The Third Mystery

by James Holding

  Crewe ran downstairs, let himself noiselessly out of the front door and followed quickly in her wake. As he neared the bottom of the street, he saw her a little distance in front of him. When she reached the end of Whitethorn Gardens she turned to the right along the sea front.

  The night was mild, and a few drops of rain were falling. The front seemed deserted, and was shrouded in a mist which reduced the lamplights to a yellow glimmer. It was an easy matter for Crewe to follow closely behind the woman, conscious that the mist would shield him from observation if she turned.

  Mrs. Penfield walked rapidly along the front till she came to High Street. Half-way along the front the mist seemed suddenly to grow thicker and Crewe crept closer in order to keep her in view. She walked swiftly with her head down, looking neither to the right nor the left. She passed under the faint light of a street lamp, and as Crewe came up behind he saw a uniformed figure in front of him. It was Police Constable Heather who had come over from Ashlingsea on official business. Heather was so pleased at this unexpected meeting with the great London detective that he called out in a loud voice:

  “Good night, Mr. Crewe.”

  Crewe answered softly and passed on. He could only hope that Mrs. Penfield was so absorbed in her own thoughts that she had not heard Constable Heather’s stentorian utterance of his name. Suddenly he heard her footsteps cease and he, too, came to a stop. Then he saw her confronting him.

  “Why are you following me, Mr. Crewe?” she asked in quick excited tones. “It was you who telephoned to me to come up and see Inspector Murchison. I should have known it was a hoax. You wanted to get me out of the house.”

  “If I wanted to get you out of the house, Mrs. Penfield, why should I follow you?” asked Crewe.

  “But you were following me,” she persisted.

  “It is not the sort of night I would choose for such work,” he replied.

  “When I heard that man call out your name, I knew I had been hoaxed.”

  “By whom?” asked Crewe, who was puzzled at this example of feminine reasoning.

  “I shall go back and see,” she said. “I will ring up Inspector Murchison from there and find out if he sent a message to me to go up to the police station.”

  Crewe was keenly interested in knowing if she had been hoaxed, and by whom. Therefore he offered to accompany her home, as it was not a nice night for a lady to be in the street unattended.

  When they reached 41 Whitethorn Gardens, she opened the gate, and walked up to the house rapidly. At the porch she stopped, touched Crewe lightly on the arm, and pointed to the front door. In the dim light a patch of blackness showed; the door was open.

  “Come with me,” she whispered, “and we will take him by surprise. Don’t strike a match; give me your hand.”

  She walked noiselessly along the dark hall, and turning into a passage some distance down it led the way through an open doorway into a room—a small and stuffy storeroom, Crewe imagined it to be, as the air was suggestive of cheese and preserves.

  “Go, Arnold, the police are here! Go at once!”

  The words rang shrilly through the house. Crewe realized that he had been tricked by the woman and he sprang forward to the door. But the click of a lock told him he was too late. He struck a match and its light revealed to him Mrs. Penfield standing with her back against the door she had closed.

  “There is a candle on the shelf behind you,” she said composedly.

  Crewe’s glance followed the turn of her head; he lit the candle with his expiring match. The candle flickered, then burnt brightly, and the detective saw that he was in a small storeroom with shelves lining the walls. He turned again to Mrs. Penfield who was watching him closely.

  “Why did you alarm him?” he asked. “You think it was Brett?”

  Although his tone was one of curiosity rather than anger, the woman threw her arms out at full length as though she feared he would attempt to drag her away from the door.

  “Do not be afraid,” said Crewe. “You have nothing to fear from me. And, as for him, it is too late to pursue him.”

  “I must give him ample time to make his escape,” she said. “You will go and tell the police he was here.”

  “What makes you think it was Brett?” asked Crewe. “If he came back this way—if he hoaxed you with a telephone message in order to get you out of the house—he has shown a lamentable want of trust in you.”

  “He knows he can trust me,” she said confidently. “He can never doubt it after to-night.”

