“Nothing like a little shooting to blow away the cobwebs,” Jim reflected rather grimly.
His eye caught a rabbit as it took fright and fled up the slope, and he sent it rolling head over heels with a snap shot. Then, leaving it lying, he continued his way. By this time he had climbed well above the stream, for at this stage in its course the Carron ran through a tiny steep-sided glen hardly fifty feet in breadth, with patches of heavy undergrowth growing on the edges of the chasm. It was only here and there that Jim could catch a glimpse of the ha-ha on the farther side. Once he saw Johnnie’s figure moving cautiously on the slope at the top of the sunk fence, and he regulated his own pace to keep level with him. It struck him as curious that with three of them on the far side of the stream, there should be so little shooting. He heard one report in the farther part of the plantation after a time, but that was all.
But Tragedy was afoot in the Long Plantation that morning.
A gunshot. The noise of the wind tearing at the tree-tops. In the lull between two gusts a voice called:
“Did you hit. . .?”
No answer. After a minute or more a second gunshot, followed by a fresh call from the same voice:
“Did you get anything, Johnnie?”
A longer pause. Sounds of movements in the wood, drowned almost completely by the intermittent blasts. Then, suddenly, there came a shout:
“Brandon! Brandon!! There’s been an accident. Your brother’s shot himself.”
A startled ejaculation from Jim came down the wind from fifty yards up-stream on the farther bank.
“Come here, quick, Brandon,” Laxford’s voice ordered. “Go round by the foot-bridge; it’s the nearest way. He’s shot in the head. Must have fallen over the edge of the ha-ha, and his gun’s gone off.”
Owing to a bend in the Carron’s course and an intervening belt of undergrowth, the actual site of the tragedy was hidden from Jim. He set off, hot-foot, for the bridge, crossed it, and followed the line of the ha-ha down-stream. He had not far to go before catching sight of Hay and Laxford, on the top of the sunk fence, bending over something which lay between them. In a moment or two he came close enough to see Johnnie’s body, face downward, with a pool of blood on the grass where the head lay.
The tragedy had been enacted in a tiny glade, surrounded on one side by a rough semicircle of thick bushes of which the line of the ha-ha formed the chord. Below the sunk fence the ground fell away down a short and steep grass slope towards the chasm through which roared the swollen waters of the stream; and on the far side of the Carron was a thick belt of shrubs and undergrowth.
Jim knelt down when he reached the body. That gaping wound behind the right ear told its own story plainly enough, even to his inexperienced eyes.
“Bad job, this,” said Hay dully.
Jim glanced up at the words. And as he did so, from behind the screen of undergrowth appeared the figure of a total stranger with a gun in his hand.
Chapter Six
Man in the Big House
MR. KENNETH DUNNE of Fairlawns was in many ways a fortunate man. He lived in a roomy mansion surrounded by spacious grounds; and in the well-tended flower-gardens he whiled away his time pleasantly enough, when weather permitted, for he was interested in horticulture. A large and expensive staff ministered to his needs and saw to it that the comfortable routine of his existence ran, week in and week out, with the smoothness of a dynamo. His private fortune was more than sufficient for all his needs, and he was never heard to grumble about the size of his income tax, large though it was.
Although he paid no visits to his neighbours in the country-side there was nothing of the misanthropist about him; and he never lacked congenial company when he desired it, for he was both likeable and accomplished. He was a fine billiard-player; he could do more than hold his own at the bridge-table; though he never went up to Lord’s now, he was a reliable stone-wall batsman in village matches; and, despite the fact that he had become a strict teetotaller, he could discuss wines and vintages with an authority based upon the long and varied experience of a trained and sensitive palate. Having literary tastes, he edited a magazine which had some merit, though its circulation was small; and he had won a reputation as a producer of amateur dramatic performances which his friends gave, from time to time, on a stage specially erected in one of the long high-ceilinged rooms of his residence.
With all these advantages, it might be supposed that Mr. Dunne was an enviable man, and that many, less fortunately situated, would gladly have exchanged places with him. Actually, however, no one envied him and few indeed would have agreed to fill his shoes.
