one night!"
XXXIII
THE HOUSE OF MYSTERIES
The sympathetic stranger almost laid down his pen, he was so interested
by this unexpected reply.
"What!" he exclaimed. "Really a burglary in this house? I say, how
awfully interesting! When did it happen?"
"Well, sir," said Mary in an impressive voice, "it's a most
extraordinary thing, but it was actually the very self same night of Sir
Reginald's murder!"
So surprised and interested was the visitor that he actually did lay
down his pen this time.
"Was it the same man, do you think?" he asked in a voice that seemed to
thrill with sympathetic excitement.
"Indeed I've sometimes wondered!" said she.
"Tell me how it happened!"
"Well, sir," said Mary, "it was on the very morning that we heard about
Sir Reginald--only before we'd heard, and I was pulling up the blinds in
the wee sitting room when I says to myself. 'There's been some one in at
this window!'"
"The wee sitting room," repeated her visitor. "Which is that?"
He seemed so genuinely interested that before she realised what
liberties she was taking in the master's house, she had led him into a
small sitting room at the end of a short passage leading out of the
hall. It had evidently been intended for a smoking room or study when
the villa was built, but was clearly never used by Mr. Rattar, for it
contained little furniture beyond bookcases. Its window looked on to the
side of the garden and not towards the drive, and a grass lawn lay
beneath it, while the room itself was obviously the most isolated, and
from a burglarious point of view the most promising, on the ground
floor.
"This is the room, sir," said Mary. "And look! You still can see the
marks on the sash."
"Yes," said the visitor thoughtfully, "they seem to have been made by a
tacketty boot."
"And forbye that, there was a wee bit mud on the floor and a tacket mark
in that!"
"Was the window shut or open?"
"Shut, sir; and the most extraordinary thing was that it was snibbed
too! That's what made the master say it couldna have been a burglar at
all, or how did he snib the window after he went out again?"
"Then Mr. Rattar didn't believe it was a burglar?"
"N--no, sir," said Mary, a little reluctantly.
"Was anything stolen?"
"No, sir; that was another funny thing. But it must have been a
burglar!"
"What about the other windows, and the doors? Were they all fastened in
the morning?"
"Yes, sir, it's the truth they were," she admitted.
"And what did Mr. Rattar do with the piece of mud?"
"Just threw it out of the window."
The sympathetic stranger crossed to the window and looked out.
"Grass underneath, I see," he observed. "No footprints outside, I
suppose?"
"No, sir."
"Did the police come down and make enquiries?"
"Well, sir, the master said he would inform the pollis, but then came
the news of the murder, and no one had any thoughts for anything else
after that."
The sympathetic visitor stood by the window very thoughtfully for a few
moments, and then turned and rewarded her with the most charming smile.
"Thank you awfully for showing me all this," said he. "By the way,
what's your name?" She told him and he added with a still nicer smile,
"Thank you, Mary!"
They returned to the library and he sat down before the table again, but
just as he was going to pick up the pen a thought seemed to strike him.
"By the way," he said, "I remember hearing something about the loss of a
ring. The burglar didn't take that, did he?"
"Oh, no, sir, I remember the advertisement was in the paper before the
night of the burglary."
He opened his eyes and then smiled.
"Brilliant police you've got!" he murmured, and took up the pen again.
"There was another burglar here and he might have taken it!" said Mary
in a low voice.
The visitor once more dropped the pen and looked up with a start.
"Another burglar!" he exclaimed.
"Well, sir, this one didn't actually burgle, but--"
She thought of the master if he chanced to learn how she had been
gossiping, and her sentence was cut short in the midst.
"Yes, Mary! You were saying?" cooed the persuasive visitor, and Mary
succumbed again and told him of that night when a shadow moved into the
trees and footprints were left in the gravel outside the library window,
and the master looked so strangely in the morning. Her visitor was so
interested that once she began it was really impossible to stop.
"How very strange!" he murmured, and there was no doubt he meant it.
"But about the master's ring, sir--" she began.
"You say he looked as though he were being _watched_?" he interrupted,
but it was quite a polite and gentle interruption.
"Yes, sir; but the funny thing about losing the ring was that he never
could get it off his finger before! I've seen him trying to, but oh, it
wouldn't nearly come off!"
Again he sat up and gazed at her.
