by Sapper
“In view of the fact that he did not gain access to the house, the killing of Gaspard was an error – a bad error. But it is done and cannot be undone. And of another thing I am very sure, too.” His voice grew grave, and he stared over the Marsh thoughtfully. “If you heard the Vandalis’ programme, Mr Darrell, so did he. And I do not think it would find favour in his eyes – far from it. I hold no brief for either of them, but–”
He said no more, but the little shrug of his shoulders filled in the silence more ominously than any spoken word.
“Had he got into the house tonight, the Vandalis would not have mattered. But he didn’t, and now they do. However, they can look after themselves: the point we have to decide is what we are going to do. Shall we call in the police, or shall we not? There are, it seems to me, two main objections. The first is this: What are we going to tell them? Nothing that we can do can bring the man Gaspard back to life, and if we tell them anything, we must tell them all. And frankly, gentlemen, though you are, of course, the best judges of that, I think an account of your recent doings, told in cold blood at a police station, might prove a little awkward.”
“I know the Inspector pretty well,” said Hugh, “but perhaps you are right.”
“The other objection,” went on Matthews, “is this. And to me it is a far bigger one. If we tell the police, and they take the matter up, we drop out, or at any rate you do. And” – he thumped his fist into his open palm – “for the local police to try and tackle le Bossu is about equivalent to asking a board school child to explain Einstein’s Theory. They are naturally trammelled by the law, and le Bossu would laugh at them. No, gentlemen, the only way of catching him, if you are prepared to do it, is for us to join forces and act outside the law on our own. Keep the police out of it, and we will catch him. Let them in, and our hands are tied.”
“My dear fellow,” said Hugh with a grin, “no one loathes the idea of letting the police in more than I do. But do not forget there is a lady involved.”
“I don’t,” remarked Matthews gravely, and turned to young Freckles. “I quite appreciate your position, Mr Scott. But I am going to say something which I hope you will not consider impertinent. There is a reward of fifty thousand pounds at stake. Wait, please” – he held up his hand, as Freckles started to speak– “and then bite me afterwards. Captain Drummond, if I may say so, hardly seems to be a gentleman in need of money. I am in this show for one reason only – to get to grips with le Bossu. If between us we find that property, we get fifty thousand pounds. And do not be under any delusion. Count Vladimar can pay that sum without feeling it. Which brings me to my point. Your fiancée can be of invaluable assistance to us in finding it, and as a natural result would be entitled to the whole reward. Please understand me, Mr Scott,” he continued with a smile, which robbed his words of any offence. “But young ladies do not as a general rule take on jobs of that sort if their future husbands are wealthy.”
“My dear old lad,” laughed Freckles, “we haven’t got a blinking bean between us, if that is what you mean.”
“Then here is an unprecedented opportunity of getting fifty thousand of the best,” said Matthews.
“Be a bit more explicit,” said Hugh after a pause.
“Le Bossu will return to Temple Tower,” said Matthews quietly. “You disturbed him last night, but there is no power in Heaven or Hell that will deter that man from doing what he has come here to do. He may or may not kill le Crapeau, according to the mood he is in: but he has come to get the stuff stolen twenty-five years ago – the stuff which, as Captain Drummond says, Miss Verney has been engaged to sell. Well, gentlemen, my suggestion is this. Let us lie up and wait for him. In the past we have always laboured under the disadvantage of not knowing where he would turn up: this time that disadvantage is gone. We know exactly, and all we have to do is to wait for him. And this time,” he added softly, “we are going to catch him. What do you say?”
Hugh glanced round at all of us.
“It seems to me,” he said, “that Scott must decide.”
“Well, old birds,” answered Freckles, “it seems to me that if five of us can’t tackle this bloke, the addition of a couple of policemen isn’t going to help much. I’m all for Mr Matthews’ suggestion.”
“Good,” cried Hugh. “Then that’s that. What do you want, Denny?”
The butler had come out of the house in an obvious state of suppressed excitement.
“Have you heard sir, what they’ve found in the wood opposite Temple Tower?”
“No,” said Hugh quietly. “What?”
“A dead man, sir. Hidden in the bushes. A terrible looking thing he was, so the postman told me – more like a great monkey than a man. They say that he has been stopping at Spragge’s Farm.”
For a moment or two there was silence: then Victor Matthews spoke.
“How was he killed?” he asked.
And I think we all knew the answer before it came.
“Murdered, sir, so I hear. From the marks round his neck they say he was strangled.”
CHAPTER 9
In which I meet le Bossu Masqué
So le Rossignol had been there after all. His dead body must have been quite close to us during the hour we had lain up waiting, before we found that the ladder had gone. And horrible and repulsive though he had been, I could not help feeling a twinge of pity for the poor brute. I could imagine him there in the darkness of the wood searching for the rope ladder he had made so laboriously, and then suddenly feeling the grip of the silent strangler on his throat. Perhaps that same choking cry that Gaspard had given – and then silence.
“Your friend,” said Hugh grimly, when the butler had, gone, “is evidently no believer in half measures.”
Matthews was silent: this new development seemed to have nonplussed him. He paced up and down with quick, nervous steps, and a look of frowning concentration on his face.
