In accordance with Merrington's instructions, Caldew devoted a
considerable portion of the morning seeking information among the
moat-house guests. But few of them showed any inclination to talk about
the murder. Many of the women were too upset to be seen, and the men had
plainly no desire to be mixed up in such a terrible affair by giving
interviews to detectives. Everybody was anxious to get away as speedily
as possible, and Caldew was compelled to pursue his inquiries amongst
groups of hurrying people, flustered servants, and village conveyances
laden with luggage. Most of the departing guests replied to his
questions as briefly as possible, and gave their London addresses with
obvious reluctance; the few who were willing to aid the cause of justice
could throw very little light on the London life of the murdered girl.
Even those who had been acquainted with her before her marriage seemed
to know very little about her.
Caldew finished his inquiries by midday. By that time most of the guests
had departed from the moat-house and were on their way to London.
Superintendent Merrington and Captain Stanhill were in the library
examining the servants. Sergeant Lumbe had gone by train to Tibblestone
to sift the story of the suspicious stranger who had descended on that
remote village during the previous night.
It wanted an hour to lunch-time, and Caldew decided to spend the time by
making a few investigations on his own account before cycling over to
Chidelham in the afternoon to see the Weynes.
Caldew had not been impressed with Merrington's handling of the case.
Subordinates rarely are impressed with the qualities of those placed
over them in authority. They generally imagine they could do better if
they had the same opportunities. Caldew was no exception to that rule.
It seemed to him that Merrington lacked finesse, and was out of touch
with modern methods of criminal investigation. He had been spoilt by too
much success, by too much newspaper flattery, by too many jaunts with
Royalty. No man could act as sheep-dog for Royalty and retain skill as a
detective. That kind of professional work was fatal for the
intelligence. Merrington had a great reputation behind him, and his
knowledge of European criminals was probably unequalled, but his methods
of investigating the moat-house murder suggested that he was no longer
one of the world's greatest detectives, if, indeed, he had ever deserved
recognition in their ranks. Caldew recalled that his fame rested chiefly
on his wide experience rather than on the more subtle deductive methods
of modern criminology. It was said in Scotland Yard that when Merrington
was at the height of his reputation, twenty years before, his knowledge
of London criminals and their methods was so extensive that he could in
most cases identify the criminal by merely looking at his handiwork.
As a modern criminologist, Caldew believed that the less a detective
intruded his own personality into his investigations the better for his
chances of success. He did not think that the loud officialism of
Merrington was likely to solve such a deep, subtle crime as the murder
of Violet Heredith, and, consequently, he had the chance for which he
had waited so long. It now remained for him to prove that he could do
better than Merrington. He had sufficient confidence in his own
abilities to welcome the opportunity, but at the same time he believed
that he was confronted with a crime which would tax all his resources as
a detective to unravel.
Like Merrington, he had been struck by the strangeness of the murder.
All the circumstances were unusual, and quite outside his previous
experience of big crimes. He had also come to the conclusion that the
ease with which the murderer had found his way into the moat-house, and
afterwards escaped, pointed to an intimate knowledge of the place.
It would be too much to say that Caldew and Merrington reached different
conclusions by the same road. Up to a certain point their independent
deductions from the more obvious facts of the case were alike, as was
inevitable. In every crime there are circumstances and events which are
as finger-posts, pointing the one way to the experienced observer. But
their subsequent deductions from the outstanding facts branched widely,
perhaps because the younger detective did not read so much into
circumstances as Merrington. From the same facts they had reached
different theories about the murder. Merrington, by a process of minute
and careful deductions which he had placed before the Chief Constable,
had convinced himself that the key to the murder and the murderer was to
be found in London; Caldew believed that the solution of the mystery lay
near the scene of the events, and perhaps in the house where the murder
was committed.
Caldew was aware that he could have given no satisfactory reason for
holding that belief, apart from the point that the murder had been
committed by somebody who knew the moat-house sufficiently well to get
in and out of the place without being seen. But that point was open to
the explanation that the criminal might have provided himself with a
plan of the house. Nevertheless, the impression had entered his mind so
strongly that he could not have shaken it off if he had tried. But he
did not try. He had sufficient imagination to be aware that intuition,
in crime detection, is sometimes worth more than the most elaborate
deductions.