"Another mystery!" he murmured. "He lost a ring which wouldn't come off
his finger? By Jove! That's very rum. Are there any more mysteries,
Mary, connected with this house?"
She hesitated and then in a very low voice answered:
"Oh, yes, sir; there was one that gave me even a worse turn!"
By this time her visitor seemed to have given up all immediate thoughts
of writing his note to Mr. Rattar. He turned his back to the table and
looked at her with benevolent calm.
"Let's hear it, Mary," he said gently.
And then she told him the story of that dreadful night when the unknown
visitor came for the box of old papers. He gazed at her, listening very
attentively, and then in a soothing voice asked her several questions,
more particularly when all these mysterious events occurred.
"And are these all your troubles now, Mary?" he enquired.
He asked so sympathetically that at last she even ventured to tell him
her latest trouble. Till he fairly charmed it out of her, she had shrunk
from telling him anything that seemed to reflect directly on her master
or to be a giving away of his concerns. But now she confessed that Mr.
Rattar's conduct, Mr. Rattar's looks, and even Mr. Rattar's very
infrequent words had been troubling her strangely. How or why his looks
and words should trouble her, she knew not precisely, and his conduct,
generally speaking, she admitted was as regular as ever.
"You don't mean that just now and then he takes a wee drop too much?"
enquired her visitor helpfully.
"Oh, no, sir," said she, "the master never did take more than what a
gentleman should, and he's not a smoking gentleman either--quite a
principle against smokers, he has, sir. Oh, it's nothing like that!"
She looked over her shoulder fearfully as though the walls might repeat
her words to the master, as she told him of the curious and disturbing
thing. Mr. Rattar had been till lately a gentleman of the most exact
habits, and then all of a sudden he had taken to walking in his garden
in a way he never did before. First she had noticed him, about the time
of the burglary and the removal of the papers, walking there in the
mornings. That perhaps was not so very disturbing, but since then he had
changed this for a habit of slipping out of the house every night--every
single night!
"And walking in the garden!" exclaimed Mr. Carrington.
"Sometimes I've heard his footsteps on the gravel, sir! Even when it has
been raining I've heard them. Perhaps sometimes he goes outside the
garden, but I've never heard of anyone meeting him on the road or
streets. It's in the garden I've heard the master's steps, sir, and if
you had been with him as long as I've been, and knew how regular his
habits was, you'd know how I'm feeling, sir!"
"I do know, Mary; I quite understand," Mr. Carrington assured her in his
soothing voice, and there could be no doubt he was wondering just as
hard as she.
"What o'clock does he generally go out?" he asked.
"At nine o'clock almost exactly every night, sir!"
Mr. Carrington looked thoughtfully out of the window into the garden,
and then at last looked down at the ink and paper and pen. Not a word
was written on the paper yet.
"Look here, Mary," he said very confidentially. "I am a friend of Mr.
Rattar's and I am sure you would like me to try and throw a little light
on this. Perhaps something is troubling him and I could help you to
clear it up."
"Oh, sir," she cried, "you are very kind! I wish you could!"
"Perhaps the best thing then," he suggested, "would be for me not to
leave a note for him after all, and for you not even to mention that I
have called. As he knows me pretty well he would be almost sure to ask
you whether I had come in and if I had left any message and so on, and
then he might perhaps find out that we had been talking, and that
wouldn't perhaps be pleasant for you, would it?"
"Oh, my! No, indeed, it wouldn't!" she agreed. "I'm that feared of the
master, sir, I'd never have him know I had been talking about him, or
about anything that has happened in this house!"
So, having come to this judicious decision, Mr. Carrington wished Mary
the kindest of farewells and walked down the drive again. There could be
no question he had plenty to think about now, though to judge from his
expression, it seemed doubtful whether his thoughts were very clear.
XXXIV
A CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION
The laird of Stanesland strode into the Kings Arms and demanded:
"Mr. Carrington? What, having a cup of tea in his room? What's his
number? 27--right! I'll walk right up, thanks."
He walked right up, made the door rattle under his knuckles and strode
jauntily in. There was no beating about the bush with Mr. Cromarty
either in deed or word.
"Well, Mr. Carrington," said he, "don't trouble to look surprised. I
guess you've seen right through me for some time back."
"Meaning--?" asked Carrington with his engaging smile.
