Wilson pondered on that last piece of information as he made his
way to the river. So that was Nicholas Hanborough, senior partner
of Warden, Hanborough & Meston; and he was with the party from the
Grange, and he was sitting next Sylvia Meston, having ousted from
that place the blue-eyed explorer, who would obviously have given
much to fill it. This, Wilson thought, required reflection. Suppose
Hanborough were in love with Sylvia, and suppose he, the senior
partner, had been the real defaulter in that financial business. For,
in spite of his caution to Michael, Wilson was not at all disposed to
believe that young Warden was the villain of that piece--though, of
course, appearances might be deceptive. But Hanborough, who was, it
seemed, an habitué of the Grange, might well find himself pressed for
money, and if Meston were not only on his track, but also were the
husband of the woman he loved--well, there was motive enough for a
considerable crime. But, in that case, why put a private detective on
his own track? “Ropes of sand!” said Wilson reprovingly to himself.
“I don’t even know that Meston was on the track of anything. No use
conjecturing without more evidence.”
At the bridge he found the discreet Collins with a boat and a
fishing-rod which several officious urchins were instructing him how
to manage, and climbed quickly in. Collins, who had been enlisted by
Colonel Lockwood specially from another village, was not very well
up in either the physical or the social topography of the place; and
though Wilson, in the intervals of peering over the bows to look for
any patch of weed which might have caught his corpse, made various
attempts to elicit information about his possible suspects, he met
with little success.
As to Nicholas Hanborough, he could find out no more than that he
was a frequent visitor at the Grange, free with his money, and
pretty well liked in the neighbourhood, though his antecedents were
a matter of doubt. He had been partner of old Warden ten or a dozen
years, having come originally from London; and he was accepted by the
Grange rather than the county. But the county and the Grange, Wilson
surmised, were apt to differ in their judgment of people.
Their progress was slow, for as soon as they had got a reasonable
distance above the Old Malting House, Wilson insisted on examining
the left bank as well as the bed of the stream. “I’ll do the other
bank myself on foot,” he said, “from the tow-path. But it doesn’t
look as though it would be very easy to get along here.”
“No, sir,” Collins agreed. The left bank was sedgy and sodden and
full of holes, and the trees, which seemed to hold a good deal of
water in their roots, grew thick and close to the edge. There was no
sign of a track near the waterside. “But it wouldn’t be very easy for
any one to have a struggle, or get a dead body down to the water,
either, without leaving pretty clear marks. The ground’s very spongy
still, you see. It doesn’t look to me as though it ever dried.”
“That’s true,” Wilson agreed, prodding a patch of sedge with his
boat-hook. “The body could have caught in half a dozen places just
under the bank, but I haven’t seen anywhere it could have got in.
Well, we must just carry on.”
They carried on for a long while, patiently searching the bank, until
a bend of the river brought them in sight of the old bridge which
Colonel Lockwood had mentioned.
“This is the first possible place on the left-hand bank,” Wilson
said. “I think I’ll just get out and have a look at it. Is it much
used, do you know?”
“Not very much, sir, I think,” Collins replied. “It’s not safe for
heavy traffic, and it isn’t really much more than a cut between the
Grange and Sir Felix Lewis’s place.”
Wilson climbed out and surveyed the bank. It did not contain many
indications of any kind, and certainly no signs of a struggle or
of the dragging down of a corpse to the waterside. As he crossed
the roadway, with a view to examining the farther side, his eye was
caught by the tracks of a small car coming and going. “Of course,”
he reflected, “if the murder took place at some distance from the
river, a small car would be very handy to run the body down to the
waterside. Still, there’s no particular reason why they should
take him across the bridge, and this car certainly crossed it.” In
the midst of these reflections he happened to raise his eyes and
glance across the bridge to the farther bank, and his whole figure
immediately stiffened with interest.
“I think,” he said, “we’ll just have a look at the tracks of that
car. Of course, the odds are that it may have nothing to do with us;
but it seems to have passed at about the right time--not long after
the last rain fell.”
“Yes, sir.” Collins followed in stolid surprise, which would have
been mitigated had he been aware of the object of Wilson’s attention.
