YET ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH
Next morning my head ached. After all I'd suffered, I could hardly
bear to recur to the one subject that now always occupied my
thoughts. And yet, on the other hand, I couldn't succeed in
banishing it. To relieve my mind a little, I took out the
photographs I had brought from the box at The Grange, and began to
sort them over according to probable date and subject.
They were of different periods, some old, some newer. I put them
together in series, as well as I could, by the nature of the
surroundings. The most recent of all were my father's early attempts
at instantaneous electric photography--the attempts which led up at
last to his automatic machine, the acmegraph, that produced all
unconsciously the picture of the murder. Some of these comparatively
recent proofs represented men running and horses trotting: but the
best of all, tied together with a bit of tape, clearly belonged to a
single set, and must have been taken at the same time at an athletic
meeting. There was one of a flat race, viewed from a little in
front, with the limbs of the runners in seemingly ridiculous
attitudes, so instantaneous and therefore so grotesquely rigid were
they. There was another of a high jump, seen from one side at the
very moment of clearing the pole, so that the figure poised solid in
mid-air as motionless as a statue. And there was a third, equally
successful, of a man throwing the hammer, in which the hammer, in
the same way, seemed to hang suspended of itself like Mahomet's
coffin between earth and heaven.
But the one that attracted my attention the most was a photograph of
an obstacle-race, in which the runners had to mount and climb over a
wagon placed obtrusively sideways across the course on purpose to
baffle them. This picture was taken from a few yards in the rear;
and the athletes were seen in it in the most varied attitudes. Some
of them were just climbing up one side of the wagon: others had
mounted to the top ledge of the body: and one, standing on the
further edge, was in the very act of leaping down to the ground in
front of him. He was bent double, to spring, with a stoop like a
hunchback, and balanced himself with one hand held tightly behind
him.
As my eye fell on that figure, a cold thrill ran through me. For a
moment I only knew something important had happened. Next instant I
realised what the thrill portended. I could only see the man's back,
to be sure, but I knew him in a second. I had no doubt as to who it
was. This was HIM--the murderer!
Yes, yes! There could be no mistaking that arched round back that
had haunted me so long in my waking dreams. I knew him at sight. It
was the man I had seen on the night of the murder getting out of the
window!
Perhaps I was overwrought. Perhaps my fancy ran away with me. But I
didn't doubt for a second. I rose from my seat, and in a tremulous
voice called Jane into the room. Without one word I laid both
pictures down before her together. Jane glanced first at the one,
then turned quickly to the other. A sharp little cry broke from her
lips all unbidden. She saw it as fast and as instinctively as I had
done.
"That's him!" she exclaimed, aghast, and as pale as a sheet. "That's
him, right enough, Miss Una. That's the very same back! That's the
very same hand! That's the man! That's the murderer!"
And indeed, this unanimity was sufficiently startling. For nothing
could have been more different than the dress in the two cases. In
the murder scene, the man seemed to wear a tweed suit and
knickerbockers,--he was indistinct, as I said before, against the
blurred light of the window: while in the athletic scene, he wore
just a thin jersey and running-drawers, cut short at the knee, with
his arms and legs bare, and his muscles contracted. Yet for all
that, we both knew him for the same man at once. That stooping back
was unmistakable; that position of the hand was characteristic and
unique. We were sure he was the same man. I trembled with agitation.
I had a clue to the murderer!
Yet, strange to say, that wasn't the first thought that occurred to
my mind. In the relief of the moment, I looked up into Jane's eyes,
and exclaimed with a sigh of profound relief:
"Then you see how mistaken you were about the hands and Aunt Emma!"
Jane looked close at the hand in the photograph once more.
"Well, it's curious," she said, slowly. "That's a man, sure enough:
but he'd ought to be a Moore. The palm's your aunt's as clear as
ever you could paint it!"
I glanced over her shoulder. She was perfectly right. It was a man
beyond all doubt, the figure on the wagon. Yet the hand was Aunt
Emma's, every line and every stroke of it; except, of course, the
scars. Those, I saw at a glance, were wholly wanting.
And now I had really a clue to the murderer.
Yet how slight a clue! Just a photograph of men's backs. What men?
When and where? It was an athletic meeting. Of what club or society?
That was the next question now I had to answer. Instinctively I made
up my mind to answer it myself, without giving any notice to the
police of my discovery.
Perhaps I should never have been able to answer it at all but for
one of the photographs which, as I thought, though lying loose by
itself, formed part of the same series. It represented the end of a
hundred-yard race, with the winners coming in at the tape by a
pavilion with a flag-staff. On the staff a big flag was flying
loosely in the wind. The folds hid half of the words on its centre
from sight. But this much at least I could read:
"ER...OM..OY...LETI...UB."
I gazed at them long and earnestly. After a minute or two of
thought, I made out the last two words. The inscription must surely
be Something-or-other Athletic Club.
But what was "Er... om.. oy..."? That question staggered me. Gazing
harder at it than ever, I could come to no conclusion. It was the
name of a place, no doubt: but what place, I knew not.
"Er"? No, "Ber": just a suspicion of a B came round the corner of a
fold. If B was the first letter, I might possibly identify it.
