Mr. Flexen found Inspector Perkins waiting for him in the dining-room
with the information that James Hutchings was at his father's cottage in
the West wood, and that he had set one of his detectives to watch him.
Also, he told him that he had learned that Hutchings was generally
disliked in the village as well as at the Castle, as a violent,
bad-tempered man, with a habit of fixing quarrels on any one who would
quarrel with him, and as often as not on mild and inoffensive persons,
quite incapable of bearing themselves in a quarrel with any unpleasant
effectiveness.
Mr. Flexen discussed with the inspector the question of taking out a
warrant for the arrest of Hutchings, and they decided that there was no
need to take the step--at any rate, at the moment; it was enough to have
him watched. He would learn doubtless that it was known that he had been
in the Castle late the night before. If, on learning it, he took fright
and bolted, it would rather simplify the case.
Then Mr. Flexen sent again for Elizabeth Twitcher and questioned her at
length about Lord Loudwater's onslaught on Lady Loudwater the night
before and about the condition in which he had been at the end of it.
Elizabeth was somewhat sulky in her manner, for she felt that she was to
blame for that onslaught having come to Mr. Flexen's ears. She was the
more careful to make it plain that however violently Lord Loudwater may
have been affected, Olivia had taken the business lightly enough, and
decided to ignore his injunction to her to leave the Castle. Mr. Flexen
did not miss the point that Lord Loudwater had threatened to hound
Colonel Grey out of the Army; but at the moment he did not attach
importance to it. It was the kind of threat that an angry man would be
pretty sure to make in the circumstances.
Having dismissed Elizabeth Twitcher, he came to lunch with the impression
strong on him that he had made as much progress as could be expected in
one morning towards the solution of the problem. He was quite undecided
whether Hutchings' presence in the Castle at so late an hour, and the
probability that he had entered and left it by the library window, or the
matter of the woman who had had the stormy interview with the murdered
man, was the more important. It must be his early task to discover who
that woman was.
He found Mr. Manley awaiting him in the little dining-room, ready to play
host. Over their soup and fish they talked about ordinary topics and a
little about themselves. Mr. Manley learned that Mr. Flexen had been in
the Indian Police for over seven years, and had been forced to resign his
post by the breaking down of his health; that during the war he had twice
acted as Chief Constable and three times as stipendiary magistrate in
different districts. Mr. Flexen gathered that Mr. Manley had fought in
France with a brilliant intrepidity which had not met with the public
recognition it deserved, and learned that he had been invalided out of
the Army owing to the weakness of his heart. This common failure of
health was a bond of sympathy between them, and made them well disposed
to one another.
There came a pause in this personal talk, and either of them addressed
himself to the consumption of the wing of a chicken with a certain
absorption in the occupation. It was not uncharacteristic of Mr. Manley
that his high sense of the fitness of things had not prevailed on him to
accord the liver wing to the guest. He was firmly eating it himself.
Then Mr. Flexen said: "I suppose you came across Hutchings, the butler,
pretty often. What kind of a fellow was he?"
"He was rather more like his master than if he had been his twin brother,
except that he wore whiskers and not a beard," said Mr. Manley, in a tone
of hearty dislike.
"He does not appear to have been at all popular with the other servants,"
said Mr. Flexen.
"He certainly wasn't popular with me," said Mr. Manley dryly.
"What did Lord Loudwater discharge him for?"
"A matter of a commission on the purchase of some wine," said Mr. Manley.
Then in a more earnest tone he added: "Look here: the trenches knock a
good deal of the nonsense out of one, and I tell you frankly that if I
could help you in any way to discover the criminal, I wouldn't. My
feeling is that if ever any one wanted putting out of the way, Lord
Loudwater did; and as he was put out of the way quite painlessly,
probably it was a valuble action, whatever its motive."
"I expect that a good many people have come back from the trenches with
very different ideas about justice," said Mr. Flexen in an indulgent
tone. "The Indian Police also changes your ideas about it. But it's my
duty to see that justice is done, and I shall. Besides, I'm very keen on
solving this problem, if I can. It seems that Hutchings was in the Castle
last night about eleven o'clock, and as you said something about coming
down for a drink about that time, I thought you might possibly know
something about his movements."
