A thorough search revealed just what he had expected: nothing whatever, and with only the consciousness of work well done, he returned to Farnham on the following evening. During dinner that night and afterwards as he sat smoking in the lounge, he brooded sombrely over the case. What he particularly wanted was to have his programme for the next day settled. But for the life of him he could not see on what line to concentrate. Every direction in which he turned seemed to lead to a deadlock.
At last, wearied and disgusted, he picked up a novel which he had brought down to finish, but with which up to now he had made but little progress. He found, however, that he could not concentrate on the story. Again and again his thoughts strayed back to the case, and presently he threw the book down and gave himself up to a renewed mental search for other lines of attack.
It was while he was thus desultorily reviewing the evidence that he found himself trying to picture just what must have taken place in the study at St. Kilda at the time of Ursula Stone’s murder. There were one or two points about that study business which were not altogether clear. Why the study, in the first place? Why had the murder taken place there, if it had? Was it simply because that from the study there was a convenient exit to the wood? On the other hand, was the choice accidental? If so, how had Ursula been induced to come down there from her bedroom? And most puzzling of all, if neither Julia, Marjorie nor Slade had been concerned in the murder, who on the face of the earth had been?
As French sat smoking and pondering these conundrums, he began to wonder if there was not in this selection of the study some deeper and more fundamental motive than he had as yet contemplated? Could there be here something that he had missed, or was he just wasting his time in fanciful nonsense?
The line of sandy footsteps recurred to him. Whose were these? How disappointing it had been that he had been unable to learn something more about them! If he had even been able to say whether they belonged to a man or a woman it might have been a help. But they showed no detail.
Wait a minute though. Did they not? They had position. Was not their position at least interesting?
French recalled exactly where they had appeared. Their owner had evidently entered by the french-window and had walked across the room. To what part?
So far as it had been possible to ascertain, to the corner to the left of the fireplace. Was there a reason for this, or was it a mere accident? French recalled the furnishing of the room. There was no furniture at that place, nor was there anything on the wall. What could the visitor have gone there for?
Just an accident, he thought. And yet he was not wholly satisfied. Had there been a table or a bookcase it would have been easier to understand, but there was neither.
Impatiently French dismissed the affair from his mind and turned again to his novel. But a mental picture of the study seemed to intrude between his eyes and the page. With a muttered oath he threw the book away and let his thoughts roam where they would.
And now he recalled a fact which he had noted at the time with some small feeling of surprise. The walls of the study were expensively panelled in oak. It had struck him then, and now it struck him again, that this elaborate decoration was a little out of keeping with the remainder of the house. In fact, the decoration in the study must have cost more than that of the whole of the rest of the house put together. Why?
Well, there had often been a reason in the past for panelling. But, of course, such a reason would not apply to-day. All the same, French could not get the idea out of his mind.
Wondering if he was altogether a fool, he determined that, as he was at a loose end, he might as well run out once again to St. Kilda and have a look at that panelling. As soon as he reached this decision his subconscious self seemed satisfied, thoughts of the case vanished from his mind and he became immersed without effort in his book.
Next morning he was early at St. Kilda, and going into the study, he locked the door and settled down to his problem. He had measured exactly where the footsteps had gone and he now marked the place with a couple of books. Yes, he had been right. They went close to the wall, but at the place there was neither furniture nor pictures: only the panelling.
He moved across and began to examine the panelling. It was an exceedingly good job, with fine, well-fitting joints. French took out his lens and began slowly passing it along these joints.
In most of them the wood touched, and where it didn’t they were full of dust. Clearly no movement had taken place since they were made.
Then suddenly a little tremor of excitement passed through French. Here, just opposite where the footsteps had stopped, was a joint entirely clear of dust. It was very narrow, not more than the sixty-fourth of an inch in width, but quite clean.
French followed it along, and as he did so his excitement grew. The joints around a complete panel of some twelve by eighteen inches were clean!
French was immediately tempted to indulge in an orgy of pressing, pulling, shoving, squeezing and twisting, but he restrained himself. Before touching anything he got out his powdering apparatus and dusted a large area of the panelling for fingerprints.
His forethought was rewarded. Certain portions of the panelling bore prints. But as French examined them he became conscious of something even more interesting.
Practically none of the prints were whole. There were half-prints and quarter-prints and narrow strips of prints. Little round or oval patches of the markings had been wiped out, and French had no difficulty in guessing the cause. Gloves! Someone who wore gloves had been feeling over the panelling!
There seemed little use in photographing such prints as remained, but French was taking no chances, and he made records of all the marks. Then he gave himself up to manipulation. For a considerable time he worked upon the area covered by the prints, but without result. Then it occurred to him that many secret panels were opened by a simultaneous pressure on the panel and on another point perhaps four or five feet away. He therefore began searching with his lens for clear joints at some other part of the wall.