"Meaning that I'm the unknown, unsuspected, and mysterious person who's
putting up the purse. Don't pretend you haven't tumbled to that!"
"Yes," admitted Carrington, "I have tumbled."
"I knew my sister had given the whole blamed show away! I take it you
put your magnifying glass back in your pocket after your trip out to
Stanesland?"
"More or less," admitted Carrington.
"Well," said Ned, "that being so, I may as well tell you what my idea
was. It mayn't have been very bright; still there was a kind of method
in my madness. You see I wanted you to have an absolutely clear field
and let you suspect me just as much as anybody else."
"In short," smiled Carrington, "you wanted to start with the other
horses and not just drop the flag."
"That's so," agreed Ned. "But when my sister let out about that L1200,
and I saw that you must have spotted me, there didn't seem much point in
keeping up the bluff, when I came to think it over. And since then, Mr.
Carrington, something has happened that you ought to know and I decided
to come and see you and talk to you straight."
"What has happened?"
Ned smiled for an instant his approval of this prompt plunge into
business, and then his face set hard.
"It's a most extraordinary thing," said he, "and may strike you as
hardly credible, but here's the plain truth put shortly. Yesterday
afternoon Miss Farmond ran away." Carrington merely nodded, and he
exclaimed, "What! You know then?"
"I learned from Bisset this morning."
"Ah, I see. Did you know I'd happened to see her start and gone after
her and brought her back?"
Carrington's interest was manifest.
"No," said he, "that's quite news to me."
"Well, I did, and I learnt the whole story from her. You can't guess who
advised her to bolt?"
"I think I can," said Carrington quietly.
"Either you're on the wrong track, or you've cut some ice, Mr.
Carrington. It was Simon Rattar!"
"I thought so."
"How the devil did you guess?"
"Tell me Miss Farmond's story first and I'll tell you how I guessed."
"Well, she spotted you were a detective--"
Carrington started and then laughed.
"Confound these women!" said he. "They're so infernally independent of
reason, they always spot things they shouldn't!"
"Then she discovered she was suspected and so she got in a stew, poor
girl, and went to see Rattar. Do you know what he told her? That I was
employing you and meant to convict Sir Malcolm and her and hang them
with my own hands!"
"The old devil!" cried Carrington. "Well, no wonder she bolted, Mr.
Cromarty!"
"But even that was done by Simon's advice. He actually gave her an
address in London to go to."
"Pretty thorough!" murmured Carrington.
"Now what do you make of that? And what ought one to do? And, by the
way, how did you guess Simon was at the bottom of it?"
Carrington leaned back in his chair and thought for a moment before
answering.
"We are in pretty deep waters, Mr. Cromarty," he said slowly. "As to
what I make of it--nothing as yet. As to what we are to do--also nothing
in the meantime. But as to how I guessed, well I can tell you this much.
I had to get information from someone, and so I called on Mr. Rattar and
told him who I was--in strict confidence, by the way, so that he had no
business to tell Miss Farmond or anybody else. I had started off, I may
say, with a wrong guess: I thought Rattar himself was probably either my
employer or acting for my employer, and when I suggested this he told me
I was right."
"What!" shouted Ned. "The grunting old devil told you that?" He stared
at the other for a moment, and then demanded, "Why did he tell you that
lie?"
"Fortune played my cards for me. Quite innocently and unintentionally. I
tempted him. I said if I could be sure he was my employer I'd keep him
in touch with everything I was doing. I had also let him know that my
employer had made it an absolute condition that his name was not to
appear. He evidently wanted badly to know what I was doing, and thought
he was safe not to be given away."
"Then have you kept him in touch with everything you have done?"
Carrington smiled.
"I tell you, Mr. Cromarty, my cards were being played for me. Five
minutes later I asked him who benefited by the will and I learned that
you had scored the precise sum of L1200."
"I hadn't thought of that when I made my limit L1200!" exclaimed Ned.
"Lord, you must have bowled me out at once! Of course, you spotted the
coincidence straight off?"
"But Rattar didn't! I pushed it under his nose and he didn't see it!
Inside of one second I'd asked myself whether it was possible for an
astute man like that not to notice such a coincidence supposing he had
really guaranteed me exactly that sum--an extraordinarily large and
curious sum too."
