MARKENMORE HOLLOW
About half a mile to the north-east of Markenmore Court, flanked by a
narrow, deep-set lane that ran up from the main road of the village
to the overhanging downs, and backed by the woods and coverts which
lay between the foot of those downs and the level lands beneath,
stood a small, comfortable, picturesque old house called The Warren.
It had been built in the middle of the eighteenth century by the
fifth baronet, Sir Geoffrey Markenmore, as a residence for his
steward, and had been occupied by successive stewards until recent
years, when they were relegated to a more convenient house in the
centre of the village. Since then The Warren had been let to tenants;
its position, its fine outlook over park, meadows, and sea made it a
desirable property for any man of quiet tastes. Its present occupant
was Mr. Samuel Fransemmery, a middle-aged bachelor, by profession a
barrister-at-law, who, once taking a holiday in these regions, had
found The Warren to let and had immediately snapped it up on a
twenty-one years’ lease. It was, indeed, the very place for which Mr.
Fransemmery had been looking for some time; barrister though he was
(of the Middle Temple) he had scarcely ever held a brief in his life,
and the law had no particular attraction for him. Nor was he in any
way dependent upon it: he possessed very ample private means, which
enabled him to gratify his particular tastes to the full. Those
tastes were simple. Mr. Fransemmery’s days were passed in collecting
books and antiquities, doing a little flower-cultivation in his
charming gardens, and taking long walks in the country. He was a bit
of a botanist, and a bit of a geologist: what with one thing and
another his time went pleasantly—and uneventfully.
In outward appearance, Mr. Fransemmery was a cheerful little person.
Somewhat under medium height, he was inclined to portliness; like
many little men, he carried himself very erect, and was proud of the
fact that he was as straight of back and square of shoulder at fifty
as he had been at twenty-five. His clean-shaven face was round and
rosy; his eyes were bright behind his big gold-mounted spectacles; he
had beautiful teeth and plentiful light-brown hair; scrupulous to a
fault about his personal appearance, he always looked, said the
village folk, as if he had just come out of a band-box, by which they
meant that he was perfectly groomed. There was, indeed, an air of
perpetual youth and freshness about Mr. Fransemmery: each spring
seemed to find him younger than the last. People chaffed him about
his juvenility; if he ever troubled himself to explain it, he did so
by solemnly repeating the old saying—“Early to bed and early to rise
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.” Mr. Fransemmery, since his
arrival at The Warren, and his beginning of a truly rural existence,
had always gone to bed at half-past nine o’clock and risen with the
lark.
He was up with the lark on this particular morning; was rising, as a
matter of fact, at the very moment wherein, half a mile away at
Markenmore Court, Harry Markenmore was quietly telling his sister
Valencia that their father had died in his sleep. Mr. Fransemmery, of
course, knew nothing of that; his thoughts were not of death but of
life. He, too, drew his blinds and saw the red dawn, and heard the
thrushes and blackbirds in the neighbouring plantations; he smelled
the scent of the spring-tide, and longed to be out of doors. It was
his custom to go for a long walk every morning before his
nine-o’clock breakfast; he was going to keep to it this morning. But
first there were things to be done. His servants were never up before
six: Mr. Fransemmery did things for himself. He was a great man for
labour-saving devices; in his house at any hour of the day or night,
hot water was ready in any sleeping chamber. Accordingly Mr.
Fransemmery could get his bath and his shaving water by merely
twisting a tap; he had a patent stove, too, in his own bedroom
whereon he would make tea or coffee in a few minutes. So now, long
before his housekeeper, his parlourmaid, and his housemaid had opened
their eyes, he was bathing, shaving, dressing, and in due time
sipping his fragrant Mocha and nibbling digestive biscuits. At
precisely six o’clock, clad in a smart suit of grey tweed, and shod
in stout shooting boots, strong enough to meet the searching morning
dews, he went downstairs, picked up an ashplant stick in his hall,
and putting a rakish-looking cap on his head, set out across the high
lands across The Warren.