At last he found a decoration on the oak mantelpiece which also was surrounded by clean joints. At once he began a new orgy of pressures and twists.
And then a wave of delight shot over him, for the decoration moved. Moreover, pressure on the panel now had its effect. It slid backwards and then to one side, revealing in the brick wall behind a small steel safe!
French felt that at last he was on to something material. This was what the murderer had come for! This probably was what Ursula had seen him operating, and for her knowledge she had paid with her life!
The safe was locked. French remembered, however, having seen a number of keys in Earle’s desk. He took these out and tried them one after another. None of them would enter the lock.
He wondered if Julia knew of the safe. Without a search warrant he daren’t break it open, but Julia might give him permission. He stepped out into the hall and called her.
Her amazement when she saw the safe was so obviously genuine that French couldn’t doubt it. She emphatically denied ever having seen or heard of it before.
“It’s his book!” she exclaimed. “You were asking where he kept it and I didn’t know. He was very secretive about his book. Except that it was about some medical subject, he never would give any information. Certainly you may have it opened. Indeed, if you don’t, I shall do it myself.”
“When was it put in, Mrs. Earle?” French asked.
“It must have been when we took the house and before we moved in,” she answered. “The panelling of this room was done then at all events. I remember I wasn’t very pleased about it. It seemed a waste of a lot of good money. If all the sitting-rooms had been done I shouldn’t have said a word. But only this study! Dr. Earle said it was because of the damp. It never occurred to me to doubt that, but now I remember that I was in this room before it was done and I never saw any damp.”
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br /> When Julia had gone French telephoned to the Yard to send down an expert to open the safe. Then he returned to the study, determined not to leave the room till he had seen the contents.
While waiting he had another orgy with his dusting powder: with the same result. Obviously the last person to open the safe had worn gloves.
Scotland Yard put its best foot forward and in five minutes less than two hours a car drove up with two efficient-looking men and a formidable kit of tools. A short inspection told them that the lock could not be forced, and they rigged their oxy-acetylene plant and began playing a high temperature flame on the plates. Presently the hard steel burned away and soon a small circle of plate was lifted out. Then came a delay while the remaining metal cooled sufficiently to be touched; but eventually, working through the hole they had made, the experts were able to disconnect the lock and the little door swung back. Eagerly French gazed in.
Julia Earle was right! Here was the book! There were scores, probably hundreds, of quarto sheets covered with Earle’s rather untidy handwriting: these sheets—and nothing else!
French turned them over. Yes, they were about medical subjects: so far as he could see in a rapid glance, the production of disease from cultivations of bacilli.
He swore bitterly. Seldom had he had so great a disappointment. This discovery of the safe, reached by a process of reasoning and investigation which he felt did him immense credit, should surely have led to something really helpful. And what had he gained from it? Nothing!
Less than nothing! It had removed from the possibilities one theory of the crime and one criminal! French had never very seriously suspected Campion of stealing the book, but now here was proof that the doctor had done nothing of the kind. So much time wasted!
Automatically French worked on, testing the inside of the safe for fingerprints: again with the same result. Gloves had been at work within as well as without. Then he sat down at Earle’s desk and gave himself up to thought.
There was in this whole matter something which he was quite unable to understand. A secret safe was a very unusual thing. What was it for? It could not have been put in because of anything which had recently happened. Obviously the panelling had been undertaken as a mask for its installation; six years ago; before the Earles moved into the house. Had Earle’s disappearance, then, to do with some long-standing secret?
Or was the safe simply to hold the manuscript of the book? French did not think so. An ordinary safe would have held it all right. It was not as if there had been any secret about the book itself. Everyone knew Earle was writing it. Was there something more in Earle’s life than he had yet suspected? Things were beginning to look very like it.
French, having obtained Julia’s permission, parcelled up the manuscript to send to a doctor who sometimes did police work for the Yard and who had become rather a friend of his own. He did not think it was important, but it would be well to be sure it could have had no bearing on the affair.
Apart from its raison d’être, the existence of the safe did certainly clear up some of the detail of Ursula’s murder. It seemed obvious that she had in some way become suspicious and come down and discovered the thief in the act of burglary. In self-defence he had killed her—defence, that is, from the legal consequences of his act. But if so, why had he not removed the book?
Then French saw that he was being stupid. Why limit the contents of the safe to the book? The book didn’t fill it. Had there not been something else more vital to the thief?
At once French’s previous idea recurred to him. Was it something which, if found, would prove that the thief had murdered Earle? It might well be. Even it might prove that he had murdered Nurse Nankivel also. French was puzzled and for the moment he didn’t see how he was to settle the point. The whole affair was confoundedly exasperating.
Then still another idea flashed into his mind. What if the space in the safe had been filled, not with proof of the murder of Earle, but with money? What if here had been what he had so long sought under the guise of a second banking account? What if Earle had not been murdered at all, as he, French, had just been supposing? What if, taking from this safe a large sum of money or negotiable securities, Earle had after all gone away with Helen Nankivel? Was there any evidence for his death? There was not. French had assumed it, partly because Ursula had been murdered, but principally because he had taken no money with him. Suppose he had taken money with him. How would the question then stand?