“This alters things, gentlemen,” he said at length. “Now the police must come into the affair.”
“True,” remarked Hugh. “At the same time, I don’t see why we should run round telling them what we know. In fact, it makes it even more difficult to do so, because we lay ourselves open to grave blame for not having informed them about what we knew of the Nightingale’s intentions.”
“That is so,” said Matthews thoughtfully. “And as a matter of fact, it is even worse for me. Strictly speaking, if only as a matter of courtesy, I should have informed them of my presence here, and what I was doing. Instead of that, I am passing as an ordinary tourist. You are right, Captain Drummond. We must still say nothing about it. And there, going along the road, if I’m not mistaken, is the local inspector.”
Hugh started to his feet.
“I’ll get him in,” he exclaimed, going towards the gate.
“Please don’t mention who I am,” called Matthews after him, and Hugh nodded in answer.
“Hullo! Inspector,” he hailed, “what’s this I hear about someone being murdered?”
“Quite right, sir,” said the other gravely, halting by the gate. “Just come from there myself.’’
“Come in and have a spot of ale,” said Hugh, “and tell us all about it. I think you know Sir John, don’t you? And these are three other friends of mine.”
“A bad business, gentlemen,” said the Inspector, putting down his glass. “Very bad. And as far as I can see at present, there is no trace of a clue.”
“What happened?” asked Hugh. “I’ve heard vaguely from my butler, who had heard vaguely from the postman.”
“It was Joe Mellor that found him, sir – him that keeps the dairy farm along the road there. Found him quite by accident, he did: or rather, not him, but his dog. He was walking past Temple Tower, and his dog was in the wood opposite. Suddenly it began to bark and make a rare blather, and Joe went in to see what was ha
ppening. He found the dog standing by some bushes, and, when he looked closer, he saw a man’s leg sticking out. The rest of the body was carefully covered, and Joe tells me that he’d never have seen it but for the dog. He gives a pull on the leg and hauls out the body. Well, gentlemen, in the course of my life I’ve run across some pretty queer customers, but I give you my word that the dead man is the queerest. He don’t look like a man at all: he looks like a great ape. A terrible face he’s got, and not improved by the manner of his death. He was strangled, and the face is all red and puffy.”
“You’ve got no clue at all?” asked Hugh. “No idea who the man is?”
“None at present, sir,” answered the Inspector. “But I shall soon. Bill Matcham, who works down on the Marsh, happened to be passing, and the instant he saw him he recognised him as a man who had been lodging at Spragge’s place. Maybe you know the farm, sir?”
“Vaguely,” said Hugh casually. “Somewhere down there, isn’t it?”
He waved a comprehensive hand at the Marsh.
“That’s right, sir. And Spragge himself is a queer customer. Well, I don’t mind if I do, sir.” He took the refilled glass from Hugh. “Hot work this morning.”
“By the way,” said Matthews speaking for the first time, “for how long had this man been dead?”
“The doctor said somewhere about twelve hours, sir,” answered the Inspector.
“So it happened last night,” cried Hugh, in affected surprise.
“That’s right, sir; last night sometime round about ten o’clock this man was strangled and his body hidden in the wood by Temple Tower.”
“You’ve got something in your mind, Inspector,” said Hugh quietly.
“Well, sir, we’re all of us entitled to our thoughts, and maybe I have mine. Ever see anything of Mr Granger, sir?”
Hugh smiled slightly.
“So that’s how it is, is it? I can’t say I do, Inspector. I’ve met him out walking once or twice, that’s all.”
“A queer gentleman, sir: very queer. Who ever heard before of a man coming to live in a place like this and fortifying his house with all them steel spikes and things, to say nothing of the bars all over the windows?”
The worthy officer put down his glass and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.
“Well, gentlemen, I must be going. This affair is going to keep me busy.”
“But surely you don’t suspect that Mr Granger had anything to do with it?” said Hugh.
“I don’t suspect no one, sir,” answered the other. “All I say is that Mr Granger is a queer customer, and this is a queer affair.”
“A most sapient conclusion,” remarked Matthews with a faint smile as the gate shut behind the Inspector. “One wonders what the worthy man would think if he knew that a precisely similar corpse lay inside the fortifications.”
“One also wonders,” said Hugh quietly, “what steps our Mr Granger is going to take over that similar corpse.”
But any surmises on that point proved unnecessary, for at that moment who should appear at the gate but Miss Verney. Even at that distance one could see that she was in a state of great agitation, and she had left Temple Tower in such a hurry that she had come without a hat. And as she stood there for a moment the Inspector returned and joined her. Then they both came towards us.
“She’s found Gaspard’s body,” said Matthews with quiet conviction. “Be very careful what all of you say.”
And he proved to be right. It appeared that, going out after breakfast, the first thing that had struck her was that the dog’s kennel was empty. And then, in the distance, she had seen the brute lying asleep as she thought. For a time she had watched it, ready to dart back to the house if it moved. But after a while it had struck her that from its attitude it couldn’t be asleep: one hind leg was sticking straight up in the air, and she had approached it cautiously to find that it was dead.
