The Weapon
Suddenly, and very softly, Superintendent Salt was among us once more.
I knew of his presence only when I heard him speak.
“My Lord, one more question, if you please. The man—Soames I believe
his name is—who has just conducted me to the cellars says you gave him
a letter to post last evening.”
“I did—confound him! I handed it to him and expressed a wish that if
the storm should cease as suddenly as it commenced, it might reach New
Aidenn in time to go out in this morning’s post. Of course, when the
downpour showed no sign of abating, I had it back.”
“I presumed so, my Lord. In that case, I shall have to see the letter,
with your permission.”
“And that you certainly shall not!”
Salt was like the everlasting hills. “Only the envelope, my Lord. The
superscription is all I need to see.”
After a long ten-seconds’ hesitation Lord Herbert drew a letter from
his breast-pocket and held it close to the Superintendent’s face. Salt
peered.
“Hm. Is that it? Seems to be. Stamp uncancelled. To the Bangor and
Newcastle Corporation, eh? 12 Gate Street, London, E. C. Very
innocent, I’m sure, my Lord. Thank you.”
I saw the quick purple flash into the Baron’s face when Salt read
aloud the words intended only for his eye. “I consider this an
impertinence, sir.”
“To be called things is all in my day’s work, my Lord,” responded
Salt, and turning to Pendleton, he said, “You ought to open a little
Post Office here.”
“What on earth for?”
“For surreptitious mail.”
“Bangor and Newcastle Corporation,” I could not help repeating
puzzledly, half-aloud, I fear. “What on earth connection can there be
between little Bangor with its agriculture and Druid Circle, and the
coal and battleships of Newcastle-on-Tyne?”
Ludlow said nothing, but I observed in his eye and in the hook of his
bloodless lip a sublime contempt for my ignorance.
But at that moment everyone save me was looking toward the door
leading to the Hall of the Moth, which had opened sufficiently to
admit first the head and then the rest of Blenkinson. Again the look
of transcendence appeared natural, even casual on his person.
Spiritual transcendence, that is, for bodily he was in great
bedragglement, as if he had wallowed in the rain just before it ended.
“Mr. Salt, I beg to report that the weapon ’as been found. I ’ave left
it where I and Finlay discovered it, almost—”
I think the feeling of elation that visited me was shared by nearly
everyone in the conservatory. I saw faces brightening. But Salt’s did
not.
The Superintendent gave one leap toward Blenkinson, cutting him dead
off in the midst of his glory.
“Mr. Blenkinson, your admirable researches—invaluable
assistance—indispensable services—fill me with alarm. Please be more
discreet. Inform me in private of your discoveries, and let _me_ be
the judge whether they are to be shared by these ladies and gentlemen.
For, mind you, _technically_, every person here is under suspicion—and
that goes for you, too, Mr. Blenkinson. You may, or may not, be
revealin’ something valuable to the murderer himself.”
Under this withering sardonic fire the smug efficiency of the butler
had fallen ingloriously. “I’m—‘gulp’—very sorry, sir, but—‘gulp’—the
fact is, I was so helated—‘gulp’—that I—”
“Quite,” agreed Salt; “quite. And now, Mr. Blenkinson, if you please,
lead the way to this weapon, whatever it is.” He thrust the butler
before him through the door into the Hall, and looked back upon the
threshold. “Kindly do not let your curiosity to see Mr. Blenkinson’s
find tempt you to follow us, any of you. Thank you.” The door closed.
The weapon found! Tongues were wagging anew. I thought of the
difference between Salt’s previous assurance to us that the solution
was to be sought among the many missing persons, and his recent
proclamation that no one in the House was exempt as a possible
murderer. Then in the midst of the babble came a still voice close
behind me. I turned; Doctor Aire was leaning over the piano, his
abbreviated form easily sheltering underneath the lifted cover.
“Mr. Bannerlee, how about a stroll up the Vale, now it promises fair
weather? Mr. Salt has admonished us to go in pairs.”
“Up the Vale—now? You must be emulating Noah himself, Doctor! The
waters haven’t yet descended from Ararat.”
“I want to get rid of this cursed miasma of flowers. It’s like some
noxious emanation. My head aches with odours.”
“But surely it’s out of the question. Why, after this
downpour, the Vale’s certain to be swampland all the way up to
Water-break-its-neck.”
The yellowy doctor shook his head, smiling. “Strange, but you’re
wrong. You should really dig into the lore of this region, Mr.
