A MOUSE-HOLE.
“Well,” said Allington grimly, “you ruined a fine theory for me last
night with your wire. I thought for a solid hour that I could put my
fingers on the man who killed Levallion.”
The two were strolling up and down the open lawn at Levallion Castle.
Perhaps Mr. Allington made a guess as to what had deferred Adrian
Gordon’s arrival till three in the afternoon, but he said nothing. The
face of the new Lord Levallion, who in a few more days would be plain
Adrian Gordon once more, did not encourage comment.
“You did mean you thought it could be the cook?” he cried, standing
still in the autumn sunshine.
“I did. But”--he flicked the ash from his cigar significantly--“it all
went like that.”
“What put it into your head at all?” drearily.
“A boot-boy. The only servant who was not called at the inquest.” And
he told Sir Thomas’ tale of the beating, and the subsequent tender care
of Monsieur Carrousel in finding his protégé a new place.
“That set me thinking,” he continued. “I went down to the housekeeper’s
room last night when the house was quiet, and I found it led into the
still-room.”
“I don’t see much in that,” interrupting him. “We all know that. It’s
to keep the still-room under her eye. That’s all. There’s no second
door from the still-room.”
“Isn’t there?” said Allington quietly. “Did it never strike any one
that a portion of those shelves in that room covers a door, that
opens, shelves and all, into the ‘boothole’ under the kitchen stairs.
I confess last night that with that discovery, and the carting off of
the boot-boy, I felt jubilant. But it was all rubbish. The housekeeper
had a letter from the boy I thought the cook had made away with, to
say he liked his new place which Monsieur Carrousel had found for him.
Something Square it was dated, and postmarked Paddington.”
“It’s all one what it was postmarked,” Gordon returned dully. “It
wasn’t Carrousel I saw last night; and I agree with you that the
boot-boy business was all bona fide enough. A clever Frenchman might
pound a stupid boy to a jelly from exasperation, and then turn round
and be kind to him.”
“Who did you see last night?” curiously. “I suppose you’ve been playing
detective on Mrs. Murray, eh?”
Adrian nodded.
“I don’t know why,” he said, “for she was in Boulogne all summer.
Couldn’t have been down here at all. But I took lodgings opposite and
lay doggo to watch her. Much I got! No one went into her house except
her lawyers in that case of hers,” as indifferently as if it concerned
him not at all and did not spell ruin, “till last night, when I saw a
man go up her steps. Something about him startled me, his back looked
familiar; I don’t know why, but I could have sworn I’d seen him down
here. Yet I knew he was none of the house-party. He went in, and I ran
out and wired to you. But before your answer came I knew I’d made an
ass of myself. I’d just got back to my door when I saw the fellow come
out, and it was no one I’d ever seen in my life. I saw his face quite
plainly as he lit a cigar. If I’d seen it like that in the first place
I’d never have wired at all. He was just a pal of Hester’s.”
Allington nodded. He was as disappointed as a dog that has discovered
an empty rat-hole.
“What do you think of doing now?” he said. “The detectives are quite
hopeless of finding Sir Thomas’ mysterious man and woman, I may tell
you. That woman who levanted from the bungalow was their first thought,
but she has apparently fallen off the earth. As for the man”--snapping
his fingers--“after pouncing on twenty innocent young farmers, they
have given him up. Unless----” He stopped awkwardly. Somehow he could
not say to Adrian Gordon that he had yet to prove he was not himself
that man. Not that Allington thought so, but there was no doubt the
police did.
“Unless he turns up, directly under their noses,” said Adrian coolly.
But Allington could make no guess at what he meant.
“What do you think of doing?” he repeated.
“Go back to town, and----” he hesitated. “Look here, Allington, you
don’t think this business of Hester Murray’s looks queer bang on top of
Levallion’s death, do you?”
“No,” unwillingly. “She’d be afraid to try it--in that case. In any
case, you say you know she was in Boulogne.”
“I suppose I do. She gave me an address of a pension there, and
I wrote. It was all straight enough. Hello! here’s Tommy!” with
annoyance. He had not wanted to see Tommy. The boy’s eyes were too
clear, even a lie untold might be written in Gordon’s face, he thought
vexedly.
“Hello! where’ve you been?” he said uncomfortably, and then stopped
short.
“My God, Tommy! what is it?” he cried, the dreadful look on the boy’s
face meaning only one thing to him. Ravenel was guilty, and her brother
had found it out!
“Don’t speak to me!” said the boy hoarsely; “let me think. I’ve
been--and I thought it might mean something, but--it can’t!”
Wherever he had been he had been running, and his face was white and
red in streaks. Allington pulled him down on a garden bench.
“Get your breath,” he said, but he was afraid, too.
At the two pale faces the boy suddenly laughed out hysterically.
“I’ve made a fool of myself,” he said. “I thought I’d found something.
