FIRST STEPS
The messenger whom Blick had sent into Selcaster that morning, before
he himself went up to Markenmore Court to attend the Coroner’s
inquest, had carried a letter to the principal bookseller and
stationer in the old city. There were certain things that Blick found
himself in great need of in tackling the problems which had just been
put before him; the bookseller was the man to supply him. And now
here were the bookseller’s parcels—one, a long, rolled thing,
carefully wrapped in canvas; the other a fat little parcel in brown
paper. Blick undid that first and drew out and laid on his table a
folding road map, a general map of the county, two or three local
guide-books, illustrated by photographs, a more ambitious work,
_Environs of Selcaster_, also full of pictures, a Bradshaw’s Railway
Guide, and a local time-table. He looked over all these carefully as
he laid them out—they were just what he wanted. But he felt still
greater interest in the long, canvas-covered parcel, which, divested
of its wrappings, proved to contain the Government Ordnance Map of
the Markenmore village and immediate surroundings—a big square
thing, on stout paper, wherein every road, bylane, footpath, house,
cottage, meadow, wood, field, coppice, river, stream, hedgerow,
stile, was marked, named, and measured. Blick’s detective instincts
rejoiced at the sight of that masterly performance—he blessed the
men of the Ordnance Survey service for their meticulous care in
preparing it. Going out in search of Grimsdale, he procured some tin
tacks from him; with these he fastened his Ordnance Map to a
convenient blank space on the wall of his sitting-room, and for the
next half-hour stood smoking his pipe in front of it. At the end of
that time he had memorized the general lie of his surroundings and
committed the more important place-names to the secret cells of his
quick brain.
He turned then to the guide-books, maps, and timetables, and for two
hours pored over them with absorbed intentness. He wanted to know all
about roads, railways, and times—spade-work this, but of high
importance. And he saw at once that, as Walkinshaw had said, during
the informal talk which had followed on the adjournment, Markenmore
lay near the middle of a sort of triangle, with main roads running
along each side. The triangle formed by these roads was of the sort
which has two sides longer than the third, but are equal to each
other; the third was of further extent. Markenmore lay in the
south-west part of this triangle, inclining towards the corner made
by the bare line and the longer line of the three; consequently it
was nearer to two sides of the triangle than to the third, and
therefore to two of the main roads than to the other. Now of these
three main roads, two, both starting from London, ran to the Court,
within a few miles of Markenmore; the third ran all the way along the
coast itself. As regards highways, then, Markenmore was in direct
communication with London, exactly sixty-five miles to the
north-east, and with several coast towns at nearer distances.
But in addition to the triangle made by these main roads, there was
yet another, made by railways. The railways, indeed, followed, and
ran parallel with the highways; they corresponded to them in every
respect; road and rail ran alongside each other, with no greater
intervening space at any point than a mile or so. Markenmore was
within easy distance of these main railway routes. Several stations
could be easily gained from it. Selcaster itself lay two and a half
miles to the south-east; Mitbourne about the same distance to the
east; there was a somewhat important junction three miles to the
south-west; a roadside station four miles due north. And on turning
to his time-table, Blick discovered that between four and six o’clock
in the morning, there were, taking these four stations altogether, a
respectable number of trains going north or south, east or west, and
that from two stations, the junction aforesaid and the one to the
north, there were at a quarter to six every morning, workmen’s
special trains, which doubtless conveyed large numbers of craftsmen,
artisans and labourers into the big shipping port a few miles away on
the coast. Altogether, he saw that a smart, astute man would have no
difficulty in getting away unobserved from the Markenmore district by
an early morning train, in any one of at least six separate
directions.
Turning again to the question of access and excess by the roads,
Blick remembered what Walkinshaw had said about the facilities which
the district afforded for successfully hiding a motor-car while its
owner or occupant paid a visit. Here the Ordnance Map on the wall
gave him great help. The entire contour and configuration of the
country was plainly shown. North and north-east of Markenmore
village, behind Greycloister, Mr. John Harborough’s big house, The
Warren, Mr. Fransemmery’s residence, and Woodland Cottage, Mrs.
