Comes a Stranger

by E. R. Punshon

  Presently, however, a reason came out. Mr. Broast believed he had caught sight of someone prowling about in the grounds near the library where no stranger had any right to be, and he was very worried. He had called out, but whoever it was had vanished without making any reply. A burglar in his opinion. Perhaps that Mr. Adams staying at the village inn. Mr. Broast had had his doubts of Mr. Adams from the first, and now he felt them more than justified.

  “Told me he was connected with the University of Nebraska,” said Mr. Broast darkly. “No credentials to show, though. In my opinion, he had never been near any University in his life. He wanted to see the Mandeville leaves, wanted to photograph them. Delighted, of course, to give every facility to anyone from any university of standing, but then, is he? Or is he wanting to see what he can pick up? What do you think, Mr. Owen?”

  Bobby suggested warning the local police constable, though privately of opinion that the stooping, blinking Mr. Adams looked little like any burglar he had ever met.

  After dinner it was nearly time for Bobby to depart. He lingered as long as he dared and then started off. Olive wanted to come with him as far as the Wynton Arms, where he had left his motor cycle, but the night was dark, the road unlighted and the weather uninviting, with a faint splutter of rain beginning.

  So Bobby set off alone. On his way he had to pass the building that was both the local police station and the home of the resident village constable. The door was open, and in the little room that served as an office two people were talking loudly. Bobby, wondering what was happening, stood still for a moment before going on and then the policeman, a man named Mills, who had never had to deal with anything much more serious than a theft of poultry or an unlighted bicycle lamp, came running after him.

  “Beg pardon,” he said. “I saw you passing. It’s Mr. Owen, isn’t it? It’s the talk here, belonging to Scotland Yard, up at London.”

  “Yes, why?” asked Bobby, guessing that for some reason he was wanted back in town at once.

  Constable Mills paused to wipe his forehead. In the light of the gas lamp above the door he looked pale and excited.

  “There’s a gentleman come in,” he said, “American gentleman, staying at the Wynton Arms. He says there’s been murder done up at the Lodge in the library, he says he looked in and saw a dead man lying there all over blood.”

  CHAPTER VI

  SECOND REPORT

  Behind Mills, framed in the lighted doorway of the little police station, stood the tall, still form of the young American who at lunch that day, at the Wynton Arms, had tried to get into conversation with Bobby about his work. To Bobby, now, it seemed there was something intent and wrought-up in his attitude as he stood there, leaning a little forward, like the gambler who, having placed his stake, watches and waits for the fall of the roulette ball. Bobby looked at his watch. He saw that it was nineteen minutes past ten. He said to the American:

  “What is your name?”

  “Virtue,” the other answered. “Bertram A. Virtue.”

  The gas light above his head shone with a yellow radiance on his features, made indeed a kind of aureole about his head. Natural perhaps that a man who had hastened there with such a tale of violence, of death, of murder apparently, should have that tense, excited air. He was tall, well made, athletic in bearing, distinctly good looking, with his fair hair, blue eyes, fresh complexion, well-formed, regular features, though the nose, with its wide nostrils, inclined perhaps a trifle too much towards that variety known as the ‘snub’. Bobby noticed, too, that his ears were smaller than usual, with pointed tops, and were set closely to the head so that the lobes seemed almost to sink into the cheek. It is always well to pay special attention to the ears, for they are distinctive, difficult to disguise, always useful for purposes of identification. In spite of the tense restraint in which he held himself, his long, pliant fingers were restless, twisting themselves with and round each other. All this Bobby took in, as he had been trained to do, with one quick, intent look, and then he said:

  “You state you saw a dead man in the Kayne library?”

  “That’s so,” Virtue answered.

