it up and put it under a heap of papers on the desk. He has just
remembered that. He said he thought it was a letter Mr. Merrivan had
been reading just before he was killed.”
Andy searched the desk and drew forth from beneath a heap of accounts
and unanswered letters a sheet of yellow notepaper. The calligraphy was
cramped and of that style which is known as back-hand, and is usually
used by people who seek to disguise their handwriting.
The first words arrested Andy’s attention. He sat down in the swing
chair. The letter ran:
“I have given you a chance. You have failed me. You must bear the
consequence. If in twenty-four hours you do not agree to carry out
your promise, look out! This is final. I have been patient too long.”
It was signed “A. S.” “A. S.” He looked up at the ceiling. “A. S.”
Abraham Selim! There was a postscript.
“A trusted friend of mine will put this under your door.”
Andy folded up the letter and put it into his pocket-book as Dr.
Granitt came in.
“Well?”
“Very bad,” said the old doctor, shaking his head. “Oh, yes, he’s dead
all right; been dead for an hour, I should think. Just lift his head,
Dr. Macleod. Yes, there’s the wound. The thoracic aorta is severed and
the fourth dorsal vertebra smashed by the same bullet. You may say he
has been killed twice. Bad, very bad.”
“Do you notice anything peculiar about him, Dr. Granitt?”
“No,” said the other, looking down with a professional eye at the dead
man.
“Look at his boots.”
The old man obeyed, and raised his eyebrows.
“Good lord, he’s got a pair of labourer’s boots on!”
They were thick, unshapely articles, the kind that agricultural
labourers wear, and they were yellow with dried mud. The doctor looked
and shook his head.
“You won’t want me any more, Macleod?”
“No, I don’t even think we shall want you at the coroner’s enquiry
unless they wish to call corroborative evidence.”
“Thank heaven for that,” said the doctor. He had all the general
practitioner’s horror of court proceedings, with their time-wasting
protractions.
“I’m frightfully busy just now. Hardly a night I’m not called up by
anguished husbands—a very prolific people, the people of Beverley.”
Andy saw him out of the house and went back to the death-chamber to
conduct a more thorough examination. He worked away from the body, and
began with the window through which the murderer must have come. Here
he had a complete confirmation of his theory. There were three dusty
footprints on the settee, which was covered in black poplin and showed
the print of shoes, two lefts and a right. They were very, very small,
no bigger than a woman’s, though the heel was broader. They might have
been the marks of a woman’s house-shoes—the butler had heard a woman’s
voice. The window was unbolted and moved up easily and noiselessly.
He found nothing until he came to the writing-table. It was a broad
pedestal desk in black oak. It looked an antique; a man like Merrivan
would hardly have imitation Jacobean furniture.
There were two drawers on either side, and one of these—the lower
and the nearest to the window—was open. It looked as though it had
been opened by Merrivan as he sat in the swing chair. Andy pulled it
out still further, and the glitter of gold caught his eye. It was a
woman’s dress ring—a thin hoop of gold with five small emeralds set at
intervals.
He frowned. He had seen that ring before. Where? He knew, but he fought
off an admission that he knew. It was Stella Nelson’s ring. He had
seen it on her engagement finger in the post office, and had felt a
momentary pang of disappointment, the pang that all men feel when they
see a pretty woman is not for them.
He stared at the little hoop in the centre of his palm, turned it over,
and put it into his pocket closing the drawer.
Now he began to search about the desk and underneath.
Again he was rewarded. He picked up a tiny box, leather-covered. It
was a jeweller’s ring case, and it was empty. He did not trouble to
fit the ring to the slot in the white velvet. A ring of any size would
fit. There was a step in the passage, and he slipped the case into his
jacket pocket.
The newcomer was the local inspector, an important man, very naturally
anxious to extract whatever kudos was to be had from the conduct of the
case.
He said it was a “very bad business.” It was curious how people always
said that on these occasions.
“I’ll take over charge here, Mr.—um—Macleod,” he said.
“Certainly,” agreed Andy, “but you must definitely instruct me in
writing not to conduct any further investigation.”
At this the inspector hesitated.
“I daresay we can work together, Mr. Macleod. I’ve got on the ’phone to
the chief constable and he told me to notify headquarters.”
“We’ll work together if I am in charge,” said Andy. “You shall have all
the credit that is going, inspector. Leave me to find the murderer.”
“I don’t want any credit. But I’m sure you’ll see me right, Mr.
Macleod. What do you want me to do?”
