence.
French swore mentally as he thought of it. In such circumstances one would have thought that only a perfunctory enquiry would have been needed to clear up the affair. And yet as he thought of what he and Sheaf had done in Earle’s case, he realised grimly that nothing could be farther from the truth. The solution was very far indeed from being obvious. On the contrary, it was as hard to reach as any he had ever yet come up against.
His thoughts turned back to the witnesses he had just questioned. Both Julia and Marjorie were looking extremely shaken and upset. He began to wonder.…Had the fate reserved for the husband been meted out also to the guest? Could it possibly be that these two women were responsible for what had taken place?
In considering this idea French began slowly to grow sleepy. Gradually his thoughts became nightmarish. Dark pictures invaded his mind of dreadful ways of disposing of bodies. The thrilling tale of “The Lodger” recurred to him. But here was no stove like that in the kitchen of that awful house. What, however, might not be found beneath the concrete of the cellar floor? He had read of a body being built into a pillar of a house or an entrance gate, he couldn’t remember which. That pillar would never dry out.…There was a well-known cave where the fish ate anything thrown in.…Quicklime had been used.…Who could say what ghastly things lurked in quarry holes or the shafts of disused mines?…Had not the remains of what had once been bodies been found—
A sudden knock awoke French. Daylight was streaming into the room and at the door stood Sergeant Sheepshanks and five policemen.
Chapter XIII
The Two Depressions
A few minutes sufficed to settle a programme for the search which would cover all the ground. As soon as each man was allotted his area he started off, and soon work was in full swing.
It was a fine morning, but cold and slightly cloudy: a good morning for their task. There was plenty of light to see anything that was to be seen, but no bright sunshine to throw dark shadows in which small objects might be missed. French took the area immediately surrounding the house. He had measured Ursula’s shoes on the previous night and now he began hunting for, among other things, footprints which these might fit.
For some time the monotonous work went on, then a constable called to French.
“I’d like you to have a look here, sir,” he said. “There are some traces which might interest you.”
He led the way through the wood behind the St. Kilda grounds, till in a few yards he s
truck one of the many paths or tracks leading through the trees. Fifty yards along this path he stopped and pointed into the undergrowth.
“Something’s been in that clump, sir. If you go round that way, so as not to disturb these bushes, you’ll see.”
French followed the advice. Making his way round the clump as the constable directed, he saw that at one point the rough grass was beaten down as if by a weight.
He approached still closer and stood looking down at the marks. Yes, there was no doubt: a weight had lain there, a long narrow weight, perhaps five feet by a foot or fifteen inches, a weight of the shape and size of an average woman’s body.
“’Pon my soul, it’s suspicious enough,” said French at last.
“You’ll notice also, sir,” the constable went on, “that someone has passed from the thicket to the path. That’s why I asked you to go round and not straight across.”
“Good man,” French approved. As he examined the place he realised that the officer was right. There was a general appearance of grass and leaves having been dragged lengthwise by the passage of feet. When very close this was not visible, but by going back and stooping he could see the slightly lighter colour of the grass, due to its lying at a flatter angle than the rest.
It certainly looked as if someone had carried a weight along the path, something which he wished temporarily to hide. Seeing this thicket, he had doubtless turned aside and hidden his weight behind the shrubs. Then at a later time he or some other person had come back and removed the object. What was the weight which had been carried?
French went down on his knees and began a meticulous search among the leaves and grass. If a body had lain here, some little object might have dropped out of one of its pockets. Or out of the pockets of the bearer. Or a fragment of cloth might be sticking to a twig. French decided that if there was anything of the kind, he wouldn’t miss it.
For some time he worked away, then as he moved some leaves at one end of the depression, he felt his pulses quicken.
“See this,” he grimly invited the constable. “You’ve got on to something right enough.”
Beneath the leaves were traces of blood; slight traces, not more than three or four drops. But as far as French was concerned, they were as significant as a lake. That Ursula Stone had been murdered and that her body had lain here, seemed now to be beyond possibility of doubt.
Though French was only too well accustomed to murder and sudden death, he nevertheless could not repress a feeling of horror as he contemplated these sinister tokens. Ursula Stone was more to him than a mere name, the peg on which an investigation was hung. He had interviewed her on more than one occasion and in a mild way he had admired her. She had come up to his ideal of a lady: straight, generous, dignified, kindly; in fact in his own word which covered all the virtues, decent. The last person, he would have said, to have been associated with murderers or to have incurred enmity so bitter that it could only be appeased by murder. If this gentle harmless lady had indeed been done to death it meant that something was in progress evil beyond anything he had up to the present imagined.
But an inspector of Scotland Yard engaged on a case cannot allow his feelings to cloud his judgment. Soon the tragic side of the affair gave place to the professional.
He nodded to the constable. “You’ve done well,” he said. “I’ll not forget it. Now carry on and finish your area, then come back to me. I’ll be between this and the house.”