"I like these simple riddles," said Ned with a twinkle in his single
eye. "I guess your answer to yourself was 'No!'"
Carrington nodded.
"That's what I call having my cards played for me. I knew then that the
man was lying; so I threw him off the scent, changed the subject, and
did _not_ keep Mr. Simon Rattar in touch with any single thing I did
after that."
"Good for you!" said Ned.
"Good so far, but the next riddle wasn't of the simple kind--or else I'm
even a bigger ass than I endeavour to look! What was the man's game?"
"Have you spotted it yet?"
Carrington shook his head.
"Mr. Simon Rattar's game is the toughest proposition in the way of
puzzles I've ever struck. While I'm at it I'll just tell you one or two
other small features of that first interview."
He lit a cigarette and leant over the arm of his chair towards his
visitor, his manner growing keener as he talked.
"I happened to have met Miss Farmond that morning and my interview had
knocked the bottom out of the story that she was concerned in the crime.
I had satisfied myself also that she was not engaged to Sir Malcolm."
"How did you discover that?" exclaimed Ned.
"Her manner when I mentioned him. But I found that old Rattar was wrong
on both these points and apparently determined to remain wrong. Of
course, it might have been a mere error of judgment, but at the same
time he had no evidence whatever against her, and it seemed to suggest a
curious bias. And finally, I didn't like the look of the man."
"And then you came out to see me?"
"I went out to Keldale House first and then out to you. I next
interviewed Sir Malcolm."
"Interviewed Malcolm Cromarty!" exclaimed Ned. "Where?"
"He came up to see me," explained Carrington easily, "and the gentleman
had scarcely spoken six sentences before I shared your opinion of him,
Mr. Cromarty--a squirt but not homicidal. He gave me, however, one very
interesting piece of information. Rattar had advised him to keep away
from these parts, and for choice to go abroad. I need hardly ask whether
you consider that sound advice to give a suspected man."
"Seems to me nearly as rotten advice as he gave Miss Farmond."
"Exactly. So when I heard that Miss Farmond had flown and discovered she
had paid a visit to Mr. Rattar the previous day, I guessed who had given
her the advice."
Carrington sat back in his chair with folded arms and looked at his
employer with a slight smile, as much as to say, "Tell me the rest of
the story!" Cromarty returned his gaze in silence, his heaviest frown
upon his brow.
"It seems to me," said Ned at last, "that Simon Rattar is mixed up in
this business--sure! He has something to hide and he's trying to put
people off the scent, I'll lay my bottom dollar!"
"What is he hiding?" enquired Carrington, looking up at the ceiling.
"What do you think?"
Carrington shook his head, his eyes still gazing dreamily upwards.
"I wish to Heaven I knew what to think!" he murmured; and then he
resumed a brisker air and continued, "I am ready to suspect Simon Rattar
of any crime in the calendar--leaving out petty larceny and probably
bigamy. But he's the last man to do either good or evil unless he saw a
dividend at the end, and where does he score by taking any part or
parcel in conniving at or abetting or concealing evidence or anything
else, so far as this particular crime is concerned? He has lost his best
client, with whom he was on excellent terms and whose family he had
served all his life, and he has now got instead an unsatisfactory young
ass whom he suspects, or says he suspects, of murder, and who so
loathes Rattar that, as far as I can judge, he will probably take his
business away from him. To suspect Rattar of actually conniving at, or
taking any part in the actual crime itself is, on the face of it, to
convict either Rattar or oneself of lunacy!"
"I knew Sir Reginald pretty well," said Ned, "but of course I didn't
know much about his business affairs. He hadn't been having any trouble
with Rattar, had he?"
Carrington threw him a quick, approving glance.
"We are thinking on the same lines," said he, "and I have unearthed one
very odd little misunderstanding, but it seems to have been nothing more
than that, and, apart from it, all accounts agree that there was no
trouble of any kind or description."
He took a cigarette out of his case and struck a match.
"There must be _some_ motive for everything one does--even for smoking
this cigarette. If I disliked cigarettes, knew smoking was bad for me,
and stood in danger of being fined if I was caught doing it, why should
I smoke? I can see no point whatever in Rattar's taking the smallest
share even in diverting the course of justice by a hair's breadth. He
and you and I have to all appearances identical interests in the
matter."
