The Shrieking Pit

by Arthur J. Rees

  CHAPTER XXV

  Colwyn opened the silver and enamel box, and emptied the matches on thetable.

  "I showed this match-box to Charles on my return to the inn, and he toldme that Penreath used it in the upstairs sitting-room the night he dinedthere with Mr. Glenthorpe. Therefore, it is a reasonable deduction toassume that he had no other matches in his possession the night of themurder.

  "This fact is highly significant, because the matches in Penreath'ssilver box are, as you see, blue-headed wax matches, whereas the matchesstruck in Mr. Glenthorpe's room on the night of the murder were of anentirely different description--wooden matches with pink heads, ofBritish manufacture--so-called war matches, with cork pine sticks. Thesticks of these matches break rather easily unless they are held nearthe head. Two broken fragments of this description of match, withunlighted heads, were found in Mr. Glenthorpe's room the morning afterthe murder. Superintendent Galloway picked up one by the foot of thebed, and I picked up the other under the broken gas-globe. The recoveryof Penreath's match-box in the murdered man's room suggested severalthings. In the first place, if he had no other matches in his possessionexcept those in his silver and enamel box, he was neither the murderernor the second person who visited the room that night. But if mydeduction about the matches was correct, how was it that his match-boxwas found in the murdered man's room? The inference is that Penreathleft his match-box in the dining room after lighting his candle beforegoing to bed, and the murderer found it and took it into Mr.Glenthorpe's bedroom to point suspicion towards Penreath.

  "This fact opened up a new possibility about the crime--the possibilitythat Penreath was the victim of a conspiracy. When we were examining thefootprints which led to the pit, the possibility of somebody else havingworn Penreath's boots occurred to me, because I have seen that trickworked before, but the servant's story suggested that Penreath did notput his boots outside his door to be cleaned, but came to the door withthem in his hand in the morning. But Penreath told me this morning thathe put out his boots overnight to be cleaned, but had taken them backinto his room before Ann brought up his tea. The murderer, therefore,had ample opportunity to use them for his purpose of carrying the bodyto the pit and to put them back afterwards outside Penreath's door.

  "But Peggy's belated admissions did more than suggest that Penreath wasthe victim of a sinister plot--they narrowed down the range of personsby whom it could have been contrived. The plotter was not only an inmateof the inn, but somebody who had seen the match box and knew that itbelonged to Penreath.

  "I returned to Flegne to resume the investigations I had broken offnearly three weeks before, and from that point my discoveries were veryrapid, all tending to throw suspicion on Benson. The first indicationwas the outcome of a remark of mine about his height, and the broken gaslight in Mr. Glenthorpe's bedroom. It was purely a chance shot, but itthrew him into a pitiable state of excitement. I let him think, however,that it was nothing more than a chance remark. That night I was put tosleep in Penreath's room, and there I made two discoveries. The firstwas the existence of a small door, behind the wardrobe, opening on acorresponding door on the other side, which in its turn opens into Mr.Glenthorpe's room. Thus it would be possible for a person in the roomPenreath occupied, discovering these doors as I did, to see into thenext bedroom--under certain conditions. My second discovery was theoutcome of my first discovery--I picked up underneath the wardrobe afragment of an appealing letter which Penreath had commenced to write tohis fiancee, and had subsequently torn up. It was a long time before Igrasped the full significance of these two discoveries. Why should aman, after writing a letter of appeal to his fiancee, decide not to sendit and destroy it? The most probable reason was that something hadhappened to cause him to change his mind. What could have happened tochange the conditions so quickly? The hidden doors in the wall, whichlooked into the next room, supplied an answer to the question. Penreathhad looked through, and seen--what? My first thought was that he hadseen the murder committed, but that theory did not account for thedestruction of the letter, and his silence when arrested, unless,indeed, the girl had committed the murder. The girl--Peggy! It came tome like a flash, the solution of the strangest aspect of this puzzlingcase--the reason why Penreath maintained his dogged silence under anaccusation of murder.

  "It came to me, the clue for which I had been groping, with therecollection of a phrase in the girl's story to me--her second story--inwhich she not only told me of her efforts to shield Penreath, butrevealed frankly to me her relations with Penreath, innocent enough, butcommenced in chance fashion, and continued by clandestine meetings inlonely spots. I remembered when she told me about it all that I wasimpressed by Penreath's absolute straightforwardness in his dealingswith this girl. He was open and sincere with her throughout, gave herhis real name, and told her much about himself: his family, hisprospects, and even his financial embarrassment. He went further thanthat: he told her that he was engaged to be married, and that if hecould get free he would marry her. A young man who talks in this strainis very much in love. The artless story of Peggy revealed that Penreathwas as much in love with the girl as she was with him. 'If he could getfree!' That was the phrase that gave me the key to the mystery. He hadset out to get free by writing to Miss Willoughby, breaking off hisengagement. Later he had torn up the letter because through the door inthe wall he had seen Peggy standing by the bedside of the murdered man,and had come to the conclusion that she had murdered him.