Bannerlee. The Welsh name of our locality, I have read, is Maesyfed.”
“Oh? Meaning?”
“The absorbent field, probably. For the thirsty soil does wonders
after rain; in summer even Aidenn Water sinks underground for long
distances and leaves its channel dry.”
“Well, I’m in favour of getting out of here if it can be done.”
“It can; I know from previous visits. We’ll give the sun and soil a
couple of hours to restore dry footing.”
“Well enough. I’ll meet you in the library.”
Salt re-entered just then and took Aire away with a few whispered
words. I wandered into the dinner-room where stragglers were sitting
at belated luncheon, for since yesterday’s disaster the schedule of
meals seems to have fallen into anarchy. I did not stay long at the
board, however; perhaps the fumes of the conservatory had stopped the
pangs of appetite. I excused myself and crossed to the armoury,
intending first to glance over the array of the library shelves in the
hope of discovering something of interest, then to go to my room and
set down some of the multitudinous details of last night and to-day.
But I never got as far as the library. I heard a strenuous young voice
through its door ajar:
“Ah, g’wan. You make me laugh—_you_. When they put a lily in your
hand, you’ll deserve the Good Boy’s Epitaph.”
“What’s that?” demanded Bob suspiciously.
“‘He loved his grandmother.’”
“You think you’re funny, don’t you? Well, I wasn’t crazy about this
Cosgrove. I would have been ready to do him in. He was no good for
Paula, even if he did have all that coin. He was a fast worker, that’s
what he was. I guess you ought to know. He was a dirty bum.”
“‘Swine’ is what you say in this country.”
“I said I’d have polished him off, and I meant it. Wouldn’t you?”
“Hush up, Bobby. Keep that stuff under your hat. You don’t want
somebody to overhear you talking crazy, do you?”
“Well, wouldn’t you?”
Lib lowered her voice and spoke rapidly. “Yes, I would, for a brick
like Paula. My God, what a man Cosgrove was! And she fell for him!”
Then, “Change the subject, change the subject! To hear you talk like
that would give an alligator nervous prostration. Suppose a few of
those detectives were in the armoury.”
There was a spell of silence, sharply broken by Lib. “Leggo my hand!
What do you think this is, a golf links?”
“You tol’ me to change the subject,” said Bob with deep grievance.
“Don’t be sil. Say, I think there _is_ somebody in there. Look quick.”
But I had fled into the corridor and, laughing heartily within, was
half-way up the stairs.
In my room I immersed myself in that task of writing which has become
almost my principal interest. I quite lost track of time while I wrote
of Salt’s arrival last evening and the rest of it. With a start I
recalled Aire, looked at my watch, and leaped down the stairs. It was
nearly four.
The short, spindly-legged man was waiting, and with a touch of
annoyance I saw that Maryvale was consulting some book in a corner of
the library, a book which he put down upon my arrival as if he
expected to accompany us.
“Gilbert has consented to come along.”
“Oh? Glad.”
The sky was unblemished with cloud when we set out for that supposedly
uneventful walk in the bracing hill-air, but the sun had sloped nearly
to the high horizon of the ridge, and the light already had in it a
subtle infiltration of yellow. Some jewels still glittered on the
lawn, but the turf was surprisingly firm and pleasant to the tread.
We struck under the shade of the cypresses; through the systematic
“wilderness” of planted trees we strode, toward the pretentious
bridge, past the mouldering eighteenth-century summer-house, a thing
quite dismantled and defeated and gutted out. Once I had fancied it as
a possible hiding-place for mysterious visitants, but now I rejected
it utterly. The old smooth lawns there were now ragged stretches of
rough grass, still heavy with the rain where they lay beneath any
trees, and sluggish lake-like ponds were the remains of once sparkling
basins.
Aire paused where a grey fallen statue and its pedestal lay beside one
of these sad meres, a place where the trees had hunched their
shoulders together to make an extra twilight shade.
“About here, they say, a former occupant of the mansion, the one who
built that summer-house, was found.”
“How found?”
“Dead, Mr. Bannerlee, with his head neatly shorn away from the rest of
him. That was nearly two hundred years ago.” He grunted. “The chap
_ought_ to have been killed for putting up that thing.”
“Good heavens! Who had done it?”
