We climbed for twenty-five minutes between the trees: then we bore to the right, to gain a broad ledge or plateau, commanding the gorge we had left. We were now high above the road on the opposite side – we could see a car crawling upon it, making its way towards Spain. Far below us lay the meadow, where Daphne was sitting by Berry, still fast asleep. Therèse was talking to her, but Carson was not to be seen.
“Higher,” said Jill, relentlessly.
Nearly an hour went by before we passed out of the forest on to a second plateau which fairly deserved that name. A thousand square yards of downland commanded a prospect which made a man hold his breath. To the north, we could look down the valley, no longer a gorge, and could trace its glorious run to the gap through which we had driven, which led to the lowland plains. Cluny was round a bend, and just out of our sight. To the west, rose peak upon peak, in that superb disorder with which no order on earth can ever compare. To the south, where three gorges met, a miniature Jules lay land-locked, beside a glittering serpent of blue and white; and, beyond her, the Pic du Midi, queen of the range, lifted her lovely head to the westering sun.
“I think,” said Jonah, “we can’t be far from a path of which I’ve heard. It runs from Lally to Jules, right over the tops of the hills. If I’m right—”
“Hush,” said his sister, setting her head on one side. “I may be wrong, but I think I heard someone calling.”
The three of us listened intently.
After a long moment, a very faint “À moi” was borne to our ears.
“Over there,” said Jill, pointing south-east…
We hastened over the plateau, moving that way.
After five minutes, we stopped to listen again.
And heard nothing.
“Call again,” I shouted, cupping my lips.
“À moi,” came the answer, from well away to our right.
The plateau rose sharply to the east, but to the south it ran level, until it came again to the trees. Here the ground ran up in a very steep ramp, and, as I scrambled ahead, I saw that I was approaching the top of some ridge. And then I perceived that it was not a ridge at all, but the edge of some cliff, for the trees stopped short at the top, and there was the Pic du Midi, fairly ablaze in the sunshine, clear to be seen.
As I threw myself forward, the cry for help came very clear.
“ À moi, à moi!”
And then I knew that the cry was coming from over and down the cliff.
I called to Jill to keep back and to Jonah to have a care.
Then I lay down on the ground and drew myself up to the brink.
I have not a good head for heights, and when I saw what I saw, the palms of my hands grew wet and my senses reeled.
I was lying on the edge of a cornice. Beneath me was a sheer drop of well over a thousand feet.
On a ledge beneath the cornice, some twelve feet down, was standing a youth. The ledge was three inches wide. He was holding himself to the cliff by the brittle, protruding roots of one of the firs which was growing close to the brink. The ledge was too close to the cornice for him to hold himself straight: the projecting portion of cliff was thrusting his head and shoulders away from the wall. Seemingly miles below him, Jules looked smaller than ever; and the glittering serpent beside it, a thread, for some reason, of gold.
The upturned eyes met mine, and the tongue spoke French.
“My rope has broken. That was three hours ago. But I think that, if you will help, there will still be enough. The tree on your right.”
I looked at the tree on my right.
About its trunk was a fragment of climbing rope.
Before I had this unfastened, Jonah was lying down and looking over the brink.
I measured the fragment of rope.
“Say thirteen feet,” I said: “and his shoulders are seven feet down. We should be able to do it, provided it holds.”
Together, we examined the fragment, which was old, but seemed to be sound.
My cousin made a slip-knot and drew the loop wide. Then we lay down again, and he lowered it over the edge.
It was not very hard to drop the loop round the boy’s neck. The rope now lay upon his shoulders.
“Get it under your arms,” said Jonah. “First one arm and then the other. When you have done that, I’m going to draw the rope tight.”
“But—”
“Do as I say, you young fool.”
Red in the face, the other did as he said. The manoeuvre presented no danger, for one hand was quite enough to hold him to the face of the cliff.
Then, very gently, my cousin drew the rope tight.
Our end now reached the edge with sixteen inches to spare.
