“Just one o'clock. We have come down in very decent time. Tidy old
bus, isn't it?” John Steadman replaced his watch and looked round with
interest as his car slowed down before the “Royal Arms” at Burford.
Rather a dilapidated “Royal Arms” to judge by the signboard swaying in
the breeze, but quite a picturesque-looking village inn for all that.
There was no station within five miles of Burford, which so far had
preserved it from trippers. Of late, however, two or three of the
ubiquitous chars-à-bancs had strayed through the village and there
appeared every prospect of its being eventually opened up. This, with
other scraps of information, was imparted by the garrulous landlord to
Mr. Steadman and his companion, Inspector Furnival. But, though he
talked much of the village and its inhabitants, the inspector did not
catch the name for which he was listening. At last he spoke.
“I used to know a man named Hoyle who lived somewhere in this part. I
wonder if he is still here?”
“Oh, I should think that would be Mr. Hoyle of Rose Cottage,” the
landlord said at once. “A very nice gentleman. He has been here some
years. He is an artist, as no doubt you know, sir. And I have heard
that some of his paintings have been exhibited in London in the Royal
Academy. Oh, we are very proud of Mr. Hoyle down here.”
“He is a good deal away on his sketching expeditions, though, isn't
he?” the inspector ventured.
“Well, naturally he is,” the landlord agreed. “Sometimes he's away
weeks at a time. But he is generally here on a Sunday to take the
collection in church. He is a sidesman and takes a great interest in
parish matters. I did hear that he was far away the biggest subscriber
to the new parish hall that our vicar is having built. Oh, a very nice
gentleman is Mr. Hoyle. Mrs. Wye, his housekeeper, can't say so often
enough.”
“I think that must be the man I used to know,” said the inspector
mendaciously. “I think we must drive up and pay him a visit, Mr.
Steadman. It isn't far, you said, I think, landlord?”
“Get there in ten minutes in the car, sir. Rose Cottage, straight up
by the church. You can't miss it. But, there, I doubt if you will find
Mr. Hoyle at home. I was at church on Sunday morning and I noticed he
wasn't. He usually is when he is at home. I can't always say the same
myself!” And the landlord shook his fat sides at his own pleasantry.
“Well, I think we will try anyway,” the inspector concluded. “Perhaps
Miss Hoyle may be at home if he isn't.”
“Miss Hoyle?” The landlord looked puzzled for a moment then his face
cleared. “Oh, Mr. Hoyle's daughter you mean, sir. No. She is away at
school, though Mr. Hoyle did say she would be coming home ‘for keeps’
this year.”
“Anyhow I shall leave a message and Mr. Hoyle will know I have looked
him up,” said the inspector pleasantly. “I expect he would think me a
good deal altered, for we haven't met for something like twelve years,
and we none of us grow younger, you know, landlord.”
“We don't, sir, that's a fact. Not but what Mr. Hoyle is as little
changed as anybody I know. Just the same pleasant-looking gentleman he
is as he was the first time I saw him. A nice cheerful gentleman is
Mr. Hoyle—always ready with his joke.”
The inspector nodded.
“Oh, ay. Just the same, I see. Well, well, we will be off. As likely
as not we shall come in here on our way back. Anyhow, I shall not
forget your Stilton in a hurry, landlord. I haven't had a cut from a
cheese like that since I was a boy in Leicestershire. By the way, what
was that I heard of a burglary down this way last week?”
The landlord scratched his head.
“It is funny you should ask that, sir. I haven't heard of anything
lately. I was talking to a couple of gents this morning about a
robbery there was about this time a year ago—a couple of robberies I
might say. Squire Morpeth over at the Park, and Sir John Lington at
Lillinghurst were both broken into and hundreds of pounds' worth of
goods—silver and what not—taken. Nobody was ever brought to account
for it either, though there were big rewards offered.”
“Dear, dear! One doesn't expect to hear of such things in a quiet
little place like Burford,” the inspector observed contradictorily.
