WHAT A GIRL SAW
With Morriston's departure a rather uncomfortable silence fell upon the
party left in the room. Every one seemed to feel that there was
something in the air, the shadow of a possibly serious development in
the case. Even Kelson, who was otherwise inclined to be jubilant over
the freeing of his fiancée from suspicion, seemed to feel it was no time
or place just then for gaiety, and his expression grew as grave as that
of the rest.
"I wonder what these fellows have come to say," he observed as he
paced the room.
"Let's hope to announce that at last they are going to leave you in
peace, Edith," Miss Tredworth said.
Edith Morriston did not alter her position as she stood looking out of
the window. "Thank you for your kind wish, Muriel," she responded in a
cold voice; "but I'm afraid that is too much to hope for just yet."
"Yet one doesn't see what else it can be," Kelson observed reflectively.
"They can hardly have found out exactly how the man came by his death;
much more likely to have abandoned their latest theory, eh, Hugh?"
Gifford was looking, held by the grip of his imagination, at the tall
figure by the window; wondering what was passing behind that veil of
impassiveness. "I don't see what they can have found out away from this
house," he said, rousing himself by an effort to answer; "and they don't
seem to have been here lately."
"Well, we shall see," Kelson said casually. "Ah, here comes Dick
back again."
Morriston hurried in with a serious face. In answer to Kelson's, "Well,
Dick?" he said.
"It appears a rather extraordinary piece of evidence has just come to
light; one which, if true, completely solves the mystery of the locked
door. I asked Freeman if there was any objection to you fellows coming
to the library and hearing the story; he is quite agreeable. So will you
come? You too, Edith, and Miss Tredworth; there is nothing at all
horrible in it so far."
For the first time Edith Morriston turned from the window. "Is it
necessary, Dick?" she protested quietly. "I'd just as soon hear it
all afterwards from you. These police visitations are rather getting
on my nerves."
"Very well, dear; you shall hear all about it later on," her brother
responded, and led the way down to the library. Gifford was the last to
leave the room, and his glance back showed him that Edith Morriston had
turned again to the window and resumed her former attitude.
In the library were the chief constable, Gervase Henshaw and a local
detective.
"Now, Major Freeman," Morriston said as he closed the door, "we shall be
glad to hear this new piece of evidence."
Major Freeman bowed. "Shortly, it comes to this," he began. "A young
woman named Martha Haynes, belonging to Branchester, called at my office
this morning and made a statement which, if reliable, must have an
important bearing on this mysterious case.
"It appears from her story that on the night of the Hunt Ball held here
she had been paying a visit to some friends at Rapscot, a village, as you
know, about a mile beyond Wynford. On her way back to the town, for which
she started at about 9.45, she took as a short cut the right-of-way path
running across the park and passing near the house. As she went by she
was naturally attracted by the lighted windows and could hear the band
quite plainly. She stopped to listen to the music at a point which she
has indicated, almost directly opposite the tower.
"She says she had stood there for some little time when her attention
was suddenly diverted to what seemed a mysterious movement on the
outside of the tower. A dark body, presumably a human being, appeared to
be slowly sliding down the wall from the topmost window. Unfortunately
before she could quite realize what she was looking at--and we may
imagine that a country girl would take some little time to grasp so
unusual a situation--a cloud drifted across the moon and threw the
tower into shadow.
"The girl continued, however, to keep her eyes fixed on the spot where
she had seen the dark object descending, with the result that in a few
seconds she saw it reach and pass over one side of the window of the
lower room which was sufficiently lighted up to silhouette anything
placed before it. She saw the object move slowly over the window and
disappear in the darkness beneath it. When, a few seconds later, the moon
came out again nothing more was to be seen.
"The girl stayed for some time watching the tower, but without result.
She is a more or less ignorant, unsophisticated country-woman, and what
she had seen she was quite unable to account for. Naturally she hardly
connected it with any sort of tragical occurrence. The house with its
lights and music seemed given over to gaiety; that any one should just
then have met his death in that upper room never entered her imagination.
A vague idea that a thief might have got into the house and she had seen
him escape by the tower window did indeed, as she says, cross her mind,
and that supposition prevented her from approaching the tower to satisfy
her curiosity. But as nothing more happened she began to think less of
the significance of what she had seen, in fact almost persuaded herself
that it had been something of an optical delusion. Presently, having had
enough of standing in the cold wind, she resumed her way, went home and
to bed, and early next morning left the town to enter a situation in
another part of the country.
"It appears that she had taken cold by her loitering and soon after
reaching her destination became so ill that she had to keep her bed, and
it was only on her recovery a few days ago that she heard what had
happened here that night. Directly she could get away she came over and
told her story to us."
"A pity she could not have come before," Morriston remarked as the chief
constable paused. "Her evidence is highly important, disposing as it does
of the mystery of the locked door."
