by Miles Burton
“Did he always go and return by the same train?”
“He always went up by the 9.50, and nearly always came back by the 6.7. Three or four times a year, however, he would dine in London, and then he came down by the 10.37.”
“You have lived with your uncle for some time, Miss Saxonby?”
It seemed to Arnold that her expression hardened as she replied. “Ten years next June. Ever since Aunt Mary died. Uncle Wilfred wanted some member of the family to come and live with him, and, since Dick and Irene were both married, I was the next choice.”
“I see. Now, Miss Saxonby, I’m afraid that I shall have to ask some rather distressing questions. During the ten years that you lived with him, you must have got to know Sir Wilfred fairly intimately. You would, I imagine, be the first to detect any change in his health or manner. Did you notice any such change recently?”
Olivia Saxonby shook her head. “I noticed nothing, and Uncle Wilfred was not the sort of person to talk about his health. He seemed just the same, in every way, as I have always known him.”
“You know of nothing which might have disturbed his peace of mind in any way?”
“If anything had disturbed him, I should not have known of it. He never spoke to me of business, or, for that matter, of anything important. My business has been to behave like a cheerful companion, and see that the house was properly run.”
“You saw Sir Wilfred before he left the house yesterday?”
“Of course. I breakfasted with him at half-past eight, and saw him off in the car when he drove to the station.”
“Sir Wilfred had firearms in his possession, had he not?”
“Firearms? Oh, guns and things. Yes, there are some in the gunroom. I’ll show them to you.”
She took them through the house to the gunroom. There they found a fine collection of sporting guns, also a rifle and a revolver, both of rather antiquated pattern. They also found a quantity of ammunition, but among this were no cartridges to fit the automatic pistol. Arnold had this in his pocket. He produced it, and showed it to Miss Saxonby. “Have you ever seen this before?” he asked.
She merely glanced at it, and shook her head. “My uncle was not in the habit of showing me his guns,” she replied.
“You see that it has your uncle’s initials on it, Miss Saxonby,” Arnold persisted. “Now, it is rather a curious thing that none of these firearms have any initials upon them. Can you suggest why this pistol should have?”
“I can’t offer any suggestion. I don’t know anything about it. Somebody may have given it to Uncle Wilfred, and had his initials put on it. That’s all I can think of.”
After some further conversation, in the course of which they ascertained that Sir Wilfred’s regular medical attendant was Dr. Butler, of Helverden, Arnold and Marden left Mavis Court.
“I can’t help thinking that Miss Saxonby is not overwhelmed with sorrow at her uncle’s death,” Arnold remarked. “However, that’s her business, not ours. She wasn’t altogether a mine of information, was she? I think we’d better go and see this doctor chap. He may be able to tell us something.”
Dr. Butler proved to be an elderly man of benevolent aspect. He had already heard of the death of Sir Wilfred, and seemed greatly distressed. “He’ll be a great loss to the neighbourhood,” he said. “He took the lead in every kind of social work, and his name nearly always headed the subscription list. I have heard very few details of his death, but from those I have heard, it seems to me to have been a very extraordinary affair.”
“Confidentially, doctor, it looks very much like a case of suicide,” Arnold replied. “That’s why we’ve come to see you. Now, I’m not going to ask you to infringe the rules of professional secrecy. But perhaps you can tell me whether or not Sir Wilfred enjoyed good health?”
Dr. Butler considered this question. “He was, in most respects, in perfect health,” he replied. “I do not think that there will be any harm in my mentioning the exception, since many people are aware of it already. Sir Wilfred made no particular secret of it. Many years ago, shortly after his wife died, he complained to me of slight indisposition. I diagnosed this as some form of kidney trouble, and sent him up to see a specialist.
“The report was that the kidneys were undoubtedly affected, but that, with proper care, there was no reason to suppose that the fact would endanger the patient’s life. He might live to be a hundred. On the other hand, there was just a possibility that complications might ensue at some time, when the matter would become serious. The specialist recommended a diet, to which Sir Wilfred adhered strictly. So far as I am able to judge, his condition had certainly become no worse than when he first consulted me.”
“When did you see him last, doctor?” Arnold asked.
“On Monday. I made a habit of looking in on Mondays, as I knew I was pretty certain to find him at home. I asked him if he had had any symptoms of trouble recently, and he told me that he had never felt better in his life. I took samples, which, at the specialist’s suggestion, had become a matter of routine, and they showed, if anything, an improvement.”
“You knew Sir Wilfred fairly well, doctor. Would you be surprised if it were proved that he had taken his own life?”
“In my profession, one very soon becomes proof against surprise. If you ask me whether I believe that he killed himself as a result of concern for his health, my reply is most emphatically, no! But there are other reasons which might lead a man in his position to such a step.”
“Business worries, for instance?”
“Business worries might be among them. Though of recent years Sir Wilfred had not taken a very active part in business. The actual management of the firm is in the hands of his son, Dick.”
“Sir Wilfred was, to all appearances, a rich man?”
“A very rich man, I should say. Mavis Court has always been kept up regardless of expense. If any cause of which he approved was in need of funds, he was always ready with a generous cheque. I have no doubt at all that his will will be proved at a very high figure.”
