MR. POTTER'S SOLUTION
The man from Burton's was a light sleeper--at least, so he believed
himself to be. He woke from his arm-chair doze very suddenly--noticing
by the clock on the mantelpiece that he had slept for nearly two hours.
He was conscious of having been awakened by some sound. Yet there was no
one in the room. He started up from the chair. Was it fancy that, as he
did so, he heard the closing of a door, as though someone had quietly
left the room?
He glanced at the bed. Yes, someone had entered the sick-room, and for
the hideous purpose that he had conceived to be possible. Only one thing
assured him of this fact, but it was quite enough. It told him all.
A pillow which had reposed at the foot of the great bed when he had
first entered the room was no longer in that place. It had been shifted
to the other end, and now lay firmly pressed down upon the unconscious
patient's face. Here was yet another attempt to murder the unhappy
Squire. It had been placed there to suffocate him.
Hastily, yet gently, the detective raised it from its position, and
flung it into a corner. So recently had it been placed upon the
patient's upturned face that no harm had been done. But Mr. Potter
shuddered to think what would have happened had he not awakened in time
to avert the catastrophe.
His first duty had been that of "nurse," now his detective instincts
asserted themselves. While he had waited to learn whether the Squire yet
lived, he had allowed the would-be murderer time to make good his
escape. But he hurriedly opened the door of the sick-room and peered out
into the dark passage. Not a sound disturbed the silence of night. Mr.
Potter muttered something of the nature of an oath as he realised how he
had been caught napping in both senses of the word. The heartless son,
Laurence, of whose guilt he was so confident, had nearly got the better
of him. He made up for his shortcoming by keeping awake and alert during
the remaining hours of his watch. But nothing happened--no one came, and
when Mrs. Featherston arrived at half-past seven to relieve him for a
short period he threw up for the time the role of nurse, and walked out
of the sick-room in his investigator's capacity to learn what he could
about the true facts of the attack on the moor.
His night had not been wasted. He had carefully examined the Squire's
body, and convinced himself that a very remarkable, but unsuccessful,
attempt to kill the old gentleman had been made. Yet a tiny, ragged cut
on the front of the neck, almost upon the throat, was the only visible
clue to the manner of that attempt.
He had further made a careful examination of the room and of the clothes
that the Squire had worn. Yet he obtained but a slight clue that seemed
likely to lead to anything. This was a yellow hair--or rather, yellow
wisp of silk--that he found upon the patient's cravat. It was of a
peculiar colour, but hardly likely, Potter thought, to prove of any
assistance. Yet he carefully gummed it by means of a strip of court
plaster to a page of his note-book, and proceeded to investigate the
furniture in the room. Nothing in the way of a possible clue came to
light. One thing alone caused him surprise.
This was the discovery of the body of an ordinary bat found lying in a
dark corner of the room. The creature was dead--it had apparently been
crushed when some furniture had been moved, possibly by the doctor's
direction.
Mr. Potter carefully picked up his curious find, and placed it in a
cardboard box on which his eye chanced. The box he placed on a high
shelf in a convenient cupboard. It might, he thought, prove useful in
the future.
Confident though he was of Laurence's guilt, he determined not to be
rash. To start from the beginning was his intention. And so his first
move was to interview Moggin, the coachman, to whom he introduced
himself as the "nurse." Cautiously guiding the conversation on to the
subject of highwaymen of the present time, he was rewarded by a
confidential description of the attack on the carriage, that had
happened a few days before. Moggin had, of course, learned of the injury
that had befallen his master, and confessed that he connected the two
attacks with one another, as having been made by the same man.
Mr. Potter was annoyed. The coachman was certainly telling the truth. He
had deemed it possible that Moggin might have been an accomplice in the
so-called attack, and that no "highwayman"--not even another accomplice
in disguise--had existed. This was evidently not the case. Ergo, there
must be some other man in league with Laurence. This other accomplice
was a very important person. He had, according to the detective, not
only played the highwayman, but also the market-woman whom Miss Scott
had decided was a man disguised.
Oliver Potter was at a loss to know what step to take next. Strange to
say, it never entered his head to visit Durley Dene. In his confidence
that he was on the right track, he evidently had little doubt but that
the neighbouring mansion was uninhabited. For who knew anything about
the persons that lived there? Only Laurence! Of course, the message that
had been sent by means of a catapult from the grounds of the Dene had
been despatched by the accomplice on whom Potter was so anxious to lay
his hand.
Then a brilliant idea struck the man from Burton's. Was Selene Scott
that accomplice? Might not she have attacked the carriage on the moor?
Might not the story of the market-woman in disguise, and the letter from
Durley Dene, be false? When he came to think of it, Mr. Potter marvelled
that he had not discovered this probability before. Why were Laurence
Carrington and Miss Scott so apparently intimate? Was it not possible
that they might be engaged--or even married? In which case it would be
to their mutual advantage were the Squire dead, since then his money
would naturally come to them.
"Eureka," cried the man from Burton's, who was proud of his knowledge of
half a dozen Greek and Latin words, "I hold in my hand the key to the
mystery!"