It was to Heldon Foyle's own house, and not to Scotland Yard, that Green
telephoned eventually. Clad in a bright blue dressing-gown, the
superintendent listened, with a few non-committal interjections, until
his lieutenant had finished.
"On his own land, eh?" he said at last. "What do you make of it, Green?
Is it genuine, or has he done it just to throw us off, and doubled back
on his trail? It looks as if he intended us to find that motor-car."
Green disagreed. "It's a deserted, blind road made for wood-cutters
years ago. It was only a chance that a constabulary sergeant found it.
He may have left it there for the time being, relying on coming back to
hide it properly out of sight. And this is an ideal place for any one to
keep close. It would take a thousand men to search the wood anything
like thoroughly."
"There's some sort of house on the estate, I suppose?" demanded Foyle.
"Yes, I've not been up to it, but I'm told it's a big, rambling old
place called Dalehurst Grange, approached through sloping meadows and
backing on to the woods. It would be easy for a man to see any one in
the house coming from the front and slip away into the undergrowth.
Malley's gone up to have a look at the place. We'll need a search
warrant to go over the place, but I don't think it'll be any good."
"Nor I," agreed Foyle. "It'll have to be done some other way. You've
asked the county constabulary to make inquiries and to watch the railway
stations round about, of course? All right. You run things on your own
discretion, and if you or Malley see me just shut your eyes. Now give me
your address and report to the Yard as usual."
The superintendent lit a cigar after he had replaced the receiver, and
thoughtfully toasted his slippered feet before the fire. Presently he
rose, turned over the leaves of a time-table, and discovering that
Dalehurst possessed no railway station, discarded it in favour of a
gazetteer. From that he found that the village was four miles from
Deepnook, and the time-table again consulted showed him that he could
reach the latter place in a couple of hours from Waterloo.
Before he went to bed that night he packed the kit-bag that had
accompanied him in most of his wanderings all over the globe. Other
things than clothes found a place in its depths, among them a jemmy,
some putty, and a glazier's diamond. The superintendent had an idea that
they might be more effective than a search warrant.
Yet, as he turned the key, he realised that the energy and the efforts
of both himself and Green might be wasted. There was a possibility that
it was a blind trail--that Grell had contrived the whole thing as a
blind, and had slipped out of the net that had been drawn for the brown
motor-car. The thought induced Foyle to telephone through to
headquarters to order a fresh warning to be wired through to the police
at all the ports. He believed in leaving as little as possible to
chance.
The night staff was still on duty when he reached Scotland Yard the next
morning. The detective-inspector in charge stared at a corpulent man
clad in a Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers of brown tweed, whose heavy
boots clanged along the corridor. The hair, moustache, and eyebrows of
the intruder were a shiny black, and a little trimming with scissors and
a judicious use of a comb and brush had altered the appearance of the
superintendent's face as completely as the clothes had altered his
figure.
He was no believer in stage disguises. False beards and wigs were liable
to go wrong at critical moments. He nodded reassuringly to the inspector
and placed his kit-bag on the floor.
"It's all right, I'm Foyle right enough. I'm thinking of a change of air
for a day or two," was all the explanation he vouchsafed. "I want to
just run through my letters and catch the nine-ten train from Waterloo.
I'll leave a note over for Mr. Mainland, who'll take charge while I'm
away."
He went methodically through the heavy morning's correspondence,
pencilling a few notes here and there on the letters, and sorting them
into baskets ranged on the table as he finished. Precisely at a quarter
to nine he touched a bell, and gave a few brief instructions. Then,
carrying his bag, he descended the flight of steps at the front entrance
and walked briskly along the Embankment. As he crossed the footway of
Hungerford Bridge, a biting wind swept up the river and he shivered,
warmly clad though he was. One of his own men passed without recognising
him, and the superintendent smiled to himself.
There were five minutes to spare when he sank into the corner seat of a
smoking compartment, and composed himself with a couple of morning
papers for the journey. But he read very little. There was much to
occupy his mind, and as the train slipped out of Waterloo station he
tossed the periodicals aside, crossed his knees, blew a cloud of smoke
into the air, and with a little gold pencil made a few notes on a
visiting-card. London slipped away, and an aeroplane flying low came
into his line of vision as they passed Weybridge. The open pasture
meadows gave place to more wooded country, and he placed his pencil back
in his pocket as they ran into Deepnook.
