An Interrupted Symposium
“Have a cigarette,” said Grant to Furneaux, when the blinds were drawn,
a lamp lighted, and the sherry dispensed.
“Thank you.”
The self-invited guest took one. He sniffed it, broke the paper
wrapping, and crumbled some of the tobacco between finger and thumb.
“Ah, those Greeks!” he said sadly. “They simply can’t go straight. This
brand of Turk used to be made of a tobacco grown on a slope above
Salonica. A strip of sun-baked soil built up a reputation which is now
being bartered for filthy lucre by the use of Egyptian ‘fillings.’”
“You’re a connoisseur, Mr. Hawknose—try these,” said Hart, proffering a
case, from which the detective drew a cigarette, throwing the other one
aside.
“Why ‘Hawknose’?” he inquired.
“A blend. First syllable of Hawkshaw and second of Furneaux—the latter
Anglicized, of course.”
“And vulgarized.”
“You prefer Furshaw, perhaps?”
“Either effort is feeble for a man who can write about South America,
and be lucid. Do you smoke this stuff, may I ask?” While talking, he
had smelt and destroyed the second cigarette.
“If it’s a fair question, what the devil do _you_ smoke?” cried Hart.
“Nothing. I’m a non-smoker. My profession demands a clear intellect,
not a brain atrophied by nicotine.”
“Piffle! Carlyle and Bismarck were smokers.”
“Who reads Carlyle now-a-days? And what modern German pays heed to
Bismarck’s dogmas? Look at that pipe of yours. It was once a pure ivory
white. Now it is black—soiled by tobacco juice. Your lungs are slowly
emulating it, and your wits will cloud in time. Read Tolstoi, Mr. Hart.
He will teach you how nicotine deadens the conscience.”
“At last I know why I smoke like a Thames tug,” laughed Hart, “but I’m
blest if I can understand why _you_ make such a study of the vile
weed.”
“Most criminals are addicted to the habit. I classify them by their
brand of tobacco. For instance, a clever forger would never descend to
thick twist, while a swell mobsman would turn with horror from a
woodbine.”
Minnie entered, and nodded, whereupon Grant led the others upstairs to
wash. From the bathroom he looked out over a darkening landscape.
Doris’s dormer window was open. She was leaning on the sill, but he
could not tell whether or not her eyes were turned his way. Her
attitude was pensive, disconsolate, curiously forlorn for a girl
normally high-spirited. He was on the point of signaling to her when he
remembered Furneaux’s presence. There was something impish, almost
diabolically clever, in that little man’s characteristics which induced
wariness.
The dinner was a marvel, considering the short notice given to the
cook. Luckily, Mrs. Bates, a loyal soul, had resolved to tempt her
employer’s appetite that evening. Village gossip had it that the police
were about to arrest him, and she was determined he should enjoy at
least one good meal before being haled to prison. Hence, the materials
were present. The rest was a matter of quantities, and Sussex seldom
stints itself in that respect.
The chatter round the table was light and amusing. The three were well
matched conversationally. Furneaux evidently held the opinion once
expressed by a notable Walrus—that the time had come
_To talk of many things:
Of shoes—and ships—and sealing-wax—
Of cabbages—and kings._
He was in excellent form, and the others played up to him. Hart’s slow
drawl was ever trenchant and witty, and Grant forgot his woes in
congenial company. As for the mercurial detective himself, it might be
said of him as of the school-master of Auburn:
_And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
That one small head could carry all he knew._
It was he who dropped them with a bounce from the realm of fancy to the
unpleasing region of ugly fact. No sooner had Minnie cleared the table,
and brought in the coffee, than he whisked around on Grant as though
hitherto he had been only awaiting an opportunity of scarifying him.
“Now,” he said, propping an elbow on the table, and supporting his chin
on a clenched fist, “the embargo is off the Steynholme affair. _You_
didn’t kill Adelaide Melhuish, Mr. Grant. Who did?”
“I wish I could tell you,” was the emphatic answer.
“Do you suspect anybody? You needn’t fear the libel law in confiding
your secret thought to me, and I assume that Mr. Hart is
trustworthy—where his friends are concerned?”
“Why that unkind differentiating clause, my pocket Vidocq?” put in
Hart.
“Because two Kings and a baker’s dozen of Presidents have, at various
times, sent most unflattering reports to this country about you.”
“I must have annoyed ’em most damnably.”
“You had. I congratulate you, but Heaven only knows where I may convoy
you some day on an extradition warrant....Proceed, Mr. Grant.”
“I assure you, on my honor, that the only reasonable suggestion I can
make is that put forward by my gardener to-day,” said Grant. “He thinks
that the murder must have been committed by a lunatic. I can offer no
other hypothesis.”