Mr. Fransemmery’s first steps took him out of his own trim
surroundings and across a little well-stocked orchard—planted by
himself—to the lane which ran up from Markenmore to the crest of the
downs. This was one of those lanes peculiar to the south of England,
and rarely found elsewhere. It was deep-set in the land; high banks
on either side shut it in; each bank was topped by an equally high
hedgerow of hawthorne, holly, and elder-bush, liberally mixed with
bramble, gorse, and honeysuckle. The road-surface, rough and rutty,
lay deep down beneath these prodigalities of vegetation; in winter it
was usually a mass of mud; in summer it was ankle-deep in dust. But
Mr. Fransemmery did not propose to follow the lane: he descended into
it by a rustic stairway of logs, set in the bank, crossed the ruts at
the bottom, and ascended the opposite bank by a similar series of
steps. There he climbed a stile and betook himself along a narrow
footpath hedged in on either side by laurel shrubs; this led him to
the palings of a smart little garden at the back of which stood a
commodious dwelling house, Woodland Cottage, the residence of Mrs.
Braxfield. And there, on a bit of open ground at the side of the
garden, flinging corn to her fowls, Mr. Fransemmery saw Mrs.
Braxfield herself.
Mr. Fransemmery had known Mrs. Braxfield for some years. He had once
or twice stayed at the Sceptre Inn before he came to live at The
Warren. In those days Mrs. Braxfield was Mrs. Wrenne, relict of Peter
Wrenne, deceased. She was a clever, bustling, managing woman, who
knew how to do things. Peter had left her money and one child—a girl
named Poppy, who from the days of short frocks bade fair to be a
beauty, and had made good her promise. Mrs. Wrenne continued to make
money at the Sceptre; folks said she was putting by a fortune for
Poppy—certainly Poppy was being brought up like a lady, sent to
smart boarding schools, and such like. And then, all of a sudden,
Mrs. Wrenne retired from business, took Woodland Cottage, and married
Braxfield. Why she married him, nobody ever knew; Braxfield continued
to live in his accustomed fashion at Markenmore Court, and if he ever
visited his spouse, it was only for an hour or two of an afternoon or
evening, or for a very occasional week-end. But, as people of the
neighbourhood said, Braxfield, too, would retire sometime, probably
when Sir Anthony died—and then, no doubt, he would go home to
Woodland Cottage and his wife for good.
Mr. Fransemmery looked approvingly at Mrs. Braxfield as he drew near
to her and her chickens. He admired her. Being a little man himself,
he had a keen eye for women of the somewhat massive order. Mrs.
Braxfield was a big, strong, handsome woman of forty-seven or so, who
looked quite five years younger—she had an excellent figure, fine
hair, teeth, and colouring, and a pair of quick, shrewd, hazel eyes,
in which there was still a spice of roguishness. She smiled at Mr.
Fransemmery as he put his fingers to his rakish shepherd’s-plaid cap,
and Mr. Fransemmery smiled back.
“The top of the morning to you, ma’am!” exclaimed Mr. Fransemmery.
“Many of ’em, too! Ah, Mrs. Braxfield, you and I are the only
sensible people about here, I think. Here we are, fresh and rosy—and
in your case, beautiful as the day itself—enjoying fresh air and
these delightful country sights and sounds while most of our
neighbours—forgetful of Dr. Watts and his little hymn—are snoring
in their beds. You’re a wise woman, ma’am!”
Mrs. Braxfield laughed, showing her white teeth, and bringing a
dimpled chin into play.
“Why that’s as may be, Mr. Fransemmery,” she retorted, coquettishly.
“But perhaps I’d lie snoring—not that I ever do snore that I know
of—in my bed, if I’d the chance. You get up early because you like
it—I get up because I’ve things to do. If I’d three strong women
servants, as you have, I’d not get up at five o’clock of a morning,
nor yet at six, I’d promise you—not I! I could do with more bed than
I get.”
“In that case, ma’am,” said Mr. Fransemmery, “I should do one of two
things. Either I should get a stout serving-lass into the house, or I
should request Miss Poppy to rise and feed the fowls.”
Mrs. Braxfield emptied her sieve of corn amongst the chickens and
drew nearer to the hedge.
“Oh well,” she said. “Poppy’s not a bad one for getting up and doing
her bit. But she’s away just now, visiting one of her old school
friends, so I’m alone. And as to having a girl, Mr. Fransemmery, I’d
rather not be bothered with one—they’re more bother than they’re
worth. Of course, I’ve a woman comes every day to do the rough
work—what else there is to do, Poppy and me can manage well enough.
I don’t know how it’ll be though, when Braxfield comes to live
here—a man makes a difference, and I suppose we shall have to keep a
servant or two when he retires.”
“He’s expecting to retire, then?” asked Mr. Fransemmery, who had a
weakness for village gossip. “Had enough of it, eh?”