On most subjects he was a pleasant talker, interested in what others had to say; but his hobby was Celtic second sight, and once launched upon that his politeness failed him, and he was merciless to his unfortunate hearers. He knew every detail of the prophecies made by Thomas of Erceldoun, the Lady of Lawers, and Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche; and he would reel them off on the slightest provocation, paralleling each with the historical incident which fulfilled the prediction. If he were allowed to run on, his enthusiasm lent to his discourse a convincingness which left some of his hearers uneasily wondering ‘if there wasn’t perhaps something behind all that damned rubbish, after all.’
This was the stranger who had blundered upon the scene as the three men were grouped about Johnnie Brandon’s body.
At the first glance Jim Brandon got the impression that Mr. Dunne was drunk. He stood, gun in hand, staring at them in a dazed fashion, as though he were not quite in possession of all his faculties. Then, as a cloud drifts off the sun, the bewildered look passed from his face, and the light of intelligence came back to his eyes. He glanced at the gun in his hand as though it were some unfamiliar object; then, after a moment, he raised his head and faced the onlookers.
“I don’t quite know how I came to get here,” he said hesitatingly, as though he were merely thinking aloud.
Then his eye wandered to Johnnie’s body, prone on the grass, and he seemed to recover himself completely.
“What’s this?” he demanded in a firm tone.
“A damned bad job, cully,” said Hay, before either of the others could reply. “That’s just what it is: a damned bad job. This young fellow’s shot himself. Stumbled on the rough ground, dropped his gun—and there you are!”
“Dreadful!” said Mr. Dunne, with a sympathetic shudder.
A thought seemed to strike him, and he gave a furtive glance at the weapon in his hand. There was a moment of very apparent hesitation; then he opened the gun. It was fitted only with an extractor, and he pulled out the cartridges in turn and examined them with the air of a man who fears what he may find.
“Both barrels have been fired,” he reported in a peculiar tone as he pushed the empty cases back into place.
He closed the breech and leaned the gun against a tree, still with a half-puzzled expression on his face.
Jim Brandon was in the act of rising to his feet when his eye caught a small detached piece of bone which lay in the pool of blood by Johnnie’s head. Very gingerly he picked it up, wrapped his handkerchief round it, and laid the little parcel down beside the body. When he straightened himself again it was clear that he was making a tremendous effort to hold his emotions in check.
“We’ll have to get him up to the house,” he said to Laxford in a deliberately matter-of-fact tone. “And then we’ll need a doctor, though I don’t suppose he’ll be able to do anything. And the police . . . what about them? I suppose they ought to be informed. And the coroner, too. There’ll have to be an inquest, won’t there?”
“I’ll see to all that,” Laxford assured him, with a certain nervous readiness. “We’d better get one of the farm-carts and some men to help. I’ll go and see about it now, if you’ll wait here.”
Jim nodded assent, but Laxford lingered for a moment before going.
“I’m sorrier than I can tell you, over this affair,” he said awkwardly. “Poor Johnnie! I wish to He
aven we’d never thought of shooting this morning. It’s left me stunned—so absolutely unexpected.”
His face spoke plainer than his words. No one, looking at it, could have failed to see that he was suffering under some very strong emotion. He hesitated for a moment; then, with an almost meaningless gesture, he turned and walked up the sunk fence towards the house.
Hay gulped convulsively once or twice. His face was several shades paler than its normal.
“Sight of blood always makes me sick,” he explained abruptly. “Better get it over.”
He turned and walked stumblingly into the shelter of the plantation. When he returned, Jim Brandon was still standing beside the body, but Mr. Dunne had climbed down the face of the ha-ha and was aimlessly examining the grass at the foot of the wall. He extended his vague investigation towards the lip of the little chasm only a few yards away; and for some moments he stood listening to the torment of the swollen stream below. He took a step or two back towards the sunk fence, then suddenly stooped to pick some object from the grass. When he rose again he seemed almost to have forgotten the tragedy in some fresh excitement.
