SERGEANT WESTAWAY was flattered at the manner in which his theory of
the murder had been received by men who were far more experienced than
himself in investigating crime. His sallow cheeks flushed with pleasure
and his pessimism waned a little. In his determination to place his
hearers in possession of all the facts concerning the crime and the
victim he gave them details regarding Lumsden's mode of life at Cliff
Farm after his discharge from the army, and the gossip that was current
in the district concerning him. While he was dealing with these matters
they heard a motor-car approaching. It stopped outside the gates of the
farmhouse, and the three police officials went to the door to see who
had arrived.
"Why, it's Crewe!" exclaimed Detective Gillett, in a tone of surprise.
"I wonder who has put him on to this?"
"That is Sir George Granville with him--the stout elderly man," said
Inspector Payne.
"The other gentleman is Mr. Marsland," said Sergeant Westaway.
"Which is Crewe and which is Marsland?" asked Inspector Payne.
"The tall one on the left is Crewe," answered Detective Gillett.
As a police official, Inspector Payne was indignant at the idea of
Crewe intruding into the case, but as a man he was delighted at the
opportunity of meeting the famous private detective who had so often
scored over Scotland Yard by unravelling mysteries which had baffled
the experts of the London detective department. Crewe's fame had even
penetrated to Ashlingsea, and Sergeant Westaway studied the private
detective with awed interest as the three occupants of the motor-car
walked up the drive.
Inspector Payne had pictured Crewe as a more striking personality
than the tall young man in tweeds who was accompanying Sir George
Granville and his nephew. The latter was talking earnestly, and Crewe
was listening closely. Inspector Payne had an opportunity of noting the
distinction and character which marked the detective's face in repose:
the clear, clean-cut profile, the quick penetration and observation of
his dark eyes as they took in the exterior of Cliff Farm. He concluded
that Crewe was rather young for the fame he had achieved--certainly
under forty: that he liked his face; that he looked like a gentleman;
and that his tweed suit displayed a better cut than any provincial
tailor had ever achieved.
His companion, Sir George Granville's nephew, was a young man of Saxon
type, fair-haired, blue-eyed, with a clear skin which had been tanned
brown as the result of his war campaigning in France. He was two or
three inches shorter than Crewe, but was well set up and well-built,
and although he did not wear khaki his recent connection with the army
was indicated by his military carriage and bearing.
After the necessary introductions Crewe explained with an air of
modesty that, Sir George Granville's nephew having had the misfortune
to become associated with the tragedy through the discovery of the
body, Sir George, as a public man, had conceived the idea that he ought
to do something towards discovering the author of the crime. That was
how he himself came to be present. He hoped that he would not be in the
way of the police.
"Not at all; not at all," said Inspector Payne, answering for the
County Police. "We'll be glad of your help. And as for anything we can
do for you, Mr. Crewe, you have only to ask."
"That is very kind of you," said Crewe.
"You are just in time," continued Inspector Payne. "Gillett and I have
been here only a few minutes. We were just going upstairs to look at
the body when you arrived."
On their way upstairs Gillett drew attention to some marks on the
margin of the stairs between the carpet on the staircase and the wall.
These marks were irregular in shape, and they looked as if they had
been made by wiping portions of the stairs with a dirty wet cloth. Some
of the stairs bore no mark.
"It seems to me that some one has been wiping up spots of blood on the
stairs," said Inspector Payne, as he examined the marks closely.
On the linoleum covering the landing of the first flight there were
more traces of the kind, the last of them being beside the door of the
room in which the body had been discovered.
The dead man was still in the arm-chair near the window. There was
such a resemblance to life in his stooping posture that the men
entering the room found it difficult at first to realize they were
confronted with the corpse of a man who had been murdered. A ray of
sunlight fell through the narrow window on the bent head, revealing
the curly brown hair and the youthful contour of the neck. The right
arm was slightly extended from the body towards the table near the
arm-chair in which the corpse was seated, as though the murdered man
had been about to pick up the pocket-book which lay on the table.
The pocket-book was open, and the papers which had been in it were
scattered about the table.
Payne, Gillett and Crewe inspected the body closely. Sir George
Granville and Marsland waited a little distance away while the others
conducted their examination. The dead man had been fully dressed when
he was shot. On the left side of his vest was the hole made by the
bullet, and around it was a discoloured patch where the blood, oozing
from the wound, had stained the tweed. There were numerous blood-stains
on the floor near the dead man's feet, and also near the window at the
side of the arm-chair.