“He’ll not retire while Sir Anthony lives,” answered Mrs. Braxfield.
“From what I hear that won’t be long,” observed Mr. Fransemmery.
“When I called at the Court, yesterday morning, to enquire, as I do
every day, ma’am, I understood from Miss Markenmore that according to
the doctors her father might go any time.”
“He’s a very old man, Mr. Fransemmery,” said Mrs. Braxfield. “He was
near sixty when he married the second time. However, whether he lasts
long or little, Braxfield’ll stop with him till the end.”
“Good old faithful servant, Braxfield,” observed Mr. Fransemmery.
“Well—when he does retire, ma’am, you’ve got a very cozy nest for
him to come to! Lucky man!—pleasant home, delightful surroundings,
and—the handsomest woman in the South Country! Eh, ma’am?”
“Lord, Mr. Fransemmery, what a flatterer you are!” said Mrs.
Braxfield with a conscious laugh. “Go away with you!—you’ll be
turning my head.”
Mr. Fransemmery laughed too, and went. He had a trick of teasing
people, and derived great pleasure from it; its exercise kept him in
good spirits. He was in high good spirits now, and he began to
whistle when he had passed Woodland Cottage and had stepped out on
the open downs beyond. But before he had gone far across the springy
turf his whistling stopped abruptly. Rounding a corner of the
undulating surface Mr. Fransemmery suddenly saw that which made him
pause. A hundred yards or so in front, a little to the left of the
broad grass-covered foot-track which led from Markenmore Court to
Mitbourne, a village on the further side of the downs, lay a deep
depression in the land, locally known as Markenmore Hollow. It was,
in reality, a long-disused chalk pit of unusual extent, but since its
workings had been given up, a hundred years previously, thick
under-growth of gorse and bramble had accumulated there beneath a
cluster of old Scotch fir, and the place was now a wilderness as
lonely as it was wild. But it was not lonely at that moment. Standing
by one of the Scotch firs, in close proximity to a great clump of
gorse, were men—one of them, from his uniform, Mr. Fransemmery
immediately recognized as the Markenmore village policeman; another,
from his velveteen coat, as Sir Anthony Markenmore’s gamekeeper; the
third was a farm-labourer whom Mr. Fransemmery often met of a morning
as the man crossed the downs on his way to work in the village.
But it was not the sight of these three men that made Mr. Fransemmery
suddenly halt and stop his blithe whistle and catch his breath. He
was familiar with the three men—to his eyes they were known. But as
they moved, he saw that at their feet there was lying something that
was unknown. That something looked like the figure of a man, supine,
motionless, covered by some wrap, a coat or overcoat, thrown
carefully across its immobility. And it was with a sudden sense of he
scarcely knew what, that Mr. Fransemmery, grave and silent enough by
that time, went down into the Hollow.
The village policeman, a sharp-eyed fellow, who had once confided to
Mr. Fransemmery that he had ambitions and meant to rise in the force,
came towards him. His face betokened a good deal, and he shook his
head slightly as he put his fingers to his peaked cap.
“What’s all this?” asked Mr. Fransemmery in a hushed voice.
“Something wrong?”
“Something very wrong, sir,” replied the policeman. He drew nearer,
and turning, pointed to the shrouded figure. “Gentleman lying there
dead, sir. Shot through the head!—but whether its murder or suicide,
I can’t say, sir. Murder I think—anyhow, there’s no revolver lying
near. And it’s been a revolver.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Fransemmery. “Why—who was he?”
The policeman gave him a sharp look.
“I couldn’t have said, sir,” he replied. “I’ve only been here three
years, so of course I don’t know him. But these other two men, they
do: Mr. Guy Markenmore, sir.”
Mr. Fransemmery started.
“What!” he exclaimed. “Sir Anthony’s elder son? You don’t mean it.”
“They say so, sir, and they know him well enough,” answered the
policeman. “That man, Hobbs, the ploughman, found him. He ran down to
the keeper’s cottage, and to me, and we came up at once. But before
coming I telephoned to Selcaster, and the Chief Constable himself is
coming along—they said he was starting out then, with the doctor.
Come and look at him, sir.”
Mr. Fransemmery nerved himself to this sad task, and went nearer. The
keeper and the labourer touched their caps; the policeman drew aside
the cloak which the labourer had taken from his shoulders and laid
over the dead man. And Mr. Fransemmery, wondering what all this
meant, bent down.
