Missing or Murdered

by Robin Forsythe

  “It was my uncle. On reaching the landing he uttered a low cry and promptly extinguished the oil lamp on the wall. ‘Is that you, David?’ he whispered hoarsely. ‘Yes. What’s the matter, Uncle Henry?’ I asked anxiously. ‘For God’s sake keep quiet!’ he said and came noiselessly and rapidly down the last flight of steps into the hall. There he caught me by the arm, and I could feel that he was trembling violently. ‘For Heaven’s sake get me away from here, David!’ he gasped. ‘I’ve killed him—the blackmailing swine. Good God, what shall I do?’

  “I could only just get the sense of his words; he was speaking in an undertone and jerkily, for he was shaking with agitation and horribly unstrung. I tried to get him to sit down and calm himself, for such a stupendous crisis requires the utmost control of mind and nerves, ‘Look here, Uncle Henry,’ I said, ‘collect yourself. We’ve got to look at matters calmly. We must come to a quick decision as to what you are going to do. Remember I’m willing to stick to you right through this matter—if you make one false step we are both undone.’ ‘Get me away quick, David,’ he repeated, ‘there’s not one moment to lose. We’ll think things out later—later—not now.”

  “With these words he ran out the door and down the drive with me following at his heels. Opening the gate he looked round and, seeing nobody about, he jumped into the rear portion of my four-seater and flung himself in a huddled heap on the floor of the car. ‘Drive on to the White Bear Inn at Hartwood,’ he whispered as I took my place at the wheel, and next moment we were off at top-speed. For some time I drove in silence, thinking of nothing but putting space between us and the Mill House, and thanking Fate that there was not a soul on the road. As we approached Hartwood, just where the road bends round and then bifurcates near the old cow-pond—”

  “I know exactly,” interrupted Vereker. “There is a short cut across the fields from that point to Hartwood which comes out near the White Bear Inn.”

  “Quite so. Well, as we approached that point my uncle spoke again, and now in more natural tones, for he had had time to pull himself together. ‘Drive slowly, but don’t stop,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow I shall be at 10 Glendon Street, West. Post me some money there. Address the letter to Henry Parker, but don’t try to see me. I want to be alone for a day or two to think things over and make my plans. Remember, 10 Glendon Street.’ And before I had time to realize what was happening he had leaped off the car and vanished into the darkness. I pulled up and shouted after him, but there was no reply. Thinking I heard a footstep coming along the road behind me, I started off again at a slow pace and, further up the road, halted once more and pretended to be attending to my engine until the late wayfarer had passed. But evidently I had made some mistake, for no one passed; and, though I listened with every faculty on the alert, I heard no sound on the road. Now, for the first time since we had left the Mill House, I had leisure to think calmly and, taking my seat in the car, began to look the whole horrible business in the face.

  “The more I thought of it the more was I impressed with the gravity of the affair. Knowing the fine pitch to which detection of crime has been brought by our Criminal Investigation Department, I was convinced that if we made the slightest slip or left a single clue behind us detection would inevitably follow. At the same time the unpleasant truth dawned on me that I might be considered an accomplice, and with this realization my nerves seemed to steady themselves in a flash and I began to think rapidly and coolly. I felt I was now inextricably involved in the affair and that I must do everything in my power to cover up my uncle’s tracks, for on his safety depended my own. On looking back this seems a selfish point of view, but after all the instinct for self-preservation seems to blossom out luxuriously in a crisis. I thought of all that the discovery of my uncle’s deed implied. I thought of his ruin and degradation; of my own; of Mary, to whom I was virtually engaged. I must act, and act quickly. In the first place, had my uncle left any personal trace of his visit to the Mill House? In his perturbation he might have forgotten gloves, stick—anything. One clue and all was up with him. I must go back, and, though the step was one fraught with all manner of risks, I decided that it was the wisest move in the circumstances. I would return, make sure that not a trace of his presence had been left behind and then make for home at top-speed.

