"WHO HATH DONE THIS THING?"
Trenholme's baritone was strong and tuneful--for the Muses, if
kind, are often lavish of their gifts--so the final refrain of an
impassioned love song traveled far that placid morning. Thus, when he
reached the iron gates, he found the Roxton policeman standing there,
grinning.
"Hello!" said the artist cheerily. Of course he knew the policeman. In
a week he would have known every man and dog in the village by name.
"Good mornin', sir," said the Law, which was nibbling its chin strap
and had both thumbs stuck in its belt. "That's a fine thing you was
singin'. May I arsk wot it was? I do a bit in that line meself."
"It's the _cantabile_ from Saint-Saens' _Samson et Dalila_," replied
Trenholme. "Mon coeur s'ouvre a ta voix!"
"Is it now? An' wot may that be, sir?"
The policeman's humor was infectious. Trenholme laughed, too.
Realizing that the words and accent of Paris had no great vogue in
Hertfordshire, he explained, and added that he possessed a copy of
the song, which was at the service of the force. The man thanked him
warmly, and promised to call at the inn during the afternoon.
"By the way, sir," he added, when Trenholme had passed through the
wicket, "did you hear a shot fired while you was in the park?"
"Yes."
"Jer see anybody?"
"A keeper, who seemed rather annoyed about the shooting. Some one had
fired a rifle."
"It sounded like that to me, sir, and it's an unusual thing at this
time of the year."
"A heavy-caliber rifle must sound unusual at any time of the year in
an enclosed estate near London," commented Trenholme.
"My idee exactly," said the policeman. "I think I'll go that way. I
may meet Bates."
"If Bates is a bandy-legged person with suspicious eyes, a red tie,
many pockets, brown leggings, and a yellow dog, you'll find him
searching the wood beyond the lake, which is the direction the shot
came from."
The policeman laughed.
"That's Bates, to a tick," he said. "If he was 'wanted,' your
description would do for the _Police Gazette_."
They parted. Since Trenholme's subsequent history is bound up more
closely with the policeman's movements during the next hour than with
his own unhindered return to the White Horse Inn, it is well to trace
the exact course of events as they presented themselves to the ken of
a music-loving member of the Hertfordshire constabulary.
Police Constable Farrow did not hurry. Why should he? A gunshot in a
gentleman's park at half past nine on a June morning might be, as he
had put it, "unusual," but it was obviously a matter capable of the
simplest explanation. Such a sound heard at midnight would be
sinister, ominous, replete with those elements of mystery and dread
which cause even a policeman's heart to beat faster than the
regulation pace. Under the conditions, when he met Bates, he would
probably be told that Jenkins, underkeeper and Territorial lance
corporal, had resolved to end the vicious career of a hoodie crow, and
had not scrupled to reach the wily robber with a bullet.
So Police Constable Farrow took fifteen minutes to cover the ground
which Trenholme's longer stride had traversed in ten. Allow another
fifteen for the artist's packing of his sketching materials, his
conversation with gamekeeper and policeman, and the leisurely progress
of the latter through the wood, and it will be found that Farrow
reached the long straight avenue leading from the lodge at Easton to
the main entrance of the house about forty minutes after the firing of
the shot.
He halted on the grass by the side of the well-kept drive, and looked
at the waiting motor car. The chauffeur was not visible. He had seen
neither Bates nor Jenkins. His passing among the trees had not
disturbed even a pheasant, though the estate was alive with game. The
door of The Towers was open, but no stately manservant was stationed
there. A yellow dog sat in the sunshine. Farrow and the dog exchanged
long-range glances: the policeman consulted his watch, bit his chin
strap, and dug his thumbs into his belt.
"Mr. Fenley is late today," he said to himself. "He catches the nine
forty-five. As a rule, he's as reliable as Greenwich. I'll wait here
till he passes, an' then call round an' see Smith."
Now, Smith was the head gardener; evidently Police Constable Farrow
was not only well acquainted with the various inmates of the mansion,
but could have prepared a list of the out-door employees as well. He
stood there, calm and impassive as Fate, and, without knowing it,
represented Fate in her most inexorable mood; for had he betaken
himself elsewhere, the shrewdest brains of Scotland Yard might have
been defeated by the enigma they were asked to solve before Mortimer
Fenley's murderer was discovered.
