own trade. And as a matter of fact I was left just as bamboozled as you
were. For who could this mysterious man be? Of the people inside the
house, I had struck out Miss Farmond, Bisset, Lady Cromarty, and all the
female servants. Only Sir Malcolm was left. I wired for him to come up
and was able to score him out too. I also visited you and scored you
out. So there I was--with no conceivable criminal!"
"But you'd already begun to suspect Rattar, hadn't you?"
"I knew he had lied about engaging me; I discovered from Lady Cromarty
that he had told her of Sir Malcolm's engagement to Miss Farmond--and I
suspected he had started her suspicions of them; and I saw that he was
set on that theory, in spite of the fact that it was palpably improbable
if one actually knew the people. Of course if one didn't, it was
plausible enough. When I first came down here it seemed to me a very
likely theory and I was prepared to find a guilty couple, but when I met
Miss Farmond and told her suddenly that Sir Malcolm was arrested, and
she gazed blankly at me and asked 'What for?' well, I simply ran my
pencil, so to speak, through her name and there was an end of her! The
same with Sir Malcolm when I met him. And yet here was the family
lawyer, who knew them both perfectly, so convinced of their guilt that
he was obviously stifling investigation in any other direction. And on
top of all that, all my natural instincts and intuitions told me that
the man was a bad hat."
"But didn't all that make you suspect him?"
"Of what? Of leaving his respectable villa at the dead of night,
tramping several miles at his age in the dark, and deliberately
murdering his own best client and old friend under circumstances so
risky to himself that only a combination of lucky chances saw him
safely through the adventure? Nothing--absolutely nothing but homicidal
mania could possibly account for such a performance, and the man was
obviously as sane as you or I. I felt certain that there was something
wrong somewhere, but as for suspecting him of being the principal in the
crime, the idea was stark lunacy!"
"By George, it was a tough proposition!" said Ned. "By the way, had you
heard of George Rattar at that time?"
"Oh, yes, I heard of him, and knew they resembled one another, but as I
was told that he had left the place for years and was now dead, my
thoughts never even once ran in that direction until I got into a state
of desperation, and then I merely surmised that his misdeeds might have
been at the bottom of some difficulty between Simon and Sir Reginald."
"Then how on earth did you ever get on to the right track?"
"I never would have if the man hadn't given himself away. To begin with,
he was fool enough to fall in with my perfectly genuine assumption that
he was either employing me or acting for my employer. No doubt he stood
to score if the bluff had come off, and he banked on your stipulation
that your name shouldn't appear. But if he had only been honest in that
matter, my suspicions would never have started--not at that point
anyhow."
"That was Providence--sure!" said Ned with conviction.
"I'm inclined to think it was," agreed Carrington. "Then again his
advice to Sir Malcolm and Miss Farmond was well enough designed to
further his own scheme of throwing suspicion on them, but it simply
ended in his being bowled out both times, and throwing suspicion on
himself. But _the_ precaution which actually gave him away was putting
in that advertisement about his ring."
"I was just wondering," said Ned, "how that did the trick."
"By the merest fluke. I noticed it when I was making enquiries at the
Police Office on quite different lines, but you can imagine that I
switched off my other enquiries pretty quick when Superintendent
Sutherland calmly advanced the theory that the ring was stolen when
Rattar's house was entered by some one unknown on the very night of the
murder!"
"This is the first I've heard of that!" cried Ned.
"It was the first I had, but it led me straight to Rattar's house and a
long heart to heart talk with his housemaid. That was when I collected
that extraordinary mixed bag of information which I was wondering
yesterday whether to believe or not. Here are the items, and you can
judge for yourself what my state of mind was when I was carrying about
the following precious pieces of information."
He ticked the items off on his fingers.
