all night. Now, I’ve got a theory that Merrivan and this man had a sort
of duel——”
He expounded his theory at length, and she was only too glad to hear
him talk and be relieved of the necessity for replying.
She wondered how Andrew had found the eggs. She ought to have told
him that the bread was in the earthenware pan and the butter in the
refrigerator. She would not finish his dusting; that would be a
desecration—like “improving” a beautiful ruin. The teaspoons—how did he
find the teaspoons? Of course he was a detective.
“What the dickens are you laughing at?” asked the outraged Mr. Nelson.
“I don’t think it is a laughing matter, Stella, by gad!”
“I’m sorry dear—hysteria—or something. What is this?”
She took the letter from his hand.
“A cheque from Mandbys, bigger than I expected,” he said. “I’d nearly
forgotten, dear, but seeing you sniggering reminded me.”
He had never before given her a cheque he had received. Usually he
carried it to the bank himself and the next morning she was looking
for new servants. He was absurdly proud of his reformation, and she was
touched.
“You dear!” She kissed him and hung to him, and Mr. Nelson experienced
some of the forgotten satisfaction which belongs to virtue.
“Macleod’s in charge of the case. I saw him for a minute or two,
looking perfectly ghastly. It shocked even him. He told me so. ‘I had
a bad ten minutes this morning,’ he said. Poor chap; but cheerful! My
dear, he was as cheerful as—as you are. I suppose these fellows get
used to it. A capable man that. I’m glad he is here.”
“So am I,” she said, and glanced at the streaks of dust on the top of a
table.
Mr. Nelson had one item of good news. He had met a former cook of
theirs in Beverley, and to that good lady’s surprise had stopped and
talked to her. In his sober moments he never admitted outside of the
house that he was anything else. This had made reconciliations between
discharged helps and their former employer a little difficult.
“I told her that I’d given up drinking,” he said. “A bit of a pill to
swallow, eh, Stella? But I did it. After all, she knew. Her sister
is expecting her fourth baby,” he added inconsequently, and went on,
“she’s coming this afternoon and bringing her sister—no, not that one;
a younger one. She’s a good parlourmaid. Quite a nice girl, engaged to
a soldier in India, so we shall keep her for a bit.”
Stella blessed Andrew once more.
She tried all that afternoon to recall or to reconstruct within
herself just how she felt when she had first met him. It was a little
difficult. You cannot reconstruct fear without being afraid. There
are certain elements of emotion which defy synthesis. She would have
given all that she had to give to live over those three minutes when
he thought she was confessing to the murder. His terror—his love; she
felt the grip of his hands on her shoulder. How long had she known him?
She had seen him four times and had spoken a dozen sentences before he
told her that he would sacrifice his profession and his honour for her
safety. The violence of his abuse—he had called her a fool, a damned
fool——
Fortunately her father had gone. He would never have understood her
gurgling laughter. Resolutely she went in search of the dust-pan and
the broom, and put them on the top of the piano with a bang.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
FOUR-EYED SCOTTIE
“Who was the woman in Mr. Merrivan’s room? The butler of the deceased
man heard a woman’s voice distinctly. Mr. Merrivan had received no
visitors that evening. The butler had admitted nobody, and yet, coming
downstairs half an hour after Mr. Merrivan had told him to go to bed,
he heard the sound of voices, and one of those voices was a woman’s.
Who was this mysterious visitor? In all probability she can throw a
light upon a double crime, which in its sensational features has no
parallel in recent years.”
* * * * *
Andy read the newspaper leader calmly. There were others very similarly
worded. The reporters had got to the butler. That was inevitable. He
couldn’t keep the man locked up, and apparently the warning he had
delivered had had no effect.
The first reporter he saw the next morning brought the incident of the
woman forward as being of supreme importance.
“Possibly,” said Andy, “she might tell us something, but obviously
she could not throw any light on the murder. She was seen leaving the
house at eleven o’clock. The murder was not committed until past one.”
“Who saw her leave?”
“Ah ha!” said Andy, smiling, “that is my own pet mystery. Seriously,
I shouldn’t bank on the woman. She may have been a neighbour who very
naturally is horrified at the thought of publicity.”
To the second reporter he was more explicit.
“Curiously enough, it was I who saw her. I was sitting at the open
window. It was a warm, beautiful night, and almost as clear as though
the moon was shining. I saw her crossing the green; she passed under my
window and out on the main road.”