Indeed, it is reasonable to suppose that if chance had not brought the
village constable to that identical spot, and at that very hour, the
precise method of the crime might never have been revealed. Moreover,
Farrow himself may climb slowly to an inspectorship, and pass into the
dignified ease of a pension, without being aware of the part he played
in a tragedy that morning. Of course, in his own estimation, he filled
a highly important role as soon as the hue and cry began, but a great
deal of water would flow under London Bridge before the true effect of
his walk through the wood and emergence into sight in the avenue began
to dawn on other minds.
His appearance there was a vital fact. It changed the trend of
circumstances much as the path of a comet is deflected by encountering
a heavy planet. Presumably, neither comet nor planet is aware of the
disturbance. That deduction is left to the brooding eye of science.
Be that as it may, Police Constable Farrow's serenity was not
disturbed until a doctor's motor car panted along the avenue from
Easton and pulled up with a jerk in front of him. The doctor, frowning
with anxiety, looked out, and recognition was mutual.
"Have you got the man?" he asked, and the words were jerked out rather
than spoken.
"What man, sir?" inquired Farrows, saluting.
"The man who shot Mr. Fenley."
"The man who shot Mr. Fenley!" Farrow could only repeat each word in a
crescendo of amazement. Being a singer, he understood the use of a
crescendo, and gave full scope to it.
"Good Heavens!" cried the doctor. "Haven't you been told? Why are you
here? Mr. Fenley was shot dead on his own doorstep nearly an hour ago.
At least that is the message telephoned by his son. Unfortunately I
was out. Right ahead, Tom!"
The chauffeur threw in the clutch, and the car darted on again. Farrow
followed, a quite alert and horrified policeman now. But it was not
ordained that he should enter the house. He was distant yet a hundred
yards, or more, when three men came through the doorway. They were
Bates, the keeper, Tomlinson, the butler, and Mr. Hilton Fenley, elder
son of the man now reported dead. All were bareheaded. The arrival of
the doctor, at the instant alighting from his car, prevented them from
noticing Farrow's rapid approach. When Hilton Fenley saw the doctor he
threw up his hands with the gesture of one who has plumbed the depths
of misery. Farrow could, and did, fit in the accompanying words quite
accurately.
"Nothing can be done, Stern! My father is dead!"
The two clasped each other's hand, and Hilton Fenley staggered
slightly. He was overcome with emotion. The shock of a terrible crime
had taxed his self-control to its uttermost bounds. He placed a hand
over his eyes and said brokenly to the butler:
"You take Dr. Stern inside, Tomlinson. I'll join you in a few minutes.
I must have a breath of air, or I'll choke!"
Doctor and butler hurried into the house; then, but not until then,
Hilton Fenley and the keeper became aware of Farrow, now within a few
yards. At sight of him, Fenley seemed to recover his faculties; the
mere possibility of taking some definite action brought a tinge of
color to a pallid and somewhat sallow face.
"Ah! Here is the constable," he cried. "Go with him, Bates, and have
that artist fellow arrested!"
"Meaning Mr. Trenholme, sir?" inquired the policeman, startled anew by
this unexpected reference to the man he had parted from so recently.
"I don't know his name; but Bates met him in the park, near the lake,
just after the shot was fired that killed my father."
"But I met him, too, sir. He didn't fire any shot. He hadn't a gun. In
fact, he spoke about the shootin', and was surprised at it."
"Look here, Farrow, I am incapable of thinking clearly; so you must
act for the best. Some one fired that bullet. It nearly tore my father
to pieces. I never saw anything like it. It was ghastly--oh, ghastly!
The murderer must be found. Why are you losing time? Jump into the
car, and Brodie will take you anywhere you want to go. The roads, the
railway stations, must be scoured, searched. Oh, do something, or I
shall go mad!"
Hilton Fenley did, indeed, wear the semblance of a man distraught.
Horror stared from his deep-set eyes and lurked in the corners of his
mouth. His father had been struck dead within a few seconds after they
had separated in the entrance hall, both having quitted the breakfast
room together, and the awful discovery which followed the cry of an
alarmed servant had almost shaken the son's reason.
Farrow was hardly fitted to deal with a crisis of such magnitude, but
he acted promptly and with fixed purpose--qualities which form the
greater part of generalship.
"Bates," he said, turning a determined eye on the keeper, "where was
you when you heard the shot?"
"In the kennels, back of the lodge," came the instant answer.
"And you kem this way at once?"
"Straight. Didn't lose 'arf a minute."
"So no one could have left by the Easton gate without meeting you?"
"That's right."
"And you found Mr. Trenholme--where?"
"Comin' away from the cedars, above the lake."
