figure was already moving away, throwing him a parting smile that seemed
to wound his sensitive soul afresh.
XI
NEWS
Even in that scattered countryside of long distances by windy roads,
with scarcely ever a village as a focus for gossip, news flew fast. The
next morning Ned Cromarty had set out with his gun towards a certain
snipe marsh, but while he was still on the high road he met a man on a
bicycle. The man had heard strange news and stopped to pass it on, and
the next moment Ned was hurrying as fast as his long legs could take him
back to the castle.
He saw his sister only for a moment.
"Lilian!" he cried, and the sound of his voice made her start and stare
at him. "There's a story that Sir Reginald was murdered last night."
"Murdered!" she repeated in a low incredulous voice. "Ridiculous, Ned!
Who told you?"
"I only know the man by sight, but he seemed to believe it right
enough."
"But how--who did it?"
Her brother shook his head.
"Don't know. He couldn't tell me. My God, I hope it's not true! I'm off
to see."
A few minutes later he was driving his mare headlong for his kinsman's
house. It had begun to rain by this time, and the mournful wreaths of
vapour that swept over the bare, late autumnal country and drove in fine
drops against his face sent his spirits down ever lower as the mare
splashed her way along the empty miles of road. The melancholy thrumming
of the telegraph wires droned by his side all the while, and as this
dirge waxed for the moment as they passed each post, his eye would
glance grimly at those gaunt poles. Very suitable and handy for a
certain purpose, they struck him--if by any possibility this tale were
true.
He knew the worst when he saw Bisset at the door.
"Thank God, you've come, sir," said the butler devoutly. "The master
would have expected it of you."
"How did it happen? What does it mean? Do you mean to say it's actually
_true_?"
Bisset shook his head sombrely.
"Ower true," said he. "But as to how it happened, come in to the
library, sir. It was in his ain library he was killed! The Fiscal and
Superintendent is there now and we've been going into the circumstantial
evidence. Most extraordinary mystery, sir--most extraordinary!"
In the library they found Simon Rattar and Superintendent Sutherland.
The Superintendent was a big burly red-moustached man; his face a
certificate of honesty, but hardly of the intellectual type. Ned looked
round him apprehensively for something else, but Bisset said:
"We've taken him upstairs, sir."
For a moment as he looked round that spacious comfortable room with its
long bookcases and easy chairs, and on the tables and mantel-piece a
hundred little mementoes of its late owner, the laird of Stanesland was
unable to speak a word, and the others respected his silence. Then he
pulled himself together sharply and asked:
"How did it happen? Tell me all about it!"
Perhaps there might have been for a moment in Simon's eye a hint that
this demand was irregular, but the superintendent evidently took no
exception to the intrusion. Besides being a considerable local magnate
and a kinsman of the dead baronet, Stanesland had a forcible personality
that stood no gainsaying.
"Well, sir," said the superintendent, "Mr. Rattar could perhaps explain
best----"
"Explain yourself, Sutherland," said Simon briefly.
The superintendent pointed to a spot on the carpet a few paces from the
door.
"We found Sir Reginald lying there," he said. "His skull had been fairly
cracked, just over the right eye, sir. The blow would have been enough
to kill him I'd think myself, but there were marks in his neck too,
seeming to show that the murderer had strangled him afterwards to make
sure. However, we'll be having the medical evidence soon. But there's no
doubt that was the way of it, and Mr. Rattar agrees with me."
The lawyer merely nodded.
"What was it done with?"
The superintendent pursed his lips and shook his head.
"That's one of the mysterious things in the case, sir. There's no sign
of any weapon in the room. The fire irons are far too light. But it was
an unco' heavy blow. There was little bleeding, but the skull was fair
cracked."
"Was anything stolen?"
"That's another mystery, sir. Nothing was stolen anywhere in the house
and there was no papers in a mess like, or anything."
"When was he found?" asked Ned.
"Seven-fifty this morning, sir," said Bisset. "The housemaid finding the
door lockit came to me. I knew the dining-room key fitted this door too,
so I opened it--and there he lay."
"All night, without any one knowing he hadn't gone to bed?"
"That's the unfortunate thing, sir," said the superintendent. "It seems
that Sir Reginald had arranged to sleep in his dressing room as he was
going to be sitting up late reading."
"Murderer must have known that," put in Simon.
"Almost looks like it," agreed the superintendent.
