by Annie Haynes
“Oh, please yourself!” his lordship said somewhat huffily. “Don’t you let the beggar slip, that’s all.”
“I was a-going to say as your lordship said I might use the phone.” Superintendent Mayer’s eyes were glancing sharply at the other’s face.
“An’ I were a deal nearer here than to the police station, so I thought I would just come on here an’ see if I could get a trunk call through. It would save time, and time is money, as your lordship knows.”
“I should like to catch the blighter that said so,” his lordship ejaculated wrathfully. “I have always had plenty of the one and precious little of the other. I have never found I could change ’em.”
“Well, it is just a saying, my lord,” the superintendent agreed politely. “There’s a lot o’ such, an’ I don’t know as there’s much sense in ’em. But about the telephone, my lord?”
“Oh, you are welcome to use the phone as much as you like,” his lordship said graciously. “Here’s the darned thing,” leading the way to the inner hall and pointing to the telephone standing on a small table by the open window. “You may be some time getting on, but there’s a chair at hand. Sit down and take it easy after your exertions, and when you’ve finished there will be a glass of beer for you in the justice-room.” His lordship went across to the justice-room as he spoke.
Superintendent Mayer got his trunk call through more quickly than he anticipated. He lowered his voice considerably, but certain words could have 1 been heard distinctly if anyone had been listening.
“Room 5 … That Inspector Stoddart?; Mayer speaking … Yes, important – very –, best clue we’ve got yet … Can you come down at once? … Could you come down to-night? … Yes. I’ve got a line. Sure thing – motive? Good and plenty … Yes, the five o’clock. I’ll be at the station to meet you. That’s all.”
The superintendent rang off, and then remembering Lord Medchester’s alluring invitation to the justice-room turned his steps there. Lord Medchester was standing with his back to him, apparently staring with absorbed interest at a map of the county hanging on the wall near the fireplace. He turned as he heard the superintendent’s ponderous movements.
“Come along, Mayer. You will be glad of something to drink. You are a bit long in the tooth to go trotting about like a two-year-old after murderers or what not. We are none of us getting younger, you know. Sit down and rest yourself.” He rang the bell. “Sit down, man. The drink will be here in a moment. Did you get on to the inspector chap?”
“Ay, my lord, I did.”
He waited a minute, while a footman deposited on the table a tray with glasses and a foaming jug of beer.
Lord Medchester poured out a bumping glass and pushed it across. “Well, what did he say?”
The inspector, my lord? He’s coming down by the next train.”
Lord Medchester raised his eyebrows.
“He thinks your news important, then?”
“He doesn’t know what it is yet – not rightly, that is to say,” the superintendent said slowly. “But he’s aware that I shouldn’t send for him if it wasn’t important.”
“I suppose not,” Lord Medchester agreed. “I’m just about consumed by curiosity, Mayer. When shall you let us into the secret? Her ladyship will give me no peace till she knows it.”
A slow smile overspread the superintendent’s features.
“Ay, my lord, I know what it is myself. I expect the womenkind be pretty much alike whether they are ladies or not.”
“The Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady,” Lord Medchester muttered. “Well, you would be safe in trusting me, Mayer.”
The superintendent hesitated. He realized that beneath his jesting manner Lord Medchester was distinctly anxious to know the nature of his latest discovery. A Holford man born and bred, some of the old feudal feeling still existed in him; he felt more than half inclined to gratify his lordship. He opened his mouth to speak, then the recollection of Inspector Stoddart’s warnings as to absolute silence regarding the case to all the inhabitants of Holford Hall recurred to him. With a snap he shut his mouth again.
“I’ll do my best to let you know about it, my lord, when I ha’ spoke to the inspector,” he promised.
His lordship smiled pleasantly.
“Well, so long, Mayer. I shall look for a visit from you and Stoddart soon after he gets here.”
The superintendent hurried off down the drive. Lord Medchester watched him for a minute or two, then he too went out, and crossing towards the Dutch garden immediately caught sight of a figure coming towards him. He frowned as he recognized Sybil Stainer’s brother, Maurice. He disliked seeing them hanging about as though the place belonged to them.