This was a tree, which, when he had looked up, he had noticed
growing on the farther bank. This tree grew straight up for about
four or five feet, and then shot out at right angles to the trunk
an abrupt limb which continued for five or six feet horizontally
without branching in any way. Had a natural gallows been desired, a
better one could scarcely have been found, and just overhanging the
water too, which would swallow up the corpse immediately it was cut
down and bear it along to the Old Malting House. Decidedly, Wilson
thought, this tree, standing at the first firm crossing of the river,
had got to be investigated; and on the way he might as well keep
track of the car.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to a building on the opposite bank,
just by the tree. “A boathouse?”
“Boat and summerhouse mixed, sir,” Collins replied. “’Tis on Sir
Felix Lewis’s property. Do you want to look at it, sir?”
“May as well,” said Wilson. “But I’ll just see what happened to the
car first.” By this time Collins had tied up the boat, and joined
him on the bridge. “You see it turned off the road here, just by the
summerhouse, and stopped. It stopped some time, too--you can see that
the wheels sank in pretty deeply. They must have had quite a job
getting it out again.”
“They, sir?” Collins inquired. “Was there more than one?”
“It looks so,” said Wilson, “by the tracks. See here”--he
pointed--“these marks were almost certainly made by people getting
out of the car. And there are two of them, at least. That’s a man’s
foot, size ten. And there’s the mark of a woman’s high-heeled shoe--I
can’t see any print of the whole foot.”
“They don’t look much like a struggle, sir,” Collins, who had been
following with enormous interest his first experience of tracking,
observed. “If they were connected with this affair.”
“They don’t,” Wilson admitted. “Not in the least. Nor was one of
them carrying a heavy weight. I dare say they’ve really nothing to
do with us. However, we may as well finish them off. They went into
the boathouse, it appears.” He followed suit. “Confound it! too many
people have been in this boathouse. I shouldn’t have called it a
particularly nice place to sit, would you? Dark and damp and probably
earwiggy. Yet somebody’s been smoking cigarettes all over the place.”
“Any particular kind, sir?” Collins asked.
“Gold Flake, naturally! This habit of smoking cheap cigarettes is
most deplorable. One cannot arrive at any conclusions nowadays
from a man’s cigarette-ends--not even that they are a man’s. This,
however, is a little more distinctive.” Wilson picked up a bright
purple cigarette-tip. “Silk-tipped, scented Turkish. A nasty kind of
cigarette, but, fortunately, not quite as common as the other. Are
there any more of them?”
“Several, sir,” said Collins, who had been scavenging. “And here’s
one that looks different, just outside the door.”
“It _is_ different,” said Wilson. “That’s a Woodbine. That does tell
us something about the smoker’s class, at all events. What is called
the gentry doesn’t smoke Woodbines. Let’s look round the outside.
There may be some more. Hullo! What’s that?”
In the wood behind the boathouse a sudden rustling had sounded. Both
men sprang towards the back, but only reached it in time to see a
ragged figure leap apparently out of the undergrowth and make a dash
for the road leading away from the river.
“Hi, you there! Come back!” shouted Collins, and plunged heavily
after him. But the figure only ran the faster; and in a few seconds
Collins came back, hot and cursing.
“He’s too quick for me, sir,” he explained apologetically. “Like his
darned sauce, hiding there and listening.”
“Do you know him, then?” Wilson asked.
“All our people do,” was the reply. “He’s Jerry Machin, regular
tramp, beggar, and sneak-thief, always up for poaching or vagrancy.
Perfect nuisance he is hereabouts; but he’s got a sharp tongue in
his head, and his sauce often gets him half a crown or so. I suppose
he’s been camping on Sir Felix’s property, free of charge; and
that’s why he made off. Yes, here’s his bed, you see, all complete.”
He indicated an elaborate nest of straw and dried leaves which
had been piled up against the back of the boathouse. “Here’s his
supper--pinched, I’ll bet. He left in a mighty hurry.”
“And here’s his after-lunch smoke,” said Wilson, picking it up.
“He’s our consumer of Woodbines, I’m afraid. But he doesn’t appear to
have gone inside the boathouse. That was reserved for the use of the
Gold Flakes and the scented Turks--at least, I don’t see any trace of
any other cigarettes. I’ll just have one more look round.”
