The Assynton Lodge Murder
Sergeant Clegg assumed an air of profound sagacity, which did not
altogether become him too well. At the moment he was a prey to
conflicting emotions. A police-officer’s career in an obscure
Berkshire village doesn’t get too many chances for personal
“spot-light.” And although he felt that his big chance had come, he
had a nasty feeling somewhere at the back of his mind that the case
was going to prove _too_ big. However, he turned to the son of the
murdered man and to the Doctor who had accompanied him into the
library and made his preliminary announcement—importantly!
“Nothing in here must be touched. Nothing—whatever.”
“Nothing has been disturbed, Sergeant Clegg. Doctor Gunner arrived
only a few minutes in front of you.”
“That’s all right, then, Mr. Stewart! You might make your examination,
Doctor, with as little disturbance of the corpse as possible—will you?
I haven’t got a photographer handy—that business will have to come
later.”
The murdered man was seated in a chair at his desk—the cause of death
being painfully visible to all. He had received a heavy blow or blows
from behind—the back of his skull was smashed like an egg-shell. He
had apparently been in the act of writing when killed—for his pen had
almost entirely fallen from his grasp—the butt being just retained
between thumb and forefinger. He was dressed in a dark-blue
dressing-gown and on his feet were bedroom slippers. The dressing-gown
had been put on over his pajama sleeping suit and he gave every
appearance of having come downstairs from his bedroom. The doctor
busied himself for a few moments over his gruesome task. Meanwhile the
Sergeant turned to the young man who found himself so suddenly
bereaved. He cleared his throat—twice.
“Tell me the details, Mr. Stewart, as far as you are able.” Stewart
shook his head.
“I know very little. The maid who does the library every morning was
amazed this morning to find the door locked. She couldn’t understand
it, so she informed Butterworth, the butler. He went along and found
that what she had reported was correct. He sought me out and we found
Mr. Llewellyn, my father’s secretary. We went to my father’s bedroom.
It was empty—the bed had not been slept in. So we decided to burst
open the library door. You can see for yourselves how we found my
father. I immediately telephoned for you and for Doctor Gunner.”
“The door was locked, you say. Where was the key?”
“In the lock—on the inside.”
Clegg strolled across to the French doors that opened on to the
garden. “These are fastened all right. All the bolts are shot.” He
stooped down and examined them.
“By gum—that’s funny. How did the murderer escape? Bit of a
puzzle—eh?”
Stewart saw the drift of his remarks. “Extraordinary, isn’t it?” he
ventured.
Clegg walked over to the desk and looked at it carefully. Beside the
dead man’s hand there rested a sheet of notepaper. The Sergeant took
it up. “Looks as though this is what he was writing when the blow
fell,” he suggested.
Scrawled on the paper were the words, “Urgent in the morning! M. L.”
“This your father’s handwriting, Mr. Stewart?” he asked.
The young man looked over his shoulder. “Yes,” he said. “Without a
doubt—although it looks to me as though it had been written very
hurriedly or in a moment of extreme agitation—it isn’t as firm as
usual.”
Clegg leaned over the dead man and felt in the pockets of his
dressing-gown.
The right-hand pocket was empty. He gave a sharp exclamation when he
took from the left—a revolver. He looked at it carefully. “Loaded in
five chambers,” he declared—“the sixth has been discharged.” His eyes
traveled slowly round the room. Then they came back to Stewart. “Did
you hear anything like a shot any time last evening or during the
night?”
Stewart shook his head in dissent. “Nothing at all!”
“Is this your father’s revolver?”
“It looks like it—though it’s a common pattern.”
Clegg turned to the Doctor. “Finished your little investigation,
Doctor?”
“Yes,” was the reply. “Been dead about twelve hours, I should say, and
received three blows I think! I’ll leave him as nearly as possible as
he was when I came in. I’ll make arrangements for moving him later.”
“Thank you, Doctor!” Clegg returned to young Stewart. “I suppose your
father had had no recent quarrel with anybody?”
“N—no. Not that I’m aware of! Of course a man with his vast financial
interests didn’t go through life without making some enemies—and
pretty vindictive ones at that—but I can think of nothing
special—certainly not recently.”
He spoke with deep feeling in his voice, and Clegg wasn’t absolutely
sure that there hadn’t been just a trace of hesitation in the first
part of his answer.
“How old was your father, Mr. Stewart?” he continued.
“Fifty-three in July—on the twenty-second of next month. We have been
in England only a matter of a few months.”
“From America, wasn’t it? I remember your coming here.”
“New York—previously we had lived at Washington and Chicago.”
“You the only member of the family living here?”
“My father’s ward, Miss Lennox, lives here also. She is like a member
of the family.”