Andrew Macleod was a problem to Andrew Macleod. He was working for
two ends—to keep the girl out of the case; to bring to justice the
murderer. The facility with which he lied amazed him. Ordinarily
scrupulous to a degree, so that even to gain a conviction when the
guilt of a prisoner was known to him he would never stretch supposition
into fact; yet he was now lying glibly, shamelessly.
At the announcement of every new reporter he expected to see the
hard features of one man who would be more difficult than any other.
Happily, a certain Mr. Downer did not put in an appearance. He asked
one of the other reporters:
“I should have thought that this was a case for Downer?”
The journalist made a wry face.
“Downer is away on his holidays. I’m very glad. I hate working with
him.”
Andy smiled to himself. He shared the other’s relief. He had replied
to the wire he had received from headquarters placing him in charge
and asking if he required any help. There was a big end of the case
in town, and he left that to the town men, expressing himself as
satisfied with the assistance that was at hand. His unofficial and most
unexpected helper arrived at about eleven, when he had seen the last of
the reporters.
A thin, long man, wearing loose knickerbockers and golfing shoes,
arrived at the guest house, and the manager’s jaw dropped at the sight
of him.
“Good morning, Johnston,” said the newcomer cheerfully. “Is Macleod
about?”
“Mr. Macleod is in his sitting-room,” said the manager slowly. “It is
rather surprising to see you, professor.”
“Four-eyed Scottie” took off his gold-mounted spectacles and polished
them with a purple silk handkerchief.
“It was a mistake, a foolish police error. I do not resent it. After
all, Johnston, we must remember that in every highly efficient police
system such mistakes must occur. Never blame the police, whatever
inconvenience you may be put to. It is better that a dozen innocent
citizens shall be arrested than one miscreant should escape.”
“Yes, sir,” said the dazed Johnston, falling naturally into the
attitude of deference which he had shown to the former guest. “Did you
want to see Mr. Macleod?” He hesitated. “What name shall I give?”
“Bellingham, Professor Bellingham,” said Scottie, and added, “My own
name.”
A minute later:
“Professor who?” said Andy.
“Bellingham, sir, the gentleman who was staying here before.”
“The devil!” said Andy. “Show him up.”
Scottie strolled into the room, dismissed Mr. Johnston with a nod, and
closed the door.
“To what miracle am I indebted for this visit, Scottie?”
“The miracle of justice,” said Scottie as he sat down uninvited. “_Fiat
justicia_, etc. I bear no ill-feeling, Macleod.”
Andy chuckled.
“So your alibi got past, did it?”
Scottie nodded solemnly.
“The beak said that he could not commit me, and that it was evidently
a case of mistaken identity. Such things have happened before and will
happen again, Macleod. To be absolutely honest, I was playing solo
whist with Mr. Felix Lawson, a well-known licensed victualler——”
“And a receiver of stolen goods,” added Andy pointedly. “There is a
conviction against him on that score unless I am mistaken.”
“Don’t let us rake up old scandals,” said Scottie; “the point is that
here I am, and at your service.”
Andy swung round to face his visitor.
“What name did you give Johnston?”
“Bellingham, Professor Bellingham. It is a _nom de guerre_. After
all, what is a professor? One who professes. I profess to understand
geology, from Leibnitz to Hutton. The palæozoic rock, with which I
include the Devonian system, is my long suit, and——”
“We won’t quarrel over the question of your erudition,” said Andy
good-temperedly. “The point is, why have you come here? Having escaped
the just processes of the law—I suspect perjury on an extensive scale——”
Scottie drew up his chair nearer.
“I told you something about this place,” he said sombrely. “I told you
there was trouble coming, and it has come.”
Andy nodded. He had remembered Scottie’s warning a good many times
since the murder.
“Now I’ll unfurl another fold of information,” said Scottie. “Under
the rose, over the stone, and on the square”—he shifted his feet
symbolically—“we’re talking as brothers.”
“Do you know anything about it?” asked Andy.
“I don’t know; I’m only guessing. I took to this place partly because
it was off the main road, and partly because it looked pretty good to
me, with all those rich people hanging round with silver and gold for
the taking. That Sheppard woman wears pearls like eggs. Her husband is
a municipal architect, and naturally a grafter. But that is by the
way. I tell you, there are pickings in this place for a—a scientist.
