'I haven't the least idea on the matter,' answered Loveday. 'I start on my work without theory of any sort – in fact, I may say, with my mind a perfect blank.'
And anyone who had caught a glimpse of her blank, expressionless features, as she said this, would have taken her at her word.
Grenfell, the nearest post-town to Troyte's Hill is a fairly busy, populous little town – looking south towards the black country, and northwards to low, barren hills. Pre-eminent among these stands Troyte's Hill, famed in the old days as a border keep, and possibly at a still earlier date as a Druid stronghold.
At a small inn at Grenfell, dignified by the title of 'The Station Hotel', Mr Griffiths, of the Newcastle constabulary, met Loveday and still further initiated her into the mysteries of the Troyte's Hill murder.
'A little of the first excitement has subsided,' he said, after preliminary greetings had been exchanged, 'but still the wildest rumours are flying about and repeated as solemnly as if they were Gospel truths. My chief here and my colleagues generally adhere to their first conviction, that the criminal is some suddenly crazed tramp or else an escaped lunatic, and they are confident that sooner or later we shall come upon his traces. Their theory is that Sandy, hearing some strange noise at the Park Gates, put his head out of the window to ascertain the cause and immediately had his death blow dealt him; then they suppose that the lunatic scrambled into the room through the window and exhausted his frenzy by turning things generally upside down. They refuse altogether to share my suspicions respecting young Mr Craven.'
Mr Griffiths was a tall, thin-featured man, with iron-grey hair, cut so close to his head that it refused to do anything but stand on end. This gave a somewhat comic expression of the upper portion of his face and clashed oddly with the melancholy look that his mouth habitually wore.
'I have made all smooth for you at Troyte's Hill,' he presently went on. 'Mr Craven is not wealthy enough to allow himself the luxury of a family lawyer, so he occasionally employs the services of Messrs. Wells and Sugden, lawyers in this place, and who, as it happens, have, off and on, done a good deal of business for me. It was through them I heard that Mr Craven was anxious to secure the assistance of an amanuensis. I immediately offered your services, stating that you were a friend of mine, a lady of impoverished means, who would gladly undertake the duties for the munificent sum of a guinea a month, with board and lodging. The old gentleman at once jumped at the offer, and is anxious for you to be at Troyte's Hill at once.'
Loveday expressed satisfaction with the programme that Mr Griffiths had sketched for her, then she had a few questions to ask.
'Tell me,' she said, 'what led you, in the first instance, to suspect young Mr Craven of the crime?'
'The footing on which he and Sandy stood towards each other, and the terrible scene that occurred between them only the day before the murder,' answered Griffiths, promptly. 'Nothing of this, however, was elicited at the inquest, where a very fair face was put on Sandy's relations with the whole of the Craven family. I have subsequently unearthed a good deal respecting the private life of Mr Harry Craven, and, among other things, I have found out that on the night of the murder he left the house shortly after ten o'clock, and no one, so far as I have been able to ascertain, knows at what hour he returned. Now I must draw your attention, Miss Brooke, to the fact that at the inquest the medical evidence went to prove that the murder had been committed between ten and eleven at night.'
'Do you surmise, then, that the murder was a planned thing on the part of this young man?'
'I do. I believe that he wandered about the grounds until Sandy shut himself in for the night, then aroused him by some outside noise, and, when the old man looked out to ascertain the cause, dealt him a blow with the bludgeon or loaded stick, that caused his death.'
'A cold-blooded crime that, for a boy of nineteen?'
'Yes. He's a good-looking, gentlemanly youngster, too, with manner as mild as milk, but from all accounts is as full of wickedness as an egg is full of meat. Now, to come to another point – if, in connection with these ugly facts, you take into consideration the suddenness of his illness, I think you'll admit that it bears a suspicious appearance and might reasonably give rise to the surmise that it was a plant on his part, in order to get out of the inquest.'
'Who is the doctor attending him?'