Braxfield’s domain, lay over downs, which, bleak and bare, in the
main, were intersected by deep lanes, and honeycombed by disused
chalk-pits, thickly grown over with vegetation and shrubbery; there
were also plantations, coppices, and here and there deep woods. It
would be an easy thing for any one to turn aside from a main road
into these solitudes, leave a motor-car in the shadows of some old,
unworked pit, or amongst the elms and beeches of a wood, while he
came down into the village. Moreover, Blick noticed that on the
Ordnance Map were marked several grass tracks across the downs; now,
he had already seen enough of the downs about Markenmore Hollow to
know that the turf up there was so wiry, resilient, and firm that you
could drive an automobile across it, almost anywhere, with as great
ease as on a macadamized road and without leaving any trace.
Therefore a man might have turned off the main roads, crossed the
downs to some point within a couple of miles of the village, left his
car in some convenient old chalk-pit, and felt assured that no one
would know how he came nor how he left. Up there, on those solitudes,
there was not a house, not a cottage, not even an outlying farm,
marked on the map.
So much for these matters—Blick now turned to a third. Grimsdale had
said that when the three men left his house at a quarter-past three
on Tuesday morning, he saw them walk up the road in the direction of
Greycloister and Mitbourne; Blick directed his attention to this
road. Immediately in front of the Sceptre, flanking on its front
garden, in fact, was the main road of the village; at the corner of
the garden it divided; one branch, to the right, turning off, direct,
to Selcaster; the other, on the left, turning to Mitbourne, and, at
about three hundred yards from the Sceptre, passing the entrance
gates of Greycloister. Now according to Grimsdale, the three men took
this road and disappeared along it. But Guy Markenmore, if the
medical evidence was reliable, was shot dead, about four o’clock, at
Markenmore Hollow, about a mile northward of this road. How had he
come there? The Ordnance Map and its meticulously careful markings,
showed that. Two hundred yards from the Sceptre Inn, on the Mitbourne
road, there were two footpaths, one on either side of the way. One,
on the south, or right-hand side, went across the meadows in the
directions of Selcaster; the other, on the north, or left-hand side,
turned up to the downs, between Greycloister and Woodland Cottage.
Near Markenmore Hollow—in fact, at the very spot whereat Guy
Markenmore’s dead body had been found by the ploughman, Hobbs, this
path struck into another, which led direct to Mitbourne Station. And
on seeing this, Blick came to a conclusion: When the three men came
to these footpaths, they separated. One man either turned back to the
village (unlikely, thought Blick) or took the right-hand footpath to
Selcaster (very probable, Blick considered); the other two men, of
whom Guy Markenmore was certainly one, took the left-hand path, and
climbed the hill-side to Markenmore Hollow. There Guy Markenmore was
suddenly murdered, and whichever man it was who was with him, whether
the presumed American who had come to the Sceptre at nine o’clock on
Monday night, or the man who had been given admittance at two o’clock
on Tuesday morning, was the murderer.
Arrived at this conclusion, Blick felt somewhat cheerful. He refilled
and lighted his pipe, put his hands in his pockets, and lounged out
of his sitting-room, across the hall, and into the bar-parlour. This
was years before the imposition of those rigorous licensing
restrictions which now prevent the free-born Englishman from taking
his ease in his inn whenever he feels so disposed, and though it was
only five o’clock in the afternoon the cosy bar-parlour contained
several customers—village idlers who were discussing the inquest and
the tragedy that had given rise to it. All and each already knew
Blick as the great London detective who had come there to find out
who had killed poor young Master Guy, and to hang that same varmint
when found, and they stared at Blick’s light hair, blue eyes, chubby
countenance, and smart town clothes as if wondering how such a
youthful-looking cherub could possibly possess the faculties of a
ferret and the persistency of a foxhound. But Blick, beyond giving
them a friendly nod, paid no attention to these patriarchs and
wiseacres—he fully intended to cultivate their acquaintance at some
future time, but just then he wanted a word or two with Grimsdale.
Grimsdale, in his shirt-sleeves, was polishing glasses at the farther
end of the bar; Blick strolled up and leaned over to him.
“I say!” he whispered. “A word or two with you, Grimsdale. That pipe
you found——”
“Yes, sir?” returned Grimsdale, leaning across the bar.
“I suppose,” continued Blick, “that you took a good look at it?”
“I did, sir.”
“Did you notice the name or initials of the makers?”
“Yes, sir. It was one of those L. & Co.’s pipes. I know ’em well
enough, Mr. Blick—my old guv’nor, Sir James Marchant, used to smoke
’em. He’s given me one of his old ones, now and again.”