Andy gave his instructions and in half an hour the body was removed.
Later the inspector came to him with information.
“Mr. Pearson heard the shot; it woke him up, he said. He came over just
as the butler made the discovery. The shot came from the orchard at the
back of Merrivan’s house.”
Andy listened incredulously.
“From the orchard? Impossible. He was shot at close range. The
waistcoat is scorched and blackened.”
“But one of the maids heard it, too—the hysterical one. We’ve got her
calm now, and she swears she heard the shot. The window of her room
overlooks the orchard. She was awake, too; the knocking on the butler’s
door had awakened her.”
“But the butler didn’t hear it?”
“He was on his way downstairs by then,” explained the officer.
Andy scratched his nose irritably.
“Merrivan was dead by then and the safe rifled. It must have taken
at least four minutes to find the keys, open the safe—no, that is
impossible. The butler must have made a noise of some kind—knocked a
chair over probably.”
“But Mr. Pearson wouldn’t have heard that.”
Andrew was silent.
“Neither would he,” he confessed.
It was getting light now, and he passed out through the kitchen into
the garden. It was very still and solemn, and the fresh morning air
tasted indescribably sweet.
The orchard lay beyond the truck garden. You followed a cinder path
through a wooden gate and came to row upon row of fruit trees, the
lime-washed trunks showing whitely in the dawn light.
Before this the path frayed to an end in coarse grass.
Andy peered left and right, but saw nothing until he had passed the
first line of trees, and even then, so much a part of the shadows was
it that he did not see the huddled figure by the tree-trunk for some
time. He was dead, shot square through the heart.
Andy went back to the house and summoned the inspector.
“There is a second body in the garden,” he said, “and, if my eyesight
is not at fault, he should be an old acquaintance of yours.”
The police officer accompanied him to where the dead man lay.
“I know him, a man named Sweeny,” he said. “He was in Mr. Merrivan’s
service and was discharged for stealing. So he was the murderer; first
shot Mr. Merrivan and then came out here and shot himself!”
“Where is the revolver?” asked Andy quietly.
The inspector searched the ground about, but without success. The grass
was quite short and had been grazed over (Andy afterwards found that
sheep had been admitted to the orchard that week), and there was no
possible hiding-place for the weapon.
“There has been a struggle here,” said Andy of a sudden. “Look at the
turf! Three scars where the heel of somebody’s boot has tried to get a
foot-hold, and——Go and bring the butler, inspector, will you please.”
Andy waited until he was out of sight, then walked quickly to the next
tree and picked up something from the ground. It was a black silk
scarf—the scarf that Stella Nelson had worn when she came to the gate
two nights before.
There was no doubt whatever. In one corner was a monogram worked in red
silk, “S. N.” The scarf was torn slightly. He smelt it. He was aware
that she used a perfume, an elusive scent; as delicate a fragrance as
he remembered. Yes, it was Stella Nelson’s scarf beyond any doubt. He
rolled it up into as small a compass as possible and pushed it into his
hip pocket, realising ruefully that he was loaded up with clues, and
every clue pointed to this girl as the murderer.
Yet in his heart he had no doubt. It was not her beauty or her youth
that convinced him of the impossibility of Stella being a murderess.
It was something within him. Perhaps, like Scottie, he was fey. He
was smiling at the thought when it came to him that he no longer felt
the oppression that had irritated him all the time he had been in the
valley. Perhaps it was the daylight. No, he had felt that lurking shape
when the sun was shining its brightest.
The inspector came back, and for appearance sake, to justify his
sending the officer away, he had to submit the agitated servant to the
ordeal of identifying the dead man.
“Yes, sir, that was the man that Mr. Merrivan found in the grounds this
morning—yesterday morning, sir.”
“Of course!” Andy had forgotten the incident. This man Sweeny hated
Merrivan. Probably he had some reason outside his natural dislike for
an employer who had detected him in the act of theft.
Back in the house he gave his final instructions.
“Nobody is to be admitted. No information is to be given to the
reporters beyond the bare fact that Mr. Merrivan was murdered some
time between midnight and one o’clock this morning. The position of
the body can be shown diagrammatically; nobody must enter the room.
Motive—robbery. The man in the orchard—let them try to explain him
their own way.”
He was half-way down the garden path when Arthur Wilmot dashed in at
the gate. He had dressed hurriedly—his pyjama jacket showed under the
lightly buttoned coat—and he was very pale.
“Mr. Macleod, is it true—my poor uncle——Good God, it can’t be!”