"I see that the window is broken," said Inspector Payne, pointing to
one of the panes in the window near the arm-chair.
"By a bullet," said Sergeant Westaway. He pulled down the window blind
and pointed to a hole in it which had evidently been made by a bullet.
"When I came in the blind was down. I pulled it up in order to let in
some light. But the fact that there is a hole in the window blind shows
that the murder was committed at night, when the blind was down. I
should say two shots were fired. The first went through the window, and
the other killed him."
"I think the bullet that killed him has gone through him," said Crewe,
who had moved the body in order to examine the back of it. "It looks as
if he was shot from behind, because the wound in the back is lower down
than the one in front." He pointed to a hole in the back of the coat
where the cloth showed a similar discoloured patch to the one in the
vest.
"It must have been a powerful weapon if the bullet has gone through
him," said Gillett. "That means we shall have no bullet to guide us
as to the calibre of the weapon, unless we can find the one that went
through the window."
"Perhaps there was only one shot fired after all," remarked Inspector
Payne. "The victim may have been standing by the window when he was
shot, and then have staggered to the chair. Otherwise if he were shot
in the back while sitting in the chair the bullet should be embedded in
the chair or wall. But I can see no sign of it."
"Not necessarily," said Gillett. "Look at the position on the
arm-chair. It is possible that the bullet, after going through the man,
went through the window. That would account for the broken pane of
glass."
The pocket-book and the papers it contained were next examined.
Inspector Payne asked Marsland concerning the mysterious plan he had
picked up on the stairs. Marsland borrowed a sheet of paper from the
inspector's large official note-book and drew a rough sketch of the
plan as he remembered it. He explained that as he had lost his glasses
while out in the storm he had not been able to make a close study of
the plan. While he was engaged in reproducing the plan as far as he
remembered it, Sergeant Westaway enlightened Crewe and Sir George
Granville about the theory he had formed that the murderer was in the
house when Marsland discovered the body, and that, after Marsland left,
the murderer made his escape and took from the sitting-room downstairs
the plan he had dropped on the stairs when he heard Marsland in the
house.
"What do you make of this, Mr. Crewe?" asked Inspector Payne, as he
took up the paper on which Marsland had sketched what he recalled
of the plan. "Do you think this was meant to show where the old
grandfather had his money?"
"That is very probable," said Crewe. "But it is not worth while trying
to solve the riddle from a sketch drawn from memory. Get the murderer
and you will probably get the original plan as well."
Sergeant Westaway, in pursuance of his duties as guide, took his
visitors downstairs to the sitting-room for the purpose of showing
them how the window had been forced in order to provide an entrance.
He pointed to a mark on the sash which indicated that a knife had been
used to force back the catch.
This was the room in which Miss Maynard had been sitting when Marsland
had arrived to obtain shelter from the storm. Marsland noticed the
chair beside which she had stood while they were in the room together
before going upstairs to investigate the cause of the crash they had
heard. He gave a start as he saw behind the chair a small tortoiseshell
comb such as ladies sometimes wear to keep their hair up. He stooped
quickly to pick it up, and as he did so he realized that he had
blundered badly. In order to rectify the blunder he made a weak attempt
to hide the comb, but he saw Detective Gillett's eye on him.
"What have we here?" asked the Scotland Yard man genially.
Marsland held out his hand with the comb resting in it.
"A woman in the case," commented Inspector Payne. "That ought to help
to simplify matters."
Marsland bit his lips at the thought of how he had been false to his
promise to Miss Maynard. He had kept her name out of the discovery of
the crime, but he had unwittingly directed attention to the fact that a
woman had only recently been in that room.
The comb was handed to Crewe for examination. It was about three inches
long and was slightly convex in shape. On the outside was a thin strip
of gold mounting. Crewe handed the comb back.
"You sat in this room before going upstairs, Marsland?" he asked,
turning to Sir George's nephew.
"Yes; I was here about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes."
"Was the window open when you came in? Did you close it?"
"I did not close it, but it must have been closed, as otherwise I would
have noticed it open. It was raining and blowing hard while I was
here." Marsland thought to himself that any information he could give
about the window was useless in view of the fact that Miss Maynard had
been in the room some time before he arrived.
"Was this the room in which you found the lamp that you took upstairs?"
continued Crewe.
"Yes."
"I think you told me that there was no light in the house when you
entered?"
"The place was in darkness. I found a candlestick on the hallstand. I
lit that first and after coming in here I lit the lamp." He had decided
to adhere in his statements to what Miss Maynard had told him she had
done before he arrived.
