It was late afternoon when Colwyn reached Heredith the following day.
The brief English summer, dying under the intolerable doom of
evanescence for all things beautiful, presented the spectacle of
creeping decay in a hectic flare of russet and crimson, like a withered
woman striving to stave off the inevitable with pitiful dyes and rouge.
In this scene the moat-house was in perfect harmony, attuned by its own
decrepitude to the general dissolution of its surroundings. Its aspect
was a shuttered front of sightlessness, a brick and stone blindness to
the changes of the seasons and the futility of existence. The terraced
gardens had put on the death tints of autumn, but the house showed an
aged indifference to the tricks of enslaved nature at the bidding of
creation.
Colwyn's ring at the door was answered by Milly Saker, whose rustic
stare at the sight of him was followed by an equally broad grin of
recognition. She ushered him into the hall, and went in search of Miss
Heredith. In a moment or two Miss Heredith appeared. She looked worn and
ill, but she greeted Colwyn with a gracious smile and a firm handshake,
and took him to the library. Refreshments were brought in, and while
Colwyn sipped a glass of wine his hostess uttered the opening
conversational commonplaces of an English lady. Had he a pleasant
journey down? The roads were very good for motoring at that time of
year, and the country was looking beautiful. Many people thought it was
the best time for seeing the country. It was a fine autumn, but the
local farmers thought the signs pointed to a hard winter. Thus she
chatted, until the glass of sherry was finished. Then she lapsed into
silence, with a certain expectancy in her mild glance, as though waiting
for Colwyn to announce the object of his visit.
"I presume you have come down to see Phil?" she said, as Colwyn did not
speak. "Unfortunately he is not at home," she went on, answering her own
question in the feminine manner. "He has gone to Devon with Mr. Musard
for a few days. It was my idea. I wanted him taken out of himself. He is
moping terribly, and of course that is bad for him. I hope to persuade
him to go with Vincent for a complete change when this--this terrible
business is finished." Again her eye sought his.
"When do you expect them to return?"
"To-morrow night. Phil would not stay away longer. He has been expecting
to hear from you. Can you stay till then?"
"Quite easily. In fact, I came down prepared to stop for a day or so. I
have some further inquiries to make which will occupy me during that
time."
"Then of course you will stay with us, Mr. Colwyn."
"You are very kind, but I do not wish to trouble you. I have engaged a
room at the inn."
"It is no trouble. I will send down a man for your things. Phil would
not like you to stay at the inn--neither should I." Miss Heredith rose
as she spoke. "Please do whatever you wish, Mr. Colwyn. I quite
understand that you have work to do, and wish to be alone."
"Thank you. Then I shall stay."
Colwyn sat for a while after she had left him, forming his plans. He was
grateful to her for a tact which had not transgressed beyond the limits
of unspoken thought during their brief interview, but he was more
pleased with the fortuitous absence of Phil and Musard at that period of
his investigations. He welcomed the opportunity of working unquestioned,
because he was not prepared to disclose the statements of Nepcote and
Hazel Rath to any of the inmates of the moat-house until he had tested
the feasibility of both stories in the setting of the crime.
"It has all turned out very fortunately, so far," was the thought which
arose in his mind. "And now--to work."
He glanced at his watch. It was nearly four o'clock. His immediate plans
were a walk to Weydene, and another observation of the bedroom which
Mrs. Heredith had occupied in the left wing. He decided to leave his
investigation of the room until later so as to have the advantage of the
waning daylight in his walk across the fields.
When he returned to the moat-house it was dark, and on the stroke of the
dinner hour. That meal he took with Sir Philip and Miss Heredith in the
faded state of the big dining-room--three decorous figures at a brightly
lit oasis of snowy linen and silver, with the sober black of Tufnell in
the background. Sir Philip greeted Colwyn with his tired smile of
welcome. He seemed somewhat frailer, but quite animated as he pressed a
special claret on his guest and told him, like a child telling of a
promised treat, that he was dining out the following night. He insisted
on giving the wonderful news in detail. He had yielded to the
solicitations of an old friend--Lord Granger, the ambassador, who had
just returned to Granger Park after five years' absence from England,
and would take no denial. But it was Alethea's doing--she had arranged
it all.
"I'm going to put back the clock of Time," he said, with a feeble
chuckle. "Put the hands right back."
"I think it will do him good, don't you, Mr. Colwyn?" said Miss Heredith
with a wistful smile.
"I have no doubt of it," said Colwyn with an answering smile. "A meeting
with an old friend is always a good thing. Are you going with Sir
Philip?"
"Oh, yes. I wouldn't go without her," said the baronet, with the
helpless look of senility. "You're going, aren't you, Alethea?"
"Of course, Philip," was the gentle response.
