The Siege of the Maze
Wendover was awakened next morning in an unfamiliar bedroom to find
Sir Clinton at his side. The Chief Constable’s eyes were tired, as
though he had had very little sleep; but otherwise he seemed as alert
as usual.
“Come on, Squire!” he said. “Dress as quick as you can. You needn’t
mind shaving for once. You’ve been clamouring for the arrest of the
murderer for long enough now, so I thought you’d like to be in at the
death. I’ve got an appointment with him this morning; so you’d better
hurry up if you want to see the last scenes in the Whistlefield
dramatic entertainment.”
Wendover had been rubbing his eyes rather sleepily when he awoke; but
Sir Clinton’s words stimulated him into activity.
“Go on with your dressing and don’t talk,” Sir Clinton replied to his
questions. “I haven’t time to explain things just now. There’ll be a
good deal of explaining to be done in the end,” he added, gloomily,
“so we may as well make one bite at it!”
Wendover hurried over his toilet, and soon he and Sir Clinton
descended the stair and made their way to the front door. The figure
of Stenness was plainly visible in the light of the early morning.
“So it was Stenness? Somehow I thought it might have been he,”
Wendover whispered, while they were still at a distance.
“I’ve got appointments with several people this morning,” Sir Clinton
said, sharply. “Ardsley’s another of them. You needn’t start
suspecting everyone, Squire, or you’ll have a busy time. No! No
questions till later!”
He stepped forward and greeted the secretary.
“Where’s the gun-room, Stenness? It may be as well to pick up
something useful!”
The secretary led them down some passages. If he was surprised by Sir
Clinton’s methods, he showed no visible sign. When they reached the
gun-room, each selected a shot-gun and ammunition under Sir Clinton’s
orders. Wendover noticed that the Chief Constable picked out a couple
himself.
“One’s for Ardsley,” he explained in answer to Wendover’s glance of
surprise. “Come along! He’ll be waiting for us outside, I expect.”
When they reached the front door again, Ardsley was just stepping out
of his car. Sir Clinton motioned him back into the driving seat and
directed the others to get into the motor.
“The Maze, if you please, Ardsley,” he said, when they had seated
themselves.
Wendover was completely at sea for a few moments. It was plain that
both Ardsley and Stenness must be regarded as cleared in the eyes of
the Chief Constable, or he would not have brought them there and taken
the trouble to arm them. But if they were excluded, the murderer must
belong to a very small group. And suddenly Wendover saw his way
through the whole intricacy of the Whistlefield case.
“Of course! Young Torrance! He’s the man!”
But he was careful not to utter his views aloud, fearing to draw the
fire of Sir Clinton, who was sitting beside him with drawn brows.
Wendover felt it better to pursue his line of thought silently.
“What an ass I’ve been! Young Torrance was in the Maze when the two
Shandons were killed. He was somewhere or other about, probably, when
Ernest was attacked. Clinton has most likely tracked him down without
saying anything about it. And when Sylvia was shot, he wasn’t with us
in the room; they said he was playing billiards by himself. Quite
likely he sneaked out of the billiard room window, crept round, did
the shooting, and got back under cover while we were all too taken
aback by the business to do anything. If I’d been a shade quicker,
that night, I’d have got him! And last night, when Arthur was
attacked, Torrance had gone for a walk alone. It’s obvious! And like
an idiot, I didn’t see it. All one needed was a pencil and paper and a
list of the people who were actually on hand on each occasion; and
then, by elimination, one was bound to get at him straight away.”
He pondered over his own obtuseness for a time, while the car ran down
the road towards the Maze; but his train of thought was interrupted by
Ardsley pulling up at a word from Sir Clinton. A uniformed constable
stepped forward from the shelter of a clump of bushes, and Wendover
saw with surprise that he had a revolver in his belt.
“Everything all right?” demanded Sir Clinton, as the constable
saluted.
“Yes, sir. It went exactly as you told us. About a quarter of an hour
ago we saw him hurrying along the road.”
“Just so,” Sir Clinton interrupted. “I watched him leaving the house.”