"And nobody in the house heard or saw anything?"
"Nobody, sir," said the superintendent.
"That's their statement," added the lawyer in his driest voice.
"Was anybody sitting up late?"
"Nobody admits it," said the lawyer, again very drily.
"Thirteen," said Bisset softly.
They turned towards him, but it seemed that he was talking to himself.
He was, in fact, quietly taking measurements with a tape.
"Go on," said Cromarty briefly.
"Well, sir," said the superintendent. "The body was found near the door
as I was pointing out, but it's a funny thing that a small table had
been upset apparently, and Bisset tells us that that table stood near
the window."
"Humph," grunted Simon sceptically.
"I'm quite sure of it, Mr. Rattar," said Bisset confidently, looking
round from his work of measurement.
"No positive proof it was upset," said the lawyer.
"Did you find it upset?" asked Ned.
The lawyer shook his head emphatically and significantly, and the
superintendent agreed.
"No, it was standing just where it is now near the wall."
"Then why do you think it was upset?"
"I picked up yon bits of sealing wax and yon piece of India rubber,"
said Bisset, looking round again. "I know they were on the wee table
yesterday and I found them under the curtain in the morning and the
table moved over to the wall. It follows that the table has been cowpit
and then set up again in another place, and the other things on it put
back. Is that not a fair deduction, sir?"
Ned nodded thoughtfully.
"Seems to me so," he said.
"It seems likely enough," the superintendent also agreed. "And if that's
the case there would seem to have been some kind of ongoings near the
window."
The Procurator Fiscal still seemed unconvinced.
"Nothing to go on. No proper evidence. It leads nowhere definitely," he
said.
"Well now," continued the superintendent, "the question is--how did the
murderer get into the room? The door was found locked and the key had
been taken away, so whether he had locked it from the inside or the
outside we can't tell. There's small chance of finding the key, I doubt,
for a key's a thing easy hidden away."
"So he might have come in by the door and then left by the door and
locked it after him," said Ned. "Or he might have come in by the window,
locked the door and gone out by the window. Or he might have come in by
the window and gone out by the door, locking it after him. Those are all
the chances, aren't they?"
"Indeed, that seems to be them all," said the superintendent with a note
of admiration for this clear exposition that seemed to indicate he was
better himself at details than deductions.
"And now what about the window? Was that open or shut or what?"
"Shut but not snibbed, sir."
Ned turned to Bisset.
"Did Sir Reginald ever forget to snib the windows, supposing one
happened to be open?"
"Practically never, sir."
"Last thing before he left the room, I suppose?" said the lawyer.
The butler hesitated.
"I suppose so, sir," he admitted, "but of course I was never here to
see."
"Exactly!" said Simon. "Therefore one can draw no conclusions as to
whether the window had been standing all the time just as it is now, or
whether it had been opened and shut again from the outside; seeing that
Sir Reginald was presumably killed before his usual time for looking to
the windows."
"Wait a bit!" said Ned. "I was assuming a window had been open. But were
the windows fastened before Sir Reginald came in to sit here last
thing?"
"Certainly they were that," said the butler emphatically.
"It was a mild night, he might have opened one himself," replied the
Procurator Fiscal. "Or supposing the man had come in and left again by
the door, what's more likely than that he unsnibbed the window to make
people think he had come that way?"
"He would surely have left it wide open," objected Ned.
"Might have thought that too obvious," replied the lawyer, "or might
have been afraid of the noise. Unsnibbing would be quite enough to
suggest entry that way."
Ned turned his keen eye hard on him.
"What's your own theory then?"
"I've none," grunted Simon. "No definite evidence one way or the other.
Mere guesses are no use."
Ned walked to the window and looked at it carefully. Then he threw it up
and looked out into the garden.
"Of course you've looked for footsteps underneath?" he asked.
"Naturally," said Simon. "But it's a hard gravel path and grass beyond.
One could fancy one saw traces, but no definite evidence."
The window was one of three together, with stone mullions between. They
were long windows reaching down nearly to the level of the floor, so
that entrance that way was extremely easy if one of them were open.
Cromarty got out and stood on the sill examining the middle sash.
Simon regarded him with a curious caustic look for a moment in his eye.
"Looking for finger marks?" he enquired.
"Yes," said Ned. "Did you look for them?"
For a single instant the Procurator Fiscal seemed a little taken aback.
Then he grunted with a half laugh:
"Don't believe much in them."
