Crondall is a small market town on a chalk stream in a Southern
county, and about two miles from it down the valley lies the
shooting- and fishing-box which Vane-Cartwright, as I found, had
lately taken, with a very considerable shooting in the well-wooded
hills, which lay behind it reaching up to the chalk downs, and with a
mile or so of fishing in the trout-stream which passed through the
garden. People shoot because it is the thing to do, but as a rule they
do not hunt or fish unless they like it. So it was for the shooting
that Vane-Cartwright had taken this place, a very charming place for a
bachelor, and within easy reach of town. Trethewy, however, had been
engaged as a sort of water-bailiff and to look after the fishing,
which he was more or less competent to do. I found him installed in a
queer old thatched cottage which stood on an island, formed by two
branches of the stream, at the lower end of the garden. The cottage
could be approached by a narrow footbridge from a private footpath
which led from Crondall. On the other side of the stream a public
footpath led towards the small village and the once famous fishing
inn, at which I took up my quarters for a few nights. The bridge just
mentioned was formed by two narrow brick arches, and above them were
hatches which were now raised; and just below the bridge the stream
was spanned by one of the old-fashioned fish-houses which are
occasionally found on South-country streams, under the floor of which
were large eel traps in which eels migrating down stream were caught.
Under the fish-house, which was entered from Trethewy’s cottage, the
stream rushed in two pent-up channels which joined again in a broad,
reed-fringed pool, with a deep dark hole immediately below the
fish-house. My eye fastened on this pool at once as the best morning
bath which had been offered me for some years.
Why was Trethewy there? Was Trethewy after all an accomplice in the
crime? My wife and I were agreed in not inclining to that explanation,
though in some ways it looked the most plausible. It followed that one
or more of the family was, to the knowledge of Vane-Cartwright, in
possession of information which, if it came out, would establish
Vane-Cartwright’s guilt. It did not follow that any of them had guilty
knowledge; probably they were not aware of the significance of what
they knew. Which of them held this dark secret, and how was I to
elicit it?
In the call just after their tea-time, which I lost no time in paying,
I found that each of the family was for a different reason hard to
approach on the topic on which I was so impatient to enter. I was
welcomed respectfully and cordially enough, but they were evidently
puzzled and surprised at my visit. I tried Trethewy first. He struck
me as much improved by his season of adversity, by the more active
life he now led, or by the rigid abstinence to which, as I soon
gathered, he had brought himself; but he told me quite firmly he never
spoke, never wished to speak of the question of Peters’ death. He had
himself suffered the horror of being accused when he was innocent; he
wished to run no risk of bringing the same on some other possibly
innocent man. Besides, the guilt of his own thought and motives still
weighed on him, and he had no wish to judge any other. Nevertheless,
he said plainly, when I asked how he liked his new position, that he
was ill at ease to have come and hoped soon to get away. From his
impenetrable manner, I began to fancy that, contrary to what I had at
first thought, the secret rested with him, and in that case the secret
would be very difficult to extract. As for Mrs. Trethewy, from the
time of the murder two thoughts had mainly occupied her mind: anxiety
for her husband, and anxiety that her daughter, for whose upbringing
she was so careful, should know nothing of the suspicion that had
rested on her father, and hear as little as possible of the horror
that had occurred so near her. The girl had been bundled away, the
very day after the discovery, to stay with Mrs. Trethewy’s mother, who
lived thirty miles away from their home. And to this day, the mother
told me, the girl had no idea that her father had been in prison
charged with the crime. Accordingly, Mrs. Trethewy was overflowing
with gratitude to Vane-Cartwright, who had found them this new home
far away. She told me that he had always seemed to take a fancy to her
husband, and had visited their cottage several times during his stay
with Peters; and that it was after a talk with him that she sent the
girl away to her grandmother’s. That the suggestion had actually come
from him she did not say, it was a mere guess of mine that he had
contrived to put it into her head. With the girl, whom she sent on an
errand to Crondall, I got no opportunity of talk that night, and I had
to return to my inn ill-satisfied with my exploration so far, and
puzzled how to proceed.