“He went into the Maze, sir; and as soon as he was well inside, we
followed your orders and put the padlocks on all the gates. He’s tried
to get out once, sir; but as soon as he saw us he ran back into the
Maze.”
“You didn’t try to catch him, of course?”
“No, sir. Your orders were strict about that; and we kept to them.”
“Quite right. Now you’ve got the stuff up, haven’t you?”
“It’s over there, sir.”
“Well, bring me the megaphone. We’ll need to talk to him before we can
do anything further.”
While the constable was fetching the instrument, they got out of the
car. Wendover, when he found himself on the road, gazed across at the
green barriers of the Maze, behind which the murderer was lurking. Sir
Clinton’s tactics were plain enough in their final phase, though
Wendover could not understand how the Chief Constable had been so sure
of running the miscreant down in the particular way he had chosen. He
turned at the sound of steps, to find the constable had come back with
the megaphone, a battered instrument which had probably seen service
at police sports in the past. Sir Clinton took it from his subordinate
and then called the attention of the group about the car.
“I want you people to take careful note of what happens, from now
onwards. You may have to give evidence about it, so please pay
attention to everything that happens.”
Wendover noticed that Sir Clinton’s voice had lost its usual tinge of
humour. Quite obviously he regarded the situation as grave; and his
tone was that of a man who sees difficulties ahead, but means to
overcome them if possible. As soon as he was certain that all the
group were on the alert, the Chief Constable raised the megaphone and
spoke towards the Maze.
“Ernest Shandon! I have a warrant here for your arrest. I call on you
to surrender. Come to the gate nearest the road within five minutes
and give yourself up.”
“He’s got a pistol, sir,” the constable hastened to add to his
previous report, “and an air-gun, too. He had them in his hands as he
went into the Maze.”
Sir Clinton raised the megaphone again.
“Before you come to the gate, you must throw your weapons over the
hedge. You can’t get away, Shandon, you may as well come out quietly.”
His voice echoed across the lawns, but from the recesses of the Maze
came no reply.
“Five minutes from now,” Sir Clinton said finally, and put down the
megaphone. He glanced at his wristwatch as he did so.
“He won’t come out, of course; but I’m anxious to do everything in a
justifiable way,” he explained. “He’s had fair warning.”
They stood uneasily about, furtively consulting their watches until
the five-minute period had elapsed; but no sign came from the Maze.
Wendover was completely puzzled by the turn of events. How could
Ernest Shandon be the murderer? When the attempt had been made on
Arthur, Ernest Shandon had been sitting within ten feet of Wendover
himself, under the eye of Sir Clinton; and the attack had been carried
out here, at the entrance to the Maze. Then, floating through his
mind, came a recollection of Sir Clinton’s hint that a man might be
“on both halves of the map simultaneously.” But that was impossible!
No man could be in two places at once. The whole affair seemed to
verge on a nightmare inconsistency. And yet, Sir Clinton had evidently
foreseen the attempt to escape and had taken precautions to prevent it
being successful. And undoubtedly it must be Ernest Shandon in the
Maze, for the local constables must have recognised him from their
hiding-places as he went in.
When the five minutes’ grace had elapsed, Sir Clinton turned round;
but as he did so, his eye was caught by a new figure which was
advancing over the lawns.
“Oh, damnation!” he exclaimed angrily. “Here’s the very thing I wanted
to avoid.”
Wendover, following Sir Clinton’s glance, recognised Arthur Hawkhurst
hurrying towards them; and as he approached, the Squire could see that
he was carrying a sporting rifle in his hand.
“You gave me the slip,” Arthur said reproachfully, as he came up to
them. “But I spotted what you were after. Heard you moving about and
dressed in next to no time. I’m a bit out of breath with the hurry.”
Sir Clinton looked at him sternly.
“If you come here at all, Mr. Hawkhurst, you come under my orders. If
you can’t agree to that, I’ll have to see that you’re sent back to the
house.”
Arthur frowned heavily; then, after a moment’s thought, he evidently
made up his mind to accept the inevitable.
“Very well, then. If you put it like that, there’s no more to be said.