"Experienced criminals, that's been convicted before, frequently wears
gloves for to prevent their finger prints being spotted," said the
learned Bisset.
Mr. Rattar shot him a quick ambiguous glance, and then his eyes assumed
their ordinary cold look and he said:
"No evidence anybody ever opened that window from the outside. If they
had, Sir Reginald would have heard them."
"Well," said Ned, getting back into the room, "there are no finger marks
anyhow."
"The body being found near the door certainly seems to be in favour of
Mr. Rattar's opinion," observed the superintendent.
"I thought Mr. Rattar had formed no opinion yet," said Cromarty.
"No more I have," grunted the lawyer.
The superintendent looked a trifle perplexed.
"Before Mr. Cromarty had come in, sir, I understood you for to say
everything pointed to the man having come in by the door and hit Sir
Reginald on the head as he came to see who it was when he heard him
outside."
"I merely suggested that," said Simon Rattar sharply. "It fits the
facts, but there's no definite evidence yet."
Ned Cromarty had turned and was frowning out of the window. Now he
wheeled quickly and exclaimed:
"If the murderer came in through the window while Sir Reginald was in
the room, either the window was standing open or Sir Reginald opened it
for him! Did Sir Reginald ever sit with his window open late at night at
this time of year?"
"Never once, sir," said Bisset confidently. "He likit fresh air outside
fine but never kept his windies open much unless the weather was vera
propitious."
"Then," said Ned, "why should Sir Reginald have opened the window of his
own accord to a stranger at the dead of night?"
"Exactly!" said Mr. Rattar. "Thing seems absurd. He'd never do it."
"That's my own opinion likewise, sir," put in Bisset.
"It's only common sense," added the superintendent.
"Then how came the window to be unfastened?" demanded Ned.
"I've suggested a reason," said Simon.
"As a blind? Sounds to me damned thin."
Simon Rattar turned away from him with an air that suggested that he
thought it time to indicate distinctly that he was in charge of the case
and not the laird of Stanesland.
"That's all we can do just now, Sutherland," he said. "No use disturbing
the household any longer at present."
Cromarty stepped up to him suddenly and asked:
"Tell me honestly! Do you suspect anybody?"
Simon shook his head decidedly.
"No sufficient evidence yet. Good morning, Mr. Cromarty."
Ned was following him to the door, his lips compressed and his eyes on
the floor, when Bisset touched his arm and beckoned him back.
"Excuse me, sir," said he, "but could you not manage just to stop on for
a wee bit yet?"
Ned hesitated.
"They won't be wanting visitors, Bisset."
"They needn't know if you don't want them to, sir. Lady Cromarty is shut
up in her room, and the others are keeping out of the way. If you
wouldn't mind my giving you a little cold luncheon in my sitting room,
sir, I'd like to have your help. I'm making a few sma' bits of
investigation on my own. You're one of the family, sir, and I know
you'll be wanting to find out who killed the master."
Ned's eye flashed suddenly.
"By God, I'll never rest in this world or the next till I do! All right,
I'll wait for a bit."
XII
CICELY
Ned Cromarty waited in the hall while Bisset went to the door with the
Procurator Fiscal and Superintendent of Police. As he stood there in the
darkened silence of the house, there came to his ears for an instant the
faint sound of a voice, and it seemed to be a woman's. With that the
current of his thoughts seemed to change, and when Bisset returned he
asked, though with marked hesitation:
"Do you think, Bisset, I could do anything for any of them, Mr. Malcolm
Cromarty, or--er--Miss Farmond?"
Bisset considered the point judicially. It was clear he felt that the
management of the household was in his hands now.
"I am sure Miss Farmond would be pleased, sir--poor young lady!"
"Do you really think so?" said Ned, and his manner brightened visibly.
"Well, if she won't mind----"
"I think if you come this way, sir, you will find her with Sir Malcolm."
"_Sir_ Malcolm!" exclaimed Ned. "My God, so he is!"
To himself he added:
"And she will soon be Lady Cromarty!"
But the thought did not seem to exhilarate him.
He was led towards the billiard room, an addition to the house which lay
rather apart. The door was half open and through it he could see that
the blinds had been drawn down, and he could hear a murmur of voices.
"They are in there, sir," said Bisset, and he left him.
