THE MEMORIAL STONE
She nodded, took out a telegram form from her rack, and began
writing. Larry glanced through the reports mechanically, initialled
one, and put the others aside. Then he opened the cupboard and, taking
out the tray, carried it to the table. He examined the watch again in
the light of day, the swivel ring, the cigar-case, and lastly the roll
of paper. By daylight the embossed characters were visible, and he put
his finger-tips over them very gingerly. He was not, however,
accustomed to reading Braille, and he realized that his hand was a
heavy one compared with the delicate touch of his secretary. She had
finished her writing, had rung a bell and handed the telegram to him
to read.
“That’s all right,” said Larry, and, when the uniformed messenger had
come and taken the telegram away: “Do you notice anything peculiar
about this piece of paper?” he asked, pointing to the Braille message.
“Yes,” she said. “I was looking at it before you came. You don’t
mind?” she asked quickly, and Larry laughed.
“You can examine anything except my conscience,” he said. “Did you
notice”--he turned his attention to the paper again--“that one end of
this paper is less discoloured than the other?”
“I noticed that one end was drier than the other last night,” she
said, “and that of course is the reason. It was on the dry end that we
got our best results. For instance, the word ‘murderer’ was almost
untouched by the water; it was damp but not moist.”
He nodded, and she opened a drawer of her desk and took out a sheet of
brown paper.
“I brought this with me,” she said. “It is a sheet from a Braille
book, and I was trying experiments with strips I had torn from the
book, soaking them in my wash-basin. Here is the result.” She took out
a little roll of shapeless pulp, which skinned when she attempted to
unwind it.
“Humph!” said Larry. They had both reached the same conclusion, but by
different processes--she by actual experiment, he by deduction; and
the conclusion they had come to was that the roll of paper had been
placed in Gordon Stuart’s pocket after the body had left the water.
“There would be enough moisture in the cloth to saturate it through,”
said Larry. “This paper is very absorbent, almost as much so as
blotting paper. So we have come to this--that Gordon Stuart was
drowned, and after he was drowned his body was handled by some person
or persons, one of whom slipped this message into his pocket, and that
person was either a blind man or one who believed----” He stared at
her. “By Jove!” he said, as a thought struck him.
“What were you going to say?” she asked.
“Is it possible----” He frowned. It was an absurd idea. The man or
woman who left this message on the body expected that Diana Ward would
read it.
She held no official position, and the fact that she was Larry Holt’s
secretary was a purely fortuitous circumstance, which could not have
been anticipated by any outside person. Yet a hasty telephone call to
the Chief of Internal Intelligence revealed the fact that there was no
Braille expert at Scotland Yard, the only man who knew the system
being at that time on sick leave for six months.
“I think you can dismiss the idea that the message was intended for
me,” said the girl with a smile. “No, it was written by a blind man,
or it would have been written better. A person with the use of his
eyes, or----”
“Suppose he were writing in the dark?” asked Larry. He put the tray
away and locked the cupboard.
The girl shook her head.
“If he were not blind, he would not be in possession of the instrument
to make these markings,” she said, and Larry felt that was true.
He spent two hours dictating letters to various authorities, and at
eleven o’clock he rose and put on his coat and hat.
“We’re going for a joy ride,” he said.
“We?” she repeated in surprise.
“I want you to come along,” said Larry, and this time his tone was
authoritative, and the girl meekly obeyed.
There was a car waiting for them at the entrance to the Yard, and the
driver evidently had already received his instructions.
“We’re going to Beverley Manor, the village which Stuart was so fond
of visiting,” he said. “I particularly want to discover what
attractions the old Saxon church had for this unhappy man. He doesn’t
seem to have been an archæologist, so the fact that the foundations
were a thousand years old would not interest him.”
It was a glorious spring day, with just a sufficient nip in the air to
bring the colour to young and healthy cheeks. The hedgerows were
bursting into vivid green, and the grassy banks were yellow with
primroses. They sat silent, this man and woman whom fate had thrown
together in such strange circumstances, enjoying the golden day and
thankful of heart to be alive in that season of renewal. All the world
was living. The air was lively with hurrying birds going about their
business of nest-making. They saw strange, furtive shapes creeping
across the road from burrow to burrow; and in one sheltered old-world
garden which they passed white lilacs were blooming.
Beverley Manor was a straggling village at the foot of the Kentish
Rag. Beyond its church it had few attractions for visitors, for it lay
off the main Kentish road, a tiny backwater of rural England, where
life ran a smooth, unruffled course.
They pulled up at the inn, where Larry ordered lunch, and then they
set forth on foot to the church, which lay a quarter of a mile away
along a white and pleasant road. It was not a pretty church; its
square tower was squat and unlovely, and successive generations,
endeavouring to improve its once simple lines, had produced a medley
of architecture in which Romanesque, Gothic, and Norman struggled for
recognition.
“It rather swears, doesn’t it?” said Larry irreverently as they passed
through the old lych-gate into the churchyard.
The door of the church was open, and the edifice was empty. However
disturbing its outside might be, there were serenity and peace and
simplicity in the calm interior.
Larry had hoped to find memorial tablets placed in the wall of the
church which would give him some clue to Stuart’s movements. But
beyond a brass testifying to the virtues of a former vicar, and the
tomb of an ancient Bishop of Rochester, the church was innocent of
memorials. Larry then began a systematic inspection of the graves.
Most of them were very old, and their inscriptions indecipherable. He
came at last to the far end of the cemetery, where half a dozen
workmen were carrying a new stone wrapped in canvas, and he and the
girl stood side by side watching them in silence as they deposited
their load by a well-kept grave.
“I’m afraid we’ve had our journey for nothing,” said Larry. “We’ll
make a few inquiries in the village, and then we’ll go back to
London.”
He was turning to go, when one of the men stripped the canvas covering
from the headstone.
“We might as well know who this is,” said Larry, and stepped forward
to look.
The men stood on one side to give him a better view, and he read; and,
reading, gasped.
✝
TO THE MEMORY OF
MARGARET STUART,
WIFE OF
GORDON STUART
(OF CALGARY, CAN.).
DIED MAY 4TH, 1909
ALSO HIS ONLY DAUGHTER
JEANE,
BORN 10TH JUNE, 1908.
DIED 1ST MAY, 1909.
The girl had joined him now, and together they stood staring down at
the headstone.
“His only daughter!” said Larry in a tone of bewilderment. “His only
daughter! Then who is Clarissa?”