Lord Medchester shook hands in a perfunctory fashion.
Maurice Stainer was not much like his sister. His hair, instead of being red like hers, was sleek and dark, his eyes, too, were dark and set rather close together under overhanging brows.
“I am on my way to Newcastle and was just making plans with Sybil,” Stainer explained.
“Lady Medchester was kind enough to ask me to stay a day or two here on the road, but I am sorry I can’t. Great disappointment,” he murmured. He seemed oddly ill at ease under Lord Medchester’s scrutiny. “But I hear there’s a chance of picking up a bit on the Pitman’s Derby. They say Blue Button is a cert, and as he owes me a tidy pocketful it’s a chance of getting a bit of my own back. I came here to-day because Lady Medchester and my sister spoke of putting a pony or two on, and I thought it might be as well for me to do it on the course. There’s a chance the S.P. may go out, for there’s a pot of money on Tailleur, and he was tightening last night at the Beaufort.”
“Well, sounds a tidy sort of proposition if Blue Button is as good as he’s reckoned to be,” said his lordship. “I think I must have a bit on myself. Eh, what?” he added in an effort to make the best of it – though what the devil Minnie was up to in encouraging these Stainers was past his comprehension.
CHAPTER 12
“If you please, my lord, Inspector Stoddart would like to speak to your lordship.”
Lord Medchester was idly knocking the balls about in the billiard-room by himself. He looked up with an air of relief.
“Show him in! Hello, inspector!” as Stoddart appeared.
“Good evening, Lord Medchester.” The inspector hesitated a moment. “I asked to see you,” he went on at last, “because I understand that Superintendent Mayer had a long interview with you this morning.”
Lord Medchester frowned. “Shouldn’t call it a long interview myself. He wanted to use my phone – as a matter of fact, it was to send a trunk call through to you, I believe. And he seemed a bit excited and beside himself, don’t you know. He’d got an idea he’d found a clue to Robert Saunderson’s murderer. But he was in a desperate hurry to tell you, inspector. Do you mean that you haven’t seen him?”
“I haven’t, Lord Medchester. And, what is more, he can’t be found.”
“Can’t be found!” His lordship rubbed his forehead and stared. “What are you getting at, inspector? Mayer isn’t exactly the sort of little chap to get mislaid and lost, you know – what?”
The inspector permitted himself a slight smile. “He is not. I suppose he has gone to see some one at a distance. But he didn’t go home to dinner or tea. And though, as you say, he seemed very anxious to see me he was not at the station when I arrived, and I have had no message from him.”
“That seems a bit queer. For he said he was in a great hurry. He went away from here at a tremendous pace. Must have been after something special. But I wonder he was not back to meet you. He rang you up from here, you know, and he told me you were coming down by the five o’clock from Euston.”
“Did he tell you why he wanted me to come down?”
Lord Medchester pulled his chin thoughtfully.
“Seemed to think he’d got a line on Saunderson’s murderer. But I don’t know any more.”
The inspector looked puzzled.
“I suppose he didn’t tell you what his new evidence was?”
“Devil a bit of it!” his lordship responded. “Just asked if he could use the phone to save him going back to the police station. But he was tremendously bucked, don’t you know.”
“So I gathered,” Stoddart assented. “You have no idea in which direction he would be likely to be going?”
His lordship shook his head. “No more than you have yourself. Stay a minute, though – he did say something about the Empton bus, and went off trotting down the drive like a two-year-old.”
“And yet the lodgekeeper says she feels sure he didn’t go out that way. It seems she let him in and he promised to see her on his way back. Said he was going to Empton and she wanted him to take a message or something. They are old friends.”
“Well, he seemed to be making for the lodge as hard as he could go the last I saw of him,” his lordship remarked. “Still, he might have headed off and gone along the footpath to the Home Farm. I have seen him talking to Tom Purling sometimes. I fancy they were by way of being cronies. He may have gone in to ask Tom’s advice.”