  “We had better get along there immediately,” Bobby said. “Please come, too.” He turned to Mills. “You’ve got a bike? Good. Anyone else here? Only your wife? Ask her to ring up your inspector at once and tell him what’s happened. Don’t stop her to do it yourself, let her. Get your bike out and get along to the Lodge as quick as you can. Mr. Virtue and I will follow—we’ll foot it, quicker than waiting to get hold of a car. Can you run, Mr. Virtue?” Virtue nodded. “Come along then, sooner we’re there, the better.”

  They started to run. Hampered both by the darkness and by their own lack of familiarity with the road, they could not, however, use their best speed. Side by side they ran, their feet loud in the darkness of the night. Bobby had a fleeting thought that the sound of their running would alarm the whole village. He noticed, too, that Virtue ran easily and lightly, like a man in good condition. Half-way to the Lodge, Mills passed them, riding furiously. Three-quarters of the way to the Lodge, they found him crawling out of the ditch into which he and his cycle had gone together in the dark, head first.

  “The bike’s smashed up,” he said as they arrived. “I’ve hurt my ankle or something,” he said, trying to limp along.

  “Never mind the bike,” Bobby said. “Come on as quick as you can—crawl if you can’t walk. Come on, Mr. Virtue.”

  They raced on together. Before them showed the lights of the Lodge, hitherto screened by the trees that lined the road. Questions were forming themselves in Bobby’s mind as they ran together, side by side. He wished he could stop and ask some of them. He wished he could watch his companion’s face. But the darkness hid it, and one cannot run and race through the night and ask questions at the same time.

  He remembered that Mr. Broast had complained of having seen someone prowling about in the Hall grounds near the library after dark had fallen. Virtue’s breathing was quiet and regular, as though this physical exertion had in some way relieved his excitement. His story sounded curious, fantastic even, and yet why should Virtue tell it, if it were not true? The truth may be fantastic at times, and life can take on the quality of a nightmare, but what possible motive could any apparently sane man have for inventing such a tale? Then surely it must be true, and yet there was a clear memory in Bobby’s mind, both of those steel shutters to the library windows he had understood were invariably closed at nightfall and of that other fact that in the library there was no artificial light at all.

  Through his mind raced these facts as his feet raced along the road, and now they were in the short drive that led up to the Lodge. The library annexe was on the other side of the building and to reach it they would have to go right round the house. Bobby’s plan had been either to go himself or send Mills round to the library to watch outside, while the other of them entered through the house. But Mills was not there, and Bobby did not wish to let Virtue out of his sight. They were at the front door now. Bobby tried it. It was unlocked, and he opened it and entered without stopping to knock or ring. This was no time, he felt, for ceremony, and he supposed the noise they made in entering would at once bring someone on the scene. He had noticed the position of the service door, and he went towards it, meaning to call for someone to come. As he approached it, it opened, and Briggs appeared, looking very startled. He stood still when he saw Bobby. Bobby said quickly:

  “I’m here as a police officer. A man has been seen in the library annexe. Is it open? have you a key? I it one of those?”

  He pointed as he spoke to a cabinet with a glass door he had noticed hanging on the wall, containing various keys.

  “The two bottom at the right are for the library doors,” Briggs answered. “I can ask Mr. Broast for his—he’s in his room.”

  But Bobby was in no mind to wait. Every moment might be of importance. The man Virtue had seen might not be dead for that matter, but only injured, and the differenc
e of a minute might mean the difference between a saved life and a lost. Bobby caught hold of the handle of the cabinet and gave it a violent pull. It had been locked but both it and the lock were of poor construction. With a splintering of wood the door gave way. Bobby took the keys. He said to Briggs:

  “Tell Mr. Broast at once. Where are the ladies? don’t disturb them yet if you can help it.”

  He hurried on, Virtue close at his heels, Briggs, watching them over his shoulder in a very doubtful and bewildered manner, was hesitatingly ascending the stairs. He said as if he had just thought of it:

  “The ladies have retired for the night, sir.”