"What did he say?"
"Tole me about the shot, an' pointed out the Quarry Wood as the place
it kem from."
"Was he upset at all in his manner?"
"Not a bit. Spoke quite nateral-like."
"Well, between the three of us, you an' me an' Mr. Trenholme, we
account for both gates an' the best part of two miles of park. Where
is Jenkins?"
"I left him at the kennels."
"Ah!"
The policeman was momentarily nonplussed. He had formed a theory in
which Jenkins, that young Territorial spark, figured either as a fool
or a criminal.
"What's the use of holding a sort of inquiry on the doorstep?" broke
in Hilton Fenley shrilly. His utterance was nearly hysterical.
Farrow's judicial calm appeared to stir him to frenzy. He clamored for
action, for zealous scouting, and this orderly investigation by mere
words was absolutely maddening.
"I'm not wastin' time, sir," said Farrow respectfully. "It's as
certain as anything can be that the murderer, if murder has been done,
has not got away by either of the gates."
"If murder has been done!" cried Fenley. "What do you mean? Go and
look at my poor father's corpse----"
"Of course, Mr. Fenley is dead, sir, an' sorry I am to hear of it; but
the affair may turn out to be an accident."
"Accident! Farrow, you're talking like an idiot. A man is shot dead at
his own front door, in a house standing in the midst of a big estate,
and you tell me it's an accident!"
"No, sir. I on'y mentioned that on the off chance. Queer things do
happen, an' one shouldn't lose sight of that fact just because it's
unusual. Now, sir, with your permission, I want Brodie, an' Smith, an'
all the men servants you can spare for the next half hour."
"Why?"
"Brodie can motor to the Inspector's office, an' tell him wot he
knows, stoppin' on the way to send Jenkins here. Some of us must
search the woods thoroughly, while others watch the open park, to make
sure no one escapes without bein' seen. It's my firm belief that the
man who fired that rifle is still hidin' among those trees. He may be
sneakin' off now, but we'd see him if we're quick in reachin' the
other side. Will you do as I ask, sir?"
Farrow was already in motion when Fenley's dazed mind recalled
something the policeman ought to know.
"I've telephoned to Scotland Yard half an hour ago," he said.
"That's all right, sir. The main thing now is to search every inch of
the woods. If nothing else, we may find footprints."
"And make plenty of new ones."
"Not if the helpers do as I tell 'em, sir."
"I can't argue. I'm not fit for it. Still, some instinct warns me you
are not adopting the best course. I think you ought to go in the car
and put the police into combined action."
"What are they to do, sir? The murderer won't carry a rifle through
the village, or along the open road. I fancy we'll come across the
weapon itself in the wood. Besides, the Inspector will do all that is
necessary when Brodie sees him. Reelly, sir, I _know_ I'm right."
"But should that artist be questioned?"
"Of course he will, sir. He won't run away. If he does, we'll soon nab
him. He's been stayin' at the White Horse Inn the last two days, an'
is quite a nice-spoken young gentleman. Why should _he_ want to shoot
Mr. Fenley?"
"He is annoyed with my father, for one thing."
"Eh? Wot, sir?"
Farrow, hitherto eager to be off on the hunt, stopped as if he heard a
statement of real importance.
Hilton Fenley pressed a hand to his eyes.
"It was nothing to speak of," he muttered. "He wrote asking permission
to sketch the house, and my father refused--just why I don't know;
some business matter had vexed him that day, I fancy, and he dashed
off the refusal on the spur of the moment. But a man does not commit a
terrible crime for so slight a cause.... Oh, if only my head would
cease throbbing!... Do as you like. Bates, see that every assistance
is given."
Fenley walked a few paces unsteadily. Obviously he was incapable of
lucid thought, and the mere effort at sustained conversation was a
torture. He turned through a yew arch into the Italian garden, and
threw himself wearily into a seat.
"Poor young fellow! He's fair off his nut," whispered Bates.
"What can one expect?" said Farrow. "But we must get busy. Where's
Brodie? Do go an' find him."
Bates jerked a thumb toward the house.
"He's in there," he said. "He helped to carry in the Gov'nor. Hasn't
left him since."
"He must come at once. He can't do any good now, an' we've lost nearly
an hour as it is."
