“Of course he does,” replied Vereker. “It’s his business to do so. That’s the first thought that enters the criminal investigator’s mind. The circumstances in which you are placed with regard to your uncle supply a very strong motive.”
“Well, I’ve given his representative a full account of my movements, and I’m not going to be pestered about the matter any more. You’re my trustee, aren’t you?”
“I am, if anything serious has happened to your uncle.”
“You mean if by any chance he is dead?” asked Winslade, and his eyes looked out of the open window with a strangely disturbed gleam in their depths.
“His death will have to be presumed before his will can be proved,” replied Vereker.
“I don’t believe for a moment he’s dead,” came the remark as Winslade stretched his hand for Vereker’s empty tea-cup.
“What prompts you to think so?” asked Vereker quickly.
“Nothing—nothing at all. I’ve not the slightest reason for thinking so. Still, I can’t bring myself to think my uncle is not alive. It seems impossible! Nevertheless, this business of his disappearance is beyond my comprehension. I leave it to the inspector and yourself to unravel.”
“It’s what we’ve been trying to fathom ever since we feared that it was not altogether innocent,” replied Vereker.
For some moments Winslade sat in silence, deep in thought. Then, looking up sharply at Vereker, he asked:
“Do you think the inspector really believes that I’ve had a hand in my uncle’s disappearance?”
“I’m afraid I can’t answer your question, Winslade. The inspector suspects anybody he fancies. Of course he bases his fancy on the possible existence of a motive.”
“The motive in my instance being that I would benefit by my uncle’s death?”
“Naturally.”
“It’s confoundedly awkward. Moreover, my uncle and I did not see eye to eye over my engagement to Mary Standish. That would be a contributory factor making it all the more necessary that I should get him out of the way—eh?”
“Therefore it’s the best thing to be quite frank over every question that Inspector Heather may ask you, Winslade. If you are not, it all goes to supply evidence against you in his eyes. For instance—did you see your uncle on Saturday morning?”
“No, certainly not!”
“Good! Did you see him on Friday night before or after he arrived at the White Bear?”
Winslade rose from his chair to ring for Mrs. Rafferty for more tea.
“No, I did not,” he said as he turned his back on Vereker to perform this action. “I’ve nothing whatever to do with my uncle’s disappearance and I don’t want to be mixed up in the case at all.”
Vereker was silent, but observant. He noticed the uneasy flush that had crept over Winslade’s face as he was speaking, and from the look in his eye—for the eye is the last citadel of truth—he felt sure that Winslade was prevaricating. At once all his faculties were alert; there was here something that needed elucidation, but he must probe with the utmost caution. He was sure that Winslade was as yet unaware that he harboured any suspicion as to his being implicated in the matter of Lord Bygrave’s inexplicable disappearance, and he felt that he had gone far enough for the present. He therefore changed the topic of conversation to farming, on which subject he found an enthusiastic talker in Winslade and, having thus engendered once more a friendly atmosphere, found that it was high time to take his departure.
Vereker did not return by the direct route to the White Bear Inn. His interview with Winslade had suddenly given his thoughts a new twist, and he desired time and loneliness to adapt his mind to a changed and unpleasant point of view. The unpleasantness arose from the fact that he had been obliged to drag within the circumference of his suspicion a man whom he had always liked. When he had last seen him, he was an ingenuous youth; but that was some time ago. Though he was yet only a young man he had since then passed through the crucial experience of war. What effect might not that devastating period have had on David Winslade? Some strong men it had unbalanced, sending their whole moral outlook unaccountably askew. Winslade had been severely wounded and shell-shocked. Apparently he was again enjoying fairly good physical health, but who could say what mysterious disturbance might not have taken place in those delicate cells man calls the brain?
