glance at her face he knew she had read the report.
“Mr. Scottie saw it first,” she said as she closed the door after
him, “and he has taken father out on a sketching tour. Luckily he had
planned this days ago.”
“Your father hasn’t seen it?”
She shook her head.
She was amazingly self-possessed, he thought. He had expected to find
her on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Instead, she was as calm as
she was serious.
“I think Arthur told him all this,” she said. “You know the truth now,
Andrew.”
“I knew it all along,” said he quietly, “except about your borrowing
money. Of course, you borrowed it for your father?”
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “There is no sense at this moment
in pretending that father hasn’t been perfectly dreadful.”
She looked at him with a light in her eyes that he had not seen before.
“And it is true that you shielded me, Andy,” she said. “What will
happen now?”
“I’ll tell you what Downer expects—that I will send in my resignation
this morning,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone, and she gasped.
“Then this has—ruined you—professionally, I mean? Oh, Andy!”
“I admit that I have no false idea about the truth of what this—this
gentleman says,” he went on, “but I have neglected my duty only in the
sense that I refused to follow up avenues which I knew would lead me
nowhere. I know you didn’t commit the murder. If I resign I must also
issue a writ for libel against the _Megaphone_, which you also would be
compelled to do. But we won’t take it to law, Stella. I know another
way and a better. That cursed woman under the window! Of course, I
didn’t see anybody,” he said, unashamed. “I was just making alibis for
you. It was the worst luck in the world that Sheppard’s servant went
out at that time and supplied Downer with an explanation.”
“I suppose Sheppard’s servant did go out?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Downer never makes mistakes of that kind,” he said. “If he says the
servant went out at eleven o’clock you can bet all your money that he’s
right. Wilmot gave him all his information. It is true that Wilmot had
no right to be in possession of it. You brought the bills here, didn’t
you?”
She was silent.
Presently:
“Andy, I have a confession to make. I should have told you before, but
Mr. Scottie advised me not to.”
There and then, and with all frankness, she told him of Arthur Wilmot’s
visit with the bills intact, and of Scottie’s act of highway robbery
with violence. He listened, and a light dawned upon him.
“Now I understand. The blackmailing brute! He is getting back on you
in the easiest way. Nobody can prove that his uncle did not show him
the bills a week before his death, and their disappearance, taken with
the burnt ashes in the fireplace of Merrivan’s sitting-room, looks all
the more suspicious. Now, what are we going to do, Stella?” He stopped
suddenly and frowned. “I gave Wilmot permission to go into the house.
That is where he found that stuff. What was it? A wedding certificate
of an old servant, a few important documents, and the notes. Wait!”
He was out of the house and striding across the green in a minute.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN
It was the last day the police were in occupation of the house, and he
was fortunate in finding the sergeant who had been there when Arthur
Wilmot had paid his visit.
“No, sir, I think he was in the bedroom most of the time. He wasn’t
there long,” said that official in reply to a question.
Andy went up the stairs two at a time. He had visited the bedroom three
or four times. Again he made his scrutiny. Instinctively he knew that
the hiding-place was somewhere in the vicinity of the bed. The shield
and the Tudor rose attracted his attention by reason of the fact that
whilst on the footpost the flat end of the petal was exactly straight
and at right angles to the upright post, on the other post it had been
twisted askew. He bent down, first pulled, then turned the florette. It
clicked, and he pulled open an empty drawer.
It was not exactly empty, he found, when he had pulled it right out—it
ran for eighteen inches into the seemingly solid side supports—there
was a slip of paper on which three sets of figures were written.
The first was £6,700 and this had been crossed out. The second was
£6,500. This, too, had been crossed out, and written beneath it were
the ciphers £6,370. The difference was £130. The price of the ring!
Andrew was sure of one thing, that it was in this drawer that the bills
had been concealed, and with them the “marriage certificate of an old
servant,” and—he whistled; £6,370!
A methodical man was Mr. Merrivan. He kept account of the money that
was in the drawer, and when he extracted any he crossed out the total
and substituted the new sum that was left. If he could be sure! Andy’s
eyes sparkled.
He went back to the girl feeling almost cheerful and found her sitting
where he had left her.
“Andy, you are not to dream of resigning,” she said as he came into the
room. “I will write down a statement telling the truth, and will give
it to you.”
