On Both Sides of the River
The sun, transmuted into Greenwich time, exercised an extraordinary
influence on the seemingly humdrum life of Steynholme that day. A few
minutes after three o’clock—just too late to observe either Winter or
Siddle—P. C. Robinson strolled forth from his cottage. He glanced up
the almost deserted high-street, in which every rounded cobble and
white flagstone radiated heat. A high-class automobile had dashed past
twice in forty minutes, but the pace was on the borderland of doubt, so
the guardian of the public weal had contented himself with recording
its number on the return journey.
But his thoughts were far a-field from joyriders, stray cattle, hawkers
without licenses, and other similar small fry which come into the
constabulary net. It would be a feather in his cap if he could only
strike the trail of the veritable Steynholme murderer. The entrancing
notion possessed him morning, noon, and night. Mrs. Robinson declared
that it even dominated his dreams. Robinson was sharp. He knew quite
well that the brains of the London detectives held some elusive quality
which he personally lacked. They seemed to peer into the heart of a
thing so wisely and thoroughly. He did not share Superintendent
Fowler’s somewhat derogatory estimate of Furneaux, with whom he was
much better acquainted than was his superior officer, while Chief
Inspector Winter’s repute stood so high that it might not be
questioned. Still, to the best of his belief, the case had beaten both
these doughty representatives of Scotland Yard; there was yet a chance
for the humble police-constable; so Robinson squared his shoulders,
seamed his brows, and marched majestically down the Knoleworth road.
He had an eye for _The Hollies_, of course, though neither he nor
anybody else could discern more than the bare edge of the lawn from
bridge or road, owing to the dense screen of evergreen trees and shrubs
planted by the tenant who remodeled the property.
But the spot where the body of Adelaide Melhuish was drawn ashore was
visible, and the sight of it started a dim thesis in the policeman’s
mind which took definite shape during less than an hour’s stroll. Thus,
at four o’clock exactly, he was pulling the bell at _The Hollies_.
Almost simultaneously, Mr. Siddle knocked modestly on the private door
of the post office, to reach which one had to pass down a narrow yard.
“Mr. Grant at home?” inquired Robinson, when Minnie appeared.
Yes, the master was on the lawn with Mr. Hart. The policeman found the
two there, seated in chairs with awnings. They had been discussing, of
all things in the world, the futurist craze in painting. Hart held by
it, but Grant carried bigger guns in real knowledge of the artist’s
limitations as well as his privileges.
Hart was the first to notice the newcomer’s presence, and greeted him
joyously.
“Come along, Robinson, and manacle this reprobate,” he shouted. “He’s
nothing but a narrow-minded pre-Rafaelite. A period in prison will dust
the cobwebs out of his attic.”
“Hello, Robinson!” said, Grant. “Anything stirring?”
“Not much, sir. I just popped in to ask if you remembered exactly how
the body was roped?”
“Indeed, I do not. Some incidents of that horrible half hour have gone
into a sad jumble. I recollect you calling attention to the matter, but
what your point was I really cannot say now. Perhaps it may come back
if you explain.”
“Well, we don’t seem to be making a great deal of progress, sir, and I
was wondering whether you two gentlemen might help. I don’t want it
mentioned. I’m taking a line of me own.”
Grant repressed a smile. He recalled well enough the first “line” the
policeman took, and the mischief it had caused. Being an even-minded
person, however, he admitted that his own behavior had not been above
suspicion on the day the crime was discovered. In allotting blame, as
between Robinson and himself, the proportion was six of one and half a
dozen of the other.
“Propound, justiciary,” said Hart. “You’ve started well, anyhow. The
connection between a line and a rope should be obvious even to a
judge.... As a pipe-opener, have a drink!”
Robinson had removed his helmet, and was flourishing a red
handkerchief, not without cause, the day being really very hot.
“Not for a few minutes, thank you, sir,” said the policeman. “May I ask
Bates for a sack and a cord?”
He went to the kitchen. Hart was “tickled to death,” he vowed.
“We are about to witness the reconstruction of the crime, a procedure
which the French delight in, and the intellect of France is a hundred
years ahead of our effete civilization,” he chortled.
Grant was not so pleased. The memory of a distressing vision was
beginning to blur, and this ponderous policeman must come and revive
it. Yet, even he grew interested when Robinson illustrated a nebulous
idea by knotting a clothesline around a sack stuffed with straw, having
brought Bates to bear him out in the matter of accuracy.
“There you are, gentlemen!” he said, puffing after the slight exertion.
“That’s the way of it. How does it strike you?”
“It’s what a sailor calls two half hitches,” commented Hart instantly.
