THE DARK POOL
As I went into that house with the rest of them, I had two sudden
impressions. One was that here at my side, in the person of Mr. Gavin
Smeaton, was, in all probability, its real owner, the real holder of the
ancient title, who was coming to his lawful rights in this strange
fashion. The other was of the contrast between my own coming at that
moment and the visit which I had paid there, only a few evenings
previously, when Hollins had regarded me with some disfavour and the
usurper had been so friendly. Now Hollins was lying dead in the old ruin,
and the other man was a fugitive--and where was he?
Murray had brought us there to do something towards settling that point,
and he began his work at once by assembling every Jack and Jill in the
house and, with the help of the London detective, subjecting them to a
searching examination as to the recent doings of their master and
mistress and the butler. But Mr. Lindsey motioned Mr. Elphinstone, and
Mr. Gavin Smeaton, and myself into a side-room and shut the door on us.
"We can leave the police to do their own work," he remarked, motioning
us to be seated at a convenient table. "My impression is that they'll
find little out from the servants. And while that's afoot, I'd like to
have that promised story of yours, Mr. Elphinstone--I only got an idea of
it, you know, when you and Murray came to my house. And these two would
like to hear it--one of them, at any rate, is more interested in this
affair than you'd think or than he knew of himself until recently."
Now that we were in a properly lighted room, I took a more careful look
at the former steward of Hathercleugh. He was a well-preserved,
shrewd-looking man of between sixty and seventy: quiet and observant, the
sort of man that you could see would think a lot without saying much. He
smiled a little as he put his hands together on the table and glanced at
our expectant faces--it was just the smile of a man who knows what he is
talking about.
"Aye, well, Mr. Lindsey," he responded, "maybe there's not so much
mystery in this affair as there seems to be once you've got at an idea.
I'll tell you how I got at mine and what's come of it. Of course, you'll
not know, for I think you didn't come to Berwick yourself until after I'd
left the neighbourhood--but I was connected with the Hathercleugh estate
from the time I was a lad until fifteen years ago, when I gave up the
steward's job and went to live on a bit of property of my own, near
Alnwick. Of course, I knew the two sons--Michael and Gilbert; and I
remember well enough when, owing to perpetual quarrelling with their
father, he gave them both a good lot of money and they went their
several ways. And after that, neither ever came back that I heard of, nor
did I ever come across either, except on one occasion--to which I'll
refer in due course. In time, as I've just said, I retired; in time, too,
Sir Alexander died, and I heard that, Mr. Michael being dead in the West
Indies, Sir Gilbert had come into the title and estates. I did think,
once or twice, of coming over to see him; but the older a man gets, the
fonder he is of his own fireside--and I didn't come here, nor did I ever
hear much of him; he certainly made no attempt to see me. And so we come
to the beginning of what we'll call the present crisis. That beginning
came with the man who turned up in Berwick this spring."
"You mean Gilverthwaite?" asked Mr. Lindsey.
"Aye--but I didn't know him by that name!" assented Mr. Elphinstone, with
a sly smile. "I didn't know him by any name. What I know is this. It must
have been about a week--certainly not more--before Gilverthwaite's death
that he--I'm sure of his identity, because of his description--called on
me at my house, and with a good deal of hinting and such-like told me
that he was a private inquiry agent, and could I tell him something about
the late Michael Carstairs?--and that, it turned out, was: Did I know if
Michael was married before he left England, and if so, where, and to
whom? Of course, I knew nothing about it, and as the man wouldn't give me
the least information I packed him off pretty sharply. And the next thing
I heard was of the murder of John Phillips. I didn't connect that with
the visit of the mysterious man at first; but of course I read the
account of the inquest, and Mr. Ridley's evidence, and then I began to
see there was some strange business going on, though I couldn't even
guess at what it could be. And I did nothing, and said nothing--there
seemed nothing, then, that I could do or say, though I meant to come
forward later--until I saw the affair of Crone in the newspapers, and I
knew then that there was more in the matter than was on the surface. So,
when I learnt that a man named Carter had been arrested on the charge of
murdering Crone, I came to Berwick, and went to the court to hear what
was said when Carter was put before the magistrates. I got a quiet seat
in the court--and maybe you didn't see me."
"I did!" I exclaimed. "I remember you perfectly, Mr. Elphinstone."
