by Molly Thynne
“I’ve been keeping a quiet eye on that young man, and, going by appearances, his mind seems to be entirely taken up with Miss Hamilton. He’s the only person, by the way, that seems to have remembered that it’s Christmas Day.”
Stuart’s jaw dropped.
“Good Heavens, so it is!” he exclaimed. “I suppose the post, if there is one, would have reminded us when it came in.”
“There’s a post all right, or I shouldn’t have got my letter this morning, and, what’s more, the roads are almost clear and the trains are beginning to run fairly regularly. Our cruise in the ‘Noah’s Ark’ is nearly over!”
An idea struck Stuart.
“Do you suppose the Scotland Yard man will keep us hanging about here long?” he asked.
“It’s difficult to say. I don’t see how he can detain us as matters stand at present. He’s either got to find the emeralds or produce some evidence that they have been disposed of. As for the murder, he won’t find it easy to involve any one member of the party in that.”
Stuart chuckled.
“I should like to see Mrs. van Dolen’s face as she speeds the parting guests,” he said. “I’ve no doubt she’d like to see the whole lot of us arrested.”
“I don’t fancy the Yard will submit to any dictation from her. Those emeralds have been a bugbear to them far too long, and she’s had more than one warning from them. By the way, Soames suggested that you should remove the magneto from your car. It’s not a bad idea. If the thief does try to get away, as I’m convinced he will, yours is the only one that is available now. I’ve persuaded Bates to veto any repairs on the other cars for to-day, at least.”
“I’ll do it now, if Girling can let me have a lantern. This means, I suppose, that we shall have to be on the watch for the next twenty-four hours.”
“Till the man from the Yard gets here, at any rate. And if you do put your car out of action, I should do it as unobtrusively as possible. If the thief thinks he can still use it, it’s all to the good.”
“Right. I’ll use the torch; it’s less likely to attract attention than a lantern. Some one’s keeping a lookout, I suppose?”
“Since my suggestion this morning that the man had very little time left at his disposal and that he might try to make a get-away, the whole household has been on the job. Even Melnotte’s glued to his window, which, as he pointed out to me, ‘commands the front door.’ What he omitted to explain was how he proposes to transport himself from the second storey to the ground, supposing he does see some one departing!”
“Especially as I’m willing to bet that he’s locked himself in, for fear of an attack from the rear. It’s not going to be as easy as I thought to get to the barn unobserved.”
“Miss Ford’s keeping an eye on the barn from her window, I believe. You may be able to enlist her sympathy,” suggested Constantine demurely.
Stuart fetched his torch and slipped it into his pocket. He was amused to see Bates, looking ineffably bored, hanging about on the first landing. Trevor, with the help of Miss Hamilton, was busy decorating the lounge with holly. Stuart did not offer to help them, though it struck him that they were not getting on very quickly with their job. Two bunches of mistletoe, cunningly suspended in dusky corners, showed, however, that Trevor’s time had not been entirely wasted. Turning down the passage he found Girling smoking a pipe in his office, his chair so placed that he could keep an eye on the window that gave on to the yard. Any one going from the house to the barn would be bound to pass it on his way.
Going on the principle that, in the case of a secret, the fewer people that share it the better, he gave the excuse that he wanted to fetch a map from the pocket of his car. Girling handed over the key of the padlock with which he had secured the door.
“It’s not much of a protection,” he confessed, “but I can’t get no one to see to it to-day, bein’ Christmas, and it was the best I could do at the moment. Any one could get that hasp off, provided they’d got the tools.”
Stuart, as he unlocked the padlock, was inclined to agree with him. However, if they were counting on catching their man in the act of taking the car, it was all to the good that he should be given fairly easy access to the barn. He unshipped the magneto and slipped it into his pocket, then, carrying a road map ostentatiously in his hand, went back to the house.
He found Angela Ford and Miss Amy standing in the doorway of Girling’s office.
