Colonel Leach-Fletcher Is at Home to Visitors
“Stewart!” echoed Goodall. “Great Scott! Where on earth are we getting
to? Did you get a description of these people, Clegg?”
“I did, sir. According to my information the man was between thirty
and forty—his wife about the same. They had been at Blanchard’s Hotel
about a week—I didn’t wait for any more details—I was anxious to get
back to you with the information I had got!”
Goodall gave him a quick nod of praise, then turned to Anthony. “Do
you know what I’m thinking, Mr. Bathurst?” he said. “I’m thinking that
this lady and gentleman who left this hotel so suddenly are the
identical pair that lunched with Mr. Daventry. What do you think,
yourself?”
Anthony considered for a brief moment. “Yes, Inspector, I’m inclined
to agree with you—I _was_ thinking the same, myself. And when you get
them you’ll clap your hands on the murderer of poor Mason, the
night-watchman—you can bet your bottom dollar on that.”
Goodall’s jaw set tight. “Well, I _shall_ clap my hands on them—if it
means chasing them over two continents. At the same time—I’ve got
precious little to go upon—two people from New York that put up at an
hotel for a week and then walk out of it suddenly. It’s a needle in a
haystack job, very probably,” he concluded pessimistically.
“You have two other facts besides that, Inspector,” added Anthony.
“They possess a tapestry fire-screen, stolen from Day, Forshaw and
Palmers’, and the lady sneezes.”
Goodall snapped his fingers impatiently.
“All the same, Mr. Bathurst—that won’t help me overmuch. But with
regard to what you just said about the screen—have they one screen or
two?”
“That’s difficult to say, Inspector. I don’t know what to think—upon
reflection, perhaps two.”
“That’s what I think,” agreed Goodall, “and when I’ve had my little
interview with Miss Lennox and Llewellyn—I’ll decide upon a plan of
action.”
Half an hour later he joined Anthony and Peter. “I’m running up to
Blanchard’s Hotel,” he announced. “It’s imperative that I should have
a look round there—there may be a most valuable clue left behind—you
never know. What will you do, Mr. Bathurst?”
“I’m calling on a gentleman whose name has been mentioned more than
once in connection with this case, Inspector—a gentleman who lives
very near—Colonel Leach-Fletcher.”
Goodall’s face brightened. “Exactly my own idea,” he exclaimed, “it
was just on the cards that I called on him myself before getting my
train up to town.” He stopped and thought—then swung round quickly on
the two men. “And I will, Mr. Bathurst,” he declared, “I’ll come with
you—if anybody can tell us anything it’s this Colonel chap.”
“Right‑o, there’s no time like the present. What about getting away
now?”
“Delighted—I’ll just run back and tell Clegg.” Goodall dashed back and
within a couple of minutes had made a start. “The address is ‘Neuve
Chapelle’—it’s a charming bungalow, I’m given to understand, on the
road to Rockinge—a matter of about four miles. The gallant Colonel, I
presume, judging from the name he has given his bungalow, saw service
in the European War—I expect Stewart found him an interesting and
delightful neighbor.”
“No doubt,” agreed the Inspector, “I hear from Clegg that they were
pretty close cronies.”
“Neuve Chapelle” was reached in an hour, and the smart maid-servant
who answered their ring showed some signs of surprise at the number of
the visitors. The Colonel evidently didn’t have many friends who
called upon him of mornings. Goodall took upon himself the post of
spokesman.
“My compliments to Colonel Leach-Fletcher,” he said, “and will you
please tell him that Detective-Inspector Goodall, of Scotland Yard,
would like to see him for a moment or two?”
The maid-servant looked scared and her rosy cheeks whitened a trifle.
“Will you please step inside, I’ll tell my master.”
An interval of a few moments saw them ushered into what was evidently
the lounge. It was altogether a charming room, furnished in
irreproachable taste. A man in the early sixties was standing in the
center of the room—facing them as they entered. Colonel Leach-Fletcher
was a man of fine physique——round about five feet ten and weighing as
far as Anthony could judge from a quick glance, somewhere in the
region of fourteen stone. His manner was very decisive—some people
might have described it as curt.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” he said rather abruptly. “I understand you
wish to see me—about poor Stewart I presume?”
Goodall bowed. “These gentlemen are Mr. Anthony Bathurst and Mr. Peter
Daventry—they represent Mr. Charles Stewart’s interests.”
Colonel Leach-Fletcher acknowledged the introduction with a quick
inclination of the head—and a rather cavalier one, at that. “I am
ready to tell you anything you think necessary—but really, I’m afraid
you will find it of small consequence—sit down, gentlemen!” The
Colonel took up his position in front of the mantelpiece as his
self-invited guests accepted his invitation.