  “Turning my car, I fairly hogged it back to the Mill House and was within a hundred yards of the place when I became aware that there was some one on the road in front of me. I could hear voices speaking in loud tones, and the speakers seemed to be standing together at a spot that I judged was right in front of the Mill House gate. I cursed their unexpected presence—the last thing I wished was to be seen by anyone on the road that night. Then, to my intense relief, a snatch of song sung in a drunken voice rang out on the stillness. The singer was soon accompanied by his friend, and a dismal discord they created between them—giving me a welcome indication of the measure of their intoxication. Soon after I heard their footsteps, dragging on the road, grow distant and die away. Good—my luck was holding. You cannot imagine what a relief I experienced! Running the car off the road into a vacant space where stones were usually stored, I put out the lights, hared it to the Mill House and ran up the drive. The place was in darkness and not a sound was to be heard. Pulling out a flash lamp which I always carried, I found the front door open as we had left it, and promptly entered. I determined to make a swift and thorough examination of the place, and decided to commence on the upper floor, for it is a two-storied building.

  “I mounted the stairs and entered the first room on the landing. It was a bedroom. One glance round sufficed; it had not been occupied. A bed-spread covered the bare mattress; every piece of furniture was in place and undisturbed. Systematically I visited the other rooms, with a similar result. I had come to the last room! I opened the door with a heightened sense of excitement, for I knew it must be the room containing the body of the dead man! Flashing my electric torch round I discovered that this room had been furnished as a library: book-shelves lined the wall; a table with a thick, dark, chenille table-cover stood in the centre of the room; a blotting-pad with an inkstand and pens lay on the table. A slight odour of tobacco still pervaded the air, betraying its recent occupancy. One of the pens lying across the heavy cut-glass ink-bottle was still moist with ink. Two chairs were drawn up at the table, and these I presumed were the chairs on which my uncle and his blackmailing acquaintance had sat. All this, which I took in at a glance, was of minor interest to me at the moment. I hurried round to the other side of the table and flashed my lamp over the thickly carpeted floor—to discover an overturned chair, the only evidence of any recent haste or violence in the room. Where, I asked myself in consternation, was the body of the man whom my uncle averred he had killed? There was not a trace of it!

  “A great sense of relief at once surged over me. I promptly came to the conclusion that the man could only have been stunned and, having recovered his senses, had decamped. But on second thoughts I felt this was a hasty conclusion; he must have staggered into some other room and died there. Ah! I had forgotten the bathroom. After a final glance round the library I hastened thither; but the result was the same. There was no body there! What on earth could be the solution of this mystery? I thought of my car standing by the side of the road to be observed and noted by any passer-by, and with that thought I became conscious that every moment of delay was dangerous and bore on its swift wings the risk of discovery. Hastening downstairs, I made a rapid but thorough search of all the ground-floor rooms—in vain! Quietly closing the front door of the house, I departed, hastened to my car and drove speedily home.”

  “H’m,” interrupted Vereker, quietly lighting a cigarette. “There’s just one point that intrigues me, Winslade. Do you remember, when you first arrived at the Mill House, whether the gas-lamp just outside the gate was alight?”

  Winslade’s brow wrinkled with thought. He hesitated as if in doubt, and then his face lit up with recollection.

  “It was. I
remember distinctly observing my foreshortened shadow flung on the rising gravel path. It struck me at the moment, in my excited state, as something rather grotesque. Strange that you should have asked the question.”

  “Can you say whether it was alight when you and your uncle left the house together?”

  For some moments Winslade was buried in thought, striving to recall all his observations during those critical moments.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head with a gesture of weariness, “I can’t remember. My thoughts were entirely centred on getting my uncle away from the wretched place. I can’t even bring to mind whether it was alight when I returned by myself.”

  “That’s unfortunate—so much depends upon this seemingly trifling point,” remarked Vereker, his gaze wandering idly to the strip of azure sky visible above the roofs opposite.

  For some moments there was silence. Vereker seemed utterly buried in his own speculations. Winslade sat with his hands clasped and his eyes fixed expectantly on the shrewd face of the man in front of him.

  “When your uncle left you near the cow-pond he presumably took the field path across to the White Bear?” asked Vereker casually.