  "If you think it a little strange that Penreath should have jumped tothis conclusion about the woman he loved, you must remember thecircumstances were unusual. Peggy had surrounded herself with mystery;she refused to tell her lover where she lived, she would not even tellhim her name. When he looked into the room he did not even know she wasin the house, because she had kept out of his way during the previousevening, waiting for an opportunity to see him alone. Consequently heexperienced a great shock at the sight of her, and the mystery withwhich she had always veiled her identity and movements recurred to himwith a terrible and sinister significance as he saw her again under suchdamning conditions, standing by the bedside of the dead man with a knifein her hand.

  "Penreath's subsequent actions--his destruction of the letter he hadwritten to Miss Willoughby, his hurried departure from the inn, and hissilence in the face of accusation--are all explained by the fact that hesaw the girl Peggy in the next room, and believed that she had committedthis terrible crime.

  "I now come to the clues which point directly to Benson's complicity inthe murder. I have already told you of his alarm at my chance remarkabout his height and the smashed gas globe. You also know that he was inneed of money. The next point is rather a curious one. When Benson wastelling us his story the day after the murder I observed that he keptsmoothing his long hair down on his forehead. There was something in theaction that suggested more than a mannerism. The night after Idiscovered the door in the wall, I left it open in order to watch thenext room. During the night Benson entered and searched the dead man'schamber. I do not know what he was looking for--he did not find it,whatever it was--but during the search he grew hot, and threw back hishair from his forehead, revealing a freshly healed scar on his temple.The reason he had worn his hair low was explained: he wanted to hidefrom us the fact that it was he who had smashed the gas-globe in Mr.Glenthorpe's room, and had cut his head by the accident.

  "But his visit to the dead man's room revealed more than the scar on hisforehead. How did Benson get into the room? The room had been keptlocked since the murder. That night I had taken the key from a hook onthe kitchen dresser in order to examine the room when the inmates of theplace had retired. Benson, therefore, had let himself in with anotherkey. This was our first knowledge of another key. Hitherto we hadbelieved that the only key was the one found in the outside of the doorthe morning after the murder. The police theory is partly based on thatsupposition. Benson's possession of a second key, and his silenceconcerning it, point strongly to his complicity in the c
rime. He knewthat Mr. Glenthorpe was accustomed to lock his door and carry the keyabout with him, so he obtained another key in order to have access tothe room whenever he desired. There would have been nothing in this ifhe had told his household about it. A second key would have been usefulto the servant when she wanted to arrange Mr. Glenthorpe's room. ButBenson kept the existence of the second key a close secret. He saidnothing about it when we questioned him concerning the key in the door.An innocent man would have immediately informed us that there was asecond key to the room. Benson kept silence because he had something tohide.

  "I now come to the events of the next morning. My investigation of therise and the pit during the afternoon had led to a discovery whichsubsequently suggested to my mind that the missing money had been hiddenin the pit. I determined to try and descend it. I arose before daybreak,as I did not wish any of the inmates of the inn to see me. Before goingto the pit I got out of the window and into the window of the next room,as Penreath is supposed to have done. That experiment brought to lightanother small point in Penreath's favour. The drop from the first windowis an awkward one--more than eight feet--and my heels made a deepindentation in the soft red clay underneath the window. If Penreath haddropped from the window, even in his stocking feet, the marks of hisheels ought to have been visible. There was not enough rain after themurder was committed to obliterate them entirely. There were no suchmarks under his window when we examined the ground the morning afterthe murder.

  "I next proceeded to the rise and lowered myself down the pit by thecreepers inside. About ten feet down the vegetable growth ceased, andthe further descent was impossible without ropes. But at the limit ofthe distance to which a man can climb down unaided, I saw a peg stickinginto the side of the pit, with a fishing line suspended from it. I drewup the line, and found attached to it the murdered man's pocket-bookcontaining the L300 he had drawn out of the bank at Heathfield the dayhe was murdered.

  "Let me now try to reconstruct the crime in the light of the freshinformation we have gained. Benson was in desperate straits for money,and he knew that Mr. Glenthorpe had drawn L300 from the bank thatmorning, all in small notes, which could not be traced. The fact that heobtained a second key to the room suggests that he had been meditatingthe act for some time past. It will be found, I think, when all thefacts are brought to light, that he obtained the second key when helearnt that Mr. Glenthorpe intended to take a large sum of money out ofthe bank. Penreath's chance arrival at the inn on the day that the moneywas drawn out, probably set him thinking of the possibility of murderingand robbing Mr. Glenthorpe in circumstances that would divert suspicionto the stranger. Penreath unconsciously helped him by leaving hismatch-box in the room where he had dined with Mr. Glenthorpe. Bensonfound the match-box on looking into the room to see that everything wasall right when his guests had retired, and determined to commit themurder that night, and leave it by the murdered man's bedside, as a clueto direct attention to Penreath. His next idea, to murder Mr.Glenthorpe with the knife which Penreath had used at dinner, probablyoccurred to him as he considered the possibilities of the match-box.