"You are wiser than I am," said Ned simply, but with a grim look in his
eye, "but all I can say is I am going out with my gun to look for Simon
Rattar."
Carrington laughed.
"I'm afraid you'll have to catch him at something a little better known
to the charge-sheets than giving bad advice to a lady client, before
it's safe to fire!" said he.
"But, look here, Carrington, have you collected no other facts whatever
about this case?"
Carrington shot him a curious glance, but answered nothing else.
"Oh well," said Ned, "if you don't want to say anything yet, don't say
it. Play your hand as you think best."
"Mr. Cromarty," replied Carrington, "I assure you I don't want to make
facts into mysteries, but when they _are_ mysteries--well, I like to
think 'em over a bit before I trust myself to talk. In the course of
this very afternoon I've collected an assortment either of facts or
fiction that seem to have broken loose from a travelling nightmare."
"Mind telling where you got 'em?" asked Ned.
"Chiefly from Rattar's housemaid, a very excellent but somewhat
high-strung and imaginative young woman, and how much to believe of what
she told me I honestly don't know. And the more one can believe, the
worse the puzzle gets! However, there is one statement which I hope to
be able to check. It may throw some light on the lady's veracity
generally. Meantime I am like a man trying to build a house of what may
be bricks or may be paper bags."
Ned rose with his usual prompt decision.
"I see," said he. "And I guess you find one better company than two at
this particular moment. I won't shoot Simon Rattar till I hear from you,
though by Gad, I'm tempted to kick him just to be going on with! But
look here, Carrington, if my services will ever do you the least bit of
good--in fact, so long as I'm not actually in the way--just send me a
wire and I'll come straight. You won't refuse me that?"
Carrington looked at the six feet two inches of pure lean muscle and
smiled.
"Not likely!" he said. "That's not the sort of offer I refuse. I won't
hesitate to wire if there's anything happening. But don't count on it. I
can't see any business doing just yet."
Ned held out his hand, and then suddenly said, "You don't see any
business doing just yet? But you feel you're on his track, sure! Now,
don't you?"
Carrington glanced at him out of an eye half quizzical, half abstracted.
"Whose track?" he asked.
Ned paused for a second and then rapped out:
"Was it Simon himself?"
"If we were all living in a lunatic asylum, probably yes! If we were
living in the palace of reason, certainly not--the thing's ridiculous!
What we are actually living in, however, is--" he broke off and gazed
into space.
"What?" said Ned.
"A blank fog!"
XXXV
IN THE GARDEN
It was a few minutes after half past eight when Miss Peterkin chanced to
meet her friend Mr. Carrington in the entrance hall of the Kings Arms.
He was evidently going out, and she noticed he was rather differently
habited from usual, wearing now a long, light top coat of a very dark
grey hue, and a dark coloured felt hat. They were not quite so becoming
as his ordinary garb, she thought, but then Mr. Carrington looked the
gentleman in anything.
"Are you going to desert us to-night, Mr. Carrington?" asked the
manageress.
"I have a letter or two to post," said he, "they are an excuse for a
stroll. I want a breath of fresh air."
He closed the glass door of the hotel behind him and stood for a moment
on the pavement in the little circle of radiance thrown by the light of
the hall. Mr. Carrington's leisurely movements undoubtedly played no
small part in the unsuspecting confidence which he inspired. Out of the
light he turned, strolling easily, down the long stretch of black
pavement with its few checkers of lamplight here and there, and the
empty, silent street of the little country town at his side. It was a
very dark, moonless night, and the air was almost quite still. Looking
upward, he could see a rare star or two twinkle, but all the rest of the
Heavens were under cloud. Judging from his contented expression the
night seemed to please him.
He passed the post office, but curiously enough omitted to drop any
letters into the box. The breath of fresh air seemed, in fact, to be his
sole preoccupation. Moving with a slightly quickened stride, but still
easily, he turned out of that street into another even quieter and
darker, and in a short time he was nearing the lights of the station. He
gave these a wide birth, however, and presently was strolling up a very
secluded road, with a few villas and gardens upon the one side, and
black space on the other. There for a moment he stopped and transferred
something from the pocket of his inner coat into the pocket of his top
coat. It was a small compact article, and a ray of light from a
lamp-post behind him gleamed for an instant upon a circular metal
orifice at one end of it.