“Well, so long, landlord. See you again later.”
It did not take long, following the landlord's instruction, to run the
car up to Rose Cottage, but just as they were nearing it John Steadman
looked at his companion.
“I think you're running off on a side track, you know, inspector.”
“I'm sure I am!” the other returned cheerfully. “But, when the
straight track takes you nowhere, one is inclined to make a little
excursion down a side path, right or wrong.”
Rose Cottage looked quite an ideal dwelling for an artist. It was a
black and white timbered cottage standing back from the road, its
garden for the most part surrounded by a high hedge. Over the walls
creepers were running riot. Later on there would be a wealth of
colour, but to-day only the pyrus japonica was putting forth
adventurous rosy blossoms. A wicket gate gave access to the gravelled
path running up to the rustic porch between borders gay with
crocuses—purple and white and gold.
“Evidently cars are not expected here,” John Steadman remarked as he
and the inspector alighted and walked up to the front door.
There was apparently no bell, but there was a shining brass knocker.
Inspector Furnival applied himself to it with great energy.
The door was opened by a pleasant-looking woman, who was hastily
donning a white apron.
“Mr. Hoyle?” the inspector queried.
“Not at home,” the woman said at once.
The inspector hesitated. “Can you tell me when he will be at home?”
The woman shook her head. “I cannot indeed. He is away on a sketching
expedition, and one never knows when he will be back. It may be a week
or a month or longer.”
“Oh, dear!” The inspector looked at Mr. Steadman. “This is most
unfortunate! I was particularly anxious to see him to-day. However, I
suppose I must write. I wonder if you would let me just scribble a
line here? I should esteem it a great favour if you would.”
For a moment the woman looked doubtful, then after a keen glance at
the two men she led the way to a sitting-room that apparently ran from
back to front of the house. She indicated a writing-table.
“You will find pens and ink there, sir.”
The inspector sat down. “A very pretty room this,” he began
conversationally. “I wonder if I am right in thinking that you are
Mrs. Hoyle?”
“Oh, dear, no, sir.” The woman laughed. “I am only Mr. Hoyle's
housekeeper. I have lived with him ever since he came to Burford.”
“And that must be a dozen years or more ago now. And I haven't seen
him a dozen times, I should say,” the inspector went on. “Dear, dear,
how time flies! His daughter must be grown up, I suppose,” he went on,
examining the pens before him with meticulous care.
“Miss Cecily? Oh, yes; a fine-looking young lady too. She will be here
for good very soon.”
Meanwhile John Steadman, standing near the door, was glancing
appraisingly round the room. It was essentially a man's room. The
chairs, square solid table, sideboard and writing-table were all of
oak, very strong, the few easy chairs were leather covered and
capacious, there was nothing unnecessary in the room. Near the French
window looking on to the garden at the back of the house there stood
an easel with an untidy pile of sketches piled one on top of the other
upon it. A table close at hand held more sketches, tubes of paint, a
palette and various paint brushes. Steadman walked across and took one
of the water-colours from the easel.
“I like this,” he said, holding it from him at arm's length. “It is a
charming little view of one of the forest glades near here, taken at
sunset. Is there any possibility of this being for sale?”
“Well, I don't rightly know, sir,” the housekeeper said, coming over
to him. “Mr. Hoyle do sell some of his pictures, I know. But it is
always in London. I have never known him do it down here.”
John Steadman smiled.
“Well, I shouldn't think there would be many customers down here. But
I could do with a couple. This one—and another to make a pair with
it.”
“Well, sir, perhaps you will write to Mr. Hoyle about it,” the
housekeeper suggested. “I couldn't say anything about it.”
“Of course not,” the barrister assented. He looked very closely at the
picture for a minute, and then put it back on the easel. “Well, I must
leave it at that; and hope to persuade Mr. Hoyle to part with it when
he comes back.”
As he spoke there came a loud knock at the door. He looked at the
housekeeper.