"Aye!" he said with an amused smile. "You're the lad that's had his
finger in the pie pretty deep--you're well out of it, my man! Well--there
I was, and a man sitting by me that knew everybody, and before ever the
case was called this man pointed out Sir Gilbert Carstairs coming in and
being given a seat on the bench. And I knew that there was a fine to-do,
and perhaps nobody but myself knowing of it, for the man pointed out to
me was no Sir Gilbert Carstairs, nor any Carstairs at all--not he! But--I
knew him!"
"You knew him!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "Man!--that's the first direct bit
of real illumination we've had! And--who is he, then, Mr. Elphinstone?"
"Take your time!" answered Mr. Elphinstone. "We'll have to go back a bit:
you'll put the police court out of your mind a while. It's about--I
forget rightly how long since, but it was just after I gave up the
stewardship that I had occasion to go up to London on business of my own.
And there, one morning, as I was sauntering down the lower end of Regent
Street, I met Gilbert Carstairs, whom I'd never seen since he left home.
He'd his arm in mine in a minute, and he would have me go with him to his
rooms in Jermyn Street, close by--there was no denying him. I went, and
found his rooms full of trunks, and cases, and the like--he and a friend
of his, he said, were just off on a sort of hunting-exploration trip to
some part of Central America; I don't know what they weren't going to do,
but it was to be a big affair, and they were to come back loaded up with
natural-history specimens and to make a pile of money out of the venture,
too. And he was telling me all about it in his eager, excitable way when
the other man came in, and I was introduced to him. And, gentlemen,
that's the man I saw--under the name of Sir Gilbert Carstairs--on the
bench at Berwick only the other day! He's changed, of course--more than I
should have thought he would have done in fifteen years, for that's about
the time since I saw him and Gilbert together there in Jermyn
Street,--but I knew him as soon as I clapped eyes on him, and whatever
doubt I had went as soon as I saw him lift his right hand to his
moustache, for there are two fingers missing on that hand--the middle
ones--and I remembered that fact about the man Gilbert Carstairs had
introduced to me. I knew, I tell you, as I sat in that court, that the
fellow there on the bench, listening, was an impostor!"
We were all bending forward across the table, listening
eagerly--and there was a question in all our thoughts, which Mr.
Lindsey put into words.
"The man's name?"
"It was given to me, in Jermyn Street that morning, as Meekin--Dr.
Meekin," answered Mr. Elphinstone. "Gilbert Carstairs, as you're aware,
was a medical man himself--he'd qualified, anyway--and this was a friend
of his. But that was all I gathered then--they were both up to the eyes
in their preparations, for they were off for Southampton that night,
and I left them to it--and, of course, never heard of them again. But
now to come back to the police court the other day: I tell you, I
was--purposely--in a quiet corner, and there I kept till the case was
over; but just when everybody was getting away, the man on the bench
caught sight of me--"
"Ah!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey, looking across at me. "Ah! that's another
reason--that supplements the ice-ax one! Aye!--he caught sight of you,
Mr. Elphinstone--"
"And," continued Mr. Elphinstone, "I saw a queer, puzzled look come into
his face. He looked again--looked hard. I took no notice of his look,
though I continued to watch him, and presently he turned away and went
out. But I knew he had recognized me as a man he had seen somewhere. Now
remember, when Gilbert Carstairs introduced me to this man, Gilbert did
not mention any connection of mine with Hathercleugh--he merely spoke
of me as an old friend; so Meekin, when he came into these parts, would
have no idea of finding me here. But I saw he was afraid--badly
afraid--because of his recognition and doubt about me. And the next
question was--what was I to do? I'm not the man to do things in haste,
and I could see this was a black, deep business, with maybe two murders
in it. I went off and got my lunch--and thought. At the end of it, rather
than go to the police, I went to your office, Mr. Lindsey. And your
office was locked up, and you were all away for the day. And then an idea
struck me: I have a relative--the man outside with Murray--who's a
high-placed officer in the Criminal Investigation Department at New
Scotland Yard--I would go to him. So--I went straight off to London by
the very next South express. Why? To see if he could trace anything about
this Meekin."
"Aye!" nodded Mr. Lindsey admiringly. "You were in the right of it,
there--that was a good notion. And--you did?"