“Look!” he said, with a touch of triumph in his tone. “I knew I’d find it sometime. I’ve been hunting for it long enough, but something told me I’d find it. It’s just what I want to fit the hole in my white stone.”
He held up between his fingers a little hollow cylinder of green pasteboard, about two inches long and three-quarters of an inch in diameter. It looked rather like the body of an elongated pill-box minus top and bottom.
There was something inhuman in Mr. Dunne’s complete disregard of the tragic surroundings. Jim Brandon shrugged his shoulders with an undisguisedly hostile gesture and knelt down once more beside his brother’s body; but Hay seemed rather glad of the diversion. He held out his hand for the tiny object, as though he wished to examine it. Mr. Dunne, however, seemed loath to trust him, and stowed the little cylinder in his pocket with the air of a man making sure of a treasure.
“I’ve got Coinneach Odhar Fiosaiche’s white stone at home,” he explained. “The one with a hole in it, you know. But the hole’s very rough at the edges, and one can’t see through it properly. This thing that I’ve found will make a clear field of vision. I knew I’d come across it sooner or later. Bound to, on the face of things. You see, my name’s Kenneth Dunne.”
“Oh, it is, is it?” said Hay rather blankly. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Dunne.”
He turned aside and began to pace restlessly up and down the little glade, his hands in his pockets and his head bent in obviously uncomfortable thought. Mr. Dunne also seemed sunk in reflections, but they were seemingly of a pleasanter sort than Hay’s. Jim Brandon rose to his feet and stood with a frown on his face, as though the unsympathetic presence of the other two men irked him.
At last a clank of cart-wheels announced the arrival of the assistance Laxford had gone to summon; and a few minutes later he and three estate hands appeared among the trees, two of the men carrying a hurdle. Johnnie’s body was covered with a rug and lifted on to the improvised stretcher. Two of the men carried it off towards the cart, which had been brought up as near as possible on a wood-track through the plantation.
Mr. Dunne, tired of wandering about, swung himself up to a seat on the turf at the top of the ha-ha wall. Laxford fidgeted for a moment or two, then his eye caught the gun which Mr. Dunne had propped against a tree, and he went forward to examine it. As he picked it up he gave a start of surprise.
“This is my gun,” he ejaculated as he recognised it. Then, with a change in tone, he demanded: “Where did you get it?”
Mr. Dunne passed his hand across his brow with a mechanical movement, and a curiously puzzled expression overspread his face.
“I can’t remember,” he asserted. “I must have picked it up somewhere; but my memory’s treacherous at times and I can’t really recall finding that gun. I had it in my hand when I came upon you here; but beyond that I really haven’t any recollection of it.”
The perplexed expression on his features changed gradually to one of deepening dismay; but he evidently meant to keep his own counsel, for he offered no further information.
“To hell with that!” Hay broke in brutally. “Nobody picks up a gun without remembering it.”
Mr. Dunne was not provoked by this bluntness. He passed his hand again over his forehead, apparently striving fruitlessly to jog his memory.
“I don’t remember,” he repeated, after a prolonged interval.
Jim threw an inquiring glance at Laxford.
“I left my gun back yonder in the plantation, propped up against a tree,” Laxford explained hurriedly. “I was carrying these rabbits, you see, and couldn’t shoot.”
He pointed to five dead rabbits lying half-hidden among some tall grass. Jim seemed to accept the explanation as sufficient for the moment. He bent down, lifted Johnnie’s gun which was lying near the pool of blood, and ran his eye over it.
“The safety catch isn’t on, of course,” he commented, tucking the gun under his arm mechanically as he spoke. “He never took the most ordinary precautions, poor chap, no matter what one said to him. And of course, sooner or later, something happens.”
He paused irresolutely for a moment or two before continuing:
“Better be getting along to the house, I suppose? There’s nothing we can do here. You’ll come along with us, Mr. Dunne? The police will want to know about this accident, and you may as well see them now and get it over.”