“I wish I could tell you. He was never discovered. I don’t think the
victim was a very popular gentleman; so there may have been connivance
in keeping the secret locked away. A baffling affair it must have been
for the Salts of that day. The time-and-space problem was mystifying
then as now it is in Cosgrove’s death.”
I looked curiously at the little man with the broad shoulders.
“Doctor, you certainly hit upon the queerest tales. Where could you
have found that recorded?”
“On a special pasted-in leaf of an old family Bible. Quite a
fascinating library Crofts owns without comprehending it.”
“This is accursed ground,” said Maryvale. “It reeks with lawless
bloodshed.”
We left the park with its sickly poetry and bore to the right by a
field-path toward the prosaic potato-patch of the sisters Delambre,
where the scarecrow bore almost too great a likeness to Baron Ludlow
in his tweeds to be laid to coincidence. It was here that the brook
later spanned by the absurd bridge came down from the indentation of
the hill. We followed the narrow channel, where the rain-swollen
stream now leaped against its banks, to where the deserted cottage
stood in an oak-clump. The morsel of a stone-roofed house gave only a
shy peep from its covert; it was like a doll’s house, dwarfed by
overshadowing branches.
“Do you think it possible that these women were concerned either last
night or the night before? What were they like?”
“Cranky Frenchwomen. I’ve seen them on previous visits,” answered
Aire. “They always gave me the impression of being a couple of—well, I
might say unfrocked nuns, if you understand.”
“Sounds rather ambiguous, Doctor,” I remarked.
I was suddenly put in mind of a tale I had heard in another spot of
demon-haunted Wales, and I told it with some gusto. There two sisters
had lived together and managed a small farm with the aid of one man.
They were unfamiliar people and the country-folk were turned askance
to them. The pair would vanish at a particular time of day, and their
hats would be hanging in their bedrooms upon the looking-glass. One
afternoon the farmhand hid under their bed to find out their secret.
He saw them take off their caps and hang them on the glass, whereupon
they themselves immediately turned to cats, and ran to the dairy and
began lapping the cream.
A somewhat dubious look upon Aire’s face as he gazed at Maryvale
during my recital was, I fear, lost on me, for it gave me a thrilling
pleasure to apply this tale to the sisters Delambre, particularly
since in that grimalkin of appalling voice they had a fit companion
for many an impious Sabbath.
“And by the way,” I concluded, “the beast spared us its caterwauling
last night.”
“Last night, but not to-night,” said Maryvale. “It will be hungrier
than ever to-night. We shall hear it, unless—”
“Unless what?”
“We shall see,” he parried.
“It’s a vicious beast, if ever there was one,” said Aire, looking in
one of the cottage windows. “It’s twice the size you’d believe it
could attain. There’s never been any other cat in the Vale whose nine
lives were worth sixpence when this animal discovered its presence.”
“And the birds,” added Maryvale. “The nightingales that once loved
this valley so—scarcely one is left.”
Returning toward Aidenn Water at a point somewhat further north, we
heard from beyond a gnarl of blackberry bushes the sound of footsteps
and voices which proved to be those of Salt, wearing rubber boots, and
of Hughes the keeper. They were making their way up the stream by the
principal path, and I noticed that Hughes bore an axe of considerable
heft.
Salt greeted us while we fell into step. “Sensible to get out of
doors.”
“But you’re not here for your health, I fancy,” said Aire.
“I am not. Mr. Hughes here and I are going to devote the last hour of
daylight to satisfyin’ ourselves about traces of the assassin on the
other side of the Vale. We’ve scoured north, south, east, and west on
this side of the stream, and never a footprint of him or anybody else.
Mr. Pendleton seemed a bit anxious we shouldn’t overlook the chance,
and it is a chance.”
“What is that axe for?” suddenly demanded Maryvale.
“To chop down a tree, sir,” answered Hughes. “I know where I can make
one fall across the Water. It’s the only way to get over.”
“I thought as much,” I said. “What, just, is the state of things down
at the bridge?”
“There isn’t a trace of it left, sir,” Salt informed me. “Sometime
last night the stone ends were undermined by the current. There are
men on the other side, though, riggin’ up a makeshift, and to-morrow,
maybe, if the stream goes down reasonably, we can get out of here, and
get Mr. Cosgrove’s body out, too.”
Hughes pointed to the north, where the zigzag path down the mountain
had been obliterated by the landslip. “Men from Penybont beyond the
Forest are coming from the other side to clear that up to-morrow,
too.”