“I’ve just been settin’ the ladies’ minds at rest,” vouchsafed Girling, with a broad grin. “They saw you goin’ into the barn from their windows, and they came down to know if it was all right. I was tellin’ them they’re sharper off the mark than Tom Bates!”
“No one will get into the barn without my seeing them,” announced Miss Amy firmly. “My sister is sitting up to-day, so you can be sure that one of us will be on the watch.”
Stuart suddenly realized that, in their absorption, they had all completely forgotten to inquire after the elder Miss Adderley’s indisposition, and he hastened to repair the omission.
“She’s much better, thank you,” Miss Amy assured him. “Sitting up in a shawl to-day, and, I hope, well enough to come down to-morrow, though, what with the exciting life we’ve been leading, I feel it’s just as well that she hasn’t been up and about. She’s so much more easily upset than I am.”
“About to-night, sir,” said Girling, as they turned to leave. “I’ve done the best I can for you. There’ll be turkey for dinner and plum-puddin’; but I’d been countin’ on gettin’ the mince-pies from London, and, from all appearance, they’re not goin’ to turn up. As regards wine, I think I can satisfy you.”
“You won’t find me much of a critic, I’m afraid,” answered Stuart. “I’m a good enough judge of beer, but I don’t fly any higher.”
He accompanied Miss Ford to the door of her room.
“I suppose it’s no good trying to persuade you to play truant,” he said wistfully. “With the Misses Adderley so enthusiastically on the job, you’re not really needed, you know.”
She hesitated.
“I’ll play you fifty-up at billiards,” she decided. “Then we’ll have to go and get ready for Girling’s feast. Do you realize how late it is? Our Christmas Day seems to have been badly wasted.”
Stuart flushed, swallowed once or twice, and then spoke with almost unintelligible rapidity.
“I shall always look upon it as one of the happiest Christmases of my life,” he stated surprisingly.
Miss Ford stared at him.
“Do you really enjoy this sort of thing?” she asked. “Up to a point it’s quite pleasantly exciting, barring the death of poor Major Carew; but, I must say, my idea of a good night is to go to bed and stay there. How much sleep have you had since you arrived at the ‘Noah’s Ark’ Mr. Stuart?”
“I neither know nor care,” he retorted recklessly. “All I do know is that in a few days now we shall all go our several ways, and, to you, all this will be a queer, nightmare sort of memory. While, for me …”
Then confusion overcame him. He turned away abruptly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Let’s go up, shall we?”
Angela Ford followed him in silence, but as they entered the billiard-room she spoke.
“Mr. Stuart, you are going on to Redsands from here, aren’t you?”
His voice was strained as he answered. He was miserably conscious of having made a fool of himself.
“If I get away in time, I thought of seeing the New Year in there.”
“Then, what have I done?”
He swung round on her.
“You?”
“Is there any reason why you should cut me at Redsands? We shall be there together, you know, and unless you’ve got some reason for not wishing to pursue the acquaintance …”
Stuart strode over to the door and closed it carefully.
“I haven’t,” he said.
The dinner-gong had already pealed loudly when they emerged from the bill
iard-room, and, if they succeeded in playing their fifty-up, it would seem to have been a singularly silent game.
“Old Girling’s done us proud, all things considered,” was Soames’s comment as he surveyed the table.
Indeed, for the first time that day, the landlord had managed to bring his guests to the realization that it was Christmas Day. Perhaps the advent of the post, a few minutes before, with its load of greetings forwarded from London, had helped matters; but it is certain that, for a space at least, the cloud of foreboding and suspicion lifted from the “Noah’s Ark,” and it harked back, if somewhat decorously, to the good old days of punch, pink coats, and jollity. Even Miss Amy became slightly arch over her dessert, and Lord Romsey, who with his family had condescended to dine downstairs, wore an air of benevolent affability that somehow suggested a tactful chairman at a committee meeting. Even the figure of Bates, as seen at intervals through the door, morose and watchful in the lounge, did not serve to cast a blight over the festivities.