Naturally I have reconnoitred the village from the club house to the
Sheppard’s garage. The only house in the village that wouldn’t show a
profit on a night’s work is the Nelsons, but probably you know that as
well as I do. Not that it doesn’t hold a treasure——”
“Get on with your speculations,” said Andy shortly, and was sorry, for
Scottie shot a quick, enquiring glance at him. Nevertheless, he made no
further reference either to the Nelsons’ house or to the treasure it
contained.
“I’ve been all over Merrivan’s grounds, and he is the only man who has
taken adequate precautions to deal with robbers and thieves. There is
a burglar alarm on every window except the back window of his study,
and that has a patent bolt at the edge and can’t be forced from the
outside. He’s got a gun, which he keeps in a little cupboard behind his
desk. The door looks like one of the panels of the wall, but it isn’t.”
“That is one I missed,” said Andy, interested. “How does it open?”
Scottie shook his head.
“I’ve never been inside, but I’ve seen it. And I’ll tell you another
one, Macleod; the back window hasn’t a burglar alarm, because that’s
the way old Merrivan used to go out at nights. Under the window outside
there is a broad stone seat. You saw that?”
“Where did he go?”
“I don’t know; I only saw him once; but he stepped out so pert and
lively that I knew he must have gone that way before—through the
orchard to God knows where. I never followed him; it would have been
indelicate. Fat men are entitled to their adventures as much as we thin
men.”
“When did you see him go out by the window?”
“The night before you fixed me,” said Scottie. “The time was about
eleven-thirty. I didn’t see him come back, but I did observe the man
who followed him. Not distinctly in the sense that I could tell you who
he was, or pick him out from twenty other men. That is why I didn’t
follow. I guessed that Merrivan had his own trouble coming to him, and
although, due to the miscarriage of justice, I have certainly appeared
in law courts, I have never descended to taking the stand in a divorce
case. Have I interested you?”
“You have indeed, Scottie. I suppose you’ve some idea of the height of
the man?”
“He is a little man, rather about your size,” said Scottie, with the
insolence of six feet.
“About fifty-nine inches?”
“That’s it,” nodded Scottie, and corrected himself. “No, I wouldn’t say
he was even as big as that. Honestly, he was a little fellow. I should
say he didn’t come up to your shoulder. But it is very difficult to
judge, even in the moonlight. I spotted this fellow before Merrivan
came out. The trunks of the trees in the orchard are lime-washed, and
I saw him pass a trunk, and that scared me a bit. I took an entirely
selfish view; my first thought was for my own safety, so I didn’t go
along and investigate. And then Merrivan came out and walked off as I
told you. He had disappeared before this fellow who was watching in
the orchard made any move, and then I saw him just for a second in the
moonlight. The impression I had was that this wasn’t the first time he
had been watching, and maybe he had good reason.”
“What you say puts rather a new complexion upon the case,” said Andy
thoughtfully. “To tell you the truth, Scottie, I was anxious to find
that new complexion. It gives us a line. You’ve heard no scandal?”
Scottie shook his head.
“I never listen to such things,” he said virtuously. “But I certainly
did look hard at all the women up at the golf house the next morning,
without finding one of the married ladies who would inspire a man of
taste and discrimination.”
Andy thought for a while.
“I don’t exactly know what I am going to do with you, Scottie, or how
I am going to explain you. I think you would be very helpful, but
naturally you can’t go back to your old rôle of social pet.”
“I was never exactly that,” said Scottie unabashed. “I had the glamour
with which science envelops her votaries.”
Andy laughed.
“Anyway, I’m glad to see you, Scottie, and almost glad, though it is an
immoral thing to say, that you’ve got away with it. Now what am I to
do with you? I wonder if the Nelsons would harbour you? I’m not certain
about Mr. Nelson.”
He implied that he was very certain of the girl, and Scottie gathered
that at least he had got acquainted.
“Just wait here whilst I run over,” he said. “Don’t read my
correspondence if you can avoid it.”
Here his guest was genuinely ruffled, but Andy laughed him down.
Stella, rioting in the sense of luxury which two capable servants
brought to her, was working in the garden when Andy came through the
gate, and she stripped off her gloves and offered her hand.