As Ned Cromarty entered he caught the words, spoken by the new baronet:
"My dear Cicely, I depend on your sympathy----"
He broke off as he heard a footstep, and seemed to move a little apart
from the chair where Cicely was sitting.
The two young people greeted their visitor, Cicely in a voice so low
that it was scarcely audible, but with a smile that seemed, he thought,
to welcome him; Sir Malcolm with a tragic solemnity which no doubt was
quite appropriate to a bereaved baronet. The appearance of a third party
seemed, however, to afford him no particular gratification, and after
exchanging a sentence or two, he begged, in a very serious tone, to be
excused, and retired, walking softly and mournfully. Ned noticed then
that his face was extraordinarily pale and his eye disturbed.
"I was afraid of disturbing you," said Ned. He was embarrassed, a rare
condition with him, which, when it did afflict him, resulted in an
impression of intimidating truculence.
Cicely seemed to shrink a little, and he resolved to leave instantly.
"Oh no!" she said shyly.
"I only wanted to say that if I could do anything for you--well, you've
only to let me know."
"It's awfully kind of you," she murmured.
There was something so evidently sincere in this murmur that his
embarrassment forthwith left him.
"Thank Heaven!" he said after his outspoken habit. "I was afraid I was
putting my foot in it. But if you really don't mind my seeing you for a
minute or two, I'd just like to say----"
He broke off abruptly, and she looked up at him questioningly.
"Dash it, I can't say it, Miss Farmond! But you know, don't you?"
She murmured something again, and though he could not quite hear what it
was, he knew she understood and appreciated.
Leaning against the corner of the shrouded billiard table, with the
blinds down and this pale slip of a girl in deep mourning sitting in a
basket chair in the dim light, he began suddenly to realise the tragedy.
"I've been too stunned till now to grasp what's happened," he said in a
moment. "Our best friend gone, Miss Farmond!"
He had said exactly the right thing now.
"He certainly was mine!" she said.
"And mine too. We may live to be a brace of Methuselahs, but I guess
we'll never see his like again!"
His odd phrase made her smile for a moment despite herself. It passed
swiftly and she said:
"_I_ can't believe it yet."
Again there was silence, and then he said abruptly:
"It's little wonder you can't believe it. The thing is so extraordinary.
It's incredible. A man without an enemy in the world--no robbery
attempted--sitting in his own library--in just about the most peaceful
and out of the way county in Scotland--not a sound heard by anybody--not
a reason that one can possibly imagine--and yet murdered!"
"But it must have been a robber surely!"
"Why didn't he rob something then?"
"But how else----?"
"How indeed! You've not a suspicion of any one yourself, Miss Farmond?
Say it right out if you have. We don't lynch here. At least," he
corrected himself as he recalled the telegraph posts, "it hasn't been
done yet."
"I _can't_ suspect any one!" she said earnestly. "I never met any one in
my life that I could possibly imagine doing such a thing!"
"No," he said. "I guess our experiences have been pretty different. I've
met lots, but then there are none of those boys here. Who is there in
this place?"
He paused and stared into space.
"It must have been a tramp--some one who doesn't belong here!"
"I was trying to think whether there are any lunatics about," he said in
a moment. "But there aren't any."
There was silence for some minutes. He was thinking; she never moved.
Then he heard a sound, and looking down saw that she had her
handkerchief in her hand. He had nearly bent over her before he
remembered Sir Malcolm, and at the recollection he said abruptly:
"Well, I've disturbed you too long. If I can do anything--anything
whatever, you'll let me know, won't you?"
"You are very, very kind," she murmured, and a note in her voice nearly
made him forget the new baronet. In fact, he had to retire rather
quickly to be sure of himself.
The efficiency of James Bisset was manifest at every conjuncture.
Businesslike and brisk he appeared from somewhere as Cromarty reached
the hall, and led him from the front regions to the butler's sitting
room.
"I will bring your lunch in a moment, sir," he murmured, and vanished
briskly.
The room looked out on a courtyard at the back, and through the window
Ned could see against the opposite buildings the rain driving in clouds.
In the court the wind was eddying, and beneath some door he could hear
it drone insistently. Though the toughest of men, he shivered a little
and drew up a wicker chair close in front of the fire.
"It's incredible!" he murmured, and as he stared at the flames this
thought seemed to haunt him all the time.
Bisset laid the table and another hour passed. Ned ate a little lunch
and then smoked and stared at the fire while the wind droned and
blustered without ceasing, and occasionally a cross gust sent the rain
drops softly pattering on the panes.