Constantine’s suggestion that they should forgather in the lounge after dinner met with instant approval; but the same thought was in all their minds, and it was a noticeably quieter party that trooped out of the dining-room. For, from the lounge, they could command a view of the stairs and at least one of the exits, and it would be easy for those members of the party who had undertaken to keep guard in the upper regions to slip away in turn. Constantine was the first to leave them, indignantly refusing Stuart’s offer to take his place.
“I won’t be treated as a back number,” he objected. “Stay here and enjoy yourself, my boy. If you’ve been cheated out of your fun at Redsands, at least you shan’t spend your Christmas skulking behind a bathroom door. Girling’s undertaken to watch the first floor, and Bates and two of the outside men are in charge of the barn and the top storey, so neither you nor Soames is needed yet awhile. Make the most of your time!” he added, with a sly glance in the direction of Angela Ford, who was dancing with Trevor to the strains of a decrepit gramophone that he and Miss Hamilton had unearthed in the village.
Stuart protested that he was no dancer, and a far less valuable asset to the party than Constantine; but the old man was adamant.
“If you’re determined to treat me as your aged grandfather,” he retorted, “I hasten to assure you that this sort of thing no longer amuses me, and, what’s more, I find myself a clog on the wheel. That is one of the penalties of growing old, as you will find out for yourself one day. Get into your head that I wish to go and sit behind my door!”
He said good-night, and the storm of protest that arose from the entire party gave the he to his words. In spite of which he departed, thus missing the great excitement of the evening.
It had struck midnight; the voice of the B.B.C. had proclaimed its last Christmas greeting from the loud-speaker in the bar, and Lord Romsey was, with some difficulty, shepherding the least tractable member of his family up to bed, when Girling hurried into the lounge.
“Perhaps you’d take my place upstairs, Mr. Soames,” he said. “They’ve sent up for me. There’s a car just driven up to the door.”
With a nod of understanding Soames ran upstairs, while Girling hurried to the door and threw it open.
At first glance it seemed to Stuart that the man who stood on the threshold was the largest he had ever seen. Later he realized that some of his bulk, at least, was due to the thickness of the rough frieze coat he was wearing; but even when he had slipped it off and stood thawing himself by the fire, both his height and breadth of shoulder was arresting. His clean-shaven face and the huge hands he held gratefully to the warmth were red and raw with the cold.
“I’m sorry to disturb you so late in the day,” he said pleasantly, “but I’ve had a time of it getting through at all. I’d be grateful for a bite of something and a bed for a couple of nights.”
“I can give you a room, though I’m afraid it will be a small one,” answered Girling. “We’re a bit full up, as you see. And I’ll have supper served in the coffee-room in a minute or two.”
“Don’t mind how small the room is, provided the bed’s large enough,” returned the stranger, with a jolly laugh. “What about the car?”
Girling hesitated. He had no mind to tell the new-comer what had been happening to the cars in his barn during the last few nights.
“We’re full up in the barn here, sir,” he said at last. “Your car would be safer at the wheelwright’s, if you’re minded to let my man run it down there.”
The other looked dubious.
“No need to go routing people out of their beds,” he objected. “The car’s only a small two-seater. Haven’t you a shed you can put her in for to-night?”
“There’s a shed,” confessed Girling reluctantly; “but it’s got no lock, and it’s not over weather-tight.”
The other laughed.
“Well, no one’s going car-stealing on a night like this,” he said. “The shed’s good enough for me.”
He followed Girling upstairs. Trevor looked after him with a grin.
“I wonder what sort of house he’ll think he’s got into,” he said to Stuart, “if he looks out of his bedroom door during the night and finds a prowler on each landing. Anyway, he’s hefty enough to tackle a dozen masked burglars.”
Stuart nodded.
“He’ll be a useful ally, if we do get our man,” he agreed. “I wonder who he is?”
Girling answered that question when he rejoined them. He looked badly worried.
