“At what time, Dr. Hall?”
“At ten minutes to four. Sir Henry Blundell and Miss Halliday were present. The body was then lying in the orchard. It was quite warm.”
“How long, in your opinion, since death had taken place?”
“Taking into consideration the damp cold earth upon which the body was lying, I should say death could not have taken place more than twenty minutes previously.”
The coroner, a Mr. Perrott, a retired solicitor living in Handleston, nodded.
“That would fix the earliest possibility of death at half-past three. You heard no shot yourself, Doctor?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. I left the house about half-past three to fetch a copy of Archaeologia from my car, which I had left in Cole Harbour Lane near the foot-path stile. As I reached the car, I heard a shot. I did not look at my watch, but it must have been about twenty-five minutes to four.”
“Did you pass the orchard gate on your way to your car?”
“No. I took the foot-path across the fields.”
“Did you see anybody at all?”
"Nobody. At least”—Dr. Hall corrected himself—“that is not quite accurate. There was somebody repairing the roof of Cole Harbour House. As I crossed back over the stile I heard a hammering noise, and saw somebody on the leads. It was Mr. Barchard, I believe.”
The middle-aged man who next gave evidence was unknown to Jeanie.
“You are a gunsmith, Mr. Toogood? Can you describe this bullet?”
“It’s a lead bullet from a point twenty-two rim-fire cartridge. Chiefly used in miniature rifles for range practice, and also in rook-rifles for sporting purposes.”
“Can they be used in any other kinds of fire-arm?”
“There are several makes of automatic pistol and similar arms on the market which use this ammunition,” replied Mr. Toogood. “These arms are made for practice and target purposes, as the ammunition is much cheaper than large-calibre ammunition. They would not be likely to be bought by anyone for defence purposes.’
“Could this bullet,” inquired the coroner, with a glance at Superintendent Finister, “have been fired from a service revolver?”
“No, they are all of larger calibre.” Mr. Toogood hesitated, and corrected himself. “Well, there is an adaptor can be used that would make it possible to fire a bullet like this from a service revolver. They aren’t exactly common.”
“Now there is the point of from what distance the shot was fired.”
“Well, that’d entirely depend, really, on what the weapon was. A rifle of point twenty-two calibre can be accurate up to two hundred yards or more. But in the hands of most people an automatic pistol using this ammunition would have a much shorter effective range. It can’t have been fired from very close, that’s the only certain thing, or the bullet would have gone clean through the head, whatever it was fired from. But it’s not possible to say exactly how far. I should say that the shot must have been fired from more than twenty yards away, but I wouldn’t like to be more exact than that, till I know whether it was a rifle or a pistol it was fired from.”
“I see. Do you know the Tower gun-rooms, Mr. Toogood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Jeanie heard Peter, who was sitting next to her, very cautiously draw in his breath. He looked flushed and strung-up.
“Are there any weapons in the Cleedons Tower gunrooms which might have fired this shot?”
A faint smile came to the gunsmith’s free. “Fourteen, sir.”
“Oh, indeed!”
“But not many of them could have been fired from either of the Tower rooms, if that’s what you mean, sir. I mean, only the three rifles would carry the distance, and you’d need to be a pretty hot shot, even then.”
“Oh,” said the coroner hastily. “I was not suggesting —I did not mean necessarily from the Tower.” He shot a glance at William Fone’s impassive face, as though he already knew the nature of the evidence Fone was to give. “Still, it is in your opinion possible—I mean, it is your opinion that a rifle-shot could carry accurately the distance between either of the Tower rooms and the orchard?”
“I’m told the distance is about a hundred and fifty yards. It could be done, sir. But only by a good shot.”
“Thank you, Mr. Toogood.”
Mr. Toogood took his seat again in Perrott looked over the papers on the table before him.
“Now I understand that a shot was heard at Cleedons by several people on the afternoon of Mr. Molyneux’s death, and I propose taking evidence on this point. Mr. Eustace Agatos.”