"A mysterious man who entered the garden one night and left his
footprints in the gravel, and whose visit had a strange and mysterious
effect on Rattar. Funny feelings produced in the bosom of the housemaid
by the presence of her master. Doors of unused rooms mysteriously locked
and keys taken away; said to be old papers inside. Mysterious visit of
mysterious man at dead of night to remove the said papers. A ring that
couldn't come off the owner's finger mysteriously lost. Mysterious
burglary on night of the murder by mysterious burglar who left all
windows and doors locked behind him and took nothing away. Mysterious
perambulations of his garden every night at nine o'clock by Mr. Simon
Rattar."
"Great Scot!" murmured Cromarty.
"I have given you the items in what turned out to be their order of
date, but I got them higgledy-piggledy and served up in a sauce of
mystery and trembly sensations that left me utterly flummoxed as to how
much--if anything--was sober fact. However, I began by fastening on to
two things. The first was the burglary, which of course at once
suggested the possibility that the man who had committed the crime at
Keldale had returned to Rattar's house and got in by that window. The
second was the nightly perambulations, which could easily be tested.
When Mr. Rattar emerged at nine that night, I was in the garden before
him. And what do you think he did?"
"Had a look at his brother's grave?"
"Smoked two pipes of tobacco! A man who was an anti-tobacco fanatic! The
truth hit me straight in the eye--'That man is not Simon Rattar!' And
then of course everything dropped into its place. The ex-convict twin
brother, the only evidence of whose supposititious death was an
announcement in the paper, obviously put in as a blind. The personal
resemblance between the two. All the yarns told me by the housemaid,
including the strange visitor--George of course arriving; the man who
came for the papers--George himself taking out the body; and the
vanished ring. Everything fitted in now, and the correspondence between
Sir Reginald and Rattar which had beaten me before, gave the clue at
once as to motive."
"I guess you felt you had deserved a drink that trip!" said Ned.
"I didn't stop to have my drink. I went straight off to see old Ison
and pumped him for the rest of the evening. He wasn't very helpful
but everything I could get out of him went to confirm my theory. I
found for certain that Simon Rattar had never smoked in his life, and
that George used to be a heavy smoker. I also learned that a few
recent peculiarities of conduct had struck the not too observant Ison,
one being very suggestive. Rattar, it seemed, kept an old pair of kid
gloves in his desk which he was in the habit of wearing when he was
alone in the office."
"Don't quite see the bearing of that."
"Well, on my hypothesis it was to avoid leaving finger marks. You see
George was an ex-convict. It was a very judicious precaution too, and
made it extremely difficult to catch him out by that means, for one
could scarcely approach a respectable solicitor and ask him for an
impression of his fingers! And anyhow, nothing could be definitely
proved against him until we had found Simon's body. That was the next
problem. Where had he hidden it?"
"And how did you get at that?"
"Guessed it. At first my thoughts went too far afield, but when I went
over the times mentioned in the maid's story of the man who took away
the papers, and the fact that she heard no sound of a wheeled vehicle, I
realised that he must have simply planted it in one of the flower beds.
This morning I prodded them all with a stout walking stick and found the
spot. Then I talked like a father to old Sutherland and fixed everything
up with him. And then I sent my wire to you."
"And you deliberately tell me you got there as much by good luck as good
guidance?"
Carrington's eyes thoughtfully followed his smoke rings.
"I can see the luck at every turn," he answered, "and though I'd like to
believe in the guidance, I'm hanged if it's quite as distinct!"
"If you are telling me the neat, unvarnished truth, Carrington," said
his admiring employer, "I can only say that you've a lot to learn about
your own abilities--and I hope to Heaven you'll never learn it!"
"But I assure you there are some people who think me conceited!"
"There are guys of all sorts in the world," said Ned. "For instance
there's a girl who has mistaken me for a daisy, and I've got to get back
to her now. Good night! I won't say 'Thanks' because I can't shout it
loud enough."
When his gig lamps had flashed up the silent street and Carrington had
turned back from the pavement into the hotel, he met his friend Miss
Peterkin.
"Mr. Cromarty's late to-night," said she. "A fine gentleman that! I
always say there are few like Mr. Cromarty of Stanesland."
"That's lucky for me," said Carrington with a smile that puzzled her a
little. "My business in life would be gone if there were!"
THE END