“One of Löewe & Company’s, eh?” said Blick, who had already assured
himself of that fact, and only wanted to know if the landlord knew.
“L. & Co.’s sir—that’s what I call ’em; that’s how they’re
stamped—on the wood, and on the silver mount—and of course,
markings on the silver—a lion and a crown and so on, same as all
silver articles are.”
“Did you notice anything else about the pipe?”
“I noticed two things, Mr. Blick—I’m one of those that’s given to
noticing. It was a newish pipe; the other was this—there was a
slight, very slight chip in the edge of the bowl, as if its owner had
knocked out the ashes against something sharp—perhaps against the
edge of a fender, or against the heel of his boot, and caught a nail
there; I’ve seen many a good pipe chipped that way, however sound the
wood is.”
“Good!” said Blick. “You’ve certainly a talent for observation.”
Grimsdale smiled.
“Aye, well!” he said, sinking his voice still lower. “I didn’t say
anything about it in that witness-box, but—between you and me—when
I learnt all I did about this murder, I put a mark of my own on that
pipe!”
“You did?” exclaimed Blick. “What mark?”
“Bit of a cross on the silver band,” said Grimsdale. He winked
knowingly at the detective. “I’d know my own mark again—anywhere!”
Blick nodded. Then he glanced round at the men in the far corner of
the room.
“Gossiping about all this, I suppose?” he asked.
“Aye!” assented Grimsdale. “Lord bless you!—they’ll talk of nothing
else for many a day—unless there’s a four-legged fowl or a calf with
three heads comes along! It’s pie to them, all this, Mr. Blick. You
being a Londoner, you don’t know what village folk are for talk and
gossip!”
“Who’s the biggest gossip in the place?” asked Blick.
“Benny Cripps, the sexton,” replied Grimsdale promptly. “Get talking
to him, and he’ll tell you the whole history of Markenmore and every
man, woman, and child in it, high and low, rich and poor, since
Doomsday—whenever that was, and it must be a long time ago. They say
he knows the pedigree of these Markenmores, for instance, better than
they do themselves!”
“An interesting old party,” remarked Blick. “Where does he hang out?”
“Next cottage to the churchyard,” replied Grimsdale. “Old, thatched
cottage.”
“Well,” said Blick, lifting his elbows off the bar-counter. “I’m
going for a stroll—to have a look round. You’ll have supper ready
for me about eight?”
“Right, sir—got a nice roast chicken for you,” answered Grimsdale.
“A beauty!”
Blick laughed, nodded, and went away into the village street. He had
an eye for the picturesque, this tracker of criminals, and the little
south-country settlement, half as ancient as the hill-sides above it,
appealed to him. Markenmore was a place of tiny thatched cottages,
set in gardens and orchards, with here and there a substantial
farmstead, set back from the road, in its paddock or home-garth; its
main feature stood in its midst—a grey old church, whose tower and
spire rose high above the elms and poplars that fenced in the
churchyard. In these early spring days there was a great sense of
peace about these rustic surroundings, and it struck Blick that it
seemed odd that he should be there, amidst so much natural serenity,
under his present circumstances. Everything just then, from the new
flowers and plants in the cottage gardens to the new nests high in
the fresh-leaved trees, spoke of life—and his task was to discover
the author of a crime, the cause of a violent death.
He was presently reminded of that death and its consequences by the
sight of an old man, who, in a nook of the tree-surrounded
churchyard, was superintending the digging of two graves. Blick
remembered then that Sir Anthony Markenmore and his elder son were to
be buried side by side on the next day but one—the old man,
accordingly, must be the sexton, Benny Cripps, of whom Grimsdale had
just spoken. He entered the churchyard and went up to him; the
sexton, a gnarled old fellow of apparently seventy, turned from his
two diggers and gave the detective a knowing nod. He sat down on a
box-tomb dose by, and pulling out a short clay pipe proceeded to
light it.
“You be the young London feller what’s come here to find out who
killed young Mr. Guy, I do hear?” he observed, looking Blick over
with critical eyes. “A sharp ’un you be at your job, too, I do
understand. Well, and I ’low as how you’ve got your work set, my fine
young man, I do so! ’Tain’t going to be found out in a day, ain’t
that, nor yet in a week. Didn’t make much out at the Coroner’s
’quest, neither—no!”
“You were there, eh?” asked Blick.