  “I cannot conceive why he should take the great risk of coming back,” he said meditatively.

  “That means you would like to go up to his rooms and find out what he came for. But I forbid you. If you attempt to go upstairs, I will rouse the neighbourhood with the cry that there are burglars in the house.”

  “I think you have more reason to be afraid of the police than I,” said Crewe. “However, I am in your hands. As far as I am concerned, you can have full credit for having saved him to-night.”

  She showed her faith in this assurance by unlocking the door. Taking the candle from the shelf, she led the way along the passage and the hall again. She opened the front door, and held the candle higher to light him out. She stood in the open doorway till Crewe reached the garden gate.

  He walked back along the front. The mist was still rising from the sea in great white billows, which rolled across the beach and shrouded everything in an impenetrable veil. It penetrated unpleasantly into the eyes and throat, and Crewe was glad when he turned off the deserted parade and reached Sir George Granville’s house.

  The servant who admitted him told him the family were in the drawing-room, and thither he directed his steps. Lady Granville was seated at the piano, playing softly. Marsland in an easy chair was listlessly turning over the pages of a bound volume of Punch. Sir George was in another easy chair a little distance away, nodding in placid slumber with his handsome white beard on his breast, and an extinguished cigar between his fingers.

  Lady Granville smiled at Crewe as he entered, and stopped playing. The cessation of the music awakened Sir George, and when he saw Crewe his eyes wandered towards the chess-table.

  “Do you feel inclined for a game of chess?” he exclaimed in his loud voice. “I want my revenge, you know.”

  “I’ll be pleased to give it to you,” responded Crewe.

  “A very unpleasant night outside,” said Marsland.

  “The mist seems to be thicker up this end of the front,” replied Crewe. “Have you been out in it?”

  “I came in about five minutes ago. I went for a walk.”

  Lady Granville took a book and seated herself not far from the chess-table. Marsland came and stood near the players, watching the game. He soon got tired of it, however, and went back to Punch. Sir George was a slow player at all times, and his anxiety when pitted against a renowned player like Crewe made him slower than usual. He studied each move of Crewe’s in all its bearings before replying, scrutinizing the board with set face, endeavouring to penetrate his opponent’s intentions, and imagining subtle traps where none existed. Meanwhile, his fingers hovered nervously above the pieces with the irresoluteness of a chess-player weighed down by the heavy responsibility of his next move, and, finally, when the plunge had been taken Sir George sat back, stroking his long white beard doubtfully, and fixed his eyes on Crewe, as though mutely asking his opinion of the move. “Game” seemed an inappropriate word to apply to chess as played by Sir George Granville.

  It was during one of these strategical pauses, after the game had been in progress for nearly an hour, that Crewe heard a frightened exclamation from Lady Granville. He looked up and saw Marsland standing near the fire-place with his hand over his heart, swaying as though about to fall. Crewe sprang forward and supported him to an easy chair.

  “A little brandy,” said Crewe quietly.

  Sir George hurriedly brought a decanter of brandy and a glass, and Crewe poured a little down Marsland’s t
hroat. The colour came slowly back to the young man’s cheeks, and he smiled feebly at the three faces looking down at him.

  “I’m afraid I’ve been giving you a lot of trouble,” he said, with an obvious effort to collect himself.

  “I’ll ring up for Dr. Harrison,” Sir George spoke in a loud voice, as though to reassure himself.

  “There is not the slightest need to send for Harrison,” said Marsland. “I’m quite right again. I must expect these attacks occasionally for some time to come. They’re nothing—just weakness. All I need is a good night’s rest, and if you’ll excuse me I’ll retire now.” He got up and walked resolutely out of the room with square shoulders, as though to demonstrate to those watching him that no trace of his weakness remained.

  “Do you think it is safe to leave him alone?” said Sir George turning to Crewe, as the door closed on his nephew’s retreating figure. “I feel very anxious about him. Anything might happen to him during the night.”

  “A good night’s rest will do him more good than anything else. He has been under a rather severe nervous strain during the last few days. We will go to his room in a few minutes to see how he is.”