He went back into the boathouse, and noted that the two smokers
appeared to have sat side by side in one corner for some time,
judging by the number of cigarettes they had consumed. From the
rather faint marks of their feet on the floor he concluded that they
were probably, though not quite certainly, the same pair who had
arrived from the car; and he found adhering to a splinter a small
piece of green silk, presumably from a woman’s dress.
Going round again to the outside of the boathouse, his attention was
caught by what appeared to be the signs of some one having stood a
fair time in the long grass close by it. No footmarks were visible;
but the grass and earth had been heavily pressed down. And the
conjecture was confirmed by the discovery of a shred of grey tweed
caught on a projecting nail in the boathouse wall. There was nothing
very remarkable in that, of course; the only curious thing was that
just by the spot where the man (if it were a man) had stood, there
was a large knot-hole in the boathouse wall, a little more than five
feet above the ground. And, on approaching his face to the knot-hole,
Wilson found that it was immediately behind the place where he had
conjectured that his two smokers were sitting. Had there been a
conversation in the boathouse to which some one had listened outside,
and had that some one, perhaps, waited for the man in the boathouse
to come out, and then struck him down? In that case, was it Meston
who was in the boathouse? and, if so, who was with him? His wife?
But having regard to the conditions of the Meston ménage, it seemed
an odd rendezvous, and an oddly long discussion. Besides, the two in
the boathouse had probably, though not certainly, arrived in a car;
and Meston did not seem to have had access to any car. Meston’s foot
would, as far as Wilson had observed it, have fitted the male prints.
But then, probably, so would a good many other people’s.
Was it possible, then, that it was not Meston who was inside the
boathouse, but Meston who stood outside watching? And did the watched
man then spring out suddenly and deal execution on the spy? There
was no particular sign of a struggle in the grass; but, of course,
Meston might have been taken by surprise. In that case, who was the
man in the shed?--and was it Sylvia Meston with him? The green silk
which his pocket-book contained might provide an answer to the last
question; but Wilson realised that he was building an altogether
extravagantly large hypothesis on the presence of the gallows-tree.
Ten to one the footmarks had nothing whatever to do with the case;
though, after examining them closely, he was inclined to believe
that they must have been made almost immediately after the last
rain--which had fallen, as he had ascertained, on the afternoon
preceding Meston’s disappearance. Last of all he examined the tree,
to see if there was any tell-tale trace left on it. But he could find
nothing definite. About half-way along the straight limb there was
a slight dip, resembling a saddle, where anything hanging from the
limb would naturally have rested. At this point the bark was rather
worn and rubbed, but there were no fibres of rope or any definite
indications visible. However, the bough was certainly marked.
“Collins,” he asked his assistant, after standing a few minutes lost
in thought--“Collins, can you get your people to catch this Machin
for me? I want to talk to him.”
“I should think so, sir,” Collins replied. “His regular haunts are
pretty well known. Do you think he had anything to do with it?”
“I’ve no idea. But _if_ there was anything out of the way happening
here, he may have seen something of it. I should judge he’d been
using this as his hotel for some time. Anyway, it’ll do no harm to
ask him. A woman has been using this place as a rendezvous not so
long ago, at least.”
“All right, sir,” Collins promised. “There’s some one in the wood,
just by the tow-path, sir,” he added.
Wilson looked, and bit off an exclamation of annoyance. Not ten yards
away, just in the shelter of the wood, and concealed by a peculiarly
thick chestnut tree, sat Mr. Brandreth on a stump, with his hands
on his knees, presumably admiring the view of the river. As Wilson
approached, he came towards him, smiling.
“Good hunting, I trust, Superintendent,” he said. “It’s a nice day
for sleuths, I should think.”
What a Jack-in-the-box the man was, Wilson reflected. How long had
he been there, and how much had he seen or heard? Not that there was
anything particularly private about the afternoon’s proceedings, but
he did not wish to conduct all his investigations under the nose of
so leaky a vessel as the little solicitor. “Do you often come this
way?” he asked aloud.
“Oh, now and then,” Mr. Brandreth assured him. “It’s a pleasant
enough walk. And I thought I might meet you.”
“Oh! Why, in particular?”
“Oh, I saw you going up-stream, and supposed you were after the place
where Meston’s body--er--confided itself to the waters. And this is
the first likely spot, of course. Had any luck?”
“Nothing to speak of,” said Wilson. If this were to go on, he
reflected, he would soon get as irritable as Michael Prendergast.