  “Obviously. He stayed at the inn for the night and then incontinently vanished, as far as the world is concerned. As you know, he came here.”

  “Yes. What did you do about money?”

  “I sent him fifty pounds in Treasury notes next day by Farnish, who thrust them through the letter-box.”

  “How did Farnish get to know he was here?”

  “I told Farnish. I was obliged to let him into my confidence for one very good reason. On thinking matters over, I came to the conclusion that this man, Twistleton, must have written to my uncle fixing the appointment to meet him at the Mill House. Where was that letter? If it was at Bygrave Hall among his papers I must get hold of it and destroy it. It would have proved a most informative clue to the police had Mr. Twistleton’s body been subsequently found.”

  “Now I understand why one of the drawers of Lord Bygrave’s writing-bureau was forced.”

  “Farnish was the culprit,” remarked Winslade, with a wan smile. “You can imagine his relief when he discovered Mr. Twistleton’s letter in the first bundle of papers he opened.”

  “You destroyed it, of course?”

  “You bet your boots!”

  “A pity; but still you took a safe course. By the way, you haven’t seen your uncle since?”

  “No. He left here some time ago and I’m still waiting to hear from him. He left word with Mrs. Parslow that he would write to me when opportunity and circumstances permitted.” With these words Winslade glanced anxiously at his watch. “Good Lord,” he added, “how the time’s flown! I must be getting back to Hartwood. I promised to meet Mary this evening.”

  Vereker rose from his chair.

  “Don’t let me detain you, Winslade, if you want to catch a train. I must say your story is an amazing one. Naturally, I shall keep the whole matter entirely to myself. There are several points about it that completely puzzle me at present. I may want to discuss certain details with you over again; in that case, I’ll come down to Crockhurst Farm and see you when you are disengaged.”

  “I’ll be at your service at any time, Vereker.”

  “Thanks. Meanwhile, should you be interrogated further by the police, stick grimly to the statement you have already made. You and Farnish and I are the only persons who know the somewhat baffling facts of Bygrave’s disappearance and, come what may, we must shield old Henry in this dreadful trouble.”

  “By Jove, Vereker, you don’t know what a relief your words have given me! I should have told you everything long ago, but I didn’t know how you would take matters and thought I’d better keep the secret to myself until I saw clearly how things stood.”

  “I quite understand, Winslade,” replied Vereker, as he warmly gripped the young man’s hand. “After all, we may be over-estimating the gravity of the affair. From what you have told me I should feel inclined to prophesy that—Mr. Twistleton is at this moment very much alive.”

  “I hope so in all conscience,” remarked Winslade, picking up hat and gloves, and added: “Should I hear from my uncle I will let you know.”

  “Do so at once, but I’m afraid the chances are against your hearing from him for the present. He will be too cautious,” said Vereker.

  A few moments later Winslade was hurrying down to Charing Cross to catch the 5.30 train to Hartwood. Unknown to him—but now in his ordinary garb, for he had changed swiftly at his flat on the way down—followed Vereker, who managed to enter one of the rear coaches of the same train just as it began to move slowly from the platform.

  Chapter Thirteen

  On the journey down to Fordingbridge Junction—for that was Vereker’s destination—he sat in a corner of a first-class carriage apparently asleep. He was, in fact, very much awake, his alert brain swiftly analysing the details of David Winslade’s story. Once again had his chain of reasoning received a dislocating jolt. He thought almost ruefully of his deduction that Lord Bygrave had not himself visited the White Bear on that Friday night. The clues from which he had arrived at this conclusion had seemed irrefragable: they had apparently satisfied even the cautious and experienced Heather.

  That theory seemed utterly at variance with Winslade’s assertion that Bygrave had undeniably passed the night at Hartwood. If Winslade’s assertion were true, that theory fell to the ground. But was Winslade’s assertion true? He had lied in the first instance when he disclaimed all knowledge of Lord Bygrave’s whereabouts. That would justify the assumption that, on being cornered at 10 Glendon Street, he would lie again to save himself. Yet his story fully explained the mystery of Lord Bygrave’s rifled drawer. Again, Bygrave had undoubtedly come to Glendon Street, for even Mrs. Parslow’s description of Henry Parker bore out the truth of this statement. Moreover, there was the startling fact that he had from this boarding-house addressed an envelope to his wife—an envelope which had proved so useful in the discovery of Mrs. Cathcart’s whereabouts.