“In the first place, Colonel,” said Goodall, opening the interview, “I
am informed that you dined with the murdered man on the evening of the
murder, and left Assynton Lodge somewhere about ten o’clock.” Goodall
looked up for the Colonel’s corroboration. It came immediately.
“Quite correct!” Goodall waited to see if the Colonel purposed adding
anything to his reply, but the Colonel didn’t—he waited for Goodall.
“Was Mr. Stewart in normally good spirits during the evening,
Colonel?”
Colonel Leach-Fletcher twirled his white moustache. Then he thrust his
two hands deep into his trouser-pockets and stood still. “Look here,
Inspector—what name did you say—Goodall?—look here, Inspector
Goodall—I’m utterly opposed to beating about the bush, so I’ll tell
you straight to your face without any embroidery that I hate your
infernal trade and all its tricks and practices. But I’m a man that
realizes the exigencies of duty—so I’ll waive my personal inclinations
that prompt me to send you to the Devil—and I’ll answer your
question—even though I feel within me that I’m betraying a dead man’s
confidence. Mr. Stewart was _not_ exactly in his ordinary cheerful
frame of mind on the evening in question.”
“H’m,” said Goodall, “perhaps you will explain more fully.”
Anthony’s eyes never left the Colonel now—he realized that he might be
on the point of hearing something that touched the crime very closely.
The Colonel’s steely-blue eyes were full of resolution and
determination. He had made a decision, and though he found its
carrying-out irksome and unpleasant, he was determined to see it
through.
“You must understand that Stewart and I had become very friendly and
were on very intimate terms. We had a number of common interests and
we were almost neighbors, four miles isn’t a great distance in the
country. I am not sure that, when he invited me to dine with him that
evening, he hadn’t a special reason for so doing. If I may be
permitted to say so—he valued my opinion on most things and regarded
himself as privileged to consider me a friend. During the
evening—_after_ dinner—he took me into the library and told me of two
matters that were causing him a good deal of uneasiness. The first was
rather a surprising one. He told me that there was underhand work
going on at Assynton Lodge.”
Anthony, with a quick glance at Goodall, cut in. “Did he actually use
the word ‘underhand,’ Colonel?”
The latter pursed his lips. “Upon reflection, I believe he used the
word ‘treacherous,’ but I’m not absolutely certain on the point. Is it
very important?”
Anthony shook his head. “Tell us more, Colonel——this is most
illuminating.” The Colonel appeared gratified at this testimony to his
narrative powers. He proceeded.
“Mr. Stewart went on to tell me that more than once he had found that
his private papers and documents had been interfered with. This fact
was worrying him considerably and causing him great concern. It wasn’t
so much the espionage that troubled him, but the idea that there was
somebody near to him that was acting treacherously. I gathered from
his conversation with me that evening that he was determined to take
the bull by the horns and endeavor to put a stop to it, if at all
possible.”
“Did he suspect anybody?” questioned Goodall.
“I think not,” replied the Colonel, “at any rate, if he did, he
refrained from taking me into his confidence to that extent.”
“One point that strikes me as important, Colonel,” interposed Anthony,
“did Mr. Stewart give you any idea as to how long this had been going
on?”
“Only for a matter of months at the most—that at all events is
certain—it commenced, he told me, some time after he came to England.”
“Had he mentioned it to you before?” Anthony watched the Colonel very
keenly as he put this question to him.
“Not in actual terms,” came the reply, “he had hinted once or twice
very recently that he was disturbed about something, but he never gave
me any actual details till that last night of his life.”
The Colonel leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece and put his head in
his hand.
“What was the second matter that Mr. Stewart spoke about?” queried
Goodall.
The Colonel deliberated for a moment or two before he answered.
“There, gentlemen, you approach me on much more delicate ground. And
in some ways, I regret having made the admission to you and the
promise to tell you all I know. The dead man, if he still possesses a
spiritual consciousness in some other sphere, will, I hope,
understand. I can only hope also that the living man will understand
too. Gentlemen, Mr. Stewart was extremely upset about the conduct of
his son—Charles Stewart.”
Goodall’s body became all attention. It seemed to him that he was
beginning to emerge into the light at last.
“What had Charles Stewart done to offend his father?” he demanded. The
Colonel extended his hands towards them—palms upwards. It was a
gesture of deprecation and at the same time seemed to contain a tinge
of disappointment. “That is a question I cannot answer! Mr. Stewart
did not enlighten me. He told me that he was grievously disappointed
over something Charles had done. He said that it would make a
difference to his whole life.”