"Well, as it happens," said Mr. Manley and stopped short, paused, and
went on: "You seem to have made up your mind that it was a murder and not
a suicide."
"So you do know something about the movements of Hutchings," said Mr.
Flexen, smiling. "You'll be subpoenaed, you know, if he is charged with
the murder."
"That would, of course, be quite a different matter," said Mr.
Manley gravely.
"As to its being a murder, I've pretty well made up my mind that it was,"
said Mr. Flexen.
Mr. Manley looked at him gravely: "You have, have you?" he said. Then he
added: "About that knife and the finger-prints on it, if it happens to
have recorded any: I've been thinking that you may find yourself
suffering from an embarrassment of riches. I know that mine will be on
it, and Lady Loudwater's, who used it to cut the leaves of a volume of
poetry the day before yesterday, and Hutchings', who cut the string of a
parcel of books with it yesterday, and very likely the fingerprints of
Lord Loudwater. You know how it is with a knife like that, which lies
open and handy. Every one uses it. I've seen Lady Loudwater use it to cut
flowers, and Lord Loudwater to cut the end off a cigar--cursing, of
course, because he couldn't lay his hands on a cigar-cutter, and the
knife was blunt--and I've cut all kinds of things with it myself."
"Yes; but the finger-prints of the murderer, if it does record them, will
be on the top of all those others. I shall simply take prints from all of
you and eliminate them."
"Of course; you can get at it that way," said Mr. Manley.
They were silent while Holloway set the cheese-straws on the table.
When he had left the room Mr. Flexen said in a casual tone: "You don't
happen to know whether Lord Loudwater was mixed up with any woman in the
neighbourhood?"
Mr. Manley paused, then laughed and said: "It's no use at all. When I
told you that I would throw no light on the matter, if I could help it, I
really meant it. At the same time, I don't mind saying that, with his
reputation for brutality, I should think it very unlikely."
"You can never tell about women. So many of them seem to prefer brutes.
And, after all, a peer is a peer," said Mr. Flexen.
"There is that," said Mr. Manley in thoughtful agreement.
But he was frowning faintly as he cudgelled his brains in the effort to
think what had set Mr. Flexen on the track of Helena Truslove, for it
must be Helena.
"I expect I shall be able to find out from his lawyers," said Mr. Flexen.
"This promises to be interesting--the intervention of Romance," said Mr.
Manley in a tone of livelier interest. "I took it that the murder, if it
was a murder, would be a sordid business, in keeping with Lord
Loudwater himself. But if you're going to introduce a lady into the
case, it promises to be more fruitful in interest for the dramatist. I'm
writing plays."
But Mr. Flexen was not going to divulge the curious fact that about the
time of his murder Lord Loudwater had had a violent quarrel with a lady.
He had no doubt that Mrs. Carruthers would keep it to herself.
"Oh, one has to look out for every possible factor in a problem like
this, you know," he said carelessly.
The faint frown lingered on Mr. Manley's brow. Mr. Flexen supposed that
it was the result of his refraining from gratifying his appetite for the
dramatic. They were silent a while.
"When are you going to take our finger-prints?" said Mr. Manley
presently.
"Not till I've learned whether there are any on the handle of the knife,"
said Mr. Flexen. "Perkins has already sent it off to Scotland Yard."
"I never thought of that. It would be rather a waste of time to take them
before knowing that," said Mr. Manley.
Holloway brought the coffee; Mr. Manley gave Mr. Flexen an excellent
cigar, and they talked about the war. Mr. Flexen drank his coffee
quickly, said that he must get back to his work, and added that he hoped
that he would enjoy the company of Mr. Manley at dinner. Mr. Manley had
been going to dine with Helena Truslove; but after Mr. Flexen's question
whether Lord Loudwater had been entangled with any woman in the
neighbourhood, he thought that he had better dine with him. He might
learn something useful, if he could induce Mr. Flexen to expand under the
relaxing influence of dinner. He resolved to use his authority to have
the most engaging wine the cellar held. He was determined to make every
endeavour to keep Helena's name out of the affair, and he thought that he
would succeed.