The chauffeur appeared, red-eyed and white-faced. But he understood
the urgency of his mission, and soon had the car in movement. Others
came--the butler, some gardeners, and men engaged in stables and
garage, for the dead banker maintained a large establishment. Farrow
explained his plan. They would beat the woods methodically, and the
searcher who noted anything "unusual"--the word was often on the
policeman's lips--was not to touch or disturb the object or sign in
any way, but its whereabouts should be marked by a broken branch
stuck in the ground. Of course, if a stranger was seen, an alarm
should be raised instantly.
The little party was making for the Quarry Wood, when Jenkins arrived
on a bicycle. The first intimation he had received of the murder was
the chauffeur's message. There was a telephone between house and
lodge, but no one had thought of using it.
"Now, Bates," said Farrow, when the squad of men had spread out in
line, "you an' me will take the likeliest line. You ought to know
every spot in the covert where it's possible to aim a gun at any one
stannin' on top of the steps at The Towers. There can't be many such
places. Is there even one? I don't suppose the barefaced scoundrel
would dare come out into the open drive. Brodie said Mr. Fenley was
shot through the right side while facin' the car, so he bears out both
your notion an' Mr. Trenholme's that the bullet kem from the Quarry
Wood. What's _your_ idea about it? Have you one, or are you just as
much in the dark as the rest of us?"
Bates was sour-faced with perplexity. The killing of his employer was
already crystallizing in his thoughts into an irrevocable thing, for
the butler had lifted aside the dead man's coat and waistcoat, and
this had shown him the ghastly evidences of a wound which must have
been instantly fatal. Now, a shrewd if narrow intelligence was
concentrated on the one tremendous question, "Who hath done this
thing?" He looked so worried that the yellow dog, watching him, and
quick to interpret his moods, slouched warily at heel; and Farrow,
though agog with excitement, saw that his crony was ill at ease
because of some twinge of fear or suspicion.
"Speak out, Jim," he urged, dropping his voice to a confidential
pitch, lest one of the others might overhear. "Gimme the straight tip,
if you can. It need never be known that it kem from you."
"I've a good berth here," muttered the keeper, with seeming
irrelevance.
"Tell me something fresh," said Farrow, quickening with grateful
memories of many a pheasant and brace of rabbits reposing a brief
space in his modest larder.
"So, if I tell you things in confidence like----"
"I've heard 'em from any one but you."
Bates drew a deep breath, only to expel it fiercely between puffed
lips.
"It's this way," he growled. "Mr. Robert an' the ol' man didn't hit
off, an' there was a deuce of a row between 'em the other day,
Saturday it was. My niece, Mary, was a-dustin' the banisters when the
two kem out from breakfast, an' she heerd the Gov'nor say: 'That's my
last word on the subjec'. I mean to be obeyed this time.'
"'But, look here, pater,' said Mr. Robert--he always calls his father
pater, ye know--'I reelly can't arrange matters in that offhand way.
You must give me time.' 'Not another minute,' said Mr. Fenley. 'Oh,
dash it all,' said Mr. Robert, 'you're enough to drive a fellow crazy.
At times I almost forget that I'm your son. Some fellows would be
tempted to blow their brains out, an' yours, too.'
"At that, Tomlinson broke in, an' grabbed Mr. Robert's arm, an' the
Gov'nor went off in the car in a fine ol' temper. Mr. Robert left The
Towers on his motor bike soon afterward, an' he hasn't been back
since."
Although the fount of information temporarily ran dry, Farrow felt
that there was more to come if its secret springs were tapped.
"Did Mary drop a hint as to what the row was about?" he inquired.
"She guessed it had something to do with Miss Sylvia."
"Why Miss Sylvia?"
"She an' Mr. Robert are pretty good friends, you see."
"I see." The policeman saw little, but each scrap of news might fit
into its place presently.
"Is that all?" he went on. They were nearing that part of the wood
where care must be exercised, and he wanted Bates to talk while in
the vein.
"No, not by a long way," burst out the keeper, seemingly unable to
contain any longer the deadly knowledge weighing on his conscience.
"Don't you try an' hold me to it, Farrow, or I'll swear black an' blue
I never said it; but I knew the ring of the shot that killed my poor
ol' guv'nor. It was fired from an express rifle, an' there's on'y one
of the sort in Roxton, so far as _I've_ ever seen. An' it is, or ought
to be, in Mr. Robert's sittin'-room at this very minute. There! Now
you've got it. Do as you like. Get Tomlinson to talk, or anybody else,
but keep me out of it--d'ye hear?"