  “What about that boiled-egg breakfast?” soliloquized Vereker with a wry smile. “Perhaps I’ve been under-estimating old Henry’s astuteness all the time. It has been a great mistake, now I come to ponder over the matter. Henry has as fine a brain as any man living. In difficult circumstances, as I know from experience, it can rise to an extraordinary height of alertness—and he’s as supple as an eel!”

  At, this moment the train ran into Fordingbridge Junction.

  With some trepidation Vereker leaped from his compartment and hurried through the station gates, glancing anxiously back to see that Winslade had not left the train. Satisfied on this point, he hastened to Layham’s garage and once more hired the Ford car. Without stopping he drove straight to the Mill House at Eyford and pulled up in front of the gate. A few moments later he was knocking loudly on the door. Receiving no response to this summons, he knocked again and listened intently to any sound of movement within, but not a sound disturbed the almost oppressive silence of the place.

  “He hasn’t returned here,” he soliloquized, and for some moments stood on the whitened doorstep uncertain what to do. At this juncture something prompted him to try the handle of the door and to his amazement he discovered that the door was not locked.

  “Hello! this is rather unexpected,” he exclaimed to himself, and silently entered.

  “Anyone in?” he shouted, but his query remained unanswered. A strange sense of eerieness, and an unaccountable fear came over him, and for some moments he hesitated whether he should make a further examination of the house or return to the car. Upbraiding himself for being unnecessarily nervous, he decided to pursue his investigations, and was about to ascend the stairs leading direct from the hall when the front door closed with a sharp slam. In a flash Vereker was on the defensive, his hand instinctively clutching the automatic pistol that of late he had carried in his hip pocket. But his alarm was groundless, for the door had been
closed by a sudden gust of wind sweeping through the hall.

  “Ah, that’s symptomatic,” he said, and smiled at the sudden start he had received. “It bears out my little theory.”

  Without further delay he quickly ascended the stairs and made a swift examination of the rooms, following the order that Winslade had taken. In the library he lit the gas and seated himself at one of the chairs drawn up at the table, his observant eye glancing leisurely at every detail of the furnishing. Here was the overturned chair, the blotting-pad, inkpot and pen just as Winslade had described them. The book-shelves were all neatly stacked with books which looked as if they had remained untouched for years. Beyond the overturned chair not a vestige indicative of any struggle or violence was to be observed; but one fact which Winslade had not mentioned seemed to hold Vereker’s attention with an all-absorbing interest—an open window.

  “Very remarkable,” he exclaimed, as he lit a cigarette. “It explains many things—the slamming of the front door for instance.”

  He rose quickly, walked over to the window and very carefully examined the catches, the frame and window-sill. Thrusting out his head, he glanced down into the old cobbled backyard below.

  “Just what I thought,” he murmured and, swinging his legs through the open window, dropped down into the yard, a distance of some twelve to fourteen feet. “H’m,” he murmured, as he glanced upwards at the open window, “that points to one very definite fact.”

  Passing out of the yard gate he returned to the front door of the building, retraced his steps to the library, and shut the open window.

  “There’s nothing more to be learned from this room,” he said, as he passed out of the door and descended the stairs to the first landing. There he drew from his pocket a box of matches and lit the kerosene lamp affixed to the wall. Standing with his back to the light, he peered down the stairs into the hall and tried to imagine just where Winslade had stood when Lord Bygrave had turned out the lamp on the night that he had killed the blackmailing Mr. Twistleton. As he did so, he uttered a sudden exclamation of surprise and rapidly descended a few steps to examine a broken rail of the banister. The light on the staircase was now so feeble that he was obliged to strike a match to observe the fracture of the wood more clearly.