“And how are you going to explain Scottie?” asked Andy, and her jaw
dropped. “No, my dear, we are living examples of that jolly old
adage which deals with deceivers and the webs they weave, and we are
so interlocked that one of us can’t come down without the other.
Anyway, I shan’t resign. We’ll let the matter slide until I hear what
headquarters are doing.”
Now police headquarters is so inured to newspaper criticism that
it grows uneasy if it is withheld. Moreover, there existed between
headquarters and the _Megaphone_ a coolness over the publication of
an indiscreet paragraph which had sent a much-wanted company promoter
scuttling abroad.
Andy was sent for, and, going up to town, spent two hours with his
immediate chief, and the end of it was that he came back with his
authority strengthened. He found a semi-apologetic note from Downer,
which was not like the reporter.
Mr. Nelson had returned, had read the paper, and searched Beverley
Green with a hunting crop looking for Mr. Downer and the absent Arthur
Wilmot, and in the end had been quieted by Scottie.
“It is monstrous, monstrous, Macleod,” he raved, to the undoing of all
Scottie’s good work. “I’ll sue those people for libel, by gad! and I’ll
break that fellow’s infernal head.”
“You can do as you like about the libel,” said Andy, “but you will put
me in a very awkward position if you interfere at this moment, Mr.
Nelson. I will undertake to weaken the assurance of Downer. I dare
say he has a very hot one ready for us to-morrow, but, unless I am
mistaken, that will not be printed. You attack reporters in exactly the
same manner as you attack juries. You shake the credibility of their
witnesses. And I am going to give Arthur Wilmot the shock of his life
to-night.”
Mr. Arthur Wilmot had found in Downer a man of sensibility and
judgment. He was not, he told Downer several times, the kind of man who
made sudden friendships. Downer agreed with him; he had never had that
illusion. In fact, the first time he had seen Mr. Arthur Wilmot he had
said: “There goes a man of singular judgment and a difficult man to
know.”
He beamed benevolently at the object of his admiration. They were
dining in a private room at the Beverley Hotel, which had the
advantage, from Mr. Wilmot’s point of view, of being away from Beverley
Green, and from Mr. Downer’s point of view the advantage of being near
to the telegraph office.
“That article of yours was a little bit fierce this morning, wasn’t it,
Downer?” he asked.
It was a question he had put before.
“No, I don’t think so,” said Downer indifferently. “It puts the young
lady in an awkward position, but, after all, Mr. Wilmot, we have
certain responsibilities as citizens, and, whilst I do not suggest, and
have not suggested for one moment, that she knows anything about the
murder, she certainly has behaved in a peculiar manner.”
“I quite agree,” said Arthur. “The point I want to make is this—I
want to avoid, as far as possible, any hint that I gave you this
information. When I told you I saw her going into the house you
promised me that my name should not be mentioned.”
“In that connection,” corrected the other. “You may be sure that I
shall not put a word about you in any account I write which will
compromise you to the slightest degree. You haven’t told me any of your
private business, Mr. Wilmot, because you are one of those reticent
people who don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves, but I’ve got an
idea at the back of my mind that this young lady hasn’t treated you
very well?”
“She hasn’t,” said the other shortly, “but don’t let us talk about it.
I don’t bear her any grudge, but, as you say, we have certain duties as
citizens.”
“Exactly,” said Mr. Downer.
They strolled back to the green, following the path that was farthest
away from the Nelsons. Downer was getting a little impatient; he had
quite a number of new facts, but just this once he wanted Wilmot’s
permission before he sent them off. Later, when all the threads were in
his hands, he would dispense with his permission and approval.
The hour was getting late, and, although a wire was kept open for him
at the post office, he had still a lot of work to do.
He accepted Arthur Wilmot’s invitation to “Come in for a minute or two”
as his right, and his host ushered him into the apartment where Andy
had seen the unfinished lady’s hat.
It was a good-sized corner room, with two large stained glass windows
set in deep recesses, across which blue velvet curtains were drawn.
Wilmot had told the truth when he said that no servant was allowed in
this room, for he had to unlock the door before he opened it.
“There you are,” he said, switching on all the lights. “Take a seat,
Downer. That’s a comfortable one. Will you have a drink?”
“No, thank you,” said Mr. Downer. “I’ve got a lot of work to do. Now,
what about this girl? I must follow up to-day’s story. Have you any
reason to believe that Macleod is sweet on her?”