The man who was sitting at the side of Myfanwy Peel rose and took his place at the table. He was a short, dark, sallow man, stoutly built and carefully dressed. He looked a prosperous man of business, a Londoner, self-confident, urbane, a little paunchy, a little dyspeptic, a little bald: a man of a very commonplace type, Jeanie thought, until, in a moment, she noticed his quite black, impenetrable, melancholy eyes and his immense diamond ring, and saw him thereafter as a foreigner and an oriental.
“Now, Mr. Agatos. You remember Monday afternoon, November the third?”
“The day before yesterday, yes, I remember.”
“What were your movements that afternoon?”
“I was driving my car down from London. I arrived here at five minutes past three. I stopped my car in the road about a hundred yards below the entrance to Cleedons, where the little lane turns off on the opposite side of the road. I backed my car into the little lane. This was at about ten past three. I stayed there till a quarter to four. Then I drove back to London.”
He spoke with composure. He seemed completely indifferent to the eager curious eyes upon him. They were strangers to him, all these country people. They were only an audience. Their thoughts meant nothing to him.
“For what purpose did you drive down here, Mr. Agatos?”
With a faint humorous pucker of his thick pale lips, Agatos replied:
“To oblige a lady. The lady who was with me, Mrs. Peel, she wished for an interview with Mr. Molyneux.”
“Why did you not drive up to the house?”
“The lady who was with me did not wish to pay a formal visit. She did not wish to meet Mrs. Robert Molyneux, said Agatos simply. “She wished first to see if she might meet with Mr. Molyneux about his grounds somewhere.”
“And meanwhile—while Mrs. Peel departed in search of Mr. Molyneux—you remained in your car?”
“Yes.”
“Can you tell us everything that happened between ten past three and your departure for London?”
Mr. Agatos pursed his lips and looked at Mr. Perrott with a faint pucker between his dark eyebrows.
“Everything that happened?” he murmured deprecatingly. “The bluetit that sat for a moment on my windscreen? The cows that passed along the road? The dead leaf that dropped off the hedge into a puddle and got wet?”
There was laughter, instantly suppressed by a somewhat flushed and irritated coroner.
“Everything that is relevant, if you please.”
“I sat in my car,” said Mr. Agatos slowly. “And for a little while I read the paper. And I went on sitting in my car. And I thought: Shall I get out and go for a walk? And then I thought: No, I am too lazy. So I went on sitting in my car.”
Once again there was a disposition to amusement, but it was only a titter this time, and a glance suppressed it.
“When I had been sitting there about half an hour, I heard a shot, quite close. One shot.”
“You don’t know exactly what time this was?”
“I did not look at my watch, no. But I would judge it to be between half-past three and twenty to four. About three minutes later a young man, Mr. Peter Johnson, came along the road and we talked for a bit.”
“Do you see the young man here?”
Mr. Agatos smiled affably at Peter.
“Yes. We talked of this and that for about five minutes. Then Mrs. Peel returned and said, let us go home. And I looked
at my watch as we started, and it was a quarter to four. Mr. Johnson said that he was returning to London that afternoon, so I gave him a lift.”
“Thank you, Mr. Agatos. Oh, there is one thing more! Do you possess any fire-arms?”
“Somewhere I have an old service revolver. And now I suppose I shall go to prison because I have admitted this dreadful thing and I have no permit.”
“Do you know where it is?”
Agatos shrugged.
“Not exactly, I am afraid. At home. In my flat, some-where. Perhaps in the tool cupboard, perhaps among my socks.”
“I think that is all, thank you.”
The witness made his way back to his seat next to Myfanwy. Jeanie saw him as he sat down give an affectionate touch to Myfanwy’s hand, which Myfanwy, as if in anger, instantly withdrew. She looked sideways at the coroner, and there was fear in her eyes. It was obvious to Jeanie that she dreaded the moment when her name would be called. But it was not yet. The evidence of Sir Henry Blundell was taken next. He had left the Field Club members to go to the cloak-room on the ground floor of the Tower. The outer passage door had been open. When he left the cloak-room he stepped outside the passage door to examine the ancient stone coffin that stood there and was used for growing ferns in. While examining the coffin he heard a shot. When he returned to the hall soon after, the clock stood at twenty to four.