But if the beggar attempts to escape, I suppose I may wing him?”
He touched his rifle as he spoke.
“You’ll do exactly as you’re told.”
Sir Clinton evidently had no wish to be distracted from his main
problem. His voice had a ring in it which impressed even Arthur.
“What’s it all about?” he demanded from Wendover, in a lowered tone.
“Your uncle’s the murderer, it seems; and Sir Clinton’s got him
trapped in the Maze.”
Arthur looked at him in amazement.
“I say, you know, Wendover, that’ll take a bit of thinking over, won’t
it?”
He said no more; and Wendover could believe that Arthur, like himself,
was conning over the whole of the Whistlefield case, and being brought
up against the apparent impossibilities of the Chief Constable’s
solution of the problem. At length Arthur lifted his head again.
“Well, if he didn’t do it, he has only to come out and say so. If he
didn’t do it. . . .”
His voice died away into silence. Then he added:
“I promised myself to square up for Sylvia, and I’ll do that, no
matter who the man is.”
He dropped his rifle to the order and waited patiently for the next
move, keeping his eyes fixed on the impenetrable hedges of the Maze.
Sir Clinton waited for a few minutes longer. Then he seemed to have
exhausted the limit which he had set for himself.
“You see the situation?” he demanded, turning to the others. “He’s in
there. He refuses to come out. We’ve got to get him.”
“I suppose you’re going to starve him out?” Wendover inquired, as Sir
Clinton stopped short.
“Too risky. He might get away in the dark when night comes on. I don’t
say he could; but I’m going to take no risks.”
“Then I suppose we’ll need to go into the Maze and dig him out,”
Wendover suggested, philosophically.
Sir Clinton dissented with a nod.
“I’m responsible for the lives of my constables,” he said. “I can take
some brands of responsibility quick enough; but I won’t shoulder the
liability of sending good men to hunt armed vermin through a maze like
that. They know nothing about its paths. He knows every inch of it. It
would be sheer murder if I gave orders of that sort. No, there’s a
better way. But bear in mind that I gave him the chance of surrender
first of all.”
Arthur fidgeted with his rifle.
“I know the Maze as well as he does,” he pointed out. “I could get him
out easily enough if you’d let me take on the job.”
Sir Clinton negatived the suggestion curtly.
“I’ve got a better ferret than you, my boy. If he gets driven into the
open and looks like escaping, I’ll let you wing him. But that’s all
you are to do.”
He wetted his finger and held it up in the air.
“Couldn’t be better. There’s just a faint drift in the air. You’ve got
the stuff over by the boat-house?” he added, turning to the constable.
“Right. We’ll go across, then. But keep well away from the Maze as we
go; for the beast may be hiding behind the outermost hedge trying to
draw a bead on us as we pass.”
Considerably mystified, Wendover followed Sir Clinton towards the
river bank. When they reached the neighbourhood of the boat-house, he
was still more astonished to find a number of sacks lying on the
grass, evidently filled with some material. Three spades were grouped
close by. Again Sir Clinton held up his moistened finger and gauged
the direction of the light airs that were blowing. Then, seeing the
surprised faces of his companions, he pointed to the sacks:
“My ferret!”
Ardsley had gone over and inspected one of the bags. He rubbed his
finger on the outside of one and then inspected the skin with
interest. Then, suddenly, he laughed grimly:
“Sulphur! That’s a cute notion. A ferret!”
Sir Clinton acknowledged the discovery with a smile that had more than
a touch of the sinister in it.
“Simple, isn’t it?”
“Quite the Mikado touch,” Ardsley commented.
Sir Clinton said no more, but busied himself with giving orders to his
subordinates. Wendover had grasped the meaning of the interchange
between Ardsley and the Chief Constable. Sir Clinton meant to use the
simplest poison gas of all—the fumes of burning sulphur. The light
air-currents would drift them over the Maze; and Ernest Shandon would
soon find his fastness converted into a death-trap. He would have to
come out into the open; and by that time he would be in such a state
that he could be easily captured.
Sir Clinton had issued his directions, posting his constables at
points from which they could converge on the various entrances to the
Maze if necessary.