  "It is difficult to decide why Benson chose to enter the room from thewindow instead of by the door when he had a second key of the room. Hemay have attempted to open the door with the key, and found that Mr.Glenthorpe had locked the door and left the key on the inside. Or he mayhave thought that as Penreath was sleeping in the next room, he ran toogreat a risk of discovery by entering from the door, and so decided toenter by the window. We must presume that Benson subsequently found Mr.Glenthorpe's key, either inside the door or under his pillow, and keptit. He entered the window, stabbed Mr. Glenthorpe, and placed thematch-box and the knife at the side of the bed. His next act would be tosearch for the money. Finding it difficult to search by the light of thetallow candle, he decided to go downstairs and turn on the gas.

  "During his absence Peggy entered the room, saw the dead body, andpicked up the knife and the match-box. Then she picked up thecandlestick by the bed, and fled in terror. Benson, after turning on thegas at the meter, returned to find the room in darkness. Thinking thatthe wind had blown out the candle, he walked to the gas with theintention of lighting it. In doing so he knocked his head against theglobe, cutting his forehead, and smashing the incandescent burner.

  "Benson, when he found that the candlestick had disappeared must, in hisfright, have rushed downstairs for another. He could not light the gas,because he had smashed the burner. In no other way can I account for thesecond lot of candle-grease that I found in the room underneath thegas-light, which made me believe at first that the room had beenvisited by two persons on the night of the murder. There _were_ twopersons, Benson and his daughter, but Peggy did not bring a candlestickinto the room. It looks to me as though Benson, on returning with thesecond candle, attempted to light the gas with it and failed. Thataction would account for the gas tap being turned on, and the spiltgrease directly underneath. He then searched the room till he found thepocket-book containing the money.

  "The subsequent removal of the body to the pit strikes me as anafterthought. The complete plan was too diabolically ingenious andcomplete to have formed in the murderer's mind at the outset. The manwho put the match-box and knife by the bedside of the murdered man inorder to divert suspicion to Penreath had no thought, at that stage, ofremoving the body. That idea came afterwards, probably when he wentupstairs the second time with the lighted candle, and saw Penreath'sboots outside the door. I cannot help thinking that the clue of thefootprints, which was such a damning point in the case against Penreath,was quite an accidental one so far as the murderer was concerned. Thethought that the boots would leave footprints which would subsequentlybe identified as Penreath's was altogether too subtle to have occurredto a man like Benson. That is the touch of a master criminal--of a muchhigher order of criminal brain than Benson's.

  "It is my belief that he originally intended to leave the murdered manin his room, thinking that the match-box and knife would point suspicionto Penreath. But after killing Mr. Glenthorpe he was overcome with thefear that his guilt would be discovered, in spite of his precautions tothrow suspicions on another man, and he decided to throw the body intothe pit in the hope that the crime would never be found out. The factthat he had entered the room in his stocking feet supports this theory,because he would be well aware that he would not be able to carry thebody over several hundred yards of rough ground in his bare feet. Hetook Penreath's boots, which were close at hand, in preference to thedanger and delay which he would have incurred in going to his own room,some distance away, for his own boots. Having put on the boots, he tookthe body on his shoulders and conveyed it to the pit.

  "There are two or three points in this case which I am unable to clearup to my complete satisfaction. Why did Benson leave the key in theoutside of the door? Was it merely one of those mistakes--thoseoversights--which all murderers are liable to commit, or did he do itdeliberately, in the hope of conveying the impression that Mr.Glenthorpe had gone out and left the key in the outside of the door. Inthe next place, I cannot account for the mark of the box underneath thewindow. There is a third point--the direction of the wound in themurdered man's body, which gave me some ideas at the time that I am nowcompelled to dismiss as erroneous. But these are points that I hope willbe cleared up by Benson's arrest, and confession, for I am convinced, bymy observation of the man, that he will confess.

  "There are one or two more points. Benson is an ardent fisherman, whospends all his spare time fishing on the marshes. The stolen pocket-bookwas suspended in the pit by a piece of fishing line. But I attach moreimportance to the second point, which is that since the murder has beencommitted the nightly conversation at the inn tap-room has centredaround a local ghost, known as the White Lady of the Shrieking Pit, whois supposed from time immemorial to have haunted the pit where the bodywas thrown, and to bring death to anybody who encounters her at night.This spectre, which is profoundly believed in by the villagers, had notbeen seen fo
r at least two years before the murder, but she made areappearance a night or two after the crime, and is supposed to havebeen seen frequently ever since. It looks to me as though Benson set thestory going again in order to keep the credulous villagers away from thepit where the money was concealed.

  "This morning, in company with Mr. Oakham, I saw Penreath in the gaol,and by a ruse induced him to break his stubborn silence. His story,which it is not necessary for me to give you in detail, testifies to hisinnocence, and supports my own theory of the crime. He did not see themurder committed, but he saw the girl go into the room, and subsequentlyhe saw her father enter and remove the body. It was the latter spectaclethat robbed him of any lingering doubts he may have had of the girl'sguilt, and forced him to the conclusion that she and her father wereaccomplices in the crime. But he loved her so much that he determined tokeep silence and shield her."