While Jonah took hold of this, I tied a knot as close to the end as I dared.
“And now what?” said Jonah.
“I think we must risk it,” I said, wiping my palms on the ground for the fourth or fifth time. “I don’t like this blasted cornice, and I’m not too sure of this rope. But I don’t see what else we can do. True, I can hold him here, while you go for the rope in the car. And Carson. But that means a delay of two hours, and he says he’s been there three. If he faints before you get back, as he very well may…”
“I agree,” said Jonah. “And now you lay hold on life, while I take off my shirt.”
As I took hold of the rope, I heard a movement beside me.
“I must see, Boy.”
Jill.
“Get back, for God’s sake,” I cried.
“My weight won’t make that much difference. And if you’re both going down, I’d like to go, too.”
“Jill, I implore you. For my sake…”
My small cousin kissed my ear – and wriggled back from the edge. A moment later I felt her firm hands on my ankles, holding most tight.
Jonah had folded his shirt and made it into a pad. This he inserted between the rope and the edge.
Then he looked down to the boy.
“We’re going to pull you up,” he said. “But the rope is so short that we’re very close to the edge. Much too close for my liking. That can’t be helped. So when I give the word, you must try and take some of your weight by climbing yourself.”
“If I could have climbed up, I should not have called for help.”
My cousin looked at me, and wrung the sweat from his eyes.
Then he returned to the youth.
“If you answer me back again, we shall leave you to die. Your life is worth nothing at all, compared with ours: yet we’re risking our lives to save it. And now stand by. When you hear me say ‘Go’, you will forget this rope and will try to climb up the face.”
I took a turn round my wrist, which left some eight inches of rope between my hand and the edge.
Then slowly I drew myself forward, until I could kneel. Jill must have moved with me, for her hands were still fast on my ankles when I was upon my knees.
Jonah got to his feet.
“Go back, Jill,” he said gently. “Ten paces back, my darling. We’ll be all right.”
And, with his words, the thing happened.
A sudden pull on the rope, for which I was quite unready, jerked me violently forward. When I flung out my left hand to save me, this met with nothing at all. For half my body was actually over the edge.
And there was the boy, with his face three inches from mine.
Ignoring Jonah’s instructions, without any warning at all, the crazy fool had attempted to climb the rope.
But for Jill’s hold upon my ankles, I must have gone down. As it was, I was quite helpless. My left arm was beating the air, and my right was holding a rope upon which was hanging a weight of somewhere about one hundred and forty pounds.
My cousin, Jonathan Mansel, did the only possible thing.
In a flash, he was lying beside me. Then he stretched out his hand and seized the boy by his hair, which was happily long.
Then he spoke to his sister, Jill.
“Try to pull Boy back,” he sai
d quietly.
Jonah was taking much of the weight on the rope: this enabled me to get my left hand on the edge, and, when this encountered the root of a neighbouring fir, I was able to help my small cousin to drag myself back.
After what seemed an age, only my head and shoulders were over the brink.
The boy had a hand on the edge…
“All together,” cried Jonah.
The boy was up and in safety – I felt his foot on my back. As the rope was jerked out of my hand, Jonah fell backwards and sideways across my legs. As I sought to thrust myself back, a good foot of the cornice gave way.
When the block of soil went down, I thought I was done. Indeed, I went down with it, so far as my trunk was concerned, for all my weight had been planted upon that piece of soil. But, mercifully, Jill had my ankles, and Jonah himself was lying across my legs.
I heard him cry out in French…
And after what seemed a long time, two hands, which were stronger than Jill’s took hold of one of my legs. Then Jonah seized the other, and the boy and he, between them, dragged me away from the brink.
A nice picture we made, sitting on the edge of the plateau, just clear of the trees.
