THE TRAGEDY AT WHITE TOWERS
WHEN I came down to Stone Hollow to take over my new inheritance, I found
the house completely furnished on extremely comfortable if rather
old-fashioned lines; and Martha Helter in possession. She had been my
aunt’s housekeeper for over twenty years and had evidently every
intention of being mine also. I was quite agreeable, since it saved me a
lot of trouble, nor have I so far seen any reason to regret that
decision.
Mrs. Helter—the title had apparently been accorded her by courtesy, since
she was still a spinster and everybody but myself used it; but I began
with Martha, her Christian name, and Martha it is to this day—is a most
capable manager and runs my household with a precision that reminds one
of well-oiled wheels, and a careful economy that has its recommendation
in these days of ridiculous prices. She seemed to know and to be known
by almost everybody in the Dale, and was an all but exhaustless fountain
of anecdote and news.
I say “all but” because she could not give me immediately the information
I sought regarding my pretty midnight visitor. Not that I attached very
much actual importance to that queer incident. It had amused me, and
perhaps, though I would not confess it even to myself, I was just a
little piqued at being so cleverly outwitted by a mere girl. I had cause
during the day to revise my estimate of the interest I was to take in my
uninvited guest. But my first thought was to identify her.
“Martha,” I said to my housekeeper, “did you ever meet hereabouts a young
lady wearing a grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves, a sort
of cape reaching to her boots?”
Martha Helter pondered the question for a minute or two, but shook her
head.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a cloak like that in Cartordale,” she
replied.
“I saw one yesterday,” I said, “and I wondered who the wearer was. Never
mind, perhaps I shall see her—I mean it—again. It was the pattern of the
cloak that took my fancy.”
I am not quite sure why I added that last phrase, though if Martha
noticed anything she kept a perfectly straight face.
“A grey woollen cap and a long cloak without sleeves?” said the little
maid who entered the room at that moment and to whom the housekeeper
propounded the question. “Why, yes’m, that’s Miss Kitty Clevedon—lives
with her ladyship, you know. There are two gentlemen to see the master,”
she added.
“Bring them in,” I said. “Who are they? Do you know them?”
“One of them is Sergeant Gamley, of the County Police,” Susan replied,
“but the other is a stranger and did not give his name.”
“Bring them in,” I repeated.
Sergeant Gamley was in uniform, a tall, thin man with a long hatchet face
and an air of important solemnity which he never shed. His companion was
rather more rotund in build, with puffy red cheeks above which peered
small, keen eyes that did not seem to linger long on anything, but which
for all that missed nothing. Abraham Pepster was chief of the detective
force at Peakborough, the county town, and one may judge to some extent
his prevailing characteristic by the fact that his nickname among
disrespectful subordinates was “Gimlet-eyes.” It was, however, Sergeant
Gamley who opened the conversation on this particular occasion.
“We have called, Mr. Holt,” he said, “with regard to the tragedy at White
Towers. Sir Philip Clevedon—”
“A tragedy—of what nature?” I interrupted. “I have heard nothing of it.
There is nothing in the papers about it, is there? Or have I missed it?”
I interposed just then because I wanted to slow down the story a little.
The girl who had visited me last night was named Clevedon—Susan had just
told me so—and now there was a Sir Philip Clevedon and a tragedy. I
could not help wondering, of course, what connection there could be
between the two, but I was determined to feel my way cautiously, resolved
not to be hustled or bounced into saying more than I wanted to say. The
story, whatever it was, should come from them without any help from me.
“No, Mr. Holt, I dare say you haven’t heard anything yet—not many have,”
Sergeant Gamley went on. “As you say, it isn’t in the papers. You are a
stranger among us—yes, yes. For the moment I had forgotten that. I knew
your late respected aunt very well indeed, Mr. Holt. There was a little
matter of a burglary in this very house some four years ago. Mr.
Holt”—he turned to his companion—“has been living here only a very short
time. He succeeded the late Mrs. Mackaluce, whose nephew he was.”
“Hadn’t you better tell Mr. Holt what has happened at White Towers?” the
other man suddenly interrupted, speaking in a small, soft voice that was
rather curiously in contrast with his bulk, and without any trace of
impatience. He had perhaps been as willing as myself that the
conversation should not be hurried.
“You can see White Towers from the upper windows of your own house, Mr.
Holt,” Sergeant Gamley continued. “It lies between you and the village,
a large house with an outstanding turret and two smaller towers.”
“I have seen it,” I said, “but my housekeeper said it was White Abbey, if
that is the place you mean.”
“The good lady is a little mixed,” was Gamley’s reply.
He was proud of his local antiquarian knowledge and delighted to parade
it, being, indeed, a frequent contributor to the local papers and
regarded as an authority on county history in general and Cartordale in
particular.
“White Towers,” he went on, “stands on the site of the old White Abbey.
The older name survives, but the present house, of which Sir Philip
Clevedon is the owner—was the owner—”
If there is such a thing as an inward smile I indulged in one then. The
method was so obvious and I had so often used it myself. Pepster was
allowing the other man to go maundering on while he himself kept me under
careful observation. I do not, however, allow my thoughts to be written
on my face, and I merely listened impassively. Pepster seemed at last to
recognise that he was not likely to get much help as things were going,
for he brushed Gamley aside and took up the story himself.