“One moment,” said Wilmot, and, getting up, he went to the curtains
at the far end of the room and drew them aside. “I thought I felt a
draught. The infernal window is open. Heaven knows who might have been
listening. Now, who the devil did that?” He made the window fast,
rearranged the curtains, and came back. “That is a point I don’t want
to touch on,” he said. “She is a very impressionable girl at a romantic
age, and the fellow has probably fascinated her.”
“Then there is something between them?” asked the alert Downer.
“There is a kind of——” Wilmot hesitated. “I hardly know what to call
it. Put it this way; he is a man much older than the lady, and he has
used his wiles and his art——”
“I don’t think I should put it that way,” said Mr. Downer gently.
“There are certain limitations imposed, even upon a crime reporter.
Shall we say that a great friendship has sprung up between them? The
reader will know what that means. It will give the idea that he has got
entangled with this girl.”
It was at that moment that a gentle knock sounded on the door and a
maid-servant came in.
“Will you see Mr. Macleod?” she asked.
The two men exchanged glances, and Downer nodded.
“Show him in,” said Wilmot, wetting his lips, which had gone suddenly
dry.
“Evening, Downer. Good evening, Mr. Wilmot.”
Andy put down his hat and stood by the door eyeing them.
“Won’t you sit down, Macleod?” asked Wilmot nervously. “You know Mr.
Downer?”
“I know him remarkably well,” said Andy, without enthusiasm.
“You are not wild about my article, are you, Macleod?” asked Downer, in
well-feigned surprise. “You are too old a hand at this game to worry
about what newspapers say.”
“This, I presume,” Andy nodded towards Wilmot, “is the source of your
information?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” said Downer.
“God knows you wouldn’t!” said Andy. “I’ll say this for you, Downer,
that in your articles you tell as near to the truth as possible, and it
is about the only time you do. This morning you printed a lot of stuff
which was designed”—Downer smiled—“to defeat the ends of justice. Don’t
interrupt. I have never said this to you before, and it is extremely
unlikely that I shall ever tell you again. Miss Nelson may or may not
take an action against your paper, but, if she does, it will cost them
twenty thousand.”
“The statements I have made are authenticated.”
“By whom? By this man?” Andy pointed to the scowling Wilmot. “I am
going to show you just how much reliance you can place upon Wilmot.” He
walked over to where Wilmot was sitting and looked down at him. “I have
come to make enquiries as to the whereabouts of £6,370, extracted from
the secret drawer in Mr. Merrivan’s bed-stead.”
Wilmot leapt to his feet as though he were shot.
“What—what?” he spluttered.
“There are also other documents stolen by you.”
“Stolen?” repeated Wilmot shrilly. “What do you mean? I am my uncle’s
heir.”
“Stolen by you, I repeat, and as to being your uncle’s heir, that
is a matter for the courts to decide. There was also a marriage
certificate——” He was watching the other narrowly as he spoke, and saw
him start. “Now, Wilmot, there seems to be serious trouble ahead for
you. What are you going to do about it?”
Arthur Wilmot was breathing painfully. He was for the moment incapable
of speech, and Andrew turned to the reporter.
“Does it occur to you that this man may be suspect, and that you may
be accused of conspiring with him to throw suspicion upon an innocent
woman?”
“I am not in this case at all,” said Downer loudly. He was thoroughly
alarmed. “I am merely reporting the events as I find them.”
“You are doing a little to invent those events,” said Andy, “and,
so far as your being a disinterested spectator, Downer, you are a
participant. The inference which must be drawn is that you knew of this
theft——”
“I won’t have it called a theft,” interrupted Wilmot, finding his
voice. “I admit I took several things from my uncle’s drawer. It was
his wish that I should.”
“Did you report the matter to his lawyer?” asked Andy drily.
“That was not necessary.”
“Indeed, it was very necessary,” corrected Andy.
“I took these things because I was afraid of their falling into the
hands of the servants.”
“What was there?” asked Andy.
“If you had come to me before I would have handed them over to you,”
Wilmot was going on.
“What were they?” asked Andy.
“There was a marriage certificate, a sum of money—I think it was the
amount you mentioned, though I haven’t counted it—a list of securities,
and——” He paused, and went on deliberately, “Two forged bills drawn by
Mr. Nelson in favour of Abraham Selim and accepted by my uncle. The
acceptance was a forgery. Those bills were stolen from me by a criminal
in your employ, and are probably destroyed.”