“Take no risks,” he added, finally. “I don’t want any fancy exploits
to-day. The man who gets Shandon and suffers no damage in getting him,
will be the man who gets a good mark from me. I’ll not have anyone
hurt, understand!”
He dismissed the constables to carry his orders to their comrades, and
then swung round to the rest of the group.
“You can get over yonder, to that clump of rhododendrons, Hawkhurst.
If he shows up anywhere within your zone of fire, you’re to wing him.
You’re not to kill him. I’m trusting you to play the game, remember.”
Arthur nodded, and betook himself to his post.
“Two more guns will cover all but this side of the Maze,” Sir Clinton
went on. “You go over to the road, Wendover. From there,” he pointed,
“you can cover young Hawkhurst’s dead ground. I’ll do the same on the
other side. But first of all, we’ve got to get this stuff spread
around a bit.”
He cut the twine at the mouth of the sacks, tilted out the sulphur,
and began to distribute it with a spade. The others hurried to assist
him, and spread the yellow lumps under his directions.
“Now we can light up,” Sir Clinton said, at last, when things had been
completed to his satisfaction. “These fireworks will give the thing a
good start if you spray the sparks to and fro over the surface of the
stuff.”
He produced some fireworks from a paper parcel as he spoke and set an
example to his companions. Soon the sulphur caught fire; and Wendover,
incautiously working on the leeward side, began to cough violently.
“Keep to the windward side of the stuff,” Sir Clinton advised. “Get it
alight here and there. The flame will soon spread over the whole
surface. Now, I’m off.”
He picked up his shot-gun and skirted the Maze at a respectful
distance as he made his way to his post. For a minute or two Wendover
stolidly continued to tend the “ferret”; but he could not help
wondering whether this method of criminal-hunting really came within
permitted bounds. His mind inclined more readily to active measures;
and the devil’s cookery was, as he phrased it to Ardsley, “hardly the
game.”
The toxicologist showed no sympathy with his point of view.
“Driffield’s quite right. Suppose to-night found him with a dead
constable on his hands—perhaps a widow and some fatherless children to
face? Would you care to be in his shoes? I wouldn’t! Play the game?
Bosh! It’s not playing the game to chuck away your men’s lives
unnecessarily.”
He dug up some burning sulphur and distributed it over an unkindled
patch.
“Whew! This is a suffocating job! If it’s like this now it’ll be
fairly stifling on the lee side in half an hour.”
Stenness said nothing. Wendover, who was not in the secret of the
secretary’s love affairs, could not understand why Stenness looked
almost as grim as Sir Clinton. The Squire woke up all at once to the
fact that he ought to be elsewhere; and he made his way to his
appointed post.
As he reached it, the report of the sporting rifle came from the clump
of rhododendrons.
“It’s all right,” he heard Arthur’s voice raised in a shouted
explanation. “I saw him at the gate, trying to climb over; so I let
him have it above his head. That scared him. He’s gone away now, back
into the Maze. He’s got a pistol in his hand.”
Almost at once they heard Sir Clinton’s shot-gun fired.
“Trying the entrances one by one to see if he can slip out,” commented
Arthur, with a certain malicious glee in his tone.
Some minutes passed, then, to Wendover’s astonishment, he heard the
crack of the automatic pistol, and a bullet sang past him.
“Not much sign of surrender about that,” he admitted, as he got
hurriedly under cover. “The beggar must have marked me down and tried
a long shot through the hedge.”
Time flowed slowly on. Occasionally, with a slight change in the faint
wind, some of the sulphur fumes drifted down to Wendover and caught
his lungs.
“It must be pretty thick in the Maze, if a mere whiff of it gives one
gyp like that,” he reflected. “The beggar must be half-dead with the
fumes by this time, for he gets the full blast of it.”
Another interval of quietness gave Wendover time to think over the
situation. Up to that point, he had gone through the business almost
without trying to bring the morning’s work into touch with normal
life. The whole affair had had an impersonal quality; for from start
to finish he had not set eyes on the man they were hunting. But that
peculiarity had enhanced the rather unreal character of the adventure,
lending it a touch of the fantastic in his mind. And the
extraordinarily methodical procedure which had governed the
transactions helped in some way to accentuate his feelings. It had all
been as logical as a nightmare seems to be while one lives through it.