"Yes," Major Freeman agreed, "and also of the suicide theory. The
question now is--who was the person who was seen descending from
the window?"
"Could this girl tell whether it was a man or a woman?" The question came
from Henshaw, who had hitherto kept silent.
"She thinks it was a man," Major Freeman answered, "but could not swear
to it. The fact of the object being close to the wall made it almost
impossible in the imperfect light to distinguish plainly. But I think we
may take it that it was a man. The feat could be hardly one a woman would
undertake."
"No," Gifford agreed. "And there would seem little chance of identifying
the person."
"None at all so far as the girl Haynes is concerned," Major Freeman
replied. "But we have something to go upon; a starting point for a new
line of inquiry. The person seen escaping must have lowered himself by
a rope from that top window and a considerable length would be
required. I have taken the liberty, Mr. Morriston, of setting a party
of my men to search the grounds for the rope; they will begin by
dragging the little lake."
"By all means," Morriston assented.
"Detective Sprules," the chief proceeded, "would like to make another
examination of the ironwork of the window. May he go up now?"
"Certainly," Morriston answered, and the detective left the room.
Gifford spoke. "The girl saw nothing of the escaping person after he
reached the ground?"
"Nothing, she says," Major Freeman answered. "But the base of the tower
was in deep shadow, which would prevent that."
"A pity her curiosity was not a little more practical," Henshaw observed.
"Yes." Gifford turned to him. "You are proved correct, Mr. Henshaw, in
your repudiation of the suicide idea. Perhaps, in view of this latest
development, you may have knowledge to go upon of some one from whom your
brother might have apprehended danger?"
Henshaw's set face gave indication of nothing but a studied reserve. "No
one certainly," he answered coolly, "from whom he might apprehend danger
to his life."
"There must have been a motive for the act," Kelson observed. "Unless it
was a sudden quarrel."
"There appears," Major Freeman put in, "to be no evidence whatever of
anything leading up to that."
"No; the cause is so far quite mysterious," Henshaw said.
It seemed to Gifford that there was something of undisclosed knowledge
behind his words, and he fell to wondering how far the motive was
mysterious to him.
Morriston proceeded to acquaint Major Freeman with the discovered cause
of the marks on the ladies' dresses, and they all went off to the lower
room where the position of the stains was pointed out. Edith Morriston
was no longer there.
"Miss Tredworth sat at this end of the sofa," Morriston explained, "and
so the marks on her dress are clearly accounted for."
"And Miss Morriston?" Henshaw put the question in a tone which had in it,
Gifford thought, a touch of scepticism.
"Oh, my sister must have been in here too," Morriston replied. "Or how
could her dress have been stained? Unless, indeed, she brushed against
Miss Tredworth's or someone else's. That's clear."
There seemed no alacrity in Henshaw to accept the conclusion and he did
not respond.
"I am glad this part of the mystery is so satisfactorily settled,"
the chief constable remarked. "Now we have the issue narrowed.
Well, Sprules?"
The detective had appeared at the door.
"I have examined the ironwork of the window, sir," he said, "and have
found under the magnifying-glass traces of the fraying of a rope as
though caused by friction against the iron staple."
"Sufficient signs to bear out the young woman's statement?"
"Quite, sir. There is upon close examination distinct evidence of a rope
having been worked against the hinge of the window."
"Very good, Sprules. We may consider that point settled," Major
Freeman said.
Having finally satisfied themselves as to the cause of the stains on the
floor and sofa, the chief constable and his subordinate proposed to go to
the lake and see whether the men who were dragging it had had any
success. Morriston and Henshaw with Kelson and Gifford accompanied them.
As they came in sight of the boat the detective exclaimed, "They have
found it!" and the men were seen hauling up a rope out of the water.
"Sooner than I expected," Major Freeman observed as they hurried towards
the nearest point to the boat.
The rope when landed proved to be of considerable length, sufficient when
doubled, they calculated, to reach from the topmost window to within five
or six feet of the ground.
"The escaping person," Henshaw said, "must have slid down the doubled
rope which had been passed through the staple of the window, and then
when the ground was reached have pulled it away, coiled it up, carried it
to the lake, and thrown it in. Obviously that was the procedure and it
accounts completely for the locked door."
The chief constable and the detective agreed.
"A man would want some nerve to come down from that height," the
latter remarked.
"Any man, or woman either for that matter," Henshaw returned
dogmatically, "would not hesitate to take the risk as an alternative to
being trapped up there with his victim."
"You are not suggesting it might have been a woman who was seen sliding
down the rope?" Gifford asked pointedly.
Henshaw shrugged. "I suggest nothing as to the person's identity," he
replied in a sharply guarded tone. "That is now what remains to be
discovered."