“_Whose_ life?” Anthony shot the question at him. “His own life or his
son’s?”
“I understood him to mean his _own_ life,” rejoined the Colonel very
quietly.
“And he gave you no inkling as to what this conduct was?”
“None at all!” The Colonel shook his head slowly, “and I didn’t press
him for any more information on the point. It would have been a breach
of courtesy on my part to have appeared unwarrantably inquisitive. I
let Mr. Stewart tell me as much as it pleased him—and I sympathized
with him. He was deeply attached to Charles and felt the
misunderstanding or whatever it was very keenly. There is just one
more piece of information that I am in a position to give. Mr. Stewart
intended having an interview with his son after I left that evening.
Of course, I can’t say that the interview ever took place.” The
Colonel caressed his moustache again.
Goodall sprang to his feet. “Good heavens, Colonel! Do you realize the
gravity of this last statement? Do you know at what time Mr. Stewart’s
murder has been put at—pretty well _fixed_?”
“I do not, Inspector,” responded the Colonel. “I have only heard the
bare facts.” He looked at Goodall with an invitation for information.
The Inspector gave it to him.
“As far as we are able to judge—we who have been looking into the
case—the late Mr. Stewart met his death somewhere about eleven
o’clock—just about an hour after Butterworth saw you out.”
The Colonel shrugged his square shoulders. “An hour is a long time,
gentlemen, I would remind you! And Charles Stewart may not have been
with his father after all. Events may have conspired to prevent
it—there’s no knowing. You are working more or less in the dark.”
Anthony ranged himself with the Colonel. “I quite agree with you, sir.
Half-a-dozen people might have been in the library with Mr. Stewart
between ten and eleven o’clock that night—there is no evidence to the
contrary—that’s certain. But this interview that you mention, Colonel!
Are you convinced that it was to be on the subject that had caused Mr.
Stewart such displeasure? That seems to me to matter a great deal.”
“I can’t be certain with regard to that,” was the Colonel’s reply.
“Mr. Stewart didn’t tell me so exactly—but I think that I should be
perfectly justified in assuming so—coming as it did after what he had
just previously told me.”
Goodall took a hand again. “Coming back to the details of your own
visit, Colonel—I’m sure you won’t mind answering a few more questions.
How did you travel over to Assynton Lodge on that particular evening?”
The Colonel’s reply came quickly with a touch of annoyance in his
voice. “By car, of course, my own car. What’s your point in asking a
question like that?”
Goodall affected not to hear the question—he made no immediate answer.
“So that I presume,” he continued, “that you were home here by
ten-fifteen easily?”
“I should imagine that would be about the time,” said Colonel
Leach-Fletcher testily, “though what the blazes all this has to do
with the affair——”
Goodall intervened again. “In that quarter of an hour’s journey—did
you pass anybody or notice anybody on the road?”
“I did not,” snapped the Colonel. “It was a perfectly glorious night,
and if I had passed anybody, I probably shouldn’t have seen them—my
attention is always too much taken up in driving my car.”
Anthony flashed him a cordial smile. “Fond of motoring, Colonel?”
“I am that. It’s one of my hobbies—the roads are pretty good down this
way, and I go for some fast spins.”
Anthony rubbed his hands. “You’re another like myself,” he chuckled.
“What’s your car?”
“A Bentley—latest model,” said the Colonel—“real beauty—I can knock an
easy seventy-five out of her.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen the latest model,” said Anthony reflectively,
“I don’t fancy——”
The Colonel broke in on his musings enthusiastically. “Come out to the
garage then and have a look at mine. It won’t take a moment.”
They followed the Colonel, who explained the car’s fine points with
the eagerness of a schoolboy. Goodall looked at his watch.
“Good-bye, Colonel,” he said, “I must be going! Many thanks for your
kindness. You know where I’m off to, Mr. Bathurst—don’t quite know
when I shall be back—if you want me, ’phone ‘the Yard.’”
The Colonel’s eyes followed his retreating figure for some distance.
“We must be going too, Colonel,” exclaimed Anthony, “but there’s one
little point before I go. That last evening you spent with Mr.
Stewart—did he refer to any book while you were there—was he reading
any book at any time during the evening? Try to remember if you
possibly can!”
The Colonel knitted his brows. “There was a book open on his desk, now
you come to mention it—I remember seeing it there—what was it called
now?” he searched his mind in the effort of remembrance—“I know—it was
Renan’s _Vie de Jésus_.”