The constable, delighted at the unwonted praise, saluted and withdrew, and French turned once more to his examination of the ground. Because he had found four drops of blood it did not follow that there was nothing else there.
Having marked the place of the bloodstains with a peg, he put the stained leaves in a tin box and dropped the box into his pocket. If the case came to court it would be well to be sure that this was human blood, and not merely a record of the death of some animal.
He continued his researches out to the path in the same patient and thorough way, passing neither shrub nor tuft of grass till he was certain it bore no traces of quarry or victim. Just before he reached the path his care was rewarded again. On the ground was another drop of blood.
Well pleased, he worked on towards the house. Twenty yards farther he found still another drop. It certainly looked as if the body had been carried from the house.
The path was approaching the St. Kilda grounds at an angle of forty-five degrees. It did not actually reach the grounds, but passed round the corner behind the house and so to the road. There was, however, a very faint track from it to the grounds, a track made probably by Earle himself. This track reached the grounds at a point nearly opposite the study window. The boundary fence was merely two strands of fencing wire, and served only to mark position, being practically no obstruction to passage.
When French reached the faint track he turned along it towards the house. At the fence, again on a leaf, he found another drop of blood.
He was about to pass through the fence when he happened to notice marks on a small patch of sand behind a furze bush. He went over. This sand, which had evidently been thrown up by a rabbit, was the only sand in the immediate neighbourhood. It lay on the farther side of the bush from the house, the bush being about twenty feet from the building and almost exactly opposite the study window. The marks were undoubtedly footmarks, and fresh at that. They had obviously been made on the Sunday, because they were free from water pitting and Saturday night had been very wet. The sand was too soft to hold details. All that seemed clear was that they had not been made by high-heeled shoes. This, however, did not prove they were a man’s, as many women wear low heels in the country. French, pleased with his progress, thought whimsically that if now he only had the great Sherlock’s luck, he would find the end of a cigar which would lead him direct to the person who had waited behind the bush. But though he looked everywhere about, he found neither a cigar-end nor anything else.
With renewed zeal he began searching round the house. If he could find blood actually at the house it would show that Ursula had been murdered, or at least attacked, inside, whereas if no further trace were visible there would be nothing to prove that she had not walked out and been killed in the wood. It was a more important point than appeared at first sight, as if the murder had taken place in the house, it would be difficult to exonerate Julia—and perhaps Marjorie—from complicity, while if Ursula had somehow been enticed out into the wood, the chances were the sisters were innocent.
The most meticulous search all round the building, however, revealed no further traces and French transferred his operations to the inside. He began in the hall, connecting the flex of his powerful electric lamp to the ceiling holder. Here, though he was extremely careful, he had no luck. He moved on to the drawing-room, again without result. Then he thought that of all rooms in the house, Ursula’s own bedroom was the one most likely to have been the scene of the tragedy, and he went up and made a much more thorough examination of the floor and furniture than he had on the previous evening. But again he found nothing of interest.
A good deal disappointed, he turned his attention to the stairs. No result. Then doggedly he set to work to complete the house. He did the dining-room. Again no result. Next he moved to the study. And here, almost immediately, he found more blood!
Locking the door, he began systematically crawling over the floor with his lamp. Yes, here was a drop of blood. And another. And another. Three drops of blood on the carpet!
The study was a small oak-panelled room about ten feet by twelve. In one of the shorter sides was a bow-window, the centre portion forming a double-doored french-window. Facing into the room from the window, the fireplace was in the middle of the right side and the door to the left of the wall opposite. On the left wall, opposite the fireplace, were bookshelves.
Two of the drops were close together in the corner between the fireplace and the door; the other was
just inside the french-window. French stood gazing down at them, thinking deeply.
Was there not something suggestive in the position of these drops? The single one near the french-window was easy to understand: it had probably fallen while the body was being carried out. But the other two were not, as might have been expected, in the line between the door and the window. They were much too near the corner. They had certainly not fallen while the body was being carried through the room.
Did it not rather look as if the murder must have been committed in the study itself? For a few moments French continued standing in thought, then registering the idea for future consideration, he continued his search. But almost at once he stopped again and began whistling tunelessly.
He had withdrawn to the corner of the room and was glancing about in the hope of seeing something suggestive, when he noticed what he thought were sandy footmarks on the carpet. When bending over the carpet with his lamp he had missed these, but now looking from a distance they showed faintly. Stooping down so as to look along the surface brought them out more clearly. Yes, there was no doubt someone with sandy shoes had walked across the carpet from the french-window to the corner where the two drops had fallen. He examined the marks as carefully as he could, but they were very vague and he could not even tell whether they had been made by a man or a woman. He brushed up some of the sand and put it in an envelope, also taking a sample of that behind the bush for comparison.
His first thought was that these traces had been made by the murderer when entering to attack Ursula Stone, but in a moment he saw that the discovery was not necessarily so significant. The footprints need not have been connected with the murder at all. They might have been made in a hundred perfectly innocent ways. However, it was a matter to be borne in mind.
The Hog's Back Mystery Page 16