Ten Star Clues

by E. R. Punshon

  Sophy made no answer. She unclasped her hands, looked at the tips of her slender fingers as if wondering how they had contrived to leave traces behind them, and continued to be silent.

  “It is a fact,” said the colonel impressively, “we are obliged to consider highly suspicious. I was inclined to suppose at first that you would have some explanation to offer.” He paused, optimistically hoping that even now some explanation might come. None did. He went on:— “Apparently you prefer to say nothing.” Again he paused, and again Sophy wondered a little at the masculine passion for stating the obvious. “Very good,” said the colonel, plainly meaning the opposite. “The facts are so serious that I am not sure I should not be justified in detaining you.”

  “You mean you are going to send me to prison?” Sophy asked. “That’s what’s making me so dreadfully frightened. It must be so awful to be in prison,” she sighed, but a sigh with no weakness in it, a sigh of full acceptance of the inevitable.

  “Prison,” said the colonel regretfully, “is not in question at present. But it soon will be if you show contempt of court.”

  “Oh, I never should,” declared Sophy, quite shocked at the idea.

  “Do you know,” demanded the colonel, “what is meant by being an accessory before or after the fact?”

  “No,” said Sophy.

  The colonel tried to explain. Sophy tried to understand. Neither was very successful. Sophy said:—

  “But you did tell me I needn’t answer questions if I didn’t want to and I don’t. You did, didn’t you?”

  The colonel scowled. He wished he hadn’t now. It would have been quite easy and justifiable to have questioned the girl in an easy, a casual, an informal manner, and only to have administered the customary warning a little later, if there seemed any chance of her really incriminating herself. But he had so wanted to be absolutely fair. And then who could have guessed a child like this would turn so suddenly and so abruptly obstinate. Also it had seemed quite safe. Innocent people never held their tongues. They had no reason to. The guilty never held theirs. They were too anxious to offer their convincing explanations that they had so carefully compiled. But this absolute silence—well, what could one do? Worse even than tears. Tears come and go and talk often follows. But silence is—well, just silence. For about the first time in his life Colonel Glynne took an extreme dislike to a pretty girl. He only wished he could do some of the many things his angry mind was suggesting to him. But he knew he couldn’t. So he scowled again and even more deeply, and Sophy said:— “I’m so sorry to have made you so angry. I am really. But I do think, please, I would rather not say anything.” The colonel rose to his feet, dignified and severe.

  “I consider it my duty,” he said, “to warn you that your attitude involves you in the gravest suspicion. I consider it most unwise. There is still time for you to think over your position.”

  He paused again, and again impressively. Sophy continued to look small and demure and to remain silent.

  “Very well” said the colonel. “That will do for the present. Kindly understand, however, that you are not to attempt to leave, and that you are to hold yourself at our disposal.”

  Probably even Colonel Glynne himself would have had some difficulty in explaining exactly what this last expression meant. But it sounded well, and Sophy looked more frightened than ever.

  “Please, what am I to do?” she asked.

  The colonel grunted and waved a hand towards the door.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “You can go. For the present.”

  The last words were snapped out like a threat, but Sophy hardly heard them as she scuttled away, so quickly did she avail herself of the permission to depart. The colonel gave a final glare at the door as it closed behind her and then turned to Bobby.

  “Obstinate, pig-headed little fool,” he growled. “What do you make of her, Owen?”

  “She’s shielding someone,” Bobby answered promptly.

  The colonel considered this. Then he said:—

  “Or herself.”

  “It might be,” agreed Bobby gravely.

  “She’ll have to explain those finger-prints,” declared the colonel. “They’re there and she’s got to say sooner or later how they got there.”

  “If she won’t, she won’t, and nothing can make her,” Bobby pointed out. “All she has to do is to sit tight. Not many people can—not one in a million. I have an idea Miss Longden may be that one in a million.”

  “A slip of a girl like that,” grumbled the colonel.