Dead enough, he thought. And peaceful enough. A calm, bloodless face,
neither smile nor frown on it—nothing but a little drawing together
of the finely marked eyebrows, a slightly puzzled expression.
Otherwise, so still. . . .
“It must have been murder, sir,” whispered the policeman, “and at
close quarters. Look there!—the skin over his temples slightly
burnt. And——”
“They’re coming,” said the keeper suddenly. “Two or three of them.”
Mr. Fransemmery straightened himself and looked across the downs. A
dog-cart, driven at considerable speed, was coming along the
grass-track from the direction of Selcaster, the tall spire of whose
cathedral showed above the woods which lay between the downs and the
old city. In the gleam of the rapidly rising sun he caught the glint
of the silver and blue uniform of the county police, and as the
keeper had said, the dog-cart, driven by a policeman, seemed filled
with men. And presently it raced up the sward to the lip of the
hollow, and the Chief Constable, a military-looking man of middle
age, jumped out and followed by two other men, one the
police-surgeon, the other obviously a plain-clothes officer, came
hurrying down to the little group beneath the Scotch firs. He nodded
to Mr. Fransemmery, whom everybody in the district knew, and turned
sharply on the village constable.
“Who found this man?” he asked quickly.
The ploughman came forward, with evident distaste.
“I did, sir!” he answered. “James Hobbs—work at Mr. Marrow’s.”
“When—and how?” asked the Chief Constable.
“About an hour ago, sir—maybe a bit more,” replied Hobbs. “I come
this way to my work every morning. I caught sight of him as I was
passing the top there, and I came down to take a look at him. Then I
saw he was dead, so I covered him up with my coat and ran along to
the village to tell the policeman there.”
“He was dead when you found him?” asked the Chief Constable.
“Made out he was dead enough, sir! I touched his hand and his
face—stone cold they was, both of ’em.”
The Chief Constable turned to the police-surgeon, who went forward
and removed the cloak. He stooped down and made a hasty examination;
then rose and spoke with decision.
“He’s been dead from, I should say, two to three hours—perhaps a
little longer,” he said. “Shot dead—a revolver, presumably.”
“Found anything of that sort?” asked the Chief Constable of the
policeman.
“Nothing, sir. I’ve looked carefully all round. There’s nothing.”
“Murder then!” muttered the Chief Constable. He went nearer and
looked intently at the dead man. “I suppose this is Mr. Guy
Markenmore?” he said, glancing at the keeper and the policeman. “I’ve
never seen him, you know—he’d left before I came to Selcaster.”
“This is Guy Markenmore, without a doubt,” said the police-surgeon.
“I knew him well enough. He’s very little altered, either. You knew
him, too, of course,” he continued, with a look at the keeper. “You
can recognize him?”
“Oh, I know him, sir,” exclaimed the keeper. “That’s Mr. Guy, right
enough, that is! I’d know him anywhere—poor gentleman!”
The Chief Constable looked round. Markenmore Court caught his eye,
lying amongst its elms and beeches three-quarters of a mile away
across the shelving hill-side. He shook his head.
“This is a bad business,” he muttered. “Who on earth should want to
murder him? Been away for—seven years, isn’t it? Well, he’ll have to
be removed, and we shall have to inform the coroner at once. Blick,”
he continued, turning to the plain-clothes man, “you take charge of
this. Send down to the village for help—have the body brought down
to the Court; the inquest can be held there. Let Hobbs there run down
to the village—send Walshaw back in the dog-cart to Selcaster for
the other policeman—and have all round here thoroughly examined for
footmarks, and so on. Doctor, will you stay by and come down with
them to the Court when they’re ready to remove him?—you’ll no doubt
want to make a more careful examination. Now then—we’ve got to break
the news to the family. Mr. Fransemmery, I think you know them all
pretty well—will you walk down with me? A painful duty, but it’s got
to be done.”
Mr. Fransemmery bowed his head, and he and the Chief Constable set
off at a smart pace across the downs. For awhile they walked in
silence: the Chief Constable broke it.
“I understand that Sir Anthony’s about at his last end,” he said.
“This—hello, what’s that?”
The two men stopped, staring at each other. Then, with a mutual
understanding, they turned sharply towards the valley. From the tower
of Markenmore Church came the deep, booming note of a bell; a moment
passed and it was repeated.
“The minute bell!” muttered the Chief Constable. “Then—Sir Anthony
Markenmore’s gone!”