“His son and daughter will come into the money, I suppose?”
“I suppose so. But I hope he has remembered Olivia Saxonby. She hasn’t had the easiest of lives since she has been with him.”
“Miss Saxonby’s parents are dead?”
Dr. Butler nodded. “Her mother has been dead a long time, and her father died a couple of years ago. He was the black sheep of the family. Long ago, when she was quite a young girl, there was a discreditable affair in which her father was mixed up, and he had to leave the country rather hastily, Sir Wilfred made his niece a small allowance, and she lived with friends until Lady Saxonby’s death. Then her uncle sent for her to Mavis Court.”
“She must have lived there in considerable comfort, surely?”
“Comfort? Oh, no doubt. But comfort isn’t everything, even to a woman. She was, in a sense, her own mistress before she came to Mavis Court. She could, within the limits of her income, of course, go where she liked, do what she liked, see whom she liked. But at Mavis Court she must have found things very different. Sir Wilfred had peculiar ideas, in some ways. You couldn’t call him unsociable, for when you got over his reserve, and could interest him sufficiently, he turned out a very pleasant companion indeed. But he hated having people at Mavis Court. Their presence irritated him, I think because he disliked performing the duties of a host. He always said that his time was too valuable to waste in talking nonsense. And, since his niece did not like to go and see people whom she could not invite back again, she often went from one week’s end to another without seeing anybody but her uncle and the staff at Mavis Court.”
“She could have left Sir Wilfred, if she found life with him irksome?”
“Oh, yes, she could have left. Her uncle would have ordered the car to take her to the station, I have no doubt. But in his eyes she would have broken her
contract. No further allowance would have been forthcoming. And she couldn’t possibly afford to risk that.”
“Was Sir Wilfred aware that she was discontented?”
“I have never said that she was discontented. I merely remarked that she must have found life at Mavis Court very different from the freedom which she had known previously. Even had she been discontented, and her uncle had been aware of it, it would have made no difference to him whatever. He was one of those people who always knew what was best for other people. Inspector Marden, here, who has heard him on the Bench often enough, will tell you that. Am I right, Marden?”
The inspector smiled. “Quite right, doctor,” he replied. “And I seem to remember that business of the Floods Relief Committee.”
Dr. Butler made an aggressive grimace. “Yes, that was a very awkward business. We had very serious floods here a few years ago. A lot of damage was done, and some poor people rendered homeless. A fund was got up, and Sir Wilfred became Chairman of the Committee to administer it. But when the wretched sufferers applied for relief, he seemed to consider that unless they ordered their lives in accordance with his ideas, they were not entitled to it, which, not unnaturally, caused a lot of ill-feeling.
“However, we’re getting away from the point. I was saying that Sir Wilfred always knew what was best for other people. No doubt he thought that the seclusion of Mavis Court was the best thing for his niece. He had, I fancy, a lurking suspicion that if she were allowed too much rope, she might run off the rails in some way. Hereditary tendency, you know, and that sort of thing. Nobody’s affair but her own if she chose to make a fool of herself, of course. I can almost hear Sir Wilfred say so. But he wasn’t going to risk a second family scandal, for all that.”
All this, though it had no direct bearing on Sir Wilfred’s death, Arnold found very interesting. With a view to encouraging Dr. Butler’s confidences he asked provocatively, “Sir Wilfred seems to have been a man who was not afraid of making enemies?”
“Afraid?” the doctor replied. “I don’t believe he was afraid of anything, morally or physically. But I’m not so sure about making enemies. We none of us know how we arouse hostility in other people, unless we definitely set out to do so. And that Sir Wilfred never did. For one thing, he had a very strong sense of justice, and, for another, he had no time to waste in quarrelling with people. He was disliked by many people who didn’t know him properly, and who took offence at his rather overbearing manner. But I don’t believe that he had a really active enemy in the world.”
“You haven’t heard any rumours affecting his financial position, have you, doctor?” Arnold asked.
Dr. Butler shook his head. “Finance and business are a bit outside my scope,” he replied. “I’ve heard no rumours of the kind, but then it’s not likely that they would come to my ears. I gather that you are looking for something to support the idea that he committed suicide?”
“That’s about it, doctor. And I should be very grateful for the slightest hint.”
“I can’t help you, I’m afraid. You can take it from me that there’s no disreputable story behind it. No entanglements with women, or anything like that. For the rest, Sir Wilfred was a man of temperate, not to say frugal habits. You can trust a doctor to know something about his patients’ lives. I can tell you nothing about his business activities. But of this I feel sure. If he had a motive for killing himself, you won’t find that motive in Helverden.”
A few minutes later, Arnold and Marden left the doctor’s house and drove back to Stourford, where Arnold met the local superintendent. “I hardly know what to say, yet,” he replied, in answer to the latter’s inquiries. “Everything seems to point to suicide, but so far I haven’t been able to get any hint as to the motive. You knew him pretty well yourself, sir?”