Mr. Flexen left him. He finished his coffee, the second cup, slowly,
wondering about Mr. Flexen's question about Lord Loudwater and a woman.
Then, since he had done all the work he could think of, in the way of
making arrangements for the funeral, during the morning, he set out
briskly to Helena's house, hoping that she would be able to throw some
light on it.
He greeted her with his usual warmth, and then, when he came to look at
her at his leisure, it was plain to him that the murder had been a much
greater shock to her than he had expected. He was surprised at it, for
she had assured him that she had never been really in love with Lord
Loudwater, and he had believed her. But there was no doubt that she had
been greatly upset by the news of his death. Her high colouring was
dimmed; she wore a harassed air, and she was uncommonly nervous and ill
at ease. He thought it strange that she should be so deeply affected by
the death of a man she had such good reason to detest. But, of course,
there was no telling how a woman would take anything; Lady Loudwater's
distress had fallen as far short of what he had expected as Helena's had
exceeded it.
To Mr. Manley's credit it must be admitted that in less than twenty
minutes Helena Truslove was looking another creature; her face had
recovered all its colour; the harassed air had vanished from it, and she
was sitting on his knee in a condition of the most pleasant repose. It
was his theory that a woman was never too ill, or too ill at ease, or too
unhappy to be made love to. He had acted on it.
When he had thus restored her peace of mind, he told her that Mr. Flexen
had asked him whether the late Lord Loudwater had been mixed up with any
lady in the neighbourhood, and asked her if she could suggest any reason
for his having asked the question. She appeared greatly startled to hear
of it. But she could not suggest any reason for his having asked the
question. He then asked her about the manner in which the allowance had
been paid to her, and was pleased to learn that there was little
likelihood of Mr. Flexen's learning that she had received such an
allowance from Lord Loudwater, for it had been paid her through a young
lawyer of the name of Shepherd, at Low Wycombe, the lawyer who had dealt
with the matter of the transference of the house they were in to her,
from the rents of some houses Lord Loudwater owned in that town, and that
lawyer was somewhere in Mesopotamia, his practice in abeyance.
She was in entire accord with Mr. Manley about the advantage of her name
not being connected in any way with the tragedy at the Castle. She
pointed out that it was also an advantage that she had just been paid
her allowance for the present quarter, and there would not be another
payment for three months. By that time it was probable that the murder
would have passed out of people's minds and Mr. Flexen be busy with other
work. It seemed to Mr. Manley that Mr. Flexen would not easily learn
about the allowance unless Mr. Carrington also knew it, which seemed
unlikely, though it was always possible that there was some record of it
among the Lord Loudwater's papers at the Castle. Soon after seven he left
her to walk back to dine with Mr. Flexen.
Mr. Flexen had had a considerable surprise that afternoon. He had told
Robert Black to find William Roper and bring him to him. He wished to
hear the story he had told Lord Loudwater the evening before, for it
might be of a triviality to make the hypothesis that Lord Loudwater had
committed suicide yet less worthy of serious consideration. Black was a
long while finding William Roper, for he was at work in the woods.
Indeed, he had not yet heard that Lord Loudwater had been murdered, for
he had been up most of the night, risen late, got his own breakfast in
his out-of-the-way cottage in the depths of the West wood, and gone out
on his rounds. The constable found him at the cottage, in the act of
preparing his dinner, or rather his tea and dinner, at a quarter to four.
William Roper was startled, indeed, to hear of the murder, and then
bitterly annoyed. All the while on his rounds he had been congratulating
himself on his coming promotion, and reckoning up the many advantages
which would accrue from it, not the least of which was a wider prospect
of finding a wife. The cup was dashed from his lips. He had acquired no
merit in the eyes of the new Lord Loudwater, and he had most probably
made the present Lady Loudwater his enemy, if the murdered man had
divulged the source of his knowledge of her goings-on with Colonel Grey.
He ate his mixed meal very sulkily, listening to the constable's account
of the circumstances of the crime. Slowly, however, his face grew
brighter as he listened; the new information he had obtained for his
murdered employer might very well have an important bearing on the crime
itself. He might yet establish himself as the benefactor of the family.