“Stella, I want you to help me. There’s an old friend of mine arrived,
and I cannot exactly keep him in the guest house, and I really want his
assistance.”
“But why not the guest house?” she asked in surprise. “Father could
sponsor him.”
“It is Scottie,” he explained. “You remember Four-eyed Scottie?”
“The professor?” she said in surprise. “I thought he was in prison.”
“There has been a miscarriage of justice,” said Andy calmly, “and he’s
got off. Could you put him up? I know that it is an extraordinary thing
to ask, for Scottie is undoubtedly a crook. But I promise you that he
won’t disgrace you or steal your silver. At the same time it will be
necessary to offer a plausible explanation to your father.”
She wrinkled her forehead in thought.
“If father ever really thought it was a miscarriage of justice—I mean
his being arrested at all—and that the professor was in consequence a
little sensitive——”
“That’s it,” said Andy, and went into the house to interview Mr.
Kenneth Nelson.
He found him in the studio paying marked attention to Pygmalion’s left
eye, and Mr Nelson listened with interest to the story of Scottie’s
return.
“Naturally I quite understand,” he said. “The poor chap will not
want to meet all these people again, and if, as you say, he wants to
complete his study of the Beverley strata—Beverley, by the way, has the
distinction of possessing a strata of its own—I’ll accommodate him with
pleasure, though I have never heard of people geologising by night.”
“The professor is a remarkable man,” said Andy gravely.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE MAN FROM NOWHERE
Scottie’s installation at the Nelsons served a double purpose. It
recruited to Andy a shrewd if unprincipled, lieutenant, and it gave
him a more comfortable feeling about leaving Stella with no other
protection than her father. There was the indisputable fact that
somewhere at large was the murderer, and that that murderer had
possibly seen the interview between the girl and Merrivan, and might,
to save his own skin, implicate her. For how had Stella’s scarf reached
the orchard? For what purpose it had been taken he could not guess, but
this was clear—that the murderer was well aware of her presence.
He drove to town that morning, carrying with him the charred diary
which had told him nothing, for half the pages had been torn out and
burnt separately before the book was thrown upon the fire.
His first call was at Ashlar Buildings. Mr. Abraham Selim’s office
was in the hands of the police, and the predecessor of Sweeny had
been found and was waiting for him. The most important find that the
police had made was a letter which was addressed to Sweeny. It was
evidently in answer to one which Sweeny had left for his master, and
it dealt with the prosaic matter of office-cleaning and the expenses to
be incurred. Its importance, from Andy’s point of view, was that the
writing was identical with that which had been discovered on Merrivan’s
desk.
The second fact which was elicited—and this evidence came from an
elevator boy who knew Sweeny—was that the man had been discharged
the day before his murder. The reason for his being fired was also
learnt. Selim had accused him of steaming open letters and reading the
contents, and his complaint was probably well founded, though the man
had denied it to his confidante.
There was little else to learn. Sweeny’s predecessor had never seen
his employer, and he apparently followed the same procedure as the man
to whom he had handed over his duties. The letters were left in the
safe and usually collected on Saturdays and Wednesdays, on which days
the clerk was not expected to go anywhere near the office. Nobody had
ever seen the mysterious Mr. Selim enter or leave the office and the
hall porter did not know him. There was a possibility that he occupied
another suit in the building, but enquiries accounted for all the
other tenants. Thinking that from proximity the staff might have seen
something of Mr. Selim, Andy personally visited the next office, which
was occupied by a firm of shippers, Messrs. Wentworth & Wentworth.
He found that the staff consisted of a girl typist, and, from what she
told him, the firm of Wentworth & Wentworth had seen better days, and
the business was kept on from sentiment rather than from any profits
which accrued.
“Mr. Wentworth is out just now,” said the girl. “He is not in very good
health, and only comes to the office two days a week, and I know that
he could not tell you much about Mr. Selim.”
“Have you ever seen Mr. Selim by any chance?”
“No, sir,” she shook her head, “and I am sure Mr. Wentworth hasn’t,
because he said to me once or twice how curious it was that nobody ever
saw Mr. Selim. The only person from that office I have seen was the
clerk. He was there from eleven to one. It was a nice easy job for him.
I wonder he was so silly as to lose it.”
She had heard also of the steamed envelope apparently.
Andy called on the local Income Tax Inspector. He reported that Mr.