  Bobby and Virtue went on down the passage along which Olive had conducted Bobby that afternoon. They came to the big, fireproof door that shut off the library annexe from the house. Bobby opened it and they went through into the lobby. The second fireproof door, giving admission to the library hall, Bobby opened, too, and they went in.

  The darkness was intense. No gleam of light showed, no breath of air stirred, the silence was broken only by the sound of their own hurried and uneven breathing. Bobby flashed around the beam of his pocket torch, a thin ray of light that left the darkness deeper on each side. To and fro he sent it, searching. It showed only row upon row of books, silent and waiting as it were. He had the idea that they were all watching him, a little scornfully, a little scornful of all transitory things, of all happenings in time and space, remembering in their eternal calm, in the wisdom and the knowledge of the past that they enshrined, how little all the fret and fuss of the passing hour mattered compared with their perpetuity. Impatiently Bobby shrugged his shoulders, as if to throw off these ideas the sombre heavy silence of the library seemed to impose upon him, and, moving a yard or two to one side, he directed the light of his torch along the open passage way that ran the length of the hall below the windows on the north side. There was nothing to be seen, no prostrate body, no sign of any struggle. He threw the light next on each window in turn. Apparently, of each one, the shutters were securely fastened. Bobby said:

  “All the shutters are closed. Which window was it?”

  “The middle one. I noticed that.”

  “If you could see in through it, the shutters must have been closed since. Anybody there must have been moved, too.”

  He walked on towards the indicated window. Virtue followed. He said:

  “The body was lying there.”

  He pointed to a spot exactly in front of the window and midway between the two transverse book-cases that here made one of the successive open bays into which on each side the floor of the library was divided. There was nothing unusual to be seen, no sign of any struggle or of any other happening.

  Bobby said:

  “I think you told Mills the body you saw was covered with blood?”

  “Yes, not covered exactly. There was a good deal on the—” He paused and went on: “—from a wound in the chest.”

  “Did you see any weapon? what sort of wound? big, small, from a stab, an open cut? a gash?”

  “I’m not sure,” Virtue answered. “I was too upset to look very closely. I think it was a small wound, a stab most likely, or it might have been a bullet wound. I don’t know. There seemed to be a good deal of blood. It was all over the front part of the body.”

  Bobby was stooping down. He looked very carefully at the floor. He even lifted the coco-nut matting which here served for a floor covering. He said:

  “I can’t see the least trace of any blood.”

  Virtue said nothing He stood still and upright. He was apparently deep in thought, but he did not seem troubled by the incredulity in Bobby’s tone. Bobby went on:

  “Did you notice what time it was when you saw all this?”

  “Yes. I remember looking at my watch. I didn’t know what to do. I’m a stranger here. I didn’t know what a Britisher would do. I thought I had better go find police.”

  “You didn’t think of giving an immediate alarm, of rousing the house?”

  “I suppose I thought some of them inside must know already,” he answered. “I daresay I was a bit scared of what might happen if I knocked up the folk indoors. It’s a bit disturbing when you’re a foreigner and never been in the country before to run across what looks like a murder. I just stood and stared and felt mighty scared and then I left quick as I knew how to find police.”

  “Was the window wide open or did you see through the glass? Did the shutters show at all? were they partly closed, I mean?”

  “The window was shut. I could see through the glass. It was the bright light shining through it outside I noticed first. I didn’t notice shutters or curtain or anything like that. I knew at night the library was always shut up tight as could be. That’s what made me wonder when I saw the light, why I came across to look.”

  “Where did the light come from?”

  “I didn’t notice. The rest of the place was all dark. It was light all round this part, light was shining out through the window, too, but every other place was dark.”

  “Curious,” observed Bobby dryly, “for I understand the library has no artificial lighting system of any kind.”

  “No—no lighting?” Virtue repeated. For the first time he seemed startled, taken aback. “But there must be—stands to sense. I mean—” He paused and then said doggedly:—“Well, I don’t know about that. Maybe there was a torch fixed somewhere. I saw what I told you, and there must have been light someway for me to see by.”