“I’m glad I’ve seen you,” said Andy slowly. “Yes, I’m afraid it is
true. Your uncle has been killed—shot.”
“Murdered?”
He whispered the word fearfully. Andy nodded.
“But—he has no enemies——”
“Few people are murdered from enmity,” said Andy. “The only man who has
threatened Mr. Merrivan’s life recently is you.”
Wilmot staggered back as if he had been struck.
“I?” he stammered. “I’ve never—did he say——?”
“He was dead when he was found,” answered Andy, “and he has not said
anything to me about the matter at any time. Now, Mr. Wilmot, don’t
answer in a hurry, and don’t answer at all if you’d rather not. Had you
a quarrel with Darius Merrivan?”
The young man was shocked to speechlessness. He could only wag his head
impotently and stare horrified at the inquisitor.
“I’ll tell you this much, that, standing outside this house a week ago,
I heard you say, ‘I will kill you first.’”
Wilmot recovered his voice.
“Somebody has been telling lies about me.” His voice rose to a shout.
“And I can tell you a few truths about somebody. I quarrelled with
him—yes, I did! Over a girl who isn’t worth a packet of pins. Now you
know. He talked about marrying her—and he’s married already. He didn’t
know I knew, and I never told him. His wife ran away from him and went
abroad, and they were never divorced. He was afraid to divorce her—and
when he said he was going to marry——”
“Don’t shout,” said Andy sharply, “I’m not deaf. And I’m not keen on
knowing any of your family troubles. I’m pretty sure you had nothing
to do with the murder. Although”—he paused to give point to the
next sentence—“although you are his heir and benefit by his death.
Unless, of course,” he added, looking past the man but observing the
understanding in his eyes, “unless you care to prove that he has a wife
living. In that case his wife gets the lot. There may be a will.”
Wilmot shook his head.
“There isn’t a will,” he said in a milder tone. “I’m sorry I lost my
temper, Macleod, but I’m rattled—and who wouldn’t be?”
“Who wouldn’t be?” agreed Andy.
He walked back with Arthur Wilmot and watched him into the house. The
man had a charge to bring against somebody—against the girl who was not
worth quarrelling about? That gave him material for thought. Had they
quarrelled, these two, whom Beverley Green regarded as “practically
engaged”? What hurt vanity went to the framing of those words “not
worth a packet of pins”? He knew by the symptoms. The girl had wounded
Wilmot’s pride, had touched him on a very raw place. And the conceit
of the young man had been patent to Andy from the beginning. He had
a trick of closing his eyes for a second or so when he spoke about
himself and his accomplishments—a glaring advertisement of a man’s
vanity.
Slowly he paced the gravel.
Should he go to the house? He looked at his watch. It was six o’clock.
She would not be up. He looked dubiously at the silent house. The
blinds were drawn, but she had told him that she rose at six when they
had no servants. Yes, he hesitated, his knuckles raised to rap on the
door. If she were about she would hear him. If she were asleep he could
do no harm. He knocked, and instantly the door was opened.
CHAPTER TEN
LOVE AMIDST THE RUINS
Her face was white; there were shadows under her eyes. But—more damning
evidence to him—she was wearing the grey silk stockings she had worn on
the previous day, and a woman does not wear light-coloured stockings
two days in succession. She had not undressed that night!
She walked into the hall-room. One light burnt, for the curtains had
not been pulled apart nor the blinds raised.
“I was expecting you,” she said listlessly. “Will you please let me
tell father before you take me away?”
He stood, a man turned to ice.
“Before—I take—you away?” he repeated.
“I knew you would come for me. I have been waiting all night for you,
Mr. Macleod. I don’t think I have moved from that chair.”
She saw how ill he looked and dropped her head.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I was mad, just mad.”
He recovered himself, and in two strides was before her, his hands
gripping her shoulders.
“You fool—you poor, dear fool,” he breathed. “Oh God! You fool! Look
what you left—look!”
He wrenched the scarf from his pocket and threw it on the table. On to
this he tossed the ring.
“My scarf—my ring! I remember.”
He found some difficulty in speaking; his heart was beating at a rate
that made the pathologist in him wonder. “I’m being as big a fool as
you, Stella,” he said, “but I can’t—I can’t let you go through that
hell. I’m in love with you, I suppose, which sounds pretty mad to me,
but I’ll have my car ready in a quarter of an hour and I can get you
out of the country before anybody suspects—associates you with the
crime. I’m mad, of course, but I can’t see that——”
She was looking at him in a frowning, puzzled way, open-eyed, and the
eyes were wet.