  They settled down to their game again and Lady Granville moved up her chair near the chess-table for the sake of their company and pretended to take an interest in the game. Only a few moves had been made when there was a loud report of an explosion. Lady Granville jumped up from her chair and screamed and then fell back into the chair in a faint.

  “Look to her,” said Crewe to his host, “while I go and see what’s the matter.”

  As he ran along the hall to the staircase he met two of the maids, who with white faces and hands clasped in front of them seemed too frightened to move.

  “Where was it?” asked Crewe. “Upstairs?”

  “Yes, sir, upstairs,” said one of them.

  “It came from Mr. Marsland’s room,” added the other, in an awed whisper.

  Crewe ran straight for Marsland’s room, expecting to find there some evidence of a tragedy. As he burst into the room he saw to his great relief that Marsland was there, leaning out of the window.

  “What is it?” asked Crewe. “Did you fire a revolver?”

  Marsland, who was wearing a dressing-gown, came from the window. In his right hand he was holding a big revolver.

  “I missed him,” he said.

  “Missed whom?”

  “A burglar.”

  “It is very early in the night for a burglar to be out.”

  “He took advantage of the mist. He must have thought that there was no one in the room. I had turned out the light and was resting on the bed. I was half asleep, but he knocked a brush off the dressing-table as he was getting through the window and that woke me up. I caught a good glimpse of him and I fired. He dropped at once, and I thought I had hit him, but when I looked out of the window I saw him disappear in the mist. What an awful pity I didn’t get him.”

  “How did you happen to be lying down with a revolver beside you?” asked Crewe.

  “I often take it to bed with me. That is the result of the life at the front. And tonight I had a kind of presentiment that I should need it.”

  It occurred to Crewe that the young man had been subject to hallucinations during his illness. This habit of sleeping with a revolver under his pillow seemed to indicate that his cure was still far from complete. Was the burglar a phantom of a sick mind?

  He went over to the window for the purpose of looking out but his attention was arrested by a stain on the outside sill.

  “You did not miss him altogether,” he said to Marsland. “Look here.”

  Marsland touched the stain and held a blood-stained finger up to the light for his own inspection.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Crewe steered to the stone landing-place and tied the little motor-boat to a rusty iron ring which dangled from a stout wooden stake, wedged between two of the seaweed covered stones. The tide was out, and the top of the landing-place stood well out of the water, but it was an easy matter for a young and vigorous man to spring up to the top, though three rough and slippery steps had been cut near the ring, perhaps for the original builder in his old and infirm days.

  Looking down, he noticed that while his little boat floated easily enough alongside, a boat of slightly deeper draught would have scraped on the rocky bottom, which was visible through the clear water. The surface of the landing-place was moist, and the intersections between the rough stones were filled with seaweed and shells, indicating that the place was covered at high tide.

  Crewe had come from Staveley by boat instead of motoring across, his object being to make a complete investigation of Cliff Farm without attracting chance attention or rural curiosity about his motor-car, which was too big to go into the stables. He wanted to be undisturbed and uninterrupted in his investigation of the house. As he entered the boat-house, he looked back to where he had left his boat, and saw that the landing-place was high enough out of the water to prevent passers-by on the cliff road seeing the boat before high tide. By that time he hoped to have completed his investigations and be on his way back to Staveley.

  The boat-house was a small and rickety structure perched on a rough foundation of stones, which had been stacked to the same height as the landing-place. The inside was dismal and damp, and the woodwork was decaying. Part of the roof had fallen in, and the action of wind and sea and storm had partly destroyed the boarded sides. Many of the boards had parted from the joists, and hung loosely, or had fallen on the stones. An old boat lay on the oozing stones, with its name, Polly, barely decipherable on the stern, and a kedge anchor and rotting coil of rope inside it. Crewe had no doubt that it was the boat James Lumsden used to go fishing in many years ago. A few decayed boards in front of the boat-house indicated the remains of a wooden causeway for launching the boat. In a corner of the shed was a rusty iron windlass, which suggested the means whereby the eccentric old man had been able to house his boat without assistance when he returned with his catch.