“When did the robbery occur?” asked Andy.
“Two nights ago.”
“Did you report it?”
“No; you know very well I didn’t report it.”
“Why not?” asked Andy coolly. “The law protects you as much as it
protects any other man. You don’t expect me to believe that you would
be robbed of valuable securities and never mention a word, although the
place is teaming with police officers?”
Wilmot was silent.
“Anyway, we’ll see these things. Have you got them?”
“I’ve got them here in this wall safe,” said Wilmot sulkily.
He took a bunch of keys from his pocket and began searching.
“Where the devil is the key of the safe?” he said.
Andy suspected him of wilfully procrastinating for some purpose, but
the man’s surprise was genuine. He could not have simulated that look
of blank dismay which spread over his face as he handled key after key.
“It was on my ring this afternoon when I was at the bathing pool,” he
said. “It hasn’t left me except then.”
He pulled aside the sliding panel that hid the safe.
“The safe door isn’t fastened,” said Andy.
With an exclamation Wilmot opened the door of the safe and put in his
hand.
“Good Lord!” he gasped, relieved. “I thought somebody had stolen it.”
He threw the pocket-book on the table.
“The other documents,” said Andy.
“Here is the list of securities, and here——” He groped, and Andy saw a
look of bewilderment come to his face. “I’ll swear I put it there.”
“What?”
“The marriage certificate is gone!”
It happened that at that moment Andy turned his head toward the door.
Between the door and the curtained recess were three electric switches
that controlled the lights of the room. As he looked he saw a hand come
out from behind the curtains and move towards the switches. He was
momentarily paralysed with surprise at the strangeness of the sight.
There was a click, and the room was plunged into darkness. Another
instant and the glare of an electric lamp thrust into their faces
blinded them.
“Don’t move,” said a husky voice. “If you do I’ll shoot, whether you
are policeman, reporter, or just plain thief.”
“Who are you?” asked Andy sternly.
“My name is Abraham Selim,” said the voice.
Another moment and the door opened and closed; they heard the snap of
the key being turned in the lock and the thud of the front door as it
slammed behind the intruder.
Andy tore to the window in front of the house and pulled aside the
curtains. Through Wilmot’s stained glass panes nothing would have been
visible even if it had been broad daylight. By the time the window
was open and Andy had slipped through into the night all sign of the
visitor had disappeared.
Presently Wilmot and the reporter joined him outside. The servant,
answering Wilmot’s furious bell, had released them.
“Another adventure of your friend Scottie,” said Wilmot between his
teeth.
Andy turned his head towards the speaker.
“My friend Scottie, as you call him, would hardly have left £6,000
behind him, and of one thing I am perfectly certain—he does not indulge
in the luxury of a manicure!”
Andy’s shrill whistle brought a policeman at the run.
“Send the sergeant to me and telephone your station to turn out every
man for a search. Get any assistance you can. Rush!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
A VISIT TO THE HALL
At this hour Scottie might have been out, but it happened that he
was helping Stella prepare Kenneth Nelson’s newest picture for
transportation, and he had not left the house all the evening, she told
Andy. He went back to the Wilmot establishment. Mr. Downer was gone.
“I’ll take this money,” said Andy, gathering up the pocket-book. “And
now, Wilmot, I would like you to tell me as much as you can remember
about this marriage certificate.”
“Do you really think that was Abraham Selim?”
“I am certain that it was the man who killed your uncle,” said Andy
shortly, “and he was pointing to us the identical weapon with which
that murder was committed.”
Mr. Wilmot shivered.
“The certificate referred to a marriage between a man called John
Severn and Hilda Masters, a parlourmaid. The marriage occurred about
thirty years ago at St. Paul’s, Marylebone.”
Andy jotted down the particulars.
“Did your uncle’s name appear in any capacity?”
Wilmot shook his head.
“You know nobody named John Severn? You have not heard your uncle refer
to him?”
“Never,” said Wilmot. “Now about this money, Macleod. I don’t want any
trouble if I can avoid it. I really took it for safe keeping. How did
you find out?”
“You know my methods, Watson,” said Andrew sarcastically. “This will
look pretty ugly, but my advice to you is to keep as far away from Mr.
Downer as you possibly can. He’ll have no mercy on you, and he will
betray you with as little concern as he would betray Abraham Selim if
he knew him.”