“Yes, I’ve known him for a good many years, and always managed to get on with him. Between ourselves, he was a man I respected rather than liked. He wasn’t altogether the sort of character who inspires affection. And I can assure you that he would never have killed himself unless he had some very excellent reason for doing so. In the case of a man like Sir Wilfred, you and I needn’t believe in what is charitably known as temporary insanity.”
Arnold nodded. “There’s one point I should like your opinion upon, sir. You know that Mr. Marden found in the compartment an automatic with the initials W.S. upon it. It seems to me rather queer that a magistrate, the chairman of the Bench, in fact, should commit the offence of having a pistol in his possession without taking out a certificate for it. Especially as I understand that he has a certificate for two other weapons.”
“That’s a good point,” replied the superintendent approvingly. “I’ll give you my opinion willingly. Sir Wilfred was an excellent and conscientious magistrate, and I don’t think he made many mistakes while he was on the Bench. But he always gave me the impression that he considered himself as beyond the law. The law was an excellent thing, and he was a firm supporter of it. But it was made for other people, rather than for Sir Wilfred Saxonby.
“I don’t mean that he habitually broke the law, or even that I know of a single instance in which he did so. But I feel pretty certain that he would have had no scruple about breaking the law, if it suited his own higher convenience. He would not have felt himself bound by restrictions which, in other cases, he would have been the first to enforce.
“This being so, you will understand my opinion. If Sir Wilfred had acquired a pistol for any ordinary purpose, he would not have hesitated to take out a certificate for it. On the other hand, if he acquired it for some purpose to which it was essential that it should not be suspected that he had it, the omission to take out a certificate would not have troubled his conscience. Is that clear?”
“Perfectly clear, sir,” Arnold replied. He felt that he had now some idea of the dead man’s character. Two things remained to be done. To discover a motive which might have induced Sir Wilfred to take his own life, and to eliminate any possibility of the shot having been fired by some other hand. He parted from the superintendent and Marden, and returned to the railway station.
IV
Arrived at the station, Arnold sought Mr. Cutbush in his office, to which, at his request, the booking clerk was summoned. The latter remembered perfectly selling Sir Wilfred a ticket on the previous morning. It had been a first-class day return to London. The return half of this ticket had not been handed in.
Having secured this information, Arnold took the next train, which happened to be a fast one, to Blackdown. During the journey, he pondered the question of the missing ticket. It was a trifling circumstance, as Marden had remarked. Anything might have happened. It might have fallen out of Sir Wilfred’s pocket while his body was being carried from the compartment to the waiting-room, for instance. But supposing it hadn’t? Suppose it had passed from Sir Wilfred’s possession between the times of his passing the barrier at Cannon Street and his arrival at Stourford. What then?
Arnold repeated the question to himself without finding any plausible answer. It was ridiculous to suggest that it had been stolen from Sir Wilfred, either before or after his death. Who would steal a railway ticket, and leave behind valuables and a sum of money? Besides, how could anybody have obtained access to the locked compartment? Easily enough, if they had a railway key. But could they have done so without attracting notice? It seemed highly improbable. Arnold decided that it would be necessary to interrogate the other twenty-four passengers who had travelled in the first-class coach.
His train arrived at the entrance to Blackdown Tunnel as he reached this decision. Before it had travelled many yards farther, the windows of his compartment were rendered opaque by a mixture of smoke and steam deposited on the outside. And the roar was certainly loud enough to drown the report of a small pistol. Arnold noted these things. He also timed the passage of the train through the tunnel. It took three minutes and twenty-five seconds. Allowing
for the slowing up and acceleration, the train in which Sir Wilfred had been travelling must have taken at least five minutes. And a lot can happen in five minutes, as Arnold knew well enough.
Shortly after emerging from the tunnel, the train pulled up at Blackdown station. Arnold got out, and sought the station-master, to whom he introduced himself. He explained that he was investigating the death of Sir Wilfred Saxonby, who had been found dead the previous day on the arrival at Stourford of the five o’clock train from Cannon Street. “And there’s some reason to believe that he died in Blackdown Tunnel,” he added.
“In the tunnel, eh?” the station-master replied. “That’s not the only queer thing that happened in the tunnel yesterday evening. The driver of that very train reported that he was held up in the tunnel by a man waving a red light. He must have dreamt it, for there was certainly nobody there.”
“Can you be sure of that?” Arnold asked.
“As sure as that I’m talking to you now. I’ll explain why. To begin with, the tunnel isn’t exactly the place one would choose for an evening stroll. The public don’t use it as a promenade, so to speak. The only people who ever go into it on foot are the permanent way men. And, during the whole of yesterday, none of these men set foot inside it. Besides, they don’t go in singly. They go in a gang, and light flares. The driver reports no flares, only a red light which changed to green just before he reached it.
“Now, I know what you’re going to say. If it wasn’t one of the permanent way men, it must have been some unauthorised person who had somehow wandered in. Well, I say it couldn’t have been, and for this reason. At each end of the tunnel there is a signal cabin, and nobody could possibly get in without being seen by the men on duty. Even after dark a strong light shines from the windows of the cabins on to the line. There’s no question of a man slipping past in a fog, for it was perfectly clear yesterday evening. I’ve questioned the men on duty at both ends, and they swear that nobody can have gone in or out.