THE BEGINNING OF A MYSTERY
Here indeed was an adventure, less romantic than tragical. I was
locked up in the back room of a village shop in company with the
corpse of a dead woman, and some thief had gone off with my motor car.
Undoubtedly the person who had stolen the Rippler, was the one who had
locked the door. Indeed it would seem that the person had laid a trap,
for in the first instance the door had been locked; in the second, it
had been open; and in the third, it had been locked again. But the
individual who had gone off with the car--as presumably was the
case--had not lured me into the trap, since the moan of the now dead
woman had led me on to exploring the back premises. But the unknown
might have counted upon that. If such was the case, why, then--here in
the darkness fumbling for the handle of the locked door a terrible
thought flashed into my mind, a vague elusive thought, which I could
not put into words. With a sudden terror knocking at my heart, I shook
the door and cried for help.
"Hi! what's that?" asked a rough, uncultured voice in the shop;
"what's wrong wi' ye, Mrs. Caldershaw?"
"Open the door!" I shook the flimsy boards again. "Open the door!"
There was a grunt of astonishment, and I heard the key turn in the
lock. A moment later and the door opened, when at once I flung out
past a burly man, who was blocking the way. He gripped me before I
could pass him, and I heard hard breathing in the darkness. "Not so
fast," said the man harshly. "What are you doing here in Mrs.
Caldershaw's shop? and----"
"Don't stop me; don't, confound you!" I interrupted, and wrenching
myself away I ran to the door of the shop, crying out explanations.
"Someone's gone off with my motor car. There's a dead woman in there,
and----"
This time it was the man who interrupted and with something more than
words. As I dashed into the deserted road, looking up and down in the
darkness for my Rippler, my liberator plunged after me and gripped me
again. Before I could say a word or make a movement, he had borne me
to the ground by sheer strength of muscle, and holding me down hard
and fast, bellowed at the pitch of his voice an ominous word. "Murder!
murder! murder!" shouted the man with surprising volume of tone.
Again the fear knocked at my heart, for now the elusive thought had
been put into concrete form by this yokel, as I took him to be from
his roughness and accent. Anne Caldershaw--I believed the body to be
hers--had been murdered by the assassin, who had escaped with my motor
car. He--I naturally thought of the assassin as a "he"--had waited
until I was bending over the corpse of his victim, and then locking me
in, had made use of the Rippler. By this time he would be beyond any
chance of recapture, and here was I placed unexpectedly in a
compromising situation, with the chance--and upon very good
circumstantial evidence--of being accused of the crime. And yet, as
even then I thought confusedly, there was nothing to show that the
woman had really been murdered, as I had seen neither wound nor blood.
"Let me up!" I gasped, striving to throw off the dead weight of the
big man.
But he only continued to roar for help, gripping my arms and pressing
his knee into my chest. Had not the villagers arrived, I verily
believe that there would have been a second, if unconscious murder, so
brutally did the fellow bear on my prone body. But I heard distant
cries, and shortly there came the flash of lanterns borne by men and
women running round the corner of the road. As by magic, I was
surrounded by an alarmed crowd all asking questions at once and
turning their many lights on to my face. My captor gave a breathless
explanation.
"Murder! murder!" he shouted, still dwelling on a top note. "I found
the devil locked in the back room without a light, and the shop," he
pointed across the way, "is without a light also. He comes out yelling
that there was a dead woman left behind. It's Mrs. Caldershaw for
sure, and he's done for her. Murder! murder! Where's the police?"
Almost before he finished his explanation, which was not quite a full
one, since he gave no account of my motor car being stolen, the men
and women were running into the shop. My captor jerked me roughly to
my feet, on which I could scarcely stand, so roughly had he handled
me, and so sore were my bones. "Come along," he shouted, much excited,
and dragged me across the road and into the shop. "Look on her as
you've done for."
"Don't be a fool," I protested; "I'm a gentleman."
"But a murderer none the less," he retorted, and pushed me furiously
down the three steps into the back room, which was now filled with men
and women.