'A man called Waters; not much of a practitioner, from all accounts, and no doubt he feels himself highly honoured in being summoned to Troyte's Hill. The Cravens, it seems, have no family doctor. Mrs Craven, with her missionary experience, is half a doctor herself, and never calls in one except in a serious emergency.'
'The certificate was in order, I suppose?'
'Undoubtedly. And, as if to give colour to the gravity of the case, Mrs Craven sent a message down to the servants, that if any of them were afraid of the infection they could at once go to their homes. Several of the maids, I believe, took advantage of her permission, and packed their boxes. Miss Craven, who is a delicate girl, was sent away with her maid to stay with friends at Newcastle, and Mrs Craven isolated herself with her patient in one of the disused wings of the house.'
'Has anyone ascertained whether Miss Craven arrived at her destination at Newcastle?'
Griffiths drew his brows together in thought.
'I did not see any necessity for such a thing,' he answered. 'I don't quite follow you. What do you mean to imply?'
'Oh, nothing. I don't suppose it matters much: it might have been interesting as a side-issue.' She broke off for a moment, then added:
'Now tell me a little about the butler, the man whose wages were cut down to increase Sandy's pay.'
'Old John Hales? He's a thoroughly worthy, respectable man; he was butler for five or six years to Mr Craven's brother, when he was master of Troyte's Hill, and then took duty under this Mr Craven. There's no ground for suspicion in that quarter. Hales's exclamation when he heard of the murder is quite enough to stamp him as an innocent man: "Serve the old idiot right," he cried: "I couldn't pump up a tear for him if I tried for a month of Sundays!" Now I take it, Miss Brooke, a guilty man wouldn't dare make such a speech as that!'
'You think not?'
Griffiths stared at her. 'I'm a little disappointed in her,' he thought. 'I'm afraid her powers have been slightly exaggerated if she can't see such a straightforward thing as that.'
Aloud he said, a little sharply, 'Well, I don't stand alone in my thinking. No one yet has breathed a word against Hales, and if they did I've no doubt he could prove an alibi without any trouble, for he lives in the house, and everyone has a good word for him.'
'I suppose Sandy's lodge has been put into order by this time?'
'Yes; after the inquest, and when all possible evidence had been taken, everything was put straight.'
'At the inquest it was stated that no marks of footsteps could be traced in any direction?'
'The long drought we've had would render such a thing impossible, let alone the fact that Sandy's lodge stands right on the gravelled drive, without flower-beds or grass borders of any sort around it. But look here, Miss Brooke, don't you be wasting your time over the lodge and its surroundings. Every iota of fact on that matter has been gone through over and over again by me and my chief. What we want you to do is to go straight into the house and concentrate attention on Master Harry's sick-room, and find out what's going on there. What he did outside the house on the night of the 6th, I've no doubt I shall be able to find out for myself. Now, Miss Brooke, you've asked me no end of questions, to which I have replied as fully as it was in my power to do; will you be good enough to answer one question that I wish to put, as straightforwardly as I have answered yours? You have had fullest particulars given you of the condition of Sandy's room when the police entered it on the morning after the murder. No doubt, at the present moment, you can see it all in your mind's eye – the bedstead on its side, the clock on its head, the bed-clothes half-way up the chimney, the little vases and ornament
s walking in a straight line towards the door?'
Loveday bowed her head.
'Very well. Now will you be good enough to tell me what this scene of confusion recalls to your mind before anything else?'
'The room of an unpopular Oxford freshman after a raid upon it by under-grads,' answered Loveday promptly.
Mr Griffiths rubbed his hands.
'Quite so!' he ejaculated. 'I see, after all, we are one at heart in this matter, in spite of a little surface disagreement of ideas. Depend upon it, by-and-bye, like the engineers tunnelling from different quarters under the Alps, we shall meet at the same point and shake hands. By-the-way, I have arranged for daily communication between us through the postboy who takes the letters to Troyte's Hill. He is trustworthy, and any letter you give him for me will find its way into my hands within the hour.'