“A very serviceable knot, which will resist to the full strength of the
rope.”
“We have no sailors in Steynholme, sir,” said the policeman.
“Oh, it’s used regularly by tradesmen,” put in Grant. “A draper, or
grocer—any man accustomed to tying parcels securely, in fact—will
fashion that knot nine times out of ten.”
“How about a—a farmer, sir?” That was as near as Robinson dared to go
to “horse-dealer.”
“I think a farmer would be more likely to adopt a timber hitch, which
is made in several ways. Here are samples.” And Grant busied himself
with rope and sack.
Robinson watched closely.
“Yes,” he nodded. “I’ve seen those knots in a farmyard.... Well, it’s
something—not much—but a trifle better than nothing.... All right,
Bates. You can take ’em away.”
“Have you shown that knot to Mr. Furneaux?” inquired Grant.
“No, sir. I’ve kept that up me sleeve, as the sayin’ is.”
“But why?”
Robinson shuffled uneasily on his feet.
“These Scotland Yard men will hardly listen to a uniformed constable,
sir,” he said. “I’ll tell ’em all about it at the inquest on
Wednesday.”
“In effect, John P. Robinson he sez they didn’t know everythin’ down in
Judee,” quoted Hart.
“You’ve got my name pat,” grinned the policeman, whose Christian names
were “John Price.”
“My name is Walter, not Patrick,” retorted Hart. Robinson continued to
smile, though he failed to grasp the joke until late that evening.
“Did you make up that verse straight off, sir,” he asked.
“No. It’s a borrowed plume, plucked from an American quill pen.”
Hart gave “plume” a French sound, and Robinson was puzzled to know why
Grant bade his friend stop profaning a peaceful Sunday afternoon.
“You’ll have a glass of beer now?” went on the host.
“I don’t mind if I do, sir, though it’s tea-time, and I make it a rule
on Sundays to have tea with the missis. A policeman’s hours are broken
up, and his wife hardly ever knows when to have a meal ready.”
Minnie was summoned. It took her a couple of minutes to draw the beer
from a cool cellar. So it chanced that when Doris led Mr. Siddle to the
edge of the cliff about twenty-five minutes past four, the first thing
they saw was the local police-constable on the lawn of _The Hollies_
putting down a gill of “best Sussex” at a draught.
“Well!” cried the chemist icily, “I wonder what Superintendent Fowler
would say to that if he knew it?”
“What is there particularly wrong about Robinson drinking a glass of
beer?” demanded Doris, more alive to the insinuation in Siddle’s words
than was quite permissible under the role imposed on her by Winter.
She waved her hand to the party on the lawn. Grant, whose eyes ever
roved in that direction, had seen her white muslin dress the moment she
appeared.
“Who the deuce is that with Miss Martin?” he said, returning her
signal.
“Siddle, the chemist,” announced Robinson, not too well pleased himself
at being “spotted” so openly. “Well, gentlemen, I’ll be off,” and he
vanished by the side path through the laurels.
“Siddle!” repeated Grant vexedly. “So it is. And she dislikes the man,
for some reason.”
“Let’s go and rescue the fair maid,” prompted Hart.
“No, no. If Doris wanted me she would let me know.”
“How? At the top of her voice?”
“You’re far too curious, Wally.”
“Semaphore, of course,” drawled Hart. “When are you going to marry the
girl, Jack!”
“As soon as this infernal business has blown over.”
“You haven’t asked her, I gather?”
“No.”
“Tell me when you do, and I’ll hie me to London town, though in torrid
June. You’re unbearable in love.”
“The lash of your wit cuts deeply sometimes,” said Grant quietly.
“Dash it all, old chap, I was talking at random. Very well. I’ll do
penance in sackcloth and ashes by remaining here, and applauding your
poetic efforts. I’ll even help. I’m a dab at sonnets.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Siddle had regained his poise.
“I meant nothing offensive to the donor of the beer,” he said, tuning
his voice to an apologetic note. “But I take it Robinson is conducting
certain inquiries, and I imagine that his superiors demand a degree of
circumspection in such conditions. That is all.”
“Surely you do not rank with the stupid crowd in its suspicions of Mr.
Grant?” said the girl.
“I’m pleased to think you refuse to class me with the gossip-mongers of
Steynholme, Doris,” was the guarded answer.
There had been no reference to the murder during tea, which was served
as soon as the chemist came in. The visitor had tabled a copy of a
current medical journal containing an article on the therapeutic
qualities of honey, so the talk was lifted at once into an atmosphere
far removed from crime. Doris was grateful for his tact. When her
father went to the office she brought Mr. Siddle into the garden solely
in pursuance of her promise to the detective, though convinced that
there would be no outcome save a few labored compliments to herself.