“Who else is in the house?”
“My father’s private secretary—a Mr. Morgan Llewellyn—Butterworth, the
butler, and his wife, who acts as housekeeper, and the servants.”
“Any idea, Mr. Stewart, who was the last person to see your father
alive?”
“I don’t know that I can answer that question with certainty. I had
been out during the evening—playing tennis. I returned about a quarter
to ten. My father was in here with Colonel Leach-Fletcher—that’s a
neighbor of ours—I simply put my head round the door and said
‘Good-night.’”
“Didn’t you go in and speak to the Colonel?”
“Oh no! He’s a constant visitor here, has been on very friendly terms
with my father ever since we came here. I never feel on ‘company
manners’ with him.”
“Any idea what time the Colonel left?”
“No—Butterworth could probably tell you.”
“Butterworth’s the butler, isn’t he? And the secretary’s name is
Llewellyn? How long have they been with you?”
“Butterworth came into my father’s service when we were living at
Washington. He was butler to Sir Julian Kennedy, the British
Ambassador at Washington at that time. When Sir Julian died—about
fifteen years ago I should say—speaking from memory—my father offered
him employment. My father”—his voice broke a trifle—the realization
that his father was dead was becoming more poignant to him as time
passed—“regarded him as invaluable.”
“And Mr. Llewellyn? How long has he been with your father?”
“About two years. He came to us when we were in New York.”
“The butler’s wife—you said just now, I think—acts as housekeeper?”
“Yes. There are four maids here, also.”
“Any comments to make on them?” The Sergeant puffed out his cheeks and
endeavored to look impressive.
“I have nothing against any of them.”
“You’ll forgive me, I hope, putting the question, Mr.
Stewart—especially at a time like this—had your father any
entanglements as you might say with the opposite sex?” The indelicacy
of his query affected the Sergeant so profoundly as to produce a
superfluous aspirate.
But once again he was destined to draw a blank.
“You can make your mind easy on that point, Sergeant. My mother died
ten years ago when I was twelve. It was a great blow to my father—they
idolized each other—I don’t think the thought of another woman since
has ever entered my father’s mind.” He kept his gaze resolutely
averted from the still figure at the desk. Doctor Gunner, before he
had slipped out, had reverently laid a white towel over the head and
face. But the boy’s nerves were rapidly getting on edge, and he felt
he would be unable to endure this phlegmatic policeman very much
longer. Clegg, however, was nothing if not “thorough.” His favorite
philosophy was to contemplate the epic struggle of the hare and the
tortoise and whenever he was tempted to hitch his personal wagon to a
star he always took excessive care to see it was well secured. “I
don’t believe in taking a lot of risks,” he was wont to say to his
staff at Assynton. “Care may have killed the cat, but it’s never been
known to have killed a policeman.”
This case that Fate had tossed so unexpectedly into his lap was
beginning to worry him a trifle. It was so much bigger than anything
he had previously handled. Once again the conviction was borne upon
him that in all likelihood it would prove eventually to be too much
for him. However, “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” might
have been his uppermost thought as he squared his ponderous shoulders
and walked across the room. As you entered, the desk stood on the left
with its back to the left-hand wall. The leathern arm-chair in which
the dead man sat was drawn up to the desk in the usual way. A person
seated in this arm-chair would therefore show the left-hand side of
his face to anybody entering by the door. Facing the door stood a
bookcase—sectional. It was of many more sections than is usual.
Stewart was evidently a lover of books—the “standard” authors jostled
each other and Coventry Patmore rubbed shoulders with Renan,
Baudelaire and Verlaine. On the right were French windows commanding
the garden. No part of it, however, brought Sergeant Clegg his badly
needed “inspiration.” Nothing in the room seemed to him to tell any
story other than its natural one. He walked back to the door. That
door worried him. “Key in the lock on the inside,” he muttered—“bolts
on the French doors shot—top and bottom—and a dead man inside the
room.”
He made his disconsolate way to the fireplace—on the bookcase’s right.
Bending down, he stepped into the hearth and attempted to look up the
chimney. The attempt proved completely unsuccessful as a source of
inspiration. It was speedily made plain to the Sergeant that the
murderer of Laurence P. Stewart had not escaped in that direction.
Then an idea struck him.
“Have you communicated with your father’s solicitors, Mr. Stewart?”
Stewart shook his head. “No, my father’s solicitors are Crake and
Ferguson—New York. I’m going to get Mr. Llewellyn to cable them as
soon as possible.”
“New York’s a long way away. It’s a pity you haven’t somebody nearer.”
“I may be able to get into touch with somebody who may assist me—till
Crake and Ferguson move in the matter. I had considered that
possibility myself.”
