THE PINE WOOD
Brereton, standing back in the room, the cigar which Cotherstone had
just given him unlighted in one hand, the glass which Lettie had
presented to him in the other, was keenly watching the man who had just
spoken and the man to whom he spoke. But all his attention was quickly
concentrated on Cotherstone. For despite a strong effort to control
himself, Cotherstone swayed a little, and instinctively put out a hand
and clutched Bent's arm. He paled, too--the sudden spasm of pallor was
almost instantly succeeded by a quick flush of colour. He made another
effort--and tried to laugh.
"Nonsense, man!" he said thickly and hoarsely. "Murder? Who should want
to kill an old chap like that? It's--here, give me a drink, one of
you--that's--a bit startling!"
Bent seized a tumbler which he himself had just mixed, and Cotherstone
gulped off half its contents. He looked round apologetically.
"I--I think I'm not as strong as I was," he muttered. "Overwork,
likely--I've been a bit shaky of late. A shock like that----"
"I'm sorry," said Garthwaite, who looked surprised at the effect of his
news. "I ought to have known better. But you see, yours is the nearest
house----"
"Quite right, my lad, quite right," exclaimed Cotherstone. "You did the
right thing. Here!--we'd better go up. Have you called the police?"
"I sent the man from the cottage at the foot of your garden," answered
Garthwaite. "He was just locking up as I passed, so I told him, and sent
him off."
"We'll go," said Cotherstone. He looked round at his guests. "You'll
come?" he asked.
"Don't you go, father," urged Lettie, "if you're not feeling well."
"I'm all right," insisted Cotherstone. "A mere bit of weakness--that's
all. Now that I know what's to be faced--" he twisted suddenly on
Garthwaite--"what makes you think it's murder?" he demanded. "Murder!
That's a big word."
Garthwaite glanced at Lettie, who was whispering to Bent, and shook his
head.
"Tell you when we get outside," he said. "I don't want to frighten your
daughter."
"Come on, then," said Cotherstone. He hurried into the hall and snatched
up an overcoat. "Fetch me that lantern out of the kitchen," he called to
the parlourmaid. "Light it! Don't you be afraid, Lettie," he went on,
turning to his daughter. "There's naught to be afraid of--now. You
gentlemen coming with us?"
Bent and Brereton had already got into their coats: when the maid came
with the lantern, all four men went out. And as soon as they were in
the garden Cotherstone turned on Garthwaite.
"How do you know he's murdered?" he asked. "How could you tell?"
"I'll tell you all about it, now we're outside," answered Garthwaite.
"I'd been over to Spennigarth, to see Hollings. I came back over the
Shawl, and made a short cut through the wood. And I struck my foot
against something--something soft, you know--I don't like thinking of
that! And so I struck a match, and looked, and saw this old
fellow--don't like thinking of that, either. He was laid there, a few
yards out of the path that runs across the Shawl at that point. I saw he
was dead--and as for his being murdered, well, all I can say is, he's
been strangled! That's flat."
"Strangled!" exclaimed Bent.
"Aye, without doubt," replied Garthwaite. "There's a bit of rope round
his neck that tight that I couldn't put my little finger between it and
him! But you'll see for yourselves--it's not far up the Shawl. You never
heard anything, Mr. Cotherstone?"
"No, we heard naught," answered Cotherstone. "If it's as you say,
there'd be naught to hear."
He had led them out of his grounds by a side-gate, and they were now in
the thick of the firs and pines which grew along the steep, somewhat
rugged slope of the Shawl. He put the lantern into Garthwaite's hand.
"Here--you show the way," he said. "I don't know where it is, of
course."
"You were going straight to it," remarked Garthwaite. He turned to
Brereton, who was walking at his side. "You're a lawyer, aren't you?" he
asked. "I heard that Mr. Bent had a lawyer friend stopping with him just
now--we hear all the bits of news in a little place like Highmarket.
Well--you'll understand, likely--it hadn't been long done!"
"You noticed that?" said Brereton.
"I touched him," replied Garthwaite. "His hand and cheek were--just
warm. He couldn't have been dead so very long--as I judged matters.
And--here he is!"