Mr. Dunne rose without demur from his seat on the edge of the ha-ha. He said nothing, but his face showed plainly enough that he was still deeply perturbed by his undisclosed problem. Jim turned to the third man whom Laxford had summoned: the gardener at whose cottage they had taken shelter earlier in the morning.
“You might bring that up to the house, please,” he said, pointing to his own gun which lay where he had dropped it when he came upon the scene. “I’ll carry this of my brother’s.”
“Very good, sir. And the rabbits?”
“Oh, damn the rabbits,” said Jim irascibly. “Who cares about them? Keep them for yourself, if you want to.”
Laxford and Hay set off side by side along the line of the sunk fence in the direction of Edgehill. After a few moments Mr. Dunne followed them hesitatingly, like a man whose wits have gone wool-gathering. Jim looked after him.
“You’d better show him the way,” he suggested to the gardener.
He himself did not linger on the scene of the tragedy, but followed in the wake of the others.
The cart carrying Johnnie’s body had been forced to take a more circuitous route than the line of the ha-ha; and when Jim Brandon reached the front door of Edgehill he saw no sign of its arrival. He entered the house and went straight to the gun-room where he found the remainder of the party. Hay and Laxford were just replacing their guns on the rack; and Jim followed their example, putting Johnnie’s 12-bore in a place slightly isolated from the others. When he had done so he found the gardener beside him with Jim’s own gun in his hands and evidently awaiting instructions.
“Put it over yonder, in the corner,” Jim directed, with a gesture towards the spot where his leather gun-case stood. “I’ll clean it and put it away later on.”
Stoke obeyed him promptly; but then he showed signs of lingering, as though anxious to hear anything that might be said. Laxford dashed any such hopes by ordering him to go and bring word as soon as the cart appeared. The gardener retired with obvious reluctance; but in less than a minute he was back again with the news that the cart had already reached the house and had been taken round to the back. Cranley, the butler, was awaiting instructions.
“We’d better have him taken up to his own room,” Jim decided.
Laxford made no objection.
“We’d better be there,” he suggested, leading the way out of the room.
Jim and Hay followed him. Mr. Dunne, after a momentary hesitation, fell in behind them, leaving Stoke
alone in the gun-room.
This was the opportunity for which the gardener had been waiting. Two strides took him to the gun-rack, and his hand went out to the fatal 12-bore. With a glance to see that no one was observing him, he pressed the lever and extracted the cartridges. One of them was undischarged, and he replaced it in the barrel. The empty case he transferred stealthily to his pocket.
Then he seemed to reflect, and stood for a moment on the qui vive seeking a solution of his problem. He put down Johnnie’s gun and lifted Hay’s weapon from the rack. Opening the breech he picked the two empty cartridge cases out of the extractor, slipped one of them into the vacant place in Johnnie’s gun, replaced both guns on the rack, and threw Hay’s second empty case out of the window into a clump of bushes. Then, still with a certain furtiveness, he stole out of the gun-room and made his way to the back premises. In these two minutes alone Stoke had ‘done a good stroke o’ business,’ as he himself would have phrased it.
When Johnnie’s body had been carried upstairs and placed upon his own bed Jim and the others came downstairs again. Now that the first shock of the tragedy was over their emotions seemed to relax, and a faint air of constraint crept over the group.
“I’ve a word to say to you, Laxford,” Hay announced as he reached the hall. “We’ll go into the smoking-room, eh?”
His tone made it plain enough that he wanted to have his host to himself. Laxford obediently followed him, and Jim was left confronting Mr. Dunne, whom he plainly wished at the other end of the world. His politeness came to the rescue, however.
“Shall we go into the drawing-room? I expect the police will be here, any minute now; and then you’ll be free of this business.”
Mr. Dunne made a gesture of consent; but when they reached the drawing-room he seemed to have nothing to say. Without being asked, he dropped into an easy-chair, rested his head on his hand, and with down-bent face plunged again into that latent problem which so perplexed him. Jim had no inclination for talk; but the mere presence of this stranger irritated him, and he began to pace up and down the room with nervous strides like an imprisoned animal.
The Ha-Ha Case Page 11