"Not since the Jermyn Street affair," answered Mr. Elphinstone. "We
traced him in the medical register all right up to that point. His name
is Francis Meekin--he's various medical letters to it. He was in one of
the London hospitals with Gilbert Carstairs--he shared those rooms in
Jermyn Street with Gilbert Carstairs. We found--easily--a man who'd
been their valet, and who remembered their setting off on the hunting
expedition. They never came back--to Jermyn Street, anyway. Nothing was
ever heard or seen of them in their old haunts about that quarter from
that time. And when we'd found all that out, we came straight down,
last evening, to the police--and that's all, Mr. Lindsey. And, of
course, the thing is plain to me--Gilbert probably died while in this
man's company; this man possessed himself of his letters and papers and
so on; and in time, hearing how things were, and when the chance came,
he presented himself to the family solicitors as Gilbert Carstairs.
Could anything be plainer?"
"Nothing!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "It's a sure case--and simple when you
see it in the light of your knowledge; a case of common personation. But
I'm wondering what the connection between the Gilverthwaite and Phillips
affair and this Meekin has been--if we could get at it?"
"Shall I give you my theory?" suggested Mr. Elphinstone. "Of course, I've
read all there's been in the newspapers, and Murray told me a lot last
night before we came to you, and you mentioned Mr. Ridley's
discovery,--well, then, I've no doubt whatever that this young gentleman
is Michael Carstairs' son, and therefore the real owner of the title and
estates! And I'll tell you how I explain the whole thing. Michael
Carstairs, as I remember him--and I saw plenty of him as a lad and a
young man--was what you'd call violently radical in his ideas. He was a
queer, eccentric, dour chap in some ways--kindly enough in others. He'd a
most extraordinary objection to titles, for one thing; another, he
thought that, given a chance, every man ought to make himself. Now, my
opinion is that when he secretly married a girl who was much below him in
station, he went off to America, intending to put his principles in
practice. He evidently wanted his son to owe nothing to his birth; and
though he certainly made ample and generous provision for him, and gave
him a fine start, he wanted him to make his own life and fortune. That
accounts for Mr. Gavin Smeaton's bringing-up. But now as regards the
secret. Michael Carstairs was evidently a rolling stone who came up
against some queer characters--Gilverthwaite was one, Phillips--whoever
he may have been--another. It's very evident, from what I've heard from
you, that the three men were associates at one time. And it may be--it's
probably the case--that in some moment of confidence, Michael let out his
secret to these two, and that when he was dead they decided to make more
inquiries into it--possibly to blackmail the man who had stepped in, and
whom they most likely believed to be the genuine Sir Gilbert Carstairs.
Put it this way: once they'd found the documentary evidence they wanted,
the particulars of Michael's marriage, and so on, what had they to do but
go to Sir Gilbert--as they thought him to be--and put it to him that, if
he didn't square them to keep silence, they'd reveal the truth to his
nephew, whom, it's evident, they'd already got to know of as Mr. Gavin
Smeaton. But as regards the actual murder of Phillips--ah, that's a
mystery that, in my opinion, is not like to be solved! The probability is
that a meeting had been arranged with Sir Gilbert--which means, of
course, Meekin--that night, and that Phillips was killed by him. As to
Crone--it's my opinion that Crone's murder came out of Crone's own greed
and foolishness; he probably caught Meekin unawares, told what he knew,
and paid the penalty."
"There's another possible theory about the Phillips murder," remarked Mr.
Gavin Smeaton. "According to what you know, Mr. Elphinstone, this Meekin
is a man who has travelled much abroad--so had Phillips. How do we know
that when Meekin and Phillips met that night, Meekin wasn't recognized by
Phillips as Meekin--and that Meekin accordingly had a double incentive to
kill him?"
"Good!" exclaimed Mr. Lindsey. "Capital theory!--and probably the right
one. But," he continued, rising and making for the door, "all the
theories in the world won't help us to lay hands on Meekin, and I'm going
to see if Murray has made out anything from his search and his
questioning."