  Bobby said nothing, but he thought to himself that sometimes even girls can conceal in their slim and tender bodies a will unbreakable. For the strength of the spirit is one thing, the strength of the body another.

  “Suppose,” the colonel said presently, “suppose there’s some foundation for Arthur Hoyle’s story. Suppose Ear Wych had been trying to make advances to the girl, as old men do sometimes. He got her to go to the library late last night on some pretext or another. Perhaps she resented it. Perhaps she didn’t. I’m prepared,” said the colonel sourly, “to believe anything of that girl. And if Longden interrupted them—well, anything might have happened. Or perhaps she did resent it, and there was some sort of scuffle—and again the shooting was the result. I’m prepared,” repeated the colonel with still more emphasis, “to believe anything at all about that girl after what we’ve seen of her this afternoon.”

  The door opened, opened widely. There entered the Countess Wych. She looked ill, with drawn features and a deathly-white complexion, thin and fragile to a degree. Almost she might have been the dead risen again to walk the familiar earth. When she lifted a hand it was so nearly transparent, the light seemed to shine through it. Nevertheless she held herself upright, and though her voice was the thin, high-pitched voice of age, it was clear and steady.

  “What is this nonsense about Sophy Longden?” she demanded, “what right do you think you have to try to bully and frighten a young girl? Is that part of the duty of the police? to bully children?”

  The attack was so unexpected that the three men could only gape at her.

  “Well,” she asked. “Well, have you nothing to say?”

  “An investigation is being conducted into the murder of Lord Wych,” Colonel Glynne answered then. “Your ladyship must understand that the method of conducting that investigation is our responsibility. Miss Longden, I am sorry to say, has declined to answer the questions I felt it my duty to put to her.”

  “Quite right, too,” retorted the countess. “I have sent for our lawyers. Young Clinton Wells is here, but I prefer Mr. Blacklock. I’ve known him longer. What made you suppose a child like Sophy Longden could know anything?”

  “There is what seems conclusive proof that she was in this room late last night, that she was probably indeed the last to be in here,” Colonel Glynne answered. “She refuses to give any explanation. In consequence she renders herself open to very grave suspicion.”

  Lady Wych looked at him doubtfully, evidently a good deal surprised. She said after a moment or two:—

  “Nonsense. She couldn’t have been. Why should you think she was?”

  “We have evidence which seems conclusive, especially in view of the refusal to answer questions,” the colonel repeated.

  Lady Wych, however, was hardly listening.

  “If that’s true, if she really was here, too, she must know—”

  “Know what?” Colonel Glynne asked.

  The countess looked at him long and steadily before she answered and her dim and sunken eyes were bright again when she said at last:—

  “I can’t imagine.”

  CHAPTER X

  LADY WYCH

  For a moment there was silence. They all felt that Lady Wych had remembered or understood something; but what that something was, they had no idea. Colonel Glynne and the old woman were looking full at each other, as it were in challenge and defiance. But it was the colonel who looked away first, as though he c
ould no longer match the energy and will that blazed in those old eyes, no longer dim and sunken but alight with an inner fire. She turned her glance next upon the stenographer, but he was not interested, for his business was with the spoken word, and in this silent conflict of wills no word was being uttered.

  “Well, have you got all that down?” she asked him abruptly.

  “Certainly, my lady,” he replied, slightly offended, for that was his job and what he was there to do.

  She turned to Bobby, who was looking not at her but at the ceiling above his head. He seemed to find it interesting. She frowned slightly, as if she did not much approve of this absorption, and said to him:—

  “Well, young man?”

  With a slight start, as if recalled to present surroundings, he said:—

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I was thinking.”

  “What about?” she demanded. “What were you thinking?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” Bobby answered again, “but as chief constable of the county, Colonel Glynne is conducting the inquiry.”

  At that she stared and frowned again, and then laughed harshly.