“There I was, master, and hear all as was said. And come away about
so wise as I did go. Lord bless ’ee, ’tain’t only just starting this
here! You’m like one o’ they exploring fellers that goes into furrin
parts, setting out, like, on a path that you don’t know the end of!”
“I guess you’re about right,” admitted Blick. “Bit of a tangle, isn’t
it?”
”I believe ’ee, my son! And so far as I see, I don’t see no sort of a
clue as you can lay hands on to guide ’ee, like. All same, I do have
my own opinions—sure! And ain’t going to alter ’em for nobody—not
for the King himself, and no disrespect to him, neither.”
Blick sat down by the old man’s side, and lighted his own pipe.
“You’re Mr. Cripps, aren’t you?” he asked. “Sexton, I think?”
“Benjamin Cripps I be, young master, and sexton I am, and parish
clerk, and a mort o’ other offices, and the one man in this here
village can’t do without, nohow. Five vicars there’s been in
Markenmore i’ my time and here I am—buried four of ’em! They comes
and they goes—but I stops. Been parish clerk here five-and-forty
years, and my father he was same for nigh as many, and his father
before him; he was same, too, but for over fifty, the Crippses, we’ve
been in this parish as long as they Markenmores themselves, and
buried a sight or ’em, and now I’m going to bury two more. This here
church, now, you might say as how we Crippses, it belongs to
we—knows all about it, we do, and about most things in this here
village. Keeps it—so to speak.”
“And what do you think about this affair, Mr. Cripps?” asked Blick
suavely. “A man of your experience will have an opinion. Do you call
it a murder, now?”
“Murder I do entitle it, my dear young London man, and a grievous and
bloody one! Ain’t going for to say as how young Master Guy was a
parrygon of righteousness, ’cause he wasn’t, and didn’t make no
pretensions to being one o’ them here saints what we reads about in
the prayer-book. But murdered he was, and cruel shameful; and you
ain’t got on the real truth o’ the matter I do suppose—no, nor won’t
yet awhile. But I hope ’ee will, and I’ll tramp cheerful to hear
whoever done it sentenced to be hanged—so I will!”
“You haven’t any idea of your own about it, I suppose?” suggested
Blick.
“Ain’t got what you might call precise ideas—yet,” declared Cripps.
“But Lord bless ’ee, of course it do be something to do with
something rising out of that there young Jezebel at the Dower
House!—and I don’t care if she do hear me say so. Her be a terr’ble
sinful and scarlet lot, that! I mind she well enough when her pa was
vicar here, and her a young lass that should ha’ been minding her
hemming and stitching, and such-like women’s work. But her didn’t
never take to no such peaceful okkypations; her was allus a-trapesing
about wi’ a pack o’ young fellers at her skirts, and a-setting ’em by
the ears. Lot o’ trouble her occasioned when she was a girl, and now
as soon as her comes back to the place, her starts it again.”
“Then you think Mrs. Tretheroe’s something to do with it?” asked
Blick.
“Don’t say hers anything to do wi’ it, active like,” replied the old
sexton. “But I do say as how, in my opinion, hers at the bottom of
it, one way or another. Lord bless ’ee, some on ’em—young
gentlemen—was for fighting each other about her before her was
eighteen year old! If it had been i’ the old days, there’d ha’ been a
mort o’ they duels fought about her. Her was that sort—first
favouring one, and then t’other till they was all mad, like!”
“I suppose Mr. Guy Markenmore was pretty mad about her at that time,
eh?” suggested Blick.
“Umph!” said Cripps. “Runned after her a deal, he did, to be sure.
But he was a powerful bad ’un for running after women-folk of all
sorts, high and low—turned the heads of half the lasses in this
village, he did! Lord bless ’ee, he was always a-making love, all
round—couldn’t help it, seemed so. Left some aching hearts behind
him, did Master Guy when he went away to London town.”
“What, amongst the village girls?” asked Blick.
“Aye—and ’mongst the village men!” growled the sexton. “There was
more than one young feller that had reason to hate him, so there was!
Dead he is, and not to be spoke ill of now—but he was a bad ’un,
sure-ly!”
This paradoxical answer suggested a new train of thought to Blick,
and he presently went away to think it over. But ere he had gone far,
he remembered that he had a question to ask of Mrs. Tretheroe, so he
passed through the village and betook himself to the front door of
the Dower House.