"I hear," said Farrow, thrilling with the consciousness that when some
dandy detective arrived from the "Yard," he would receive an
eye-opener from a certain humble member of the Hertfordshire
constabulary. Not that he quite brought himself to believe Robert
Fenley his father's murderer. That was going rather far. That would,
indeed, be a monstrous assumption as matters stood. But as clues the
quarrel and the rifle were excellent, and Scotland Yard must recognize
them in that light.
Certainly, this _was_ an unusual case; most unusual. He was well aware
of the reputation attached to Robert Fenley, the banker's younger son,
who differed from his brother in every essential. Hilton was
steady-going, business-like, his father's secretary and right hand in
affairs, both in the bank and in matters affecting the estate. Robert,
almost unmanageable as a youth, had grown into an exceedingly rapid
young man about town. But Roxton folk feared Hilton and liked Robert;
and local gossip had deplored Robert's wildness, which might erect an
insurmountable barrier against an obviously suitable match between him
and Mr. Mortimer Fenley's ward, the rich and beautiful Sylvia Manning.
These things were vivid in the policeman's mind, and he was wondering
how the puzzle would explain itself in the long run, when an
exclamation from Bates brought his vagrom speculations sharply back to
the problem of the moment.
The keeper, of course, as Farrow had said, was making straight for the
one place in the Quarry Wood which commanded a clear view of the
entrance to the mansion. The two men were skirting the disused quarry,
now a rabbit warren, which gave the locality its name; they followed
the rising edge of the excavation, treading on a broad strip of turf,
purposely freed of encroaching briers lest any wandering stranger
might plunge headlong into the pit. Near the highest part of the rock
wall there was a slight depression in the ground; and here, except
during the height of a phenomenally dry Summer, the surface was always
moist.
Bates, who was leading, had halted suddenly. He pointed to three well
marked footprints.
"Who's been here, an' not so long ago, neither?" he said, darting
ferret eyes now at the telltale marks and now into the quarry beneath
or through the solemn aisle of trees.
"Stick in some twigs, an' let's hurry on," said Farrow. "Footprints
are first rate, but they'll keep for an hour or two."
Thirty yards away, and somewhat to the right, a hump of rock formed
the Mont Blanc of that tiny Alp. From its summit, and from no other
part of the wood, they could see the east front of The Towers. In
fact, while perched there, having climbed its shoulder with great
care lest certain definite tokens of a recent intruder should be
obliterated, they discovered a dusty motor car ranged between the
doctor's runabout and the Fenley limousine, which had returned.
The doctor and Miss Sylvia Manning were standing on the broad mosaic
which adorned the landing above the steps, standing exactly where
Mortimer Fenley had stood when he was stricken to death. With them
were two strangers: one tall, burly and official-looking; the other a
shrunken little man, whose straw hat, short jacket, and clean-shaven
face conveyed, at the distance, a curiously juvenile aspect.
Halfway down the steps were Hilton Fenley and Brodie, and all were
gazing fixedly at that part of the wood where the keeper and the
policeman had popped into view.
"Hello!" said Bates. "Who is that little lot?"
Clearly, he meant the big man and his diminutive companion. Farrow
coughed importantly.
"That's Scotland Yard," he said.
"Who?"
"Detectives from the Yard. Mr. Hilton telephoned for 'em. An' wot's
more, they're signalin' to us."
"They want us to go back," said Bates.
"Mebbe."
"There can't be any doubt about it." And, indeed, only a blind man
could have been skeptical as to the wishes of the group near the door.
"I'm goin' through this wood first," announced Farrow firmly. "Mind
how you get down. Them marks may be useful. I'm almost sure the
scoundrel fired from this very spot."
"Looks like it," agreed Bates, and they descended.
Five minutes later they were in the open park, where their assistant
scouts awaited them. None of the others had found any indication of a
stranger's presence, and Farrow led them to the house in Indian file,
by a path.
"Scotland Yard is on the job," he announced. "Now we'll be told just
wot we reelly ought to have done!"
He did not even exchange a furtive glance with Bates, but, for the
life of him he could not restrain a note of triumph from creeping into
his voice. He noticed, too, that Tomlinson, the butler, not only
looked white and shaken, which was natural under the circumstances,
but had the haggard aspect of a stout man who may soon become thin by
stress of fearsome imaginings.
Farrow did not put it that way.
"Bates is right," he said to himself. "Tomlinson has something on his
chest. By jingo, this affair _is_ a one-er an' no mistake!"
At any rate, local talent had no intention of kowtowing too deeply
before the majesty of the "Yard," for the Chief of the Criminal
Investigation Department himself could have achieved no more in the
time than Police Constable Farrow.