And now, by accident, as it were, the death of Adelaide Melhuish thrust
itself into their conversation. Perhaps it was her fault.
“No,” she said candidly. “No one who has known you for seven years, Mr.
Siddle, could possibly accuse you of spreading scandal.”
“Seven years! Is it so long since I came to Steynholme? Sometimes, it
appears an age, but more often I fancy the calendar must be in error.
Why, it seems only the other day that I saw you in a short frock,
bowling a hoop.”
“A tom-boy occupation,” laughed Doris. “But dad encouraged that and
skipping, as the best possible means of exercise.”
“He was right. Look how straight and svelte you are! Few, if any, among
our community can have watched your progress to womanhood as closely as
I. You see, living opposite, as I do, I kept track of you more
intimately than your other neighbors.”
Siddle was trimming his sails cleverly. The concluding sentence robbed
his earlier comments of their sentimental import.
“If we live long enough we may even see each other in the sere and
yellow leaf,” said Doris flippantly.
“I would ask no greater happiness,” came the quiet reply, and Doris
could have bitten her tongue for according him that unguarded opening.
Suddenly availing herself of the advice which the detective, like
Hamlet, had given to the players, she gazed musingly at the fair
panorama of The Hollies and its gardens, with the two young men seated
on the lawn. By this time Minnie was staging tea, and the picture
looked idyllic enough. Doris saw, out of the tail of her eye, that her
companion was watching her furtively, though apparently absorbed in the
scene. He moistened his thin lips with his tongue.
“As a study in contrasts, that would be hard to beat,” he said, after a
long pause.
“Contrasts!” she echoed.
“Well, yes. Even an uncontentious man like myself can hardly fail to
compare Sunday afternoon with Tuesday morning.”
“Why not Monday night?” she flashed.
“Monday night, in part, remains a mystery yet to be unveiled. I blot
Monday night from my mind. I have no alternative, being on the jury
which has to arrive at a just verdict. Now, if Fred Elkin were here, he
would foam at the mouth.”
“Happily, Fred Elkin is _not_ here.”
“Ah, I am glad, glad, to hear you say that. You don’t like him?”
“I detest him.”
“He makes out, to put it mildly, that you are great friends.”
“You will oblige me by contradicting the statement. Or—no. One treats
that sort of man with contempt.”
“I agree with you most heartily. I’m sorry I ever mentioned him.”
Yet Doris was well aware that the chemist had dragged in Elkin by the
scruff of the neck, probably for the sake of getting him disposed of
thoroughly and for all time. Rather on the tiptoe of expectation, she
awaited the next move. It was slow in coming, so again she looked
wistfully at the distant tea-drinkers. She found slight difficulty in
carrying out this portion of the stage directions. Truth to tell, she
would gleefully have gone and joined them.
Siddle was not altogether at ease. The conversation was too spasmodic
to suit his purpose. Though slow of speech he was nimble of brain, and,
knowing Doris so well, he had anticipated a livelier duel of wits. In
all likelihood, he cursed the tea-party on the lawn. He had not
foreseen this drawback. But, being a masterful man, he tackled the
situation boldly.
“I seized the opportunity of a friendly chat with you to-day, Doris,”
he went on, leaning over the fence to inhale the scent of a briar rose.
“The story runs through the village that you and your father dined at
The Hollies on Friday evening. Is that true?”
Now, Doris had it on reliable authority that Siddle himself had been
the runner who spread that story, and the knowledge steeled her heart
against him.
“Yes,” she said composedly.
“It was kind and neighborly of you to accept the invitation, but a
mistake.”
She turned and faced him. His expression was baffling. She thought she
saw in his sallow, clean-cut features the shadow of a confident smile.
“You mean that this horrid murder should make some difference in the
friendship between ourselves and Mr. Grant?” she cried.
“Yes. To you, though to no one else would I speak so plainly, I have no
hesitation in saying that Mr. Grant is far, very far, from being clear
of responsibility in that matter. Three days from now you will
understand what I mean. Evidence will be forthcoming which will put him
in a most unenviable light. I am not alleging, or even hinting, that he
may be deemed guilty of actual crime. That is for the law to determine.
But I do tell you emphatically that his present heedless attitude will
give place to anxiety and dejection. It cannot be otherwise. A somewhat
sordid history will be revealed, and his pretense that relations
between him and the dead woman ceased three years ago will vanish into
thin air. Believe me, Doris, I am actuated by no motive in this matter
other than a desire to further your welfare. I cannot bear even to
think of your name being associated, in ever so small degree, with that
of a man who must be hounded out of his own social circle, if no worse
fate is in store for him.”