This conversation, slight and desultory as it was, gave sufficient
indication to the detective of the heavy burden Miss Heredith was
bearing. The baronet could talk of nothing else during the remainder of
the dinner, and when the meal was finished he begged his guest to excuse
him as he wished to obtain a good night's rest to fortify him against
the excitement of the coming outing. With an apologetic smile at Colwyn
his sister followed him from the room.
The old butler busied himself at the sideboard as Colwyn remained seated
at the table sipping his wine. His movements were so deliberate as to
convey a suspicion that he was in no hurry to leave the room, and the
glances he shot at Colwyn whenever he moved out of the range of his
vision carried with them the additional suggestion that the detective
was the unconscious cause of his slowness. More than once, after these
backward glances, he opened his lips as though to speak, but did not do
so. It was Colwyn who broke the silence.
"Tufnell!" he said.
"Yes, sir?" The butler deposited a dish on the sideboard and stepped
quickly to the detective's chair.
"I want to ask you a question or two. It was you who found the back door
of the left wing unlocked on the night of the murder, was it not?"
The butler gravely bowed, but did not speak.
"What made you try the door? Did you suspect that it was unlocked?"
"No; it was just chance that caused me to turn the handle. I'm so used
to locking up the house at nights that I did it without thinking. I
certainly never expected to find it unlocked, and the key in the inside
of the door. That was quite a surprise to me. I have often wondered
since who could have unlocked it and left the key in the door."
"You told me last time I was here that this door is usually locked and
the key kept in the housekeeper's apartments. I suppose there is no
doubt about that?"
"Not the least, sir. The key is hanging there now with a lot of others.
Nobody ever thinks of using the door. That is why I was so astonished to
find it open that night."
"If the key was hanging with a number of others it might have been taken
some time before and not be missed?"
"That's just it, sir. It might not have been missed by now if I had not
discovered it that night."
"What time was it when you found it?"
"Shortly before six o'clock--getting dusk, but not dark."
"You are quite sure you locked the door after finding it open?"
"There can be no doubt of that, sir. The lock was stiff to turn, and I
tried the handle of the door to make sure that I had locked it
properly."
"Did you return the key to the housekeeper's apartments immediately?"
"I intended to return it after dinner, but I forgot all about it in the
excitement and confusion. It was still in my pocket when I informed Mr.
Musard about it."
"Here is another question, Tufnell, and I want you to think well before
answering it. Do you think it would have been possible for anybody to
enter the house and gain the left wing unobserved while the household
was at dinner that night?"
"I have asked myself that question several times since, sir--feeling a
certain amount of responsibility. It would have been difficult, because
the windows of the downstairs bedrooms of the left wing were all locked.
There was always the chance of some of the servants seeing anybody
crossing the hall on the way to the staircase, unless the--person
watched and waited for an opportunity."
Colwyn nodded as though dismissing the subject, but the butler lingered.
Perhaps it was his realization of the implication of his last words
which gave him the courage to broach the matter which had been occupying
his mind.
"Might I ask you a question, sir?" he hesitatingly commenced.
"What is it?"
"It's about the young woman who has been arrested, sir. Is there any
likelihood that she will be proved innocent?"
"You must have some particular reason for asking me that question,
Tufnell."
"Well, sir, I am aware that Mr. Philip thinks her innocent."
"So you told me when I was down here before, but that is not the reason
for your question. You had better be frank."
"I wish to be frank, sir, but I am in a difficulty. I have learnt
something which seems to have a bearing on this young woman's position,
which I think you ought to know, but I have to consider my duty to the
family. It was something--something I overheard."
"If it throws the slightest light on this crime it is your duty to
reveal it," the detective responded gravely. "You are aware that I have
been called into the case by Mr. Heredith because he is not convinced of
Hazel Rath's guilt."
"Quite so, sir. For that reason I have been trying to make up my mind to
confide in you. When you have heard what I have to say you will
understand how hard it is. It relates to Mr. Philip, sir. Since his
illness I have been worried about his health, because he is so changed
that I feared he might go mad with grief. He hardly speaks a word to
anybody, but sometimes I have seen him muttering to himself. The night
before he went away with Mr. Musard he did not come down to dinner. Miss
Heredith was going to send a servant to his room in case he had not
heard the gong, but I offered to go myself. When I reached his bedroom,
I heard the most awful sobbing possible to imagine. Then, through the
partly open door, I heard Mr. Philip call on God Almighty to make
somebody suffer as he had suffered. He mentioned a name--"
"Whose name?"
The butler looked fearfully towards the closed door, as though he
suspected eavesdroppers, and then brought it out with an effort:
"Captain Nepcote, sir."