  “I can tell a snub when I get one,” she said, and turned back to the colonel. “Is there anything more you want to ask me?” she demanded.

  “Now your ladyship is here,” he said formally, “there are some questions I feel it is my duty to put to you on one or two points that have cropped up since you made your first statement. Won’t you please sit down?”

  Bobby got up to find her a chair. She acknowledged the attention with a curt bow. She sat down, upright, waiting, slightly formidable. Fumbling in the pile of papers before him, the colonel said, without looking up:—

  “Oh, by the way, you were saying just now that Miss Longden must know something. Could you give us some idea of what it is she might know?”

  “You must ask her that,” came the quick response.

  “Your ladyship,” said Colonel Glynne, formal again, “must realize that I am forced to conclude that you are unwilling to reply. In other words, that there is something you know but wish to conceal.”

  “I am in no way responsible for your conclusions, which do not interest me,” she retorted haughtily, indeed more as if she were talking to her butler than to the chief constable of the county. In a more conciliatory tone, she said:— “I know nothing, and I do not choose to talk about things I am not sure of. If you want to know anything about Miss Longden, ask Miss Longden.”

  “She declines to answer any question,” the colonel pointed out.

  “Well, then,” said Lady Wych as if that ended the matter. “We will leave that for the time,” the colonel said. “I think in the statement you made earlier on, you say that the last time you saw Earl Wych alive was at dinner last night?”

  “That is so,” she answered steadily, and in a voice as steady, she added:— “I have since seen his body.”

  “After dinner,” Colonel Glynne continued, “a trifling incident appears to have taken place, at the foot of the stairs, in the hall. Our information is that you stopped to look at one of the family portraits hanging there and that you remarked to Miss Longden, who was with you, that it was the portrait of an ancestress who shot a son of hers in order to preserve the family honour.”

  “I suppose Martin told you all that,” she remarked. “I remember he was hanging about. You called it a trifling incident. If you really think it trifling, why do you ask about it? If you do not, I should be obliged if in future you would say more exactly what you do mean. Martin’s story is accurate. Do you wish to suggest that I said that as a preliminary to shooting my husband to save the family honour?”

  “There is no wish to make any such suggestion,” the colonel answered stiffly and also going very red. “I must remind you it is my duty to question you on every detail. I hope you will agree it is equally your duty to answer both freely and frankly.”

  He paused, evidently hoping for and expecting some response. He got none. But the grim old face looked grimmer still, the gaze of the old tired eyes remained as direct and firm and challenging as before. No wavering there. Colonel Glynne continued:—

  “I must put this to you: Was there anything in your mind, any fear or apprehension, that any danger threatened Earl Wych?”

  “No,” she answered. “You know there has been feeling shown, very naturally, over the appearance of—of our grandson.”

  Bobby noticed that she hesitated over the last three words, as if she had some difficulty in getting them out. She saw he was looking at her and she repeated them loudly:—

  “—of our grandson.”

  “Was that,” Colonel Glynne persisted, “why you seem to have said several times that ill would come of it? Or had you some other reason?”

  “Ill has come of it,” she answered sombrely, and would say no more.

  The colonel tried another approach.

  “After you had made that remark, I believe you went straight upstairs to your room?”

  “I did. I went straight to bed. I had overtired myself by coming down to dinner. When I got to my room I had a slight heart attack. It was not serious. Miss Longden wanted to send for the doctor, but I would not let her. He had left me some pills he told me to use if my heart seemed troublesome. I took one. It did me good and I went to bed. Sophy wished to read to me. She often does. She is a very good reader, with a very quiet, soothing voice. Last night I felt I would prefer to rest quietly, not even listening. Sophy sat by me till about ten. She was sewing. At ten o’clock or about then I told her to go to bed as I felt able to sleep. She went to her own room, next to mine, and got ready. Before actually going to bed she came back to see that I was comfortable and if I needed anything. She came in again during the night. I think it was a little before three. I heard a clock strike. I was restless and she heard me moving and came in to see if I was all right. She often does. I don’t believe myself she heard anything. If she wakes in the night she often comes and peeps in. If she thinks I am asleep, she goes away again. If she thinks I am restless, she comes in. She is a conscientious little thing and considers herself entirely responsible for me. I suppose I am old enough to like being cosseted.”