Yet another shot-gun report—from the sulphur station this time—showed
that the murderer was still making attempts to slip away. After that,
another period elapsed without any further alarms. The sulphur fumes
were now so dense that Wendover, though out of the main line of drift,
was becoming seriously troubled by them. He could hear Arthur coughing
continuously in the rhododendron clump; but the muzzle of the rifle
was never lowered even in the worst paroxysm. Quite obviously Arthur
meant to miss no chance of squaring the account for Sylvia.
As that thought crossed his mind, Wendover seemed to see the whole
Whistlefield case in a fresh light. Instead of the mysterious murderer
lurking behind green walls of the Maze, his mental vision threw up a
picture of the real personality, Ernest Shandon. He could see him with
his mind’s eye wandering along the paths of the Maze, choking,
desperate, seeking for some outlet to safety and beaten back each time
by the warning of the guns. And minute by minute the poison-cloud was
growing denser over his place of refuge, bringing nearer the
inevitable end of the drama.
And as this picture forced itself upon Wendover, he began to feel the
nightmare growing more intense. It seemed almost incredible that
Ernest Shandon, a creature despised by everyone for his shiftlessness
and futility, could have planned and carried through this murderous
work. Wendover, since he had been brought into intimate contact with
Ernest, had felt nothing but boredom and derision. The man’s dullness,
his cowardice, his selfishness, had all impressed themselves strongly
on the Squire; and had produced a definite feeling of repulsion and
contempt. Now he had to readjust his ideas. The dullness must have
been merely an exaggeration; the cowardice had been a sham, since the
murderer had no reason to fear anything for his own skin; and the
selfishness—why, that was only a manifestation of callousness without
which no planned murder could be carried through. Instead of the
insignificant figure which he had hitherto encountered, Wendover began
to see instead a fresh personality hidden behind the mask: something
going coldly to its deadly work, unrestrained by any normal feelings
of humanity or even kinship, a modern Minotaur in the labyrinth of the
Maze.
Almost appalled by the vividness of the portrait which his mind had
conjured up, Wendover stared across the grass at the wall of greenery
which concealed from his gaze the actual form of the murderer. Then,
as he gazed, there came once more the report of the automatic pistol—a
single shot.
And once more the waiting recommenced, unbroken by any incident.
At last Sir Clinton appeared, with his gun at the trail, round the
corner of the Maze. He signalled to Wendover and Arthur to rejoin him.
“I think that’s the end of the business,” he said with stern
satisfaction, as they came up. “If I’m not much mistaken, that last
shot was for himself. The game was up; and he must have been half-dead
with the fumes by now.”
He turned to Arthur.
“Do you see now why I wouldn’t let you touch him? If you had, then
we’d have had all the bother of a trial for manslaughter at the least;
and I don’t guarantee that things would have gone smoothly in it. As
it is, he’s suicided; and no one’s to blame but himself. And if you
wanted to put the screw on him, could you have given it a harder turn
than this?”
He pointed towards the sulphur station.
Arthur saw the point.
“I expect you’re right,” he admitted, coughing as a fresh cloud of
fumes drifted down upon them. “He must have had his dose before he
gave in. You think that there’s no doubt that he’s shot himself?”
Sir Clinton’s face showed what he thought.
“Well, I tell you what,” Arthur proposed. “There’s a tree near the
river-bank which overlooks part of the Maze if one gets high enough in
it. Suppose I swarm up it and see if I can spot anything? Now that
he’s out of action, it’s safe enough.”
Sir Clinton welcomed the idea.
“That’s a good scheme. He might be shamming, after all; and I won’t
take any risks by sending anyone into the Maze till I’m sure. If you
keep well inside the leaves you’ll be safe enough in any case. And if
you find he’s dead, it’ll save us a long wait.”
Arthur dropped his rifle and went off to put his project into
execution. After he had gone Sir Clinton turned to Wendover.