“Well, someone must have been moving heaven and earth!”
“Yes, sir; Mr. Pendleton was quite busy on the ’phone this afternoon.”
“That telephone is not the least of our miracles,” I observed. “I
should have expected the line to be smashed to smithereens by the
storm.”
“Our wires run underground, sir,” said the keeper.
“What!”
“Yes, sir, all the way to New Aidenn. There was too much trouble with
it the other way; so Mr. Pendleton had it changed. Now nothing ever
interferes with it.”
I remembered something. “To bring into this discussion an element
sadly wanting—”
“What’s that?”
“Disclosures. Tell me, Superintendent, does the pall of official
secrecy still cover the weapon discovered by the astute Blenkinson?”
“Not much use trying to keep anything secret hereabout,” said Salt
with a smile, which made me wonder what recent discoveries actually
reposed undivulged beneath that sodden hat and those iron-grey curly
locks. “The lid is off that little matter.”
“It _is_ the weapon? What had Blenkinson found?”
“A piece of angular slate, well shaped for holdin’, provided with an
almost sharp edge. Queer, isn’t it? Here’s a chap—I mean the guilty
party—helped himself to what he wanted out of the armoury the night
before; now, when he’s in a killin’ mood, he fetches along a stone.
Plenty of rock like it in the Vale, of course. Seems likely, though,
that it was picked up from that gimcrack rockery old Finlay wants to
get rid of—just opposite the tower where Cosgrove was found.”
“You’re sure it’s the instrument?” I asked.
Salt looked at Aire, who said, “The Superintendent called in Doctor
Niblett and me for our opinions on that point. The Coroner and I agree
that in the hands of a vigorous person, who must have approached
Cosgrove secretly from behind, the stone might well have done the
damage.”
“But where was it lying?” I asked, with incredulity sounding in my
tone. “How could we have missed it?”
“It wasn’t lyin’ anywhere,” answered Salt. “That’s a feature about it.
It was embedded, sir, almost buried among the flowers outside the
central windows of the Hall. If the rain hadn’t played hob with the
beds, and the man Finlay with Mr. Blenkinson hadn’t been assessin’ the
damage, it might have remained there unnoticed for a tidy while.”
“By Jove, though, that’s a far-fetched hiding-place.”
Salt raised his brows. “Is it? I think it was a clever one, sir. One
second he strikes the blow, the next he hurls the weapon straight down
into the loam. Inside half a minute he may be anywhere, and nothin’ to
connect him with the crime. Just a little more energy, and the earth
would have fallen in about the edges and covered the stone completely.
But as it was it must have taken strength, gigantic strength.”
“It must have taken superhuman strength, Mr. Salt. Why, there had been
rain, but it blew a bit easterly then, and those beds couldn’t have
got much of it. It was nothing like last night’s inundation. The
ground must have been hard.”
“On the contrary, the ground was exceedingly soft. Remember what it
said in Mr. Blenkinson’s document, sir. Finlay had been waterin’ those
very beds, and waterin’ ’em plenty after four o’clock.”
“Were there any marks on this stone?” asked Maryvale. “Any signs such
as I understand often guide the police in their search?”
“No, sir, none. And—”
“I thought so.”
Ignoring this somewhat cryptic remark, Salt explained: “Unpolished
stone isn’t a good medium for takin’ impressions. I’ll stake my little
finger, though, it was the stone that finished Mr. Cosgrove.”
“Here we turn off, sir,” advised Hughes.
We had been in sight of Aidenn Water much of the time, its cheerful
flow increased to boiling spate. Through a partly cleared copse of
larch, we could see it now, laughing with white teeth and greedy
gurgle along a sort of rapids. The particular tree Hughes intended to
chop was visible, already leaning half across the flood.
Somewhat to my discomfiture, Aire announced that he intended to
accompany the pair across the stream. “Don’t mind, do you, Bannerlee?
I want to be in at the death of Pendleton’s theory. Or will you two
come along with us? Any objection, Superintendent?”
“More the merrier,” said Salt.
But I cared nothing for the death of any theory compared with my
eagerness to get farther north and see the great ruin beneath the
hills again. Maryvale had no love for the thought of crossing above
the churlish Water on a tree-trunk, and said so. We left the three
proceeding to the bank of the stream, but I confess it was with a pang
of premonition that I paced beside the man of business and heard the
sound of the lusty axe grow fainter and fainter.