On the way to the Castle he was so mysterious with Robert Black that the
stout constable became a prey to mingled curiosity and doubt. He could
not make up his mind whether William Roper really knew something of
importance or was merely vapouring. William Roper neither gratified his
curiosity, nor banished his doubt. He was alive to the advantage of
reserving his information for the most important ear, so as to gain the
greatest possible credit for it.
At the first sight of him Mr. Flexen felt that he had before him an
important witness, for he took a violent dislike to him, and he had
observed, in the course of his many years' experience in the detection of
crime, that the most important witness in hounding down a criminal was
very often of a repulsive type, the nark type. William Roper was of that
type, but his story was indeed startling.
He first told how he had seen Colonel Grey kiss Lady Loudwater in the
afternoon--Mr. Flexen noted that Lord Loudwater had accused her of
kissing Grey--and of their spending most of the afternoon in the pavilion
in the East wood. The time of his watching had already lengthened in
William Roper's memory. There was nothing new in these facts, and Mr.
Flexen saw no reason to suppose that they had any bearing on the crime.
But William Roper went on to say that soon after ten in the evening he
had been on his round in the East wood, when he saw Colonel Grey walking
in the direction of the Castle. His curiosity had been aroused by what he
had seen in the afternoon, and thinking it not unlikely that he was on
his way to another meeting with the Lady Loudwater, and that it was the
duty of a faithful retainer to make sure about it, with a view to
informing his master should his surmise prove correct, he followed him.
The Colonel went straight through the wood into the Castle garden, walked
round the Castle, keeping in its shadow as he went, till he stood under
the window of Lady Loudwater's suite of rooms.
There he appeared to suffer a check. There was a light in the room on the
ground floor under her boudoir. The Colonel had waited quite a while;
then he had walked round the Castle and into it by the library window.
William, greatly surprised by the Colonel's audacity, had taken up his
position in a clump of tall rhododendrons, opposite the library window,
from which he could keep watch on it.
"What time would this be?" said Mr. Flexen.
"It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes past ten, sir," said
William Roper.
"And what happened then?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Nothing 'appened for a good ten minutes. Then James Hutchings, the
butler, come across the gardens from the south gate, as if 'e'd come from
the village, and 'e went in through the libery winder--the same winder."
Mr. Flexen had thought it not unlikely that Hutchings had entered the
Castle by that entrance. He was pleased to have his guess corroborated.
"That would be about half-past ten," he said. "Could you see into the
library at all?"
"Only a very little way, sir."
"You couldn't see whether Colonel Grey and then James Hutchings went
straight through it into the hall, or whether either of them went into
the smoking-room?"
"No; I couldn't see so far in as that, though there was a light burning
in the libery," said William Roper.
That was a new fact. Any one passing through the library would be able to
see the open knife lying in the big inkstand.
"Go on," said Mr. Flexen. "What happened next?"
"Nothing 'appened for a long while--twenty minutes, I should think--and
then there come a woman round the right-'and corner of the Castle wall
and along it and into the libery winder. At first I thought it was Mrs.
Carruthers, or one of the maids--she were too tall for her ladyship--but
it warn't."
"Are you quite sure?" said Mr. Flexen.
"Quite, sir. I should have known 'er if she had been. Besides, she was
all muffled up like. You couldn't see 'er face."
"Did she hesitate before going through the library window?" said
Mr. Flexen.
"Not as I noticed. She seemed to go straight in."
"As if she were used to going into the Castle that way?" said Mr. Flexen.
William Roper scratched his head. Then he said cautiously: "She seemed to
know that way in all right, sir."
"And how was she dressed?" said Mr. Flexen.
"She wasn't in black. It wasn't as dull as black, but it was dullish. It
might have been grey and again it might not. It might have been blue or
brown. You see, there was a fair moon, sir, but it was be'ind the Castle,
an' I never seed 'er in the full moonlight, as you may say, seeing as,
coming and going, she come along the wall and went round the right 'and
corner of it, in the shadder."