“You’re very—wonderful, doctor, but I can’t and Mr. Merrivan knows and
is probably watching.”
He stepped back.
“Knows—watching? He’s dead!”
She did not understand him.
“Merrivan is dead—murdered last night.”
“Murdered last night,” she repeated, and a stone rolled from his heart.
“Phew!” He wiped his clammy forehead. “I _am_ mad after all—to think
you knew anything about it.” And then he sprang forward and caught her
as her knees gave way.
The first thought that came to her as she recovered consciousness was
that he had thought her a murderess and had wanted to save her. Mr.
Merrivan was dead. That was terrible news. They might suspect her, too,
but he didn’t, the man with the grey eyes who had searched her face and
whom she had hated. Nothing else really mattered.
“I think I am a little mad,” she said unsteadily, and the glass he held
to her lips rattled against her chattering teeth.
She looked up into his face as she drank; he saw the confidence of a
child—the confidence her father might have inspired.
“You’re wonderful, and I think you’ve been making love to me—love
amongst the ruins!” she said jerkily. “It is dreadful, Mr. Merrivan’s
death. I went to his house last night. He sent for me, and I agreed,
because I wanted something.”
“What was it, Stella?” he asked gently.
“I’ll never tell you that,” she said. “If I die I cannot tell you,
doctor—Andrew, and I used to hate you so—and you’re quite nice.”
His arm was about her shoulder and pillowed her brown head. As she
spoke she played with the fingers of his supporting hand.
“And then what happened?”
“He was horrible to me. I mustn’t talk that way about him now that he
is dead, must I? But he was—awful—and I had to let him paw me”—he felt
her shiver—“and kiss me, and then he showed me things I wanted, and he
made me take my ring off and he put on the big flashing diamond ring;
and then I snatched the things I wanted—they were on the table. And
then he came after me, I pointed a revolver at him.”
“You had a revolver? Oh, Lord, Stella, you did all that you could to
endanger your dear neck, didn’t you?”
“I did, didn’t I? And then I flew out of the house.”
“Which way did you come?”
“By the front door. I don’t know any other way.”
“You didn’t go through the orchard?”
“No. Why should I?”
“Go on—you came straight home. What time was that?”
“Eleven. Beverley Church clock struck eleven as I opened the door.”
“What made you go to him?”
“A letter—a terrible letter—putting things plainly,
and—and—alternatives as plainly. I—I destroyed the things I brought
from the house, and then I waited for you to come and arrest me for
what I’d done. I hoped a little bit that it wouldn’t be you, and then
I hoped it would. I thought you wouldn’t be gruff and horrid like
Inspector Dane. And when I saw you come to the gate—I somehow knew
you were at the gate—I felt that I just wanted to get things over. I
couldn’t endure any more. What are you thinking about, doct—Andrew?”
“Did anybody see you go to the house?”
She shook her head.
“Do you think—Wilmot saw you?”
“Arthur Wilmot? No. Why?”
“He was rather mysterious about something. The things you destroyed,
they were documents of some kind?”
She nodded.
“Where did you burn them—here or at the house?”
“Here.” She pointed to the fireplace. “Where I burnt the letter.”
“The letter asking you to go over?” he demanded in dismay. “You didn’t
burn that? Why, that would have proved everything!”
She was not perturbed.
“I don’t care—if you believe me,” she said, and came painfully to her
feet. “I’m going to bed. No, I’m not. There is nobody to get daddy’s
breakfast. He combines with a healthy appetite the fastidiousness
proper to an invalid.”
“You’re going to bed,” said Andy authoritatively. “I’ll fix your
father’s breakfast. I ’phoned yesterday for my man to come down. He can
cook perfectly, and as a sweeper he has no rival.”
“Are you sure?” she asked doubtfully, yet willing to be convinced, for
she was aching for sleep.
“I won’t suggest anything so indelicate as that I should carry you
up,” he said gravely. “I have carried ladies of greater weight in the
execution of my duty. They have generally been rather intoxicated.”
“Thank you, I’ll walk,” hastily. She stopped half-way up and leant
over the rail, dropping her hand.
“I’m very glad it was you,” she said as he took her hand in his and
laid it to his cheek.
“Father’s room is on the first floor—the front room,” were her last
instructions.