It was about three o'clock in the afternoon when Loveday drove in through the park gates of Troyte's Hill, past the lodge where old Sandy had met with his death. It was a pretty little cottage, covered with Virginia creeper and wild honeysuckle, and showing no outward sign of the tragedy that had been enacted within.
The park and pleasure-grounds of Troyte's Hill were extensive, and the house itself was a somewhat imposing red-brick structure, built, possibly, at the time when Dutch William's taste had grown popular in the country. Its frontage presented a somewhat forlorn appearance, its centre windows – a square of eight – alone seeming to show signs of occupation. With the exception of two windows at the extreme end of the bedroom floor of the north wing, where, possibly, the invalid and his mother were located, and two windows at the extreme end of the ground floor of the south wing, which Loveday ascertained subsequently were those of Mr Craven's study, not a single window in either wing owned blind or curtain. The wings were extensive, and it was easy to understand that at the extreme end of the one the fever patient would be isolated from the rest of the household, and that at the extreme end of the other Mr Craven could secure the quiet and freedom from interruption which, no doubt, were essential to the due prosecution of his philological studies.
Alike on the house and ill-kept grounds were present the stamp of the smallness of the income of the master and owner of the place. The terrace, which ran the length of the house in front, and on to which every window on the ground floor opened, was miserably out of repair: not a lintel or door-post, window-ledge or balcony but what seemed to cry aloud for the touch of the painter. 'Pity me! I have seen better days,' Loveday could fancy written as a legend across the red-brick porch that gave entrance to the old house.
The butler, John Hales, admitted Loveday, shouldered her portmanteau and told her he would show her to her room. He was a tall, powerfully-built man, with a ruddy face and dogged expression of countenance. It was easy to understand that, off and on, there must have been many a sharp encounter between him and old Sandy. He treated Loveday in an easy, familiar fashion, evidently considering that an amanuensis took much the same rank as a nursery governess – that is to say, a little below a lady's maid and a little above a house-maid.
'We're short of hands, just now,' he said, in broad Cumberland dialect, as he led the way up the wide staircase. 'Some of the lasses downstairs took fright at the fever and went home. Cook and I are single-handed, for Moggie, the only maid left, has been told off to wait on Madam and Master Harry. I hope you're not afeared of fever?'
Loveday explained that she was not, and asked if the room at the extreme end of the north wing was the one assigned to 'Madam and Master Harry'.
'Yes,' said the man, 'it's convenient for sick nursing; there's a flight of stairs runs straight down from it to the kitchen quarters. We put all Madam wants at the foot of these stairs and Moggie comes down and fetches it. Moggie herself never enters the sick-room. I take it you'll not be seeing Madam for many a day, yet awhile.'
'When shall I see Mr Craven? At dinner to-night?'
'That's what naebody could say,' answered Hales. 'He may not come out of his study till past midnight; sometimes he sits there till two or three in the morning. Shouldn't advise you to wait till he wants his dinner – better have a cup of tea and a chop sent up to you. Madam never waits for him at any meal.'
As he finished speaking he deposited the portmanteau outside one of the many doors opening into the gallery.
'This is Miss Craven's room,' he went on; 'cook and me thought you'd better have it, as it would want less getting ready than the other rooms, and work is work when there are so few hands to do it. Oh, my stars! I do declare there is cook putting it straight for you now.'
The last sentence was added as the opened door laid bare to view, the cook, with a duster in her hand, polishing a mirror; the bed had been made, it is true, but otherwise the room must have been much as Miss Craven left it, after a hurried packing up.
To the surprise of the two servants Loveday took the matter very lightly.
'I have a special talent for arranging rooms and would prefer getting this one straight for myself,' she said. 'Now, if you will go and get ready that chop and cup of tea we were talking about just now, I shall think it much kinder than if you stayed here doing what I can so easily do for myself.'