Some of the latter were on their knees examining the body, which
I now saw to be that of an elderly person, plainly clothed in a
maroon-coloured wincey dress, with a belt round her waist, whence
dangled a bunch of keys and a cheap lace collar fastened with a gaudy
cairngorm brooch. What with the disconcerting way in which my captor
handled me--it seemed vain to resist--and the restless light of the
lanterns, I could not see much more. One of the men looked up.
"Why did you cry out murder, Giles?" he asked the rough-looking man
who held me. "There isn't a wound on her body. It's a fit, I believe."
The man Giles loosened me. "If I've been mistaken," he began, when a
cry from a little woman cut his speech short.
"Her eye's out; her eye's out--the left one. Look! look!" and she
seized a bystander's arm in terror.
Sure enough the left eye was missing, and I wondered why I had not
noticed that such was the case when I examined the body by the light
of the lucifer-match. I remembered distinctly the glassy,
expressionless eyes, and yet, now there was only one, as I now saw
plainly enough. Doubtless in the flickering light of the match and in
my agitation, I had omitted to see that there was but one eye. Even at
so critical a moment I began to wonder how I could have overlooked so
obvious a fact, and then recalled the story a friend had told me of a
man he had met with in the States, and to whom he spoke for five
minutes, thinking there was something odd about his appearance, before
he saw that both ears were missing. So easily, as I considered, even
when placid can we fail to notice what is plainly apparent, much
less when unnerved as I was when examining that dead face in the
match-light. It was an odd thought at the time, considering that I
stood in such peril. Had this cottage been in America I daresay I
should have been lynched by the rough crowd of villagers around me.
"It's not murder maybe," growled Giles, seizing me again. "But this
devil has torn her eye out, so----"
"There's no blood," said another man wisely. "If the eye had been torn
out----"
"It was a glass eye," breathed a stout, dark woman with a heavy face.
"Anne told me as much when we had tea together. She didn't like it to
be known, poor soul, being proud like, and took great pains to get the
best eye she could. But it's gone, sure enough." She peered into the
dead face and then at me. "Perhaps this gentleman will tell us why he
took it."
By this time, since apparently Anne Caldershaw had not been murdered
and the eye was merely glass, the current of popular feeling was
running more in my favour. I might be a thief, with the eye in my
pocket, but I was not a murderer, so the villagers gave me time for
explanation.
"I quite understand that things look black against me," I said
hastily, "but I know nothing about the matter. I arrived in front of
this shop in my motor car and stopped to get petrol. After I filled up
and left the money--you will find it on the counter, if you look--I
heard a moan and stepped into this room to see what was wrong. While
looking at the body, after lighting a match, someone locked me in and
ran off with my motor car."
The villagers looked at one another, and apparently thought that my
explanation was a lame one. But Giles, who had treated me so roughly,
grudgingly admitted that he had seen the motor car.
"I came round the corner to get a pound of bacon for supper," said
Giles reflectively, "and I saw the engine"--so he phrased it--"before
the door. A lady was stepping in----"
"A lady!" I interrupted. "Are you certain?"
"Yes--sir," he said, giving me the polite address doubtfully. "I saw
her plain enough in the light of them bright lamps. She had a long
white sort of gown on, and a cap with a veil flying behind on her
head. I just caught a glimpse of her, when she went off as hard as she
could."
"In what direction?"
"Murchester way, if you want a good big town to go by," said Giles.
"Then send for the police and tell them to telegraph to Murchester to
stop the car. It's a Rippler, No. 14539 Z, and belongs to me. The
woman has stolen it, I tell you. Where are the police?"
"There's no policeman until we get one from Arkleigh, and the
telegraph office is there also. Now you, sir, must wait until the
police come."
"Of course," I assented readily. "I quite understand that you look
upon me as a doubtful character. Lock up this house until the police
arrive and take me to your inn if you have one. I want something to
eat and drink."
"But the eye," said the heavy dark woman; "give back the eye."
"I haven't got the eye," I snapped, for with hunger and thirst and
excitement, and the unpleasantness of being unjustly suspected, I was
not in the best of tempers. "You can search me if you like."