“I was so amazed,” she went on, “that for a moment or two I just stood there staring at it. There was no sign of blood, or of any wound, and so I guessed it must have been poisoned. But who by? I had heard it baying furiously in the middle of the night, and then it suddenly stopped and there wasn’t another sound. Still trying to puzzle it out, I walked on into the undergrowth. And there I found” – she grew a little white at the recollection, and her voice trembled–” the body of the servant Gaspard. He looked too awful, with his face all red and terrible. And I simply lost my head and flew to the gate and came here.”
“An extraordinarily wise proceeding, Miss Verney,” said Hugh quietly.
“May I ask who this young lady is?” said the Inspector.
“Miss Verney was engaged to do secretarial work for Mr Granger,” answered Freckles. “And her engagement is now terminated,” he concluded firmly.
“This is most extraordinary,” said the Inspector, scratching his head with a pencil. “I must go back there at once. One inside and –”
“Quite so, Inspector,” interrupted Hugh with a warning sign. “But Miss Verney is a bit tired at the moment. I’ll stroll with you to the gate. Come along, Peter. There is no good upsetting her any more,” he went on as we got out of earshot, “by telling her about the other.”
“What do you make of it, sir?” said the Inspector as we came to the road.
“Well, from what Miss Verney said,” remarked Hugh, “it would appear as if the servant Gaspard had also been strangled. And if that is so, the strong presumption is that the same man did both murders, and poisoned the dog.”
The Inspector nodded portentously, and then lowered his voice impressively.
“What did I tell you, sir; what did I tell you? Mr Granger is a queer customer.”
“Queer customer he may be,” answered Hugh. “But one thing is as certain as that gate in front of us. He had nothing to do with the two murders. With his physique, he could no more have strangled Gaspard than he could have strangled me.”
“I don’t say he did it, sir,” said the other, “but you mark my words, he could tell a lot about it if he chose to.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re not right,” said Hugh gravely. “Drop in on your way back and let us know if you find out anything.”
For a while we stood leaning over the gate, watching his retreating back.
“What do you make of it, Peter?” said Hugh suddenly.
“It is one of the most extraordinary affairs I’ve ever heard of,” I answered. “Even with Matthews’ explanation it’s amazing enough: without it, as the Inspector is, no wonder he is scratching his head. It’s a mighty lucky thing that le Bossu missed him.”
“Mighty lucky,” he agreed, lighting a cigarette. “He strikes me as being an extraordinarily sound sort of bloke. Extraordinarily sound,” he repeated, as we started to walk back to the house. “In fact, I was proposing to ask him to come and stay here.”
“Not at all a bad idea,” I agreed. “Then we’re all on the spot together.”
We found him alone with John, the other two having disappeared somewhere, and Hugh at once proposed it.
“That’s very good of you, Captain Drummond,” he said. “But, frankly speaking, I don’t think there will be much staying.”
“What do you mean?” said Hugh, looking puzzled.
“Simply that matters have come to a head,” he answered. “I am as certain as I can be of anything that le Bossu never intended to be in Rye today. He murdered le Rossignol, and then got into the grounds by the ladder, believing that, once he was inside, Sir John’s plan would enable him to find the secret entrance. It didn’t. Then the dog came for him and disturbed the household. Then Gaspard came, and he murdered him, once again believing that he would be able to get into the house – this time by the front door. And what defeated him was your sudden appearance. I know I’ve said much the same before, but
when one is dealing with a man of his calibre there’s no harm in being clear in one’s head. He didn’t mind in the slightest if these two murders were discovered after he had settled things with the Toad: but now the discovery has been made before the settlement. And that is why I say matters have come to a head and there won’t be much staying before the end comes. We are going to find things moving at breakneck speed, and the only comfort is that even le Bossu can’t do anything by day. But I think you can dismiss the idea of sleep at night for the next day or two.”
“That’s not likely to worry us,” said Hugh. “And I quite see your point. Still, the offer holds if you care to make this house your headquarters.”
“Thank you again,” answered Matthews. “I won’t bother to move my kit here, but if I may drop in when I want to I shall greatly appreciate it. And if I may stay now for a little lunch I should be most grateful.”
“Of course, my dear fellow,” cried Hugh. “And in view of our rather erratic timetable and hours at the moment, I’m rather in favour of a bit of food at once. It’s twelve o’clock.”
He shouted for Denny, who, accustomed as he was to Hugh’s vagaries, betrayed no astonishment. And then, whilst we waited, we went on discussing from every angle what was likely to be the next move. With his previous knowledge of le Bossu, it was only natural that Victor Matthews should take the lead, but even he confessed himself beaten. How was the silent strangler to rectify his mistake?
“Le Bossu knows,” he said, “as every other criminal knows, that the English police, once they get their teeth into a thing, never let it go. They may chew slowly, but they chew surely. And he must know that the discovery of these two murders is going to make the police swarm round Temple Tower, which is the last place he wants them at. So what is he going to do? Because he’ll do something: of that you can rest assured.”
And it is safe to say that not one of us there, in our wildest dreams, would have guessed what le Bossu did do that very afternoon – so staggering was it in its simplicity, so incredible in its ferocity. But of that in its proper place.