"And which of these three people came away first?" said Mr. Flexen.
"She did. She wasn't in the Castle more nor twenty minutes--if that."
"Did she seem to be in a hurry when she came out? Did she run, or
walk quickly?"
"No. I can't say as she did. She went away just about as she came--in no
purtic'ler 'urry," said William Roper.
Mr. Flexen paused, considering; then he said: "And who was the next
to leave?"
"The Colonel, 'e come out next--in about ten minutes."
"Did he seem in a hurry?"
"'E walked pretty brisk, and 'e was frowning, like as if 'e was in a
rage. 'E passed me close, so I 'ad a good look at 'im. Yes; I should say
'e was fair boilen', 'e was," said William Roper, in a solemn, pleased
tone of one giving damning evidence.
Mr. Flexen did not press the matter. He said: "So James Hutchings came
away last?"
"Yes; about five minutes after the Colonel. And 'e was in a pretty fair
to-do, too. Leastways, he was frowning and a-muttering of to 'imself. He
passed me close."
"Did _he_ seem in any hurry?" said Mr. Flexen.
"'E was walkin' fairly fast," said William Roper.
Mr. Flexen paused again, pondering. He thought that William Roper had
thrown all the light on the matter he could; and he had certainly
revealed a number of facts which looked uncommonly important.
"And that was all you saw?" he said.
"That was all--except 'er ladyship," said William Roper.
"Her ladyship?" said Mr. Flexen sharply.
"Yes. You see, there was no 'urry for me to go back to the woods, sir;
an' I sat down on one of them garden seats along the edge of the
Wellin'tonia shrubbery to smoke a pipe and think it ou'. I felt it was my
dooty like to let 'is lordship know about these goings-on, never thinking
as 'ow 'e was sitting there all the time with a knife in 'im. I should
think it was twenty minutes arter that I saw 'er ladyship come out. Of
course, I was farther away from the window, but I saw 'er quite plain."
"And where did she go?" said Mr. Flexen.
"She didn't go nowhere, so to speak. She just walked up an' down the
gravel path--like as if she'd come out for a breath of fresh air.
Then she went in. She wasn't out more nor ten minutes, or a quarter
of an hour."
Mr. Flexen was silent in frowning thought; then he looked earnestly at
William Roper for a good minute; then he said: "Well, this may be
important, or it may not. But it is very important that you should keep
it to yourself." He looked hard again at William, decided that an appeal
to his vanity would be best, and added: "You're pretty shrewd, I fancy,
and you can see that it is most important not to put the criminal on his
guard--if it was a crime."
"I suppose I shall 'ave to tell what I know at the inquest?" said William
Roper, with an air of importance.
Mr. Flexen gazed at him thoughtfully, weighing the matter. Here were a
number of facts which might or might not have an important bearing on the
murder, but which would give rise to a great deal of painful and harmful
scandal if they were given to the world at this juncture.
Besides the publication of them might force his hand, and he preferred to
have a free hand in this matter as he had been used to have a free hand
in India. There he had dealt with more than one case in such a manner as
to secure substantial justice rather than the exact execution of the law.
It might be that in this case justice would be best secured by leaving
the murderer to his, or her, conscience rather than by causing several
people great unhappiness by bringing about a conviction. He was inclined
to think, with Mr. Manley, that the murderer might have performed a
public service by removing Lord Loudwater from the world he had so ill
adorned. At any rate, he was resolved to have a free hand to deal with
the case, and most certainly he was not going to allow this noxious young
fellow to hamper his freedom of action and final decision.
"Your evidence seems to me of much too great importance to be given at
the inquest. It must be reserved for the trial," he said in an impressive
tone. "But if it gets abroad that you have seen what you have told me,
the criminal will be prepared to upset your evidence; and it will
probably become quite worthless. You must not breathe a word about what
you saw to a soul till we have your evidence supported beyond all
possibility of its being refuted. Do you understand?"
For a moment William Roper looked disappointed. He had looked to become
famous that very day. But he realized his great importance in the affair,
and his face cleared.
"I understands, sir," he said with a dark solemnity.
"Not a word," said Mr. Flexen yet more impressively.