A solitary porter shuffled forward to take his bag. Foyle handed it
over. "Is there a good hotel in this place?" he asked.
"There's the Anchor, sir," answered the porter. "It's a rare good place,
an' they say as 'ow Lord Nelson stayed there once. They aren't very busy
at this time of the year. Only one or two motorists stopping there."
"What's good enough for Nelson is good enough for me. Is it far, or can
you carry that bag there?"
The porter hastened to reassure the gentleman. It was a bare three
minutes' walk. Might he ask if the gentleman was staying long?
Foyle wasn't sure. It depended on how he liked the country and on the
weather. "By the way," he went on, with an air of one faintly curious,
"didn't Mr. Grell, who was murdered in London, have some property this
way? Dalehurst Grange or something? I suppose you never saw him?"
"That I 'ave," asserted the porter, eager to associate himself, however
remotely, with the tragedy. "I've seen him time and again. He always
used this station when he came down from London--though that wasn't
often, worse luck. He was a nice sort of gentleman, though some of the
folks down here pretended that 'e was not what you'd call in proper
society, because he was an American. But I always found 'im generous and
free-'anded. And to think of 'im being done to death! My missus says
she's afraid to go to bed afore I go off duty now. It was a great shock
to us, that murder."
He spoke with a solemn shake of the head, as though he lived in daily
dread of assassination himself. "You see the last train through, I
suppose?" asked Foyle irrelevantly.
"Yes, sir. The ten-nine up. As I was saying, what with these 'ere
murders and things----"
"Have they shut the Grange up, or is there still some one living there?"
"Well, they got rid of most of the servants. I believe there's still a
'ousekeeper there and a maid, as well as a gardener. I remember when Mr.
Grell first took over the place, Bill Ellis--'e's the blacksmith--ses to
me----" He entered into lengthy reminiscence, to which Foyle only paid
casual heed. He had learned what he wanted to know. Grell, if he had
left the neighbourhood the preceding night, had not done so from
Deepnook, where he would have infallibly been recognised.
The porter was still talking when they passed under the branching arms
of the giant chestnut that shaded the courtyard of one of the prettiest
of the old coaching inns of England. Foyle slipped a shilling into his
guide's hand, and registered himself as "Alfred Frampton--London."
Local gossip is often of service to the man who knows how to lead it
into the right channels. The superintendent decided that an hour or two
might be profitably wasted in the lounge, where half-a-dozen men were
sitting at a small table before a huge, open fireplace. He ordered a
drink and sat a little apart, relying on their provincial curiosity to
presently drag him into the conversation. By the time the lunch he had
ordered for one o'clock was ready, his habit of handling men had stood
him in good stead. "Mr. Frampton of London" had paid for drinks, told
half-a-dozen good stories, laughed at a score of bad ones, asked many
innocent questions, and deftly given the impression that he was a London
business man in search of a few weeks' rest from overstrain. Moreover,
he had gained some knowledge of the lay of the country and acquaintances
who might be useful. One never knew.
The afternoon saw him tramping through the picturesque countryside, with
its drooping hills and wooded valleys. He moved as one careless of time,
whose only object was to see the country. Once he stayed to talk with a
stone-breaker by the side of the wood; once he led a farmer's restive
horse and trap by a traction engine. On both occasions he contrived to
drop a good deal of information about himself, and his reasons for being
in that part of the country. That it was false was little matter. The
best way to stop local gossip is to feed it. A mysterious quiet stranger
would be speculated about, the amiable business man from London with a
love of chat was quite unlikely to arouse suspicions.
Sooner or later Grell, if he were in the neighbourhood, would learn of
the presence of Green and Malley. His attention would be concentrated on
what they were doing. Foyle, acting independently, was looking for an
opening to attack from the rear. He had a great opinion of Grell's
capacity for getting out of awkward situations.
He sauntered through Dalehurst, stopping at a little general store to
buy some tobacco and gather more gossip. The village shop invariably
focuses village gossip. A garrulous old dame talked at large with the
affable stranger, and when the superintendent emerged he was certain
that Chief Inspector Green and those acting with him had succeeded in
maintaining an adequate discretion in regard to the events of the
preceding night.