Clegg concurred with a heavy shake of the head.
“Good. Now I must get a move on, too. I had better have an interview
with some of these others.” He consulted his note-book with judicial
gravity. “Ring for this Mr. Llewellyn—will you, Mr. Stewart—please?”
Within a few minutes the summons was answered. The secretary was a man
somewhere in the early thirties. Of good height and slim, with the
hair thinning considerably on the front of his head, his general
appearance, aided by the pince-nez that he wore, suggested what may be
termed not unkindly an academic superciliousness. His eyes were a
rather unusual shade of reddish-brown and gave an acute observer an
impression of brooding watchfulness. He entered the room quietly, yet
perhaps warily.
“You wished to see me, I believe?”
Sergeant Clegg grunted a somewhat reluctant affirmative.
“I am conducting a preliminary investigation, Mr. Llewellyn, into the
death of your employer, Mr. Laurence Stewart. If it lies in your power
at all to help me, I want you to do so.”
“I am perfectly willing to tell you all I know—which I’m afraid isn’t
very much.”
“Thank you. When were you first informed of the tragedy?”
“This morning—about eight o’clock—just about an hour and a half ago. I
was in my bedroom dressing when Mr. Charles Stewart came to my door
and told me he feared something was amiss with his father. I finished
my toilet hastily and joined him and the butler, Butterworth. The
maid, it appeared, had been unable to get into the library—the door
was locked. The three of us burst down the door and were horrified to
find Mr. Stewart as he is.” He inclined his head in the direction of
the motionless body.
“What did you do then?”
“Well, we rushed up to him—but it didn’t take us very long to realize
that he was dead.”
“And then——?”
“Mr. Charles Stewart gave me certain orders to convey to the servants
while he telephoned for you and for the doctor.”
“I am told, Mr. Llewellyn, that after you three gentlemen burst the
door open—you found the key in the lock on the inside.”
“That is true. Mr. Charles Stewart called my attention to it
specially.”
“And the French doors were also fastened—all the bolts firm in the
slots?”
“Yes.”
“When did you last see your employer alive?”
“At dinner, last night.”
“Was it your custom to dine with him?”
“Usually I did. Our dinner party generally consisted of Mr. Stewart,
his son, Miss Lennox, and me.”
“Was that the case last evening?”
Charles Stewart intervened. “I did not dine here last evening. I was
out. I think I told you. I was playing tennis.”
Clegg nodded his head. “That’s all right, sir! I understand!”
Llewellyn proceeded. “Colonel Leach-Fletcher completed our party last
evening—but really, I don’t see——”
“Had this Colonel any particular reason for dining here last evening?”
Stewart allowed a faint smile to illumine his features. “What on earth
do you mean, Sergeant? Colonel Leach-Fletcher dined here at my poor
father’s invitation—he didn’t suddenly announce that he intended to
stop for dinner.”
Llewellyn’s brooding eyes seemed to smoulder for a brief instant—then
they flickered back to their habitual watchfulness. He allowed himself
the vestige of a smile. His smile broadened as the Sergeant made a
clumsy attempt at extrication.
“Naturally, naturally, gentlemen. Exactly what I meant.” He followed
the secretary’s eyes and observed them rest on the desk-table in front
of the dead man. “It seems that Mr. Stewart was writing a message of
some kind when he was struck down?”
“Yes,” came Llewellyn’s quick response, almost automatically. “Mr.
Charles Stewart and I noticed that when we first found the body.”
“What do you think its meaning is?”
Llewellyn raised his eyebrows in interrogation. The poise of his head
and the somewhat peremptory significance contained in his gesture,
accentuated his suggestion of superciliousness.
He held out his hand. “May I see it again? I hardly——”
Clegg took the paper from beneath the dead man’s hand. “Not much to go
on, I admit! But Mr. Stewart had evidently received important news of
some kind that he regarded as very urgent. To sit down to write it
there and then——” he stopped abruptly. “M. L.” he quoted. “They might
be a person’s initials even,” he declared.
Stewart felt a flood of sudden excitement run through his veins. He
watched Llewellyn’s face keenly and could not avoid seeing the sudden
glint flash through the striking eyes. But once again the flame was
but momentary and died down as quickly as it had been born.
When the secretary answered he was coolness personified. “They might.
It’s very probable. They might even be mine. I am called Morgan
Llewellyn.”
He paused and watched the effect of his declaration upon his
questioner. Then continued, even cooler than he had appeared before,
“But I can suggest no good reason to make me think that they are.”