The dark woman would have done so readily, being evidently of a
meddlesome nature. But Giles interposed. "Let the gentleman alone,
Mrs. Faith," he said gruffly; "I caught him, and I'll keep him till
Warshaw comes. I daresay it's a mistake on my part, and I'm sorry
if----"
"Oh, I don't blame you, Mr. Giles," I interposed easily, and lighted a
cigarette to show my nonchalance. "I should have acted in the same way
myself. So come along and take me to gaol."
A relieved smile made the man's rugged face quite pleasant to look at,
as my exculpation of himself, and my ready offer to be searched,
evidently reassured him greatly. In his eyes, at all events, I was not
the desperate criminal he had taken me to be. But his fellow-villagers
still looked dubious. "Mrs. Caldershaw had heaps of money hidden
away," ventured one little rat of a man with a squeaky voice.
"Search my pockets then," I said again with open impatience. "All I
have told you is correct. My name is Cyrus Vance, and if you send to
the Artillery Barracks at Murchester, my friend Lord Cannington will
have no difficulty in identifying me."
As I thought it would, the title acted like a charm, and the tension
somewhat slackened. Giles, who appeared to be the most sensible of the
lot, beckoned me into the dark shop, leaving his friends to guard the
house and look after the corpse of the unfortunate woman. I walked
beside him round the corner, and sure enough--as I expected--came upon
the twinkling lights of quite a dozen houses. The late Mrs. Caldershaw
had customers after all, it would seem.
"What's the name of this place?" I asked abruptly.
"Mootley," replied Giles, now less suspicious and more human. "It
ain't a very large village, but we've more cottages than these here
scattered along the road up yonder," and he jerked his thumb to the
left where a lane ran from the high-road towards a woodland.
"It's too dark to see anything," I said idly, "but to-morrow you can
show me round. I daresay I shall have to pass the night at your house,
Mr. Giles, unless you think that I may rise in the night to kill you.
By the way," I added with a bantering air, "you don't hold my arm.
Aren't you afraid I'll bolt?"
"No, sir," said the man, now perfectly polite. "I see that I have made
a mistake. I know your name, if you're the Mr. Vance who writes
plays."
"I am; but that is odd knowledge for a villager in these
out-of-the-way parts to possess."
"Oh, I haven't lived at Mootley all my life, sir, although I was born
here forty years ago. I went to London, and stopped in Southwark for
years. I'd a greengrocer's shop there, and did fairly well. But London
didn't suit my wife's health, sir, so I sold up some time back, and
bought a cottage and an acre of land here with my savings. I know your
name, sir, because I've seen one or two plays of yours at The Elephant
and Castle Theatre. And very good plays they were, sir, too."
"Humph! It seems to me, Mr. Giles, that I am now the wrongly suspected
hero of a much more mysterious and lurid melodrama than any I have
written."
"It _is_ strange," admitted Giles, with a side glance. I saw the
glance by the light which gleamed from a cottage window.
"My murdering Mrs. Caldershaw?" I inquired coolly.
"We don't know yet that she has been murdered," he replied quickly.
"Then my stealing that glass eye of hers?"
"No, sir. But your being locked up in the dark with the corpse."
"She wasn't a corpse when I entered, Mr. Giles. Her moans attracted me
into the room. While I was seeing by match-light what was the matter,
someone locked the door, and bolted with my motor."
"The lady I saw, sir."
"No doubt, since I did not bring a lady with me."
"I wonder if she got the eye," muttered Giles half to himself.
"She must have got something that wasn't hers, else she would not have
made use of my car to escape."
"Then she must have taken the eye," Giles muttered again.
"What the deuce are you talking about? Why should she steal a glass
eye?"
"That's what I'd like to know, sir. It's an odd thing to steal. And I
never knew that Mrs. Caldershaw's left eye was a glass one, though she
told Mrs. Faith about it. Well, it's gone----"
"And the lady who stole my motor car took it. At least it seems so.
But I tell you what, Mr. Giles, I'm too hungry to discuss the matter
just now. The whole business is a mystery to me, and Destiny has
dragged me into it in a most unpleasant way."