As he walked along Vereker viewed the matter in every light. Winslade had been blunt enough about the possibility of suspicion falling on himself through the fact of his being heir to Lord Bygrave’s money and the subsidiary factor that his uncle had not looked with an altogether favourable eye on his engagement to Mary Standish. Yet this capitulation of the reasons why he ought to be suspect might only be the old ruse of assumed innocence. Why, again, had he made the admission that there had been some friction between his uncle and himself over Mary Standish? Perhaps he was anticipating that it might leak out from Mary Standish and had already prepared the counter move. Should this supposition prove true—for at present the whole was supposititious—it was clear that Mary Standish knew nothing of his connexion with the affair of his uncle’s disappearance. Otherwise he would have forbidden her to mention the avuncular distaste for his choice of a partner.
Vereker was still pondering over the subject when he arrived at the White Bear Inn. He found a wire awaiting him from Ricardo with regard to the mysterious lady called Muriel Cathcart. The telegram ran:
Left 10 Glendon Street two months ago destination unknown.
“That’s not very helpful,” remarked Vereker, and he walked into the coffee-room, where, to his surprise, he found Inspector Heather apparently asleep in a comfortable chair before the fire. The detective, however, was far from asleep. Without even opening his eyes he said:
“Good evening, Mr. Vereker, and where may you have been all the afternoon? Over at Crockhurst Farm, I suppose.”
“Quite correct, Heather. I’ve been over to see Mr. Winslade. He’s fed up to the teeth with you and your subordinates. He says he’ll brown you and any of your men who dare to interrogate him further as to his movements on the day of Lord Bygrave’s disappearance.”
“You can tell him from me that we shall not bother him further,” replied the detective with a smile.
“You’re satisfied as to his innocence?” asked Vereker cautiously.
“By no means,” replied the inspector, “but about our further inquiries we’ll keep him strictly in the dark.”
Vereker sat in silence for some moments. All at once Inspector Heather sat up in his chair.
“You were not quite satisfied with your interview with Mr. Winslade this afternoon?” he asked.
“Not quite,” replied Vereker. “How did you guess?”
“You must be more careful in the future when you enter a room containing a sleeping man, Mr. Vereker. Your face was an open book of words to your unpleasant thoughts.”
“Cunning old fox, Heather. I shall suspect you in the future. I begin to think you are implicated in this affair. To be serious, have you made sure of all Winslade’s movements on Friday night and Saturday morning?”
“Why do you suggest Friday night?” asked the inspector, raising his brows.
“Simply to ascertain if Winslade could possibly have seen Lord Bygrave prior to his arrival at the Inn.”
“I see. Well, Mr. Vereker, we have made very careful inquiries, and we have discovered that on Friday he was out all the evening in his new motor-car and did not return till midnight. He has given us the route he followed.” The inspector produced an ordnance survey map and pointed out with a thick forefinger the route Winslade had indicated.
“Any confirmation that the story is true?” asked Vereker.
“A Woodbridge constable saw his car making for Hartwood about 11.30, which bears out Mr. Winslade’s story in one particular. There is no other corroborating evidence. The only other person who saw a car on that night was the blacksmith at Eyford, who says a car was going towards Fordingbridge as i
f it had come from Hartwood. This is so contradictory that it must have been another car altogether. These country roads are deserted at night. You might go that round after dark and not meet a soul.”
“It strikes me he took a long time to do that round,” suggested Vereker after some computation.
“The same thought struck me,” agreed the detective. “But he says he had a breakdown. Something wrong with the magneto which, being a mystery to a novice, took him an hour to discover. Finally the ignition seemed to right itself and he was able to proceed.”
“And on Saturday?” asked Vereker.
“He was at Crockhurst Farm till after lunch, and in the afternoon drove into Castleton. This we have verified fully.”
“Friday night seems a bit sketchy,” said Vereker to himself, and aloud to Heather: “I think I’ll go over his route to-morrow myself. I may glean something from the run.”
“You know of his engagement to Mary Standish?” asked the inspector tentatively.
“Yes.”
“It proves that Winslade is fairly short of money at present.”