For the rest, all his speculations about the crime were affected by the
trinket he had found in the bedroom on the night of the murder. But the
discovery and subsequent disappearance of that clue, as he believed it
to be, had not led him very far as yet. He felt himself in the position
of a palaeontologist who is called upon to reproduce the structure of an
extinct prehistoric animal from a footprint in sandstone. The vanished
trinket was a starting-point, and no more. It was a possible hypothesis
that the person who had dropped the stone and entered the death-chamber
in search of it was the murderer, but so far it was incapable of
demonstration or proof. As an isolated fact, it was useless, and brought
him no nearer the solution of the mystery. But, on the other hand, it
was an undoubted fact, and, for that reason, was dependent upon other
facts for its existence. It was his task to find out who had dropped the
trinket in the bedroom and subsequently returned for it during his own
brief absence downstairs. To establish those essential kindred facts
was, he believed, to lay hands on the murderer of Violet Heredith.
Caldew walked thoughtfully from the moat-house down to the village,
intent on commencing his own independent investigations into the crime.
If the solution of the mystery lay near the scene, as he believed, it
was possible that some clue might be picked up among the villagers, to
whom the daily doings of the folk in "the big house" were events of the
first magnitude, and who might, presumably, be supposed to know anything
which was likely to throw light on the obscure motive for the crime. It
was for that reason he directed his footsteps towards the fountain head
of gossip in an English village--the inn. He flattered himself he would
be able to extract more local information from the patrons of the place
than any other detective could hope to do. To begin with, he was a
Sussex man and a native of the village, and since his return, after so
many years' absence, he had spent his evenings at the inn renewing old
associations and talking to the companions of his boyhood.
A week's renewed village life had taught him the ways of the place and
the war-time drinking customs of the inhabitants. Constrained by recent
legislation to compress their convivial intercourse into extremely
limited periods, the village tradesmen, and a fair proportion of the
surrounding farm labourers and shepherds, had fallen into the habit of
assembling at the inn at midday, to discuss the hard times and drink the
sour weak "war beer" forced on patriotic Britons as an exigent war
measure.
Caldew entered a side door which opened into a small snuggery, divided
from the tap-room by a wooden partition. It was here that the regular
cronies and select patrons of the establishment sat in comfortable
seclusion to discuss the crops, the weather, and market prices in the
broad Sussex dialect, which Caldew, from the force of old association,
unconsciously fell into again when he was with them.
The room was nearly full, but his appearance threw a marked restraint on
the group of assembled countrymen. The conversation, which had obviously
been about the murder, ceased instantly as he entered and seated himself
on one of the forms placed against the partition. The innkeeper, who was
standing behind the bar in his shirt sleeves, nodded uneasily in
response to his friendly salutation, but the customers awkwardly avoided
his glance by staring stolidly in front of them. Caldew attempted to
dispel their reserve with a friendly remark, but no reply was
forthcoming. It was obvious that the patrons of the inn wanted neither
his conversation nor company. One after another, they finished their
beer and walked out of the inn with the slow deliberate movements of the
Sussex peasant.
Caldew had not allowed for the change the murder had effected on the
village mind. His familiar relations with the inn customers had changed
overnight. He was no longer the former village lad, returned to his
native village, and welcomed from his old association with the place,
but a being invested with the dread powers and majesty of the law, from
which no man might deem himself safe.
Caldew walked out of the snuggery and opened a door at the side of the
house. It opened into a billiard room--a surprising novelty in an
English country inn, and the outcome of a piece of enterprise on the
part of the landlord, who had picked up a small table cheap at a sale,
and installed it in the clubroom, hoping to profit thereby. Again Caldew
was conscious of the same distinct air of constraint immediately he
entered. Two or three men who were talking and laughing loudly became as
mute as though their vocal organs had been suddenly smitten with
paralysis. The village butcher, who was at the billiard table in the act
of attempting some complicated stroke, stopped abruptly with his cue in
mid air, and gazed at the detective with open mouth and a look of
apprehension on his florid face, as though he expected instant
accusation and arrest for the moat-house murder.