“Not much family affection left in the Whistlefield circle, Squire.
But can you wonder, after all. Friend Ernest wasn’t the sort of man
who’d attract much liking at the best; and that boy was very keen on
his sister, undoubtedly. I have a certain sympathy with his feelings.
And I can tell you I’ve been on pins and needles for some time back
lest young Hawkhurst should find out who the murderer really was and
take the law into his own hands at once. He wouldn’t have been hanged,
of course; that mental instability of his would have saved him. But it
would have been a case for Broadmoor; and that’s not much better than
the drop in his state. It’s a relief to get it all over as easily as
we have done.”
In a few minutes, Arthur came back with his report.
“He’s lying on the ground in Helen’s Bower. I couldn’t see very
clearly; but from the way he’s lying, I think he’s done for.”
“Well,” said Sir Clinton, “I’d better get into the Maze and make sure
of things.”
He reflected for a moment, then added:
“I think perhaps it would be as well if all of us went in together.
It’s quite safe; I’m pretty sure of that. And there’s something there,
I suspect, that I shall want witnesses for.”
He summoned Ardsley and Stenness and explained the state of affairs to
them.
“If we dowse the sulphur, the wind will clear away the fumes fairly
soon. We can get water from the river and put it out. There’s sure to
be something in the boat-house which we can use for bringing water—a
bucket or a bailer of some sort!”
When it seemed safe, they entered the Maze and soon reached Helen’s
Bower. No danger awaited them. Ernest’s body lay sprawling on the
grass with a bullet wound in the head and the automatic pistol still
clutched in the hand. Sir Clinton crossed over and knelt down beside
the corpse.
“We’d better search the body now and be done with it,” he said,
beginning the task as he spoke.
“Here’s something bulky in the breast-pocket,” he explained as he
extracted it. “H’m! An envelope with your name written on it,
Stenness. Your property, perhaps?”
Stenness glanced at the paper and a look of intelligence passed
between him and Sir Clinton.
“That’s mine,” he confirmed. “It ought to have notes in it!”
The Chief Constable thrust his fingers into the envelope and, pulling
out some of the contents, exhibited them to the company.
“It’s full of notes—must be a fair sum. I’ll keep this for the
present, Stenness. You don’t mind? It’s best to do things formally;
and you can always have it later on when you want it.”
“Oh, keep it, certainly,” Stenness agreed, with a certain dull
indifference.
Sir Clinton continued his search; but the only thing of interest was a
tin box which he opened carefully and held out for inspection.
“More of these darts, you see?”
He counted them rapidly.
“Yes, that’s right. This represents the balance of the lot after
deducting the ones he used in the attack on Miss Hawkhurst and last
night.”
He replaced the cover on the box and transferred the thing to his
pocket.
“That’s all we need do. You’d better have a look at the body, Ardsley.
We’ll need your evidence at the inquest. I’ll send a constable in here
to look after things until we can get the body removed.”
When Ardsley had finished his examination, they left the Maze.
“Go back to the house now,” Sir Clinton directed, as they emerged from
the entrance gate. “I’ll have to pilot my men in to the centre, you
know. You can send the car down to meet me if you like.”
He turned back with the constables, while the rest of the party got
into the motor. No one seemed inclined to talk, as they made their way
up to the house. The events of the morning had been too bizarre to
merge easily into everyday affairs. To Wendover, it seemed as though
he had spent the last hour or two in some world lying far beyond the
normal bounds of probability—already the siege of the Maze was passing
into the realm of the unreal in his mind; and he had difficulty in
forcing himself to remember that it had cost the life of a man.
But even while he reflected on this, a fresh surprise came upon him.
As the car swept round in sight of the main entrance to Whistlefield,
he heard a sharp intake of breath from Stenness and a suppressed
exclamation from Arthur.
He raised his eyes, and for a moment could hardly believe what he saw.
There, at the top of the steps, stood Torrance and Vera Forrest, while
between them was Sylvia, safe and sound except for the sling which
supported her right arm.
“Rather a surprise, I suppose,” said Ardsley dryly, as he pulled up
the car at the front door.