  Bobby made no reply. He was feeling more and more puzzled. The library door opened. They both turned. Briggs was standing there. He said:

  “I can’t find Mr. Broast. He’s not in his room. Is anyone here?”

  “We haven’t found anyone, but we haven’t looked everywhere, and this gentleman is quite sure he saw—something,” Bobby answered. “He attends to them himself. It’s always as soon as it’s dark.”

  Bobby examined the shutters again. They were all carefully locked, securely fastened on the inside. He asked Briggs to get two of the electric torches, the most powerful there were, from the stock kept in hand for use in the library when work had to be done after dark. Telling Briggs to remain by the doorway, Bobby, Virtue accompanying him, made a hurried search of the library and the cellar below. It did not take long. There were few hiding places. They found nothing. All seemed in perfect order.

  “If there was a dead body there, it has been moved.”

  “That’s so,” Virtue agreed. “There was a body here and it has been moved. I’ll stake my life on that. Now it’s up to you.”

  “Yes,” agreed Bobby.

  “Up to you,” Virtue repeated slowly, and Bobby thought he was putting emphasis on the words, “up to you to take that for a start and find out what it means.”

  “If it means anything,” Bobby said.

  “I get you,” Virtue said in the same slow and heavy tones. “I know what you mean. You think maybe I’m crazy or lying. I suggest the most thorough and careful search of the whole building and I claim the right to be present. I realize I am responsible. You can prosecute for what you call ‘public mischief’. Very likely, too, I am liable for damages—libel, or malicious scandal or something of the sort. Well, I’ve a right to defend myself. I claim there has been a dead body here, and I say it has been moved. I claim that a thorough and complete search must be made, and I claim the right to be present.”

  “You are claiming a good many rights,” Bobby said, “and I don’t know myself that you have any rights to claim any one of them. Your statement so far seems entirely unconfirmed.”

  “You’re a swell detective, aren’t you?” Virtue said. “I’ve heard quite a lot about you in the village. They’ve all been talking. You can get at the truth of anything according to them. Give him a brick, they’ve been saying, and he’ll build a row of houses. Well, I’ve shown you a brick, build your house from it, get at the truth from it.”

  “That sounds like a challenge,” Bobby said.

&n
bsp; They were both silent then. Bobby was very puzzled. He did not in the least know what to make either of the man himself or of his story. It sounded preposterous, utterly incredible indeed, and yet there was an accent of sincerity, of an almost passionate conviction in his low, intense tones. Bobby continued:

  “Anyhow, it’s not up to me. You’re wrong there. I’m only in this by accident. I happened to be here and the village constable felt a bit out of his depth and asked me to help. Just a coincidence.” He paused when he had said this, for it was as though something stirred deep down, down in his consciousness and told him it was no coincidence at all. “Oh well,” he said, “it’s nothing to do with me. I’m Metropolitan police. This is the local people’s show. They’ll carry on. They’ll decide what to do. I shan’t have anything more to do with it after they take over.”

  “But you’re from Scotland Yard, aren’t you?” Virtue asked. His voice sounded curiously disappointed. He said: “I thought Scotland Yard was the boss show over here, did it all?”

  “The local police have sole authority in their own districts,” Bobby answered. “Scotland Yard is only the headquarters of its own local police in their own district, which happens to be the London area,” and he was more convinced than ever that this bit of information was a heavy disappointment, both surprise and shock to Virtue.

  They were interrupted by the belated and limping arrival of Mills, looking a good deal the worse for wear after his adventure, with torn clothing, a scratched face, a dragging leg. He was helping himself along with a stick he had got out of a hedge near his accident. Bobby asked him how soon they might expect help and he said that he didn’t suppose the inspector would be long. The chief constable, Major Harley, might come, too, he thought. The major did not live far away, and quite probably the inspector would have rung him up to report such a sensational story.