“Your gardener may be right. But what lunatic, barring yourself and the
horse-coper, Elkin, is in love with Doris Martin?”
Like Elkin the previous night, Grant struck the table till things
rattled.
“Keep her name out of it,” he cried fiercely. “You are a man of the
world, not a suspicious idiot of the Robinson type. You heard to-day
the full and true explanation of her presence here on Monday night. It
was a sheer accident. Why harp on Doris Martin rather than any member
of the Bates family?”
“Who, may I ask, is Doris Martin?” put in Hart.
“The Steynholme postmaster’s daughter,” said Furneaux. “A remarkably
pretty and intelligent girl. If her father was a peer she would be the
belle of a London season. As it is, her good looks seem to have put a
maggot in more than one nut in this village.”
Hart waved the negro’s head in the air.
“The lunatic theory for mine,” he declared. “If one woman’s lovely face
could bring a thousand ships to Ilion, why should not another’s drive
men to madness in Steynholme?”
“Well phrased, sir,” cackled Furneaux delightedly. “I’ll wangle that in
on a respected colleague of mine, who is a whale at deducing a
proposition from given premises, but cannot induce a general fact from
particular instances to save his life ... Now, stifle your romantic
frenzy, Mr. Grant, and listen to me. If you were minded to instruct me
in the art of writing good English, I would sit at your feet an
attentive disciple. When I, Furneaux, of the ‘Yard,’ lay down a first
principle in the investigation of crime, I expect deference on your
part. I tell you unhesitatingly that if Doris Martin didn’t exist,
Adelaide Melhuish would be alive now. That, as a thesis, is nearly as
certain a thing as that the sun will rise to-morrow. I go farther, and
hazard the guess, not the fixed belief, though my guesses are usually
borne out by events, that if Doris Martin had not been in this garden
at half past ten on Monday night, Adelaide Melhuish would not have been
killed some twenty minutes later. It is useless for you to fume and
rage in vain effort to disprove either of these presumptive facts. You
are simply beating the air. This mystery centers in and around the
postmaster’s daughter. Come, now, you are a reasonable person. Admit
the cold, hard truth, and then give play to your fancy.”
“Sir,” said Hart, brandishing his pipe again, “I suggest that you and
I, here and now, form a mutual admiration society.”
“It is a cruel and bitter thing that an innocent girl should be dragged
into association with a foul crime,” said Grant stubbornly. “I am not
disputing the force of your acumen, Mr. Furneaux. My only desire is to
shield the good name of a very charming young lady.”
“What’s done can’t be undone,” countered the detective, well knowing
that Grant confessed himself beaten.
“But what is all the bother about? You heard from Miss Martin’s own
lips absolutely the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Put her in
the witness-box, and what more can she tell you?”
“I am not worrying about her appearance in the witness-box,” said
Furneaux dryly. “Long before that stage is reached I shall be hunting a
star burglar, or, perhaps, looking into the Foreign Office _dossier_ of
our worthy friend here, as to-day’s papers hint at trouble in
Venezuela. No, sir. The county police will get all the credit. P. C.
Robinson will be swanking about then, telling the yokels what _he_ did.
I, with Olympic nod, say, ‘There’s your man!’ and the handcuffs’
brigade do the rest. So far as I can foresee, Miss Martin’s name may be
spared any undue prominence in this inquiry. I go even farther, and
promise that anything I can do in that way shall be done.”
“That is very kind and considerate of you,” said Grant gratefully.
“Don’t halloo till you’re out of the wood.” said Furneaux, sitting back
suddenly and nursing his left knee with clasped hands. “I can’t control
other people’s actions, you know. What I insist on to-night is that you
shall envisage this affair in its proper light. We have a long way to
travel before counsel rises with his smug ‘May it please you, me lud,
and gentlemen of the jury.’ But, having persuaded you to agree that,
willy nilly, Miss Doris is the hub of our little universe for the hour,
I now swear you and this fire-eater in as assistants. There must be no
more speeches, no punching of heads, very little love-making, and that
by order—”
“Has the postmaster’s daughter a delectable sister, O Liliputian cop?”
demanded Hart.
“No. Two of ’em would have caused a riot long since. Mr. Grant will do
all, and more than all, necessary in that direction.”
Grant leaned forward. He spoke very earnestly.
“I want you to believe me when I tell you,” he said, “that I never gave
serious thought to the notion of marrying Miss Martin until such a
possibility was suggested last night by that swab, Ingerman.”
“Ah, Ingerman! You kept a record of what he said, I gather?”
“Yes, here it is.”