“It's all right, sir,” she said composedly. “It is only the baker's
man for orders, and my niece will go to the door. She always comes up
twice a week to give me a hand with the work. Me not being so young as
I might be.”
“We none of us are, ma'am,” the inspector said with a chuckle as he
sealed his letter and placed it in a conspicuous place on the
writing-table. “Not that you have much to complain about,” he added
gallantly as he rose.
The housekeeper smiled complacently as she saw them off to the little
garden. The inspector was in an expansive mood and stopped to admire
the crocuses as they passed.
“Well?” Mr. Steadman said as they seated themselves in the car before
starting.
The inspector waited until they had started before he replied, then he
said quietly:
“Well, Mr. Steadman, sir?”
“Well?” the barrister echoed. “I hope you have found what you
expected, inspector.”
“I hardly know what I did expect,” the inspector said candidly.
“Except that, if matters are as I suspect, Hoyle is certainly not the
man to give himself away.”
The barrister coughed.
“And yet I noticed one small thing that may help you, inspector. You
saw that water-colour sketch?”
“The one you are going to buy,” the inspector assented with a grin.
“Ay. I should like to have had a good look round at those drawings.
But that blessed housekeeper wasn't giving us any chances.”
“Not that she knew of,” John Steadman said quietly. “Did you notice
the big ‘Christopher Hoyle’ in the left-hand corner of the painting,
inspector?”
“I saw it,” said the inspector, “but it didn't tell me much.”
“No. That alone did not,” John Steadman went on. “But I looked at that
and I looked at several of the others. And I am as sure as I can be
without subjecting them to a test that in each case that big
flourishing Christopher Hoyle has been scrawled with a paint brush on
the top of another signature. One, moreover, that from the little I
could see of it bore no sort of resemblance to Christopher Hoyle. What
do you make of that, inspector?”
“Is Mr. Christopher Hoyle a man with two names?” the inspector
questioned. “Or has he some reason to wish to appear to be an artist
in simple Burford society when in reality he is nothing of the kind?”
“The latter, I imagine,” John Steadman said after a pause. “Because—I
don't know whether you know anything of painting, inspector?”
“Bless you, not a thing!” the inspector said energetically. “If I have
to do with a picture case, I have to call in experts! But you mean——”
“Judging from the three or four sketches I was able to examine I
should say that none of them—no two of them were done by the same
hand. There is as much difference in painting as in handwriting, you
know, inspector.”
“I see!” The detective sat silent for a minute, his eyes scanning the
flying landscape. “Well, it is pretty much what I expected to hear,”
he said at last. “It strengthens my suspicions so far——”
“I can't understand your suspicions,” John Steadman said impatiently.
“This man Hoyle is a bit of a humbug, evidently, but what connexion
can there be between him and Luke Bechcombe's murder?”
“His daughter?” the inspector suggested without looking round.
The barrister shrugged his shoulders. “That girl is no murderess.”
“No,” agreed the inspector. “But she is helping the guilty to escape.”
John Steadman raised his eyebrows. “Who is the guilty?”
For answer Inspector Furnival's keen, ferret eyes looked back at him,
focused themselves on the barrister's face as though they would wring
some truth from it.
But John Steadman's face would never give him away. In his day he had
been one of the keenest cross examiners at the bar. His eyes had never
been more blandly expressionless than now as they met the inspector's
inquiringly.
Defeated, the detective sank back in his corner of the car with a deep
breath, whether of relief or disappointment John Steadman could not
tell.
They were just entering Burford again. Before the car stopped the
inspector said quietly:
“Don't you know, sir?”
“I do not!” said John Steadman, looking him squarely in the face.
“Don't you guess?”
“Guessing,” said the barrister sententiously, “is a most unprofitable
employment. One I never indulge in.”
“Ah, well!” said the inspector as the car stopped before the door of
the inn. “I don't know, sir. And you don't guess. We will leave it at
that. Well, landlord”—as that worthy came to the door rubbing his
hands—“we are back upon your hands for tea. Mr. Hoyle was out.”