Giles nodded. "It's easy seen you're innocent, sir," he said with an
air of relief. "You wouldn't talk so, if you weren't."
"I don't know so much about that. Guilt can wear a mask of brazen
innocence if necessary. How do you know I haven't murdered Mrs.
Caldershaw, and at this moment may not have the celebrated glass eye
in my trouser pocket?"
"We don't know yet that she's been murdered, Mr. Vance. There was no
wound----"
"Pooh! She might have been poisoned."
"Why do you think so, sir?" asked Giles quickly.
"Because I write melodramas, and always look on the most dramatic
side. Oh, this is your cottage, is it? Quite a stage cottage, with
plenty of greenery about the porch."
Giles did not know what to make of my chatter.
"You're a funny gent, sir."
"A hungry one, at all events, my friend. Is this your wife? How are
you, Mrs. Giles? I am your husband's prisoner, and for the time being
your cottage is a gaol. Mrs. Caldershaw's dead, and I've stolen her
glass eye."
"Mrs. Caldershaw dead!" gasped Mrs. Giles, a rosy-faced little woman,
who turned pale at the sudden announcement. "What does the gentleman
mean, Sam?"
"Sit down, sir," said Giles, pushing forward a chair, then turned
towards his astonished and somewhat terrified wife to explain. In a
few minutes Mrs. Giles was in full possession of the facts which had
led me to her abode. She listened in silence, her face now quite white
and drawn. "What does it all mean, Sam?" she asked under her breath.
"That's what we've got to find out, Sarah. Warshaw has been sent for
from Arkleigh, and when he comes, we'll see what is to be done."
"Warshaw and Caldershaw," I murmured; "rather similar names. I hope
your policeman friend will wire to Murchester about my car."
"There's no telegraph office hereabout, sir. I expect he'll send in a
messenger to Murchester for the Inspector, and for your friend, sir."
"Lord Cannington? Oh, yes. He can identify me as Cyrus Vance."
"What!" said Mrs. Giles, who was recovering her colour, "the gentleman
who wrote them lovely plays?"
"The same," I assented, "and the gentleman's very hungry."
"You shall have supper in a few minutes," cried Mrs. Giles, much
impressed with the angel she had hitherto entertained unawares. "Sam,
did you bring back that bacon?"
"Nor I didn't, my dear, 'cos there wasn't anyone to sell the bacon,
Mrs. Caldershaw being dead."
"Ugh!" shuddered the little woman. "I'll never be able to eat another
thing out of that shop. A murder----"
"We don't know that it's a murder," interposed her husband hastily.
I laughed. "You shouted murder lustily enough when you had me down,
Giles."
The man looked sheepish. "I made a mistake and thought you was a
robber, until I saw you were a gent."
"Well a gent can be a robber, you know. Many gents are."
"They steal something more valuable than glass eyes, sir."
I rather liked Giles, who was a burly, heavy-faced animal man, with,
as I said before, a most engaging smile. His jaw was of the bull-dog
order, but his eyes were extremely intelligent, so I judged that his
native wits had been considerably sharpened by his sojourn in the
Borough of Southwark. Such a man could easily master the less
travelled villagers, and I found that such was the case. Giles acted
as a kind of headman of Mootley, and his opinion carried great weight
in the village councils. It was just as well that I had fallen into
the hands of such a man, otherwise, unable to see that I was innocent
of assault and robbery, I should have been less hospitably treated. As
it was, I found myself extremely comfortable.
Mrs. Giles bustled about in a cheery way, although the news of Mrs.
Caldershaw's death seemed to have somewhat scared her. While getting
the supper and laying the cloth and attending to the kettle she would
frequently pause to consider her husband's story. "I rather think she
expected it," said Mrs. Giles, putting a pot of jam on the table.
"Expected what, Sarah?" asked her husband, guessing what she alluded
to.
"Death, Sam, death. She told me once that she was sure she would not
die in her bed."
"Then you think that she has been murdered?" I questioned.