I got my bathe next morning in the pool of which I have spoken (this
is not quite so unimportant as it may seem). Trethewy managed to
ensure me privacy for the purpose, and after that I called on the
Trethewy family again. I have remarked already that I supposed myself
to have heard all that any grown-up person in my old parish could tell
in regard to the murder and its surrounding circumstances. It had been
borne on my mind strongly since my meeting with Vane-Cartwright at
Florence, that others besides adults have eyes and memories, that
Trethewy’s girl had been near the house at the time of the murder and
on the following day, and that I could not count on having heard from
her parents all that she might have to say that might be interesting
to me. When I called on the Trethewys again, I found it an easy matter
to get a walk by the river-side alone with the girl. I had anticipated
that, if I were to pay any decent regard to her mother’s hitherto
successful wishes for her ignorance, I might have to talk long and
roundabout before I could elicit what I wanted. I soon found that it
was not so. Ellen Trethewy, though little taller than before, had
mentally grown in those fifteen months from a shy and uninteresting
schoolgirl to a shy but alert, quick-witted and, as it now struck me,
rather interesting young woman.
We had many things belonging to old times to talk over, but I found
her anxious herself to talk on the very subject on which I was bent,
and I found in a moment that her mother’s precautions had been
absolutely vain. Knowing her mother’s wish, she had never alluded to
the matter since; but her grandmother, who disliked Trethewy, had
taken a keen pleasure in acquainting her with all that she herself
knew (and a good deal more besides) about the course of the
proceedings against him. The girl, not quite trusting her grandmother,
had procured and carefully read the newspaper account of the trial
before the magistrates. She had never doubted for one instant, she
told me, that her father was innocent, and it was with more than
common understanding that she studied the details in the story which
might make his innocence clear. “Is it very wicked of me, Mr. Driver?”
she said, “that I do not feel a bit, not a bit grateful to Mr.
Vane-Cartwright, and I do not believe father does. I do believe he
would have gone to the workhouse rather, if he had known it when we
came here that he was to be under Mr. Vane-Cartwright. But he thought
the gentleman who sent for us, and who was really his agent, was the
master of the place; and, once we were here, mother begged him so not
to go. Mother is always saying how good Mr. Cartwright has been to us,
and father never answers a word; but I am sure he has a plan to take
us away somewhere far off.” “Tell me,” I said, “what makes you say all
this. Have you seen anything in Mr. Vane-Cartwright to make you think
he had some wrong reason for getting your father to come here?” “Oh, I
do not say that,” she said, “but I have always feared his looks.
Always, I think, since he first came to our house to talk to father,
and much more since I saw him at the window that dreadful morning when
poor Mr. Peters lay dead.” “Why, what could you see that morning?” I
said. “Oh, very little,” she said. “You see, of course we heard the
news as Edith passed by on her way to call the police, and mother told
me to keep within doors, and she kept in herself, and then she went to
father and woke him, and she stayed there talking to him, and I was
alone and I felt so frightened. And then the policeman came, and you,
sir, and the doctor; and by-and-by some neighbours came looking in.
One of them was Mrs. Trimmer who kept the baker’s shop, and I was fond
of her, and I do not know whether it was that I was frightened to be
alone, or just inquisitiveness, for I was a child then, though it is
not so long ago, but, though I never disobeyed mother before, I did so
that time; and I went out, and Mrs. Trimmer took my hand and we walked
up and looked at the house. It was not much we saw, for all we stood
so long staring; but the front door opened and we saw that Irish
gentleman look out, looking so sad, poor man, and then he took a turn
or two up and down in the hall, leaving the door open; and then we
could hear voices, and the rest of you came downstairs and into the
hall, but I could see Mr. Vane-Cartwright come to the window of Mr.