Jonah, stripped to the waist, was streaming with sweat; his chest and his stomach were smeared with blood and dirt: my shirt was torn and stained, the fingers of my left hand were bleeding, and the rope had ripped open the skin of my other wrist. Jill, in shirt and shorts, sitting back on her heels, was kneeling between us two, one arm about Jonah’s shoulders and one about mine. A bleeding bruise was spreading above one exquisite knee.
“Close call, that,” said Jonah, wiping his face.
“You’re telling me,” said I. And then, “I’m through with these blasted brinks.”
“What we want,” said Jill, “is a brook.”
“We passed one somewhere,” said I, “about a week ago.”
“D’you feel like that, too? Never mind. I’m so glad you’re alive, Boy darling.”
“You must thank yourself, sweetheart. If you hadn’t had hold of my ankles, I must have gone.”
“And that’s God’s truth,” said Jonah.
Jill got to her feet.
“Come,” she said. “We ought to be getting back.”
As we stood up, a figure approached from our left. Strangely enough, we had quite forgotten the youth.
“I have to thank you,” he said. “I was very badly placed.”
“That’s all right,” said I. “But don’t do it again.”
“Don’t do what?” said the boy.
“Any of it,” snapped Jonah. “Don’t climb alone: don’t use a rotten rope: and, above all, don’t disobey orders when people are risking their lives on your behalf. Where d’you come from? Lally?”
“Yes,” said the other. “My father is there just now.”
“If you like to follow us down, we can give you a lift. Your parents will be anxious if you are too late.”
With that, we set off.
We stopped at the spring we had marked, to wash the dirt from our scratches and bathe my wrist; and there we were joined by Carson, who always became uneasy, if Jonah was gone too long.
“Ah, Carson,” said Jonah. “We could have done with you a little while back. But that’s for later. Take this young gentleman with you and go on ahead. Take him and Therèse in the Andret and drive back to Lally at once. Drop him at Lally, and then take Therèse to the chemist’s to get a bandage and stuff for Captain Pleydell’s wrist. And then go back to the villa. We’ll take the Rolls and be there as soon as you. Tell Major Pleydell what you’re doing and say that we’re just behind and that no one is hurt.”
“Very good, sir. But what of yourself? You’re short of a shirt.”
“See that my coat’s in the Rolls. That’ll see me home.”
“Very good, sir.”
Jonah addressed the youth.
“If you go with him,” he said, “he will drive you back to Lally without delay. Goodbye.”
“I am much obliged,” said the boy. He hesitated. “I am sorry about your shirt, and I must thank you again. I was very badly placed.” He put a hand to his head. “Do not think that I blame you,” he added, “but it is very painful to pull the hair.”
By the time we reached the meadow, the Andret was gone. But Carson’s shirt was hanging on the door of the Rolls.
At eight o’clock that evening, Jonah put a letter into my hand.
“From Falcon,” he said.
June 29th.
DEAR CAPTAIN MANSEL,
Secret
Sir Steuart Rowley.
I should have written to you before, but I have been hoping to be able to tell you that we had got our man. As you will see from the papers, the Coroner’s jury yesterday returned a verdict against some person or persons unknown. In fact, we know who did it, but he has disappeared.
As you thought likely, the murder was done by a servant whom the Judge had dismissed: and, as you thought that he might, Mr Shapely showed some reluctance to point to the man. But in fact I had him in view, before Mr Shapely returned.
The facts are these.
Albert Edward Tass was employed as chauffeur at Dewlap when Lady Rowley died. He was an excellent chauffeur – but he had only one eye. This affliction had always worried Sir Steuart –I think, rather naturally. A chauffeur should have two eyes. But Lady Rowley had pleaded that he should stay. Everyone, including Tass, was aware that, but for Lady Rowley, Tass would have gone. Three months after Lady Rowley’s death, Tass was driving Sir Steuart when he nearly knocked down a child. The child was on his blind side – the left. That evening the Judge sent for Tass. In the presence of Mr Shapely and his sister, he told him that he must drive no more. He did not dismiss him. He offered to keep him on, at the same wages, to look after the cars and to do odd jobs. But Tass would have none of that. Either he drove, or he went. In fact, he lost his temper, and there was an unfortunate scene. He told the Judge to his face that “he wouldn’t have dared to sack him, if his mistress had been alive.” Then the Judge did dismiss him – quite rightly, of course. He could hardly keep a man who had spoken like that. Whereupon Mr Shapely engaged him, there and then, to be his chauffeur and valet from that time on.