As Foyle passed on, he observed a man hurrying towards him and
recognised Malley. Abruptly the superintendent turned his back and,
leaning his arms upon a low stone wall, seemed lost in contemplation of
a little churchyard. When the divisional inspector had passed on, Foyle
resumed his walk.
It cost him some little trouble to find the road in which the motor-car
had been left derelict. The sodden earth still retained wheel tracks,
and it needed but a glance to show that the car had been removed but a
few hours before. He walked on till he came to the place where Green
had found the strip of brown cloth, which was fairly plain to find, for
the footsteps of Green and the other police officers when they followed
the trail ceased there as Grell's had done.
Here he drew a small pocket-compass from his waistcoat pocket, and
pressing a spring released the needle. As it came to rest he thrust
aside the hazel bushes and plunged in among the undergrowth. Now and
again he consulted the compass as he walked leisurely forward, wet
branches brushing his face and whipping at his clothes. For the brief
portion of the way a keeper's path facilitated his progress, but at last
he was forced to abandon this and return to the wilder portion of the
wood. He was making a detour which he hoped would lead him to the back
of Dalehurst Grange.
At last he could see a clear space ahead of him, and in a little,
sinking on his knees on a bank, was peering downhill to an
old-fashioned, Jacobean manor-house, from whose chimney smoke was lazily
wreathing upward. Between him and the house a meadow sloped for a
hundred yards, and the back of the house was bounded by an irregular
orchard.
"Pity I didn't think to bring a pair of field-glasses," muttered Foyle,
as his eyes swept the place. "I can't tell how those mullioned windows
are protected. Well, I may as well make myself comfortable, I suppose."
A little search rewarded him with a great oak tree, and in the fork of a
branch twenty feet high he found an easy seat from which he could watch
the house without any great risk of being seen himself. Immobile as a
statue, he remained till long after dusk had fallen and a steady light
appeared at one of the windows. It was, in fact, ten o'clock, and the
light had disappeared when he dropped quietly to earth and, with quick
footsteps, began to cross the meadow to the orchard.
Under the fruit trees the detective moved slower and held his stick
before him, softly tapping the ground as though he were blind. He had
not taken half-a-dozen steps before the stick touched something
stretched about a foot from the ground. Stooping, he groped in the
darkness.
"A cord," he muttered. "Now I wonder if that is merely a precaution
against burglars or----" and, stepping over the obstacle, he went on
cautiously feeling his way. Twice more he found cords stretched across
the grass, so that an unwary intruder might be tripped up, but his
caution enabled him to avoid them.
The walls of the house loomed before him. He stepped to the nearest
window and tested it. It was fastened tightly, nor could he see inside.
Foyle had no taste for the haphazard, and would have liked to be certain
of the run of the house. But one window was as good as another in the
circumstances. He worked deftly with a glazier's diamond for a while,
and at last removing one of the diamond panes of glass thrust his hand
through and undid the latch. The window swung open, and the
superintendent sat down on the grass underneath and swiftly unlaced his
boots.
In another two minutes he was inside the house, and pulling an electric
torch from the capacious pocket of his Norfolk jacket, he swept a thin
wedge of light about the room. It was furnished as a sitting-room, but
there was no reason for examining it minutely. Foyle pulled open the
door and moved into a thickly carpeted corridor, which made his
stockinged feet almost unnecessary.
Door after door he opened and noiselessly examined with the aid of his
single beam of light. By the time he had come to a finely carved, old
oak staircase, he had a rough idea of the plan of the house as far as
the ground floor was concerned. The upper floors demanded more caution,
for there the servants might be sleeping.
The first door that Foyle tried after the landing was locked. Pressing
his ear to the keyhole, he could hear the deep, regular breathing of
some one within. Twice he tried keys without success. At the third
attempt the bolt of the lock gave. He pushed the door back and there was
a crash as a chair which had been wedged behind it was flung to the
floor.
A woman shrieked, and Foyle drew back into the shadow of the landing,
cursing his luck. Then there came the sound of rapid footsteps. The
superintendent drew himself together, and his muscles grew taut as a man
came running. A light blazed up as the man passed through the doorway.
Foyle caught one glimpse of a square-faced man fully dressed and acted
rapidly. He dashed forward and his hand twined itself round the other's
wrist.
"Mr. Robert Grell, I believe," he said suavely.