Selim’s accounts were always rendered in excellent order and that the
tax was paid. He had not seen the man and had had no occasion to call
upon him.
Andy left a detective in charge of the office and went back to Beverley
Green, very little wiser than when he had started out.
Would Scottie know—Scottie, with his queer knowledge of the underworld
and the strange people who constituted its population? He would consult
Scottie. He had frequently consulted him since he had been staying at
the Nelsons. It gave him an excuse for calling.
He found that worthy gentleman initiating Stella into the mysteries of
bezique. Mr. Nelson was at the club expounding a new theory.
“Selim? Abraham Selim? Yes, he is a moneylender, and he’s on the crook,
too, I think.”
Andy observed that the girl’s face had become suddenly serious. She
was, in fact, experiencing the first twinge of uneasiness she had felt
since the crime had been committed.
“I have never met anybody who knew him, but I have met lots of people
who have been financed by him. He is a bad egg.”
“Is he the kind of man who would threaten some one who would not pay?”
“Threaten?” said the other contemptuously. “There’s nothing that Selim
wouldn’t do. A friend of mi——” He corrected himself. “A man I have
heard about, Harry Hopson, double-crossed him for a matter of two
hundred. He got Harry ten years. Not that Harry didn’t deserve it, but
Selim certainly put a fine case against him, an old one that Harry had
forgotten. Anyway, he went down for ten years.”
One thing was certain, that if Merrivan was in such financial
difficulties that he had been obliged to borrow from Selim, his
indebtedness represented an enormous sum. His tradesmen had been paid
up until the Saturday, there was a balance at his bank amounting to
several thousands, and there was no evidence at all that he was pressed
for money. Until the accountant had set to work on his securities it
was difficult to tell how rich he was. No correspondence of any kind
had been discovered that revealed the slightest obligation to the
mystery man, nor were any other letters found from the moneylender.
One point had been cleared up—the extraordinary boots which Merrivan
had been wearing at the moment of his death. He had been in the habit
of making nocturnal visits—but why the heavy boots, if, as Scottie
supposed, the object of his midnight rambles was in the village itself?
And if that were the case, why wear boots which would make an infernal
din the moment they were on gravel or wood? Surely rubber-soled shoes
would be more in keeping with that kind of adventure? Andy considered
these matters as he walked across to Merrivan’s house.
All day long and for two days the place had been besieged by reporters.
There had been an inflow of strange men with cameras and inquisitive
youths with note-books. At this hour the last of the newspaper men had
gone. He had promised himself the task of a thorough inspection of
the house. Up till now he had confined his minutest scrutiny to the
long room and contented himself with a casual examination of the other
apartments.
The remaining inspection narrowed itself to a more careful search of
Mr. Merrivan’s bedroom. It was on the first floor, in front of the
house, and consisted of a large and airy bedroom, furnished only with
the necessities of toilet, a dressing-room leading out from one door
and a handsomely appointed bathroom opening from another. Mr. Merrivan
had taken a great deal of pains to secure his comfort. The bathroom was
surprisingly luxurious. It was lined with marble, and had been fitted
by a Swiss firm which specialised in this kind of work. The furniture
in the bedroom consisted of a four-poster bed, a tall-boy, and a large
bureau. The floor was partly covered by a square of grey carpet. There
was also a dressing-chest, a smaller table, and a low arm-chair and two
other chairs, and this practically comprised the contents.
He began by devoting a little more attention to the bed than he had
been able to give to it. It was a very solid piece of furniture, and
the supports at both sides were heavy and thick. He tapped one of
them at the head of the bed and found it solid. The footboard was
beautifully carved on the inner side, the outer side being fairly
plain, except for two carved shields surmounted by a heraldic rose
which appeared on the squat footposts. He turned up the bed and
examined the mattresses, spent an unprofitable half-hour in tapping the
walls and examining the remaining furniture.
It baffled him that he could find no further reference to Abraham
Selim. Not a single document had been discovered which threw any light
upon the threat contained in the letter found by the dead man’s desk.
As for Abraham Selim, he had disappeared completely. Every letter
arriving at his office had been opened, and the surprising volume
of his business and the solid character of his clientele had been
revealed, but neither letter of appeal for loans or time to pay gave
any clue to his identity. The man was a usurer of the worst type, and
his disappearance must have been a relief to scores of unhappy people
who were in his clutches.