I took the photograph down to Aunt Emma, without telling her what I
meant. She couldn't bear to think I was ever engaged in thinking of
my First State at all.
"Can you read the inscription on that flag, auntie?" I asked. "It's
an old photograph I picked up in the attic at The Grange, and I'd
like to know, if I could, at what place it was taken."
Aunt Emma gazed at it long and earnestly. Her colour never changed.
Then she shook her head quietly.
"I don't know the place," she said; "and I don't know the name. I
can't quite make it out. That's E, and R, and O. You see, the
letters in between might be almost anything."
I wasn't going to be put off, however, with the port thus in sight.
One fact was almost certain. Wherever that pavilion might be, the
murderer was there on the day unknown when those photo-graphs were
taken. And whatever that day might be, my father and the murderer
were there together. That brought the two into connection, and
brought me one step nearer a solution than ever the police had been;
for hitherto no one had even pretended to have the slightest clue to
the personality of the man who jumped out of the window.
I went into the library and took down the big atlas. Opening the map
of England and Wales, I began a hopeless search, county by county,
from Northumberland downward, for any town or village that would fit
these mysterious letters. It was a wild and foolish idea. In the
first place not a quarter of the villages were marked in the map;
and in the second place, my brain soon got muddled and dazed with
trying to fit in the names with the letters on the flag. Two hours
had passed away, and I'd only got as far down as Lancashire and
Durham. And, most probably even so, I would never come upon it.
Then suddenly, a bright idea broke on my brain at once. The Index!
The Index! Presumably, as no fold seemed to obscure the first words,
the name began with what looked like a B. That was always something.
A man would have thought of that at once, of course: but then, I
have the misfortune to be only a woman.
I turned to the Index in haste, and looked down it with hurried
eyes. Almost sooner than I could have hoped, the riddle unread
itself. "Ber-, Berb-, Berc-, Berd-," I read out: "Berkshire: Berham:
Berhampore: that won't do: Berlin: Berling: Bernina: Berry--what's
that? Oh, great heavens!"--my brain reeled--"Berry Pomeroy!"
It was as clear as day. How could I have missed it before? There it
seemed to stand out almost legible on the flagstaff. I read it now
with ease: "Berry Pomeroy Athletic Club."
I looked up the map once more, following the lines with my fingers,
till I found the very place where the name was printed. A village in
Devonshire, not far from Torquay. Yes! That's it; Berry Pomeroy. The
murderer was there on the day of that athletic meeting!
My heart came up into my mouth with mingled horror and triumph. I
felt like a bloodhound who gets on the trail of his man. I would
track him down now, no doubt--my father's murderer!
I had no resentment against him, no desire for vengeance. But I had
a burning wish to free myself from this environing mystery.
I wouldn't tell the police or the inspector, however, what clue I
had obtained. I'd find it all out for myself without anyone's help.
I remembered what Dr. Marten had said, and determined to be wise.
I'd work on my own lines till all was found out: and then, be it who
it might, I sternly resolved I'd let justice be done on him.
So I said nothing even to Jane about the discovery I'd just made. I
said nothing to anybody till we sat down at dinner. Then, in the
course of conversation, I got on the subject of Devonshire.
"Auntie," I ventured to ask at last, in a very casual way, "did I
ever, so far as you know, go anywhere near a place called Berry
Pomeroy?"
Aunt Emma gave a start.
"Oh, darling, why do you ask?" she cried.
"You don't mean to say you remember that, do you? What do you want
to know for, Una? You can't possibly recollect your Torquay visit,
surely!"
I trembled all over. Then I was on the right track!
"Was I ever at Torquay?" I asked once more, as firmly as I could.
"And when I was there, did I go over one day to Berry Pomeroy?"
Aunt Emma grew all at once as white as death.
"This is wonderful!" she cried in an agitated voice. "This is
wonderful--wonderful! If you can remember that, my child, you can
remember anything."
"I DON'T remember it auntie," I answered, not liking to deceive her.
"To tell you the truth, I simply guessed at it. But when and why was
I at Torquay? Please tell me. And did I go to Berry Pomeroy?" For I
stuck to my point, and meant to get it out of her.
Aunt Emma gazed at me fixedly.
"You went to Torquay, dear," she said in a very slow voice, "in the
spring of the same year your poor father was killed: that's more
than four years ago. The Willie Moores live at Torquay, and several
more of your cousins. You went to stop with Willie's wife, and you
stayed five weeks. I don't know whether you ever went over to Berry
Pomeroy. You may have, and you mayn't: it's within an easy driving
distance. Minnie Moore has often written to ask me whether you could
go there again; Minnie was always fond of you, and thinks you'd
remember her: but I've been afraid to allow you, for fear it should
recall sad scenes. She's about your own age, Minnie is; and she's a
daughter of Willie Moore, who's my own first cousin, and of course
your dear mother's."
I never hesitated a moment. I was strung up too tightly by that
time.
"Auntie dear," I said quietly, "I go to-morrow to Torquay. I must
know all now. I must hunt up these people."
Auntie knew from my tone it was no use trying to stand in my way any
longer.
"Very well, dear," she said resignedly. "I don't believe it's good
for you: but you must do as you like. You have your father's will,
Una. You were always headstrong."