“No. I met Purling on my way up. He hadn’t seen anything of the superintendent. Was rather surprised he hadn’t, for that matter. I wonder if you would just allow me to ring them up at the station and see if they have heard anything since I left?”
“Ring ’em up at once,” his lordship said graciously. “I expect you will find he is there all right.”
But he did not turn out to be a true prophet. Inspector Stoddart’s call was answered by Mrs. Mayer, voluble and incoherent. No, nothing had been heard of the superintendent since early morning. Mrs. Mayer could not understand it at all. Her husband had never been a man to stay out like that. No, he had had no letters that morning but official ones, and he had not appeared interested or excited in any way. He had not expressed any intention of going up to the Hall. It was his day for Empton, a neighbouring village. Nothing had been said of any change in his plans.
Nothing more was to be obtained from Mrs. Mayer, and the inspector’s face was grave as he rang off.
“That’s what it is,” Lord Medchester said with an air of relief. “You may depend upon it that’s what it is. He came up here first and that made him late for Empton and he has been detained there.”
“No, it isn’t that,” dissented the inspector. “Jones told me when I went up to the police station that it was the superintendent’s day for Empton and I rang them up from there. They had been expecting him there all day and he had not put in an appearance then. That would be round about six o’clock.”
“That’s a queer story,” his lordship said, beginning to look concerned. “I told the old chap he wasn’t exactly the figure for fox-trotting. And he’d made himself pretty hot racing about here. He may have brought on an attack of some kind and be lying ill on the way to Empton, or have been taken in somewhere.”
The inspector shook his head.
“No, Lord Medchester, it isn’t that, either. The superintendent meant to go by the motor-bus that goes through Empton on its way to Loamford. He would catch the one that passes Huglin Corner at twelve o’clock, generally had a bite of lunch before he started and got home by another bus about 4.30 for tea. He was a man of regular habits, was the superintendent.”
Lord Medchester looked at him sharply.
“Why do you say ‘was’ instead of ‘is’, inspector?”
Inspector Stoddart looked surprised.
“I don’t know. I suppose I did it without thinking. Well, I hardly know what to do next. I think I will institute a house-to-house visitation in the village and see if anyone has seen anything of him since he left here. If we don’t find him in the village I am afraid we shall have to go through the park and gardens to see if we can find any trace of him about here.”
“Go through the house if you like. I’m sure you’re welcome,” returned his lordship accommodatingly. “The poor old chap may have tumbled down in a fit somewhere. When a fat man takes to galloping about as he was doing this morning one doesn’t know what may happen.”
The inspector walked sharply down the drive. It was growing dark; just outside the gate he encountered Harbord.
“Any news?” he questioned.
Harbord shook his head. “We have been to all the likely places we can think of – Constable Jones and I – but nobody has seen the superintendent since early morning. Mrs. Mayer is in hysterics.”
“Poor soul!” said the inspector sympathetically.
Harbord looked at him.
“What do you think of it, sir? I fancy somehow we are making mountains out of molehills and that the superintendent will walk in presently and have the laugh of us all.”
“I don’t,” the inspector said, staring straight in front of him with a puzzled look. “I can’t get the hang of it; but Mayer wasn’t the sort of man to play tricks of this kind, and he was very anxious we should come down by the earliest possible train. If some news of him doesn’t come along within the next hour, I shall get the gamekeepers to help me, and search the park and gardens.”
“Why?” Harbord asked in a bewildered tone. “Do you think he –”
“I think nothing,” Stoddart interrupted. “Except that he undeniably was at the Hall this morning and that nobody has seen him since – not even the lodgekeeper upon whom he promised to call.”
“A pity it was practically dark when we got here,” observed Harbord.
“I don’t think it matters much,” Stoddart said gloomily. “Anyway, there will be a moon later on and we shall be able to see our way about unless it rains all the time, as it generally seems to in this benighted part of the world.”