Colwyn had expected that name. Nepcote's statement on the previous night
had led him to believe that Philip Heredith had suspected Nepcote's
relations with his wife, but could not bring himself to disclose that
when he sought assistance. It was Colwyn's experience that nothing was
so rare as complete frankness from people who came to him for help. It
was part of the ingrained reserve of the English mind, the sensitive
dread of gossip or scandal, to keep something back at such moments. The
average person was so swaddled by limitations of intelligence as to be
incapable of understanding that suppressed facts were bound to come to
light sooner or later if they affected the matter of the partial
confidence. Of course, there was sometimes the alternative of a
reticence which was intended to mislead. If that entered into the
present case it was an additional complication.
"What interpretation did you place on these overheard words?" he asked
the butler. "Did you suppose that they referred to the murder?"
"Well, sir--" the butler hesitated, as if at a loss to express himself.
"It was not for me to draw conclusions, sir, but I could not help
thinking over what I had heard. I know Mr. Philip believed the young
woman to be innocent, and--Mrs. Heredith was shot with Captain Nepcote's
revolver."
"I see. You had no other thought in your mind?"
"No, sir. What else could I think?"
The butler's meek tones conveyed such an inflection of surprise that
Colwyn was convinced that he, at all events, had no suspicion of the
secret between Mrs. Heredith and Nepcote.
"Your confidence is quite safe with me, Tufnell," the detective added
after a pause. "But I cannot answer your question at present."
"Very well, sir." The butler turned to the sideboard again without
further remark, and left the dining-room a few minutes later.
Colwyn went to his room shortly afterwards, and occupied himself for a
couple of hours in going through his notes of the case. It was his
intention to defer his visit to the bedroom in the left wing until the
household had retired, so as to be free from the curious speculations
and tittle-tattle of the servants.
The moat-house kept country hours, and when he had finished his writing
and descended from his room he found the ground floor in darkness. A
clock somewhere in the stillness chimed solemnly as he walked swiftly
across the hall. Its strokes finished proclaiming the hour of eleven as
he mounted the staircase of the left wing.
The loneliness of the deserted wing was like a moving shuddering thing
in the desolation of the silence and the darkness. It was as though the
echoing corridor and the empty rooms were whispering, with the appeal of
the forgotten, for friendly human companionship and light to disperse
the horror of sinister shapes and brooding shadows which lurked in the
abode of murder. Colwyn entered the bedroom where Mrs. Heredith had been
murdered, and by the ray of his electric torch crossed to the bedside
and switched on the light.
He stood there motionless for a while, trying to picture the manner and
the method of the murder. If Hazel Rath had spoken the truth, the
murderer had stood where he was now standing when the girl entered the
room in the darkness. Had the light from the corridor, streaming through
the open door, revealed her approaching figure to him? How long had he
been there in the darkness, waiting for the moment to kill the woman on
the bed?
If Nepcote was the murderer he must have entered almost immediately
before, because he could not have reached the moat-house until nearly
half-past seven, and the shot was fired at twenty minutes to eight. How
had he known that Mrs. Heredith was there alone, in the darkness? A
secret assignation might have been the explanation if the time had been
after, instead of before the household's departure for the evening. But
even the most wanton pair of lovers would hesitate to indulge their
passion while the risk of chance discovery and exposure was so great.
As he pondered over the two stories Colwyn did not attempt to shut his
eyes to the fact that Hazel, on her own showing, fitted into the crime
more completely than Nepcote. She had ample opportunities to slip into
the room and murder the woman who had supplanted her. She had really
strengthened the case against herself by the damaging admission that she
had sought Mrs. Heredith's room in secret just before the crime was
committed. Her explanation of the scream and the shot was so improbable
as to sound incredible. It was not to be wondered that Scotland Yard
preferred to believe that it was the apparition of the frantic girl,
revolver in hand, which had caused her affrighted victim to utter one
wild scream before the shot was fired which ended her life.
But Colwyn had never allowed himself to be swayed too much by
circumstance. Appearances were not always a safe guide in the
complicated tangle of human affairs. Things were forever happening which
left experience wide-eyed with astonishment. The contradictions of human
nature persisted in all human acts. In this moat-house mystery, the
grimmest paradox of his brilliant career, Colwyn was determined not to
accept the presumption of the facts until he had satisfied himself that
no other interpretation was possible. His subtle mind had been
challenged by a finger-post of doubt in the written evidence; a
finger-post so faint as to be passed unnoticed by other eyes, but
sufficiently warning to his clearer vision to cause him to pause midway
in the broad track of circumstantial evidence and look around him for a
concealed path.