He twisted sharply round the corner of one of the great masses of
limestone which cropped out amongst the trees, and turned the light of
the lantern on the dead man.
"There!" he said in a hushed voice. "There!"
The four men came to a halt, each gazing steadily at the sight they had
come to see. It needed no more than a glance to assure each that he was
looking on death: there was that in Kitely's attitude which forbade any
other possibility.
"He's just as I found him," whispered Garthwaite. "I came round this
rock from there, d'ye see, and my foot knocked against his shoulder.
But, you know, he's been dragged here! Look at that!"
Brereton, after a glance at the body, had looked round at its
surroundings. The wood thereabouts was carpeted--thickly carpeted--with
pine needles; they lay several inches thick beneath the trunks of the
trees; they stretched right up to the edge of the rock. And now, as
Garthwaite turned the lantern, they saw that on this soft carpet there
was a great slur--the murderer had evidently dragged his victim some
yards across the pine needles before depositing him behind the rock. And
at the end of this mark there were plain traces of a struggle--the soft,
easily yielding stuff was disturbed, kicked about, upheaved, but as
Brereton at once recognized, it was impossible to trace footprints in
it.
"That's where it must have been," said Garthwaite. "You see there's a
bit of a path there. The old man must have been walking along that path,
and whoever did it must have sprung out on him there--where all those
marks are--and when he'd strangled him dragged him here. That's how I
figure it, Mr. Cotherstone."
Lights were coming up through the wood beneath them, glancing from point
to point amongst the trees. Then followed a murmur of voices, and three
or four men came into view--policemen, carrying their lamps, the man
whom Garthwaite had sent into the town, and a medical man who acted as
police surgeon.
"Here!" said Bent, as the newcomers advanced and halted irresolutely.
"This way, doctor--there's work for you here--of a sort, anyway. Of
course, he's dead?"
The doctor had gone forward as soon as he caught sight of the body, and
he dropped on his knees at its side while the others gathered round. In
the added light everybody now saw things more clearly. Kitely lay in a
heap--just as a man would lie who had been unceremoniously thrown down.
But Brereton's sharp eyes saw at once that after he had been flung at
the foot of the mass of rock some hand had disarranged his clothing. His
overcoat and under coat had been torn open, hastily, if not with
absolute violence; the lining of one trousers pocket was pulled out;
there were evidences that his waistcoat had been unbuttoned and its
inside searched: everything seemed to indicate that the murderer had
also been a robber.
"He's not been dead very long," said the doctor, looking up. "Certainly
not more than three-quarters of an hour. Strangled? Yes!--and by
somebody who has more than ordinary knowledge of how quickly a man may
be killed in that way! Look how this cord is tied--no amateur did that."
He turned back the neckcloth from the dead man's throat, and showed the
others how the cord had been slipped round the neck in a running-knot
and fastened tightly with a cunning twist.
"Whoever did this had done the same thing before--probably more than
once," he continued. "No man with that cord round his neck, tightly
knotted like that, would have a chance--however free his hands might be.
He'd be dead before he could struggle. Does no one know anything about
this? No more than that?" he went on, when he had heard what Garthwaite
could tell. "Well, this is murder, anyway! Are there no signs of
anything about here?"
"Don't you think his clothing looks as if he had been robbed?" said
Brereton, pointing to the obvious signs. "That should be noted before
he's moved."
"I've noted that, sir," said the police-sergeant, who had bent over the
body while the doctor was examining it. "There's one of his pockets
turned inside out, and all his clothing's been torn open. Robbery, of
course--that's what it's been--murder for the sake of robbery!"
One of the policemen, having satisfied his curiosity stepped back and
began to search the surroundings with the aid of his lamp. He suddenly
uttered a sharp exclamation.
"Here's something!" he said, stooping to the foot of a pine-tree and
picking up a dark object. "An old pocket-book--nothing in it, though."
"That was his," remarked Cotherstone. "I've seen it before. He used to
carry it in an inner pocket. Empty, do you say?--no papers?"
"Not a scrap of anything," answered the policeman, handing the book over
to his sergeant, and proceeding to search further. "We'd best to see if
there's any footprints about."