"I'm damned if I see a thing!" he suddenly exclaimed half aloud, and
jumped to his feet.
Before he had time to start for the door, Bisset's mysterious efficiency
was made manifest again. Precisely as he was wanted, he appeared, and
this time it was clear that his own efforts had not been altogether
fruitless. He had in fact an air of even greater complacency than usual.
"I have arrived at certain conclusions, sir," he announced.
XIII
THE DEDUCTIVE PROCESS
Bisset laid on the table a sheet of note paper.
"Here," said he, "is a kin' of bit sketch plan of the library. Observing
this plan attentively, you will notice two crosses, marked A and B. A is
where yon wee table was standing--no the place against the wall where it
was standing this morning, but where it was standing before it was
knocked over last night. B is where the corp was found. You follow that,
sir?"
Ned nodded.
"I follow," said he.
"Now, the principle in a' these cases of crime and detection," resumed
the philosopher, assuming his lecturer's air, "is noticing such sma'
points of detail as escape the eye of the ordinar' observer, taking full
and accurate measurements, making a plan with the principal sites
carefully markit, and drawing, as it were, logical conclusions. Applying
this method now to the present instance, Mr. Cromarty, the first point
to observe is that the room is twenty-six feet long, measured from the
windie, which is a bit recessed or set back, as it were, to the other
end of the apartment. Half of 26 is 13, and if you take the half way
line and draw approximate perpendiculars to about where the table was
standing and to as near as one can remember where the middle of the corp
roughly was lying, you get exactly six feet ten and five-eighths inches,
in both cases."
"An approximate perpendicular to roughly about these places gives this
exact measurement?" repeated Cromarty gravely. "Well, what next?"
"Well, sir, I'll not insist too much on the coincidence, but it seems to
me vera remarkable. But the two significant features of this case seem
to me yon table being upset over by the windie and the corp being found
over by the door."
"You're talking horse sense now," murmured Ned.
"Now, yon table was upset by Sir Reginald falling on it!"
Ned looked at him keenly.
"How do you know?"
"Because one of the legs was broken clean off!"
"What, when we saw it this morning?"
"We had none of us noticed it then, sir; but I've had a look at it
since, and there's one leg broken fair off at the top. The break was
half in the socket, as it were, leaving a kind of spike, and if you
stick that into the socket you can make the table look as good as new.
It's all right, in fac', until you try to move it, and then of course
the leg just drops out."
"And it wasn't like that yesterday?"
"I happened to move it myself not so long before Sir Reginald came into
the room, and that's how I know for certain where it was standing and
that it wasn't broken. And yon wee light tables dinna lose their legs
just with being cowped, supposing there was nothing else than that to
smash them. No, sir, it was poor Sir Reginald falling on top of it that
smashed yon leg."
"Then he was certainly struck down near the window!"
"Well, we'll see that in a minute. It's no in reason, Mr. Cromarty, to
suppose he deliberately opened the windie to let his ain murderer in.
And it's a' just stuff and nonsense to suggest Sir Reginald was sitting
on a winter's night--or next door to winter onyhow, with his windie wide
open. I'm too well acquaint with his habits to believe that for a
minute. And it's impossible the man can have opened a snibbed windie and
got in, with some one sitting in the room, and no alarm given. So it's
perfectly certain the man must have come in at the door. That's a fair
deduction, is it not, sir?"
Ned Cromarty frowned into space in silence. When he spoke it seemed to
be as much to himself as to Bisset.
"How did the window get unsnibbed? Everything beats me, but that beats
me fairly."
"Well, sir, Mr. Rattar may no be just exac'ly as intellectual as me and
you, but I think there's maybe something in his idea it was done to put
us off the scent."
"Possibly--but it strikes me as a derned feeble dodge. However, what's
your next conclusion?"
"My next conclusion is, sir, that Simon Rattar may not be so vera far
wrong either about Sir Reginald hearing some one at the door and
starting to see who it was. Then--bang!--the door would suddenly open,
and afore he'd time to speak, the man had given him a bat on the heid
that finished him."
"And where does the table come in?"
"Well, my explanation is just this, that Sir Reginald suspected
something and took the wee table as a kind of weapon."
"Rot!" said Ned ruthlessly. "You think he left the fireplace and went
round by the window to fetch such a useless weapon as that?"
James Bisset was not easily damped.