“Good gracious!” cried Doris, genuinely amazed. “How do you come to
know all this?”
“I listen to the words of those qualified to speak with knowledge and
authority. I have mixed in varied company this past week, wholly on
your account. Don’t be led away by the mere formalities of the opening
day of the inquest. The coroner deliberately shut off all real evidence
except as to the cause of death. On Wednesday the situation will
change, and you cannot fail to be shocked by what you hear, because you
will be there.”
“I am given to understand that, even if I am called, my testimony will
be of no importance.”
“Such may be the police view. Mr. Ingerman will press for a very
different estimate.”
“Has he told you that?”
“Yes.”
“So, although foreman of the jury, you have not declined to hobnob with
a man who is avowedly Mr. Grant’s enemy?”
“I would hobnob with worse people if, by so doing, I might serve you.”
Grant, “fed up,” as he put it to Hart, with watching the _tête à tête_
between Doris and the chemist, sprang to his feet and went through a
pantomime easy enough to follow save for one or two signs. Doris held
both hands aloft. Well knowing that anything in the nature of a
pre-arranged code would be gall and wormwood to Siddle, she explained
laughingly:
“Mr. Grant signals that he and Mr. Hart are going for a walk; he wants
me to accompany them. But I can’t, unfortunately. I promised dad to
help with the accounts.”
“If you really mean what you say, my warning would seem to have fallen
on deaf ears.”
Siddle’s voice was well under control, but his eyes glinted
dangerously. His state was that of a man torn by passion who
nevertheless felt that any display of the rage possessing him would be
fatal to his cause.
But, rather unexpectedly, Doris took fire. Siddle’s innuendoes and
protestations were sufficiently hard to bear without the added
knowledge that a ridiculous convention denied her the companionship of
a man whom she loved, and who, she was beginning to believe, loved her.
She swept round on Siddle like a wrathful goddess.
“I have borne with you patiently because of the acquaintance of years,
but I shall be glad if this tittle-tattle of malice and ignorance now
ceases,” she said proudly. “Mr. Grant is my friend, and my father’s
friend. In the first horror of the crime which has besmirched our dear
little village, we both treated Mr. Grant rather badly. We know better
to-day. Your Ingermans and your Elkins, and the rest of the busybodies
gathered at the inn, may defame him as they choose, or as they dare. As
for me, I am his loyal comrade, and shall remain so after next
Wednesday, or a score of Wednesdays. I am going in now, Mr. Siddle, and
shall be engaged during the remainder of the evening. Your shop opens
at six, and I am sure you will find some more profitable means of
spending the time than in telling me things I would rather not hear.”
Siddle caught her arm.
“Doris,” he said fiercely, “you must not leave me without, at least,
learning my true motive. I—”
The girl wrested herself free from his grip. She realized what was
coming, and forestalled it.
“I care nothing for your motive,” she cried. “You forget yourself!
Please go!”
She literally ran into the house. The chemist, unless he elected to
behave like a love-sick fool, had no option but to follow, and make his
way to the street by the side door.
The only other happening of significance that Sunday was an unheralded
visit by Winter to the policeman’s residence.
He popped in after dusk, opening the door without knocking.
“You in, Robinson?” he inquired.
“Yes, sir. Will you—”
“Shan’t detain you more than a minute. At the inquest you said that you
personally untied the rope which bound Miss Melhuish’s body. Here are a
piece of string and a newspaper. Would you mind showing me what sort of
knot was used?”
Robinson was nearly struck dumb, and his fingers fumbled badly, but he
managed to exhibit two hitches.
“Ah, thanks,” said Winter, and was off in a jiffy.
From the window of a darkened room Robinson watched the erect, burly
figure of the detective until it was merged in the mists of night.
“Well, I’m—,” he exclaimed bitterly.
“John, what are you swearing about?” demanded his wife from the
kitchen.
“Something I heard to-day,” answered her husband. “There was a chap of
my name, John P. Robinson, an’ he said that down in Judee they didn’t
know everything. And, by gum, he was right. They knew mighty little
about London ’tecs, I’m thinking. But, hold on. Surely—”
He bustled into his coat, and hastened to _The Hollies_. No, neither
Mr. Grant nor Mr. Hart had spoken to a soul about the knot. Nor had
Bates. Of course, Robinson did not venture to describe Winter. Finally,
he put the incident aside as a clear case of thought-reading.