Again, was there any evidence of Helen Nankivel’s death? There was not. Was there any motive for it? None. Why had he ever thought of such a thing? Simply because he had been driven to assume Earle’s death. Now was that assumption not invalid?
French swore. Instead of clearing up the case, this discovery of the safe was making it a hundred times worse confounded! Its foundations were cracking. He now knew no more what had happened to Earle than on the day of his first visit. And if this idea of the money were correct, what had the thief been after, and why had Ursula been killed? Damn it all, had Ursula been killed? For all the evidence there was, she might merely have been rendered unconscious in the study and then kidnapped. She mightn’t be dead at all.
Overcome with exasperation and disappointment, French rode dejectedly back to Farnham.
Chapter XVI
French Arranges an Experiment
French’s mood lasted all evening and all evening his thoughts remained busy with the case. What was to be his next move? Rack his brains as he might, he couldn’t think of any line which he had not already explored.
Worried beyond measure, he sat smoking in his room, where he had lit the gas fire, gazing vacantly into space and pondering on the eternal problem of what was truth.
Idly he wondered which of the two phases of his work—one or other of which he was usually up against—was the more exasperating: to have to make endless wearying repetitions of some small enquiry with consistently futile results, or not to see the way ahead at all. “Ough!” he groaned in disgust. “Who would be a detective?”
Carefully he began to go over for the thousandth time the facts of the case. Was there nothing that he had missed? No line of research still unexplored? No stone—he smiled whimsically to himself at the pompous cliché—still unturned?
Mechanically he got out his notebook and began more seriously and systematically than ever to review the entire circumstances.
The thing had got on his nerves, and his bedtime came and went, leaving him still seated in his armchair turning over the pages of his notebook, reading an item, remaining motionless as he considered it from every point of view, reading another item.…But nowhere could he get any light.
Again and again he told himself that he must give up for the night, but his mind was so restless that he could not do so. Surely to goodness there must be something that he had missed? There was necessarily a complete and satisfying explanation to the whole affair. Why could he not find it? What men had imagined, men could imagine again. What had gone wrong with him lately?
He sat in his chair. He paced the room. He threw himself on his bed. He paced the room again. He sat in his chair and bent forward. He sat in his chair and leant backward. But no change of position helped him. He could think of nothing fresh.
It was past one o’clock. He must really go to bed. This sort of worrying over the affair just upset him and didn’t lead anywhere.
He was refilling his pipe for one last smoke when suddenly he paused and sat motionless, while an expression, first of interest and then of actual excitement, grew slowly in his eyes. Was it possible that he had missed something after all; something which might well be vital?
He put down his pipe and began whistling softly under his breath. That clay in Slade’s car! Was not that his clue? Was it not the most important thing he had yet discovered, or was he merely being more silly than usual? That clay: where had it come from?
&nbs
p; He recalled exactly what he had seen. In the pile of the carpet before the driving seat were traces of yellow clay: evidently from the shoes of the driver. Where had it come from?
French considered the country soils, so far as he knew them. There were large areas of sand—black sand, white sand, yellow sand. There was on the Hog’s Back ridge chalk, white and greasy. There was a light brown loam. There was a kind of peat. But yellow clay?…
There was only one place in which French had seen it, and it was the memory of this which had given him so furiously to think. On the by-pass! When he had walked up towards the Hog’s Back along the Compton road on his visit to Polperro he had had a look at what was going on, and he had seen yellow clay passing in the contractor’s little trucks. Yellow clay on the by-pass! Yellow clay in Slade’s car! Was there any connection?
For a time French was filled with excitement. Then came the natural reaction. The thing must, of course, have some quite natural explanation. Perhaps Slade knew the engineers, or was merely having a walk over the workings to satisfy his curiosity. It might be so. And yet French didn’t imagine that dull and humdrum engineering of the cut and fill type would have appealed to Slade.
While determined not to be disappointed if nothing came of it, French decided that unless he thought of something better in the meantime, he would have another look at that clay on the by-pass. If it did no good, it could at least do no harm.
Next morning his enthusiasm had waned still further—waned indeed till nothing was left of it. However, he took a bus along the Hog’s Back, and alighting at the by-pass bridge, set off to walk towards Compton. As before he penetrated to the right at frequent intervals, examining the workings. There at all events was where the yellow clay was coming from. Beneath the summit of the Hog’s Back the cutting had been through chalk, but here on the south side of the ridge the chalk ran out and was succeeded, a dozen feet or more below ground level, by yellow clay. This clay was being loaded by a steam shovel into wagons, and run along a narrow-gauge line to be dumped lower down.
The Hog's Back Mystery Page 19