Once he got going, Mr Shapely was perfectly frank.
“I’d no right to do it,” he said; “and I’m sorry now. I did it to rile Old Rowley. Tass was nothing to me.”
I asked why he disliked Sir Steuart so much.
“First,” he said, “ I hated to see him sitting in my father’s seat. Secondly, he persuaded my mother to keep my allowance down to twelve hundred a year. He thought a man should work for his living – or some of it. I didn’t agree – in view of the fact that my mother had rather more than thirty thousand a year. Thirdly, by her Will, my mother left him the whole of her income for life – and Dewlap and everything. I had my twelve hundred – no more. That meant that he had the whip-hand. I don’t think he spent the money. I don’t believe he touched it, except to keep Dewlap up. But I was the son and heir, and he had accepted my birthright…”
He laughed there. Then he went on.
“That’s the sort of motive you like, isn’t it? Just as well for me that I was in the South of France.”
Entirely between you and me, I think it is.
To return to Tass.
Mr Shapely and Tass left Dewlap the morning after the scene. Six weeks later, master and man went abroad, with a caravan. And in May of this year they came to the Pyrénées. By this time Mr Shapely was beginning to realize that he had cut off his nose to spite his face. Tass was becoming a nuisance. He did not enjoy caravanning or ‘foreign parts’. To use Mr Shapely’s words, “he wouldn’t have lasted a month, if he hadn’t had a dud eye. But I knew that that might prevent his getting another job. For that reason I stuck him – as long as I could. More than once I went to a hotel, just because I couldn’t stand him about.” Finally, in the mountains – not far from where you are now –
Mr Shapely paid him off and told him to go. He gave him his fare to England, and Tass packed his suitcase and went.
That was on Sunday June 7th, about nine-thirty a.m.
That night he must have travelled to Paris, for we know that he landed at Dover the following afternoon. (His passport number was taken at Calais and Dover that day. And a man with an eye-shade is easy. He was noticed again and again. And we traced a five-hundred-franc note that he changed on the boat. This was given to Mr Shapely by Lloyd’s Bank, Pau, five days before he fired Tass.) Tass did not proceed to London, but left the harbour on foot. From Dover to Dewlap is just about two hours’ walk. The murder was committed that night, not before half-past ten and not after a quarter to twelve. I think there can be no doubt that the murderer opened the garage and took ‘the family car’. Anyway, that car was taken and presently found at Hampstead at eight a.m. the next day. From Dewlap to London by night would take a good driver considerably less than four hours. Tass left Victoria Station by the early boat-train that day: he passed by Folkestone and Boulogne – passport number checked at each port – and went on to Paris at once. And there he disappeared.
I have left to the last one very important point.
‘The family car’ was so called because it was at the disposal of Mr Shapely, Miss Joan Shapely and her sister, now married and in America. Each had a key of the garage and of the switch. When Mr Shapely left England, he forgot all about these keys. He noticed them some time later and dropped them into a pocket of his dressing-case. According to him, he never gave them a thought until the conversation he had with you at Pau. That conversation, of course, suggested Tass as the possible murderer. And then he thought of the keys. When he left you, he went at once to look at his dressing-case. And when he did so, he found that the keys were gone.
To sum up:–
(a)Against Sir Steuart, Tass had a violent grudge.
(b)Tass was six miles from Dewlap four hours before the murder took place.
(c)Tass was familiar with Dewlap as with Sir Steuart’s ways.
(d)Tass had access to the keys of the garage and car.
(e)Those keys have disappeared.
House That Berry Built Page 5