Both Clegg and Charles Stewart watched him very closely. And to each
of them there came the feeling—in the first case, slowly and of
deliberation, and in the second case, quickly and instinctively—that
his coolness was assumed and his seemingly frank indifference
something of a calculated pose.
Clegg harked back. “Going back a little way, Mr. Llewellyn, you stated
that you last saw Mr. Stewart at dinner. What happened after dinner?”
Again Llewellyn’s answer came quickly. “After dinner, Mr. Stewart
intimated to me that he was going into the library with Colonel
Leach-Fletcher—and that he wouldn’t require anything further from me.
I think that he had something to discuss with the Colonel, who is a
keen collector like Mr. Stewart—was. I was free to do as I pleased.”
“What did you do?”
“I spent the rest of the evening with Miss Lennox in the music-room.”
“What time would that be?”
“From about half-past eight till ten o’clock, I should say!”
Clegg made a note of the times. “One more question, Mr. Llewellyn! Did
you go straight to bed after that?”
“I did. I was in bed, I should think, by half-past ten.”
“Now think very carefully, Mr. Llewellyn. Did you at any time during
the evening or during the night hear anything like a revolver shot?”
Llewellyn started up in his chair, stung by surprise. “Certainly not!”
Clegg glanced at Stewart. “Confirms your statement, Mr. Stewart. I
can’t think myself that the shot was fired in here. The fact of the
revolver being in your father’s pocket—not in his hand—the fact that
there is a complete absence of any signs of a struggle—both those
facts seem to me to point to the shot having been fired elsewhere—at
some other time.”
Stewart appeared to agree. “I heard nothing. I told you I didn’t.”
The Sergeant thought for a moment. “How far away are your bedrooms?”
he demanded.
“Mine is on the floor above this,” answered Charles Stewart.
“Llewellyn’s is above that.”
“Where is your father’s?”
“Next to mine! The only other bedroom on that floor is used by Miss
Lennox.”
“And the servants?”
“On the same floor as Llewellyn’s. On the other wing.”
“Thank you, Mr. Stewart. I don’t think I shall need Mr. Llewellyn any
more for the present. Thank you, Mr. Llewellyn.”
The secretary bowed and thanked the Sergeant, not without a touch of
irony.
Charles Stewart turned to him as he walked to the door.
“You might get that cable off to New York, that I mentioned to you
previously, and also ’phone to that firm in Cornhill who were acting
for my father to-morrow, will you? Explain the circumstances and tell
them to consider their instructions cancelled. I can’t see any reason
why I should go ahead with those purchases now. Stay, though, a
minute—get them for me and I’ll speak to them—I’ll tell them all about
the whole affair. Probably that will avoid any misunderstanding.”
Llewellyn took his instructions quietly and went out. Charles Stewart
gestured to the Sergeant.
“My father intended to purchase two or three more very special
antiques—he was always anxious to add to his collection. Now that this
dreadful thing has happened—I don’t care to go on with it.”
“I understand exactly how you feel, sir. It does you credit.”
“Whom will you see next, Sergeant? Or have you finished for the time
being?”
Clegg looked at his note-book—then wetted the point of his pencil,
thoughtfully.
“I should like a few words with the lady that’s been mentioned, Mr.
Stewart. This ward of your father’s—Miss Lennox.”
Stewart turned quickly. “I don’t think she’ll be able to——”
The door moved and Llewellyn entered. Charles Stewart frowned.
“I’ve got through to Cornhill, Mr. Stewart. If you would come
along—they’re holding the line. Mr. Linnell is out—Mr. Daventry, the
junior partner, is speaking.”
“Right.” He turned again towards Clegg. “Pardon me for a minute or
two, Sergeant. I’ll just transact this little piece of business and on
my way back I’ll tell Miss Lennox you would like to speak to her. You
will see her in another room, of course.” He looked across at the desk
significantly. Clegg showed his agreement. The glorious June sunshine
flooded through the French doors and bathed the room with its
shimmering shafts. It seemed completely incongruous in that room where
so recently tragedy had dwelt. Shadows would have become it more
fittingly than sunshine. The presence of the dead man stirred an
emotional chord in Clegg’s being and he shivered. He walked away from
the desk beside which he had been standing towards the French doors
and looked out into the garden. For a moment or two he stood there
thinking—his shivery feeling vanishing under the warming and
comforting influence of the summer sun. He glanced down at the
curtains that hung, one at the side of each door—then started. Bending
down quickly, he picked out something that had been lying hidden
there—something that nestled a pure white against the creamy-white of
the curtains. It was a lady’s handkerchief—fragrant, fragile and
delicate. Holding it somewhat gingerly, he opened it! In the corner
were embroidered initials—“M. L.”
“By Gum!” said Sergeant Clegg.