"Did you notice when you lit the lamp whether the lamp chimney was hot,
warm, or quite cold?" asked Crewe.
"I cannot be certain. I think it was cold, or otherwise I should have
noticed."
"You lit the lamp before you heard the crash which startled you?"
"Yes. I lit it a few moments after I came into the room."
"Any foot-marks outside the window?" said Inspector Payne, thrusting
his head out of the open window. "Yes, there they are, quite plainly,
in the ground. Made by heavy hobnailed boots. We must get plaster
impressions of those, Gillett. They are an important clue."
"I notice, inspector," said Crewe, "that there are no marks of any
kind on the wall-paper beneath the window. One would expect that a man
getting in through this window would touch the wall-paper with one foot
while he was getting through the window, and as it was a wet night
there ought to be some mark on it."
"Not necessarily," replied the inspector. "He may have jumped to the
floor without touching the wall-paper."
"But there do not seem to be any impressions inside the house of these
heavy nailed boots," returned Crewe. "Those impressions beneath the
window show that they were made when the ground was soft from the rain.
Wet muddy boots with nails in the soles ought to leave some traces on
the carpet of this room and on the staircase."
"And what about those marks we saw on the staircase? They show that
some one had been over the staircase with a wet rag."
"To wipe out the traces of those boots?" asked Crewe.
"Why not?"
"Why did the person wearing those boots walk on the uncarpeted part of
the stairs near the wall instead of the carpeted part?"
"Because he knew that it would be easier for him to remove the traces
of his footprints from the wood than from the carpet."
Crewe smiled at the ingenuity displayed by the inspector.
"One more doubt, inspector," he said. "Why did the man who wore those
boots take such care to remove the traces of footprints inside the
house and show so much indifference to the traces he left outside?"
"Because he thought the rain would wash out the footprints outside. And
so it would have done if it had rained until morning. Let us go outside
and have a good look at them."
They went out by the front door and made their way to the window,
taking care to keep clear of the footprints.
"There you are, Mr. Crewe," said Inspector Payne. "There is evidence
that the man got in through the window." He pointed to a spot beneath
the window where a small piece of mortar between the brickwork had been
broken off about fifteen inches above the ground. "And look at those
parallel scratches on the mortar. It looks to me as if they were made
by the nails in a boot."
"Very true," assented Crewe, examining the marks closely.
"Now let us follow the footsteps to see where they start from,"
continued Inspector Payne.
It was no difficult matter to follow the marks of the heavy boots. In
the soft soil, which had formerly been part of a flower-bed, they were
quite distinct. Even on the grass beyond the flower-bed the impressions
were visible, though not so distinctly. Eventually they reached the
gravel-walk which skirted the front of the house, and here the traces
were lost.
"I should say that the boots which made these marks are the ordinary
heavy type worn by farm-hands and fishermen in this locality," said
Crewe.
"No doubt," answered Inspector Payne. "But, though there are some
hundreds of men in this locality who wear the same type of boot,
the number of pairs of boots absolutely the same are small. That is
particularly the case with these heavy nailed boots--the positions of
some of the nails vary. A cast of three or four of the best of these
impressions will narrow down the circle of our investigations. What do
you say, Gillett?"
"It looks to me as if it is going to be a comparatively simple affair."
Inspector Payne turned to Marsland.
"I think you said you found the door open, Mr. Marsland. Do you mean
wide open or partly closed?"
"I found it wide open," replied Marsland. "I thought at the time that
it had not been properly closed and that the wind had blown it open."
"That means that the murderer got in through this window and left by
the door," said Inspector Payne to Detective Gillett. "He left it open
when he fled."
"But what about Westaway's theory that he was in the house when Mr.
Marsland came here?" asked Gillett. "What about the crash Mr. Marsland
heard when the picture fell down? What about the plan of the hidden
money that disappeared after Mr. Marsland left?"
It was plain that Detective Gillett, who had to investigate the crime,
was not in sympathy with Inspector Payne's method of solving difficult
points by ignoring them.
Inspector Payne stroked his chin thoughtfully.
"There are a lot of interesting little points to be cleared up," he
said cheerfully.
"Yes, there are," responded Detective Gillett, "and I've no doubt we
will find more of them as we go along."
It was obvious to Marsland that in keeping silent about Miss Maynard's
presence at Cliff Farm on the night of the storm, and the means by
which she had entered the house, he was placing obstacles in the way of
the elucidation of the tragedy.