But it was not raining when the two detectives with Constable Jones and another man from Empton left the police station for the Hall. Not one word of Superintendent Mayer had reached them.
The most stringent inquiries both in Holford and Empton had failed to find the smallest trace of the missing man. From the moment that Superintendent Mayer left Lord Medchester and started off down the drive he had apparently disappeared off the face of the earth. The lodgekeeper, repeatedly interrogated, was positive that he had not left by her gate – she had been watching for him, she said, as he had promised to deliver a little parcel for her in Empton. There remained, of course, the possibility that the missing man had left the Hall by some other way, but in that case what had become of him and where had he gone?
The further lodge and the rosery side of the grounds were both fairly accessible, but both were a considerable distance from the corner, where the Empton bus picked up the Holford passengers, and the superintendent had had little time to spare when he left the Hall. Why should he turn back from the drive down which he was last seen hurrying, and which was on the direct route to the stopping-place of the Empton bus, to leave the Hall grounds by some other way? It was a curious problem, and the more the inspector thought of it the less he liked the look of it. At the lodge they found the head gamekeeper and another man awaiting them. The lodgekeeper stood outside talking to them. As Stoddart approached she turned to him.
“He never left the park, didn’t the superintendent,” she said in an agitated voice. “Him and me have always been good friends, and he never passed without stopping to pass the time of day. This morning I wanted to send a little parcel to my girl that’s married and lives at Empton and I was going to walk down to the corner and give it to the bus conductor. But the superintendent he said no, he was going right past the house and he would leave it for me. ‘You have it all ready against I come back, Mrs. Yates,’ he said, ‘for I may run it a bit fine.’ He couldn’t ha’ gone by and forgotten it, with me looking out for him all the time. No. You may take my word for it he never left the park – not by this gate, anyway, dead or alive.”
“Did he seem excited when you saw him?” the inspector inquired.
“Well, yes, he did seem a bit fresh like,” Mrs. Yates answered, twisting her apron about. “The thou
ght come to me that he had maybe had a glass. But ’twas early in the morning for that, and he explained himself – ‘I’m in for promotion, Mrs. Yates,’ he said. ‘’Im as finds out who murdered Mr. Saunderson he’s sure to get it. An’ I ha’ pretty well done that,’ he says.”
“Did he tell you what he had found out, or who it was that had shot Mr. Saunderson?”
“No, sir. Not if it was my last word he didn’t. I put the question to him. But he only laughed. ‘Ay, Mrs. Yates, but that would be tellin’,’ he says. He was always a man for his joke, was the superintendent. I – I’m hoping there’s no harm come to him, like there did to that other poor gentleman.”
“Oh, you mustn’t think of that,” the inspector said, assuming a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.
They all tramped in through the gate. Although the moon was up, the trees in the drive made it dark. The gamekeeper looked at Stoddart.
“Where shall we begin, sir?”
Stoddart waited a minute.
“The last place he was seen in was the turn just before you come to that old bridge over the hollow.”
“Ah, that’s where there used to be a pool years ago,” the gamekeeper said thoughtfully. “I mind when I was a boy there used to be talk of an old mine shaft at one end of it. My father used to say there was more of ’em about than folks knew about, the tops just covered over with wood, and then earth and then grass growing. Time would come, he said, when the boards would rot and give way and folks would fall in. I wonder – I suppose – there isn’t anything of that happened to the superintendent?”
The inspector wrinkled his brows.
“Doesn’t seem likely. Why should he walk off the road when he was in a special hurry and fall down an old coal mine that everybody has forgotten?”
The gamekeeper scratched his head.
“Well, he hadn’t any enemies as would have thrown him down – the superintendent hadn’t. We have brought lanterns, but it seems they won’t be wanted, for the moon’s that bright.”
“I dare say they will come in later,” the inspector said, staring round and vaguely noticing the dappled shadows on the grass cast by the trees in the drive. Right round the park, masking the high wall that stood next the high road, ran a belt of trees and shrubs. They extended from the left side of the Dutch garden to the front lodge. The inspector pointed to it.