  She paused, as if inviting comment, and Bobby thought that any one less likely than this grim, upright, resolute old woman either to require or to accept ‘cosseting’ he could hardly imagine. But then, perhaps, so contradictory is human nature, those were the very qualities that made the ‘cosseting’ welcome. Lady Wych continued:—

  “Early this morning I heard the commotion in the house. I asked Sophy to find out what was happening. She came back and told me. I trust that is a sufficiently complete history of the night to satisfy you.” The irony in her tone was evident. As evidently Colonel Glynne didn’t like it. She added in conclusion:— “Is there anything further you think I can tell you?”

  “There are just one or two other points I would like to mention,” Colonel Glynne said. “It seems to have been generally understood that Mr. Ralph Hoyle was insisting on having a talk with his great-uncle last night. I take it you knew that too?” Lady Wych made a slight movement of assent. The colonel went on:— “Did you expect a quarrel?”

  “Hardly a quarrel. I knew Ralph meant to protest against our recognition of our grandson. I think Ralph meant to say that he intended to take legal action against us.”

  “Did Earl Wych resent that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he intend to try to stop Ralph?”

  “I think he meant to try. I don’t expect he would have succeeded. Both of them as pig-headed as most men, more so.”

  “There seems no doubt,” the colonel went on, “that a quarrel did take place. There is clear evidence. The expression of one witness is ‘they were shouting at each other something awful’. Indeed Ralph admits as much. He admits saying, in fact he was overheard, he appears to have shouted it at the top of his voice, that he would stop his uncle ‘somehow, anyhow’. Lord Wych seems to have retorted by telling him to
get out and stay out. In fact a good deal of violent language appears to have been used on both sides.”

  “Very likely,” agreed Lady Wych. “Both of them had the usual vile Hoyle temper. It doesn’t last, but it flares up in a minute. I daresay Ralph felt ill used. My husband was not used to opposition. He always reminded me of the man in the Bible—the man who said ‘go’ or ‘come’ and it was so. I expect he felt Ralph ought to be prepared to believe that the honour of the family was safe in the hands of the head of the family. I can quite believe they were both so busy shouting at each other that neither heard a word the other said.”

  “You are still not willing to suggest any reason why Miss Longden should have visited the library last night so late in the evening?”

  “I know of none,” the countess answered slowly. “I do not intend to guess. It wouldn’t be fair. All I can say is that I had, and have, no reason, except what you tell me, to suppose she ever left her room—except to visit mine—or that she was ever anywhere near the library. I don’t know anything about this finger-print business of yours,” she added, “but even if it’s as infallible as they say, even infallibility can be misunderstood and misinterpreted.”

  “There is another point I must ask about,” the colonel said. “Do you know if Miss Longden, who is a very attractive girl, had any reason to complain of the conduct of any one here?”

  Lady Wych looked for once a little disconcerted.

  “I suppose you have been listening to gossip,” she said presently.

  “Well, we call it information received,” Colonel Glynne answered. “Had it any foundation?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps,” the countess admitted though still hesitatingly. “She never said anything to me, and I didn’t ask her. She is a very steady, sensible, trustworthy child. I have complete confidence in her. There are girls who, without meaning anything much, do invite men to take liberties with them. Flirting and fooling. Sophy is one of the other sort, the self-respecting kind. I remember I told her once that if she wasn’t quite happy or comfortable here, or if anything was annoying her, she was to tell me. I think she would have done so. I think she trusts me. I am fond of the child and I hope she is of me, too.”