Murray had made out nothing. There was nothing whatever in the private
rooms of the supposed Sir Gilbert Carstairs and his wife to suggest any
clue to their whereabouts: the servants could tell nothing of their
movements beyond what the police already knew. Sir Gilbert had never been
seen by any of them since the morning on which he went into Berwick to
hear the case against Carter: Lady Carstairs had not been seen since her
departure from the house secretly, two mornings later. Not one of all the
many servants, men or women, could tell anything of their master or
mistress, nor of any suspicious doings on the part of Hollins during the
past two days, except that he had been away from the house a good deal.
Whatever share the butler had taken in these recent events, he had played
his part skilfully.
So--as it seemed--there was nothing for it but to look further away, the
impression of the police being that Meekin had escaped in one direction
and his wife in another, and that it had been their plan that Hollins
should foregather with them somewhere on the Continent; and presently we
all left Hathercleugh House to go back to Berwick. As we crossed the
threshold, Mr. Lindsey turned to Mr. Gavin Smeaton with a shrewd smile.
"The next time you step across here, sir, it'll be as Sir Gavin
Carstairs!" he said. "And we'll hope that'll not long be delayed!"
"I'm afraid there's a good deal to do before you'll be seeing that, Mr.
Lindsey," answered the prospective owner. "We're not out of the wood yet,
you know."
We certainly were not out of the wood--so far as I was concerned, those
last words might have been prophetic, as, a little later, I was inclined
to think Maisie's had been before she went off in the car. The rest of
them, Mr. Lindsey and his group, Murray and his, had driven up from
Berwick in the first conveyances they could get at that time of night,
and they now went off to where they had been waiting in a neighbouring
shed. They wanted me to go with them--but I was anxious about my bicycle,
a nearly new machine. I had stowed it away as securely as I could under
some thick undergrowth on the edge of the woods, but the downpour of rain
had been so heavy that I knew it must have soaked through the foliage,
and that I should have a nice lot of rust to face, let alone a saturated
saddle. So I went away across the park to where I had left it, and the
others drove off to Berwick--and so both Mr. Lindsey and myself broke our
solemn words to Maisie. For now I was alone--and I certainly did not
anticipate more danger.
But not only danger, but the very threatening of death was on me as I
went my way. We had stayed some time in Hathercleugh House, and the dawn
had broken before we left. The morning came clear and bright after the
storm, and the newly-risen sun--it was just four o'clock, and he was
nicely above the horizon--was transforming the clustering raindrops on
the firs and pines into glistening diamonds as I plunged into the thick
of the woods. I had no other thought at that moment but of getting home
and changing my clothes before going to Andrew Dunlop's to tell the
news--when, as I crossed a narrow cut in the undergrowth, I saw, some
distance away, a man's head slowly look out from the trees. I drew back
on the instant, watching. Fortunately--or unfortunately--he was not
looking in my direction, and did not catch even a momentary glance of me,
and when he twisted his neck in my direction I saw that he was the man
we had been talking of, and whom I now knew to be Dr. Meekin. And it
flashed on me at once that he was hanging about for Hollins--all
unconscious that Hollins was lying dead there in the old tower.
So--it was not he who had driven that murderous knife into
Hollins's throat!
I watched him--myself securely hidden. He came out of his shelter,
crossed the cut, went through the belt of wood which I had just passed,
and looked out across the park to the house--all this I saw by cautiously
edging through the trees and bushes behind me. He was a good forty yards
away from me at that time, but I could see the strained, anxious
expression on his face. Things had gone wrong--Hollins and the car had
not met him where he had expected them--and he was trying to find out
what had happened. And once he made a movement as if he would skirt the
coppices and make for the tower, which lay right opposite, but with an
open space between it and us--and then he as suddenly drew back, and
began to go away among the trees.
I followed him, cautiously. I had always been a bit proud of what I
called my woodcraft, having played much at Red Indians as a youngster,
and I took care to walk lightly as I stalked him from one brake to
another. He went on and on--a long way, right away from Hathercleugh, and
in the direction of where Till meets Tweed. And at last he was out of the
Hathercleugh grounds, and close to the Till, and in the end he took to a
thin belt of trees that ran down the side of the Till, close by the place
where Crone's body had been found, and almost opposite the very spot, on
the other bank, where I had come across Phillips lying dead; and suddenly
I saw what he was after. There, right ahead, was an old boat, tied up to
the bank--he was making for it, intending doubtless to put himself across
the two rivers, to get the north bank of the Tweed, and so to make for
safety in other quarters.