Tamsin Wills followed. She had been looking out of the lower gun-room in the Tower. She looked at her watch and saw that it was just on twenty-five to four, and thought it was time that her pupil tidied herself for tea. As she turned away from the window she heard a shot. It had sounded very close, very close indeed. No, it had not occurred to her to turn and look out of the window. Why should it? There was nothing unusual in hearing a shot. One often did, in the country. Yes, from the window she had seen Mr. Molyneux standing on a ladder. His back had been towards her.
Agnes was next called. The coroner was very kind to her, spoke gently and made his questioning as brief as possible. But even so she shook, shed tears and made frequent use of the answer: “I don’t know.”
“I don’t know what the time was. I didn’t look at the clock after I left my room.”
“But, Mrs. Molyneux, you went out to ask your husband to come in—”
“Well?”
“If you wanted him to come in, didn’t you know what the time was?”
“I knew it was a quarter-past three when I left my room. And I knew our guests had arrived.”
“Did you go straight out when you left your room.”
“No. I talked to some of the servants.”
“Do you mind saying which of them?”
“Well—to Bates, the butler.” Agnes spoke angrily. A little spot of red appeared in each wan cheek.
“Only to Bates?”
“As far as I can remember.”
“Please try to remember, Mrs. Molyneux. The question of time is important.”
“But I’ve told you I don’t know what the time was when I left the house! I put on my galoshes. I didn’t hurry. I went out. I walked slowly through the garden. I was thinking about planting some shrubs, and where to put them. And when I got to the orchard I saw Robert falling. And I heard a shot.” Agnes’s voice had sunk to a dry whisper. “I don’t know what time it was.”
Her large blue eyes looked from face to face round the table and lit on Sir Henry Blundell. She gave a little sob. Jeanie noticed the contraction of that gentleman’s jaw, his almost indignant glance at the coroner, his little frown. When Mr. Perrott apologetically released Agnes from her ordeal, Sir Henry went instantly around to her and suggested that she should leave the court. Assisted by Tamsin Wills, she went.
Jeanie found her heart beating very fast when her own name was called. But, perhaps intimidated by Sir Henry, the coroner seemed, she thought, to let her off lightly. She explained how, two minutes or so after hearing the shot, she had seen Agnes in the lane talking to Myfanwy Peel, how Agnes had fainted and how Jeanie and Sarah had gone to her help and thus been brought to knowledge of Robert Molyneux’s death. As she sat down, she saw Myfanwy Peel look with a slow cautious glance out of the corner of her eye at the coroner. There was terror, it seemed to Jeanie, hidden below her look. And well there might be, after her antics with that revolver! Jeanie looked forward with lively curiosity to hearing her explanation of what she was doing with the weapon.
She was, however, disappointed. Myfanwy Peel was not called on to give evidence. Neither was Peter Johnson. It seemed strange to Jeanie that these two should not be called upon to explain their somewhat unusual actions on the day of Molyneux’s death, until it occurred to her that it was precisely because they were under suspicion that they were for the time being spared by the police. Against one or other of them, perhaps, the police were quietly building up a case, waiting until it was complete before the evidence of the victim, with its struggling shifts and plunging lies, should serve to bind him only tighter in the net.
It was, on the whole, a dull brief affair, the inquest, leaving, it seemed to Jeanie, more hidden than it revealed. There was but one dramatic moment, when the whole court rustled into attention and the pencils of the reporters flew joyfully over their flapping note-books. This occurred during the evidence given by William Fone. Jeanie, who guessed the nature of the evidence he was to give, hoped very much that he would see fit to suppress some of his more unorthodox reflections on the death of his friend. She rather liked the man. And by the effect on herself she reckoned the effect on this most hidebound of gatherings should the queer fellow repeat in public his opinion that Molyneux’s death was for the good of the community. She stirred uneasily as the coroner addressed him. But she soon saw that she need not worry. William Fone confined himself to answering with admirable precision the coroner’s questions, which seemed directed towards establishing the direction of the shot which killed Robert Molyneux.