Peters’ room, and he stood there looking out of the window with his
hand leaning on the sash of the window, leaning forward, seeming to be
looking out intently at the people below.” “Did he open the latch of
the window?” I asked at once. “I couldn’t say that,” said she. “Why
were you so frightened?” I asked. “Oh, I do not know,” said she; “he
didn’t look anything very terrible, and I couldn’t see him well for
there was frost on the window, but I knew him by his black moustache.”
I suppose every one of my readers has been guilty of mislaying some
little article of importance and looking for it everywhere but in the
right place, which always turns out to have been the most obvious
place of all. Perhaps I may be forgiven for having all these fifteen
months been doing something analogous. I had not only overlooked
Trethewy’s daughter; I knew when I spoke to Sergeant Speke about those
tracks in the snow that there was something more I had meant to ask
him and had forgotten; and often since I had been dimly conscious of
something forgotten. That something was the window-latch. The girl
could not tell me about it, but at least it might be possible to prove
by others, who had been in the room, that none but Vane-Cartwright
unlatched that window.
I make this obvious reflexion now because I made it then, and in
making it wasted a moment of possible talk with the girl, a trifling
waste which was near to having momentous consequences. Of course it
was not because the girl had been standing then on the lawn that
Vane-Cartwright had taken the step, when every unnecessary step
involved risk, of wiling the Trethewys away in this secret manner. He
knew she had something more to tell; she was about to tell it me. “I
hardly know,” she broke in on my silence, “whether I ought to think as
I do, but I would like to tell you what——” “Well, Ellen!” said, in
cheerful tones, a voice that was somehow not cheerful, “taking a
walk—who is the happy?—why, it is Mr. Driver. I did not expect the
good luck of meeting you again so soon.” Where was I staying, What
good chance brought me there, and Really I must move my luggage
instantly to his house, and so forth, from the last man in the world
whose company I desired at that moment.
I got off staying with him. I got off, I know not on what excuse, true
or false, an afternoon’s fishing and a pressingly urged dinner. But
then (for an idea struck me) I would, if I had finished the sermon I
was writing for a Saint’s day service (not in the calendar, I fear) at
a neighbouring church to-morrow, stroll over to Vane-Cartwright’s
after my supper if he was in any case going to be in. He would in any
case be in, and delighted to see me. He would be in from seven
onwards. He dined at 7.30, and if I thought better of it would be
delighted to see me then, and I must not dress. For the present, as
Ellen had to go home, might he not show me the short way to my inn. It
was not what I should have thought a short way, but it was
delightfully secluded, and it led us by quite a curious number of
places (a rather slippery plank over a disused lock will do as an
example), where I fancied that an accident might have befallen an
unwary man with a too wary companion. Perhaps it was only the
condition of my nerves that day that made me a little proudly fancy
such things, for I was not only highly strung, I was unusually
exhilarated. It was a great change since our last meeting, for this
time I felt that I had at last gained a definite advantage, and,
little as he showed it, I thought I was talking with a desperate man.
It is not safe to be dealing with a desperate man, but, if you happen
not to pity him, it is not a disagreeable sensation. As we passed over
a footbridge (I was going first, and there were stakes and big stones
below on which a man might hurt himself if he fell) it was probably
one of my fancies that the shadow of my companion, cast before him,
made an odd, quick movement with its arm. Anyhow, I turned my head and
said with a laugh what a handsome stick Mr. Vane-Cartwright was
carrying. I asked what wood it was. I did not ask whether it was
loaded. He told me what wood it was, where he bought it and what he
gave for it. He told me what an interesting medallion was set in the
head of it, but he did not show me that medallion. After that I had a
further fancy. It was that my guide took less polite pains than he had
taken to let me pass first through every narrow place. Let me say at
once that I do not suppose he very seriously thought of attacking me
there; perhaps his eyes were open for any very favourable spot, but
perhaps it was all my fancy. In spite of that fancy I was thoroughly
enjoying my walk. It was a new sensation, to me to be doing most of
the conversation, and I was surprised and pleased with myself to think
that I was doing it well. Perhaps I was doing it well, but I do not
think it was my guidance of the talk which brought it back to the
subject of Trethewy. Vane-Cartwright managed to tell me that he hoped
no rumour of suspicion attached to Trethewy here, or to any one at all
connected with him. Would I mind trying to find this out from the
landlord at the inn. He was a greater gossip than any old woman in the
place, and a shrewder one. “I would not,” he added, “trust everything
he says, for he embroiders on what he has heard; but he hears
everything, and he is shrewd, and I discovered a few weeks back that
he had an acquaintance in your old parish.”