It was there that things went wrong. I was following cautiously, from
tree to tree, close to the river-bank, when my foot caught in a trail of
ground bramble, and I went headlong into the brushwood. Before I was well
on my feet, he had turned and was running back at me, his face white with
rage and alarm, and a revolver in his hand. And when he saw who it was,
he had the revolver at the full length of his arm, covering me.
"Go back!" he said, stopping and steadying himself.
"No!" said I.
"If you come a yard further, Moneylaws, I'll shoot you dead!" he
declared. "I mean it! Go back!"
"I'm not coming a foot nearer," I retorted, keeping where I was. "But I'm
not going back. And whenever you move forward, I'm following. I'm not
losing sight of you again, Mr. Meekin!"
He fairly started at that--and then he began looking on all sides of me,
as if to find out if I was accompanied. And all of a sudden he plumped
me with a question.
"Where is Hollins?" he asked. "I'll be bound you know!"
"Dead!" I answered him. "Dead, Mr. Meekin! As dead as Phillips, or as
Abel Crone. And the police are after you--all round--and you'd better
fling that thing into the Till there and come with me. You'll not get
away from me as easily now as you did yon time in your yacht."
It was then that he fired at me--from some twelve or fifteen yards'
distance. And whether he meant to kill me, or only to cripple me, I don't
know; but the bullet went through my left knee, at the lower edge of the
knee-cap, and the next thing I knew I was sprawling on all-fours on the
earth, and the next--and it was in the succeeding second, before even I
felt a smart--I was staring up from that position to see the vengeance
that fell on my would-be murderer in the very instant of his attempt on
me. For as he fired and I fell, a woman sprang out of the bushes at his
side, and a knife flashed, and then he too fell with a cry that was
something between a groan and a scream--and I saw that his assailant was
the Irishwoman Nance Maguire, and I knew at once who it was that had
killed Hollins.
But she had not killed Meekin. He rose like a badly wounded thing--half
rose, that is, as I have seen crippled animals rise, and he cried like a
beast in a trap, fighting with his hands. And the woman struck again
with the knife--and again he sank back, and again he rose, and ... I
shut my eyes, sick with horror, as she drove the knife into him for the
third time.
But that was nothing to the horror to come. When I looked again, he was
still writhing and crying, and fighting blindly for his life, and I cried
out on her to leave him alone, for I saw that in a few minutes he would
be dead. I even made an effort to crawl to them, that I might drag her
away from him, but my knee gave at the movement and I fell back
half-fainting. And taking no more notice of me than if I had been one of
the stocks and stones close by, she suddenly gripped him, writhing as he
was, by the throat, and drawing him over the bank as easily as if he had
been a child in her grasp, she plunged knee-deep into the Till and held
him down under the water until he was drowned.
There was a most extraordinary horror came over me as I lay there,
powerless to move, propped up on my elbow, watching. The purposeful
deliberation with which the woman finished her work; the dead silence
about us, broken only by an occasional faint lapping of the river against
its bank; the knowledge that this was a deed of revenge--all these things
produced a mental state in me which was as near to the awful as ever I
approached it. I could only lie and watch--fascinated. But it was over at
last, and she let the body go, and stood watching for a moment as it
floated into a dark pool beneath the alders; and then, shaking herself
like a dog, she came up the bank and looked at me, in silence.
"That was--in revenge for Crone," I managed to get out.
"It was them killed Crone," she answered in a queer dry voice. "Let the
pollis find this one where they found Crone! You're not greatly hurt
yourself--and there's somebody at hand."
Then she suddenly turned and vanished amongst the trees, and, twisting
myself round in the direction to which she had pointed, I saw a
gamekeeper coming along. His gun was thrown carelessly in the crook of
his arm, and he was whistling, gaily and unconcernedly.
I have a perpetual memento of that morning in my somewhat crippled knee.
And once, two years ago, when I was on business in a certain English
town, and in a quarter of it into which few but its own denizens
penetrate, I met for one moment, at a slum corner, a great raw-boned
Irishwoman who noticed my bit of a limp, and turned her eyes for an
instant to give me a sharp look that won as sharp an answer. And there
may have been mutual understanding and sympathy in the glance we thus
exchanged--certainly, when it had passed between us, we continued on our
separate ways, silent.
THE END