When she had gone he pulled up the blinds and opened the windows. He
had not ’phoned for his servant. He had a servant, but the memory of
his cooking made him shudder. Searching the kitchen and pantry, he
made himself some tea, then he proceeded to the preparation of Kenneth
Nelson’s breakfast. Several times, whilst so doing, he explained to
himself that he was engaged in the detection of a double murderer, and
that it was absurd of him to be dusting a room, pausing now and then to
listen for a boiling kettle.
Kenneth Nelson was even more surprised at Andy than that gentleman
had been at himself. He sat up gaping at the spectacle of an M.D.
(Edinburgh) carrying in a tray, and his first impression was that he
had suffered a relapse, and, following a period of unconsciousness, was
a little light-headed.
“What day is it?” he gasped.
“It is still Monday,” said Andy, setting down the tray. “Or it was
before I came upstairs. I’ve sent your daughter to bed.”
“She’s not ill?” Kenneth was genuinely alarmed.
“She’s tired. There has been an exciting night. Merrivan is dead,
and I think you might get up to-day. A little intercourse with your
fellow-men will be all to the good. But, Nelson, this village is dry
for you. I can’t run a risk.”
Nelson was shocked.
“Merrivan dead! When did it happen? He looked the picture of health
when I saw him last.”
Andy did not give him particulars until the artist was dressed and
downstairs. He came down carrying a tray of cold eggs and tea, and they
breakfasted together.
“That’s very bad. Poor Merrivan. He was not an especial friend of mine,
but——”
Andy saw his face twitch, as though some ugly and long inhibited memory
had come to him. He knew this man’s weakness, and, given time, he could
reach its foundation. The death of Merrivan had broken a seal that
covered some chamber of his mind and the dark thought was loose and
disturbing him. Throughout breakfast Andy saw him striving to catch and
imprison the prison-breaker. But the thing had grown too big for its
narrow cell, and Nelson grew graver and quieter, and more like the man
that Andy had expected him to be.
“Why was Stella up all night, doctor?” he asked.
“She may have heard the shot, and possibly was told. One of the
servants had hysteria and screamed for an hour on end. I wonder anybody
in Beverley Green could sleep.”
He left Mr. Nelson preparing to go out and went off to the guest house.
It was then eight o’clock, and he had had an exhausting six hours and
at least three minutes of concentrated mental agony which had been more
wearing than all the rest of his experiences.
Inspector Dane was coming out of the bungalow as he arrived.
“’Phone message from headquarters,” he reported. “All stations have
been warned, and a warrant will be issued this morning for the arrest
of Abraham Selim. Headquarters wants to know if you have any idea where
he lives. They have found his office.”
Andy had no information to offer.
“Nothing else has been found?” he asked.
“Nothing. There are finger-prints on the polished part of the desk, and
I am arranging for these to be photographed. The coroner would like to
see you at eleven o’clock.”
The formalities attaching to wilful murder are infinite, the actual
“committee work” wearisome, but necessary. Andy was dog-tired and
sleeping at an hour when most people were sitting down to dinner.
Stella Nelson woke some time in the afternoon, and her first waking
impression was that something pleasant had happened. In this spirit
she continued as she bathed and dressed, though she knew that a murder
had been committed within a few yards of her, and that she was the
last known person to be in the victim’s company. She told herself this
much, and accepted the self-reproach with great calmness. She was very
sorry, and if people thought evilly of her it was unfortunate. She
might be arrested yet. Even this terrific ending did not frighten her
from her equable frame of mind.
“You are cold-blooded, callous, and inhuman,” she said, “and unwomanly.”
Possibly she was more womanly in that mood than in any other. The world
is more narrowly and specifically confined to a woman than to a man. It
can be reduced to one shining figure that stands out against a smudged
background of vague and meaningless shapes.
Andrew’s servant was evidently a rough and ready duster of rooms, she
thought, as she straightened the ornaments he had left askew, and
picked up the broom and dust-pan from the top of the piano.
Kenneth Nelson came in bubbling with news. He had lunched at the club,
and everybody had been there, and all had agreed that the murders were
“bad business.”
“I saw you were up,” she said. “Do you know where Andrew Macleod’s
servant is? I want to thank him. Did he bring you your breakfast? I
suppose you were surprised to see him?”
“Dr. Macleod brought my breakfast. I didn’t see any servant,” he said.
“I didn’t know he had one. I say, Stella, this is terrible news about
Merrivan and that man.”
“What man?”
She asked the question without thinking. So Andrew was the awkward
duster? She felt inclined to put the broom and the dust-pan back on the
piano.
“What was his name—Sweeny——”
“Sweeny? What about him?” she asked quickly.
He told her the story, glad to find somebody who did not know.