  Having finished his scrutiny of the boatshed and its contents, Crewe made his way up the cliff path, and walked across the strip of downs to the farm.

  Cliff Farm looked the picture of desolation and loneliness in the chill, grey autumn afternoon. Its gaunt, closely-shuttered ugliness confronted Crewe uncompromisingly, as though defying him to wrest from it the secret of the tragic death of its owner. It already had that air of neglect and desertion which speedily overtakes the house which has lost its habitants. There was no sign of any kind of life; the meadows were empty of live-stock. Somewhere in the outbuildings at the side of the house an unfastened door flapped and banged drearily in the wind. Even the front door required main strength to force it open after it had been unlocked, as though it shared with the remainder of the house the determination to keep the secret of the place, and resented intrusion. The interior of the house was dark, close and musty. Through the closed and shuttered windows not a ray of light or a breath of air had been able to find an entrance.

  Crewe’s first act was to open the shutters and the windows on the ground floor; his next to fling open the front and back doors, and the doors of the rooms. He wanted all the light he could get for the task before him, and some fresh air to breathe. He soon had both: wholesale, pure strong air from the downs, blowing in through doors and windows, stirring up the accumulated dust on the floors, causing it to float and dance in the sunbeams that streamed in the front windows from the rays of an evening sun, which had succeeded in freeing himself in his last moments above the horizon from the mass of grey clouds that had made the day so chill and cheerless.

  Crewe commenced to examine each room and its contents with the object of trying to discover something which would assist him in his investigation of the Cliff Farm murder. He worked carefully and minutely, but with the swiftness and method of a practised observer.

  The front room that he first entered detained him only a few minutes. Originally designed for the sitting-r
oom, it had been dismantled and contained very little furniture, and had evidently not been used for a considerable time. A slight fissure in the outside wall explained the reason: the fissure had made the room uninhabitable by admitting wind and weather, causing damp to appear on the walls, and loosening the wall-paper till it hung in festoons.

  Crewe next examined the opposite front room in which Sergeant Westaway conducted his preliminary inquiries into the murder. This room was simply furnished with furniture of an antique pattern. Apparently it had been used at a more or less recent date as the sitting-room, for a few old books and a couple of modern cheaply bound novels were lying about; a needle with a piece of darning cotton which was stuck in the wall suggested a woman’s occupation, or perhaps the murdered man or his grandson had done bachelor darning there in the winter evenings. The latter hypothesis seemed most probable to Crewe: only a very untidy member of the other sex would have left a darning needle sticking in the sitting-room wall.

  Crewe then examined the room behind the front room in which Marsland and Miss Maynard had sat before discovering the murdered man. It was the front room of an English farm-house of a bygone age, kept for show and state occasions but not for use, crowded with big horse-hair chairs and a horse-hair sofa. There were two tables—a large round one with a mahogany top and a smaller one used as a stand for the lamp Marsland had lit—a glass case of stuffed birds; an old clock in a black case on the mantelpiece, which had been stopped so long that its works were festooned with spiders’ webs; a few dingy oil-paintings on the walls, alternately representing scenes from the Scriptures and the English chase, and a moth-eaten carpet on the floor. There was also a small glass bookcase in a corner containing some bound volumes of the Leisure Hour of the sixties, Peter Parley’s Annual, Johnson’s Dictionary, an ancientEvery Day Book, and an old family Bible with brass clasps.

  It was in the room next to the sitting-room that Crewe found the first article which suggested possibilities of a clue. It was a small room, which had evidently been used by a former occupant as an office, for it contained an oak case holding account books, some files of yellowing bills hanging from nails on the wall, and an old-fashioned writing bureau. It was this last article that attracted Crewe’s attention. It was unlocked, and he examined closely the papers it contained. But they threw no light on the mystery of Cliff Farm, being for the most part business letters, receipted bills, and household accounts.