"Yes, I do think so, sir; else why should she speak in that way? And
in church she always said that part of the Litany about being saved
from battle, murder, and sudden death louder than any."
"There was no blood and no wound," muttered Giles, turning this speech
over in his mind. "Frampton said he thought it was a fit. But come and
draw your chair, in, sir. We're humble folk, but what we have is at
your service."
"You're very kind folk," I said, obeying the invitation. "Frampton and
Mrs. Faith would have tied me up and starved me."
"Ignorant people, sir, who don't know any better. Bread, sir? jam,
sir? yes, sir."
He was really most polite for a greengrocer, and I grew to like him
more and more, as I did his busy, bright-faced little wife. The supper
was homely but very nourishing, and I drank tea and devoured bread and
jam, until my hunger was quite satisfied. During the meal the husband
and wife told me that Mrs. Caldershaw had kept the corner shop--so
they called it--for the last five years, and had never been popular
amongst her neighbours. It was believed that she had miserly
tendencies and had much money tucked away in a stocking. Her age was
sixty, but she was an active woman for her years and lived entirely
alone. It seemed that she had been born in Mootley, but had been
absent for many years out at service--so she said, although she spoke
very little about her past. With her savings--again this was the story
of Mrs. Caldershaw--she had returned to die in her native village and,
for the sake of something to do, had opened the corner shop.
"Did she have many callers?" I asked, mentally noting details.
"She never said so," remarked Mrs. Giles, who being somewhat of a
gossip took the lead in the conversation. "She was a close one, she
was. And the shop being round the corner, sir, we"--I presume she
meant herself and the other gossips--"could never see who came or
went. She lived quite outside our lives, sir, owing to the position of
the shop and her own way of keeping to herself. Once she did say she'd
never die in her bed, and that's what makes me think as she may have
been done away with. But I never knew, Sam, that she'd a glass eye."
"I didn't know either," said Sam, who was devouring huge slices of
bread and butter. "She told Mrs. Faith, though. I've seen her heaps of
times, but I never spotted that one eye was living and the other dead.
And why it should have been stolen by that lady who went off with your
motor, Mr. Vance, sends me fair silly."
"What was the lady like, Sam?"
"I can't exactly tell you, Sarah, as it was growing so dark. She was
tall, with a long white cloak, a cap, and a veil. That's all I know.
Hullo!"
He started from his seat, as the sound of excited voices was heard. A
moment later and the cottage door was violently flung open to admit
the stout, dark-faced woman, whom Giles had addressed as Mrs. Faith.
She was half leading, half supporting another woman, small and wizen
and weak-looking. Behind came a disorderly crowd of women and men.
Evidently Mootley, unused to sensational happenings, was making the
most of this one.
"It's a lady as come in a cart, sir," began Mrs. Faith excitedly, when
Frampton, looking over her shoulder, interrupted.
"A trap, sir; a trap driven by another woman."
"O dear me," moaned the little creature, who had now been deposited in
a capacious chair. "Where am I now?"
"With friends, dear, with friends," said Mrs. Giles, stroking her
hands. "Sam get the whisky; it's in the cupboard near the fire. And
all you people clear out. She'll never get well if you stop here
upsetting her."
"I'll see to it," cried Mrs. Faith, and forthwith in a most masterful
way bundled the crowd out-of-doors. They would not have gone so
easily, had not the magnet of the shop containing the corpse drawn
them; but go they did, and Mrs. Faith closed the door.
"Warshaw has arrived," she explained dramatically, "and is
examining all the place. He'll be along here soon, sir, to take you in
charge. This lady," she waved her large hands towards the little
half-unconscious woman, "came along in a cart with another one
driving----"
"Another lady?" I asked curiously.
"Another woman," snorted Mrs. Faith contemptuously, "and only one
horse the cart had; for cart it was, though Frampton called it a trap.
But she came along, sir," she continued officiously, "and said as she
saw your motor engine run into a field. It smashed a gate, it did,
and----"
"Stop," cried the little lady, opening her eyes and half rising. "I'll
tell the gentleman all about it. Miss Destiny; sir, Miss Destiny--my
name," and she curtsied.