When, however, the cook and butler had departed in company, Loveday showed no disposition to exercise the 'special talent' of which she had boasted.
She first carefully turned the key in the lock and then proceeded to make a thorough and minute investigation of every corner of the room. Not an article of furniture, not an ornament or toilet accessory, but what was lifted from its place and carefully scrutinised. Even the ashes in the grate, the debris of the last fire made there, were raked over and well looked through.
This careful investigation of Miss Craven's late surroundings occupied in all about three quarters of an hour, and Loveday, with her hat in her hand, descended the stairs to see Hales crossing the hall to the dining-room with the promised cup of tea and chop.
In silence and solitude she partook of the simple repast in a dininghall that could with ease have banqueted a hundred and fifty guests.
'Now for the grounds before it gets dark,' she said to herself, as she noted that already the outside shadows were beginning to slant.
The dining-hall was at the back of the house; and here, as in the front, the windows, reaching to the ground, presented easy means of egress. The flower-garden was on this side of the house and sloped downhill to a pretty stretch of well-wooded country.
Loveday did not linger here even to admire, but passed at once round the south corner of the house to the windows which she had ascertained, by a careless question to the butler, were those of Mr Craven's study.
Very cautiously she drew near them, for the blinds were up, the curtains drawn back. A side glance, however, relieved her apprehensions, for it showed her the occupant of the room, seated in an easy-chair, with his back to the windows. From the length of his outstretched limbs he was evidently a tall man. His hair was silvery and curly, the lower part of his face was hidden from her view by the chair, but she could see one hand was pressed tightly across his eyes and brows. The whole attitude was that of a man absorbed in deep thought. The room was comfortably furnished, but presented an appearance of disorder from the books and manuscripts scattered in all directions. A whole pile of torn fragments of foolscap sheets, overflowing from a waste-paper basket beside the writing-table, seemed to proclaim the fact that the scholar had of late grown weary of, or else dissatisfied with his work, and had condemned it freely.
Although Loveday stood looking in at this window for over five minutes, not the faintest sign of life did that tall, reclining figure give, and it would have been as easy to believe him locked in sleep as in thought.
From here she turned her steps in the direction of Sandy's lodge. As Griffiths had said, it was gravelled up to its doorstep. The blinds were closely drawn, and it presented the ordinary appearance of a disused cottage.
A narrow path beneath the over-arching boughs of cherry-laurel an
d arbutus, immediately facing the lodge, caught her eye, and down this she at once turned her footsteps.
This path led, with many a wind and turn, through a belt of shrubbery that skirted the frontage of Mr Craven's grounds, and eventually, after much zig-zagging, ended in close proximity to the stables. As Loveday entered it, she seemed literally to leave daylight behind her.
'I feel as if I were following the course of a circuitous mind,' she said to herself as the shadows closed around her. 'I could not fancy Sir Isaac Newton or Bacon planning or delighting in such a windabout-alley as this!'
The path showed greyly in front of her out of the dimness. On and on she followed it; here and there the roots of the old laurels, struggling out of the ground, threatened to trip her up. Her eyes, however, had now grown accustomed to the half-gloom, and not a detail of her surroundings escaped her as she went along.
A bird flew out the thicket on her right hand with a startled cry. A dainty little frog leaped out of her way into the shrivelled leaves lying below the laurels. Following the movements of this frog, her eye was caught by something black and solid among those leaves. What was it? A bundle – a shiny black coat? Loveday knelt down, and using her hands to assist her eyes, found that they came into contact with the dead, stiffened body of a beautiful black retriever. She parted, as well as she was able, the lower boughs of the evergreens, and minutely examined the poor animal. Its eyes were still open, though glazed and bleared, and its death had, undoubtedly, been caused by the blow of some blunt, heavy instrument, for on one side its skull was almost battered in.
Rivals of Sherlock Holmes, The Page 7