Something of the same idea was dawning upon the young man.
“He’s scared about that libel action,” he said. “I think to-morrow’s
paper will be milder. Besides, the dramatic appearance of Selim is
going to give him all the copy he wants.”
Andrew had thought the same thing.
He looked in on Stella before he went to the guest house. Scottie had
gone to bed, like the virtuous man that he was.
“Everybody in Beverley is being sweet about the article,” said Stella.
“I have never had so many people call upon me—the Sheppards, the
Masons, and that quiet couple, the Gibbs. They are furious with Arthur
Wilmot. What will the newspapers say to-morrow?” she asked.
“Very little,” said Andy. “Downer will lay himself out to do the
burglary at Wilmot’s and the visit of the mysterious Abraham. He will
also seize this opportunity of releasing you from all suspicion.
People frequently threaten newspapers with libel actions in similar
circumstances, but they very seldom get any farther than threats. But
Downer knew he had overdone it, and I knew he was a little nervous on
that score when I got his note this morning. It was very unlike Downer
to write, because, really, he doesn’t care tuppence about my opinion of
him, and he is not easily scared. He must have had some doubt as to the
reliability of Wilmot.”
The fog which enveloped the Beverley Green murder was growing deep.
It had grown so thick that Andrew, figuratively speaking, could not
see a yard before him. The appearance of Abraham Selim brought him no
nearer to the solution. Why had the man taken this risk to obtain an
apparently worthless marriage certificate? Who was John Severn and who
was the parlourmaid, Hilda Masters?
He waited at the guest house, from time to time receiving reports on
the telephone from the meagre force of police which was searching
the countryside for a stranger. In this search the police from the
neighbouring villages were assisting. The main roads were patrolled
and the cross-roads guarded. To work with his small force across open
country was impossible. He must leave that until daylight.
At one o’clock in the morning he came out of the guest house to get a
little air. His room was hot and stuffy and his head was aching.
No light showed in Beverley Green. Its people were sleeping. Not even
in Stella’s upper room did so much as a glimmer appear.
He was joined by Dane, who had cycled up with the latest report.
“We’ve held up every motor-car between here and Cranford Corner. Do
you think it is advisable to have a house to house search of Beverley
Green?”
Andrew shook his head.
“I don’t see what result could come from that,” he said. “If Selim were
a local inhabitant he can account for himself, and it is impossible
to search every house thoroughly. It would be illegal without the
necessary warrant. Perhaps——”
Andy was going on when the stillness of the night was broken by the
sound of a shot. It was followed by a second and a third, an interval,
and then a fourth. It came from the direction of the high lands beyond
the village.
“They can’t be poachers,” said Dane.
“Poachers do not use revolvers,” snapped Andy, “and that those were
pistol shots I’ll swear!”
And then the guest house telephone began to ring furiously. They heard
it through the open door, before the weary Johnston hurried out to call
him.
“Mr. Boyd Salter, sir, on the ’phone. He wants you urgently. That was
his word—urgently!”
Andrew ran into the house, took up the receiver, and heard Boyd
Salter’s voice.
“Is that you, Mr. Macleod? Did you hear the shots?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I fired ’em,” was the grim reply. “There has been a burglary at the
Hall. Somebody tried to break in. He was making towards Spring Covert.
Can you come?”
Andy got his car out of the guest house garage, and, with Dane at his
side, flew along the main road, and after some delay succeeded in
arousing the lodge-keeper.
Mr. Boyd Salter, looking very white and ill, and wearing a
dressing-gown over his pyjamas, was waiting for them in his library.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Macleod,” he said.
“Did you see the man?” asked Andy quickly.
“Only the back of him. He must have been in the house half an hour
before I heard him, and I shouldn’t have heard him then only the rascal
had the audacity to come into my room.”
He showed them the window that had been forced. It was in a small
drawing-room off the library.
“He has been in the library too,” explained Mr. Boyd Salter. “You see,
those desks have been forced.”
The drawers had been broken open and pulled out, and half their
contents were on the floor.
“Probably he had the impression that there was money here,” the Justice
went on. “Of course I never keep anything of value in the library.”
“Did he go into any other rooms?”
“I have an idea he went into my son’s room—my son is away at
Cambridge—but I am not sure.”
He led the way to the floor above, but here nothing had been
disturbed, though the door of young Boyd Salter’s room was undoubtedly
open.