“Oh!” remarked Vereker, experiencing some surprise. “How did you figure that out?”
The inspector laughed. “He hasn’t paid the bill for that ring outright. We discovered that he bought it at Drake’s, the jeweller’s, of Barton Ferry. A fair deposit and the rest to follow.”
At this moment Mary Standish suddenly entered the room. The inspector glanced uneasily at Vereker and, when the girl had gone, asked:
“Did you hear her approach the door, Mr. Vereker?”
“I’m afraid I didn’t, Heather. You ought to be more careful.
“I shall be in future,” remarked the inspector and rose to go up to his bedroom.
Chapter Nine
On retiring Vereker strove in vain to sleep. Finally he lit a candle, reached for his coat, hanging on a chair beside his bed, and thrust his hand into a capacious inner pocket for his pillow book. Emerson’s essays—“The Conduct of Life.” To his annoyance, the book was not there. What could have made him omit to bring with him that trusted companion of his sleepless hours? Much as he loved them, these essays always reminded him of the rush and incessant flicker of the early kinematograph film. Their dogmatism and lively sequence of half-caught and elliptically expressed ideas bore a strange parallel to swift and indistinct visual presentation.
“But they never fail to send me to sleep,” he always added to himself with a smile.
What could he do to banish the very unpleasant thoughts that had besieged his brain ever since he had been to Crockhurst Farm that afternoon? The unpleasantness, he was aware, arose from the fact that he was perfectly convinced that Winslade had lied to him about his not having seen Lord Bygrave at some time on Friday night. He had risen and turned his back on him under the pretence of ringing for his housekeeper to avoid lying to his face. And when he had performed this action and returned to the tea-table his cheeks had been deeply flushed and his manner extremely uneasy. Assuming that Winslade had seen Lord Bygrave on Friday night, the whole matter took on a very sinister aspect. Suppose they had quarrelled over the subject of Winslade’s proposed marriage—a marriage which his uncle deprecated—there was no knowing what might have happened! Vereker found it extremely difficult to face the probability of Winslade’s connexion with Lord Bygrave’s disappearance, just as it is difficult for an honourable man to find any motive sufficiently overpowering to account for the committal of a murder. But he felt that because he knew Winslade that was all the more reason why he should harden his heart and face the problem in a cold, analytical manner. He determined there and then that he would probe the mystery thoroughly, regardless of any question of friendship. From various deductions that he had made the whole affair assumed a more puzzling complexion than ever. For, though Winslade’s movements on Friday night were rather sketchy, his whereabouts on Saturday had been definitely settled by Heather and his assistants, and those movements were entirely innocent.
“Very strange, very strange!” murmured Vereker. “But it’s getting more and more exciting. I wonder what old Heather has arrived at? Personally I feel on the eve of a vital discovery!”
He leaned over to a dressing-table and picked up an ordnance survey map of the district. His eye ran over the route that Winslade had said he had taken on Friday night.
“He picks up his car at Fordingbridge Junction, where it had been garaged for a day or two, takes the road that runs through Eyford, Castleton, Woodbridge, and thence round to Crockhurst Farm.”
Vereker paused and pondered for some moments. “I will traverse that route to-morrow, and I’ll call at Mill House, Eyford, in front of which he says he had a breakdown, and inquire whether anyone there remembers having seen a motor standing on the road for an hour. It’s a sordid business when you have to doubt the word of a friend, but I must doubt everybody and everything now. One lie opens the way to a multitude and disrupts the foundations of confidence.”
Vereker sat and gazed blankly at the ordnance survey map for some minutes, but his eyes saw nothing. A curious light of excitement was burning in their depths, for his thoughts had suddenly taken an unexpected turn and he felt more convinced than ever that he was on the brink of a momentous discovery. It might be the first decisive step towards elucidating the mystery of Bygrave’s extraordinary disappearance.