With an irritated appreciation of his changed status in village eyes,
Caldew left the inn and walked home for a meal before setting forth to
Chidelham to interview Mrs. Weyne.
There was a strong smell of soap suds in his brother-in-law's house, and
a vision of his sister's broad back, in vigorous motion over a steaming
wash-tub in the kitchen, indicated that she was in the throes of her
weekly wash. She ceased her labours at the sound of footsteps, and
turned round.
"Oh, it's you, Tom. Come for a bite to eat? Jest sit you down, and I'll
have dinner on the table in no time. I got something good for you. Old
Upden, the shepherd, brought me a nice rabbit this mornin', and I've
stewed it. It's the last one we'll get, I expect. Upden was telling me
he ain't going to snare no more, because the boys steal his snares,
which ain't no joke, with copper wire at five shillings a pound."
Caldew took a seat at the table, and watched his sister dish up the
dinner. As Sergeant Lumbe's income was not sufficient to permit of all
the refinements of civilized life, such as a separate room for dining,
the family midday dinner was taken in the kitchen, which was the common
living room. Mrs. Lumbe's preparations for the meal were prompt and
effective. She carried the tub of clothes outside, opened the window to
let out the steam, laid knives and forks and plates on the deal table,
then put a liberal portion of stewed rabbit into each plate out of the
pot which was steaming on the side of the stove. Dinner was then ready,
and brother and sister commenced their meal.
Caldew ate in silence, and his sister glanced at him wistfully at
intervals. She had no children of her own, and she had a feeling of
admiration for the brother she had mothered as a boy, who had gone to
the great city and become a London detective. From her point of view he
had achieved great fame and distinction, and she cherished in her
workbox some newspaper clippings of crime cases in which his name had
been favourably mentioned by friendly reporters. She hoped he would be
successful in finding the moat-house murderer. She would have liked to
question him about the case, but she stood a little in awe of him and
his London ways.
"What's the best way to Chidelham, Kate?" asked Caldew, as he rose from
the table. "There used to be a footpath across by Dormer's farm which
cut off a couple of miles. Is it still open?"
"It's still open, Tom. Old Dormer tried to get it closed, and went to
law about it, but he lost. Be you going across to Chidelham?"
"Yes, I shall ride over on my bicycle this afternoon. Do you know where
the Weynes live?"
"The Weynes? Oh, you mean the writing chap that bought Billing's place.
Their house stands by itself a mile out of the village, just afore you
come to Green Patch Hill."
"Thanks. I know Billing's place very well, but I wasn't aware that he
had sold it. I'd better be getting along. It's a good long ride."
"What be you goin' there for, Tom?" asked Mrs. Lumbe, with keen
curiosity. "About this case?"
"Yes," replied Caldew shortly.
"Have you found out anything yet, Tom?" pursued his sister earnestly,
her curiosity overcoming her awe of her clever brother. "Jem was telling
me before he went to Tibblestone that a ter'ble gre'at detective come
down from Lunnon this mornin', and was stirrin' up things proper. Jem
says he's a detective what travels about with the King, and 'e's got
letters to his name because of that. Is he on the tracks of the murderer
yet, Tom?"
"No, and he's not likely to, as far as I can see," said her brother a
little bitterly.
"Dear, dear, that's a pity, for it's a ter'ble thing, and an awful end
for the young lady. Jem came home all of a tremble like last night with
the ghastly sight of her corpse and I had to give him a drop of spirits
to help him to sleep. We was a talkin' about it in bed, and wond'ring
who could 'ave done it. Nobody hereabouts, for I'm sure there's nobody
in the village would hurt a fellow creature. Besides, the folk at the
big house is too respected for a living soul to think of harming them."
"They are popular with everybody, are they?" said Caldew, sitting down
again with the realization that he was likely to gather as much
information about the Heredith family from his sister as he could obtain
anywhere else.
"Oh, yes," replied his sister. "It's only nat'ral they should be. Sir
Philip is a good landlord, and he and Miss Heredith are very generous to
folk."
"Is Philip Heredith well-liked in the district?"
"He's been away so long that folk don't know much about him. But I never
heard anybody say anything against him. He's different from Sir Philip,
but he seems gentle and kind."