Look here. I went over to the farm where--you know the Umbrella died?”
incoherently.
“She didn’t know anything!” cried Allington. “I turned the farmer’s
wife inside out. I suppose you mean by the Umbrella the woman who wrote
those letters to Lady Levallion that can’t be found?”
“I don’t know what she knew,” said Tommy sharply. “And we never will.
I went out toward the station to see if Gordon had come down by the
two-twenty, and he hadn’t. Coming home I met Mrs. Ward, the farmer’s
wife, and she asked me what she was to do with the Umbrella’s old
bonnet or something, but she really stopped me to know if any of us
would pay for the Umbrella’s board. It seems she stayed a week there,
and Ravenel hadn’t sent her enough money to pay for that and her
funeral. I don’t know! Anyhow, I strolled up with old Mother Ward to
see just what the Umbrella had left in the way of clothes, and to view
the undertaker’s bill for myself. For old Ward’s a beast. There were
some old rags of clothes with nothing in the pockets, and I said you’d
pay the undertaker,” turning to Allington. “I was staring round the
place and I saw a piece of paper, just an edge, sticking out between
the floor and the wall. I hooked it out, and there was a mouse-hole
behind it; the mice had dragged the thing in there.
“Old Mother Ward gave a yell. Said the Umbrella had held that thing in
her hand till she died, and she’d wondered what had become of it. I
thought--oh! I don’t know what I thought,” miserably; “but it isn’t any
good. Here’s the thing, and it doesn’t mean anything.”
“It’s a torn telegram,” said Allington, peering over Gordon’s shoulder
as he snatched the paper. “What’s that on the back of it?”
“Nothing,” said Tommy, “only 1 pound, or something.”
Adrian Gordon, like a man in a dream, stared at the dirty mouse-eaten
thing he held. It might be meaningless enough to Tommy and Allington,
but to him.
“By ----!” he said, below his breath, “Hester!”
“What do you mean?” cried Allington, startled.
“Look!” grimly, his eyes as hard as Levallion’s had ever been.
And Allington made out the tattered telegram.
“Wire descript-- Bocage. Imme----” the address was eaten away, there was
no signature.
“I don’t see what you mean!” he exclaimed.
Gordon pulled from his pocket that letter from Pension Bocage
concerning Mrs. Murray.
“Now do you understand?” he cried. “She was in Boulogne all
summer--according to that. Yet the man who wrote it wired to her to
describe herself. The meaning’s clear enough. ‘Wire description to
Bocage immediately,’ that’s how the telegram ran. It was Hester Murray
Tommy saw that night--and she dropped it.”
“But how could the woman who died come by it?” said Allington
doubtingly.
Tommy jumped up.
“You never knew her!” he cried. “She was always creeping and crawling
round. You bet she saw that man and woman the night I did, and that was
what she wanted to tell Ravenel. Oh, if she hadn’t died!” he caught his
breath. “She had sharp ears, the Umbrella. She may have heard every
word they said. And now we’ll never know.”
“Now, on the contrary, we’ve the only clue we’ve ever had,” Gordon
returned. “You’re a fool, Tommy!” staring at the reverse of the
telegram, “with your ‘1 pound!’ It’s ‘I found’ written on the back of
it, and something else I can’t make out. But even without it, we’ve
enough for--Hester Murray,” savagely.
Sir Thomas dived into his pockets.
“Whoever the woman was,” he cried, hunting vigorously, “I’ve got
something belonging to her. You didn’t know that when Jacobs went for
the man that night he tore the woman’s cloak, did you? And--oh! here it
is!” gladly. “I’ve had it ever since.”
He laid in Allington’s hand a scrap of black satin, with a torn bit of
chinchilla hanging to it.
Adrian stared at him.
“Why, in Heaven’s name!” he said blankly, “didn’t you show that at the
inquest?”
“Because I’m not a fool,” returned Sir Thomas.
“The room was full of men. How did I know any of ’em hadn’t been
drinking champagne in the moonlight with a lady, and would go off and
tell her she’d been seen looking in windows. Besides, then, mind you, I
thought it was you I saw on the rock, and I didn’t care who it was with
you, because I’d proved it wasn’t my sister.”
Adrian winced.
“I can’t say much for your eyesight!” he cried, with sarcasm. “Last
night Allington says you were quite ready to think the man was
Carrousel.”
The words cut.
“I never said it was Carrousel I saw on the rock that night,” said
Tommy, suddenly very white and quiet. “I never thought it. He’s got a
beard. But I’d tell you this much: If you’ll find the woman who owns
that cloak, and give me time--I’ll find the man!”
“Time’s just what we haven’t got. And I don’t believe you’d know the
man if you fell over him,” unbelievingly.
“I mightn’t,” said Tommy composedly. “But--Jacobs would.”
And neither man believed him.