“Then at the time the shot was fired,” said Mr. Perrott, examining a large-scale plan of Cleedons which lay on the table before him, “it would seem that the deceased was facing north-east, almost towards the house.”
“He was.”
“Your eyesight is good, Mr. Fone?”
“Perfectly, so far as I know.”
“You saw his face?”
“Distinctly. His back was at first towards me. He turned his head and the upper part of his body—”
“In which direction?”
“Towards his right. His right arm, holding the pruning-saw, swung round. I saw his face plainly. Then I heard the shot. And I saw Molyneux fall from the ladder. I sat still for a minute or two in the window-seat. Then I stood up. It was twenty-three minutes to four. I went home.”
Perhaps the coroner had been coached by the police, for he did not break the ensuing startled silence by asking why Mr. Fone had not gone to his friend’s assistance instead of going home. Perhaps the police, for reasons of their own, did not at this point want William Fone to be harried. All Mr. Perrott said, after a pause in which he examined his sketch-plan again, was:
“Then there seems no doubt that at the time he was shot the deceased was facing north-east. He was shot in the left temple. It seems certain, then, that the shot which killed him came from the north-west. What is this building under the north-west boundary of the orchard? Oh, I see it is marked! The lambing-shed.”
It was here that the sensation occurred. A young woman in a green tweed coat stood up at the end of the table looked towards the door with a face which seemed faintly to reflect the hue of her coat, stammered loudly:
“I—I—Excuse me!” and lurching past the knees of people seated near the table with that disregard of politeness and personal dignity peculiar to those about to faint or be sick, made for the door. A police officer escorted her outside.
“Was that Marjorie Dasent?” murmured Jeanie to Peter. “Who would have thought a face as pink as hers could ever go as green?”
The inquest was finally adjourned for ten
days. A flat, unsatisfying ending to a curiously and, Jeanie thought, designedly superficial inquiry. There were, however, those who had not found it dull, and to whom its adjournment seemed only to dangle the sword of Damocles over their heads.
As, in Peter Johnson’s company, she emerged from the yard into the road, Jeanie saw walking ahead of her towards their waiting car Myfanwy Peel and her exotic partner. She heard Myfanwy mutter furiously:
“You had to say that, of course! You had to give me away!”
“Give you away!” echoed her companion in light astonished deprecation. “My dear Miffie, I only said I had a revolver. It happens to be true.”
“That’s all you think about! Priggish ass.”
Mr. Agatos scratched his head. He did not seem much disturbed.
“No,” he objected tranquilly, opening the door of their low-built shiny car. “But I know when it is no good telling lies. Also, from what I hear, it is no secret you have been going round with my revolver.”
Jeanie greeted Myfanwy as she and Peter went by, but Myfanwy seemed to notice her as little as if she had been a stray sheep. She continued to objurgate Agatos.
“You’re a beast! A beast!”
“We will go to Gloucester and see a nice film,” said Mr. Agatos soothingly, “and then you will feel better. Only you should really say good afternoon to ladies that say good afternoon to you. Did you not know?”
“Beast! Beast!” still more furiously uttered Myfanwy. The door slammed. The car overtook Peter and Jeanie and disappeared around the bend of the road.
“Rum couple,” commented Jeanie, but Peter was not at the moment interested in rum couples.
“If the police don’t arrest me soon, I shall go mad.”
“Oh, Peter, don’t be absurd!”
“I am not absurd!” cried he angrily. Jeanie, who saw no reason why she and Peter should emulate Agatos and Myfanwy, said nothing.
Chapter Ten
GRIM’S GRAVE
Well, this is it,” said Sarah Molyneux indifferently. She kicked the crumbling edge of a rabbit-hole, and her lack-lustre glance wandered over the bell-barrow. They were standing at the outer edge of the vallum. Grim’s Grave, a tumulus of unusually regular outline, rose before them thirty feet high from the bottom of the five-foot ditch, gaining a singular impressiveness from the circle of young trees which stood upon its summit. Gaunt thistles and dry brown foxglove-stalks grew on its slopes, rabbit-holes mined the grassy surface and the scars made by old felled trees showed here and there in thicker tufts of coarser grass.
Let Him Lie Page 8