"He used to be a quiet and solitary little chap years ago," remarked
Caldew. "I remember climbing a tree in Monk's Hill wood for a bird's
nest for him. He couldn't climb himself because of his lameness."
"It doesn't seem like a Heredith to be small and lame," said Mrs. Lumbe
thoughtfully. "I've heard those who ought to know declare that Miss
Heredith never forgave his mother for bringing him into the world with a
lame foot. The servants at the big house say Mr. Phil has always been
ter'ble sensitive about his lameness. That's what made him so lonely in
his ways, though he was rare fond of animals and birds. We was all taken
aback when we heard of his marriage. He always seemed so shy of the
young ladies. The only girl I ever knowed him to take any notice of was
Hazel Rath. I have met them walking through the woods together."
"Who is Hazel Rath?"
"The daughter of the moat-house housekeeper. She came to the moat-house
with her mother nearly ten years agone. She was a pretty little thing.
Miss Heredith was very fond of her, and sent her to school. Mr. Philip
was fond of her too, in his way, though, of course, there could never
a'been anything between them. But nobody hereabouts ever expected him to
marry a London young lady."
"Why not?" asked Caldew.
"The Herediths have always married in the county, as far back as can be
counted. It was thought Miss Heredith would make a match between Mr.
Philip and the daughter of Sir Harry Ravenworth, of the Wilcotes. The
Ravenworths are the second family in the county, and well-to-do. 'Twould
a'been a most suitable match, as folk here agreed. But 'twas not to be,
more's the pity."
Caldew nodded absently. His original interest in his sister's talk was
relapsing into boredom because it seemed unlikely to lead to anything of
the slightest importance about the murder.
"The young lady he did marry was not a real lady, so I've heard say,"
continued Mrs. Lumbe, placidly pursuing the train of her reflections.
"She didn't come much into the village, but when she did she walked
about as though she were bettermost, and everybody else dirt beneath her
feet. But I have heard that she had to earn her own living in London
before Mr. Philip fell in love with her pretty face. If that's the
truth, she gave herself enough airs afterwards, and did all she could to
make Miss Heredith feel she'd put her nose out of joint, as the saying
is."
"What do you mean by that?" asked Caldew sharply, with all his senses
again alert.
"Well, you know, Tom, Miss Heredith has been the mistress of the
moat-house and the great lady of the county since Lady Heredith died.
But when Mr. Philip brought his young wife down from London that was all
changed. The young lady soon let her see that she wasn't going to be
ruled by her, and didn't care for her or her ways. They do say it was a
great trial to Miss Heredith, though she tried not to let anybody know
it."
"Where did you learn this?" Caldew asked abruptly.
"Lord, Tom, how short you pick me up! Milly Saker, who's parlourmaid at
the moat-house, told me in the strictest confidence, because she knew I
wouldn't tell anybody. And I wouldn't tell anybody but you, Tom. She
told me from the very first that she didn't think the two ladies would
get on together. They were so different, Milly said, and she was certain
Miss Heredith didn't think the young lady good enough to marry into the
Heredith family."
"Did she tell you if they had ever quarrelled?"
"I asked her that, and she said no. Miss Heredith is always the lady,
and she wouldn't lower herself by quarrelling with anybody, least of all
with anybody she did not consider as good a lady as herself. But Milly
says she was sorely tried at times. Milly thought it would end up in her
leaving the moat-house and marrying her old sweetheart, Mr. Musard,
who's just returned from his foreign travels. Perhaps you've seen him."
"Yes, I've seen him," said Caldew. "So he is her old sweetheart, is he?"
"So folk used to say," returned Mrs. Lumbe. "I remember there was some
talk of a match between them when I was a girl, but nothing came of it.
It's my opinion that Miss Heredith must have refused him then because of
his wild days, and he took to his travels to cure his broken heart. But
they still think a lot of each other, as is plain for everybody to see,
and go out for walks together arm in arm. So perhaps it will all come
right in the end."
With this comfortable doctrine of life, based on her perusal of female
romances, Mrs. Lumbe got up from her seat to clear the table.
"I trust it will," said her brother, but his remark had nothing to do
with the triumph of true love in the last chapter.
He left the room to get his bicycle to ride to Chidelham.