It was the point he had mentioned to Caldew at his chambers after
reading the copy of the coroner's depositions which Merrington had lent
him. While perusing them he had been struck by a curious fact. The
medical evidence stated that the cause of death was a small punctured
wound not larger than a threepenny piece, but added the information that
the hole in the gown of the dead woman was much larger, about the
diameter of a half-crown. The Government pathologist had formed the
opinion that the revolver must have been held very close to the body to
account for the larger scorched hole. That inference was obvious, but
Colwyn saw more in the two holes than that. It seemed to him that the
live ring of flame caused by the close-range shot must have been
extinguished by the murderer, or it would have continued to smoulder and
expand in an ever-widening circle. And that thought led to another of
much greater significance. The shot had been fired at close range to
ensure accuracy of aim or deaden the sound of the report. But, whichever
the murderer's intention, the second purpose had been achieved,
intentionally or unintentionally. How had it happened, then, that the
sound of the report had penetrated so loudly downstairs?
As Colwyn moved about the room, examining everything with his quick
appraising eye, he noticed that the position of the bed had been changed
since he last saw it. The head was a trifle askew, and nearer to the
side of the wall than the foot. The difference was slight, but Colwyn
could see a portion of the fireplace which had not been visible before.
The bed stood almost in the centre of the room, the foot in line with
the door, and the head about three or four feet from the chimney-piece.
In noting this rather unusual position during his last visit, Colwyn had
formed the conclusion that it had been chosen for the benefit of fresh
air and light during the summer months, as the window, which looked over
the terraced gardens, was nearer that end of the room.
Colwyn approached the head of the bed and bent down to examine the
bedposts. A slight groove in the deep pile carpet showed clearly enough
that the bed had been pushed back a few inches. The change in position
was so trifling that it might have been attributed to the act of a
servant in sweeping the room if a closer examination had not revealed
the continuance of the groove under the bed. The inference was
unmistakable: the bed, in the first instance, had been pushed much
farther back on its castors, and then almost, but not quite, restored to
its original position.
Had the bed been moved to gain access to the fireplace? He could see no
reason for such a proceeding. It was too early in the autumn to need
fires, and the room had not been occupied since the murder. In any case,
the appearance of the grate showed that no fire had been lit. There was
ample space to pass between the head of the bed and the fireplace,
though perhaps not much room for movement. On his last visit Colwyn had
looked into this space to test its possibilities of concealment. In the
quickened interest of his new discovery he pushed the bed out of the way
and examined it again.
The first thing that caught his eye was a scratch on the polished
surface of the register grate. It looked to be of recent origin, and for
that reason suggested to Colwyn's mind that the bed had been moved by
somebody who wanted more room in front of the grate. For what purpose?
He turned his attention to the grate itself in the hope of obtaining an
answer to that question.
The grate was empty, and in the housewifely way a sheet of white paper
had been laid on the bottom bars to catch occasional flakes of soot from
the chimney. But there were no burnt papers or charred fragments to
suggest that the grate had recently been used. Dissatisfied and
perplexed, Colwyn was about to rise to his feet when it chanced that his
eyes, glancing into a corner, lighted on something tiny and metallic in
the crevice between the white paper and the side bars of the grate.
Wondering what it was, he succeeded in getting it out with his finger
and thumb. It was a percussion cap.
This discovery, strange as it was, seemed at first sight far enough
removed from the circumstances of the murder, except so far as it
brought the thought of lethal weapons to the imagination. But a weapon
which required a percussion cap for its discharge had nothing to do with
Violet Heredith's death. She had been killed by a bullet which fitted
Nepcote's revolver, which was a pinfire weapon. The medical evidence had
established that fact beyond the shadow of a doubt. Moreover, the
percussion cap was unexploded, which seemed to make its presence in the
grate even more difficult of explanation. It looked as though it had
been dropped accidentally, but how came it to be there at all? The
strangeness of the discovery was intensified by the knowledge that
percussion caps and muzzle-loading weapons had become antiquated with
the advent of the breech-loader. Who used such things nowadays?
By the prompting of that mysterious association of ideas which is called
memory, Colwyn was reminded of his earlier visit to the gun-room
downstairs, and Musard's statement about the famous pair of pistols in
the brass-bound mahogany box, which "carried as true as a rifle up to
fifty yards, but had a heavy recoil." They belonged to the period
between breech-loaders and the ancient flint-locks, and were probably
muzzle-loaders. With that sudden recollection, Colwyn also recalled that
Musard had been unable to show him the pistols because the key of the
case had been mislaid or lost.
This incident, insignificant as it had appeared at the time, seemed
hardly to gain in importance when considered in conjunction with the
discovery of the cap in the grate. Apart from the stimulus to memory the
percussion cap had produced, there was no visible co-ordination between
the two facts, because it was, apparently, quite certain that Mrs.
Heredith had been shot by Nepcote's revolver, and by no other weapon.
But the balance of probabilities in crime are sometimes turned by
apparently irrelevant trifles which assume importance on investigation.
Was it possible that the key of the pistol-case had been deliberately
concealed because the box had something to hide which formed a
connection between the pistols and the presence of the cap in the grate?
That inference could only be tested by an examination of the case of
pistols. The experiment was undoubtedly worth trying. Colwyn left the
room and descended the stairs.