“By Heaven!” he suddenly exclaimed. “I believe I’m at last on the right track.” With these words he flung the map on his dressing-table, extinguished the light and lay back in bed. Sleep, however, was as elusive as a shadow, and when morning came Vereker had had but fitful snatches of rest. Yet the long quiet hours of night seemed to have clarified his thoughts and marshalled them in some order. He rose with alacrity and, having breakfasted well, took the first train to Fordingbridge Junction. There he would get a car and run round the route which Winslade alleged he had taken on the night of Bygrave’s disappearance and see what there was to be discovered.
On arrival at the junction Vereker called at Layham’s garage, where Winslade had put up his car, and, after hiring a Ford, intimated that he was a private detective and would like to know certain facts about a Mr. Winslade who had garaged his car there for some days at the beginning of October.
“Quite willing to give you any information, sir,” remarked the proprietor, “but, bless you, you won’t find anything crooked about Mr. Winslade; he’s a gent from top to toe. You’re a bit behind the Scotland Yard folk too. They’ve been and got all the information a week ago.”
“Thanks; then I’ll not trouble you,” remarked Vereker, smiling, and added to himself, “You’re a wily old fox, Heather. In future I’ll leave you in the dark too, except for incidents that I feel won’t give you a handicap over me. The tussle is getting exhilarating—I wonder if you know as much as I do, as far as we’ve gone.”
A few moments later Vereker had passed out of the garage gates in his hired Ford, and his first stop was just outside Fordingbridge, where a road turning to the right runs parallel with the branch line direct to Hartwood.
“This was Winslade’s shortest way home,” he muttered, “and an excellent road as far as I can see. I wonder why he chose the long way round? For the sake of the run, I suppose. There would be no difficulty about traffic at that time of night in this neighbourhood, which lies clear of the main routes to the south coast.”
He was more perplexed as he ran along the bumpy, winding and deplorably bad road which led to Eyford.
“A novice in driving would hardly choose this jungle track to try a new car on,” he soliloquized. “It becomes more and more evident to me that it was not altogether a matter of choice.”
A quarter of an hour’s further jolting through a beautifully rural district brought him to Eyford Mill, lying in the valley to his left, but clearly discernible from the road. The mill-wheel was revolving and grinding away on the old millstone process as it had done for centuries. Vereker pulled up and surveyed the scene. It migh
t make a nice water-colour sketch was his first thought; but he banished such pleasant projects as painting from his mind and once more started the car.
“Ah, here we are!” he exclaimed when there came into view a house lying on the sloping ground to his right. A high boundary wall flanked the road, and above it a terraced rockery ran up to the dwelling. On the heavy oak gates, painted in white, was the name “Mill House.” Vereker pulled up his car and leisurely surveyed the place. It was an old-world house with shingled roofs and hipped gables, and singularly well situated as far as outlook was concerned, for it overlooked the picturesque valley with its mill-stream and dam below. But, though it had been modernized, it bore the unmistakable appearance of neglect, and the presence of a row of yews, bordering the short drive up to the front door, lent a gloom almost inseparable by association from these funereal trees.
“Looks as if I were going to draw a blank,” thought Vereker.
He got out of the car and walked briskly up the moss-covered gravel approach. His sharp eye noticed the tracks of a car’s wheels made at no distant date on the gravel, but a total lack of movement and the absence of any sound of life suggested that if the place were inhabited its tenants were at present away.
A vigorous tattoo on the front-door knocker brought no response. Vereker glanced at the windows, but it was impossible to look within through the heavy lace curtains, which, from their appearance, had evidently not been changed for many months. An overwhelming curiosity came upon him, and he decided to explore. Making his way round to the right, he passed through a pair of folding gates into a yard containing a garage. Traces of oil and the marks of wheels were symptomatic, but beyond the garage lay a mournful kitchen-garden, overgrown with weeds and devoid of any appearance of recent culture. Vereker wandered idly round the house, tried several doors, peered in at a scullery window and, coming to the conclusion that nobody was about, returned somewhat disappointed to his car.
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