“That’s just what I hoped wouldn’t happen,” he said. “The fewer strangers we get the better, till this business is cleared up. The inn’s in a fair way towards gettin’ a bad name already. As it was, I had to tell him the trouble we’ve had with the cars, seein’ as he was set on leavin’ his in the shed. I’ve left him to find out the rest of the story for himself. I daresay he’ll hear it soon enough,” he finished despondently.
“What’s his name?” asked Soames.
“Captain Macklin. He’s from Redsands.”
“Redsands!” exclaimed Stuart. “Then the road’s clear?”
Girling’s gloomy features relaxed into a smile.
“You wouldn’t say so if you’d heard his account of how he got here. He’s not recommending any one to try it for the next day or two. Seems to think it will be Monday, at least, before the roads are really clear.”
“Christmas Day seems a curious day to leave a place like Redsands,” remarked Soames thoughtfully.
Stuart’s eyes lit up with mirth.
“Another suspect?” he inquired gently. “You’re getting insatiable, Soames.”
“All the same, it is a funny day to choose,” insisted Soames doggedly.
“According to his account there wasn’t much to cheer any one up at Redsands,” said Girling. “Half empty, he said the place was. This snowfall’s done the hotels in properly. Half the people were afraid to start, and the other half didn’t get there.”
“Did he give any reason for leaving when he did?” asked the pertinacious Soames.
“Said he had to be back in London the day after to-morrow, and wasn’t goin’ to risk bein’ hung up on the way. As it was, he’d meant to make London tonight. Said he was thankful he’d allowed himself the extra day.”
“Where have you put him?” asked Soames. “If we’re going to watch to-night, we’d better know where he hangs out.”
“He’s in the room next to Miss Hamilton,” said Girling. “At the head of the little staircase near the Misses Adderley. But you needn’t worry your head about him, sir. I’ve seen too many come and go in this place not to size ’em up pretty well, once I’ve had a word with them. He’s what he makes out to be, a retired navy man in business in London.”
He took himself off, and shortly afterwards a general move was made in the direction of bed. Those fortunate members of the household who had not undertaken to sit up presumably retired to rest; the others joined Constantine on the second floor before settling down to
their job. They learned from him that, with the exception of Miss Connie Adderley, who, draped in a multiplicity of shawls, had padded to and from her bath, and the new-comer, with Girling, on his way to his room, no one had passed that way.
“I forgot to mention Trevor escorting Miss Hamilton to her room,” added Constantine. “But there was nothing suspicious about their attitude!”
At that moment Melnotte appeared at the top of the stairs. Soames called a cheery good-night to him, but he took no notice. Without a glance in the direction of the little party standing at the door of Stuart’s room, he strode down the passage, and, the next moment, his door shut with a resounding bang.
Soames’s eyes widened.
“What do you think of that?” he asked. “Sounds like naughty temper to me.”
Before any one could answer, Girling came down the short flight of stairs that led to the back premises. He looked even more perturbed than when they had last seen him.
“More trouble,” he announced. “Has Mr. Melnotte come up yet?”
“Blew up just now,” answered Soames. “What’s the trouble with him?”
“I’m thinkin’ ‘blew up’s’ the word for it,” said Girling. “A fine time I’ve had with him and Tom Bates downstairs. Now that he knows the road’s clear he wants to go off by the first train to-morrow. Tried to get me to send him to the station in the Ford. I told him the trains weren’t runnin’ regular yet, and he’d have a time in gettin’ anywhere, but there was no gettin’ him to listen to reason. And me knowin all the time that Bates would stop him, sure as fat#. I didn’t want to tell him so to his face, him bein’ so touchy like. Then Tom Bates must needs come along, and, what with him bein’ none too gentle like, and the young gentleman flying into a rage, I’ve had my hands full.”
“Where did he want to go? Redsands?” asked Stuart.
“Didn’t seem to care where he went, so long is he got away from here,” answered Girling grimly. “Frantic, he was.”
Constantine smiled.
“Another suspect for you, Soames,” he said slyly.
Soames grinned good-naturedly.