By this time we were at the inn door, and I noticed the landlord’s
name, which was the same as that of a man of doubtful character who
had come to Long Wilton just before I left it. Several people were
about, and they might, if they chose, hear every word of what he
spoke, except when he dropped his voice. “Stop,” he cried, and I stood
still. “I am going to be open with you, Mr. Driver, as open as I
thought you would have been with me. I have been trying to bring
myself to it all this walk, and I will now. I have not said what I
meant” (here he dropped his voice) “about Trethewy. I have really”
(this in a whisper) “begun to suspect him myself. Oh, yes, you laugh;
I know what you suspect of me. Do you think I cannot see what
interpretation you put upon every one of my doings that you know of,
in your own house, at Peters’ before—long ago at the island of Sulu, I
daresay. You think” (this time so loud that I thought the landlord and
other men must hear, though, as I reflected later, the phrase he used
was so chosen that a countryman would not readily take it in), “you
think I am the assassin of Eustace Peters. Well, I am not.” We turned
and walked away again from the inn. “I know,” he continued, “how
things look. I should not wonder if I were fated to hang for this. I
should not greatly care now, for I have thought it so long, but
hanging for it and being guilty of it are different matters.” He kept
his eyes fixed steadily on me all this while. “You thought things
looked ugly for Trethewy once, did you not? But I know you thought him
innocent when it was hard to think so. I do not ask you to believe me,
but I ask you to keep the same firm, clear mind now. You think
Trethewy did not kill Peters. So do I. He did not actually kill him,
he no more did that than you did. Now I know you will answer me
straight. You are too brave a man to care about playing the part you
played at Florence. Have you found or have you not found any direct
evidence whatever, true or false, that convicts any man—convicts him
if it is true—of making those tracks, or of going to or coming from
the place where they were made? Shall I repeat my question? Is it not
clear, or are you still uncertain whether you will answer it?” I could
do no other; I told him truly that I had nothing but inference to go
upon as to who made those tracks, and I told him that my inference
pointed to him. “Naturally,” he said quietly (here we turned and paced
slowly towards the inn again). “Only, till you have something better
than that inference, remember that there may be more subtle motives
than you think of for making false tracks. Anyway (for it is no good
my arguing with you further, I see that), here is one piece of advice
that you may take or leave—honestly, you had better take it if you
value your future peace of mind—keep your mind open a little longer.
Go away from here, and visit Long Wilton again and hear what they say
there now; or, if you will not do that, stay here long enough to
watch Trethewy, and the girl, and the people that you may see about
with them,—one man in particular. Well, good-bye, Mr. Driver,
pardon my saying I respect you in spite of Florence.” The manner of
this last remark was maddening. I was keenly stung. I said, “Mr.
Vane-Cartwright, after all, Peters’ death is not the only mysterious
death you and I know of.” “Oh, Longhurst,” he said, with a light laugh
which this time really took me aback. “I will tell you anything you
can wish to know about poor Longhurst. Not now, as you are not in the
mind for it. To-night, if you think better of your refusal to come, or
any time you may choose. I only wish,” he said sadly, as he finally
turned away, “old Peters had asked me straight out about Longhurst.”
He had puzzled me but he had not shaken me. Could he have imagined
that he was likely to do so? Probably not, but it occurred to me,
directly he was gone, that he now knew for certain that I was
dangerous; knew that in some ways he could play upon me easily, and in
some ways not at all; and knew that I had not yet found out what I
came to find out from Ellen Trethewy.