Grant rose, and went to a writing-desk with nests of drawers which
stood against the wall on the left of the door. He never used it for
its primary purpose. When the table was laid for meals, Minnie or her
mother had orders to remove all papers and books to the top of the
desk. The house contained no other living-room of size. The hall was
spacious; a smoking den next the dining-room had degenerated into a
receptacle of guns, fishing-rods, golf-clubs, Alpenstocks, skis and
other such sporting accessories. The remainder of the ground-floor
accommodation was given up to the Bateses.
Unlocking a drawer, Grant produced a notebook, which he handed to
Furneaux. The detective laid it on the table. He was sitting with his
back to the large window. Hart faced him. Grant’s chair was between the
two.
“By the way, as you’re on your feet, Mr. Grant,” said Furneaux, “you
might just show me exactly where you were standing when you saw the
face at the window.”
“For the love of Mike, what’s this?” gurgled Hart. “‘The face at the
window’; ‘the postmaster’s daughter.’ How many more catchy cross-heads
will you bring into the story?”
“Poor Adelaide Melhuish undoubtedly came here on Monday night and
looked in at me while I was at work,” said Grant sadly. “You know the
history of my calf love three years ago, Wally.”
“Shall I ever forget it? You bored me stiff about it. Then, when the
crash came, you walked me off my legs in the Upper Engadine. Ugh! That
night on the Forno glacier. It gives me a chill to think of it now.
Furneaux, pass the port. Your name is wrongly spelt. It should be
_fourneau_, not Furneaux. A little oven. Hot stuff. Got me?”
“My _dear_ Hart, you flatter me,” retorted the detective instantly.
“How long am I to pose here?” snapped Grant.
“Sorry,” said Furneaux. “These interruptions are banal. Is that where
you were?”
“Yes. I had my hand outstretched for a book. It’s dark in this corner.
When I want to find a book I light a candle, which is always placed on
the ledge of the window for the purpose. The blind was not drawn that
night. It seldom is. I had the book in my hand, and had found the
required passage when I chanced to look at the window and saw _her_
face.”
“Do you mind reconstructing the scene. This lamp was on the table, I
suppose?”
“Yes.”
“Well, pull up the blind, light your candle, and find the book. Act the
whole incident, in fact.”
Grant obeyed. He held the candlestick until he had picked out the
particular volume; then he placed it in the recess of the window, and
searched through the pages of the book.
Furneaux bent forward so as to watch the rehearsal and catch the effect
of the light externally. The hour was not so late as when Adelaide
Melhuish, or her ghost, gazed in through one of those narrow panes, but
the night was dark enough to lend the necessary _vraisemblance_. Hart,
deeply interested, looked on with rapt, eager eyes. For a full minute
the tableau remained thus. Then, with a rapidity born of many a close
’scape in wild lands, Hart drew a revolver from a hip pocket, and fired
at the window.
He alone was in a position to see through all parts of it. Grant was
still thumbing a small brown volume in the manner of one who knew that
a certain passage would be found therein but was ignorant of its exact
place in the text. Furneaux, intent on his every movement, had only a
side-long view of the window, which, it will be remembered, formed a
tiny rectangle in a thick wall.
The revolver was a heavy-caliber weapon, and the explosion blew out the
lamp. The flame of the candle flickered, owing either to the passage of
the bullet or the disturbance of the air. But it burnt steadily again
within the fifth part of a second, and they all saw a starred hole in
the center pane of glass of the second tier from the bottom.
“What fool’s game are you playing?” shrilled Furneaux, nevertheless
active as a wildcat in his spring to the French window, there to snatch
at the blind and turn the knob which controlled a lever bolt.
“Laying another ghost—one with whiskers,” said Hart coolly. “I got him,
too, I think.”
“You must be mad, mad!” shrieked the detective, tearing open the
window, and vanishing.
“For Heaven’s sake, Wally, no more shooting!” cried Grant, running
after Furneaux.
Minnie and her mother appeared at the dining-room door. Finding the
place in semi-obscurity, and reeking with gunpowder, they screamed
loudly.
“You Steynholme folk are all on the jump,” said Hart. “Cheer up, fair
dames! Thunder relieves the atmosphere, you know, and one live
cartridge is often more effective than an ocean of talk.”
“Bub-bub-but who’s shot, sir?” gasped Minnie.
“A ghost, a most scoundrelly apparition, with fearsome eyes, offensive
whiskers, and a hat which is a base copy of mine.”
“Owd Ben!” sighed Mrs. Bates, collapsing straightway in a faint.
Luckily, Minnie caught her mother and broke her fall, because the
housekeeper was large and solid, and might have been seriously injured
otherwise. Hart was distressed by this development, but, being
eminently a ready person in an emergency, he rose to the occasion by
extracting the empty case from the revolver, and holding it to the poor
woman’s nostrils, while supporting her with an arm and a knee.