"You'd better examine that path, then," said Garthwaite. "You'll find no
prints on all this pine-needle stuff--naught to go by, anyway--it's too
thick and soft. But he must have come along that path, one way or
another--I've met him walking in here of an evening, more than once."
The doctor, who had exchanged a word or two with the sergeant, turned to
Cotherstone.
"Wasn't he a tenant of yours?" he asked. "Had the cottage at the top of
the Shawl here. Well, we'd better have the body removed there, and some
one should go up and warn his family."
"There's no family," answered Cotherstone. "He'd naught but a
housekeeper--Miss Pett. She's an elderly woman--and not likely to be
startled, from what I've seen of her."
"I'll go," said Bent. "I know the housekeeper." He touched Brereton's
elbow, and led him away amongst the trees and up the wood. "This is a
strange affair!" he continued when they were clear of the others. "Did
you hear what Dr. Rockcliffe said?--that whoever had done it was
familiar with that sort of thing!"
"I saw for myself," replied Brereton. "I noticed that cord, and the knot
on it, at once. A man whose neck was tied up like that could be thrown
down, thrown anywhere, left to stand up, if you like, and he'd be
literally helpless, even if, as the doctor said, he had the use of his
hands. He'd be unconscious almost at once--dead very soon afterwards.
Murder?--I should think so!--and a particularly brutal and determined
one. Bent!--whoever killed that poor old fellow was a man of great
strength and of--knowledge! Knowledge, mind you!--he knew the trick. You
haven't any doubtful character in Highmarket who has ever lived in
India, have you?"
"India! Why India?" asked Bent.
"Because I should say that the man who did that job has learned some of
the Indian tricks with cords and knots," answered Brereton. "That
murder's suggestive of Thuggeeism in some respects. That the cottage?"
he went on, pointing to a dim light ahead of him. "This housekeeper,
now?--is she the sort who'll take it quietly?"
"She's as queer a character as the old fellow himself was," replied
Bent, as they cleared the wood and entered a hedge-enclosed garden at
the end of which stood an old-fashioned cottage. "I've talked to her now
and then when calling here--I should say she's a woman of nerve."
Brereton looked narrowly at Miss Pett when she opened the door. She
carried a tallow candle in one hand and held it high above her head to
throw a light on the callers; its dim rays fell more on herself than on
them. A tall, gaunt, elderly woman, almost fleshless of face, and with a
skin the colour of old parchment, out of which shone a pair of bright
black eyes; the oddity of her appearance was heightened by her
head-dress--a glaring red and yellow handkerchief tightly folded in such
a fashion as to cover any vestige of hair. Her arms, bare to the elbow,
and her hands were as gaunt as her face, but Brereton was quick to
recognize the suggestion of physical strength in the muscles and sinews
under the parchment-like skin. A strange, odd-looking woman altogether,
he thought, and not improved by the fact that she appeared to have lost
all her teeth, and that a long, sharp nose and prominent chin almost met
before her sunken lips.
"Oh, it's you, is it, Mr. Bent?" she said, before either of the young
men could speak. "Mr. Kitely's gone out for his regular bedtime
constitution--he will have that, wet or fine, every night. But he's much
longer than usual, and----"
She stopped suddenly, seeing some news in Bent's face, and her own
contracted to a questioning look.
"Is there aught amiss?" she asked. "Has something happened him? Aught
that's serious? You needn't be afraid to speak, Mr. Bent--there's
naught can upset or frighten me, let me tell you--I'm past all that!"
"I'm afraid Mr. Kitely's past everything, too, then," said Bent. He
looked steadily at her for a moment, and seeing that she understood,
went on. "They're bringing him up, Miss Pett--you'd better make ready.
You won't be alarmed--I don't think there's any doubt that he's been
murdered."
The woman gazed silently at her visitors; then, nodding her turbaned
head, she drew back into the cottage.
"It's what I expected," she muttered. "I warned him--more than once.
Well--let them bring him, then."
She vanished into a side-room, and Bent and Brereton went down the
garden and met the others, carrying the dead man. Cotherstone followed
behind the police, and as he approached Bent he pulled him by the sleeve
and drew him aside.
"There's a clue!" he whispered. "A clue, d'ye hear--a strong clue!"