“The fact is, Mr. Holt,” he said bluntly, “Sir Philip Clevedon was found
dead this morning—stabbed—”
He paused there and I waited, making no sign.
“With a lady’s hatpin,” he added, “a big, three-cornered affair with a
silver knob.”
I had a swift vision of a white, frightened face beneath a woollen cap,
but I could not quite connect the girl of the previous night’s visit with
any thought of crime. She did not fit into a picture of that sort. Yet
I knew as certainly as if she had told me that she was in some way mixed
up with it all. And why had they come to me? Did they know of that
midnight visit? I was determined that they should tell me. I would give
them no lead. They must do all the talking. Pepster, after a rather
lengthy pause, seemed to realise the position.
“Perhaps you wonder why we come to you,” he said in his small, soft
voice. “It was merely on the chance that in your late stroll last
night—”
So they did know I had been out. Had they also seen my companion?
“—Sergeant Gamley—you stood to light a cigarette and the match lit up
your face.”
Pepster paused there again with an obvious appearance of waiting.
Following the normal course, the person addressed should now break into
more or less voluble explanations of the why and wherefore of this
midnight stroll, explanations which the detective could weigh as they
came forth and so form some estimate of their value or otherwise to the
quest on which he was engaged. There might be nothing in it. Pepster
knew full well that he would interview and interrogate scores of persons
during the next few days and would have to sift a prodigious amount of
chaff on the off chance of an occasional grain of wheat. In any case he
had to go on sifting. That was his job.
“Seeing your name was mentioned in the way it was,” Pepster went on, “I
thought you might like to explain—”
“Yes?” I said inquiringly, “explain?”
“Your name was mentioned, you know,” Pepster murmured.
“So you have told me. But what is it you wish me to explain?”
“You were out very late last night,” Pepster remarked.
“Let us be a trifle more explicit,” I said. “It comes to this—if you
suspect me of having any hand in killing Sir Philip Clevedon with a
three-cornered hatpin, you have no right to question me. It is against
your rules, isn’t it, for you to trip me up and entrap me? If I am not
under suspicion I do not quite see whither your questions lead. You may
produce the handcuffs or take me into your confidence. But in any case,”
I added with a quick smile, “I reserve my defence.”
“You are a bit off the rails, Mr. Holt,” Pepster returned with unabated
calm. “I know of nothing which should connect you with the murder,
nothing at all. But your name was mentioned, and it is my duty to
question everybody who may be in the remotest degree linked up with the
affair in case by any chance they may afford me information. Do you mind
telling me why you were out so late last night?”
“I was taking a stroll.”
“It was a very foggy, unpleasant night.”
“It was extremely so.”
“And consequently very dark.”
“That coincides with my own recollection.”
“A stroll in a thick fog!”
“My dear sir, you ask me a question. I answer it in good faith, and you
disbelieve me.”
“No, no, not at all,” Pepster said blandly. “I accept your word
implicitly. It was not the object and inspiration of the—er—the stroll
that interested me.”
“No? You were not wondering whether I was coming from or going to White
Towers? I am glad of that,” I returned with apparently great
satisfaction. “In point of fact the stroll was a mere whim on my part,
induced mainly, I may say, by the hope that it would assist me to a
night’s sound sleep. I had been writing. One reason why I maintain my
cabbage-like existence in a God-forgotten corner of the country like this
is that I may write a book. But writing renders the brain a little
over-active and—”
I broke off there and waited for the other to continue.
“What I really wanted to know,” Pepster went on, “was whether you saw or
met anybody during your stroll.”
“I saw nobody and met nobody,” I responded equably.
“Somebody passed a few minutes previously,” Pepster continued. “Gamley
here heard them talking, a man and a woman. But he could not distinguish
them. He thought no more of it at the time, of course. Nothing was
known of the murder then. He recognised you only because you struck a
match to light your cigarette. But you were alone.”
He nodded to Sergeant Gamley and picked up his hat.
“Would it be impertinent,” I asked, “to inquire whether you have any
clue, any idea, any theory—”
“Oh, I never theorise,” Pepster replied with bland serenity. “It is only
story-book detectives who theorise. Theories are too much of a luxury
for professionals. Facts are my stock-in-trade. I do not travel outside
those.”
“You have the hatpin,” I suggested.
“Yes,” he replied vaguely, “we have the hatpin.”
But he had evidently no intention of talking about that.
When they had gone I set myself down to concentrate my thoughts—on the
girl’s woollen cap. I have so trained my faculty of observation—just as
a conjurer trains his fingers or a dancer her feet—that I see everything
even to the smallest detail, though often without making any conscious
record of it at the time. When the girl fainted in my arms her woollen
cap had fallen off. Consequently there had been no hatpin, though, as I
visualised it, I remembered that on the rim of grey cloth which bound the
knitted shape, there were marks showing that a hatpin had been in use.
Was it with her hatpin that Sir Philip Clevedon had been done to death?
There you—this to the reader—have the case set forth, and you are in
exactly the same position that I was myself—a stranger to the place and
the people, knowing practically nobody and with every item of information
yet to seek. But we both of us have one small advantage over the police.
The latter, as far as I could make out, knew nothing of Miss Kitty
Clevedon’s midnight adventure.