“This is far more effective than burnt brown paper, Minnie,” he said.
“Now, don’t get excited, but mix some brandy and water, and we’ll have
your mother telling us who Owd Ben is, or was, before Hawk-eye comes
back to disturb us. Judging by the noises I hear, he’s busy outside.”
“That’s father!” shrieked Minnie hysterically.
“Good Lord! Has your father—”
For an instant, Hart was nearly alarmed, but Grant’s voice came
authoritatively:
“It’s all right, Bates. Let go, I tell you!”
“Phew!” said Hart. “I was on the point of confusing your respected dad
with Owd Ben ... That’s it, ma! Sniff hard! As a cook you’re worth your
weight in gold, which is some cook.”
Meanwhile, Furneaux, seeing that no dead body was stretched on the
strip of grass beneath the window, dashed into the shrubbery to the
right, and was clutched in a mighty embrace by an older but much more
powerful man in Bates, who had hurried from the front of the house on
hearing the pistol-shot. Most fortunately, the gardener, deeming his
vigil a needless one, had not armed himself with a stick, or the
consequences might have been grave. As it was, no one except Hart had
been vouchsafed sight or sound of the latest specter, which, however,
had left a very convincing souvenir of its visit in the shape of a soft
felt hat with two bullet holes through the crown.
Furneaux, quivering with silent wrath, soon abandoned the search when
this _pièce de conviction_ was found at the root of the Dorothy Perkins
rose-tree. Seeing the lamp relighted, he peremptorily bade Grant and
Bates come in with him. He closed the window, adjusted the blind again,
and poured generous measures of port wine into two glasses. Handing one
to Bates, he took the other himself.
“Friend,” he said, “some men have fame thrust upon them, but you have
achieved it. To-night you pierced the heel of Achilles. Here’s to you!”
“I dunno wot ’ee’s saying mister, but ‘good health’,” said Bates,
swigging the wine with gusto.
“Now, for your master’s sake, not a word to a soul about this hubbub.”
“Right you are, sir! But that there pryin’ Robinson wur on t’ bridge
five minutes since. And, by gum, here he is!”
A determined knock and ring came at the front door. Minnie, helped by
Hart, had just escorted Mrs. Bates to the kitchen.
“Let _me_ go!” said Furneaux, darting out into the hall. He opened the
door, and thrust his face into the police-constable’s, startling the
latter considerably. Before Robinson could utter a syllable, the
detective hissed a question.
“Did anyone cross the bridge after that shot was fired?”
“Nun—No, sir,” stuttered the other.
“You saw no one running along the road?”
“Saw nothing, sir.”
“Very well. Glad to find you’re on the job. Don’t let on you met me
here. Good-night!”
Mighty is Scotland Yard with the provincial police. Robinson was back
on his self-imposed beat before he well realized that he knew neither
why nor by whom nor by what sort of weapon the commotion had been
created. But he was quite sure the noise came from the garden front of
Mr. Grant’s house.
“That little hop-o’-me-thumb thinks he’s smart, dam smart,” he communed
angrily, “but I’ve taken a line of me own, an’ I’ll stick to it, though
the Yard sends down twenty men!”
He heard footsteps coming down a paved footpath which ran like a white
riband through the cobble-beaded width of the high-street, and withdrew
swiftly to the shelter of a disused tannery adjoining the village end
of the bridge. A cloaked female figure sped past. Though the night was
rather dark for June, he had no difficulty in recognizing Doris
Martin’s graceful movements. No other girl in Steynholme walked like
her. She was slim enough to dispense with tight corsets, and tall
enough to wear low-heeled shoes, nor did she need to pinch her toes in
order to gain the semblance of small feet.
After her went Robinson, keyed to exultation by this outcome of his
watchfulness. She was going to _The Hollies_, of course. The road led
to Knoleworth, and no young woman of her age in the village would dream
of taking a lonely walk in the country at ten o’clock at night.
For a man of his height and somewhat ponderous build, the policeman
followed with real stealth. Thus, when she turned in at the gate, he
was there by the time she had reached the front door. He heard her pull
the bell. Curiously enough, to his thinking, Furneaux again appeared.
“Is Mr. Grant at home?” he heard Doris say.
“Yes. Will you come in?” replied the detective.
“Is he—is all well here?”
“Quite, I assure you. But _do_ come in. I’ll escort you home. I’m going
to the inn in five minutes.”
Doris, after hesitating a little, entered.
Robinson crept on tiptoe over a stretch of gravel, and took to the
shrubbery. It was high time, he thought, that the local constabulary
learnt what was going on in that abode of mystery.